by Linda Green
Shirley takes me round the corner to some more tins. I take some peaches; I haven’t had peaches for years, and tinned potatoes, peas and carrots.
‘What about some biscuits?’ asks Shirley. I glance behind me, where a young mum has three little girls in tow, all of them noisily clamouring for things. She looks as if she might burst into tears at any moment.
‘No, you’re all right, thanks,’ I reply. ‘Let her have my packet for the little ones.’
Shirley nods and pats me on the hand.
‘Is it just yourself at home?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, for now. Me brother’s in hospital at moment.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s hope he’s up and about in no time.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, even though I know he won’t be.
It’s only as I’m coming out that I spot a familiar face from the café at the front of the queue.
‘Hello Joan, love,’ I say.
Her face crinkles into a smile. ‘Hello pet, I were so sorry to hear you’d lost your job,’ she says.
‘Aye, I hope our Danny’s still looking after you best he can.’
‘He’s a good lad, does what he can when he hasn’t got that dragon breathing down his neck.’
I manage a smile.
‘So how are you keeping, Joan?’
‘Oh, you know. Mustn’t grumble.’
I reach out and squeeze her hand. It feels even bonier than I remember.
‘Take care, love,’ I say.
I walk home afterwards with my Waitrose carrier bag of food, wondering how long I can make it last. Don’t let the bastards get you down, they say. But that’s hard when they’re the ones making all the rules.
*
Terry is sitting in his chair when I arrive later. He looks up.
‘Have you got my torch?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘Have you taken your meds?’
‘Yeah. I don’t need them, though. There’s nowt wrong with me.’
‘You’ll get home sooner if you take them, though.’
He shrugs.
‘I won’t have to go back to work, will I?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Not there, at any rate. They’ve let you go.’
‘Why? Did I do summat wrong?’
I sigh. ‘The girl in toilet, Terry. That’s why police arrested you.’
‘Am I going to go to prison?’
‘Hopefully not. Doctor Khalil has told police that it wasn’t your fault. That it happened because you’re ill.’
‘I’m not ill, though. I shouldn’t be here.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Terry,’ I say, walking over to the window before I say anything else I might regret.
I gaze out at the garden outside, trying to blink back the tears. I know he won’t be like this much longer. The meds tend to work pretty quickly. And the daft thing is that when this Terry has gone, I’ll miss him. I always do. And then I’ll have the new Terry to contend with. And he’s bloody hard work too. Because he’ll sleep most of the time and put on weight and get down because of it and I’ll have to deal with all of that. And the truth is that I am tired of all of this. More than fifty years of looking after Terry; trying to protect him from all the shit life’s thrown at him. His dad, then his mum; the people who were supposed to take care of him but who actually caused him harm. And I’m not sure how much longer I can go on doing this, or even whether I should ever have been allowed to try. Because I am clearly not up to it. Mam was right all along.
*
I ask to see Dr Khalil afterwards. He’s with a patient, so I have to wait outside his office for a bit. When he arrives, he smiles and shows me in. If I did piss him off last time, he’s very good at not showing it.
‘I’m sorry if I were a bit short with you before,’ I say. ‘I were upset about Terry and I can be a bit of an idiot like that sometimes.’
‘Please, no need to apologise. I was simply concerned about you. It’s an enormous strain looking after someone with schizophrenia, and I wondered if you may both benefit from him living in a therapeutic community for a time.’
‘I get that. I were going to ask you if you could ask them if there might be a place for him, please.’
Dr Khalil looks down for a moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I took the opportunity of enquiring, in case you changed your mind. Unfortunately, due to the current funding situation, places are only being funded for patients who don’t have any family to look after them.’
I stare at him, trying not to show how disappointed I am. How much I’d been hoping for some help.
‘Oh, right. Never mind. Thanks for trying for him.’
I stand up, ready to go.
‘Please be assured that we will continue to provide your brother with the best possible care and if we can support you in any way when he’s ready to go home.’
‘Oh, we’ll be fine,’ I say, managing a hint of a smile. ‘We’ll just keep plodding along like we always have done.’
Doctor Khalil nods. ‘He’s lucky to have you,’ he says.
I leave the office without replying because I don’t want to tell him how wrong he is.
*
When I get home, the landlord has been. There is a letter for me on the doormat. He hasn’t bothered with an envelope. Clearly, I wasn’t worth the expense. It’s a final demand for the rent. With a warning that if I don’t pay within twenty-four hours, I will be evicted.
I knew it was coming, but seeing it written down like that is hard to take. I slump down onto the floor, with my back against the door. I’ve got nothing to pay it with. It’s as simple as that. It’s not as if I can ask the landlord for more time, either. He’s a heartless bastard and he’s not interested in sob stories. I’ve known him chuck women with kiddies out on the streets before now. Anyway, what’s the point of asking for more time? Father fucking Christmas isn’t going to turn up tomorrow with my rent money in an envelope, is he? Even if I did ask for this advance on my Universal Credit, it wouldn’t cover it. Not without Terry’s money too. And it’s going to be three months before we get our full benefit now. I’m not going to a loan shark, either. I’ve seen what they do to people and I’m not going there. But where does that leave me?
I bang my fist down hard on the floor. I’ve fucked everything up for Terry. He’s not going to have a home to come back to. He really would be better off without me. If he didn’t have any family, he could get one of those supported housing places Dr Khalil was talking about. It’s only me who’s stopping him. I hear Mam’s voice again: ‘You’re good for nowt apart from wiping our Terry’s arse.’
Well, I’ll show her. I won’t let Terry down again. I’ll put him first this time. Because he deserves better than me. I didn’t stop Dad hurting him, or Mum hurting him. I couldn’t stop him being forced to work and getting arrested and sectioned. Without me, he’d be properly looked after. By people who actually know what they’re doing and can at least provide him with a roof over his head. Unlike me.
He’ll be so much better off without me. He might not realise it at first, but he will later on. This is the best gift I can give him. And I’m going to make sure I don’t mess this up, like I’ve messed everything else up. I look around me, trying to work out the best way of doing this. I can’t bear to be here when they come to kick me out. I know that much. I’m not going to give them that satisfaction. I’ll give them something to remember instead.
I go through to the bathroom and open the cabinet. I find them in the back corner on the top shelf. Hidden out of sight, where I put them five years ago. Just in case of an emergency. Well, this is an emergency. Although not the sort I was thinking of at the time. There are ten left in the packet. I hope that’s enough. I hope it won’t matter that they’re out of date.
Perhaps I
need alcohol too, just to make sure. Strong stuff. Only unfortunately, Mam didn’t leave any of that behind. I suddenly remember the one thing she did leave, though. It’s been hidden away for years and is the only thing I’ve got left of her. But maybe she can finally do some good.
I hurry through to my bedroom and pull open the bottom drawer of the chest. I rummage around in the corner and find it under a jumper, still wrapped in tissue paper. A plain gold wedding ring. Not much to show for twelve years of being beaten black and blue, but there you go. I pick it up and look more closely. It’s thin and light. Probably the cheapest thing Dad could get at the time. I can’t imagine it will be worth much, but maybe it could still get me enough for what I need.
I can’t help thinking Mam would approve. Selling her ring for booze. It’s a wonder she didn’t do it herself. I steel myself to place it on my ring finger. And as I do so I can see her clearly, standing there in her nightshirt next to the cooker, her dark hair dishevelled and tied back loosely with a white band. A bottle in one hand, the saucepan handle in the other.
Terry is in front of her, playing with his cars on the kitchen floor. I see her stumble, the pan of boiling water still in her hand. She is falling forwards. I try to move, to dart forward and lift him up out of her way, but my limbs are frozen in terror. All I can do is stand there and watch as the saucepan’s contents fall on his arm. I hear his scream, a sound that goes straight through me and pierces my heart. Because I was supposed to be looking after him. To be protecting him from her. And I failed him.
I take the ring off. I failed him then, but I will not fail him now. I put it in my pocket and head out of the door.
*
It’s a fifteen-minute walk back into town to the pawnbroker. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside. Terry asked once what it sold, when he walked past it as a kid. I remember telling him then what my father had once told me: that it was ‘hope that things would get better’.
The bell rings as I push the door. It’s one of those old-fashioned shops that’s been here donkey’s years. Not one of those bright new chains that have come along, like vultures, now that there are more desperate people to go round.
‘Hello, how can I help you?’ asks the middle-aged man behind the counter.
‘I wonder how much you can give me for this?’ I say, passing him Mum’s ring.
‘To buy or pawn?’
‘Buy,’ I reply.
He unwraps it carefully, holds it up to the light, looks at it more closely through a magnifying glass, then pops it on the little scales next to him before shaking his head and looking up at me.
‘It’s only nine carat, I’m afraid. And very thin, which isn’t fashionable nowadays. I can maybe go to twenty but no more.’
It’s not much, although he has an honest face and I believe him that that’s all it’s worth. It’s enough for what I need, and that’s all that matters.
‘OK,’ I say.
‘Is it yours?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It belonged to my mother.’
‘Always hard to part with something of sentimental value, isn’t it? Are you sure you don’t want to pawn it?’
I shake my head. ‘No, thanks. I won’t be needing it where I’m going.’
*
When I get back to the flat, I start tidying and cleaning. I’m not having anyone saying that I didn’t have standards. I may not have been able to pay my rent, but that doesn’t mean I’m some lowlife, living in squalor.
A strange sense of relief settles on me as I clean. I haven’t got to worry any more. I am past caring. And caring is pretty much all I have ever done.
When I am satisfied that everything is in order, that I have left nothing that will make anyone think badly of me, I put on my shoes, pick up my bag, containing the twenty-pound note, and leave the flat. It is only once I get outside that I realise I haven’t even thought about where I am going to buy it from. Not being a drinker, I don’t even know where the nearest offie is. The supermarket is too far away, and I don’t want to walk along busy roads or be around lots of people anyway. I want to be somewhere quiet. I remember the petrol station on the way out of town towards Sowerby. There won’t be many people there and it’s a nice walk down by the woods. I turn and set off in that direction.
It is dark by the time I arrive. I cross the forecourt and go in. The lad behind the counter doesn’t even look up. It feels wrong to go straight up and ask him for the bottle of vodka I can see there. That is the sort of thing my mother would have done and, more than anything, I don’t want to become my mother. I may be choosing the same method of death as her, but it doesn’t mean I have to be blatant about it. I go down one of the food aisles and pretend to look at things without really seeing. I think about Terry instead. About how he will take the news. At least the meds will help to take the edge off. He will probably hate me for it, for leaving him like that. He won’t understand that it is for his own good. That without me he will get the support he really needs. Because I was never good enough to be his mam. I did my best, but I was a kid too. I needed a mam as much as he did. In the end, I let him down like everyone else did. This is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done but I am doing it for him. Because I know he can have a better life without me. The life he always deserved.
AFTER 13
13
Finn
I wake up with a tummy ache, as I do pretty much every day now. Dad is still doing the ‘it will get better when you settle in and make friends’ thing. He wants it to be true, but it doesn’t matter how much he wants it, it is not going to happen. If anything, it is getting worse. It’s not just Harrison now, although he’s still the worst. It’s Jacob and Toby, and most of the other boys and two girls called Ava and Sophie, who laugh at what the boys say and egg them on. That’s what I have to look forward to every day. That’s why I always wake up with a tummy ache.
I get up and go downstairs. Dad and I do our usual thing of not saying much over breakfast. He asks me what lessons I have, and I tell him, and neither of us mention the fact that I hate it or that breakfasts were always much better when Mum was here.
As soon as I arrive at school, it starts. It’s like they have been lying in wait for me. I go and sit in the refectory until the bell goes, hoping that they will leave me alone in there. But they don’t. Harrison and Toby and Jacob follow me and sit on the table next to me. They don’t talk to me, but they talk about me and they do it loud enough that they know I can hear them.
‘What we need,’ says Harrison, ‘is a campaign to get him out of school. He’s the wrong sort of boy and we don’t want him here. So what we have to do is make his life so bad that he has to leave.’
‘Yeah,’ says Jacob. ‘Let’s get him out by Christmas. We can get rid of him that way.’
‘We need to get everyone in the class to do it,’ says Toby. ‘Make it something that they all join in with.’
‘Yeah,’ says Harrison, looking up and smiling over at me. ‘That’s what we’ll do. Oh, hi Finnona, didn’t see you there.’
They throw back their heads and laugh, big silly laughs. I am trying so hard not to cry that I can’t actually open my mouth and say anything back. So I sit there and stare at the table and pretend I don’t know they were talking about me, but I do and they know I do and everything is horrible and I wish I was back at our garden club with Kaz and my Alan Titchmarsh rose.
By break time, I’m pretty sure that everyone knows. Some of them hold their noses when I walk past. When I go to squeeze past Ava and Sophie to get to my seat they scream.
‘Urgh, don’t let him touch you, he’s got Finn Disease,’ says Ava. ‘If he touches you, you’ll die.’
Some of the other girls start laughing. I miss Lottie. Lottie would have something to say to them. I can’t say anything because Mum told me to always be nice to girls. I think she thought other girls were like Lotti
e, but they’re not.
I go and sit next to Mustafa. I wonder if they have told him to be mean to me too, but if they have, he doesn’t do or say anything.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Are you going to music club after school?’
Mustafa plays the violin. Music club is where I first talked to him.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘My ukulele’s in my locker. I don’t like carrying it about because, you know.’
He nods, like he does know. I think he keeps quiet about his playing, too.
‘How long have you been playing?’ he asks.
‘Four years. My mum got me it for a birthday present.’
He nods. ‘Are you going to play it in the Christmas concert?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say with a shrug. ‘It depends if I last that long.’
Mustafa looks at me. ‘There are always mean boys,’ he says. ‘There were mean boys at my last school. They made jokes about where I come from.’
‘It’s not funny, is it?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not.’
*
I sit next to Mustafa in science. It is my favourite lesson apart from music and Miss Cahill is nice. I think she is my favourite teacher. About halfway through, she has to leave the classroom because one of the technicians has forgotten to put out something we need for an experiment.
The second after she goes, Harrison turns to me and says, ‘You spoil the class.’
He says it in a loud voice, so that everyone can hear.