The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr

by Frances Maynard

  I stood up. I wanted to tell Paul I’d meet him at the bus stop, but I couldn’t get the words out and he wouldn’t have heard me anyway. He was waving his arms to the music, his mouth wide open. I walked off as fast as I could, weaving around the chairs and the spread-out rugs and the audience all singing and making the same movements together. Once there was some clear space, I began to run.

  21.

  Doing something new is a learning experience.

  —Mrs. Sylvia Grylls, neighbor

  It was dark, and I stumbled on the uneven ground. Above the fading music, I heard my footsteps thudding on the grass and, as I got farther away, my heart pounding. Stopping to catch my breath, I could see people still swaying to the music and hear shouts and cheers and laughter. Being in the middle of it had been like being inside a switched-on washing machine. What I would imagine one would feel like.

  I headed for the blacker darkness of the trees that bordered Animal Arcadia. I walked alongside them, breathing in the lovely, familiar park smell of hay and manure. I slowed down as the noise grew fainter. I was wandering alone at night, but I didn’t feel alone because of all the animals sleeping a few feet away.

  The music stopped before I got to the bus stop, but I could still hear clapping and make out the muffled words thank you and wolves. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes for Paul to get here before the bus arrived. I yawned. I put my hands in my jeans pockets and walked up and down the grass verge. There was the sound of an approaching car. It drew up, and a man with almost no hair put his head out of the window.

  “Hey, Ellie,” Mark said.

  It was the second time that evening he’d made me jump. “Hello,” I stammered.

  “Your boyfriend’s gone and left you, has he?”

  “No,” I said, avoiding his gaze. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Gone behind a bush to take a leak, has he? Two cans of Coke, I ask you! That was going it some.” Mark laughed.

  I didn’t understand what he meant. “Paul’s still at the concert.” I looked at my watch again. “He’ll be here in the next eight minutes because of the bus.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather I gave you a lift home?” Mark asked, his face and bald head gleaming white in the darkness. “Save you waiting around.”

  “No, thank you. I’ve got a bus pass.” I hunched myself into my jacket.

  Mark laughed again. “Let me at least give you…” He switched off the car engine and got out. He came very close. He was a lot taller than me. He smelled of beer. What was he going to give me?

  “Let me…give you”—his words were slurred—“a little good-night kiss.” He bent over me. I shrank back against the cold plexiglass of the bus shelter. Was this because we both worked at Animal Arcadia? But Paul didn’t kiss me. Was this what happened after gigs? Or when people met at night? Was this the trouble Mother and Father had been afraid of—because I felt afraid now.

  Mark grasped my face with one hand and pulled my shoulders to him with the other. It hurt. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He kissed my cheek. His skin felt like sandpaper. “Ever had a proper kiss?” he asked.

  Father had kissed me, but he’d never pulled me to him or held my face. Mother had kissed my cheek before and after going on vacation. Tosca licking my face had felt like kissing. I couldn’t answer Mark’s question without a lot of thought, and he didn’t give me any time to think because he fastened his mouth to mine like the suckers of the octopuses (octopi, Mother would have said, frowning) David Attenborough featured in The Blue Planet.

  There was a taste of beer and salt, and then Mark forced something into my mouth. Something strong and muscular. A tentacle, I thought, but no, it was his tongue! I tried not to gag because of Being Polite and Respectful. Was this a proper kiss? A mouth sucking on mine and a tongue pushing in? There would be germs. Is this what boyfriends and girlfriends did? What you did when you were married? Did you have to do it?

  The proper kiss lasted a long time. I could hardly breathe, and my jaw ached. Mark removed his tongue but instead of him saying good night, his hands slithered downward and he began to feel my body. What was he looking for? He wasn’t a doctor. He was a carpenter. I tried not to squirm because he was being friendly. I froze instead, my body rigid. Someone, who was not me, was touching my body.

  “Ellie, Ellie,” Mark panted.

  Above his heavy breathing I could hear the sound, growing louder, of someone singing.

  Mark dropped his hands.

  Ooh-bi-doo, I wanna be like you…

  Paul!

  • • •

  I scrubbed my mouth on the bus and spat into a tissue from the Safety Kit. My legs were shaking. I felt the same sick feeling as when I lost things.

  Paul didn’t stop talking about the concert. “You missed the best bit, Ellie. We got to the end of “I Wanna Be Like You,” and then we sang it all over again—from the beginning! It was magic! You needn’t have worried about missing the bus, you know. There was plenty of time.”

  “It wasn’t that,” I said. “It was the noise and the crowd. I didn’t know a gig would be like that.” I twisted a fold of my sweater… Sweater! I heard faintly, and I took my hand away. I rubbed at my mouth again.

  “Yeah. I’d forgotten it was all new for you. I’ve been to a lot of gigs. Watched loads of bands.” Paul leaned back in the bus seat and listed their names and the dates and places where he’d seen them. His stream of words and the way he thumped about on the bus seat, reenacting the best bits of shows, drilled into my brain.

  I looked at my watch. Paul had been talking for much, much longer than two minutes. In thirty-seven more, I’d be home. Alone. Quiet.

  • • •

  Paul’s dad looked like Paul, only fatter and with gray hair.

  “All right, kids?” he asked as we got into the car. “Hello, Ellie. Had a good time?”

  “Yeah!” Paul smacked his hand against his dad’s outstretched one. “Ace! Loads of people. Eleven songs and an encore! We sang ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ twice.”

  “What about you, Ellie?” Paul’s dad asked.

  I clenched my hands. I’d rehearsed a conversational phrase about cookie packaging (I would be interested to hear your views on cellophane) to use on Paul’s dad, but I didn’t feel like talking now. “What about me?” I asked. My face grew hot. I sounded rude and challenging.

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “No, thank you. No, I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t you, Ellie?” Paul turned to me, his eyebrows raised, his open mouth glistening in the light from the streetlamps.

  I shook my head, tears prickling.

  “Had you been to anything like it before?” Paul’s dad asked.

  I didn’t have to make eye contact; his back was to me because he was driving. “No,” I said. “I’ve led a sheltered life.” Sylvia had explained that had nothing to do with Animal Rescue Centers or Sheltered Accommodation, but meant I hadn’t left my own home much without Mother supervising, and I’d never worked or had friends.

  My life was getting less sheltered now I had the computer and the website and Animal Arcadia and I could watch Casualty without Mother criticizing it. But sometimes, like tonight, I would have liked the sheltering back.

  Paul’s dad nodded. He didn’t laugh. “It takes time to get used to new experiences. To take it all in.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “How did you know that?”

  “I suppose because I’ve lived with Paul for a long time. Because I’m his dad.”

  “Yo, Dad, high five.” High five meant smacking the open palm of your hand against another person’s outstretched hand. It was a friendly gesture, Paul’s dad said. Paul’s dad couldn’t reach Paul’s stuck-out hand because he was driving, and I didn’t feel like touching anybody.

  • • •

  I had a
shower, the second of the day, and put my clothes in the laundry basket even though the jeans had been clean that morning. I brushed my teeth for four minutes by the electric toothbrush timer instead of two. I bolted the front door and left a light on downstairs.

  I lay in bed in a clean nightie, shuddering at Mark’s mouth clamping on mine and his hands exploring my body. He might want to kiss me again. He might want to be my boyfriend, even though I didn’t want one. I didn’t want one even more now. Telling him would be honest, rather than diplomatic, though. And how could I tell him anyway, when I couldn’t even get out the words for a simple conversational phrase?

  • • •

  “Pet!” Sylvia called from her lounge chair. She was fanning herself. “Hello, pet. Shelbie and Roxanna are coming back, day after next. We’re having a welcome home barbecue. I’d like you to come, pet.” She squinted up, shading her eyes. “I know we’ve all had our moments, but I want us all to get on. We’re neighbors, aren’t we? And friends.”

  My stomach lurched. I hesitated, remembering Josh’s shouting, and Sylvia calling Shelbie pet instead of me. Then I nodded, remembering politeness. “Thank you.”

  She flopped back onto the lounge chair and asked me how my night out had gone. I grimaced, feeling the suffocation of Mark’s tongue. Not Everyone who is Nice to me is my Friend (Rule Five) leaped out at me. Had Mark been nice? I wasn’t sure. I wanted to tell Sylvia about him, to ask her if he could just make himself my boyfriend, but I couldn’t find the right words. I didn’t know what I felt. I muttered, “It was too loud.” Which was true.

  “Never mind, you went.” Sylvia looked at me and wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip. “You did something you hadn’t tried before. It was a learning experience.”

  I wasn’t sure what I had learned, except that I didn’t like gigs or kissing.

  22.

  Anything might happen.

  —Gregory Carr (Father)

  There was another postcard for Father. His Harrods magazine and Fine Wines catalog had stopped coming but here was someone else, or perhaps Teddy, or “D” again, still writing to him.

  It was from Spain, with a picture of a bright-blue sea and white high-rise buildings. Greetings from the Costa Brava it said. The other side was written in a mixture of capital letters and small ones. There were two spelling mistakes and a blotch of something yellow and greasy just under our address:

  Greggy, mate, long time no Sea. Lads are having a Get toGether. sep 9th. My place. try and mak It if you can.

  your old mate Tel

  I felt sad for Father missing a party Abroad because of being dead. He’d liked parties, although we hadn’t had one in our house since I was small. Father had been the life and soul of them. I put the postcard with the others in the Japanese notebook.

  • • •

  Kim put a feeding cup of coffee beside Mother. “Oh, Elvira”—I could smell cigarette smoke on her breath—“Mrs. Hulme wants a word with you.” My feet prickled. I want a word with you was what Mother used to say when I’d done something wrong, like not screwing the lid of the toothpaste tube back on tightly enough. Sometimes Father had whispered, Sorry, darling, your mother wants a word, and it would be the same kind of thing. It had been always more than one word.

  At school once, a teacher had wanted a word with me. My stomach had knotted and I couldn’t eat my lunch, but it had only been to ask if I could go on a school trip to the Science Museum in London. I’d wanted to go, and Poppy and I had been going to sit next to each other on the bus, but Mother had feared me learning further unusual habits, and Father had worried I’d get lost: Anything might happen, darling. I’d run upstairs to my room, and that had been one of the occasions when Mother had said I was rude and challenging.

  • • •

  Mrs. Hulme pulled the fabric of her uniform away from her body. “Too hot for me. Especially in a nylon uniform.” She looked stuffed into it like a sofa. Her word was about Mother’s birthday. She’d noticed it was soon. Bay View Lodge’s residents were allowed a birthday wish, something they’d really look forward to, and what did I think Mother would enjoy? Bay View Lodge’s idea was a bit like the enrichment items at Animal Arcadia.

  I stared at a coffee stain on the carpet, thinking. Mother already listened to Operas all day, and she couldn’t play Bridge anymore because of her brain being damaged. She couldn’t read about Ancient History for the same reason. I wondered about bringing it to life, perhaps hiring a man dressed in a toga with an olive wreath and a scroll, and then I remembered Ravel, Mother’s favorite restaurant.

  Mrs. Hulme tapped a note into a small computer, an iPad. “Your mother couldn’t get there now, but perhaps the restaurant could come to her?”

  “They’d have to dig up the whole building,” I pointed out. “It wouldn’t be practical.”

  I shriveled at Mrs. Hulme’s laugh. The restaurant experience could come to Mother. I wished she’d made that clear. Bay View Lodge would set a table up in Mother’s room with a proper linen cloth and flowers, and cook her something French. I told her about Jean Christophe and the classical music playing in the background.

  Mrs. Hulme clapped her hands together. “There you go!”

  I looked at my watch. She laughed again, heaved herself up from the chair, and headed back to ring Ravel to hire Jean Christophe for a Monday night, when the real restaurant would probably be closed. I recognized the rasping sound her thighs made, rubbing together, because mine used to do the same.

  • • •

  Mrs. Hulme thought surprises were treats, but I didn’t. Once, Father had come home from Away when Mother hadn’t been expecting him, and it had been a surprise. He’d been Away a long time. It must have been to Japan because his skin was pale. If he’d been to Kenya, it would have been tanned. Mother had cried, I remembered, and talked about Father not putting her through it again, and Father had spoken about trumped-up charges in a husky voice.

  I’d put the kettle on, to make them both feel better, but Mother had taken over because of scalding. I’d gone to my bedroom and drawn the curtains and lay down with my eyes shut to get used to Father being there when I hadn’t known he was coming.

  Now I went to say good-bye to Mother. She looked tiny in the wingback chair, and her cardigan was crumpled. She was staring into the distance, her left hand tapping her half-empty cup, incapable now of taking over anything.

  • • •

  My stomach had felt tight for days. I might say the wrong thing at the barbecue. I might not keep track of conversations, which were always so quick. People might stare at me or whisper behind my back. Josh and Shelbie, and perhaps even Roxanna, might work as a team to take me to the bottom of Sylvia and Trevor’s garden and shout and scratch—and Sylvia wouldn’t notice because she’d be busy with salads.

  I spent hours under the duvet thinking of all the things that might go wrong. Then I made a decision. I’d write what I was feeling on the website for women with my Condition. Someone might have experienced the same kind of thing. It took me a long time to find the right words, but, in the end, there it was on-screen. My first message!

  I got up to stretch my shoulders and to put the kettle on. By the time I got back, somebody had replied! A woman called Amy, from America, who’d been to a church social only the week before where people had stared at her. One had walked away while she was still talking, and she didn’t know why. Her stomach had knotted too.

  • • •

  I stood by the landing window looking into Sylvia’s garden. People were swarming about the lawn: hugging, chatting, kicking a ball about, playing on the swing. I took a couple of deep breaths, picked up the bottle of champagne I’d bought for Sylvia, and went down.

  Once I’d given the bottle to Sylvia, I stood at the edge of the lawn, clasping my hands and looking from one person to another for clues as to what I should be doing. Sylvia brought S
helbie over to say hello. She said it without looking at me. Then there was a silence. Sylvia talked about putting things behind us. I nodded, but Shelbie tossed back her dark hair and started talking about the towels she was buying for the salon. Her voice was high, almost a squeak, and when she did look at me, she seemed to give off flashes of electricity.

  I was glad when she went to help Sylvia in the kitchen. I drifted about and looked at my watch. Trevor was prodding something on the barbecue, and Josh was dragging over a propane tank, the muscles on his arms making his tattoos stand out, as if they were in 3-D. I said hello, but they didn’t hear me.

  Roxanna was on the swing, wearing a dress with a large bow, poking her tongue out at Katie’s boys, and calling for someone to push her. I went over; it gave me something to do, plus I didn’t have to look at her because I was pushing her from behind. I asked her what she knew about monkeys because Sylvia had told me they were her favorite animals. Roxanna didn’t know much about the different species so I told her, listing them geographically. When she asked if I played with them, I explained about the enrichment items, using the sheet Cinta had draped around herself as an example.

  She jumped off the swing and ran to Josh. For an awful minute I thought she was going to tell him I’d pushed her too high, but it was to ask him to take her to Animal Arcadia.

  “Please, Daddy. Ellie knows a lot about monkeys.”

  “Takes one to know one.” Trevor looked at me over the top of his glasses. He turned a sausage over, and it rolled off the rack into the grass. He looked around quickly and put it back. “That didn’t happen,” he said, but I’d seen him do it. The sausage lay next to a group of burgers, pink and glistening with grease. I wrinkled my nose. Trevor clapped a hand to his brow. “You’re not going to tell me you’re a vegetarian now, are you? Not after I’ve gone to all this trouble.”

  “I’ve been a vegetarian since I was sixteen,” I said, my voice louder than I’d meant it to be. “I don’t eat turkey at Christmas. You’ve seen me not eating it.”