‘So?’
‘So, yeah, maybe. We’ll see.’
‘But if he loses, that’s it? You’ll have to do something else?’
‘Probably. Depends what he does next.’
‘What do you think he’ll do next?’
‘I don’t know, Lena. I think he’s writing a book. Who knows. Maybe he’ll open a delicatessen. I have no idea.’ He picks up his bag and slings it over his shoulder. ‘Listen. It’s nearly the weekend. I was thinking. Do you want to go out tomorrow night? Go and get a pizza or something? We could go to that place you like. Or wherever you want.’
‘I can’t. I’m staying over at Teagan’s.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since I arranged to stay over at Teagan’s.’
‘Arranged with who?’
‘With her parents. And Nick said it was fine.’
‘Oh.’ Danny shifts the weight of his bag on his shoulder. ‘Sounds like your evening’s sorted, then.’
‘Sounds like it.’
He pauses. ‘Alena, can you not – can you not talk to me in that tone of voice all the time?’
‘What tone of voice?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Lena—’
‘This is how I talk.’
‘It’s not. You don’t even sound like you any more. This is how you talk when you don’t want to talk.’
‘You’re a good one to talk about not wanting to talk,’ I say, which is a totally confusing sentence and he’s right, anyway, because when I say it my voice doesn’t sound like me at all. I can feel blood rushing towards my brain.
We look at each other for a few moments. Then Danny says, ‘This isn’t all my fault, you know. Nick not being here.’
‘I never said it was.’
‘I’m doing my best.’
I don’t even know what this means. I don’t even want to know.
I say: ‘So am I.’
‘It would help me a lot right now if you would just—’
‘If I would just do nothing and say everything’s OK and let’s all just carry on, la, la, la.’
His face has gone very dark. I know that I’m being a brat. I know I am. He would probably even be right if he yelled at me.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes. It would help me if you would just do nothing and say everything’s OK. All right? Yes, it would.’
‘Everything’s not OK.’
‘And I am trying to fix that but it’s not—’
‘It’s my life too. You make all these decisions like they don’t affect me. Nick belongs to me as well, but I don’t get to have any say over anything that happens in my own—’
‘God, do you think that I have any say over anything that happens? My whole life is basically one long – I am doing my best while everybody else is just—’ He stops, breaks off, holds his hands up in a stop gesture, although who or what he’s trying to stop I don’t know. ‘Never mind. Never mind. Look. Never mind. I have to go to work. I need you to just—’
‘You need me to just what?’
‘I need you to just stay out of trouble and not—’
‘I’m not in trouble. I’ve never been in trouble ever. There are people in my class who smoke and drink and bring knives to school and I don’t even—’
‘There are people in your class who bring knives to school?’ he says, turning pale.
‘Well, there might be.’
‘Are there?’
‘I don’t know. That’s not the point. The point is—’
‘Lena, if there are people in your class bringing knives to school then you need to tell your teachers or the police or—’
‘Or maybe I can tell Jacob Carlisle and he can tell us about the strategy for safety since he cares so much about people getting hurt.’ My heart is going too fast and I have to press my hands against the kitchen counter so they don’t shake. Sometimes I think I might have a heart condition. I know about heart conditions. I look these things up.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Just that apparently he cares a lot about people getting hurt.’ I make myself look at my brother very steadily. ‘Apparently since he knows how it feels to lose somebody.’
‘He does know how it feels to lose somebody.’
‘I know. He said so in an interview. Unless that’s just something you wrote for him to say.’ I slam my laptop shut and gather it up against my chest, slide off my chair. ‘I have to get ready for school,’ I say, pushing past him on the way to my bedroom.
He follows me. ‘His wife died in a car accident, he’s got a fifteen-year-old son at home – you know, I’m not saying he’s perfect, but there’s no need for this constant—’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. I dump my laptop on the bed and then go round to the side and kneel down, reaching under it for my geography textbook. ‘I don’t care.’
He follows me into my room, stands by my desk. ‘I’d like to talk about this with you properly but you’re not making it very—’
He stops, trails off.
‘What?’ I say.
‘What’s that?’ he says.
‘What?’ I stand up again.
‘Stuck to your mirror.’
There are about a hundred things stuck to my mirror. Tucked in the corner of the frame is the black and white Greenham Common postcard, my mum and Lynn Wallace with their fists raised.
‘This,’ he says. It’s only stuck with Blu-tak and he pulls it off easily, stands and looks at it for a moment. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I found it in the storage locker. I told you. I told you ages ago.’
‘Why is it stuck to your mirror?’
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’
He’s distracted, then, and I see him start looking at all the other pictures I’ve got stuck round my mirror: pictures of my mum, pictures of my mum and Niamh, him when he’s a little boy, holding her hand, most of which have been there for years, but it’s like he’s seeing them for the first time.
‘Why have you got any of these pictures? You don’t even know these people, Lena, why have you got all these pictures?’
‘When you say these people are you talking about my own mother?’
He looks at me, blinks a few times, looks back at the postcard in his hand. ‘You know, people act like Greenham Common is this great moment in history, this heroic thing, and it’s exactly like every other protest, every other thing she did, it never changed anything in the world, it was just stupid, dangerous things, one after another, nuclear weapons, the arms trade—’
‘I know something about the arms trade,’ I say.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I was reading about the arms trade. They have these dinners, here in London, all these guys in suits get together and work out how to make money out of selling weapons, and it’s all completely—’
‘I really don’t need a lecture on the arms trade, OK, Lena? I heard this stuff every day of my life when I was growing up.’
‘Well, I didn’t. I never heard a single thing about it.’
He doesn’t answer. He rubs one of his eyes the way he does when his contact lenses hurt. He is still looking at the postcard.
‘Do you know what else I found out?’ I say.
‘What?’ he says. His voice has gone quiet.
‘They have protests outside of these things all the time, and this year someone from the BBC was going to give a talk at one of the dinners, but everyone protested so he didn’t.’
‘And?’
‘And a couple of years ago Jacob Carlisle gave a speech at one of the dinners. To a bunch of arms dealers.’
There’s a long silence. I can tell that Danny didn’t know this. Truthfully I only found it by accident and it was a tiny mention in an article about something else entirely.
‘Where did you find that out?’ he says.
‘I just found it on the Internet. It’s not a secret. Anyone can find it. He was talki
ng about what the rest of the world can learn from London police. Like probably how to beat people up and never get—’
‘Alena,’ he says, in a choked voice. ‘Stop, all right? Look, the world is a lot more complicated than just—’
‘Give it to me,’ I say. I hold out my hand for the postcard.
‘No,’ he says. ‘You shouldn’t have this kind of stuff. You’re romanticising something that’s not – I mean, it’s morbid, Alena.’
I see what he’s going to do just before he does it.
I scramble over the bed and try to grab it out of his hands, but it takes him no time at all to tear it in half and then in half again.
What does it matter because it’s just one stupid picture when I have dozens more, when I have a video, even, but it’s still mine, something that belongs to me that he has decided I can’t have, and I am furious, then, blood behind my eyes, and I say, ‘I can’t believe you—’ and my voice almost breaks and I grab the pieces of the postcard from his hand and then I punch him on the arm, twice, as hard as I can which is not very hard. He says ‘Hey, ouch,’ taking two steps back. ‘Wow, not OK, Alena. Not OK at all. What’s wrong with you?’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I am almost screaming at him. ‘What’s wrong with you? There is something really, really wrong with you and it’s like you don’t even know it. You think it’s everybody else and it’s not. It’s you. There’s something seriously wrong with you.’
He is still taking steps backwards as if I’m a bomb that’s about to detonate which maybe is what I feel like. His jaw is set and his eyes are very bright. ‘All right, that’s enough. That’s enough. We’re done. That’s enough.’
‘I hate you,’ I say, and I guess that is the detonation because his face changes into this expression I’ve never seen before, and there’s a long, long, awful silence, and the fact that he doesn’t even answer makes me want to say it again.
‘I have to go to work,’ he says, finally, in a hollowed-out voice. ‘I’m going to work now.’
‘I’m not stopping you,’ I say and he turns and walks out of my room and out of the flat and the door slams and makes the walls shake. It is not even nine a.m.
TWENTY-NINE
My heart is still beating too fast when I’m sitting outside the maths block with Teagan at first break and telling her that I’ve looked up the Save Ocean Court campaign website again. They’ve got thousands of signatures for their petition and Lynn Keller Wallace is giving a seminar called Housing Justice and Standing Up to Power at three o’clock this afternoon. I’m going to go, I tell her. I’ve just decided.
‘At three o’clock.’
‘Yes.’
‘We have hockey.’
‘I’m not going.’
Teagan bites her lip, looks worried about this. ‘All right,’ she says.
‘Will you cover for me?’
‘Yes. Will you be all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you going to say to her?’
‘I’m going to ask her why I’ve never met her before.’
‘You probably have met her,’ Teagan says. ‘You just don’t remember.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It’s weird,’ Teagan says. ‘I think it’s strange. How you don’t remember anything. I remember a lot of stuff from before I was three. Like getting stung by a bee. And when I got lost at the Natural History Museum.’
‘You just remember that stuff because people have told you about it,’ I say, which is true, I think, and when I say it I feel this anger in my chest, under my ribs, thinking that I would have remembered her if we’d ever talked about her: that memories feed off stories and that if I’d ever been told any, maybe all of mine wouldn’t have burned out and disappeared so quickly. I would close my eyes right now and be able to see her.
‘No,’ Teagan says. ‘Nobody talks about the National History Museum thing. It just starts a fight about whose fault it was. I was lost for like two hours in the reptile bit. I just remember it because it was so terrible. And then when my parents found me my dad cried. I have a whole bunch of memories like that.’
‘Lucky you, then, I guess,’ I say, not very nicely, and then the bell goes for next period.
The problem with the video – and the postcard, and the photos I’ve collected – is that these things fix her, so she is stuck at nineteen, or twenty-four, or thirty, or however old she is when somebody films her or takes her picture. And so every time I watch the video she gets more stuck. It gets harder to imagine her any other way. So, I think maybe Lynn Wallace can tell me new things that will unstick her. I’ll find her in some way that’s shifting, changing: still here. Everything Danny doesn’t want.
Nobody looks twice at me on the Northern line at two in the afternoon in my school uniform even though don’t people know that it’s the middle of a school day and why would I be on the tube on my own. Nobody cares. I guess why would they.
I get out at Clapham North and look at the directions I’ve written on the back of my hand. I’m early and when I find the building I’m too nervous to go in so I search through my bag to check if I have any money and I go into a coffee shop and buy a hot chocolate. The lady behind the counter does look a bit suspicious but she doesn’t say anything, just makes my drink which costs 30p more than it would at Nick’s. I go and drink it at a table by the window, where I can look across the road straight at the Clapham Community Study Centre which has a sign outside saying, All day housing teach-in, join us!
Ocean Court is apparently being torn down and replaced with luxury flats. I wonder if Lynn Wallace is still worried about nuclear weapons or if she’s moved on, if she’s all about housing now. Maybe she can tell me the main things I should be angry about.
Her talk goes from 3–3:45 p.m. and even after I get up the nerve to cross the road and go into the building – it says, Join us!, after all – I can’t find the right room and when I do it’s five minutes past and the door is shut and I’m too scared to go in so I sit down on the floor outside and wait for it to finish.
It runs late. It’s nearly four when people start coming out. I stand up and try to smooth out the creases in my school skirt. While I was waiting somebody brought tea and coffee and snacks and arranged it all on the tables in the corridor, and all the people head straight for the tables, but inside the seminar room there’s a black woman in a smart suit behind a desk, still talking to a girl with blue hair and a tie-dyed dress which makes me think of Zahra. They come out together, talking.
‘Excuse me,’ I say, and the blue-haired girl looks at me.
‘Hi,’ she says. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for Lynn Wallace.’
She’s right in front of me. I know this.
‘Oh,’ says blue-haired girl. ‘Sure. This is Lynn.’
Lynn regards me silently. She is super tall with short hair and dressed all in navy with a chunky silver necklace, and she’s holding a folder and a stack of papers. I am short and young and awkward and I’m sweating. I suddenly wish I’d worn something else, brought a change of clothes to school, combed my hair, worn make-up, made up a question about housing justice. Pretended I was a young, single mother about to be evicted. For two seconds I almost say this anyway, but then I think what’s the point, I didn’t come here to lie.
‘Can I help you?’ says Lynn, sounding kind of snippy. ‘Were you in the seminar?’
‘No. I got here late. I’m sorry.’
‘Well. What can I help you with?’
‘I’m Alena Kennedy,’ I say. ‘You knew my mother.’
Blue-hair girl is smiling pleasantly – she is wearing a badge, I notice, that says Becky Saville, Teach-in Co-ordinator – but her smile falters as she looks at both of us. She says, ‘Lynn, are you OK?’ because Lynn is standing perfectly still and her expression hasn’t really changed but she has one hand over her mouth and her eyes have gone wet and bright.
It’s hard not to feel self-conscious when someone is looking
at you like you’re some tragic, miraculous woodland creature that’s just appeared. I wrap my hand round the strap of my bag and say, ‘I wanted to come to your seminar but I was late. I got lost. I’m sorry.’
Becky Saville, taking in my uniform and looking properly uncertain now, says, ‘Are you at a school nearby? Is this – is school finished already?’
Happy to be offered this explanation, I say, ‘Yes. School’s finished.’
Lynn, recovering her composure, says, ‘It’s OK, Becky. Thanks. This is the daughter of a friend of mine.’
I never hear the word daughter in reference to myself, and I feel something wild and new and lovely flare in my heart for a second. Daughter.
Becky scurries off and Lynn looks and looks at me, starts to speak, stops herself, and then says, ‘Has school really finished?’
I glance at a clock on the wall. ‘It probably has by now.’
A smile flickers across her face.
Around us people are gathering into groups with plastic cups of tea, talking about the meetings they’ve just been in. There’s a blur of noise and the smell of cheap, bad coffee and warm fruit. It’s hard to concentrate.
‘Alena,’ says Lynn. There’s the tiniest tremor in her voice. ‘Alena. Look at you. Look at you.’
Then she clears her throat, refocuses, and says, ‘What are you doing all the way down here? Isn’t this a long way from home?’
‘I wanted to meet you. I wanted to know why—’ Then I stop. I say, ‘Hang on,’ and then search in my bag for the four torn pieces of the Greenham Common postcard that I brought to school tucked into Hamlet. I take them out and give them to her. My hand is shaking a little bit. I don’t know why. ‘I found this postcard, a little while ago. I didn’t know about Greenham Common. I wanted to hear about it. But I had a fight with my brother and he tore it up.’
She takes the pieces, looks at them for a long time.
‘I can give you another copy of this,’ she says eventually, handing the pieces back to me. ‘There were hundreds of them printed. I’ve got copies at home. I can send you another. Although I don’t suppose your brother will want that.’
What I want to say next is that I would like to go somewhere and ask her questions, somewhere quiet when we can talk – but what is suddenly real to me is that I don’t know anything about her or how to talk to her – and she is old, she is twenty years older than Nick or Danny, more like Nick’s parents’ age, and she has a stack of papers and things to do.
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