Dear Nobody (21 page)

‘Course I'm pleased to see you.'

Jill leaned forward and gently closed the kitchen door, and Guy looked up at me as if he'd been found guilty of eavesdropping and ran up the stairs, climbing over me.

I went down to Bryn. She looked very small and sunburnt.

‘Hi,' I said. I couldn't think of anything else to say to her.

‘I wouldn't mind a cup of coffee,' she said, shy suddenly.

I couldn't face going into the kitchen with my dad and Jill
watching me, having to introduce her, explain where I'd met her and all that.

‘We could have one at Tom's. I was just going round there, anyway.'

‘Okay.'

He'd better be in, I thought. I couldn't imagine where else I'd take her. I ran back upstairs for my shoes. My nerves were bubbling up. I couldn't find my comb. I could have done with a shave. I could have done with a wash, actually, but the sooner we could get out of the house the better. I ran downstairs to her and then had to run upstairs again for my key. I felt as if we had a train to catch. As we went out I saw her little rucksack in the hall and told her to bring it with her. She looked disappointed. I felt lousy, lousy.

It was raining by the time we got to the end of the street.

‘I suppose we'd better go back,' I said, soaked. I had nothing on over my tee-shirt.

‘Not at all,' she said, in a tight, high voice. ‘I have to be in Leeds by this afternoon.'

‘That's a shame,' I said.

‘And I'd like to see Tom.'

‘Oh, so would he. Like to see you, I mean.'

We were as polite to each other as strangers on railway trains. I couldn't shake it off. I couldn't believe that less than a month ago we'd been lounging round in French camp-sites, messing about as if we'd known each other for years. My head was thick with thoughts of that river-bank, the crickets chirring, that insect drone. Maybe, like wine, sun goes straight to my head.

‘How did your results go?' she asked.

I pulled a face. ‘I've scraped in on points. Dropped a couple of grades.'

‘So did I,' she grinned. ‘All the results were terrible at our school. We're asking for re-marks.'

‘But you're in.'

‘Yes, I'm in. That's the main thing.'

The rain was running like worms down my neck, and my hair was flat over my eyes. I was a bit worried about the design on my tee-shirt. I'd done it myself, and it hadn't been
washed yet. I'd feel a right idiot if it started running. But really, that was the least of my problems.

‘What's up?'

‘Nothing's up. It's the surprise, that's all. I didn't expect you.'

‘Okay,' she said. ‘So you don't like surprises. That's fair enough.'

We walked on in silence. I used to think Tom's house was near mine. It seemed miles away. Anyway, luckily he was in. He made everything all right, old Tom.

‘I can't believe it,' he kept laughing. ‘You in Sheffield, Bryn!'

He brought out his photographs of France and spread them out on the carpet, and Bryn brought hers out of her rucksack. We were soon rolling about laughing at them, and remembering things about people we'd met on the camp-sites – Monsieur Bienvenu and all the other characters – Jeremy Stereotype with all his family of typelets, the Fish at the End of the Universe, Bassoon-voice. We kept remembering things and spluttering them out at each other. It was nerves. I was in a state of advanced hysteria.

Tom suggested we should walk Bryn down to the station and pick up some chips on the way. The sun was out again when we set off. We were still in a daft mood; and fate did the rest. I just don't think it could have happened if we hadn't had that mad spell in Tom's house. I bent down to tie my laces and for some inane reason Tom just hoicked Bryn into the air and lowered her onto my shoulders. She yelled out and clung to my hair with both hands, and I stood up very slowly with my back straight so she wouldn't tip off. We were all yelling with laughter. I couldn't see a thing because she'd pushed her hands over my eyes, but I started to walk forward, holding out my arms to balance myself, like a circus act. Then Tom stopped laughing and put his hand on my arm.

I pushed Bryn's hands out of my eyes and held them out to the sides, our fingers locking so she could hold on tight. And then I saw what Tom had seen, and wished I hadn't. Two girls had stopped at the end of the road and were just turning away. It was like seeing another door swinging open and
slamming shut again, only this time there was no secret room on the other side of it. One of the girls was black. The other was small and fair. I hardly recognized her, she'd changed so much.

Dear Nobody,

I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!

September 15th

Dear Nobody,

I can't believe it's only about two weeks to go. Deep, deep inside me there's that screaming still, that fear; and at the same time there's a kind of calm. I can't wait to know you. I wish you could just magically appear. Well, we have got a gooseberry bush in the garden. I'm afraid of the pain, Nobody. I can't help being afraid of it. I hope we like each other. I mean, really like. I wonder what my mum thought when she first saw me.

My father has bought a cot for you. It was a most extraordinary thing, seeing him struggling in from the” car with it, realizing what it was, looking at Mum straight away to catch the expression on her face, and seeing nothing there. She wants you to be adopted, still. She just pursed her lips then and followed him upstairs, and I heard them banging about, moving my bed to make room for it. I followed them up.

‘I'm staying here, then?' I said.

‘Of course she's staying here,' my father said to Mum.

‘Where else would you go, tell me that?' she demanded. ‘This arrangement won't do forever, just remember that. And don't leave that thing up,' she said to him. ‘Not till it's born.'

She went into her own room and closed the door. I wanted to follow her but Dad shook his head at me.

‘She has her own way of coping, Helen. Leave her,' he said. After all, it seems he understands her.

I sank down onto my bed. The sides of the cot were
propped against the wall. It was pale lemon, with rabbits in little blue and pink rompers prancing along the bars. ‘How can I stay here if I'm not wanted?'

Dad cleared his throat and squatted down in front of me, his long bony fingers resting flat along his thighs. ‘Of course you're wanted. Get that out of your head. You're our daughter. Never forget that. It wasn't in our scheme of things to have a baby living in the house . . .'

‘It wasn't in my scheme of things, either.'

‘We don't want to lose you, you know.'

I shook my head and he lifted up one of his hands and just touched my cheek; a shy, unfamiliar gesture.

‘You're to stay here as long as you want to. That's my promise. And your promise to me, Helen, is that you won't let your music go. One day you'll dance again. Promise me that.'

I did promise him, though the screaming in my head was loud enough to drown us all. Maybe it was you, making your whale noises deep inside me. For a long time after he'd gone out of the room and into their bedroom I sat there, listening to that screaming, counting the rabbits in their never-ending joyous prancing round and round the sides of the cot, flopsy-bunnying for all the babies in the world. I could hear Mum and Dad in their room, consoling each other in whatever way it is that married people do. I wondered if he was loving her.

I went out then, to see my nan and Grandad. I can't remember when I last went there with my mother, I was thinking, or whether my nan had ever been to our house to see us there. I wondered whether that wound would ever heal, whether there ever came a time in people's sorrowings when forgiveness was easier than pain. But what I did know was that I wouldn't live with Nan now. How could I bear her silences? One day I want to try to creep inside her mind and talk to her; after all, we have a lot in common. I want to ask her about my real grandad, the dancer in a night-club, I'm holding that in my head, a tiny warm promise, for the right moment. I wonder why it's so hard for young people to talk to old
people about the things that really matter. But then, it's hard to talk to Nan about anything at all.

Her eyes lit up when I went in to her room that day, just a brief blaze of light, and then faded away to daydreaming again. I know about you, Nan. I have your secret in my head. I went over to her and put my arms round her. She had a lovely, soapy smell.

‘I've got a present for you,' she told me.

It was a shawl for you. Grandad told me he'd had to bring all the boxes down from the attic, and that she'd spent hours rummaging through the past to find it. It must have been my mum's when she was a baby. Perhaps it was her own, the child in the drawer. She spread it out for me to touch. Then, instead of giving it to me, she just sat there with the thing rolled up on her knee, staring down at it.

‘It's lovely, Nan,' I said. She was slipping away again. I touched her dry and papery hand.

‘She probably wants to wash it before she gives it to you,' Grandad said. ‘It's years old.'

She looked at him, then, as if he'd just walked off a space ship. ‘How can I give it her before the baby's born?' she asked him. ‘It might be dead!'

Oh little thing, be alive! Be well. Be perfect for me.

No, how could we live at Nan's? I want you to be able to yell your head off when you feel like it, and not annoy people. I want us both to be able to yell our heads off.

September 21st

My dear Helen,

I know you are an independent young woman who will make up her own mind about things. I admire you for it. Whatever plans you make for your future, I wish you well with them. You are a survivor, whatever happens. You have that quality in you. You and your baby will need money, and I would like to make a contribution till Chris is
able to do it for himself, though I don't want him or his father to know about this. There will be a sum paid into a monthly account for your child, and I hope you will accept it. I also hope, Helen, that one day you will be willing to let me meet my grandchild.

Joan

She has terrible handwriting. It's like unravelling a tangle of inky knitting. I can't take it in, the words of her letter, but it made me cry all the same, as if someone had put a blanket of comfort round me in the night.

All I can focus on is you, thrusting and pushing inside me all these weeks, turning yourself round. You've settled yourself now for coming out, the midwife told me yesterday. You've got a long and dark and frightening journey ahead of you soon. Don't be afraid. We'll manage it together.