by Joanna Glen
‘You get tattoos in crisp packets in Spain,’ he said, drawing up his sleeve to reveal a dolphin and a skull and a rose in a line on his skinny tanned forearm.
I stared at the tattoos and no words came out of my mouth.
‘I’ll bring you one in tomorrow if you like,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
(He did – a flamenco dancer who I tattooed with great joy onto my upper arm and who disintegrated bit by bit into little black specks in the bath.)
When I reopened Bridget’s envelope to read the rest of the letter, she said she felt as if she was adrift in the world like the bath ducks who’d fallen off the container-ship.
‘I will never love a friend like I love you,’ she said.
I wrote back, asking if she remembered me telling her I had evidence that the person she thought was my mother wasn’t, way back on Charmouth Beach. Since she never seemed to remember the detail of anything, I added, Well, whether you do or you don’t, the evidence is a photo, which I tried to show you twice. But the first time we found an ammonite, and the second time you fell asleep. So I’m wondering if God was saying I shouldn’t mention it.
In Bridget’s next letter, she said that she didn’t think showing a friend a photo was much to do with God, and anyway, since we’d basically lived together, I could have shown it to her any time, except now, when we were in different countries – so why didn’t I? And could I describe the photo in words? Or get a photocopy? And, by the way, she was totally off God in a big way because he let her mother die. And did I think God was necessarily he because why couldn’t he be she? And if he’d been she, she wouldn’t have let her mother die.
I thought that maybe Bridget had gone a bit mad if she thought all hes were bad and all shes were good – had she already forgotten about Sophia Carr and the Populars?
It seemed a bit tiring to get into it all on the page, though, so I didn’t bother.
In the school resources room, I made five illegal copies of the photo.
But I couldn’t make myself send one to Bridget – it felt too dangerous, sending my secret off in a thin paper envelope across the skies.
When she became very persistent, I tried to describe the photo with words: the stone angel and the wagon wheel and the headless woman in a grey dress.
‘I bet you can’t stop daydreaming about your real mother,’ she wrote, surrounding the sentence with thought bubbles full of grey felt-tip hearts. ‘Even if she doesn’t have a head.’
Feeling a bit childish, I took out The Rainbow Rained Us and stared at Grey Mother: her grey topknot and glasses, her globe and her bookshelves, her face squinting with important thoughts, her twinkly eyes. I remembered the first time Miss Feast read us the book in Entrance Class, and the way Bridget came and sat close and held my hand.
I felt so alone without her.
Before going to bed, I would tiptoe upstairs, through the wicker furniture room, to the roof terrace, where I’d turn on the outside lights and climb onto the marble table.
I’d stand under the stars, and I’d call across the sky: ‘Good night, Bridget!’ And I could hear her answering, I really could. Because she was calling to me from the flat roof where they hung their washing, in Jerusalem.
In bed, I’d take out the photograph and look at my little baby mouth chewing away like babies do when they’re teething, and at the grey arms holding me. I’d try to forget that when Peter Pan flew home to his mother, he found the window barred, and instead I remembered Wendy saying that a mother would always leave a window open for her children to fly back through.
I’d kiss the beheaded woman’s hand in the photo and try to imagine her lovely motherly face. Though it’s hard (even impossible) to make up a face from scratch. Try it.
Chapter 43
When, in my first summer term at Lewis College, my year all went away to the big old country house owned by the school in France, Pink Mother had to come up with a passport for me. And inside my passport, my place of birth was not Jerez de la Frontera but Córdoba.
Córdoba!
I felt hot when I read it, and little darts of joy zoomed like fireworks inside my bloodstream.
I had a real, official place of birth!
A personal history!
Maybe even a family tree!
Everything was fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Córdoba was the place I was born, as well as the place where the patio-gardeners were the best in the world.
It followed therefore that, if my baby photo was taken in the most beautiful patio you can possibly imagine, then my baby photo was surely taken in Córdoba.
I stared at my passport and my heart thumped in my chest.
I decided to start a new Quest Book immediately, with titles and sub-titles and a timeline, and a more serious and tidy secondary-school approach. I filled pages and pages with fevered scribbling, ending with the question: Why was I born in Córdoba when we apparently lived in Jerez, or at the beach house in Alvera, down on the coast of Cádiz?
I put my secret photo on my desk next to my open passport – place of birth, Córdoba – and I photographed the two of them together, matching and fitting and furthering my quest in the most dizzying of ways, and I begged Jean to get the film developed secretly, without telling Pink Mother.
I knew it was time to stop calling her Pink Mother, even in my head. I was twelve, and it was time to put childish things behind me.
With shaking hands, I stuck the seminal photo on the central double page of my new Quest Book, entitled, boldly, and without question marks, My Birthplace. Then I wrote to Bridget to tell her, in a rather adult and measured tone, that I’d definitely been born in Córdoba, but in her next letter, she didn’t even mention it. She said that she didn’t like being the Blue family. And she didn’t like living with her grandparents. And she didn’t like Israel.
I asked her if she’d made any new friends at school. She said that D was home-schooling them as a way of keeping himself busy, so there was no way of making friends, but the problem was that he kept bursting into tears and locking himself in his bedroom.
‘Maybe you could meet some friends in your block of flats,’ I wrote, hoping shamefully that she’d never find a friend as special as me.
‘It’s a bit tricky as I can’t speak to them,’ she wrote back.
I sat chewing my pen, trying to think of some new ideas.
I thought it would have been easier if she’d been younger and could invite other girls to play hoops or elastics, which didn’t need much in the way of language. Whereas now we were over those things, but not yet ready for next things. These were the strange intersection years, caged in the middle of the adult-child Venn diagram, growing too big for it.
No helpful suggestions came into my head to enable Bridget to make more friends in Israel. Also, I had to finish the letter quickly and get it in the post before the coach left for our trip to France.
My mother told me not to do the climbing or the potholing, or I’d end up with scars on my knees.
Chapter 44
Through Upper Third and Lower Fourth, Billy Orson and I became friends: we spoke in mashed-up Spanish together; we sat under a willow tree at breaktimes asking philosophical questions such as whether, if nobody ever saw you, you would exist; Billy imitated Freddy Mercury in Live Aid, using a tree branch as a microphone; we made up dances to Wham songs; and we ate Maltesers.
I wondered if he was the person I should show my photo to, and I kept a photocopy folded in my bra, just in case. But somehow the moment never seemed to come.
In the summer term, Billy said to me, with that stardust smile of his, ‘My brother Michael fancies you – and he’s in Lower Fifth.’
We laughed our heads off.
But when I went for the first time to the C. S. Lewis society, there was Michael Orson, sitting next to me, and it wasn’t funny at all. It made me feel peculiar knowing on good authority that this older handsome boy actually fancied me.
For the first time in my life, I couldn’t concentrate on the castle at Cair Paravel.
On my third Wednesday at the C. S. Lewis Society, I realised that the Johnny who ran it was Johnny Orson, who was in Upper Sixth, and practically a man. Everyone called the three brothers the Awesomes instead of the Orsons.
Johnny and Michael went to almost every club in the school, but Billy said he didn’t want to.
‘I’m not a clone!’ he said to me.
I took this to mean that he liked being different from his brothers, but I should have listened harder, and underneath.
Johnny and Michael Orson were tall and muscular whereas Billy was slight and handsome in a pretty, elfin way and if J. M. Barrie had wanted a male Tinkerbell, he would have done just fine. He flitted about the place, doing dance routines, mimicking the teachers and getting detentions for wearing a girl’s hairband or missing PE.
‘The C. S. Lewis Society sounds awful,’ Billy said to me. ‘And I’m lonely without you.’
I badly wanted to go to the C. S. Lewis Society, and I badly wanted Billy not to be lonely, but in the end I had to choose, and I still feel a bit ashamed that I chose the C. S. Lewis Society.
‘I sat under the willow on my own,’ said Billy.
‘I bet you didn’t,’ I said. ‘Everyone loves you.’
‘Everyone finds me funny,’ he said.
‘Same thing,’ I said.
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Billy.
Which is true.
‘Also,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s not the same as someone.’
I kept going to the C. S. Lewis Society all through Lower Fourth, and I sat next to Michael Orson whenever I could as I wanted more of the peculiar feeling.
I started my periods the day after I turned thirteen, and the pain throbbed through me from my belly to my back, as if all my organs were being pulled out of my body through my vagina. The blood soaked through my sanitary towels, so that I had to double them up like bread rolls in my pants.
Billy said he wondered how thirteen-year-old boys would get on if blood started spurting into their boxer shorts every month. Plus backache. And weeping. I said I thought it might change the whole social dynamic, wipe the smiles off the boys’ faces.
I didn’t mention my terrible periods to my mother, like I didn’t mention anything to her. I can’t remember if I wrote and told Bridget, and nor can she. Jean handed me a lifetime’s supply of sanitary towels and tampons in a huge Boots carrier bag, and she said that she recommended Nurofen.
That was it.
My preparation for womanhood.
Pain relief.
A boy called Guy Childers took over the leadership of the C. S. Lewis Society when I was in Upper Fourth, and by the time I was in Lower Fifth, fifteen years old, we’d exhausted most of C. S. Lewis’s more popular books, and moved onto A Grief Observed.
C. S. Lewis’s wife converted from Judaism to Christianity, showing that, contrary to Miss Philips’ whirlybird answer, you could in fact swap religions. But even C. S. Lewis, who resurrected Aslan at the Stone Table, couldn’t resurrect his wife when she died of cancer, so no wonder we’d had no luck with Blue Mother. C. S. Lewis had all the theological answers about suffering before he suffered, but now she’d died, he only had questions.
‘The love of his life was dead. He couldn’t ever have her back,’ said Guy Childers.
Out of nowhere, I started crying.
This was both unexpected and excruciating, as I’d gone back to keeping my feelings well hidden inside since Bridget left.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘It made me think of someone I lost.’
Michael Orson – now in Lower Sixth and seventeen years old, golden-skinned, golden-haired and fancied by almost every girl in the school – came and put his arm around me, and I turned and found myself looking into his electric blue eyes.
That weekend, Michael and I went for a walk together in Battersea Park.
It felt very odd being alone in a park together wearing jeans, and I kept swivelling my head around to check nobody we knew was watching us. We walked about a foot away from each other and warmed up by talking about Billy.
He told me that his mother was worried about all Billy’s detentions because Orson boys didn’t get detentions. I said that we were the ones who’d asked him to moon-walk backwards into Spanish, so maybe we should have got the detention instead.
‘It wasn’t just that one,’ said Michael. ‘He’s always in trouble.’
I should have said more, but I couldn’t really keep my mind on the conversation as we’d moved closer together and the sides of our bodies had started crashing into each other as we walked.
Michael grabbed my hand, and this led to a stunned silence between us, which Michael broke by saying, ‘Do you like pancakes?’
‘Yes,’ I said very quickly, somewhere between the pan and the cakes.
Then I blurted out: ‘Billy’s the best dancer I’ve ever seen.’
Michael said, ‘What’s that got to do with pancakes?’
I blushed.
He laughed.
I laughed.
He said, ‘My mother won’t let him do ballet.’
I said, ‘Why not?’
He said, ‘Obvious reasons.’
Then he said, ‘I always fancied you, from the first day I saw you.’
I nearly fell over.
I wish I’d said that there were no obvious reasons at all why Billy shouldn’t do ballet, but I was too carried away with being fancied.
Michael and I ate toffee pancakes on enormous plates at a little restaurant on the King’s Road, and I became his girlfriend.
I was someone’s girlfriend!
I remember walking home, wondering if people could tell.
I assumed that I was now ready for next things, and I also felt a bit sick – but that was almost definitely the toffee pancakes.
Chapter 45
In my next letter, I told Bridget I was going out with Michael Orson, and she wrote back with a million questions.
She also said: ‘I’ll never get a boyfriend stuck inside this flat.’
As usual, I didn’t know what to say.
I couldn’t imagine her life, and I don’t suppose she could imagine mine.
Michael and I went on dates, and he told me how much he respected his father’s wealth, his mother’s drive, his older brother Johnny’s brain.
‘What about Billy?’ I said.
‘It’s almost like he’s not an Orson,’ he said.
‘Surely he’s allowed to be whoever he is,’ I said.
‘Let’s move on to your family,’ he said.
There was no way I was getting started on my family.
Instead, I showed him a photo of Bridget, and he said, ‘She’s very fat.’
(That should have worried me, but I wasn’t sure what to expect of boyfriends.)
I started to tell him about Blue Mother, though I didn’t call her Blue Mother to him because it would have sounded ridiculous out loud.
Michael said: ‘Tell me about your mother.’
Help, I’ve no idea who she is, I thought, and she’s probably a grey woman with no head, and she definitely isn’t who you think she is.
‘We’re quite different,’ I said. ‘She’s very fragile.’
I started asking him lots of questions about his parents in a slightly frantic way.
Michael Orson’s father, Hugo, ran a hedge fund, which was nothing to do with gardens. During our relationship, Michael found a million ways to explain what a hedge fund was, but I never had the slightest clue what he was talking about.
Michael Orson’s mother, Christine, had been a lawyer, and she gave up her career to look after her three boys in their mansion in Wimbledon.
Michael took me on lots of dates, and he said I was the best-looking girl in the school.
We started mooning around together at lunchtimes.
‘I miss you so much,’ said Billy.
‘I can see you o
n Fridays,’ I said, because Michael had team practice then.
‘I’d prefer Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays as well,’ said Billy. ‘And Wednesdays, if you gave up the C. S. Lewis Society.’
‘You’re just being difficult,’ I said. ‘I’m offering to split my time.’
‘I don’t want to be an understudy,’ said Billy. ‘I used to be your first choice.’
‘No one can help falling in love,’ I said.
I feel a bit sick about that conversation now.
In fact, a lot sick.
In the summer term, Michael was made head boy.
‘You’re going out with the head boy!’ said my mother.
‘The head boy!’ she said again, staring at me so intently she was making an exclamation mark between her eyebrows.
I honestly don’t think I had ever seen her so happy.
When Michael first met her, he said, ‘You’re right. She’s nothing like you at all.’
If my mother knew that Michael was coming to collect me, she would get herself properly dressed and made up, and she would waft into the hall, smelling of perfume, as if she was the one going on the date. She would lurk around, giggling at whatever Michael said.
If he hadn’t been made head boy, would she have asked more questions?
If he hadn’t been made head boy, would she have wondered what we were up to in the wicker furniture room next to the roof terrace, where we locked the door and started to take each other’s clothes off?
She never once mentioned anything about sex or taking precautions.
I was fifteen and a half and maybe she thought I was too young.
‘Shall we go all the way?’ said Michael. ‘Or are you not ready?’
‘I’m not ready,’ I said, because I knew I should wait a bit, but whether I was ready or not, my body was ready. Which sounds a bit like Descartes, who said that we were split in two, mind and body, and the body couldn’t think.
My body definitely couldn’t think – it was exploding.
Even during lessons, the feel of Michael would come back to me: the hardness of his thighs, the warmth of his breath on my neck.