‘I’m Clara, nice to meet you Mrs Walsh and thanks for the pizza,’ you say in a voice that sounds so happy I wonder whether you’re taking the piss. ‘It was deeelicious.’ And you smack your lips together.
‘Clara,’ she repeats, finally turning to look at you. She blinks as if to clear the fog in front of her eyes. ‘C l a r a.’ She rolls each letter over her tongue before releasing it into the room. ‘I haven’t come across many Claras.’
‘Me neither,’ you say, ‘I’m the only one in my school.’
She takes another look at you, narrowing her gaze to focus. ‘And you’re in the same class?’
‘Yes, though I’m older. I’m fifteen you see, I just had to repeat a year.’
‘Well Clara,’ Niamh says, ‘I’m glad you liked the pizza. Make yourself at home.’ She closes the fridge door quickly. Her empty wine glass is sitting on the counter. She looks at me briefly, then back to you, and walks out of the room, her kaftan floating behind her.
After tea we go upstairs to my room. I take a jug with me to water my plants, just as I do every evening. You watch, bemused, as I test the moisture in each pot with my finger, before giving them the correct amount of water. Then carefully I wipe the dust from their leaves. ‘I keep them in here,’ I tell you. ‘So they’re safe, away from Niamh because she’s been known to use my flowerpots as ashtrays.’
‘I guess that’s one use for them,’ you say with a laugh.
‘They die if you don’t look after them, you know.’ But I can see from your face that you don’t know, you don’t understand anything about plants and flowers and how to nurture and care for them so I drop the subject and come and sit next to you on the bed.
‘It’s funny isn’t it,’ you say, turning to me, ‘I don’t live with my mum and you don’t live with your dad.’ I’d never really thought of it before but I smile when you bring it to my attention. I like the symmetry of it. As if we are two halves of the same orange.
I’ve asked you about your mum before but you have always been evasive. You say she’s still alive and sometimes sends you letters which are secret from your dad but I’m not sure I believe you. I wonder whether she’s dead and you just won’t admit it. Maybe she exists in your head, where she’s beautiful and smells of pancakes and syrup and flowers. I don’t probe you though. I know that being the child of a parent missing in action is a sensitive subject.
Still, I’m happy to share what basic details I have about my dad and you seem happy to listen. I tell you his name is (was) Lawrence McDaid and he is from Scotland which is where I was born.
‘So he’s the one responsible for your red hair,’ you laugh and I nod. I tell you he is tall, though for obvious reasons I can’t specify the height, and has blue eyes (Niamh bitterly described them as deep blue ones that could make you believe anything).
According to my mother the last time she saw him was half an hour before she gave birth to me, writhing in pain as the contractions clawed at her stomach. You look up at this, surprised by the revelation.
‘Apparently my father knew how to choose his moments,’ I say, recalling what Niamh had told me. I was ten when she sat me down at the kitchen table, sticky with the residue of spilt drinks. I remember staring at a tomato ketchup stain which had turned a dark reddy-brown colour. Not that I cared. She’d given me a glass of apple juice and laid out a bag of salt and vinegar crisps for us to share. I ate them slowly, hoping that the longer they lasted, the longer we would stay there chatting.
‘We were doing family trees at school,’ I tell you. ‘I had drawn branches and on one side I’d written all the names of Niamh, her sisters and her parents. Only my dad’s side was bare.’ I still remember looking at that bare branch, how it exposed a hole in me I never knew existed. A hole I wanted filled with information. ‘So Niamh said she would tell me all about my dad.’
I picture my mother talking to me through rising clouds of cigarette smoke, particles separating in the light. I thought there was something magical about that moment, as if by speaking she was releasing the stories of my past, allowing them to float above our heads. I needed a wee so badly I had to cross my legs. There was no way I was going to the toilet; I didn’t want to move in case I broke the spell.
‘Lawrence told Niamh he was going out to get help. But he only got as far as Betty O’Driscoll’s next door who was in the middle of watching Take the High Road and wasn’t too pleased about being interrupted,’ I say, happy in the knowledge I have your undivided attention.
‘And then what?’ you ask.
‘He walked out into the night and Niamh never saw him again.’
After shouting expletives at Mrs O’Driscoll, Niamh gave two agonising pushes and I came out screaming into the world. She shouted for Lawrence to come and see his baby daughter, all slimy and new, and kept calling until Mrs O’Driscoll went to look for him and finally broke the news to her that he was nowhere to be found. Fearing him stranded in the fierce Scottish night, Niamh reported him missing. For nine days the police searched for Mr McDaid until it transpired he was living with Mary Donaghue three miles away, and her three children. Who also happened to be his own.
‘That’s why we came back to England when I was two weeks old, on the Flying Scotsman in the middle of the night, just me and Niamh and a few essentials.’
‘Got any photographs of him then, your ginger dad?’ you ask.
‘There’s a shoebox somewhere with my baby photographs but I don’t know where it is.’ You look disappointed.
I think of the old box with the faded picture of ankle boots on the side (price twelve pounds ninety-nine) which must have been Niamh’s once. ‘I haven’t seen it since the day she told me about my father,’ I say. She’d brought the box down to the kitchen and carefully picked out the photographs of my father, and a few of me as a baby, leaving me to look at them as she busied herself in the kitchen cooking pasta and chopping onions and garlic for the sauce.
Lawrence had red hair down to his shoulders and the most striking blue eyes I’ve ever seen. In one photograph he had a hand on Niamh’s pregnant belly, smiling as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck. Her eyes were twinkling with happiness and I remembered wondering what my life would be like if my mother still had those happy eyes. Of course there were none of my father and me together, thanks to his untimely exit as I entered the world, just a few of me as a baby, tufts of red hair shooting up from my head, sitting in a bouncy chair or on Niamh’s lap. Even by that time her eyes had lost their sparkle. She looked tired and drawn.
I had laid them out in front of me on the kitchen table and stared at each one, willing them to offer up their secrets. Those six faded photographs told me so little. There must be more, I reasoned. I wanted to see them all.
I looked around for the shoebox and saw it sitting on the sideboard, with its lid back on. Niamh had her back turned to me, stirring the sauce on the hob and humming to herself. The rich tomatoey smell was making my stomach growl.
I got up from the table and walked across to the sideboard. Taking the lid off, I saw there were indeed more pictures, some lying loose, and underneath those, a small album. I reached in and pulled one out. It was of Niamh leaning into a man with dark hair. It was a cosy embrace that suggested they were at ease in each other’s company. Her hair was longer, her face rounder in these ones. I wondered if she’d been in love with this man before my dad came on the scene and snatched her from him. My hand reached into the box for more photographs and clues when I smelt her breath on me, wine-sweet. I looked up and saw her eyes dark with anger. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, but whatever it was I had broken the magic spell.
‘You always have to spoil things don’t you, Rachel,’ she said, ripping the shoebox from me and marching out of the room. I waited for her to return, kept praying she would, but when she didn’t I sat and ate dinner on my own.
‘Are you all right?’ you ask me, snapping me out of my reverie. I give my head a little shake as if to empty it of tr
oubling thoughts.
‘Of course,’ I say, smiling at your concern. ‘Shall I tell you something?’ I ask to change the subject.
‘Be my guest.’
‘Do you know why I love my flowers so much?’ You grunt, disinterested.
‘No, surprise me,’ you say in your bored voice.
My mind pings back to the day I presented Mrs Rippon my teacher with my family tree project. I explained that the photograph of my dad in the flares was old, really old, but it was the only one I had of him. ‘I’ve never met him, you see,’ I explained to her. She fixed me with one of those smiles, where someone’s lips are turned down instead of up but you know they’re thinking kind thoughts.
Later that afternoon when we were coming in from the playground she called me over and pressed three little envelopes into my hand.
‘You have to plant these and look after them carefully if you want them to grow,’ she said.
I looked down at the envelope and saw pictures of pretty flowers.
Sunflowers, irises and violets.
‘So you see,’ I tell you, ‘my plants remind me of my dad.’
I realise I have been talking for ages and you are unusually quiet. I think you might want to tell me a bit more about your mum now, after hearing so much from me, but you shake your head. ‘Nah, let’s try on some make-up,’ you say, jumping up from the bed.
You open my drawer where I keep various bits of make-up I’ve bought with pocket money when Niamh remembers to give it to me. You find a purple eyeshadow and stand in front of the mirror using your little finger to rub it on. After that you take the liquid eyeliner and apply it in one perfect, steady sweep of your hand. Then you take a step back to study your work.
‘How do I look?’ you ask me.
Your eyes are enormous; the purple eyeshadow has turned the blue darker and stormier. I have to look away before they hypnotise me.
‘Stunning,’ I say, wishing I had your eyes.
You turn to me with your head tilted to one side.
‘Purple’s not your colour, Rach,’ you say, rummaging for something else in the drawer. ‘But this one is perfect.’ You hold up a light green eyeshadow. I screw up my face. ‘Trust me, it’ll look amazing with your eyes.’
‘Yeah right,’ I laugh. But really I’m just playing along because I do trust you, implicitly. I marvel at how you know what looks good and what doesn’t, how you always seem to make me look better than I could ever have imagined.
You sit me down on the edge of the bed and you start work on my eyes. ‘Ten minutes,’ you say, ‘ten minutes is all I need for the full makeover.’
I nod my approval. I would happily stay there all evening just to be the centre of your attention. Sometimes I have to pinch myself that you chose me to be your friend when you could have chosen anyone. I’ve watched you in the playground, I’ve seen the way people gravitate towards you, eager for your approval. You’re not even aware of the power you have, but I see it. You could turn your sunshine smile on any one of them and make them glow, but you don’t, you save it for me and that makes it all the more beautiful. Maybe one day I’ll be able to explain this to you properly; I’m like one of my sunflowers under your gaze, Clara. Your friendship makes me feel special and alive where before I was empty and grey.
Finally you’ve finished the makeover. Pulling me up from the bed, you shuffle me towards the mirror, your hands covering my eyes.
‘Dah dah!’ you say, finally moving your hands away. ‘You can look now.’
The person looking back at me isn’t me, it can’t be. The eyes that have always been dull and pale seem to look green now, and big and wide. I catch them twinkling back at me. My whole face has been transformed. I can see my cheekbones and my lips glisten under a thin coating of gloss. I almost look pretty. I think I might cry.
‘You see, Rach, I’m never wrong.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. It doesn’t even begin to capture how I feel but it’s all I can manage.
You come and stand next to me in front of the mirror, pulling a model face, all sultry and pouting. It makes me laugh and I try to do the same. Then we fall back on the soft bed, gazing up at the Artex ceiling with its swirls and peaks. I feel like I’m floating through clouds with you next to me, just the two of us. I hope it’s always like this.
‘You know, Rach, I’m going to be an actress one day. I’m going to star in those big budget films in Hollywood. I want to be famous. My dad says I can start drama classes next term.’ And then you laugh, ‘Well that’s my dream anyway.’
I think of you creating ripples of excitement wherever you go, swishing up the red carpet, wearing one of those dresses with slits up the thigh and the back all scooped out. I see your hair, snaking down your bum, and the paparazzi calling out your name, Clara, Clara, Clara, the flashbulbs going off in your face.
‘I reckon you will be famous,’ I say, rolling over on to my side to look at you. ‘Just don’t forget me when you are.’
‘As if,’ you give me a little kick, ‘best friends …’ and you hold out your pinkie so I can hook mine into yours.
‘Forever,’ I say, finishing your sentence, and we laugh together at how childish we’re being.
When we unhook our fingers you jump up from the bed and put a CD in my ghetto blaster. ‘Here,’ you say, handing me a hairbrush. ‘If we’re going to be famous we need to practise. I have a dance routine all worked out.’
I hear the sound of ‘Relight My Fire’ and you try to teach me a dance you have choreographed. But when I outstretch my arms I see them wobbling and all I can hear is the sound of my graceless feet thumping as they hit the floor. I throw myself on to the bed and catch sight of my face, now red and sweaty, in the mirror.
‘God, I’ll settle for being your assistant when you’re a film star. I can’t dance or sing, there’s not much hope for me,’ I laugh.
‘You can judge my performance then, marks out of ten.’
I sit back and watch as you spin around and move your arms in time to the music. Your limbs seem to go on forever, long and slender and smooth. There’s a ball of energy around you and it is sparking, like electricity lighting the room. You are everything I am not. I can’t take my eyes off you. When the track finishes, you take a bow.
I clap madly. ‘Ten,’ I shout, ‘bravo.’
Five minutes later a knock on my bedroom door surprises me. Niamh never knocks. But this time she even waits until I open it. Her eyes look misty, bloodshot from the smoke, I think. ‘Your dad is here for you,’ she says, trying to focus on you. Her cheeks are burning. Too much wine and it’s only six o’clock.
You grab your bag and together we go downstairs. I expect to see your dad waiting for you in the doorway.
‘He’s outside in the car,’ Niamh says. I stick my head out to catch a glimpse of him, and see his shape sitting in a white Saab with a soft top, engine purring. He doesn’t look my way.
‘Thank you for having me, Mrs Walsh,’ you say as if she’s been the perfect hostess. There is a pause, an awkward moment, when she leans in towards you and I think she’s actually going to kiss you. My heart lurches, then mercifully a horn beeps from the road and saves me the shame.
‘See you tomorrow, Rachel,’ you shout, running down the path.
Closing the door I see Niamh walking away. Her footsteps, small and shuffled, take her back to the kitchen. She grabs a bottle of wine from the fridge and pours herself a large glass. It shakes as she lifts it to her mouth and downs it as if it’s her morning Vimto. She doesn’t look around for me, she just stares ahead at nothing in particular.
Chapter Eight
HOW DOES SOMEONE slip through walls unnoticed? Through locked doors and windows and take what’s not theirs and leave again without being seen? Those thoughts crept through my head, shivered through my body. I had no answers. One reality sat on top of another and another, like a weird chemical-induced hallucination.
Finding the photograph of me and Jonny would have helped. To s
ee it with my own eyes. To know I hadn’t dreamt it. I ran around the flat, pulling out the white labelled boxes and files with paperwork, the drawers. I wanted to tear down the white walls and rip up the floorboards just so whatever was being hidden from me could reveal itself. But it was hopeless. The picture had disappeared, sucked into the ether. Just like you.
I sat on the soft cream carpet in my bedroom and surveyed the mess. I had ransacked my own flat and now I couldn’t look at the result. The chaos made my head spin and knot. I thought it was going to implode. I needed to hide somewhere, to be safe. I pulled the wardrobe open on Jonny’s side and shuffled in amongst his shirts. One of them fell off the hanger and I wrapped it round me. It was night-time dark, silent dark. Closing my eyes I hoped and hoped and wished and wished that when I woke up in the morning the shirt would be filled with bones and muscles and ligaments, that the chest would heave with breath and the arms would fold around me and never let me go.
It was before dawn and a dirty light had settled on the room. I thought I might be the only one awake in the world. Everything silent and still as if the day was out there waiting for everyone else to realise it was ready.
I was in the wardrobe; I’d fallen asleep there, my limbs twisted and achy. My body wanted to move and stretch but I couldn’t summon the energy.
Then – the sound of a phone ringing. My mobile. A noise normally so unwelcome early in the morning, had my whole body tense with possibility. I saw it on my bed, flashing. I leapt out of the wardrobe to grab it. And I answered. Searching for the right words and then I found them.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Is that you?’
‘Rachel?’ A man’s voice, a southern accent like Jonny’s and deep too. For a moment I let myself think it.
‘Jonny?’ There was a pause and then I knew. I knew.
‘Rachel, it’s Nick.’
‘Oh …’ I said. I had no more words.
‘Look, I’m sorry to be calling at this time but I need to speak to you.’ There was a softness to him that filled me with dread. Nick didn’t talk like that; he boomed and bellowed. Whenever I saw Nick I saw Jonny, the pair of them laughing like schoolkids who had never grown up.
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