It sounded bad. I felt sort of embarrassed for him, giving this interview where he kept saying the name of the book over and over.
‘What do you say to the critics who say you exploited the death of a young man for political gain?’ the interviewer said, but then I heard the key in the front door and I switched off the radio.
It’s still dangerous to mention Jacob Carlisle’s name at home. Sometimes you can and Danny will make jokes about him, and sometimes he’ll get all moody and silent about it. He’s totally weirdly unpredictable sometimes. I’ve complained about this to Nick and, like always, he just says, ‘I know he is,’ in this fond voice as if I’ve just said, ‘Oh my god, Danny is amazing.’
Thank god they met each other because I don’t think anyone else would put up with their weirdness.
Nick can get a little moody too, sometimes. He never used to, or at least he never used to in front of me. I think maybe now I’m getting older he’s starting to feel like he doesn’t have to try so hard to be some superhero from a parenting book all the time. He can just be a person, sometimes.
Nobody seems to remember exactly what it was that the drunk guys from The Eagle pub said to Nick that night while he was locking up, but I suppose it’s not hard to imagine. There’s a rainbow flag in the window of the coffee shop, and it’s not one of those streets where there’s a rainbow flag in every window.
I’ve heard a lot of stuff myself, but usually from stupid boys in the playground. It would be different when it’s three drunk men, when it’s night, when you’re on your own. It would be frightening. Nick would’ve been scared.
‘I wasn’t scared,’ Nick says, when I ask him. ‘I was angry.’
I don’t believe him. I think he was scared as well, but he still turned round and defended himself.
I think Danny’s probably right. He should have ignored them, and come home safe. Not because it’s the right thing to do. Just because we love him.
If I had been there, though, I don’t think I’d have ignored them, either.
I don’t know what Danny’s going to do now they’ve finished the shop. This is something else it’s not really safe to mention. He says he doesn’t want to work for Mike any more, and he says no one else will hire him because of what happened at his last job.
Some nights I hear them start talking about money, but I turn up the radio and drown them out. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to other people’s conversations lately. I am trying to start thinking about the things that I want to say, instead.
FIFTY-TWO
It’s not even summer yet but I always start thinking about Christmas at strange times of year. I don’t know what we’ll do this year, but usually when it gets near December Nick gets Zahra to string up fairy lights round the windows and along the counter. Sometimes I help her. The lights are really cheap and every year half of them aren’t working but when it’s dark in the evening and he switches them on and people are walking past on their way home from work – that’s when I start to get excited. And I don’t even know why because what’s the big deal about Christmas, anyway. But I like it because we go to Nick’s parents’ house and sometimes his brothers are there as well and his parents have all these traditions about when you’re supposed to open presents and what you have to eat and they start with champagne and orange juice of which Danny drinks about four glasses within five minutes of getting to the house until Nick glares at him. Nick’s dad asks me about what books I’ve read and his mum has got me all different kinds of presents and wrapped them in red and gold foil paper and signed them from Santa which she’s always done and it’s like a long-running joke just between us.
And they have fairy lights too, except theirs are more expensive and all of them work properly, and before we go home at about six or seven o’clock they switch them on and they blink on and off in rainbow colours and everyone drinks coffee and it feels exactly like the coffee shop. It feels exactly like home.
And sometimes I think, what if we didn’t have this any more? What would we do. What if Nick moved out or the coffee shop closed down or somebody was standing in the street and a bomb went off.
That’s what it’s like inside my brother’s head all the time, I’ve realised: he’s thinking, what if, what if, what if. He can’t see anything good without thinking that he’ll lose it.
I don’t want to be like this. I don’t think she would want me to be.
Supposedly grief happens in stages but Danny says it’s more like a tide, that it comes in, recedes, comes in again. His is different than mine but I know what he means and when I decide that I’m allowed to grieve too, that I can do it whenever I like, even now, even though I didn’t know her, I recognise that feeling. I’ve stopped imagining all the things we might have done together since I know they never happened, but instead, lately, what comes in like a wave is the thought of all the places she will not be but should have been: if I go to university, if I get married, if I have children, if next week I get an A on my latest piece of homework, she will not be waiting for me when I get home to clap her hands, and beam, delighted. She would have been.
If she’d been different. If she’d stayed at home that day. If she hadn’t read the news or been angry about the war. If she hadn’t picked up a glass bottle.
It’s like a second life, at the edges of this one, that comes into focus sometimes, and then fades away. Comes in like a tide and then goes out again.
I try not to think about my mother lying on the kitchen floor waiting for somebody to find her, and a pot of tea going cold, and how she probably loved me so much but it didn’t matter because by the time I was four years old I had already forgotten her except as somebody that I was afraid of, once.
There are a lot of things I could still ask. I could ask when was the last time Danny spoke to her. What kind of food did she cook. What was her favourite film. What did she think I would be when I grew up. There are a lot of things I could ask. Like if I am really anything like her or if I am more like my brother. Even if I’m more like Nick. Or if I’m like none of those people, if I’m only like myself.
Or here’s what I could ask: I could ask if, maybe, when me and Danny are together, when Danny is picking me up from school, or picking my coat off the floor, or asking what time I’ll be home, or leaning over the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee and asking if I had a good day, if maybe she is really there as well. If maybe she’s been there all along, just waiting for me to see her.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to:
My family, immediate and extended, for all their support and enthusiasm, but especially my mum and dad, for their utter magnificence, and Stu, for all kinds of inspiration.
The wonderful Caroline Ambrose, and everyone involved with the Bath Novel Award.
Stephen Foster, who offered the first enthusiastic words about this book. And everyone on his short course at Writers’ Centre Norwich in 2011, but especially Katy Carr and Susie Lockwood.
Sarah Bower and Ashley Stokes at the Unthank School of Writing, and the fantastic group who did the novel writing class in 2013, especially Jon Curran and Carey Denton.
Chloe Sackur and Charlie Sheppard at Andersen Press, and my brilliant and tremendously patient agent Laura Williams.
Duncan Smith, for agreeing not to comment; Nick Cleaver, for lizard suggestions; and Richard Tahmasebi, who really, truly understands themes.
The Greenham Common postcard that Alena finds is inspired by a real photograph, taken by Cynthia Cockburn, of women protesting at Greenham in 1983. It was published by Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures and Hackney Greenham Women as part of a series of postcards distributed by Housmans Bookshop.
Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal
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Their worlds are about to collide: Stewart and his dad are m
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‘Snappy and witty. A really fine YA novel’ Telegraph
‘I defy you not to fall in love with this book’ Phil Earle
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WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL AND THE GUARDIAN CHILDREN’S FICTION PRIZE
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‘Everyone should read Junk’ The Times
‘Ground-breaking … remains the best book about teenagers and drugs to this day’ Guardian
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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
‘Son, you’re going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad reservation.’
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‘Excellent in every way’ Neil Gaiman
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Troublemakers Page 28