by Femi Fadugba
Behind her, Olivia, still in school uniform, was tiptoeing from our bedroom into the corridor. She flashed a hand signal at me, where Poppy couldn’t see it.
Juggling? I wondered. Maybe she’s trying to tell me to juggle the situation?
After years of tippy-toeing around the Hayes household together, we’d created a chunky dictionary of secret sign language. On a normal day, I would have deciphered her coded message in seconds. Not tonight, though, not with the backlog of puzzles already grinding my brain.
After performing the same motion three times and earning nothing but a confused stare from me, she started mouthing it. But the moment Poppy turned round Olivia’s eyes were innocently focused on her Vantablack fingernails.
‘Tony’s waiting for you in there,’ Poppy said, pointing to the living-room door. I could hear a laugh track blaring from the TV on the other side.
I had no idea what I was in for, but also didn’t have it in me to waste energy guessing.
We walked into the front room together and found Tony in a diagonal slumber on the couch. The open can of Boddingtons in his fist seemed to be defying gravity and geometry – standing righteously upright as he snored. His forehead reflected the blinking light from the Christmas tree in the corner, reminding me I had a week to fill the four stockings hanging from the bottom branches.
Poppy shook Tony out of his nap, and he rose to his feet. His beer hand cast a hammer-shaped shadow on the floor.
Bollocks! I realized. That was what Olivia had been trying to warn me: I was in for a bollocking from Tony. I faced forward, a bit better prepared even if I didn’t know what I was in trouble for yet.
‘Were you with your tutor this evening?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, I was,’ I replied, all of a sudden feeling nervous. ‘Why?’
‘Would someone please turn off that blimmin telly,’ Poppy moaned. As Olivia answered her call, I centred my weight on both feet.
‘I got a call from Care this evening.’ Tony referred to all my social workers as Care. ‘She’s been trying to reach your tutor for a month to get a physical copy of his teacher certificate or something or the other. She got tired of him dodging her calls and so she done a search through his CantorCorp records herself and guess what? Came back blank. The man’s a con.’
Poppy was shaking her head; Olivia was biting her polished nails.
‘Jesus,’ I said, bending my mouth into a surprised ‘O’ shape that I hoped looked authentic. But inside I was panicking. And all I could think was: What else did they find out?
‘Look, I know you’re a fan of the guy. I haven’t seen you working this hard for school since –’ Tony paused to dig deep into his memory. ‘Well, since ever, I guess. But Care was absolutely adamant that you’re not to see him again.’
‘If he’s a con, why would I want to?’ I asked. Tony didn’t need to know that Dr Esso had, just tonight, given me a number of unignorable reasons.
‘Because you’re hard-headed,’ he replied. ‘And sometimes too quick to forgive.’ He let through a lazy smile. ‘Please stay away from him, though. If Care finds out you’ve seen him again, then I –’
His left eye shut first, and the second one put up a quick fight before falling as well. Just like that, he was asleep again. And this time, not only was his can still upright, so was the rest of his body.
‘Tony!’ I said, short of a shout but vicious enough to snap his eyes back open. ‘You were in the middle of telling me off.’
He stood up straight, checking the corner of his mouth for drool. ‘Ummm …’
‘You were about to tell me the consequences of getting in touch with my tutor?’ I reminded him, trying not to laugh.
‘I know,’ he replied with professional calm as he glided back into our discussion. ‘If Care finds out I let you interact with that tutor again, they’ll dock more points off my account. And we really can’t afford that right now.’
I softened my jaw so he wouldn’t sense the rage heaving inside me. Of course that was the only thing he cared about. Of course just as I’d found the truth, just as my lifelong search for my real mum was paying off, here he was, trying to snatch it all away. I’d risked everything to find out who Dr Esso was – only for this lot to climb out the woodwork long after I needed them, assuming they knew him better.
I imagined the bleak future Tony was demanding of me – the one where I never spoke to Dr Esso again. In that future, I’d learn nothing else about my mum, and would forever wonder if this Upper World was real. I knew what Olivia and I were fetching him these days barely covered groceries and utilities, and that Poppy was already working way more hours than the legal limit. I understood all that, I really did. But this was just bigger.
As if reading my mind, Olivia intervened, this time pretending to throw a pill in her gob before fake swallowing it.
Plan B, I realized, thankfully much quicker this time. We’ll figure out a plan B, was what she was telling me.
Satisfied he’d said enough, Tony sagged back down next to Poppy.
‘I love it when you use your tiger voice,’ Poppy told him, rubbing the patch of his biceps not covered by his polo shirt.
I turned to Olivia, slyly pretending to vomit.
Two days later a letter arrived in the post. I’d read through it at least thirty times already, but this was Olivia’s first. She sat straight-faced and cross-legged on the bottom bunk, wrapping as much of her pointy self into the quilt as possible. She’d been playing devil’s advocate so well all day, I’d started to wonder if it was even an act. I, on the other hand, was pacing back and forth across our bedroom, leaning against the radiator every few laps to top up on heat.
Tony was still panicky about getting his Care pay slashed and had warned me in clear terms not to contact Dr Esso under any circumstances. The higher-ups in the Care system hadn’t taken his deception lightly either … and their feelings mattered the most. Until I aged out, my real mum – in the eyes of the law, at least – wasn’t Nadia Black or even Poppy, but Southwark Council. And as a ward of Southwark, all it had taken was one click from my social worker to block incoming and outgoing communication between mine and Dr Esso’s phones. She’d even gone as far as messaging Gibbsy and the academy staff to warn them not to let him on the grounds.
I’d all but given up until Dr Esso found a way round: sending a letter addressed to me inside a reused bank envelope.
It was a massive relief to have more of the truth in my fingers, but terrifying at the same time. Not only was there the question of how and what to write back to Dr Esso, but if I should at all.
‘I still don’t reckon it’s worth it,’ Olivia declared. ‘The guy’s a nutter.’
‘I’m not saying he’s not a nutter,’ I replied in a hushed, bitter voice. We could hear the TV next door, so it wasn’t far-fetched to think Tony and Poppy might pick up our argument as well. ‘But if there’s even the tiniest chance he’s right, I have to know.’
She shook her head. ‘Read the last page of his letter again … Actually, it might have been the second to last … The page where he gets all serious and tries convincing you to write back, basically.’ She got up and put her ear to the door, to make sure no one was coming, then signalled for me to start.
Nadia never spoke much after that night. But, on the few occasions that she opened up to me about the Upper World, I could tell how much she believed in it. The last time I visited her, she kept saying the same thing over and over: ‘Rhia will tell you – she’ll tell anyone ready to hear.’
You were just a baby at the time, so it made no sense. But it does now. There’s nothing I’ve thrown at you that you haven’t overcome. And you’re the only person who needs to find her even more than I do.
I know that the WINDOW I climbed through fifteen years ago to get to the Upper World is still open. On quiet nights, I swear I can even hear its humid wind seeping through a sill in my mind. I need to get back there, Rhia. I’ve learnt everything I can from the physics and fr
om my dad’s notebook, but they haven’t told me what I need to know. And that must be because your mum was right: you will tell me.
I let the letter drop to my side. ‘So what’s your point?’
‘Look,’ Olivia said, shaking her head. ‘I was there when we watched the CCTV video from that night. It was effed up. And I mean really effed up.’
‘Again, what’s your point?’ I said, not caring how irritated I sounded.
‘My point is: the man’s obviously got a massive case of that post-traumatic stress thingamajiggy, as in, proper bad. I mean, how can you not see that? You don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same day the stuff in that video happened was the same day he claims to have gone to this magical Upper World?’
I shook my head at her.
‘And ain’t it weird,’ she continued, ‘that, besides some Greek dude two thousand years ago, Dr Esso’s the only other person to ever even mention this place?’
I’d known explaining it to her was gonna be an uphill battle, but I hadn’t expected her to be rolling boulders down at me.
When she saw she wasn’t getting through to me, she pressed even harder. ‘I mean, did he even give you any proof?’
‘Yeah, I already showed you.’ I struggled for a simple response. ‘Most physicists believe time isn’t actually structured the way we experience it –’
‘Rhianna, I’m not talking about a maths proof. Real-life proof.’
I wanted to respond saying the two were the same. I almost did. But the sentence sounded daft even in my own head. This must have been how Mum had felt when she’d tried explaining herself.
‘Well, how about him buying that Cantor’s stock and it going up 50,000 per cent?’ I challenged.
She straightened out her pyjama bottoms and leaned against the flowery wallpaper Poppy had laid down the day the council had told her she was getting girls. ‘So he likes gambling and got lucky once. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.’
Instead of these half-baked arguments, what I really wanted was to scream: This is about my mum! But even the idea of shutting down the conversation that way felt selfish. Unfair.
‘Listen,’ Olivia went on, ‘from the looks of it, and even from his own reaction, he was kinda … to blame for what happened that night. And the poor bloke has spent the last fifteen years unpicking every bit of physics that lets him believe he can go back in time and fix it.’
‘And who better to trick into joining him for his insane joyride than me?’ I replied sarcastically.
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I think it might be exactly what you meant, Olivia.’ I looked into her eyes, refusing to turn away.
‘You’re angry; I get it.’ She bent down to the bed like she hadn’t even noticed my stare. ‘Come sit down.’
After holding out for a while, I plopped down next to her, barely flinching when a loose mattress spring poked into my thigh.
She edged closer to my end of the bed. ‘Look, sis – I get it, you want to understand who your real mum was. God knows I’d kill to know as much as you’ve found out.’
I’d been so careful about not mentioning my mum too much to Olivia, trying not to remind her of everything she was still missing. But of course she’d known all along. She probably knew me better than I knew myself.
She put a hand on my shoulder. ‘But you can’t keep doing this. It’s not healthy, it’s not safe, and it’s not quite as logical as you might think. Plus, honestly, we kinda have everything we need here already.’
‘What, those two doughnuts in the front room?’ I replied, laughing for no other reason than to style out the pain.
‘Yeah, actually! I mean, don’t get me wrong – they’re about as far from perfect as you can get. But Tony’s never laid a finger on us, and Poppy keeps us clothed and fed. They care, and they’re right here.’
Before meeting Dr Esso, getting adopted was what I’d always wanted most. And as my time here added up, I’d come to see Tony and Poppy almost as parents. And Olivia as my sister. But, even if and when it became official, would I really stop looking for a way back to my real mum? Did I actually have a chance of finding anything more than a memory of her somewhere in space–time? Of rewriting the whole of history for one woman? I lay down, covering my face with my palms. I would have happily jumped into a black hole just to get some sleep. For the next minute, we both stayed quiet, but I knew Olivia was listening. We could go a whole hour in silence and come out knowing we’d heard each other.
While tracing my fingers along the printed grain of the wooden plank that held my bunk above hers, I finally responded, ‘Yeah. It could be a lot worse, I guess.’ I at least agreed with her that there was a lot I’d taken for granted, a lot I had to lose.
‘Plus,’ she said, beaming, ‘you’ve still got me!’ She locked me inside one of her mercilessly tight hugs.
‘You know I hate hugs, Liv. Please.’
‘Well, you hate baby goats and double rainbows as well.’ She squeezed even tighter. ‘And you deserve them aaaall.’
‘You’re such a piss-taker.’ I still couldn’t bring myself to hug her back, but I was tired of taking out my anger on her. Tired of being tired. I didn’t agree with everything she’d said, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that, unlike Dr Esso even, she’d been 100 per cent truthful throughout.
‘I guess it’s still sisters before misters,’ I said, reciting the words she’d told me during the Dons match. Even if she couldn’t understand how bad all this was twisting me up inside, the words still applied.
‘Always,’ she replied, finally releasing me. ‘Also, can we please go back to me being the crazy bitch and you being the sensible one?’
That one got me. We both laughed until our cheeks were sore. At one point Poppy even came in to check Olivia hadn’t choked on gum again.
Before the night was up, I promised Olivia I wouldn’t write back to Dr Esso. And she promised to chuck out any other post that came from him. Days later, the Q-encrypted file with all his info on it would self-destruct – just as Linford had told us. And I would let it.
But secretly, I would hide away the envelope with his return address on, ready for the day I’d need to write back. Knowing that I couldn’t risk landing Tony in trouble or getting myself kicked out of his house, I would pretend I was keeping in line. I would act like everything was perfect, and, if Olivia doubted it, I would lie. The part of me needing answers would burn hotter than it ever had, and I would find a way to smother it. So everything could go back to normal. For a while.
CHAPTER 17
Esso · Now
HEADMASTER CRUTCHLEY
The words were engraved in thick square letters on a brass plaque. Mr Sweeney, who was now clutching my arm, looked even more shook of the man on the other side of the door than I was. He put his ear to the door and listened for a few seconds before knocking.
A muffled voice finally came through from the other side, and, as Sweeney twisted the knob, two kids from the year below burst out like confetti, just missing him as they flew past.
‘Watch where you’re going, you two!’ Sweeney shouted.
The one in front stopped laughing and did a double take as he brushed past me, switching between the message on his phone and the newly anointed badman that the message was about. He lifted his chin at me. Playing the role, I nodded back, and in a small, almost spiritual way I felt like I’d just entered manhood. As if at some point in that dining hall I’d stumbled into VIP and was now chugging champagne with the rest of the household names. On my walk to the head teacher’s office, I’d been stuck trying to make sense of the miracle of violence that had taken place in the dining hall. That strange stretch where I went from being humiliated to being on top. It had all happened because of the Upper World, which clearly had more to offer than just peeking into time. It was some Superman-type madness, what I’d pulled off. I might actually be, I thought, the first real-life superhero. And from Narm, of all places.
Thinking back to what my dad had written in his notebook got me buzzing. At some point, he’d probably gone through the same journey from doubt to baffled belief that I was going through. I was ending up like him, just like Mum had warned. But did that make me crazy or just finally sane? I tried picturing Mum’s face if I told her everything that had happened since she’d handed me his diary, but I couldn’t pinpoint her reaction. What exactly did she know? Even if she didn’t believe in the Upper World herself, she must have read about it in Dad’s notebook. She’d have surely heard him babbling about it at some point when he was alive.
Sweeney scowled at me after spotting the smirk on my face as we walked into the waiting area. He wasn’t wrong to be judging me either. The paranormal visions I’d had in the dining hall had been anything but cheerful: a sky full of bullets headed at Nadia and my best mates; D with a hole in his head? And yet with those visions of carnage playing around me, all I’d cared about was knocking D the fuck out. What’s happening to me? I wondered. What am I turning into?
‘Come in!’ yelled the headmaster from the far end of the room. My questions about the Upper World would have to wait. For now, it was all about pretending his demerits were the scariest thing in the world. Between the premonitions, my promising chat with Nadia and whatever was about to happen in the headmaster’s office, there were quite a few balls in the air. And I couldn’t drop any of them.
There was more polished wood in Crutchley’s office than the rest of the school combined. I sat down; Sweeney didn’t. I was weirdly calm. It wouldn’t take long for Crutchley to come to the only rational conclusion: D engineered the fight; I was just defending myself. A hundred eyewitnesses could back that up. I just had to shut up, and in ten minutes I’d be back with my mates, basking in the admiration of the stunner I’d pulled off at lunch, while figuring out how to save my night.