by kendra Smith
Markie turns on the heating, raises his eyebrows at me. I feel a whoosh in my stomach but ignore it, and slap him playfully on the knee as he takes the handbrake off. ‘Fish and chips?’ He glances at me.
‘How did you know?’ I blink at him. ‘From a proper chippie, the only thing better than that is fish ’n’ chips and a sea view!’
‘That can be arranged.’ Markie glances at his watch and smiles. ‘It will only take us twenty minutes to drive to Brighton. It’s only seven o’clock. Want to go?’
‘Why not?’ I find myself saying and grinning. Why not indeed. Because I should be spending the evening scrolling through wedding websites with Simon, but they can wait, surely?
‘Let’s go!’ I throw my head back and laugh. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. After a few miles, I pull my phone out of my bag and text Simon to say the party ran late, I’m exhausted and I probably won’t be round later. The nagging voice is back, asking me what I’m doing, but I quell those thoughts by taking a sideways glance at Markie and thinking that we’re just getting food. What’s the harm in that?
We’re walking along the back streets of Brighton. The Saturday shoppers have left and there are still some lingering rays of sun in the sky. It’s a chilly April evening but you can almost taste that summer is on its way. A seagull squawks above us and I breathe in the tang of vinegar. I hold up a chip between two fingers and inspect its crispy outer layer and anticipate the soft, fluffy centre. ‘This is a perfect specimen.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ Markie looks at me, then, at lightning speed, he pulls the chip out of my hand and rams it into his mouth, grinning.
After a while, we’re nearly finished eating, walking side by side and I’m humming a song.
‘That’s a classic.’
‘Well?’ I raise my eyebrows at him.
‘Walking on Sunshine. Katrina and the Waves.’
‘Top marks, boss.’ I throw my wrapping in a nearby bin. ‘Not quite sunshine, I know,’ I say glancing at the grey-blue sky, ‘more like dusky evening light, but the waves are pretty cool.’
‘Let’s take a seat, over there, so we can see them better.’ Markie points to a bench on the footpath by the sea. We sit side by side in silence for a while, staring out at the inky darkness, the noise of the waves rhythmically shushing us. I shuffle the soles of my boots on the pavement and can feel the gritty sand underneath, but I’m shivering.
‘Here.’ He takes off his coat, and places it across both our knees.
‘Now I feel about 100 years old,’ I laugh, but then fall silent again. There are a thousand thoughts tumbling across my brain as I inhale the briny air from the sea. My brain feels like one of those kaleidoscopes you had as a kid; you’d look through it and there were multi-coloured beads at the bottom, and when you twisted it, they were split into different prisms. That’s my brain at the moment. I’m twisting and turning my thoughts and feelings, and they are coming out in different shapes that I can’t decipher. Happy thoughts, haunting thoughts, they’re all mixed up and I’m finding it hard to make sense of it all.
‘Pure magic.’ Markie breaks the silence. It is. Lights dance on the ocean’s surface like fireflies as the mauve horizon melts into the sea.
I cast my gaze back to town. There are fairy lights twinkling and something that looks like a turret in the sky. ‘What’s that over there?’
‘That’s the Royal Pavilion, so it is. It’s beautiful, they’ve got the ice rink there,’ he says rolling up his wrapper.
‘Is it open at the moment?’ I ask.
He nods. Then we both turn to each other at the same time. I’m grinning. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ I say.
Markie tilts his head at me and I study the way some curls are escaping from his woolly beanie, and furling over the top of his left ear. ‘How good’s your ice skating? If it’s as good as your singing, I’m in!’ He punches me playfully in the arm.
I open my mouth then close it again, uncertain. I grin. Then, for some reason, we both start to run towards the building. I’m trying to keep up with him as we belt down tiny side streets, following the glowing lights like children followed the pied piper. Suddenly, we’re here. I stop abruptly. The palace is lit up with blueish lights from the inside, spilling over the ice rink – a purple mirror reflecting the tiny skaters above. A young girl, she must be about six, in a pink bobble hat, is clinging on to her dad’s hand, slipping and laughing as he catches her falling time and time again, the sound of ice scraping under her blades.
‘God, it’s beautiful.’ The twinkling palace reminds me of the stage show for Frozen I took Izzy to a few years ago – that was magical, Izzy still believed in Santa, she believed in Elsa, too. Before the eyebrow piercing, before the attitude. And before Victoria changed, says that voice, before she started to feel the kids didn’t need her, and started to look for other things to fill up her life.
‘Ready?’ Markie nudges my elbow and we head inside to get skates.
It’s another world on the rink: the aqua green and violet light from the palace are reflected on the ice making it glow like a planet in space. The only sounds are the quiet scraping of ice under my skates. Markie’s gliding ahead, glancing back a few times to check I’m OK. He’s a much better skater than me; I’m trying very hard to keep my balance and have wobbled my way to the centre of the rink. The air is freezing on my cheeks, but I don’t care, my breath becomes white plumes in front of my eyes.
Markie’s beside me, holding out his hand. I stare at it. ‘C’mon, we can go round together, you look like you need help.’ His lips are twitching.
‘I do not!’ But as I say it, one of my legs starts to slide outwards and before I know it, I’m heading for a face-plant in the ice. Markie quickly slides his hand under my arm and yanks me up.
We’re standing face to face, inches apart. I’m aware of his strong arms supporting me still. He stands back, then holds out his hand for support. ‘You were saying?’
‘Well, maybe I do need some help,’ I laugh. Then, slowly, we’re gliding across the ice as one, speeding up from time to time as Markie leads me across the sheet of ice, skimming its surface in unison. It’s still cold, and strands of my hair have escaped my clasp and are whipping across my cheek, but I hardly notice. All I can feel is Markie’s hand squeezing mine tight.
16 Victoria
Later that Saturday she was sitting reading a newspaper in the comfy chairs at the end of the kitchen – she still had to look twice at the date on the top of the newspaper: 2020, not 2014. It had now been five weeks since she’d been out of hospital and life had taken on some kind of new normal – even with the spectre of those divorce papers playing on her mind. She hadn’t signed the blasted things; she’d shoved them in the drawer in the hall table and slammed it shut. She just wanted some family time – space to figure things out. Was it too much to ask?
Every morning James got up from the spare room, showered in their bathroom, dressed and drove to Brighton to his office. The last two Fridays he’d worked from home. It was as if she was sleepwalking in her own life, trying to find those jigsaw pieces. Her phone bleeped. It was Lulu telling her she was in Brighton and wouldn’t be home till late. She had said she might pop round. Victoria scratched her head. She was sure Lulu had said the children’s party was in Shoreham-by-Sea. Just then, Jake sauntered in. He was wearing ripped denim shorts, slung so low on his hips that they revealed the colour of his underpants. She forced herself not to say anything about underpants and belts.
‘Hi, Mum.’ He wandered over to the cupboard, yanked out a bowl and proceeded to fill it to the rim with chocolate cereal, then he added maple syrup, and then he reached into the cupboard and pulled out multi-coloured sprinkles. He stared at her. She smiled. Was this a test? She bit her lip. She also found herself fighting really hard not to comment on the fact that he seemed to be wearing the same sweatshirt for five days in a row. Yet she also found a huge rush of love come tumbling out of nowhere and h
it her with force. She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘Morning Jake. How are you?’
‘Yeah, sweet – you?’
James walked in, turned the coffee machine on and she braced herself for the dreadful noise.
‘I’m fine, thank you. Um, Jake, don’t you have football training, or something? On a Saturday?’ she said, getting up and coming over to the table. She swept some sprinkles from the surface into her hand. ‘Did we forget last week?’
Jake’s spoon stopped mid-way to his mouth. His eyes widened. ‘So, Mum, I haven’t played football for two years now. Me and Stanzy are meeting at the skatepark later.’
‘Stanzy?’ She screwed up her eyes as a memory flashed through. ‘Oh, yes. Isn’t Stanzy the boy who used to wet himself? He stayed for a sleepover here and we had to wash the sheets – the poor lad was so traumatised his mum had to pick him up?’
‘Mu-um! That was ages ago. Stanzy’s six foot now. Give the guy a break!’
Six foot? ‘Right, sorry, yes.’
‘Anyway, can I have a lift?’
‘To where?’
‘The skatepark?’
She looked wildly round the room for clues. What was her son talking about?
‘S-k-a-t-eboarding park.’ Jake said it very slowly and very loudly to her as if she was hard of hearing. Or in fact deaf. Or in fact, just stupid.
‘Right, OK.’ She nodded, looking for her car keys. Where was the skatepark?
‘Jake.’ The voice was low but loud. It was James. He looked at Jake and then swiftly up at Victoria as if making his mind up about something. ‘Remember our chat? Your mother’s memory has been affected – OK? It might take her a while to remember a few things, like your personal skateboarding schedule – OK?’ He fixed his son with a special stare. Victoria bit the side of her cheek as her heart swelled. That sounded like a ‘stern dad voice for teenagers’. She had never heard that before. She was grateful he’d stepped in, but she knew Jake didn’t mean any harm. The Jake she could remember had been a boy holding hands with his father on the way to football practice, or playing in the garden, not issuing snide comments.
‘Yeah, sure.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s cool. Sorry, Mum.’
‘It’s quite OK, sweetheart.’ Victoria went over to Jake and started to put her arms around him. ‘Whoa! Mum, like, what’s this?’ He veered away, laughing nervously, then plunged his spoon into the chocolatey mess. She sat down next to him. After a few minutes of loud crunching, she turned to him, something was niggling her.
‘Jake, you know you told me last time that Izzy had some “issues” with some girls? What did you mean?’
He screwed up his nose and looked between her and James. ‘Ask Izzy. Like I said, girls can be bitchy. I saw something on her phone though, yesterday.’ Then he dipped his spoon back into the chocolate-cereal-concoction.
‘What?’ said James. ‘Jake?’
He glanced at both James and Victoria, as if summing up whether to snitch on his sister.
‘OK, I looked at her screen and saw that there was a group chat and someone called her “Spot-face”. Not very nice. I know she’s my sister and I kind of am obliged to hate her,’ he rolled his eyes, then carried on, ‘but that’s not funny. Pretty cruel.’ He looked up at them both from under his fringe.
‘No, it’s not very nice at all,’ said James, pouring milk into his coffee. ‘Thanks, mate.’
‘S’OK.’
James put the milk back in the fridge then said that he had some calls to make and Victoria was alone with the crunching of cereal. Jake was scrolling through his phone, which lay by his side on the table.
Victoria coughed. ‘So, um, what are you looking at?’
‘Nothin’. Just some Snapchat, bit of Insta.’ He glanced up at her.
‘Right.’ What on earth was he talking about? ‘So, how’s things at school, you know, I can’t really remember, um, what about exams?’
‘Yeah mum, like G-C-S-Es,’ he said this very slowly, then his face softened. ‘Sorry. They’re next year – remember?’
‘Yes, of course. What, are – tell me your favourite subjects.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes, Jake, seriously. Like Dad said, I’m catching up, you know, trying to make sense of all this.’ She touched his arm and he didn’t move it away. ‘I mean of course it will come back, I’m sure it will,’ she said rapidly, ‘but in the meantime, maybe you can help me out?’
‘Sure,’ he nodded. ‘School’s fine.’ He seemed to be studying her face. ‘Me and Izzy are doing our exams next year, remember?’ He raised his eyebrows.
Victoria nodded even though she didn’t really. She didn’t want to freak Jake out too much.
‘My choices are History, Geography, Spanish, and I’m doing the double Science plus Advanced Maths. You told me that Advanced Maths would be a good choice.’
‘I did? Right. Advanced Maths.’ She tucked some hair behind her ear. Last thing she remembered about Jake and maths was him getting his nine and eight times tables muddled up. Time really had flown.
‘Mum?’ He pushed his bowl to one side.
‘Sorry, yes?’
‘Skatepark?’
She smiled at him and reached out to ruffle his hair. He ducked and grinned at her. ‘Too slow!’
As she gathered her things she tried to focus on her children. Jake doing Advanced Maths? And Izzy? What was going on there? They’d been called into school for a meeting tomorrow about Izzy’s ‘performance’, so they’d bring it up there. Was her daughter being bullied? What else had happened that she’d been too busy to notice?
17 Lulu
‘How’s Victoria doing?’
We’re sitting in a café next to the ice rink with a hot chocolate and whipped cream on top. It’s one of those American diners, with Fifties retro bench seats in red leather, the tables have ketchup and mustard in little baskets and a few people are perched on high stools up at the bar with milkshakes. There’s a neon sign for Coca-Cola flashing across the top of the bar and the air is warm and fuggy, it smells of fried food and coffee. The Saturday evening crowds are gathering and its filling up but we’ve managed to get a booth at the back.
‘Nice of you to ask.’
‘Of course I’m going to ask, she’s your sister – only one you’ve got, right?’ A look crosses his face, then it’s gone. ‘And, anyway, you never know what’s around the corner; you need to love the family you’ve got.’ Markie twists his mug around, picks up his teaspoon and starts to play with the cream, taking little wisps of it on the spoon and licking them off. The atmosphere from the rink has vanished and his face is sombre.
Where do I start? ‘She’s all over the place with the memory thing – I don’t know if she and James can resolve it.’
‘They’ll resolve it if they want to.’
‘You think?’
He nods. ‘Maybe it’s a second chance for them, you know?’
‘Possibly, but they just seemed to have lost their way.’ I shrug. I’m not sure why it went so wrong. ‘Sometimes, you know, it’s better to say something, than nothing at all.’ I look over at him and swipe at my cream with my teaspoon. ‘She just can’t remember.’ I yank my skirt down over my knee and look up at the flashing sign. ‘He started the divorce proceedings – I think he felt, I don’t know, at a loss.’
‘But what actually happened?’
‘No one thing, it was just, sort of their marriage had kind of broken down, they’d drifted apart, she felt lost as the twins grew up, James was working away – then, I don’t know whether it was deliberate or not, she probably thought another baby would fix things, but after they lost her – quite late on, they even had names… she went into a depression. But she can’t remember any of it. She just thinks she and James were how they were six years ago. Happy as.’
‘That’s hard. She doesn’t remember key things? Does she remember she lost the baby?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m not sure when to tell her. I mean she’s
got enough to deal with.’
‘Maybe that’s a good thing?’ He shrugged. ‘If she can’t remember then it can’t hurt her, can it? And with her and James, well, it’s almost like they’ve wiped the slate clean. Like a reset.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’
‘I’m guessing they need to talk, like – don’t get me wrong, but if the only thing messing with their marriage was, you know,’ he pulls at his chin, ‘life, right? Then maybe they can fix it.’
‘Maybe you’re right. There was, I suppose, a hole in their marriage. They need to mend that hole, they need to put in some – I don’t know – underpinning.’ I’m scraping the last bit of hot chocolate from the bottom of my glass and I look up at Markie.
‘Very romantic,’ he says, his eyes dancing, ‘underpinning.’
‘You know what I mean.’ I grin and lick my spoon.
Markie nods.
‘We looked at photos when she first came out of hospital: she remembers the day the twins were born – she remembers weird things like how to turn that scary alarm off – but not her actual wedding day.’ Wedding day. I play with the word in my mind. It sounds funny when I say it. Markie reaches for a napkin and wipes his mouth.
‘Do you remember, Lulu?’
‘What?’
‘The accident – what actually happened?’
And there it is – I’m being asked to lay bare my secret. To expose myself for what I am.
‘Lulu?’
Something breaks in me. Maybe it’s the first time I’ve felt able to talk about it, maybe it’s the closeness between me and Markie, maybe it’s because I need to explain, I don’t know, but the resolve in me bends. ‘It was my fault. The accident.’ I pick up a paper napkin and start to fold it.
‘I’m sure it wasn’t.’ There’s warmth in his voice and he touches my fingers briefly and frowns. ‘Was it?’