by Joel Willans
I nodded because I wanted to shut her up.
Later, we ate breakfast together like nothing had happened. And all the time I was wondering if I could stop, just like that.
I’d been wondering that exact same thing since I was seven, when one morning Mum sat me down, and asked me to see if I could touch the ceiling. I’d thought she was crazy or playing some game till my wishing made me float off her lap. She grabbed my ankles and yanked me down, cursing. I wanted to try again, but she held me so tight I couldn’t breathe. She told me that it was a disease I’d caught off her. All the women in her family had it. It had ruined her life and she wouldn’t let it ruin mine. But it wasn’t that easy. In fact it was damn difficult, especially when things weren’t going too well, which was pretty much always.
She’d only caught me a few times since, but I knew how angry it got her when it happened. For the rest of the week I kept out of her sight. Like always, I had no money, so I spent my time in the town library. In the tall, white quiet of the place I lost myself in travel books. I’d not once been abroad and loved to read about the world beyond our town. If I hadn’t been hanging out there I wouldn’t have seen the advert for a library helper, and if Mum hadn’t caught me floating I wouldn’t have filled out an application. I didn’t hold out much hope, but I had an interview and got offered the job there and then. Even when my boss, a chubby man with eyebrows like bird’s wings, let slip I was the only applicant it didn’t stop me walking tall.
Mum didn’t believe me at first. Then I showed her my name badge and she pulled me tight and said all I needed now was to get myself a boy and I’d be well on the way to a proper respectable life. She started talking about Dad and if only he’d stuck around to see what a fine girl I’d grown into. I let her do the talking, but I wished she didn’t have to sour the day with talk of someone who’d never been anything more to me than tatty snaps and tears.
It was easy work in the library, and often when there wasn’t much happening, I’d gaze at the painted angels on the ceiling wondering how they looked close up. Sometimes, on my lunch hour, I’d lie on the grass outside and stare at the sky imagining myself drifting amongst the clouds. I hoped the craving to float would go away, with a proper job, but it carried on tugging at me, like a kite on a string.
I hoped things would get better at home too, but Mum kept going on about how I should get myself a boyfriend. They way she talked you’d think I could just pop down to Sainsbury’s and pick one off the shelf.
‘Listen, sweetheart. A girl your age should be having fun. Not moping about at home all the time.’
‘And you’d know all about that, right?’
‘It’s different for me.’
She was having one of her crying days when her skin was as thin as newspaper, so I didn’t say anything more. But she must have known what I was thinking, because she turned the TV on and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the afternoon.
I couldn’t sleep properly that night and next morning I woke with a head buzzing with guilty thoughts. To cheer myself up, I took a new way into town and stopped off at the shop for something sweet and sticky. I hadn’t seen the man behind the counter before. He had a friendly face, round and smiley, and looked at me with pretty, long-lashed eyes. The badge on his overalls said Jordan.
‘I’ve seen you,’ he said, ‘You work at the library. You stamped my motorbike book once.’
‘I don’t remember,’ I said, blushing. ‘I stamp lots of books.’
‘You ever wondered how many words there are in that place? Billions, I’d reckon. Probably more words in your place than there are people in the whole world. You ever think about stuff like that?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Best not to, otherwise you’ll get yourself an almighty headache. Some people go crazy with thinking and dreaming too much. I think it’s best to stick to what you know, what you can see with your own eyes. Like I can tell you’re a pretty girl. I don’t need a book to tell me that.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I walked out without buying any sweets after all. I ran to work and spent the day wondering if this Jordan with the pretty eyes was teasing me. In the evening, when I got home, Mum was singing along to her Elvis records. ‘I could listen to his voice forever,’ she said, with her eyes closed.
I watched her swaying to ‘Love Me Tender’ and wondered who she imagined was holding her in arms. It was such a sad sight that, rather than ask her advice, I ran upstairs to my room and put my music on to drown out hers.
For the next few days I walked to work a different way, but then one morning at breakfast Mum started talking about boyfriends and wasting my life again. Her taunting got me so wound up that I took the path past the shop. When Jordan saw me he hung out the window and waved at me. I ignored him, but smiled all the same.
After that, I started going past the shop more often. It was nice to have someone act so friendly. Often he’d shout out that he was coming to get his book stamped, but I’d look at the pavement and say nothing. Somehow though, he still managed to wiggle himself into my thoughts. At lunchtime when I lay on the grass, I started seeing his face in clouds.
It was a crisp, fresh spring morning, the type that makes you think that your life has started up all new, when he ran out of the shop to say hello.
‘Listen, I’ve been thinking,’ he said, grinning. ‘I see you practically every day. But I don’t even know your name.’
‘It’s Tiffany. Tiffany Hope.’
‘Okay, Tiffany, the reason I wanted to know is because…’ He looked at his nails. ‘I’d like to take you out. How about tonight?’ I thought of Mum’s words and said yes.
She gave me a big hug when I told her and spent hours doing my nails and hair. ‘You look a real beauty, a proper lady,’ she said. ‘Be back by ten and make sure you don’t do anything silly.’
She didn’t say anything else, but we both knew what she meant.
That first night Jordan took me bowling. I was so bad I almost cried, but he said there was no point worrying about it. Some people are good at some things and some people are good at others. I wanted to tell him there and then that I could float, but I bit my lip and nodded. I got back nearer to eleven, but Mum didn’t say a thing.
They went fast, those first few months together, but it was still a big shock when Jordan asked me to marry him. It felt too soon, but I still said yes and then had to stop myself from clapping my hand over my mouth. When I told Mum she grabbed hold of me and danced me round the room and told me I was luckier than a lottery winner.
Jordon found us a basement flat. It was exciting at first, getting everything perfect, decorating our little old nest in the ground, but as the weeks turned into months I started feeling heavier. And when I slept, I started to dream of floating again. It was always somewhere different, with elephants or women in funny dresses. Places far away from town and from Jordan. In the morning, I’d wake up sweating and itchy with guilt.
The longer we were together, the more I found out little things about him that got me angry. He talked too much about things he knew nothing about. When I said how I’d like to go on holiday, he’d laugh and say why waste money on that when you can just turn on the Discovery Channel. And he thought because I was a woman I should do everything and he could just lie around reading motorbike magazines. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have carried on floating, but by then all I did was hold my slowly swelling belly and wait for the small kicks that came more often than ever.
After little Chloe was born, there were times when Jordan was snoring in our bed, and I was rocking the baby and watching the sun creep through the curtains. I’d go stand by the window and, opening the catch carefully so as not to wake the baby, I’d breathe the cool morning air and wonder what would happen if I just slipped out and away?
I didn’t though. How could I? I had Chloe to think about and I had a proper life just like Mum wanted for me. Every time I saw her she made me make the same pr
omise. Don’t you ever do it again, she’d say. Don’t throw all this away. Remember your dad. Bolted faster than a whippet when he found out. Then she’d look at Chloe and in a hushed voice say how she prayed every night the curse hadn’t been passed onto the little one. I’d nod, but sometimes when I was alone, I’d take Chloe in my arms, rise up real slow from the floor and swim slow laps of the small blue living room. And every time, she would look at me with those big green eyes and smile.
The Sheriff of Love and the Rainbow Girl
Hard work? No, it wasn’t really hard work. True, I didn’t enjoy trudging streets all day, or so many slammed doors or so much rudeness, but in the end that wasn’t what made me stop. Sharing my cards with those less fortunate felt like a special burden, no matter what people said. What changed me wasn’t labour measured in miles marched and doors knocked upon, it was meeting the girl and the powerful craving to meet her again.
It began in the library, an old corn exchange with a tall ceiling and sheaves carved over the doorway. Normally I’m not one for libraries, they remind me too much of my dad and his study, but it was raining, plump, drenching drops, and the Queen of Hearts directed me to its shelter. The girl was perched on a table, as if ready to leap off. When I saw her, I froze in mid-step. It was as if my world had been reduced to a circle around her face.
And what a face. Eyes taking up all the space reserved for eyes and more, a cherub nose and lips that seemed in perpetual pout, all embraced by a cloud of honey hair. I wondered if there had ever been a girl more perfectly formed. Even when she frowned at me, I didn’t think I’d seen a more beautiful creature in my entire twenty-three years.
‘Had a good enough look, have we?’ she said. ‘Or perhaps I should parade up and down or give you a little spin?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to, it’s just…’
‘I’m a girl, you’re a boy. You’ve evolved this way. It’s a historical inevitability. You can’t help yourself. Listen, I’ve heard them all and more, so don’t even try, all right?’
‘I have a feeling you’re the one.’
Now it was her turn to stare at me, from top to toe. I wondered what passed through her mind. Did she take my stubble and chaotic curls to be signs of someone unable to look after the very basics of his life, or did she see beyond that to a man unconcerned about the trivialities of appearance. A man living on a higher plane, with more glorious issues at stake.
‘You need a haircut.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘In a world full of nutters.’
‘I’m the sheriff of love and the cards have led me to you.’
She laughed. ‘Well, cowboy, I’m afraid you’ve drawn a bad hand, because I’m so far from being the one you can hardly believe.’
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded, and it was only then I noticed the rainbow tattooed on her shoulder. Before I could say another word, she strode outside. I gazed at the space she’d inhabited. Then I paced around it, examining it for clues, for a bit of her. I sniffed the air to see if her essence might have lingered. Even when the librarian told me it was early closing, I stayed put. Not until he returned, put one hand on my shoulder and escorted me out, did I move.
‘What was that girl’s name?’
‘You don’t want to know, son. Leave it at that. Now out you go. We’re open again bright and early tomorrow morning.’
I wandered the streets for the rest of the afternoon. The town was much the same as many others I’d found myself in. Market square, church that looked more like a castle, statues of some long-dead notable holding court from a pedestal. And the people were much the same, too. I watched them traipsing about the town and ferreting around in shops. They sat glum in offices dedicating their lives to acquiring more and more money to buy more and more junk they didn’t need, feeling empty and not knowing why. I wondered if this mystery girl felt that way too. I wanted to help show her that there were other options, but I didn’t know if I was on the right path. I did what I always did when unsure. I sat down on a bench and pulled out my playing cards.
I emptied the pack into my hand, shuffled them and fanned them out before me. They were getting battered and a few were torn at the edges, but I couldn’t replace them. I closed my eyes and picked one. The three of diamonds. I smiled and at that very moment the sunshine came through the cloud and stroked my face. It was clear what I should do. Inspired and with a new sense of purpose, I turned down another street and knocked at number three. A woman opened. A huge, broad-shouldered woman with cropped orange hair and purple painted eyes.
Out of habit, I began my talk, but no, her life didn’t lack love or direction. How could it when she had three kids to look after and worked Thursdays and Mondays? If anything, it was bursting with affection and was too predictably direct. In fact, she’d give her right arm for a bit of a change, but if that’s what I was selling, I’d come to the wrong place, because all her money, every last penny, went on her kids. That was what being a mum was about, wasn’t it?
If I hadn’t interrupted her, she might have gone on like that for hours, purging herself of her life, one word at a time. I tried to ask her if the girl was her only daughter, but she submerged me with her noise. Eventually, I just shouted.
‘Can I talk to your rainbow girl?’
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, squeezing her great breasts together. ‘What are you going on about?’
‘The pretty girl I just met lives here. The cards told me…’
‘I haven’t got time for this today. Goodbye.’ She slammed the door in my face.
I stood staring at the tear-shaped knocker and slapped my forehead. Silly, silly me, the three of course meant the third row. The sun was by then in full command of the sky, and on the rain-polished pavements there was an avenue of light that pointed me down the street. I shuffled the cards again for more guidance. The nine of clubs.
I smiled. It was my favourite number. So that was where the girl lived. Number nine. Third row. I picked up my pace eager to see her again. When I arrived I knocked and smoothed down my hair. I stood for a long time and nothing happened. I knocked again.
The door opened a fraction, and a voice as soulful as a cello spoke. ‘No point bothering me, I haven’t got a TV, check my file if you must, not had one since 1974. No, thanks very much, not for me.’
‘I haven’t got one either,’ I said.
The door opened wider. A slab-headed old man with a crown of white hair, looked out. ‘You haven’t?’
‘Why bother?’ I smiled. ‘I get my answers elsewhere.’
‘A clever man, that’s for sure. Now, what can I be doing you for?’
I said I understood that the girl lived there and it was my firm belief that we were destined to talk again.
He shook his head. There were no girls there. Never had been, he said, girls didn’t care for a free-thinking man like him.
‘You’ve got to have more faith,’ I said. ‘When you believe, it happens.’
He shook his head. The door closed, not slammed, but closed nonetheless, and I felt something that I hadn’t felt for many months. At first I couldn’t place it, it was like tasting food with my eyes closed. I walked then, not because I had anywhere to go but because the street had stopped shining. It held less promise than it had before, and the strange sensation made me feel nervy, reminded me of a past when nervy was the norm. I pulled my coat tighter and marched on, wondering how I’d misread the cards.
I looked for a place to sit and shuffle my pack. At the end of the street there was a park. In the park a hill, upon which were mounted swings. I headed towards them until I came across a bundle of children. They had excited eyes and dirty knees. One stared at me, and I stared back, puffing my cheeks and making her giggle.
‘Do you know a girl with a rainbow on her shoulder?’ I asked.
‘Rainbows are in the sky, silly.’
I sighed. And with that sigh came the feeling I’d run from, hid from, buried m
yself away from for as long as I could remember. Doubt, the greater destroyer, was back. I dropped to my knees and pushed my hands into my face, rubbed the palms up and down against my skin, and tried to black out the world.
‘What are you doing? Have you lost something?’
I looked up and there she was, the rainbow girl, as beautiful as before.
‘I lost you.’
She turned and walked up the hill to the swings. I followed behind, gripping the cards tight in my hand.
‘Are you stalking me?’ she said when I sat next to her.
‘No, the cards sent me to the library and when I arrived I shuffled them to see which aisle I should sit in and there you were.’
She leant back and kicked out. Her legs swung into the sky. ‘Are you for real, sheriff of love?’
‘Listen,’ I said, as she swung back and forth. ‘I’m used to people not believing, but I have faith in the cards. They don’t let me down like people. They tell me where to go to spread a little love.’
‘You don’t need cards to spread a little love, sheriff. I bet they didn’t tell you I was hanging out in this park, did they?’
I looked at the crushed cigarette butts and sweet wrappers on the floor and said nothing.
‘I didn’t think so,’ she said.
‘Sometimes I read them wrong, that’s all.’
‘You should have more faith in yourself, cowboy. You know, if you didn’t talk such a load of rubbish, I might let you buy me a drink later, but I presume you can’t do that unless the cards say it’s okay. I’m going home now, but I’ll be in the Ship and Star later. I’m sure the cards will tell you where it is.’ She jumped off the swing as smoothly as a gymnast.
‘You’ll be back,’ I said.
She shrugged and walked down the hill. Of course I wanted to follow her. The thought of losing her again made my stomach twist and turn and my throat go dry, but I was sure she’d return. I watched her until she disappeared and then took the cards carefully in my hand and shuffled. The eight of hearts.