Everything Has Changed

by kendra Smith

  ‘No. Yes,’ I let out a shaky breath. ‘Well, not all of it but—’

  And I tell him. I keep folding and unfolding the napkin and it all comes out. About being drunk; about pulling the steering wheel. About laughing, thinking it was so funny, thinking I was helping, Victoria’s face, so serious all the time, all her lists for everything. That it drove me crazy, that something just snapped, and how I wanted to be taken seriously, wanted not to be the younger sister, the chaotic one, the ditzy one, the one with no proper career or life. The ‘failed singer’ as I’d overheard my uncle say to Dad one Christmas. Dad – to be fair – had defended me, but still, it hurt. It was the prosecco, the emotions, the terror of being at that prissy Wedding Fayre, feeling that I had to change. Shoes? What’s your dress like? Honeymoon? And, if I’m honest, it was the thought of me and Simon alone for two weeks on some island that he’d booked. A hot island. I know most brides would be grateful, but all I wanted to do was say ‘Why didn’t you ask me?’ I hate hot holidays. I’d rather go to Norfolk. How the pressure built up and something in that car that night had snapped.

  When I finish, I realise my cheeks are soaking. Markie hands me a fresh napkin and I start to pat under my eyes. I must look a state. ‘Sorry, Markie, I, um, I didn’t realise I felt half those things until I started saying them.’

  ‘That’s often the case.’

  ‘I’m worried she might think it was her fault; she can’t remember, but it was mine. I mean it was the other driver’s fault, but I think I made it worse.’

  Markie leans back in his seat and puts his hands behind his head and is silent for a while. A waitress walks past and asks if we want anything else and we both shake our heads. After a few minutes Markie clears his throat. ‘You know, I think that would really mess with her head, Lulu, if she can’t remember. You should tell her, explain what happened, even if she’s mad at you, she needs to know,’ he frowns at me, those crinkly bits at the side of his eyes getting deeper. ‘Tell her you just felt a bit dizzy, under pressure all of a sudden?’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘But it’s important that you do. Really important.’

  ‘You’re right.’ The air between us lies silent, charged with emotion.

  I hesitate before I speak, not too sure what I really mean. ‘But, well, I don’t know if I—’

  ‘I had a sister once.’ He looks up at me and then back down to the table and moves the teaspoon to the right.

  Had. I open my mouth to ask, when he clears his throat. ‘My little sister was killed by a drunk driver.’ He looks straight at me and somehow the glare of the neon lights above is intense, brighter.

  ‘I was back home from university,’ Markie carries on, ‘in Dublin, staying for the weekend. Esme had been out with her mates – they were about eighteen, lethal mixture of new drivers and discovering booze. That was ten years ago. She was sixteen. They were driving back from a party, my sister was in the passenger seat in the front. Her boyfriend at the time, the gobshite, rolled the car into a ditch. He walked away. She didn’t. It was a small car. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. Like I said, you don’t get a second chance with a sister.’

  ‘I’m so, so sorry Markie,’ I put my hands in my lap and look across at him.

  ‘Well, it’s no good being sorry,’ he said breaking the silence eventually. ‘What you need to do is tell your sister. I know you weren’t driving, but you’re in some way responsible for some of the mess.’

  ‘I know, but she’s got lots on her plate, perhaps I should leave it as it—’ I begin.

  ‘It’s so feckin’ dangerous. Lulu!’ A waitress behind him turns to stare at us, then slowly turns back again. In all the two years we’ve worked together, I’ve never seen him this cross. Not when a toddler peed on his guitar, not when the Little Bo Peep ‘friendly sheep’ had yanked itself loose from its tether, not even when parents had cancelled at the last minute. A range of emotions bubble up from deep regret to shock. I sit rigid, staring at his face, his mouth set in a straight line and feel ashamed.

  ‘Look, sorry,’ he takes off his beanie and runs his hands through his hair. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It just hit a raw nerve. You’ve been through a lot. You said so yourself, it’s like you don’t know who you are anymore.’

  ‘Or what I want.’

  He looks at me then and I can’t read his expression. We both sit for a while letting those words fill the air between us as I fiddle with the paper napkin, suddenly awkward with him. I hear him scraping his chair back and look up.

  ‘We should go.’

  We walk back to the car in silence. When we get in, we sit for a while staring at the strip of twinkling lights protruding out on the pier, like a bejewelled finger poking into the murky water.

  ‘What if she hates me?’

  ‘Lulu,’ he says, reaching into his pocket to fetch the car keys, ‘she won’t hate you – nobody hates you, Lulu, but you need to love yourself. God knows you’ve got people around you who do!’ He lets out a funny little sigh, ‘You’ve got a man who loves you, who you’re marrying. You’re lucky.’

  The trip is mostly in silence except for the change of gear, the flick of the indicator, the odd comment under Markie’s breath about another driver at a junction. Something’s shifted and I don’t know what it is. It’s as if there’s a new wariness about him. Is it something I’ve said – or have I crossed some invisible line without knowing it? Putting my hands under my legs, I lean forward and stare at the road ahead. I really must give the future some proper thought. My wedding is only two weeks away.

  The windscreen has fogged up and the orange glow of the streetlights is diffused by the semi-opaque window. It takes me a moment to focus on Markie’s face as he’s driving, the cinnamon lights from outside skimming his cheeks as he drives past each light. He bends forwards and turns up the windscreen fan. I should be thinking about Simon a man who loves you, but for the moment, my eyes won’t leave Markie’s mouth.

  18 Victoria

  ‘Mr and Mrs Allen?’ A woman in a tight black two-piece suit and a crisp white shirt stood in front of her and James with her slim hand out to shake. They were in the foyer of Izzy’s school, and Victoria marvelled at how bright it all was, how clean and tidy. She remembered looking at the school as they used to pass it on the way to the primary school. It always looked so big and intimidating. She summoned up a memory of watching the children there, and thinking how big they all were, how grown-up, as the long-legged girls leant on the gate, or the boys idled by the side of the road at the pedestrian crossing as she stopped in the car. She was aware of James coughing. Time to focus. Were they often summoned to meet Izzy’s tutor? She couldn’t remember what Izzy was studying, let alone the name of her tutor. She needed to get a handle on all this. Thank goodness Jake had filled her in a bit yesterday about him. But Izzy remained a much more closed book.

  ‘My wife, she – the accident.’ James fumbled his words and turned his glasses around in his hands.

  ‘Oh yes, of course, your memory, Izzy’s mentioned it.’ She flashed them both a smile. ‘I hope you’re feeling better?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘That’s why we’re here, actually. I’m Jennifer, Mrs Allen – do you remember? Mrs Brown? Come with me.’

  The name Mrs Brown rang a faint bell. Victoria followed her as she led them into a small, airless room with a spider plant on the table. Victoria wondered why people bothered with houseplants really. What was the point of them? Then, she wondered why she was thinking about that.

  ‘So we just wanted to chat to you about Izzy, about her grades.’

  ‘Which are?’ James leant forward and put his elbows on his thighs and looked at Jennifer-Mrs-Brown.

  ‘Perfectly alright, but she is capable of more. It’s GCSEs next year.’

  ‘And why isn’t she getting better grades if she’s capable?’

  ‘Well, that’s why I wanted to ask you both here – to ask if there was anything wrong at home.’

  ‘No!�
�� both Victoria and James said in unison.

  Then James added: ‘Actually, I think everybody knows that Mrs Allen and I are, in fact, separating, we are just in the process of the proceedings. But there isn’t anything wrong with how we parent our children, Mrs Brown.’ Victoria listened to him and felt like she was in some awful documentary about her own life. Separating. In her head she said it in an American accent. It sounded vile, it sounded like something other people did. She looked at James, willing something from him. She studied that little tuft of hair. Her stomach curdled. It was all so formal, so final.

  ‘Call me Jennifer, please. No, I wasn’t saying that there was. From all the years here, I know Mrs Allen has been a very committed member of the school community, very organised,’ she smiled at them both and touched her hair. ‘A very hands-on mum to Izzy, which is why I just felt that maybe there was more to it. You both need to know that of course if there’s tension in the house from the break-up, this will affect your children, no matter how hard you try.’

  Victoria felt chastised. She didn’t want Izzy to be stressed about the break-up. She didn’t want the break-up for God’s sake. Was she organised? Since when?

  ‘But I think there’s more to it. Izzy seems distracted lately; and she’s been late to a few lessons, which is very unlike her,’ added Mrs call-me-Jennifer.

  ‘Late? She’s always caught the same bus. Surely being late a few times isn’t a problem.’ Victoria recognised the irritated-with-people voice James was using and tried to give him one of their secret stares. He looked blankly at her.

  ‘Victoria?’

  ‘Sorry, yes?’

  ‘We were wondering if you’d noticed anything?’

  ‘Well,’ she glanced at Jennifer and then at the spider plant. Honestly, she hadn’t even noticed that her son was good at maths. ‘The problem is, I can’t really remember Izzy the teenager, before my accident, you see. In fact, I can’t really remember her after the age of ten, if you must know.’

  Jennifer-Mrs-Brown inhaled sharply. ‘Right. You mean when she was in primary school, not here?’

  Victoria nodded. Images of Izzy in her long grey socks pulled up to her knees flashed through her mind, Izzy with her Frozen lunchbox, not the Izzy who wore trousers and the school’s electric blue blazer, with the eyebrow piercing. What was the school’s policy on that? ‘But it will come back, I’m sure of it, I just need the right trigger.’ She stared at the spider plant and wondered how often it was watered. Blast her bloody brain! Focus. ‘She’s quite moody with me too, but I’m not sure if that’s teen hormones, or if it’s anything else. I just think we need to ride the waves and be there for her.’

  ‘Yes, “being there” – it’s something I wanted to bring up. When we did our psychoeducational testing for Izzy recently a few red flags came up.’ Jennifer-Mrs-Brown crossed her legs and Victoria couldn’t help wondering what denier her tights were. ‘Peer group pressure came up as a “hot spot” when we looked at it – it can be perfectly normal, but I just wanted to check if she feels she can talk to you?’

  Victoria sat with her mouth open, nodding. ‘Yes. I think so—’ she lied, thinking Izzy would rather talk to the binmen than her at the moment.

  ‘I think it might be an idea to make sure you know who she’s seeing, “hanging out with” as they say now.’ Mrs Jennifer did that inverted comma thing with her fingers.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ Victoria added, ‘I do feel that Izzy is a bit uptight. I mean, I know there has been an awful upheaval with me in hospital, the accident, the – possible break-up,’ she glanced over at James to see if he’d noticed her edit. Part of her brain imagined him leaping up, a la Tom Cruise on Oprah, saying he loved her. But he sat quietly and fiddled with his jumper sleeve; ‘but I don’t know,’ she carried on, ‘there was something her brother saw on her phone which was a bit unsettling.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said James.

  Mrs Jennifer looked expectantly at her and James. She uncrossed her legs and leant forwards as Victoria expanded. ‘She was called “Spot-face” in a group chat. Not very nice. It was the Year 10 chat.’

  ‘That’s interesting – who was the admin on that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Right. I’ll find out. We have a very robust anti-bullying policy here.’ And she scribbled something in her notepad.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ James’s tone was curt.

  Suddenly a loud bell rang and Mrs Jennifer looked at her watch. ‘Thanks for your time. If you notice anything else, or Izzy talks to you, you will let me know, won’t you? Just keep your eye on her.’

  ‘Of course,’ James said. ‘We’ll keep an eye on her. She’s our daughter. But I’d like you to do some digging too, please, especially about that WhatsApp group.’ Mrs Jennifer nodded, then James stood up and the three of them awkwardly shuffled out the door as Victoria’s phone bleeped. She glanced at it and put it back in her pocket.

  She and James silently left the school; James said goodbye formally to her at the gates – he was getting the train to Brighton to get to work. She watched him walk away and took the phone back out of her pocket, then headed for the park. There was someone she was keen to meet.

  Victoria walked to the park in Little Norland, glad to get out of the stuffy school. She could hear birdsong and the drone of a lawnmower. She ordered a coffee from the pop-up coffee shack, took it to a bench, and started making a list on her notepad. It was unusually warm for early April – the sun was flickering on her face and a robin, perched on a holly bush nearby, tilted its head at her. She looked back at her notes.

  Timeline.

  Cake cutting?

  Speeches?

  Izzy?

  Taxis?

  Champagne? Corkage?

  Maid of Honour dress?

  She had put an unsmiley face next to the last one. Maid of honour. It made her feel about sixty.

  She looked up. There was a six-foot-two bloke with dark, shaggy brown hair walking towards her with a grin. He was wearing a purple beanie pulled to one side and a flash of sunlight reflected from an earring in his ear. His brown leather jacket was worn, and as he strode towards her, hands in pockets, his smile reached from ear to ear. He had a touch of the Michael Hutchence about him; in fact, if someone could be described as ‘sex on legs – long legs’ it was him.

  Markie.

  She’d looked up his number and called him after she’d been with Lulu at the gym. He’d been surprised to hear from her, but agreed to meet. Anything to help Lulu’s big sister.

  She stood up to shake his hand, but instead he brushed her hand off with ‘away with you’ with a strong Irish accent, and brought her into a friendly hug. He smelled of leather and lemons and for a second Victoria almost wanted to rest her head on his shoulder and let it stay there. It felt like forever since she’d been in the arms of a man who cared. But then she remembered where she was and pulled away. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said as he pecked her on the cheek. They sat down on the bench and he stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles.

  ‘I can see the resemblance,’ he said, looking sideways at her.

  ‘Can you? Most people say we’re very different.’

  ‘Nope. Dead obvious you’re sisters – it’s in your smile. She’s blonde, you’re brunette, sure, but if you look closely, it’s in the face, the way you both twist your mouth in a funny way to the side in a crooked smile. It’s cute.’ He sat up straighter. ‘Anyway, how you doing? After the accident?’

  ‘I’m OK!’ She laughed nervously. Crooked smile?

  ‘Really? Because Lulu’s more than a wee bit worried about you – your head injury.’ He leant forward and turned to face her properly, fixing her with his green eyes. She could study the earring now, it was a tiny silver guitar.

  ‘I’m just a bit confused about a few things.’

  ‘Lulu tells me you lost six years? Must be weird.’

  ‘Well, yes I did, I have, but I’m sure I’ll get back to no
rmal. Anyway, Lulu’s told me so much about you.’ She didn’t really want to talk about herself anymore, she was fed up analysing herself, second guessing James, her marriage, figuring out how to parent her teenagers. (Mum, for Chrissake, where have you put my… Since when did Izzy say ‘Chrissake?’) What she’d done. What she’d not done. No, she wanted to help Lulu, it would give her something else to focus on. It was important that she looked after her little sister. Her little sister was getting married, for heaven’s sake.

  ‘Has she now?’ The lilting Irish accent was strong. ‘All good I hope?’ He grinned.

  ‘I’m trying to help her get a few things sorted for the wedding, the timeline, the hymns, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Hymns?’ Markie looked surprised. ‘I’d say The Killers might be more Lulu’s thing.’

  Victoria burst out laughing. ‘Spot on. But we need to have a few hymns too, you know, tradition, for my dad. Anyway, Lulu loves singing – obviously.’ Victoria rolled her eyes, then wondered why she was acting like a sixteen-year-old who rolled her eyes. ‘So,’ she carried on, ‘I thought at her wedding it would be nice to have live music, not just hymns. Music, but proper singing. You singing.’ She put her coffee cup down on the bench and pulled at the edge of her sleeve.

  There was the tiniest hesitation, and then he beamed. ‘Of course, if it’s what she’d want. Grand. I hadn’t thought I’d be there, to be honest.’

  ‘No? I think it would be a nice touch.’ She was sure Lulu and Markie got on. Lulu’s face came alive when she talked about him, she seemed to really enjoy helping him build his company. But perhaps Markie was a bit of a cool customer?

  ‘Oh,’ she placed a hand on his arm. ‘Just one thing?’

  Markie nodded.

  ‘Don’t tell her, will you? It’s going to be a fabulous surprise.’

  ‘OK, I’m in.’ He gave her the tiniest of winks. ‘Only—’ He sat back on the bench.

  ‘What?’