The Year of the Rat

by Clare Furniss

  I have no intention of getting to know The Rat, but I can’t be bothered to have another argument and the sharpness of Mum’s voice when we talked about The Rat is still fresh in my mind. So I just let Dad talk. He’s so nervous and excited the words just keep tumbling out of his mouth. He looks different. Or maybe it’s that he’s stopped looking different. He looks like Dad again; older, with silver hairs around his temples, lines around his eyes, but it’s like inside he’s remembered who he was before all this. I feel a pang of envy. I want to know how he did it.

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’ he says as we go through the door and he puts his hand on my shoulder and for a tiny fleeting moment I almost want him to be right.

  It’s the smell that does it; as soon as we’re inside the hospital, I think I’m going to be sick. My clothes stank of it, that hospital smell, for days after Mum died. I washed them and washed them, but I couldn’t get rid of it. In the end I put them in a black bin bag and chucked them out with the rest of the rubbish. But the weird thing was the smell didn’t go; for weeks it was like it was on my skin, or in my hair.

  I follow Dad, but all I can think about is the last time I was here, running along these same corridors, and the nausea rises in my throat and I start to feel faint.

  ‘I can’t go up with you,’ I call to Dad.

  He turns round. ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t. I’ll wait outside.’

  His face changes from surprise to disappointment.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Pearl?’ he says, and I can see how hard he’s trying not to raise his voice. ‘Why do you have to make everything so difficult?’

  I stare at him. He doesn’t understand. He’s not thinking about Mum. Just about The Rat. I turn and run. I run back along the corridors, past nurses and shuffly old people and anxious relatives and trolleys with people on and trolleys with medicine on, through the foyer with its coffee shop and horrid plastic plants, and out into the car park.

  Outside, I lean against the wall, trying to catch my breath, surrounded by all the people who have come outside for a cigarette: doctors, visitors, patients in wheelchairs, all congregated on the little paved area outside the entrance.

  I close my eyes for a moment, trying to clear my head.

  ‘Hello,’ says a voice. ‘It’s Pearl, isn’t it?’

  When I open my eyes, there’s a very old, frail-looking lady standing in front of me. It takes me a moment to recognize her: the old dear from next door.

  ‘Dulcie,’ she says, holding out a tiny fragile hand. Her eyes are unexpectedly blue and alert in her lined face. ‘Your next-door neighbour. We haven’t met properly, have we? Though I’ve spoken to your father a few times. I hope everything’s OK? You’re not ill?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Dad’s just here to—’ I break off. I can’t even bring myself to talk about The Rat. ‘To pick someone up.’

  She looks at me with a curious expression, then covers it with a smile.

  ‘The baby?’ she says. I feel my face flush, aware that she knows I was trying to avoid mentioning The Rat. ‘He said last time I saw him that the doctors were hoping she’d be well enough to come home soon.’

  I try to smile. ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘Well, you must bring her round to see me soon. You’ll do that, won’t you?’

  ‘OK,’ I say, not meaning it.

  ‘And perhaps you can meet Finn again,’ she says. ‘My grandson. He’s coming to stay with me over the summer after he’s finished his exams, before he goes off to music college in September. He’ll be helping me out with the house and garden now I can’t cope with it all. Such a good boy. You met him once before, I think, when he was down for a few days?’

  I’m about to say no, thinking perhaps she’s a bit senile, when I realize who she means: the horrible, wild-haired gardener, who overheard me shouting at trees. He’s her grandson.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, going red. ‘Yes. I did meet him once.’ The memory of it makes me cringe.

  ‘Well, you must pop round when he’s here. I’m sure he’d be delighted to see you.’

  I doubt it somehow.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘I’d better go. I’m keeping the consultant waiting again.’

  She grimaces slightly as she says it, as though she’s in pain, but she covers it well.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I say. ‘Do you want me to walk with you?’

  ‘No, dear,’ she says. ‘You wait here for your sister. I’ll be fine. This place is my second home; I’d know my way blindfold.’ She smiles. ‘See you soon I hope.’

  I watch her make her way inside, so slight, her back bent, her movement slow and pained. Once she’s gone, I go and sit on one of the benches over by the bus stops to wait for Dad. I don’t have to wait long before he appears through the automatic doors, clutching the car seat, this time with The Rat in it. It’s a shock seeing her. She’s changed so much. She doesn’t look like an alien any more. She’s still tiny and scrawny, but she looks like a baby now, with dark hair and big eyes as she looks at the outside world for the first time. There’s nothing cute about her though; no rosy cheeks or dimples. We walk to the car in silence.

  As soon as we’re in the car, she starts to yell. It’s a weird noise, a kind of hoarse scream, over and over again. In the small space of the car it’s incredibly loud.

  ‘I expect she’ll stop once we get moving,’ Dad says. ‘She’ll probably go to sleep.’

  But she doesn’t. She doesn’t stop screaming for a single second of the journey home.

  ‘Perhaps you should take her back to the hospital,’ I say. ‘There might be something wrong.’

  ‘Babies cry, Pearl,’ Dad snaps. ‘She’s fine. It’s just new for her, that’s all. She’s probably scared.’

  It’s new for me too, I want to say. I’m scared too.

  Once we get home, Dad takes The Rat out of her seat and at last she stops crying. But every time he tries to put her down again the yelling starts up just as loud. In the end she falls asleep in Dad’s arms. I leave them sitting together in the sitting room, both exhausted on the sofa.

  But I can still hear the sound of her crying in my ears.

  I’m running. I’m running down corridors, identical green corridors, but the further I run the longer they get and I’m trying to run faster, but I can’t move my legs and I’m not going to get there I’m not going to get there . . .

  I sit up in bed, heart pounding, head still half in the dream. I try to breathe slowly. The corridors fade, leaving blank darkness. For a second relief floods through me; but that second disappears into the dark too and now I feel that there are tears on my cheeks and I remember why. I scrub them away with my sleeve and I hate myself for forgetting, even for that tiny moment, just like I do every morning. Except – I stare into the darkness, slow to catch up . . . Except this isn’t morning. The clock says 3:17.

  Something is strange. It takes me another moment to work out what it is.

  It’s the silence. Every single one of the ten nights since she came home the noise of The Rat has filled the house. But tonight there is nothing except the pipes clanking and a dog barking in the distance. My brain is still half in the panicky dream. Perhaps something has happened while I’ve been asleep. I get up and pad across the cold floorboards along the landing to Dad’s bedroom. I push the door open a crack. His bedside lamp is on and he’s in bed, propped up on some pillows, fast asleep, with The Rat also asleep on his chest. His hand rests protectively on her tiny back. They seem to glow in the circle of lamplight.

  I stare at them for a moment longer; somehow I feel like I’m intruding on something private. I force myself to look away and head back to my room, but I can’t stop thinking of them, together on the other side of the wall, their gentle breathing.

  Eventually, I give up on trying to sleep and go downstairs to make a cup of tea. I bring it back up with me and go to sit in Mum’s study. I don’t expect her to be there this time. I just want to feel less alone.
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br />   I put my tea down on the desk and carefully open up the STELLA’S STUDY (PERSONAL) box again.

  There are old letters from Nanna Pam, Mum’s mum, and more recent cards from Mum’s best friend Aimee in Australia and other people I don’t know. There’s a photo of Mum and Dad looking young and happy, one with me on Dad’s shoulders at London Zoo. There’s an old biscuit tin with things from when I was a baby: the hospital wristband, some little soft shoes, a tiny knitted hat. I hold the hat to my face. It’s soft and smells very faintly of washing powder.

  I place everything carefully back in the tin and go to put it in the box. As I do, I notice a strip of passport pictures, slightly creased, lying at the bottom of the box. I pull them out. They’re of two teenagers, a girl and a boy, not much older than me I’d guess. The girl is Mum, but I don’t recognize the boy. On the back it says: With James. I look at them in wonder. James. I say the name out loud.

  It’s my father’s name. My real dad. These pictures are of him.

  I’ve never seen any photos of him. He’s always just been a name: James Sullivan. Mum told me his name when I was a little kid. She told me he knew about me, but that they’d agreed from the start that he wouldn’t be involved. She’d said if I ever wanted to know anything more I could ask, or if I wanted to contact him we could talk about it. But even then I sensed that really she hoped I wouldn’t. And, anyway, I was never interested. Molly asked me about it once. ‘Aren’t you curious?’ she’d said. ‘He might be a billionaire or something.’ But I had a dad, one who took care of me and comforted me when I was upset and was always there when I needed him. Why would I care about some stranger who had never met me?

  But now I’m intrigued. I study the pictures closely, trying to work out what kind of person he is. He looks fun, I decide. Kind of mischievous. Interesting too, with his punky goth haircut. In two of the photos he’s smiling and it’s a real smile, you can tell: it goes right up to his eyes. In the next one he and Mum are doing serious faces, gazing off at different angles, as if they’re looking into the distance and thinking very deep thoughts. In the last one you can’t really see their faces because they’re laughing so much. James is bent forward, his hair flopping forward over his face, and Mum’s thrown her head back.

  Does he look like me at all? I squint a bit, focus on his eyes then his nose and his mouth, but he just looks like some guy I don’t know.

  I’m starting to feel cold and sleepy, so I put everything back in the box. Everything except the passport pictures. I take them with me back to my bedroom and I put them in the drawer of my bedside table. And when I switch the light out and close my eyes I don’t see Dad and The Rat curled up together in the room next door.

  I see James.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘What?’ I hadn’t even realized Dad was there; I’m watching a story on the news about a man who was struck by lightning walking his dog in the park. I never really paid much attention to this stuff before. But now . . . I imagine the man in the blurry photo on the TV putting on his raincoat, getting the dog’s lead off the hook in the hall, grumbling about how, when they got the dog, the kids had promised they’d walk it and now here he is, every night, whatever the weather. He never even wanted a bloody dog. ‘Paying tribute to Mr Davies today, his wife said, “He was a loving husband and a wonderful dad.”’

  The world can tip at any moment—

  ‘Pearl! Switch that off, will you? This is important.’

  I do as he says and turn round to look at him. The Rat is in his arms, her dark eyes fixed on him as he speaks.

  ‘Look, Pearl,’ he says, coming to sit down on the sofa. ‘The thing is – well, the thing is money.’

  ‘What about it?’ My mind is still on the lightning man.

  ‘Well, basically, we haven’t got any. I don’t know when we’re going to see any of Mum’s insurance money. That’s if we ever get it at all.’ He rubs his head as if it’s aching. I’ve heard him on the phone going on about forms and liability and cover. It made me angry to think of a bored call-centre person talking about Mum.

  ‘What does it matter?’ I say. ‘No amount of money is going to bring Mum back.’

  ‘I know that, Pearl,’ Dad says, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘But we need money to live, if you hadn’t noticed. Anyway. Work have been brilliant letting me take unpaid leave since we brought Rose home. They didn’t have to. But I’ve got to start earning again. I need to go back to work. Now. Or we’re in danger of losing the house.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And we can’t afford any childcare.’

  ‘So who’s going to look after her?’ I nod to The Rat.

  ‘Well, that’s the thing.’ He pauses and shifts uncomfortably and suddenly I realize what he’s going to say. But no, surely he wouldn’t? He takes a deep breath. ‘Until I can sort out something more permanent, I’m going to need your help, Pearl. I’m going to need you to keep an eye on your sister.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, Pearl.’

  ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘I know it seems daunting. But you’ll be fine. You’ve done babysitting before, haven’t you? And this will be easier really because you know Rose and she knows you and you’ll be in your own home.’ He doesn’t even sound totally convinced himself.

  It’s true, I have done babysitting a few times, but only ever as a favour to Molly when she was supposed to be looking after her brothers and only if she promised me the kids would be in bed before I got there. Then I just sat there with the TV on really quiet, hoping they wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t have a clue what I’d do if they did.

  ‘You’ll be able to phone me any time. I’ve talked to work about it and they’re very understanding.’

  God, he’s got it all worked out. How long has he been planning this?

  ‘And that’s supposed to make it all OK? What if I’ve got other plans?’

  ‘Like what?’

  He’s got a point. I’ve hardly got a packed social diary.

  ‘It won’t be for long,’ he says. ‘You could see if Molly could come round and help. She’d be company for you and she’s good with children, isn’t she?’

  ‘Meaning I’m not?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he says uncertainly. ‘I just meant – well, she’s got younger brothers, hasn’t she? She’s used to looking after them.’

  ‘Well, she’s in Spain with her posh boyfriend and his family,’ I snap. Getting an amazing tan and eating way too much tapas!!! according to the postcard which arrived yesterday. Really missing u though! ‘So she can’t.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Well, never mind. Dulcie next door has said she’ll keep an ear open and you can go round to her if there’s any problem.’

  I actually laugh out loud. ‘Dulcie from next door? Are you kidding me? She’s ancient. She must be a hundred at least. I expect she’s deaf as a post. Probably senile too.’

  ‘That’s uncalled for, Pearl. Really. You’re being very unreasonable.’

  ‘I’m being unreasonable?’

  ‘Yes!’ He yells it. The Rat’s face crumples and she starts to cry. ‘Yes you are. You’re being unreasonable and selfish and I just don’t understand why. I’m going out of my mind with worry, just trying to keep everything together, and I thought I could rely on you to help.’ He’s so angry he’s shaking. ‘I feel like I don’t know you any more, Pearl. I feel let down. And so would Mum.’

  I’m so shocked I can’t speak. Dad never shouts at me. I honestly can’t remember a single time, except for once when I was about five and I ran out into the road after a football and a car almost hit me. I can still hear the screech of the brakes. He’d yelled then all right.

  He stands up abruptly and turns away from me so he’s face to face with the hideous 1970s orange and brown zigzag wallpaper that adorns the sitting-room walls, which I can’t help thinking isn’t going to cheer him up much. He rocks The Rat to try and calm her down, but
it’s like she knows he’s upset and her roars just get louder.

  I stare at his back, trying to work out what to do.

  ‘All right,’ I manage to say eventually. ‘Keep your hair on.’

  When he turns round, there are tear tracks on his cheeks. My insides squirm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says at last over The Rat’s cries. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’

  But the truth is I know he’s right. Mum would never forgive me if she could hear this conversation. And suddenly the nagging doubt is in my head again: what if she can? What if she’s listening in without me knowing? I’ve been getting it a lot, the sense that she could be sneaking around after me; that she might know more than she was letting on. I haven’t seen her since The Rat came home. What if it’s because she knows how I feel? What if she’s angry with me and never comes back?

  ‘Look,’ Dad says, struggling to make his voice calm, cradling The Rat and swaying to and fro till at last she stops crying and sucks her tiny thumb instead. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask. But now your exams have finished it would make things so much easier if you could keep an eye on her during the day. Just for a week or two until—’ He stops himself.

  ‘Until what?’ I’m convinced suddenly that there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.

  ‘Well.’ He looks uncomfortable. ‘Until I can sort something else out.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Let’s not worry about that now,’ he says. ‘What I need to know is, are you prepared to do it?’

  I imagine Mum out in the hall with a glass to the wall. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  ‘Doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice, does it?’ I say ungraciously.

  His face is so full of relief that I think he’s going to cry again.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ he says as The Rat’s eyelids droop and then close.

  ‘I’m not changing any nappies though,’ I say quickly. ‘No way.’