by Clare Fisher
‘Everything OK?’ Cal’s mum asked.
‘Erm . . .’
‘Here.’ Cal’s mum smiled as she took the knife. ‘I’ll show you.’ She showed me how to hold the knife – ‘Make sure the sharp side is facing away from you!’ – and how to slice. Then she watched while I did it, moving my hand this way and that until I had it just right. ‘Great work!’ she said, when my courgette was a pile of tiny green cubes. I could hardly speak, it felt so good, to have someone give you what you need without you having to ask.
As the oven beeped to tell us dinner was ready, Cal’s dad walked in carrying a crate of books. ‘Yes, yes, don’t tell me. I’m late. I’m sorry. I know. But look! I come bearing bounty.’
He heaved the crate down on to a chair.
Cal laughed. ‘Dad, you’re going to be in big trouble.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ shouted Cal’s mum, without turning round from the counter, where she was busy spooning dinner on to four matching plates she’d heated in the oven. ‘He’s gifted us with more unloved books?’
‘Dad works in libraries,’ said Cal, in a tone that suggested this was something to be sorry for, even though I thought it was pretty cool.
Cal’s dad wiped the sweat from his forehead with a tea towel. ‘I wouldn’t say works in. It’s more akin to life support. I manage libraries around the borough, you see, and many are on their last legs. They’re always chucking books out and I just can’t bear to see them wasted. I’ll give most of them to charity, of course.’
‘No you won’t.’ Cal’s mum laid the plates on the table. ‘You’ll leave them in that box until Celia comes next week, then she’ll ask me what to do with them, and I’ll say to leave them by the door, where they’ll stay until they annoy me so much, I’ll bloody take them to the charity shop.’
Cal’s dad sat down. ‘I don’t like to rush,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t want to miss a gem.’ The steam from the plate had risen up and clouded his glasses; we all laughed.
‘Yes, I’m hilarious, aren’t I?’ he said.
‘Only when you don’t mean to be.’
I never felt so warm as at that dinner table, and it wasn’t just because Cal’s mum had warmed the plates in the oven, or because I’d helped to cook what turned out to be an ugly but surprisingly tasty thing called a veg crumble, but because of their words, which knocked into each other any which way, with no one caring if they came out wrong or right.
‘I notice you’ve got your eye on the orphans,’ said Cal’s dad.
I was about to ask what he meant when Cal rolled her eyes and said, ‘He means the books. He thinks he’s being funny.’
‘Are you a book worm?’ he asked.
As usual whenever anyone asked me a question, my insides tensed. But as I replayed his words, I realized it wasn’t like any question I’d been asked before. It wasn’t about the bad things I’d done or the bad things that had happened in the past. It made me feel good.
‘More of a book mouse,’ I said.
They laughed.
‘I like how books let you into another world, but how it’s secret. Like, when you read, the world you see is different from the one someone else sees when they read the same words. It’s just yours.’
All three of them stared at me. I was beginning to wonder whether I’d said something wrong, when Cal’s mum put down her fork and said, ‘Wow. That says more about what it is to read than most of the ridiculous papers I’ve had to mark today.’
‘Are your parents big readers?’ Cal’s dad asked.
Silence, which only grew stiffer as Cal and her mum shot him a shut-up-now look.
No one had ever asked me this, either. Normally, I did whatever I could to get away from the blank space where my mum was meant to be. But with a belly-full of warm food and warmer words, it felt OK. Somehow, even though I couldn’t see any specific memories, I knew the answer was yes.
‘My mum,’ I said, ‘she used to read to me. We used to make up stories together, and stuff.’
I didn’t know whether this was true or not, but the thought that it might be and the tugging in my gut which told me it was – that was enough.
Cal’s mum smiled sadly. ‘That’s lovely. Are you . . . in contact with your mum?’
My head filled with the times my mum had failed to turn up. The time with Paul and Susie. The time after that, and the one after. Then the time when she saw me, burst into tears and said, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it,’ until the social worker hurried me out of the room. Then that visit from the social worker with the lopsided haircut who told me, in a voice almost too quiet to hear, as if the quieter she said it, the less true it would be, ‘Your mum isn’t very well at the moment. She’s not well enough to see you. We think it would be better for the both of you if we stopped contact for now. Do you understand?’ My mum didn’t want me. Yes, I understood.
‘We don’t see each other, no.’
For a moment, no one knew what to say. Then Cal’s dad opened his eyes really wide and asked if I’d like to rescue any books. He pointed to the crate by his feet. ‘Go on, have a look. Take any you want.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m . . . If it’s possible to be more sure than sure, I’m that.’
I picked up a book. It smelt of earwax and dust, and it was about political systems, which didn’t sound interesting. I put it back.
‘Ooh, Catcher in the Rye. I loved that. Have you read it?’
Cal pressed a skinny little book into my hand. Its spine was taped at both ends. It smelt of dust but no earwax. When I read the first sentence, I felt a hole opening up. I read another sentence and then another. It was as if someone had broken into my head and pulled out the things even I didn’t know were there. ‘I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind.’
‘Great choice!’ Cal’s dad squatted beside me. ‘How about this, too?’
‘Oh no, not that,’ Cal’s mum cut in. ‘What about this?’
That night, I went back to Brenda’s with a stack of books. Some of them opened up the most brilliant holes. Trying to read others was like bashing your head against a concrete wall. But I kept every single one. There were more of them than all the books from the other parts of my life put together.
When we were back in normal lessons, no one could believe me and Cal were friends.
‘That new girl’s clever, you know.’
‘I heard she was a psycho?’
‘Nah, she’s just weird.’
If someone had said something like this about me in any of my other schools, I’d have kicked off. Kicked them, kicked the walls, kicked over a pile of Geographical Formations textbooks. But with Cal’s arm snuggled into my elbow, they just made me laugh.
Looking back, I spent way more time without Cal than with her; the only lessons we had together were English and History. She had rehearsals for her dance show most nights of the week, and she was always doing something for the whole weekend, like an orchestral residential or visiting her grandparents in Shropshire. There were times when she’d say she couldn’t hang out at lunchtime, she had an extra piano lesson, and then I’d spy her eating with the friends she’d had before me, on the steps round the back of the music block. Or when I’d run to find her after school, and a look would cross her face – only for a second – like she wished I wasn’t there. Then she’d go red and mumble something about a last-minute rehearsal.
I didn’t see any of this at the time; I couldn’t. The only way to make things good was to imagine we were together all the time. When Brenda was telling me off for getting home late, when she was telling me some boring story about the man who was supposed to fix the drip under the kitchen sink but cleaned the windows instead, I was at Cal’s. Most weekends, I’d eat up whole days with my face in a book, my head in the world of the book, and then, when it was finished, or I needed the toilet or a drink or something to eat so bad that I had no choice but to put it down, I’d imagine telling Cal’s family about it. I’d say funny things, cl
ever things, and they’d laugh. Sometimes I’d change everyone’s names and write stories about it in the back of my Maths and Science exercise books; if I got a detention for not doing my work, I didn’t care, because every time the whole of me went to Cal’s house, every nice thing her parents said to me, every mouthful of food I’d helped to cook – I’d get more than enough reality to keep me dreaming for weeks.
What plopped between me and my dream was the social worker. I don’t remember his name, only that he had brown hair and a ginger goatee, and he wouldn’t make eye contact with me or even Brenda; he liked to stare at things that wouldn’t move, like her porcelain dogs.
‘I’ve got some good news,’ he said. ‘Your mum’s now well enough to see you.’
This wasn’t good. Not even 1%. ‘I don’t want to see her,’ I said. ‘She won’t come, anyway.’
He shifted his gaze from the dogs to Brenda’s special foot pouf. ‘She was very sick, your mum. But she’s a lot better. We think it would do you good to see her. Think on it.’
But I’d already thought on and under and in and around it. No way. As soon as Ginger Goat was gone, I stomped up to my room and opened the book I’d stayed up half the night reading. But the social worker’s words were like a massive door slamming me on the outside of that soft bookish world; it made no sense. I chucked the book, wanting only to get it away from me, not for it to land on a mermaid-shaped porcelain lamp, which smashed.
For a few seconds after the pieces had settled, I felt calm. Then I heard Brenda plod up the stairs. She panted for a while on the landing before waddling into my room. She didn’t knock, not like she’d promised she’d always do when I first moved in.
‘Oh no,’ she said, shaking her head too fast, gasping. ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Her face was very red. ‘I won that in a raffle in 1984. It was the only good thing in the raffle and I won it. Look,’ she put her hands on her hips, ‘I know you’re upset about your mum, but this is no way to behave, really. You’re going to get into a lot of trouble if you just go round breaking things when they don’t go your way.’
‘I didn’t –’
‘You should know by now that I’m not one for excuses. Now go and get yourself a dustpan and brush while I go and lie down.’
I went downstairs but I didn’t get a dustpan and brush. I didn’t want to sweep anything up. Through the ceiling, I heard the bed creak around her weight. A few minutes later, I heard snoring. It was a Thursday and Cal was at a dance rehearsal but I put on my shoes and my coat and I walked round to hers. As soon as I was out of Brenda’s house, I felt better: the sun was out, there were two little boys chasing each other down the street, and my chest filled with hope that Cal’s rehearsal had been cancelled. That she’d be at home, bored and alone, like me.
Except, she wasn’t. No one was. I stood in her front garden and pressed my face up against the window. There was a pair of striped woolly socks, a book and a glasses case on the sofa. A magazine on the floor. Some letters and a scrunched-up tissue on the coffee table. But no people, not one.
Maybe they were on their way home. Maybe they were just around the corner, carrying bags of food they were about to cook and eat. I sat down on their doorstep. I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes. They’d be back soon, I was sure of it.
‘Beth, what are you doing?’ Cal’s mum was frowning into my face. My neck was curled stiff. My bum and one of my legs were totally numb.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come inside now. Let’s get you warm.’
‘Where’s Cal?’
‘Geoff’s taken her out for dinner. It’s good for the two of them to spend some time alone.’
She wrapped me in a blanket while she made tea, a hot water bottle, and cheese on toast. She looked so much smaller without Cal and her dad beside her. Older, too. And tired.
When I’d scoffed the cheese on toast, she said, ‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’
I shook my head. I was warm. I was full. Feelings flooded back into my legs and to the other place, the difficult place that wanted more than to be warm and full – it yelled to go home. Not back to Brenda’s or anywhere else I’d ever been; to a place where it could stay, whatever.
‘I know you’ve got a lot going on,’ she said, her too-quiet voice reminding me of too many social workers. ‘But you can’t just . . . I’m not angry with you, please don’t think I’m angry with you, but we really can’t have you camping out on our doorstep. It’s not fair on your foster mum, for one thing. Although I’m guessing that things aren’t so great between you?’
All I heard of this was: we don’t want you.
‘I’ll leave then.’ I threw off her blanket and marched into the hall.
‘Beth.’
I slammed the door behind me but a few moments later, she was by my side. She rested her hand on my arm. ‘I didn’t mean for you to leave, but if you want to, I’ll walk you home. Maybe I could pop in for a quick chat with your foster mum, if she’s around.’
I didn’t like the thought of her talking to Brenda, stood in Brenda’s house, which she would think was ugly and stupid. I decided to ignore the part about her coming in. ‘It’s only round the corner. I’ve walked home by myself a hundred times before.’
‘I know. But I’d like to.’
‘Do you mean that?’
She squeezed my arm, then let go. ‘Yes. We enjoy having you as part of our life.’
I didn’t get to enjoy these words for very long, and I didn’t have to worry about Cal’s mum coming in; there was an ambulance outside Brenda’s house.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Ah, Bethany.’ Ginger Goat was back again. ‘I’m afraid there’s some bad news. Brenda’s not very well.’
Not very well. The exact same words he’d used to describe my mum. ‘What do you mean? What the fuck do you mean? Why does no one ever tell me what’s going on?’
I kicked a flowerpot. It hurt my foot but I kicked it again and I kept on kicking it until Cal’s mum pulled me away. ‘That’s enough, Beth,’ she said, quietly. Except it wasn’t. Once whatever it was inside me that needed to break things woke up, nothing was ever enough.
The ambulance man slammed shut the ambulance doors. Then the sirens came on, the lights started to flash, and we stood aside while it drove off.
‘Now Beth, don’t worry, we’ve got you somewhere to stay tonight. Just run inside and get your things.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘One of the big blood vessels in her head went pop. It’s called a stroke.’
‘Is she going to die?’ I asked. Without waiting for him to answer, I said: ‘I don’t care if she is. I didn’t like her, anyway.’
‘You’ll be feeling very upset so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Now go and get your things.’
There was blood on the carpet outside my room, a trail of porcelain pieces and a dustpan and brush. I hadn’t put the dustpan and brush there, which meant Brenda must’ve done it. Which meant she must’ve been doing it just before she had the stroke. Which meant the stroke was my fault, sort of.
My fault.
I grabbed my holdall but I emptied it of books. The only thing I could hear was the voice that said, things can only get better if you make them worse.
By the time I was able to hear other voices, kinder voices, it was too late. Brenda had died, I’d signed a form saying I didn’t want contact with my mum, I’d messed things up with my next foster family so bad that they trialled me for the ‘Fresh Start’ scheme, which meant I got shoved on a train to Somerset, where I’d be fostered by the Stanleys until I was sixteen. They were OK, the Stanleys, but whether they could’ve loved me, I’ll never know: I never let them in.
Cal and her parents wrote me letters, but I didn’t reply; they only reminded me of what I’d lost. With the first letter, they sent a book. I stayed up all night reading it. It made me cry. It made me shake. It filled me with feelings too big and terrifying t
o fit in my new room. So I stopped reading. It was easier. It was what I deserved. Anyway, I was busy making myself into a new person, a person who didn’t care about books or anything besides having fun. A person who didn’t even care when the letters finally stopped.
5. Curling up in a fleece blanket, in your own home
Erika didn’t ask how I was this week; she didn’t have to: I’d butchered my face from crying so hard. I opened my mouth. But the badness had wedged itself between the words and me and so I shut it and slid further down in my seat.
‘It’s OK, Beth, take your time.’
I raised my eyebrow at this.
‘What?’ She slid her hands across the table. They were as raw as my face. Imagining her at home, rushing to do the washing up, it made me feel a bit better, like the distance between her kitchen and this room had shrunk.
‘Just. Funny you should say that. You know, in here. And considering what they do to you if you’re late for anything.’
‘Of course.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, it’s fine. Funny’s good. I’m reading a book that’s sad but also funny. It’s just, I can’t feel the funny bits right now. All I can feel are the sad ones.’
‘Oh yes?’
I closed my eyes and tried to remember what reading felt like – and not just in my head, but in my body. Especially in my body. ‘It’s like someone’s got a massive torch and is waving it around inside of you, and sometimes it lights up a good bit that you’d forgotten was there, and other times . . . It shines on a bit that makes you sick. A bit that, once it knows it’s being looked at, grows and swells and then it’s tumbling out on top of you and you don’t know how to get out from under it.’
Erika nodded. ‘This is a safe space, Beth. You can talk about those things here. You can cry here, if you want.’
I didn’t want to talk about those things yet. No way was I going to cry in front of her, either.