• • •
I kept going back to the Animal Arcadia website. I wanted to help the animals there so badly that it felt like being squeezed. I fetched my notebook. To be a Volunteer, I’d have to do the bus journey on my own. I chewed the end of the pencil. I knew which bus to catch now because of going there already, and I had bus experience because of visiting Mother in the hospital. The Asda Bus Incident was unlikely to happen again.
• • •
An image of Mother appeared now, her eyes like round pebbles behind her glasses, her voice loud and scornful: Volunteering? What are you thinking of, Elvira? Of course you couldn’t manage.
I held on to the ribbed hem of my sweater. I’d have to smile at people. Interact Socially and work alongside others. The image of Mother was still hovering, waiting to bang her lion-headed walking stick on the floor and snort Ridiculous idea! I did have the website now, I told myself. And the Seven Rules. Sylvia said I’d understand them all in the end. I gazed out of the window, the pencil to my lips. I could try going to Animal Arcadia, on my own, as a trial run. Trial, I’d heard Trevor say the last time I was at their house. That girl is a trial. He'd obviously meant Shelbie.
If I managed the trial run, I could do it again, and this time have lunch in the café as well, no matter how anxious I felt, and say something to at least one person. If I could cope with all that, without Incidents, or getting lost, or crying, I’d come home and fill in the Volunteering Form. I shut my eyes against Mother and wrote all this down, underlining the last sentence twice.
I got out the Seven Rules spreadsheet. Rule Three:
Conversation doesn’t just Exchange Facts—it Conveys how you’re Feeling.
I circled the explanatory notes: Nod, ask questions, and only say nice things and Eye contact is part of conversation. The website recommended glancing at people in the triangle between their eyebrows and their nose tip. So far, I could only get as far as people’s ears. Sylvia said this could make me look as if I wasn’t interested in what people were saying, which was a pity because sometimes I was interested.
Sylvia said Rule Four (You learn by making Mistakes) was true for everybody, whether they had my Condition or not. Volunteering was important; I would hate to get things wrong. I used to cry and run upstairs whenever I made a mistake, and Mother would say, You’re a perfectionist, Elvira, shaking her head so I knew it was a bad thing, A heavy burden for someone with your condition. I looked out of the window again so that I couldn’t see Mother shaking her head now.
• • •
I stood in line for the bus to Animal Arcadia behind a large woman with a stroller. She was smoking. Her hair was striped dark brown at the roots and blond at the ends. I found it hard to stop looking at it. When the bus arrived, she flung her cigarette down and it smoldered on the ground, creating a Fire Risk. I tapped her on the shoulder to tell her.
She snapped her head around from maneuvering the stroller, her face red, and asked me who I thought I was. She didn’t wait for me to tell her, which was rude (Rule One); instead, she told me I was a fat cow. This was incorrect because, now that I’d lost weight, I was a size twelve and my BMI was normal. I told her this, scrunching up my toes because of her red face, but she started shouting and the bus driver told me to go and sit upstairs. When I said, my face scarlet now, there were still seats downstairs, and I usually sat in the fourth one on the right, if it was vacant, he asked why he only got aggravation from women.
I paused, trying to think why, but he flung his arm out and pointed to the stairs, so I gave up. I sat in the fourth seat on the right-hand side, upstairs, shaking. I fumbled in the backpack for the Seven Rules spreadsheet and scanned it, my heart thumping. It seemed I’d done something wrong, but I couldn’t work out which Rule, or Rules, I’d broken. I’d been polite. I’d tried to be helpful. I hadn’t said anything that wasn’t nice, although I’d wanted to tell her she was fat and should be worrying about her blood pressure as the mother of a small child. I huddled next to the window, close to tears. I’d made a mistake, and I hadn’t even gotten to Animal Arcadia yet.
Once there, I managed to buy my ticket but I couldn’t look up from the floor, which was beige linoleum with a flecked pattern like stone. The woman slammed the ticket down with my change and turned her back with a flounce of her nylon tunic. I couldn’t see any of the animals very well because of the blurring in my eyes, so I just walked around the park as fast as I could, to get it over with, and caught an earlier bus home.
• • •
I made a cup of tea and went upstairs. I clutched the Seven Rules, folded small, to my chest and pulled the duvet over myself. After a bit, I punched the pillow and banged my head on it until I felt dizzy. Sylvia said you only learn by making mistakes. But you had to be able to recognize the mistake—mistakes—first.
12.
Keep busy when you’ve got something on your mind.
—Mrs. Sylvia Grylls, neighbor
In the bus line, an old lady in front of me dropped a tissue. I froze. I’d had to force myself back to the bus station. The failed trial run had been more than a week ago. I was only here again now because I’d underlined my sentence about applying to be a volunteer at Animal Arcadia. I picked the tissue up and gave it to the old lady, my palms sweating.
Nah, I was chucking it away, love. She had two hairs on her chin, dark ones. ’Ere—and she threw it in the bin.
I didn’t tell her it was wrong to drop litter, although I wanted to, and she didn’t shout. In fact, she started to tell me about an operation she’d had on her left hip. On the bus, I sat downstairs in my usual seat.
At Animal Arcadia, there was a different woman in the kiosk. I looked at her ear—she was wearing stud earrings shaped like roses—and glanced once between her eyebrows. I said please and thank you loudly, and although she didn’t smile, she did say thank you back.
A plump young man with glasses and red lips that glistened with saliva served me Scrambled Eggs on Toast and a Cup of Tea in the café. His yellow polo shirt said Animal Arcadia on the back. On the front was a round blue badge that said Volunteer. I stared at it.
He said “There you go” and “Enjoy your meal” when he put my food on the table. With training and more practice with the Rules, I might be able to say both those things to the public. I wouldn’t have to look at anybody because I’d be looking at the food, in case I spilled it.
“Thank you,” I said and stretched my mouth up into a smile. I wondered if Bill, from the computer sessions, was his grandfather, but I couldn’t find the right words to ask him.
I went to Wolf Wilderness and found a place at the back of the crowd for the talk. The wolves jumped about and licked one another’s faces. The keeper told us they were affectionate animals who sometimes sacrificed themselves to protect their family unit. I hoisted my backpack and folded my arms so the collapsing feeling did not take hold. Father’s Government Missions might have involved sacrifice; they might have contributed to his heart trouble. Wolves lived in social groups and were monogamous, the keeper said, which meant they mated for life. I wrote down the word. Mother would be pleased I was extending my vocabulary. I thought about Mother and Father mating for life.
Mother said it was love at first sight when she first met Father, and he agreed. He had been in his Army uniform, because he was doing military service and had given up his seat for her on a train. Mother had been coming down from Cambridge University where she’d studied Ancient Civilizations. Father had studied at the University of Life. Business Methods and Flexible Accounting, he’d said. Father had charmed everyone he met—and charmed money out of them, Mother said.
They’d struck up a conversation and then written to each other. Mother still had his letters, in date order, in a leather box on the top shelf of her wardrobe. Once, when I was small, I’d seen her reading them. When I’d asked her why, when she already knew what they said, she’d
snapped, To remind myself that he loved me. Then her voice had momentarily lost its snap. I was loved once.
• • •
When I got home, my muscles were stiff with bracing myself, and my brain felt overloaded with noise and detail and color. I took the Japanese notebook, with the notes on Animal Arcadia, upstairs. I lay in bed with my eyes shut and then began to leaf through it. I’d neglected the unanswered questions I’d written down a few weeks ago. Sometimes I thought I’d never discover what Jane meant by her comments, who the woman and the baby in Father’s photo were, what had been wrong with his finances, or where his Secret Government Missions had taken him.
I turned to the new Facts I’d learned today and numbered the animals I’d seen, matching them to their enclosures around the park. I began to hum. But when I stopped humming, I could hear Mother, as clearly as if she was in the room, saying, Visiting an establishment is one thing. Working there, Elvira, is quite another.
I took some deep breaths and printed out the Volunteering Form anyway. I looked at it, then I made a cup of tea and looked at it again. The pen kept slipping in my hand. Mother or Father had always helped me with forms before. None of the questions were about animals, and I didn’t know what to put under Previous Experience. After a while I wrote: Caring for Mother, and underneath that, Helping with Guinea Pigs in Nursing Home. Brenda had let me hand them out last week, and she’d said I was a natural. I’d had to press my feet flat to the floor when she said it to stop them bouncing.
Give the name and address of a person, not a relative, who has known you for at least three years. Jane from Dunstable? Apart from our phone conversations, I’d only met her once. Mother and I had stayed with her one Christmas, and when I’d been unsure how to answer a question, she’d said, “Cat got your tongue?” and I’d run across the road, crying, thinking the ginger cat opposite was eating it, and Mother and Jane had been angry. I knew now it was a Figure of Speech, but it wasn’t a polite or a nice thing to say. Jane had broken Rule One, I thought with a glow of satisfaction. I wrote down Sylvia’s name and address instead.
I checked and rechecked the form and stuck three First Class stamps on the envelope. I hesitated at the front door. There was a noise like an alarm clock in my head. I kept hold of the door handle for a while, my eyes shut. Then I saw a crowd of abused animals: Pernama, Vikram, the purring tiger, and the wolves, sacrificing themselves. I saw myself helping them in an Official Capacity. I repeated official capacity under my breath and walked to the mailbox.
• • •
There was an email from Animal Arcadia! I hesitated; they might be turning me down. I shut my eyes and clicked. They wanted me to come for an interview! I got up and jumped up and down in front of the computer until I was out of breath. Sylvia said it was all right to behave like this in private. The whole house was private now that Mother wasn’t here. Pride comes before a fall, she would have said (after first shouting, Stop it!).
I sat down, holding the hem of my sweater. I might not pass the interview. They might think I wouldn’t be able to manage, that I wasn’t normal enough.
I still didn’t know how to behave in new situations. Last week, the man who did the gardening for the house across the road had rung the bell and offered to mow my front and back lawn. I was relieved, because they both looked untidy, and then I realized he wasn’t being helpful; he wanted to be paid. This was because he’d said he charged £15 per hour, cash in hand. He’d also winked and made a sign of rubbing his first finger and thumb together.
I didn’t want to employ anybody. I’d have to be in charge and tell them what to do. He’d had dark eyes like little beads and needed a shave. He’d peered around the front door, and mentioned antiques, and said he had a mate in the trade who could give me a valuation. Why would I want things valued? To sell, miss, he’d said. Why would I want to sell them? He’d talked about clutter and spring cleaning and given me his business card—it had had a dirty fingerprint on it—and I’d only gotten away from him because the phone rang. When I’d answered it, it was from a call center Abroad, and I couldn’t understand what they were saying either.
It had reminded me of people banging at the door, wanting things, when we’d first moved to Sandhaven. The bailiffs who wanted to take our furniture, and other people demanding money and scaring me. Mother hadn’t answered the door, and she’d kept the curtains drawn. I didn’t have to answer the door, Sylvia said, or the phone, but not doing it made me feel uneasy too.
• • •
I’d stuck the Seven Rules spreadsheet to the fridge door with an Airedale terrier fridge magnet. Sylvia said the important thing was to apply the Rules. Then they’d start to make sense. I ran my finger down the list, revising for the interview.
Being Polite.
I’d added columns for Hello, How are you, and Good-bye in the checklist section.
I tapped my finger on Fitting In, Rule Two. Sylvia had been right about this one. I didn’t really like my new clothes, except for the jeans, but they had stopped people from staring. I brushed my hair twice a day now, whether it needed it or not, and used a lemon-scented deodorant under my arms as well. Sylvia had bought it for me. I knew not to rock to and fro, or lie down and rest my head on a dog’s stomach, or jump up and down when other people might be watching, even though I wanted to do these things and they weren’t doing anyone else any harm.
I rested my head against the fridge door. I didn’t see anyone else doing them; that was the thing. I wouldn’t have minded if they did, but normal people did mind. NeuroTypical people hated other people behaving differently, and that was what made our lives difficult.
Conversation doesn’t just Exchange Facts…
I’d cut down talking about animals or cookies to two minutes or less by looking at my watch. Last week, I’d asked Clive, the shopping cart collector at Asda, what his favorite cookie was, instead of telling him about the new packaging for Malted Milks. He’d stopped and scratched his head and eventually said, Kit Kats. I’d nodded politely, but actually Kit Kats weren’t really cookies. They were bars of chocolate. I’d clenched my toes to stop myself from explaining the difference and had given myself two ticks on the checklist afterward. Whenever I saw Clive now, he said, Have a break, have a Kit Kat.
… it Conveys how you’re Feeling.
This was the difficult part of the Rule; I often didn’t know what I was feeling, let alone what other people felt.
My finger hovered over:
It’s better to be too Diplomatic than too Honest.
Sylvia had told me I’d been honest rather than diplomatic with the woman with the stroller. And to the lady who’d cackled at the orangutans. People didn’t want to hear strangers’ opinions of their behavior. I shouldn’t have said anything, she said.
So that was diplomacy. Thinking things rather than saying them. Another not-straightforward thing that NeuroTypicals did. I shut my eyes. I saw the woman’s red face and heard the angry rattle of the plastic rings on the stroller handle, and the cackling woman’s swear word. Diplomacy stopped people from getting angry, Sylvia said.
Rule Four:
You learn by making Mistakes.
I understood this one. I just had to practice not minding making them. Sylvia said when she first made a Lemon Drizzle Cake, she’d left out the sugar and it had been too sour to eat. I was surprised at her laughing when she told me this. “But you see, pet, it wasn’t really an important mistake, was it?” she said. But it was still a mistake.
Rule Five:
Not Everyone who is Nice to me is my Friend.
Normal people sometimes told lies, Sylvia said, so just be a little bit wary with any new friends. “Ask someone you know well if you’re not sure about a person, pet.” But did that mean you couldn’t rely on what normal people said? Ever? And yet I was trying my hardest to be like them. I leaned against the fridge door, suddenly tired.
> I straightened up, sighing, to consider the most difficult Rule. Rule Seven:
Rules change depending on the Situation and the Person you are speaking to.
I tried to puzzle it out. Sylvia said we would work our way up to it.
I wrote the interview time and the bus time on the terriers calendar, under this month’s picture of a fox terrier, and circled them in red felt-tip pen. I put on an apron, the one with British Garden Birds on it, and began to clean, dusting high places and sorting out drawers, to take my mind off the Interview. Keep busy when you’ve got something on your mind, Sylvia said. I wasn’t sure if it was a Rule or a guideline or just conversation.
• • •
I bumped into Sylvia and Trevor in Asda’s cleaning products aisle. I’d used up nearly all of mine because of keeping busy. Trevor pretended to run away with the shopping cart, then he stood behind Sylvia looking at me with his eyebrows drawn close together.
Sylvia clapped her hands when I told her about the interview.
“Mind they don’t keep you there.” Trevor’s beard seemed to point at me.
“It’s for an interview,” I explained. “I’m coming back on the bus.”
Sylvia looked at Trevor. She’d put down that I was conscientious on my Application Form and, lowering her voice, that I’d led a sheltered life looking after Mother.
Sheltered. That word again. Like Sheltered Accommodation. Where Mother said I’d end up. I glanced at Trevor, but it was difficult to work out his facial expression. With his beard and his glasses, there wasn’t much face left to interpret. Passing a volunteer’s interview might be evidence that I was too capable for Sheltered Accommodation.
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr Page 10