A Cupboard Full of Coats Page 11

  He smiled.

  It was as simple as that.

  He smiled and we were friends again.

  ‘These will keep for weeks,’ he said, indicating the bottles.

  I nodded slowly as if that was an extremely useful thing to know.

  ‘If you keep them in the fridge. They can prob’ly even freeze.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll drink them before then.’

  He looked away from me for a moment, to the side where his drink sat. He put his finger into the glass and swirled the ice around. He took the finger out and rubbed his hands together to rid them of the moisture.

  ‘If you want me to, I’ll go.’

  ‘I don’t want you to.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, why I bothered to come. I told myself it was for you, but that’s not true. I never did nothing I didn’t do for myself.’

  ‘Join the club,’ I said.

  ‘I should be strong. What I have to tell you don’t really make no difference after all this time. Only reason for telling you is that it might do some good for me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Thing is, I don’t know where to start…’

  ‘You’ve been talking for days. You’ve already started, haven’t you?’

  He smiled again. ‘That’s true. You right. Think I’m just stalling. I brought things to make Guinness Punch. You like it?’

  ‘I do, but I’m running out of space in my fridge.’

  ‘We’ll drink it when I’m done.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He held his palms out towards me and said, ‘I just need something to do with these hands.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Only, I forgot the Nutrament. I’m gonna pop out and buy some. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I stood aside to let him pass, but he didn’t move. My eyes met his and communication started.

  ‘One last thing. You know you said nobody loves you?’ he asked. Instantly my vision was blurred by tears and I nodded. ‘Just think I prob’ly need to say that that’s not true.’

  7

  The mirror I held in my hand was bigger than my head, yet it was too small to be able to see everything I wanted to see, to see all the things I needed to see in order to get my head around the things in my life that it was impossible to get my head around. Still, I looked.

  Though it was a Thursday morning and I should have been leaving for school, my mum was pressing my hair. I could hear the iron comb sizzling, could smell the scorch as it passed through my nappy locks, magically transforming them into silken tresses that were straighter than when she’d started, closer to the coolie hair on her own head that she was able to take for granted.

  The comb had to be blazing to do its job properly – not red hot, which would burn the hair off my head, but – in my view anyway – not much cooler. I sat on a chair beside the cooker, adjacent to the low flame of the front burner, watching her section and comb and press, holding the towel tight around my shoulders so my uniform wouldn’t get messy, and each time the rising smoke cleared, I found myself examining her face.

  If anything, that morning, the bruising looked worse. Overnight the redness had settled to black-greens and purpleybrowns that glistened beneath the Vaseline she’d smoothed over it. I was trying to focus on watching what she was doing with my hair, tensed for the sear of the iron comb against my scalp, or worse – and more likely – the top tips of either ear, but my eyes and my thoughts were on her, trying my hardest to understand how it was possible for anyone to look so beat-up and yet so happy at the same time. And boy was she happy. She was so full of joy that day, she was glowing.

  He was back.

  It had been inevitable from the moment he dragged his sopping carcass into our living room. Even though I knew it was a waste of time, I had still harboured the faintest of hopes that he’d brought Lemon around to help him pack, but of course, he hadn’t. Lemon had come to beg on Berris’s behalf for my mother’s forgiveness. His presence was needed to stop her phoning the police in a panic, thinking Berris had returned to the house to finish her off. He was there to act as a peacemaker, to keep the discussion calm, to hand Berris the occasional tissue, to keep me occupied so that the two of them could have privacy for their Big People Talk.

  In the kitchen, Lemon asked for a cup of tea and I made it. He drank it while I slowly picked at the chicken and chips I’d such a short time ago been so excited about. I ate with indifference and Lemon talked all the while, real friendly like, friendlier than Berris had ever been, asking about school, my lessons, my teachers there. My answers were short, you could even say abrupt. I couldn’t really concentrate enough on what he was saying to have a full-blown conversation. It’s very hard to have a normal discussion with anyone when you have one ear cocked and your whole body braced to charge out of the room at the first sound of a scream.

  I’d made my way through about half the box when my mother bounded into the kitchen.

  Beaming.

  When we’d left her, she’d been all eyes downcast, on the verge of tears herself, utterly miserable. When she came into the kitchen, neither of us needed to ask for a summary of how their talk had gone. She was happy and laughing, even as she winced from the pull of sore skin over bruising.

  ‘We’ve sorted everything out,’ she said, virtually singing the words, and I felt so many things that even if anyone had actually bothered to ask my opinion, I wouldn’t have had a clue what to say.

  I felt sorry for her because I’d seen first hand how much he’d hurt her, not just physically, but her spirit, her mind. I was glad for her that he was back in her life and abracadabra, she was happy again. And Berris? I hated him, hated what he’d done. At the same time I felt sorry for him, for the low level his wrongs had sucked him down to, and in a way relieved. His suffering over the last day had obviously been on par with hers. Maybe it really was true love. I felt relieved for him that things had been sorted out, that he could now fix himself up and carry himself with a little more pride. Every time I thought of how he’d looked, how wet and snotty and pathetic, I squirmed inside.

  But for myself, I was wretched. I wanted him here, I wanted him gone. I wanted her happy, I wanted her to myself. Round and round it all went inside my mind like a merry-go-round, till my head began to feel like it was me that had taken the pounding.

  And afterwards, Lemon had left briefly, then come back again. He’d stayed late, the three of them laughing and drinking and eating and joking till after midnight. Must be as soon as the front door clicked closed behind his back, they were ready for bed. Then this morning she was up early, fixing Berris a hearty breakfast before he went to work, hugging me, fussing over my hair, pressing it on a Thursday morning before school, a process that took ages and was normally done on a Sunday night. She had a strange smell about her that I’d noticed before but couldn’t identify, like the smell on her hands sometimes, hours after she’d been chopping onions. Not quite that smell, but like it. I felt again as I had yesterday, like I was the responsible adult and she was a kid who’d been naughty and was going to extra lengths to smooth things over.

  ‘I don’t want you to worry,’ she said. ‘All relationships have their ups and downs. And anyway, Berris never actually meant to hurt me. If I’m honest, what happened was more my fault than his. But I don’t want you to worry about this. It’s never gonna happen again…’ She laughed. ‘I think we must’ve stayed up the whole night talking.’ She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke next, her voice was like ultra casual. ‘Jinxy, I don’t want you telling anyone at school about this, okay?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Because it’s our private business. You understand that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If anyone asks, I just tripped, coming down the stairs.’

  My whole life till then she’d gone on about how important the truth was. ‘Better a thief, than a liar,’ she’d always said. Now she was actually instructing me to lie. I didn’t k
now what to say to that and I think she was embarrassed, because she was quick to add:

  ‘But I’m sure no one will ask you anything, so don’t worry.’

  As if that suddenly made everything okay.

  ‘Guess what?’

  Maybe she was speaking another language? I felt like I sometimes did in French, listening to tapes with French people talking on them, straining my ears for the odd word or two that I was actually able to understand, that put together with another word might make some sense of everything I was hearing. I was so confused it was beyond me to guess anything.

  ‘What?’

  My mother laughed again and, for a moment, she reminded me of Sam. It was the laugh the girls at school did sometimes when someone told them some guy they liked fancied them back, kind of surprised and giggly and blushing all in one.

  ‘He’s asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Uh? Ow!’ The comb seared the top of my left ear. ‘That’s your fault. You need to sit still.’

  ‘That hurt!’

  ‘I’ll put some Vaseline on it, okay?’

  ‘No it’s not okay. It’s not okay…’

  ‘Come on, Jinx, you’re being a baby. Don’t you want your hair to look decent?’

  ‘I was happy how it was before.’

  ‘You want me to stop? I’ve only got a little bit left to do and we’re done. Can I finish it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then stop crying. And sit still.’

  I wiped my eyes as she continued. Other than the hot crackling of the comb it was silent. Then she asked, ‘Well? What do you think?’

  It was just too freaky. Even though he lived here, I still felt like I hardly knew him. And she’d only just taken him back last night. And that would mean he’d be with us for ever. This was my dad’s house, but once they married it’d be like it was his. But she loved him and I knew it. She’d been happy since he’d been in her life and although she was asking my opinion like she genuinely wanted to know what I thought, I also knew she wanted me to want her to get married to him. She wanted me to say, Yes, do it. What a great idea. We’ll all be one big happy family. I knew that.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit quick?’

  ‘I’m not getting any younger. If we’re gonna have our own kids, we need to get a move on.’

  ‘Kids?’ I felt dazed. Like she’d boxed me.

  ‘You’ve always said you wanted a little brother or sister.’

  It was true. I had. A million times. And the times I’d said it, I had truly meant it. Being an only child sucked. That was one of the things about Sam I was most jealous of. But this reality terrified me. And the words ‘our own’ made me feel sick, because I wasn’t, was I? I didn’t belong to them both. I was only hers. And a silly thought came into my mind, really childish but I couldn’t push it away: do you love kids more if they belong to you and the man you’re with? Is there enough love to go round? Or is there just a certain amount of it that gets divided up more ways so that somebody ends up with a smaller share?

  ‘Have you finished?’ I asked.

  ‘I have. Shall I style it for you?’

  ‘I’ll do it myself.’ I stood up.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked again.

  I wanted to say, I was here first! Those were the words in my head that repeated themselves over and over like a stuck record, but it was too childish, too ridiculous to say.

  ‘Do what you want. I don’t care,’ was the answer that came out instead. And before she could respond to that, I ran upstairs.

  Sam was in a serious strop. She was vexed, her face was screwed up hard, and she did little more than grunt back when I said hello to her.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  She raised her hand in a Stop sign and shook her head. She was blushing badly. I didn’t ask anything else, because I knew if she had said a word about whatever it was, she would have started to cry. If I was honest, her mood suited me. Though I couldn’t get anything that had happened out of my head, I couldn’t talk about it either. And it wasn’t because of what my mum had said, the reason was even weirder: I was ashamed. I couldn’t understand why I felt that way about what Berris had done to my mum, but I did. It was as if somehow what he’d done reflected on us, on my mum, as though in some way we deserved it or it was our fault, her fault. I felt embarrassed to hold my mother, with her outward-pointing toes, up to Sam’s scrutiny. So even though I could have burst with the words stuck deep down inside me, I said nothing.

  When we got to the bus stop, she carried on walking and I followed without question. She was doing some kind of funky walk, kind of like she was kicking imaginary leaves out of her way with every step and, at the same time, didn’t really care if they were kicked out of the way or not. It took nearly fifteen minutes, till we were nearly at Dalston Junction Station, before her walk returned to normal and she finally spoke.

  ‘So what happened to you yesterday?’

  ‘I came on. I had really bad cramps so I stayed home.’ ‘Lucky you,’ she said.

  ‘Bloody lucky,’ I threw back.

  Though the lie came easily to my lips, I didn’t look at her as I spoke because I was sure the fact I was lying my head off would be painted across my face. Desperate to get off the subject I asked, ‘So did you speak to Donovan?’

  ‘I’ve got better things to do than waste my breath on that renter,’ she said. I took that to mean the talk hadn’t gone well.

  ‘Bet your mum bought you loads of stuff,’ she said, but it came out sounding kind of resentful and for some reason made me feel embarrassed.

  ‘Just some jeans,’ I said.

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘I’da preferred it if she hadn’t needed to suck up to me in the first place.’

  ‘My mum smacked me! And now she’s bought me jeans,’ she whined. ‘You’re acting like you got the worse problems in the world, man. Grow up!’

  She cut me deep and the rest of the way to school we trod in silence.

  As if God had been listening and had not approved of my lie, halfway through double French I really did come on. With it came period pains so strong I felt nauseous. I hadn’t packed any pads, so I had to go to the office to borrow one. I didn’t want to go back to my lessons and I didn’t want to go home. I returned to the office to ask for a couple of paracetamols and asked for permission to lie down in the sickroom till they took effect. The secretary gave me both.

  The sickroom was the best place on earth for a person as wretched as I felt. Small and sterile, empty of everything, even medical supplies. It was like a broom cupboard painted white, with a small camp bed inside it, and on top of that a pillow, and on that a small, thin blanket folded neatly. Just the bed and a chair from one of the classrooms, and in the corner by the window, a small sink. No pictures on the walls, nothing to distract you from the objective of being there: getting well. That morning, the dry, bare space felt like a sanctuary. I was angry with my mum, I was angry with Berris and now I was angry with Sam. For the first time in my life I felt completely alone. And old. Way older than sixteen and I wondered if my childhood was over, if the best and most carefree years of my life were already in the past, and how it had happened that out of the blue my life had become so full of confusion on every front.

  At first break Sam came looking for me. She was shamefaced, like she knew she’d been well out of order. After a quick enquiry about how I was feeling, she flopped down on the chair with her arms folded across her stomach, and I swear she looked as unhappy as I felt. It was like the thing with my mum, like again I was still angry, but at the same time I knew she was sorry, and even if I’d wanted to, it was impossible to keep up a stand-offish front, because she looked so miserable.

  ‘Are you gonna tell me what’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘I found out Donovan’s been two-timing me,’ she said.

  I tried to get my head around that. How he could be twotiming her when she hadn’t told me she was going out with him in the first place and, secondly
, I thought she wanted to blow him out, so what difference did it make if he went out with someone else?

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Even to my ears my response sounded a bit inadequate, so I quickly added, ‘That’s well weird.’

  ‘All the while he’s been going on like yeah, baby, I love you, and the whole time he’s been saying exactly the same thing to some girl Paula, blacker than my bloody dad, with big old doo-doo plaits and buck teeth…’

  I started laughing.

  ‘It’s not funny! He’s been using me, all this time. Just using me,’ she said and, click! just like that, it wasn’t funny any more. I went from being a kid to understanding everything: that she’d felt more for him than she’d ever admitted to me; that like my mum, she was heartbroken, that she’d done It. With him.

  ‘The bastard!’ I said. Her face was getting redder and redder. I reached out and held her hand. She pulled it away.

  ‘Don’t or I’ll start bawling my head off! Oh God…’ – she stood up. ‘Just thinking about it’s making me feel sick.’

  And she was. Sick. A combination of sobbing and vomiting that took us through the rest of the break. It was a lucky thing we were already in the sickroom with the sink right beside her, because if she’d had to make it to the girls’ toilets, there would have been a trail of vomit through half the school all the way behind her. Although she’d come to see me because I was the one who wasn’t well, I ended up having to get up and take care of her. Then, when we went to the office to tell them Sam had been sick and asked if she could stay in the sickroom as well, we ended up getting bawled out and were told we both had to get back to our classes, like we’d been lying and trying to skank our way out of our lessons.

  Later, when we were supposed to be revising logarithms in maths with Mr Botha, between my stomach and my thoughts I couldn’t concentrate on a word he was saying. I was lost, trying to get my head around relationships, how different they were in real life to Mills & Boons; how disappointing and seedy and unappealing. And I vowed I would never be like Sam or my mum, never cry over any man, never take their shit, never hand over the reins of my emotions, and I’d kill any man with my bare hands who ever tried to beat me. If what I was seeing was true love, I wanted no part of it. Any man who ever loved me would have to do it on my terms.