by Louise Beech
The shrill blast pierced the flat’s stale air. Fern appeared in her bedroom doorway, dawn’s weak light a halo about her head. The noise stopped as abruptly as it had started. Then beeeeeep, again.
And then nothing.
‘What the hell is that?’ she growled, and opened cupboards and drawers, slamming each one when it didn’t reveal an answer. When she swore, I knew she’d tried the drawers that wouldn’t open together.
‘It’s the smoke alarm.’ I sat up and kicked off my duvet.
She peered at the white box above the sink, pink T-shirt barely covering her crotch. The alarm shrieked again as though to warn her away. ‘Bastard,’ she said. ‘Why is it doing that?’
‘Needs new batteries.’ I got up.
‘Do we have any?’
I explained that it would need one of those big, square things and said I doubted we had any. When the batteries for the remote control died we warmed them in the oven. We had many tricks for making a little go a long way.
‘So how do we stop it?’
‘Unscrew it and remove the dead batteries,’ I said.
‘Should I ring someone? Maybe Greg – yes, Greg. He’ll know what to do.’
‘We don’t need him. We’re modern, self-sufficient women and we can do it ourselves. Now – do you have a screwdriver?’
‘Do I look like I possess a screwdriver?’
I laughed. ‘Your column may be a total lie, but when it comes to you and DIY it’s spot on. There’s some truth in your bullshit.’
When Fern disappeared into the bedroom, I thought I’d offended her with my blunt words so was relieved when she reappeared with a large black hammer. ‘I got it off Sean.’
‘I’m not even going to ask why … OK – why?’
Fern explained how, when she’d left him he’d taken her favourite CD and the blue mirror made of broken tiles. So she’d taken his hammer. He’d loved it, had built their bed with it and the shelf unit in the back room. Fern had used it to smash up his CDs and then left the wreckage under his duvet cover.
‘If only your readers could see you now.’ I shook my head.
‘Will a hammer help us?’ She dropped it onto the draining board with a rude clunk.
I pulled a wooden stool out of the cupboard. Fern wrapped herself about my legs to hold me in place, commenting on how spiky they were, and I reached for the offending smoke alarm.
Its screws had rusted and the test switch wouldn’t move. It bleeped again. I winced. I always took these things as a sign. I’d panic if a black cat crossed my path but then walk boldly under a ladder. I had my own rules for signs. I couldn’t explain these rules; I’d just feel them. And the shriek of alarm felt like a grim warning.
‘Pass me a knife,’ I said.
‘No need to slit your wrists.’
‘I’m going to unscrew it. I’ve changed every plug in here with a kitchen knife.’
She let go of me long enough to get a knife, then I carefully turned the tiny screws anticlockwise with the blade’s tip. Clouds of rancid dust wafted out as I took the plastic drum down.
‘Now what?’ We stared at the disruptive creature in my hand.
‘Now we get the battery out.’
Two beeps sounded – but it wasn’t the alarm.
‘That sounded like a phone,’ said Fern and checked hers. She didn’t have any messages.
The alarm screamed at us again, a long, ear-shattering sound. I grabbed two large cushions, squashed the smoke detector between them, and shoved the bundle in the back of the cupboard.
When the phone rang we both jumped. Fern answered; I listened to her subdued words until I knew it wasn’t for me. The rush of water when I showered drowned out any further sounds. Afterwards I found Fern in her best, pinstriped skirt and ruffly cream blouse – her serious-occasion clothes.
‘That was my editor.’ She grabbed her coat from the back of the door. ‘Got to see him now – sounds pretty important. Hilary Scott wrote a column about pigs and ended up with a whole page last year. Maybe they’re giving me one.’
Fern’s smile outdid the sun; I wanted to save her from being disappointed. I wasn’t sure if it was the alarm that had made me anxious, or I was simply protective of my friend, but I couldn’t bear the thought of her joy being ruined. I suggested she keep an open mind.
‘Why else would they call me in?’
‘I’m only saying wait until you hear what it is before celebrating.’
She whooped and said that when they gave her a regular, double-page spread we’d go out and celebrate big time. She left in a whirlwind of optimism and furry coat. I picked the shed fluff off the floor and put it in the bin.
I filled the day with trivialities, each punctuated randomly by the muffled shriek of the detector. I ignored the phone when I saw it was my mother’s number. The smoke alarm mocked my cowardice. I coated my hands in steroid cream and put washing-up gloves on to help it work. The alarm mocked my effort. I checked my diary for upcoming shifts at the care home, pleased I’d some long-overdue days off. The alarm mocked my crappy job. I wondered about going and buying a battery for it.
Then I remembered my mobile phone had bleeped before. I took it from my coat pocket and my glove-and-cream-fattened fingers clumsily clicked the buttons; I didn’t recognise the number.
The message said, ‘Its Stan got yr number frm John, chekin u r ok. Hpe u dnt mind was worried. Wil u b out tonite.’
Stan? Ah, Robin, I realised. For days I’d managed to push all thoughts of him away, and now he existed again, on my phone in black-and-white text. Humiliation made me wish he wasn’t working on my house for the next eight weeks, lurking in the shadows of my life. I associated his warm kiss, his hands, with that word; a word I wouldn’t think of now.
The smoke alarm screamed at me.
I grabbed Fern’s black hammer. The rubber glove squeaked against the handle. I pulled the alarm from its cosy bed between the cushions and brought the hammer down, enjoying the crunch of plastic and metal.
Silence; it was dead.
I dropped the hammer into the sink, gathered up the synthetic corpse and threw it in the bin. Free now of its shrill judgement I responded to Robin’s text. An explanation might make things easier if I encountered him at the house. It took a few minutes to type because of the gloves.
‘No need for concern, had too much to drink, wasn’t well.’ I wondered how to sign off. What would make it clear I wasn’t interested without cruelty? I put ‘Just got out of bad relationship’ but deleted it and retyped ‘Thanks for concern’. Then I deleted that too and sent the message without any afterthought. Now he could just write me off as unhinged and I didn’t have to think about him.
I poured oat-flakes into a bowl and ate standing at the counter wearing the pink gloves.
Fern’s heels clacked on the metal stairway. She kicked the door shut after her and I looked up, ready to make a caustic comment about door hinges. But her face erased my words. With a grunt, she threw the newspaper at me. It caught my cheek.
‘Ow!’ I cried. ‘What was that for?’
‘You rang them,’ she said.
Confused, I thought of crisis lines. I hadn’t called them, only taken calls. What did she mean?
‘You rang the fucking paper,’ she said.
I stared at her, not understanding at all.
‘A woman called Catherine rang my editor and told him I’m not married. This Catherine said my column’s bullshit and she can prove it because she knows my situation.’ Fern glared at me.
‘You think it was me?’ I said the words as they came into my head, the question mark an afterthought. Cereal sank into my stomach like chewed bricks. I heard Victor drop a bag of rubbish in the garden.
‘Was it you?’ she asked.
‘I can’t believe you think so.’
‘So why not answer the question. It’s simple. Was it you?’
I wanted to say there were lots of Catherines, some with no i, to cause chaos. ‘I won’t
answer,’ I said instead. Why was I being so stubborn? Why didn’t I just say that I hadn’t called? Because I was so angry that she thought so. ‘It’s a ridiculous question,’ I said.
‘You’re a jealous bitch.’
She stepped over the newspaper and swiped my bowl off the counter. It landed on the lino with a thick splat, painting soggy cereal up the wall. It looked how my walls had after the flood.
‘I knew you were pissed off when I wrote that you had a new boyfriend,’ she cried. ‘That’s a more absurd lie than me still being married. Who would tolerate you? And your comment this morning about the truth in my bullshit; exactly what you said when you rang them. How could you?’
‘I can’t believe you think…’ I was unable to finish, and Fern wasn’t listening.
Her eyes watered as she said she’d been sacked; mine did too, involuntarily. She got the newspaper, folded it lovingly and put it under her arm. My pink-gloved hand reached out in some sort of futile gesture, but she ignored it.
‘He said the column was a slice of life readers could identify with, but it isn’t fair to continue deceiving them. So now I’ve no income and I’ve lost the only job I ever loved. Writing is who I am. Back to care homes, now – like you.’
I insisted writing wasn’t who she was, that she was Fern.
‘Don’t define me,’ she said. ‘Don’t talk to me.’
‘Did you suggest a column about single life?’ My voice was husky.
‘I told you Mick Mars does that on a Thursday – there’s no room for me. Don’t talk about my column ever again.’
I covered my mouth, tasting rubber.
‘Isn’t this what you hoped would happen?’ she asked. ‘You must’ve known they’d sack me; or did you just want them to give me a good talking to. I’ll have to go back home or back to Sean maybe. Now that’d be irony, me ending up back with my husband but having no column to report it in.’
‘Why do you have to go anywhere?’ I couldn’t imagine her leaving.
‘You think I want to stay here with you?’
I tasted milk and acid. My hands burned inside their plastic coating. Fern headed for the bedroom.
‘I didn’t ring them,’ I said softly; stubbornness gave way to desperation.
She turned and pointed a finger at me. ‘You’re the grumpiest bitch I’ve ever met. No wonder people get sick of you. But I never trusted anyone like I did you.’
‘I didn’t ring them,’ I said, louder.
‘In your words – bullshit. I’m just shocked you didn’t give a fake name.’
She said I had so many she was surprised I knew who I was. I wanted to say I hadn’t given any name because I hadn’t called them. But she slammed the bedroom door. Outside, Victor told someone in the street that he’d chase them if they came near the windows with a brick again. I pulled off my gloves like a boxer having lost a fight. In the bedroom, I heard drawers opening and shutting.
The door opened and she glared at me. Her arms were full of plastic bags and she said she was leaving even if I stood in her way. I stepped aside and she went into the bathroom and grabbed bottles off shelves.
‘You can have the bedroom now,’ she said.
I didn’t want it. She threw her key at me and opened the door. Unwelcome air filled the room. Red hair flew away from her face like childish ribbons. She didn’t look back.
I stood for ten minutes without closing the door. I couldn’t; it was too absolute.
When I finally did it took all night for the flat to get warm again. Later, I turned all the lights off. I couldn’t bear to look at the coffee table full of Fern’s magazines, at Angelina Jolie’s smiling face.
I turned on the TV – for company if nothing else.
On screen a man interviewed a woman in a cagoule, near a busy road. ‘I was driving along the A63 and I thought, where’s all this water going to go?’ she said, wiping her eyes. Sunny skies contrasted with the subject, and I wondered why she wore a raincoat. ‘I couldn’t see through the wipers and thought the car would be swept into the river,’ she continued. ‘I hadn’t even seen my house yet.’
The shot melted into another. Flies buzzed in swarms over armchairs and children’s toys and rugs, the sky travel-brochure blue. ‘It was the wettest summer on record,’ said the voice-over. ‘For many it was the most devastating, with a month’s worth of rain in twenty-four hours and the largest civil emergency in the UK since World War II. Three thousand tons of rubbish was disposed of at this tip, all of it once furniture in homes across the region.’
The camera zoomed in on a child’s doll with one eye missing. A woman’s voice narrated. ‘I come and look at this place. People wonder why, but I’m drawn here. It’s a graveyard for all our memories.’ ‘Did you lose much?’ the interviewer asked. ‘Carpets and toys can be replaced, walls rebuilt,’ she said. ‘I lost my faith that day. What’s the point in praying?’
I hurt so much.
It’s not love unless it hurts.
I looked around, thinking Fern had returned, but after studying the kitchen counter where she often perched with marmite and toast, and searching the shadows for red hair, I realised she hadn’t. So who had spoken?
It’s not love unless it hurts.
Standing, I sent Fern’s beauty magazines to the floor. Had the words come from the TV presenter? He was saying now that the biggest flood problems were the sewage and the rats that it attracted. I focused on his mouth. The words I’d heard weren’t his; they were somehow inside my head.
No, they rose from the plughole. From the floor.
I didn’t want to hear them.
It’s not love un—
The telephone rescued me. I grabbed it from under the coffee table. ‘Fern?’
‘No, Christopher.’
‘Oh.’ I tried to adjust to the fact that it wasn’t her.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
Would he stay on the phone if I said I was hearing voices? Could he help me understand why the word ‘tiger’ had my hands ablaze?
I said I was fine and that I’d just been asleep.
‘It’s seven-thirty,’ he said.
‘I’m tired.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment, and I wondered if he was assessing my background noise as I often did.
‘Sorry to disturb you on a Saturday night,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you can cover a shift tomorrow. I know it’s short notice and cheeky as it’ll only be your third time, but we really need someone.’
They needed me. I smiled. Wanted him to say it again: We need you.
‘I understand if you’ve plans,’ he said.
I considered my plans; Sunday lunch with Sharleen and the gang, coming home to no Fern, and later a night shift at the care home. It was easy to say that I’d do it.
‘Thanks. You’ve saved us from cancelling the shift. It’s one until seven, OK?’
I could still do my night shift and get out of going to my mother’s – always a bonus. I had saved them. Really, it felt like they had saved me.
‘See you tomorrow then.’
‘Christopher?’
‘Yes?’
I wasn’t sure what I intended to say. I only knew that talking to someone on the phone meant I wasn’t alone. I was a crisis-line caller, the phone my lifeline. But there were no card prompts for a caller and I floundered.
‘Thanks for asking me,’ I eventually said.
‘Thanks for saying yes,’ Christopher said.
‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow.’
After replacing the handset, I thought of a course leader at Crisis Care – Marg. She taught the Attachment & Dependency Core. Frizzy-haired and bespectacled, she’d loved discussion. A trainee volunteer had asked once why it was so wrong to get attached to callers. She’d explained that doing so would mean we took on responsibility for their wellbeing. Only the caller was responsible for that. Not us. So detachment protected not only them but us too.
I’d wanted to ask how she
did it. I asked how we should turn off our emotions and remain objective, but some guy with a bolt through his nose asked about sexual harassment, and we moved onto that. Now I knew that disconnection only occurred with time. After hearing call after call, story after story, until there was no longer any room in your head for intimacy. But apathy also meant the end, Marg warned. What good would it do not to care at all?
When I lay down on the sofa it occurred to me that I had to connect so I could then disconnect. Answering helpline calls satisfied some urgent need in me. Never yet had a caller given an answer that meant I could stop. I wasn’t even sure what the question was. What was I searching for?
It’s not love unless it hurts.
Was that the answer?
16
Allergic to lemon meringue
Blazing eczema woke me in the middle of the night. I had only been asleep for half an hour. There is no lonelier time than four am. I read once that during bouts of insomnia Marilyn Monroe said she didn’t know where the darkness ended and she began. And then she’d died. It had been so long since anyone I’d loved had died. The thought of losing Aunty Hairy to bowel cancer brought on the nausea I’d experienced after Nanny Eve’s huge Catholic funeral, and the confusion when I’d not been allowed to attend Dad’s.
I got up.
It was too early to start with today and too late to change yesterday. Fern’s bedroom door was closed. Had I done that? Unable to open it and see that she wasn’t there, I went to the bathroom and coated my fingers in thick lotion. It never worked. Not sure why I bothered. Aunty Hairy had been the first to take me to the doctor to see if they could cure my poor skin.
The memory came to me, sharp and exquisite. Though painful, the past that morning was more welcome than the present. I could escape there with my lovely Aunty Hairy and ignore that here – now – I was alone. I closed my eyes and let the memory in.
The two of us in a crowded doctor’s surgery. Me nervous about what might be wrong with my body, my skin. Aunty Hairy reading an article about how apples slow down ageing and saying the doctor would soon have my skin lovely and peachy again. I was fourteen and Aunty Hairy had insisted they would finally discover what was making me itch so violently.