Sometimes I wonder if me trying to make Abi remember him is cruel. Why do I try so hard to give her a person to miss, to be sad about? Maybe it’s a good thing that over time she won’t remember him at all. How can you spend a lifetime being sad about someone you barely knew?
The things I remember make it impossible to forget him. I remember how his cuddles felt, I remember the feeling of his lips on my cheek when he kissed it. I remember the details of his voice so acutely that when I go to bed at night I can make him whisper in my ear. I remember the taste of his dinners, his terrible jokes, the way he danced to ABBA. I remember him telling me I was his favourite person in the world, and that he would always have my back. And I knew that no matter what happened in the rest of my life, I would never need more than that love from my dad. And when he died it vanished, and so did my safety net. And ever since, even though I have Renée, I have felt a bit lost. And I don’t feel like I am allowed to feel like that any more, not still, not nearly three years later. So I hide it all and I say I’m fine, and I look for things to take my mind off him, like tapestry or life-saving. And I just try really, really hard to keep his memory alive in my head. The only place he still exists. Apart from here, maybe.
Can he see me?
I smile, just in case.
Then someone taps me on the shoulder and I jump so badly I nearly have a heart attack myself. It’s Kerry from school, sitting in the pew behind me. Her freckles look particularly brown and she is wearing a pale blue, long-sleeved dress.
‘Hey,’ she says cheekily. ‘Come to church to find me, did you?’
‘No,’ I say abruptly. ‘I am here for the service.’
She shuffles round and sits next to me on my pew. I don’t want her to. I was looking forward to doing this on my own, having the space to work out if this is for me or not. I enjoy the way I can think here, I don’t want someone chatting over my thoughts or pushing me into anything too religious. I suddenly feel like I shouldn’t be here. Dad, I think. Make her leave me alone.
She doesn’t go away.
‘Thanks so much for helping me at school the other day,’ she says. She seems a lot more confident here than she did there.
‘I didn’t do anything. I thought you might have hurt yourself when you fell, that’s all.’
‘Well, thanks anyway. And thanks for not kicking me while I was down. I am used to it, but very few people at school have much sympathy for us “Jesus freaks”. Is your church closed?’ she asks.
‘Closed?’
‘Is that why you are here? Because your church is having refurbishments?’
‘No. I don’t have a church. It’s my first time.’
‘Wow, you’re a virgin?’
I feel myself flush. It’s a new thing that my face has started doing since I got to the grammar. If anyone says the slightest thing that embarrasses me, or sometimes even if a teacher just speaks to me in front of the class, my face explodes with red. I feel the blotches start in hot patches on my neck and then immediately creep up my face. The heat is instant, like someone has tipped my head to the side, poured boiling water into my ear and put a plug in like a hot-water bottle. I can do nothing to stop it, I just have to breathe steadily to try to control my thumping heart and not touch my face. And here I am now, in church, fluorescent and drenched in sweat in seconds because someone just asked me that question. I make a weird croaky sound instead of words.
‘Oh, no,’ Kerry says, looking quite embarrassed herself. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I mean a church virgin. It’s what my friends and I call people who come for the first time.’
The plug is gently removed from my ear, and the water pours out. We share an awkward laugh.
‘I have a bit of a complex about that, obviously,’ I say, blowing on my palms to dry them.
‘Well, you’re in good company here. There are loads of virgins at church.’
The organ starts playing and a vicar walks down the aisle.
‘Chat after?’ says Kerry, hopping back to the pew behind me.
‘Sure.’
After we sing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ – I feel proud that I know the words – the vicar does a sermon about how people will love you, and you will love them, but you can never rely fully on another person because their own life will always be their priority. He then tells us that we are all God’s priority, and that we can rely on him completely. God will never have something more important to do than take care of us. He tells us that if we commit fully to God, he will commit fully to us. ‘Have realistic expectations of those with whom you surround yourself,’ he says. ‘But know that God is the only one you can ever really rely on.’
I was expecting to find the sermon boring, but it isn’t. What he says is what I need to hear – it helps me understand the meaning of what God could do for me. It gives me the feeling that I could actually connect with Him, and not just the idea of Him.
At the end, as Kerry and I step outside, the day seems brighter, crisper. Maybe it’s just the impact of being inside for over an hour, but I feel spritely, energised. Really glad I came to church.
‘It doesn’t have to just be Sundays,’ says Kerry, pulling on her coat. ‘If you think this is for you, there’s a small group of us who meet on Thursday nights at one of our houses. We pray together, read from the Bible. You are welcome to join if you want to.’
‘Maybe,’ I say doubtfully. Praying in a group? I mean, I know that’s essentially what church is, but in someone’s living room? That sounds odd.
‘It’s a bit like a book club I guess, but we only study one book.’ She laughs. ‘What the vicar said was true – God is the only one who will never let you down. Hopefully our group will make you feel the same way about us, though. We’re friends and we share our experience of God. It’s nice. It would be nice to get to know you better too. Oh look, there are the guys.’
She waves frantically at three other people, two boys and a girl. The two boys couldn’t look more different. One is tall and skinny and looks about twenty-four, the other is short and stocky and I think I recognise him from school. The girl is plump and looks like she is probably part of a drama club; they always wear black T-shirts, DM boots and look like they never brush their hair.
‘Guys, this is Flo. It’s her first time today and I just invited her to Bible group on Thursday,’ Kerry says. ‘Flo, this is Sandra, Matt … and Gordon.’ They all nod enthusiastically and the older one, Gordon, reaches out to shake my hand. He is tall and skinny, with a rock-and-roll T-shirt on.
‘Looking forward to having you in the Bible group, Flo,’ he says. ‘It will be good for us to have a new energy in the group.’
‘Well, if it’s energy thatcha need, it’s what I got,’ I say to the Record Breakers theme tune. I am trying to sound confident and upbeat, but I immediately hate myself for sounding like such a prat. What’s worse is that nobody even laughs, which obviously makes me feel even more of a prat. Renée would be on the floor after that.
I think about what Kerry said. A group of friends to share this with might be really nice. Maybe I don’t have to do this on my own. Like the vicar said, I need to fully embrace God for him to fully embrace me, and these guys have obviously nailed it. They could teach me how. God might be the only person I can rely on when school finishes, the only thing I can take with me wherever I go.
‘All right,’ I tell them. ‘I’d love to come. Thanks.’
‘Great, see you Thursday then,’ says Kerry, writing down an address in a notebook and ripping it out for me. ‘Seven until 9 p.m. So happy you’re coming!’
Renée
‘Come on, Nana. Let’s go and get a burger,’ I say, rolling out of the back of Aunty Jo’s car when we arrive at L’Ancresse, where about twenty-five other cars are lined up with their boots open.
‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning. You had your second bacon sandwich half an hour ago. Are you serious?’ questions Aunty Jo.
I am deadly serious. I don’t know what it
is about hangovers that means my stomach loses the capacity to feel full, but I need to keep consuming or I might collapse. I lead Nana by the elbow and steer her to the burger van. She stands and watches me eat my body weight in beef, ketchup and bread, all the while telling me that it is important for me to breathe into my food.
By the time we get back to Aunty Jo she has organised all of our bits and bobs in the boot of the car, put a little deck chair out for Nana and is pouring cups of tea from a flask for us all.
‘Sit here until you get too cold, Mum,’ she says. ‘Then you can sit in the car with the heating on.’ She turns to me and says, ‘She could sit out all night in that fur coat of hers. It’s either warm blood or the fact she can’t remember from second to second that she is freezing. In case it’s the latter, keep your eye on her. If her lips go blue we will get her in.’ Aunty Jo stuffs a blanket around Nana’s legs and carries on arranging things. It’s surprisingly chilly for April.
There is everything. Old clothes, books, kitchen things. ‘A lot of this was left in the house before we moved in,’ Aunty Jo tells me, passing me a kettle that’s so black on the bottom I wonder why anyone would buy it. She whacks a sticker on it that says £1 and tells me to put it to the front.
‘What’s this?’ I ask, pulling a picture frame out of a bag. There is a picture of her and Uncle Andrew in it.
‘Oh, that. Take the picture out and put it in the bin. We could get a tenner for that frame, it’s solid silver.’
I do as she says, but carefully. As the photo comes out a key falls to the ground. On the back of the photo is some writing. Two Peas in a Pod, The Crane 1984 – our honeymoon. Room 341.
‘What does the “Two Peas” mean?’ I ask her, mesmerised by how happy they look in the photo.
‘It’s what I used to call us, because I thought we were so similar. Like two peas in a pod. But it was all wrong.’
‘What do you mean? How could being the same be all wrong?’
‘Because we weren’t similar at all, we were completely different,’ says Aunty Jo. ‘But I changed myself to try to be like him so he would love me. I never trusted that he loved me so I tried to be someone I wasn’t, someone like him. That didn’t excite him, so hate became the only way to get passion into the marriage.’ She pulls a cable from a bag and seems upset when there is nothing attached to the end of it. ‘So he started to hate me.’
I can’t imagine anyone hating Aunty Jo. She is the best person in the world.
‘Do you believe that everyone has one person they are supposed to be with for life?’ I ask her. ‘It feels like such an impossible thing. Men and women are so different.’
‘I think it is good for everyone to have one person they can rely on, no matter what,’ says Aunty Jo. ‘And being different is no bad thing. Men are hard work, though; if you don’t find the right one, you can live a life of misery. You have to find one who accepts you for everything that you are, and not what they would like you to be. And you have to find one who thinks your experience of life is as important as theirs, otherwise you will resent them, and that’s the worst way to be. But I would like to meet someone, and get it right next time.’ Her eyes well up a little. She shakes her face and snaps herself out of it. ‘But I have you and Mum and the geese. What more do I need, really?’ she finishes, managing a smile.
‘Yes, you have us,’ I say, knowing that Nana won’t be around forever and that in six months’ time I will be off to start the next chapter of my life. For the first time I find myself worrying about her. Who will look after Aunty Jo when we have gone?
I hold the photo in my hand and try to imagine who my ‘One’ will be. Will I choose him right? And if I don’t, will I end up alone, or will I just live with someone forever that I find boring and who doesn’t interest me at all? I see both Nana and Aunty Jo and how they married the wrong people. How can you not be angry that you wasted all of that time?
‘Well, I’m glad it didn’t work out, because if it did then God knows where I would be if you hadn’t come home,’ I say, putting my arm around her shoulder and kissing her cheek.
‘Me too,’ she says. ‘And it didn’t kill me, did it? Coping with a bit of heartache is the least I can do.’ She holds a scarf that belonged to Mum. ‘I don’t know what I should keep and what I should get rid of. It seems so strange that this could be worn by someone else, who has no idea that it was hers.’
‘Then let’s keep it,’ I say. ‘Let’s keep everything we have left. Pop threw so much away when she died and he shouldn’t have. We don’t have to look at this every day, but we can keep it. And those dresses in your wardrobe, and her jewellery. Let’s pack it away when we get home, but let’s not sell anything else.’
Aunty Jo agrees. It is strange that she even brought the scarf today, but I think she thought maybe getting rid of stuff was a good idea. It isn’t, though. We have already lost enough.
‘I miss her so much, Renée,’ she says. ‘My darling sister, the poor girl. There was nothing I could do to protect her when she got sick. We looked out for each other all our lives. I felt so useless.’
She is crying now, trying to hide it from Nana who is watching everyone busy around. It’s weird for me when Aunty Jo cries about Mum. It reminds me that she wasn’t just my mum – she was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. It’s as hard for Aunty Jo as it is for me. Maybe harder, I don’t know. She knew her longer than I did.
‘You must call Nell,’ she says abruptly. ‘I know you girls didn’t get on, Renée, but she is your sister. You two don’t realise how precious you are to each other. If I had known I would lose Helen I don’t think I would ever have left Guernsey. It all just feels like such a waste of time now. I left to be with a man who didn’t even want me, and because of that I missed out on the last few years of my sister’s life. You and Nell have to make the most of each other, be friends. No one will ever be to you what your sister can be. One day you will realise how much you love her and you’ll understand why you have to stick together.’
I hug her. Making promises about my relationship with Nell isn’t something I am comfortable with, so I don’t say anything. I don’t know if Nell and I will ever be what Mum and Aunty Jo were.
She pulls herself together, smiles at Nana and passes me a bag of stickers and tells me to make up prices for everything. I stick £40 on the silver photo frame and turn to see if anyone is looking like they might buy something. A lady carrying a basket full of little brown paper bags walks past shouting, ‘Homemade fudge!’ I pretend not to notice, but Nana’s face lights up like she just won a million pounds.
‘You remember what fudge is, don’t you, Mum?’ says Aunty Jo, laughing and handing me a fiver.
Brilliant, I think. I haven’t eaten anything for at least fifteen minutes.
‘So the banana bar symbolises a penis and how the two lesbians in the shop and Jeanette will never marry men?’ asks Meg.
‘Exactly,’ says Mr Frankel. ‘The author is making subtle references to the phallus here, and setting up for the revelation of Jeanette’s sexuality later in the story.’
I watch Meg from across the classroom. All I can think about is her and Dean and how I am determined to find out if he is her boyfriend or not. I’ve asked almost everyone in our year if she is going out with anybody, but no one knows anything about her. Dean had looked so happy to see her that night at The Monkey. I didn’t see them kiss, but they stayed together all night and neither of them spoke to anyone else. They left together about half an hour before the club shut, but I couldn’t tell if they were holding hands or not.
It’s doing my head in. He was obviously flirting with me that night and he comes into the pub on his own all the time and eyes me up – he can’t be in a relationship. I have such a massive crush on him. I need to know if he is single or not. I have to be brave to find out. I tear a piece of paper out of my notebook.
Hey Meg, how are you? Wanna come to the lay-by with me after English? Renée x
I throw it at her and wait for a response. Even by my standards this is very random and she is fully entitled to ignore it, as we go to the lay-by almost every time after English, so this note is creepy and unnecessary. I watch her read it. She looks at me, nods, then starts to write. A minute or so later she chucks the note back. Mr Frankel turns round seconds later, but Meg seems completely unfazed about the idea of getting caught.
Sure. And are you free Saturday night? Dean asked me to invite you to see the play he has written. There’s a performance of it at the Youth Theatre at 7.
My eyeballs nearly fall out of my head. He asked her to ask me? Did this really just happen? If that wasn’t a lesson in the value of being bold I don’t know what is. I could do a star jump here and now. They are just friends. Breathe, Renée. Oh my goodness, he is so obviously going to be the father of my children. I instantly devise an excuse to get out of work on Saturday night and throw a note back to Meg saying, Cool, yeah. I’d love to, thanks.
I open my copy of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and try to focus on what Mr Frankel is saying.
‘A girl is particularly vulnerable when she can’t rely on the support of her mother,’ he says, posing a question to the class about whether the mother’s treatment of Jeanette is cruelty or just tough parenting. But my focus is elsewhere. I spend the rest of the class staring out of the window imagining Dean putting shelves up in the big house we will live in when we get married and have babies.
In the lay-by after class I manage not to fire a load of questions at Meg about Dean. I can wait until Saturday now. I must try to be cool. We stand smoking a fag, listening to Pete and Marcus talking about a girl that Pete claims to have fingered at the weekend whose fanny smelt of blue cheese. It’s so obvious he hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about.
‘It’s out of order, you know? The way you talk about girls. It’s actually your dicks that smell of cheese, so you can shut up,’ I say.
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