Sunflowers in February

by Phyllida Shrimpton

  ‘What do you miss most?’ she asks.

  ‘Having a body,’ I nearly answer, but I manage to contain myself. It’s a hard question, wondering what you miss most about yourself. ‘Umm, everything,’ I answer truthfully.

  I want so much to tell her my secret but I know she won’t believe me and I’ll probably frighten her off.

  ‘Do you know what’s really sad?’ Beth continues. ‘Lily won’t ever get to do her trip round the world. She wanted that more than anything else, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answer, feeling my throat constrict.

  ‘She planned to save up to go, then work her way across the globe.’ Beth stares at a distant point across her room as if imaging the miles that I wanted to travel.

  ‘I know! I might go anyway,’ I announce brazenly. ‘In the summer … instead of Lily,’ I add quickly, but Beth laughs at me.

  ‘What with, Ben? It will cost a fortune, and you haven’t got a job yet and you have to come back for sixth-form college in September. Lily was going to get a part-time job when she was sixteen and save every penny for two years until she finished her A levels so she could sail off into the sunset when she was eighteen.’

  Beth stating the obvious like this is almost unbearable. The summer is so close, almost touchable. But Beth is right. I don’t have any money and I can’t steal Ben away from the chance of doing his qualifications so that he can get a career in his precious photography. ‘I’ll go for the summer … maybe just Europe … I’ll get a loan from the bank of mum and dad.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound as desperate as Lily was,’ Beth says. ‘She was hell-bent on climbing mountains, or scuba diving …’

  ‘In the Great Barrier Reef.’ We say these last five words together at exactly the same time, because I know exactly where I was hell-bent on scuba diving.

  ‘… and she wanted to go on safari, and visit Alaska, and …’ Beth is halted by the strange gurgle my throat makes, and the big fat tear that drops off my face. I reach across her for one of her pink tissues and carefully fold it, using the edges to wipe carefully under my lashes, dabbing delicately before I remember that I’m not wearing any make-up to smudge.

  ‘I think … it was my fault,’ she says suddenly, shutting her eyes as if by looking at me she might see something that’s too painful to bear.

  ‘What was?’ I ask her, quickly wiping at my face and taking another wine gum to distract myself from breaking down completely.

  Her eyes open again but she looks away and her gaze travels over the field of roses and out into the evening sky. ‘I suggested she could use her … bus money … that day … for some earrings.’

  ‘Your fault? The only person who spent the bus money was me. Nobody forced me to do it.’ I pick at the wine gum that’s stuck to my teeth, and as she frowns I realise too late my mistake. It’s so hard referring to yourself as she.

  ‘You weren’t there. What are you talking about?’ She is looking at me as if I’ve gone mad.

  ‘I mean Lily …’ I hurriedly correct myself. It’s almost harder being Ben around Beth than anyone else. She is like my second skin. ‘You know Lily as well as I do, Beth, she did a million stupid things and one of those stupid things went wrong.’

  ‘You don’t blame me?’ she asks hopefully.

  She doesn’t really understand why I’m here, why Ben is sitting in her bedroom. They were friends, of course they were, but we either hung about in a big group or we did our separate things.

  ‘I blame the driver of that car, that’s who I blame. Anyway …’ I leap off the bed to change the subject. ‘That’s boring. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  I stand up to study the photos pinned to the wall where I look happy and carefree. Beth and I in the park, with friends, at sleepovers, at parties, each snap holding a precious second in time when I was alive. My eyes sting again and my nostrils quiver, and the unexpected bitterness of resentment that floods my body from the soles of my feet to the top of my head is almost physically painful.

  Charlie comes bursting into the room and he starts his frantic whining and dancing around me in the same way he did last time.

  ‘Hey,’ I say brightly, chasing away the next bout of threatening tears, ‘Charlie!’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Beth asks me and I shrug theatrically.

  ‘Perhaps he’s cross with me for not being Lily.’

  Beth thinks about this for a while. ‘Do you ever get cross with Lily?’ she asks me. ‘You know … angry with her for leaving?’

  ‘Yes, I get angry with her for leaving. Apparently it’s all part of the process … you know, disbelief, blame, anger et cetera … the seven stages of grief and all that.’

  ‘And what is the last stage?’ she asks

  ‘Acceptance,’ I reply.

  ‘I’m nowhere near that yet,’ she says.

  ‘Nor am I,’ I tell her truthfully.

  ‘You have her eyes,’ she points out by way of an answer, peering closely at me. ‘Strange, I never noticed before.’

  I certainly do.

  And as she carries on peering for quite a long time, I wonder if I’m experiencing a slightly awkward moment, where my best friend is flirting with my brother.

  ‘Do you want to stay for dinner?’ Beth’s mum asks, poking her head round the door and thankfully diverting Beth’s attention. Beth and I look at each other, sharing our answer with our eyes and saying ‘Yes’ at the same time.

  Normality … at last!

  At the end of the evening, placing my plate by the sink, I thank Beth’s mum for my meal and with a newfound confidence, I go to a shelf on the other side of the kitchen. Lifting the lid of a cream ceramic jar, I put my hand in and pull out a homemade white chocolate and raspberry biscuit. ‘My favourite,’ I say, taking a large bite out of it. Beth’s mum always said to help myself, and for years that’s exactly what. Now I can’t help but note the look of surprise on her face, that Ben, who has never been to their house before, knows where the biscuits are kept. Just like his sister.

  I’m going to Milly’s party!

  I’m so excited about it that I feel like dancing to every track that comes on my phone, although I have to confess that I’m less enthusiastic about what to wear. As Lily I would have been trying a million outfits on, my wardrobe doors wide open, hangers and clothes on the bed or the floor, and Beth on the other end of Skype doing the same thing. I would have dressed to impress, spending hours on my hair and my make-up, Nathan admiring me making all my efforts worthwhile.

  But now I find myself showering and shaving off the random patches of dark hair on Ben’s chin, taking care not to remove any skin this time. I threaten the reflection in the mirror to pluck his eyebrows, which should never have been allowed to grow that big, and I imagine him snatching the tweezers off me. I spray liberally with his deodorant whose packaging tells me it is warm, sensual and spicy, then I try to work his hair into a suitable style.

  I dress in Ben’s clothes, listening through the silence for him to tell me what he would like to wear, but I can’t hear him. We are no longer tuned in to each other like before and another stab of guilt threatens to ruin my moment. I run my hands over his clothes until they stop on a particular T-shirt. From experience, I know what he would like, and imagine him telling me, If you’re taking me to a party, you had better make me look good. If only I knew what he was really thinking.

  I change the music to my favourite track and fill my head with thoughts of the evening ahead. I think Ben looks pretty nice in what I’ve picked out, and I admire us in the bedroom mirror.

  *

  I get Dad to take me to the party via the shop, insisting that I can’t turn up without something to drink, and, no, I won’t get drunk, and I won’t be irresponsible, and I won’t disrespect Milly’s house and, yes, her parents are definitely going to be there, and, finally, that I will ring when I want to come home, but not to expect it to be early.

  We pick Matthew up on the way but when
I knock on his door he’s not ready. His mum tells me to go on up and dig him out of his room, but unlike in Beth’s house I don’t know which is Matthew’s room. Making a choice to open the one with dirt round the handle and stickers on the door, I breathe a combination of disgust and relief that I got the right room. Apart from Matthew, who’s only wearing socks and a T-shirt, there’s a single bed with biscuit-thin pillows; walls covered in photos and posters of semi-naked women; a waste bin that is full to overflowing; books; clothes; dirty socks; and even a pair of worn underpants on his bed. His room is littered with sweet wrappers, a couple of empty plastic drink bottles and a half-finished bowl of cereal, growing mould. ‘Nice,’ I find myself saying sarcastically, screwing my nose up at the faint sweaty smell before it occurs to me that Ben would have seen it all before.

  Matthew grins, as he pulls on his underpants and reaches for his jeans. ‘Home sweet home.’

  He removes the gum he’s been chewing and adds it to a sculpture he seems to be creating on his wall. Two large breasts fashioned entirely out of gum are staring me in the face.

  ‘You’re making boobs out of gum?’ I ask him with an element of disgust and forgetting that I’m not supposed to be surprised at anything I see.

  ‘Yeah, you know I am; you helped me start them off!’ He looks at me as if he can’t understand why I don’t remember. ‘My bubblegum tits.’ He says this fondly as if he’s in love with them. ‘Already a B but a bit more work and I reckon they’ll be a C soon.’

  ‘I see you’ve spared one piece of gum for other things,’ I say, looking at the photo of the football team with his chewed gum on Ben’s face.

  ‘I had to sacrifice it,’ he says, turning to look at the photo. ‘You deserved more. I should have shaped it into a dick and put it on your head. I might do that with the next one, if you go back to hanging around with scum.’ But before I can answer he carries on. ‘So, Holly …’ He grins. ‘I hear you’ve been doing the dance with no pants …’

  ‘Yeah, OK, Matt, give me a break.’ I look away and run my hand along his collection of DVDs, obviously unwilling to talk about that particular subject.

  ‘So you DID … you bastard. You won. Fair dos mate.’ He whistles, his appreciation, indicating that the loss of his and my brother’s virginity was a competition, then he grabs his jacket and he’s off down the stairs and through the front door, leaving me to run after him.

  ‘So, are you going to throw some shapes at the party?’ Dad asks as he pulls out onto the main road towards Milly’s house.

  Matthew laughs into his T-shirt. ‘Yeah, that’s right, Mr R, we’re going to … throw some shapes.’

  ‘No one says that any more, Dad.’ I sigh. ‘No point trying to pretend you’re not old.’

  I try to detract from the slightly embarrassing dad situation by opening the bag by my feet, so that Matthew can see the cider in there, then I have to squash my mouth together to stop it giving away exactly how excited I am about tonight. Matt winks at me and partially reveals a bottle of vodka tucked inside his coat. I assume my jeeez, how did you pull that one off? look of appreciation and glance at Dad’s reflection in the rear-view mirror, but his eyes are thankfully focused on the road ahead while he gives up on us and tunes into something awful on Radio Two or an equivalent old fart channel.

  When we arrive, there are a few people going into the house and Milly’s parents are in the dining room, visible behind closed glass-panelled doors, but thankfully out of the way. There’s some music playing inside and outside, and the kitchen is littered with beers, ciders and soft drinks and snacks. Milly takes the drinks off us and puts them on the table but I notice that Matthew hasn’t given her the vodka, just the cola.

  ‘Tight git, Matt. Where’s the booze?’ she demands, beckoning knowingly with her fingers, and reluctantly he produces the bottle from his jacket, with Milly taking it off him with a flourish. As she walks back to the table, I happen to look down and notice that she is wearing the most fabulous pair of shoes, and before I know that it’s happened I’m shrieking.

  ‘Oh my GOD, Milly, your shoes … they’re GORGEOUS!’ to which she looks down and squeals with delight back. ‘I know, right?’

  Matthew looks at us both and rolls his eyes.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he mouths at me as he takes a glass to make a drink with the vodka that he brought, but I grab a cider, pull the ring and drink straight from the can, trying to hide my Lilyness behind it.

  Milly shows us where to find the toilet and points to the garden where there is a big gazebo and several people, including her older sister and some of her friends. ‘If you’re going to have a fag, do it out there,’ she yells, then rushes back inside as the front doorbell rings.

  As both Ben and I know most of the people invited to this party, apart from the older ones, it means I can mingle freely with anyone, boy or girl. The house and the garden gradually fills up with bodies. Some have obviously got themselves high before arriving, some are on a mission to fill themselves full of any alcohol they can get their hands on, and some just want to be there because it’s going to be a great night. There is expectation in the air and it is met; I am a teenager at a party and I’m sure as hell going to have a good time.

  The navy blue of an evening sky gives in to the infinite darkness of night and the lights around the gazebo offer a magical effect to the garden. The glow from the fire pit highlights everybody’s faces with orange, and reflects a flicker of flame in their eyes, while the few smokers intermittently share their lighters or flick their cigarette ends into the coals.

  I love everything. The cider I’m drinking has untied the knots inside me and I feel euphoric. It’s like the whole of teenage life as it should be in one single wonderful point in time: music, dancing, friends, attraction and energy. I wanted so much to feel life again, and it is here.

  As the evening wears on, everyone is getting louder and beginning to show the effects of the alcohol that they are managing to hide from Milly’s parents, or that Milly’s parents are managing to ignore. Several people are kissing, one couple are going for it in a big way, and someone has vomited near a flower bed, leaving an interesting splatter worthy of an impressionist artist on the garden path. Some of the older kids keep having to turn people away who weren’t even invited because the glow from the fire and the music are advertising to the outside world what a great party this is.

  The sound of Matthew talking endlessly in my ear about the hot girls that are here begins to fade into a buzz as I pretend to look at each one he points out, but my peripheral vision is concentrating on Nathan. He looks so good in his designer jeans with a new expensive-looking T-shirt clinging to his chest. I feel my heart crank up its beat. He moves to the side of the gazebo where I am, and I pretend for a few seconds that I’m in my own Lily body, and he’s going to walk up to me as if everything is normal, and put his arms round me, pulling me to him.

  Daisy steps out in front of him and puts her hand on his chest. On my boyfriend’s chest. She looks up at him and he looks down at her and something in the pit of my stomach feels hotter than the burning wood in the fire pit. She throws her head back and laughs at something he says, then flicks her hair over her shoulder in a seductive manner, and I can’t bear it. He leans down further to hear what she’s saying and from where I’m standing it looks too close.

  I wander over towards them as casually as possible, forcing my legs to move slower than they want to but in the end I can’t help myself. I rush over and manage to pop up between the two of them, almost skidding to a halt.

  ‘Great party,’ I shout to Nathan, turning my back slightly and rudely to Daisy, who tries to move round between us again. I unkindly carry on this little charade, until she thankfully wanders off to find another victim.

  Nathan holds his drink and points vaguely towards a group of girls dancing. ‘Anyone for you?’ he asks me, and although I’m supposed to be searching the group of girls for any possible fit ones I look up at him and can’t help
reacting to the fact that he is dangerously, touchably close. I feel a flush invade my face, and I’m glad the garden lights are too dim to show it.

  ‘No. There isn’t a girl here for me,’ I say, and my head screams, but there is a boy and you’re right here, and you should be mine … ‘You?’ I ask instead and hold my breath. I don’t want his answer, but he dips his face towards me to shout over the music.

  ‘This is my date tonight.’ The music has stopped between tracks and Nathan is left holding up his bottle of beer, and shouting so that everyone can hear that alcohol is his only date. A few people laugh at him, but we both ignore them. I can smell his scent, a woody and warm perfume that fills my nose, and I shut my mouth, leaning towards him, breathing in, so my nostrils get the full benefit. I almost hug him – You’re still mine, Nathan Peterson, and I love you – but I raise my cider to him, as if it is my date too, while continuing to take him in through my eyes and breathe him in through my nose. ‘To the love of our lives,’ I toast, and take a drink.

  Nathan tips his head back and takes several gulps from his bottle, before waving it in front of my face to show that it’s empty, and as he turns and walks away from me I can see that he’s swaying as he aims back up the garden towards the kitchen, presumably for another bottle.

  I watch him go, then wander over to Beth and the group she is standing with, just as a track comes on that we all love. All the girls start dancing and with the cider that I’ve drunk and the party atmosphere all around me, I decide I don’t care about what anyone thinks, and I start dancing, hands in the air, circling hips and flicking hair, just like the others, and when the track finishes Beth takes my hand, laughing. ‘You’re so funny, Ben.’ Fortunately for me, everyone thinks I’m trying to be deliberately funny so I give them all a wiggle of my butt and exit the gazebo to get another drink. Beth follows me and we are still holding hands. As we get outside she pulls me back and as I stop to see what she wants, I feel her other hand on my waist and she stands on tiptoe to kiss me. So Beth likes my brother now? I pull my face away from her and I see the hurt instantly in her face.