You Only Live Once

by Jess Vallance

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. I over-emphasised it. It sounded aggressive.

  ‘OK,’ she said again. ‘Right. OK. I’ll go then.’

  She hovered for a moment, obviously waiting for me to change my mind but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

  She left and I watched her go. I stared at her back, willing her to turn around but she didn’t.

  I was utterly alone.

  I got up and went over to the children’s play park. I sat on a swing. I’d stopped crying now. I felt numb. Hopeless and numb.

  ‘Jesus.’

  I looked up.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you for properly ages, what are you doing hanging round in here?’

  Til.

  ‘I – why have you been looking for me?’

  ‘Sarah messaged me. Said you’re having some kind of nervous breakdown in the park so I thought I should get up here and see what you’ve been up to now.’

  I didn’t say anything. She sat down on the swing beside me.

  ‘So what is it? What you been blubbing about?’

  ‘I haven’t.’ I didn’t even know why I was lying.

  ‘Not what Sarah said. And not what the state of your face says either, to be honest.’ She passed me a tissue. ‘Clean yourself up, girl.’

  I did as I was told.

  ‘I tried to tell them,’ I said. ‘About Carol. About her selling everything.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But they weren’t overcome with sympathy for the desperate wannabe widow?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No offence, Gracie, but I think your mates Vicky and Spiderman or whatever might be idiots.’

  I nodded and looked down at my hands.

  ‘And, like, also no offence, but you’ve not exactly been that great either, lately. Like, I know you wanted someone to do your list with or whatever but …’

  She trailed off. I just nodded again. She was right. I wasn’t that great.

  ‘I just … freaked out,’ I said quietly. ‘I just thought, I don’t know if I can do it. Keep ticking days off my calendar, planning every hour out according to how many pages I can read or essays I can write in one session with just a five-minute break to eat “brain food” and walk around the block to look forward to.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And you were getting so into your plumbing and even Ollie’s going back to college now and I felt like I was the only person in the world who could see sense, and, like, Vicky and Spider were sent to me, like some kind of sign … and I don’t know. I just didn’t want to think. About anything. I just wanted to do. I wanted to live. Just for the very moment.’

  ‘I know. I know you did. It’s all you’ve been banging on about for weeks.’ She said it with a grin and so I smiled too. ‘Thing is though, Gracie. Yeah, you want to live for the moment. I get that. But then at some point, the future will be the moment. The future will become the present. The future present.’

  ‘Sounds like something we have to learn in French.’

  ‘I just mean –’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I sighed. ‘I can’t escape the future by pretending it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Nah. It’s more like … you can do both. You have to live for the present and the future.’

  ‘Great,’ I said miserably. ‘Easy. Why not bring some Victorian bonnets along for the ride and we can try to live for the past too, go for a totally unachievable triumvirate?’

  ‘It’s like a balance, isn’t it? Why do you have to be so extreme, man? Can’t you do a bit of study and a bit of bungee jumping or whatever? A bit of now, a bit of future. Why is it all-or-nothing?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly. ‘I got carried away.’

  ‘You know the other thing though, Gracie – there’s living for the moment and there’s having fun … and then there’s just being an idiot. Like a mean idiot, actually.’

  I sighed. Til certainly knew how to kick a person when they were down.

  ‘I’m sorry, man, but cruel to be kind and all that. You can have fun without ditching your mates. You can have fun without being an a-hole to your mum. You can have fun without ripping off old ladies with mental health issues.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you know what else? You can have fun without caring so much about what strangers on the internet think of you too.’

  I nodded again.

  Then I took out my phone. I typed something out. I hit Tweet.

  Til looked at me questioningly, and took out her own phone. ‘“I, Grace Dart, am a massive twat”,’ she read aloud. ‘Awesome.’ She laughed. ‘Oh, look a retweet already. Your people clearly agree.’

  I smiled.

  ‘It was also to do with my nan, you know,’ I said. ‘Her letter at her funeral. I kept thinking it was like it was what she wanted me to do.’

  ‘Oh, yeah course,’ Til said, nodding seriously. ‘I forgot about the bit in her letter where she told you to ditch your best mate and to saddle yourself to some pointless hippies. Let me just check where she said that …’

  ‘I don’t mean –’ I started, but I stopped when I saw Til take a sheet of paper out of her bag and unfold it. ‘Is that it there? Is that Nan’s letter?’

  Til nodded and handed me the piece of paper.

  ‘Why do you have it?’

  Til shrugged. ‘Got a copy off the celebrant. I just liked it. I keep it with me. I look at it sometimes.’

  The thought of grumpy, sarcastic, cynical Til doing something as sentimental as carrying around the deathbed advice of my rude, curmudgeonly, funny nan made me feel emotional all over again.

  I read over the letter. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of asking for a copy myself.

  ‘Good old Nan,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Good old Hairy-Face Man,’ Til agreed.

  We both laughed.

  ‘You know one thing you haven’t completely blown?’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘Just one,’ Til confirmed. ‘But a good one. Sarah. She still asks about you.’

  ‘Really?’ Even hearing her name still made me feel funny.

  Til nodded. ‘You should talk to her.’

  I sighed. ‘There are probably a lot of things I should do.’

  PART 9

  During which I make a new, altogether more important, list and begin work on it at once

  A New List

  It had been eighteen hours since Til had found me on the swings in Queen’s Park. I folded my new list and put it into my pocket. It was time to put it into action.

  The first thing was the one I was least looking forward to, but it was also one of the most important. It was something I had to do before I did anything else:

  1. Tell Carol Gunn the truth

  As I stood outside her house on Mill Close I saw that already the front garden was sparser that it had been the day before.

  The pots of hydrangeas along the front wall had gone. The blind from the front window had gone. The little blue plaque bearing her house number had gone. This woman really was selling off everything.

  I had no idea how she planned to live once she’d raised her money to give to Vicky. She couldn’t sleep on the bare floorboards, could she? Drink out of an old margarine tub? I was worried she hadn’t really thought this through. Perhaps that was why I was there.

  She recognised me as soon as she opened the door.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘Has something come through, a message?’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s nothing like that. Can I come in?’

  I didn’t want to go in at all really – partly because I didn’t want to be trapped on the inside while I had to confess to a potentially unhinged woman that I’d played a central role in defrauding her during a difficult time in her life, but also because I didn’t want to see the devastation of her home in full-colour detail. But it seemed the right thing to do, if I was g
oing to do this properly.

  ‘It is about Madame Violet … about Vicky, but it’s not what you think.’

  She frowned and rubbed her head. Then she sat down in a plastic garden chair, now the only item of furniture in her living room.

  ‘Who’s Vicky?’

  So I told her. I tried to justify it, how it had started off as a bit of fun, and a way to make some harmless extra money.

  ‘We didn’t think people really believed in that stuff,’ I said before immediately realising this was the worst thing I could have said.

  I suppose I thought she’d be furious and indignant. I suppose I was thinking of her as a person who had been charged for a service by someone who had no intention of delivering it. I was thinking of her as a disgruntled customer. But of course, that wasn’t how it was really. She hadn’t been conned into paying for a luxury holiday apartment only to find herself crammed into a studio overlooking a building site. This went deeper than that.

  She started crying. Not huge wailing sobs, just silent tears running down her cheeks. I almost couldn’t look.

  ‘I’ve been such a fool,’ she said quietly.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault. It was us. Vicky.’

  ‘He’s not even dead, is he. He just doesn’t want me any more.’

  She cried some more, and I put my hand on hers. I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do but she didn’t move away, so we stayed like that for a while.

  I stood up. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

  ‘You can have your money back, obviously.’ I reached into my pocket and put the cheque she’d given us on the floor, as there was nowhere else to leave it. I was also still carrying around some of our other takings, around sixty pounds in cash, so I left that there too. Compensation, I suppose.

  And then I left.

  2. Talk to Sarah

  I hadn’t been inside the library since the day I’d told Sarah I had the tickets I didn’t actually have, but I still had her shift pattern committed to memory, so unless things had changed, I knew she’d be there.

  I couldn’t see her anywhere at first, and so I panicked. It had been weeks after all. Maybe things had changed. Maybe her shift pattern was different or maybe she’d left the library altogether to focus on her A levels and then maybe she’d moved away from Brighton altogether and I would never see her aga—

  ‘Oh, hey, Grace.’ She appeared next to me. She was wearing a badge on a cord round her neck with her photo and name on it. She saw me looking. ‘New security thing,’ she explained.

  I nodded.

  ‘Everything OK now?’ she said carefully. ‘You OK, I mean?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, cringing at the thought of how mad I must’ve looked sobbing alone under a tree in Queen’s Park. ‘Sorry, bad day … or something.’

  She just nodded and gave me a tight smile. She was being guarded, I could tell. She would be polite to me but no more than that. She headed over towards the Media Centre pushing her trolley of books.

  ‘I just wanted to say …’ I called after her.

  She stopped and turned around. What did I want to say? I suddenly wasn’t sure.

  ‘I’m not with her. Vicky. The Australian.’

  Sarah just looked at me.

  ‘She’s not even nice. I think she’s weird, maybe, actually. So I mean, we’re not friends any more, even. We broke up. As friends I mean! That’s all.’

  Sarah scrunched up her nose and put her head on one side. Then she shrugged. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Thanks for … keeping me updated, I guess?’

  She carried on across the library. I followed her again. This was going terribly.

  ‘Look, Sarah. I’m sorry. I’ve been an idiot. Til told me that’s how I’ve been. Not that I needed to be told because I had actually worked it out for myself but I’m still sorry about it. I think I just had a crisis. Or a meltdown or something. I went mad from revision.’

  Sarah laughed, and started looking at labels on the spines of the books. ‘I can understand that.’

  I nodded. ‘So if you wanted to, like, do something? Again? Maybe I could actually get tickets to … whatever this time.’

  Sarah nodded slowly. ‘OK. Sure. Maybe. Probably. I’ll text you.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. I breathed out. ‘OK.’

  I think that was the best I could do for now.

  Onwards.

  3. Make it up to Til

  Podrick’s Hardware Store was on the way to Til’s flat. I hadn’t been there for years, since I was a little kid, when Ollie and I would use brooms as light sabres while Mum browsed the bathroom sealants.

  I stood in the plumbing section and scanned the array of plastic pipes and putties and nuts and chains.

  ‘Can I help you there?’ a middle-aged man in a blue Podrick’s T-shirt said.

  ‘Um … maybe. If you were training to be a plumber and you wanted a really nice tool, like something special, what would be good?’

  The man thought for a moment. ‘A special plumbing tool, eh? Present for Dad, is it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  He reached up and took something from a high shelf.

  ‘This is pretty snazzy,’ he said. ‘It’s a basin wrench but it’s more than just a basin wrench. You can do the whole lot with that – fit TRV valves, basin nuts, balance your radiators. And it’s nickel plated, too.’

  I looked at the strange-shaped smooth metal object. ‘It sounds wonderful,’ I told the man. It certainly looked shiny anyway.

  ‘What is it?’ Til said when I handed her the bag and she pulled out the tool.

  ‘A basin wrench,’ I explained. ‘You can fit TRV valves and do basin nuts and balance radiators. It’s nickel plated.’

  ‘Do what to basin nuts?’

  ‘Um, not sure. Whatever you do to nuts?’

  Til laughed. ‘OK. Cool. It’s great, I think. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. So, thanks, obviously. Thanks for getting it for me.’

  I shrugged. ‘That’s OK. It’s to say sorry. About, you know …’

  ‘Being a twat.’

  ‘Yeah. That.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Over it, to be honest.’

  ‘Cool. So we’re, like, friends again?’

  Til rolled her eyes and flopped down on her bed. ‘Jesus, are you eight?’

  But she was smiling.

  4. Apologise to Mum and Dad

  ‘You’ve been quiet, love. This morning, and yesterday.’ Mum was using a teaspoon to chip away at the melted cheese on the bottom of the grill. I was boiling the kettle and staring at nothing.

  ‘I’ve been having an existential crisis.’

  Mum pulled her head out of the grill and looked at me. ‘Oh goodness!’ she said. ‘This morning?’

  I shook my head. ‘All summer. Since we got back from Spain.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ Mum said, frowning.

  ‘It’s why I’ve been … difficult,’ I said.

  Mum just nodded. I noticed she didn’t jump to disagree.

  ‘In fact, where’s Dad? I want to do this properly.’

  ‘He’s making the bed. Shall I call him? Do what properly? Do you have another announcement? Is it a girl?’

  ‘No, it’s not a girl! But yes, get Dad. And Ollie too. I want to call a family meeting.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Mum said again, putting down the teaspoon. ‘How official. Paddy?’

  I nodded and took a seat at the head of the kitchen table. ‘Yes, yes. Paddy too. And Dick and Big Dick and anyone else who wants to come.’

  A few minutes later my parents and brothers were sitting around the table. Paddy had duly brought both Dick and Big Dick along. He had painted Big Dick’s mouth with Mum’s red lipstick in honour of the occasion.

  Ollie had a notepad in front of him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said.

  ‘Taking minutes,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a meeting, isn’t it? This is how you have a meeti
ng. Actually, wait.’ He got up and put four chocolate digestives on a plate in the middle of the table. ‘You always have biscuits at a meeting. On a plate, not in a packet.’

  ‘Only four though?’ Dad said. ‘Seems a bit mean. Especially when there are five of us.’

  Ollie shrugged. ‘No one eats the biscuits though. That’s not the point. Everyone just looks at them.’

  ‘Right, yes. Anyway –’ I began.

  ‘Is there an agenda?’ Ollie said. ‘It’s important to have clear objectives for a meeting so that we don’t drift off topic.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘You’re drifting off topic. Shut up.’

  Ollie pulled a face of mock innocence. ‘Oh. So sorry. What is the topic?’

  ‘The topic is my apology.’

  ‘Apology for what?’ Dad said, reaching for a biscuit. ‘Sorry, Ol. I’m going to eat one. I know it’s against protocol but I’m a growing boy.’

  ‘Apology for my existential crisis and resultant poor form.’

  ‘Yeah, you have been a total pain in the bum,’ Ollie said.

  ‘Bum,’ Paddy whispered to Big Dick.

  ‘Yeah, all right. Fine,’ I said. ‘But I was just trying to … I don’t know. I got worried. About life and death and doing the right things and having fun.’

  ‘Deep,’ Ollie said.

  ‘Quite,’ Mum said. ‘No wonder you’ve been feeling out of sorts with all that on your mind.’

  I sighed. ‘I just don’t think I want to go back to school. I literally cannot bear the idea.’

  ‘Right,’ Mum said. ‘Right, OK. Well, OK. So don’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re sixteen. You don’t have to go back to school, necessarily. You have to do something, but there are other options.’

  ‘But, you always said … you said work hard at school and do my best and … all of that stuff.’

  Mum nodded and reached for a biscuit. ‘Well, yes. We want you to reach your potential and have options but we didn’t want to give you an existential crisis. I don’t think we’ve ever put pressure on you. Have we?’

  I thought about this. ‘No, I suppose not.’

  But I’d definitely felt the pressure. Where had it come from? Had I invented it? Had I let myself go mad, succumbing to an outside force that didn’t even exist?