by Fiona Perrin
‘There is nothing normal about my parents or their moving.’ I tried to put him off. Bodger sat down again – he’d never been less keen on going for a walk. I gave Patrick a precis of the idiosyncrasies of both my folks and their chosen new home.
He laughed along. ‘Sounds great. What time?’ he said. ‘I’m free all day.’
*
Patrick certainly made it easier. Lois and Lorca were over-excited and no use whatsoever. As soon as we delivered them to Seymour House, they were whisked away by Pete. ‘I am so glad to welcome you two very special people,’ he gushed as they arrived, bouncing around on the doorstep.
He wasn’t quite so welcoming to me. ‘Hello, Callie. We’ll leave you to move the stuff while your parents join in some really exciting activities.’
‘Who’s that?’ Patrick whispered as we went to start moving the suitcases and boxes that were in the boot of my car.
‘Just some pseudo class warrior who’s happily benefitting from capitalism.’
‘Is it me?’ he asked a little later as we were unloading the second load. ‘Or does he have a strange smell?’
As I sniggered, Wilf arrived on his bike and gave Patrick a big grin. ‘Hey, neighbour.’
‘Hey,’ said Patrick. ‘Come to see the grandparents already?’
‘Pete’s got some cool decks,’ Wilf explained. ‘But yeah, Lois and Lorca too.’
‘Was he always called Lorca?’ Patrick asked.
‘He changed it from Lawrence when I was about twenty,’ I said. ‘Lorca was a poet in Spain who helped bring surrealism into the mainstream. Hung out with Dali, that kind of stuff.’
‘Interesting.’ Patrick looked confused nonetheless.
‘He had a thing about him for a while,’ I went on, heaving a box. ‘Quoted him in Spanish, got a lobster phone, you know. I think of it as his surrealist phase.’
Wilf propped his bike against the wall and came to take the box from me.
‘But then Lorca was in Star Trek,’ he told Patrick, as if this made it all better.
‘Boldly going where no man has gone before,’ Patrick said as we went back into the house. ‘In every sense of the word.’
*
Later, I parked the car in our mutual street. ‘Thanks so much for all your help,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Got time for a drink, friend?’
I shook my head but did feel very ungrateful. ‘I’m going to spend this evening making sure Lily is OK. Try and take her to Nando’s maybe.’
Patrick nodded. ‘It was fun to hang out with you today. I guess your folks being in that place is one less thing to worry about.’ Earlier he’d tried to disguise his look of amazement at the state of their house or the fact that Mum had bellowed, ‘Lorca! Cal’s here with a man,’ at the top of her voice as we’d arrived in the kitchen.
‘I’m her neighbour, come to give a hand,’ Patrick had said, going forward and speaking at a normal volume.
‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying,’ she’d shouted. Patrick had tried to look as if all this were completely normal and hadn’t confused anyone with jokes about being called William.
‘I hope so,’ I said now as we stood in the street. ‘They’re probably learning grime moves as we speak.’
*
Lily, Aiden, Daisy, Wilf and I were in Nando’s. Lily was tense, but the others had a competition as to who could eat three extra-strong wings in a row without turning into a fiery-mouthed dragon. I sat and watched them all teasing each other, tucking into less hot wings, rice, coleslaw and chips.
‘Daisy was supposed to be grounded,’ Lily pointed out.
‘I’ve done my f-ing time,’ said Daisy, gulping down a glass of water but refusing to acknowledge that her tongue was the temperature of a furnace.
I shot her a glance. ‘No abbreviated swearing either,’ I said.
‘FFS,’ they all immediately chorused back at me. Then Daisy started to tell a story about school, dipping chips in ketchup and waving them around as she talked. ‘So, I’m in the dining hall and my friend Georgia says, “I have something DMC* to say.” And so, we all shut up and then she says, “What I want to say is I think I’m a ‘they’.”’
I looked completely confused but Lily and Aiden nodded as if this was quite cool. Wilf said, ‘Is that like being gender fluid? When you’re not a boy or a girl?’
Daisy looked at him scornfully, but I was glad he’d asked the question; I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about either.
‘Yeah, and so we all talked about being defined by our gender,’ Daisy went on. ‘And how it was such a, like, outdated way of looking at yourself.’
‘Like, I’m all man though,’ said Aiden with a big grin at Lily. She smiled back at him and it was good to see her mind on something else, even if their conversation was making me feel about as old as an Egyptian mummy that had decayed into bandage dust in its pyramid.
‘Yeah right,’ scoffed Daisy. I thought about her legs, endlessly on display, and how very female that made her look, but just concentrated on eating my coleslaw instead.
‘So, I said, “What pronouns do you want to use? He, she or they?”’ Those who were gender fluid could choose how they were addressed, she explained patiently to Wilf and me. I raised my eyebrows but determined on a neutral face to match the conversation.
‘Well, there’s Ze or Zer,’ Lily said.
‘What difference really if you just change the “h” to a “z”, though?’ Daisy went on in her best woke voice. ‘I mean, if you’re truly fluid, that’s kind of defining too.’
I nodded as if I understood, while they moved on to a discussion of omnisexuality. As far as I could work out, it meant if you were a kid today, you could pretty much have sex with everyone, which sounded at least non-judgmental, if completely bewildering.
Wilf was obviously as confused as I was. He caught my eye for a moment and rolled his; I stuffed another wing into my mouth so that I didn’t laugh. But then, quickly, he looked away and I felt the same pang of hurt as that morning. I still have some time left with you. Please don’t turn away from me before you have to go.
He’d been the youngest; my baby, even while the girls grew up and got all sophisticated. And now he was going before I’d had time to help him learn to fly the nest.
*
The next morning, Sunil pulled up outside our house in a blue car with a huge Resilient logo on its side. Daisy was poised in the front window – having claimed that she’d done all the revision she could possibly do for GCSEs and had to go to the rally – wearing a long Resilient T-shirt as a dress, with red DMs. She immediately rushed outside. I wondered if I’d have refused to let her go if it hadn’t been with Sunil. I’d spent a little more time than was usual on getting dressed and painting my own face that morning, and I tried to look as if I weren’t waiting eagerly to see him. Wilf looked up at me though, as I stood up and went down the garden path.
Sunil opened the car door for Daisy. He looked almost picture perfect in the May sunshine and it was hard not to blush. ‘Hello, Cal, we’re really excited about the rally today.’ He looked directly at me. ‘It’s going to give us great profile. Maybe we’ll be on the telly later.’
His life was so glamorous. I tried to look supportive, but my voice came out in a simpering squeak. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for the news.’
Daisy looked appraisingly at me and mouthed the word ‘grafting’ as she climbed into the car. There were a couple of her mates already in the back.
‘I’ll try hard to get some screen time, then,’ said Sunil, smiling back at me.
Just then, three doors down, Patrick came out of his front door, wearing running gear. He waved and unplugged his earbuds, heading over to where we were talking on the pavement.
‘Hey, neighbour and some of her multiple offspring.’ He grinned as he arrived. Sunil stopped talking mid-sentence and looked at him appraisingly.
This is helpful of Patrick. Just when I’m having five minutes with the focus
of all my recent sexual fantasies, he turns up.
‘How’s the folks today?’ he carried on blithely.
‘Mum messaged on her new WhatsApp to say it’s all cool,’ I told him, then, turning to Sunil, I said, ‘Sunil, this is Patrick, my neighbour. He helped move my folks into a home yesterday.’
‘Mate,’ they both said in that awkward way that blokes did when they instinctively didn’t like each other. You could almost feel them sizing each other up.
‘Sunil’s taking Daisy and some other kids to a rally in London,’ I said. Daisy banged on the window just then and pointed at her phone to indicate the time.
‘What’s it for?’ Patrick asked.
‘It’s about campaigning for more resources to counter the negativity peak that’s traumatising our young,’ said Sunil. Even to me it sounded slightly pretentious, but I supposed in his job you had to be serious about the issues.
Patrick looked for a moment as if he was going to laugh but then he said, ‘Negativity peak? That’s a new term.’
‘It started on the street in Detroit, I believe.’ Sunil nodded. ‘But now is in fairly extensive use when we’re talking about the future of the young.’ It wasn’t clear whether he meant to sound superior when he said it, but he did.
‘Woah, going to have to try that one in class.’ Patrick plugged his earbuds back in and sped off down the road without looking back.
‘He’s a teacher,’ I told Sunil.
‘Not always up on the latest thinking,’ he said dismissively before smiling. ‘Really look forward to hanging out with you again on Tuesday.’ He got back into his car.
I skipped inside and went to help Lily with last-minute chemistry. But it was hard to sit and not think that there was definitely some sort of reaction going on with Sunil too. Later, when I’d got her to have a break and take Bodger out with Aiden for an hour, I went to look for Wilf but he was getting ready to go out again. ‘Going back to Seymour House,’ he told me. ‘I’ve got a really good vibe going with Pete and I need to make the most of it.’
‘Umm, Wilf, is there something the matter? I mean, not the South Africa thing, but something between you and me?’ He looked up but wouldn’t meet my eyes, just wrapped his scarf more tightly round his neck. ‘Because I would hate that.’
Did he want me to more visibly fight for him to stay? Was he trying to protect himself by withdrawing from me before he had to? Did he think that me having a drink with Sunil was me moving on from him already? All I wished were that he would tell me.
But Wilf just looked up sadly. I guessed it was a combination of these things.
‘Look, I really don’t want you to go to South Africa, you know,’ I blurted out then into the noise of him zipping up his jacket.
‘Yeah,’ said Wilf, as if he wasn’t really listening or interested.
‘And I’m only trying to hold it together because I think that’s the right thing to do for you,’ I carried on.
If only kids came with a health warning: ‘Avoid if you don’t want to experience extreme hurt as well as complete joy’.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he mumbled, but still looked as if he wanted nothing better than to get out of the hallway and away from me.
‘And me having a drink with Sunil was just about trying to help Lily.’
At this he looked up and said, ‘Yeah, you can go out with who you like, though, yeah?’
‘I’m not going out with him,’ I pleaded weakly. ‘And I thought you wanted me to go out with someone – like Patrick.’
‘That’s different,’ he said.
‘Why?’ I was bewildered.
‘It just is,’ he said and then he was past me, down the steps, already unlocking his bike from the lamp post.
I don’t think he heard me start to cry.
*
In the early evening, Lily had another panic attack. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the first one, but it was still very frightening, for her and for me. This time, I gave her the paper bag immediately and she started to breathe into it, her eyes wide with questioning fear. After ten minutes, she was calmer, but curled into my arms, gently crying.
‘It’ll be OK,’ I said, over and over again. I hoped that Patrick was right and getting the first exam out of the way took the fear out of the rest. I shushed her and comforted her the best I could, but there was nothing I could change about them starting in a few hours.
In the end, with Daisy back, breathless about how brilliant the rally had been and how amazing Sunil was, I made all the kids sit on the sofa, eat pizza and watch TV. I wanted to create calm; then I intended to make both girls have a warm bath and go early to bed. Wilf said that Lois and Lorca seemed really happy at Seymour House. Daisy showed me an Instagram post from Mum – a photo of Dad twerking captioned: ‘Good vibes in our #newhome #lifeintheoldmanyet’. I tried to feel relieved. Pete (@peteforfreedom) had already liked the post.
Sunil was quite a big chunk of the Channel 4 news, although he got a lot less airtime on the other channels. He was pictured on a large stage in Trafalgar Square, in front of a huge crowd of mostly young people, pounding the air with his fist as he demanded, in politically charged tones, that ‘Government took the voice of the next generation seriously’ to generally rapturous applause.
Marv texted to wish the girls luck with the exams, adding,
That bloke you fancy is on the telly. Nice wallpaper.
I ignored him and went to bed, full of trepidation for the twins. But yep, Marv had got that one right.
*
Lily seemed to have more fortitude if not more colour in her face the next morning. I kept up a cheerful monologue about anything other than chemistry, while trying to make sure she’d eaten enough. Daisy had lost her scientific calculator and both of us running around the house lifting up cushions and looking for it did slightly destroy the illusion of calm I was looking for, but at least it was a distraction. When she’d found it, in her school bag all along, I drove them to school, thanking my foresight in making sure that I’d booked the day off as holiday a few months back.
Lily held her head high as she walked into the school; it was as if, in the end, with the exams here rather than anticipated, she’d found some extra strength. Daisy tried to look as if it were just an ordinary day.
‘Good luck,’ I shouted.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ they said in unison, looking back over their shoulders.
It was difficult not to remember them going into their first day at nursery like that, side by side. It felt like such a short time ago.
*
When Lily came out of school two hours later, blinking in the light, I jumped out of my car and ran towards her. ‘How was it?’ I asked.
‘OK,’ she said slowly, her face one of relief rather than one of panic. ‘It was better than I hoped.’ I hugged her hard. She let me hold her for a minute and then said, ‘Better get on with studying for physics tomorrow now.’
Daisy, however, looked shell-shocked when she appeared. ‘There were bits of it we hadn’t even studied,’ she said in disbelief. ‘There were whole questions I didn’t even know were on the syllabus. Fuck, I’d better get on with some revision for the others.’
I decided to halt my campaign against her swearing until the exams were over. Still, if the fright of the first one made her spend more time at her desk that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
*Deep and Meaningful Conversation. Teenagers have a lot of these.
19
At work the next day, still with half my head in the exam room with the kids, Ayesha was telling me about how she couldn’t work in such a sexist, racist environment. I felt weary but also completely sympathetic. There was no denying that she hadn’t just been the victim of unconscious prejudice: some of it was pretty conscious too.
‘I’m in the kitchen making tea and Eli comes in and asks me if I have to wear my hijab as I probably have really pretty hair.’
I could see that he probably thought he was being complimentary but, hey, what was h
e doing in all those awareness courses I sent him on? Dreaming about a world where women used to be less confusing, I suspect.
‘Then, one of the site blokes says, “Why don’t you marry me, Ayesha, so I can get my paperwork.”’
This sounded a bit desperate.
‘But then, Charles, I mean, good God, why should I have to put up with him, ummm, asking me out every five minutes just because he’s got nothing else to do?’
‘Asking you out?’
‘It’s a bit more than that,’ she said, tears coming into her eyes. Then I had the benefit of reading the messages that Charles had been sending Ayesha, pretty much twice a day, over the last fortnight and even me, with ten years of prejudicial comments under my belt, was shocked. ‘My tawny owl,’ one of them read, and I groaned. ‘Let’s twit-twoo together’. Others were a bit more straightforward but equally offensive: ‘Please go out with me. I look forward to unwrapping you.’ She’d asked him to stop; he hadn’t.
‘Fuck his posh arse,’ I said under my breath.
When I swiftly fired that posh arse ten minutes later, he looked aghast. ‘Do you mean I’m not an asset to your team? Everyone keeps saying how great it is that I’m going to be the next Uncle Eli.’
‘You’re deeply racist and sexist, I’m afraid,’ I told him. ‘And I’ll be having words with Uncle Eli.’
When he was gone, still muttering about having ‘given it 120 per cent’ I indicated to Ayesha that she should resume her seat at her desk. She looked relieved; I felt it.
‘Onwards,’ was all I could manage.
Greg muttered from the other desk to Ayesha, ‘This is a fuckwit place to work.’
I said nothing, just turned to my PC.
He did have a point.
*
Patrick was completely right about Lily gaining confidence once the exams started. She’d come home from physics saying that she thought she’d answered 90 per cent of the questions correctly.
Daisy, meanwhile, had looked paler than usual when she came out of a geography paper, and, with French up next, said she was going round to her friend Clare’s to practise for her oral exam with Françoise, Clare’s conveniently French mother. Maybe she was learning that she couldn’t just wing it swearing through life.