To Be Someone (32 page)

Carrying my boom box and
Little Criminals
, I went upstairs to the master bedroom. I put the CD on, programmed track nine, cranked the volume up loud, and lay down, stretching my arms and legs out on the bare chestnut floorboards, a big smile on my face.

“I’ll Be Home” flowed over me and through me and around my house, cleansing us, clearing out the old energies like burning sage, creating a fresh start.

I was home. I wanted to fill this huge empty shell with my new life, with what I would soon see as the essence of me. I would make new friends who would come over and say, “Oh, this place is really you,” and I would be relieved and thankful, because from that starting point maybe I would be able to figure out who “I” really was.

I was twenty-seven and, despite all my money, had never owned a car, lived permanently away from my parents (the Manhattan apartment was just a temporary change of scenery), or had any real financial independence. I’d never even had a serious boyfriend.

I felt as if my life was just beginning, and I was convinced that everything would be smooth sailing from then on.

My new brass door-knocker banged resoundingly, and I clattered down the stripped wooden staircase to open the front door. It heralded the start of a long procession of large square yellow boxes and pieces of furniture coming into the house, carried by four bulky and sweat-ringed delivery men. They cursed when trying to get something cumbersome around the corner leading to the second floor, and then they’d remember that they worked for Selfridges and were not allowed to swear on the job, so they would bite their lips and exhale sharply instead. One of the mattress bases and two of the bigger wardrobes proved particularly onerous, but they struggled manfully on. I had not expected there to be quite so many boxes—I wondered how on earth I was going to get rid of them once I’d emptied them. The place would be up to the ceiling in packaging.

I wished Sam were there, not only for a bit of assistance with the unpacking, but so we could have had a reminisce about my last major house-moving experience, with the Shipleys Ships Safely guys. Thirteen years ago. Wow, what a lot could happen in thirteen years, I thought idly, watching two beautiful Chinese vases being carried into the dining room. Those vases alone were probably worth more than the entire houseful of furniture that had been shipped off to Freehold that day, even allowing for inflation.

But Sam had her exams coming up, and pleaded infirmity and overwork.

“I’ll help you with the fun part, spending the money, but count me out of the boring unpacking bit,” she’d said airily when we last met. I couldn’t blame her, but I wished she could have just been there for moral support.

Several hours later the men had eventually cleared the huge Selfridges lorry. They puffed up the garden path for the last time, carrying, respectively, a standard lamp, an ironing board, a very large potted plant, and a boxed microwave oven. I signed the delivery note, and was so excited at the thought of unwrapping all my new possessions that I did not even mind when the youngest of the men asked if I would sign an autograph for his twelve-year-old daughter.

Once they had left, I tied a silk scarf determinedly around my head in the style of a 1940s munitions worker and attacked the boxes frenziedly. Sure enough, within minutes I was wading through a sea of white paper and crinkly cellophane wrapping, big boxes, and the smaller boxes in which the household items were packaged—saucepans, an iron, lightbulbs, some silk flowers, a laundry drying rack, four telephones, and an answering machine. I tried to be more organized about the procedure, breaking each big box down flat after unpacking it, and leaning the sheets of folded cardboard against the kitchen fireplace.

Everything was so … new. I felt as though I was furnishing a model house, and that I would never be able to sully these beautiful shining implements by doing anything so base as actually using them.

I braced my back to lift a very heavy canteen of silver-plated cutlery out of a box. Furniture aside, this had been one of the more expensive purchases. Sam had nearly fainted when she saw the price tag. “Are you
planning
to have ten people round to dinner?” she’d asked sarcastically.

“I might—you never know,” I had replied. I felt as though anything was possible. I made sure I bought a long enough oak refectory table to seat my eight other—so far imaginary—friends. I really liked the image of me entertaining: cooking in my own kitchen, bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, a pot of pasta and sauce bubbling fragrantly on the stove, everyone lolling around the table chatting, windows steamed up from the warmth of the room’s mutual companionship.

Yes.

I lifted the wooden lid of the canteen and admired the chunky reflective knives, forks, and spoons within. The box was lined with soft green baize, and each piece of cutlery was neatly trapped between a deep ridge at the bottom and a little green flap at the top.

I had forgotten nothing, from food processors and
cafetieres
to teapots and egg timers. Each found its own natural place in my pristine Smallbone kitchen, and gradually all the cupboards and surfaces began to chatter with the noise of tin rubbing shoulders with copper, china rattling next to glass. I felt as though my soul was filling up at the same pace as the kitchen cabinets. I trashed rectangular bits of card, with holes or pieces of nylon string at the top and bottom, that had backed slatted spoons or chopsticks or skewers, and ripped open sanitary plastic casings that had served the dual purpose of hanging the implement on the display rack, while also preventing the germ-laden breath of the customer from miring its virgin purity. I thought that I, too, had been hanging like this for years, behind a plastic sheath, pawed and gaped at, untouchable on my own display stand. But now I had torn the plastic bubble from my existence. I was no longer on display, or for sale.

After a few weeks the square shop-creases on all my sheets fell out, I figured out how to program my VCR, I stopped making fresh orange juice every day just for an excuse to use my new juicer, and I burned through the first set of candles I’d bought. I remembered not only everything that I’d purchased, but also where I kept it all. The curtains were hung, the rugs laid, pictures and photographs arranged on walls and over fireplaces. By spring, flowers had bloomed in the garden. Music filled the rooms of the house—I always had a CD in the stereo, or the radio on.

Sam passed her exams and moved in temporarily. We danced and sang together, clowning around, laughing, tipsy and sober, night or morning. My house became a home.

CYNTHIA

A
FTER THE VINNIE INCIDENT, I DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO LICK MY
wounds. I just let them bleed freely all over the house. There were framed photographs of Sam in every room, and I trailed in and out looking at each one in turn. She became the personification of my grief, a symbol of everything I’d lost. When I thought about it, it made me feel guilty. Sorry, Sam, I told her repeatedly. Forgive me. I’m sure you’ve got enough of your own stuff to think about up there, but please just help me out this one last time.

I began to wonder if I was losing my grip on reality. I didn’t eat properly, sleep, or bathe. I just roamed the house, stared at Sam’s image, or when I was completely worn out, lay on the sofa and stared at the television. I never played music anymore—it either irritated or upset me. The silence inside my home, whenever the television was off, was deep, dark, and endless, a kind of oblivion. It was how I wanted the inside of my head to feel.

The only concrete action I managed was to phone up my local newsagent and arrange to have every tabloid delivered daily to my door. I didn’t want to see Vinnie’s photos of me splashed over the front page, but equally I couldn’t bear not knowing. Plus I wouldn’t be able to sue anybody if I didn’t see the evidence. I wasn’t sure whether I felt up to being litigious, but I wanted to have the option.

When the papers arrived each morning, in a big bundle that the paperboy flung resentfully over the gate, I got my only fresh air and exercise for the day. Heavily disguised, I trotted out to meet them and then lugged them back to my front porch, where I sat down on the mosaic-tiled floor and cut the string holding them together with a pair of scissors I kept by the doormat. I didn’t even bother to take them inside the house.

I flicked rapidly through each paper, from cover to sports pages, looking only at the images, before chucking it aside. I saw inky breasts in all shapes, sizes, and colors, but no photos of me. Within five days my porch was almost full of newspapers, but I didn’t have the energy to take them outside and throw them away.

After a week of doing this and nothing else, the monotony was broken by a message on my answering machine: “Hello, Helena, sweetheart, it’s me, Cynthia. I just wanted to know how you’re getting on. Actually, I’m coming up to London tomorrow to do some shopping, and thought I might call in on my way home if that’s all right? It’s been a while—I hope you got the hat box all right. I’d love to see you. I’ll be there at about five o’clock, okay? See you then, then. Bye.”

I noticed that she hadn’t even considered that I might be out, or away.

Ugh, a visitor. Of course, I adored Cynthia, but I didn’t want to see anybody at all. Plus I’d fired my cleaner in a fit of pique three weeks earlier, and the house was a tip. Oh, who cared. Cynthia could come over and cluck over my face, we’d sit and have tea and not talk about Sam. If it made her happy, fine.

I came out to meet Cynthia when she arrived the next day, teetering up the drive, getting mud stuck to her pointy heels. She hugged me and chatted on about whether the car would be all right by the river—the tide didn’t rise that fast, did it? And she’d locked her shopping in the boot because you never could tell; someone might put a brick through the window when they saw lots of Liberty bags on the seat.…

I wondered how she could act so normal. The last thing I felt like doing was shopping for clothes at Liberty. She even had a fresh perm.

Cynthia held me at arm’s length and scrutinized me. “You’re in a bit of a state, aren’t you, love?”

“Well, losing an eye after colliding face first with broken glass tends to have that effect.” It seemed tactless to bring up the loss of my best friend, too.

We climbed into the house together, over all the piles of newspaper.

“I didn’t mean your appearance. Actually, your face isn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. I thought you’d look completely different, but you’re almost the same old lovely Helena. Bit pale, but still you.”

“What are you talking about? I’m hideous!”

I led her sulkily down the hall, our footsteps chasing dust balls out of their hiding places by the skirting board.

“Good grief, Helena, don’t be so ridiculous, love! Of course you aren’t hideous! You can hardly see the scars on your cheek, you’ve just got that tiny patch covering your eye, you’d never know anything had happened to your jaw. Okay, your nose is a little bit bumpy, but unless you really look hard, you wouldn’t notice. Honestly, I’d say you’ve recovered brilliantly!”

I felt like saying, “Don’t fob me off, I’m not a kid anymore,” but out of respect for her I refrained.

“Tea?” I offered, putting the kettle on.

Cynthia glanced around my scummy kitchen. “Yes, please. Tell you what, while you make it I’ll have a little clean-up, okay? And you can fill me in on what’s been going on.”

“Nothing’s been going on.”

Cynthia took off her coat and began to squirt washing-up liquid into the sink.

“Well, for a start, what’s with all the newspapers in the porch?”

I sighed. “My ex, Vinnie. Do you remember him?”

“We never met, but I remember Sam telling me about him. She wasn’t his biggest fan. Have you got any rubber gloves?”

Cynthia had already mentioned Sam’s name! I felt an odd little thrill, as if she’d just passed me a joint to smoke. I unearthed some unopened gloves from the utility room and handed them to her.

“Yeah, I know. She couldn’t stand him. When we were dating I didn’t think he was all bad. A bit of a sponger, maybe, but he did come to the hospital with me when Sam … But now, of course, he’s proved me completely wrong.”

“What happened?” Cynthia attacked the dishes with gusto.

I blew air in an exhausted puff out of my mouth, suddenly finding it hard to talk. “Hardly anyone knows I live here—not the press, anyhow. There was someone prowling round here for days, but I didn’t know it was Vinnie until about a week ago. I came home from a meeting and he was hiding in the bushes taking photographs of me. I know he’s going to sell them to the papers, because he’s always skint—more so now we’ve split up and he hasn’t got me paying for everything anymore. Plus the press haven’t managed to get hold of me yet, not since the accident. He’s bound to make a fortune out of me.”

I unhooked two mugs from the Welsh dresser and found some tea bags in the battered tin near the kettle.

Cynthia seemed appalled. “My God, Helena, the man’s a monster! How could anyone do something like that! Especially since he must know what you’re going through. Treacherous bastard, if I could get my hands on him, I’d—” She waved her soapy yellow gauntlets in the air, causing bubbles to fly across the room, and I couldn’t help a small grin. I’d never heard her swear before.

“Can’t you stop him? Get an injunction or something? It’s not that I think the photos would be terrible. Like I said, your face doesn’t look bad—it’s just the idea of him profiting from your misery! It’s awful!”

She sounded exactly like Sam, leaping to my defense. I didn’t know whether this made me happy, sad, or just even more confused.

“There’s nothing I can do. If someone prints a picture, then maybe I’ll be able to sue for invasion of privacy. It’s just really depressing. We parted on bad terms and he probably wants to get back at me. And you know what the worst thing is? Even his damn camera was paid for with my money.”

Cynthia came over from the sink and put a wet forearm around my shoulder. “Poor old you,” she said, with so much warmth that I began to crumble.

I shook her off. “No, please don’t be nice to me or I’ll cry. I’m fine, really. How are you? It must be just as hard for you.”

Cynthia snapped off the gloves and sat down at the table. “Let’s have that tea.”

I managed to make two cups of tea without sloshing too much over the side, and carried Cynthia’s over to her, remembering to touch the table with my free hand first so I could see where to put the cup. Having one eye meant that my depth perception was all shot to hell, and several mugs had already gone crashing to the floor because I hadn’t checked first. Then I went back for my own tea.

“I’m okay, in answer to your question. As okay as you could ever be a few months after losing your only daughter …”

Now she was openly talking about Sam. I envied her; she had obviously turned some corner in her acceptance of Sam’s death. The tremble in her voice was still there, though.

“It’s terribly hard, Helena, you know. We all loved her so much. I miss her every minute of the day—I’m sure you do, too. And Mike’s taken it dreadfully hard. He just mooches around the house all day, won’t do anything. Doesn’t even want to play golf.”

I couldn’t speak at all by then. I wondered if I’d actually preferred it when Sam’s name never came up.

“But let me tell you something amazing, Helena. You read that book Sam once lent me, you know,
Testimony of Light
? So you do believe in life after death and reincarnation and so on, don’t you?”

Cynthia took a few sips of her tea. She had an odd expression on her face: grief, sheepishness, and a look that willed me to agree with her.

I nodded warily, not sure that I would be able to handle whatever was coming.

Even though Sam hadn’t known she was going to die, in the months leading up to her death we had talked quite a lot about the concept of the afterlife. At first she wasn’t at all sure about it, and the nebulous belief system I had built from my teenage dabblings with Christianity was fine with heaven, but pretty much precluded such esoteric ideas as reincarnation. But then we’d both read
Testimony of Light
, and it had changed our way of thinking.

It was written in the sixties, allegedly by the spirit of a deceased ex-nun, communicating via automatic writing through her lifelong friend, who “physically” wrote the book. It was a completely plausible-sounding and wonderfully reassuring description of the afterlife. In heaven there were beds and gardens and artists’ palettes and canvases. There was beautiful music, rolling hills, clothing, and telepathic conversation. You were reborn into this place with a spiritual body (which was like a perfect, ethereal version of your last human body), to review your life’s lessons and bide your time until you either incarnated into a new body if you needed to learn more earthly lessons, or moved on up through the spheres of Light toward God and perfection. I was so glad Sam had read it.

I wondered if Cynthia was going to tell me that Sam had been in touch in a similar way, and already felt myself getting jealous. If Sam got in touch with anyone, there’d be trouble if it wasn’t me.…

“Well, you see, the reason I mention it is this—you know my friend Amanda who runs the Three Feathers?”

I nodded.

“Well, she’s into these, you know, spiritualist meetings. After Sam died she kept asking me to come along and try it out, but for the first few months I couldn’t face it. I thought it would be far too upsetting. Mike was against the idea, too.”

“But you went to one?”

Cynthia nodded, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “A few days ago.”

I leaned forward. “
What happened?
”

“It was incredible, Helena, I couldn’t believe it. There was this enormous woman on a stage, sort of swaying around, and then suddenly she says, in a great big deep voice, ‘I have a message from someone who left us recently after a long illness.’ ”

I was skeptical. “Why didn’t she know Sam’s name, then?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t her speaking, anyway, apparently. Someone from the Other Side was communicating through her, and that was why her voice was all gruff. Although if you ask me, it sounded a lot like her real voice.”

“What did she say next?”

“ ‘She says she wants to talk to her mother.’ I look around at everyone, but nobody else moves. Amanda nudges me, but I can’t say anything. So Amanda says, ‘Is it Sam?’ and points at me.”

My eye opened wide, and goose bumps rattled down my back. “And it was?”

Cynthia nodded, tears already beginning to leach out over her cheeks. She got up, tore herself a square of kitchen roll, and sat back down again. Involuntarily, I reached out and gripped her hand as if we were watching a horror movie together. I waited for her to continue.

“The medium says, ‘Sam wants you to know she is very happy here.’ ”

That was more than enough to start me off, too. Cynthia squeezed my hand back.

“Wait, that’s not all. Then she says, ‘But she’s telling me she’s worried about … Oh, I can’t catch the name. Someone beginning with the letter
H
—do you know who that could be?’ I said, ‘Helena?’ and the woman nods. ‘Tell Helena I love her,’ she says.”

I was sobbing by now, all restraint gone, in Cynthia’s arms. I still felt almost furious that Sam hadn’t come and talked to me herself, if she could. This was like a tantalizing glimpse of something denied me. I was delighted that Sam was happy, after all her suffering, and that she was still existing somewhere else—but until I wound things up here, and did the show, somewhere else was simply too far away.

Cynthia stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head, her arms wrapped tightly around me, holding me in the fierce protective way she used to hold Sam, the same way I always witnessed with such jealousy when I was a little girl.