Dear Nobody

by Berlie Doherty

‘She’s supposed to be meeting me.’

  ‘She went a bit funny in afternoon registration and Miss Clancy sent her home.’

  ‘What d’you mean, funny?’ I tried to keep my voice casual, like Ruthlyn’s.

  She smiled at me, her eyes shining as if going funny in afternoon registration was the best thing that could possibly have happened to Helen. ‘A bit kind of…’ she waved her hands about and tottered unsteadily. ‘You know, like that.’

  ‘Drunk, you mean?’

  Ruthlyn laughed loud and easy. She tucked her schoolbag under her arm. ‘Just funny. Just a bit funny. So she asked me to give you her love and she’ll see you soon.’

  ‘I’ll go round there now.’ I was worried. Ruthlyn was being infuriating.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Leave her a bit.’

  ‘I’ll phone her, then.’

  She shook her head. ‘Wait for her to phone you, she said.’

  I wanted to sit down.

  ‘Ruthlyn. What’s happening?’

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Helen to come round to my house one night, and you come round as well, and you can talk to her there.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Give her till the weekend. Honest, Chris, she just needs a bit of a rest and then she’ll be all right.’

  I knew she was feeling sorry for me. I wished she wouldn’t. My breath wasn’t coming right, for some reason. Up till last weekend Helen and I had seen each other every day for months. ‘I suppose you’re allowed to go round and see her? I mean, you haven’t got leprosy or bad socks or whatever it is they’ve all got against me at her house?’

  ‘I’ll go round tonight,’ said Ruthlyn. ‘See you, Chris.’ We had reached the corner of the road where she lived. One of her little brothers ran up to her and, laughing, she scooped him up. ‘Oi. Chris!’ she shouted, as I walked away. ‘Catch!’ She threw me a small packet.

  I opened it as soon as I had gone round the corner. It was a book of love sonnets by a Victorian poet called Elizabeth Barrett Browning. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ it said inside. ‘From Helen.’

  I’d been to Ruthlyn’s quite often before, usually to family parties. They had always been colourful occasions with loud music and wonderful Jamaican food. Ruthlyn’s mother was a friendly giant of a woman called Coral. Her voice was as steamy as hot treacle. Ruthlyn and all the little ones speak broad Sheffield, but Coral’s accent is pure Jamaica. I think she must be a great mother to have; she’s so warm and kind. She never stops talking, though, or singing, when she’s in the mood.

  ‘Here come the spidah!’ she said when she opened the door to me on that Saturday. ‘When you goin’ to hang some fat on those bones of yours, hey? When you goin’ to fill out and be a muscle-man?’

  ‘Is Helen here?’ I looked round, anxious. The house was full of grinning children, all with their faces turned up towards me.

  ‘Oh, she in with Ruthlyn. They full of secrets, I’m telling you!’

  ‘They always are.’ I ran up to Ruthlyn’s room three steps at a time, eager to see Helen again. I hesitated for a second outside the door, then tapped on it and went in. The two girls stopped talking at once. It was obvious that Helen had been crying. Her face was white and strained. I stopped in the doorway, uncertain.

  ‘Are you better?’ I asked.

  Ruthlyn stood up. ‘I’ll go and make some coffees.’

  ‘I hate coffee,’ said Helen. ‘It tastes like potato peel.’

  Ruthlyn closed the door behind her, and I immediately went over to Helen and sat on the arm of her chair. She wouldn’t look at me, and I didn’t know what to say to her. She was leaning back, her mouth slightly open, her eyes closed tight. I’d never seen her looking so ill and tired. I took her hand, and she let it lie in mine, limp and cold.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ I said. ‘Is it flu?’

  She shook her head. Tears oozed slowly from her closed lids, and she didn’t try to stop them. I watched them ooze and ooze again, tired and slow, little languid trails that would never stop. She didn’t make a sound. I could feel my heart beginning to lurch like the insistent beating of a drum, a slow and sickening lurch. My limbs felt heavy with dread. I remembered my dream again. I remembered the crack in the ice between us, opening out to drift us apart. I took Helen’s other hand and held them both in my own. I felt as if I was trying to warm them into life.

  ‘Helen. What is it?’

  And she answered me in a hollow, frightened, weary voice that I would hardly have recognized as hers, and that I’ll never forget in my life.

  February 27th

  Dear Nobody,

  At home there’s a tap in the bathroom that won’t switch off properly. It needs a new valve, that’s all, Mum says. Sometimes you don’t hear it at all, and sometimes it keeps you awake all night, drip, drip, drip, regular and slow and insistent.

  And that’s how I feel about you.

  It’s like hearing my own heartbeat and not being able to switch it off.

  It’s like footsteps in the dark.

  I don’t know whether you’re there at all.

  But the thought that you might be there is like a drip, drip, drip that won’t go away, day and night, day and night now, regular and slow and insistent, like a beating pulse that won’t lie still, like a clock that never stops ticking.

  Pregnant, pregnant, what if I’m pregnant? Tick tock tick tock tick…

  I’m so frightened at night that I can hardly breathe.

  I can’t tell anyone. I can’t tell Ruthlyn. I can’t tell Mum.

  You’re only a shadow. You’re only a whisper.

  You’re a tap, dripping night and day.

  But I’ve told Chris, at last, at last. Perhaps that will make you go away.

  Leave me alone.

  I don’t want you.

  Go away. Please, please, go away.

  That was the first of Helen’s Dear Nobody letters, and reading it was like opening the door on a nightmare.

  March

  * * *

  It would be difficult to describe the feelings that rushed through my mind that evening in February – shock, surprise, disbelief, and an overwhelming feeling of relief that Helen wasn’t ill, and that she hadn’t gone off me, or anything. I didn’t believe what she had told me but I felt closer to her than I’d ever felt before, responsible and protective. Later on I felt terrible. I sat holding her hand while Ruthlyn brought in a tray of coffees and milk and toast. Her chattering floated over us as I stroked Helen’s hair, noticing how the light shone in it, and how soft it was; I willed Ruthlyn to go away and leave us alone together.

  We walked back to Helen’s house in silence, so full of thoughts that there was nothing to say. I had my arm round her. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I kept saying. ‘I’ll stay with you, whatever happens.’ The words just came out. I’ve no idea what I meant by them. When I thought about them afterwards I went cold and scared inside, but at the time it seemed to be the only thing to say, so I said it. I couldn’t really believe that it was true, but I did feel desperately sorry for Helen because she was so obviously unhappy. I would have done anything to make her feel better.

  When we reached her door Helen drew away from me and I tried to make her stay out a little longer. I didn’t want to let her go, and I didn’t want to be left alone with my bewildered thoughts. Clouds slid across the moon like great winged birds, hiding and showing its light, hiding and showing Helen’s face. She looked so young.

  ‘I won’t ask you in,’ she said.

  ‘No. I don’t want to come in. I don’t want to go away from you, either.’

  ‘I was horrible to you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I was frightened. I didn’t know what to say to you.’

  ‘I was frightened, too. I thought you wanted to finish with me.’

  ‘Oh, Chris!’

  It was difficult to talk after that. We were only just aware of lights being turned on and off in the house, the bath being emptied, someone coming d
own the stairs.

  ‘I’d better go in,’ Helen said. Her voice was stricken. I hated to leave her like that.

  ‘You’re probably mistaken about it. It might be just worry. It’s too soon to know, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  ‘I wish I’d been more careful…’

  ‘Not just you. It was my fault, too.’

  ‘We were so stupid! It’s not as if we’re a pair of kids.’

  The door was opened. Helen’s mother put two milk bottles on the step. ‘I don’t like this hanging round doorways,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you that, Helen.’

  And Helen ran in, too upset to say goodnight to me.

  The next two days, before she rang again, were like a prison sentence. I daren’t leave the house in case she rang when I was out. I daren’t ring her house or go round. I spent hours sitting on the stairs by the phone, pretending to read, pretending to comb my hair in the mirror, stroking the cat, anything. Dad watched me and said nothing. I don’t suppose I was much worth talking to at the time. Our phone gives a little burp just when it’s about to ring. When I heard it at last I snatched it up, knowing it would be her, not wanting anyone else to speak to her before I did.

  ‘Any news?’ I asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ she told me. ‘But Mum thinks I’m anaemic’

  ‘What can you do about that?’

  ‘Well, I could eat loads of prunes or I could go to the doctor for some iron tablets. So I’m going to see the doctor tonight.’

  ‘Can I meet you after?’

  ‘All right.’

  I walked up to the health centre near Helen’s house and sat on the wall waiting for her. A man was crossing the road from the library with a little group of kids; he was carrying one in his arms and clutching the hand of another one, and two others clung on to the side of his coat. They were all carrying library books, all chattering their heads off at once like a nestful of birds. He looked as if he could do with a shave. I found myself day-dreaming that Helen had quads and that I took them everywhere with me. I was on television as the youngest father of quads. The baby dropped her book over the man’s shoulder and started screaming, and he shouted at the youngest child for not picking it up. She sat on the pavement and howled. One of the other two fell over her and they all screamed then. I switched off my day-dream and jumped off the wall to meet Helen.

  ‘Is it all right?’ I asked, and she nodded and took my hand. The doctor had given her a prescription and had told her that lots of girls of her age needed extra iron. ‘She said we live life too fast and we get run down easily. She asked about my A–levels and about you.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘Well, she asked if I had a steady boy-friend and I said yes, and she asked if I needed to talk about anything to do with my relationship with you, and I said no.’

  ‘Maybe you should have, just to put your mind at rest.’

  ‘How could I? It would go on my records, wouldn’t it? Just supposing my mum came into the surgery with me one day, she’d only have to look at my records to find out. So she gave me these leaflets about family planning and said I mustn’t ever feel shy about talking to her or asking her anything. She was really nice.’

  ‘And you think you’re okay?’

  ‘I think so. I feel tons better just for seeing her.’

  ‘You look it. We’ve been lucky, then.’

  ‘I know. We mustn’t take chances like that again.’

  It’s amazing what you can kid yourself into believing, if you really want to. We were silly with happiness that evening, telling jokes and laughing loud enough to scare ghosts away. They creep back though, don’t they?

  *

  I didn’t see Helen again till the end of the week. Though I rang every day she always answered the phone briefly, in low monosyllables, so I was aware that her mother was probably in the house and she couldn’t talk freely. I always asked her if she was all right and she always said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? The doctor said, didn’t she…?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed, Chris. That’s what I mean.’

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was as if everywhere I looked huge black flapping birds were casting their shadows, ruffling the air round me with their billowy wing beats, peering down at me with their sharp beaky faces and angry eyes. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I sat watching my dad at night, pulling his lip the way he does when the news is on, and I knew I wouldn’t even know where to start. I didn’t even know if it was true. In a desperate sort of way I wanted to bury my head in my mother’s side like I did when I was a little kid with sore knees, and when I thought about that I wanted to shout out, because even that memory had been smothered somewhere, in my pillow probably, eight years ago. It was as if it had risen from nowhere to make me a child again. I was angry with her. Of all people she should have been there. She should have been there to talk to. And even as I thought that, I stood staring out of the window with my fists clenched tight in my pockets, trying to imagine how I would tell my mother if she was there, and what she would say to me about it all. I couldn’t imagine it. Where on earth do the words come from?

  One afternoon Tom told me he was going to the climbing wall at the Poly and asked me if I fancied going with him. I think even he could tell I was screwed up about something. So I said I’d go, mostly because all of a sudden it seemed like a lead-in to getting in touch with my mother again after all. It would be something to tell her, I supposed, that I’d started climbing. Maybe she’d write back to me with some tips. ‘Hold tight, Christopher!’ I’d never even heard of the climbing wall before, but I reckoned it would be a bit easier than dangling off Stanage Edge in front of all the hard climbers of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. It would be a way of finding out a little bit more about Mum.

  It was hot and sweaty in there. Students stood, or squatted on their haunches, in small groups, flexing out their fingers as though they were practising on invisible musical instruments. The wall rose steeply up away from us, with lots of jutting ledges lower down, though they seemed to get fewer and smaller the higher up it went. Still, it looked easy enough. I was surprised at how cautious some of the climbers were.

  ‘How d’you fancy it, Chris?’ Tom asked me. ‘Reckon we’ll get to the top?’

  ‘After you, Tom-boy,’ I said.

  He swung up the thing like a spider while I clung with sickening swirls of my stomach to the plastic rock, my fists clenched into holes, my knees dithering. Thank goodness Helen wasn’t there to see me, that’s all I can say.

  When I next saw Helen she was on her own, walking down Ecclesall Road with her hands in her pockets, day-dreaming. She didn’t even see me at first. It always gives me a kick, seeing her unexpectedly like that.

  ‘Helen!’ I shouted. I dodged between the traffic to get to her side of the road and walked along with her.

  ‘I’m going to Grandad’s,’ she told me.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said. I like her grandfather. He talks to you dead straight, and I respect that in people. Her grandmother’s strange, though. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get a word out of her, but she’s got that way of staring at you, like Helen’s mother has sometimes, staring at you without saying anything, making you feel raw.

  ‘I think I’ll go on my own,’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘Okay. I don’t mind.’ But I did mind. I didn’t want to share her with anyone just then, not even with her grandad.

  ‘Are you all right, though?’ I asked her.

  She dug her hands deep in her pockets again, and I put my arm round her, as if by keeping her warm I could do something about the dread that was spreading like a cold fog inside me.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s changed, Chris.’

  Dear Nobody,

  Nothing has changed.

  The tap still drips, night after sleepless night.

  What if I’m what if what wh
at if I’m

  I had one glorious day with Chris, when we seemed to be able to make the ticking stop.

  But nothing had changed. Nothing.

  There’s a little frightened pulse beating inside me, deep deep down.

  Go away go away go away.

  There’s nobody there

  Please don’t be there.

  Today when I got up I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was grey. I’ve got dark rings under my eyes from not sleeping. I don’t know myself. Where’ve I gone?

  I put on my favourite dress. I took it off and threw it on the floor, then I sat on my bed, gripping my hands and listening to the ticking inside me and looking across at this grey-faced creature with huge black eyes. My room’s a tip. I haven’t tidied it for days. My clothes are dumped round the floor like little molehills coming through the carpet. There’s a mug of tea with green slime on it. I don’t know myself. I feel desperately alone.

  I decided to go and see Grandad. Sometimes I think he’s my best friend. When I was little I used to save up all my sadnesses to tell him. He would sit me on a stool in the kitchen and crouch down in front of me and listen solemnly, all the way through. When I’d finished telling them I felt better. It was just the fact that he spared the time to listen, I think; took me seriously, even when I was only a few years old. So I felt that perhaps I could tell Grandad, and he would understand. I met Chris on the way there. He wanted to come with me, but I told him I needed to be on my own. There was no way I could have told Grandad if Chris had been there. I don’t think Chris understood, but that’s not my fault.

  Grandad was cooking tea when I arrived – fried eggs and chips. The smell of it made me feel a bit sick. I asked him for a drink of water.

  ‘Are you all right, Helen?’ he asked me.

  I perched myself on the kitchen stool and watched him. He scooped hot oil over the eggs. He counted under his breath – three scoops for each egg. The oil sizzled round the yolks, the white thickened. He glanced up at me.

  ‘You look a bit off colour.’

  It was my cue, and I couldn’t take it. I smiled back at him over my glass, and though he kept on looking at me in that questioning way he has, that usually would make me put my arms round him and blurt everything out, he said nothing more, and neither did I. He turned back to his cooking, whistling something without a tune, and when the meal was cooked I followed him upstairs to see Nan. She stays in her room most of the time, and it’s always dark and stuffy in there. I long to open the windows wide and pull back the curtains, let them flap and drift. Everything is so still, as if the clocks have all stopped a long time ago. I chatted away to her about Robbie and school, and she tucked into her food and nodded occasionally. She doesn’t listen, though. I think she’s locked in some kind of day-dream world that she’d rather be in. I wonder what she thinks about. I had a wild urge to say to her, ‘Nan, I think I might be pregnant,’ and I think she’d have carried on nodding and sucking vinegar off her chips and not heard a word of it. Perhaps I should have said it. At least I would have given a voice to my nightmare. But I didn’t. Grandad had gone out to see a film by the time. I left, and I caught a bus home, feeling wretched, feeling sick with worry. There was no one I could talk to.