My Box-Shaped Heart

by Rachael Lucas

  ‘Do you remember winning him?’ I look at his grubby, lopsided bear face. He’s sat on the shelf in here since Lauren went: not mine, not hers – but ours. Neither of us wanted to claim him.

  ‘Yeah. Dad was with that woman from work. Do you remember, he was always taking us there that summer?’

  ‘And Mum was always here, working.’ I flick a glance in Lauren’s direction, looking over the top of the oversized teddy, which she’s now hugging, her arms wrapped tightly round him. It’s occurred to me before, but I wonder if she’s ever put two and two together . . .

  ‘That woman from work –’ Lauren sighs – ‘there’s been quite a lot of them in my life.’

  ‘Do you think she was . . . ?’

  ‘Oh God, yes.’

  ‘Poor Mum.’

  ‘Poor all of them, if you ask me.’ Lauren sits down on the edge of the bed and places Blue Teddy on top of her pillow. ‘I love him, because he’s my dad, but he’s . . .’

  I raise my eyebrows and say, cautiously, ‘A bit of a . . .’

  ‘Dick.’ Lauren says firmly.

  We both laugh. It’s nice, and it’s taken me by surprise. It’s as if Lauren’s two people in some ways. The brittle, designer-clothes, scary one at school, and the same person she used to be when she lets her guard down.

  ‘Nice to hear you two laughing,’ shouts Mum through the banister.

  I leave Lauren to get on with her unpacking. ‘Just shout if you need anything,’ I say over my shoulder, and head back down the stairs. My phone is burning a hole in my pocket. It’s buzzed three times while I’ve been up there, but I didn’t want to check it when she might see.

  ‘I’m looking forward to getting this cast off,’ says Mum.

  She’s become quite adept at managing her crutches, hanging her belongings in a little bag that hangs round her neck. She has a flask of coffee to keep her going, and I make sure she’s got whatever she needs before I go out anywhere. It’s been strange to feel so much freedom at a time when she’s been tied to the sofa. All the time before when she was able to get around – but didn’t – I felt like I couldn’t leave the house, terrified she might not be OK. But now it feels like breaking her ankle has been the start of her new life.

  ‘How long do you have to go?’

  ‘I’ve got the fracture clinic coming up,’ she says. ‘I’m hoping they’ll take this off and give me one of those walking boots.’

  ‘Is that like one of those grey space-boot thingies?’

  ‘You’re too young to know what a moon boot is!’ She laughs. ‘Yes – exactly that. If I get one of those, I can actually get out, and I’ve got so much stuff to get on with. I can’t wait.’

  She’s smiling again, and her face looks so much younger. Cressi came round and took her to the hairdresser, and now her hair is a bright shiny red. She’s even wearing make-up. And earrings. I haven’t seen her looking this much like her old self in so long.

  She lowers her voice to an almost-whisper.

  ‘Are you two girls going to be OK?’

  I flick a glance towards the door, half expecting Lauren to appear, summoned because we’re talking about her.

  ‘She seems nicer than I expected.’

  ‘She is nice,’ Mum says, laughing. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You don’t go to school with her.’ She wouldn’t understand.

  ‘No, but she’s still the same Lauren. She might not live with us, but she’s still part of our family.’

  ‘Like Neil is?’ I pull a face.

  Mum makes a strange sort of snorting noise. ‘Neil is a law unto his bloody self.’

  I mime counting out a wodge of notes. ‘Here you are, darlin’ – buy yourself something nice.’

  Mum snorts again, with laughter this time. ‘Exactly.’

  She pulls the laptop closer towards her and hitches it on to a cushion on her legs.

  ‘Do you want anything?’ I ask, balancing her crutches by the side of the sofa so they’re easy to reach.

  She shakes her head. ‘I’m fine. So, what are you up to this afternoon? Are you helping Lauren unpack?’

  ‘Not sure yet,’ I say. If she hadn’t broken her leg and I hadn’t spent all my time before that worrying about her, I might have tried to sort out a proper summer-holiday job besides the swimming, but the weeks stretch out ahead of me, and there’s nothing to fill them – well, nothing except –

  I pull my phone out of my back pocket and type in the code to unlock it. I’ve got it set so messages don’t even show on the screen . . . I’m not sure why. It’s not as if I’m hiding anything from anyone.

  Morning, beautiful!

  I put a hand to my mouth, hiding a smile. My heart leaps.

  ‘You OK, honey?’ Mum looks up.

  ‘Just a joke thing –’

  Hope it goes OK with the wicked stepsister. Let me know what’s happening.

  Are you around later? X I type, and hold the phone for a second, hoping he’ll reply.

  While I wait, I decide to scroll through my phone, half wondering if Lauren’s put up a snarky comment somewhere about having to spend half her summer holidays slumming it with us – but there’s nothing. Nobody really uses Facebook any more. Social media only really works if you’ve got a social group to communicate with in the first place and, as I’m at the bottom of the heap, there aren’t many people who’ve bothered to add me. I’ve got the friends who were on there from the end of primary school before everything changed, and a handful of distant relatives and cousins that live in Australia. But it’s pretty much tumbleweed for me. I could look up Ed, but . . . I realize I don’t even know his surname.

  Edward . . . I type it in the search box, and a sea of anonymous faces appears on the screen – not one of them is him –

  A message flashes across the screen.

  Got to go and do family stuff this evening.

  I feel a wave of disappointment for a second. All last week, Mum’s been thinking I’ve been working at the pool, helping out with the swim school. I have – some of the time – but that’s only in the mornings. The afternoons have been a blur of long walks in the woods, holding hands and talking and talking until we run out of words, and then kissing. I feel the same jolt of excitement running through me that I get every time we are together. It’s like discovering a whole new life was waiting for me. All I had to do was dive into the water of the pool and bump into him and . . . It’s not just the kissing. It’s not just the way his eyebrows knit together or the way his face lights up in that huge smile when I climb off the bus. I feel like we’re in that part of a film where it’s all kissing and holding hands and everything’s going right for once. And I think that’s it. Everything is going right for once, and I like it.

  Message me later then, I type.

  I will.

  Ed?

  There’s something about typing his name that makes me feel weird. Nice weird, not horrible. It feels like a secret.

  His reply is instant.

  Holly.

  What are you doing right now?

  Sitting on a plastic chair in the garden, throwing a half-chewed tennis ball for Meg. You?

  Wondering if I should check and see how Lauren’s doing with her unpacking:-/

  Uh-oh.

  She’s been quite . . . nice.

  Body snatchers?

  I laugh.

  Mum looks up from her laptop. ‘Is that Allie?’

  I shake my head.

  Got to go, Ed types. A wild mother approaches.

  I send a heart emoji and a kiss. Three hearts pop back, one by one:

  <3

  <3

  <3

  I smile at my phone and slip it back into the pocket of my jeans. And I think fleetingly about Ed’s mum, and I wonder when the subject’s going to come up again. It feels like we’ve both got this thing and neither of us want to talk about it.

  Lauren comes downstairs half an hour later. She perches on the edge of the chair under the window
and chews on the inside of her lip, her brows gathered.

  ‘I was thinking,’ Mum says, closing the laptop with a decisive slam, ‘that maybe we could do something nice for dinner later?’

  ‘Pizza?’ I say, thinking of the money Neil’s left us, and the emptiness of the cupboards. There’s a new place in town that delivers, so we’ve finally entered the twenty-first century.

  ‘Why don’t you girls make it?’

  Lauren looks at me as if she’s not sure how to react. I’m not sure what to do with this new, unsure version of her.

  ‘Homemade pizza?’

  ‘You used to love doing it when you were little.’

  ‘We never do anything like that,’ Lauren says. ‘Clare’s had a new kitchen fitted and she’s completely paranoid about it getting messed up.’

  ‘So you’ve got a kitchen that’s not for cooking in?’ I look at her, confused.

  ‘That pretty much sums up our house.’

  ‘Well, our kitchen’s not exactly modern, but it’s definitely designed for cooking. If I give you two some money, will you nip down to the shop?’

  We’ve got herbs and olive oil, but we head off with a list of ingredients. The little corner shop on the estate has pretty much everything under the sun.

  ‘Normal flour?’ Lauren holds up a red package.

  ‘Definitely not self-raising?’

  She turns it over, reading the label. ‘Definitely not.’

  I hold up a tin. ‘Shall we get pineapple?’

  Lauren pulls a disgusted face. ‘Pineapple on pizza is the work of the devil.’

  ‘Is not.’ I put the tin in the basket hanging over my arm.

  ‘Is too.’ She takes it out, teasing, and puts it back on the shelf.

  ‘It’s tropical.’

  ‘It’s rank, is what it is.’ Lauren reaches across me, retrieves the tin from the shelf, and plops it back on top of the other ingredients. ‘But if it makes you happy . . .’

  We exchange a grin.

  ‘Long time since we’ve seen the two of you in the shop,’ says Margaret behind the counter. She’s been there since the dawn of time, and knows everything and everyone. She’s like a bible of gossip.

  ‘Your da’ still shacked up with that lassie from his work?’

  Lauren nods.

  ‘How’s your mum’s ankle doing?’ Margaret tallies up the shopping on the till and takes the money from me.

  ‘Getting better,’ I say.

  ‘No’ seen her for what feels like months.’

  I hold out my hand, and she counts out the change, giving me a handful of pound coins.

  ‘Sorry, no fivers left.’ Margaret purses her lips. ‘Tell her I was asking after her.’

  ‘I will,’ I say.

  Lauren lifts one of the bags off the counter, and I take the other one.

  ‘That lassie from his work,’ she echoes, after the door closes behind us. ‘Her and a million others.’

  We wander back up the path between the backs of gardens. The creosote smell of hot fences fills the air, and the sounds of children having a water fight in one of the gardens makes us laugh. Lauren squeals and jumps out of the way as a jet of water shoots over the top of a gate.

  ‘D’you ever wonder what Fiona saw in him?’

  ‘Frequently.’

  ‘I mean he’s my dad and everything, but . . .’

  I pull a face that says, Yes, I know. It doesn’t feel right to be too horrible about Neil when he’s her dad, even if I personally think he’s a complete arsehole.

  ‘I think he’s a good example of what not to look for in a relationship.’

  Lauren laughs at that. ‘You mean you’re not after a sexist and totally unreconstructed 1980s throwback who genuinely thinks it’s OK to judge women out of ten for looks and shag around behind his partner’s back whilst spending all her money and living in her expensive house by the shore?’

  ‘Um . . .’ I say, as if I’m contemplating the possibility. ‘That would be a no. Definitely not.’

  ‘And that’s why I’m steering clear of the boys at our school.’ Lauren opens the back gate and holds it wide for me to pass through. ‘They’re all complete losers.’

  As we unpack the stuff and follow Mum’s instructions for making pizza dough, I watch Lauren unwinding a bit. Her hair’s come loose at the front where she had it pinned up in tiny flower clips, and it’s hanging down in her face. She’s got flour on her nose, and splashes of tomato sauce up the front of her T-shirt.

  Mum’s sitting on the dining chair watching us and directing operations, and it reminds me of being little and learning to bake fairy cakes. Mum taught herself how to cook and bake, and she’s really good at it, but for ages she’s hardly done anything. Of course, when the house was a complete tip, it was pretty hard to cook anything, because the surfaces that are now sparkling clean were scattered with a mountain range of piles of paper and boxes and things. It feels like a different house – or like it used to when we were younger, only without Neil. Calmer. His whole act (and it feels like an act) is about being loud and making himself the centre of attention. I hadn’t noticed before, or maybe Lauren’s quieter than I remember. And she seems less prickly here, more like her old self. I wonder how I hadn’t noticed before – she’s in the popular set, she’s always dressed perfectly and most of her best friends have hooked up with the equivalent boys from our year or the year above. But she’s single.

  ‘Is that OK?’ She turns to Mum, showing her the rolled-out dough on a metal tray.

  ‘Perfect.’ Mum smiles. ‘Pop it up there on the windowsill to rise for ten minutes, and while you’re waiting you can clear up the mess.’

  I throw Lauren the surface-cleaning spray, and she catches it with one hand.

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘I’ve got skills,’ she says, and when she smiles her nose crinkles up and she looks about ten again.

  ‘Look at this,’ Mum says, and beckons us over to the table. ‘Cressi found it when we were clearing up. When she was clearing up.’ Mum looks a bit uncomfortable. It’s the great unspoken. Apart from the time when she mentioned the doctor and going for CBT, she hasn’t said much, and I don’t like to ask.

  She’s got a brown leather-covered album and she opens it, revealing stiff board pages with photographs from a trip to Norfolk inside. I stretch over to the fridge and pull out the Coke we bought earlier, and Lauren reaches up, without thinking, and takes down three glasses. It’s just like old times.

  ‘Do you remember that boat trip?’

  Mum points to me and Lauren on the front of her friend’s boat. We’re in matching pink shorts and blue T-shirts, our hair in bunches.

  ‘Why on earth am I wearing pink?’ I lean in and peer at the picture more closely. My hair was even redder than it is now, and my cheeks are flaming red with sunburn.

  Lauren and Mum exchange a look. Lauren puffs a long strand of blonde hair out of her eyes, which falls straight back down again, landing on her still-flour-smeared nose.

  ‘Don’t you remember? You wanted to be twins. In fact –’ Mum laughs – ‘you insisted for the whole of the time we were down there that I told everyone you were.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I roll my eyes.

  ‘We did!’ Lauren nudges me with her elbow. ‘And we spoke in that made-up language that neither of us could understand either.’

  ‘Because twins can—’

  ‘Finish each other’s sentences.’ Lauren clinks my Coke glass with hers and takes a sip, looking at me over the top of it as she turns the page. ‘Oh my God, I forgot . . . !’

  We all look down at the photo of a huge manor house with pink roses around the door.

  ‘. . . Isn’t that Joey Grey’s house?’

  Mum turns another page. ‘Oh, and look at that! Do you two remember when we went to that pony-trekking place with Joey’s kids?’

  ‘Billy and Violet?’ Lauren frowns.

  ‘They’re the ones.’

  ‘They were in Allie’s
Heat magazine the other day, y’know.’

  ‘For what?’ Mum looks surprised.

  I shrug. ‘Kids of the Britpop gang, or something like that.’

  Lauren looks impressed. ‘Really?’

  Allie had brought it up, thrusting the folded-over page at me while we were sharing a packet of chocolate biscuits (magazine and biscuits all pilfered from the shop, of course). She’d quizzed me, because she was fascinated by Mum’s on-the-edge-of-famous past, but I’d shaken my head and acted like I could only just remember them. It was only eighteen months or so since we were last down there, when they’d paid for Mum to take me on a train journey that lasted almost the whole day.

  When we’d got there, it was clear to everyone that she was a half-shadow of herself. She excused herself from the lazy, smoke-hazed after-dinner jams, where everyone would mess around by the river, floating in the little wooden boats or playing guitar and singing. I hadn’t known what to do with myself, and Billy and Violet – who’d been like cousins to me – had changed. They were sharp-edged and London-ish and my life was unravelling, just like my clothes. We didn’t have anything to say to each other. When I think of the difference between the awkward, stilted conversations we had that summer, and the way Ed and I run out of hours, not words . . . there’s no comparison.

  ‘Anyway, you can have that as a claim to fame,’ Mum jokes. ‘Tell the girls at school.’

  ‘I already did,’ Lauren says softly. She looks at Mum for a second. ‘They know you were in a band.’

  Mum’s face registers a sort of shy pleasure. ‘They do?’

  I catch Lauren’s eye and smile at her, and it’s a genuine thank-you sort of smile. That means a lot to Mum.

  The doorbell breaks the moment.

  ‘You didn’t order pizza by mistake?’ I say, turning to Mum.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘It’s probably Dad,’ says Lauren, pushing herself up from the table. ‘They’ve probably had another fight and the holiday’s off.’ She actually looks a bit downcast as she says that.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I say. ‘You get the pizza topping ready.’