by Camilla Way
Beyond my window the light begins to change as the afternoon wears on, an ice-cream van’s chimes jangle in the warm, close air, the school-run traffic picks up, slowly, rain begins to fall. But I’m only dimly aware of these things. Despite my best intentions I am entirely back there at the Wrexham quarry, the night before I left for good, memories slamming into me one after another: the confusion and panic, the awful, terrifying screams as everything spiralled out of control. Here in my flat the last seventeen years vanish, meaningless and unreal compared to the tangible, unforgettable horror of that night.
What does Heather want from me now? What could she possibly want from me now?
Heather seems to haunt me in the days and weeks that follow. I imagine I smell her sour, oniony scent wherever I go, I keep glimpsing her from the corner of my eye, or hear her voice amongst others in the street, causing me to turn sharply, seeking her out with a pounding heart, only to find that she isn’t there at all.
When my Uncle Geoff phones one day out of the blue, I’m relieved almost to the point of tears when he tells me he’s coming round, so grateful am I for the distraction. He sits here now, filling my tiny kitchen with his comforting smell of cologne and cigar smoke, his broad Manchester accent familiar and soothing. I feel his eyes on me, watching me fondly as I make him tea, and for the first time since Heather turned up again, I begin to relax.
‘You all right then, Edie love?’ he says.
‘Yeah, you know. Not bad.’
‘Not long till the little one arrives.’
‘No, not long now.’
He takes the tea I offer him and says, ‘Be the making of you, I reckon. You’ll be a great mum, you’ll see.’
I smile back at him, touched. ‘Thanks, Uncle Geoff.’
‘Everything going well with that fella of yours, is it?’
I nod, and we drop each other’s gaze. He knows as well as I do there’s no fella on the scene, but he’s too tactful to say. I’ve always loved that about him, his unquestioning, steady support. I think about how he’d taken me in when I first arrived on his doorstep at seventeen, how kind he’d been to me, and the memory calms me and gives me strength.
When he leaves again a few hours later, I watch him from my window setting off down the street, and my heart tightens with love for him. He’s nearly sixty now and I’d only ever known him as a bachelor, though Mum had told me he’d been married once, years before, to a woman who’d run off and broken his heart. He never speaks about her, but you can somehow see the memory of her there still, in his eyes and his smile, the way they do remain a part of us, those people who have hurt us very deeply, or who we have hurt, never letting us go, not entirely.
Before
In the square, Edie shivers and stands up, squashing with her foot the cigarette she’d been smoking. ‘Where’re you off to?’ she asks, and when I tell her I’m heading home she smiles and says, ‘I’ll walk with you.’ And just like that it’s as though the man, whoever he was and whatever went on between them, is forgotten.
‘Great,’ I say, ‘fantastic!’
She bends to pick up her bag, and as she does her skirt rides up to show her knickers. I quickly look away. ‘GCSE results will be in pretty soon,’ I say hurriedly, as we begin to walk. Her bare arm brushes mine, the fine hairs on both mingling briefly together.
‘Yeah? How do you think you did?’
I shrug. ‘OK, I guess. I was predicted ten As, so …’
She turns to me, wide-eyed. ‘Ten As? Ten As?’ She whistles. ‘Wow, brainbox, huh?’
I glance at her, trying to work out if she’s saying this in the same way Sheridan Alsop would, as though there’s something mystifyingly pathetic about me doing well at school, but then I see her admiring smile and my tummy dips with happiness.
‘God, I wish I was clever,’ she says a few moments later. ‘I did my GCSEs last year. Total disaster! Got to retake some of them while I do my A-levels.’ I notice again how nice her voice is. Loud and clear and confident, her words spilling out quickly in her Manchester accent. She’s delving into her bag and eventually pulls out another cigarette. She lights it, and offers one to me. ‘No?’ she says, when I shake my head. ‘Very wise. Wish I’d never started.’ She laughs, a lovely, warm throaty sound, and says, ‘See? Not very bright, am I?’ She walks as though she’s on springs, her long legs striding, her chin held high. I trudge next to her, feeling too hot, my thighs rubbing together.
Hesitantly I say, ‘I could … I mean, I could help you, if you want. With your GCSEs – your coursework and stuff.’
She looks at me in surprise. ‘For real? That would be amazing!’ She bumps her shoulder against mine. ‘Seriously, that’s really nice of you.’
I bite my lip, trying to contain the smile that’s threatening to split my face in two.
We walk in silence for a while but as we leave the square she tells me why she moved to Fremton. ‘It’s my nan’s old place, but she died last year. My mum had a car accident and she can’t work any more, so we moved down here to save on rent while she gets better.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry about your mum,’ I say.
‘Don’t be,’ she replies breezily. ‘She’ll be fine. She doesn’t care about me anyway, and neither does my dad – not that I’ve seen him for years.’
I’m shocked by her words, how casually she says them – I could never imagine speaking about my own parents like that.
‘You’re easy to talk to, you know,’ she says suddenly.
‘Am I?’
‘Yeah. Haven’t you noticed how most people when you’re talking to them are just waiting till it’s their turn to speak? You actually listen. It’s nice.’ Her face darkens and she adds, ‘Not that I’ve had anyone to talk to since Mum dragged me away from all my friends – and she certainly doesn’t give a shit, that’s for sure.’
I don’t know what to say to this, and we walk in silence until we turn the corner into Heartfields, where I live, and she brightens again. ‘How about you, anyway? You lived here long?’
So I tell her about our old village in Wales, and how we moved down here, and though I don’t mention Lydia or the way my parents barely speak to each other any more, I somehow find enough to say that we’re almost at my house before I realize I haven’t stopped talking once. ‘Sorry,’ I say, putting my hand to my mouth. ‘I’m going on and on, aren’t I?’
She shrugs. ‘So?’
‘Mum says you should only speak if you can improve upon the silence.’
‘Yeah?’ she raises her eyebrows, ‘Your mum sounds like a right laugh.’
‘No,’ I say, surprised. ‘No, she’s really not.’
She smiles at that, but I’m not sure why.
‘Come on,’ she puts her arm through mine, ‘this your street, is it?’
I hadn’t expected Edie to actually want to come home with me, but she follows me up our front path and waits expectantly as I dig around for my keys. ‘Wow,’ she says. ‘Nice house.’ And as I look at her I see Edie through my mother’s eyes: the make-up and short skirt, the cigarette that she’s only now dropping to the ground. Sure enough, as soon as I open the door, Mum appears, stopping in her tracks in the hallway as she looks past me to Edie.
‘Mum,’ I say nervously, ‘this is—’ but Edie walks in front of me, giving Mum a big smile. ‘Hiya, I’m Edie. I’m going to be starting at Heather’s school. Wow,’ she adds, gazing around herself, ‘look at all those clocks, bet you’re never late, are you?’
‘Um, no,’ my mother replies faintly as I grab hold of Edie’s arm.
‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s go to my room,’ and together we run up the stairs, laughter bubbling in my chest, leaving my mum standing by herself in the hall, staring after us.
When I close my bedroom door I look at Edie standing by my bed and feel suddenly shy. ‘I love your skirt,’ I tell her at last. ‘And your hair.’ I look down at my own clothes bought for me by Mum. ‘I wish I looked like you.’
‘Don’t
be daft,’ she says, wandering over to my dressing table and picking up a tube of spot cream. ‘You should see me without my make-up.’
‘I don’t wear any,’ I admit. ‘I don’t know how to do it.’
‘I can show you if you want.’ She rummages in her bag and pulls out some mascara and lipstick. ‘This is all I’ve got though. How about you?’
I hesitate, not sure whether to show her at first, but then I figure of all the things I could share with her, all the secrets I could reveal about myself, this one’s probably not the worst. I go and lift a shoebox down from the top of my wardrobe and pull off the lid. We both stare down at its contents: a mass of unopened lipsticks, mascaras, foundations and eye shadows. I have everything, in every shade.
Edie whistles. ‘Wow. Where’d you get the money for all that?’
‘I suppose I … well, actually … I stole them.’ Even as I say the words the feeling I get when I do it comes back to me; the awful, almost sickening fear of how terrible the consequences would be if I were caught somehow only making it more addictive. I never wear any of it though – it’s like I have no desire for it once I’ve slipped it up my sleeve in Boots.
She’s still staring at me open-mouthed. ‘What, shoplifted?’ She says it so loudly and sounds so scandalized that I glance at my closed door in alarm.
‘Shussh!’ I hiss urgently. Our eyes meet and though I have no idea why, we both burst out laughing. And pretty soon we can’t seem to stop. The laughter gathers and swells until neither of us can speak, and finally I have to sit on the bed and hold my stomach, barely able to breathe. I have never laughed like this with anyone before. I don’t even know exactly what’s so funny. Edie flops down next to me and I look at her and I think, I love you.
‘Come on,’ she says, and taking my hand pulls me up off the bed and sits me in front of my dressing-table mirror. She starts with my hair, picking up my brush and running it gently through my thick yellow frizz. I close my eyes. The touch of her hands on me, the slow, patient stroke of the brush, it’s all so wonderful, so lovely. I can smell the cigarette smoke on her fingers, a scent of apples when she moves. A hush falls, there’s only the ticking of the clocks beyond my closed door and the sound of the bristles against my scalp.
And then, into the silence, she says, ‘Did you see that lad I was talking to, in the square?’
I open my eyes. The brush stops. When I look up at her reflection I find her watching me, waiting for a response. ‘Yes,’ I admit.
‘Had you ever seen him before?’
I shake my head.
‘Me neither. He said his name was Connor.’ And by the way she says it, I somehow know that she has longed to say the name out loud, loves the shape and sound of it on her tongue.
There’s a silence. ‘He seemed to like you,’ I offer at last, understanding that it’s what she wants, and instantly her face lights up.
‘You think?’ A strange half-smile plays around her lips as she turns back to her reflection in the mirror, and I can tell that she’s no longer here with me, that it’s him in the room with her now, not me.
Even before we reach the top of the hill we hear it: the screams and music and the dull roar of generators, loudspeaker voices and a klaxon’s wail. And then, there we are, Edie and I, looking down at it all spread out below us, the coloured lights and the big wheel and the people and the caravans and the stalls. A magical, other world transported into the middle of Braxton fields.
Edie nudges me in the ribs and I look down to see a bottle of vodka in her hand. I shake my head but when she grins and thrusts it at me again, something makes me hesitate. Real life recedes and in its place I see spread out below me in the lights and music and laughter a million shimmering possibilities. On impulse I take the bottle from her and swig it back, the liquid choking and burning my throat, making me splutter while Edie laughs. ‘Come on,’ she says, grabbing my hand, and we run down the hill together, to where the fair waits for us, the vodka trailing excitement through me like a firework.
I can’t believe I’m here, that my parents have let me come. I’d walked in on one of their arguments earlier, too excited by Edie’s phone call to notice the sound of voices hissing from beneath the closed kitchen door like a gas leak. I think Dad had let me go to make Mum cross. ‘For pity’s sake, Jennifer, she’s sixteen,’ he’d said, and I ran to get my coat, not daring to catch Mum’s eye, my head already full of Edie and of what we’d do tonight.
And now here we are in the midst of it all: little kids with fluorescent rings around their necks, candy floss and giant cuddly toys and goldfish in bags, groups of lads with cans of beer and girls shrieking on the Hearts and Diamonds. A loudspeaker booms a thudding bass as we stand by a ride called Moon Rocket that sends a cage of screaming people soaring into the air. It’s amazing, the colours and noise and lights, but when I turn to Edie I suddenly realize that she’s scanning the crowds as if searching for something. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask her.
She shrugs. ‘Yeah, sure. What shall we go on? Have you got any money?’ Excitedly I pull out the handful of notes I’d grabbed from my savings box before coming tonight and her eyes widen. ‘Christ, Heather,’ she laughs. ‘You been robbing banks now too?’
We go on everything, running from ride to ride. I don’t mind paying for everything at all. I drink more vodka and I laugh and scream as if, were I to stop for a moment, the night might end, the fair and all its possibilities might vanish. But when I notice again Edie’s distracted expression I understand with a stab of disappointment that it’s him she’s looking for, the lad from the square – it’s him who she came for tonight. And soon I’m searching him out too, in the gaps between the rides where the fair’s bright lights don’t quite reach, faces lingering in the shadows, mouths sucking on cigarettes and sipping from cans. Strangers’ eyes flickering back at us, but he’s not there.
The last ride we go on is the waltzers and we spin round and round, the speed and the motion causing Edie to slide along the plastic seat towards me. I feel her softness and her hard angles as she lands against me, catch the scent of her hair. We’re dizzy when we get off, giddy and disorientated and laughing, but I look up and there he is. Standing with some other lads a few metres away, down by the side of the dodgems, huddled over something that they’re passing between them. It’s him. He’s half-turned away from us but it’s definitely Connor, and suddenly he looks up, his face flashing red, yellow, purple, green, his eyes scanning the crowds before landing on Edie, dark and steady as the barrels of a gun.
I try to steer her away but I’m too late. Her eyes are locked on his and it’s as if he’s a magician, a hypnotist, the way she goes to him, as though sleepwalking, as though the rest of the world and all its light and music has vanished. I trail after her and just before she reaches him I pull on her arm. ‘What?’ she asks, without looking away from him, without dropping his eyes, even for a second.
‘It’s late. I better go home.’
‘OK,’ she says, already moving off again. ‘I’ll see you later, yeah?’
‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘No.’ She shrugs off my hand and I feel a sharp slap of rejection. ‘Go home,’ she says. ‘I’m staying here.’ And she moves away, to where he’s waiting for her. For a moment I watch her go before I turn back through the crowds alone.
After
The floorboards are bare except for a large, colourful rug, the shelves full of paperback books. Somewhere, down the hall, a crackling record plays a song by a man with a scratchy, rasping voice. I sit on the sofa alone, twisting my fingers together, wishing I hadn’t come. Above my head, occasional thumps and dragging sounds are interrupted by intermittent swearing: the man who had opened the door to me three minutes ago had clearly forgotten I was coming. ‘Won’t be long,’ he shouts, and I go to the bay window to look out at the street.
This part of New Cross is different from mine. The neat terraced houses have freshly painted front doors in muted shades of green or bl
ue or grey; little olive trees stand neatly outside them in terracotta pots. Down the road a pub that had once been dilapidated for years has tables and hanging baskets out front, where couples drink beer in the sunshine, their babies asleep in expensive buggies. I turn back to the room and look around me, taking in the books, the prints on the walls, the stylish furniture and rugs – the sort of place I’d once imagined myself living, in fact. And I think about that old me as if of a stranger, so certain I’d been that the world would be mine for the taking one day.
At that moment a boy of about five walks into the room. He’s mixed race and very lovely looking with a cloud of light brown Afro hair and deep blue eyes. He’s gazing at me very seriously, as if unsure whether I’m real or not. ‘Hi there,’ I say after a silence, just as the man returns, carrying with effort a cot.
‘Here you go,’ he says, smiling. ‘Sorry about that.’ He puts his hand on the boy’s head and they watch me scrabble about in my bag for my purse.
‘Thirty, was it?’ I ask.
He nods and takes the money I hand him. ‘Cheers. You want me to dismantle it to put in your car, or do you have a van or something?’ It’s only then that I realize – and the stupidity of it leaves me gaping at him with embarrassment – I had entirely forgotten to think about how I’d get it home.
The child and his father look back at me expectantly. Down the hall, the record comes to an end. ‘I don’t have a car,’ I admit.
He looks at me in surprise, his gaze dropping to my seven-month bump. ‘Were you going to carry it home on your back?’
And so, several minutes later, despite my many protestations, I find myself sat between the boy, whose name I learn is Stan, and the man who tells me he’s called James, in the front seat of a battered pickup truck, being driven home with the cot sliding and rattling behind us. I’m overcome with embarrassment.