You Only Live Once

by Jess Vallance

  ‘Why can’t she come?’ Vicky demanded.

  ‘She’s got school soon, hasn’t she,’ Spider said.

  ‘Oh,’ Vicky said, picking at her nails, looking bored by the very mention of the subject. ‘Yeah. That.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I repeated flatly. ‘That.’

  I got up and went over to the window. I stuck my head out and looked down at the street. There was an old woman walking a tiny Yorkshire terrier, pulling on his lead to try to stop him drinking water from the gutter. There were two men in their twenties snaking in and out of parked cars on skateboards. A woman came out of one of the flats opposite and dumped a big black rubbish bag in the communal bin. I didn’t know any of these people or anything about their lives but I felt all of them were freer than me. None of them would have to go back to school in a few weeks to spend hour after hour in an airless classroom trying to cram meaningless information into their brains.

  ‘Maybe I won’t go back,’ I said suddenly. ‘Maybe I’m done with all that.’

  Spider chuckled gently and Vicky just nodded and said, ‘Uh huh,’ as she flicked through the TV channels.

  They weren’t taking me seriously, and I don’t think I’d even said it seriously, but just for a moment, I let myself run with the thought. What if I didn’t go back to school? What if I really was done with that, with all of it?

  I didn’t really trust this idea though. I still felt that maybe the whole summer had been a bubble, that I was having some kind of psychological reaction to the stress of my exams and that when I’d finished blowing off steam, I’d snap out of it. Or that Til was right and I was having an early mid-life crisis. I wasn’t sure it was going to last. I was still hoping that something miraculous would happen in the next few weeks and somehow the idea of going back to school would seem bearable.

  It was only because of Dad’s inheritance money that I ended up saying anything at all.

  It was just before dinner that evening. Dad was peeling potatoes and I went into the kitchen to get a drink.

  ‘I heard from the solicitor today,’ Dad said

  ‘What solicitor?’

  ‘The one dealing with your nan’s estate.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’ I paused and sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘She left me some money,’ Dad said. ‘Well, all of us really. For the family.’

  ‘How much?’ seemed like the obvious question but I didn’t want to appear cold, so I just said, ‘Right. OK.’

  ‘Nearly twenty grand,’ Dad said anyway.

  ‘Twenty thousand pounds?’

  Dad nodded and turned to look at me, grabbing a tea towel from the radiator and drying his hands on it. ‘Yeah, could make quite a difference.’

  I nodded.

  Twenty thousand pounds.

  Already in my head I had images of a safari or a Caribbean cruise or even something wild, like trekking in Peru. Maybe Mum and Dad would just jack in their jobs and we’d head off, like one of those gap-year families. This would be the perfect excuse not to go back to school.

  ‘So, what … what are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Well …’ Dad came and joined me at the table. ‘Mum and I were talking and we wondered if we should keep some of it to help with your university costs, but to be honest, we’ve been saving for that since you were born so we’re probably covered. So then we were thinking, you’re going to be really up against it work-wise next year and the year after, and maybe for the few years after that – university, of course, but then maybe you’ll want to do a Masters too – so we thought we could extend into the loft, move Paddy’s room up there, then you could have his little room as a study? Somewhere to keep all your books and notes, a decent desk. Maybe a whiteboard on one wall for lists and timetables and whatever. A proper little base. What do you think?’

  Dad was grinning at me like he was painting an image of paradise and offering it to me on a plate. And to be fair, there was a time when that’s exactly how I would have seen it.

  Not now though.

  Now, all I was hearing was that:

  My parents – like everyone else, probably – had written off the next five, seven, ten years of my life to study and revision.

  People thought that my idea of the perfect treat was to be given a tiny box room lined with textbooks to while away hour after pointless hour.

  The reasonable, calm side of my brain knew that Mum and Dad had conjured up this proposal to be thoughtful and helpful and because they thought it was something I’d genuinely like, but the unreasonable, frustrated, furious side of me cancelled all that out.

  All that side of me had to say about this plan was:

  ‘I can think of literally no worse way to spend that money.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dad said, taken aback. ‘OK.’

  At that point, Mum came in.

  ‘Not a lot of enthusiasm for the study plan,’ Dad told her quietly.

  ‘No?’ Mum said, frowning, joining us at the table.

  ‘I don’t want a stupid study!’ I shouted. At the same time I swiped over a bar stool, sending it crashing to the floor. My voice was going – cracking – like I was going to cry. I never lost it like that. Never. I had no idea what had happened to me.

  They both just looked at me, blinking.

  Then Mum frowned. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you these last few weeks, Grace, but you’ve not been very nice.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said, standing up so hard my chair fell over. ‘I’m sorry if it would be easier for you if I spent the next ten years sitting at my desk being good and quiet at writing pointless essays and getting pointless grades in pointless exams. But maybe I actually want to do some stuff!’

  I could see Mum getting ready to lose her temper with me, but Dad put his hand on her arm.

  ‘It’s OK to be a bit worried about A levels, love,’ he said calmly. ‘It will be a big change, but you’ll get into the swing of it, just like you always do.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to get into the swing of it,’ I said, quieter now. I didn’t feel so angry suddenly, just miserable.

  ‘No pain, no gain,’ Mum said.

  ‘But what gain?’ I protested. ‘All I gain by doing exams is the chance to do more exams that are really boring and then get a job that is really boring and be bored and fed up for the whole rest of my life!’

  At this point, Ollie skulked into the kitchen and flicked the kettle on.

  ‘So you’ve just worked out that life’s all boring then?’ he said with a yawn.

  Dad shot him a sharp look.

  ‘Not helpful, Oliver,’ Mum said.

  ‘He’s right, though,’ I said, leaning back against the wall and rubbing my eyes. ‘It is.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Mum said. ‘It’s just hard work. But you get out what you put in.’

  ‘But that’s not even true! That’s just what they tell you to make you keep working, like one day it will pay off. But when? When will it? When you’re retired and practically dead? If I work hard all my life I can have a high-class coffin lined with gold silk? Fantastic. Brilliant. Great.’

  Dad sighed. ‘But that’s the way the game works, Gracie. You work hard, you get paid, you live. No one’s going to pay you to run around with your new hippy friends. Who, by the way, are clearly responsible for this sudden change in attitude.’

  ‘They’re not hippies. What does that even mean? They just know how to live. And they know how to make money.’

  ‘By busking?’ Ollie said, with his eyebrow raised.

  ‘No, not busking,’ I said, sighing.

  And then I sat back down at the table and told them about Madame Violet Verano, and how we were offering people hope and comfort and in return we were making some good money.

  When I’d finished, Ollie chuckled and shook his head. ‘Fraud,’ he said. ‘Excellent.’

  ‘It certainly isn’t excellent,’ Mum said sharply. ‘But it is fraud, Grace. What do you think you’re playing at?’

  I look
ed around at them all, Mum and Dad looking at me, mild frowns on their faces. Ollie slouching there in the same filthy pyjama bottoms he always wore. I felt like they were crushing me, trying to squash me into a box, to make me be like them. To make me be the unremarkable, predictable good girl I’d always been, to make life nice and easy for them.

  Why were they trying to make me be like them? With their jobs in offices pushing bits of paper around? I didn’t even know what they did all day so I was pretty sure it couldn’t be changing the world.

  What was the point of it all? Doing what you’re supposed to doesn’t get you anywhere. It just got you out of the way so the people with the smart ideas and the motivation and the bravery could get on and have some fun. I didn’t want to be one of the pushed-out-of-the-way ones. I wanted to have the ideas. I wanted to make money and travel around Europe on the train and do all the other stuff on our list.

  I rattled through this rant entirely in my own head.

  What I said on the outside was:

  ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Where now?’ Mum said.

  I didn’t answer. I just took my jacket from the hook on the back of the door and left.

  Business Trouble

  I continued to rant in my own head for the whole thirty-five-minute walk to Vicky and Spider’s flat.

  I was so riled up by the time I arrived that I had to vent immediately, telling them how my parents’ idea of a good way to spend a life-changing sum of money was to turn a box room into a study, how they were so uptight and brainwashed by convention that not only were they happy with their own tiny lives, they were trying to do everything in their power to make sure I followed in their boring footsteps.

  It has to be said that Vicky and Spider weren’t as ruffled by my argument with my parents as I was.

  Vicky was lying across the sofa with her feet on the armrest, still in her Madame Violet dress, but without her headscarf this time. Her make-up was smudged around her eyes, making her look somewhere between drunk and distraught. Spider was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, tearing an old pizza menu into little pieces, rolling them into balls and trying to throw them into an empty pint glass by the wall.

  ‘Sorry, Gracie,’ he said glumly. ‘Sorry about your parents and everything. We’ve just got a few problems of our own right now.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Number one,’ Vicky said, swinging her legs off the sofa and sitting upright. ‘Spider’s old uncle has turned out to be a right tight git and number two – related – we’re skint again.’

  ‘How do you mean? We’re making loads of money.’

  Spider rested his head on his hand. ‘We were, until business dried up.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Vicky confirmed. ‘Not a single new customer lined up. And now Spider’s uncle has decided we have to pay rent on this place!’

  ‘It’s not much, to be fair,’ Spider said. ‘And he needs it to pay for his nurse.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Vicky said. ‘Still sucks for us.’

  ‘But how can we have no customers?’ I said. ‘There were so many?’

  Vicky just shrugged and slumped down next to me on the sofa.

  This was exactly the opposite of what I’d wanted to find when I’d stormed out of home and headed over here. I’d been so fired up, so sure that Mum and Dad were wrong and I was right and that I would show them how I could make my own way in the world, make up my own rules, and still be successful. I felt deflated. Actually, I felt silly.

  Spider put some bassy electronic music on the stereo and Vicky lay on the sofa with her head hanging over the arm.

  I wanted one of them to say something. I wanted someone to suggest how we could get more customers or come up with a new, ingenious, fun business plan to pay for our list of adventures, or even just for one of them to say, ‘Beach?’

  But they didn’t.

  We all just sat there, the relentless beat of the music the only sound in the lounge. Spider finished turning the pizza menu into balls and started on an old bus ticket.

  Then, at about nine o’ clock, the flat’s door buzzer sounded.

  ‘You get it,’ Spider said to me.

  ‘You get it,’ I said to him.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Vicky said with a sigh.

  I heard her trudge down the stairs, swearing as she stumbled over Spider’s trainers on the bottom step. Then I heard voices – Vicky’s obviously, and then another female voice – but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. A few minutes later Vicky came back up. In fact, she practically bounded.

  ‘Look. At. This,’ she said, holding out a small slip of paper.

  I took it from her. It was a cheque. For a hundred pounds.

  ‘Mrs C Gunn,’ I read aloud. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘The old sheila at the door!’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘She wants – get this – ten sessions with Madame Violet. Ten! And what’s ten times fifty, Spidey? Let me hear you say the words!’

  ‘Five hundred,’ Spider said, reaching for the cheque to see it for himself.

  ‘You bet it is!’ Vicky cried. ‘Five hundred big ones!’

  ‘Ten sessions,’ Spider said, crinkling his nose and shaking his head. ‘Why?’

  Vicky shrugged and went over to the mirror and started rubbing at her smudged make-up with her sleeve. ‘Dead husband. It’s been six months and she can’t stop thinking about him. Last conversation they had was a row or something; she needs closure. Needs to know he’s not angry. Blah blah blah. All mad, obviously.’

  ‘Sounds sad,’ Spider said.

  I thought it did too, really.

  ‘Yeah, I guess,’ Vicky said. ‘But remember, all I have to do is say the right thing and we send the old girl away happy. Plus, five hundred pounds, guys! That’s like … a lot of money.’ She turned around and grinned at us.

  Spider nodded but he still looked sad. He sighed. ‘I guess you’re right.’

  Mrs C Gunn

  Mrs C Gunn’s first appointment with Madame Violet was the following day at noon so, naturally, I was instructed to be at the flat to fulfil my usual role of assistant and welcomer.

  I was almost late for my shift because as I was striding down the hill I bumped into William again, outside the Age Awareness IT centre.

  He was clutching more handwritten letters on his lined notepaper.

  ‘Hello!’ he greeted me brightly. ‘More letters, you see.’ He waved the papers.

  I smiled encouragingly. ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Well, good luck.’

  I ducked to the side, ready to continue my journey.

  ‘They still need people,’ he said. ‘To help out. My friend Valerie – I met her here – she’s even worse than me. And she doesn’t come any more, she’s given up. Says computers are too hard. Such a shame! No one to help. You should do it, you know. You’d be so helpful, to old codgers like me.’

  I just smiled. ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ he said with a note of sadness in his voice. ‘Bye then.’

  I waved behind me as I jogged down the hill. I hoped I wouldn’t be the only person William spoke to today.

  I was just about on time to receive Mrs C Gunn for her first appointment at the flat.

  When the buzzer sounded and I went down to open the main front door, I found that Mrs C Gunn wasn’t really what I imagined.

  I’d been expecting a tiny doddery old lady, maybe with one of those plastic headscarves. Definitely with a stick of some sort. I suppose I’d assumed we’d be dealing with someone who wasn’t quite all there. Someone who’d witter on about nothing, who wouldn’t make much sense.

  Mrs C Gunn wasn’t like that at all.

  Vicky had called her some ‘old sheila’ but she wasn’t that old. Older than Mum and Dad but nowhere near as old as Nan had been. She was average in height. She was wearing a flowery blouse that wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I’d wear but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mum did. She didn’t ha
ve a headscarf and her hair wasn’t even set into a blueish curly perm. It was grey, but in a quite ordinary curly tousled bob. Everything about her seemed quite ordinary really. Not mad or strange or stupid at all.

  ‘Carol Gunn,’ she said, in a voice that was quiet and serious but not nervous. ‘I have an appointment at twelve, with … uh … “Madame Violet”.’ She said the name like she felt a bit silly about having to say it out loud. The way she looked around her before she stepped through the front door – as if she as checking no one was watching – made me wonder if she felt a bit silly about being here at all.

  As I led her up the stairs I did all my normal speech about Madame Violet being in her room, preparing herself ‘spiritually’ for her work. Carol didn’t say much. She made a few noises like ‘uh-huh’ and ‘mmm’ but the only actual words she said were:

  ‘I can’t believe it’s come to this.’

  Which said a lot about how desperate she was, I thought. I guessed this row she’d had with her husband must’ve been a big one.

  I showed her into the bedroom, then I took a seat on the sofa and waited for her to emerge.

  When she did, fifteen minutes later, I started to show her out but she brushed me aside. She seemed distracted. Maybe even a little bit irritated. ‘I’m fine to see my own way, thank you. Fine.’

  She darted out the door before I could even give her my fake ‘spiritual health’ warnings about not doing anything emotionally demanding for the rest of the day or talking to anyone else about her private conversations with Madame Violet.

  Once she was safely out of the flat, I went into the bedroom. Vicky was sitting in her usual position, cross-legged at the round table on the bed.

  She looked shell-shocked.

  Difficult Customer

  My first instinct was – bizarrely – that somehow Vicky had actually made some kind of contact with Carol’s dead husband. That her acting of the role of medium was so effective that she’d genuinely tapped into the afterlife, and the spirit of this old man had started talking to her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, hovering in the doorway in case her head started spinning round or she began spewing green slime or something.