by Holly Smale
My parents stand at the front, shiny and happy. Mum looks curvy and luminous in her green gown while Dad, so handsome in his tux, is grinning at her, one arm holding her tightly to his side. They’re both laughing a little too loudly.
‘Jeez Louise,’ I hear Dad say. ‘Juliet, do you see what we’ve done? Why do they crave this much attention? Do we need our parenting skills reevaluating?’
‘I think so.’ Mum smiles radiantly. ‘Little thespian show-offs.’
‘Sorry, guys,’ my father announces to the A-list crowd. ‘Consider this payment for a generous selection of vol-au-vents.’
More laughter. Everyone loves the Valentines.
‘Go,’ Mercy whispers, shoving Max. ‘Go, idiot.’
My skinny eleven-year-old brother swaggers onstage, twirling his skipping rope, and fear inches through me. We’d rehearsed for weeks, but it wasn’t just the six of us any more. Suddenly it feels very real, very … public.
‘That is not my best side,’ Hope explains to Ben, pointing to the left side of her face. ‘This is my best side.’
Ben – wearing huge glasses and a big green scarf – turns her round and taps the back of her head. ‘This is your best side actually.’
‘Oh my goodness!’ Po tosses her hair, delighted. ‘You are so rude.’
‘Faith,’ Mercy hisses. ‘It’s your turn next!’
My entire body starts to tremble and I clutch my hands together. The stage is somehow getting closer, the crowds louder, the lights brighter, my voice smaller and I can’t do it, can’t do it, can’t—
A soft hand lands on my arm.
‘Be the Orange, Eff.’ A husky whisper. ‘And, if that doesn’t work, try a clementine. Smaller. Fewer pips.’
I turn to face Charity, who is dressed in purple.
Our eldest sister: older than Mercy by three minutes and physically identical apart from a tiny scar running through her left eyebrow. In character, the polar opposite. Where Mercy is impatient, Charity is laid-back; where Mer takes everything seriously, Tee is constantly laughing.
Everything is a practical joke to her.
Clingfilm across the toilet seat and grass seeds sprouting in Dad’s laptop and the white centre of Oreo biscuits replaced with toothpaste, the middle of a doughnut refilled with mayo.
Her music is always too loud, her bedroom always too bright.
‘Charity!’ Mum yells every hour. ‘Lights!’
‘Don’t you get enough of that at work?’ my sister calls back with a throaty laugh. ‘Such a diva, Mother.’
Yet we gravitate towards her and somehow she balances us all out. Gives Hope strength, Max a comrade, Mercy softness, Mum playfulness, Dad pride, Grandma warmth.
To me, she gives laughter.
‘Here.’ Tee grins as Max swishes his skipping rope yet again and is gestured to get offstage by an impatient Mercy. ‘Take this with you. For luck.’
My sister rips a yellow Post-it from the front of her script, grabs a pen, scribbles something and pushes it into my hand.
I look down.
What happened when the bed bugs fell in love?
They got married in the spring.
‘Don’t get it.’
My nine-year-old sister laughs: a goofy, ridiculous chuckle that causes Mercy to flash her a Don’t Even Think About It look.
‘I know,’ Charity twinkles. ‘You never do. Try.’
Frowning, I look back at the note. The funny is always tucked away in there somewhere, lurking where I can’t see it. An answer to a question I haven’t even asked.
‘What does a bed have, Eff?’
‘A mattress? Pillows? A duvet?’ My eyes widen. ‘Springs.’
‘There you go.’
We stare at each other – my sister’s face so utterly like Mercy’s in every way and yet totally its own – and then every muscle in my body starts shaking.
A snort pops out of my nose. And, before I can catch it, I’m sniggering, chortling and squealing with laughter until every bit of my nerves evaporate, spun into the air like purple mist.
‘Whenever things get too much, find the joke, Eff.’ My sister ruffles my hair. ‘Nothing is too hard to handle when you’re laughing.’
I nod and tuck the joke into my pocket.
‘Love you, Tee.’
My big sister, the eldest Valentine girl, puts her purple arm round me.
‘I love you too, Effpot.’ She nudges me towards the stage. ‘Now go get them, my funny little sister.’
In one motion, I drop to the floor.
I wrap my arms round Mercy as she sobs into my neck, my knees against hers. ‘You haven’t lost me,’ I whisper fiercely. ‘Mer, I’m not going anywhere. I promise.’
Finally, she hiccups into stillness.
‘Except for right now,’ I clarify, kissing her tenderly on the forehead. ‘Meet me in the hallway in five.’
Because enough is enough.
One by one, I collect my family.
It’s the second anniversary of Charity’s death, and we’ve all come back here automatically. I find Hope in the cinema room, Dad in his armchair in the living room, Grandma in the library, Max in the kitchen, Mum in her darkened bedroom.
Together but achingly separate.
‘Where did you come from?’ Max blinks at me from the hallway. ‘I thought you were in Alaska.’
‘You’re home!’ Hope leaps up the stairs and throws her arms round me in relief, covering my cheeks with little kisses. ‘Eff, you’re home, you’re home! I knew you’d come back! He said you’d emigrated, but I told him that’s only for birds.’
Mum’s bedroom door creaks open; she sees us and hesitates. Then she takes a small step out.
‘Mum!’ Po unwraps herself from me and rushes over to her. ‘You’re here too! Oh and so pretty, I love your nightgown, is it designer? Can I borrow it, please, please, please?’
Mum starts slightly, then puts a hand on top of Hope’s head. ‘Of course, baby.’
‘Hello, Juliet.’ Dad dwarfs the hallway.
Mum nods, her eyes watery and bright pink. Nobody’s going to mention that she ripped the house apart two days ago, looking for a baby blanket to donate to the auction. For Charity.
‘Could somebody,’ my grandmother puffs, hauling herself on to the landing with her walking stick, ‘please explain why I am being summoned to the top floor of a three-storey building like some kind of performing monkey?’
My bedroom door swings open. Mercy’s face is clean and puffy, scrubbed free of make-up. Without it, she looks so young. She’s in black jeans and a black jumper: still in perpetual mourning.
She blinks once at me – thank you – then holds her head down.
I think this might be the first time we’ve all been in the same place since the funeral.
I pull a key out of my pocket.
‘There’s something I want to show you,’ I say, unlocking the door that sits directly between Mum’s and Mercy’s. The room that used to be so bright and full of light and is now so deafeningly quiet.
We enter in silence. Then Mer makes a small, guttural noise and puts a hand over her mouth.
There are yellow Post-its stuck everywhere. Around the dusty mirror and over the walls; on the edges of posters and across a dresser still covered in spilt make-up and open lipsticks. Over the doorway and on the headboard and on framed photo-collages of all of us.
Why did the two 4s skip lunch?
They already 8!
What do you call a snowman with a six-pack?
An abdominal snowman.
Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the toilet?
The P is silent!
Joke after joke. Mostly terrible, all cheesy, the vast majority copied from the internet or cheap books I found. Every single one I wrote when it became too much, when I needed to laugh, when I needed to feel closer to my sister.
Make me one with everything.
‘Crikey,’ Max says eventually with wide eyes. ‘Faith. You OK?’
>
‘No,’ I admit. ‘Obviously not.’
Hope’s drifting round the room, gently touching Charity’s books and old teddy bears, and Mum keeps blinking, as if everything’s too bright for her to focus properly.
Dad picks up a still open magazine.
‘Nobody—’ He breathes out heavily. ‘It’s exactly the same … We didn’t …? I thought we … I mean, didn’t Maggie tidy everything away?’
‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘Mum asked her not to.’
Grandma sits down sharply on a dusty armchair.
‘I don’t understand.’ Mercy picks up a yellow Post-it. ‘Did you write these, Faith? There are … hundreds.’
‘Two years’ worth of comedy.’
‘But—’ There’s a wet click at the back of her throat. ‘We never talk about her. None of us. We always change the subject. I thought everybody was … forgetting.’
‘No,’ Hope says, trailing a finger along a shelf. ‘We don’t talk about her because we all remember, all the time.’
I stare at my little sister in surprise.
Then I look round the bedroom that Charity painted primrose yellow: cheerful, sloppy brushmarks on the ceiling. ‘All she wanted was jokes. She’d hate all this misery.’
I pick up a toilet roll from her bedside table.
‘This is fake.’ I hold it up and pull the top layer of paper off: underneath it’s plastic. ‘Our dumb-ass sister made a fake toilet roll so she could hold us hostage in the loo while she giggled outside.’
Max laughs loudly. ‘I’m scarred for life, the little dirtbag. I had to carry tissue in my pockets for years.’
‘Mer.’ I grab a long red wig from Charity’s desk. ‘She used to pin this over your bed so you’d wake up and think a ghost was climbing through the ceiling.’
‘Yeah.’ My big sister shrugs. ‘Never worked.’
‘Erm, you screamed the house down. And this?’ I pick up a scrap of paper with Voice Activated typed on it. ‘Remember when she put this on our new toaster and Hope spent hours shouting at it to make breakfast?’
‘Hey!’ Po says indignantly, opening a curtain. ‘We are very rich and very famous. If anyone is going to have a magic robot-servant-toaster, it should be us.’
Dad booms with unexpected laughter as a ray of sunshine pours into the darkness and hits the yellow walls. Dust spins and bobs like millions of tiny lights.
Hey, sis. There you are.
‘Charity was an idiot,’ I say, pulling open the other curtain. ‘She was annoying and ridiculous and spent most of her allowance on whoopee cushions.’ I tug open the window. ‘And we loved her and that love made us brighter. I want to remember that. I want to talk about her. Laugh about her. Get on with our lives. Instead of … locking ourselves away in the dark.’
Everyone looks down.
I go to the next window and fling both curtains open. The room is glowing gold as if we’re standing inside a buttercup. My mother quietly walks over to stare at the garden, her back rigid.
‘There’s just one more thing,’ I say, swallowing. Grandma looks up sharply.
I still haven’t spoken to her since the auction. Now I take a deep breath and meet her grey gaze directly.
‘I don’t want to be an actress. I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to do interviews or give fake answers or have my photograph taken or have my life dissected every single day. I want to be private. Normal. I’ve been trying so hard to make you all happy, I forgot that I’m allowed to be happy too.’
My grandmother’s hands grip her walking stick tightly. ‘What on earth are you saying, child?’
I look at the family I love with my whole heart, each part tugging me in a different direction.
The world is my oyster.
‘I don’t want to be a Valentine any more.’
Silence. Then—
‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ Hope drops to her knees and shakes her fists at the ceiling. ‘I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU WOULD DIVORCE US EVENTUALLY! I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN! NOOOO! I DIVIDE YOU, STARS!’
Laughing, I pull my little sister up by the armpits.
‘I’m not divorcing you,’ I explain gently. ‘I’ll still be part of the family. I’ll just be living somewhere else. Doing something else. With … a different name.’
OK, that does sound a bit like a divorce.
‘But—’ Max chimes in. ‘Eff, everyone wants to be us. Why on earth would you want to be them? What are you going to do with –’ he pulls a grotesque face – ‘ordinariness?’
‘No idea.’ I grin. ‘That’s the point.’
Because the mist has gone and when I look down I can see my feet and I can see the ground and I can go in any direction I want.
Even if I don’t know quite where that is just yet. Especially if I don’t.
The warm roar spreads through me again and I look with tenderness at my mother. Did she ever get to choose?
She remains at the window – still fragile and curled in on herself – and my heart squeezes. I’m not even sure if she’s been listening. It’s not going to be easy for her to come back to us. Losing a sister is unbearable, but a daughter? How do you recover from that kind of grief? Where do you even start?
As if she can hear me, Mum turns round and her tearful eyes meet mine. I’m sorry.
I smile sadly. Me too.
Without a word, Dad walks over and wraps Mum in a giant bear hug as she returns her empty gaze to the trees outside. Then he turns to me and asks, ‘So, Effie, if you’re not going to be a Valentine any more, who are you going to be?’
‘Faith Rivers,’ I say simply.
‘But—’ My father looks genuinely stunned, bless his massive socks. ‘You’re taking my surname? Wait – is that even allowed?’
‘People do it all the time,’ Hope says, patting his arm. ‘It’s called gender quality, Dad.’
I glance over at my grandmother. She hasn’t said a single word since she entered the room, and she’s so stiff and velvety she’s practically indistinguishable from the armchair.
She leans forward on her walking stick and slowly pushes herself up.
‘Faith.’ Her gaze is steady. ‘Do you know why I trained you every Wednesday for a year?’
‘Yes.’ I nod and swallow guiltily. ‘And I’m sorry, Grandma. I am. I know we’re a dynasty a hundred years in the making. I know I’m throwing away an extraordinary opportunity. I know I was the future of the Valentines, but I just—’
‘I trained you,’ she says, ‘because you needed it.’
I flush. ‘Yes, I know. I’m a terrible actress, but—’
‘No. Not because you’re a terrible actress. God knows, Hollywood has been built on the faces of beautiful women who couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag. I was training you to keep you private.’
I stare at her. ‘Huh?’
‘You think I don’t know what your favourite colour is?’ She’s watching me carefully. ‘Or your favourite ice cream? You think I gave you pre-written answers and Genevieve’s social-media posts because the real you doesn’t matter? Darling girl, I gave them to you specifically because it does.’
My mouth drops open. I wasn’t being trained to be known by the entire world. I was being trained not to be.
After six decades of fame, my grandmother was trying her very hardest to give me a shell and make sure that nobody could prise me open.
Like they did my mother.
‘But if you don’t actually want to act –’ Dame Sylvia Valentine leans further forward – ‘then, for goodness’ sake, don’t take all the other nonsense that comes with it. For that would make you utterly miserable indeed.’
There’s a sudden lump in my throat. ‘Thank you.’
‘Although,’ she adds drily, ‘I very much enjoyed your little takedown at that auction. Even if the old master you sold for pennies did belong to us.’
‘Wait,’ Hope pipes up. ‘Which one?’
Oops.
And slowly the room st
arts to fill with noise and colour. Dad is looking fondly at an old photo of him and Charity, Hope’s reading some of the jokes and giggling, my mother has walked away from the window and is now tenderly stroking the clothes in Charity’s wardrobe and Grandma is watching her with soft eyes.
The Valentine family is slowly recalibrating: finding our places, remembering our lines, resuming our positions. Only this time I’ve got a role I’ve chosen.
‘Mercy,’ I say suddenly, picking a yellow Post-it off the wall and turning to face the only shadowy, silent corner. ‘Do you remember how Tee thought this was the funniest ever—’
But something tells me this corner has been empty for a while.
My sister has gone.
Why did the crab never give to Charity?
Because it was shellfish.
Just a few things left to do.
Quietly, I return to my empty bedroom and stick the final (terrible) joke next to my bed so I can see it every morning.
Go get them, my funny little sister.
Then I stand in front of the cracked mirror. I lift my heels off the floor and watch my reflection as I gesture to the side with my left hand: grand plié. Flatten my foot and hold my leg up and back: arabesque. A single-leg relevé to stretch my foot. A la seconde.
The White Swan didn’t have to drown herself, you know.
Battement fondu, battement frappé; quatrième devant.
Glissade.
She had wings; she could have just flown away.
Entrechat.
Smiling, I stand on tiptoe, lift one leg and slowly pivot in a circle with my arm in the air. I chop a few bats. Kapow. Then I laugh and curtsey at a thousand versions of myself in the mirror. Because what I can see now is all the women I am, all the women I want to be and all the choices I’ll make.
And they are going to be … mine.
With a final flourish, I lean forward and kiss the mirror. Then I shove on my neon trainers, grab my mobile and headphones and slip back down the stairs.
‘—do!’ Hope’s lilting voice carries into the hallway. ‘Seriously. They sent me a hundred yellow roses and fifty heart balloons and they did it all anonymously! They must be crazy for me. Love at first sight, I reckon.’