Paper Avalanche

by Lisa Williamson

  ‘Rosie! I said that’s enough. We’re eating here.’

  ‘Don’t ask me questions if you don’t want to hear the answers.’

  ‘We can talk about it later,’ Dad says. ‘You and me.’

  Yeah, right. He has a new life now – clean and ordered and photogenic – and he’d rather chuck himself in a moving river than willingly confront the mess he left behind.

  ‘More guacamole, anyone?’ Melanie says, her voice artificially bright.

  ‘Yes please, darling,’ Dad booms back. He spoons a dollop on the side of his plate before turning back to Izzy. ‘Now, sweet pea,’ he says. ‘Tell me more about your maths test. How many people did you beat again?’

  ‘The whole class,’ Izzy says as I crumble a shard of taco shell between my fingers. ‘So, twenty-seven.’

  ‘My clever daughter!’ Dad says, beaming.

  He’s always referred to Izzy as his daughter – he did right from the beginning, trading in his frizzy-haired real-life daughter for an adorable blonde version. I like to tell myself it doesn’t hurt, and I’m so used to it now, most of the time it doesn’t. But then there are moments that catch me off guard, like this one, and it takes my breath away.

  21

  The following morning, Dad drops me off in Ostborough before driving Izzy to her weekly tap-dancing lesson. I keep waiting for him to bring up last night’s conversation but, as I kind of predicted, he doesn’t, keeping up a steady stream of chatter with Izzy the entire journey.

  I’m later than usual, and by the time I make it upstairs, Jodie and Moses are preparing to leave.

  ‘Nice outfit,’ I tell Jodie with a grin.

  She’s wearing a plastic Alton Towers poncho over the top of her Aztec-print leggings and purple hi-tops.

  ‘Sexy, huh?’ she says, striking a pose. ‘I made you a cuppa by the way. And I saved you the last Jammie Dodger.’ She presses her hands into prayer position and flutters her eyelashes. ‘I know, I’m a saint.’

  It’s not until half an hour later, when the heavens open and tip their contents on my head, that I twig why Jodie was wearing the poncho. I drag my trolley under the nearest tree and zip up my hoodie, pulling the drawstring tight so just my eyes and nose poke over the top. It does little to protect me from the driving rain though, the thick jersey material quickly growing heavy with moisture.

  Within minutes, I’m soaked to the skin. This must be how Noah felt that time I found him shivering outside his front door. Only then it was August and now it’s October and the rain is icy cold, stinging my cheeks and hands.

  It’s no good just standing here though. These leaflets aren’t going to deliver themselves, and from the look of the determinedly gloomy sky, the rain seems unlikely to let up anytime soon. With grim resignation, I reach for my trolley and continue on my round.

  It’s raining just as hard when I enter a deserted Hopewood Gardens almost an hour later. I’m drenched, water sloshing in my didn’t-stand-a-chance Converse. I’m trudging up Tanvi’s driveway, my head down, when I hear knocking. I look up to see Tanvi’s face pressed up against the living-room window, palms splayed, her breath steaming up the glass.

  It’s such a predictable sight I almost burst out laughing.

  ‘Wait there!’ she yells, reappearing a few seconds later at the door.

  ‘Oh my God, look at you!’ she cries in dismay.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, handing Tanvi a wodge of soggy leaflets.

  ‘Oh no you’re not,’ Tanvi says. She sounds like an audience member at a pantomime.

  ‘I honestly am,’ I say.

  ‘Oh no, you’re not,’ Tanvi repeats, touching my sopping sleeve. ‘You’re wet through. Quick, come in.’ She leans past me and drags my trolley into the hallway.

  ‘But I’m not finished,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be crazy! If you keep going like that you’re going to get pneumonia or something.’

  She grabs me by the arm and pulls me into the hallway, slamming the front door shut behind us. Her house is warm and smells of coffee and toast and washing powder. ‘Mum!’ Tanvi yells. ‘Can I use the tumble dryer?’

  ‘Yes,’ a voice calls back.

  ‘Take your shoes off and follow me,’ Tanvi instructs.

  ‘Tanvi, I mean it, I’m fine,’ I say, reaching for my trolley.

  ‘Bloody hell, you’re stubborn!’ Tanvi says, whisking it out of reach.

  ‘It’s just rain.’

  ‘Oh, stop being such a martyr.’

  She shoves me in front of the mirror hanging over the radiator. I look like a drowned rat – strands of hair plastered to my forehead like seaweed, raindrops clinging to the tip of my nose and my eyelashes, my hoodie so wet it’s at least five shades darker than it was when I set out.

  ‘OK, OK, I surrender,’ I say, sinking down on the bottom step and unlacing my trainers with freezing fingers, before following Tanvi upstairs.

  On the landing, Tanvi pauses in front of a door with a poster of Garfield the Cat tucking into a dish of lasagne, its corners peeling away.

  ‘Chez Tanvi,’ she says with a flourish, opening the door and directing me inside.

  Tanvi’s room is an assault on the senses. Every inch of the wall is covered in posters and postcards and drawings and clippings from magazines – like one gigantic collage. There are fairy lights everywhere – chilli-shaped ones threaded through the spokes of her brass bed, star-shaped ones framing her window, Chinese style lanterns looping from one corner of the ceiling to the other. Her unmade bed is covered with well-loved cuddly toys, almost all of them falling apart – their stuffing hanging out, limbs hanging on by a few threads – and every available surface is littered with knick-knacks – china ornaments and action figures and novelty candles and jars filled with beads and buttons. It isn’t messy exactly (there’s remarkably little dust considering the sheer number of things and there appears to be some sort of system in place) – it’s just a lot to take in, like an eccentric and slightly chaotic museum. Even though it’s a million miles away from the scene at Arcadia Avenue, I can’t help but feel uneasy as I move into the centre of the room.

  ‘My brother Devin reckons I’m a hoarder,’ Tanvi says.

  I stiffen at the word.

  ‘But I prefer “collector”,’ Tanvi continues. ‘Much nicer.’ She reaches for a dressing gown from the mound hanging on the back of her door. ‘This should just about fit you,’ she says, flinging it to me. ‘Get your kit off then,’ she adds, before bursting into a filthy laugh. ‘Joking!’ she says, when I don’t join in. ‘Obviously. I’ll be just outside.’

  She slips onto the landing, leaving the door slightly ajar and humming Christmas songs.

  I peel off my wet things, hesitating when it comes to my underwear. My pants are soaked but I feel peculiar just handing them over to Tanvi to take care of. On the other hand, keeping them on feels a bit grim, not to mention very uncomfortable. In the end, I slip them off and stick them in the pouch of my hoodie.

  I’m pulling on the dressing gown when my eyes fall on a selection of photographs framing Tanvi’s dressing-table mirror. I glance at the door. I can’t see Tanvi, but I can hear her, belting out an extended version of ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’.

  I pad over to the mirror. My eyes zone in on a picture of Tanvi sitting up in her hospital bed. She’s wearing a red paper hat, the sort you get out of a Christmas cracker. Her face looks puffier than it does now, her skin ashen, but the smile is exactly the same – broad and infectious. My eyes drift to another picture – Tanvi with her arms around a girl with short light-brown hair and a silver nose stud. They’re wearing matching T-shirts and laughing. I inspect the other photos. The same girl features in another, on her own this time, wearing a pink wig and doing the peace sign at the camera, and another back with Tanvi, the two of them sticking their tongues out at the camera. I move over to the bedside table. There she is again, with Tanvi on her lap, in a frame with ‘Friends Forever’ etched into the metal. I feel a twinge
of something.

  Jealousy?

  No, that would make absolutely no sense. Like I care who Tanvi is friends with.

  ‘You OK in there?’ Tanvi calls, making me flinch.

  ‘Yeah,’ I call back, belting the dressing gown and stepping out onto the landing.

  Tanvi holds out a plastic washing basket for me to tip my wet things into.

  ‘Is the rest of your family here?’ I ask, peering left and right.

  Although the dressing gown is full length and made of thick fluffy towelling material, I can’t help but feel incredibly self-conscious.

  Tanvi shakes her head. ‘Nope, just me and Mum. Dad’s working today and Devin’s playing five-a-side.’

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Tanvi shoves my clothes into the tumble dryer.

  ‘Can shoes just go in with everything else?’ she asks a petite woman with big round eyes who I’m guessing must be her mum.

  ‘Probably best to stick them in a pillowcase, just in case,’ Tanvi’s mum says.

  ‘OK, thanks,’ Tanvi says, bounding out of the room again.

  Tanvi’s mum turns to me, and smiles. ‘You must be Ro,’ she says.

  ‘Yes. Hi. Sorry about this …’ I motion at the tumble dryer.

  ‘Don’t be silly. And please, call me Seema. Now, how about a nice hot chocolate to warm you up while I get started on the pancakes?’

  ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t believe you,’ she says with a wink, flicking on the kettle and reaching for a jar of hot chocolate granules from the open cupboard.

  ‘Please don’t go to any trouble,’ I say.

  ‘No trouble at all. Sit yourself down.’

  I do as I’m told.

  Just like Tanvi’s room, the kitchen is packed full of stuff – pans in every possible size, pots filled with spatulas and wooden spoons and whisks and tongs, blenders and mixers, a huge rice cooker and the biggest knife rack I’ve ever seen. Photos and postcards and kids’ paintings and novelty magnets adorn the fridge. It’s cluttered, but there’s an order to the clutter, a system, that makes it a million miles away from the interior of 48 Arcadia Avenue. In fact, teamed with the sunny yellow walls, red-and-white checked curtains hanging at the steamed-up windows and the Motown music on the radio, it’s just about the cosiest, most cheerful room I’ve ever set foot in.

  As my gaze drifts around the room, Tanvi’s mum bustles around me, chatting away about the rain.

  Tanvi reappears waving a pillowcase over her head. She pops my trainers in it and tosses them in the tumble dryer.

  ‘Keep an eye on it,’ Tanvi’s mum says. ‘You don’t want to shrink poor Ro’s jeans.’

  ‘Will do.’ Tanvi turns to me, ‘I’m running you a bath by the way.’

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘You don’t need to do that.’

  ‘Too late,’ she sings. ‘Everyone knows a bath is the only proper way to really warm up.’

  Tanvi’s mum sets a steaming mug of hot chocolate down in front of me, mini marshmallows bobbing on the surface.

  ‘Wow, thank you,’ I say, blowing on the hot liquid and making the marshmallows quiver.

  ‘Bring it up,’ Tanvi says. ‘You can’t beat drinking hot chocolate in the bath.’

  The bathroom is full of steam.

  ‘Whoops, I forgot to turn the extractor fan on,’ Tanvi says, wafting her arms as she makes her way through the haze. ‘Want a bath bomb?’ she asks once the gloom has cleared a little.

  ‘I’m fine without,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be mental! A bath isn’t worth having if it’s not fizzy and full of glitter.’

  She presents me with a choice of three.

  ‘Um, that one,’ I say, choosing the blue one at random.

  ‘Excellent choice,’ Tanvi says, dropping it in the running water. ‘Now watch the magic happen.’

  I peer over the edge of the bathtub as the bath bomb whizzes and fizzes through the water like it’s got a mind of its own, Tanvi waving her hands in the air as if conducting its every twist and turn.

  ‘Cool, huh?’ she says. ‘Now for the final touch. And don’t you even think about arguing with me.’

  She produces a box of matches from the cupboard under the sink and lights the tea lights on the windowsill.

  ‘Voila! Help yourself to anything you want. Oh, and take as long as you like. I’ll be downstairs.’

  I lock the door behind her and take a sip of my hot chocolate before setting it down on the toilet lid. I roll up the right sleeve of the dressing gown and dunk my hand in the bath. The temperature is perfect – hot but not too hot. I double-check the lock before removing the dressing gown and stepping into the still fizzing bright blue water.

  I feel strange at first, overly naked and far too aware of the fact I’m taking a bath in a stranger’s house. Plus, although I’m no longer infectious, I’m painfully aware of the faded remains of my scabies rash. Slowly, though, I start to relax, gradually letting my body sink under the water until just my face is poking above the surface.

  As I lie there, my hair – free from its plait – floating around my face like a mermaid’s, I try to remember the last time I took a bath. There’s a bathtub at Dad’s house, but I’ve hardly ever used it. Melanie always makes a big fuss about whether there’ll be enough hot water left for Izzy, so it’s never an especially relaxing experience.

  I sit up and take another sip of hot chocolate. Tanvi is right – it is a pretty good combination. My eyes fall on a tub of body scrub on the edge of the bath. I remove the lid and sniff. It smells delicious – of lime and coconuts and summer holidays I’ve never been on. I hesitate before taking a modest handful, slowly scrubbing my arms and legs and the bits of my back I can reach. Then I take another handful and do my feet. The sharp granules feel the good sort of tickly between my toes and on my tired heels. Once I’m finished, I pick up another tub. This one contains a clay face-mask. I read the instructions before dipping in my hand. The thick grey goo heats up on application and makes my face tingle. I like it. As it hardens, I top up the hot water and add a little bath foam. Within seconds, the tub is filled with snowy white bubbles. I scoop them up and press them between my palms before sinking back under the water.

  The Shahs’ bathroom, with its old-fashioned peach bathroom suite and spider plant on the windowsill, isn’t exactly glamorous, but lying at the bottom of the bathtub, my cold bones tingling back to life, it feels like a little slice of heaven.

  The water is getting cold. I’m tempted to top it up again but I’m aware I’ve been in here a while now. Reluctantly, I wash the clay off my face and remove the plug. I can’t quite bring myself to get out though, remaining cross-legged at the bottom of the tub until the very last of the suds has disappeared down the drain. It takes all the strength I have to heave my warm, floppy body over the side. I wrap myself in a mint-green bath sheet and dry myself carefully, paying special attention to all the things I usually miss because I’m in such a rush to get out of the chaotic bathroom at home – between my toes, the backs of my knees, behind my ears. I find a bottle of body lotion and smooth it on all over. My parched skin drinks it up. By the time I pull on the dressing gown, wrapping the towel around my head turban-style, I feel smoother and softer and cleaner than I have done in years.

  Downstairs, Tanvi’s mum is transferring pancakes from a frying pan onto warmed plates.

  ‘Perfect timing!’ Tanvi says. ‘A Tanvi special coming right up!’

  ‘I’d better not,’ I say. I’m going to Pizza Express later for lunch. Dad, Melanie and Izzy’s weekly tradition.

  ‘I could just do you a little one?’ Tanvi offers.

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  I sit down and watch as Tanvi slathers almost half a jar of Nutella onto a pancake, before adding discs of sliced bananas and a sprinkling of chopped nuts. She folds it up and begins sawing at it with her knife and fork.

  ‘Try some!’ she says.

  She doesn’t wait for my answer, shovellin
g a massive chunk into my mouth.

  It tastes like heaven.

  ‘Tanvi was telling me you were auditioning for some sort of big choir,’ Tanvi’s mum says, sitting down to join us with a pancake of her own.

  ‘Er, yes,’ I say, wiping Nutella from the corners of my mouth. ‘Next week.’

  ‘How exciting! What do you have to do at it?’

  As I explain the format of the first audition – a sight-reading test followed by the performance of a song of my choice – Tanvi’s mum seems genuinely interested, her eyes shiny and alert. Talking to her about it doesn’t feel scary though, just sort of nice and safe.

  My phone buzzes.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say, taking it out of my pocket.

  It’s a text from Bonnie asking if I’ve seen her red sparkly shoes.

  Check the car, I reply.

  As I’m putting my phone away, I register the time. Almost midday. Once again, time has flown.

  ‘I should go,’ I say. ‘I need to be at my dad’s by one.’ I retrieve my almost dry clothes from the tumble dryer and go back up to Tanvi’s room to change.

  ‘Are you sure you can’t stay a bit longer?’ Tanvi asks as I sit on the bottom step and pull on my significantly less damp shoes. ‘It’s still raining.’

  For a moment I let myself imagine what an afternoon at Tanvi’s might look like – warm and cosy with an endless supply of snacks.

  I can’t though. As much as I want to, I know I can’t.

  ‘I need to get back for lunch,’ I say regretfully. Dad will be a proper pain if I’m late.

  ‘OK,’ Tanvi says in a small voice.

  ‘I don’t know, another time maybe?’ I suggest.

  She breaks into a huge grin. ‘That would be great!’ she says.

  She walks me to the door and insists I take an umbrella.

  I accept, selecting a black and white polka dot one from the stand by the door.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ I say. ‘For the food and the bath and clothes and stuff.’

  ‘What else are friends for?’ Tanvi asks.