by Fiona Gibson
‘Yes, I think so.’
He reached across the table to hold my hand, knocking over a small vase of wilting cornflowers. ‘She was sick,’ Charlie said.
‘Someone should have helped her.’
‘Like who?’
‘Dad. Us. We could have done something.’
‘He was so wrapped up in himself, trying to be famous again.’
‘But we—’
‘We were just kids, Stella. It wasn’t our fault.’
I tugged my hand away and started to pull on my jacket. ‘That’s not the way it happened,’ I insisted.
‘You don’t know.’
But I did know. She’d been running, and kept on running, down Mrs Bones’s road to the point where it joins the wider main street, not stopping at the curb, not reciting the Green Cross Code, as she’d often told us to do when we were little: Look right, look left, look right again. When all’s clear, quick march.
The part of her brain that should have screamed, ‘Stop!’ didn’t work that day. The car hit her. It wasn’t traveling fast but still sent her flying right over its roof like a doll. I knew that one of her sling-backs was found in a child’s sandpit in someone’s garden. Elona had taken a different route home so I wouldn’t see where it had happened.
It had been an accident, just as I’d been told all those years. She hadn’t made it happen.
I stared down at Charlie, who was picking fragments of wax that had spilled over the edges of the glass candle holder. The bag that rested at his feet contained a small plastic box with a perforated lid in which he’d placed the porcelain crab with strands of damp seaweed and sand. Crabs were lucky, I decided. They kept shedding their shells, but a new one would always grow again, to protect the tender insides.
‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie said.
‘I never listened at doors like you did.’
He stood up, wiping my face with his sweater sleeve. ‘You were a good girl,’ he said.
Jojo sits with her fingers laced together on her lap in the staff room. The man who grabbed her, who stopped her being hit by the car, was Mr Chambers, Willow’s dad. He was running late at work, and delayed even further by the road works that have churned up Main Street and turned our town center into an eyesore. He’d parked as close as he could to school and run toward it, desperate not to miss Willow’s performance. She was hurtling into the road—the girl in lilac—and he’d grabbed her dress and flung his arms around her.
He hadn’t stopped to consider that you don’t grab children. ‘When you think,’ Jen says, ‘what could have happened.’ Mr Chambers waves away the mug of tea she offers him. He has a well-worn face and windblown sandy hair. The skin around his eyes looks paper-thin. ‘Terrible shame about your flute,’ he tells Jojo.
‘It’s Stella’s,’ she whispers, sucking a mouse tail of hair. She dropped it when he grabbed her. It was run over—destroyed—by the car that could have hit her. As soon as he knew Jojo was safe, and not likely to do anything stupid, Mr Chambers stopped an oncoming van and retrieved the crushed flute from the road.
‘Is it really yours?’ Jen asks, perching on the arm of my chair. ‘Yes.’
‘God, Stella—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ It’s all I can say.
‘Of course it matters!’
‘It’s just a cheap one,’ I insist, because I want Jen and Mr Chambers to stop gazing mournfully at it, as if they could possibly understand.
‘When you think what could have happened,’ Jen says, touching Jojo’s arm.
‘I’m okay,’ Jojo mutters.
‘We know who shouted,’ Jen adds. ‘I’ll be contacting his parents. Picked on Jojo before, hasn’t he, Stella? He’s a difficult child, a real problem.’
Mr Chambers pats Jojo’s shoulder and follows Jen into the main hall. The concert is nearly over. Stephen and the other teachers have kept it running to schedule. The only small mishap was one of the Mad Dogs breaking a guitar string, and no one seemed to notice. There are cheers as Dylan bursts out of his escapologist’s box.
‘Wonderful performers…’ Jen is saying, ‘huge effort…your fantastic support…very proud of our talented children.’
My special flute sits on the low table in the staff room that is usually littered with unfinished crosswords and coffee cups marred with brown drips. The solid silver headjoint is unharmed. I could pass it around a beginners’ class, encouraging them to blow across the mouthpiece. It’s the best way to begin, with none of the keys that look impossibly complicated when you’re starting out.
It doesn’t look complicated now. The middle section has been flattened, its keys pressed into the barrel. I wonder if Mr Grieves at the music shop knows anyone with surgical instruments and delicate fingers, with which he performs complex operations on flutes.
‘I’ll buy you a new one,’ Jojo murmurs. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘He called me Piggy,’ she adds, dabbing her nose with a scrap of moist tissue.
‘Shhh, forget what he said.’
Car doors are slamming, children being called to heel. They mustn’t run off like that in the dark. Look how busy it is, with all this traffic.
I pick up the flute and try to separate its parts, but the end section won’t come away from the main body. ‘Where’s its case?’ Jojo asks.
‘Still in the after-school room.’
‘Shall I get it for you?’
‘No, don’t bother. Go find your sister, bring her here. I’ll drive you home.’
She stands up and smoothes the front of her dress. ‘Here,’ I say, digging into my pocket and fishing out her bag of sweets.
She takes the bag, pops an eyeball into her mouth, and stares down at the crushed silver. ‘At least you’ve got another one,’ she says.
Diane flings open her front door and says, ‘You’re all back at last. I was starting to worry.’
I try to find the right words.
‘Where have you been?’ she asks as the girls push past her into the house.
‘The concert,’ I say, ‘was tonight.’
‘Oh. I think I saw a bit of paper about it in Jojo’s bag. Want to come in?’
‘No, it’s getting late.’
‘Something wrong, Stella?’
She really doesn’t know. ‘Why didn’t you come?’ I ask. Her mouth shifts uncomfortably. Her eye makeup is heavier than usual. Too much black liner, which makes her eyes look like tiny pieces of gravel. ‘Had my hair done after work,’ she explains. ‘Model night—only cost me a tenner. Normally the color alone would be thirty. Sure you don’t want to come in?’
I stare at her freshly dyed hair that looks inky-blue in the streetlight. She has remodeled her makeup, tried to make her face fit. ‘No thanks,’ I say.
She really doesn’t get it. The months of practicing, the fretting over what to wear; the bubbling excitement and fear, which evaporated instantly as Jojo drew breath to play that first note. None of it means a thing.
I’m still holding my special flute, which I wrapped like an injured thing in a sweater I found in the car. I didn’t bother collecting its case from the after-school room. Diane peers down at it quizzically, then pats her unyielding hair. ‘You might as well say it,’ she says finally.
‘What?’
‘You don’t like it. I knew I should’ve gone blond.’
‘That might have been better,’ I manage to say, though she could have opted for bubblegum pink for all it matters. In fact, she could be someone else entirely: a middle-aged washed-up TV chef, barely glancing over the newspaper as his daughter comes home from her end-of-year recital. Worse than not caring—not even noticing.
And for that moment, I hate her.
Robert has left a message: ‘Wondered if you’d like to meet up? We could take the kids to the beach, have a picnic. I’d like a chat, Stella.’
Jen has called to say that a flute, plus an empty case, were left in the after-school club. ‘Not sure if they’re yours or Jojo’s,’ she adds, ‘
but I’ve brought them home for safekeeping until Monday. I hope Jojo’s feeling better.’
Without unwrapping it, I place the jumper parcel on top of the bookshelf. I can still see her, deathly pale in the oval spotlight, her hands fallen to her lap. She hadn’t wanted to play, when Diane failed to show up. Why hadn’t I left it at that? She could have had a future in music. Now, I doubt if she’ll ever play in public again.
I climb the stairs and slide into bed, watching the darkening shadows creep into my room. Much later I dream of eating lemon sorbet with a crushed silver spoon, and can still taste it, sharply sweet, when I’m woken by bleating gulls.
25
Frankie’s Flowers
‘One of nature’s clever tricks,’ Dad says, ‘is to ensure that most plants look right together. What we’re looking at here is the overall blend of colors—the wider picture.’
The camera closes in on a rogue crop of poppies. ‘I didn’t plant these,’ he continues, wafting large hands over the blooms as he strolls along the cobbled path toward the camera. ‘They appeared in just the right place.’ His voice is gentle; it’s not his long-division voice. He’s wearing rumpled brown cords and a rust-colored polo-necked sweater. Surf keeps lolloping into shot, a grubby gray blur.
‘I didn’t like him at Christmas,’ Midge announces from her seat at the table. ‘He looks nicer on telly. How does that happen?’
‘What, Midge?’
‘How does being on telly make someone different?’ Scarlet petals, laden with bees, crowd the screen. ‘I think he’s happy,’ I tell her.
I unwrap the flute and place it on the shop’s glass-topped counter. Mr Grieves bends to examine it. ‘What happened?’ he asks.
‘It had an accident.’
He touches the worst part, the flattened part, where the keys have been squashed into the barrel. The backs of his hands are patterned with raised blue veins, like dribbles of wax. ‘I’m very sorry to see this,’ he says.
I wish I hadn’t brought it in. I want to snatch it from the counter, bundle it back in its sweater and leave. Mr Grieves runs an index finger along the silver. Gleaming, undamaged flutes are displayed on plush velvet in the locked case on the wall. Mr Grieves is offering thirty-percent discounts, easy payment plans. The shop is struggling.
‘As you know,’ Mr Grieves says, ‘springs can be replaced, as can keys. Flutes can be completely overhauled.’ He talks slowly, like treacle pouring. ‘I have serviced this instrument several times,’ he adds.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘If it were just a dent, or even a bend in the body…’
A bend in the body, like a person damaged in a road accident; serious, but fixable. A narrow escape.
Mr Grieves gathers up the corners of the sweater and carefully folds them over the flute. ‘I’m sorry,’ is all he can say.
I pass the hardware place with its gaudy display of silk anemones in the window. That’s what happens to shops in Bay Street. There’s not enough passing trade, so they try to diversify. Feathers ’n’ Fur has a display of dusty-looking porcelain fairies, their skinny limbs protruding from gauzy skirts. ‘I want one,’ a little girl bleats, rapping the glass until her tight-lipped mother hauls her down the street like a pull-along toy. I follow them as far as the steps to the beach, where I arranged to meet Robert.
And I wait, on the seafront’s concrete edge, with the jumper parcel nestling in my lap, like a damaged pet. He’s ten minutes late. This doesn’t count as properly late. Ten minutes can be lost while you peer behind radiators, searching for a toddler’s lost monkey, or gaze at antique yogurts in the fridge, trying to assemble the promised picnic.
I flip through a celebrity magazine that someone left on a bench. It’s filled with Hollywood stars and less glamorous British soap actresses: pages of faces bleached by camera flash. Rings have been drawn around dimpled thighs and peculiar knees, showing that the rich and famous are just as flawed as ordinary people.
‘Dad!’ a small boy yells on the beach. ‘Want a go on the grabber machine.’
‘Shut up,’ the dad snaps from behind his newspaper. It’s warm enough now to lounge on the sand. Most of the green-and-white striped deck chairs are occupied by parents half watching their children.
‘I want a prize,’ the boy whines.
The man throws down his paper, weights it with pebbles and says, ‘For God’s sake, come on then.’
The kid pelts up the steps toward the machine. His dad delves into his trouser pockets for change and lets the boy post in a coin. The silver claw moves forward, then down, and I’m expecting it to come up empty but it’s gripping the tiger, which drops into a chute and the boy’s quivering hands. The dad glances at me and says, ‘Haven’t been stood up, have you? Lovely girl like you?’
‘No,’ I say, trying to appear as if I’m just sitting, not waiting.
‘I’ve seen you swimming—in winter sometimes. You’re either brave, or barking mad.’
He grins, showing a gold front tooth. The boy is chatting intently to the tiger. ‘We could swim together sometime,’ the man adds.
‘Thanks, but I usually swim by myself.’
He frowns and says, ‘I’m sure I know you. You from around here?’
‘I grew up here, yes.’
‘Which schools?’
‘Jackson Street Primary, Lorimer High.’
‘That’s it. Lorimer. Stella, right? Flute player, TV chef dad. That old guy who was sacked from Friday Zoo, got into some kind of fight with one of the—’
I turn away from the man to see Robert hurrying along the seafront, his too-big T-shirt flapping in the breeze. ‘Boyfriend?’ the man asks as Robert waves to me.
I fix on my broadest smile and say, ‘Yes.’
Robert hasn’t brought the children. ‘Verity’s taken them to Aquasplash,’ he explains, which I translate as: she didn’t want them to spend the afternoon with you.
‘Where’s the picnic?’ I tease him.
‘I thought we could pick something up.’
‘I’m not hungry yet. Let’s just walk.’
We jump down to the sand and pass the deck chairs where the tiger boy’s dad is pretending to snooze. I don’t recognize him from school. Occasionally people say, ‘Don’t I know you?’ They might vaguely remember the sole episode of Frankie’s Girl, or one of my performances in a school concert. Sometimes I pretend it wasn’t me, that Stella Moon isn’t someone I’ve heard of.
We climb over rocks that are smothered with jagged limpets. At the farthest cove, the sand is creamy-white, as soft as a child’s hair. I tell Robert about the concert, and my run-over flute. I unwrap it and watch him handling it. It looks like a car engine’s part, or something to do with plumbing. ‘That’s terrible,’ he says. ‘Will she pay for a new one?’
As if that would fix everything. ‘Of course not. She’s just a kid.’
‘Her parents should pay. How much did it cost?’
‘It was a present, I have no idea.’
‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ Robert says.
My sandals are digging into my heels so I pull them off. My pale, skinny legs are stretched out in front of me. Diane was angry when I shunned her offer of thirty pounds, which she pushed through my letterbox in a grease-stained envelope. ‘I pay my way,’ she protested when I handed it back. She’d darkened her eyebrows with black pencil so they’d match the new hairdo. They looked like pieces of licorice.
‘You can use my flute,’ Robert says.
‘It’s okay, I have another one.’
‘I’m thinking of selling it,’ he adds, grinding a finger into the sand. ‘I don’t really play anymore. Stella… Verity’s come back. I’m not sure what’ll happen with us, but I—’
‘I know she has,’ I say. ‘I saw her car, and I assumed—’
‘We’re trying to work things out.’
A girl and a boy have waded out of the sea. The jewel in the girl’s bellybutton glints in the sun. The boy wraps a towel around her hair, ru
bs vigorously, and when he takes it away her hair’s frizzy and mad-looking, which makes him laugh.
‘I’m pleased for you,’ I say.
Robert says, ‘I think I am, too.’
We clamber back over the rocks in search of food. There’s a new French restaurant, Le Grenouille, on the seafront. We peer through half-drawn ivy-patterned curtains. A waitress is hunched over a table, ladling soup into her mouth.
‘We could try that other new place,’ Robert suggests. ‘Orange something, where the old launderette was. Ever been there?’
‘No,’ I lie.
‘It looks okay. Can’t help thinking, though, another café’s the last thing we need around here.’
‘Let’s just go to the Beachcombers.’
‘Come on, Stella,’ he says, tugging my hand, ‘let’s try somewhere new.’
The Orange Tree smells of paint and hard graft. An agitated girl with her hair secured in plaits is wiping tables and asking customers who keep trying to attract her attention to place their orders at the counter.
Ed is manning the till and fetching orders from the back room where Lil, the launderette lady, used to smoke and watch black-and-white movies but which is now, of course, a kitchen. The only free table is next to the counter. Ed’s too busy to see me. Robert picks up the tangerine-colored menu and says, ‘They only do sandwiches, cakes, snacky stuff.’
‘That’s okay.’ If I hadn’t seen Ed and his girl, I’d feel comfortable in here. The image of them, with their arms around each other, beams into my brain.
Ed is explaining, ‘No, it’s not vegetarian cheese. It’s organic, yes—everything is—but not vegetarian.’
‘And don’t you have a high chair?’ the customer asks. ‘We’ll be getting some. We’ve only been open a week.’ His voice is steady, ever patient. His anyone-can-dive voice.
‘You should have baby-changing facilities,’ the woman barks on, ‘I’m sure it’s the law, and somewhere for breast-feeding.’
‘You can breast-feed in here if you like,’ Ed says, sounding weary now.
‘You need better facilities,’ she retorts. ‘Next time I’ll go to the Beachcombers.’