by S K Sharp
Mum sighs.
‘Mum! What?’ I’m about ready for the sky to fall in, or for Mum to announce we’re moving to the Outer Hebrides or something, but after another moment of staring right through the floor, she turns back to me and smiles.
‘It doesn’t matter. Do you want a sandwich?’
‘Um … yes, OK.’ I start towards the fridge but Mum stops me.
‘It’s fine. I’ll bring it up. What do you want?’
Now I know something’s wrong, because Mum’s idea of tea these days is either to remind me that the fridge is still in its usual place or to suggest that if I’m old enough to have a boyfriend then I’m old enough to use the bread knife without supervision and to call for my own ambulance if I cut off any fingers. She stole that line from Dad, though she never admits it.
‘Have we got any ham?’ I ask, waiting for the catch.
‘I think so.’
‘Ham salad then?’
‘Salad cream?’
‘Yes, please.’
I head upstairs, slowly, still waiting for the sky to fall, but there’s only the sound of the fridge door opening and closing.
Weird.
In my room, I take some books from my school bag so it can at least look like I’m up to something Mum will like, then stare out of my bedroom window. My bedroom is at the front of the house and Dec’s house is almost right across the road, which means that Dec and I can stand at our windows and watch each other, if we want to.
He’s not there, not yet. He will be, though. Later …
God! The last thing I want is a ham-salad sandwich; what I really want is to go over there and hang out and listen to music, and spend the whole evening kissing him and maybe more. The maybe more is on my mind a lot because I decided last week that I want him to be my first, and now I can’t stop myself from thinking about it: how to do it, and where, and what it will be like, and most of all how to make absolutely sure that Mum and Dad can’t have the slightest suspicion because God help me if they do, even if I am sixteen now.
Thinking about things that aren’t the revolutions of 1848 and glaciation and the themes in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is what ended up getting me a detention yesterday, so I move my books around a bit, trying to find an arrangement that properly shouts how there’s some positively mental exam revision going on. It’s silly, because I don’t need to revise – not for history and geography, not for English literature and the sciences, not for any of it. If I was there in the lessons, I remember them perfectly.
It seems like Mum has forgotten about my ham-salad sandwich – no surprise there – so I go and lie in bed with a copy of Just Seventeen borrowed from Kat and mostly stare at the ceiling thinking about Dec, which ends up with me so far in my own head that I don’t hear Mum come up the stairs. I almost fall out of bed in shock when I see her standing in the doorway.
‘Jesus, Mum! Heard of knocking?’
‘Revising hard?’ she asks archly, which is such a mum sort of thing to say. Sometimes I think she’ll never get it: how I don’t need to revise. Even I don’t get it, not really, how everything seems to stick in my head.
She’s carrying a plate. The sandwich on it looks like it came from the Ritz.
‘I was taking a break, OK?’ I’m still startled enough for it to come out sounding all snippy.
‘It’s OK, love, I’m not here to criticise.’ The way she says it gets the hairs rising on the back of my neck all over again, because right there is another mum-sentence that always has a huge BUT sitting on the end of it. Mums and dads criticising is kind of the point of them, isn’t it?
‘I’ll get back to it after I’ve eaten, promise,’ I say. Two more and then I’m done. Geography on Monday, history on Tuesday, and that’s it. O-levels finished. No more school. At least, not until after summer, because Dad’s adamant that I’m staying on to do A-levels even though I’m not sure I want to.
‘I’m off to the shop,’ says Mum. She doesn’t move, though, just stands there in the doorway looking around my room like she doesn’t quite know why she came up in the first place. Not to tell me she was going out, that’s for sure.
‘OK,’ I say, which is definitely her cue to leave me alone now, please, but she still doesn’t go away. ‘Mum! What?’
‘Seems like only yesterday I was putting your hair in pigtails with those pink bows.’ She lets out a long, wistful sigh. ‘You remember those?’
‘Mum, I was seven!’ I do remember, though, all fresh and squishy. Sitting in the lounge, legs crossed, Mum sitting on the floor behind me, gentle fingers in my hair, Blue Peter on the telly. I like the way the memory washes through me, warm and cosy. I feel safe and happy and loved.
Mum shakes her head and takes another deep breath. Here it comes. And sure enough: ‘Your father and I have had a talk,’ she says, and I know this is going to be about Dec.
‘I got a detention yesterday,’ I say, in a desperate effort to change the subject.
Mum only laughs. ‘You? A detention? Well, your dad won’t be pleased.’ Mum ought not to be pleased either, but it doesn’t seem to bother her at all. So much for changing the subject.
‘So I’ll be late home on Monday,’ I say, and then add quickly: ‘You can check with the school.’
‘I trust you,’ she says, which makes me feel all squirmy about the hundred million times I’ve lied about where I was when I was seeing Dec. ‘But promise you’ll be careful, love, all right?’
‘What do you mean?’ I think I know exactly what she means but I’m too dazed by this whole conversation to ask whether her idea of careful means condoms or a chastity belt.
‘Sweetheart, I know it probably seems hard to believe, but I was sixteen too, once. I know what it’s like. You think you know it all but you don’t. I don’t want to see you hurt, that’s all. Dec seems a nice enough young man but … sixteen is still too young.’
OK, so this is definitely about me and Dec. ‘Too young for what?’ I ask, and then wish I hadn’t because the answer’s so obvious that it makes me feel ridiculous.
‘Too young for making choices that you can’t take back.’
I want to shout at her, Mum! Dec and I are NOT having sex, OK? And even if we were, I’m not stupid! But then we’ll end up having an argument when all I want is for her to go away. So I sit up and smile, and act like I’m a proper grown-up, the way Mum wants me to be.
‘I’m not going to do anything stupid,’ I say. ‘I promise.’
Mum looks lost in thought. ‘I love you, Nicky,’ she says. ‘We both do.’ She smiles but underneath is something weird, like she’s afraid. She turns away and goes back downstairs and leaves the house so quietly that I almost don’t hear the front door as it closes.
I eat my sandwich and remind myself to be extra-careful about slipping away tomorrow night. I’ll ask Kat to cover for me, which she will because she’s my best friend, and because she doesn’t have a boyfriend of her own right now, and because we promised ages ago that we’d cover for each other – mostly because of how Kat’s mum is a complete dragon about that sort of thing.
Later I hear Mum come back from the shop, but she doesn’t come upstairs. Dad comes home and I hear the TV turn on in the lounge under my room, the same routine as always. Mum joins him. They’ll be sitting down to watch Kenny Everett like they do every Saturday, except now I hear the TV turn off again, and then Mum, quiet but not quiet enough.
‘Craig, we need to talk.’
Dad mumbles something grumpy. They both get up and go into the kitchen, which they only ever do when Mum wants to talk about something she doesn’t want me to hear. Oh God, this is still about Dec, isn’t it – it has to be, otherwise why would they be talking in secret? I bet I know what it is, too: Mum’s worried about me going over the road because she doesn’t trust Dec’s mum to ‘keep an eye on things’, only Mum doesn’t want to be the one to be mean so she’s offloading it onto Dad.
I feel like I’m full of stones, too heavy to move. I could
slip out and listen but what’s the point? Dad will come up in a minute or two, half stern, half apologetic, delivering Mum’s orders like they’re supposed to be his own.
‘I swear to God, if you don’t stop—’ Mum’s voice, raised, and then I hear a crash, the smash of broken glass. A quiet murmur as Dad says something, then Mum again. She talks too quietly to understand but I hear the snip and snarl of her words. She’s angry – really, really angry; the last time I heard her like this was when Gran got knocked down by some idiot in a car from the estate on the other side of the park, and I want to cry, because I’m actually a little bit scared now and because it’s not fair. I’m sixteen! It’s OK to have a boyfriend! It’s normal and it’s not like Dec’s some loser. Even Mum said he was nice, for God’s sake. And his dad is Arty bloody Robbins! Of Arty Robbins Estate Agents. Arty Robbins with the swanky new Audi that Dad pretends not to envy: Vorsprung durch Technik and everything. Arty Robbins who was a parish councillor at the same time as Mum and had her blushing like a schoolgirl when she said how charming he was …
‘Jesus Christ, Susan! Just stop for a moment. Have you thought what this would do to the girl?’
My whole body goes numb. I lie still as a statue, trying as hard as I can not to make a sound. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Dad snap like that … but now the voices in the kitchen have gone quiet and I can’t make anything out and—
BAM! The kitchen door slams hard enough to shake the whole house. Everything goes so quiet you could hear a mouse holding its breath. I reckon if I looked in a mirror, I’d be as white as a sheet. Mum and Dad never fight like this, not ever. I don’t think this is about me and Dec any more.
I creep to the bathroom and crouch down by the window and open it a crack. They’re outside by the garage, right below me, and I can hear every word.
‘What do you suggest?’ That’s Mum’s no-room-for-argument voice. ‘Pretend it isn’t happening?’
Dad’s voice is hollow. He sounds … scared. ‘Have you thought about what this would do to Nicola?’
‘Of course I have. She’s my daughter!’ Mum’s voice, on the other hand, is like a bomb about to go off. ‘That’s partly the point! Some things you can’t brush under the carpet, and this is one of them. It can’t go on, Craig. It has to stop. It has to stop now!’
‘She’s in the middle of O-levels, for Christ’s sake! At least wait until—’ Dad stops abruptly. Mum falls silent, too. I can almost feel them both looking up to see the bathroom window ajar, me lurking in the dark on the other side.
This isn’t about me and Dec. It’s about them. Mum and Dad.
They’re getting divorced.
3
Sunday 9th June 1985
It rains all morning on the day of the party and so I mostly stay in my room, dreading another talk from Mum about boys and about all the terrible things that can happen to a girl my age, and how important it is for her or Dad to always know where I am. Honestly, the way she goes on – and Kat’s mum is even worse – you’d think there was a rapist lurking in every shadow. Although … no. I could live with a ‘talk’. What I’m really dreading is Mum and Dad coming up to my room to tell me that they’re very sorry, but our family is falling apart.
It doesn’t come. Sunday lunch passes in tense silence and then Mum heads off to the Shelley to help get everything ready for the party. Dad settles in front of the telly to watch the horse racing while I flop around in my room, restless, staring at the ceiling. I try to take myself back to the alley and Dec but the memory that surfaces instead is of Kat; of the two of us sitting in her room talking about boys, Kat complaining at how her mum is worse than Mary Whitehouse when it comes to boyfriends, and also such a hypocrite because she was only seventeen herself when she got pregnant with Kat; then telling me about Arty Robbins’ little brother – her real dad – the one she never knew because he never hung around. She talks about him a lot these days, like she’s been asking Dec and maybe Dec’s dad and maybe even Vincent in the Shelley. No one’s heard from him in years. Kat’s real dad. Daniel Robbins, black sheep of the Robbins family. It was that same evening that I told her how Mum and Dad had been arguing a lot more than they usually did.
The TV goes quiet. I hear Dad’s footsteps on the stairs and then he knocks gently on my door.
‘Nicky? Can I come in?’
I don’t answer. Usually Dad won’t open the door unless I say it’s OK for him to come in, but this time he turns the handle. The door opens a crack, slow and tentative.
‘I’m coming in,’ he says, and he does, and I guess he can tell what I’m thinking because he puts on his sad face and looks at the floor and comes over and crouches beside the bed and strokes my hair.
‘Last night … It wasn’t about you, kiddo.’
I’m not worried about it being about me. ‘Are you and Mum getting divorced?’ I ask him.
‘What? No! Sweetheart, I’d never let anything break up this family. I promise.’
It’s the kind of meaningless thing parents say on TV, but Dad says it with such a calm confidence that it actually sort of works.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ I say. ‘Dad? I really like Dec …’
‘Declan Robbins? He seems nice enough.’ He looks a bit sad, then forces a smile. ‘He must have something going for him if even your mum thinks you could do a lot worse.’
‘Gee, thanks!’
‘She worries about you.’ Which is sort of good, but scary, too. I want to tell him that he and Mum need to sort it out – whatever it is – but I don’t know the words, so I tell him I’m going to go next door to hang out with Kat. He nods. ‘I’ll be round to pick you up when it’s time to go.’
I don’t go to Kat’s. Instead, I walk across the road and knock on Dec’s door. His mum answers.
‘Hi, Mrs R. Is Dec at home?’ Mrs R looks rotten, like she was up all night: puffy face, red eyes, hair mussed up like she only just got out of bed. Not that it bothers me, but I can’t imagine Mum being caught out like this. Then she turns a little and I see she’s not only puffy-faced; her left cheek is all swollen like she banged it on a cupboard door or something. Mum did that once, in the kitchen when I was small. Turned and smacked into the corner of an open door. It was the only time I ever saw her cry. Then I see Mrs R’s right hand, tucked away like she’s trying to keep it hidden. There’s a plaster cast around her wrist, disappearing up her sleeve, and I remember Declan telling me on Wednesday, after he’d missed school for a day, how she’d had a fall and dislocated it and he’d had to drive her to the hospital because his dad wasn’t around.
Mrs R gives me a vague look like she doesn’t even see me. I can never tell whether or not she likes me, but that’s OK because I don’t think Mrs R likes anyone, because she almost never leaves the house. I suppose she thinks I’m too young for Dec. But I’m sixteen, thanks, and Dec’s only two years older than I am, and everyone knows girls grow up faster than boys. I actually sort of like Mrs R because she doesn’t ask all the usual mum-questions, like Where have you been? and Who were you with? and Have you eaten? but today she’s blank.
Dec isn’t at home – I know that because if he was then I’d hear his music – and so I thank her and leave her standing on the doorstep like an extra from Night of the Living Dead. I walk to the end of Byron Road and turn right onto Shelley Street, past the Mary Shelley and through the gates of Wordsworth Park, hoping Dec might be there with his mates. I walk past the playground and the playing fields but he’s not there, either, and so I cross the tiny road that splits the park in half, Wordsworth Lane, and head for the Secret Car Park. The Secret Car Park isn’t really secret, but the way it’s almost invisible between the trees means hardly anyone ever uses it, which is why the boys from the estate hang out there at weekends. Sometimes Dec is there with his dodgy mate Gary Barclay. They still hang out now and then, even though Gary didn’t stay on to do A-levels like Dec.
I reach the car park. No sign of Dec, but Gary’s van is in its usual place, Gary loungin
g beside it with the rest of his loser friends, the sort who look at anyone my age as though we’re scum. Mum would have a kitten if she saw me talking to this lot, but it’s broad daylight and none of them are as tough as they pretend.
‘Seen Dec?’ I ask, casual as I can manage. The estate boys mostly don’t know who Dec is so they all glance at each other as though I’m some sort of alien. Gary looks me up and down, then shakes his head.
‘You want to hang out with us, darling?’ asks one of his friends. The others laugh but not Gary.
‘Not here,’ he says. ‘Go on, scram.’
I walk away, doing my best to stay all casual. I don’t know where else to look and I’m feeling a bit wobbly inside now, like I don’t fit properly in my own skin. I can live with Gary and his leering, and with Dec’s mum being all weird, but I can’t push away what I heard last night – and all of it together is turning out to be a bit much. I end up going to Kat’s house, like I told Dad in the first place, and we flop together in her room, kicking our heels and talking about music and telly and who we think is going out with whom and not telling anyone at school. Normal stuff, which makes me feel better. I tell her the creeps were in the park again and Kat tells me she thinks Gary’s a bit of a dish. I tell her she can’t possibly be serious, and that what I think is that wearing a long coat in the middle of summer makes you look like a clown. Kat throws a pillow at me.
‘He’s cool.’
‘Cool? Gary?’ I shudder. ‘You know what—’
‘That Susie Cooper is a lying slut! You know she made it all up, don’t you? She wasn’t going out with him at all.’
Susie Cooper is in the year below me and Kat and I saw her and Gary hanging out at least twice after school last year, but I don’t say anything. I sit in silence for a bit instead, thinking about last night until I can’t stand it any more.