by Ann Morgan
She stops and looks at me.
‘You’re crying,’ she says.
I nod and sniff. She comes and looks at me like she is on a school trip to the zoo and I am a lizard in a tank with diamond patterns round its eyes.
‘Why are you crying?’ she says, and reaches out to touch my tears with her finger.
I open my mouth to say it all, but the words get impatient and tumble over each other and all that comes is a big waily sound.
She gives a sigh. ‘If you really want Magic Step shoes all that much I suppose I could ask Mother to get them for you,’ she says like she is talking to a baby.
I shake my head. ‘No, it’s not the shoes,’ I make my mouth say even though it comes out in big, Ellie-ish gulps. ‘It’s everything. Me being you all the time. I don’t like it any more. I want things to go back to how they were. Before Akela. Before the game. That day.’
The blank look comes over Ellie’s face like she is a television and someone has turned her off. She spins round and tries to go back to her ballet twirling but I grab her hand.
‘Please, Ellie,’ I say. ‘It’s not a joke any more. It’s making me really sad. Please.’
Ellie looks at me. Her eyes flicker. A wisp of hair that can’t be disguised by the plait no matter how hard she tries wriggles loose and blows across her face.
‘Please, Ellie,’ I say again to make the moment last and get bigger instead of shrinking away. ‘Please. You’re the only one who can make it better.’
Ellie’s eyes go quiet. She reaches out and curls a finger round my eye. I feel her nail skimming over the skin.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she says.
Something in my chest lurches awake like Akela snorting and saying he wasn’t sleeping on the sofa. I clench my fingers into fists to stop the glad feeling from fidgeting them into silliness. I take a deep breath.
‘Promise me the next person we see we’ll tell the truth to about you being me and me being you,’ I say.
Ellie puts her head on one side like Mrs Dunkerley’s Bill.
‘All right,’ she says in a strange, faraway voice. ‘The next person we see, we’ll tell.’
And now I am excited. If I had it my way, we’d go tearing out, spit-spot, to find someone in the park and end the game right there and then. But I know I mustn’t show Ellie how pleased I am, so all I let myself do is a jump and a small shuffle ball change among the leaves. Then I sit on the branch that runs along the ground and watch Ellie spinning and jumping and a bubbly feeling goes all round my body.
When it is time to go, we wriggle out from under the upside-down tree and then more excitement comes because who should we see sitting in the playground but Mary? It’s all I can do not to give a squeak because now I know the goose is really cooking.
‘It’s Mary,’ I say, and I see a worried look come over Ellie’s face. Then she gives herself a little shake like a bird ruffling its feathers. A promise is a promise and even Ellie knows that.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Come on.’
We go over. Mary is sitting on one of the swings, dragging her feet over the tarmac and staring at the trees far away. She doesn’t seem to see us arrive. It’s been ages since we last saw her, but I know she’ll be just as ready as me for the punishing down and the lesson teaching, particularly when she hears about the naughtiness Ellie has done.
‘Hi Mary,’ I go. ‘How are you?’
There is a pause then Mary turns her head towards us. ‘Oh, hullo,’ she says, looking somewhere between us, like we are really standing over the other side of the park down by the pond.
‘We’ve been looking for you,’ I say. ‘Where did you go? Did you go to your uncle’s in Manchester?’
Mary shrugs. ‘Holiday,’ she says. But here’s the strange thing: the way Mary says ‘holiday’ makes it sound like the greyest, saddest word you could think of. Plus September isn’t the time for holidays and why is Mary only wearing shorts and a T-shirt when already the winter winds are starting to whisper in the trees?
Still, I don’t talk about all this because I am too excited and my brain is mostly taken up with the most important thing. I open my mouth to tell about the game and all its secrets, but before I can say anything, Ellie says: ‘What happened to your legs?’
And then I notice that there are purply-blue patches all up Mary’s legs and around her wrists, like bracelets pressed into the skin. There is also a big scab across Mary’s knee like maybe she fell over when she was running for a bus to the big school.
Mary looks at Ellie and doesn’t say anything. Then her eyes disappear back to looking at the trees. Behind her a Coke can rattles its way across the playground, chuckling to itself like it is busy and has lots of places to go.
It feels like the telling of the game is slipping away, so I give a jiggle and shout, ‘Mary, Mary, we’ve got a secret to tell!’
Then I look at Ellie, because it has to be her too and not me on my own. ‘Go on,’ I say. ‘Do the promise.’
Ellie gives a cough and makes her eyes go round in her head.
‘God-uh,’ she says. ‘O-K.’ She points at me. ‘This is H-elle-n. I’m El-lie. We’ve been swapped round the wrong way but now H-elle-n has been crying and made me promise to tell the truth.’
I don’t like the way Ellie says my name like it’s got another ‘l’ stuck in it and I’d rather she left the crying out – it is Mary after all – but I am so pleased to have the truth said that all I can do is stand there with a big grin. Mary looks at us both. Then a glimmer comes into her eye.
‘Oh, I see,’ she says, stretching like a cat and bringing the old Mary back after all. She turns to me. ‘Well, then, H-elle-n,’ she says, ‘since you’re the leader, why don’t you suggest a game we can all play?’
My heart is thumping now and my head is clambering with all the lessons I’ve been wanting to give, and there is a feeling like a balloon rising up through me to fill the space between my ears.
My mouth flips open. ‘Teaching Ellie to fly over the big ditch,’ I say. And as soon as it comes out, I know it is the wrong choice, because actually that is quite an old game that we used to play a lot last year and how old are we now? Still, there’s nothing I can do about it now: the game is said and that’s what we must play.
Mary gives a nod like it is actually a good decision and stands up.
‘All right,’ she says, with a smile unfolding like a note passed under the desk. ‘You do the demonstration and I’ll wait here with the pupil.’
And now the pleased feeling is playing like a disco in my head, drowning out the whisper of worry that comes from the smile going back and forth between Mary and Ellie, because Mary has said the game exactly how it used to be and now I know everything is going back to normal again. I am so pleased that I don’t even go to the proper starting line for the lesson. I just take off across the grass then and there, galloping as fast as I can. To make myself go faster, I even go ‘yah-yah’ and thump my bottom like somebody riding a horse, and the evening comes at me, the air whistling past my ears.
When I get to the edge of the trees, I do the trick that always fools Ellie. I give a massive jump just before the ditch so it looks like I have gone over and just me and Mary know the truth. Then I stand to the side, giggling. I am thinking about what will happen when Ellie comes lolloping down the slope and lands in the ditch like always. I wonder if there’ll be a little bit of blood this time and if me and Mary will have to give Ellie the talk about trying harder and maybe one day she’ll be good enough and how it’s all her own fault because if she believed in the flying properly she would have gone over the ditch and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I especially want to give that talk.
I stand aside and peer through the bushes, waiting to see Ellie come puffing over the grass. A minute ticks by, then another. Somewhere up in the branches above a big black bird gives a squawk and a flap, like someone has given it a surprise it didn’t want. The breeze comes and tickles my ears.
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I give a call. ‘Ready!’ I shout. ‘Ready for the lesson!’
But there is no reply.
I peer round the edge of the bush. The park is quiet and empty with the shadows creeping in towards me across the grass. There is no Mary by the swings and no Ellie lurching across the grass. Only if I listen carefully there is maybe a laugh floating on the wind. Or it could be a car alarm blaring in the next street. I narrow my eyes until the tree trunks look like people standing round. And inside, like the flame jumping into life on the gas cooker, something sparks and catches and begins to burn.
9
The woman – Chantelle according to her name badge – said she should be proud of herself for making it to the ESA interview only half an hour late. It was, she said, a marked improvement on the two missed previously, a sign that things were moving in the right direction. Smudge thought about making some joke about the chance to escape from Nick making the appointment a welcome distraction, but she couldn’t think of a way to say it that would make sense. It would require too many words to bring it into focus. Keep it simple. That was the best policy.
She sat in the dingy little room and watched the woman’s mouth move up and down like something on a mechanical doll. A realisation dawned on her that there was something untrustworthy about the set up. It seemed fake; the woman was trying too hard to be convincing. After a minute or two, Smudge was glad she hadn’t said that thing about Nick: she was pretty certain this was being filmed.
They went through all the usual suspects. Was she getting enough to eat?
She thought of the empty fridge, the tub of marge. ‘Yes,’ she said, and as Chantelle wrote the answer down in a slow, sloping hand, Smudge glanced into the corners of the room trying to spot the red eye of a camera. There was nothing that she could see: only a spider’s web and the discarded wrapper of a Starburst. All the same…
And the drinking? Was she keeping that under control?
She crossed her legs and winced as the cut she’d got from treading on the broken vodka bottle the day before throbbed. ‘Yes, it’s all much better,’ she said firmly.
Chantelle sat forward chummily in her chair, her pen poised. And what did she do when she got an urge to hit the bottle?
This was how they got you: pretending to be your friend, pretending to be the same as you. Textbook stuff. She definitely wasn’t being paranoid.
She thought for a moment. ‘I go to the park and feed the ducks,’ she said.
It was so stupid, she almost laughed, but Chantelle nodded and smiled and wrote it down busily as though it was just what she’d hoped.
That was when Smudge noticed that Chantelle’s suit jacket was too small for her. The top button was about to give. An obvious disguise. It clearly wasn’t even hers.
What about the voices? Was she still hearing those?
‘Oh no,’ she said steadily. ‘Not for a long time.’
(She listened for the inevitable retort, but this morning they were staying quiet.)
And the paranoid thoughts?
Smudge shrugged and pulled an exaggeratedly happy face (good for the camera). ‘Nup.’
‘Excellent,’ said Chantelle, threading her fingers through the handle of a ‘You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here – But It Helps’ mug. ‘Really, really good.’
They’d talked for five minutes about Smudge’s volunteer work at the community garden. Smudge hadn’t been for six weeks, but she wasn’t about to reveal that. Instead she waxed lyrical about how lovely it was to get fresh air and see things grow. She got a bit carried away and started to worry she might have overdone it, but when she looked at Chantelle, it was clear there was no issue: the woman’s eyes were fixed on the picture of the group of volunteers that had appeared in the South London Press five months back, showing Smudge, with the ‘M’ of her tattoo just poking out from her hair, looking wide-eyed next to a bunch of runner beans under the headline ‘Green Shoots in Community Care’. The photograph had been cut out and pinned on the noticeboard by the door and Chantelle was very pleased with it. It had won the staff at the centre a commendation from their higher ups and for a long time now it had covered a multitude of sins. Chantelle wasn’t the only one missing things, it seemed, because Fat Sandra, who was supposed to supervise the project but instead sat in the back office eating crisps, had produced a glowing report stating what an ‘exemplary’ volunteer Smudge had been. It was there in black and white: ‘exemplary’, or rather ‘exempulry’, circled with a ring from a coffee mug. It wasn’t even true but Smudge got quite emotional looking at it, stupid Smudge that she was.
Chantelle smiled and handed her a box of thin, pastel-coloured tissues. It was only natural she should feel like that, she said. It was a big achievement. She knew exactly how she felt.
The worst bit was at the end of the session, when Chantelle, dotting her final sentence with a flourish, launched into a speech about how proud she and everyone else at the centre was of her: how she was just what the Employment and Support Allowance scheme was about. How, reading over the file, she couldn’t believe the difference between the anxious, depressed, alcoholic person who’d sat in that chair a year ago and the confident, positive woman facing her now. How she was a lesson to everybody. How there was no doubt in her mind that come the imminent termination of her allowance, she would be fit to work and ready to contribute fully to society once again. A momentary panic seized Smudge, hearing this version of herself trotted out, but she bit it back and smiled enigmatically. She was not about to let them snare her with a bluff.
Outside the centre, she hawked and spat on the pavement. Thank fuck that was over. Thank fuck she’d got out of there without giving anything away – nothing they could use against her further down the line. She dug out the roll-up she’d saved for the occasion and took a grateful puff.
There was no money for the bus, so she had to walk back. By the time she turned on to her street, the day was fading. Her feet were throbbing, the cut oozing and causing her to limp. She kept her eyes on them, focusing all her attention on each faltering step. Anyone who saw her would think she was drunk. Hopefully she soon would be.
She didn’t notice the man sitting on the wall until he stood up and blocked her path. She made to step round him, but he put out an arm to stop her.
‘Ellie,’ he said in the voice that had come through the letterbox. ‘It is you, isn’t it? Even after all these years, you look just like her, even—’
He paused to fumble for a tactful way of describing her dishevelled state. She didn’t wait to hear his solution. Spinning round, she sped off up the road, painful feet forgotten, panic pumping in her ears.
‘Wait,’ called Nick behind her. ‘Ellie! Please! I just want to talk to you! Ellie!’
She heard his footsteps thumping after her, beating against the thuds of her heartbeat. He was gaining on her. She could almost feel the heat of him behind her, closing in.
‘Please, Ellie,’ he shouted again, his words exploding close to the back of her neck. ‘You owe her that much at least! Please!’
She owed nothing; she was no one, she wanted to shout, but her lungs were aching and there was a plug of pain in her throat.
She stumbled on. If only the bastard would leave her alone. But he kept edging closer. Then she felt him make a grab for her arm.
With a gasp, she ducked between two parked cars and out on to the road. The next thing was two lights flying at her, a screech, a bang and the world somersaulting into space.
10
The cologist’s office is up a flight of stairs. What you do is, you go in and say your name and then they tell you to wait and then, after some people come and go and it feels like you are never going to get out of there, they tell you you can go in. I don’t mind the waiting though, because I get to miss school, which means today I don’t even mind about having to be Ellie, or at least not while I’m walking up the path to the gate in Ellie’s coat and scarf and all the eyes from the classrooms are watching me, fe
eling jealous.
Mother looks at pages in magazines while I do the waiting. I kick my feet back against the board on the front of the sofa we are sitting on until Mother looks at me with her one-more-peep-out-of-you eyes. So then I have to think of another game to make the time go and I look all about the room at the other people there and decide about who they are. Opposite, there is a fat girl eating crisps, and her mother who is also fat. The girl has eaten so many crisps that she has almost turned into a potato and if we don’t look out there will soon be a vegetable sitting there in her school uniform and maybe we will have to cook her for supper. It makes me laugh to imagine the top of a big potato poking out the neck of her blue jumper with the yellow line round the edge, but I only do it quietly in case Mother gets annoyed.
Round by the fish tanks there is a little boy with a big head, sitting next to his mother. The mother is in a soft dress that is the same colour as inside the Roses strawberry chocolate and every minute or two she smiles at the little boy and strokes his big head, like every part of him is precious. Her name is Mrs Honeysuckle. (It isn’t really.)
Then there are two grumpy boys who sit chomping and sucking like they are trying to eat up the inside of their own heads. I say about it to Mother, but she says it’s rude to point and anyway it’s just chewing gum. So for the rest of the time I sit and chew my gums just like them, moving my mouth up and down and making a golloping sound like a cow on a farm until Mother hisses, ‘For God’s sake, Eleanor, stop letting the side down.’
And then I know it’s serious because ‘Eleanor’ only comes out on Sunday-best occasions and sometimes not even then. I pipe down and sit with my finger over my mouth for the rest of the wait.
For the first part of going in, the waiting mostly continues. There is an old man in a suit with lots of questions to ask Mother and a big form to fill in and he writes carefully like he wants to get everything right because soon a teacher will come and make an example of him if he gets it wrong. I look around the room and mostly what I see is toys. There are toys sitting on all the shelves in front of books, and toys in boxes on the floor. Normally this would make me happy, but there is a sad feeling about these toys that makes me wish they weren’t there. Like, the Barbie on the shelf by Mother is missing an arm and someone has scribbled blue biro on the Mr Potato Head and you can tell just by looking at the box that hardly any of the Hungry Hippo balls are still there. It is like the toys have had all the good fun played out of them and now there is no one left to put them away nicely and make sure they sleep well at night.