Little Bang, page 21
Then there are interviews with women who’ve had abortions. Women who were raped. Women whose babies wouldn’t have survived. Women with too many kids and too little money. I guess the pro-choice protesters know no one is buying #TrustAllWomen, because it seems to me like they’re not just asking for trust, they’re asking for pity. Permission. Forgiveness. Empathy. And they’re not talking about all women either. There’s no one like me in the interviews.
At the end of the TV report, an Irish woman on a Skype call says she’s planning to fly home from California just to vote. Her T-shirt says, #TheNorthIsNext! “I’ll be travelling to vote and I’ll be thinking of the thousands of Irish women who have had to travel to get healthcare,” she says. “We have to make that a thing of the past.”
“Going somewhere nice?” an elderly woman says to me, heaving her carry-on bag onto my table because the cafe is packed.
“Oh, um … no. Yes. I mean … just visiting a friend.” I abandon my tea and hurry out, blushing.
Back in the lounge, the flight is delayed again.
On the phone with Cara it all seemed so possible, but now I feel like I’m fighting Fate. Like I’m trying to cheat the coin toss, escape the universe I’ve been given.
I can’t do this.
Sid
I stare at my phone, which is dancing on the hall table, pumping out a tuneless ringtone. Who would be phoning me? Even Lucille knows I don’t answer my phone; she has to text me.
I reach a hand out gingerly, like it might bite me, turning it over on the last ring to see Mel’s name just before it rings off.
Christ.
Now? She chooses to contact me now? I am literally on my way through the door, guitar on my back, lyrics in my pocket, fingers fishing out my keys.
My hand hovers over the phone. I should call her back. If she actually rang me, it must be important. I should—
The phone buzzes.
Mel
Mel: Sid, are you there?
I want him to tell me to go. Or tell me to come home. I just want someone to tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.
Sid
My heart sinks. Because I know what’ll happen if I text her back. She’ll want to talk about everything. She’ll want me to come round.
The phone buzzes again.
Mel
Mel: I need to talk to you.
Sid
And I can’t just say, no, I’m busy, can I?
Mel
Mel: Can you call me back? Please?
Sid
But if I don’t reply, then I don’t have to choose.
I watch the phone for another minute. This is stupid. If she texts again, just once more, I’ll answer it.
But it sits silently on the table. I pick it up and slip it into my pocket. I’m already late.
Mel
I guess somewhere in my head I had a vision of him jumping into a taxi, dashing to my side. Coming with me, holding my hand, saying, we’re in this together.
Instead, I sling my rucksack over my shoulder and walk towards the gate, alone.
CHAPTER 18
Sid
Cassie told me to talk between songs, so I mumble into the mic, “Um, thanks. This is a new one. I wrote it at one a.m., so you can blame the sleep deprivation, I guess.” That gets a laugh. “It’s called um…” I swallow, and resist glancing at our table, looking down at the scribbled lyrics I’ve taped to the mic stand instead. At one a.m. they seemed like a good idea. “It’s called ‘The Indelible Girl’.”
Deep breath. I draw the plectrum slowly over the strings and they ring out individually, light as the fairy lights behind me, warm and full as the dimly lit audience in The Stage. It really is a class guitar.
Four bars. Then I start to sing.
Ink and skin
doesn’t begin
to say the ways
you’ve written yourself down.
You are a history
written for all to see,
written indelibly.
But do you wish
someone would kiss
those inside jokes
on your inner wrist?
Now I wish my skin
was more than paper thin
where you wrote your name
and the ink dried in.
I don’t know if it’s just that I feel self-conscious singing this song or if there really is a shift in the atmosphere but it’s like the room has gone quiet. Like people have stopped to listen. Four more bars instrumental, then another verse.
Ink and skin
and covering
for all the ways
you’ve ever been let down.
Is there a history
written for you and me,
written indelibly?
And do you wish
someone would kiss
those inside jokes
on your inner wrist?
How I wish my skin
was more than paper thin
where you wrote your name
and the ink dried in.
When the last notes die, the applause is definitely different. Bigger, warmer, longer. There’s even a couple of whoops. I unplug and dash back through the crowd before it stops completely, to find Cassie, not clapping, at our table. I’m suddenly more nervous than I was onstage, wondering what she’s thinking. It’s just a song. She told me to write “something mushy”, but she’ll know it’s just a song, right? It doesn’t mean anything. She’ll get it.
“Wow, Sid,” she says quietly. Shyly. Then she grins. “That one was good.”
Gavin invites me back before the last act has even played. “I liked your new one, man,” he says. “Big final’s in May. Hope you can make it. I think that new one would be good to record but it’ll be up to the audience. Maybe some backing instruments?”
“Like a cello?”
“A cello! Far out! I love a cello!” He wanders off, tossing back sunflower seeds.
Cassie and I are so buzzed we stay right to the end, cheering for the other acts, singing along, even dancing. Three different people come up to me and say they liked my new song. We have such a good time I can’t believe we’re stone-cold sober and I just want to enjoy it. Just one great night before I have to deal with whatever’s going on between me and Mel. It doesn’t seem that much to ask.
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Cassie comes running back from the bar. “I just told the barman I’m the Indelible Girl and he gave me free crisps!”
“Ha! I didn’t get crisps and I wrote it!”
“Try being pretty.”
“She said modestly.”
Cassie just bats her eyelashes at me and pulls me up to dance again.
By the time I walk her home, and then get home myself, it’s almost two a.m. But the lights are on. And Lucille’s in the hall, holding the landline phone with one hand and tying her dressing-gown belt with the other.
“No. No, still nothing,” she’s saying.
“Who’s that?” I mouth.
“Yes, he’s just walked in.” She looks at me. “But I don’t think—”
“What is it? Give me the phone.”
“I don’t think you should worry, Mr Watson.”
“Give me the phone, Lucille!” I wrestle it off her, feeling sick suddenly. “Hello? Mr Watson? What’s wrong? Is it Mel?” Nothing that involves a phone call at two a.m. can be good.
“Sid? Is Melanie with you? Have you seen her?” Mr Watson’s gruff voice is urgent.
“What? No. I haven’t seen her since…” I can’t even remember which day, which makes me feel like a complete ballbag.
“She didn’t come home tonight. She said she was staying at Becca’s but Becca called here for her earlier and she knew nothing about it. She’s taken some clothes. Do you know where she could be? She’s not answering her phone. Her mother is frantic.”
“I … I have no idea. I haven’t spoken to her since…” and then I remember the phone call. “Wait, she called me. She left a message but I was on my way out and didn’t have time to reply.” I don’t say that I deliberately didn’t reply because I didn’t want to choose between her and the gig. Like not replying wasn’t a choice.
“What did she say? Where was she?”
“She didn’t say.”
Lucille is standing in the corner, chewing her nails and watching all this. “Sid, give me the phone,” she says quietly. And I hand it to her like I handed her the news that Mel was pregnant, because I didn’t know what else to do with it.
“Mr Watson? Listen. Mel is a sensible girl. But she’s also pregnant and unsure if she wants to have a baby— Yes, she’s said that to me, more than once— I don’t know why she hasn’t said it to you. Maybe— Look, I’m just saying, if she’s disappeared, don’t you think it’s likely that she’s—?”
My jaw hits the floor. No way. No way. Lucille is so wrapped up in what she wants that she just makes up all sorts of shit!
“Actually, lots of girls go on their own,” Lucille is saying. “Some don’t have a choice. And they manage just fine. Mel is perfectly capable— I know, but— Well, at least it would mean she’s safe and— Yes, safe— I don’t think getting the police involved will— Please, I know you must be up to high doh, I’d feel the same in your position, but I’m sure she’s—” She lowers the phone, which has gone dead, then hangs up the receiver and rubs her face.
I stare at her for several seconds in the darkness of the hall. She stares back.
“You knew.”
“Sid, love,” she barely whispers it.
“You knew. You knew!”
She winces, but says nothing.
“You did this! There’s no way Mel could’ve done this on her own. She wouldn’t have. You helped her, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” I roar.
“No! I just… She mentioned—”
“How could you?! How could you do this to me?!”
“Sid, I tried to tell you to—”
“It’s my baby! Mine! Not yours!”
“But—”
“No! No, Lucille! No! This is … this is…” There aren’t words for what this is.
Lucille is crying. Lucille never cries. I don’t care. I could kill her. I could actually wring her fucking neck. Instead I kick the stupid Buddha ornament and he smashes into a million shards on the tiled floor. She backs away in her bare feet.
“Sid, calm down.”
“Don’t speak to me,” I say, heading for the front door. “Don’t ever speak to me again.”
Mel
Late on Saturday night, I spend the last of my birthday money on a taxi home from the airport because I can’t face the bus. The driver is chatty, but I just stare out of the window until he gives up. I don’t care if it’s rude. The cramps aren’t bad, but the big sanitary towel they gave me to wear feels sodden and gross. I threw up on the plane but couldn’t get to the toilet because the fasten seatbelt light was on, and I spent the whole flight terrified that the air hostess staring at me knew. You’re not supposed to be on a plane twenty-four hours after an operation. You’re supposed to be in bed with magazines and sympathy and a hot-water bottle. I’ve had too many painkillers on an empty stomach. I’m tired and shaky and convinced I smell, and I just want to have a shower and then sleep for a hundred years.
Mum and Dad appear in the doorway, framed in the light from the hall, as soon as the car pulls up. I can see from the end of the drive that Mum’s spent all day crying and Dad’s face is so tight it’s almost closed up on itself. Smug Nigel must still be in Dublin, but Leah is in the living-room window. I guess she stayed behind because I was missing.
My bag weighs a ton. My feet weigh a ton. Everything about me is heavy. I want to lie down. I want to be in a room where I can shut the door and collapse on the bed and cry without people watching me. I’m so sick of people watching me. And discussing me and poking and prodding and examining me and ordering me around.
No chance of that though.
“I just don’t understand,” Mum whimpers, wringing a sodden handkerchief. “I feel like I don’t know who you are any more. This is not how you were raised.”
Dad stands with his arm stiffly around her, staring at the hall carpet. “This can wait, Janet. She must be upset,” he murmurs.
“Upset?!” Mum explodes. “You want me to feel sorry for her? For her? She should be ashamed! You should be ashamed! I can’t even look at you!”
Leah appears in the doorway, her face as tear-streaked as Mum’s. A week ago, I’d have been running around trying to gauge everyone’s feelings, trying to make everyone happy. Now I’m just too tired. I heft my bag and start up the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Mum screeches after me. “You don’t just walk away! You don’t just walk away from things you don’t like! You selfish little… Girls are thrown out for less than this, you hear me? You hear me? What do you have to say for yourself?!”
I close the bedroom door, crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep.
Sid
She doesn’t even tell me she’s home. I hear it via Mr Watson, who phoned Lucille, who called Dev and told him to find me and tell me, because she doesn’t actually know where I’m living now and I won’t answer her texts.
Mrs Edgar has been pretty decent. I asked if I could kip in her shed for a bit, until I could find somewhere else, but she put me in her spare room, across the hall from Cassie. The room is pink and musty and the ancient single mattress is like a marshmallow. She hasn’t asked why I’m here or made me talk about why I’m stomping around the garden attacking weeds with a hoe. We just watch gardening shows on TV together, and I flick through her huge collection of gardening books, and she teaches me about the plants that are magically starting to appear out of what I thought were dead twigs. I’m doing her gardening to earn my keep and she says having “a man around the place” might convince her daughter she’s being looked after. Cassie was looking after her just fine, and I think if her daughter got a look at this particular “man” she might be more worried than ever, but I just thank her and get on with the digging because it’s the only thing keeping me sane right now.
I did have to tell Cassie everything.
“That was your girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s … was your—?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Right.” It was three a.m. and we were sitting at the kitchen table. Two hours ago we were leaving The Stage, singing, and messing around as we walked home. Now she was refusing to look at me.
“Cassie. I owe you all kinds of apologies and explanations, but…” I must have looked as bad as I felt because her face crumpled into grudging pity.
“Whatever. Go to bed, Sid.”
We haven’t really talked since. We just work side by side in the garden, silently. Though, when I told her today that Mel was back and I was going to see her, she did look at the tree stump I was attacking with an axe and say maybe I should cool off first.
“Why?” I said, swinging the axe again. “Won’t change anything.”
At the door, Mrs Watson gives me an awkward hug, which is a first, and then leaves me with Mel. I half expected her to be in bed, looking deathly pale. I don’t know how people look after an abortion but that’s how Lucille looked after she had her appendix out.
But Mel’s sitting in the living room, flicking through TV channels like nothing’s happened. She mutes the TV as I sit down on the other end of the sofa. Neither of us speaks.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I say eventually.
She shrugs. “I don’t know what people want me to say.”
I blink at her. “Oh, I don’t know. How about, sorry I went behind your back, Sid? Sorry you dropped out of school trying to do the right thing and then I just fucked off and did whatever I wanted anyway?” I can feel my voice getting tighter and louder. “Sorry I didn’t even bother to discuss it with you? Like my opinion doesn’t matter? Like I’m nobody?”
“I tried,” she whispers.
“What?”
“I called you. From the airport.”
“It was a bit late then! You never believed I could do this, did you? You were never serious about me. Why didn’t you just say that at the start? You’re just like everyone else!”
“Where were you?”
“What? I was out, OK? So I missed a phone call. That makes this my fault?” I stand and start pacing.
“I’d hardly seen you.”
“You said you wanted space!”
“Were you out with that girl?” She raises her face for the first time and looks at me.
“Don’t you dare!” I say. “Don’t you dare try to turn this around. We’re talking about what you did here, Mel. You. Not me. I’m not the one who lied!”
“You were with her, weren’t you?” She snorts a tiny laugh, like she expected no better.
“That’s— That’s nothing to do with anything! I’m not the one who ran off!”
“Are you living at her house now? Lucille said you’d moved out.”
“I’m not the one who went behind everyone’s backs!”
“Sid, I’m not blaming you for anything.”
“Good! Because I’m not the one who murdered our baby!”
She jerks back like I’ve slapped her. There’s a long silence and she closes her eyes, holds her breath. But I refuse to go to her. I don’t care if she cries.
