I rested my head on my knees. The residents of Bay View Lodge couldn’t get out of the building to cause trouble. Is that where Josh meant? There was a taste of blood in my mouth where I’d bitten my lip. They might move another bed into Mother’s room and I might have to live there, with her, forever!
I didn’t understand what Josh had said about his family staying outside, or who Lord Muck was. Why was life so baffling? I wiped my face with the sleeve of Mother’s dress, hoping the wet marks wouldn’t show. I held Father’s evening shoes against my hot face. I remembered the smell of leather. Part of Father’s smell. The shoes were sleek and elegant. Like him. Like Laurence Olivier. I slipped my hand inside one. My hand stopped. Something inside didn’t feel right.
When dawn broke, I examined the shoe in more detail. The outside looked normal but the inside was shallow. The other shoe was exactly the same, except that it was for the left foot. Both shoes had a hidden space that didn’t show outside. I clapped my hand to my mouth. These could be Government Mission shoes with secret compartments! I shook one. There was no sound. Neither could I see any opening. But, of course, the compartment would be so well designed that a casual observer would never spot it. Observer’s Book of Dogs flashed through my mind because of the word observer. That had been a present from Father.
I liked observing things. Noticing detail. Sometimes, when people weren’t looking, like on the bus or in the line at Asda, I watched them behaving and listened to their conversations. Copying what they did might make me more normal. Sylvia said it could be useful as long as I didn’t invade their personal space or make it too obvious.
I rubbed my eyes. I’d never improve further if Sylvia was angry with me too. But what did that matter now, anyway? I put down the shoes and sobbed. When I was moved into a home, I’d be shut away from normal life. I wouldn’t have any social relationships. I’d be the one receiving a guinea pig, not giving them out! I’d have all my dinners cooked for me without knowing what they were beforehand. I’d be cared for!
• • •
Josh’s motorbike roared off to work at quarter to eight. I crawled out of the wardrobe. My legs were stiff, and I desperately wanted to go to the bathroom. I went downstairs and checked that the door was still locked and bolted. I scraped the cold Chili Sans Carne from the saucepan and put it in the fridge. I didn’t think I’d ever feel hungry again. I made a mug of tea and went to bed. The curtains were still drawn from last night. It was just a matter of waiting for someone to come and take me Away.
Later, the doorbell rang and Sylvia shouted through the letter box again. I didn’t get up. I wanted to stay here, in my own home. My sanctuary. I didn’t go to Asda, and I didn’t visit Mother. The phone rang twice, but I didn’t answer it. It might be the police, or a Social Worker, or Josh, shouting. I couldn’t sleep. I lay there with the duvet over my head. I tried to soften my muscles by breathing out slowly, but they got rigid again as soon as I breathed in. I lay there all day.
• • •
Late that evening, I heard something being pushed through the letterbox. After a few minutes, I got up to see what it was. It was a note from Sylvia, without an envelope:
Dear Ellie,
I’m writing this down because I might fly off the handle if I say it to your face. I know it’s not in your nature to be spiteful. You must have thought you were doing the right thing contacting Social Services, but you’ve got things very wrong. I have never accused Shelbie of neglecting or abusing Roxanna. I’d love to see them all reunited as a family. It was wrong of Josh to come around and give you a good talking-to, but he was angry and you have to see his point of view. Shelbie taking Roxanna off to Spain has been very difficult for him.
Best if I don’t see you until I get my head around all this upset.
Sylvia
I knelt on the floor and read it again. The space where Sylvia would normally have put “love from,” like she did on her Christmas card, was empty. I tracked each line with my finger. But there was no mention of me being sent Away! No mention of a home! I flopped onto my stomach, arms and legs spread-eagled, face squashed into the carpet. I sat up after a while.
Should I reply? What would be the right thing to do? It was Sylvia who usually explained these things. If I went to see her, she might have to duck out of sight. Should I buy her flowers? Flowers were to say sorry as well as being Tokens of Appreciation. I knew this because when Father came back from trips Away, he always brought Mother a huge bunch of flowers.
Once I’d heard her ask him if they were to say sorry, and what had he bought them with? She’d said they were an empty gesture and too late. The best present, she’d added, apart from you acquiring a moral compass, would be you spending time with Elvira.
I got up. Thinking about Father reminded me to make a note about his shoes and their secret compartments. Another question I didn’t know the answer to. Another question there was nobody to ask about. I added it to the Japanese notebook after the others about Father’s finances and his empty passport, and who the woman and baby in the photo were, and where Mother’s Lost Capacity was, and what Jane from Dunstable had meant by her comments.
• • •
The next morning, I went to Asda as soon as it opened. I’d woken at four anyway. It was a Friday, not my normal shopping day. Nothing seemed normal anymore. I’d thought I was fitting in, becoming more NeuroTypical myself, but now here I was, right back where I started, a weirdo, someone who got everything wrong.
“You’re an early bird.” Janice at the checkout counter wrapped the stems of a £4.99 Mixed Bouquet in an Asda shopping bag. “Nice flowers. They’ll cheer someone up! Someone’s birthday?”
I nodded, then shook my head. “They’re a token of my appreciation and to say sorry.”
“Always nice to be appreciated.” Janice taped the Asda shopping bag into position. “And apologized to, come to that,” she added.
My eyes prickled. When I got home, I put the flowers in the sink and went upstairs and cried.
• • •
As soon as I heard Josh’s bike leave, I wrote: Dear Sylvia, I’m sorry for your troubles. Love from Ellie neatly on a piece of airmail paper that I found in Father’s desk. I was sorry people were angry with me, and that the upset might send up Sylvia’s blood pressure. I didn’t know what else to say. I put the note in the shopping bag with the flowers and, dodging under her living room window, left them on Sylvia’s doorstep.
I went upstairs to lie down for a while, and then I visited Mother. “You not come yesterday.” Maria opened the front door to me, smiling. “First time! Don’t worry. Mum not notice.”
17.
There’s nothing that can’t be sorted out.
—Brenda Cunningham, pet therapist
Sylvia didn’t reply to my note or say thank you for the flowers. This wasn’t Polite (Rule One). My next-door neighbors weren’t sending me Away to a home, but neither were they speaking to me.
I did an extra load of laundry. Keep busy when you’ve got something on your mind. Sylvia’s advice echoed in my brain. While I was hanging out the sheets, I heard her voice in real life. Her French doors were open. She was Skyping someone. Shelbie. I froze, my hand reaching up with a clothespin.
“You don’t believe what that nutcase next door told Social Services, do you? They won’t take Roxie away, will they?” Shelbie’s voice cracked.
I stretched up to peer over a sheet. I could see Sylvia’s head shaking. “I put the social worker right on that one. Ellie got hold of completely the wrong end of the stick. The social worker realized that from chatting with her. No, pet, you and me have had our differences—I can’t say I liked the way you walked out on our Josh—but I’ve always thought you were a good mum.”
“Have you? Really?” I could just see a blurred Shelbie. She seemed to be twisting a strand of her dark hair, her eyes lowered.
I turned a pillowcase the right way out, swallowing. Pet was what Sylvia used to call me. I heard sobbing. Why was Shelbie crying when Sylvia was saying nice things to her? I was the one who’d been shouted at and called horrible names. I clicked a peg open and shut, imagining clamping it on Shelbie’s mouth. I was the outcast now. And there was still the risk, if I put a foot wrong, that I might end up, not in Spain, but in Sheltered Accommodation. Then I heard Sylvia crying too.
“Oh, pet, all I ever wanted was you to be a happy family. You know Josh hasn’t looked at another woman, since…since you left. But you… That property developer?”
Shelbie sighed. “Richie. I don’t know. He’s losing his hair, for a start.” She was fiddling with a strand of her hair again. “It means a lot to me, you know, you saying I’m a good mum. Not having mine around. You’ve always been, like, the next best thing.”
“I know, pet, and you’ve been like a daughter to me,” said Sylvia. “Oh no, here we go again. I’ll have to get another tissue. I tell you what, pet.” She wiped her eyes. “At least something good’s come out of all this.”
• • •
I tiptoed back into the kitchen with the empty laundry basket. I started to clear the larder cupboard. All the labels on the jars and cans kept swirling together. I stood on a chair and wiped down each shelf with a soapy sponge. Something good’s come out of all this. Not for me it hadn’t. I wrung out the sponge, feeling the relief of twisting something. All I’d wanted to do was help Sylvia. I’d thought it would be simple. I’d made a mistake. Again. I still didn’t understand exactly what. I banged my head against the cupboard door. Everything I did, I got wrong!
Sylvia had told Shelbie she wanted them to get back together and be a happy family. But—I scrubbed at a smear of dried-on Marmite—Sylvia had often said unpleasant things about Shelbie. Minx and That Girl, I remembered. That was why I’d thought Sylvia would be pleased at having Roxanna taken away from her. I got down to make a cup of tea, staring at the clouds of steam from the kettle.
I went over to the Seven Rules spreadsheet, but all the Rules seemed to blur into one. They weren’t the absolute, unchanging, perfect guidelines I’d hoped for, anyway. I still had to constantly flex my brain to try to work out what was happening and why. I shut my eyes, the mug of tea untouched in my hand. The Rules hadn’t explained that NeuroTypical people could believe two completely different things at once.
I opened the kitchen window to release a small fly. Voices came from next door again. This time, it was Trevor and Sylvia and Josh, shouting.
“You told Shelbie that Social Services came around to check up on her! I can’t fucking believe it!”
“Watch your language when you speak to your mother.”
“I’ll use whatever fucking language I fucking well like!” shouted Josh.
“Not in my house you won’t.” Trevor emphasized the ends of the words. They were in the garden. That was why Josh had been able to use a swear word three times.
“Pet.” Sylvia’s voice was low.
“Don’t pet me! This is all your fault! If you hadn’t mollycoddled that weird retard next door, none of this would have happened.”
I shrank back into the shadows of the kitchen and huddled in the corner by the fridge. I couldn’t seem to be any other way but weird, no matter how hard I tried. Retard… My eyes prickled. I tried to console myself. I knew more long words than most people. And Facts about animals, and about cookies and their packaging. I’d never met anyone else who knew so much about cookies, not when they were first made and who’d manufactured them, and that kind of thing. I swallowed. I would have exchanged all my cookie knowledge for Sylvia being my friend again.
“She’s my wife. It’s my marriage. It’s up to me to fucking sort it out. Nobody else.”
The roar from Josh’s motorbike drowned out everything else.
• • •
“Whatever’s the matter?” Brenda sat next to me, holding Goldie, her brightly colored face showing either Concern or Sadness. I hadn’t felt like going to Pet Therapy, but I didn’t want the guinea pigs to think I’d abandoned them.
I tried to explain. I had to clasp my hands together to stop myself from twisting my sweater.
“Dearie me. Well, there’s nothing that can’t be sorted out, is what I always say.” Brenda got a little brush out of her pocket and began to brush Goldie. “Did you mean to upset your neighbor?”
“No!” I didn’t even need to think about the question. “No, I thought I was helping.”
“And have you said sorry?” Brenda turned Goldie around to brush her other side.
“I wrote Sorry for your Troubles.” I told Brenda about the Asda Mixed Bouquet.
“Mmm.” Brenda stopped brushing. “Let’s have a think.” Goldie began making a bubbling sound, which I knew—from the Library printouts and my online research and Brenda herself—meant contentment. Geraldine joined in. It was a soothing sound.
Brenda tapped my arm with the guinea pig brush. “Write something a bit more personal. Say you were trying to help. And you’re upset yourself. That would sound more…caring.”
Would it? How did she know? I’d thought flowers and a note would be enough. I considered. What Brenda said was true; I did feel those things. I reached out to stroke Goldie. It was a long time since I’d given Brenda a new guinea pig Fact. Not since I’d started at Animal Arcadia, working with larger, rarer animals. I told her one now: the world’s oldest guinea pig had lived to be fourteen years, ten months, and two weeks old.
• • •
“Josh! Josh! Are you there, son?” Trevor called.
The cherub clock chimed nine. I pressed Save. I was trying to write something more caring to Sylvia.
“Joshie!” I heard Sylvia’s voice.
I went into the kitchen without putting the light on and opened the window a crack. I hadn’t heard Josh’s bike today. I opened the window wider.
“He’s gone off to Spain, Trev. Gone to snatch Roxanna!” Sylvia’s voice rose higher. “Or he’s taken that twenty thousand pounds he saved and headed somewhere like Australia. Or he’s had an accident! He was that upset. I can’t bear to think about it, Trev.”
I closed the kitchen window. Had Josh gone to Spain because I’d contacted Social Services? I’d thought Josh and Shelbie’s marriage was over, not that he’d go off to find her. Why didn’t people say what they meant? Why didn’t they just say I’m cross because…and then give the reason? If they did that, I wouldn’t get so many things wrong. I got out a bowl and measuring cup for tomorrow’s porridge. I let the water run, watching it overflow the cup and trickle down the sides. I added the water to the oats and put it in the fridge. Presoaking oats saved cooking time. It was Maximum Efficiency. It was about the only thing I was doing right.
The white space of the Seven Rules checklist column caught my eye as I closed the fridge door. It was a long time since I’d ticked it. I knew, somehow, that not following Rule Seven (Rules change depending on the Situation and the Person you are speaking to) was why I’d gotten things wrong. Nor had I kept to Rule Four (You learn by making Mistakes), because I hadn’t learned anything! Only that mistakes were painful, and I knew that already.
• • •
“You OK, then?” Paul asked, dragging a chair out with a scrape that set my teeth on edge.
The warmth of the café was making my eyes close. I hadn’t slept well since the night Josh stormed over to my house. “Tired.”
“Does Karen make you work really hard?” Paul took a gulp of Coca-Cola and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I looked at the looping white letters on the can. Mother hadn’t approved of Coca-Cola—full of sugar and chemicals—and had once put a penny in a glass of it, bought for educational purposes, and left it there overnight. In the morning she’d fished it out with a teaspoon. The penny had been bright and shin
y. There you are. That’s what it will do to your teeth. When I’d said it looked better, Mother had thrown the glass’s contents, a brown arc, into the sink and demanded to know if I wanted my teeth stripped of enamel.
“No,” I answered Paul’s question. “It’s because I’ve upset my neighbor. I worry about it when I’m going to sleep.”
“When I’m worried, I can’t sleep either.” Paul blinked. I could see smudged fingerprints on his glasses. “I worry about wolves dying out and whether my wood mouse will survive and if I’ll ever have a girlfriend. I like Kate Humble from Springwatch. I wrote to her asking if she’d like to go out with me because we’re both interested in wildlife, but she wrote back—actually, the BBC Press Office wrote back—and said she already had a partner. I only like blonds,” he added.
My hair was brown. Although I liked David Attenborough, he was old, like a grandfather, and I’d never thought of going out with him. I hadn’t thought of going out with anybody. A boyfriend would mean extra housework and cooking and not being able to watch the TV programs I liked, although he might mow the lawn. The gardener from across the road hadn’t come back, but there was always the risk that some other man might want me to pay him to do it.
Mother had said a boyfriend would not be sensible because of my Condition (You can barely look after yourself, Elvira, let alone someone else), and Father had said Young men are only after one thing, leaving it to Mother to hiss Sex. (Then she’d added, looking at Father, that he should know. But, I wondered, if he had known, why hadn’t he answered?)
I finished my cup of tea. Paul didn’t mind gaps in conversations. Usually, people filled up the silence or stared or said Did you hear what I said? in a loud voice. Paul just swallowed his Coke and waited. He didn’t stare at me while I was talking, and I didn’t look at him while he was talking. He didn’t laugh at me when I made a mistake. If everyone was like Paul, it would be easy to fit in.
I looked at my watch and got up, partway through Paul’s account of wolves being reintroduced to the National Parks of America. Once he started to tell you something, he only stopped if you actually got up and walked away. As soon as I left the café, Sylvia returned to my mind, a collapsed hollowness at the back of it.
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr Page 13