by Fiona Gibson
“What are you doing?” Jane asked.
“Mixing concrete.”
“In your kitchen?” Only her mother would argue that mixing concrete in a kitchen was a perfectly normal activity.
“It’s for the kitchen, Jane. That cavity where the washing machine’s bits went into the wall before the damn thing caught fire…you do remember?”
“Yes, Mum,” Jane said resignedly, clicking the “about Archie” button. Here was the man himself: Archie Snail, with weaselly eyes, a fluff of unruly gray hair and a short, tufty beard. His eyebrows swooped down toward a magnificent nose, as if a stranger had burst into his studio and forced him to be photographed entirely against his wishes.
“See you Tuesday, then,” Nancy said brusquely, “and tell Hannah she’ll have to make do with side veggies.”
“That’s fine, Mum. I’m sure she’ll love the veggies.”
Jane logged off and pulled out a sketchpad from the shelf beneath the desk. Hannah would have eaten at Amy’s, so she wouldn’t have to cook. She stared at the blank sheet, waiting for ideas to form. She began scribbling, making sweeping lines, her elbow colliding with Hannah’s birthday nail polish. It fell to the floor, the bottle smashing and forming a mossy-green pool. Damn, she’d wipe it up later, replace Hannah’s nail polish tomorrow.
Jane’s hand moved freely across the page. She’d make something special—something to bring that sad little room to life. All these years she’d tinkered away in her studio, kidding herself that this was a proper business she was running; she needed to rev up, to push herself, like her mother was always nagging her to. Nancy would, of course, conveniently forget that Jane had a full-time day job, and that Sally asking her to cover someone else’s shift happened so frequently it no longer surprised her.
Jane stared at her sketches. This piece, she sensed, would be her turning point. She’d create the loveliest thing she’d ever made in her life. Hannah was growing up, pushing her away; fighting it made it hurt even more. Jane needed something else—a life beyond a sullen daughter who shrank away from her as they passed on the stairs as if she’d become surplus to requirements…or, worse, a downright irritation. Something that, given the chance, Hannah would get rid of as swiftly as possible, like a verruca.
Jane’s heart was racing. She was a wart on the foot of her daughter; the person she’d made the focus of her entire world for the past fifteen years. Jane snatched another sheet from the pad and worked on and on, ideas swilling feverishly around her brain, not noticing that the room was shrouded in shadow and Hannah still hadn’t come home.
7
By the time Hannah left the Opal, a fine mist had descended on the street, making everything look hazy and not quite real. Or was that all the drinks she’d had? One of Ollie’s mates—Tara, or maybe Lara—had laughed at her Malibu and Coke, saying, “That’s such a girlie drink, Han. You don’t strike me as a girlie girl at all.” Despite the teasing, Hannah had liked the way Ollie’s friends had slipped so easily into calling her Han. Next round, she’d asked for wine like everyone else.
Hannah had never had undiluted wine before—only with fizzy water at Granny Nancy’s when she’d barely been able to taste it. She could taste it now, raw in her throat, blending nicely with that heap of slimy mushrooms with garlic and bits of unidentifiable leaf.
What had made her order mushrooms? She detested mushrooms—a fact that her dad occasionally forgot. Why did everyone assume that vegetarians went crazy for mushrooms, and tomatoes, too, for that matter? She’d gawped at the menu, hoping desperately to spot something familiar—something unobtrusive like an omelette or pasta or plain bread and cheese. The stress of the whole choosing business had killed her appetite. Yet she hadn’t wanted to sit there, twiddling the stem of her wineglass while Ollie and his posh mates stuffed their faces all around her.
Hannah glanced around the foggy street, aware of smoke and food smells clinging to her jacket and hair. She didn’t know which way to go. Ollie and the others were still in there, having coffee now, spooning froth from their cappuccinos. If any of them were drunk, they were doing a brilliant job of hiding it. Hannah felt woozy, as if in a half sleep, and was unable to figure out her current location. She cupped her hands around her mouth and exhaled to check if her breath stank of alcohol. All she could smell was her skin.
She squinted at her watch. Its hands, and the tiny black dashes for numbers, looked fuzzy. In fact there were two sets of dashes, overlayed and slightly out of register. Hannah rubbed her watch’s face in case it had steamed up or she’d got grease on it from the mushrooms. The dashes still hovered uncertainly.
Was this how it felt to be drunk? It wasn’t as extreme as she’d imagined. Her limbs appeared to be functioning normally. She hadn’t gone cartoon-wobbly, like Barnaby Lake acting drunk—very badly, she might add—in Whisky Galore at theater workshop. She wondered if she’d sound okay when she spoke. She needed to test her voice, to rehearse her excuse: “Hi, Mum, sorry I’m late. Was my phone off? Must’ve run out of juice. No, I didn’t go to Amy’s—change of plan. A few of us went out for a bite to eat. I know, Mum, you must’ve been worried. I’m really, really sorry.” There—how simple was that? Too many sorrys, maybe, she’d have to watch out for that. Didn’t want to overdo it. If lying came this easily when she’d had a Malibu and Coke and God knows how much wine, maybe she should drink alcohol more often.
Hannah strutted to the end of the street, confident that this was the corner she’d turned with Ollie. There was the canal, shimmering eerily beneath the low wall. A narrowboat swayed lazily. She was doing okay. She felt light all over, graceful and fluid, like a dancer. She wished she could dance right here on the pavement, and that she’d had the forethought to wear the lovely top her mum had bought for her birthday. It was mottled blue-green with tiny pearls stitched around its hem. Jane had good taste, Hannah granted her that. Shame she hadn’t picked out a few new things for herself when she’d bought it.
Hannah trailed her hand along the square-cut railings as she walked, enjoying their metallic smell. The evening had gone well, she decided, even when the issue of money had come up. “I’ve only got three quid,” she’d whispered to Ollie.
“Don’t worry about it,” he’d said with a casual flap of his hand. “Call it your late birthday treat.” No one seemed concerned by the astronomical prices of the drinks, or how much they were racking up with the food, drinks and coffees. Next time—Hannah was sure there’d be a next time—she’d rake together some money from somewhere. She’d save her pocket money, ask her dad for a tenner, maybe do some jobs for her mum to earn extra. She could offer to clear out the studio. No, not the studio. She’d cut the grass. Did grass still need cutting at the end of September?
Hannah knew where she was now. She’d been less than a mile from home. She smiled, feeling proud at handling herself so well with all those strangers. “Come on, Han,” Ollie had said when she’d finally forced herself up from her chair. “Stay a bit longer. We’re going back to Felix’s to watch a movie.” Perhaps it was best that she’d been first to leave. Didn’t those dumb girls’ magazines always tell you to play it cool?
Although they were students—media studies appeared to be a common theme, apart from Ollie who was at sixth-form college—no one had made her feel like an idiot schoolgirl. Hannah wondered if she’d ever reach a point in her life when she’d be able to say, “I’m a student,” while tucking into a salad that looked like a small unruly garden with a poached egg draped over it, and have it seem as if she was actually enjoying it.
Albemarle Street was in sight now. London Fields looked spooky beneath its thin veil of mist. Hannah could make out the yellowish light from her living room window and the bushy outlines of the plants in the window boxes. She walked briskly, feeling cool and elegant like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors. Even her schoolbag felt lighter.
She pressed the catch on the rusting wrought-iron gate and pushed it open. Hannah no longer cared about her dad l
eaving the old house, and a bunch of strangers moving into it, including some kid who’d be sure to spot that loose floorboard and lift it and find her—
The door flew open. A woman stood there—her mother, silhouetted against the rectangle of creamy light from the hall. Hannah couldn’t make out her face, but she could sense worry; it shivered in the air between them. She stepped forward, trying to muster a smile; a bold smile, like she’d practiced on the way home. “Hannah?” came Jane’s voice. “Where on earth have you been?”
Hannah opened her mouth. Her mum didn’t sound angry but scared—really scared. She could see now that her eyes were pink and sore-looking. “Why was your phone switched off?” Jane demanded.
“I—” Hannah began. No more words came out.
“I’ve been so worried. You can’t imagine what it’s been like.” Jane’s voice wavered. She sounded old—way older than usual. She swept her hands over her face, pushing back her hair distractedly. Hannah tried then, really tried to make words. She opened her mouth.
All that came out was a garlicky burp swiftly followed by white wine, Malibu and Coke and the mushrooms and little green herby bits, splattering the cracked paving slabs and the weeds that jutted between them.
8
“Are you sure?” Max asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” Jane retorted. “She threw up all over the path! I’ve just cleared it up and poured disinfectant all over it. What else could it have been—food poisoning?” She clamped her mouth shut. She was ranting, as if any of this were Max’s fault.
“Could it have been her school dinner?” he asked hesitantly.
“She doesn’t have them. Takes a packed lunch. You think a cheese sandwich would’ve made her—”
“No, no,” Max muttered.
“Anyway, I could smell drink on her breath. She reeked, Max. She’d been out after theater workshop, getting plastered with God knows who. Where d’you think she could have gone?”
Max paused. “Didn’t you ask her?”
“Yes, but she was really vague. Said she’d gone to some place—that’s all she’d tell me, a place—with a bunch of people I’d never heard of. Ally someone. Tara or Cara. I just helped her upstairs and put her to bed. Couldn’t bring myself to keep on at her when she was feeling so awful.”
“I’ll have a talk with her,” Max said gently.
“Don’t worry. I’ll do it.”
“It’s not fair, expecting you to deal with every little thing that comes up.”
“I don’t want you to do anything.” She’d have to stop calling him, Jane decided, whenever some minor emergency occurred. She’d gone straight to the phone when Hannah had been balancing wet-footed on the bath’s edge, fallen in and split her forehead on the tap; she’d needed him when Hannah had located a wasps’ nest in a tree trunk and been stung countless times on the scalp, triggering an asthma attack and Ventolin treatment at Whitechapel hospital. The frequent accidents, an asthma attack during maths just six months ago—Jane had needed Max every time. Just spilling words down the phone would make her feel better.
But what could Max do at eleven at night with Hannah already in bed and snoring throatily? After helping her upstairs, sponging her face and hair and easing her out of her clothes, Jane had felt oddly alone. The house had seemed eerily still, as if the person she’d invited had failed to show up. It had made her feel desperately sad, the way Hannah had slumped on the edge of her bed, all pale and crumpled-looking, not caring about being naked in front of her. Usually, if Jane happened to catch her in bra and knickers, she’d fold her milky arms over herself as if her own mother was some unfamiliar male who’d barged into her room.
“I could come over,” Max said. “I’d be there in ten minutes on my bike.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s late and really foggy outside.”
“I was working anyway, starting to rip the cupboards out of the kitchen.”
Jane smiled. “Bet your neighbors love all that racket at this time of night.”
“No one’s complained so far,” Max said.
They wouldn’t, would they? Jane thought, picturing Veronica in her heather-colored suit, probably rapping on his door—no, swishing straight in—and insisting on helping with cupboard removal. “Are you on your own?” Jane asked.
“Of course I am,” Max said softly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just wondered.”
“Shall I come now, see how you’re getting on with the window designs?”
“Okay,” she said with a smile, “come over and see my etchings.”
Max had a knack for saying the right things. Solid and sensible Dad-type things that had the effect of shrinking one dramatic yet out-of-character event to something approaching its rightful proportions. “We’ve both been there, haven’t we?” he said. “What about that time on the train back from Brighton when you threw up all over my shoes and—”
“I was eighteen!”
“What’s the difference?”
“She’s fifteen—only just fifteen—and it’s not me who went out and got pissed. It’s my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” Max corrected her. They were lounging on the living room floor with Jane’s sketches spread out all around them. She’d roughly tinted the shapes with water-colors; the colors of nasturtiums and violent poppies. Max picked one up and cocked his head.
“Well,” Jane said, “what d’you think?”
He traced a finger along the graceful curves. “They’re fantastic, but I’m not going to choose one. I think you should do whatever feels right.”
She threw him a glance. Working with clients was never this simple. Mr. Pemberton from the Golden Fry had deliberated over her sketches for weeks.
Of course, this wasn’t a client. This was Max. He went through to the kitchen to make tea, and when he reappeared with two mugs he looked hesitant. “Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Sure.”
“Remember that neighbor of mine, the one who—”
“Yes, of course I remember.” Why wouldn’t he say her name, Jane wondered?
He placed the mugs on the floor and stretched out on his side on the rug. “She’s being…persistent.”
“What kind of persistent?” Jane asked, trying to keep her voice light.
“She wants to go out for dinner on Friday.”
“With you?”
“Don’t look so shocked. It’s weird, though—she’d booked a table for seven thirty before checking with me. I’m never home from the shop until at least eight, you know that….”
Jane wasn’t sure if it was the too-early thing that was worrying him, or the whole dinner-with-Veronica thing. Max has a date, she told herself. So what? Look pleased for him, dammit. “Are you going to go?” she asked, some sort of smile on her face.
He frowned. “I don’t know. I feel…kind of pushed into it.”
“Poor, defenseless Max…” Jane smirked.
“What d’you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
She was still telling herself that it really didn’t matter—that Max’s Friday night plans didn’t relate to her life in any way whatsoever—as he wheeled out his bike into the cold, damp night.
Jane couldn’t sleep. She was worried about Hannah being sick again and she was worried about worrying because it was keeping her awake and she’d be exhausted next day at Nippers. Each time she closed her eyes, her mind filled with pictures: of Max’s window—before and after—and the awkward scene when Veronica had flounced into his kitchen. Max had behaved as if two separate sides of his life had been slammed together: the dazzling-new-neighbor side, and Jane. The ex-wife side.
What did it matter that they were having dinner and God knows what else? Beneath the pushy manner, the overdone face and obsession with strangers’ iron levels, she was probably a perfectly decent person. Max would have some fun, if nothing else; they could laugh about it once it was all over. Jane tried to pictured them chuckling over
Veronica’s insistence on getting up at 5:00 a.m. in order to fashion her hair into those tumultuous waves. But she couldn’t do it. She was incapable of imagining the “over” bit.
It was pathetic, the way she still thought of Max as somehow belonging to her. He’d been in her life for so long, that was the trouble. They’d met as eighteen-year-old students. She’d been drawn in by those dark eyes and perfect mouth; most boys’ lips verged on the too-thin or bulbous or, thanks to a short-lived craze during their freshman year, were garnished with endless variations on the creative facial hair theme. Max didn’t possess facial hair. He had a smile that made Jane want to kiss him, which she had, not caring who might saunter down the corridor and see them. Next morning, she’d woken up in his bedsit and spied her clothes bunched up on the floor. They looked as if they’d come off in one swoop.
Jane had been on the brink of leaving home, and it had made sense for her to move into Max’s bedsit. A backpacking trip to India and severe stomach upset later—and, presumably, throwing up the Pill—and she was pregnant. Too fast, like Hannah’s speedy delivery. Jane had barely known who she was. Yet, when Hannah was born, she’d felt as vital a part of Jane as her own heart.
Then one night, when Hannah was nearly five years old, Max had blundered home looking bewildered and poured it all out—that he’d slept with a woman who worked at the shop. He’d waited for Jane to start shouting and crying. She hadn’t cried—not in front of him anyway. But she’d frozen inside, as if her blood and heart had stopped moving, and everything had changed.
Hannah was coughing now, crying, “Mum!” from her room.
Jane tumbled out of bed and hurried through. “What is it, Han?”
“Was Dad here?”
“Yes.” Jane crouched beside Hannah’s bed and touched her clammy forehead.
“Why?” Hannah asked hoarsely.
“He…he just came to see the drawings I’d done for his window.”