The Sky is Mine

by Amy Beashel

  What else can I say but ‘Yeah’?

  ‘You still going? To Jacob’s?’

  ‘What choice do I have?’

  Max looks at me like it’s a given. ‘S’pose.’

  ‘He hasn’t, you know, shown you anything, has he?’

  ‘Nah, mate. Just told me what he’s got. Anyway, least you didn’t have to wait until you’re twenty-six! Silver linings.’

  And I must look at him, like, you cannot be fucking serious, cos Max is all ‘Sorry, my bad, and I shouldn’t make a joke of it, but…’

  ‘You couldn’t have a word with him, could you?’

  ‘With Jacob?’ And he doesn’t have to say anything else cos the snuff of won’t make a blind bit of difference is clear enough to make his point. ‘I’m sorry, Izzy.’ And he sounds it too, looks like he’d do something if he could, but this is Jacob we’re talking about, right?

  ‘See you later then.’ I put my earphones back in but don’t bother pressing play because, you know what, it feels like all the music has gone.

  It’s a bit like being at home, cos Jacob and I don’t talk, not beyond the ‘All right’, ‘You wanna drink?’, ‘’S OK’, ‘Come on’, ‘Won’t you just…’ and ‘Mmmm’. Difference is, here in his bedroom, the quiet isn’t burdened with not knowing. We’re the opposite of that cos there’s no question of what we’re here for, of why, less than twenty-four hours after my First Time, I’m back for a second go.

  His laptop, rose gold and gleaming, is still open on his desk, streaming films that are different but pretty much the same as before, another heap of those bodies with their compressed wet flesh, mashed into each other like naked commuters on the rush-hour Tube, slick men casually taking from all those blank women unconvincingly up for the game.

  Am I up for it? I don’t say if I’m not. I lie still, roll when I’m told and drift through Jacob’s pleasure, my left hand reaching for the thin strip of light on the floor, wishing the tug of it could pull me up and away to the moon.

  It had seemed so reachable when I was a little kid, everything had, before Daniel swept in with his love and his brawn and his gravity.

  I let go of the light and give into the weighty cloak of Jacob’s body and, you know what, there’s a small release in it, in the obviousness and simplicity of what he needs, in how easily he takes it. And even when I see how he’s not looking at me but at his laptop, this expression on his face that’s not quite pleasure not quite pain, even then it’s easy, sort of peaceful, I guess, because the moon isn’t an option, because the dark is just that, no glimmer or slither of anything bright.

  But then Jacob’s grunts go from satisfaction to frustration, and his hands are a desperate grip at my shoulders to keep him going, his face hard, his dick soft, the condom snapped off and into the bin, and his voice slurs my name as he says I haven’t done enough, I’m not shaved enough or wet enough, and his eyes flit back to the screen where the guy’s monstrous penis stands as raging and red as fire.

  It’s only then, when the lamp makes light on the barest, ugliest bits of me, that I feel the depth of my hollowness, wondering how I’ll ever fill it in.

  ‘I swear it hasn’t happened before,’ he says, and it’s funny, right, how that shame in his voice is the one and only thing we have in common.

  I’m pulling my jeans up over my knees when Jacob tosses me my bag.

  ‘Tomorrow, Izzy. Finish what we started, yeah.’

  And I nod because, honestly, I think maybe my words are as futile as the music, cos my fate is pretty much done.

  FOURTEEN

  Despite the still light sky, the moon’s kind of huge now, shoving its fullness in my face as I creep out of Jacob’s back door, throwing its white light over the big lump of me thudding my way across his garden.

  ‘Head down the side,’ he’d said, ‘along the fence. No one’ll see you there.’

  Neither of us mentioned why he seemed so keen on secrecy.

  My fingers pull at my phone like it’s a magnet, checking for notifications from Grace, which don’t come, obviously, cos despite all that bullshit she feeds me about how she’d die – ‘literally,’ she says – if we don’t speak for, like, an hour, she’s found another life source in Nell. Their special night, their ‘amazing dinner’ and that chocolate fucking pudding are so much more appealing than me.

  The ache between my legs is as rough as the ache in my heart because, despite that five-year-old kid in me hoping she might be frantic with me storming out of the house before, there’s nothing from Mum.

  But maybe she was – frantic, I mean – cos when I turn the corner into our street, she’s there, my mum, the same mum who’s not really been outside without Daniel in, like, forever. She’s right there without him, pulling me into the car, which is parked on the street, only a few seconds’ walk from the front door. And she’s telling me it doesn’t matter that she hasn’t driven in three years, because it’ll be like riding a bike. And she says this as if it’s supposed to be reassuring even though we both know the last time I rode a bike, I cut my thigh so deep I needed stitches, and I haven’t dared get back on one since. And she says this like the positivity in her words counts for more than the panic in her eyes. And she says this in a voice that’s the ratcheting crank of a roller coaster as it nears the top of its highest, scariest climb.

  ‘In the car, Isabel.’ And she’s not kidding. Her knuckles taut from her hands lugging the bags, already packed for each of us, on to the back seat, she tells me, ‘Get a move on – he’ll be home soon. It’s time to go.’

  ‘OK,’ I tell her, ‘I’ll get in the car.’

  And her chest heaves, surging this swell of breath so heavy it makes a rope between us, until I turn to go shut that front door and she shouts at me, ‘No!’ This too is change, because my mum, the same mum who’s not been outside without Daniel in, like, forever, the same mum who talks – if she dares talk – in whispers, says, ‘Now.’ And her voice is a knife’s edge. ‘It’s time.’ Her face, tilted upwards, is cast pale but strong as steel. ‘Destination moon,’ she says.

  And our cardboard rocket is a Vauxhall Astra and our space is the Thanet Way.

  FIFTEEN

  We’re heading north: that’s as much as Mum will say for the moment, that and the weird clucking noise she’s making with her tongue whenever she has to change gear. And it’s not clear if she’s pissed off with her driving skills, which are at, like, seventy-eight percent dangerous, or me because I’m twitching with my phone, writing then erasing messages to Grace – nothing to tell her really except Jacob’s ruined me and Mum’s gone mental, taking me to ‘a secret place’, like I’m five and she’s conning me into a haircut under the guise of a mystery adventure.

  ‘I need to focus, Isabel,’ she says and no kidding, right, cos she’s already jumped one red light and we’re not even out of town. ‘Once we’re on the motorway, I’ll –’ She goes quiet then clucks as we approach a roundabout, one hand on the wheel, the other on her chin, nail between her teeth, eyes flicking to the mirror like she’s heard sirens. ‘I’ll explain,’ she says but, honestly, I’d rather she concentrate on the road. I’m all for sharing, but I’m all for living too, and we might not be doing either the rate Mum’s going: the speed she’s driving and the way her knuckles are stretched tight, like we’re on an actual roller coaster and she’s anticipating the dip.

  My phone beeps. She jumps. And I laugh this laugh that’s not even funny, cos whatever we have to be scared of, it sure isn’t my mobile.

  Can we talk?

  It’s Max. What are we gonna talk about exactly? About his feelings for Grace? My mistakes with Jacob? How it’s all my fault for being too drunk and too stupid to stop him?

  Jacob’s a dick, Izzy.

  And yeah, he’s totally on to something there, but what of it? Because saying it changes nothing. Not the photos. Not the blackmail. Not the hold Jacob still has over me no matter how far Mum drives. M2. M20. M26. M25. All these roads do is take me further f
rom Jacob and closer, then, to exposure. Because what if Mum keeps on going? What if I can’t deliver on my end of the bargain? What if everyone sees those photos? You want to talk about that, Max? Because, you know what, the words mean crap all, and so I’ve got nothing to say.

  ‘We’re not going home.’ Mum’s voice is a fairground mirror – whatever it’s telling me is too wobbly to trust.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Maybe ever.’

  And she’s got to be joking, right? We can’t just up and leave. I’ve got college. I’ve got Grace. But worse, I’ve got that kaleidoscope of photos and a blackmailing dick who’ll spread a trail of dirt about me if I don’t show.

  She reaches over and puts a hand on my knee, but the touch comes a little too late. Those other hands that have been there by now.

  Can I call you?

  ‘Isabel, please. Can you just leave your phone alone for one bloody minute.’

  After everything that’s happened, this is the thing that makes her angry?

  And she must get it, my frustration, because she’s softer then, ‘It’s not safe there.’ Mum’s voice is pathetic.

  No shit, I think, like, did you seriously only just realise the danger?

  It’s clear she wants me to look at her, but I can’t cos when I do there are all of these too many words. And I can’t say any of them.

  ‘He’s only going to get worse.’

  Daniel. Jacob. She could mean either of them, talking so slowly, like it’s not just me who needs to take in all these things she’s suddenly saying.

  ‘I have to be there.’ My whispers are nothing like my heart, which is pumping. ‘I have to be there. My exams,’ I say. But what I really want to say is ‘Jacob’. My body will be everywhere. All spread. Ugly. Seen. And Grace. I’ll lose even more of Grace to Nell if I’m gone.

  ‘It’s too risky.’

  ‘Why now though?’ I want to ask. ‘Have you spotted it? The way Daniel’s hands have been like ivy.’

  We’re pulling in for petrol, so she stops the car and shifts to look right at me. ‘They’ve said it’ll only get worse.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Refuge.’

  I must look at her like, what?

  ‘It’s a charity. For…’ She breathes so deep she practically sucks me up through her inhale. ‘For domestic violence.’

  I hadn’t realised the weight of the unspoken until Mum speaks it, or how the weight of the unspoken isn’t just a metaphor but an actual physical thing, a thing that pulses lighter, if only for a moment, just by saying it aloud.

  ‘I’ve been calling their helpline.’ The ten-pound notes she pulls from her purse shake so hard I can literally hear them. ‘They say it’s common for the abuse to get much worse when a woman is pregnant.’

  ‘But you’re not pregna—’ And I think about it, the look on her face when Daniel said that stupid pregnancy test was none of her business. Her relief wasn’t that he was picking on me, warning me not to get pregnant. It was that he didn’t know she already was.

  SIXTEEN

  So, this time it’s serious: we’re going to a refuge. They’ve given Mum a secret address so Daniel can’t track us down. It sounds so movie, so not my life or my mum’s, but flashier, like there’ll be guns and explosions and girls in tight tops glistening with sweat while men flex their muscles in vests. But while it sounds movie, it doesn’t feel it, not in this stuffy car coming off the M25 and on to the M40. There’s no glamour in motor-ways, nor in the reality of Daniel as a hunter, of his fury being so fierce it’d turn my feelings book to flames.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mum says, when I ask her what the refuge will be like, whether I’ll have my own room, how she feels about having a baby.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, when I ask her when I can next go to college, visit Grace, whether she’s booked her first scan.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, when I ask her if she packed my Jar of Sunshine, what Daniel will do when he discovers we’ve left, how he’ll react to being a dad.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I wonder if she’d have an answer if I threw myself from the car.

  Time was, Mum knew everything. Not only song lyrics but how to use them like medicine, dispensing music to cheer me up, calm me down, make me eat, stop me whining, get me going when I was sluggish or blue. She knew facts too, like what the Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane was going to do with his bag of wool, how Father Christmas spent the other 364 days of the year and why it takes three days to climb a rainbow. Ask her anything, and she’d have an answer. Plus she was the only mum in my Year Three class who knew how to change the tyre on a car. Seriously, my mum was badass.

  ‘Why don’t you play us a Desert Island?’ she says, either doing the usual and avoiding the subject or proving there’s at least one thing she knows and that’s a splash of castaway is exactly what I need to mellow, to stop me from asking the bigger question – can I trust you this time? – even though, really, there’s no chance I’d ask it aloud. My heart’s still cracked from the promises that fell through before.

  ‘Your choice,’ she says, and I scroll through the episodes until a castaway’s name starts to pull.

  The thing about Desert Island Discs is its intimacy. Or maybe, more truthfully, the thing about Desert Island Discs is that it was a gift from my mum, and so that intimacy isn’t only with the guests, it’s with the memories of the two of us – when it was just the two of us – on those Sunday mornings, when the theme tune would begin and I’d feel happiness in my bones. Literally. It was an actual physical feeling that came with being held, with being trusted to sit quietly, with being able to work out that these people on the radio had struggled, achieved, overcome. There’s a light around it, and that light swaddles you when you listen, like the warmth of the island’s sunshine, like the truth in the castaways’ songs. Cos the other thing about Desert Island Discs is the honesty that comes with revealing their tracks, how the guests can’t disguise what the music does to them, the way it hammers their body into the shape it was when they first heard it, time-travels them to when they were six or in love or receiving a shot of morphine after accidently setting their halls of residence on fire.

  I scroll through the archives, all the way back to the year 2000, when our own story began. And seeing them – the names and the record choices, the dates even – it hits me how these episodes were like the beads of my yellow necklace from Dad. Pre-Daniel, they strung Mum and me together. Mum’s parents may have predicted that, as a family of two, she and I would be broken, but by the radio, in the green chair, we were whole.

  I pick an episode at random because, really, the guest doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s pre-Daniel, and when the Desert Island theme tune kicks in, Mum and I are both instantly lulled by ‘By the Sleepy Lagoon’. ‘I’d pick this,’ I want to tell Mum. ‘If I were to compile a playlist of my life, this would be number one. It reminds me of you,’ I want to say to her. I have the words but no strength to explain how it’s the sound of happy Sundays at home.

  Without the means to say these things aloud, we remain scattered. Silent. Unstrung.

  The trouble is, our listening now is spiked with our circumstances: Daniel might not be in the car, but he is here, sliding into the castaway’s stories and the songs. There’s a lyric about a lady looking like a princess, and Daniel’s atmosphered from afar. I can feel it, how we both go rigid, remembering how Daniel said the same of Mum and me, twirling us both by our hands in his kitchen, where he’d laid out this amazing afternoon tea, with cakes and scones and sandwiches with their crusts cut off, something Mum had told him she never did cos she didn’t want to indulge my ridiculous demands. I loved it, how he’d even put a tiara on my place mat and a promise on Mum’s.

  ‘Oh, Dan,’ she’d said. ‘I —’

  ‘Daniel.’ He’d placed that hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s Daniel.’ And his voice was as sweet as the jam in the Victoria sponge.

  ‘Sorry,’ Mum sa
id, ‘of course.’ She held up the card in which he’d written his promise. ‘It’s so thoughtful.’ Turns out, he’d offered to take me swimming that afternoon so Mum could read, something she’d apparently not had much chance to do since having me. ‘My mate leant me the new Caitlin Moran – she says it’s —’

  ‘Oh, I got you this.’ And Daniel pulled a book from the drawer. ‘Jane Eyre. You’re too bright for all that contemporary trash.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘You want a classic. Of course, if you’d rather read the one your friend gave you…’ He went to put the hardback away.

  ‘No, no.’ Mum stopped him. ‘Give it here – I’d love to read it. The other one can wait. It’s so kind of you.’

  It was strange to see her hugging someone who wasn’t me, but if she was going to hug anyone, I was happy it was Daniel. He made us princesses shine.

  ‘I should have known,’ Mum says now, like it would’ve been so easy not to be fooled by him.

  ‘You can’t always tell what someone’s like,’ I say.

  But it’s not as if she’s only just realised, is it? The clues have been so glaring they stopped being clues and became facts or cuts or bruises.

  But I don’t say that.

  Obviously.

  SEVENTEEN

  What I do say, when the episode has ended, is: ‘What was he like?’

  And Mum knows who I’m talking about, because, Daniel aside, there’s only been one other ‘he’ in my life, though ‘not in my life’ would be more like it.

  ‘He was kind,’ she says, not tightening like she normally does if I ask, ‘and funny.’ She’s staring harder through the windscreen now, like it’s not the real road she’s seeing but memory lane. ‘And young. He was the same age you are.’ She snaps out of it, looks at my face, and I reckon she’s either searching for my real dad in it, or imagining me in the same position as she was back then.