The Year of the Rat

by Clare Furniss

  Finn comes round to say goodbye.

  And this time when he kisses me I don’t pull away.

  ‘Yes,’ she says and despite the smile her voice catches. In the early morning light her hair looks like fire. She closes her eyes and turns her face into the pale orange glow, which is growing stronger all the time. It picks out the faint lines on her face, exaggerates them. For a second I can imagine what she would have looked like if she’d grown old.

  ‘You look beautiful too,’ I say.

  She opens one eye and raises an eyebrow.

  ‘You haven’t been drinking again, have you, Pearl?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not dabbling in hallucinogenic drugs?’

  ‘No.’

  She laughs. ‘The last time you told me I was beautiful you were four years old. And even then it was only because you’d done my make-up for me. Do you remember? Smeary lipstick all over the place.’

  I smile. And once I’ve started I can’t stop. I stand there in the sunlight, leaning against the window sill and grinning like a loon.

  ‘I’ve been dreading today,’ I say.

  I know I have been, my heart skittering every time I thought about it; but that fear feels far away now, as though it belonged to someone else.

  ‘I know,’ Mum says and she turns her head away for a moment, looks out of the window again.

  ‘Let’s go outside,’ she says suddenly.

  And I smile some more because it’s exactly what I want to do.

  I unlock the patio doors and put on Mum’s coat, which still hangs on the peg it’s always been on, over my nightie. Then I slide my bare feet into a pair of wellies and we step out into the garden. The grass is stiff with frost. It sparkles in the dawn light.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Mum says.

  I shake my head, though I ought to be.

  ‘Come on.’ I take her hand and we walk over the crunchy grass down to the bench at the end of the garden and sit down, the gnarled, knotted branches of the trees bare above our heads.

  For a long time we sit in silence. The world is perfectly still. It’s as if there’s only us in it. I can’t remember feeling so happy, so peaceful, so at one with everything around me.

  But when I look at Mum I see her cheeks are wet with tears.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, taking her hand again.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Pearl,’ she says at last, and I can feel it, the sorrow that’s inside her. It’s like a wound.

  ‘What for?’ I say. ‘What are you sorry for?’

  She shakes her head, unable to speak, and I hug her for a while, feeling her ribs shudder as she sobs silently.

  ‘For all of it,’ she says, her voice cracking. ‘For every single tear you’ve shed because of me.’

  She looks up at me, her eyes red-rimmed.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ I say. ‘I was angry with you. I shouldn’t have been.’

  ‘I wasn’t honest with you,’ she said. ‘About James. About me. I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? About how things were after I was born? How hard it was?’

  ‘I wanted to make things how they should have been. I should have been so happy when you were born. But it was exhausting and I was scared and I struggled.’ She takes my hand. ‘I thought I could make things how I wanted them to be. I wanted to make the world perfect for you. I felt so guilty.’

  ‘That’s what Granny said.’

  ‘Well, she’s not wrong about everything.’ Mum sighs. ‘She’s interfering and bossy and an appalling snob, but – well. She loves you.’

  ‘I’ve been so angry. With everyone. But most of all—’ I take a deep breath. I can hear my heartbeat. But I have to tell her. ‘With the baby.’

  ‘I know.’

  I look at her. And I realize she does know. All the things I’ve tried to hide. Dad. The Rat. The lies I’ve told. She knows all of it.

  ‘How do you know?’ I think of all the things I’ve thought and said and my eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Because I know you.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She takes my hand. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry too.’

  A blackbird is singing in the tall trees behind us. I sit, head leaning on Mum’s shoulder, listening. It’s so sad and perfect I think maybe it’s coming from inside me. And in this moment I understand something; something she can’t tell me.

  ‘You wouldn’t change it, would you?’ I say. ‘Even if you could? If the alternative was not having had her at all. You’d choose this.’

  As I say it, I realize I’ve known it all along.

  She nods, tears spilling from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  I shut my eyes. The blackbird sings.

  I’m so tired. Tired of being angry. Tired of being sad. I lean further into Mum and she puts her arm round me and we sit like that until I’m so sleepy I can’t keep the thoughts straight in my head. I open my eyes and try to look at Mum, but my eyelids droop. I feel myself falling and sleep rising up to catch me.

  ‘Come on.’ Mum’s voice seems far away. I’m half aware of her arm round my shoulders. I let her guide me back into the house.

  The bed is soft around me. I’m almost asleep.

  But I know she’s still there. I can feel the warmth of her pressing against my arm . . .

  ‘Can you forgive her?’ she says as I slip towards sleep.

  ‘Maybe,’ I try to say. ‘I think I want to.’

  ‘I didn’t need to make the world perfect for you,’ she whispers. ‘You’re strong. Stronger than me. Strong enough to see life as it is. Messy and terrifying and unbearable—’ she kisses me on the lips – ‘and wonderful.’

  Then she says: ‘I love you.’

  And I feel her get up; the warmth of her is gone. I feel her leave.

  ‘Wait . . .’ I try to grab her hand, but I’m too slow and heavy and full of sleep. ‘I don’t want you to go yet . . .’

  When I wake again, the hot yellow sun is streaming in through the window; it’s late. Too late.

  I sit up, blind with panic.

  She’s gone. I know it.

  She’s gone.

  She’s gone.

  She’s gone.

  I hide my face. I sob and I sob and I don’t know how I’m ever going to stop.

  I hear Dad’s footsteps. And then his arms are round me and they feel strong and safe, just like they have ever since I was a baby.

  ‘She’s gone, Dad,’ I say at last. ‘She’s really gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  And he cries too.

  I’m wrung out and empty and weak and still I can’t stop crying. The tears just keep falling and falling. My cheeks are tight and itchy. My eyes are swollen.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say to Dad. ‘What are we going to do?’

  He doesn’t say anything, just holds me.

  Then he kisses the top of my head and takes my hand.

  ‘Come on,’ he says.

  I follow him. ‘Look,’ he says. We’re standing in front of The Rat’s cot. She’s sleeping, her arms flung out above her head.

  It’s her birthday.

  I hear the sigh of her breath, in and out, between her slightly parted lips, watch her chest rise and fall, rise and fall.

  ‘Rose,’ I whisper.

  I walk downstairs and out into the garden. The sun is so bright that when I shut my eyes I can still see the shadow patterns of the trees against my lids.

  On the other side of the wall I can hear the children who have moved into Dulcie’s house playing, jumping on their trampoline and laughing.

  Above are the birds and the constant drone of the planes.

  Behind me is my home.

  In the soil at my feet there are green shoots; pale petals ready to unfurl.

  The world may tip at any moment. But for now—

  For now the world keeps turning and I keep breathing, in and out, in and out. I breathe in the
life that is all around me, in this garden, in this city, in the fields beyond it, in the seas beyond them and the shores on the other side; life that reaches out towards the unreachable, unknowable space that is beyond all of us and the stars that burn there.

  The world may tip at any moment.

  But for now that doesn’t matter.

  Acknowledgements

  Huge love and thanks to my mum and dad, Helen and Brian Furniss. Without your support – emotional, practical, financial and editorial – I couldn’t possibly have written this book. Also to David, for your blind faith that I would write a book worth reading, and for the sacrifices you made so that I could try.

  Thank you to Julia Green and Steve Voake for your gentle guidance, and to my fellow students on the Bath Spa MA Writing for Young People: Blondie Camps, Alex Hart, Helen Herdman, Lu Hersey, David Hofmeyr and Sasha Busbridge. You all helped to make this book what it is.

  Thank you to Linda Newbery, Malorie Blackman and Melvin Burgess. Your belief in my writing kept me going when I felt like giving up.

  Thanks to the team at Simon and Schuster and Riot for your enthusiasm and hard work, especially to Ingrid Selberg, Jane Griffiths, Elisa Offord, Kat McKenna, Laura Hough, Maura Brickell and Preena Gadher.

  And finally, thanks to my agent, Catherine Clarke, for always being right about everything.

  In conversation with Clare Furniss

  What was the inspiration behind THE YEAR OF THE RAT?

  I was pregnant when I started writing the story and already had two children, although my two were still very young, not teenagers like Pearl. I remember people being surprised that I was writing about a woman dying in childbirth at this time, but I think writing is often a way of exploring fears or preoccupations, of externalising them and working them through.

  There was also a very specific incident that became the starting point for the book. The previous summer I’d had to go into hospital for an operation. The night before I baked a cake and the thought popped into my head of what would happen to the cake if I died during the operation (I’m a terrible pessimist – I think, like many writers, I find it very easy to imagine terrible things happening!). Would they eat it? Would it get thrown away? This thought obviously lurked in the back of my mind and appeared unexpectedly when I started writing The Year of The Rat. This very small detail became a scene that was then a powerful trigger for the rest of the book; it told me so much about the relationship between Pearl and her dad, and gave me a very tangible sense of the huge loss they were both feeling.

  There are several very strong female characters in THE YEAR OF THE RAT and in many ways it’s their different experiences and outlook on life that define the novel. Did you intentionally set out to write a book with female relationships at its centre?

  It wasn’t a conscious aim in the sense of having an agenda, but the mother-daughter relationship felt like a very natural subject to write about, as a daughter and a mother myself. The complexities of relationships within families fascinate me and all the women in my family are strong personalities in their different ways!

  Dulcie is an important figure too, even though she plays a cameo role in the story. I was close to my own grandmothers growing up and I wanted to explore how we look at old people and the assumptions we make about them. A big part of growing up is the realisation that your parents and grandparents had lives before you were born, that they were young and very different from the version of them that you know, and that you may have more in common than you think. This plays out in the relationship between Pearl and Dulcie.

  But it’s not just the women who are strong in this story. Alex, Pearl’s Dad, is the hero of the book in many ways. He’s under pressure and he doesn’t deal with everything perfectly. He makes mistakes, but he’s Pearl’s rock.

  Part of the strength of the female characters is the dynamics between them, and especially the different roles of mothers and daughters. Do you think being a mother has changed your outlook on life? Do you relate most to Pearl or Stella?

  Being a mother has definitely changed my outlook, and I think this book comes entirely as a result of that. The strength of what you feel for your children is something I couldn’t imagine before having them. Suddenly someone other than yourself is the centre of the world, and that’s both liberating and terrifying, because there’s a loss of control that comes with that and a huge responsibility. Abandoning your child and causing them pain is the worst thing you can imagine doing, and that’s part of what I’m exploring in the book too, because that’s exactly what Stella does, albeit completely unintentionally.

  I think Stella is my alter ego! She walked onto the page and took over her scenes while I took a back seat, letting her get on with it. If I’m honest I think she probably has an exaggerated version of both my best and worst characteristics. But writing her really felt like taking dictation. Sometimes I’d laugh out loud at things she said and my husband would say, “You do realise you’re laughing at your own jokes?”, and I’d say, “It wasn’t me making the joke, it was Stella.” Needless to say, he thought I was crazy.

  Having said that, I relate to Pearl very strongly too, and of course while I was writing the book I saw things from Pearl’s point of view, since I was writing in the first person. I remember vividly how it felt to be a teenager, so it didn’t feel difficult to see the world through her eyes. I didn’t have to deal with the things that Pearl does, but I remember clearly the feeling of being lost and a bit out of my depth and determined not to show it. Pearl’s hostility and the distance she creates between herself and those around her is a defence mechanism. And although I didn’t lose my mother, I did experience the loss of a friend when I was a little older than Pearl. I think the first time someone very close to you dies, particularly if it’s unexpected and they are young, you don’t just suffer the loss of that individual but it shakes your entire world, your sense of what life is about and what the point of everything is. That was part of what I wanted to explore in the book.

  THE YEAR OF THE RAT is about Pearl’s journey after her mother’s death. Did you do much research into the processes of grief before you started writing?

  I did do some reading around the psychology of grief and the five stages of grieving, and this was useful and thought-provoking as background. But at the same time I knew it was important not to get too bogged down in the theory. The truth is that grief isn’t a series of boxes to be ticked, it is incredibly personal, and everyone will both experience and express it differently.

  In the course of writing the book I read and listened to first-hand accounts of young people who had suffered the loss of a parent, and again and again what came across incredibly strongly was that each person reacts in a different way. Some people seem OK on the surface and bottle up their emotions. Some are angry. Some people are brought together by grief, others are isolated by their inability to grieve together or by their different ways of dealing with their loss. For some it is a trigger for other serious problems: depression, anorexia, self-harm. I had to allow myself to be led by my character and believe that, if I knew my character well enough, her responses to particular situations would be true and right and believable for her. I had a very clear sense from the start of how grief would freeze her, how all her sorrow and fear and anger would feel so overwhelming that she would keep them locked inside her, and cut her off from the rest of the world.

  While I was writing the book I also came across newspaper articles and interviews and features on the sudden loss of a loved one. The thing that came through again and again was how long it took to accept that the person was really dead; that they were gone and wouldn’t be coming back. People referred to the fact that the first anniversary of a death was incredibly hard for them and that it was only really at this point that they really accepted the person was gone. This shaped the way I approached the ending of the book. It was important for me that Pearl isn’t ‘OK’ by the end of the book, that she isn’t happy and ready to move on. In
many ways she is still at the start of the grieving process. She has simply accepted that her mum is gone.

  The make-up of Pearl’s family is an unconventional one. Was it important to you to reflect the fact that children and teenagers aren’t necessarily living in a traditional nuclear family?

  Yes. For the book to be believable it was important for the story to reflect the real world, where families come in all shapes and sizes. Also, one of the things that’s really important in this story is Pearl’s realisation that people and their relationships are more complicated than they might appear, and that life throws unexpected things at you. I wanted to show that this isn’t always a bad thing; positive things can come out of the untidiness and unpredictability of life too. Stella wished that Alex, Pearl’s stepdad, was her biological father; she wanted to make everything neat and perfect for Pearl. But Alex’s love for Pearl is what makes him her ‘real’ dad; no one could love her more than he does. And in fact Pearl gains something by discovering her biological father and his family and making a connection with them.

  How did you become a full-time writer?

  I loved creative writing at school but it never occurred to me that I could do it for a living. When my children were very young and I was at home with them I had a really strong desire to write again but I didn’t know where to start. I had very little time, and when I did occasionally manage to sit down at my computer I’d sit and stare at the blank screen, filled with horror, wondering what on earth to do next. In the end I plucked up the courage to go on a week-long residential writing course with the Arvon foundation. It was wonderful, and while I was there I forced myself to start writing – in fact I wrote the opening of The Year of The Rat while I was there. I got some really encouraging feedback and began to take the idea of writing a bit more seriously. When my children were old enough I applied to do a part-time MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. I went back to The Year of The Rat for my MA manuscript and after an awful lot of hard work, sleepless nights, blood, sweat and many tears, I got it finished and sent it off to Catherine Clarke, who is now my agent. To my surprise and delight she loved it, and within a month I had a book deal.