Mother continues her monologue of the teachers’ opinions. Damp creeps up from the cracks in the tiled floor. It passes the imitation wood cupboards and condenses on the translucent windowpanes. The asthmatic fridge, cramped between the cracked enamel sink and the work surface, wheezes an accompaniment to the monotony of Mother’s voice. Mary stares at the wallpaper, where neglected kittens are forever frozen in their play. She drums her fingers to the rhythm of ‘Deeply dippy’ that she can still hear inside her head and closes her eyes.
Her mother’s voice stops on the word ‘gifted’. She’s talking about languages. But, for Mary, the word will always be associated with before. White noise blocks out all thought and feeling. She counts to seven. There is no way she will risk being gifted again. She opens her eyes.
“I hate languages,” she says.
Next morning, Mary has the impression that a man is tailing her to school. She slows. He slows. She crosses the road. He’s behind her. She spins around. He continues towards her and then stops a few metres away.
“Get lost!” she spits.
His face is familiar. It’s framed by the red and yellow ‘M’ of McDonald’s behind him, and she realises he’s the young man who was taken away by the police the day before. He looks closer to her age now his face is Coke-free and shaved.
“Nice to meet you too,” he replies. “My name’s Gus. And I’ll only get lost if you come with me.”
“Why would I go anywhere with a loser like you?”
“Because you’re bored with going to school every day?”
She restrains a smile. “Not as bored as I’d be if I was with you.”
He laughs; a short, sharp bark. “Nice. I like your sharp corners. What’s your name?”
Mary turns her back on him and continues walking towards school. He follows. She speeds up. He starts to whistle. When she arrives at the school gates she turns to face him once again. He’s skinny, shaggy-haired and undeniably cool in his faded leather jacket and dirty jeans.
“Leave me alone, loser. Find someone else to stalk,” she says.
“I’m quite happy stalking you. See you soon, kiddo.”
She enters the school grounds and then glances over her shoulder. He’s strolling back the way they’d come, his hands in his pockets. Gus. She smiles to herself. He comes from the real world, far from the petty restrictions of her life.
She waits for Trish in the bike sheds. A Year 11 boy offers her a toke on his fag. She accepts and blows smoke moodily towards the tin roof, thinking about the waste of a school day that lies before her. What is Gus doing now?
Trish arrives with Helen. Mary greets Trish and ignores Helen. She holds Trish’s bike while Trish searches through the tangled intestines of her bag for the lock. Helen stares at her, chewing gum. Mary stares back and blows out smoke.
Helen is new at school. She moved into Manor House in Trish’s village a few months ago. She’s blond, pink and girly, and she dresses like the models in Topshop. She has latched onto Trish, who’s flattered by her attention. Mary knows they meet up regularly in the village playground to drink Coke, eat crisps and read Cosmopolitan. Helen wants to take Trish in hand and has advised her to get contact lenses and to cut her ginger hair. Jimmy, Trish’s eight-year-old brother, told her this. He doesn’t like Helen because she pinches him.
“Hey, Trish, I’ve got a new game,” says Mary.
She takes Trish’s arm and steers her away from Helen, pretending not to see the look Trish exchanges with her. Helen follows them.
“Go on then,” says Trish. “It’s not another false-fashion thing, is it?”
False-fashion is a game Mary invented last month. She would start a new trend, rant about how cool it was and then count the number of girls who followed it. The more that followed, the higher her score. She soon lost interest, however, because she dislikes being copied. She dropped the game when Helen pointed out that Mary’s trend of growing long armpit hair was stupid because magazine models all have shaved underarms. Mary had primed Trish with an answer to this. But Trish had stuttered and gone red when she recited the counterargument about the hairy underarms her older brothers’ girlfriends sported. It was obvious to everyone that she was lying.
“No, my new game’s much more interesting than false-fashion,” says Mary.
Trish giggles nervously in anticipation. Mary smiles at her and squeezes her arm. Trish revels in being the safe ally in these games. She has forgotten Helen in her excitement and dread of the day’s titillation.
“It’s called crush-crushing,” says Mary. “Watch what I do today.”
There has been a change in her classmates over recent months. Lucy Carter’s gang, who used to fill their time Trishbaiting, have turned to flirt-and-chasing. For the past three years they have jeered at the boys in their year. Now the same boys are subjected to eyelash fluttering, blushing and provocative body postures. Their names are lovingly inscribed in folders and adorned with hearts, arrows and smiley faces. The boys puff out their chests and raise their voices in response. They spend as much time as the girls working on their hair and image. Mary’s ashamed of being a girl when she sees how the others preen themselves in front of the spotty boys they fancy.
During the morning’s English lesson, Mary has to choose three people to make up her group of four. She selects Lorraine, David and Trish. Stupid Lorraine fancies dull David, who reciprocates the feeling. Everyone knows this because they throw regular, surreptitious glances at each other and avoid direct contact. While the four of them read the Lord of the Flies worksheet together, Mary talks about French kissing. David and Lorraine squirm in embarrassment. Mary winks at Trish. Later that afternoon she corners blushing Grant and flatters him until his ears burn. She tells him that Judy has a crush on him and wants him to be her sex toy. After a minute, Trish pulls her away, whispers to her fiercely to stop the torture and then huffs away to Helen’s side. Mary laughs out loud.
She feels like a saucepan of milk that’s about to boil over, frustrated by the mediocrity of her life. She wants something to happen. If she keeps up this crush-crushing long enough, she should get beaten up or lynched. This tingling of danger, more meaningful and worldly than detention, excites her. She continues crush-crushing. By the end of the day she can feel a hostile buzz when she approaches people. No one does anything to stop her, not even Helen. She decides to find out who Helen fancies and seduce him. Helen is bound to react.
The bell rings at the end of the day and they flock to the gates. Mary falls into step beside Trish.
“You’ve gone too far this time,” says Trish. “You can’t play with people. It’s evil.”
Mary studies her friend. She is really upset.
“You’re not worried I’ll do it to you, are you?”
“Of course not. Anyway, I don’t fancy anyone,” she adds. She flicks back her brushed hair. “I just don’t want you to get expelled.”
“All right, I’ll stop. It’s a stupid game in any case. Can I come back to yours?”
“If you like.”
Trish pushes her bike and they head towards Mary’s home to pick up hers. After a few steps, Trish stops and stares across the road.
“There’s a bloke over there trying to catch your attention. Look! In that old van.”
It’s Gus. Mary makes a ‘V’ sign at him and continues walking.
“Who is he?”
“Some crazy idiot,” says Mary.
“What does he want?”
“To go out with me, I think.”
“But he’s a man,” says Trish.
Trish’s reaction accentuates Mary’s impression of the huge gap between the safe life of school and the dangers of the adult world. Gus must be at least seventeen because he’s driving. Although Mary is fed up with school, she’s not sure she’s ready to step into adulthood. Trish is happy in the padded cell of her life. She’s lucky: she has a family that cares about her. She hasn’t been lied to all her life. She doesn’t need to search for
meaning in the way Mary does.
Gus drives up and kerb-crawls to keep pace with them.
“Want a lift?”
Trish clings to Mary’s arm.
“No. Get lost, creep,” says Mary. She shakes Trish off.
“Too bad. It’s your loss.” He drives away.
Mary feels strangely deflated.
Her arrivals at the Bellamys’ are the closest Mary feels to coming home. Trish launches her bike into the dark chaos of the shed’s interior while Mary stands her bicycle against it and then pushes open the kitchen door.
The kitchen is a large, overflowing nest, scented with fresh bread. Both the Aga and Mrs Bellamy are the source of its warmth. The table is never cleared; a meal is constantly in preparation and there are ceaseless voices from changing sources. Brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, neighbours and streams of pets flow across the room like air currents. Like the ghosts in Mary’s house. Here, she feels part of a whole, even if it’s not her own whole. Her corners and hard, flat surfaces become as rounded and soft as the flesh on Mrs Bellamy’s comforting arms when she’s here. In years to come, a fleeting aroma of strawberry jam will bring the Bellamys’ kitchen to mind and reassure her.
Mary gives Mrs Bellamy the daffodils she stopped to pick out of Rebecca’s front garden. She winks at Jimmy, who knows where the daffodils come from. He’s lounging in her favourite armchair. It has ladders in its nylon stretch-cover and creaks like old bones when she shifts her weight in it.
“Did your mother talk to you about yesterday’s parents’ evening?” asks Mrs Bellamy.
“A bit.” She picks up a handful of cutlery and starts to lay the table. “How many of us tonight?”
“Just us five for the moment. Did the teachers give you any advice for your future, then?”
Trish comes into the kitchen. She kisses her mum, pushes Jimmy off the chair and takes his place.
“No,” says Mary, “though I’m tempted by science.”
She smiles at the thought of how Mr Higgins would react to her words. She knows she’ll never get the GCSE grades needed to go on to A levels.
“Science? You?” Trish is stark-eyed with shock. “I thought you were going to leave school as soon as you could.”
Mary shrugs. She wants to hear Mrs Bellamy’s opinion.
Trish’s eyebrows gradually settle back to rest, making her glasses slip down her nose. “It would be cool to be in A-level classes together.”
“Smart girls choose science,” says Mrs Bellamy, at last. “But are you sure you’ll make the grades?” Worry creases her sweat-beaded forehead.
“Probably not. Maybe I’ll become a nun instead. You don’t need qualifications for that.”
“You must think carefully about your studies. I can give you a hand when the time comes. I’ve been through all this with my boys, remember,” says Mrs Bellamy.
Mary nods. It’s easy for most people. They simply choose what they’re best at, or what they enjoy, but she doesn’t deserve to do something she likes. She doesn’t even know what she likes. She doesn’t want to know.
“Shall I help with dinner?”
“No, it’s fine, thanks, Mary. Go and get on with your homework until dinnertime.”
Mary and Trish help themselves to a glass of orange juice and then traipse upstairs like sisters.
Later, they sit at the table while Mrs Bellamy bustles across the hall to the office to collect her husband James. He’s a whisper of a man who lives for his academic work, which takes him into London for long periods of time. Mary has never established exactly what he does. She isn’t sure that anyone in the family really knows. She’s intrigued by how he manages not to be swallowed up by the rest of the noisy Bellamy family. Despite his fragile exterior, he exerts a quiet authority over the tumultuous household. He rarely addresses Mary directly and she wonders whether he notices that she’s not his daughter. She prefers his absence to his presence: seeing him reminds her that she’s fatherless.
After dinner Mary prepares to leave. Mrs Bellamy accompanies her to the gate and offers her help again in choosing suitable studies. Mary thanks her and declines. She’s got some thinking to do before she’s ready to discuss the future.
Chapter 20
Over the next few months Mary starts to consider the world of jobs. She has to find something punishing, something completely different from anyone else. Above all, it must annoy Mother and be the opposite of what R– would have chosen. For the moment, nothing beats being a nun.
Despite Mary’s refusal, Mrs Bellamy becomes her career advisor. She swings her rotund form into the office chair and browses through brochures of job possibilities with the same gusto with which she processes fresh food into meals. Mary, perched on a stool beside her, admires Mrs Bellamy’s sleek analysis of what is suitable for a girl who can’t stand science on its feet, and who is too lazy to bother with languages. Watching Mrs Bellamy lick a beetroot-stained finger as she whips through page after page of a well-used career guide, Mary feels a sudden urge to confide. She’s compelled to explain why she has this need to turn against everything expected of her. But it’s been too long. She wouldn’t know how to start.
“Don’t end up a powerless housewife like me,” Mrs Bellamy cautions. “Get out there in the world and make a difference.” Her elder sons are both at Oxford.
Mary takes to wandering around town on her own. She studies people in suits and examines brass plaques on austere doors. She slips into newsagents and pores over jobs pages, mentally noting new words to discuss with Mrs Bellamy. She career-hunts by elimination. First, she crosses off every career she hears her schoolmates discussing enthusiastically, and then every job that seems fulfilling. If the discovery of a job creates a wave of affinity, she immediately rejects it. Her choice must be calculated, not spontaneous. A job with numbers would be ideal.
During one of these outings she sees Gus again. He doesn’t notice her. He is walking a step behind a brash businessman in a dark suit. The Suit is speaking loudly into a mobile phone as he walks, obviously proud of his coveted status symbol. They look as if they’re together. Mary joins the crowd on the pavement and follows. She’s intrigued by Gus’s unlikely relationship with his companion.
They arrive at a zebra crossing and stop. Gus’s attention is caught by something to his right and he bumps into his stationary partner. The Suit snatches his phone away from his head and barks a rebuke at Gus. Gus regains his balance and apologises. Then he crosses the road and continues along the street on his own, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his baggy jeans.
Mary whistles in admiration at the slickness of his theft. She hurries to catch him up.
“Are you going to buy me a coffee with your stolen gains?”
Gus stops and grins at her.
“Hey, kiddo. Nice to see you again. What stolen gains?”
“It was pretty obvious to the whole crowd that you were nicking his wallet.”
Gus frowns, then laughs. “Right. So you do it better, do you?”
Mary shrugs. “Are you buying me coffee or not?”
Gus takes her arm and steers her into a side street.
“Let’s have a look at the winnings before I decide.”
They cross the town and enter a dingy café, where Mary relents and tells him her name. In exchange, Gus shows her how to pick pockets and then takes her to the warehouse where his rock group is rehearsing.
Mary’s mother accidentally meets Gus when she comes home early from her shift at the supermarket. Mary and Gus are raiding the fridge, thirsty after an afternoon of hanging around town.
Mother enters the kitchen and stops short. Gus is silhouetted like an alien in the light of the open fridge. Her sloping shoulders straighten and her expression brightens. Mary feels the old jealousy from before rear up.
“Hello, love,” she says to Mary. “Who’s this young man?”
“Gus.” She turns her back on Mother and speaks to Gus: “This is her.”
Gus
turns around and they sum each other up. Mary hasn’t been kind in her description of her mother to Gus.
Mother oozes social charm. Mary is afraid Gus will be taken in by Mother’s fraudulent demeanour. He is going to find her mum more interesting than herself.
“Help yourself to a beer,” Mother says.
“No, thanks. I don’t drink the rats’ piss you’ve got in stock.”
Mary is delighted by his rude reply.
Mother looks surprised, but isn’t put off. She asks him what he does.
Gus flops into the settee. “I’m a musician.”
Mother eases off her coat and perches on the settee arm. “That’s my background too. What kind of music?”
He yawns and stretches, taking up all the room. “Classical violin.” He winks at Mary, who smirks.
Mother frowns and stands up. “Well …” She looks lost for words. She glances at Mary, then folds her arms. “And how old are you?”
“Forty-five,” he lies. “And you, Mrs Hubbard?”
Mother’s chin rises and her eyes flash in anger.
Mary’s smirk becomes a wide grin.
Mother draws herself up like a cobra. “Mary is only fifteen. She must concentrate on her schoolwork. I don’t want anyone to lead her astray.”
Mary snorts. “Schoolwork! Since when have you been interested in my schoolwork?”
Gus is unfazed. “I have four A levels, Mrs Hubbard. I know how important school is.”
Mary knows he’s only just eighteen and that he left school before his A levels.
“Come on, Gus,” she says. “Let’s get out of this dump.”
She pulls him to his feet and out of the house before Mother can embarrass herself any more.
Mary admires everything about Gus. He’s daring, smart, rude and, most of all, he pleases himself. He is everything she wants to become; a kind of mirror of how she could be in the future. She feels naive beside him and drinks in his worldliness. School, Trish, her mother; all fade into black and white beside the colour of this new scene. It’s not love, flowers and hearts; it’s adventure, freedom and real life. Gus treats her like an adult. He talks about the fulfilment that creating music can bring, and explains how futile it is to search for comfort in hard drugs.
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