Silence Is Goldfish

by Annabel Pitcher

  He leaves, trudging up the stairs, not exactly rushing, still too irritated to sympathize fully. Well, good. I don’t want his pity, or Mum’s either for that matter. I try to breathe calmly but it comes out in broken pants, my chest convulsing as my shoulders shudder.

  “Easy now. Easy does it,” Mum says, clutching my hand once more. I snatch it back because I have boundaries now, boundaries I will defend to the death, so can someone please let the world know that the great country of Tess now has very strict borders. “You’re okay,” she tells me, not sounding certain. “You’re okay, Tess. You are. Just breathe.”

  Jack traipses back into the kitchen, dropping the toilet paper into my lap.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he asks, referring to me in the third person, like I’m one step removed from him now, but this distance suits me just fine. “Did she tell you?”

  “No.”

  “She’s sulking, Helen. That’s all it is. Because I shouted at her in the dressing room. She’s throwing a fit. Am I right or am I right, Tess? Come on, moody,” he says in a lighter tone. “Enough is enough, now. You’re quite capable of answering a simple question.”

  “Let’s not force it,” Mum says, trying to smile. “She’s upset, for whatever reason, so let’s leave it for the time being. I’ll make her a cup of tea. In the pig mug.” She stands up abruptly and takes the mug out of the cupboard, presenting it to the room at large. My watery sadness evaporates in a searing flash of anger as Mum makes an oink oink noise and Jack smiles at her effort to improve the mood. “A nice cup of tea in the pig mug. Yes.”

  “Good idea. Tea solves everything,” Jack says, so I climb to my feet and walk out of the kitchen.

  I flop onto my bed with my phone, planning to get in touch with Isabel. It’s muted, so I haven’t heard it beep, beep, beep in my pocket—and beep some more by the look of it because there are thirteen messages from my friend, full of questions. The first are lighthearted, chatty, but they get more concerned and less patient as time goes on. I open a message and stare at the blank space ready to be filled with words that still don’t come. Even silent on a screen they’re too much for me tonight, so I just type Long story. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you on Monday. Then I close my eyes.

  An open door. A sliver of night. A reflection in the window of a BMW. A fake fire. A packet of Werther’s Originals. A perfect dad. An umbrella. And hardly any rain.

  The jealousy’s back, wilder and more savage than ever, sticking in its claws. Isabel has a loving dad, and a mum who she can trust, and a home where she belongs. I charge to my window, shoving it open with a trembling hand and leaning out to gulp in the night. My lungs scream and my heart goes crazy and my vision blurs so the stars become lines and the buildings smudge into one before it all goes black as I sink to the floor.

  I almost shout for my parents. Even now I crave them, like it would be the best thing in the world for them to help me to my feet and tuck me in bed, saying, Don’t worry, Tess. Everything will be okay. Pride stops me from opening my mouth, but I do open my eyes to find I am sitting next to my bag. The goldfish is staring up at me, but his expression isn’t reproachful after our failed adventure. It’s understanding and patient and kind so I reach forward, picking him up ever so gently to study him properly for the first time. His mouth is fixed open, but there are no words.

  That’s okay, Mr. Goldfish. I don’t have any of those either.

  I’ve never turned him on before, but now seems like the right time.

  Now seems like the perfect time, so I click the switch by his fin. A powerful beam shines out of his mouth onto my mouth, bathing my motionless lips in a warm golden glow.

  14

  “Thanks for letting me know,” Mrs. Austin, the principal, says the following Tuesday, standing up to show us out of her office. It’s nicer than I was expecting, with a shiny desk, a rotating leather chair, and a red rug sprawled across a polished wooden floor. “I’ll send out an e-mail right away to inform Tess’s teachers of the situation. You said she’s been to the doctor?”

  “I took her yesterday, not that it was much use,” Mum replies.

  “Doctor took one look at her throat, saw it wasn’t infected, and referred her to a speech therapist,” Jack says. “The next available appointment is two weeks from now. Not exactly an express service, is it?”

  He tries to smile but it’s a huge great big effort, I can tell that a mile off. It’s thrilling and also alarming to see his usual buoyant self deflate before my eyes. He glances at me so I pretend to stare into space when really I am picturing myself spinning round and round on Mrs. Austin’s chair, my hair blowing back in dizzy triumph.

  Jack stands up and Mum does too, and they both wait for me to move.

  It’s remarkable, the power of doing absolutely nothing. I slip my hand into my pocket and fiddle with Mr. Goldfish’s switch. Jack pokes my shoulder.

  “Come on, Tess. I’m sure Mrs. Austin has better things to do.”

  I cross my feet, nothing very interesting, but no one can take their eyes off my boots. That’s remarkable too, how every movement I make is fascinating now that I no longer speak. I flex my ankles and, sure enough, everyone watches the specks of dried mud fall off my soles onto the rug. Mrs. Austin purses her lips. Jack’s expression darkens. Mum goes pink. And I just sit, humming a tune inside my head where no one but Mr. Goldfish can hear it.

  “Mrs. Austin’s very busy, Tess,” Mum says, gripping her handbag, the Gucci one she rarely uses. The tune disappears to be replaced by Mum’s words last Christmas.

  “Oh my goodness, Jack! I love it!” she said when she opened the present, beautifully wrapped with a big gold bow. “But it must have cost a fortune. Can we afford it?”

  “Totally worth it, for that reaction,” Jack replied, kissing the hand clutching the bag. “I want my wife to have the best.”

  “I’ll save it for best.” Mum tried the bag on her shoulder, looking the opposite of glamorous in her purple bathrobe. “Goodness. Check me out. I love it. I really love it. Thank you, darling. I’ll look after it. It will only come out for special occasions. Weddings. Royal ones, at that.”

  The bag doesn’t belong in Mrs. Austin’s office.

  “Well done, Tess,” Mum says when I climb to my feet, giving my arm a supportive squeeze that just makes me feel worse. “We’ll let Mrs. Austin get on. I’m sure she has a lot to do.”

  “Just the three reports to write and the two meetings to attend before break,” Mrs. Austin replies, opening the door to reveal Isabel in the waiting area. “Shouldn’t you be in class, Isabel?”

  “I’m here for Tess.”

  I love how she says that. I really love it, but then I freeze.

  “Isabel?” Jack sounds confused. He frowns, taking in her limp hair and gawky posture.

  “I’m her friend.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m Isabel,” she says, as if that explains it. “Are you okay, Tess? What’s wrong?”

  “She isn’t speaking,” Mum replies. “We’re not sure why.”

  “What, not at all?”

  “Unless you know differently, of course?” Jack says sharply.

  “Me?” Isabel asks.

  “I’m just thinking. She didn’t call you or anything? Over the weekend? Given that you’re friends.” He looks at me when he says that.

  “No,” Isabel replies because it’s true. We haven’t spoken actual words, but we have communicated via text, which is a secret as I am sure she understands. “But…”

  Jack’s staring at me so I can’t shake my head to tell her to keep quiet.

  “But what?”

  “We’re waiting, Isabel,” Mrs. Austin says. “If you know something, you should tell Tess’s parents.”

  Isabel stares at me before glancing at the window like she’s desperate to escape through the glass.

  “But what?” Jack says again. “Did she call you? Or send you a message?”

  My heart skips a beat as Isabel no
ds.

  “She did?” Mum gasps. “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. It was a text.”

  “What did it say?” Jack asks.

  “Just that… just that it was a long story,” Isabel says miserably, talking to a feathery plant on the windowsill.

  “A long story? What was a long story? Our argument in the dressing room, is that what she meant? For crying out loud, that was something and nothing so if she’s caused all this worry because of a few cross—”

  “Let her speak, Jack.”

  “She just said it was a long story,” Isabel repeats, still addressing the plant, lucky for her because the heat of my gaze would set her eyeballs on fire. They were private words. My private words, written in the darkness, contained on a phone screen in a rigid box, never to be let out in the open. But now Isabel has done just that, speaking them out loud, ruining the illusion of my perfect silence.

  “Is that all?” Mrs. Austin asks.

  Isabel hesitates then hangs her traitorous head. “She said she’d tell me on Monday. The long story. I don’t know what it was though.”

  “She’d tell you on Monday. So she was planning to speak?” Jack clarifies, taking a step toward Isabel then turning to look at me, literally coming between us. “You got that feeling? That she could speak and she was going to speak to you on Monday?”

  “Yes. I suppose,” Isabel almost whispers, trying to catch my eye that won’t be caught by her, not now, no way. I gaze past her out the window at the sky the exact color of water. “I’m sorry, Tess.” I barely hear her, doing what she can’t and breaking through the window. I plunge into the sky with Mr. Goldfish, swimming about in a fish tank of our own creation that blocks out the world and all of its words. Mr. Goldfish opens and closes his noiseless lips as I open and close my noiseless lips, and the sun is the ray of light shining from both our mouths because it’s true what they say, silence really is golden.

  “And you’re sure she hasn’t spoken to you out loud since Friday?” Mum asks, keeping her voice gentle. “This is important, Isabel. Tess’s silence—it’s serious. You understand that, I’m sure. We need to help Tess, all of us. And we can do that by being honest.”

  “We haven’t spoken. I promise you. Apart from that one message, she hasn’t even replied to my texts. I tried calling too, but her phone has been switched off.”

  “What about the others?” Jack asks.

  “What others?” It’s Isabel’s turn to look confused. I just about resist the urge to yell at Jack to stop, clenching my jaw because I know what’s coming next.

  “Anna and that lot.”

  Isabel is so shocked she bursts out laughing. “They’re not our friends!”

  “Since when?” Jack asks, not hearing my silent scream to shut the hell up. “When did you fall out? Was there an argument?”

  “No! There was no argument because there was no friendship!” She’s still giggling, looking at me to share the joke.

  “That’s not what Tess told me,” Jack says, and the laughter stops. “She’s always talking about Anna. All the time. Never mentions you though.”

  “Oh. Right. Okay.” It’s me trying to catch Isabel’s eye now, but she’s staring over my shoulder. “I’ve got to get to class.”

  She zips up her coat even though we’re inside, unnecessarily adjusting her bag straps as if she’s waiting for me to say something. But I don’t. She doesn’t either. Secretly, I turn on Mr. Goldfish, needing the power stored deep in his batteries to give me strength.

  Isabel runs out of straps and zips and stands there with nothing else to do to delay what has to happen next, glancing at me with this expression that pretty much breaks my heart. It’s sad but resolute and I’m sad but resolute, and is this even happening is the question I’m screaming into the darkness of my mind as she turns her back on me and disappears down the hallway.

  “It’s happening,” comes a voice. A strange voice. I look at Mum and Jack and Mrs. Austin, but their mouths are closed.

  15

  I dash into a toilet stall and try to be sane. Flashlights can’t speak, like I know this for certain, but I can’t resist looking in my pocket, prizing apart the material.

  “Hi!” says Mr. Goldfish, waving a bright orange fin. “Nice to meet you.”

  I scrunch up my pocket then reopen it almost immediately. Mr. Goldfish is gazing up at me, a golden ray of light shining from his mouth—his plastic mouth that, let’s be clear, is completely incapable of forming words.

  “Really? And yet I appear to be talking to you. How funny.”

  “This is the opposite of funny,” I reply, but crazy as it is, mad as it seems, it’s a relief to be saying something to another person, even if it is in my head to a flashlight who can’t hear a—

  “Oh, I can hear you, loud and clear.” I thrust my shaking hand into my pocket and flick off the switch.

  “Hello?” I try, but there’s no reply. “Hello? Hello?” Still nothing. I get him out. I get it out. I stare at the flashlight, who stares right back, or seems to, with these knowing little eyes. Exhaling slowly, I try to pull myself together. Flashlights cannot speak.

  The stall door makes a nice noise when I open it, a rational sort of click that brings me back to my senses. Obviously, I imagined it.

  There’s only ten minutes left of first period so I don’t rush to get to class, meandering down the hallway that’s empty apart from one person.

  One magnificent person in the distance holding a mug of indistinct color. Mr. Holdsworth.

  My feet make music, a shy shuffle shuffle as I walk toward him. I lift my eyes to peep through my curtain of hair, keen to find out if it’s going to be a yellow or blue morning, looking forward to filling in my table with its neat, sensible columns, putting a clear mark beneath the color—

  Pink.

  Wonderfully, shockingly pink.

  “Why aren’t you in class, Tess?”

  I almost keel over at the sight of this brand-new cup in Mr. Holdsworth’s familiar, very sexy fingers. I love how long and clever they are, how easily they flick a pen over the whiteboard, the answer to the universe’s most complicated problems right at his fingertips.

  Find the value of D in M + D = T if J for Jack is no longer relevant.

  If anyone can solve the biggest puzzle of my life, it’s Mr. Holdsworth. I’ve seen him do it a thousand times, using his massive brain to work out the most difficult algebraic equations that don’t seem to have a solution at first glance, or tenth glance, or one hundredth glance for that matter. Mine’s a tricky one, but he’d be able to do it no problem, circling the answer in a perfect ring that would restore my world to some sort of order.

  I want to ask for help, but words are banned. They appear in my mouth then fade to nothing on my cold, still tongue.

  “Hurry along, Tess. The bell’s about to ring.”

  I wander to my French classroom, checking my e-mails on my phone. I filled in the contact form on the HFEA website on Sunday, but there’s still no reply. Probably because of my age. I was going to lie about it until I realized they need to know when I was conceived if they’re going to track down my dad. I’ll keep searching even if they don’t agree to help. I’ll start in Manchester, and then move to Liverpool… Birmingham… London… and every city in every country until I find him.

  It’s more than blond hair and brown eyes I’m looking for now. I’ve found these particular features loads of times, but the men have never been quite right. The supermarket delivery guy was too loud. The doctor who referred me to the speech therapist was too small. The transvestite I saw on Sunday when I went shopping for Gran’s birthday present had a weak chin. I was excited at first, following the red stilettos all the way down Deansgate to the perfume counter in Selfridges. A pair of dark eyes surveyed me warily, no doubt expecting me to make fun of the butterfly-patterned dress clinging in all the wrong places. But I smiled because she looked beautiful, sort of fragile but brave outside her cocoon
.

  Isabel has moved places to sit with Patrick Smith.

  Let me say that again one more time in my head because actually I am not even sure if I believe it.

  Isabel’s sitting with Patrick Smith.

  She gets out her math textbook. I wait to see if she looks at it, but no, not even a glance at our names scrawled in the blue triangle on the front cover. I wrote Tess on the vertical line and she wrote Isabel on the horizontal one, and the s at the end of my name became the one in the middle of hers, and we turned it into an infinity symbol because we just knew we were going to be inextricably linked for all eternity.

  Well, isn’t that a joke I think as Isabel guffaws at something Patrick says. She throws back her head and flashes her mirth in my direction. My rage reignites, the smoldering ashes sparking into life as I look at her with new eyes, this girl of fickle friendships.

  “I hate Patrick,” she said, just before the summer holidays. “That sounds awful, Tess, but I do. He doesn’t even try in orchestra. He sags over his violin as if it’s impossible to keep his back straight and play properly. And he picks his nose. It’s shameless. Rooting around really deep to get the ones at the back. I know,” she said when I started to look sick. “It’s unbelievable. And that’s not the worst of it. He doesn’t even wipe his fingers. Before he plays, I mean. He smears the bogies over the strings. It’s the most revolting thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Don’t watch him, then.”

  “Says the girl who’s obsessed with Embarrassing Bodies,” Isabel replied. I raised an eyebrow to acknowledge this very fair point. “Miss hashtag-disgusting-hashtag-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it. Who wrote that on Twitter just last week? Not me, Tess Turner. You.”