Vicky bursts out laughing. I start sniggering too. Sam looks up at me, his glasses knocked sideways so they're dangling from one ear. His eyes look pink and naked unframed. I feel meaner than ever. I give Vicky a shove to get her out of the way and run over to him.
“Sam. I'm sorry. I wasn't really giggling at you.”
“Feel free to have a belly laugh,” he mumbles into the grass.
“Have you hurt yourself?”
“No, I'm just lying here because I fancy a nap.”
“Oh, Sam.” His legs still look weirdly froglike. Maybe they're both broken? I kneel down and start kneading his tracksuit gingerly. Sam tenses. Then he starts to shake. Is he sobbing? No, he's the one laughing now.
“What's funny?”
“You're tickling me! What are you doing? Feeling me up?”
I take my hands off him as if he were red hot.
“Of course not! I was checking you for broken bones.”
“Just a broken heart,” Sam mutters, getting up on his hands and knees. He groans dramatically.
“Are you sure you're OK?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, staggering to his feet. “How to make a complete prat of yourself in five easy stages.” He pats his big belly. “I'm not quite Mr. Fighting-Fit Six-Pack-Stomach just yet.”
“Still, all this running is good for you. Good for us.”
“Yeah, like you really need to lose weight, Jade.”
“Well, I need to get fit.”
“Does it … help any?” Sam says delicately.
“Not a lot.”
“Well …” Sam gestures. “After you. Don't worry. I won't tag on. If I stumble again just leave me lying there, right? If I'm still in the same comatose position when you jog back you'd better give me a prod.”
“No, I'll sit on your tummy and use you as a picnic bench. Oh come on, Sam, let's run together. I'm sorry I was such a pig before.”
“It's OK. I made allowances.”
“Seems like everyone's been doing that. Which makes me feel really bad. And it's not like I'm the only one missing Vicky. I mean, you were obviously nuts about her too, Sam.”
He stares at me. “She's not the one I'm nuts about!” he says.
There's a long pause while I take this in. Then we both start running, red in the face. Sam can't be keen on me?
“Didn't you realize?” Sam puffs.
“Is it because you can't have a thing about Vicky now? So you've transferred it over to me?”
“No! I've never been that keen on Vicky. I didn't like the way she always bossed you about.”
“No she didn't. Well, she did, but I didn't mind.”
I know she's lurking somewhere now, listening. She's going to be so angry with me. I decide I don't care too much when I'm running round with Sam but I get worried when I'm at home. I wait for her to come, feeling sick, scared she'll come, scared she won't. She waits until I'm asleep and then she's there screaming and I wake screaming too and tell myself it's only a dream, but it isn't a dream, it's real, Vicky's dead, and it's my fault….
“You look like a little ghost, Jade!” Mum says in the morning, while Vicky laughs harshly.
I must look really awful because Mrs. Cambridge comes up to me in the corridor and asks if I'm ill.
“No, I'm fine, Mrs. Cambridge,” I say, trying to edge past her.
“No, wait a minute, Jade. I want you to come to the library straight after lunch, at twelve-thirty sharp.”
“But we're not allowed in the library then, Mrs. Cambridge.”
“Not unless you have special permission. And I'm giving it to you. Twelve-thirty, right?”
I don't make it up to the library until twenty to one. I haven't been held up having lunch. I haven't even bothered with it. It's just that I can't seem to arrive on time anywhere now. Time doesn't seem to have any meaning. Mostly I can't remember if it's morning or afternoon. Five minutes can take a lifetime, or five hours disappear altogether.
Mrs. Cambridge is waiting in the library with an older woman. I wonder if she's a new teacher. She's got untidy gray hair straggling out of a tortoiseshell clip. She's wearing those baggy flowery trousers that arty grannies love and a plain gray top with an odd stiff white collar. Ah. I get it.
I want to make a bolt for it but Mrs. Cambridge spots me through the glass door and leaps up. I have to go into the library and join them.
“There you are, Jade! I was about to send out a search party. Now, this is Mrs. Wainwright.”
“You're a vicar?”
She laughs. “I wish. No, I'm still training, Jade. I've only got chaplain status at the moment.”
“You might have seen Mrs. Wainwright at the Lakelands Shopping Centre,” says Mrs. Cambridge.
I blink. Mrs. Wainwright doesn't look like she shops in Kookai and Morgan and La Senza.
“I'm kind of attached to it. It's the town's true cathedral. Thousands worship there every day. The church can only muster ten good old women by way of congregation so I mill round the Centre with the shoppers and see if anyone wants a chat.”
“And now Mrs. Wainwright's here to have a little chat with you, Jade,” says Mrs. Cambridge. “Well, I'd better dash. I'm supposed to be on playground duty. See you, Stevie.”
So they're obviously mates. I can't believe this. Maybe Mrs. Wainwright is going to pray with me!
“Oh God, this is so embarrassing,” I mumble.
“Don't worry, I'm embarrassed too,” says Mrs. Wainwright. “And you mentioned God first, Jade, not me. I take it you're not a churchgoer?”
“No.”
“Well, relax, I'm not here to try to convert you— though should you feel the desire to come to church you'd be ever so welcome. No, Anne—Mrs. Cambridge—asked me to pop into the school because she knows I've done a grief counseling course.”
“Oh.”
“Oh dear! You look like I've just announced I'm a dentist. Don't worry, I'm not going to drill into your soul. We can just have a chat. Or we can squirm silently for ten minutes and then call it a day.”
“Look, it's very kind of you, but …”
“But you feel it's none of my business.”
“Well, that sounds rude.”
“And you think I couldn't possibly understand. Here I am, a fat holy lady in silly trousers, smiling away without a care in the world. What do I know about grief? Well, listen, Jade, I don't know what it's like for you, but I do know what it's like for me.”
I look at her.
“I lost a child. I lost several babies, I kept having miscarriages, but then I had a little girl, the loveliest little girl, Jessica. Want to see her photo?” She brings out her wallet and shows me a picture of a little curly-haired kid in stripy dungarees.
“She's cute.”
“Yes, she was adorable. Everyone thought so, not just her besotted old mum and dad. But then she got ill. Leukemia. They can often cure it nowadays but they couldn't cure our Jess. She died when she was five.” She's talking in this completely matter-of-fact tone, as if she's telling me a weather forecast, but her eyes are bright and tears start sliding down her cheeks.
I look away quickly.
“I always cry when I talk about her,” she says, taking her glasses off and wiping the smears on her gray clerical top. “Have you done much crying, Jade?”
“I don't really cry much.”
“It can be quite soothing, you know.” She blows her nose—on a tissue, not her top—and puts her glasses back on. “Tears are meant to get rid of all the toxins. You feel lousy when you're grieving, right? Tears can heal. They've done this analysis on tears. Don't ask me how they do it, you hardly want to hold little thimbles to your eyes when you're in the midst of hysterics, but anyway, the chemical content of misery tears is different from the ordinary watering you get when you've got a bit of dust in your eye.” She peers at me. “You think I'm waffling a whole load of nonsense, don't you?”
I shake my head.
“Did you have any more chi
ldren after Jessica?”
This time she catches her breath. Then she lets it out, a sad sigh. “No. I tried. But it didn't happen. So I decided to see if I could help other people. Somehow that's helped me even more.”
“But it doesn't make Jessica come back.”
“No. It doesn't. It still hurts very, very badly. Some days I still don't want to get up. But after I've had a hot bath and munched up my muesli I can usually face the day. I don't believe in grieving on an empty stomach, as is self-evident.” She pats the flowery hillock of her tummy. “It looks as if you could do with an entire vat of muesli, Jade. Can't you eat at all at the moment, my lovie?”
“I don't really get hungry.”
“Chocolates? Ice cream? Go for a few wicked treats. Sometimes junk food is the only answer if you feel sick at the sight of a plate of meat and veg. I bet your mum's nagging you to eat, isn't she?”
“Yes, but … it sounds daft, but I can't always swallow, like there's something wrong with my throat.”
“Oh, getting your swallowing out of synch is ever so common, my pet. Haven't you heard that expression, a lump in the throat? All sorts of things go haywire when you're grieving. You might get short of breath, or feel sick all the time, or have a tummy-ache or a pain in the chest, literal heartache. You probably feel tired out all the time too. Grieving is very hard work.”
I lean against her, feeling weak with relief.
“So other people feel like this too?”
“Lots and lots. I went a bit funny in the head too. I was so angry. I was furious with everyone. I was even furious with poor little Jess for dying.”
“When Jessica died …”
“Yes?”
“Did you talk …?”
“Talk to her? All the time. Still do. Though it gets a bit muddly, because she'd be around your age now and yet mostly I think of her as my little five-year-old.”
“When you talk to her … Is it like she's real?”
“Oh yes. Especially just after she died. I kept feeling if I'd only rush into her bedroom in time I'd actually see her cross-legged on the rug playing with all her Barbie dolls. It was years before I could bear to change a thing in Jess's room.”
“But you didn't actually see her?”
“I kept thinking I saw her. In the shops, on the bus, even on television. There'd be this mop of curls, skinny little elbows, a funny pair of dungarees, and my heart would turn over, sure it was Jess at last. It's a very common phenomenon. You're searching desperately for your loved one. But sooner or later you have to realize it's no use. They're not coming back.” She looks me straight in the eye. “Vicky's not coming back, Jade.”
She's trying so hard.
“It's the first task of grieving, my love. We have to accept that Vicky is dead. It's so difficult, especially because she died so suddenly.”
It's not difficult. It's impossible. Vicky saunters into the room and sits down beside her, as real and startling as the roses on Mrs. Wainwright's trousers.
Mum's being extra nice to me, making me special meals, thinking up little treats, letting me have my hair styled at Toni and Guy's, giving me a special nail kit so that my stubby fingers grow false nails with patterns, and a little ring hanging off the end of my thumb. I like my new hairstyle and my new nails but they don't seem part of me. I find I'm flicking my new fringe out of my eyes every five seconds and fiddling endlessly with the edges of my new nails until they flick right off.
“Stop all that fiddling and twitching, for God's sake,” Mum shouts. Then she looks guilty and makes me a cup of hot chocolate and cuts me a slice of iced sponge cake. She made it herself, the same recipe she once used for my birthday cakes. It makes me remember all those little-girly parties. The icing sticks to my teeth as I think of Vicky blowing out my candles so she could steal my birthday wish.
“You're not crying, are you?” says Vicky. “I'm not crying and I'm never going to have another birthday now.”
“Have another slice, Jade, go on. Be a devil,” says Mum.
“Now there's a thought,” says Vicky. She puts a finger either side of her head to look like horns. “Maybe I'll try traveling down the way?”
“Maybe that's where you belong,” I say.
She's leading me into all sorts of serious trouble. I'm still not doing any proper work at school. I hardly ever bother with homework. Some of the teachers don't care. Others give me little lectures in that weird embarrassed way they deal with me now. “I know there are special circumstances, Jade. Of course it's difficult for you. Just do your best.”
I do my worst. They sigh a little but don't really tell me off. The only teacher who gets really mad with me is Mrs. Cambridge, of all people.
“You haven't handed in any homework again, Jade?”
“Yes, well … I tried so hard, Mrs. Cambridge, but I just can't seem to think straight,” I say, in my sad-little-grieving-girl voice.
It works like magic with the other teachers. But not Mrs. Cambridge.
“Come off it! You didn't try at all! I don't mind you handing in work that's all muddled or work that's completely wrong. Maybe I'm willing to make excuses for you then. But you haven't bothered to do any work at all!”
“You know how it is, Mrs. Cambridge,” I whine.
“I know that you're taking advantage. I know you're very unhappy. I know you're missing Vicky terribly. Maybe talking to Stevie Wainwright might help. But you've still got to do a little bit of work or you'll get so far behind you'll never catch up.”
“I don't see the point.”
“So you can pass your exams and get an interesting job and have a fulfilling life.”
“Yeah, and some of us are stuck in a frustrating living death!” Vicky shouts. “Shove off, you stupid teacher. Leave me and Jade alone. You don't understand!”
I have to clamp my lips together to stop saying Vicky's words myself. I don't always manage it. I'm rude to poor Madeleine and Jenny when I hear them chatting to Vicky Two—because they just call her Vicky.
“She's Vicky Two, and she always will be. She'll always come second to my Vicky. So don't you dare act like she's Vicky.”
They stare at me as if I'm off my head. I think I am. I'm floating a foot above myself with Vicky, getting madder and meaner every day.
I can't stand to be in school now. I can't sit still either. Literally. I wriggle around so much there are bruises on my bony bottom. I stretch and yawn and scratch, so restless that I actually look forward to Fridays and the Fun Run.
It's still not fun but I'm starting to be able to run. I'm not really any good at it. I'm still slower than everyone apart from Sam. But I can keep going for much longer now, and sometimes my head's straight, my shoulders are square, my back's upright, and I just get into it. It's still hard work but not as hard as it was.
“Great, Jade,” says Mr. Lorrimer, jogging along beside me. “You've really revved up your stride rate. You're looking really good, coming along in leaps and bounds.”
He's acting like he's forgotten my nastiness about Sam. Sam himself is lumbering along behind us.
“What about me, Mr. Lorrimer?” he puffs. “Hardly leaps and bounds like Jade, eh? More like staggers and stumbles.”
“You're doing fine too, Sam,” says Mr. Lorrimer. “You're getting fit, lad.”
Sam laughs raucously, then has to stop and wheeze.
“Yeah, sure, Sylvester Stallone,” he says, thumping the big soft pillow of his stomach.
Though it's not quite as big as it was. Or as soft. He's lost a little weight.
“Look at Jade staring at me,” says Sam. “She can hardly keep her hands off my new lithe physique.”
“Ha,” I say. But I grin at him.
“Are you two guys pals again?” says Mr. Lorrimer.
“You have to be joking,” says Sam. “That's why she's running faster. It's to get away from me. Isn't that right, Jade?”
“You got it,” I say. But when Mr. Lorrimer runs ahead I slow down so that S
am and I can run together. Vicky's running along beside us too, of course. She keeps making outrageously rude remarks about Sam. She tries to make me say them too. It's such a struggle I can hardly concentrate on what Sam's saying. Every now and then he stares at me, almost as if he susses out what's going on.
“Sorry?” I say.
“It's OK,” he says gently.
“I just—I can't always—I keep thinking—”
“It's OK,” he repeats.
“You're OK, Sam,” I say.
Vicky makes the most unethereal vomit noises and makes my life a misery for days. She just won't leave me alone.
She whirls round and round the room when I'm with Mrs. Wainwright so I can't even talk to her properly.
I jump and twitch and fidget as Vicky prods and pinches and pokes her tongue out.
“I'm sorry,” I say miserably. “I want to sit still, but I just can't.”
“I think you're so tense and fidgety because you're still searching for Vicky in some way, unable to face up to the fact that she's dead,” Mrs. Wainwright says gently.
Vicky might be dead, but she's very much here.
“I can't stop thinking about her,” I say.
“Quite right too,” says Vicky, nodding approvingly.
“Of course you can't. It's only natural. It's all part of the grieving process.”
“God, she's so boring,” says Vicky. “She's acting like she knows it all, and she knows nothing. Go on, tell her. Tell her!”
“You don't know anything about Vicky and me. We're not part of any process, like we're peas! You make it all sound so boring.”
I put my hand over my mouth, shocked I could have been so rude. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”
“It's OK, it's fine, Jade.”
“I don't want to say rude things, it's Vicky, it's like I have to copy her,” I wail.
“You rotten little telltale,” says Vicky, tweaking my nose with her ghostly fingers.
“Perhaps you copy Vicky some of the time to feel close to her,” says Mrs. Wainwright.
“No, you copy me because I'm better than you, I'm prettier and sparkier and funnier—” Vicky sings.
Vicky Angel Page 9