Oh God, how I missed that smile. How I hated that smile. How I hated that I missed that smile.
I closed my eyes and lifted my mug of too sweet, too cold tea to my lips.
Joy faffed at the stove, preparing some sort of beef-based casserole to eat that evening, while I sat at the table. I glanced up at the clock: 11.45 a.m. Too early. I lived for the night now, like a fox or a vigilante, I had become nocturnal.
I closed my eyes again and drank more tea. It tasted like metal.
I heard her sigh and slam the oven door with more ferocity than was necessary and I knew what was coming next.
‘Effie, it’s almost midday. Go and get changed – you’ve been wearing those PJs for days. They’ll stand up all by themselves if you don’t wash them soon.’
I opened my eyes and looked at her as she walked over and sat in the chair opposite, her best mum face on.
‘What’s the point? I’m not going anywhere and no one is coming here to see me.’ I could see that my melancholia was starting to annoy her; it was starting to annoy me too.
‘Because! You’re not a hobo, you’re my daughter.’
‘The only difference between me and a hobo is that you haven’t kicked me out yet. If you did, I’d be one in seconds.’
She sighed loudly and tilted her head. ‘Effie, this has to stop. I know something happened with Lovely Theo, even though you won’t tell me what. But whatever it is, you just need to pick yourself up and get on with it.’
I looked up into her eyes, my face a mask of indifference. ‘What if I can’t get on with it?’
‘You just have to.’
‘Why can’t I just be miserable?’
‘Because that’s not what people do.’
‘That’s exactly what people do, all the time!’ I was shouting – I didn’t know why. ‘Other people are just better at hiding it than I am.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ She flung up her hands in frustration. ‘You’re almost twenty-nine years old. Nearly thirty and you’re living like a student.’ Her pupils had reduced to pinpricks, her cheeks turning red. ‘People are married with children at your age, Effie!’
I scowled, my blood beginning to bubble beneath my skin. ‘Well, I don’t want to get married. It’s an archaic trap to ensnare people into forced monogamy and I have plenty of time to have children before my ovaries shrivel up and die.’
‘Effie,’ she breathed my name like it pained her. I knew the tone well. ‘What are you doing with your life?’
I suddenly felt like my throat was blocked, blocked with anger, blocked with fear.
‘I don’t know! I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing!’ I could feel the control slipping.
‘Language!’ Joy slammed her hands down on the table, almost screaming the word.
I stood slowly, my eyes pinned to hers. ‘You know what, Mother? I am almost thirty years old, as you have so diligently reminded me, and my life is literally non-existent. I have no friends, I’ve just had my heart broken for the first time, I’m no longer on the verge of becoming an alcoholic, I am one, and now you’re shouting at me. So, if I want to fucking swear, I will fucking swear!’
Joy stood too, leaning forward over the table, our noses only inches apart. ‘Not under my roof you won’t.’
My breaths were ragged and fast. ‘Then fuck your roof.’ I moved, knocking my tea over by accident as I nudged the table with my hip.
‘Fine, then leave!’ she shouted after me.
‘I will!’ I cried when I reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Guess now I’m the hobo you always feared I would be.’ I ran up the stairs and into my room.
It didn’t feel like mine anymore. This room belonged to all the past versions of me, but not this Effie.
I grabbed a bag and stuffed in things I thought I might need. I changed into the first outfit I could find – jeans, boots and a grey jumper that didn’t seem to fit me well – and threw the bag over my shoulder. I pushed my now fully charged phone into my pocket and stormed down the stairs.
I walked straight through the kitchen and up into the treehouse without pause, grabbing my booze and my sleeping bag and turning to look at Theo’s letter, still lying where I’d flung it.
I snatched it up and stuffed it into my pocket before pushing the hefty movie book into my bag.
I was down and back in the house, storming my way through to the front door when she re-emerged, red-faced and arms crossed over her chest.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘As if you fucking care?’ I pulled on my coat and then I was gone, my teeth gritted against the scream sitting in my throat as I marched down the street.
My feet fell violently into step and soon began to ache with the ferocity with which my boots hit the pavement. I no longer had blood in my veins; it was simply fury that fuelled me.
As I entered town, I walked past the park where Theo and I had gone on our first date, where he’d made me buy him coffee when I clearly hadn’t wanted to go with him. Dick!
Not far from there was the diner, which I glimpsed down a crowded street lit by the festive glow of premature Christmas lights that for some reason were turned on all day.
I hated that diner. I’d hated it before I’d met Daz and before I’d run into Theo, but now I hated it with such vehemence that I wanted to storm in and burn the place to the ground. Shithole!
Why had he done this to me? I hadn’t asked for this, for him. All I’d wanted was to be left in the shitty life that I’d grown accustomed to, believing that nothing would get any better than what I knew. But then he’d come in and shown me that life could be better, could be good. Why had he done that if all he was going to do was abandon me? Wanker!
Hadn’t it all happened how it was supposed to? Hadn’t it all been perfect? We’d had the nondescript meet-cute and the perfect first kiss (after the drunken, violent one I’d planted on him at Kate’s party, of course). If we were in a romcom, then this would be the moment when he’d show up, his car screeching to the kerb as he desperately tried to apologise. But this was not a romcom, this was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions and I had never been a fan of Shakespeare.
I let my feet lead the way and they took me to work. I pushed the door open, the door hit the sofa, the sofa hit the shelves and several books scattered across the floor. The bell, which the door had hit with some velocity, dislodged itself and skittered across the ground before coming to rest against the counter. Thankfully there were no customers as I marched to the concealed stairway and climbed to the mezzanine balcony. I walked to a corner that I knew was the best place to hide and sat down with my back against the shelves filled with antique books.
I took Theo’s letter from my pocket and read it, reread it and then read it once more for good measure.
More than it actually was … We had a lot of fun … Maybe I’ll give you a call …
Hatred blossomed inside me so brightly that I thought I might explode.
Fun! Had that been all I was? Someone to while away the hours with. A girl to screw and then screw over?
I had been wrong before; this had been my most disastrous sexual encounter to date.
I thought of him and his stupid floppy blond hair and the way he flicked it out of his eyes with that stupid tilt of his head. I thought of those eyes and how they were so blue, too blue. Of that ridiculous smile and how much power it had. I hated all of it, every single thing.
Had it all been a show from the minute he saw the pathetic girl in her pathetic outfit, on a pathetic date with a pathetic boy?
I sniffed and smelled something familiar. Had I finally cracked or could I smell beer?
I looked down at the grey jumper I was wearing and realised that, in my haste, I’d put on the jumper that Tessa had lent me. I looked down at the asymmetric hem and the brown stain on the fabric from the spilled beer that we’d both lain in when Theo had fallen.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, steadying the raging breaths that were mak
ing me feel lightheaded. It was only then that I became aware of someone below in the shop. I opened my eyes to see Arthur retrieving the bell from the floor and looking around with confusion at the wake of devastation. He looked up and saw me, his face set in a grimace.
He thundered up the stairs and brandished the bell. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, barging in here like a bull and breaking my bell?’
I looked from the bell to Arthur’s disappointed face and back again before my own face crumpled and tears began to flow again. Next thing I knew, he was sitting down beside me and telling me that it was fine and that he could get a new bell. He asked me what was wrong and I told him, my tears soaking into his red and white flannel shirt as I recited the tale in wails and sobs, snorts and coughs. He read Theo’s letter and held me until I was all out of tears. At one point a customer came into the shop and Arthur called out for Toby, who emerged from the apartment above and served her. When the customer left, looking back at me over her shoulder with concern, Toby came up and sat on my other side, his arms joining the embrace. They were bookends holding me together as I cried. Lo and behold, there were still some tears left to fall.
They let me get it all out without saying anything or trying to make me stop; they both knew that I needed to let the tears roll. When my tear ducts dried up, I wiped the snot from my philtrum and sat back, their arms unwinding from around me. Toby took me by the shoulders and led me up into the flat above, placing me down on the sofa and making me some soup that was both scalding hot and delicious. I drank it down and then promptly fell asleep.
I dreamt of mountains and white clay birds.
I dreamt that I saw Theo and tried to slap him hard across the face, but my hands wouldn’t move – they were both in casts, casts that he’d put there when I’d tried to save him from falling.
I wished now that I’d just let him fall.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was four thirty in the morning when I found myself staring up at the ceiling above Arthur’s fold-out futon, the blue light of the muted nature documentary illuminating the IKEA light fitting. I wished that the wine had done its job of putting me to sleep. I’d woken at half eleven. The others were asleep and so I rummaged in the cupboard for something to take the edge off. I’d found a cheap bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and I’d drunk the whole thing, but it hadn’t been enough. One bottle was never enough.
I’d never been a fan of futons. To me you might as well chuck a load of broken glass and spanners into a pillowcase and sleep on that for all the comfort they brought. But beggars can’t be choosers; never had I found that saying to be more apt.
I lifted my phone to my face and let the too bright light sting my eyes. I lowered the brightness and opened the photograph again. I’d looked at it so often that I knew every detail. I could recall from memory the way a strand of my hair had been lifted by the breeze and lay across the frame like a russet crack in the lens. I could see without looking that the collar of Theo’s coat was folded under and trapped beneath the strap of his bag. I knew everything by heart and yet I kept going back, because I was searching for something. I was searching for the lie. Was it hidden in the tautness of his neck muscles as he leaned in? Was it in the arm that wrapped around me? Was it everywhere, subtly seeping out of him and polluting the whole image?
I opened a new text and let my thumbs fly across the screen, every word coming out with an extra f or a random q thrown in. I told him what a dick he was. How he’d broken my heart. How I hated every fibre of his being and wished more than I’d ever wished before that I could go back and remember to pick up my purse from that diner table, because then all he would be was a stranger who had been eating in the same diner I got dumped in. I let everything out, the message barely comprehensible when I’d finished, then I placed my thumb on the backspace key and let it all fall away.
The next weeks passed in a blur of slow motion, one minute seeming to speed by like a freight train and the next grinding to a halt. Arthur and Toby booked their tickets for their adventure and Arthur began packing his things into boxes for storage. I ran on autopilot for a while, serving customers, keeping myself busy with tidying the shop. I begrudgingly accepted the managerial position, purely because it would give me more to do to keep my mind away from beautiful blond betrayers. I even cooked Arthur a meal or two. I didn’t eat any of them but he assured me they were edible.
I hadn’t brought any make-up with me when I’d left home and so I’d been going au naturel. Usually the thought of baring my corpse-coloured face to the world would have made me shudder, but right now I didn’t give a shit.
On Monday I interviewed a few people for the job I would be trading for manager. I spoke to several people who I felt had the appropriate level of passive aggression to take over from me, but Arthur didn’t like any of them and so I was left without.
On Thursday Amy came in to get the new issue of Writer’s Inspiration and during a five-minute conversation at the till, Arthur offered Amy the job. I shrugged when he told me that she’d be starting on Monday and that I’d be the one who had to train her.
Amy arrived on Monday morning twenty minutes early and with an excited optimism that irked me from the moment she walked in and jingled the brand-new bell.
She lapped up my tutelage like I was some Grand Master of bookselling and, despite my overwhelming ennui, she stated that she thought we were going to be ‘great friends’.
On Tuesday morning I went home when I knew that everyone would be out and boxed up all of my things. I hadn’t spoken to Joy since our raging argument and I’d only spoken to Dad to tell him where I was staying. It was strange to see my entire life and everything that I had collected during my twenty-eight and a bit, years on this earth reduced to six large cardboard boxes sitting in the hall.
I took down the fairy lights hanging from the ceiling and stuffed them into a black bag, along with several photographs of me and Kate that I’d found in the bottom of a drawer. I took the stuffed green bear from the windowsill and pushed it into the box I was taking with me; I was not yet ready to relinquish all aspects of my childhood. I found the umbrella that Theo had bought for me at the juice bar and, without thinking, threw it into the bin bag.
I packed and disposed of things until the room was almost empty. The only thing left was the boxed manuscript under my bed. I pulled it out, my fingers touching it for the first time in an age, and I flipped off the lid, the words staring up at me with judgement.
I quickly replaced the lid and stood between the bin bag and the box. I leaned towards the bin bag, the novel almost falling inside before I pulled it out and placed it in the box instead.
When I was ready to leave, I called Arthur who brought his car and helped me load everything into the back. As I was getting the final box, I turned to find Elliot sitting on the bottom step, his accusing yellow eyes staring up at me. I leaned down and kissed his soft forehead.
I tried to think of something to say to him, something fitting and filled with sentimentality, not just to him but to the house I’d known my whole life. But I couldn’t think of anything and so, with a feeling of anxious sadness blooming in my chest, I picked up the final box, left my key beside the kettle and walked away.
I don’t remember the exact moment when my life began to suck.
Was it when I suddenly discovered that I was sitting alone in the school playground, eating a Babybel and chatting with whichever teacher was on playground duty? Or had it been when I’d thrown up on Marcus Roe, mid-coitus? I never was too sure.
However, I can pin down the moment when I realised my life sucked, but it had taken me a good long while to notice, arrogantly blundering through life without stopping to see how much of a loser I was.
It was around the time I finished uni and moved back home. Mum had a friend over, Julie Croft-Billstow.
Julie is one of those people who laugh at their own jokes while they’re still telling them and has that creped, Ronseal skin on her ch
est from years of neglecting sun lotion on her frequent holidays to her timeshare villa in Spain. Her hands are the parts that freak me out the most. They reminded me of the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt, wrinkled and bony beyond their years.
Mum had made them both tea and they were sitting in the garden with the sun beating down on them; shades on, heads lolling back to catch the rays, Julie’s chest crisping like the skin of a roast chicken.
The back door was open and so I quietly went to the fridge and tried to find something edible, but as I fumbled around trying to get a yoghurt out of a cardboard sleeve, I heard my name drift in from outside. I thought I’d blown it and would have to go out and make polite conversation while my pale redhead’s skin turned to ashes in the sunlight.
I stepped closer to the door, keeping myself hidden behind the curtain as I listened.
‘… at the job centre, but no one seems to want her,’ Mum said.
Julie sighed and adjusted her sunglasses. ‘She’s a little adrift these days, isn’t she? Shame. She could do so much if she just put her mind to it.’
‘Sometimes I wonder where her life is headed. She only went to uni to stall real life for three years and now that there’s no more stalling to be done she’s just stopped. And she’s so obsessed with this idea of being a writer. I want to be supportive but she has to realise at some point that it’s probably only ever going to be a pipe dream. It’s like she’s refusing to grow up and become part of the world.’ I heard the disappointment in my mother’s voice and I suddenly didn’t want the yoghurt anymore.
‘She’ll have to grow up soon. She can’t expect you to keep paying out for her.’ Julie sat up and placed her thousand-year-old hand on Joy’s arm. ‘You and William need your own space in your later years. You can’t let Effie hold you back.’
With that I walked away, leaving the yoghurt to turn to cheese on the counter in the June heat. I’d gone straight out to the job centre and asked the snotty little man on the front desk if there were any classes I could take, anything that could help me in any way. I had a reasonable number of qualifications from school and a degree in Sociology that was almost as useless as I was. After what I’d heard Joy say I was willing to take anything. I would happily scrub floors with my bare hands if it meant that I felt like less of a loser than I already did.
Very Nearly Normal Page 24