The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr

by Frances Maynard

  “You look organized,” said Karen.

  I straightened the piles. “I like organizing things.”

  “Wish I did. You should see my flat.” Karen yawned again. “It’s a mess. Too much socializing, that’s my problem. Never at home to clean.”

  “I’m always at home to clean,” I said, “except when I’m here or visiting Mother.”

  Karen looked up from her computer screen. She swiveled her chair toward me. “Did you know there’s a music gig here next month?”

  I shook my head. I’d have to look up the word gig.

  “Yeah, Songs for Species it’s called. On a Friday evening. I might give it a go. See if my fella can tear himself away from his surfboard. If you want to tag along, feel free.”

  I nodded, a hot rush of bafflement rising. Was Karen’s boyfriend really stuck to a surfboard? Was the gig for animals? I couldn’t imagine orangutans liking anything loud, but other animals might howl along with the music, or bang something with a stick. Feel free! Karen had said. Sometimes I did feel free. I chose my own dinners. I didn’t have to stick to any of my schedules. I looked at Karen, wanting to ask her what she meant, but it was like sticking a big sign above my head, one that said I’m stupid, and, anyway, Karen was staring at her screen again.

  • • •

  Paul kept talking about the Songs for Species gig. “Are you going, Ellie?” He tapped out a rhythm on the café table with his empty can of Coke. “It’s going to be great.”

  Our table was spotlit by a shaft of sunshine, and Paul’s hair shone dark auburn. It was a similar shade to the fur of an orangutan.

  I paused. I didn’t go out in the evenings, except for visiting Mother when she’d been in the hospital. Paul smoothed out a crumpled poster:

  SONGS FOR SPECIES

  Benefit Concert to aid the Wolves Breeding Program

  Local Performers Play All Your Favorite Animal-Themed Music: Folk, Jazz, and Rock

  Tickets £10. Bring a rug or folding chair.

  7:30–10 p.m. Friday, July 14

  Light Refreshments and Licensed Bar

  “How would I get here in the evening? How would I get back home?”

  “I’m going to get the bus.” Paul’s glasses glinted in the sunlight. “My dad checked the timetable. There’s one every half hour, and my dad can give you a lift from the bus station. Do you want to come with me? As friends,” he added.

  I blinked. “You can let me know next week,” said Paul. “Here…” He got out his phone and showed me a photo of a male wolf that had just been reintroduced to the Alps. It was Paul’s dream that wolves were brought back to Scotland and that he’d go up there to look after them. He showed me an Internet site where he could order a kilt.

  • • •

  I sat near the orangutans, at the furthest end of the bench in case they felt uncomfortable with me looking at them, or they wanted the pear I was eating. I’d be with Paul at the concert, I told myself, pear juice trickling down my chin, not wandering the streets at night, which was what Mother had feared me doing if I was left on my own. It had been the reason Mother and Father took separate vacations, she’d said, and then, later, why Mother stopped going Away altogether. Paul would be the first friend I’d ever gone anywhere with because Mother hadn’t wanted me to mix with people from school, not even Poppy.

  Poppy and I had wanted to go to the cinema together to see a film, a Nature Documentary featuring penguins. Mother hadn’t let me go, and I’d run upstairs and slammed my bedroom door twice. Later, she’d said I could go and see it on my own, in the afternoon, as long as I was careful. I was careful, but the trip had still developed into an Incident, another one that Mother often referred to.

  The film was showing in a Multiplex. It was at the end of the bus route, so there’d been no worries about me missing the stop, and I could see the flashing lights of the cinema as I got off the bus.

  What was difficult was walking through groups of young people shouting and laughing and eating hot dogs. It had been like the bus station, only worse. I’d walked as quickly as I could, my hands in my pockets, eyes on the ground. There was a lot of litter, mostly Fast Food items. I’d been relieved to get inside the cinema foyer with its twinkling lights and smell of popcorn. I’d found the right line and gotten a ten-pound note out from my wallet, ready.

  There’d been two girls about my own age, but even larger, with scraped-back hair and loud voices, behind me. They’d pushed and shoved each other, but because they were also smiling, I’d known this was rough-and-tumble, not fighting. It was sometimes difficult to tell the difference.

  One had spoken to me. “You here for the penguins then?” and I’d frozen, which was appropriate, given that the film was set in the Antarctic. It should have been obvious from the line I was in! I’d just nodded.

  She’d said they were too, which was also obvious, and that they both loved penguins, but their favorite animals were cats, especially kittens, and what was mine? She’d had a rough voice and stood practically touching me, while her friend hung back and ate a bag of Tesco Salt and Vinegar Chips. It had been nice of her to chat to a stranger in a line and to be interested in my favorite animal. (Dogs.)

  I’d stuttered when I bought my ticket and heard someone say, “P-p-p-p-pick up a penguin,” and someone else say, “No thanks, mate.”

  A young man in a maroon uniform, with a badge that said Cinema Staff, arrived to direct the line. For some reason, the girls had run off, although they were at the front of it by then. The chip bag had fallen to the floor and become litter.

  I’d found my seat. I’d enjoyed the film and laughed along with the rest of the audience. I don’t normally understand jokes.

  It was still light when I got home. I’d rung the doorbell—I wasn’t allowed my own key until I could be trusted to look after it—and begun to tell Mother new Facts about penguins.

  It was only when I took off my jacket that I realized my wallet was missing. I hadn’t dared tell Mother but she guessed at once because I’d stopped talking. I sometimes thought Mother should have been a detective.

  She’d thrown down her crossword and rung the cinema and the bus company. My wallet hadn’t been handed in. I’d had to go through my steps with Mother, and when I mentioned the two girls behind me, she’d said, Well, there’re your culprits. I’d thought they wanted to be my friends. I had been naive and careless not to have noticed them stealing from me.

  I’d run upstairs and thrown myself on the bed and sobbed because I’d made a stupid mistake, and I hadn’t been so interested in penguins after that. The next day, Mother had bought me a new backpack, a red one, with a zipped pocket on the inside to keep my wallet in.

  Now I was watching real animals, and going to a concert with a real friend. That was Paul.

  • • •

  BBC2 warned that Wimbledon Tennis Fortnight was coming and advised stocking up on strawberries. I took a large basket to Mother so we could watch the matches together. There was a knot in my stomach. She might not realize I was there. She often didn’t.

  I switched on the TV. The familiar tennis theme song burst out, and the screen was filled with the commentator Sue Barker, standing with a microphone against a bright-green tennis court.

  Mother opened her eyes and turned her head. Two muscular young men in dazzling white shorts leaped about the court, hitting the ball with loud thwacks. She sat upright, her eyes tracking left to right. Should I switch off her iPod so she could hear Sue Barker? I reached toward her cardigan pocket. “Not that way,” she said before I got there. My hand shot back. It was the first time she’d spoken in months.

  Mother took a strawberry and put it in her mouth, whole. She picked up another one, her eyes still following the tennis ball. I looked at her, remembering how, at home, she used to explain the scoring system, and how to pronounce all the players’ names, and who’d
won the Championships and in what year.

  • • •

  I took some strawberries in for the guinea pigs too. Fruit was good for them because of the Vitamin C. Mother would have been interested in this, or may have known it already, of course.

  I thanked Brenda for her advice about Sylvia, and her pink cheeks got pinker, which I interpreted as embarrassment rather than overheating. NeuroTypicals had a strange reaction to getting compliments and presents. My toes would have bounced or, if I was at home, I would have run around the room.

  Brenda stood up. “Now, Ellie, if you can collect Goldie from Florence… Time to go home, girls!” In the corner, a group of old ladies stirred and tried to get up. Brenda lowered her voice. “It’s been a long day. St. Michael’s Preschool this morning, then the Hospice, and now here. You need your own tax code numbers, girls,” she told the guinea pigs, closing the door of their traveling box.

  I guessed this was a joke because they would not be able to remember numbers.

  20.

  Laugh at yourself before someone else does.

  —Mrs. Sylvia Grylls, neighbor

  “Yoo-hoo, Ellie!” Sylvia waved. She did a few jiggling dance steps on the pavement. The rolls of fat around her waist carried on jiggling after she’d stopped. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she called. “Trev’s playing bowls. I’ve got a bit more news for you, pet. And it’s still good!”

  She’d left the front door open, and I went in and sat down. I guessed Sylvia’s news would be about Josh and Shelbie. It would not make me happy, but when Sylvia came in with the tea, I tried to listen and make eye contact and nod, because I knew she would be. She leaned forward. Some of her eyelashes were caked together with mascara. “Josh and Shelbie are going to give their marriage another go!” Her hands and mouth flew open as if she was producing a rabbit from a hat.

  Give their marriage another go. I’d heard those words before, years ago, when I’d gone to Sylvia’s to pick up the richly fruited Christmas cake tin. Sylvia had said it, and then Shh! to Trevor as I’d come in. Josh and Shelbie hadn’t met then. Father had been Away for a long time, I remembered. He’d left some kind of paper trail behind him: bounced checks, unpaid bills, and broken promises, Mother had said. Possibly it was some kind of treasure hunt.

  • • •

  Paul nodded when I told him I’d come to the gig. There was a silence. He sipped his Coke. He took off his glasses and wiped them. “My wood mouse died on Sunday,” he said.

  I looked at him, remembering Tosca dying, and how seeing the loose threads on the back of the sofa where she’d stood, watching for Father, and the worn bit of carpet outside his study where she’d scratched to get in, had given me a stab of pain for months afterward. “Sorry,” I said. If Paul had drunk tea, I would have brought him a cup.

  “Everyone else laughed when I told them. Well, not my dad, but here.” Paul looked around him. “Someone said, It was just something the cat dragged in, and a friend from my old school emailed to say, It was only a mouse—get over it.”

  My face grew hot. Those people had broken Rules One and Six, Politeness and Diplomacy.

  Paul wiped his glasses. “I tried to save it but it didn’t survive, even though Dad bought it a jar of peanut butter specially. Organic. It’s good for mice. I’ve buried it in the back garden. Wrapped in a tissue, in an empty Earl Grey tea box, a small one.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve marked the grave with an ice-cream stick. Magnum White Chocolate. It’s my favorite.”

  “Did you write on the stick?” I asked.

  “No.” Paul put his glasses back on. “I could, though. What could I write?”

  I looked out the window. I’d only seen Father’s gravestone once. It had a quote from an Opera on it, in Italian. Paul wouldn’t be able to fit anything like that on an ice-cream stick.

  “At the cemetery, my gran’s stone says In Loving Memory of Beryl,” said Paul.

  “So, In Loving Memory of a Wood Mouse?”

  “Yes, that sounds good.” Paul blinked toward me. “I’ll do it tonight. I’ll write it in black ink. In capital letters.” He pushed up his glasses. “It’s good that you can come to the concert, Ellie. As friends. Because of me liking blonds,” he added.

  • • •

  “You’re a dark horse,” Karen said when I told her.

  I pushed my hair back from my face. It was brown, rather than dark. “Paul only likes blonds,” I said.

  “Does he now? And do they like him?”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t know any blonds to ask, except for Sylvia, whose hair was dyed.

  “I’m going and all.” Karen leaned back in her chair. “Matt said he’ll come. I had to twist his arm, though.”

  I looked at her arms. They were thin but muscular.

  Karen talked about my “date” for the rest of the day.

  “We’re just going as friends,” I told her. “I don’t want a boyfriend because of the extra work.”

  Karen laughed. She often laughed when I hadn’t made a joke. Sylvia said to laugh at yourself before somebody else did, so I stretched my mouth open and made a faint braying sound.

  • • •

  At a quarter past six on Friday, the bus station was full of teenagers clattering on skateboards and leaning against walls, shouting and laughing. I kept as far away from them as I could. The shops were shut, and there were three empty fried chicken boxes on the ground. I noticed details like that. Things like a missing capital letter on a shop sign, or a speck of food at the corner of someone’s mouth. I noticed things other people didn’t. NeuroTypicals ignored detail. Sylvia did too. She thought that was a good thing. She said I got bogged down in it.

  “Hi, Ellie.” Paul was wearing a green-and-yellow-striped T-shirt with a picture of a Womble—Uncle Bulgaria—on the back. I was wearing jeans and my Animal Arcadia polo shirt. They were the clothes I felt most comfortable in. People didn’t look at me when I wore them, or if they did, it was only to ask for directions.

  The concert was in a field next to Animal Arcadia. There was a stage made of hay bales and a smell of freshly mown grass. We sat on a tartan rug I’d brought in my backpack, and Paul said hello to everyone who passed. “I’ve got loads of friends,” he told me.

  The music was loud, louder than Mother’s Operas. It made the ground vibrate. Paul kept slapping his leg and saying, “I know this one.” I didn’t recognize any of the songs, even when Paul showed me the program. There was one from a Monkees tribute band—it was a pity about the spelling mistake—and one about a gorilla, in French, from an unshaven man with a guitar. A band called The Animalz (I worried, again, about the spelling) played another. I did recognize a piece played by a group of girls with long blond hair. Peter and the Wolf. When I was a child, Father used to prowl about to it, making his hands into pointed ears and throwing back his head and howling to make me laugh.

  Paul went to buy a Coke in the intermission.

  “Hey, Ellie!” There was a thud as someone dropped down beside me. I shrank back. “Didn’t mean to make you jump. Remember me? Mark from the volunteers’ training?” He stuck out his hand.

  I shook it, which was the correct thing to do, but Mark kept hold of my hand, which wasn’t. Now it felt slippery with sweat. He laughed as he released it and held out a bottle of beer.

  “Fancy a swig, Ellie?”

  I shook my head. Him being completely bald at the front, with short hair around the sides, didn’t match his smooth, young-looking face.

  “You’re not here on your own, are you?”

  “No.” I kept my eyes on the rug. It had a threadbare patch in the middle from past picnics.

  He laughed. “Who are you with then?”

  “I’ve come with Paul. It’s not a date.” I glanced at his ear. The lobe had a hole where a stud had once been.

  “
Yeah? So, how are you getting on then?” Mark tipped back his head and drank from the bottle.

  Did he mean now, at the concert, or at Animal Arcadia, or At Home without Mother? Did he mean getting on with the job or getting on with people? I had no idea.

  “All right, thank you,” I said, twisting a fold of the rug.

  “Making tunnels and lookout stations for the wolves is a good laugh. I’ll be able to give more time to it next week.” He took another gulp of beer. “Yeah, work’s a bit thin on the ground at the moment so I’ll be doing extra hours here. I might see a bit more of you. Which day do you work?”

  “Tuesdays.”

  “Me too. Oh, is this Paul?”

  “Hi.” Paul’s face was red and shiny, and there were dark stains under the arms of his Womble T-shirt. He held a can of Coke in each hand. “I didn’t get you anything, Ellie,” he said. “I know you don’t like Coke.”

  “Hi, Paul. That was good of you,” said Mark, laughing. He turned to me. “How are you getting home, Ellie?”

  “I’m getting the bus with Paul,” I said.

  “My dad’s giving her a lift from the bus station.” Paul sat down with a thud, dropping one of the cans.

  Mark laughed again. I didn’t know why he kept laughing.

  “See you around then, Ellie. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He wagged his finger at me and walked off, waving the beer bottle.

  “What does he mean?” I asked Paul, but he didn’t know either, except that he’d often heard people say it.

  • • •

  The clapping at the end of the concert hurt my ears. I started to get up, but a woman in a short dress and Wellington boots came on to introduce a Grand Finale: all the performers singing “I Wanna Be Like You.” Paul said the song came from a Disney cartoon featuring jungle animals. He knew all the words. Everybody knew all the words. And the gestures. Paul nearly knocked me over with one. People were all joining in together, whooping and laughing. I sat there, not knowing how to. Noise enveloped me. Even the earplugs from my backpack couldn’t stop it battering at my brain.