by Aoife Walsh
‘What?’
‘He’s missed out on an awful lot. Through his own fault. But you know that’s going to make it worse,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get a flannel for Raymond before he strangles himself trying to get out of this chair. You might not know this, girls, but guilt is the hardest thing to live with. He did what he did, but he’ll have been feeling guilty ever since.’ She went out to the kitchen.
‘Poor Dad,’ Selena said.
‘My arse,’ Minny said back.
Their mother said they didn’t have to talk to him before they were ready, but that they should think about doing it, if only to shout and tell him how angry they were. Because talking to him might be the best way to get over it enough that they could start getting to know him. All of which made perfect sense, Minny admitted, if she had been at all interested in getting to know him. But she’d gone this long and she was fine, and she didn’t think she could ever like him. Selena was acting like a child, as if all this was a game show and if she was enthusiastic enough she’d win a New Dad! who’d never done anything wrong, had no history at all in her life, but would swoop in, buy her a puppy and start teaching her to sail or something. And Aisling was just silent.
Their mother did try. ‘What do you think about it, Ash?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Would you like to talk to your dad, on the phone?’
‘No.’
‘Is that because of the phone though? What about if he were to come here – not straightaway, but sometime? To see you?’
Minny couldn’t imagine anything worse.
‘No,’ Ash said, squirming.
‘Really?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. Minny knew exactly what she meant; you didn’t have to be autistic for it to be unthinkable to sit and talk about something like that. On the other hand, Minny also didn’t want him coming and not talking about it because everyone was too polite, and then to suddenly turn round and find he was part of the family again.
‘OK,’ Nita said. ‘Don’t worry, Sel, I know you feel differently, and it’s not surprising that you all have your own point of view about this. But there’s no rush at all. We’ll talk again.’
‘I’m going to meet Penny,’ Minny said, getting up.
‘Have you had enough lunch?’ Nita looked perturbed. Normally they stretched Saturday lunchtime out for ages, with doughnuts and extra sandwiches and the kind of fruit they couldn’t afford for most of the week.
‘I’m fine. I’m full.’
After she’d got her stuff together and was ready to leave, Nita came out of the front room and said goodbye. ‘Will you talk about it with Penny, do you think?’
Minny shrugged. ‘She’s got a crisis, so probably not.’
‘Penny’s got a crisis?’
Minny got cross. ‘Look, I know you don’t take Penny very seriously, but she’s upset, all right. She wants to talk to me.’
‘Sorry, you’re right. That wasn’t fair of me. But it’s OK for you to be upset about your dad and to want to talk to a friend too, you know. I’m going to be on your back about this, Minny. But I’ll give you a while first.’ She rubbed a blob of sun cream into Minny’s forehead. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Minny admitted with a sigh. ‘Jorge or something. The story will probably have changed by the time I get there.’
‘Well, try not to let her fantasise too wildly. Or to accuse her of fantasising either. You don’t want her to get into a situation where she’s flat-out lying.’
‘I know.’
‘Because then you’d be complicit in the lie. I mean, mixed up in it.’
‘I know what complicit means, Mum.’
‘Right.’
Her mother had a point. Penny was a fantasist, she always had been. Ever since they were tiny, Nita said, and Minny sort of remembered. When Minny sometimes got frustrated with her, Nita told her that some people just need to embellish life, don’t hold it against her, but with a distinct rider of Don’t believe a word she says. Every now and again, because Penny did tell a story well, and after all you couldn’t openly disbelieve her – you got drawn in. Sometimes they were such good stories you might find yourself telling one to someone else, and only two-thirds of the way through, when everyone was hanging on your every word, would you remember – oh, crap, this is a Penny story. Perhaps that was what her mother meant by being complicit in the lie.
Minny could have done with a few good stories that afternoon in the park, instead of the tears. She half listened to the Jorge-related wailing and looked up at the sky. The park was crowded, like you’d expect in the first real spell of summer weather, with men in flip-flops and big young dudes, not bronzed yet but with their shirts off, strutting around, and women with wooden beads and burnished skin and little kids with parents looking a bit less frazzled than usual in the sunshine. It was embarrassing sitting there with Penny sobbing the whole time. Minny kept pulling more bits of rubber off the soles of her trainers. It sounded like a serious row – she hadn’t seen Penny quite this traumatised before, though she’d had to listen to a lot of philosophising and pseudo soul-searching down the phone lately, as well as at school. She wondered if they might actually break up. Apparently one of the things Jorge had shouted last night was about needing space and not feeling smothered; it was a bit rich, because from what she heard he could be a proper control freak, but Minny couldn’t help having a sneaking sympathy for him. If Penny was half as obsessive over him to his face as she was being now, it must be hard to take.
Despite Penny’s perpetual diet, Minny managed to convince her that an ice cream would cheer her up, so that broke the monotony for a while. They saw Juliet Langley and had to hide behind the corner of the café – they knew she wouldn’t come round it, she didn’t do things like eat ice cream. ‘You know Juliet’s going out with Henry now?’ Penny said.
‘Who’s Henry?’ Minny sat back down on the grass.
‘Henry Bonnel. You know Henry. He’s one of Jorge’s friends.’
‘Oh. Brilliant. Then you can start hanging out with Juliet and Emma, can’t you?’
‘Thanks very much.’
Just as Minny was chewing the wooden stick to pieces, she looked up and saw her whole family standing on the path twenty yards away, waving at her. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she said. She didn’t normally see them all together like that, in a pack, outside of home.
Selena came bouncing over waving her strawberry split all over the place. Penny stopped moaning and dabbed her nose with a tissue. ‘Are you all right, Penny?’ Sel asked with big wide eyes.
‘T’yeah – sniffle – I’m fine, darling.’
Babi was suddenly towering over them. ‘She’s probably suffering from heat exhaustion.’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Penny shot to upright.
‘I don’t understand young girls like you. There are so many of you. A hot day like this, you pick shorts out, fine, but why the black tights?’
‘It’s a look, Mama,’ Nita said.
‘It looks absurd. It looks like the way to get thrush.’
‘Er –’ Penny said.
‘My vulva is itching just to look at you,’ Babi said, turning back to the path and closing her eyes.
There was no hope, of course, that her mother would ever try to get her grandmother under control. Right now she was killing herself laughing. Penny looked horrified.
‘Right,’ Nita said, wiping her eyes, ‘we’ll leave you. Come on, Sel, you’ll be late for Victoria. Ash, why don’t you stay here for a bit?’
She didn’t often do that, give Minny no choice about taking Aisling on away from home. But Minny knew that she was thinking it was rough on Ash that here she was hanging out in the park with Penny, and Selena was on her way to a friend’s house too. Aisling had never had that sort of friend. Even at primary school where she didn’t get picked on, she was never asked to people’s houses, and the only parties she went to were the ones where the w
hole class was invited. She went to a youth group for autistic teenagers and seemed to get on all right there, but not so that she would see any of them outside the group. Minny didn’t mind too much on this occasion because it was only Penny, who was used enough to Ash that she was able to conduct a conversation around her and not get sucked into letting her go on and on about football, bluegrass or J. Edgar Hoover.
Anyway, Minny was pleased enough to be interrupted by a third person. She was bored of Jorge and his insufficient commitment to the relationship. Sometimes she felt that to Penny she was a handmaid, surely grateful for every detail because she didn’t have this kind of stuff going on herself. A while ago – she couldn’t put her finger on when – a gulf had opened up between the girls who had had at least one boyfriend, and the girls who never had. Crossing it was one of those things that just seemed to happen, randomly but permanently, to other girls, the way it had happened to Penny after Easter. It was like Casablanca; everyone trying to get out of Occupied Europe, knowing all they need is one opportunity and they’ll be safe on the other side for good. Minny would have been perfectly happy where she was except that it was lame to be on the wrong side – and also she was afraid that at some point the situation would change again and she would be left with the girls who never would have a boyfriend. Because honestly she couldn’t see it ever happening.
Then Penny started yet again about ‘how far’ to go and all that unsavoury stuff she was always going on about, in far too much detail, while Minny and Aisling both looked a bit disgusted and in opposite directions. Minny thought she was probably lying, but it was possible it was true; plenty of people in her class seemed to be at that kind of thing. She thought she might be a bit abnormally underdeveloped about sex, herself, or maybe she was just going to be one of those people who wasn’t very into it. Of course it was an interesting subject, when it wasn’t being talked about by Penny anyway, but it was completely distant. It seemed so ridiculous, knowing anyone well enough to do that with them.
Aisling was getting restive and starting to tick and squeak in the background. Then, as Penny paused for breath, she broke in with, ‘Did you know that Hank Williams’s real name wasn’t Hank, Penny?’ and waited, eagerly.
Penny nailed her patient look to her face. ‘No, I didn’t. But Hank is normally short for something isn’t it, like Henry?’
‘No, it was short for Hiram, but the funny thing is, Hank Williams Junior and Hank Williams III weren’t really called Hank either!’ She beamed.
‘Oh, right, that is weird.’ There was a pause. ‘I hope Jorge doesn’t come here after the tournament. He might. Maybe we should move.’
Minny was fed up. Solely to change the subject, she started talking about her father. Ash stopped squealing beside her and picked up a twig to draw patterns in the patches of dust. Penny didn’t say all that much, but then Minny hadn’t expected her to. Ash was digging a furrow into the dry earth. ‘It must be weird for you too, Aisling?’ Penny suggested. ‘What do you think about it?’
Ash shrugged without looking at her, but she answered. ‘He shouldn’t have gone in the first place. I don’t want to see him either.’
‘No?’
‘No. He left us all behind.’
Aisling and their father used to be really connected. When one was happy, the other was; if one of them got stressed, the other did too. Things had been quite dark for Ash for a while after he left. She and Minny had both just started at their new school – Aisling had gone to a private one for a year because their father thought she would get less bullied there – another of his bright ideas. Anyway, it had been a disaster so they started at Raleigh together. And then he was gone. Ash had got all depressed and silent; Minny supposed she’d have understood him leaving even less than Minny did. She was sure Aisling wouldn’t be blaming herself, because Ash didn’t dwell on what was going on in other people’s minds – and of course she wasn’t aware how hard it was to deal with her. But sometimes Minny felt like she’d lost Ash too – all the stuff they had ever done together, the fun stuff, was with their father, like football. Every Saturday they had sat in front of the results coming in; they watched Match of the Day every Sunday morning before church. They even went to a match once, Man United against Spurs. It was their big Christmas present that year. Ash used to make her own FA Cup draws; Minny was never allowed to make up the results or write anything down, but sometimes Ash let her pull the slips of paper out of the hat. After he left, Minny gave it up. She didn’t want to like Man United any more, or football, or anything. She came back to it after a couple of weeks, it was too hard not to, but it was never the same. Like she’d abandoned Aisling.
‘He’s got a new girlfriend,’ Minny said. She chewed a blade of grass.
‘Yeah? Has she come with him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Hmmm,’ Penny said, slipping her bracelets back on. ‘You know Jorge’s parents are divorced too?’
‘I don’t even know if my parents are divorced,’ Minny said. How strange never to have asked.
‘It was really bad for him, being the oldest. He was only ten. You know he’s had this really difficult childhood and everything – it’s not surprising he gets depressed.’
Lying on her back, Minny shut her eyes.
‘I wouldn’t mind that. I mean, I want to help him. I just don’t like him pushing me around.’
Minny thought that that wasn’t true, really, and it was confirmed a moment later by Penny’s phone ringing and transforming her into coy, radiant Penny, who went springing off to go and watch the last game of tennis, even though Jorge had been knocked out. Apparently that’s what you did if you were a sporting gentleman.
Minny and Aisling gazed thoughtfully at each other. ‘Sometimes,’ Minny said, ‘I don’t know why I’m friends with Penny.’
Ash nodded. ‘Why are you?’
‘I think only because I always have been.’
‘Not always.’
‘Well, since we were four. I suppose she’s not so bad when you don’t need anything from her – except she always needs something from me – but I don’t know how she ended up my best friend, that’s all.’
‘Are you going to stop being best friends with her?’
‘Oh God, one day surely I will.’
‘Then who will be your best friend?’
‘I don’t know,’ Minny said. She felt miserable. ‘I know you probably weren’t even listening, but didn’t you think it was a bit … crass, the way I told her about Dad and everything, which is really quite major, on paper, and she ignored it and turned it round to talking about Jorge again? And then just left?’
‘Crass,’ Aisling murmured.
‘She doesn’t even pretend to be interested in my life, but she expects me to listen to her for hours every night yapping about her boyfriend, who I don’t even know, because he’s a complete tosser, and every thought she ever has, and be thrilled about it. I mean, the one thing she did say about it was to you. She didn’t ask me how I felt.’
‘Doesn’t she know?’
‘No, she doesn’t know. How would she know? She never asks. And I don’t like talking about it.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, you don’t either, do you?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t like talking about anything though, do you?’ Deflating herself, Minny stared across the small piece of grass between them. Aisling was facing into the sun. She was lit up so that Minny couldn’t see her properly. ‘Are you really angry with him, Ash?’
‘Who?’
Minny could have roared with impatience, but she swallowed it. ‘With Dad.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘I am. How could we not be, right? How can Selena not be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And Mum. She expects us to be pleased he’s back. To want to see him.’
‘Do you think she’s pleased?’ Ash sounded surprised.
‘No, of course she’s not, how could she be,
but then how could we be? And he turns up bold as brass with another woman. I mean, it’s not like he’s been gone that long.’
‘Nearly three years.’
‘Right, and that’s bloody ages, just to sod off without a word and not come back and see us or anything. I mean, who does that? Though men seem to do it all the time. But it’s not so long he should just assume it’s fine for him to bring his new woman into the country and it’ll be OK by Mum. He should have waited till she had a boyfriend at least.’ Minny felt hot. She groped in Ash’s bag for the bottle of water she knew would be there.
‘But Mum did have a man,’ Aisling pointed out. ‘Because she had Raymond.’
‘Well, I know, but one night isn’t like moving countries with someone.’
‘It wasn’t—’
‘All right, Aisling, it wasn’t one night, but it can’t have been much more because we didn’t even hear about him till just before she told us she was pregnant, and we never even met him and he hasn’t been around so it can’t have been that serious, can it? God, she can really pick them, when you think about it. I hope I don’t take after her.’
‘Poor Mum,’ Aisling said, sounding soft.
‘I know.’ Minny dug into the ground with a piece of twig, too hard: her finger went in as well and dirt jabbed up under the quick of her nail.
‘We missed him though.’ Aisling pushed the top back down on the water bottle and put it back into her bag. ‘All of us. Didn’t we?’
‘Yes. But we don’t now.’
In the end they got up and straggled towards the gate. Their shadows were long behind them, and the shade from the trees around the park perimeter was reaching out. It was one of those evenings where trees looked almost furry, and Minny calmed down inside. She felt sun-soaked.
‘Look,’ Aisling said, ‘there’s Franklin.’ Minny looked round with a sudden shiver, as if she’d been hot too long. He was sitting on the low corner of the wall outside the café, and he raised his hand to them. They could have just waved back, but he was on his own in what was, to him, more or less a strange park, and he’d just come to live with their granny. Minny didn’t have to decide anyway; Aisling had already changed direction.