by Paige Toon
I wearily follow her down the corridor, through the kitchen and into the utility room, where she reaches up to open a high cupboard. We crane our necks to stare up at the cardboard boxes crammed into the space amongst cobwebs and who knows what else. I don’t much fancy putting my hands up there.
‘You’ll need to get the ladder from the garden shed,’ she states. We’re both a little on the short side. ‘But watch out for spiders,’ she warns. ‘I haven’t used it for ages.’
Fabulous. There’s something to look forward to.
She leaves me to it, returning to the living room to watch telly. For someone who’s supposed to be an intellectual, she doesn’t half watch a load of crap.
Despite my absolute lack of enthusiasm for creepy-crawlies, I’m intrigued to discover what’s inside the boxes, so ten minutes later I find myself dusting them off and carrying them one by one into my bedroom. I sit down on the floor and lean up against the bed. There are four in total, medium-sized. I didn’t take much with me when I left Adelaide to go backpacking around Europe at the age of eighteen. Mum was born in Britain so I have a British passport as well as an Australian one, but Dad only told me this after I turned seventeen, along with the fact that an inheritance from Mum had been put into a trust fund until my eighteenth birthday. Knowing this, I had a whole year to plan my escape. It was one of the longest years of my life. Sadie was already on the scene so Ethan had gone AWOL from our friendship, and Liz and I were fighting tooth and nail. Looking back, I think it was probably one of the longest years of her life, too.
I had every intention of returning to Australia after my travels, but I fell head-over-heels in love with London and became consumed with the idea of living and studying there. I hadn’t shown any interest in university when I was still at school, but I changed my mind completely. The next three years were some of the best of my life. Numbers had always made sense to me, so I chose to do a maths degree, followed by a teacher training course. I wanted to follow in my Dad’s footsteps – he may have lived on the other side of the world, but teaching somehow brought me closer to him. I got a job at a secondary school, and though the pay was dire, I adored it. Soon afterwards, I met Ned.
I saved up to visit Dad every two to three years while I was away, the last time being for our wedding. He never came to England, much as I begged him to seek therapy for his flying phobia. Sometimes I wonder how Mum used to feel, never being able to travel with him, to take him home. Did she feel trapped in Adelaide? In London, I somehow felt closer to her, too, breathing the air that she once breathed, faintly polluted as it was.
I wish I’d known her. I wish I’d known her better. But all I have is a collection of bleached-out memories.
The first, heaviest, box contains stacks of musty-smelling books, textbooks and schoolwork, some dating back to my primary school years. I flick through a couple of papers and stumble across a short play that I wrote when I was fourteen. Nell, Tina and I performed it at drama club and I giggle as I skim-read the odd piece of dialogue.
I will never forgive you for this, as long as I live!
Numbers were my thing. Words were not.
The second box is full of teenage nostalgia: dusty, crumpled posters of my favourite bands, scratched CDs and even an old, battered Walkman. I open it up and look at the cassette inside, my breath catching as I recognise Ethan’s scratchy handwriting: Happy 13th Birthday, A!
It’s one of the mix tapes he made for me. I used to spend hours lying on my bed listening to them, hoping to uncover a hidden message in the music he’d selected for me.
With a wistful smile, I press play, but nothing happens. The batteries have gone flat. I wonder if Liz has any spares? She’ll probably stump me up for the cash if I ask so I decide to check out the drawers in the kitchen – and there are the Duracell, right next to the headache tablets. Bingo.
Back in my room with my earphones in place, I smile and hum along to late-’90s songs from The Verve, Oasis and Blur while turning my attention to box number three. To my joy, I discover that this one holds the photo albums that I put together after Dad gave me a camera as a teenager. I carefully turn the cellophaned pages, separating the ones that have stuck together with time. Most are photos I took when I was with my friends, and I clap my hand over my mouth and emit a squeak when I see what we’re wearing in some of the pictures: more make-up than clothes. There are lots of Ethan, too: at the beach and the swimming pool, all long limbs and nut-brown skin; at a barbecue in the park, his eyes barely visible under his cap; with longish hair, shortish hair; with me, me, me.
Many photos I didn’t take myself. There are a few of Mum, Dad and me as a baby, which I dug out of a shoebox I once discovered under Dad’s bed. I was snooping around, bored, but when I asked, he said I could have them. I used to pore over these pictures, willing myself to evoke real and vivid memories from the static frames. But the memories were long gone, boxed away inside my head. There are no pictures at all of me from the age of about three-and-a-half to seven years old. I don’t blame Dad for not taking any. It’s a period of my life that I would rather forget, too.
The earliest photo I have of me after the accident, in fact, is one that Ethan’s mother took. It was taken at his parents’ house when Ethan and I were seven. We’re on one side of a row of grapevines, cheekily grinning through the leaves at Ruth on the other side. Our eyes are glinting mischievously in the late-afternoon sunshine, Ethan’s evergreen and mine as blue as the sky, even from behind my glasses.
I was so certain that we’d grow up, get married, have kids and be together forever. But of all people, I knew that life didn’t always work out like that.
My nose begins to prickle, a sure sign of encroaching tears, and a waving hand appears in front of my face. I scream and reel backwards, then look up to see Ethan, his eyes wide open in shock and a smile frozen on his face.
‘You scared the hell out of me!’ I slam the photo album shut and whip the earphones out of my ears.
‘Sorry!’ he exclaims, while I blink my eyes rapidly to clear my vision. ‘Liz told me to come in.’
I laugh at last. ‘I couldn’t hear a thing. I was listening to this.’
I proffer up the Walkman, pressing eject so he can see his handwriting on the cassette.
He snatches the device from me. ‘I can’t believe you still have this!’
‘Neither can I. You’re lucky you didn’t walk in to me singing Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”.’
‘What?’ He pulls a face. ‘I didn’t put that on here, did I?’
‘It’s a great song!’ I say defensively.
‘I must’ve known you liked it.’ He cautiously navigates his way through the items on the floor to sit down on my bed. ‘My PS2 is in the hall. What are you up to?’
‘Just looking through some of these boxes.’ I glance at him over my shoulder. I’m still sitting cross-legged on the carpet. ‘Liz wants the clutter cleared before Dad comes home.’ I love how my childhood memories have been reduced to ‘clutter’.
‘You look like you’re making progress.’ His tone is sarcastic as he eyes the amount of stuff surrounding me.
‘She’s living in a dream world if she thinks I’m throwing any of it out,’ I tell him resolutely. ‘Look at these.’ I pass him one of the photo albums. He chuckles as he flicks through the pictures. I reach for the fourth box and open it up, smiling. Teddies!
‘Oh my God, it’s Raisin!’ I exclaim, pulling out a long-eared rabbit that still has pink pen marks on its cheeks from when I wanted to give him a bit of colour. Boys can wear blusher too, you know.
Ethan leans past me to take a different stuffed toy out of the box. ‘I remember this one,’ he comments, and my heart skips a beat as I watch the no-longer-white sheep emerge. Instinctively I swipe it from his hands.
‘Lambert,’ I murmur, staring down at the toy with surprise. ‘I thought I’d lost him.’
‘Didn’t you use to sleep with him every night?’ he asks from behind me.
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‘Yes,’ I confirm quietly. ‘I felt so guilty for leaving him here when I went backpacking. What an idiot.’
Ethan doesn’t say anything as I tenderly run my fingertip across the sheep’s shiny black nose. The swelling in my throat is disconcerting.
‘Aw,’ he says, noticing that I’m affected. Now I feel silly. I make a move to stuff Lambert back into the box, but find that I can’t, my hand hovering above the cardboard as if an invisible string is connected from my wrist to the ceiling. I give up and hold the toy in my arms instead.
‘You old softie,’ Ethan says, squeezing my shoulder as my eyes prick with tears.
‘Sorry, what a nutcase.’
I’ve always felt oddly bound to this toy. The thought of Liz shoving him into a box as soon as I was out of her way fills me with sudden red-hot anger.
‘Talk to me about something else,’ I urge.
‘Well, I’ve had a crap day,’ he says flippantly.
I glance over my shoulder at him. ‘Why?’
‘Went home to get my PS2 and found Sadie with another man.’
‘What? Were they—’
‘No,’ he interrupts. ‘They were drinking tea,’ he says in a proper-sounding voice. ‘The worst thing is, I know him. His name is David and he’s one of the dads from school. Recently divorced,’ he adds nonchalantly.
‘Are you sure it wasn’t innocent?’ I ask warily.
‘I don’t think so.’ He shakes his head and meets my eyes. He may sound glib, but he’s clearly upset.
I give him a sympathetic look, not really knowing what to say.
‘I feel like getting very drunk,’ he says.
‘Happy to aid and abet you.’ I get up, then hesitate, unsure what to do with Lambert. Ethan holds out his hand so I pass over the sheep and he puts him on my pillow before standing up. He gives me a sad smile, making my heart skitter against my ribcage as I lock eyes with him for a little too long. Then I pull myself together, grab my handbag, and hop, skip and jump my way through the wreckage of my teenage belongings to get to the door, Ethan following closely behind.
We don’t go far – just to a pub on Norwood Parade – but this time Ethan forgoes the vino and goes straight to the hard stuff. Two whisky doubles in, he begins to let rip.
‘I can’t believe she brought a man to our house!’ he erupts. ‘What the bloody hell is she thinking? Has she been screwing him? Have the kids met him? If the kids have fucking met him, I’m going to go ballistic,’ he adds darkly.
‘Maybe they were just having a cuppa,’ I say reasonably.
‘No way.’ He shakes his head. ‘She looked guilty. Really guilty. He means something to her.’
‘Do you think anything happened while you were still—’
‘That’s the part I don’t know,’ he interrupts. ‘She could’ve been having an affair for years, for all I know. Maybe that’s why his marriage broke down.’ He laughs bitterly and sinks the rest of his drink before flagging down the barman. We’re sitting on stools at the bar. I’m not even going to try to keep up with him.
‘Surely you’d know if that were the case,’ I say calmly, shaking my head at the barman when he indicates my drink. ‘You’d sense it, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’ve been pretty distracted for the last few years,’ he replies dully, slapping a note on the bar. ‘Study, kids, work.’
‘Why did you break up?’ I ask.
He sighs. ‘Everyone said we got married too young. Too much responsibility, too quickly. Don’t know why I didn’t listen.’
‘You loved her,’ I point out, my heart pinching even as I say it.
‘Yeah, well, I hate her now.’
That shuts me up.
‘I don’t mean that.’ He frustratedly scratches the top of his head as he stares straight ahead.
‘I know,’ I say gently, touching his arm. His eyes dart down to look at my hand, so I pat him awkwardly and let go. A moment later he takes another large gulp of whisky.
‘It’s my house,’ he says heatedly, turning to look at me. ‘They’re my kids. She keeps telling me I can’t just drop in because it’s upsetting for them, but it’s probably because she’s been screwing some guy and doesn’t want to get caught.’ Even though his eyes are flashing with anger over another woman, his penetrating stare makes my breath hitch. There’s something wrong with me. I look away and reach for my wine glass.
‘Sorry,’ he mutters, misreading my expression. ‘I don’t mean to rant.’
‘It’s okay. I told you that you can talk to me any time. I meant it.’
It’s a moment before he answers. ‘Thanks.’ He stares into his drink and I find my gaze drifting to his neck. I wonder what it would be like to lean in and kiss him.
Christ! There is definitely something wrong with me.
‘Do you like being married?’ His question takes me aback.
‘Er, that’s a funny thing to ask,’ I reply.
‘It’s a simple question.’ He swivels to face me, his bare arm resting against the oiled wooden bar top. He’s wearing a black T-shirt with a blue-and-grey graphic on the front. I always thought black suited him.
‘Well, yeah,’ I reply. ‘I mean, for the most part.’ I shake my head. ‘We haven’t been getting on that well lately, if you really want to know.’
‘No?’ He raises one eyebrow, diverted from his own drama for a moment.
‘Maybe it’s the Seven Year Itch,’ I say with a shrug.
‘Is that how long you’ve been together?’ he asks.
‘Seven years next month. We met on my twenty-third birthday.’
His eyebrows jump up. ‘Really? I didn’t know that. Where did you meet?’
‘On a bus, of all places,’ I reply with a small smile as my mind takes me back. But I don’t want to think about it now, so I move on before he asks me to divulge details. ‘I feel like we’ve barely seen each other over the last six months. Ned’s been busy, I’ve been busy. I’m not busy anymore, mind, but now I’m on the other side of the world,’ I say matter-of-factly. ‘And he was too busy to come with me.’
‘Are you angry with him?’ he asks.
I pause before answering. ‘A little,’ I admit truthfully. ‘Of course, he’s just been promoted. Well, Zara gave him a promotion because she fancies him.’ I know my sarcasm makes me sound immature, but I don’t care. Ethan smirks. ‘I don’t mean that,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I know he’s good at his job,’ I add before going off on another one. ‘But I still reckon that she’s buggered things up with her husband and now she wants mine,’ I state definitively.
He laughs under his breath. ‘God, what a pair we are.’
‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ I reply.
Chapter 10
‘Amber!’ Liz’s irate voice rouses me from the depths of sleep the next morning.
‘What?’ I snap, peeking out at her from the cracks in my eyelids. She’s standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
‘Get up!’
Wow, that takes me back. I remember her shouting this at me repeatedly when I was a teenager and late for school. But I’m an adult now. Who does she think she is?
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she replies.
Okay, now I’m curious. I sit up sleepily, eventually making it into the hall to see Liz standing there, pointing accusatorially at the box containing Ethan’s PlayStation.
‘You cannot just leave stuff lying around once Len comes home!’ she berates me.
I’m stunned. Seriously? ‘No shit, I’m not an idiot,’ I say. I was here yesterday when Dad’s occupational therapist came over.
‘You heard what his OT said,’ Liz continues as though I haven’t spoken. ‘We can’t leave anything around that might trip him up or make it difficult for him to navigate his way about. And your bedroom defies belief. We have to be prepared, Amber,’ she says patronisingly. ‘Otherwise this will be harder for all of us.’
‘I tell you w
hat, if you want to start throwing accusations around, why the hell are you still smoking?’ I ask angrily, losing my temper.
She recoils.
‘I know you’ve been nipping out for fags. I thought you’d quit. I thought Dad had quit. You told his doctor that you’d both quit, but that was clearly a lie!’
I’m incensed. Smoking doubles the chance of having a stroke.
Dad used to enjoy the occasional cigarette when I was growing up, but he began smoking in earnest after Liz moved in. When Nell’s grandad – who she was very close to – died from lung cancer in his sixties, I begged Dad to give it up. The trauma of seeing my friend and her family crying at the funeral was enough to put me off smoking for life. But Liz had smoked since her early twenties and had no desire whatsoever to quit – she certainly wasn’t about to do so for me. So Dad carried on as well. I blame Liz for that.
‘We had quit,’ she says stiffly, looking guilty. ‘I may have caved a little under pressure, but I won’t smoke once he’s home.’
‘Well, you haven’t got long to get your act together,’ I snap. ‘So sort it out.’
She doesn’t say another word, stalking to the door and wrenching it open.
‘Don’t forget Bruce,’ she says crossly, before pulling the door shut behind her.
I sigh heavily.
‘Bruce’ is the handyman charged with getting the house in order before Dad comes home next week. There’s only a small step over the threshold that Dad should be able to manage with a walking stick, but the occupational therapist suggested a rail in the bathroom for getting on and off the toilet. She also stressed the importance of keeping pathways unobstructed, so we’re removing the rugs in the hall and living room, but leaving the hallstand as something to rest against.
Liz is teaching today, so I’m overseeing the work. Bruce is supposed to be here at nine a.m., so I’d better get dressed.
Ned calls me on the home phone when I’ve just come out of the shower. He’s about to board a plane to New York.
‘I hope it all goes well,’ I tell him, feeling a little ashamed when his corresponding ‘Thank you’ comes with a hint of surprise.