reading

January

Late January. The sort of day that never really starts, when daylight hardly happens and night folds in by mid-afternoon, hushing everything back to sleep again. I was at Helen’s house, and we were alone together, lounging back in the big comfortable settee, reading and listening to music, kissing a lot. Helen said she wanted to go upstairs for something and she stood up, trailing her fingers out of my hand, smiling down at me. I didn’t want her to go away from me for a second. I followed her up and put some music on in her room, very softly. She has flimsy blue and green silk scarves trailing down the walls; they billow out with the slightest breath of air, as if they were birds drifting. Whether it was the choice of music, or the strange dim light in the room with the curtains still open and these long mothy scarf wings fluttering; or whether it was the way she looked at me, questioning and smiling, when she came to me, I don’t know. Maybe it was that something we had never dared talk about had been building up in us for weeks and took us by surprise and storm. It certainly wasn’t calculated, that was for sure. Neither of us had known it would happen. But that January evening when the house was empty and a pale and watery moonlight cast the room into white ghostliness, and our favourite music was playing, Helen and I touched each other where we had never touched before and made love.

Afterwards I found it impossible to look at her without smiling. Her mum and dad came back from the shops arguing about which of them had been responsible for forgetting to buy something for that evening’s meal, and Robbie came home wet and hungry and was told off for being late. Helen and I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and touching hands, trying not to look at each other.

‘I wonder if they can tell?’ I mouthed at her. She looked away from me with a glimmer of laughter in her eyes and stood up to help her mother to unload cleaning powders and unsweetened grapefruit. I watched her stacking things up on the draining board. I could see her reflection in the window, two Helens coming together and separating as she moved backwards and forwards from table to sink, together again, and apart. I wanted her to turn round and smile at me. She knew I was watching her, just as I knew that she was holding me snug in the middle of her thoughts, in spite of all her chattering. It was while I was watching her that I realized that the focus of my life had shifted. For years Dad had been at the centre of everything. Now it was as if he had suddenly turned away in that thinking way he has, his hand just touching his mouth, remembering something that needed to be done, and Helen had stepped smiling into his place.

‘I’m starving,’ Robbie said. ‘What are we having for tea?’

‘Nothing,’ Mrs Garton said grimly. ‘All your father was interested in buying was bottles of Newcastle Brown for his blessed band practice.’

‘Bog roll,’ said Robbie, emptying a carrier bag. ‘Bleach. Window cleaner! I’m famished!’

‘Did you write your letter, Helen?’ Mr Garton asked suddenly, and Helen flushed and put her hand to her mouth.

‘Oh no! I forgot!’

‘You forgot!’ He raised his voice with disbelief. ‘You forgot!’

‘What’s she forgotten now?’ Mrs Garton demanded.

‘Only the most important thing in her life,’ Mr Garton told her. ‘Her acceptance. How on earth could you have forgotten, Helen?’

Helen looked at me quickly, a tiny glance of accusation, and away again. ‘I’ll do it now,’ she said. ‘There’s still time.’

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. All I knew was that Helen had upset her dad, that he was visibly shocked and disappointed in her, and that for some reason it was my fault.

‘Nothing at all,’ Mr Garton said, tight in his throat. ‘The girl gets a full offer from the Royal Northern College of Music to do Composition and she forgets to write back and accept it. That’s all.’

‘I’ll do it now, I said,’ Helen told him. She was nearly crying. ‘I’ve got till tomorrow, Dad.’

‘I’d better go,’ I said.

‘I think you had,’ said her mother, arms folded, looking from one to the other of us.

Helen came to the door with me.

‘I’m sorry, Helen,’ I whispered.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It’s just that it means so much to Dad. Nearly as much as it means to me.’

I put my arms round her. It meant that in October our ways would separate, mine to Newcastle, hers to Manchester. But October was a long way away.

‘It’s raining,’ she said. ‘Do you want a brolly? I could lend you the yellow one Nan gave me for Christmas. In fact, you can keep it. It makes me look like a daffodil.’

‘No. I love the rain.’ I had to keep clearing my throat. ‘I love you, Nell.’

‘Helen, shut that door! It’s like a fridge in here!’ her mother called.

Helen pushed me off the doorstep and pulled the door to behind her. She put her arms up and looped them round my neck. I could smell her hair.

‘I want it to happen all over again,’ I said. ‘Now.’

‘You’d better go.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘We could stand out here in the rain all night,’ she suggested. ‘But my hair would frizz up and you’d go off me.’

‘I know when I’m beaten. I’ll ring you.’

I ran off, dancing backwards, as Helen raised her hand for a moment with the light of the open door behind her, framing her. It was like a pose for a photograph. I keep remembering it. Then she closed the door. It was full dark by then. The rain had sleet in it and slanted across the street lamps like long glass splinters, separate and sharp. I unzipped my jacket and ran with it flapping loose and with my face tilted up and my mouth open. I had a sudden wild thought that I would like to run across the road into the park and stand naked in the sleet. I would keep on running as naked as a fish through Endcliffe Park and on up past Wiremill Dam and Forge Dam, and past the swings and slides where I used to play when I was little, and on and on till I was right up on the dark moors.

‘I’ll take Helen up there,’ I thought. ‘When it snows. I’ll take Helen up there and we’ll lie down in the deep deep snow and keep each other warm.’

A car pulled up beside me, whooshing spray against my legs. The driver beeped and I looked round, zipping up my jacket, cursing. She beeped again and leaned over to open the passenger door.

‘Get in,’ she said. ‘You’re soaked to the skin.’

I climbed in, glad now to be somewhere dry. ‘I’m not supposed to accept lifts from strange women.’

‘I’d be hard up if I was thinking of abducting a skinny rat like you, Chris.’ She looked in her mirror and edged out into the traffic again. It was the rush hour. Sleet fizzed against the windscreen, fracturing the dazzle of lights.

‘You mustn’t go out of your way,’ I told her.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve got some manure in the boot to deliver to your dad. You can carry it home instead, if you like. It would save my petrol.’

I leaned my head back on the rest and closed my eyes. I had a sudden absurd desire to start singing. I would have loved to have told her about Helen.

‘I think I should call you Jill now,’ I said.

‘I wish you would. I’ve always hated the “aunty” bit. I always feel as if an aunty should be knitting you nice jumpers and asking you round to tea.’

‘I’m a deprived nephew, then. I knew there was something wrong with my life.’ I gave a long, satisfied yawn. ‘I’m tired,’ I murmured. My head was in a wonderful foggy sleepy spin. ‘Really tired.’ I closed my eyes.

I rang Helen as soon as I had a chance to. I just wanted to hear her voice. I stood in the hall grinning and not saying anything and I could tell that Helen at the other end was smiling into the receiver.

‘What’re you doing?’ I asked.

‘Smiling.’

‘I knew you were.’

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Smiling back.’

‘Helen. I need the phone.’ That was her mother. She does it every time.

‘I’ll have to go, Chris. See you tomorrow?’

‘We’ve got a trip to Rotherham.’

‘Rotherham! Our school’s going to Geneva at Easter.’

‘We’re going to see Much Ado at the Civic.’

‘Helen!’

‘Okay, Mum. See you, Chris.’

I stood listening to the buzz of the dead phone, imagining her going back up those mossy green stairs of theirs to her room, pulling the curtains closed, stopping perhaps to look out at the sleet against the street lamps.

‘You’re sweet. You’re so lovely,’ I murmured as I put the receiver down.

‘Thanks,’ my dad said, coming down the stairs behind me. ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed. How about doing the washing-up, Chris?’

I joined my brother in the kitchen. Guy had filled up the sink with bubbles, and as soon as I went in he started flicking them at me. He always does it.

‘Give over,’ I said, flicking back. I scooped up a handful of froth and eased it on to Guy’s head when he turned away to get a tea towel.

‘You can do the pans,’ Guy said. ‘They’re all burnt, and it serves you right for gassing on the phone for hours.’

He kept walking round the kitchen with that lacy pyramid on his head, his glasses still flashing earnest intelligence. I don’t know how he does it.

‘Dad,’ I shouted. ‘Did you know the snow’s coming into the kitchen!’

‘Very pretty,’ said Dad, glancing in on his way past. ‘Love the headdress, Guy.’

Guy walked past him, the tea towel flung across his shoulder, and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He made a ball of the tea towel with his fist and hurled it at me and I charged at him with another handful of froth and stuffed it down his neck. We were yelling our heads off. He’s all knees and elbows and chins. It’s like fighting with a sackful of coat hangers. The cat dived for the cat flap, backed in again when it saw the sleet, and darted upstairs.

‘Will you two stop it!’ Dad shouted. ‘I’d rather have a pair of two-year-olds in the house any day.’

Guy cupped another handful of froth against my chin, where it dangled like a threadbare beard.

‘Very funny, Guy.’ I kept it there, letting it wobble as I talked. We were both gasping for breath. I love fighting with Guy. ‘But I’m above such childishness.’

‘Since when?’ asked Guy.

I tapped the side of my nose. ‘That’s my business,’ I said. I wish I could wink. I have to close both eyes. Guy winked for me, understanding nothing, and I leapt on him again.

‘Pans,’ shouted Dad from the front room. ‘Homework!’

I let Guy go and he hopped upstairs to do his essay. I gave the pans a good beating, too. I could hear Guy’s cassettes thumping away upstairs. He has terrible taste in music. I’ll have to educate him. I finished off the pans, leaving the worst one to soak even though it had been soaking for three days already since my disastrous bean curry had turned into carcinogen. Helen would be sitting in her room doing her maths project by now, her books spread round her, her chin propped in her hand.

I sat with Dad for a bit, watching the nine o’clock news. The room smelt slightly of manure because Jill and I had had to carry the bags through to the yard. All through tea I’d wanted to talk to Dad about something, and now that we were alone together at last I didn’t know where to start.

‘It’s all politics these days,’ I said.

‘You want to take it in,’ Dad said. He had a way of pouting out his lower lip and stroking it with his fingertips when the news was on. Guy said that was why he could never bear to watch the news. ‘It’s bound to come up on your General paper, you know. This is history.’

I groaned.

‘And it’s happening now. That’s what history is, Chris.’

‘Give over, Dad. We’re getting it all the time at school, too.’

‘I should hope so. It’s the only thing that matters, you know, what happens to people. You can keep your pop shows.’

‘I’m going up,’ I said.

‘At this time?’

‘I’m shattered.’ I hadn’t asked him, and I was disappointed in myself. It’s hard to say the things that matter, but I don’t know why.

‘I’ll have to get you a dishwasher,’ Dad murmured.

I wrote a song for Helen. I worked out some chords for it on my guitar, then tried it all again in a minor key. I wrote another verse and practised singing it, standing with one foot on the bed so I could balance my guitar on my knee. The last verse was so good that I sang it again, much louder this time. Guy threw a book against the joining wall, and the cat fled downstairs again and headbutted the cat flap. I wrote the chords down so I wouldn’t forget them and then put a blank cassette into my radio-recorder and sang it all through, strumming softly, picking out a few bass runs with my thumb. I thought I might rerecord it the next day so I could do it all finger-style, but I needed to get a new plectrum. The one I was using was the plastic tie-tag from a sliced loaf and it had split. I tried it in another key. Helen had taught me all the chords I knew on the guitar. One day I wanted to just wake up and be able to play like Jimi Hendrix. I decided I would post the cassette as it was through Helen’s letter box on my way to school next day.

It was nearly midnight by then. I went back downstairs. Dad was sitting with his feet up on the settee watching a late film.

‘You shouldn’t be watching this,’ I told him. ‘It’s rude.’

‘I close my eyes when the naughty bits come on.’

‘Dad,’ I said. ‘What happened to you and Mum?’ I’d had no idea I was going to say that just then.

The woman on the television screen smiled knowingly and murmured to me. I thought Dad hadn’t heard me at first, the way I’d blurted it out. If he’d asked me to repeat it I wouldn’t have been able to.

‘You know what happened.’ He seemed to be waiting for the woman to speak again. ‘She walked out.’

‘I mean, why?’

Dad looked at me sharply as if he was going to tell me to mind my own business. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Then he pulled a face. He swivelled himself round on the settee into a sitting position as if it was all a great effort, as if he was an old man stiff with lumbago these days.

‘She met a feller, didn’t she, and he was younger than me with a bit more hair on top and he wore natty jumpers and he read a lot of books. And she decided she liked him better than me and off she went.’

We watched the screen for a bit. The woman had a thin face like a snake. She flickered her tongue when she laughed.

‘She just went, just like that,’ Dad went on quietly. ‘Went off. I came home one night and I’d done a shift, I was dead tired, you know, and there she was standing in the hall with her coat on and this feller was with her.’ He bent down and put one of his shoes on. ‘Tying his shoe laces or something, hiding his face, that’s what he was doing. And she told me she was leaving.’

‘Did you know him?’

Dad blew out his lips. ‘As a matter of fact, I did. Not well, of course. But he’d been round a couple of times.’

We both stared at the television. I didn’t dare look at my dad. It was as if, now he’d started, he couldn’t stop. It was as if he was talking to himself almost. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him stroking his lip. I daren’t move. The television voices murmured on.

‘Didn’t suspect a thing. That’s what your mother hated most about me, of course. She said I’d got no imagination.’ He laughed briefly, a sharp bark of a laugh. The couple in the play were rowing now. A close-up of the woman showed that she was crying.

‘Are those tears real?’ Dad said. ‘I bet they use some kind of oil or something. Her make-up’s not running, and she’d have to be wearing some with all those lights.’

‘She’s not wearing much else.’ I could feel my voice breaking into a nervous giggle.

‘Funny,’ Dad said. ‘I didn’t know how much I loved your mother till she told me she was leaving me. You’d think I would have hated her. I did later. No one likes to be rejected, you know. I hated her because she didn’t want me. And I hated her because she was splitting up a family. I didn’t want that to happen, and I was powerless to stop it. How old were you then?’

‘Ten. Guy was six.’

‘You see. Guy cried for his mum every night. How could I explain to the kid? And you … “where’s Mum, where’s Mum” … every five minutes. How could I explain to you that she wasn’t coming back? So it helped, being able to hate her. But I’ll tell you something else, Chris, and this’ll shock you a bit. I used to wish that she was dead.’

The drama on the screen was suddenly interrupted by noisy adverts. A smiling troupe of mushrooms danced its way across a table and dive-bombed into a bowl of soup.

My dad leaned forward in his chair, intent on the mushrooms. He was fiddling about with his watchstrap as if it was suddenly too tight for him, twisting it and twisting it on his wrist, tugging hairs with it. ‘If she’d died, you see, I could have got it over with. There’s ways of dealing with death. There’s funerals and flowers and crying. It would have been terrible, but I would have known absolutely certainly that she wasn’t going to come back and that I was never, never going to see her again and somehow I’d have got on with my life and with you kids. But while ever someone’s alive there’s always a chance that they’ll come back again, so you never quite let go. I wanted her back, however much I hated her for going.’

I felt my throat tightening. I wished Dad would stop now. I wished he’d stop talking. I wished I could switch off the television but I daren’t. I was afraid of the silence and of having to look at him again and talk normally. I sat with my head back and my eyes closed tight. Even then I could see the dance of light from the flickering screen: flash, and flash, and flash. Dad’s voice was a dull monotone.

‘I used to think of her enjoying herself with this natty bloke with all his books. And I knew that she couldn’t be happy. Not really. I knew she’d be going through hell. Don’t tell me any woman can walk away from her own kids and carry on as if nothing had happened. I think she went through hell.’

There was some fancy guitar music on the screen. The man and woman were walking hand in hand along a beach. I thought it might be Brighton.

‘You think you’re the only one in the world it’s happened to till you go down the pub and talk about it. Makes you wonder. What’s it all about? Love? I don’t know what love is. It’s a con trick to keep the human race going, that’s all it is.’

‘Why didn’t you get married again or something?’

‘Ouch!’ Dad shook his hand as if his fingers had been burnt. He switched off the television abruptly as the snaky woman pouted out her lips for another kiss, and went into the kitchen. I could hear him filling the kettle.

‘Ovaltine, Chris?’

I sauntered into the kitchen. I leaned on the door jamb casually, my hands deep in my pockets.

‘I just wondered, Dad. You don’t happen to have Mum’s address, do you?’

Dad lifted two mugs from the cupboard. He’d made them himself, down in the cellar. One day he planned to give up work and make a living ‘pottering about’ as he called it. As he spooned Ovaltine powder into them he spilled some and carefully wiped it up, and wiped the whole surface and the kettle before he answered me. ‘I should have. Somewhere.’

I passed him a bottle of milk from the fridge. The cat strolled over to him and eyed him patiently.

‘Why?’ Dad asked. He eased the cat out of the way with his foot and returned the milk to the fridge.

‘I was thinking I might go and see her some time.’ I kept my voice light and casual. ‘’Night, Dad.’ I took my cup and went upstairs slowly, sipping at it while I walked. I couldn’t even begin to explain why I wanted to see my mother after all those years, except that maybe it was something to do with Helen. I would have liked my mother to meet her, I suppose.

I listened to the tape again. My head was full of Helen now; brimming with her. I lay in bed and couldn’t sleep for thinking of her. A new verse for the song started buzzing in my head, and I decided to go downstairs and have some toast and marmalade and write it down.

And there was Dad, still sitting in the front room with a cup of cold Ovaltine in his hands, just staring at the way the sleet pattered and slid against the window panes.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

Dear Nobody

THE BEGINNING

January