Steal My Sunshine (16 page)

‘You mean, you felt sorry for me.'

‘No, I just . . . noticed you. In a different way.' He ran his fingers down my arm. ‘Why did you say yes?'

I smiled but kept my eyes closed. ‘Just because.'

 

In his bedroom he took a bottle off his bookcase. ‘Shot? We don't have to.'

‘What is it?' I said, looking around the room as if it were a museum. I'd never been in here before. It felt like I'd stepped into someone else's story.

‘Tequila.' He handed me a shot glass and knocked his back, then lay on his bed with one arm outstretched for me. I put my drink down, untouched. My head was fuzzy enough. Before he kissed me I noticed he had the same alarm clock as me. 9.57.

We kissed slowly at first, like we had on the beach, and then he moved on top of me. The weight of him made me kiss him harder, and there was something desperate in the way my hands were travelling over his t-shirt, up and down his arms and through his hair as he lay on top of me. But it wasn't as simple as wanting him, it was also how scared I was of where it might end up. What if taking everything I needed from him meant that I couldn't find my way back?

We were dizzy and hot when he stopped kissing me. He was breathing hard and I was trying to read his face to see if we were really meant to be doing this, as if he would have the answer when I didn't. He reached over to his bedside table. ‘Shall I?' he said, with his hand inside the drawer.

‘Okay . . . No, actually no.' It felt like someone had turned off the music in my head.

He took his hand out of the drawer.

‘I'm sorry,' I said.

‘No way. I'm sorry. I got carried away.' He smiled.

I closed my eyes and caught my breath, feeling it had all gone wrong even though he was being so nice, and felt the weight of him leave me. We stayed there like that for a while.

Then I got up very carefully, sat on the edge of his bed and straightened myself out.

‘Do you want me to call you a cab?' he said. His voice sounded kind, and he briefly rubbed my back. But when I turned to answer him I felt like it was the end in every way.

‘Thanks,' I whispered.

In another time and place we would have had our own story. But I couldn't sleep with him. I'd thought about it so many times that the reality had stopped making sense. And no matter how much he sounded like he wanted me, I still felt like the one with the crush.

I didn't recognise the route home that the taxi driver took until we were almost there. And for a change it felt like a relief to be going through my own front door.

Sam hadn't waited up. His socks were on the coffee table, puffed-up as though his feet were still inside. Mum's bedside light shone underneath her door, but when I peeped in she was curled up and peaceful, one side of her mouth twitching as if it wanted to smile about something she was dreaming. ‘That's good,' I whispered, and I almost cried at having a loving thought about her.

The dream that had taken up so much of my headspace was over. But in the silence of my house, something stirred in me that told me life was about to begin, and that this time I wouldn't just be daydreaming or trying to hide. Essie was the key and I had to get back to her story.

 

 

 

‘I didn't know if I'd see you today,' Essie said, looking pleased. ‘Come in. No Chloe?'

‘She was busy.'

‘That's a shame. She's really something, isn't she?'

When we sat down, Essie was still talking about Chloe.

‘There's a sadness in her. Don't you think?'

‘Sometimes.' I thought she mostly seemed angry. I didn't really want to talk about her today.

‘Are you all right, Hannah? You seem upset.'

‘I'm fine. It's just that I found out Chloe's been lying to me. She told me she hadn't seen her mum since she was six, but it turns out she sees her once a year.'

‘I'm sure she had her reasons.'

It felt like Essie was telling me off. I half-thought she was right to, but it was the other half doing the talking. ‘I just don't understand the point of saying that to me. We're meant to be friends.'

‘Well, try to think how it might feel. Perhaps in Chloe's mind she really hasn't seen the mother she thought was hers.'

‘But it's the same person.'

‘Depends on your perspective, I suppose.'

Suddenly I felt like the stranger in Essie's lounge, as if Essie would rather Chloe were here instead. ‘Tell me more about the convent, Essie. Please.'

She looked at me, thinking it over.

‘Essie, you did say it was a secret for me.'

‘Go into my bedroom,' she said. ‘There's a small suitcase at the back of my wardrobe. I want you to find the letter that matches the handwriting on the note you found a few days ago. I'm sure it's in there.'

I went to her room without another word, and an hour later, I came back in with what she wanted. And then Essie's story could begin again.

 

I take my time this morning wheeling the trolleys of starched hotel sheets to the van. It's a chance to take the weight off my back, where the pain is like hot knives. Mick the delivery boy gives me a wink.

‘What's it worth?' He's holding an envelope. I try to snatch it from him but he's a quick little ferret. ‘Come on! Nothing's for free.'

I look around. There's no one near us. In the background I can hear the voices of the girls from the next-door school at choir practice. Those girls are nothing like us. We know what we are. We hear their teachers telling them they aren't even allowed to look at us when they pass us by.

I follow Mick under the arches. He's skinny with pockmarked skin. His sleeves are rolled up high and I can see the comical mark between the tan on his forearms and the pasty skin above his elbows. His hair is slicked back and he licks his lips before trying to lean in over the gigantic lump at the front of me.

‘Wait. How do I know that letter's really for me? Where did you get it?'

He holds it out of reach. ‘Says Essie, right there, and I know that's your real name. I can read, you know.'

‘Oh really? What are some of the other words it says?'

He brings the envelope closer to his face and squints – I snatch it from him. ‘Oi! Give that back! I want paying for that.'

‘It's mine. And I've got nothing for you. Look at me! You can't possibly want to kiss me, I'm disgusting. Now go away.'

He snorts out a thin line of mucus from his nose and grabs me by the arm. ‘I want paying or I'll tell the Sisters. I didn't nick the bloody post for nothing.'

‘If you tell on me they'll punish you as well – you stole and that makes you a sinner too. And I'll tell them how you try to get the girls to touch your thing.'

He grips me harder. ‘Think it'll be as bad as what they'll do to you? Well? Do you?'

I'm up against the wall, staring at the tall spire in the distance and the corellas that flock around its base making their hideous screech. The sun appears and shadows in the courtyard ebb away; a boy fumbles his way up my dress and puts his fingers into me.

‘That's enough,' I say.

He leers at me. I tuck the letter away without looking at it and go back to the laundry.

Dear Essie,

I don't know if this will reach you but it's worth a try. For weeks I've been writing to your aunt in Somerset, thinking you'd gone there, but my mother finally let it slip that they'd sent you further than that.

It was your Pop who gave in and told me exactly where. He was beside himself. He sends you his deepest love, my friend. I think of you on that ship for all those weeks, arriving in a strange land. You're the bravest person in the whole world.

Please don't hate me for this. I'm telling you because you're my oldest friend and I love you. James's wife is expecting a baby. She is already six months gone and they think this one is going to last, unlike the others. Perhaps you knew she had lost four previously. Poor thing (even though I know we don't really like her).

They're moving to Cheshire for the air, and so on. James no longer works with your father but everything else is the same. It's so much the same, dear Essie, that I really think you could come back here and live as if none of this had happened.

I was going to tell you more but it's so hard to go on when I don't know how this will reach you or what will happen when it does. I am your friend always.

Sara, with love

Jo kneels by my bed, holding me as I cry, the letter crumpled between us. The thought of home is agony. Suddenly these long months haven't happened at all and I was there only yesterday, joking to Sara about Pop's friend James making eyes at me.

How can everything be the same for all of them when nothing is the same for me? I cry and cry until I can hardly breathe. Jo tells me to calm down, but I hope I die. I hope I die right now.

I feel the rage coming like a far-off sound, getting closer and closer and eating up all the other sounds around me. Jo's lips are moving but I can't hear her words. I'm pounding my fist into the wooden beam beside my bed and screaming, but I can't hear my own scream, I can only feel the shape of my mouth.

Sister Sabine is shaking me and calling out for help because I am the Devil but I can't hear who she calls for. Maybe she calls out for God to strike me down. I hope He does.

I'm on the bed and a hundred hands are holding me down but there's so much strength in me it would take a hundred more to make me lie still. Then they're dragging me out of the room and down the stairs, and far away there's the sound of a wild animal. I know it's me but it doesn't feel like me.

It's dark for a long time. I'm alone in a small room. Trays of food come and go but I don't touch them. Twice a day different sets of hands drag me to the bathroom: ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.' They're calling me Audrey. Why are they calling me that when my name is Essie? I'm Essie! I'm Essie!

I'm Essie, who has no one in the world but this baby. In the darkness and silence I can feel it – him, her, Baby – like I never did before.

We play a game: I rub my belly till it gets hot on one side and Baby moves to where my hand is resting. Then I do it on the other side until Baby moves back. When Baby stops playing I feel sick in my throat and lie very still, imagining Baby dead. I say a prayer. There's another kick, but I can't play our game any more. I can't let my thoughts knit together a life with Baby in case it's impossible to unravel it again.

Sister Ignatius opens the door. By the look on her face I know something has happened. ‘It's Bernadette,' she says.
Jo
. I get up and walk into the corridor, my eyes adjusting to the light. ‘Her baby was born still this morning. She's asked for you.'

I nod gratefully but I don't understand what she means until I see Jo lying flat with her eyes fixed on the ceiling and her belly no longer taut and round. Born still.

Jo's baby, the most wanted baby, will never sleep in the drawer or grow fat on chips. Someone, tell me what to say to my friend.

Jo turns her head to me and holds my hand but she almost doesn't look like Jo any more.

‘Why did it happen?' I ask Sister.

Sister only stares hard at Jo, but another voice says, ‘You mustn't blame yourself, Audrey.' It's the new midwife, the one they say is kind and will give you a pill for the pain. I can't make sense of what she's said – do I blame myself? Why should I? But when Jo puts her hands lightly on her belly, I see it in a blur – on my back, struggling under the hands, my feet kicking in all directions, and Jo clutching her belly and disappearing out of view.

‘I did this?' I ask the midwife. ‘I kicked her? Was it me? Tell me!'

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

Jo pulls me down close to her face. ‘It wasn't you, dear little Essie,' she whispers. ‘It was me and Dad. Unholy is why.'

‘Your dad? What did he do?'

‘Sshh,' she says. ‘Secret.' She lets go of me and stares at the ceiling again, and at last I know what she means.

At night I dream that my belly splits open and a shrieking beast is placed in my arms, wild with hair and teeth and writhing limbs. For once I'm glad when Sister wakes us, and all through morning chores I think about what I can do for Jo. There's only one thing I can do – give her my baby. The minute I decide that, I feel cleaner and more awake than I've felt in weeks. I'll do this one good thing and then I'll finally be able to go home.

There's a commotion at the laundry window after breakfast – lots of girls are gathered there and Sister Ignatius is just watching them, which is the strangest part. She looks back at me and beckons me over.

Jo is out there, held on either side by nurses who lift her up when her legs give way under her, and she twists and turns between them.

‘Where's Jo going? Sister, where are they taking her?'

I hear some of the girls whisper ‘asylum'.

I fall to my knees and hold Sister's fingers and beg and cry because I don't care if they lock me away again. The asylum is the place we dare not speak of in here. ‘Not that place! Not Jo! Please, Sister. Why? Why? She's done nothing wrong!'

‘Get up, Audrey. Get up unless you want to follow her.'

The other girls are silent. The only sound is the hiss of steam. I feel myself dying again, and Audrey gets up in my place. She's quiet and sorry and goes back to work. Later on, the Chinese whispers make it back to me. Jo broke down and told the midwife about who the father was. But either they didn't believe her and thought she'd gone mad, or they did believe her and didn't know what else to do with her.

Whatever happens, I will never forgive myself, or them, for this.

 

I'm in the dorm when it finally happens. My back has been killing me all day, and when I shift on my bunk, trying to get comfortable, there's a sudden rush between my legs. I scream and get to my feet, tearing off the blankets to see the waters spreading into the mattress. All I can think about is that I have to clean up this mess before Sister sees. I cry as two Sisters lead me away and tell me not to mind about it. The pains are coming but they're nothing compared to the fear.