Red Ink

by Julie Mayhew

  “You!” I slam down my pen. “You! That’s what’s wrong with me.”

  Mum cocks her head on one side and smiles, finding it all so funny. She shrugs. “What I do?”

  “You have made my life HELL!”

  I have been spending a lot of time in my bedroom the last few days. I know it really well now, in detail. The way the lining paper under the paint on the walls is starting to peel, just to the side of my chest of drawers. The way the cream carpet gets darker round the edges of the room. The way the swirls in the plaster on the ceiling have pictures hidden in them – goats jumping fences, miserly old men with huge Punch and Judy noses, boats bobbing beneath clouds, dinosaur birds with terrifying beaks. There is a dent in the bottom panel on the back of my door. There is a stain on the carpet, like an island, in the doorway.

  I have taken the posters down off my walls because the faces were annoying me – all those smiles and moody pouts. There are oily splodges where the Blu Tack used to be. Those splodges also started to annoy me so I got a marker pen and joined up the dots. My wall is filled with crazy scribbles, boxes joined to boxes – a mad family tree with no names. I tried sniffing the marker pen, desperate for a high but it just made me feel sick.

  “When was the last time you changed your clothes, Melon?” Susan is eyeing my jogging trousers and baggy sweater.

  “Last Thursday.”

  Susan smiles and winces all at once.

  The jogging trousers have gone loose from being worn so much. The knees stick out when I stand up straight. The fleece of the sweater feels thinner and floppier every day. I go to bed in these clothes and lie awake sweating under my duvet. Then I sit around the house in them all day feeling cold. It makes no sense; these clothes are too warm and not warm enough all at the same time. But still, I don’t want to take them off. They’ve started to take on this thick, sweet smell that I’m getting attached to. I find it comforting. The smell is mine. It proves I still exist, that I haven’t been completely swallowed up by what has happened. That I haven’t been chipped away to nothing by all these people poking and prodding me, telling me how to think and feel. I’m still me. I hope the smell is getting up Susan’s nose. It must be repulsive.

  I cannot concentrate on my French homework. I just want to kill someone. I shut my books, start stuffing them back into my bag.

  “How I do that?” She doesn’t stop shovelling. Her chin is greasy. “How I make your life hell?”

  “You gave me a stupid, STUPID, name.”

  She nods, all smug. Such a know-it-all. “They tease you at school again, yes?”

  I sling my bag over my back, give her my best drop-dead look and make for the fridge.

  “They make fun of your tits?” Mum spears her fork through the air and points at my chest.

  It takes everything I’ve got not to grab her by the throat.

  “No! For God’s sake! They were not making fun of my TITS!”

  I yank open the fridge door, stand in the light, looking at half-empty shelves. There’s nothing I want. I’m breathing so hard I feel like I might explode.

  “So what they say?”

  “I don’t want to repeat it,” I hiss. I smash the fridge door shut.

  “Is just words.”

  “Why?” I turn and spit the word at her. “Why did you have to give me such a stupid name? Why?” I will not cry. I will stay angry, not melt into a sobbing heap.

  Mum takes a big breath, smiles. Here she goes, all Jackanory. “On an island far, far, from here, where . . .”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me about that stupid fucking FARM.”

  “Melon, do not say this f-word.”

  “What? ‘Farm’?” I laugh, a nasty sound. I back away from her. “I’ll say what I fucking like!”

  “You want to know why, so I tell you why.” She shrugs again, trowels more lasagne into her mouth.

  “Change the record!” I jut my chin at her, stick two fingers down my throat, pretend to puke. That’s what I think of her story.

  She’s leaning back against the counter. So relaxed. Couldn’t care less.

  “Maria is boring name. Everyone in Crete called Maria. You yell ‘Maria’ in the street, every girl turn round. You don’t want that.”

  “I want to be normal. I want you to be NORMAL!” I turn my back on her and stomp out of the kitchen. My fat plait of hair whips around and strikes me on the cheek. It stings so badly that I can’t hold back the tears. I run up the stairs, punishing each step with a stamp. I go to my room. I slam the door.

  “Are you still seeing your bereavement counsellor?” Susan puts her elbows on her knees, bends over her lap, rests her chin on her hands. She’s making herself small. Unthreatening. She’s trying to get inside. She’s not coming in.

  “No.”

  “Why have you stopped going?”

  “Wasn’t helping.”

  “Were you finding it difficult?”

  “That’s not what I just said, is it? I said it wasn’t helping.”

  Susan sits back again, looks at me for a long time. Sighs. I can feel her disappointment. I am not what they want me to be. They try and try to mould me, but I never measure up. I’m ashamed that I’m such a failure.

  “Things have got a lot worse for you, haven’t they, Melon?”

  Susan pats me on the head with her words.

  I drop my chin to my chest, close my eyes and take a deep breath. I inhale the thick, sweet smell coming off my sweater.

  “Do you think maybe you should go and see your doctor, have a chat about how you’re feeling?”

  Another person to prod and poke at me, to assess me and find me coming up short.

  “A doctor may have some other ideas on how to get you through this difficult time.”

  They want to drug me now.

  “What do you think about that, Melon? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  I tip my head back and try to find pictures in the swirls of the living room ceiling. “Fine,” I say. The word means nothing any more. “Fine.”

  “What I think a doctor might be able to do is . . .”

  I stop listening. I can still hear Susan’s voice but the words lose their shape. It’s like unfocusing your eyes when you read a book. Who cares what’s being said.

  I throw my bag at the dressing table. Bottles of hairspray and deodorant fall like skittles. I take a teddy bear from my bed and launch it at the back of my bedroom door; next I send a toy rabbit, then Arthur the lion. Thud, thud, thud. My hands are aching to tear something apart. I scream at the ceiling, clench my fists, collapse onto my bed.

  Why does nothing I ever say have any effect on her? She is untouchable. Why can’t she just say sorry and admit she was wrong? Just once. She can sympathise with drug dealers and child prostitutes and gang members and trainee burglars, but she can’t find a scrap of sympathy for me. I should mastermind an armed robbery just so she will give me the time of day.

  Mum’s footsteps come up the stairs. She treads slowly along the landing. She is outside the door. For a long time she doesn’t speak.

  “Melon,” she goes eventually. “I come in?”

  I flop onto my back on the bed and bawl at the ceiling, “No!”

  “Okay.”

  She’s still there, standing by the door.

  “I get ready and go out now,” she says.

  “Fine.” I still don’t hear her feet on the landing. She’s not shifting.

  “Melon?” Her voice goes quieter.

  “What?” I yell back.

  “Was very . . .” Her voice is still small, sucking me in. I just want to shout her down and she makes me listen. I hate her.

  “Was very . . . difficult for me . . . I was . . .”

  I move onto the edge of the bed. She sounds like a different person, talking like this. Humble for once. In a moment she will say sorry. She will say sorry and I will have won.

  “I choose name when . . .” She stops for the longest time. She’s dropped her script,
The Story. I get a prickle up my spine. Anticipation. I am going to hear her say something that means something.

  What? I want to yell back. What? You chose my name when what? But I keep quiet. I stay cool. I hear her sniff, sniff again, blow her nose.

  Then when her voice comes back it is bright and chirpy again – she has changed her mind. She isn’t going to say it after all – that something that means something.

  “I went against my mother to call you ‘Melon’,” she is working her way back to the script. “She want traditional name, she don’t want reminding of home. She homesick.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I shout back. “‘When a sense of longing goes unanswered, an illness takes over.’ Now that’s my fault, is it? Yia-Yia’s cancer, just because I had the wrong name.”

  Quiet.

  “I no say that, Melon.”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “No, that not what I say. It just very hard for me . . .”

  It’s always about her. Everything is always about her.

  I scream at the closed door: “Your mother’s dead now! So what?! Get over it! I’m the one still alive! I’m the one suffering!”

  I grab the nearest thing: a souvenir snowstorm of Crete. A ridiculous thing – a reminder of a place that means nothing to me, a place where it hardly ever snows. I hurl it at the door. It strikes the wood with a satisfying crack. It leaves a huge dent. I hear Mum walk away.

  I hear Paul’s keys in the front door and I leap off the sofa. I have never felt so pleased to have him come home. Jumping off that sofa is the most sprightly movement I’ve made in days.

  “Paul’s here,” I trill at Susan. I pull my jumper down over my bum and head for the living room door.

  She watches me go, confused by my burst of enthusiasm.

  “Have you told me all you wanted to say?” Susan calls after me, speaking to my back.

  “Yes,” I say. “I have, thanks.”

  Paul arrives in the living room doorway.

  “Hi, Paul,” I go. Too enthusiastic. He looks just as confused as Susan.

  “Have you two finished? Because I can . . .” Paul points behind him, searching his mind for a pressing task he can go and perform. “I can go and . . .”

  “No, we’ve finished,” I say.

  “Right,” goes Susan, trying not to sound irritated. She gathers together her bag and paperwork.

  Paul walks through the living room to the dining room and places Mum’s canvas shopping bag on the table. He could have taken it straight through to the kitchen, but that would have meant missing out on a chance to eavesdrop.

  “So, would you like me to make this appointment with your GP, or shall I leave you to do that?” Susan goes, fastening the catches on her briefcase.

  Paul looks over his shoulder, worried.

  “You do it,” I say as breezily as possible, trying to waft the conversation away.

  “What’s this?” presses Paul. As if he would let a comment like that just drop.

  “We decided it might be a good idea for Melon to talk to a doctor about how she’s feeling, didn’t we?” Susan stands, holding her briefcase in front of her bobbly thighs.

  “It’s Susan’s idea,” I mutter. There’s no ‘we’ about it.

  Music is coming from behind Mum’s bedroom door. I move quietly across the landing avoiding the loose floorboard that runs down the middle. I can hear Mum singing, all out of tune. I can hear her squirting body spray. I’ve changed into my denim skirt and cleared up the snow globe. When it hit the door, the plastic cracked and a pool of glittery water leaked onto the carpet.

  I go down the stairs and into the kitchen. I grab the block of notepaper on the table. It has the windows and balconies of a tower block printed down its sides. I tear off the top sheet, which reads milk, lightbulbs, lasagne in Mum’s scrawl. I scan the room for a pen and see one sticking out of the fruit bowl on the sideboard. I grab it, scribble on the blank sheet on top of the block to get the ink flowing. Red ink. Kojak, who had been asleep on one of the kitchen chairs, jumps onto the table and forces his head against the back of my hand. I take a minute to give him a rub him under the chin, then I write.

  MUM. GONE TO CHICK’S.

  I can hear Mum’s superstitious voice in my head. I look at my message. Think about screwing it up and rewriting it in blue. No. I can’t be bothered. I push the noteblock into the middle of the table, roll my eyes at Kojak. This’ll give me and Mum another reason to have an argument tomorrow. Guaranteed.

  “What you thinking?!” she’ll squawk at me. “Writing in the red ink!”

  “What’s your problem?” I’ll shoot back. “You’re still alive, aren’t ya?”

  I go over to the dining room table, to where Paul has placed Mum’s canvas shopping bag.

  “So, what’s Irene cooked for us tonight?” I ask.

  Paul steps towards the table – a blocking move.

  “Just leave it, okay,” I mutter at him.

  I’ll go and see the GP if that’s what they want, anything for a quiet life. I don’t want a heart-to-heart with Paul about it.

  Paul starts yabbering. “No, Melon, that’s not . . .”

  I manoeuvre round him. “What’s she cooked? Not Jamaican Rundown again?” I pull at the side of Mum’s shopping bag.

  “Melon, leave that for a minute.” Paul reaches out to grab the bag but I slide it away from his grasp.

  “No offence,” I go, “but I can’t stand that mackerel thing she makes.”

  I look in the bag. I shut up. Paul shuts up. There’s no casserole bowl, no dish with a tinfoil lid. There’s a wooden box. On the top of the box there is a picture of a dove cut out in a paler wood.

  “What’s in the box?” I go.

  Paul is looking at his shoes and covering his eyes with a hand. Susan is craning her neck on the other side of the room, trying to see.

  “What’s in the box?” I go again. My voice has gone reedy, high-pitched.

  Paul takes a business-like breath, puts on a business-like face. “I think you can go now, thank you, Susan.” His smile is strained.

  “Right, well, I’ll see you next week, Melon,” goes Susan.

  “Okay,” I go. My voice is shaking and my hands are joining in. I have no idea why.

  “I’ll let myself out,” she says, crabbing sideways out of the room.

  “Yes, yes, thank you.” Paul does not go with her to the front door. How can this bag be more important than impressing the social worker?

  We hear the front door open, then close. I still have a hand on the bag. We both stand there, not moving at all. The house is so quiet. Just the rumble of cars and lorries passing on the main road.

  “What’s in the box?” I ask again. I feel water dripping down off my chin and it takes me a few seconds to realise that it is tears. Tears are streaming down my face.

  Paul looks at me, his face in pain. I look back hopefully, willing him to say something, anything other than the answer I know he’s going to give me.

  “Your mother, Melon,” he says, blankly, calmly, not letting himself cry. “Your mother’s ashes.”

  My chest heaves. This awful sound chugs out of my throat.

  “I’d been keeping the box at my mum’s place until I felt you were ready to have it here but . . .” He stops. He can’t talk.

  My chest heaves again, as if my body is trying to get rid of something, to bring something up. I look at the box, the carving of the dove. Agapoula mou, peristeraki mou. My little love, my little dove.

  “Oh, God,” I wail.

  A strange, dark monster breaks free of its cage in my ribs and comes hurtling out of my throat. I roar. I cry as if I will never stop.

  Part Two

  133 DAYS SINCE

  The sky is an unreal blue. Murky. Inky. It clashes with the fat, orange vapour trails from the aeroplanes – jagged lines disappearing downwards behind the curve of the earth. The aeroplanes themselves are insect-small and motionless. They’re just hang
ing there, ready to be squashed between giant fingers.

  “You scared of flying?” Paul doesn’t take his eyes off the road when he talks. He drives slowly, carefully, like a nice, middle-aged lady.

  “No. I like it. It’s fun. You?”

  “Doesn’t bother me,” he goes.

  A car slices in front of us, too close, and disappears down the slip road. Paul doesn’t swear or shout like Mum would have done. He slows down as if he’s been given a warning. I eye the speedo. Fifty-five mph. You can go seventy mph on a motorway, faster if there are no police around – even I know that and I don’t drive.

  “Actually, I am scared of flying,” Paul says. His hands are clutching the top of the steering wheel too tight. His arm muscles are tensing with the strain of it. “I’m scared, but in a healthy way.” He pauses to check over his shoulder.

  Are we going to dare to break out into the middle lane?

  “When I get on a plane, I’m thinking, ‘Oh well, we might crash, that’s that.’ I just accept it.”

  No. We stay dribbling down the slow lane.

  “That way, when we land and I’m still alive, it’s a bonus. It’s an especially good feeling.” Paul is smiling. “I embrace death!” he goes with a big flourish. He takes one hand off the wheel and waves it about, quickly clamping it back in position when a lorry zooms past, gusting us towards the hard shoulder.

  We both laugh. Not real laughing, just the nervous sort. It’s still not okay to laugh properly.

  Embrace death.

  I haven’t embraced death. These last few months, it’s been embracing me. It’s had its arms tightly around my throat. It pulled me down, under the surface. It could have won, it could have drowned me, but something made me swim upwards for a gasp of air. Maybe it was the promise of this trip. But since when did I ever look forward to going to Crete?

  Paul peels his eyes away from the road to look at the dashboard clock. “Shall we stop for a toilet break?”

  “Aren’t we nearly there, though?”

  “Ah, yes. But we’ve got some time to kill.”

  He’s right, we left stupid-early. Everything has been planned to the minute and then an hour or so has been added on in case of a traffic jam, or a flash flood, or the outbreak of the next plague.