Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  Dinner doesn’t make it a date, but a candle does.

  I pursed my lips and blew out the flame.

  But it is dark in this corner of the kitchen and we could do with the extra light.

  I clicked the lighter and lit the wick once again.

  I took a deep breath, trying to summon some of the calm that my mother had destroyed earlier.

  I was at home. I was safe. I didn’t have to go out into the world and pretend that I felt at ease there and I knew where the knives were, should my theory about him being a stalker actually turn out to be true.

  I smoothed down my orange jumper and wondered if Joy had been right. Should I have dressed up more?

  It’s not a date, so the jumper and the unicorn slippers are fine. I’d just have to make sure I kicked off the slippers before he arrived.

  I heard the shuffling of my mother’s feet and a moment later she appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Smells like you’ve put too much garlic in there.’ She walked straight over to the stove, took the spoon out and tasted it before dipping the spoon back into the sauce.

  ‘Thanks, I knew it was missing some mother’s saliva. That’ll give it the bitterness that I was aiming for,’ I said, throwing her a dirty look as she smiled a self-satisfied smile. ‘Aren’t you meant to be going soon?’ Not so subtly willing her out of the house.

  She licked her lips and took a jar of oregano from the shelf, sprinkling some into the pan without caring that she was pissing me off. In fact, she probably did it for that very reason.

  We had a strange relationship, my mother and I, one that often straddled the line between banter and bullying. We pushed and pulled at each other to see who would give first, but she’d raised me and I’d learned from the best. She had this ability to hold a grudge longer than anyone I’d ever known. She blamed this trait on being a Scorpio, once scorned never forgiven, but I knew it was just because she had too much pride. I don’t know exactly when it shifted from a normal parent-child relationship to something resembling a verbal trial by combat, but I think it must have been when I hit my teens and I started having a mind of my own. It wasn’t like I went off the rails or anything, I just started to develop my own opinions and ideas and that simply wouldn’t do.

  ‘Can you not?’ I budged her away from the pan with my shoulder and scooped out the oregano, washing it down the sink. ‘Did it at least taste good?’ I asked, feeling her eyes boring holes into me from behind.

  ‘Well, it’s not how I would have made it.’

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, loudly.

  I heard the ominous ding-dong of the doorbell and felt my stomach turn into an anvil as I held my breath and contemplated pretending I wasn’t home.

  I wasn’t ready for this.

  I wasn’t ready for company.

  I couldn’t even remember the last time someone ate with me. My parents and I never ate together, because I refused to indulge Joy’s two-week health food fads that often smelled like soil and tasted like it too.

  I felt sick and turned around to tell her not to answer it, but she was already gone. I heard the sound of her sheepskin slippers shuffling towards the door.

  I looked at the candle again and panicked.

  Lose the candle. Abort. Abort!

  I blew out the flame again as I heard the door open and Theo’s voice floated into the house.

  But now he’d smell the smoke and know that it had been lit. He’d wonder why I’d blown it out and then he’d know that I still wasn’t sure about what tonight really meant.

  I panicked, lighting the candle again and shoving the lighter into a plant pot as Theo appeared in the doorway, wine in hand. His eyes moved from the pans on the stove to the laid table beside me with a furrowed brow and I knew that the candle was a mistake.

  ‘You know you didn’t have to go to all this trouble and dress up all sexy for me,’ he said with that aggravating smile. ‘How did you know that I had a thing for unicorns?’

  He looked down at my feet and I suddenly remembered that I’d failed to take off my slippers.

  ‘Well, I didn’t want to make too much of an effort. This isn’t a date after all and you’re nothing but an amateur stalker, so why dress up nice?’

  ‘Amateur?’ He mocked outrage. ‘You offend me, madam! I think the pending restraining order and the shrine in my airing cupboard show that I am overly qualified to stalk you.’

  ‘See, this is where a normal person would ask you to leave,’ I said, reaching down and taking the wine from his hand. ‘Is this for me?’ I didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘Yes? Good.’

  I opened the bottle and handed him a generous glass before taking two large gulps of my own.

  ‘Good job you’re not normal then.’ He held out his glass and called a toast. ‘To new friends and this non-date.’

  Joy came into the kitchen and took Theo’s coat, a flustered smile on her face when her hands brushed his arms. She looked at me with eyes so wide I feared they might fall out and dangle against her cheeks.

  ‘I never expected our Effie to bring a boy like you home for dinner,’ Joy began, and I turned to the bubbling pans, brow tightened. Did she have to flirt with everyone?

  Literally any man she came across who was slightly good-looking was subjected to a bout of her wanton behaviour. The guy at the petrol station, the milkman – she’d even flirted with my maths teacher at parents’ evening once. You’d think that my dad would be as annoyed with this habit as I was, but I honestly think he was just relieved to be left alone for a minute or two whenever it happened.

  ‘Why is that, Mrs Heaton?’ he asked politely, sending her his winning smile. She exhaled dreamily and I was glad that it wasn’t just me that it affected.

  ‘You’re … well, you’re gorgeous. Not like the last few she’s brought home.’ She sneered. ‘By the look of the last one you’d have thought she’d picked him up from outside Broadmoor. He had a silly name didn’t he … Bugs, that was it.’

  ‘His name was Thomas.’ I sighed with exasperation.

  ‘Your father told me his name was Bugs.’

  ‘Dad called him that because of his ears. He said he looked like Bugs Bunny.’ I urged her with my mind to get the hell out of the kitchen.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right, Thomas. Great big Dumbo ears he had. He could have flown away with those things hanging at either side of his face. But he didn’t need them did he – ran away from you fast enough with just his feet.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum. Aren’t you leaving?’ I took a swig of wine so large that I had trouble swallowing it.

  ‘It seems a shame to leave when there’s such a handsome young man in my kitchen.’ Joy smiled at Theo once again and I could almost hear his discomfort. ‘She is capable of being pleasant you know, just give her long enough and you’ll see it.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to keep an eye out.’ He sipped his wine and she disappeared, taking one last look at him before she closed the door and left us in peace.

  ‘She seems … nice?’ He wandered over to the pans and peered inside, his chest pressing against my back and making me tense. ‘What are you making me then, Chef?’

  ‘Spaghetti and meatballs,’ I replied, a sudden worry coming into my brain. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Language!’ I heard my mother shout through the closed door.

  ‘You’re not vegetarian, are you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Good, because there are many pieces of cow in this meal,’ I replied with relief.

  ‘Mmmm, pieces of cow, my favourite,’ he said. I glanced behind me at the candle, which I tried to extinguish with my mind as it flickered in its bowl, mocking me.

  I searched for something to say, but, in the end, I just carried on stirring the food, not knowing what else to do.

  ‘So, I’ve met your mum; what about your dad, does he live with you?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s probably upstairs putting on his century-old “going out” shoes as we speak. He’s very str
ange and very northern. He pretty much lives in the computer room upstairs. He runs an eBay shop.’

  He wandered over to a family photo that hung on the wall and studied my ten-year-old face.

  ‘You were a cute kid – nothing’s changed there,’ he said, moving on and sitting down at the table. I slopped the food into two bowls and plonked them down in front of him.

  ‘That sounds like date talk to me – and what is this?’ I asked, sitting down opposite him and topping up my glass.

  ‘Most definitely not a date.’ He leaned forward, that stupid grin still making him look like a fangirl’s wet dream, and tucked into the mess I’d put in front of him.

  ‘Precisely.’

  It was around the third time I topped up my glass that I began to feel myself going fuzzy at the edges, and the more I drank, the better Theo looked. He was especially lovely tonight in his blue plaid shirt that matched his eyes completely, but no matter how lovely he was, I still couldn’t tear my mind away from the candle that glinted beside me like an annoying fly.

  He’d looked at the candle at least twice now.

  He spoke as he ate his food, the conversation coming easily to him, but I didn’t hear a word he said.

  What the hell was I thinking, putting out a candle for a boy I had known for barely ten minutes?

  Did I actually like him and I’d just not realised it?

  ‘… and then the hooker and I took the frying pan full of blancmange and left it as an offering to Willem Dafoe, in hopes that he’d bless our autumn harvest,’ he said, instantly breaking my internal chastisement to ask myself if I’d just heard what I thought I had.

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘Great, you’re listening now.’ He looked up and smiled with his eyes, but I could see that he was a little annoyed that I’d clearly been ignoring him. ‘It’s the candle, isn’t it?’

  ‘Huh?’ I replied too quickly. ‘Candle, what candle?’

  ‘The candle, you keep staring at it.’

  ‘I know I do. Just ignore it.’

  ‘Why? You clearly can’t.’ He pushed his empty bowl to the side and I felt grateful that he’d managed to force the food down. It wasn’t my finest culinary moment.

  ‘I just didn’t want you to think that the candle made it a date.’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t think that,’ he replied. ‘Literally all you’ve said since I arrived is that this is not a date.’

  ‘Sorry. I just … I’m not used to dating or even just used to other people anymore,’ I said, drinking the wine down like it was an antidote to my social awkwardness. ‘I’m thinking of taking a vow of celibacy.’

  ‘Well,’ he sighed, a smile creeping onto his lips, causing dimples to form in his cheeks, ‘I can’t lie, I’m a little disappointed that you seem so reluctant to give me a shot. But if you change your mind then by all means show me to your room and let’s get down to it. But I must warn you, you may not be able to look your parents in the eye tomorrow. I’m a bit of a screamer.’

  A laugh caught me by surprise and a fine spray of red wine flew from my nostrils, dappling the tablecloth with pink dots. The wine trickled down my chin and chest before bleeding into the knit of my jumper. I went to dab it away with the tablecloth, managing to upturn my bowl into my lap, tomato sauce seeping into my groin.

  ‘You see? This is what I mean. I’m not fit to be around other humans, let alone date them,’ I said with embarrassment.

  ‘Good job this isn’t a date then.’

  Theo washed up as he prattled on about something to do with a boxing match he’d watched the night before and how he’d lost twenty quid betting on it. I only half listened as I wondered what the hell he was doing here. Didn’t he have someone more interesting to talk to, someone prettier to hang around with? Did he have literally nothing else to do?

  ‘Hey, is that a treehouse?’ he asked, staring out the window.

  ‘It is,’ I said, my tongue feeling too large in my mouth, like the words couldn’t fit.

  ‘Do you still use it?’

  ‘Nope,’ I replied, finishing the last of my wine and looking around for the next bottle.

  ‘Why not?’ He sounded disappointed.

  ‘Because I had to grow up sometime.’

  ‘Effie, no one is too old for a treehouse. Let’s go, it’ll be fun.’

  I stood and walked to the window, my legs feeling a little wine-softened. I joined him by the sink and looked down the path at the simple wooden structure sitting in the tree at the end of the garden. ‘I don’t even know if it’s still structurally sound. We could both end up in A&E,’ I replied. I turned to look at him and found him already looking at me; his eyes soft and a gentle smile on his lips. It caught me off guard and made me inhale sharply. He didn’t miss this and his smile grew.

  ‘Come on, Effie. Live a little.’ He nudged me with his elbow and dried his hands on a tea towel. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather take a trip to A&E with.’

  Chapter Six

  I went and changed my jeans for a pair with less tomato sauce in the crotch, before grabbing more wine and a blanket and heading out into the dark garden. We pulled our jackets tight against the cold and walked down the long path to the tall sycamore that stood at the end, housing my childhood treehouse in its branches.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you had your own place,’ he said with mock awe in his voice as he looked up into the tree.

  I was drunk by now and I could feel my guard slipping, letting the weirdness come through. ‘I moved in when I was five with my, then, husband. He’s a famous fireman. I don’t know if you know him – his name’s Sam.’

  ‘It rings a bell, yeah.’ He chuckled.

  ‘He got custody of the kids though, after my stint in rehab for playdough abuse.’

  ‘I haven’t had a good hit of playdough in years.’ He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose with feigned desperation.

  ‘I’d offer to score you some, but I’ve been clean for six months now.’ I smiled.

  Arthur often let me babble and joke, without ever paying much mind to what I was saying, but Theo was different; he was listening and, more miraculous still, laughing.

  The ladder was old and eroded but looked like it could hold us and so, with rapidly evaporating common sense, we climbed the ten foot of rusted metal to a platform that hadn’t held any weight since I’d spent the night after prom sleeping in there because I forgot my keys. I clutched our second bottle of wine in my hand – we didn’t bother with the glasses this time – and Theo tucked the blanket under his arm as he climbed.

  I hadn’t been up in so long that I’d almost forgotten what it looked like. There were three walls and an open front that looked back towards the house and a roof that hung with dusty curtains of spider webs and dried old leaves.

  This had been my sanctuary, my place, until I’d felt like I was too old for such things and let it fall into ruin.

  The entirety of the floor, walls and ceiling had been painted with whatever had interested me at the varying stages of adolescence I’d been in at the time. Flowers and stars (from my naïve girly phase), skulls and emo lyrics (from my dark days), dragons silhouetted against the sky I’d painted on the ceiling and mermaids that combed their hair on the rocks (this had never been a phase; dragons and mermaids were a way of life not a passing fancy).

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked as he approached the back wall, shielding his face from the dust-covered dreamcatcher that I’d made from old straws and string. He ran his hand over the flaking paint, a flurry of paint chips falling like snow from his fingers.

  I walked over and felt a swell of warmth as I remembered my fifteen-year-old self sitting here with Kate, wishing our lives away.

  ‘My friend Kate and I made a list of the ten things we wanted to do before we finished school.’ Seven of the missions had been crossed out in dripping red paint when they’d been completed.

  The list had been pretty generic: Travel the world (that
one had been left unchecked, for me anyway – unless annually disappointing holidays to Cornwall counted); Lose virginity (that one had been crossed out so violently after my tryst with Marcus Roe that it could barely be read); and Stay friends forever (HA!).

  The third one that remained unchecked was Marry Chad Michael Murray (neither of us had managed that one. I know, it’s shocking that we hadn’t managed to seduce a Noughties TV heartthrob, but at least we’d had high hopes for ourselves).

  ‘Were these your wishes or Kate’s?’ he asked as we took a seat on the floor and dangled our legs down into the void below.

  ‘Mostly Kate’s – a couple were mine and they seem to be the ones that aren’t checked off.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do yours?’ he asked, unscrewing the wine and handing it to me.

  ‘Well,’ I began, sipping the wine mid-sentence, ‘travelling the world takes money, which I don’t have, and Chad never called back.’

  ‘Where did you want to travel?’

  ‘Anywhere. I’ve never been out of the UK.’

  ‘What, never?’

  I nodded and took another glug. ‘The curse of having parents with a static caravan in St Ives means that you tend to never go anywhere else.’

  I drank again. I’d already drunk too much; I was beginning to get head rush. That didn’t mean I was going to stop though.

  ‘You still friends with this Kate?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s difficult to answer. She used to be my best friend. Now she’s just …’ I didn’t quite know how to describe it. ‘We still meet up, once every few months, but I’m pretty sure she dislikes me as much as I dislike her.’

  ‘Why do you still bother?’ he asked, his shoulder brushing against mine and making me lose my train of thought for a moment.

  ‘Kate is the person who walks around with her head in the clouds and everything she wants falls into her path, and I am the friend who walks behind her, firmly caught in her shadow, who picks up the things that Kate tosses aside. I even dated her ex once and then it turned out that he’d only gone out with me to get close with Kate again.’ I looked down at my hands when I remembered Timothy Prescott and how he’d only ever touched me when Kate was around. I told Theo about her promotion and Canada and the dazzling engagement ring. ‘She’s stunningly beautiful and has this amazing job where she gets to wear one of those floaty blouses and handles meetings. She has this perfect fiancé who looks like he’s fallen out of a fragrance advert and she’s so blissfully happy that it makes you feel nauseous to even be near her.’