Fag
Martha’s eyebrows are raised expectantly and I understand now what she’s been going on about. I snigger but the sound that comes out is all nervous and high-pitched.
‘I haven’t got any,’ I say, wondering if she’s going to start ranting and raving. Martha doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to handle disappointment very well. She surprises me, though, and instead just does a sort of shrug and puts the notepad back down.
And we’re back to sitting in silence again.
I’ve decided to utilize my time and get some of my art project done so I’ve looked through a couple of books and found the painting that I want to write about today. It’s quite peaceful out here in the sunshine. I pick up my art book and start writing down my thoughts about a painting called To the Unknown Voice, but after a while I wonder if Martha might be getting bored. I think I’d better make some sort of effort in case she complains to Beatrice.
‘So,’ I say, ‘how come you’re at Oak Hill, then?’
Martha doesn’t answer me, but her mouth turns down and I get the feeling that she isn’t delighted to be here.
‘Are you ever going to speak to me?’ I ask her. ‘This would all be a lot easier if you’d actually do some of the talking.’ Martha scowls and looks away from me. I guess she doesn’t like being told what to do, either.
‘Is anyone coming to visit you today?’ I’m determined to get her talking to me. I couldn’t actually care less about what she’s got to say but I don’t like the fact that she’s not saying anything. It’s freaky – like she’s playing a game and I don’t know the rules. She shakes her head but at least she’s actually looking at me now.
‘What about tomorrow, then? Are your family coming then?’ This is really hard work.
Martha shakes her head again. I’m starting to think that I’m asking the wrong questions here – that something isn’t quite right.
‘Martha – can you actually talk?’ I ask, my voice a bit quieter than it was before. There’s a long pause while Martha looks at me and I start to regret my question. Perhaps I’ve been rude. It’s really none of my business, after all.
Just as I’m about to look away, Martha seems to make a decision about something. She looks up for a moment and when she looks back at me she shakes her head. Just once.
Then she bends over her notepad. She scrawls something on the page and then holds it up for me to see.
No family
That can’t be right. Everybody has some kind of family. Even if they’re really rubbish and run off and abandon you and don’t care less about your happiness and what you really want. I slide along the bench so that I’m sitting closer to Martha.
‘You mean you haven’t got anyone?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head.
‘Did you never get married?’
Martha looks down at her hands for a minute and I follow her gaze. There, on the third finger of her left hand, all wrinkled and old, is a wedding ring.
‘You were married!’ I say, feeling pleased. I knew that it couldn’t be true. Everybody has to have somebody.
Martha writes a note.
Tommy
I’m starting to enjoy this. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt with the clues written down. I need more details, though, and I’ve got to work out the best questions to ask, seeing as Martha’s voice doesn’t seem to work properly.
‘Where’s Tommy now?’
Martha looks away and I feel the mood change. I’ve made a mistake asking that question.
‘OK,’ I rush, thinking fast. ‘When did you meet him?’
Martha turns and points at me.
‘When you were about my age? Wow – that must be years ago. So, you met Tommy when you were around twelve and later on you married him. Right?’ Martha does her weird smiling face again. ‘You must have really liked him then. I don’t know any boys that I’d be prepared to marry!’
She scrawls two words on the notepad and I crane across her to read them.
No good
‘Who was no good? Tommy?’ I ask. She nods and sits up straight in her wheelchair. Then she writes again on her notepad. It takes her longer this time – she’s really slow.
Let’s go for a drive
What is she on about now? How are we supposed to go for a drive?
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I tell her slowly, feeling an uncomfortable feeling creeping over me. Martha does her weird grin again and mimes driving a car. Oh no. I don’t think so.
‘Er, Martha? You do know I’m not even thirteen yet, don’t you?’ I ask her. ‘I can’t actually drive a car.’
Martha points at herself and I try not to let the laugh that bubbles up out of me escape but I just can’t help it.
‘You? You want me to help you go for a drive? Are you actually serious?’
Martha scrunches up her nose and wiggles her head from side to side as if she is mocking me. It’s the sort of face that Lauren makes when Nat says something ridiculous, and seeing Martha do it makes me feel properly annoyed.
‘Fine!’ I tell her. ‘We’ll just roll on over to the car park and pick a car we fancy the look of, shall we?’ I can hear my voice sounding really sarcastic and rude and I’m slightly shocked at how I’m talking to this woman that I barely even know. There’s just something about her that makes me feel – I don’t know – maybe a bit nervous but adventurous and brave at the same time. I know I wouldn’t have got away with talking to Granny Edna like this, that’s for sure – Mum would have had a fit.
Martha writes a note.
Dad’s van
I lean back on the bench and look at her. I cannot believe that she has just said that. An octogenarian is encouraging me to joyride. My summer just got even more random.
‘You are out of your mind,’ I tell her and then I watch as Martha’s shoulders start shaking, her dimpled cheeks start wobbling and her eyes shine over with unshed tears. She is laughing. And her laughter may be silent but it is powerful. Any other time I’d be joining in, but not today. Not now. Today I am suddenly furious with the ancient, withered old woman in front of me. What business does she have suggesting things like that to me?
‘Oh, grow up. You’re old enough to know better.’ She’s making me feel stupid, like I’m the responsible one and she’s the little kid and I don’t like it.
I’ve said the right thing to get her attention. She’s not laughing any more and as I watch, she pulls herself up so that she seems to tower over me, even though she’s still sitting in the wheelchair.
She fixes me with her suddenly steely eyes, making me feel like I’m pinned down to the bench. Then she writes again and thrusts the notepad towards me.
Grow old – yes. Grow up – never
I can see the disgust on her face. I look away and think about this. What on earth is she on about – never growing up? She’s about as old as it’s possible to get so she must be grown up.
She’s definitely grown old, though, that’s for sure. I glance back at her, sitting in her wheelchair, and see her hands are all twisted. She reminds me of an old oak tree, all ancient and gnarled. I peer at her closely, this time trying to really look at her. But even if I focus really hard and squint my eyes a bit, I can’t see someone like me. It’s just too difficult – what with all the wrinkles and baggy skin. Maybe her eyes look like they could belong to a naughty, adventurous teenager but the rest of her is one hundred per cent old lady. It’s weird, actually – like her eyes aren’t connected to the rest of her body. A bit like an invasion of the bodysnatchers.
It makes me wonder if the real, young, fun Martha is hiding inside the old worn-out body sitting next to me. A Martha who thinks that stealing my dad’s van is a good idea. A Martha who wants to get out of here. But this is such a weird thought that I shake my head and look back at the water fountain. Martha is just an old woman. Unable to cook her own meals or dress herself properly or even talk like a normal person. An old woman sitting here waiting for her time t
o come to an end.
Martha doesn’t want to talk now and I’m glad.
When Beatrice returns, Martha is dozing in her wheelchair.
‘Everything all right?’ whispers Beatrice to me.
‘I think so,’ I whisper back, because honestly – how would I even know if Martha wasn’t all right? It’s not like I’m a doctor or a care person or something. I wonder for a moment if I should tell Beatrice about Martha’s desire to joyride but decide there’s no point. It was probably just a weird old-person joke, anyway, and I don’t want to get her into trouble, even if she is a pain.
‘Thank you for spending time with Martha,’ says Beatrice. ‘It’s lovely to see her out here with someone. She’s usually on her own and I worry about her being lonely.’
‘No problem,’ I mutter but meanly I’m thinking that it’s not like I had an actual choice. I guess I hardly have to do anything. Just sit in silence with someone who can’t even talk to me but has no problem with asking me to break the law. All in a day’s work.
‘And it sorts two problems at once, which is good,’ continues Beatrice. ‘There was I, wondering what to do about Martha, and there was your dad, wondering what to do about you. It’s all worked out perfectly!’
Beatrice is still talking but I’m suddenly so cross that I can hardly bring myself to reply to her. Martha stirs and wakes and I can feel her eyes on me. When I glance in her direction it feels like she’s asking me a question. For a second, I can tell that she knows something is wrong – but I turn my head away. She wouldn’t get it. She wouldn’t understand that right now, I feel as if not one single person in the entire world cares about how I spend my summer. God – Martha probably thinks she’s doing me a favour by hanging out with me. This isn’t right. I need to take control of this situation.
I don’t look at Martha once when Beatrice starts arranging for us to meet up again tomorrow. I’m not sure why I don’t tell her the truth – which is that I totally can’t stand old people. That ridiculous suggestion about taking my dad’s van for a drive – it’s just wrong. It’s MY generation who should be talking about that sort of thing – not hers. Martha is antique. That’s not what old people do. And all that rubbish about growing up but not growing old. She’s grown old so she must have grown up. News flash – that’s what happens. You don’t get to choose. I can’t tell Beatrice that I don’t want to be with anybody, especially not silent Martha, because she’d ask why and I don’t have an answer that’s good enough for her. I don’t think she’d want to hear that I feel betrayed. That I don’t need any help finding my own friends and even if I actually am a bit lonely then I’d rather have nobody than someone who smells like death.
I wonder if one day I’ll be trapped, like Martha is, inside wrinkly skin and a dilapidated shell. And I think that this summer is bad enough without people coming up with new and imaginative ways to make me miserable.
Martha
The girl, Erin, asked me about Tommy. I’d been trying to ignore her in the hope that she would go away and leave me in peace, but she was quite insistent for a young thing. It was my own fault really, for writing her the note. I just thought that she might possibly have some more cigarettes and contraband like that is very hard to come by in this prison that masquerades as a care home. I’d have happily ignored her all day but then she asked about family. She asked about Tommy. She wanted to know when I met him. It has been years since I thought about that day but now, sitting here with nothing else to entertain me, it’s all coming back.
The rain is pouring down outside and the clouds make the night so dark. It was very different that particular day. Then the sun shone and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. That was why it seemed like such a good idea when Tommy invited me to go to the woods with him.
Oh, it wasn’t the first time that I met him. We’d been at school together ever since we were little ones. But it was only that summer that I’d started to see him differently. It was only that summer that I really noticed him. I was thirteen years old so it must have been the summer of 1942.
My younger sister, Mim, was the biggest cause of trouble in my life at that time. She didn’t make the trouble (I did that all by myself) but she always seemed to be around somewhere, waiting for me to do something wrong. If only she hadn’t felt the need to follow me home from school that day then everything would have been fine. It would have been more than fine, in fact. It would have been perfect.
It was my own fault. I should have thought to check. I allowed myself to get carried away in the excitement and when Tommy asked me to cycle down to the woods with him I could think of nothing but he and I, together and alone.
He’d been asking me all week. I said no for the first four days but by that day I was getting worried that he’d give up on me and ask Margaret instead. I knew that she would say yes in a flash. She was a bit brazen like that. So I agreed to go and we were getting along really well until my horrid, frightful sister decided to follow us. She waited until we had got off our bicycles and were just inside the wood. Tommy was pointing out a bird sitting high up in the tree above us and then his arm was round my shoulder and I was fairly certain that my first kiss was about to happen. I was just thinking how glad I was that I would always be able to remember this moment – Tommy and the sunlight trickling through the branches, making the whole world look enchanted and magical.
Everything was completely right and I was just wondering whether it was time to close my eyes and lean in for his kiss when there was a horrendous, screeching sound. Tommy and I sprang apart and when we looked round, there was Mim, halfway across the field and standing up on the pedals of her bicycle so that she could see more clearly.
I knew I could never catch her but I had to try. I left Tommy standing on his own in the wood. It wasn’t the only time that I would do that to him and the second time it happened, the memory of this day made it all the harder.
It was too late, though. By the time I raced into the backyard, Mother was standing in the doorway, wiping her floury hands on her apron, looking furious. Mim was loitering behind her with a rotten kind of smirk on her face.
Mother wouldn’t listen when I told her that nothing had happened. She said that nice girls like me did not go within spitting distance of the woods with the likes of Tommy McGregor. She said that he was ‘No Good’, and that I was a terrible role model for Mim. I was banned from going anywhere except home and school for the next two weeks and told that it was about time I started to grow up.
I didn’t really care about that and I didn’t pay much attention to what she said to me, either. I didn’t care about getting older and I thought that growing up sounded like a very dull sort of thing to be bothered with.
Oh, I’m not daft. I’ve got eyes. When I look in the mirror I can see the old lady I’ve become. Age cannot be halted and only a fool would try to stop time from doing its duty. After all, there are some perks.
Growing up, however, is a different matter altogether. Nobody ever tells you that this is purely optional. How you behave is completely at your own discretion and I, for one, intend to do as I please. My advanced years do provide me with certain benefits, you see. Nobody suspects the elderly of being capable of anything other than knitting bootees for babies and sucking on toffees. I have found a certain freedom in this.
But oh, my poor, No-Good Tommy. If only that picture of him, standing in the dappled sunlight under the trees that day was the last memory I had of him. If this were so then I think I would be a happy woman. The girl asked me where he is now. I wish I had the answer to that question, although I suspect I shall discover it before too long.
I would like to see her again, despite her incessant need to talk. Her questions have reminded me of things that I thought were buried long ago. I think she might be fun. She might help to liven things up a bit.
Grannies*
The last two days have been totally boring. I don’t know how Dad doesn’t go mad, hanging around the garden all day. Plants ar
e seriously dull.
I’ve done my penance and met up with Martha at the agreed time each day. I’ve barely spoken to Dad about her, except after that first afternoon when he asked me if we’d had a nice chat. I laughed quite a lot at that until he got cross with me.
We’ve sat in complete silence on both days – I listen to my iPod and do my sketching and don’t bother talking to her. She’s probably glad that she can just be moody and miserable without any interruptions because it’s not like she’s tried to get my attention or anything. On the positive side, I’ve done some great sketches. On the negative side, my voice is going to forget how to work if I don’t find someone to talk to soon.
I’ve thought a few times about Martha and Tommy. She met him when she was my age and then ended up marrying him. It’s made me think about the boys I know. I reckon I must be the least popular girl in Year 8. Nobody has shown the slightest interest in even wanting to go out with me, so based on that evidence there’s a strong possibility that I may never actually get married. Not that anyone at school knows that I’ve never had a boyfriend. Not even Lauren and Nat. Everyone has gone a bit mental with the whole boy-girl thing. Four different boys asked Lauren out just on one day (and she said yes to each of them). It can be kind of hard to concentrate in lessons with the amount of asking out that’s always going on. I get jabbed in the back with a ruler at least three times in every maths lesson and every time I turn round there’ll be a note being thrust in my face. Always with someone else’s name on the front.
When it all first started I used to joke that it was all good work experience for if I want to get a job delivering the mail when I grow up. Which I absolutely do not. But after a while I started to feel left out, which I guess was natural when the entire year group was in a whirlwind dating frenzy and I was left standing in the middle like an abandoned bit of tumbleweed. Even Shelley, who has got really bad spots (not to be mean or anything but it’s true), got asked out at the end-of-term disco.
Five Things They Never Told Me Page 5