Tell Me Everything (25 page)

“Oh, Liz, you shouldn't have done that. It spoils the mystery, you see.”

Liz looked at me as if mystery wasn't something, after all, she could quite see. Then she did something surprising. She leaned forward in her seat and put her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes against her palms. If this had been Miranda I would have been bored. Miranda still cried regularly, particularly about those triumph-over-tragedy stories in her magazines, but this was Liz. I felt oddly let down. But then she raised her head and I saw her eyes weren't ringed romantically with tears. They were sharp and glittering, but more with steel than water.

“Did you deliberately set out to hurt me, Molly?”

I was silent, sitting on my hands, only half wanting her to stop talking. I had the strangest feeling that at last I was going to find out some truth about myself that I needed to know.

“Look at me, Molly,” she said, lifting up my chin so I was staring into her eyes. I saw they were finally filling with tears. “I'm
fifty-two, not seventeen. I'm flesh and blood. I need three tablets before I can even think about functioning properly every day. Nothing romantic about that. Nothing romantic about any of this. Do you know how I felt in that hotel room, all on my own, with a whole wardrobe of inappropriate negligees?”

I shook my head again.

Liz was pulling out tissues from the box and mopping her face before dropping them on the floor and picking a new one. She wasn't a clean crier, someone who would dab at their eye with a lacy handkerchief like Mrs. Roberts. Or even an efficient one, like me in the park. Her tears were black with streaky mascara, running down her face to join the snot from her nose. I had no idea what to do, so I got up and ineffectually patted her back.

“Go home, Molly,” she said. “I've nothing left for you. I'm all out of stories.”

I clutched at her hand to make her feel better and also because I wanted her to engulf my smaller hand in hers again. Mother and daughter, I thought. She's going to look after me. Everything's going to be all right.

“Just leave me, Molly,” she whispered, taking her hand away.

“None of this was you,” I whispered then. “You don't have to pretend it was you suggesting things to me. I did it on my own. You were my story.”

“Get some help,” she said. “For all our sakes.”

“Shall I come back tomorrow?” I asked. “When you're feeling better.”

“Leave,” she repeated.

I
picked up Mata and we started to walk quickly home. I felt strangely excited, but wasn't sure if this was the right emotion for the occasion. I tried several others—anger with Liz, boredom
at yet another adult telling me I'd got things wrong—but the tingles in my stomach kept bringing me back to excitement.

Just as we were getting near the high street I veered off left and decided to go looking for Tim instead. We'd go to the pub and I'd take him up on that badminton game, I thought. I'd show Liz that it could be done. Tim and I could buy a house together, or maybe just a flat to start with. I'd look after him. We'd live happily ever after. I persuaded myself that Mata could sense if he was near, so when she got a scent of something and her tail started to wag I got hysterical, rushing after her, letting her go where she wanted, until finally she stopped at a discarded bundle of fish and chips.

I wouldn't let her smell them then, pulling her away roughly as a punishment. It was in my knees I felt the disappointment most. I was so scared they were going to buckle under me that it took me some time to recognize where I was. It was only the road where we used to live. Me, Mum and Dad. I'd tried so hard to stay away from it, to forget that this part of town even existed, and now I'd walked all the way over here without thinking. I rushed over to the wall to hold me up.

“Are you all right?”

I'd learned from Tim to keep my gaze down on the pavement and never, ever to gaze into people's face but, caught off guard now, I looked up. A tall, thin man was standing there, locking his car. It wasn't Tim. I didn't think it was for a moment but the kindness in his voice had still made me move my eyes away from his brown shoes and up to his face. He smiled at me and I froze.

“Do you need any help?” he asked, and I shook my head too vigorously at him. He looked me up and down for a few seconds before turning to go through the black door of the house opposite, shutting it firmly and quickly behind him.

What could I have said? That he was living in my old house? I
didn't want to have to go in and meet his family, see the changes they'd made, the improvements, how happy they were there. How different. I watched the door for a few minutes, and then one of the upstairs windows, where I could swear I saw a curtain twitch. I knew the room well. It had been my bedroom a long time ago, and now someone else was up there, watching me at the window where I'd once sat dreaming of the future before my father caught me.

I pulled Mata along the street after me, my face hot. I went into the public toilet and stood in front of the mirror, staring into my own eyes. It's a strange thing to see a chapter of your life closed to you like that. To realize that the film set your particular drama's played out on can suddenly be occupied by strangers. All this time I'd been thinking it was me who'd been moving on, but I wondered now. Things on the outside seemed to be moving pretty quickly too. What had Miranda said? That I was stuck. I splashed my face several times with cold water and then palmed down my hair until I looked less like a boy and more chic. Almost French.

When I came out again I could see men, other men, everywhere I looked. It was as if I had woken up, had the scales ripped from my eyes. A wave went through my whole body, breaking in the pit of my stomach and sending me spiraling down the street. I had to hold my legs together in case this feeling gushed out of me and drowned the passersby. And what passersby they were. So many men. My head felt as if it was being controlled by a puppeteer; it was swinging from side to side to get a better look.

Mata and I stayed out for hours and hours after that, just walking and looking.

B
y the time we got back Mrs. Roberts had closed up for the day. She'd left a note for me taped to the till. I was still thinking about the men I'd just been watching as I peeled it off.

Where have you been? We'll speak tomorrow. A man came to see you. He said he was your father.

My father. Of course. I was hardly surprised. His timing had always been perfect, and now more than ever it was just as if he could read my mind. A blanket of icy numbness settled itself around me like a familiar and not altogether unwelcome enemy.

I walked round the empty shop, my arms stretched out so my fingers could touch the goods. I pinged a nail against dangling sales notices so they trembled in front of me; I stuck my hand in the still fan, imagining the carnage if I turned it on by accident; I opened scissors, holding the blade against my wrists and pushing down so the skin tightened; I put my tongue against the serrated edge of the tape dispensers, my forehead against the cash drawer of the till and opened it again and again so it hit my eyes each time. Surely there must be a way I could get myself to feel something?

And then, when I was bored of all this, I picked up the buff file Mrs. Roberts had been looking at that time I'd watched her through the window. She must have left it behind. It was full of typed letters. I read the top letter once, and once again. I skim-read the second letter, and the third and fourth. Banks, accountants, estate agents. Pleas for more time, more money. All initialed with the loopy signature Mrs. Roberts once told me all good French girls learned at school.

I took the whole file up to my room, together with my butterfly pencil case and a lined pad I stole from the shop. Mata followed me, pausing before she jumped up each step as if it was a mountain she was being forced to scale. Her tail was wagging with excitement, her head tilted to one side as she took each jump, and I thought, not for the first time, that there must have been some reason why Tim had given her to me other than the fact she was someone to love and who would love me. Secret messages were how Tim talked best.

I forced myself back to the matter at hand. Mr. Roberts wouldn't let Mrs. Roberts sell the shop. She'd written that to the bank: “My husband is convinced this is a temporary economic downturn.” This was next to the letter from the lawyer about how she wasn't to worry about the medical bills because they were being paid for against the sum she would inherit after Mr. Roberts's death. What the letter didn't say, but I could see, was that if she didn't have to pay the medical bills her inheritance was easily big enough to solve all her current problems and save the shop.

Mr. Roberts would have no idea what was going on. I would bet anything that protecting him from worry was Mrs. Roberts's way of showing gratitude for all he'd done for her. But I knew better.
Look after Leanne.

I went upstairs and found my mother's book, counting out about half the money and putting it in my pocket. There was someone else to rescue first. One step at a time.

Mummy was kissing Santa Claus through the department store's sound system as I walked in the doors. “Seems to come so quickly these days,” a customer complained to me as we passed on the escalators. I couldn't agree. The kiss was taking such a long time that Mummy was still busy by the time I reached the third floor, and hadn't even unglued those lips when the assistant wrapped up the glass bear for me.

Some kiss. I tried not to think of Tim too much.

Instead I counted out the notes carefully and handed them over. I'd never had so much money in my hand before but it didn't seem to mean anything. All the transaction meant was that there was a gap on the shop's shelf now, and something heavy in my hand. That was it.

I'd dreamed of having this glass bear so often, but now that it was mine it was no longer the same. It wasn't even icy. I had a feel of it before the assistant had wrapped it up, and the glass was warm from the spotlights. A fraud.

I swung the bag from my arm as I walked to the park, with Mata straining on the leash I held tight in the other hand.

The only thing I knew was that I had to find Tim again. Not the Tim they'd left in his place, but my Tim. My special adviser. The one who crept out to give me Mata. He was the only person who would understand what I had to do. And the only way I could get hold of him was to wait at the Seize the Day bench.

I was going to leave the white glass bear sitting in the grass under the bench. It would be my message for Tim. I wanted him to know I needed him now. I wanted to break free. If he ever needed a mission, then this was it.

I breathed, my hands splayed out on my diaphragm. In, and I could feel my ribs expand under my fingers; out, and I was in danger of touching my backbone.

Iced inside. Ice melting. An unspoiled world. Anything had to be possible.

I
was walking back to the shop, trying to work out what to do next, when I saw Joe.

I shouted his name and he turned. He really did. He saw me, and then he ducked into the alley. This time there was no mistaking the fact he was avoiding me. I stood against the wall, kicking the bricks again and again with the backs of my boots, my fists hitting the rough edges until I felt the skin on my hands tear. I wanted to bruise myself against all the words I could no longer hear.

Watch out, Tim had told me. It'll always be the ones you don't expect. I suddenly knew it was Joe who had brought my father here to find me. But had he done it on his own? What if Miranda had been in on it too? Had she balanced things up, and offered Joe my future for the chance of him helping her find a new one for her? What if Tim was right, and there really was no one I could trust?

M
iranda's dad was watching the wrestling. All four bars of the gas fire were on, and Mata was lying asleep on the rug in front, as close to the heat as she could get.

With everything that was happening, it wasn't surprising that I was finding it hard to concentrate. I'd already gone through to ask Mrs. Bartlett—“Call me Fran”—if she wanted a hand, but she'd whooshed me away and told me to keep Mr. Bartlett—“Him you can call stupid. No, only joking, Neil will do. It's his name, after all”—company while I waited for Miranda to come home. Fran said it would be like old times for Mr. Bartlett. Miranda always used to enjoy watching the wrestling with her father in the afternoons. It was one of the many things they used to do as a family. Before things changed, Fran said, giving me a sharp look.

“What's happening now?” I asked Mr. Bartlett, Neil. I was trying to be one of the family. Miranda wouldn't see me out on the streets. She'd said that. Me and Mata.

“They're such characters,” he laughed. On the screen, one masked fat man was knocking the head of a pony-tailed fat man against the ground, while yet another fat man in a striped shirt was pointing a finger over them.

I tried to look amused, but Neil must have seen through this because he ignored me and offered no more explanations. A series of controls on the arm of his wheelchair allowed him to move from side to side, and he did this constantly, shifting first an inch to one side, and then two inches to the other. I could see holes everywhere in the carpet, which suggested this was a habit.

“I want the masked man to win,” I said, half-wondering why it had taken Miranda so long to stop enjoying the wrestling.

“Why?” I'd obviously picked the wrong one. Neil looked not so much surprised as irritated.

“No reason really. Although it's quite mysterious, isn't it? He's probably hiding some horrible injury, which would mean he wouldn't be on television if he couldn't wear a mask. It's probably a bit of a dream come true for him.”

“An ugly mug, more like. It's just a gimmick, a ploy to make you notice him. The other guy's got more talent in his little finger.” Neil turned his attention back to his wheelchair controls. “Fran,” he shouted. “What do you have to do round here to get a cup of tea? I'm parched.”