by Kat Gordon
“I guess.”
“What do you wanna do?”
“I used to wanna be a nurse.”
“Changed your mind?”
“I didn’t do my exams.”
“You probably don’t need to,” he said. He went back to his book. I lay on my bed for a few hours, trying to work out how I could get into medicine without qualifications. I didn’t know if I even wanted to anymore. I couldn’t think of anyone in the healthcare profession that seemed nice; the nurses who’d looked after my grandmother hadn’t been great. The nurses in the hospital after the miscarriage had been worse. And then my father.
Do I just stay at a café forever, then? I asked myself. I tried to see past next week, but I couldn’t.
I steeled myself to the life that followed, although working at the café was worse than I’d thought. My boss didn’t bother trying to hide how much I got on his nerves from the start. The work was long and left me with aches in my feet and arms and back and neck. One of the boys in the dorm offered to give me a massage once, and used the opportunity to start kissing me; hot, wet kisses that felt greasy on my skin. I let him do it. I didn’t try to stop him when he wanted to go further, even. Afterwards, I gathered my clothes up and took a shower. He was waiting on his bed for me to come to him again, but I went to my own and turned onto my side to face the wall. I could hear him breathing uncertainly, then the springs in his mattress squeak as he lay back down.
After a few months, I was close to snapping. I joined the public library and checked out all the books I could find on chemistry, biology, medicine, nursing and career opportunities. I read them in the park if it wasn’t raining, or on the staircase at the hostel if it was. I took notes. I answered questions and looked up the answers, marking myself like a teacher would have done. I even wrote essays. I thought about taking evening classes; I got as far as walking into the building of the local adult education centre before I realised I wasn’t an adult yet. Maybe they’d find it suspicious, how young I was, and turn me in to the police. My palms felt clammy. I turned and pushed my way out the front door again.
I didn’t want to present myself at a GP surgery, or the local hospital for the same reason. I couldn’t lie my way into work experience there as easily as into being a waitress. Maybe my father could have helped me get work experience – if I’d stayed on, taken the exams. If he hadn’t withdrawn me from the school and let me know he blamed me for everything that happened. I convinced myself it was for the best; I didn’t want to be like him – I didn’t want anything to do with him. At least as a waitress I could pretend I was following in my mother’s footsteps instead.
After a while, I took most of the books back. A couple I’d lost in the dorm room, among my other stuff. I paid the fines on those and never went to the library again.
Seventeen
Four years or so after I went to live at the hostel, I was unloading my tips into my locker in the hallway of the hostel. Someone grabbed my arm and I shook it off instinctively, my body taut and poised to run.
“Tallie?”
I hadn’t seen Starr since I’d left school.
“Is it really you?” she asked. “You’re here?” She looked like she was ready to cry.
I felt my stomach flip, and my toes and fingers prick with something. I couldn’t work out if it was terror or relief. “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, slamming the locker shut and turning to face her. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“Nice, that’s real nice, Tal.” She looked pissed now. “No one’s heard from you in years and that’s the hello I get.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling shamed. “I didn’t expect to see you here, that’s all.”
“Dick,” Starr said, but she smiled at me.
“So, what are you doing here?”
“I followed you in,” she said. “I thought I saw you on the street outside but you were too far away to hear me call.” She stepped back and took all of me in.
“I’ve been working,” I said, suddenly embarrassed by my appearance. “Gimme a minute to shower, then we can talk.”
Starr sat on my bed while I showered. I came back fully clothed; she was perched on the edge of the mattress, her nose wrinkled up. There was no one else in the dorm. “Thank fuck for that,” she said when she saw me. “Let’s get out of here.”
We grabbed a six-pack of beer from the fridge and walked with it to a church garden in nearby Islington. It’d been raining, but the sun was out, making little rainbows in the puddles, and in the drops clinging to the poplar trees that grew in the church and the park opposite. I spread my parka out on a bench almost completely hidden by the rose bush behind it.
“So,” Starr said, as soon as we sat down. “Why’d you run away?”
“I didn’t run away.”
“You, like, totally disappeared, Tal.”
“My dad took me out of school anyway, enrolled me in a remedial college. I just left early, before the exams.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little immature?”
“Look,” I said. “I’ve never been good in school. And me and my dad never got on. I don’t wanna see him.”
“Well… ”
“Seriously. I’m not going back.”
She looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. “Your call. What have you been up to, then?”
“Not much. Working,” I said. I lit a cigarette and took a drag. “What about you?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, fine,” she said. She tucked her hair back behind her ear, looking around the churchyard. “Is this where you hang?”
“It’s not so bad,” I said. “I generally work at night. I sleep. I don’t go out much.”
“What do you do?”
“Save my money. I want to get somewhere of my own.”
“Pretty grown up of you, Little Cuz.”
“Yeah, I’m living the dream.”
Across the road we could hear dog owners exchanging pleasantries, and mothers telling their toddlers to be careful on the swings. The churchyard was completely empty except for an old man sweeping autumn leaves off the path a few yards away, and a cat stalking a pigeon.
“What happened to your moggy?” Starr asked, pointing at the cat.
“He died,” I said. I wiped my nose with the sleeve of my jumper; I still got a sinking feeling whenever I thought about Mr Tickles.
“Sorry, man,” Starr said. “He was like, your best friend, or something lame, wasn’t he?”
“What if he was?”
Starr looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You almost had me there, you know?”
I grinned, and rammed my hands into my pockets.
“Even you’re not that much of a loner.”
“Don’t be mean about my cat,” I said. “He was better company than most people.”
“Sucks,” Starr said. She gave me a friendly punch. “Anyway, enough of being depressing. I’ve got a riddle for you. Which of our family members is obsessed with The Beatles?”
“I don’t know. None of them?”
“Aunt Gillian.” Starr grinned.
“Why?”
“’Cos of her husbands.”
“What?”
“Think about it… I just picked up on it the other day. John, George, Paul.” She tapped the top of the beer can.
“Who’s Paul?”
“The latest one. Oh yeah, of course. He was after your little invisibility trick.”
“Drop it.”
Starr gave me an innocent look. “Alright, touchy. I was just gonna say Gillian goes out of her way to find the creep-o-lahs.”
“What was John like?”
“Don’t remember him, really. I was only two. But, I mean, George – yuck.” She shuddered theatrically.
I wondered about Michael. He must have been five when John died, old enough to remember him. We’d never talked about it though, even after my mother.
Starr was still talking, “I saw this programme on TV last night… Di
d you know men get boners after they’re dead?” She cracked her can open and took a swig. The cat in front of us looked around, hissing at the noise. “Scat,” Starr said.
The pigeon took off. The cat glared at us then curled up in a nearby flowerbed.
“Yeah,” I said. “Angel lust.”
“Of course,” Starr said. “You always knew the weirdest things.”
I opened my can. “Grandma told me that,” I said.
“You guys talked about sex?” Starr mimed sticking her fingers down her throat. “I can’t think of anything more hideous. Even my mother has more sense.”
“It came up during a programme we were watching.”
“It came up?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“You’re not funny,” I told her.
She cackled. The cat opened one eye and glared at us again.
“So what about you?” she said, keeping the can to her mouth. “Have you… since?”
“No.” I took a swig of beer; I’d brought approximately seven guys back to the hostel since I’d been living there.
“Me either then.”
I gave her a look. “Everyone at school knew about you and Pierre. And you and David, or whatever his name was.”
“It doesn’t count if it’s less than two minutes.”
“Right,” I said. “Hope that philosophy works out for you. And the staff at your nearest STI clinic.”
“It does,” Starr said, serenely.
I yawned.
The cat lifted its head and started washing its paw vigorously.
“I need to go back,” I said. “I’m knackered.”
“Fine,” Starr said. “I’ll walk you.”
In the street she linked her arm through mine and started talking about art college; I concentrated on staying awake. “One of the maintenance guys is super hot – Ricardo or Rodrigo or something like that. I’m thinking of giving him my number. Anyway, my bus stops here. See you soon, yeah? You’re not gonna move again, now I know where you are?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re a piece of work, Tal.”
“Love you too.”
I hear from the hospital that the operation was successful. My father’s under again, though.
Any chance he’ll come round before the apocalypse? I want to ask, but I just thank them and hang up.
Work is a bad idea. I’ve got a headache that won’t go away even after two Nurofen, and my boss is in a rotten mood; I’m barely through the door before he’s yelling.
“Go take a cold shower,” I mutter, while I’m tying the apron strings behind my back.
He glares at me.
It’s almost as bad as the other day. I forget orders, undercharge two tables, snap at the guy who’s asking for Dijon mustard.
“Look around,” I tell him. “Does it look like we’ve got Dijon mustard?”
“It’s not fancy or anything,” he says, hurt. “It’s just not as strong. I can’t have anything too strong.”
I feel like throwing my notepad at him. “I’ll see if we have any in the kitchen,” I say.
I push through the kitchen doors. “Any Dijon mustard in here?” I ask.
Tony, the other chef, doesn’t even look at me. “That’s stuff’s too expensive for Tight-Wad.”
I sit down on the stool that’s shoved up against the wall in between the huge fridge and the dishwasher.
“Please don’t make me go back out there,” I say. “Please don’t make me tell Table Four there’s no Dijon.”
Now he looks at me; he grins and takes a cigarette out of his pocket. “Have one on me,” he says.
I take it. “I’m not due a break for another two hours.”
“I won’t tell,” he says. “Tight-Wad’s on the phone – he won’t notice.”
“Thanks.”
The cigarette goes a little way towards repairing my frayed nerves, but the headache’s worse now. I go back to Table Four with a sorry look on my face. “No Dijon,” I say.
He sniffs. “Guess I’ll make do. Can you scrape these onions out, too?”
I sigh. I pick up his plate and carry it over to the kitchen. I scrape the onions off the burger into the bin.
“Stop wasting good onions,” my boss yells at me.
“He doesn’t want any.”
“Well, he should have said before he ordered. That onion comes out of your pay.”
I put the plate down on the microwave. “Shut up,” I say.
“What did you just say?” he asks, squinting at me. He’s chewing a toothpick and a strand of saliva dangles out of his mouth when he speaks.
“Shut up.”
He goes purple. “Final warning, missy.”
I go to the kitchen door. I look out the porthole and see Table Four tapping his foot. I think about my father, back in his coma, sleeping his life away. “I can’t do this,” I say. “I quit.”
“You can’t fucking quit,” he yells. “We’ve got no one else until six p.m.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I say. “Why don’t you serve them yourself?”
Tony turns away, delicately; he’s still chopping, but I think his shoulders are shaking.
“Rot in fucking hell.”
“Right back at you.”
I tear the apron off and throw it at my boss’ feet. He takes the toothpick out and points it at me; for a crazy second, I think he’s going to throw it at me, like a mini javelin.
“You’ll come crawling back,” he says. “And just so you know – you’ll never get a job here again. Or a fucking reference.”
“Fine by me,” I say. “You probably can’t write anyway.”
He advances towards me, and I slip away and out the back door. I can hear him screaming abuse after me all the way down the alley. Then I’m out on the street and cars are pouring past me. The sky’s cloudy and I’ve got nowhere to be and no money. I should have at least made him pay for my last few shifts. But I don’t care, I can’t stop grinning. I start out in the direction of the tube.
“So, you’re okay for money, right?”
Starr stubbed her cigarette out in the pint glass I’d given her for her orange squash and dropped the butt in the bin behind her.
I ran a hand through my hair and gestured around. “I’m fine,” I said. “Check out the palace.”
She wrinkled her nose. Dirty laundry was strewn over every surface and there were dirty dishes piled up in the sink. The posters the last tenants had put up had left darker patches on walls that were sun-bleached around them. The only trouble I took was over the plants growing on the windowsill; I watered them every night, and clipped them like my grandmother had taught me.
“You’ve been here one month?”
“Yeah.”
“You haven’t done much with it.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It smells weird.”
“Yeah.” I took a drag of my cigarette. “Something’s rotten in the fridge, but I can’t find it.”
“Jesus, Tallie.” Starr looked disgusted.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Rent’s low. There are no rats this time. The loo flushes.” I shrugged. “What more do I need? It’s better than the hostel, anyway.”
“Yeah, well.” She tugged her skirt down, inching the hem to just above her knees. “So you’re still at the café?”
I took a gulp of coffee – the mug had a crack in it, I noticed. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s okay. I know the customers – who tips well, that kind of shit.”
“Right.”
Starr let go of the hem of the skirt, and ran her fingers over the front of it, smoothing the leather down. It looked like it had cost her well over a hundred quid, and made me feel even plainer in my denim shorts and oversized grey jumper. Her t-shirt was white, with some sort of punk logo on the front, and her gloves were fingerless and matched her skirt.
“What are you up to then?” I asked her. “Still with that maintenance guy?”
“Ricardo?” she purred. �
�I’m living with him now.” She stretched her improbably long legs and gave me a sly smile. “Mum’s furious.” She opened the handbag slung across the back of her chair and took out some purple lipstick, rolling it around the table in front of her. “He has a motorbike.” She leaned forward. “And he’s very good with his hands.”
“Yeah, you said.” I dragged on my cigarette again and stubbed it out. “Probably lucky, given his job.”
“You’re such a Park.”
“It’s your name too.”
“Not for much longer.” She pulled a face. “I’m thinking of changing my name – I might marry Ricardo.”
“What would you be then?”
“Garcia.”
“Starr Garcia?”
“Yep.”
“Sounds kinda stupid, don’t you think?”
“Not as stupid as Tallulah,” she said, drawing out the looooh syllable.
“Granted.”
“Mum said my name came to her in a dream.” Starr shook her head. “If I’d been a boy she was going to call me Leopold.”
“Bet you’re glad you weren’t.”
“Amen.”
I finished my coffee. “More squash?”
“Nope. I should head soon.” She swung around in her chair to watch me while I got up to boil the kettle. “Gotta pack – I’m going on holiday to Spain with Ric. It’s gonna be heaven.”
“Good for you.”
“What about you? What would your name have been if you’d been a boy?”
“I dunno.”
“Probably something boring like Edward or Jack. Speaking of… ”
“Yeah, why d’you think he left?” I asked.
“What?”
“Uncle Jack. Why d’you think he left?”
“I wasn’t going to talk about Uncle Jack, I was going to talk about Uncle Edward.” Starr leaned forwards, resting her elbows on the tabletop. “He asked about you recently,” she said.
“And?” I could feel my breath catch in my throat.
“And nothing. I didn’t tell him we meet.” She was watching me closely. I turned away and ran the tap, filling the kettle.
“Tallie, are you seriously never gonna go back home?”
“What’s the point?”
“Because he misses you,” Starr said. She tapped out a beat with the scuffed toes of her black Doctor Martins. “And you’re being a little bitch by staying away.”