by Caroline Day
But now I’ve forgotten about my drink. So when Veronica Ptitsky gives me a glass and says there is my T, I say it doesn’t look like tea, it looks more like a lemonade and she says no, silly, T, remember. T without the G. And she puts her hand through my arm like the ladies in the long dresses.
I take out my purse from my bag, being careful not to take out my pants which are on top and are just a bit damp. I have some money in my purse, like a five-pound note, or a ten-pound, but Veronica Ptitsky says just buy her one another time. She sees me looking around and she says, not the world’s best pub but she’s been in worse.
There is football on a television which is up on the wall and it’s a blue team playing against a red team but the noise is turned off so you can’t hear all the yelling and the people talking about kicking and goals and the other words to do with football, which I don’t like, but it’s still a bit noisy because of all the people and most of them are talking so it’s hard to hear anything else. It smells like beer and crisps, cheese and onion mostly but like all the flavours are mixed together. And it smells a bit like when one time I put my clothes in the washing machine, because of being independent, but I forgot they were in there and when my mum, Jenny, found them, they smelt a bit like wet towels or maybe cheese. So that is what I’m thinking, about how the pub smells a bit cheesy.
‘Been here before?’ That’s Veronica Ptitsky.
I say: ‘I don’t go to pubs.’
She laughs. ‘Wish I could say the same. What do you do to have fun with your friends then?’
‘I don’t have any friends,’ I tell her. ‘Or only dog ones, because they don’t make you do bad things. I don’t want any human friends, actually. It’s for the best.’
She opens her mouth, like she’s going to say something else, but then she closes it again and takes a sip of her drink. I sip mine, too. It is a strange drink because it’s like I’m not tasting it in my mouth but in my nose. Maybe I make a funny face, because Veronica Ptitsky starts laughing.
‘I only have it for the gin. Don’t drink it if you don’t want it.’
But I take another taste. Not a big one with my whole mouth, just a little one in the front. It’s sort of horrible but your mouth wants to try it again. I have another taste and it makes me press my mouth up towards my nose, like doing a pig nose.
‘Hope, you’re hilarious.’
I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say.
‘And have you never drunk alcohol?’ Veronica Ptitsky is looking at me very hard and I forget about the rule about personal things and telling everything that’s in your head.
‘When I was at school I drank vodka because the boys gave it to me.’ They gave it to me in the school canteen and in the park after school. They said it was because they were my friends and it would be fun. Those were the only times they asked me to sit with them on the same tables or to walk with them, to the little children’s playground or the benches by the big tree. And my brain is remembering this but I’m forgetting to talk, because I’m stuck in my head and it’s a bit like something you don’t want to look at, but you can’t look away.
‘You didn’t like it?’
I can’t remember what she’s asking me.
‘The vodka?’
‘It made me do not good things.’
She’s laughing again. ‘That’s a feeling I know. What not good things?’
My head forgets to tell my mouth about not saying everything that’s personal. ‘Like shouting at teachers or letting other people put their hands under my clothes. And like banging Shanya’s head on the wall. And there were other things.’ I’m trying to remember. And then I do remember. ‘I ran under a car. And I tried to kill myself.’
‘Oh my God, Hope. I’m so sorry. But please, don’t ever do that. We’d miss you.’
In my head there is another thing I’m trying to remember, and Veronica Ptitsky is rubbing my arm like I’m a dog who wants to be stroked, and saying poor Hope. I’m thinking that I don’t want to talk about this anymore and so I ask her what it’s like in Russia – this is called changing the subject and I’ve role played it with my mum, Jenny – and she says she’s never been to Russia.
‘But in Lg … bgt …’ I can’t remember the name. ‘Where your community is.’ And she says her name is Russian but she was born in Rhode Island, in America. But she’s lived here since she was fourteen. So, she guesses her community is right here in Harpenden.
And this is a bit confusing because of her and Marnie Shale saying the different thing before, in last week’s group, but I don’t say this because that’s correcting people and it’s not polite. Veronica Ptitsky says how interesting my book sounds and how brave to be writing an autobiography. She even remembers what I said about changing my life and finding my birth mother because she says she’s really interested to know how my book is going to do that. And I’m thinking about how to make an answer to this. And I’m thinking maybe Veronica Ptitsky is not all that clever, and maybe I’m not the only person with a jumble brain if she says she’s from Russia and then she forgets she’s even said it, and if she can’t see how this book is going to change my life. Because books go in bookshops and people read them and they think about them and they talk about them – like Harry Potter and the other one about children killing each other with arrows. And then maybe my birth mother will think: that must be my baby, and then she will want to come and tell me and say she’s never stopped thinking about me and even though she threw me away in a cardboard box, she is very proud of me now I have persevered and achieved a book. But I don’t say this to Veronica Ptitsky.
‘I liked what you wrote in your exercise.’ This is me. It is a compliment. I think I did it very well because Veronica Ptitsky is smiling.
‘I’m glad you liked it. I was worried you might be offended.’
This is a bit confusing because offended is a bit like sad, and a bit like anxious, like when people call you Fanny Wanker or Hope Headbanger or Pissy Pants, but I don’t even understand why I might be offended by someone else’s exercise. And Veronica Ptitsky is looking at me and she’s asking if I know who she was writing about. And I say no, because she didn’t tell us. And she’s stopped stroking my arm but now she puts her hand back and she says: ‘Didn’t you realise, Hope? I was writing about you.’
This is a big surprise and I think Veronica Ptitsky can see that, maybe, because she laughs, and says would I like to have it. Her exercise. And I say yes. And it’s very lucky because she wrote it in a notebook, instead of on her laptop or on her phone, so she can tear out the page. And so I’m reading it in the pub, and it’s very funny, because of now thinking that it’s about me, actually, and not a ginormous mystery at all.
In life, you meet many people. Some you like, some you don’t. Some you can talk to for hours without time seeming to pass; others you find a minute in their company drags and embarrasses. Some you admire, some you wish you’d never met. Few make you think: ‘When I woke up this morning I didn’t imagine that I would meet somebody like you.’ When you do, it’s rather like taking a step and finding gravity has relaxed.
This person is a little like that. There is something of the Mary Poppins about her and I feel a strange desire to watch her constantly, in case she pulls an umbrella from a carpet bag and flies out of the window. Physically, she is – I hope she won’t mind me saying – quite tiny. The height of a child with the voice of a little girl. She has eyes that flash sparks at times and stare into the distance at others, but seem to be constantly searching. There is a vulnerability about her that brings out something protective in me, though I’m not the mothering kind, but also a brightness that carries me along. With her chatter and her unpredictability, she reminds me of a baby animal – a bear cub perhaps, on one of those BBC nature programmes – which you watch, not knowing if it will growl or lie on its back and kick its little legs. And those eyes dart around, as if her brain is a butterfly and those eyes are the net that is trying to keep up �
�
‘Do you like it?’ This is Veronica Ptitsky and I say yes, because I do. And it makes me feel like a big silver star, even though I don’t have a carpet bag, really. I did have an umbrella, which was yellow, but I put it down on a bench in the wood when I was picking up a poo from one of the dogs, and then I forgot to remember to take my umbrella again.
Veronica Ptitsky says good, she’s glad I like it. And I say can I put it in my book. And Veronica Ptitsky laughs and says yes. This is when she says about the copy write and I can copy it as much as I like.
I’m trying to think what else to say, because maybe this is a thing that I need to say thank you for, but I’m not sure. But then my brain finds another thing to think about, because across the pub, where Danny Flynn is talking to some of the other people, like Peter Potter with his white hair and eyebrows, and Kelly Bell-y Shell-y, with a long plait and a hairband, there’s also a dress that is yellow and pink, and in the dress is my mum. And that is why I’m smiling so much and not saying thank you, actually. I say to Veronica Ptitsky: ‘I’m going now.’
I can feel the smile on my face and I’m hurrying and I’m looking and listening only towards my mum, like she is the most important person in the pub. And even though it’s loud with the talking all around, I can hear what she’s saying to Danny Flynn as I’m coming near to them, because I’m looking and listening so hard.
‘… but I told them there was no way I could stay overnight, so I’ll go in again tomorrow for more …’ And then she sees me. She stops talking to Danny Flynn because she’s opening her arms and she’s saying, ‘Here she is. My Hope.’ And it’s the best hug ever, because my mum is here now. And even when I was drinking T with Veronica Ptitsky and she was saying the surprising thing, really I was just waiting for my mum to come. Danny Flynn is saying can he get her a drink, and my mum, Jenny, is saying, thank you but the taxi is waiting. And Danny Flynn says, sorry, he still hasn’t brought that book round. And then we’re in the taxi and putting on our seatbelts because that’s important. And I’m telling my mum, Jenny, about how I was crying when she wasn’t there after my class. And I’m telling her that she will have to remember to change my light bulb when we get home.
3
RAISING THE STAKES
7
Flip a pancake, this is not a good week. I am looking at my watch and I’m remembering that I am meant to be somewhere. And that is in my writing class. And instead I am here, in the library downstairs, doing research and thinking about this week’s topic, which is plotting. I’m putting my hand over my mouth and thinking: flip, flip, flip a flipping pancake. Because it is bad to forget and it is rude and unreliable.
My book of rules helps me to remember the things that are the most important, like about if you’re meant to be somewhere, called an appointment, you should always try your very best to be there at the right time, and not to forget and just go away and not be there at all. But even with the rules written down, in my very special book, sometimes I forget anyway and that is what has happened this week, which is not a good week.
My brain is always a bit of a muddled place, like in the woods where there is no path and just trees. But this week it’s like there are even more trees and even less path, in my head, and the ground is muddy. It’s like a muddy muddle.
When I was at my job yesterday, or the other day which was before yesterday, Sallie the whippet was off her lead and she ran off, like she was chasing a squirrel or maybe another dog, and so I went into the trees to find her and bring her back. I forgot about telling Karen, who is my boss, where I was going, and then I was in the trees in the wood and I couldn’t see Sallie and I couldn’t see Karen my boss, and I couldn’t even hear them when I was shouting and yelling to ask where they were. And it took a very long time, I can’t remember how long, but more than an hour and maybe more than two hours, and in the end they were at the café, and Sallie was with Karen and all the other dogs and she said – Karen not Sallie, of course, because Sallie is a dog – where the hell had I been because she was about to call the police. And it was especially bad, it happening on that day – maybe the day that was before yesterday – because of me being late in the morning, which was because my mum, Jenny Nicely, did not wake me up and she was staying in bed and not going to her work at the bookshop because of feeling so tired and sweaty and a bit under the weather.
And Karen my boss said to me that when you have a job, and it’s a real job, it’s very important to be on time and not to go away, into trees and away from the real path, without saying to anybody where you’re going. And I said that I was sorry and that I was going to try really hard to remember. But now I am still down here, in the library, and I have forgotten to remember to go upstairs to my class on time and I am banging my hand on the button for the lift and people are looking at me and asking if I am all right. I don’t want to say anything to them. Even when a little boy asks his mum: ‘Mummy why is that woman making those noises?’ I don’t say anything. I just want the lift to hurry up and to take me up the floors to the top floor.
The reason why I am downstairs in the library, with my research and my thinking about plotting, is because of my mum, Jenny Nicely, and her having to go for some blood tests before they go home in the hospital at five o’clock, and because of Karen my boss and Julie Clarke being busy too, actually, so that is why I was here so early and my mum said was I sure I was all right on my own while I was waiting and was I sure I would remember when it was time to go up to my class. And I said I was not stupid, actually, and of course I would be perfectly fine. Because that’s what I thought, before the forgetting. And now I remember my phone was ringing in the library and I couldn’t even answer it – when I tried to put my finger on it to slide to answer, it kept on ringing and ringing and some people were standing up and looking around to see where the noise was coming from – and even when I said hello, nobody was there on the other end, and – of course – it was because of the alarm that my mum put on my mobile. And now I can see that’s why it sounded like a long bell instead of the tune that sounds like it’s on a … that instrument that’s not a piano and not a drum and that you hit it with a stick, and …
The lift is here now but even though it’s going up, it feels like it’s going so slowly that it’s not hardly moving, like the lift is being moved by a snail or a very old person. And I’m looking at the floors: 1, 2, 3 – and even I can count those, because it’s easy as anything. But I could have counted them ten times, or twelve or maybe a hundred, because it’s moving so slowly. And just as the doors open – maybe because of the ping they make – I remember it. The word. It’s a xylophone. Of course. That’s what my phone sounds like. That’s the word I couldn’t find in my head. When it’s not the alarm that’s a bell instead, when it’s a real person calling because they want to talk to me, it’s like a tune on a xylophone.
‘Hope!’ This is Marnie Shale as I come in the door. I knocked and opened all at the same time, like I am banging on the door as I am walking into the room, so it is a little bit noisy. And I’m a little bit falling into the room because of the pushing and the knocking all at the same time but I don’t end up on the floor because of Peter Potter being in the chair by the door and because of me almost landing on him but not quite. And Marnie Shale is looking at me and all the words sort of come out of my mouth about my mum going to the hospital for the blood test and the alarm on my phone and me forgetting what it was, and about the lift and about Sallie running into the woods and it being a bad day today, and all the rest of the group are looking at me and Danny Flynn and Veronica Ptitsky are sort of smiling and sort of looking with mouths like ‘O’s.
The man with the scarf has a different one this week. This scarf is green with a pattern, like lots of loops. But still with a knot. And he isn’t smiling and his mouth isn’t an ‘O’. It’s more of a turned-down mouth but open so I can see his teeth. And I didn’t use to be good at faces but I’m getting better because of practising with my mum, Jenny Nicely,
all the time. We look at pictures in newspapers and magazines, or on the side of buses, and she says what do I think they are thinking and feeling. And I think maybe the scarf-knot man is a bit sad or maybe a bit anxious or angry. Probably it is angry, not sad. Because his eyes are quite squeezed up and they don’t look wet like they want to cry. And Marnie says to me come in and sit down quickly because we are just discussing Ludovic’s opening chapter. And the words are still coming out of my mouth but I have to make them stop, because interrupting is rude.
I sit down and I’m looking for my notebook but it is in the bottom of my bag underneath my research, which is in a big folder, and my packet of biscuits for in case I’m hungry. And when I pull out my notebook my knickers come out too, from the almost accident in the pub, so now I’m thinking I must remember to take them out for my mum to wash, and not forget about them being in my bag again. And I push them back in quickly and I don’t think anybody has seen them except for maybe Ludovic scarf-knot man because he has a very odd look on his face that I have never seen on the side of a bus.
‘If you’re ready for me to continue …?’ This is him and I think it’s because I’m pulling my biscuits out again – silly me. I’ve only just put them back in, but, flip a pancake, I forgot my pen. But I have it now, my special pen which is gold and black, with my blue grip to make it nice to hold, and I smile at him to say I am ready. He doesn’t smile back.