by Olivia Levez
‘There’s someone knocking. Shall I let them in?’
‘Leave me alone,’ she whines. She’s flicking through the telly guide with the remote, trying to find a black-and-white film she hasn’t watched.
The rapping again.
‘Hellooo?’
Bits of a face peek through where the chain is: an eye, a cheek, a nose stud.
‘Hello, my name’s Angela Cockerton and I work for Lambeth Care Services?’ she says.
I say nothing. Wait.
‘It’s just a friendly visit. Nothing to worry about. We’ve had your family referred to us by the school?’
She has an accent. First, I think it’s South African, then I realise she’s Aussie or maybe from New Zealand. Her voice goes up at the end.
‘Right,’ I say. I’m trying to stay calm because alarm bells are going off inside my head and it’s difficult to think straight.
We’ve been visited by a social worker before, when Johnny was a baby and Cassie wasn’t coping well, but that was before she started drinking, and that was before our flat was such a state. Johnny’s dad was still with us and he was a personal trainer with massive OCD, which was about the only thing good about living with him. Bleached our worktops to within an inch of their lives, and everything in its place like we were in the frickin army.
‘So…can I come in?’ She’s still smiling.
‘Wait there. I think I’ve left the grill on –’ is all I can think of to say, and I leave Angela-the-social-worker dangling on the chain and dash back to the lounge.
OhGodohGodohGod.
And in my head: So she’s done it. Miss has done this.
‘Cassie,’ I hiss, shoving her duvet back over her and sweeping all the crap into more carrier bags. ‘Say you’re ill, OK? You’re ill.’
She nods. ‘I know, love, I know. Would you just pass…?’
I shake my head as she nods towards the stack of Tennent’s.
‘Chewing gum,’ I say.
She gapes like a chick in its nest and takes the gum I offer her. At least her breath won’t stink like a brewer’s.
All the rubbish goes in the kitchen cupboards. That’s the good thing about them always being bare. More storage.
I open the window wider, take a breath, put the kettle on.
Then I unhook the chain and let the social worker in.
Angela is small and smiling and has dimples. She has a satchel bigger than she is over one shoulder. It’s covered in festival stickers.
She’s still smiling as she comes into our lounge, but her eyes are darting about like sparrows.
She holds out her hand to Cassie.
‘Hi, I’m Angela? You must be Mrs Bailey?’
Cassie looks up at her blearily. Takes the offered hand with a confused look on her face.
‘Mum’s sick,’ I say.
They both look at me.
‘I feel awful,’ agrees Cassie.
‘Got one of your migraines, haven’t you, Mum? She can’t see anyone when she’s like this,’ I add pointedly.
Cassie moans a little and closes her eyes.
‘Oh, I am sorry to hear that,’ says Angela. She looks round for a place to sit and finally perches on the end of Cassie’s settee.
She rummages inside her satchel. ‘This won’t take long?’ she says. Draws out a ton of papers. ‘We have to take each referral seriously, as I’m sure you’re aware? Just got to follow procedure…ask a few questions about your son Johnny –’
I freeze. ‘What about Johnny?’ I say. My heart’s going thudthudthud now.
And all the time I’m thinking, what has she said? What has Miss said about my story?
Bitch. Bitch.
She’s been blabbing off to Mr Pearson and social workers and God knows who else. All that crap about critique partners and up on the roof and the red notebook and magnum opus.
I want to kill. I want to scream.
Angela scans through one of her sheets. ‘Well, I’d really like to talk to him. Is he here?’
‘He’s at the park,’ I say. ‘What do you want to know? He’s playing with his friends. He’s got lots of friends.’
I’m gabbling. I stop.
Angela nods kindly. ‘I’m sure he has too? I just want to check that your mum is coping OK? To find out some basic information and to see what strengths and difficulties your family may have? Whether there’s any more support we can offer –’
‘We don’t need your support,’ I blurt out.
There’s a snore from the settee. Cassie has gone to sleep.
I swallow. ‘Would you like some Turkish coffee?’ I ask.
I go into the kitchen, trembling. Wayne has left his Marmite jar of skunk out on the worktop so I shove it in a saucepan of congealed baked beans and hide it with a plate.
It’s Miss. She’s done this. She’s put them up to it.
My hands shake as I measure out two scoops of coffee into my special pot. I found the Turkish coffee pot on Camden Market and it’s beautiful: tiny and made of battered copper. I add a cup of cold water to the coffee and whisk it up with a fork.
It needs to heat slowly so I put on my music so that I don’t hear Cassie snoring and Angela thinking what?what?what? as she assesses the state of our lives. Ella croons that she has a cosy little flat in what is known as Manhattan and the coffee grinds settle slowly into soft mud as the pot rattles and simmers over the gas flame.
To do it properly, you’re supposed to place a couple of cubes of marshmallow on a tiny saucer but we have nothing like that. The closest thing we’ve got is half a packet of Haribos.
I decide to leave it.
Angela is calling.
I unplug Ella. ‘Just coming,’ I say.
I feel calmer now I’ve made coffee. Coffee is the real me. Not the one talking to social workers in this pigsty of a flat.
‘Ooh, lovely,’ she says. ‘Turkish coffee, my favourite?’
We sip in silence.
Cassie farts.
‘Um, while your mum is taking a nap, shall I start with you, Frances? You are Frances Stanton?’
I nod.
‘So apart from your coffee-making skills – and this is lovely coffee by the way – what do you like to do when you’re not at school?’
Outside, dogs are barking.
Someone is shouting from the street, ‘Yeah? Yeah? You’re the big man. Think you’re the big man?’
‘Frances?’
‘I dunno. I do my homework and revision,’ I say. ‘And make the tea to help Mum.’
‘Do you help Mum a lot? What sorts of things do you do to help her?’
‘Oh no.’ I smile. ‘Mum’s only like this when she gets a migraine. They’re very debilitating, you know. Most of the time she’s looking after us and going shopping for food and making lovely meals. Our favourite is Mum’s home made moussaka. That’s Greek, you know.’
‘Yum – delicious. Can you show me round the flat, Frances? Shall we start with your kitchen?’
Shit.
Angela’s crouched on the floor, peering into our cupboards.
‘It’s shopping day tomorrow,’ I say.
‘What are you going to eat today, Frances?’ Angela stands up and her shoes make a tacky noise where they’re unsticking from the lino.
‘Oh, today’s our takeaway day,’ I say airily. ‘We get pizzas from Herne Hill, as a treat.’
‘And for breakfast?’ Angela is running her hands under the tap. She looks around for a tea towel and wipes her hands on her trousers.
‘Um. We get croissants from…’
‘From the bakery in Herne Hill?’
I nod and Angela sighs.
‘Frances, will you show me your bedroom?’
And so it goes on: Where do you do your schoolwork? Where does your brother sleep? Who gets Johnny from school? Who makes sure you both go to school? How often does Cassie have migraines? Are there any other regular visitors? Who cooks in this household? Does your mum’s partner or eithe
r of your fathers ever visit?
I’m showing her the books I read to Johnny when she notices his mattress.
‘Ooh, lovely. Each Peach Pear Plum, The Little Boat – they’re from the Bookstart pack, aren’t they? I can see the bag under the bed.’
We’re sitting on the floor because there’s not a lot of furniture in mine and Johnny’s room. In fact, it’s pretty empty when you consider how jam-packed with junk the rest of the flat is.
Angela stops looking through the books and wrinkles her nose.
‘Frances, does your brother wet his bed?’
I frown. ‘Sometimes, when he’s got to sleep alone. He’s fine when he’s with me though.’
I haven’t got round to changing his sheets yet. I mean, he’s hardly ever in his own bed anyway so what’s the point?
Outside, birds are shrilling.
Doors are slamming.
Then: screaming, screaming, screaming.
I leap up, books flying.
‘Johnny,’ I say.
Wet
Turns out I’m good at dying.
Fran Stanton. Spat out. Died on a rock. The end.
I’m doing a great job of it; have even curled up on my side so that, when it happens, I’ve made it easy. Like I’m asleep.
Lie there staring at the fire ’cause those flames, they don’t let you forget, do they? Let’s burn all those memories back, just in case you’d forgotten them.
Ha.
The fire’s getting low. There’s only a settling of ash; a blacked-out log, which would shiver into dust if I touched it.
Half a day left to die.
I feel the flies tickling as they land. They know, ’course they do. They’re rubbing their little feelers together, waiting. Dead dolphin, prickling with sandflies.
Dead wood. Drift-meat.
‘!’
My fingers grip the sand as I try to turn. Dying is forgotten.
‘!’
It can’t be. Can it be?
And there he is, in a shiver of sand, all butting nose and hot licks, and his little hard head ducks away from my groping hand and he’s –
all wet.
I press my finger to his fur and lick it.
It’s fresh. A tiny, tiny burst of coolness in my parched mouth. A shiver of water sprays me cool as he shakes. Dog is wet and tired from the cave. His fur holds a million drops of water and I bury my face in his warm, breathing flank and suck. It is fresh, not salty. Dog sighs as I try not to waste a single drop.
It’s only after I’m wiping fur and sand from my mouth that I see it. See something
so strange, so miraculous
that it’s all I can do to
remember to
breathe.
Virgil Will Deliver
The message is tied securely to the front of Dog’s collar with fishing wire. It hangs, a little folded square, tied like a parcel.
With trembling fingers I untie it, Dog watching me solemnly. He knows this is a momentous occasion.
I curse. There’s no way I can undo all those tiny knots. I make Dog wait while I get my knife.
‘Sit still. Don’t want to hurt you.’
Dog knows not to move.
I finally cut through the fishing wire, and stare at the little note-parcel in my hand. Its edges are neat and precise. One more cut with the knife, and I’m through.
I start to unfold it. It’s made from a weird sort of shiny paper, like it’s waterproof. For a moment I wonder where I’ve seen this sort of paper before, and then I remember the water-resistant notebook from the Red Nylon Bag. I have a vague memory of ripping pages out and watching them soar into the gull-filled, wave-tossed sky a million years ago.
It’s been folded loads of times, like Whoever was aiming for a Guinness World Record in paper-folding. Eventually I get to the final layer, and open it to reveal the message. It’s in tiny, neat, cramped writing, in a sharp pencil, on a tiny piece of paper, as if Whoever is reluctant to waste even a scrap of vital resources.
EST POS 47°25.0’S, 52°59.5’E
APPROX 200 KM DRIFT FROM SOA
RETURN VIA VIRGIL
I blink, then reread. Then I start to get angry.
Like, what the frick does that even mean? Who the hell’s Virgil? What’s the point in writing in code, when it may be your only chance to give vital information?
On wobbly legs, I reach over to the wood pile and chuck a couple of could-be nut husks and some sticks on to the fire. Watch it whoosh as it lives again. I feel like hurling the stupid message into the flames too, to make those crabbed numbers crinkle and shrink.
But ’course I don’t.
Instead I sit on my hammock and stroke my finger over the paper. Stare at the message, like it’ll start to speak.
Probably not a bird hunter then, not with a water-resistant survival notebook.
Maybe it’s the pilot. Of all the people it could be, please make it be the pilot. I can’t even remember his name –
the co-pilot’s name was Derek –
but the last thing I remember him shouting was,
‘BRACE!’ and everyone’s screaming now, everything’s tilting…
I lie down with Dog, and prop the note up on a rock so that I can see it. Tomorrow I’ll write back. Maybe in some random code, or Elvish or something.
Ha.
The sky feels different today, sort of bruised and angry. There’s an edge to it. And, settling over the mountains, something I’ve not seen since I’ve been here.
Clouds.
Weymouth
I swoop Johnny up into a hug and we both run into the sea. Cassie’s just behind us, free and happy with her shoes off. She’s enjoying the feeling of the cold water on her swollen feet because it’s a hot day, hotter than any we’ve had this summer.
Everyone’s in families but we’re a family too.
Like that mum with her two boys, all three of them in wetsuits and gleaming like seals while their dad takes a picture.
‘Smile,’ he’s saying. ‘Smile.’
Like that pair of old ladies sitting in their camping chairs, sharing a packet of Doritos with their sudoku on their laps. They’re sisters, I suppose, and they come here all the time, to hear the seagulls, to nod in the sun.
Like that teenage girl sitting on the bench on the edge of the beach. She’s with her little dog and he’s up on the bench beside her, head cocked. He’s hoping for one of her chips but her dad gets in there first. She pushes him off, pouting. He laughs and gives her a cuddle.
A pair of hands grabs my face then. Johnny’s on my hip and pulling my face towards him, so that I’m looking just into his eyes.
A woman who’s paddling turns to us and laughs.
‘Wants to look at his sister, don’t he!’
But it makes me sad, that Johnny needs to do that, at two years old. That it’s the only way to get a whole person to himself. I am his whole world.
We’re in Weymouth and it’s the first and last time Cassie’s taken us to the seaside.
We stare into each other’s faces, Johnny and me, and around us the wind flaps, and dark spots are on the beach; dark spots that blur and bleed and everyone’s laughing and rushing under their beach-tents and pulling plastic bags over their heads, and Cassie’s tugging us and we’re laughing and running, running over that churning sand before we get
wet.
Storm
The splats of rain darken the sand like ink blots. More and more of them, till I sit up and crawl forward on my hands and knees. Feel them splash on my hands, cheeks, forehead.
Dog leaps up and I fall forward and lift up my face and open my mouth.
Let me at it, let me at it, let me at it.
Sweetest, warmest, fattest rain ever.
Filling my mouth. Plumping out my fat, thick tongue.
It began with a warm shiver that lasted all day. Me and Dog felt it as we plaited more palm leaves; dragged driftwood for the fire. When we waded in deep to pull in our bottl
e-net, even the fish seemed to bristle with some sort of knowing energy. Their eyes fixed the sky as their mouths gaped and ungaped.
Dog doesn’t like it.
When we’ve drunk our fill, he sits and mopes on our bed, front paws burying his nose. His eyes follow me as I heave boulders and rocks to weight down what remains of the life raft.
Then the sky seems to heave as it crackles and unzips itself.
I leave the log I’m pulling and go and sit by Dog.
‘!’ he says, but in a small voice.
‘Oh my God.’
Already our camp is soaked. Dog pants and presses against me whilst I stuff all my treasures into my bag: broken shells, my Ray-Bans, fishing line, all the pebbles that Dog has brought me.
The fish that’s hanging on the washing line is swaying and getting pulpy; I hope it won’t waste.
The sky howls, and cracks its jagged teeth. Me and Dog sit shivering. We watch the palm trees bend double and hiss, their fronds flapping wildly like a crazy wino’s hands. The sea is bruised and blue; its waves bash the shore, breakers big as juggernauts.
All at once One Tree cracks and sails across the beach in slow motion. It lands metres away from our shelter.
‘We can’t stay here,’ I shout. ‘Come on, Dog, we can’t stay.’
I gather up our stuff any old how, in a panic, Dog running loops around my feet.
Shoes, I need my bra-shoes. And where the frick’s my knife?
The storm snatches branches and leaves and shelter poles and flings them into the sky. As me and Dog race to grab our cooking tins and bottle-net, a branch soars over and crashes in front of us, missing Dog by millimetres.
‘Run, Dog. Run!’
I’m screaming and shouting but my voice goes nowhere; it’s caught and tattered by the wind.
A gust scoops me up like a pulsing hand and throws me sideways. I land on my hands and knees in the sand, terrified for Dog.
‘Dog. Dog! Where are you, for frick’s sake?’
I pick myself up and the sea’s hurling itself against the shore; behind it, the sky is purplish and bruised like a horrid flower. The storm spins the sea; spins the sky; wobbles its way towards our camp and I watch in horror as it shrieks and shreds Home Camp to pieces; bits of palm roof whirl.