To Be Someone (7 page)

“You know what? If your hair was a bit longer, I think you’d look quite a lot like Kate Bush,” she remarked kindly.

Mrs. Grant knocked on the bedroom door. “Helena, your mother’s on the telephone. She asked me to tell you to come home straightaway. The taxi’s there already.”

Sam turned off the record in the middle of “Sunday Girl,” and I felt as if all the music in the whole world had stopped, forever. I had a sudden childish desire to run into Sam’s wardrobe and hide there among all her clothes, clothes that weren’t being ripped off their hangers and crushed into packing cases to be carried halfway round the world. All the blouses that I’d borrowed; all the jeans that I couldn’t fit into. Her Olivia Newton-John nightie, which was so staticky that it could power a small generator. The shirt she’d worn when Martin Trubshaw tried to kiss her. The school skirt with the wonky hem that we’d taken up ourselves. The thick bottle-green gym knickers that she’d still have to endure and I wouldn’t. I thought I’d even miss those hideous knickers.

I felt myself crumple up from the inside.

Mrs. Grant hugged me, stroking my hair and pinching my cheek gently, as if I were six years old. “Oh, Helena, love! What are we going to do without you? Sam is going to be a right old misery-guts, I bet! Sam, please tell me you won’t start moping round here sulking all day, like that brother of yours.”

Sam managed a wavery smile and made a face.

“Don’t worry, girls, a little ocean between you won’t ruin your friendship. It would take a lot more than that. I wouldn’t mind betting you’ll be back before you know it, Helena. You’ll keep in touch, and time will fly by, you’ll see.”

“Thank you, um, C-C-C-Cynthia.” As usual, her name wouldn’t come out without a struggle, and I felt foolish and emotional.

Sam took my hand and we all walked back downstairs in silence.

Mrs. Grant gave me a final hug and kiss at the door. “Well, I’d better get back to the bottling up. Mind how you go, sweetheart, and we’ll see you soon, okay? ”

Mr. Grant flapped his tea towel at me and said, “Look after yourself, love—keep in touch,” to which I responded with a tiny smile and a sad little wave.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling this bad in my life.

Back at the house, everything was gone. Only our bulging suitcases sat in the hallway, lined up like fat policemen on parade. My mother was leaning exhaustedly against the kitchen counter, peering into an open compact, primping up her hair and powdering her nose.

“Oh, good—there you are, Helena. I think we’re almost ready, so you and Sam should say your farewells. The taxi’s already here, so make it as quick as you can, dear. Heavens, look at me—I’m worn out! This moving business certainly is tiring.” She snapped the compact shut and put it back into her cavernous patent-leather handbag.

Sam and I went upstairs, to the room that had been my bedroom since I was a baby, and would probably be some other girl’s bedroom within the next couple of months. We sat down cross-legged in the middle of the floor, and I stared at the faint Blu-Tack marks on the wall where my John Travolta posters had stuck.

The wallpaper in my room was comprised of thousands of tiny air-filled pockets, as though the walls were papered with yellow-painted bubble wrap. I used to deflate these pockets by pressing them with my fingertips—the wall all around where my pillow had been, in the radius of the length of a child’s arms, was an inverted sweep of pressed-in paper bubbles, like grass that gets flattened from being picnicked on. I had a sudden urge to pop a few last ones, for old times’ sake.

Neither of us could speak for a while. “Don’t forget me, either, will you,” Sam said eventually.

The hinges of my jaw were aching so painfully from the effort of not crying that I could hardly reply. “Now you’re being daft.” I had a sudden thought. “Do you think we’re too old to cut our thumbs and mingle our blood in a friendship pact or something? ”

“Yeah,” said Sam, wrinkling up her nose. “Definitely too old. Besides, it would hurt.”

I was relieved. I hadn’t much liked the idea, either, but it seemed appropriate. “Okay. Well, I’ll write to you all the time, and we’ll see each other for holidays, and …”

My voice cracked, and I couldn’t hold back the sobs any longer. This set Sam off again, too, and we wrapped our arms around each other, rocking back and forth in our misery. We were interrupted by my mother’s heavy tread on the stairs.

“Oh, you poor dears!” she said when she saw us. “I’m sorry, the taxi’s here. We’ve got to go.” She came over and knelt down beside us, putting an arm around each of our shoulders. I breathed in her distinctive smell, lipstick and wool. Sam rested her head against Mum and cried even harder. She let us stay like that for another minute or so, then pulled a pack of paper tissues from her pocket, giving us each one.

“Come on now, have a good blow. This isn’t easy for any of us,” she said, standing up and pulling us gently to our feet. We blew our noses, wiped the tears off our faces, and traipsed reluctantly out of the house.

Dad was in the front garden smoking a pipe, having finished loading the cases into the boot of the taxi. He came over and gave Sam a hug when we appeared at the door, which prompted fresh floods. The taxi driver, elbow out of the window, drummed his fingers impatiently on the roof of his car as Mum fussed around with keys and passports and plane tickets.

Finally we were all set, and Mum and I climbed into the backseat of the car, Dad in the front. Sam was standing on the bottom bar of the iron front gate, swinging backward and forward, crying.

As the taxi pulled away, I twisted around to look at her out of the window. She raised a forefinger to her face and traced her eyebrow with it.
“You’re one helluvan eyebrow, girl!”
she yelled suddenly.

The car turned the corner at the end of our street and she disappeared from view.

My mother looked at me, a puzzled expression on her face. “One hell of a
what
, did she say? ”

I wept ceaselessly all the way up the M3, all the way through dinner that night in a hotel near Heathrow Airport, and halfway across the Atlantic the next day.

FRIENDS

T
OBY CAME TO SEE ME AGAIN THE NEXT DAY, CARRYING TWO STYROFOAM
cups of tea.

“I checked that the coast was clear. Want to come and sit in the garden?” He offered me his forearm.

I was relieved to see him. “God, I thought you might not dare to come back after meeting my mother. I’m really sorry about that, by the way.”

“Oh, don’t worry, your mother’s fine. It’s you I’m scared of. Are you coming, then, or what? ”

I laughed and then stopped, not entirely sure that he was joking. “Okay. Let me just get my disguise on first.”

I donned my dark glasses and a long blond wig that I’d made Mum bring in from home. It was an Abba wig from a fancy dress party Sam and I went to years ago—she’d worn the matching brunette wig. I wondered what had happened to it.

Toby chuckled when he saw me.

“Wow! ‘Voulez-Vous’?”

Yes, please, I thought. “How did you know it’s from an Abba costume?” I said instead.

“Come on—all straight blond wigs are Abba wigs, aren’t they? ”

We walked slowly along the corridor and took the lift up to the hospital’s little roof garden. It was lovely to see nothing but shrubs and sky, and to feel warm air on my stitches.

“Is your mum always that, um, keen to meet your friends?” Toby asked as we sat down on a wooden bench.

“Basically, yes—the male ones, anyway. She’s just desperate to get me hitched. She’s already been hopeful that I’ll get something together with the physio, the shrink, or the surgeon. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry,” Toby said. “Mothers will be mothers. So haven’t you ever been married? ”

I took a slurp of tea. “No. I almost came close to it once—quite recently, actually. But thank God I saw the light. Vinnie was a serial-philandering, commitment-phobic, dishonest asshole.”

Toby laughed. “So you’re obviously still fond of him, then.”

I managed a smile, a rare reaction to the mention of Vinnie’s name. But I didn’t want Toby to think I was a freak for never having been married. “I know, mad, isn’t it. I picked a right dud. Of course, I had loads of, like, casual boyfriends and stuff, when I was in the band—no shortage of offers—but we were on the road for so long, it seemed a bit pointless having long-distance relationships. We just had no time to ourselves. And men did sometimes try and take advantage. I suppose I never really wised up to their little tricks.… ”

I trailed off awkwardly, but Toby didn’t seem to mind my slagging off his gender. I changed the subject. “How long have you been married, then? ”

“Five years,” Toby replied. “We were together for four years before that, too.”

“So Kate wasn’t the girl you were with when we met before, after that interview?” I asked cautiously, remembering the silly slapper who’d been all over Justin.

Toby laughed hollowly. “Thank God, no. That was Lorraine. My first nightmare relationship.”

“What happened?” I wondered if “first nightmare relationship” meant “first of many nightmares” or “first relationship, which just happened to be a nightmare.”

“I bought a flat so we could live together. It was a lot more than I could afford, but she insisted we get it and said she’d pay a third of the mortgage. To cut a long story short, I ended up paying for everything because she said she was skint. Next thing, she announced she’d saved up two thousand pounds and was off to New York on holiday without me.”

I was appalled. “That’s outrageous!”

“Yeah, I suppose it was,” said Toby glumly. “Plus it turned out she was having an affair, although by the time I finally kicked her out, I didn’t even care. I just wanted rid of her. But it was fine in the end, because I met Kate quite soon afterwards.”

I felt a pang in my chest at the mention of his wife. Suddenly I didn’t want to hear any more about Toby’s love life.

“Toby?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have many, you know, friends? ”

Toby considered the question. A sparrow hopped onto a nearby tub of crocuses and watched us suspiciously.

“Well, not really. It sounds weird, but Ruby’s my best friend, and she’s two. And Kate, of course. The pair of them have always been enough for me, in the friends department. I have a good mate called Bill, who was my best man, and a couple of university friends I see occasionally. And that’s about it—Kate’s much more sociable than me. That’s why I’m here now, actually; there are two of her art school buddies in with her and it was getting a bit crowded in there.”

Nice, I thought. Glad that I could provide a bit of backup entertainment to pass the time. I’d been sort of hoping that he might include me in his list of friends.

“What about you?” Toby asked. “You’ve got tons of cards in your room. I bet you’re really popular.”

I snorted. “Oh yeah, and my room’s overflowing with visitors—not. Apart from my mother, who doesn’t count. What does that tell you?”

Toby looked in my eyes. “It tells me that you and Sam were so close, and you were so tied up with the band from such a young age, that you might not have had the time or the inclination to make any other friends, and now maybe you’re regretting it.”

I stood up, suddenly annoyed. Bloody Toby and his bloody perfect life (well, I never said I was
rational
). “I don’t need the amateur psychology, thanks. I get enough of that from the psychotherapist, and he’s a waste of space. Anyway, I’m a bit tired now, so I think I’ll get back to my room. Maybe see you around, if you’ve got the time.”

“Ruby’ll be here tomorrow, too. I’d like to bring her in, if you don’t mind.”

I shrugged and walked away, back inside the hospital. As I pressed the button to summon the lift, a blurry reflection in the metal doors loomed up behind me. Toby had followed me in. He dropped our two unfinished cups of tea into a nearby bin with a soft slosh, reached out his hand, and gently squeezed my fingers.

“See you tomorrow, then,” he said, leaning forward and kissing me very tenderly on the lips. I was ashamed at his proximity to my mangled features, but the sweetness of the kiss was too tempting, and like a reflex, I put my hand up behind his head, pulling him closer to me. Everything about him was so inviting, as he roped me in first with the coil of his curls, and then with the warmth of his tongue gently touching mine, coaxing my poor traumatized nerve endings out of retirement. I felt like the stillborn puppy in
101 Dalmatians
being rubbed back to life, poking his tiny nose out of a towel, blinking sleepily at the world.

The kiss went on for a very long time, our bodies being pressed closer and closer together, until Toby affectionately and absently rubbed his nose against my broken one.

“YEEOUCH!” I screeched, leaping away from him, clutching my nose in both hands. My wig got knocked over one ear, and my glasses went flying, exposing the dressing on my left eye socket.

Toby jumped with fright and backed up against the lift doors, palms flat, as if I had pulled a knife on him. Then he recovered himself and rushed over to me, picking up my shades and straightening the wig.

“Helena, God, I’m so sorry! I got so carried away I totally forgot about your poor nose—are you okay? ”

I nodded mutely, doubled over, my remaining eye watering with pain. It was true to say that the moment was lost.

The lift eventually rattled up to the top floor, the doors wheezed open, and I staggered in, reeling. Toby followed, white with remorse, incapable of doing anything except pat my shoulder manfully, as if we were business colleagues at a golfing lunch.

We descended in silence to the second floor, where I got out. “Off you go to see your wife, then,” was my mumbled parting shot.

But once my nose had stopped hurting, I relived that kiss over and over again, so much so that I clean forgot to do any writing that day.

Jimmy Cliff
SITTING IN LIMBO

W
E MOVED INTO OUR NEW AMERICAN HOUSE. IT WAS MADE OF
wooden planks, with screen doors, a huge veranda with a swinging love seat, and a mind-boggling selection of numbers in its address. We had a free-standing mailbox instead of a slot in the front door. We had a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a barbecue, a coffee machine, and a video recorder with a remote control on the end of a long cable. I had never seen any of these things before, not even at the Grants’, but I still preferred our old brick-terraced house in Salisbury with its yellow front door.

Mum got her huge “yard,” complete with an even bigger set of rosebushes. She quickly introduced herself to everybody on our block, and before long was hosting canasta parties and doing charitable works. Dad—well, I wasn’t exactly sure what he did, but he seemed quite happy doing it every weekday and then coming home for a large Gordon’s and tonic.

I went to school, and instead of being in the third year at grammar school, I became a grown-up tenth-grader, actually going in a year ahead of my age because of when my birthday fell, and my good reports from the U.K. I did well at school—I had no other distractions, and anyway, everything was so different that I had to give it my full attention. I had never heard of trick-or-treating or show-and-tell, and I had no idea why you shouldn’t wear white trousers after Labor Day, who ninety-eight percent of the American presidents had been, what a soda fountain was, or where the Adirondacks were. In my adolescent
weltschmerz
I decided that I didn’t really get the
point
of America.

Sept. 17, 1980

Dear Mas Tnarg (Pig Dealer and Donkey Buyer),

Going to school here is still very weird. Everyone has lockers and there are no pegs. We don’t play lacrosse or netball; it’s all stuff like “track” (running) and tennis and basketball (which is sort of like netball except you can run with the ball).

I don’t understand what the girls in my class are talking about most of the time—they are always huddled in corners whispering about boys I don’t know, bands I haven’t heard of, and TV stars I don’t recognize. So mostly I just keep my head down and concentrate on the lessons, which are easy. I’m getting more A’s here than I ever did at South Wilts!

So no, I haven’t really made any friends yet. It’s too hard. I don’t have anything in common with any of them, and I think they think I’m a snob because I don’t talk to them. They think I’m weird, too, because of my accent and clothes, and because I didn’t know what Reeses Pieces are (turns out they’re revolting little chocolate things with peanut butter inside—puke).

I miss you so much. I miss your mum and dad, and the pub, and Melanie and Bridge and Jo. I even miss Dylan sometimes … but not very often! I bet I’ll never get a boyfriend. The boys here all seem to like girls who are cheerleaders. I’m not sure what cheerleaders do, except that there’s a lot of rah-rah-rah-ing and shaking big pom-poms and wearing very short skirts.

I want to come home for Christmas, but I don’t think Mum and Dad will let me. Mum’s gone full-on Fattypuff and hasn’t been out for ages. She keeps on at me to “join a club” or “do some sports” (me!?!), but there’s no way. I spend enough time at that stupid school every day, why would I want to spend more?

Dad bought a new car. It’s called a Lincoln Town Car, but I keep calling it a Lincoln Townhouse, and it gets on his nerves.

Here’s another quote for you. Send more back! (Although I don’t understand what “Don’t say mattress to Mr. Lambert” means—is it from Monty Python?) This is my new favorite: “She came home and sewed on the veranda.” I did try to draw you a picture of it, you know, but when I’d finished it looked more like a picture of a woman with a horse trough stuck to her leg, so I decided not to send it.

Anyway, I’m writing this in a “math” class, so I’d better go. Please say thanks to Melanie for her postcard, I’ll write back soon. (Don’t tell her I was taking the mickey, but this is what her card said: ‘Hiya, Helena. How be you these days. Okay yah I hope. Well, life is extremely boring, isn’t it—nein? Anyway, I can’t even think of anything to say—so until another day—Bye for now, Melanie’!!)

Lots of love,

   Helena xxx

P.S. The best thing about living here is yard sales. They’re like jumble sales but in people’s front gardens (yes, you were right, they are called yards). I bought a brilliant record last month—it’s reggae, and it’s called
The Harder They Come
, by lots of different bands. I didn’t know what it was when I bought it, I just liked the cover, but it’s fab. I’ll tape it for you. The best track is called “Sitting in Limbo.” xx

I knew I should have made more of an effort to fit in at school, but I felt so resentful. I’d had a social life in Salisbury. Sam and I had other friends; we were just beginning to get invited to the right parties and be noticed by the right people—but now, for me, that was all gone. It gave me a depressing, guilty satisfaction to see my mother’s face as I slouched in after school every day, grabbed a drink, and headed straight up to my bedroom to write to Sam and listen to records.

Life seemed gray, endless, boring. Most of the time I felt like a supermarket trolley lying in a ditch, one wheel spinning uselessly round and round. The movie soundtrack
The Harder They Come
was beginning to become an obsession, though. I felt it kept me sane. I played it over and over again, endlessly, particularly the mellow Jimmy Cliff track “Sitting in Limbo,” which was the least reggae-ish of the tracks, but the loveliest. It had this gorgeous trickling keyboard sound, which was like water running over stones, I thought perhaps in the River of Babylon.

After listening to that Jimmy Cliff track about four hundred times, the words had imprinted themselves onto my soul, and they bothered me.

“And I know that my faith will lead me on.”
I, too, was sitting in limbo, but I didn’t have anything to lead me on. I began to spend more and more time wondering what it was to have faith. Until one day something happened, and I found out.

Sam and I continued to send each other long, heartrending letters about how we hated our lives apart, and how we were saving up to move to London together and become famous actresses. One school lunch hour, as I was composing one of these missives in the library, a tubby eleventh-grader with frizzy brown hair and hippie sandals came up to me.

“You’re Helena, aren’t you?” she said.

I nodded, taking in both her cool batik shoulder bag and her rather horrible nylon flared skirt.

“I’m Margie. I live on the next block from you. Your mom talked to mine at the grocery store the other day and told her how lonely you are here.”

I blushed and looked at the floor, making a mental note to kill my mother.

“Well, listen, if you’d like to meet some cool kids, some friends and I have a kind of study group every Wednesday. We hang out at my place and listen to Carole King and chat. Why don’t you come along next time? Six o’clock at 1114 Connecticut Street. It would be, like, totally rad if you could make it!”

It took me so long to get around the “totally rad” bit that I didn’t properly take in the fact that I’d been invited somewhere. Then I was delighted and terrified in equal measures.

That Wednesday after school I spent ages putting on black eyeliner and back-combing my hair into a fashionable bird’s nest. I carefully put on my smart black pinstriped jacket (half of a man’s suit I’d found in a thrift shop) and black tube skirt, with a turquoise shirt and a long string of white plastic beads knotted around my neck to complete the ensemble. As I dressed, constantly and critically looking at my reflection in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door, I worried nervously about whether there would be either alcohol or boys present at this soiree.

At 6:10—fashionably late—I rang the door chimes of 1114, wishing Sam were with me. I could already hear strains of “It’s Too Late” wafting out into the hallway and under the front door, and I took this to be a good sign.

Margie let me in. She took a brief startled look at my panda-eyes. “Oh, wow, you look … great! Come on in and meet the gang.”

I followed her through to the living room, where seven or eight older kids from school were sitting on the shiny three-piece suite or the violent orange hairball-swirled carpet. Although I had never spoken to any of them before, I knew immediately and with a sinking heart that most of them were very definitely what Sam and I would call prats.

“Hey, everybody, this is Helena. She just moved here from Great Britain! Helena, this is Simon, Randy, Bethany, Mary Ellen, Rich, Sue, and Susie.”

“Hello,” I said unhappily. I observed them all looking nonplused at my party clothes.

“Have a seat, Helena. We won’t bug you with questions about who Prince Charles is dating until later—we’re about to start.”

I sat down on the edge of a small flip-up chair, with a feeling of dread. My fears were confirmed when suddenly lots of pale green hardback books appeared and Carole King was turned down to an inaudible hum.

“Bethany, why don’t you start today?” said Margie.

Bethany flipped open her Bible, for of course that was what it was, and announced dramatically, “Psalm 121!”

I was frozen to my chair with horror and embarrassment, feeling as if the black kohl circles around my eyes were spreading across my face until I was sure I looked like a coal miner in drag. Resentful thoughts spun around in my head as Bethany’s strong voice rang on for what seemed like hours. I had changed my mind—Jimmy Cliff could keep his faith, although I bet he’d never had to sit around with nerds like this lot. It seemed to me that a much nicer way to find God would be by hanging out with Jimmy, Toots and the Maytals, and Desmond Dekker. Was Jah the same as Jesus, anyway?

Then Mary Ellen took over. The lilt and cadences of her voice were softer than Bethany’s, and her emotive intonation of the ancient verses somehow made it easier for me to listen. After a while I began to feel drawn in by it. The words were soothing, justly measured, and poured as though from a jug of something thick and comforting. I had a sudden image of my mother stroking the damp hair back from my flushed forehead when I’d once had flu.

The other kids still seemed dweeby to me, but by the end of that oddly peaceful evening, I felt as if I “got it,” and that particular “it” was something I might need. After some earnest discussion of the Psalms’ meanings and merits, in which I declined to participate, a glass of lemonade and side B of “Tapestry,” I left, agreeing to come to their church that Sunday. And feeling I would rather die than admit to anyone what I’d just done.

I certainly couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents. On Sunday morning I just slipped out of the house, knowing that they probably wouldn’t even realize I’d gone. I had passed the church many times before without really noticing it—it was one of those modern and bland-looking redbrick buildings with an abstract swirl of stained glass above the front doors, and a handkerchief of grass on either side of the path from the sidewalk.

I skulked around outside for a few minutes, my qualms getting worse. Two chirpy ladies in loud hats clutching, respectively, a sheaf of service sheets and a stack of hymnbooks spotted me and pounced enthusiastically.

“Come in, come in! Welcome to our church. We haven’t seen you before, have we? Well, I’m sure you’ll enjoy our lovely service. My name is Thelma and this is Veronica. What’s your name? Please don’t forget to fill out a visitor’s slip you’ll find at the end of your pew, and here, let me pin this nice pink ribbon on your lapel so we all know you’re a newcomer!”

I thought I might throw up. There may as well have been a large neon arrow pointing at my head, flashing the words
HEATHEN FOREIGN STRANGER
. I wanted to go home, but the ribbon on my jacket bound me to the place like a prisoner’s ID number tattooed on his arm. It would have seemed churlish to undo the pin, throw down the ribbon, and just leave. I stood in the entry porch and dithered, arms full of a churchgoer’s paraphernalia, unable to either walk out or go inside.

At that moment, Mary Ellen and Randy arrived and rescued me. “Helena! Hi! Glad you could make it. Come sit with us.”

I smiled, semi-gratefully, and allowed myself to be swept inside and up the aisle to a pew, worryingly close to the front of the church. It was nice not to be the lone outsider anymore, but I still would rather have lurked in a distant corner at the back by the doors, for easy escape.

I stared at my selection of hymnbooks, prayer books, and pamphlets. Mary Ellen and Randy were on their knees next to me, and as I couldn’t quite make myself join them, I acted busy by looking up in my hymnbook all the hymns advertised for the service. They were posted on the wall, magnetic numbers stuck onto a nasty white board. This did not take very long, so I watched a jolly girl guitarist strumming gently at the front of the congregation. She wasn’t playing “Kumbaya,” but she might as well have been.

After a few more minutes the choir—mostly women, large and red-cassocked—and minister wandered in and the service opened with a lusty rendition of “Amazing Grace.” So far so good, although it was strange to me that the choir just sat on chairs in front of the congregation instead of being tucked away in choir stalls out of sight. There was no organ, just a tinny upright piano and a couple of guitars. I didn’t like the modernity of the whole setup. It seemed to me that a church wasn’t a proper church unless it was ancient and had a high altar, a corrugation of stout organ pipes running up the wall, tombstones under the floor, and a lot of processing around with banners and so on. Where I came from the hymns were posted on an old wooden tablet, probably similar in shape to the one Moses had brought down the mountain, big wooden squares with numbers on them slotted into grooves in the tablet. None of this white plastic and Velcro, which, in combination with the pine pews and wooden floors, made for an ambience that seemed too lightweight for any serious spiritual conviction.