Sunflowers in February

by Phyllida Shrimpton

  The massive Chinese meal from last night has left me with a stretched and empty stomach that needs to be filled. I click my way along the kitchen floor in the football boots, and make an extra-huge bowl of chocolate cereal. I watch the cold milk pour white then turn chocolatey. Crunching, slurping and swallowing, I allow my self-indulgence to help me to forget Ben for a moment. The milk spills from my spoon and down my top, leaving some brown splodges, which I try to wash off after I’ve eaten. Great, I’m now wearing a tracksuit with dark-grey wet patches and some faded brown splodges.

  Matthew knocks on the door, and after shoving my bowl in the sink I shout to anyone listening, ‘See you later! Don’t worry about me … I’ll be fine!’ then I grab Ben’s coat, and shut the front door behind me.

  If there is to be any chance that Ben will share himself with me, I need to prove that I’m as good a boy as any girl can be.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, grinning nervously, instantly taking note of the fact that Matthew has a green and white team kit on under a warm green fleece, and I know straight away that blue Nike shorts and a black T-shirt with a wet, slightly stained tracksuit over the top is just so embarrassingly not the right outfit. I’m sure Ben would feel really not cool but I can’t help supressing a slight laugh when I notice that Matthew is staring at me in barely disguised surprise.

  It’s not going well so far.

  ‘Do you … er … want to get your kit? It’s a match today, you know?’ he says, looking me over and searching for the sports bag that I obviously don’t have.

  I find myself mumbling excuses. ‘I knew that. I was in a hurry … my stuff is inside … I’ll go and get it.’ I bend down so that I can see Matthew’s dad’s face behind the wheel of his car, and wave my hand from side to side in my Lily way. ‘Hi, Matthew’s dad,’ I call with the same nervous grin I gave Matthew. ‘Nearly ready.’ Then I turn and run round the back of the house, almost knocking Mum, who is having a cigarette, off her feet. ‘Where’s his kit, Mum …? I mean, mine. Where’s my kit?’

  Mum tells me where I can find the kit in a voice that questions why I don’t already know, as it is under Ben’s bed and has been in a proper sports bag all along, everything inside clean and ready, including newer boots. This is so not going to be an easy morning, but I’m not going to let Ben win.

  ‘Everything will be fine, little brother,’ I tell his reflection as I reach under the bed for his stuff. ‘It’s all under control.’

  I run outside again, clipping and tapping on the path in Ben’s old boots, throw the bag in the back of Matthew’s dad’s huge and shiny black Audi, then slide in on the leather seats.

  Dad has followed me outside but as Matthew’s dad unwinds the window and looks up at him to say hello, Dad points to the Audi where there’s a dent by the offside headlight.

  ‘How did you do that?’ Dad asks him without a trace of a smile, and Matthew’s dad offers a rueful grin.

  ‘Someone reversed into me,’ he answers, but Dad doesn’t smile back, and in a heart-stopping moment I know what’s coming.

  ‘Dad! It’s OK, go inside. It wasn’t him.’

  But Dad carries on. ‘When?’ he persists.

  ‘Wednesday. Why?’ Matthew’s dad answers, and then I see the penny drop. ‘Oh … Yes … it was just three days ago. Sorry, James … you know … about … not finding out who did it.’

  I am in the back, looking through the window at my dad, and making urgent cut-throat signals at him to be quiet, while shooing him away with my other hand.

  Matthew’s dad starts the engine, waving politely as he thankfully drives off, leaving Dad standing at the side of the road. The atmosphere in the car is one of relief, tainted with awkward embarrassment. ‘All right?’ he asks me, his eyes catching mine in the rear-view mirror as I lean back in the seat, exhaling silently.

  ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I say as brightly as possible, as if everything that has just happened is perfectly normal.

  Poor Dad.

  Matthew is on his phone, tapping away at the screen, but I haven’t bothered bringing Ben’s and I can’t really bring my own. Anyway, I want to look at the world outside where life is a series of houses that belong to people, people that belong to families, cars that are taking people somewhere, people who are walking dogs somewhere. This is the area that I grew up in. I recognise everything: the shops the roads, a girl from school. My face is pressed too close to the window, like a small child, and my breath is causing a cloud of mist to appear on the glass.

  Matthew’s dad pulls into the car park at the club, and I have to face the fact that all too soon I’m going to be sprinting around the pitch playing a game that I have absolutely no interest in.

  The sports field is massive, with several pitches each holding players of varying ages. Team kits in bright colours are everywhere. The edges of the pitches are lined with random supporters hugging themselves from the cold, or sipping hot drinks from travel mugs. Haven’t they got anything better to do on a Saturday?

  The whole team is ready and some of them laugh at me when they see what I’m wearing. The coach doesn’t look too pleased. ‘Get changed sharpish, Richardson,’ he growls at me, ‘and try to get it right next week!’

  As I jog quickly back from the changing rooms, shivering and miserable, I can see Ben’s team starting their exercises, a row of them dancing backwards and forwards in a series of strange muscle-stretching movements like a mad green and white ballet. ‘Looks a bit silly to me,’ I say under my breath. I can feel the icy air begin to numb my legs and my face, and not for the first time I wonder why on earth anyone would ever want to play this hideous game.

  The trouble with ‘all too soon’ is that it’s always too soon. I am placed midfield, marking the Incredible Hulk, an enormous kid who looks down at me with what I can only describe as disdain that only slightly distracts attention from the row of festering spots he has on his forehead and chin. The whistle blows and I start bouncing around, marking him in the same way I know how to in netball, but suddenly guys are running all over the place and I’m left jumping pathetically on my own.

  I run madly towards a gap, waving my arms to a boy called Martin who has just retrieved the ball from the other side. ‘Martin. Martin,’ I’m shouting. Martin kicks the ball in my direction, but the Hulk appears out of nowhere and intercepts, running down the pitch dribbling the ball. I’m on him in a flash, flinging my leg out to kick the ball away from between his ankles. Then the whistle is blowing and the ref is waving a yellow card at me and shouting ‘foul’ and the Hulk is hopping about, holding his shin, and calling me an idiot, and Martin is calling me a fucking idiot, and Matthew is yelling ‘What the hell are you doing, man?’ This isn’t going well, and that’s an understatement. I hide my pathetic inadequacy by stopping to check that my football socks are neatly pulled over my shin pads.

  Ben’s words – ‘you’ll just make me look like an idiot’ – play over and over in my head. For once you’re right, Ben. I am making you look like an idiot.

  Everyone starts chaotically running around again, while I try to place myself in the clearest position to receive the ball. All around me are male voices yelling and ordering – ‘get a move on’ or ‘shift yer arse’ or ‘wake up and stop bloody pratting about’ – and I hope desperately that the voices are not all aimed at me, but I can’t be sure. The ref keeps blowing the whistle and a bloke with a flag is running up and down the edge. I haven’t a clue. Not a clue.

  About twenty minutes into the game I find the ball heading in my direction again and there’s a gap in the field. I can feel my heart pumping. I’m running for it. Here it is. I’m going to kick it. There is a small kid in green and white kit who I can see out of the corner of my eye, so how difficult can this be? I run up to the ball. I’m there. I’m kicking … the air. My foot has only tapped the side of the ball and it is rolling slowly to the right of me. How could I miss? I can see someone putting his hands to his face and the coach holding his hands either side of his head as if
he is going to self-combust. The Hulk and the rest of his team laugh. ‘Oops,’ is all I can think of to say, and I grin at Matthew but he is not grinning back.

  It gets worse. My team are shouting at me from all angles. I don’t know where to be, which direction to run in, and what does this offside rule mean? I see some of the others spitting on the field as they run around. Clearing the thick saliva from their mouths. My mouth is thick with it too. I am thirsty and my mouth is all sticky I have never spat before. I decide to ‘round up’ all the gummy saliva from my mouth into a kind of bubblegum-sized globule and go for it. I spit. It doesn’t fly out like it does for the others. It hovers briefly near my chin then hangs down in slimy strings. I wipe it on my sleeve quickly. Mental note. Don’t try to spit.

  Half-time. I suck at a bottle of water, trying to relieve the desperate dehydration going on in my mouth. I can see the others looking at me, and I look back, letting out a huge burp in an attempt to fit in. It is a pretty awesome burp and even surprises me. I congratulate myself. That’s one even you would be proud of, Ben. But they’re still looking at me, and it isn’t with any sort of admiration. ‘What?’ I ask them in a nervous voice that comes out strangely too high-pitched for Ben.

  ‘I know it’s been hard for you and all that –’ Matthew is looking vaguely embarrassed – ‘but what’s with all the girl stuff?’

  ‘Yeah,’ joins in someone else, who I don’t know, and don’t want to now. He starts doing this imitation of me, jumping up and down waving his hands above his head, and shrieking in a high voice. ‘Ooh, Martin, Martin, pass the ball to me.’ Someone else joins in: ‘Yes, and … I think I’ve hurt my ankle and my poor knee is bleeding.’

  I look around at them all. My knee is bleeding and I did hurt my ankle. I fell over and no one asked me if I was OK. I realise that football isn’t netball. That I am a girl who has never played this ridiculous sport. My eyes are filling and I’m going to cry. ‘Oh, stick this game where the sun doesn’t shine,’ I shout at them and walk off, tears rolling down my face. Even this is a mistake. All I can hear is ‘ooooh’ coming in a sing-songy way from most of the guys. Then I hear Matthew telling them to back off me in a don’t you know his sister’s just died kind of way.

  I spend the rest of the game sitting on a bench on the edge of the football pitch near the play park. I have been replaced.

  I watch the game, shivering beneath the green of my team fleece. I notice small things: the ‘manly’ slap on the back; the body language; friendly banter with a bit of swearing for good measure; taking the mickey out of each other; falling over and getting back up without looking for cuts and bruises or sympathy; sniffing and wiping the snot on their sleeves or hands; not looking at each other when dishing out a compliment about great football skills, but virtually shagging each other if a goal is scored.

  There are young kids on the swings and climbing frame, yet most of the older boys are shouting and pushing each other. Their bikes are thrown in a heap nearby. Bottles lie in the grass where they’ve dropped them. I watch the way they interact because I will not be defeated! I need Ben to let me share.

  I realise I’m sitting with my legs crossed, one leg with its bleeding knee hanging over the knee of the other, and I’m swinging my football-clad foot. I uncross. I sit with my legs apart. I move them further apart. I settle on somewhere in between comfortably close together and uncomfortably far apart. I lean back. Doesn’t feel right. I lean forward. I lean further forward placing my elbows on my knees. Thinking about what you do every minute is hard work. Being someone you’re not is hard work. But living is all-consuming. I want to live. I want to breathe. I want to be.

  Two girls walk towards the play area. They’re probably about twelve years old, and I notice how they stand nearer each other than the boys do. They are calmer, and look at each other when they talk. They laugh behind their hands or push their hair behind their ears. They sit on the swings and sway slowly backwards and forwards while chatting. A young boy comes sliding down the slide shouting noises that mean nothing in particular and woooo-woos his way to the climbing frame where he yells some more.

  I am glad I was a girl.

  At the end of the game Ben’s dad takes me home and I can hardly wait to get there, to forget the nightmare that is being a girl being a boy playing football. Matthew looks at me in a manner that I can only assume is sympathy, while his dad looks at me in the same way in his rear-view mirror. I guess they believe that bereavement has twisted my poor sad heart into a pathetic version of my former self, that I am to be pitied because I am somehow damaged through losing my twin and that I don’t function well without my other half.

  If only they knew.

  As the car comes to a halt outside our house, and with the engine running for getaway purposes Matthew’s dad turns to me and reminds me that he’ll be taking me and Matthew to training practice on Wednesday. I try not to look vague while my mind tumbles with the notion of whether I will even be here by then, although my heart sinks at the prospect of having to do this all over again if I am, but ‘Yes, OK,’ finds its way dutifully out of my mouth as I grab the holdall containing the redundant stained tracksuit and inappropriate sports gear, and I get out of the car.

  I tap-tap my way up the garden path, still in Ben’s football boots, to be met by Mum, who opens the front door, her eyes quizzing me while giving a thank-you wave to Matthew’s dad. I drop the holdall on the floor, kick off the boots, scattering fresh mud and grass on the welcome mat, and make my way to the lounge where I slump.

  ‘Not good?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Not good,’ I mumble, making it very apparent that I’ve nothing more to say. She leaves me scowling at nothing, and I hear the kettle being filled and the fridge being opened and shut again. I can hardly elaborate on my awful experience and tell her that I ruined the football match for everyone, especially Ben, because, in his words, I acted like a girl. I can hardly tell her that it’s because I am a girl; I am Lily.

  I want so much to tell someone that being dead isn’t easy, that being dead is so terribly lonely and it sucks, but I can’t say a thing to anyone, because they’ll probably try to organise psychiatric help for Ben and then he’ll be labelled a nutter, a freak, that poor boy whose sister died and who went mad.

  Mum wordlessly brings me a pint of cold squash, a cheese and jam sandwich and some chocolate biscuits, before sitting in the lounge with me with a cup of tea and her phone.

  Shaking the awful morning off my radar, I pick up Ben’s tablet, and making sure that Mum isn’t looking, I check into all my own social media accounts. It feels just like I’ve slipped into a familiar room where something has changed but you’re not sure what. I scroll through the pages of chat and pictures with a mixture of pleasure and pain. There are hundreds of RIP messages from friends on my sites from February, but the empty weeks that follow are bitter confirmation that both me and my media sites have been laid to rest.

  The tiny ‘ding’ from the tablet alerts me to a message that flashes across the screen and I sit up with excitement. It’s Beth!

  ‘Who is this? Is that you, Ben … on Lily’s account?’

  I’m obviously showing up as online, which must be freaking her out. I really want to type back that, yes, it is me, that technology has allowed me to communicate with her through the screen, but even while my fingers hover over the letters, daring myself to open up this virtual can of worms, I know that Beth would never believe it.

  ‘Who’s on Lily’s account?’ Beth types again.

  ‘It’s OK, Beth, it’s me, Ben,’ I type.

  ‘WTF, Ben, you nearly scared the crap out of me.’

  ‘Sorry, I was bored,’ I reply, and I am sorry, but more because I can’t tell her the truth.

  ‘What are you up to? Is the group doing anything?’ I type, hoping that perhaps I could meet them, but as her message flashes up – ‘What group? Got to go’ – she disappears offline. Even though it’s just a screen, I feel cut off. What does she mean �
� what group? Our group! The me, Beth, Nathan, Matthew and Ben group.

  I take a close-up photo of Ben’s nostrils and post them on his own Facebook site. His nostrils and his profile picture stare back at me from the screen. Then a sudden guilty thought occurs to me, wrapping its way round me like a tight, stinging vine. If Ben won’t agree to sharing, what if I can forcibly live his life for another day … several days, or more? What if I just don’t lift myself off the bed for a while, so he can’t swap back? Admittedly I will have to be Ben and do everything that Ben does? Football … school … everything! But that’s a small price to pay for having another chance. A sweet, beautiful chance.

  The emotions from this morning return full blast. Guilt and excitement hand in hand with each other.

  Just for a short while, Ben.

  I flick the TV remote until I find some football, then use the tablet to learn about the simple rules of the game, in case my plan works and I have to go to training on Wednesday, or to another match … if I’m still here next week! If I’m going to get the most out of this, I need to do it well.

  Mum sips her tea and discards her phone to flick through a magazine. At least as far as she is concerned, her son shovelling sandwiches into his mouth with football on the television is a slice of the ordinary.

  By the end of the sandwiches, the chocolate biscuits and juice, a bag of ready salted crisps, a sausage roll, a can of Coke and a packet of Wine Gums, I have discovered all about fouls, penalties, corners and throw-ins, not to mention the fact that boys can eat so much more than girls and that’s just not fair.

  I have taken note of how, if you collide and slide along the mud for several feet, which leaves your knee hanging off, you just have to get up and get on with it. Unless your team is winning and you want to waste time. Then you have to roll around holding your leg for as long as possible. You mustn’t try to wipe the mud off your shorts and examine your nails. You have to spit at the ground and swear at the ref. You must act macho at all times, but if you score a goal you are allowed to climb on top of the nearest bloke, and wrap your arms and legs round him, like an oversexed frog. And finally at the very end you have to swap tops, and you get to wear the sweat of some other bloke next to your skin.