Sunflowers in February

by Phyllida Shrimpton

  ‘What?’ I mouth, frowning my question at him.

  ‘This,’ he answers, circling his hand in front of me, as if indicating that the whole of me is very ‘wrong’. I realise that in addition to my sudden super-in-depth knowledge of the book I am, again, sitting with my legs crossed swinging my foot, I have tucked Ben’s sweeping hair behind my ears and I’m twiddling my pen. My doodle of a flower on the back of Ben’s book doesn’t help.

  I quickly resume a boy-like pose, inking the flower skilfully into an anime cartoon and wait for the red in my cheeks to sink back to where it came from.

  *

  After school I catch up with Matthew in the place where he chains up his bike. I need to understand where Ben is with his life. I need to stop being selfish to make sure he has a life to come back to, whenever I can bring myself to actually do that. ‘Are we still friends?’ I ask, putting my hand on his shoulder.

  Again he looks at me in an odd way before slowly looking down at my hand. ‘Off the cloth!’ he orders, his eyebrows almost blending into his hairline.

  I snatch my hand away. Girls are so much more tactile than boys. I must remember to stop touching everybody!

  ‘If I was gay …’ I joke, ‘I wouldn’t make you my bitch.’ I laugh, but Matthew tips his head indicating something behind me.

  ‘No, your new mates would be making you their bitch.’ He says. I turn to look where his eyes are focused and I see Joe and Graham waiting by the gates, and they’re looking my way. ‘I need to ditch those lowlifes,’ I sigh, looking back at Matthew, but he’s already on his bike and slaloming his way between hurrying students.

  When I get to the gates, the ‘lowlifes’ flank me on either side, and usher me up against a side wall, shielding us from the main school and the patrolling teachers, unnoticed by oblivious kids getting the hell out of school. I begin to feel very uneasy and out of my depth as Joe leans in towards my face, his rotten breath exhaling towards my nose.

  ‘I said, we haven’t finished our discussion.’

  ‘No time.’ I try to grin confidently at them, but actually I’m pretty sure I’m offering a strange show of teeth instead. ‘Got a bus to catch,’ I add quickly, taking a step sideward to dodge their human barricade, but they move their human barricade a step sideward too.

  Graham holds his hand out expectantly for money for a small bag of weed that is partially hidden in his other hand. ‘That’s five pounds, Richardson.’

  To my disappointment it becomes obvious to me that this ‘meeting’ had been pre-arranged and Ben was obviously a willing participant.

  I work hard to keep my expression free of the nerves and shock that are dancing behind it but I notice that Joe is not the one trying to hand over money and drugs; he’s looking away as if he’s not involved, getting Graham to do his dirty work.

  ‘Sorry. I don’t want it any more. I’m on a health kick!’ I take a deep breath and get ready to leave them to it.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Graham mutters. ‘This is a regular agreement from now on. You said … We’ve made arrangements now.’

  ‘That …’ I tell them loudly, ‘is called dealing.’ They don’t like my words or their volume, causing Graham to glance abruptly at Joe, whose head spins quickly round to see if anyone could have heard me.

  ‘Just shut up and buy it,’ hisses Joe.

  But I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

  I show them the eighteen pence I have left over from buying sweets on Friday, and realise now why Ben had exactly five pounds in his pockets that day. ‘You seem a little angry,’ I say patronisingly and far more bravely than I actually feel. I hold the coins in my hand out towards them. ‘Unless you’re happy with eighteen pence, you’re out of luck.’

  He slaps my hand, making the coins fling across the pavement. ‘You owe me, Richardson … I will get my money off you, or you’ll regret it.’

  I delve into my pockets again, as if I’m searching in them, and eventually hold out an empty hand towards them. ‘Guess what? I already gave all my fucks away. I don’t have any more to give … sorry.’ I pull a sad face.

  But they don’t find me funny.

  Trying hard not to cry, as I land on the ground, the smell of concrete and dirt just inches from my nose, I decide that Ben needs to get his real friends back, and I need to find a way to make that happen … soon! This is not the brother that I’ve known my whole life. Graham’s shoe in my back as I manoeuvre myself to stand up gets me right in the kidneys, and it is the worst pain I have ever experienced. I fall forward again onto my knees and wait for the next kick while trying to catch my breath. When it doesn’t come, I get up painfully to see them both heading off down the road, while the handful of disappointed kids, who’d stopped to see if the fight was going to turn into anything worth hanging around for, turn away too.

  Despite everything that has just gone on, I’m glad that it happened to me. I think that Ben would have made sure he had the money for the weed. I think that Ben would have smoked it and ordered the next bag. I know that my lovely sporty brother would have been caught in their vile web if I hadn’t been here to save him.

  I am doing a good thing.

  I catch sight of Beth walking out of the gates with the last of the stragglers and I hurry like a demented injured crab to catch up with her, my arms desperate to link with hers, and do something normal like ask her if she wants to come to my house after school.

  ‘Ben,’ she says by way of hello.

  ‘Beth,’ I answer.

  ‘Are you OK?’ we ask each other at exactly the same time.

  ‘Me first,’ Beth says, her eyes looking down at my hunched body. ‘You don’t look OK. You look like you’ve been in a fight or something.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I say, trying to laugh it off, which only causes me to wince with pain. ‘Bumped into a couple of arse wipes.’ As Ben would say.

  ‘Anyway, how are you doing, Beth … you know … without Lily?’

  She looks at me, as if trying to work out the best answer. It shouldn’t be difficult; she should be missing me loads and loads, and her life should hardly be worth living without me in it.

  ‘Shit,’ she says finally. ‘It’s pretty shit actually … you know with the group and everything.’

  ‘What about the group?’ I ask, not having a clue what she’s talking about. Our group, me, Beth, Nathan, Matthew and Ben, did most things together. We were tight.

  ‘There is no group any more. You seem to have other things to do; Matthew’s pretty pissed at you because you’ve changed; Nathan is having some kind of breakdown; and I’m –’

  A loud horn sounds from the bus, making us look round to see the driver mouthing at us to hurry. Beth leaps onto the bus and makes her way to a seat and I try to move quickly to keep up with her in the hope we can sit together, but it’s easier said than done with bruised kidneys and a bladder so full it might burst right here on the pavement in front of the whole school. I couldn’t face going to the boys’ toilets during the day, and now I find myself huddled in the only vacant seat left, nowhere near my best friend, and nursing my aching body.

  Changing out of his school uniform and dropping it on the floor of his bedroom, Matthew looked at a team photo of his football club smiling out from a frame on his wall, next to various sporting trophies.

  He stared at himself with Ben, who was standing next to him, aware that somewhere in the room were other photos from other years, probably from ever since they’d met in year seven. Matthew rolled the gum he was chewing into a little ball inside his mouth, then squashed it on Ben’s face.

  What the fuck was happening to his mate?

  He had begged, borrowed and stolen every penny he could lay his hands on to buy all the sunflowers to put on his brother’s car; he had texted, Facebooked, Instagrammed, messaged for weeks, even phoned Ben on his house phone when he wouldn’t answer his mobile, to lure him back to his normal self. But, man, what was going on?

  It was as if Ben had morph
ed into a weird combination of a lowlife scumbag and an overnight gay!

  His mother had said Ben had gone off the rails for a bit, that he’d come back round eventually, time is a healer and all that bollocks, but what did she know? He’d waited quite a long time for Ben to get back on the rails but he not only had gone off them but he seemed to have gone down a very dodgy track indeed. He’d tried to defend Ben at football and he’d offered the hand of friendship one last time by inviting him swimming, but his mate had changed and he was majorly getting on his nerves now. All he could see was there was some serious shit going on with the twin thing, like the Ben he knew had died the same day his sister had, or, even worse, like his sister had never quite left!

  What exactly was all that touching about?

  He wasn’t ready to give up on his best mate quite yet, but it felt like his best mate had given up on him.

  Mum lights a cigarette and stands by the back door, the increasing light of new spring evenings triumphing over the winter dark. A mean chill circles its way through the open door and into the kitchen, making me shiver.

  ‘Do you spend all day thinking about … Lily?’ I ask outright, thinking about Ben trying to find his own way down a new and dodgy path.

  ‘Have you forgotten yesterday’s little head to head?’ she replies, indicating that I’d better leave the subject alone.

  ‘Hardly,’ I reply. ‘Only, you have got another child, Mum.’

  My words resound around the kitchen for a long while after I’ve spoken them and as she turns to look at me, as if seeing Ben for the first time, her expression says it all. This is why I didn’t know what my friends were doing when I was in limbo; my mother couldn’t let me go … she still can’t.

  ‘She isn’t in these things, Mum,’ I say, picking up her packet of cigarettes and waving them at her. ‘I’m worried about you killing yourself, lungs first.’ She looks taken aback, her hand midway between mouth and ashtray. ‘It looks … ugly … and you don’t smell like my mum any more. And it won’t help anything and I hate it.’

  Her defence drops and she sighs heavily. ‘I used to smoke … once. But I gave it up when I got pregnant with you both and I didn’t start again when you were born. I wanted you both to be healthy … to set a good example.’

  ‘Then why have you started again?’

  ‘Lily … I … she … I don’t know. I need it.’

  ‘I’m still here, Mum,’ I say, and my voice cracks a little with my double meaning. She looks at me for a long time, and sees only Ben, yet, squashing the butt into a flowerpot, she suddenly rushes over to me.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Ben. I’ve been forgetting you. I’ll try … no … I will stop. For you … I will.’ And she presses the palms of her hands against my cheeks before hugging me long after I give up counting past twenty.

  I’m doing a good thing.

  It’s so cold today.

  I pull the hood of Ben’s coat over my head, shivering at the unexpected drop in temperature, while huge plumes of condensation cloud out of my mouth and nose as I walk to the school bus stop. The edges of my nostrils are freezing and even a few snow flurries blow past me before disappearing into the damp pavement. I raise my shoulders as if tucking my neck into my body and dig my hands deep into my pockets, feeling the bruise on my back pull at me as I do so.

  This time, I manage to find a seat on the bus near where I would normally have sat. Obviously my seat is taken by the new girl who is still sitting next to Beth, but at least I’m prepared for it this time, and I’m glad Beth doesn’t seem that interested her. If I was sitting with her, as Lily, I know we would be laughing at something by now. We used to laugh all the time. But at least being on the bus and sitting near Beth is like a little bit of normal compared to being in limbo.

  The timetable this morning is almost manageable with most of Ben’s lessons the same as my own, but there is PE this afternoon. This means shivering outside for the best part of an hour while endeavouring to maintain Ben’s sports prowess better than I did at football. I groan inwardly at the thought of the changing room.

  Going into the form room for registration is easy this time, because I now know where to sit. Matthew looks across at me briefly, and I raise my hand in a greeting, just as it crosses my mind that he might be wondering why I sat next to him yesterday and why now I’ve moved back. I can’t seem to win but I spend registration staring at the back of his head and trying to telepathically tell him not to give up on Ben just yet. The group mustn’t fall apart.

  I don’t even hear my name called on the register until the third attempt apparently, when a ball of screwed-up paper hits me on the side of the head, and the teacher is calling in an exasperated way: ‘Richardson …?’

  *

  Beth is already in science when I get there, sitting alone at the back of the lab instead of in her normal seat, so I join her.

  White-coated, and looking part-rat, part-human, Mr Adams the science teacher starts scrawling on the board, telling everybody yet again in his flat northern tones how elements make chemical compounds and something about ions and electrons … I can see him and hear him but right now I’m not interested in any of this stuff. All I can think of is why Beth was sitting on her own.

  We both used to sit with the girls in the middle, writing notes to each other on the edges of our books or texting under the table, anything to relieve the monotony of the periodic table. But Beth is on the edge of it all now, sitting by the window, looking glorious with the curls of her hair all loose and lit up like a halo by the sunlight forcing its way through the heavy clouds.

  ‘Fancy a quick fuck?’ Joe calls to her, just as Mr Adams disappears into the storage room. Beth goes pink and, giving him the middle finger, she tosses her hair and looks away. But her cold shoulder makes Joe sneer. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead with you anyway.’ Then turning to his mates and looking directly at me, he adds, ‘But Lily would.’ He laughs loudly at his own joke and I go mad. Suddenly, and without notice even to myself, I push my stool back and stand over him, using Ben’s height to intimidate him, my anger causing me to forget the beating I took yesterday.

  ‘Idiot.’ I hold my clenched fist in the air.

  ‘Oooh … scary,’ he sings. ‘Want a piece of her too? Bored with shagging Holly?’ Most of the class are sniggering now, and Joe’s horrible face is leering at me with his lopsided smile, and I’m not sure what to do next. I really want to punch him in the face but it’s not something I’ve ever had to do before. I take a swing and … he laughs as he ducks and I end up hitting him in the upper arm. It’s pathetic.

  Joe leans back on his stool in mock terror. ‘My gran could have knitted a cardigan in the time it took your fist to reach me … That was a right girl’s punch.’

  He looks over his shoulder to make sure he’s getting the appreciation of the entire classroom audience, while swinging on his chair.

  Nothing to lose.

  Kicking his stool, it tips up easily and the outcome is more spectacular than I was hoping for. Result! He falls backwards, his chair scraping against the floor, his back hitting the desk behind, and his coccyx smashing against the leg of the chair. The look on his face as he goes over, and the subsequent pain that he’s in, is satisfyingly priceless. The whole class laughs again, this time at Joe. ‘That’s for Beth –’ I smile sweetly at him – ‘and that –’ I kick him between the legs, and watch him groan with pain – ‘is for Lily.’

  ‘Ooh … man,’ says Graham. ‘He got you right in the sprouts!’ Then he cackles with laughter as if I’ve just made his day. Mr Adams pushes his way between us and his pure anger at me makes his eyes glitter.

  ‘Richardson! How would you like it if I banged you against the desk?’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Adams, but you’re not my type,’ I answer back, and the class breaks out into raucous laughing and wolf-whistling at Mr Adams’s expense.

  ‘Show’s over!’ Mr Adams shouts at us all, and a fat vein on the side of his neck pulsates with fury
. He sends a girl out to get the Year Head, while Joe gets up off the floor, trying not to let anyone see him holding his butt in agony.

  As I pick up my bag to follow the Year Head out of the classroom, Beth smiles at me and it lights up her face. ‘Still in the group,’ I mouth at her.

  ‘That sort of behaviour isn’t acceptable, Richardson, even if it is in the name of chivalry,’ the Year Head says, as he marches me down the corridor, for a morning in isolation outside the Head’s office, but I think I can detect the tiniest note of appreciation in his voice. Most of the teachers have had run-ins with Joe; I probably did them a favour.

  The morning in isolation is fantastic and not the punishment it’s designed to be. It’s such a relief not to have to remember every single second how to act like Ben, even if I’m not making too much of a bad job of it today. I even get some study notes completed for him … or me – if I’m going to stay.

  At lunchtime, I hunt for Matthew, while carefully avoiding Joe and Graham, and eventually track him down playing badminton in the sports hall. The sports teacher greets me as I walk in. ‘How are you doing, Ben? Joining in?’

  I realise that Ben must have already signed up to this club before I took over his body. I groan inwardly. I can’t play badminton.

  ‘I can’t play today,’ I say and point at my foot, limping slightly. Matthew gives me a hint of a smile as if there may be hope for their friendship yet because I’ve at least turned up. I need to save Ben’s reputation and get the group back together.

  He smirks. ‘I thought you’d gone to the dark side.’

  ‘Oh –’ I wave my hand away – ‘Joe and Graham are so last season.’ Hardly a macho expression that I can’t take back, and now I can hear myself doing a silly giggle to cover up for it.

  I pretend to watch them play for a while, delighted to notice that Nathan is playing too. I can still look, even if I can’t touch.

  Halfway through his game, he makes his way over to the bench where I’m sitting, picks up his drink bottle, wipes the sweat away from his forehead and takes several deep gulps. As he places the bottle back down, a flop of curls falls over his face that he flicks back before looking down at me with those frothy blue eyes.