by Fiona Wood
The kitchen in their home now was more than adequate for all the cooking they did as a family, and Vân Ước smiled to think what her parents would make of a kitchen like the one in Billy’s house.
Her mother stood up. ‘I will wash my face and make some lunch.’
‘I’ll help.’
Her mother hesitated. ‘It wasn’t only me, but many of us in the friendship circle, who didn’t see our parents again after we left. It was like having to choose between our parents and our children.’ Vân Ước felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, as light as a little bird. ‘Even the ones we didn’t have yet.’
Her mother had never shared anything like this with her before. Never expressed such emotion. The understanding that she wasn’t alone in her sadness and disappointments must be soothing. The permission – encouragement – to open up and share after all these years must be like finding a new room in a house you thought you knew.
‘You know you can talk to me any time you want?’ She willed herself to mention the photo, but failed once again.
‘Enough talking.’ Her mother stood up. The conversation was over.
Vân Ước snipped some coriander from the pots on the kitchen windowsill, turned on the tap to fill the sink with cold water, and went to the fridge to get out some vegetables. It was Saturday: they’d either be making a use-the-leftover-vegetables soup, or omelette, before her father and Bảo returned from the market with fresh supplies.
chapter 38
Jess was right. Vân Ước had been so busy guessing what cogs were turning in Billy’s brain, she had not spent enough time sorting out how she felt herself.
A free writing scrutiny of Where My Heart’s Been At. By me. Year eleven.
1
It started with a distant infatuation. Billy Gardiner – have always thought of him like that: Billy Gardiner – like Jordan Catalano, Tim Riggins, Jonah Griggs, Ben Capaldi. Some boys, fictional and real-life, seem to warrant both names. It felt as unreal as any celebrity crush. Nothing would come of it.
2
Despite that conviction, the infatuation grew. Desire grew. Ultimate mew! And there he was right under my nose. Every day.
Complicating factor: Not admirable! White-boy beauty fetishising. Bad girl, Vân Ước.
3
Because of proximity, the infatuation included the real-life attraction I’ve always felt for Billy Gardiner whenever I’ve accidentally been within physical range, i.e. closer than half a metre. (He affects my ability to breathe evenly. Puzzlingly, this was never diminished by the fact that he has not always acted like the nicest person in the world.)
4
Though I’ve always found him to be a bit more nuanced and mysterious than he gets credit for being.
5
When he was following me around and I was convinced he was up to no good, I actively went off him. He was annoying. And he stuck like glue. I felt genuine irritation to see him looking down at me over the toilet wall.
6
So, now I am convinced he likes me. Therefore it follows that I should be – happy? Even if his affection turns out to be wish-induced?
7
Interesting side note: it certainly hasn’t delivered the one thing I thought would be a part of going out with Billy: peer approval.
8
But it has made me realise that the approval of people like Holly, Tiff, Ava, etc. is not something I value. And that I probably already had a level of approval from people I like, whose opinions I do value, e.g. Lou, Michael, Sibylla.
9
So, that brings me back to me and self-esteem issues. Many popular religions teach us that we are all equal. Of course we are! And, at the same time: what a lot of rubbish. We sit in a relative power/prestige pile that is our class system. Nationality. Gender. Age. Religion. Education. Income. They all get a grading. Sure, it’s not fixed. It’s a swivelling, dizzying, fluctuating gyroscope, depending on your perspective. But right here, in my time, in this neck of the woods, a white, educated, cashed-up dude is always going to be sitting up top. Me – I’m privileged too, but on a different plane. My education will give me choices my parents have never had. But some people will look down on me, and others will assume power over me because because because because because . . .
10
So I need to assert my belief in my equality in a way someone like Billy Gardiner will never have to do.
11
If I go out with him, I have to feel it’s on equal terms.
12
Not because I fancied some kudos by association as a side dish.
13
Not because of a wish.
14
So what do I feel? Heart, speak me some truth.
Infatuation, though that is transforming into something more like – affection. I real-life like Billy. And he has truly gone from being Billy Gardiner to being Billy. Physical attraction (to the max)(worse than before). Ego balm, yes, unavoidable – he does look like a god. Love. (?). Curiosity. Tick. Confusion. Tick. Tick.
What would Jane do?
Jane, what would you do?
Jane would be honest. Upfront. She’d look at the situation here and possibly say that she did not perceive a problem. She – who had to contend with the wedding-day revelation of the existence of her beloved Rochester’s insane wife, and resist a tempting offer to throw doubt to the winds and run off with said beloved, flouting all Victorian ideals of propriety and piety – might well think, pfffft, what is your problem, Vân Ước? Are you a woman or a wimp?
15
Impediments to my relationship with Billy:
The wish-wondering. Major problem. Am possibly living a massive lie.
I’m not allowed to date anyone.
His parents’ almost-certain disapproval of me.
His friends’ certain disapproval of me.
So.
Can’t change my parents’ rules.
Can’t change what people think.
Have to deal with the wish.
Select All. Delete.
What to do?
Jane had all the answers. Of course she did. When had she ever let Vân Ước down? It struck her like a proverbial bolt from the blue that within Jane Eyre’s framework of realism – of social commentary on class, on charity schools, on imperious rich relations, on gender equality and the restricted opportunity for women, on love and morality . . . there was also some mad magic.
She went to her desk and sat down. The more she flicked through the familiar pages, the more fragments of magic appeared everywhere. Jane believes the moon had spoken to her. Jane feels foreboding that the chestnut tree had been split asunder in a storm. Jane believes in presentiments, sympathies and signs. She has unsettling repeated dreams of a baby. But where was the passage she was looking for . . .?
It was one of her favourite parts of the book, because on first encounter she’d been so afraid (reading breathlessly, terrified) that St John Rivers, through sheer zealous, insistent power, would persuade Jane into a loveless marriage of duty as a missionary in a distant land where she’d contract cholera and die.
Aha – here it was. Jane hears her name called three times:
. . . it did not seem in the room – nor in the house – nor in the garden: it did not come out of the air – nor from under the earth – nor from overhead. I had heard it – where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being – a known, loved, well-remembered voice – that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe wildly, eerily, urgently.
It felt so real. Yet it couldn’t have been, surely? But Jane, sensible Jane, Jane who would sit down in a kitchen and prepare gooseberries for a pie, had believed the unbelievable.
‘Down superstition!’ I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black
yew at the gate. ‘This is not thy deception, nor thy witch-craft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did – no miracle – but her best.’
Nature roused, and doing her best. Huh. So the cosmos took care of things?
Vân Ước sighed. That did not feel like a digital-age solution.
chapter 39
There was something distinctive about the door buzzer: it never buzzed without them knowing in advance who was buzzing. It would be Bảo on Saturday. If it was Vân Ước or her parents without their key – rare – they would tap on the security grille and call out. If it was Jess or her mum they’d do the same. So when the buzzer buzzed at six pm on Saturday, the three of them froze.
‘Who is it?’ her mother asked – not into the buzzer intercom, just into the room.
Vân Ước leapt to her feet. What if . . . it couldn’t be Billy, could it? He would know the flat number from the class list. But surely he’d ring before buzzing.
She hurried across to the intercom. He must not be accidentally clicked through. She wasn’t ready to show herself to Billy quite this close-up and personal. Not yet.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey. Is this a bad time?’
‘Kinda.’
‘Can I come up for a few minutes?’
‘Wait there – I’ll come down.’
She neutralised her expression, took a deep breath and turned to face her parents.
‘It’s the tall friend of Eleanor’s. Billy. From school.’
‘What does he want?’ her father asked. He’d been in a comfortable nod over the newspaper before the buzz.
Her mother jumped up and started clearing things away. ‘He wants to come up here?’
Eleanor visited once a year; it was always an occasion for pride – generous hospitality, way too much food preparation and a little anxiety.
‘No! No – it’s for our English homework. He just wants me to go over one thing with him.’
‘Why not do it over the phone?’
‘You’re right.’ She rolled her eyes and nodded, hoping it looked convincing.
Both her parents were clearly thrown by this unscheduled intrusion.
She ducked into her bedroom and picked up her copy of Ariel. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’
They were not convinced.
‘It’s still light outside. We’ll be in the garden.’
‘Take your phone,’ her mother said.
She headed down in the lift, which had been renovated not so long ago, lined in fashionable patterned stainless-steel sheeting, but had by now been defaced and thoroughly scratched up and written on. Shame. She swiped her fringe across with one hand and straightened her back. She’d just eaten an apple, so her breath should be fine. Like Jane, she didn’t really have much in the way of finery – I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity . . . It was a jeans and T-shirt day, as usual. She smoothed down her T-shirt.
The lift picked up on eight, six and three, and finally, with a ping and a shudder, they hit the ground floor.
She stepped out last and walked through the heavy security door to Billy, leaning against the wall on the other side.
She smiled at the front desk guy, Ralph, on her way out. He was her favourite nightshift guy.
‘Your doorman looks like a bit of a Rottweiler,’ Billy said, as they walked into the mild evening.
‘He’s got to protect innocent tenants from people like you.’
‘He was extremely suspicious. I waved for him to let me in, but no-go.’
‘He probably thought you were a debt collector or a writ server.’
‘What are the people who live here like?’
‘Like me.’
‘And?’
‘Well, it’s low-income housing, so there are old poor people, young poor people, families of poor people. Take your pick.’
‘But is it, like, transitional, or do people stay?’
‘Both.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘My parents have been here for thirty years. They won’t leave.’
‘Will you ever invite me up?’
‘Maybe.’ Maybe not.
‘That must be some view from the twelfth floor.’
‘It is. So, why are you here?’
‘Where can we sit?’
Vân Ước led them to the empty playground. The site of her own play, as a child. The site of many boring hours babysitting kids from the flats. The site of stupid behaviour of the boys she knew from primary school. And now the site of side-by-side swings, with Billy. Oh, life.
He leaned way back, holding the swing chains and closing his eyes. ‘Man, that still feels like being a kid.’
She remembered – there’d been another big regatta on this afternoon, while she was busy at work, rolling rolls.
‘How’d you go today?’
‘We won. Too easy.’ He groaned and sat back up straight. ‘That’s a lie. I’m totally wrecked. And I split some blisters. My own fault; I should’ve toughened my skin up more.’ He held up a bandaged hand and she had to stop herself from picking it up and kissing it better.
‘You could be home, resting in the lap of. What are you doing here in the tanbark?’
‘Seeing you.’
‘Where do your parents think you are?’
‘At Ben’s. I’ll go there in a while. You’re invited, if you want to come.’
‘I’m only allowed out in exceptional circumstances.’
‘How come you could go to mine last weekend?’
‘I pitched it to my parents as an official school community celebration of rowing victory event.’
Billy laughed. ‘It’s just a tweak, I guess.’
They swung in silence. The mild air smelled like autumn and damp and tanbark with the background whiff of hundreds of kitchen exhaust fans.
Even without the troubling existence of the wish question mark, how would they ever be able to go out? How far could she push her parents? How far could Billy push his? How could she ever fit in at all these social gatherings that happened, invisibly funded by parents? How could she even take the time out from study for them?
He obviously had mind-reading skills. ‘The girls – they’re not as smart as you, but they’re not so bad when you get to know them. Except Holly, maybe.’
‘You’ve obviously changed your mind about her.’
‘I guess everyone’s allowed to make the occasional inebriated mistake.’
‘True. I just wished you’d made it with someone else.’
‘Me too. Hey, I finished Jane Eyre.’
‘And?’
‘Yeah, it’s cool. I can see why it’s stayed in print for a hundred and sixty-seven years.’ He reached over and pushed her off course so she was swinging in a half-twist and had to stop. ‘Tell me why you like it so much.’
‘I love Jane.’
‘Because . . .’
‘She has no ostensible power, but she is powerful. She’s inconspicuous – modest and unprepossessing – but her presence is strong. She stands up to injustice. She has self-respect. She isn’t afraid to speak plainly about her feelings. She is so passionate, despite all the restrictions and confinement of her background. She’s generous. And she’s an artist.’
Billy looked at her in his assessing way. ‘It’s the Vân Ước as English teacher making a rare but persuasive appearance.’
She smiled. ‘Do I sound like an idiot?’
‘I just like it when you talk. You’re so quiet most of the time.’
‘No surprise I like the quiet girls’ hero.’
His eyes lit up.
‘Not you. Jane.’
‘Oh.’ He reached over and touched her face, stood up, pulled her up from the swing and kissed her like he really meant it.
She broke away with a sigh. ‘We can’t do this here.’ She turned him to face the building. ‘See all those windows? Potential informants, the lot of them.’
‘But one day . . . we’ll get to go out on a date and kiss all we want.’
She smiled. ‘Date night. The final frontier.’
chapter 40
The trouble with the photo in the common room/security camera scam – apart from the fact that someone was bound to wake up to it pretty soon – was that the whole tripod/stool assemblage had to be taken down every afternoon and set up again every morning. Because of the cleaners. It was lucky they’d made it through Thursday and Friday without getting sprung.
When Billy breezed in and started gathering the apparatus to set up the camera early on Monday morning, Ben had other ideas. ‘Can you get Vince to do that?’
‘I can do it,’ Billy said.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Ben said, sounding as pissed off as he ever sounded, which was still quite controlled. ‘It’s four weeks. Are you trying to fuck up?’
‘Oh, right. Okay – Vince, buddy, can you rig it up?’
‘Sure.’ Vince clambered up on the table and stool and fiddled around setting the tripod up.
At Vân Ước’s questioning look, Billy explained, ‘Head of the River, four weeks away.’
Ben smiled, now he’d got his way, and added, ‘He’s no good to us with a broken collarbone or a sprained wrist.’
Vince feigned an elaborate wobble and almost-fall – which turned into a real almost-fall, accompanied by loud expletives as he regained his balance just in time.
‘I can’t believe it’s so soon,’ said Billy.
‘And victory will be ours,’ said Ben.
‘If you say so, my brother,’ Billy said.
Once again, the barely contained, pissed-off look flickered in Ben’s eyes; it encompassed Vân Ước as well as Billy. He headed out of the common room, pausing at the door with a smile. ‘I say so. And make sure you fix your hand. Get some alcohol on it.’
Billy gave a lazy salute to the empty doorway.
chapter 41
Ms Norton was giving her a quizzical look at the end of her orals practice session. Vân Ước felt as though she hadn’t breathed properly, had spoken too fervently, and had poured out with concentration all the love she felt for Sylvia Plath’s work.