Truly, Wildly, Deeply

by Jenny McLachlan

  While I heave myself up and into the middle seat, Emil watches curiously.

  ‘You need step,’ he says. ‘Next time, I bring step.’ Then he drops his cigarette end in the gutter and climbs into the driver’s seat.

  Fab gets in next to me, and we’re ready to go.

  Mum stands on the kerb, arms folded, looking up at me squished between Fab and Emil.

  ‘What?’ I mouth, and this makes her laugh and shake her head.

  ‘Do widzenia, Ms Mitchell,’ says Fab, waving and leaning across me to toot Emil’s horn.

  Emil slaps his hand away.

  ‘Bring me back some blackberries,’ Mum calls.

  It’s great sitting in the van, all high up and bouncy. As we drive out of town, we listen to some sort of oompah band while Fab chats away, describing the delights that await me in the countryside. Although Uncle Emil doesn’t speak English very well, this doesn’t stop him interrupting whenever he thinks Fab’s exaggerating.

  ‘We have a very beautiful spot for the barbecue,’ says Fab.

  ‘Too much dog do-do,’ Emil mutters darkly.

  ‘And there are more blackberries than we’ll be able to pick!’

  ‘Many are small,’ says Emil. ‘And green.’

  But Emil’s more cynical approach doesn’t put Fab off and his hands fly around as he describes his mother’s perfect szarlotka and Aunt Dorota’s famous śmieciucha.

  It doesn’t take me long to realise that I’ve been invited along to some sort of mega family outing, but this doesn’t bother me. The more Fab describes how his babcia’s arthritis will stop her picking blackberries and how his cousin Patek is an annoying idiota, the less this feels like a date and I feel myself relaxing.

  After twenty minutes, we pull in at a car park in a forest. A crowd of adults and children are gathered in one corner around a smoking barbecue. Deckchairs are arranged around it and an old lady is hunkered down in one of them. Fab’s babcia, I’m guessing. Emil beeps his horn and everyone turns in our direction.

  As Emil reverses the van into a space between two cars, Fab falls quiet and stares out of the window. It’s as if he’s only just considered the possibility that this might not be every teenager’s idea of a good time.

  ‘There is a lot of my family here. More than I realised,’ he says, turning to look at me. ‘Do you mind, Annie?’

  ‘I’m half Greek, Fab,’ I say with a shrug. ‘This barely counts as a family gathering.’

  He smiles in relief, then opens the van door. ‘Well, I will look after you.’ He stands and watches as I half fall out of the van.

  ‘I don’t need you to, but thanks all the same.’

  Fab has obviously prepped his family about my cerebral palsy because everyone takes great care not to stare as I wobble my way across the car park. But still one little girl can’t take her eyes off me, until her mum pokes her in the back and then her eyes shoot down to the ground.

  After Fab has introduced me to his mum – a tiny, quiet lady who really doesn’t look like she could have produced a strapping giant like Fab – he grabs two empty plastic cartons and asks me if I can walk ‘point seven five kilometres’.

  ‘That’s precise.’

  He nods. ‘I measured it on my phone the other day. The best blackberries and the best views are just over that hill.’ He points towards a path that leads up through the woods.

  ‘Point seven five kilometres,’ I say. ‘Yeah, I can definitely do that.’

  Fab has an animated conversation with his mum in Polish, packs a few things in a bag, then we set off along the path.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘With my mother? She wanted me to feed you, but I said I would feed you on the hill.’

  ‘Feed me what?’

  ‘Cake.’

  And then we fall quiet. Maybe it’s the beautiful silence of the woods … or maybe it’s the birdsong … or maybe it’s the unfortunate image that has just popped into my head of Fab literally feeding me cake as I lie sprawled on some hill, but suddenly everything feels a bit … intimate.

  ‘I love cake,’ I say, to get things back on the right track. ‘And chips.’

  Fab looks at me out of the corner of his eye and smiles. ‘Polish cake is the best,’ he says.

  We carry on up the path, then push through a bush (Fab goes first, like a battering ram) and burst out on a hillside.

  ‘Wow …’ I say, gazing out across the fields and rivers that stretch all the way to the sea.

  ‘Pieknie,’ says Fab.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘Come on,’ I say, turning round to face the prickly bushes that line the edge of the hill. ‘These blackberries won’t pick themselves.’

  This is the first time I’ve ever picked blackberries. For an infant teacher, my mum isn’t that into nature and she’s much more likely to take me for a walk along Brighton seafront than in the woods. As I pluck the berries off the branches and drop them into my tub, I wonder if this is because of me. Maybe Mum would like to do this, but focuses on smooth-surfaced museums and pavements to make my life easier.

  Next to me, Fab whistles as he reaches the high-up berries. Summer’s still clinging on, and it’s so warm that after a while I take off my cardy so I can enjoy feeling the sun beating down on my arms. But I discover blackberry bushes are prickly and soon my arms are all scratched up.

  ‘Here,’ says Fab, passing me his leather jacket. ‘This is why I’m wearing it. It stops the scratches.’

  ‘No, thanks. I can handle it.’

  He drops it next to my cardy. ‘It’s too hot anyway,’ he says with a shrug, but then he’s yelping and squealing every time a thorn catches his skin.

  It turns out picking blackberries is very addictive. Just when I’ve cleared one branch of perfectly ripe fruit, I see more just a bit further along the hedgerow and I can’t resist putting them in my tub too. The other thing I discover about blackberry-picking is that it’s really easy to talk when you’re facing a bush. Fab and I have never had any problem chatting, but with the addition of the bush, we’re on fire.

  He asks me about my dad, and I explain that my parents had the worst and shortest marriage ever.

  ‘Now that they live two thousand miles apart they occasionally get on,’ I say, then I tell him about the summers I’ve spent at my Greek nana – Yia Yia’s – home in Karpathos and how I can’t get an ice cream from the shop without some old lady inviting me into her house and force-feeding me.

  ‘Does she live in a village?’ asks Fab.

  ‘A tiny village called Lakia. Just a taverna, the shop and the sea.’

  ‘And are the people in the village polite about your cerebral palsy?’

  Even though I’m getting used to the way Fab says things so directly, his question surprises me – usually people do everything they can to avoid mentioning the fact that I’m disabled.

  ‘Polite … ?’ I say, thinking back to all my summers spent in Lakia. ‘I’m not sure they’re polite as in politically correct, but I’ve been visiting since I was a baby, so they’re used to me … Plus Yia Yia is scary. Once a boy imitated my walk and she went out and whacked him with a fish.’

  Fab looks alarmed. ‘Is that a Greek thing to do?’

  ‘No, it’s a Yia Yia thing to do. She was that mad that she just went at him with what she had in her hands – a red mullet. Even my dad’s scared of Yia Yia and he’s a big man.’ I glance over at Fab’s blackberry tub and see that it’s almost full. ‘Hey, you’re winning because I’ve been doing all the talking.’ After a moment, I say, ‘Tell me about your dad.’ I’ve decided that it shouldn’t just be Fab who gets to ask all the personal questions.

  ‘My father lives in Poland. When my mother came to England I had to stay with him, but last year I joined my mother.’

  Something about the way Fab says this, like he’s choosing his words carefully, makes me think that there is something he’s not telling me. ‘So how long was you
r mum here without you?’

  ‘Seven years, but she came back to Poland a lot, and I visited. That is how I learnt to speak English.’

  I try to imagine Fab spending nearly half his childhood not living with his mum, that sweet lady who was pressing cake on us. I suppose it’s no different from me and my dad, only for some reason it seems totally different.

  ‘Do you miss him – your dad?’

  Fab keeps picking his blackberries, and after a while, he says, ‘Yes, but what I really miss is the three of us being together.’

  I turn to look at him, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘My happiest memories are from when my mother and father still lived together.’

  ‘Maybe you will all live together again one day.’

  He shakes his head. ‘That will never happen.’ Then he turns round and takes a deep breath in as he looks at the hill stretching in front of us. ‘I want to run,’ he says, then he puts his blackberries on the ground, smiles at me and goes running down the hill, roaring at the top of his voice, his long arms windmilling round.

  He looks so free and happy that suddenly I want to join in, only I can’t run like that, not downhill. So I decide to do something I haven’t done for years. I lie down then start rolling down the hill. I come to a stop against a clump of grass and Fab runs back up to meet me.

  ‘You are a crazy girl.’ He drops a buttercup on my chest then lies down next to me.

  ‘I’m a crazy girl who feels dizzy,’ I say, taking the buttercup and holding it against the sun. ‘Now, wasn’t there talk of cake?’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It turns out Fab’s mum has put cake and some sort of cheese pasty into the rucksack.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ I say, licking creamy icing off my fingers, ‘this is some sort of pre-barbecue snack?’

  He nods. ‘And she has made you vegetarian sausages because the kebabs are made with lamb.’

  ‘That’s kind,’ I say. And then, because the sun is shining and I’m full of cake and Fab’s family are being so welcoming, I add, ‘I’m glad I came.’

  His face lights up. ‘It’s a good date?’

  ‘Well, it’s the only date I’ve ever been on so I’ve not got much to compare it to, but, yes. This is good, isn’t it?’

  Fab looks so pleased that I haven’t got the heart to add my usual warning about us just being friends. I mentioned it so many times last week that I know he must have the message by now. Instead, we just sit on the hill and stare out at the endless sky and the view that surrounds us.

  ‘Hey, Fab.’ I turn to him. ‘Have you ever done the Blue Experience?’

  ‘No. It sounds unhappy.’

  ‘It isn’t. You lie down with your eyes shut for five minutes, then when you open your eyes everything looks blue.’

  ‘Let’s do it,’ says Fab, getting out his phone. ‘I’ll set a timer.’

  I arrange my cardy behind me and Fab spreads out his jacket, then we both lie back.

  ‘Ready?’

  I wriggle around until I’m comfy, then shut my eyes. ‘Ready.’

  ‘Go.’

  For the first few seconds we don’t say anything, and I just lie there, my face raised to the sun, listening to Fab’s leather jacket squeaking and the birds singing.

  ‘Fab,’ I say, after a moment, ‘I’m sorry about your mum and dad. It must suck having to choose between them.’

  Our arms are just touching, and I suddenly want to hold his hand, but I don’t because I’m worried it will send him the wrong message.

  ‘It feels like something is missing all the time. I feel it in Poland, and I feel it here …’ He pauses, then adds, ‘But I don’t feel it right now.’

  We settle into another silence. Somewhere near me a bee buzzes. The earth feels warm underneath me, like the very last bit of summer is in the soil.

  This time it’s Fab who breaks the silence. ‘Annie, is it difficult having a disability?’

  I’m so used to the direct way Fab asks questions that this doesn’t even take me by surprise.

  ‘I don’t believe I have a disability,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Fab’s voice floats across to me.

  ‘I was born with cerebral palsy, which is a physical impairment, but my CP doesn’t make me disabled: it’s society that does that.’

  Fab doesn’t say anything, but even with my eyes closed I know that he’s listening to me, trying to understand what I mean.

  ‘Remember what happened on the bus?’ I say. ‘I could get out of my wheelchair, but if I hadn’t been able to, and if the bus driver had refused to ask the women to fold up their pushchairs, then I would’ve had to get off the bus. It wouldn’t have been my CP stopping me from getting that bus – it would have been society, because society thinks it’s OK to prioritise the needs of able-bodied people on public transport. Some people think, at least there is space for wheelchairs – stop being so ungrateful. But how would non-disabled people feel if buses existed that only allowed wheelchair users inside with one or two seats reserved for non-disabled people? “Er, sorry, mate, I see you’ve got functioning legs. We just don’t have the capacity for any more walkers on this bus. Look, we’ve already got one sitting in the corner.”’ I don’t wait for Fab to answer. ‘They’d feel excluded and angry.’

  ‘You sound angry,’ says Fab.

  I am. ‘Being disabled by the world does make me angry, but I’m less angry than I used to be … Or at least I’ve learnt to pick my battles.’

  Fab doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his arm warm against mine. The seconds tick by, then Fab says, ‘You can be angry with me. Happy, angry, sad. I don’t mind.’

  I laugh. ‘How about sleepy? Because these are the longest five minutes of my life. If I lie here another second I’m going to be snoring.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Fab. ‘I might have stopped the timer.’

  ‘What?!’ I sit up and open my eyes. The world spins and everything – the fields, the trees, even Fab – is a washed-out, murky blue. I give him a thump on his arm. ‘You idiot, Fab! Why did you do that?’

  He laughs. ‘I was enjoying talking … It doesn’t matter. It still worked. Look how blue everything is.’

  We’re sitting so close to each other and I’m feeling so dizzy that it seems only natural to lean against Fab as I look around at the world that has become blue. He puts his arm round me.

  ‘Let us record this beautiful moment of blueness,’ he says, holding his phone in front of us.

  I stay where I am as he presses the button to take our photo.

  ‘Let’s see.’ I take the phone off him. ‘Nice,’ I say, passing it back.

  Fab’s arm stays round my shoulder. He’s done this so many times before, but he’s never felt this close, or lingered for so long. I rest against him for a moment longer, even though I know I should stop – because my leaning against him totally contradicts all the ‘we’re just friends’ stuff I’ve been going on and on about – but I don’t, because can’t friends do this? Lean against each other in the sun?

  I look up at him.

  He smiles and I can’t help smiling back.

  ‘So …’ I say.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You smell nice.’ He does smell nice, sort of clean and bonfire-y.

  ‘You smell nice too. Like bez. I do not know the word in English.’

  Then it hits me. It would be so easy to kiss Fab right now. All I’d need to do is lean forward slightly and close my eyes. I know he’d kiss me back. I was sure I didn’t like Fab, not like that, but he’s really glowing in the afternoon light and his eyes match the colour of the sky almost perfectly …

  What am I thinking?

  I force myself to turn away and look at the view. But Fab is still staring at me and now there is absolutely no mistaking the kissing vibe that is building up. I tell myself that no matter how nice Fab smells, or how uncannily glowy he is, I must not kiss him. He would just expect so much to follow.

  A few
seconds tick by. The staring continues.

  I have to do something right now to stop this. Lying down is not an option – that would seem like an invitation. Unfortunately standing up isn’t an option either, because my legs have gone to sleep. So I do the only thing I can think of doing: I roll on to my front and start crawling up the hill to get away from him.

  ‘Bez had better not be Polish for “cat sick”,’ I call over my shoulder. Then, just in case I haven’t fully smashed up the romantic atmosphere, I add, ‘Take me to the vegetarian sausages … I want a sausage!’

  Oh, God. He’s still watching me, all brooding and serious. Who does he think he is? Heathcliff?

  So I hit him with my final passion-killer. ‘Hurry up, Fab. I need a wee.’

  Immediately, he jumps to his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

  And the kissing vibe is not only dead – it’s been trampled on and kicked into the nearest blackberry bush.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  At the barbecue, a deckchair’s been reserved for me. I sit next to Fab’s mum, work my way through my cheese and leek sausages and watch Fab.

  Unlike most people our age, Fab doesn’t change when he’s around different people. He behaves in exactly the same way with Miss Caudle, Peggy, the Hoggers and, it appears, his family. Just like at college, he runs around organising and helping people, and occasionally doing something loud and embarrassing. At one point, he goes to fetch me some ketchup, a journey that takes a couple of minutes, and in this time he holds his niece upside down, turns the meat on the barbecue, stuffs some leaves down his uncle’s top and sings a couple of lines of ‘I Like to Move It’ at the top of his voice, startling a couple who are walking their golden retriever.

  Eventually, Fab settles next to me with a plate heaving with kebabs and salad, and he gives me the low-down on his family.

  ‘That girl with the pink coat is my niece, Paulina. She is seven and can do five cartwheels in a row. And that is Simon.’ Fab points at a man frowning into the coals of the barbecue, tongs clasped in his hand. ‘He is a British farmer going out with my cousin, Julia.’ Next Fab nods at a boy sitting on a rug and sipping a bottle of Tyskie beer. ‘Filip,’ he says. ‘He is on holiday from university, where he studies stones.’