Something Like Breathing

by Angela Readman

  Lorrie passes me a package knotted with string.

  ‘It’s just a little something.’

  Everyone’s all eyes, gawking at me and the gift. I don’t want to open it. I love gifts, and I hate them. I hate the way they make folk gawp to see what my face is gonna do. I’m supposed to look happy and jump up and down. I want to, but I’m not sure I look surprised right. Before the party, Zach gave me this book called Everything You Ever Needed to Know in the Universe. It’s fat as a brick and stuffed with facts. After they found his Ma, he couldn’t stop reading it, he said. He started learning a funny fact every day. One, two, three, four, sometimes ten, he’d memorise as many as he could. Just wanting to know everything. I loved the gift, but I couldn’t say anything before Zach said, ‘It’s shite. I just couldn’t be arsed to get you a real present.’ Pouf! He was off to his bedroom, our sibling moment vanished in a flash. I blame my face. It’s not right, when it’s supposed to look grateful it only looks constipated.

  Lorrie’s present’s too bonnie to open anyway. She wraps most stuff like a lassie forced to wear mittens all day long. Scrunching the ends of paper, twisting it round, boiled sweet style. Today, she’s tried to do it properly. Just for me.

  I can feel Ma nosing over my shoulder, her interest turned up like the volume on the Calamity Jane soundtrack. Seth was supposed to take us to the mainland to see it a couple of years ago, but we all got snowed in. By the time the snow thawed, it wasn’t at the cinema any more. He bought Ma the soundtrack instead. She puts it on whenever she does the dusting. One day she’ll see the film. I doubt it can be as good as the one in her head. And just like when she’s singing along, she keeps smiling. I unwrap the present and hold up a pearly shell compact and lipstick. The shell is so cool in my hand I kinda want to press it against my cheeks.

  ‘You girls!’ Ma shakes her head. ‘I don’t know why you feel you need all that stuff. Honestly, if God had thought your smiles weren’t colourful enough he’d have painted your lips scarlet himself.’

  She rubs a peachy smudge her mouth has left on her lemonade glass and starts folding the gift wrap. I spool up the string to use again.

  ‘Perhaps I could just wear it on special occasions, Ma?’ I say. ‘Just a smidge now and then?’

  ‘Cake?’

  She passes a saucer to Lorrie.

  ‘Sylvie has such sensitive skin. She has to be careful what she puts on her face. It was very sweet of you anyway, Lorrie. It’s the thought that counts,’ she says.

  And I know I’ll never be allowed to wear the lipstick. Ever. Lorrie can show me how to apply it until the cows come home. And it won’t make no difference.

  Last time Lorrie dolled me up, I looked in the mirror and laughed until I almost weed. It was so funny. I saw me, kinda, but not me, a whole other version. Me, if I’d been born somewhere else and knew stuff like how to speak French. The difference was like the outlines of a lassie in a colouring book, compared to one who’s been coloured in.

  ‘You’re a bonnie lass, Lorrie,’ Ma says, picking up the lipstick and squirrelling it away. ‘You’d look even lovelier if you wore less make-up and let your natural beauty shine.’

  ‘You should give me some tips on invisible make-up some time, Bunny,’ Lorrie says.

  Ma smiles. And Lorrie smiles back. They lock eyes, then both look at me. Boom! It’s the prettiest declaration of war anyone ever saw. And I’m caught smack dab in the centre of it.

  ‌

  ‌Lorrie

  Seth Johnson took it on the chin when his wife found God. He’d always been there, solid as a worker who clocked in, did his job and never asked for a pay rise. But the year Sylvie turned sixteen Bunny gave him a promotion. It was noticeable in the smallest ways, everywhere. In the years that had passed since I’d arrived on the island, Sylvie had changed. We were no longer children, nor were we adults. The dolls we once had were pushed into our attics. The babies that women not much older than us pushed in weatherproof prams were far from our minds. Yet we could feel it, a sense of having to grow up closing in. Girls our age were already dressing for the part. They wore their mother’s petticoats under pleated skirts, tried on dresses and experimented with rollers, covering their creations under yellow sou’wester hats and duffel coats. Sylvie was still wearing a vest while the rest of us fidgeted with our bra straps. Bunny kept her dressed in the same sort of clothes she’d worn as a child. She gave her a small silver cross and chain that nestled under the collar of a blouse at least two sizes too big for her. Everything she wore swamped her. I never heard Sylvie complain, but it must have bothered her. I didn’t realise until we caught her with the magazines.

  It was almost dark when my mother heard something outside. She looked out and saw Sylvie ferreting through a stack of magazines she’d left by the bin. The drizzle landed on her hair and stayed there. The rain was getting heavier, but Sylvie didn’t care. I was used to seeing her on her knees, pausing to inspect some wounded creature on the ground, but not like this. In the presence of fallen fledglings she remained calm, now she was frantic. I stared over my mother’s shoulder, unable to bring myself to go out. I was in my pyjamas, but that wasn’t really why. I cringed at the sight of my friend scrabbling through the things we’d thrown away. My mother went to see what was wrong. Sylvie stuffed a magazine into her pocket and froze, eyes round and wild.

  ‘What was she doing out there?’ I asked.

  ‘Looking through my magazines,’ my mother said, bolting the door. ‘Poor thing looked mortified I saw her. Bunny won’t allow women’s magazines in the house, Sylvie said. She claims they’re not suitable for a child. Bunny reads plenty though! Just last week, I saw her buy four magazines for the contest to win a fridge. God, I hate the way the woman speaks to her. Stand up straight! Stop fidgeting, Sylvie! Look up! I want to shout, “Leave her alone, Bunny! Your daughter’s not a dog.” But it’s not my place. Besides, it’s hard to argue with someone who has a smile on their face.’

  ‘You tell me not to slouch,’ I said.

  ‘Not that much. Put me on a diet, if I say it more than once a week poke me in the ribs.’

  I poked her in the ribs and she allowed it to turn into a tickling fit until my father came in. He was long-faced, with his hands hanging at his sides, heavy from waving cars to their spots, crossing the same stretch of water again and again.

  Bunny sailed into the hardware store a week later. I’d been pleading with Sylvie to come to the harbour and have a cola in the café facing the waves, but she wouldn’t. Every Thursday Sylvie insisted on staying late after school to organise the shelves in the library. I could never persuade her to skip it, not even if it was sunny and we had pocket money. She took alphabetising seriously.

  ‘I have to sort fiction today,’ she said. ‘It’s the least I can do. The librarian saved my life once. I didn’t even thank her.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. It was a daft thing when I was little.’ The watch she’d swapped with Zach slipped around on her bony wrist as she inspected the time. ‘I have to go,’ she said.

  I walked on alone, stopping at the hardware store on the way. The store was my favourite place to kill time. Looking in, I spotted my father inside staring at the light bulbs, eavesdropping on the conversations of men at the counter without joining in.

  ‘What you doing here?’ I asked. ‘I thought you were at work.’

  ‘I had to go to the dentist.’ He prodded his jaw. ‘Poke it if you want. I can’t feel a thing.’

  We looked at one another, unsure why we felt like strangers caught doing something we shouldn’t, uncertain what to talk about.

  ‘What brings you here anyway? Do you want a lift? I have the car.’

  ‘Not really, I’ve got something I have to get for a school project,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’

  We fell quiet. If he noticed I was wearing blusher on a weekday he didn’t tell my mother. It’s possible he had no idea it was only allowed on weekend
s. Just as I had no idea not a single light bulb had blown in the house and he had no real reason to be there.

  ‘I love the smell of this place,’ he said. ‘Beeswax, varnish and pine.’

  ‘I love it too. I love the fresh paint.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I’ll see you later then.’ He left without buying anything.

  I strolled around the store, sticking out my chest and taking my time to browse the aisles. I knew those aisles full of screws, nails and dowels the way some women know the perfume stand at the chemist. The aroma here was more alluring. I raked through a box of brass hooks, licking my lips and staring at Zach. Zach had worked at the paint counter full-time since he’d left school. He was nineteen now. He had a wave on his fringe that made me think a calf had licked his head, and eyelashes longer than a cow. He ran his finger along a colour chart, reassuring a lady clutching a swatch of tartan he could mix paint to match her curtains. I pictured strolling over, dropping my underwear on the counter and seeing if he could mix paint the same shade of peach. I imagined he’d blush, then get on with the job. Looking at Zach, I could picture a lot of things.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked me.

  The woman walked to the door, promising to return to collect her Heather gloss on Monday.

  ‘I’m just looking,’ I met his eye. ‘I’ll know what I want when I see it.’

  I jangled a hook out of the box. Whenever Zach spoke to me, I made a point of screwing a hook inside my wardrobe door. I had twelve now, all in line, dangling belts and scarves in the dark. Zach still hadn’t asked me out. I was starting another row.

  I lingered, listening to the men with calluses on their fingers loitering by the counter, comparing ways to build a fence. The store was a sewing circle of hammers, nails and complaints about the old ball and chain. Seth’s inability to rush his customers was the real reason they returned more often than they needed to. Here, a man could spend an hour in a sawdust-scented world away from the wife, and, while he was at it, get some advice on foxes and chicken wire.

  Bunny came in and the store bell jangled behind her.

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  The men lowered their heads, touching their caps, suddenly sheepish and tense.

  An Evaluation of Bunny Johnson

  Nose: She carries the scent of camellia and the gingerbread she rolls. Feeling unable to waste those leftover pieces too small to fit the cutter, she shapes the dough into a miniature version of the steel star in her hands. Once the biscuits are out of the oven, she lathers on lotion, feeling its cool, allowing it to soak in.

  Palate: The beer on her husband’s lips makes a perfume, blending with the camellia on her neck. Each night he comes in, sneaks behind her and kisses her. She stands at the stove with her back to him, the wire wool of his palms on her back sanding off her cold shoulders. The air is full of lemonade. She makes it cloudier than the air over the hills, serving it with a smile sharp as a lemon wedge. The kitchen is spotless. The plastic pots all sit inside one another on the shelf. Everything’s as it should be. It’s difficult for her to explain why the Tupperware matters to her so much, but it does. There’s perhaps only one woman who could understand, her pen pal in Florida. Caroline shipped a sample and Bunny became hooked. The plastic pots were so wonderful to her she wanted to enlighten everyone. It felt good to share; she wondered what else was out there to save people time. Slicers, dicers, peelers and grinders, she’d discover them all. Some raise large families, some invent the light bulb, some paint the Sistine Chapel. Bunny Johnson leaves her legacy in every kitchen drawer for a mile. ‘If it wasn’t for me,’ she says, ‘the whole island would still be slicing their eggs wonky and no one’s sandwich would last a day.’

  Finish: She doesn’t look unlike the Bunny Tyler she was, other than her aprons and the colour of her clothes. Gone are the Easter colours, in favour of magnolia, mushroom, mink, shades she feels are more fitting for a woman her age. She pauses when she says, ‘a woman my age’, waiting for someone to tell her she hasn’t aged a day. Her aprons are crisp flags of colour in her pantry. They offer little protection from splashes and spills, anywhere but over her hips. Bunny knows this, yet she refuses to serve a meal without one, in it she is a wife wrapped in a bow.

  Overall: She isn’t so dissimilar to the woman her husband proposed to, but for the rules she lays down for her daughter, stiffer than the starch she irons into his shirts. The more the girl grows, the more starch Bunny uses. Sylvie’s blouses don’t move. Seth jokes Bunny uses so much starch the whole family wear shirts that resemble cardboard boxes with people inside.

  It could be worse. Some men fell in love with beauty pageant contestants who let themselves go. Some married solid women who upped and died. Whenever Bunny corrected Sylvie, forced him go to church or griped about gambling, Seth remembered such facts. It really could be a lot worse. It wasn’t his place to criticise the way she brought up her daughter – what did he know about girls?

  The customers glared at the box Bunny plonked on the counter. It wasn’t plastic but a rusty old biscuit tin with a hole in the lid. Where the label was, Bunny had stuck a square of brown paper and written ‘SWEAR BOX’.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, if you gentlemen are going to stand around using language that would put a sailor to shame, something positive may as well come of it,’ Bunny said. ‘Every time you swear, drop a coin in the box. The proceeds will go to the church’s charitable fund.’

  The men glanced at the tin. It didn’t look big enough to fit in all their shits and fucks. There wasn’t a large enough box in the world.

  ‘I’ll see you later.’ Bunny pecked Seth’s cheek. ‘I may be a little late.’

  Not many things stopped Bunny serving dinner at six on the dot: church, kitchenware saleswoman responsibilities, and meetings with TIM. TIM was short for The Island Mothers. There were several women in the group who didn’t care for the acronym. The word reminded them of a kid who used to pick his nose. It was the name of an annoying brother. Or that dirty dog they once loved as a child, until it started to hump their favourite teddy bears. There were often furious debates about finding another name, but no one could agree on one.

  The women continued to meet in the church hall and complain about what the kids were wearing these days, their loitering after school, and the records they swivelled their pelvises to. Lately, Sylvie and I could barely figure out how to dance to a song before it disappeared from the jukebox in the harbour café. The owner would apologise and give us the single without a plastic centre to take away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harvey would say, smoothing his moustache, pale as milk foam. In summer, he left the café in the care of his wife to drive a van around the island selling ice cream. In winter, he got out the same van and did the rounds selling potatoes and tins of corned beef to anyone under the weather. He always waited in the lane, giving anyone the chance to scuttle for pennies, playing the same sunny tune regardless of what he had on board. In December, we’d hear him delivering sprouts and remember moving lighter than flowers in our breezy summer skirts. We’d lift our faces to receive the sunlight, forgetting, for a second, we were wearing so many woollies we could barely move our arms.

  ‘Elvis has left the island,’ Harvey once said, ‘and he’s taken Buddy Holly with him and all. Someone from The Island Mothers complained he was making her son walk too cocky. The last thing I want is those lot around here. Anything for a quiet life.’ Sylvie had sighed and hummed the chorus of ‘It’s Now or Never’. Whenever a record disappeared, we’d spend the week humming it, singing the odd line we could remember out over the waves, until the song faded into another tune.

  The air clung to Bunny’s perfume long after she left the hardware store. The men lowered their voices. The swear box was a spy, listening to their every word.

  ‘Let’s get this straight, if I curse I’m supposed to drop a coin in the box and the money goes to the church?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Seth.

  ‘What do
they use it for?’

  ‘I don’t know, repairs and that. The church hall needs sprucing up a bit.’

  ‘Who does the jobs?’

  Seth polished a speck of wire wool off the counter with his cuff. ‘I do, if I can. It’s cheaper.’

  The men laughed.

  ‘Hold on, so the more I swear, the more they can afford to fix the place up. The busier you are on weekends! That wife of yours! She’s got you where she wants you alright!’

  Someone made a whipping sound with his tongue. The men laughed.

  ‘Don’t they all?’ Seth laughed, but he looked relieved when they changed the subject to complain about their own wives. The flipping colour charts, the furniture, the rooms that had to be decorated to match their moods.

  ‘Fifteen yellows the missus showed me. I painted a whole wall Buttercup and she said it didn’t look like she imagined. What did she imagine? She said she preferred Primrose.’ One man said. ‘Looked the same to me. Yellow is yellow.’

  On the other side of the store, Zach shook his head, listening without comment. For him, yellow was not yellow. He could give a woman Primrose, Buttercup, Sunflower, Honey, Autumn Rose, more yellows than anyone could dream of. I opened my purse and carried my brass hook to the till. Seth folded it into a paper bag and rang it up.

  ‘Women are good for business,’ he said. ‘I can’t complain.’

  He honoured the right of his customers to figure out the mysteries of marriage with mutters and rants. It was his job to listen with a sympathetic nod of his head, but no one ever heard him complain about Bunny, no matter what she did.

  ‌