Until Next Weekend

by Rachel Marks

  ‘Can we always have movie night in the car with fish and chips?’ Finn asks, ketchup splattered all around his mouth.

  I lean over and kiss the top of his head. We watch the whole film, Mimi and I sandwiching my two boys, and I suddenly have a picture of what we could be. It’s not the family I was picturing, the one I’ve been fighting for, but now I see it could be just as happy. Except I bet I’ve blown it by taking so damn long to realize.

  When the final credits roll and Finn starts yawning. I look out the window, as if I hope the rain will have suddenly stopped, despite the fact I can hear it rhythmically tapping on the roof like an African drum ensemble.

  ‘Right, boys, I’m going to put these front seats back as far as they will go and you two can sleep on them.’

  ‘We get to sleep in the car?’ Gabe says, as if I’ve just told him he can exist on a diet of only sweets for the rest of his life. ‘But where are you and Mimi going to sleep?’

  Mimi looks around. ‘The boot?’

  ‘Don’t worry about us. It’ll stop raining eventually and I’ll put the tent up.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Mimi asks, elevating her eyebrows as if she’s had cosmetic surgery.

  I find BBC Weather on my phone and hold up the screen to Mimi. ‘See, it says no more rain for the rest of the weekend.’

  ‘Yes, but it also says it’s currently sun and cloud and seventeen degrees Celsius. I beg to differ.’

  ‘It’s slightly ahead of schedule. Trust me, ye of little faith.’

  ‘OK, I’ll trust you.’

  As soon as I open the door, the wind and rain hit me and I run to the boot and open it. Of course, their sleeping bags are buried somewhere underneath all the other crap you need when you go camping and I wonder, not for the first time, what it is I actually think I like about the whole camping experience. It’s like childbirth for women, I guess, the horrific reality gets pushed somewhere deep in your psyche so that you forget that actually camping is really quite painful. Not as painful as childbirth, I’m sure, but pretty bloody painful, and you fill your brain with images of being out in the wild, at one with nature, staring up at the stars, listening to the sounds of the birds and the foxes snuffling outside the tent, away from the distractions of screens and consumerism. Free. At peace. But, as I pull on the cord of Gabe’s sleeping bag and inadvertently also pull out toilet roll, cutlery, burger rolls, and most annoyingly, my pillow, and they land with a thud in the thick, muddy tyre marks my car has made in the field, I promise to myself that I’ll remember this moment the next time I even contemplate going camping, for there is nothing peaceful about it. I stuff all the crap back into the boot, including my mud-covered pillow, manage to locate Finn’s sleeping bag and both boys’ pillows and then run them back to the front of the car, shoving them both in the front door before climbing in myself.

  On the passenger seat, Mimi has lain down with both boys squeezed in on either side of her, reading them some of The BFG. When she gets to the giant, she puts on her best West Country accent and the boys giggle at all the made-up words. She’s much better than I am. I always shy away from doing voices when I read to them, feeling too self-conscious and stupid, which is probably why they always end up fighting, distracted, but Mimi has them hanging off every word.

  ‘Ah, just what we needed,’ she says, reaching over, pulling Gabe’s sleeping bag out of its carrier, unzipping it and draping it over them. Then she puts a pillow behind her head, wraps her arms back around the boys and continues reading. Before long, Finn is asleep and I carefully lift him out from under Mimi’s arm on to the driver’s seat, undo his sleeping bag and wrap it around him and then kiss his forehead.

  ‘OK, I’m going to try to put the tent up. The rain is easing slightly. Just one more chapter though, OK, Gabe, no hassling Mimi to read you another one.’

  ‘Promise.’

  I leave them in the car and get the tent out the boot. The heavy rain has softened into a feeble drizzle so I wrestle the tent out on to the squelchy, waterlogged ground and start to put it up. When I’m finally pegging in the last of the guide ropes, Mimi appears, holding her hands, palms up, to the sky.

  ‘It’s stopped raining. You were right.’

  ‘I’m always right.’

  ‘You know, Gabe is super-smart. Some of his questions and comments about that book were so insightful, I was blown away.’

  ‘He takes after his father.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Mimi smiles and then points to the tent. ‘So, can I go in now?’

  ‘Of course. Fill your boots.’

  She crawls in and lies on the large groundsheet and I follow her in, lying down beside her. Without the boys being here as planned, the tension in my chest is palpable. I feel my pulse quicken, my breathing becoming more strained.

  But then Mimi stands up. ‘Come on, let’s sit outside and look at the view. That’s the whole point of camping, isn’t it?’

  She pulls me up then I get two camping chairs out of the boot and set them in front of the tent. From the cool box I take out the wine, feeling forlorn at the sight of the bag of burgers and sausages.

  ‘Can I tempt you with a hot dog?’

  Mimi laughs. ‘I’ve only just started to digest my fish and chips. You’re determined not to waste those sausages, aren’t you?’

  ‘I can’t lie. It’s eating away at me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep if I waste them.’

  ‘Go on then. By the time you’ve got that barbecue going, I’ll probably be hungry again.’

  And as we sit on our camping chairs, the sausages barely sizzling over the meagre heat of the disposable barbecue, drinking our lukewarm wine, overlooking the sea with the sound of the waves crashing in front of us, I know that, like when you see your baby for the first time, I will forget all the pain that led to this moment and remember this as the definitive camping experience – relaxing, peaceful, the beauty of nature all around us.

  ‘So how are you feeling about Kate now?’

  I wonder, for a second, if she senses the shift between us too and is trying to gauge my feelings, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

  ‘I’m feeling really good. You know, I think maybe it was more about the fear of losing my family, of having wasted so many years, but now I realize I haven’t lost them. Or Kate even. It’s just different.’

  ‘Change is hard.’

  ‘Yeah, but good sometimes too.’ I wonder if I should say more but I have no idea what to say, how, after everything with Kate, I’m going to manage to convince her that my feelings for her are genuine.

  ‘True.’ Mimi leans over to the barbecue, picks up a fork and stabs it into one of the sausages. ‘Looks done.’ She blows on the food and then takes a bite. ‘Pretty good.’

  I help myself to a sausage too and then find a plastic box to put the rest in for the morning.

  When Mimi’s finished her final mouthful, she starts shivering, her teeth audibly knocking together. ‘It’s getting dark and I’m actually pretty tired. Shall we call it a night?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I try to hide the nervous excitement I feel at sleeping in a tent with her and go to get our sleeping bags, pillows and a wind-up lamp from the car, suddenly noticing the memory box I put in the boot, just in case. I’m just about to close the boot and leave it there when I change my mind, pick it up and take it with me. Mimi is already in the tent when I get back, and I hand her her pillow and sleeping bag, putting the box in the corner of the tent and straightening my bedding out on the floor. Then I hang up the lamp, tying it on to one of the tent loops near the door.

  Her eyes rest on the box for a second but she doesn’t say anything about it. ‘Right, close your eyes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m taking my clothes off.’

  I try to joke away the tightness in my throat. ‘And? It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.’

  ‘So, that was different.’

  I squeeze my eyes shut but
then open one with a smile.

  Mimi pulls her top back down. ‘Stop.’

  ‘OK, sorry.’ I close my eyes properly this time, covering them with my hands for good measure.

  I can hear her slipping off her clothes and throwing them on the canvas and it takes immense willpower not to look or reach out and touch her bare skin.

  ‘Right, I’m done.’

  When I open my eyes, she’s tucked up in her sleeping bag, her bare arms peeking out over the top.

  ‘You can watch me if you want. As long as you don’t get too excited.’

  I take my top off and swing it around my head like I’m in The Full Monty and Mimi laughs. Then I climb into my sleeping bag in my boxers and, with a moment’s hesitation, grab the memory box and hand it to her. I’m scared – because she might think less of me when she reads what I’ve written, but at the same time, I want her to understand. And I have a glimmer of hope that maybe it will help the rest of my feelings make sense to her.

  ‘Will you read my memories?’

  Mimi’s unable to hide the emotion on her face. ‘Of course. If you’re sure you want me to?’

  I nod, feeling my heartbeat in my throat. But it feels somehow easier to be open with her in the half-light from the fading camping lamp.

  She opens the box and takes out one of the pieces of paper, squinting to try to read it. I reach over and take the Lego Batman torch out of my pocket and hand it to her. For about twenty minutes, she reads the notes, one after another. She doesn’t comment on them and I lie silently beside her, watching the shadows from the trees flickering and waving on the roof of the tent.

  When she’s finished reading, she puts all the pieces of paper neatly back into the box, shuts it and hands it back to me. Then she leans over and hugs me.

  ‘Thank you. For sharing that with me.’

  ‘Thank you for making me do it. I think it was probably long overdue.’

  After a while, we break apart and then we both lie back down, but Mimi is fidgety and I get the sense she has more to say, and I’m scared that she might be about to ask me more about Mum’s death because despite letting her read my memories, I’m still not ready to talk about that.

  Thankfully, after an extended breath out, she says, ‘Do you think you should get back in touch with your dad? Even if it’s just for closure.’

  I’ve thought about it, particularly after writing all that stuff down. Ben gave me Dad’s address a while back – ‘Just in case,’ he’d said, handing me the scrap of paper. At the time, I screwed it up and put it in my pocket, thinking I’d throw it in the bin when I got home. But I didn’t. I kept it. But I just don’t think any good would come out of me seeing him. How anything he had to say would make things any better. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It’s just …’ Mimi lets out a long breath and I get the sense she’s scared to say what it is she’s thinking. ‘Well, I know it’s not quite the same, but there was someone in my life once who really hurt me and sometimes I wonder if I could find him and tell him now, whether I would. Whether it would help.’

  ‘The one from the song?’

  Mimi nods.

  I’m desperate to know more, but I’m conscious that I don’t want to push her too far, so I don’t say anything in the hope that she might continue, that lying here in the dark might make it easier for her to open up to me too.

  ‘He was my manager,’ she continues after a small pause. ‘Saw me singing in a pub one night and said he had to represent me. He made me feel special, kept telling me I had this unique talent. He was older and I became besotted with him. He said he’d never felt that way about anyone before. And then a few months before my A-levels, I found out I was pregnant.’

  Totally out of my control, I feel tears pricking my eyes.

  ‘I was terrified but excited. It felt like this romantic adventure. I had visions of us on tour together, the baby with us. Stupid, I know. When I told him, he totally freaked out, said it was all too heavy. Turned out he’d been sleeping with another one of his clients behind my back. I lost it, stopped singing, flunked my exams, locked myself in my bedroom for months.’

  ‘So what happened with the baby?’ I ask, as gently as possible, because I’m guessing it’s not easy for her to talk about.

  ‘I had an abortion. And I’ve hated myself for it every single day since. Sometimes I even torture myself by imagining what he or she would be like. They’d be about the same age as Gabe now …’ Mimi’s voice starts to crack and she stops speaking.

  It’s a heartbreaking thought – that different circumstances, a different decision, could mean that Gabe wouldn’t exist. And I can only imagine how painful it must be for Mimi.

  ‘You shouldn’t hate yourself. It’s not your fault.’

  The clouds must have finally cleared, revealing the light of the moon, because it’s bright enough for me to clearly see the sorrow on Mimi’s face.

  ‘My point was, maybe it would help. To tell him the effect he had … well, I don’t know. It was just a thought.’

  ‘I’m so sorry you went through that.’

  Mimi shrugs and pulls her sleeping bag up over her shoulder. ‘I shouldn’t have been so stupid.’ Then she rolls over so that she’s facing away from me. ‘I’m actually pretty tired now. I think I’ll get some sleep. Night, Noah.’

  I pull my sleeping bag up over my shoulders too and lie facing Mimi’s back. I can almost feel her vulnerability in the air and I want to show her that I understand, that there’s no judgement here, but I’m scared of pushing her away, so nervously I reach out and take her hand, which is resting on the outside of her sleeping bag and, to my relief, she doesn’t slap it away. Instead, she threads her fingers through mine and pulls my hand to her tummy, drawing me closer to her, and we stay like that, not saying anything further, until we fall asleep.

  *

  The following evening after the long drive home, the boys going straight to bed after giving in to the exhaustion caused by an unsettled night sleeping (or not sleeping) in the car, I pour Mimi a glass of wine and take it into the living room to her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking and I reckon we should record that song you sang me.’

  Mimi looks me up and down as if she can’t understand what I’m saying. ‘Why? So you can watch me when I’m not here?’ she teases.

  ‘Well, yeah, that. But, being serious for a second, I don’t want to see you waste your talent. Let’s put it on YouTube. It could become a huge hit.’

  Listening to Mimi last night, I realized that she has done so much for me and I want to do something for her in return. I don’t want that idiot that broke her heart to ruin her chance of achieving her dream.

  ‘I don’t know. What if people put horrible comments on there?’

  ‘Oh, come on. You’re a big girl, you can take it. And besides, why would they? It’s great.’

  Mimi looks like she’s pondering it for a while. ‘I just think putting it on YouTube is like saying, “ Hey, look at me. Aren’t I wonderful?” And I’m really not.’

  I want to say but you are, but I’m scared if I start gushing about her too hard, it’ll scare her away, just as it feels she is getting closer. ‘You said yourself that you don’t really want to be a barmaid, so take a risk. Give your dream a chance. What have you got to lose?’

  ‘My dignity?’

  ‘Come on, if I wasn’t convinced it’d be a huge success then I wouldn’t encourage you to do it. I’m not going to purposefully set you up for a fall.’

  ‘Promise?’

  I draw two lines across my heart.

  ‘OK, go on then. But if people slate it then I am going to blame you.’

  ‘Deal. I’ll get my guitar and my camera.’

  I go into my room to get what I need and when I return to the lounge, Mimi is looking in the mirror above the fireplace, playing with her fringe and then licking her finger and rubbing at the stray make-up underneath her eyes.

  ‘You look beautiful.’

&
nbsp; She turns around, looking embarrassed that I’ve caught her examining herself. Then she takes the guitar from me and sits on the sofa with it, plucking the strings and twisting the knobs at the end to tune it.

  ‘Where shall we film it?’

  ‘You look pretty good just there.’

  Mimi scans the area around her and then shrugs. ‘OK. But can you set the camera up and go?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll be looking into the viewfinder the whole time, though, so you can pretend I’m not even here, OK?’

  Mimi takes a deep breath and then nods her agreement. I position myself behind the camera and then she begins and her voice cuts right through me so I force myself to focus on the mechanics of the filming, zooming in to focus on her eyes, her fingers on the strings, then drawing back out to capture the whole of her.

  When she finishes, I switch off the camera and join her on the sofa and she suddenly looks serious.

  ‘Thank you. For forcing me to do this.’ She holds up the guitar. ‘I didn’t realize it but I think I’ve been hiding for a long time. I needed the push.’

  ‘That’s OK. It’s the least I could do after everything you’ve done for me.’

  ‘I do appreciate it … appreciate you …’

  It feels like a ‘moment’. Like it’s now or never.

  ‘Look, Mimi. I need to tell you something.’

  She looks concerned. ‘What is it, Noah?’

  I feel the nerves bubbling in my throat and take a deep breath. ‘The thing is, I thought you were making me a better person with all the things you were suggesting to impress Kate. But it wasn’t that. What was making me better was you. Just being around you. Does that make any sense?’

  Mimi nods but doesn’t say anything so I feel I have to continue.