Growing Up Twice

by Rowan Coleman

  I have only ever been to two funerals, both grandparents who were old and, hard though it was at the time, it hadn’t been a shock. Muslim funerals happen much more quickly and it was only two days after Ayla died that Rosie and I stood expectantly in the kitchen doorway as the family trailed back into the house. I had been anticipating a parade of relatives, friends and acquaintances but instead it was only the family, a friend of Selin’s father and a couple of close neighbours. We had made far too much food. From my limited experience of funerals I remember afternoons beginning with hushed murmurs and cups of tea passed round, gently building into family chat and finally laughter. But this time, even whispered conversations seemed intrusive.

  The family sat or stood, pale-faced and shocked. Since Ayla’s death I have hardly managed to talk to Selin, but on that day I suddenly realised that I haven’t really talked to Selin, found out what’s going on with her, in months. When we’ve been together, if we haven’t been dancing, or drinking, the conversation has inevitably come back to my or Rosie’s life. Selin has sorted us out time and time again. It’s almost as though the better friend she has been the more of a stranger she has become.

  Seeing her for the first time since the hospital, sitting incongruously and in silence in the corner, hand in hand with Mr Selin’s friend, with her chin in her hand looking at the traffic passing down the road, his gaze intent on her, was just like seeing a stranger. The recently bold, beautiful Selin seemed to have been hollowed out into an almost translucent china doll, her skin stretched taut and pale, every angle of her face etched with grief. I briefly considered trying to rescue her from the overattentive friend but despite everything I had said to myself and Rosie over the last couple of days I couldn’t find a way to comfort her. I still felt as though somehow I had brought her to this state, empty and alone except for the attentions of some old man.

  Hakam ran upstairs as soon as he could. Mr Selin dabbed at each eye in turn, quietly wiping away tears and sipping whisky, and Mrs Selin went to the kitchen and washed up all the plates and cutlery we had washed up earlier that day and began packing the mountains of food into freezer containers and Tupperware.

  ‘The children can have all this for their lunch,’ she said to me as she dried the same plates again. ‘I mean, Hakam can.’ She hid her face with the freezer door and I went back into the living-room and sat at the table where a few weeks ago we had been laughing with Ayla about Jamie Bolton. I wondered where he was right at this moment. Looking around for Rosie I saw that she had joined Selin and the stranger sitting by the window but Selin didn’t move to acknowledge her. I caught her eye and she shrugged at me and shook her head. I bit my lip and went to find Josh.

  The sight of him huddled against the chill on the balcony in his best shirt and one of his dad’s ties hit me harder than I expected. His wide shoulders folded in upon themselves and although he was clean-shaven I could see shadows of sleepless nights under his red-rimmed eyes. I hung back for a moment in the doorway wondering whether to interrupt his reverie, wondering if I was brave enough, but before I could leave he caught sight of me and offered me a drag of his cigarette.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ I smiled weakly. ‘And neither do you, remember?’ He returned my smile with a tight distortion of his lips.

  ‘Apparently I do again.’ With this he took a long last drag and flicked the butt of the cigarette over the edge of the balcony into someone’s back garden.

  I joined him to lean on the railing and looked out over the brown and grey mosaic of the city. The gloom of the evening had already begun to settle in the sky and slowly seeped down to meet the rooftops and chimneys.

  ‘How are you holding out?’ I asked, wishing there was some alternative script for occasions like these.

  He glanced at me for a second before returning his gaze to the horizon. ‘She was my kid sister, you know. My baby girl. The worst thing I worried about for her was getting pregnant by some spotty kid behind the bike sheds, even though I knew that was never her style. The best things I imagined for her, college and freedom, love, a future. She was so beautiful, wasn’t she? I was getting ready to fight off all her suitors. Never had a chance with Selin, she used to fight them all off before I got there. Ayla was different, more delicate somehow. More … breakable.’

  I watched Josh’s profile in the diminishing light, and felt every shadow and line of his expression so hard it almost knocked the breath out of me.

  ‘Josh, I just don’t know what to say,’ I recited lamely from the script again.

  He shook his head and put his arm around me, I wound my arms around his waist and we stood quietly until finally the last of the light left the sky, silent and companionable.

  ‘Come on. We’d better go in,’ he said to me, and the sudden withdrawal of his warmth made me shiver. He looked at me for one more moment before opening the doors back into the living-room.

  ‘You’ve been a really good friend, Jenny, I just want you to know I appreciate it.’ I watched his back as we returned to the warmth inside and I felt terrible. I haven’t really been any kind of friend at all, everyone is misjudging me.

  Hoping to rectify this a little bit, once inside I made my way over to Selin, who looked as though she hadn’t moved once. Rosie had gone somewhere.

  ‘Seli?’ I whispered her nickname, and she slowly turned her face to me and focused.

  ‘Jen, hello, come here.’ I went to her and she hugged me for a long time, covering my face with her fragrant hair, her shoulders stiff and brittle under her shirt.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked me.

  ‘Me? I’m fine, are you OK? We haven’t really had a chance to talk, have we?’ I looked pointedly at the man with her, a tall and slender man with short grey hair and intense dark eyes, but he only smiled at me and nodded.

  ‘Oh, it’s just, I can’t really think of anything to say, but thank you, thank you so much for being here. It’s meant a lot to me and Josh. And Mum and Dad. And Hakam.’ She smiled weakly. I sighed and squeezed her hand.

  ‘Selin, I just wanted to say that, well, maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything but I’m sorry, so sorry that I didn’t get to Ayla in time.’

  Selin looked confused for a moment and then shook her head as if trying to clear it, a tight smile emerging.

  ‘Don’t be silly, this was just a pointless accident. No one’s fault. Well, not yours anyway.’ She squeezed my hand again but the tight restraint in her voice made me wonder whether she was entirely convinced by her own words. I felt suddenly like an intruder.

  ‘Well, maybe we’d better go, it seems to me that you need time with your family.’ I glared at the man again, but he only smiled and nodded.

  Selin sighed and any traces of anger dissolved into exhaustion. ‘Maybe you’re right, but thanks for being here. Where’s Rosie?’

  ‘I’m here.’ Rosie stood behind us with both our jackets over her arm. ‘I think Jen is right about the family thing, we should be going.’

  Selin nodded, hauled herself from the window-seat and walked with us down to the front door.

  ‘Don’t forget, call us whenever you need us. Whatever time,’ I told her. She smiled and hugged us both again.

  ‘OK. I’ll see you. Oh, and it’s Josh’s exhibition coming up in a few weeks. He almost pulled out of it, it took Dad and I ages to persuade him not to. Ayla would have been so cross, she always said he should hurry up and be a proper artist instead of pissing around being a gardener, it embarrassed her.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘We all have to be there to support him, OK?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. Selin shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other for a moment and then took one of each of our hands in both of hers.

  ‘Look, I do need to talk to you. I’ve got something to tell you. I was meant to tell you on Monday but … but …’ She couldn’t finish her sentence. We re-engaged in a hug.

  ‘Shhh, it’s OK. You can tell us when you’re ready, OK? If you want us, either of us, any time, we
’re here.’ Rosie smoothed Selin’s hair back from her forehead and gently wiped away her tears with the ball of her thumb.

  ‘Thank you. I needed to hear that, but I think I need to be with this lot for now,’ she smiled, nodding back up the stairs. ‘It means a lot to me to have both of you around, I’ll be in touch.’

  Rosie and I walked back in silence through the damp and foggy evening, not exactly on bad terms any more but not exactly easy with each other’s company either. In fact, Ayla’s death was a very convenient way for neither of us to feel that we had to discuss our differences very much.

  For the last hour we have sat in silence in front of When Harry Met Sally, both cradling cups of tea, our feet outstretched before us, too exhausted even to change from our funeral clothes. Rosie’s sudden movement from the sofa startles me.

  ‘Do you want another?’ she asks, holding her hand out for my mug.

  ‘Yeah, cheers love,’ I say and then, remembering my manners, ‘I’ll make it, you must be knackered.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll make it.’ She peers into my mug. ‘I swear, you shouldn’t be allowed a full mug of tea, you never finish one, always leave a good two inches in the bottom.’

  I laugh; she always teases me about this. ‘You know I don’t like it when it’s gone cold,’ I say just as I always do.

  ‘You must have an asbestos throat,’ she says just as she always does. I sense that the familiarity of the exchange signals a truce between us. I let myself relax a little and feel the aches and strains of the day start to corrode into my muscles.

  ‘Oh, I meant to tell you,’ Rosie calls out from the kitchen. ‘My mum’s over with Hubby next weekend for a few days, they’ll be staying at his country residence, you know, the bungalow in Godalming. Anyway, it’s the only chance I’m going to get to see her and I suppose I should, so I’ll be away Friday night and Saturday day, back Saturday evening. Sunday they do his relatives. Do you think that’s OK? Leaving Selin?’

  I had hoped that the three of us would be able to spend some quality time together at last, but life goes on, I guess.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly as if your mum’s round the corner so you must go. Selin would understand, and anyway, I bet your mum is dying to talk babies with you.’

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? My mum and the concept “granny” in the same scenario, that’s not the kind of label she’s used to, darling. By the way, who was that guy who kept hanging around Selin?’ Rosie returns from the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the memory of him. ‘He looked like a right letch.’

  I nod in agreement; she has only filled my mug two-thirds. ‘I know, but Selin is too polite by far to tell anyone to leave her alone. And anyway, she probably didn’t feel like confrontation today of all days.’

  Rosie nods and flops on to the sofa.

  ‘How do you think she’s handling it?’ I ask Rosie.

  ‘I don’t know, it’s hard to tell with Selin, isn’t it. She’s such a rock, always has been. I mean, you can see how devastated she is, it’s written all over her, but somehow if she’d gone to pieces, tears, hysteria, it would be easier to see how to help her. I mean, I always go to pieces, I’m very easy to deal with in that respect.’ We smile at each other tentatively, trying not to make light of the situation but really tempted to blow the tension with a good giggle. Rosie continues.

  ‘It’s like when she split up with Max, when was that now? God, seven years ago. I mean, they’d been together all through uni, hadn’t they? Her dad and his dad were best friends, they were both accountants and they really did seem made for each other, you know, in their own way. But then he goes and proposes and that’s it. It’s over. No dramatics, no endless nights of weeping round yours, no vodka binges round mine, no sleeping with other people to get back at him and then feeling shit about yourself. Don’t you remember? She just told us the news one night, you and I went into classic post-relationship mode, got steamingly drunk and pulled those two blokes that looked like rejects from Take That, and I got Gary Barlow – bloody hell – and she went home before midnight sober as a judge and alone. In fact, the next day she came round to yours and cooked us breakfast.’

  I nodded as I remembered what could be classed as Selin’s only serious emotional upheaval until this week. ‘Yeah, but I mean maybe she never loved him or something, and she just felt a bit relieved that it was over. She’s not, you know “showy” is she, with her emotions? But this, I mean we know she adored Ayla, they all do. This is different.’ I’m searching for easy access to an experience I can only feel peripherally.

  ‘Of course it is. But the thing with Selin is it’s really hard to know what she wants, what she’s thinking, how she’s coping.’

  We sit in silence for a few moments more and then I say. ‘Don’t you think we should know?’

  We watch the end of the film without answering the question.

  Chapter Forty-two

  I compare this Friday to last Friday morning and I think about how much can change in a week. I have to go back into the office today. Actually I don’t have to, Georgie told me I could take the whole week off, but for once the prospect of a mundane office job seems more appealing than an unarmed exploration into the world of daytime television. Under normal circumstances I am fully equipped with a full battery of irony, sloth and indifference but for the last couple of days the vapid lull of the TV has only set my mind free to think about Ayla, Selin, Josh and Michael.

  It’s a tough choice between thinking things over in my living-room and thinking things over in the office but at least at the office I’ll have Jackson’s and Carla’s endless prattle to preoccupy me. When I think that dithering over some fax in a desperate attempt to get back into Georgie’s good books made me late for Ayla I feel suddenly overcome with angry fatigue. Something that insignificant should not play a part in someone’s death. No one would have died if that order hadn’t gone through, if it had been chucked out with the rubbish. Georgie would have acted as if someone had died, probably me, but no one actually would have. And yet if I’d treated the fax like the stupid piece of pointless money-making paper that it was someone might even have lived. Someone I cared about. This is the side to irony I never wanted to become acquainted with, the real-life implications of the messenger missing Romeo on his way to find Juliet dead in the chapel.

  I’ve phoned Selin a few times, but her answerphone has always picked up and I’ve felt awkward about phoning the family home. I don’t want to intrude.

  Michael. After nearly a week, I only spoke to him briefly yesterday and I’m expecting to see him tomorrow morning. I was on my way back from the police station after giving a full statement, walking down Stoke Newington High Street closely followed by an angry drunk mumbling obscenities under his breath. I had ducked into the safety of Woolworths and was spending some preoccupied minutes looking for an all-the-rage Barbie my niece desperately wants for Christmas when my phone rang. I answered it quickly, for the first time in my life keen to silence ‘Disco Inferno’. It briefly occurred to me that it might be Owen, but I had said, ‘Hello?’ before the thought registered.

  ‘It’s me, how are you doing?’ It was Michael; straight away his sweetly cheerful tone annoyed me. ‘I just I thought I’d say hi. We haven’t spoken since the weekend?’ He finished the sentence as if it were a question. He really wanted to know why I hadn’t called him.

  ‘Not good, actually. You remember Ayla? The girl who came round to my flat? She’s … um, she died.’ The fact that I was telling him several days after it had happened suddenly threw our relationship in to stark shadow and light.

  Normal boyfriends you phone straight away under those circumstances, you expect them to rush over or talk you through it and be there for you. It’s a long, long time since I have had a normal boyfriend, but the dull philosophy student I told you about, he would have come over with some red wine and discussed existentialism with me, that sort of thing. For a moment I wistfully missed his stolid predictability and even
his beard. I realised that I hadn’t even wanted to talk to Michael as a distraction, and really he’s the best kind of distraction there is.

  ‘She died! No way, you’re kidding, right?’ He laughed. I knew it was nervous laughter but it was exactly the wrong thing to do. I bristled.

  ‘No, I am not kidding and it is not funny. She is dead. She was run over on Monday. Right in front of me, actually.’ I realised my voice had risen and become tight with tears and that people were watching me. I put down the Barbie I had been clutching and marched swiftly out of the shop. Some Twickenham static crackled in my ear.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said eventually. ‘But she was only, what, seventeen?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ I said and turned from the cut-price squalor of the high street into the bohemian café society of Church Street.

  ‘Fuck, I’m only a couple of years older than her. Fuck.’

  I sighed impatiently as the enormity of mortality hit Michael for the first time, my temper stopping me dead outside an estate agent’s window.

  ‘Michael, I should go really, OK? I’m on my way to the police station to give a statement,’ I lied.

  ‘Look, should I come over tonight? Do you want to talk about it? I could skip school tomorrow and we could go somewhere, forget about it.’

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to forget about it, but I thought back on the last time I saw Michael and how nice it would be to spend some more time like that with him, in our little bubble of denial. But not with Rosie in the next room.

  ‘No, look, it’s not a good idea just now. But Rosie’s mum is in the country at the weekend so she won’t be around Saturday. Why don’t you come over in the morning, we can spend the day together. You’d have to go before she got back though.’ I said it quickly, feeling guilty for making arrangements when I probably should be seeing if Selin wanted some company, especially when Rosie was going to be in Surrey with her mum. The invitation is out of my mouth before I realise what I’m saying. I’m not sure how seeing Michael will help me, to be honest, but at least he can’t make things any worse.