Pandora’s Box
Gordon didn’t say anything else to me apart from ‘That’s real nice’ and then he kind of shrugged and said, ‘Well, see ya’. And then Lily came out at that moment so I was pretty glad he was gone because I don’t want her getting involved. Next week I’ll get to talk to him for longer because she’ll be at the dentist and I’ll have the field clear, all to myself. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next seven days without seeing him. It’s torture. But a kind of wonderful torture at the same time because him being there has made going to practice so much more exciting. I’ve been trying to find out what other times he and Amelie are there but I’ve got to be careful. If anyone finds out they will make so much fun of me that my life will be one Holy hell, as if it isn’t bad enough already.
It’s all because I have to be the one to dress up and be the ‘boy’, of course. When we were younger it didn’t matter. Nobody cared. But now that the other kids are older it’s the kind of thing they notice and they laugh at me for it and I hate, hate it! I don’t want to be a bloody boy, I never did. But now Mum and Dad say me and Lily have got to stay together for at least one more season because we’ve been dancing together for so long nobody else is going to be able to partner her as well as I can.
I don’t want to have my hair cut short any more. I don’t want that nasty top hat or to have that moustache painted onto my face.
Gordon doesn’t know because he only sees me on a Tuesday evening after we finish general dance fitness classes. Then I’m allowed to wear my pink leotard and look like any other girl so he doesn’t know. If he did he’d probably hate me and call me nasty things like all the other boys do. God, it doesn’t bear thinking about, it really doesn’t.
Ugh! It brings it all back, it really does. I would never have thought that just a few simple words written in a diary could have such a strong emotional impact, but it’s almost as good as a time-machine, this. I’m transported. I’m actually there.
‘Mu-um, are you coming? Mu-um?’
‘Just one second, Dan. Do the bits of your maths that you can and I’ll be along in a moment.’
He’s waiting upstairs. I said I would just finish in the kitchen but I’m taking an age over it because I was feeling so upset about Annie-Jo.
‘I’ve already done the bits that I can do.’ His voice is languid. He’s probably hoping that I’ll get sidetracked and forget all about it but I can’t, I mustn’t.
‘Okay I’ll be up at exactly quarter to. Five minutes.’
Five minutes—just one more and then I’ll have to leave reading the rest of these diary entries till later.
11 March 1978
I had to make the most of it tonight, I knew that and I went for it. I kept thinking there’s never going to be another good time like this when Liliana is out of the picture. It couldn’t have been better really. First, she and Dad got stuck behind a long appointment at the dentist. I got a message through the office that they were going to be delayed. Then that was nearly ruined when my class overran by fifteen minutes. My heart felt so tense in my chest it was just unreal. I kept thinking he’s going to be gone by the time I get out of this bloody lesson, my whole week of waiting will have all been for nothing and I can’t stand this, I really can’t.
But when I finally got out, blasting through the double-doors like a bat out of hell, he was still there, leaning all casually up against the doorway opposite, waiting for me. I could feel it. He smiled at me and then he…just sort of put his head a little to one side, indicating the courtyard, and I followed him out without speaking. And outside there was a chill spring wind blowing, I could feel it goose-pimpling up my arms but I was too excited to feel any cold at all. It was getting dark, quarter to five already, and there was only the lamplight from the street opposite for us to see each other by. It didn’t matter.
I was worried I wouldn’t know what to say. Gordon was so quiet at first I thought maybe he’s shy too, but he wasn’t. Not at all.
They say you always remember your first kiss, but what do you remember? Is it the surprise of first having someone else’s ardent lips on your own, that feeling of having them so near, dangerous and exciting as it is, the heat of their body up close against yours? If we’d had more time to get to know each other, more opportunities during the week to meet, I would have hung back forever shy, I would have taken forever to let him get near to me.
But tonight…all I could think of was, I won’t get to see him again for another seven whole days. And when I do, next time, stupid Lily will be there. And by then maybe someone will have told him about my nasty tuxedos and painted-on moustaches and he will have gone right off me. Hell, if I were him I would have!
So we kissed. And I didn’t feel shy and awkward about it, not at all. I felt powerful and feminine and beautiful even though we didn’t say a word, no, I swear, we didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. Only when, after an entire age had passed at last I heard my father’s voice calling through the corridors inside; I heard his footsteps coming quickly and the janitor following behind him saying grumpily ‘I’m already locking up here’. And only then did Gordon let me go. He had this peaceful smile on his face. He said, ‘See ya’. That was all he said but it echoed in my heart all the way home and for a long time afterwards. I think it will echo in my heart forever.
Reading that has just lightened up my day, it really has. I didn’t always feel like such a dried-up old husk of a fruit bat like I do now. I did once know what it felt like to fall in love with someone. Puppy love, maybe, but who cares what it was? It’s all come rushing back and it’s made me feel all funny inside.
‘Mum, it’s quarter to already!’
Hell, so it is, and I did promise Dan.
I don’t want to read on, though. I’m not really sure why. It reminds me of who I used to be, I suppose. It reminds me of the person I might still be, inside, underneath the crusty layers of all the years and all the vicissitudes. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
‘Coming, Danny. I’m coming.’ I jump up, pushing the journal back in Pandora’s box. I’m going to have to find some other hiding place, well and truly hidden out of sight. I don’t want any of the kids cottoning on to this before I have a chance to destroy it.
‘Okay, Mum?’ Shelley’s caught a glimpse of the smile in my heart, I know she has, because she’s just looked at me curiously, passing me on the way to the stairs.
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her automatically. Maybe I am, too, I think. I’ve just had a reminder of the fact that, after all, I am still human. I am still capable of remembering what it feels like to love and be loved.
Maybe at the end of the day that’s the only thing that counts?
7 Shelley
Miriam’s mum came round this morning. When she came through the door I thought she was someone else. She didn’t look the same. Her hair has gotten much thinner than it used to be, much lighter, almost white. Her face has been leached of all its colour, of all its life. I think she was wearing a thin beige jacket; the kind that the old ladies wear who queue up at the post office on a Thursday morning. She’s gotten old.
She’s not that old, though. She’s only the same age as my mum is. She shouldn’t look like that.
‘I’m getting there,’ she said, when Mum asked her how she was coping. ‘Slowly.’ She wanted to see me, to say hello, and I wanted to see her too, but when I came into the hallway she looked at me so long and hard I felt she might be X-raying me with her eyes. It was as if she was trying to look right through to my bones, to see how they were holding up, assessing just how much longer I might have left.
She told me I was looking well, but she didn’t say it with any happiness in her voice. She made me feel guilty. When they went to drink their tea I left them and went into my bedroom, which is downstairs nowadays. My heart was pounding. My arms felt all weak. I needed to stay there for a minute and just rest. I didn’t want to be with them, but I still peered at them from where I was behind my door. I felt hypnotised.
Miriam’s mum and her husband David have split up now, apparently. She said they didn’t know how to be together any more; they couldn’t remember who they each were.
I wondered if my mum would remember who she was, once I’d gone. It seemed a strange kind of thing for Miriam’s mum to say, and it stayed with me for a long time afterwards.
‘Well at least that’s one bridge I won’t have to cross.’ Mum had smiled tightly at her. She had no one to split up with. I guess that’s what she meant.
‘Splitting with David was the least of my worries,’ Miriam’s mum had shrugged. ‘I’m leaving for Spain in three months. I’m leaving this country for good. I’m taking her ashes with me. I plan to plant them beneath an olive tree under the glorious Mediterranean sun.’
‘I’m sorry about David,’ Mum said.
‘Look, I just don’t care any more. When you see someone you love—your child—go through that suffering, everything else in the world…it just turns a shade of black or white or grey. Nothing matters. In the end,’ she looked at my mum sharply, ‘I just wanted her gone.’
‘Was it that bad?’
They had lowered their voices. They were talking in loud whispers but this house is full of echoes. I could still hear every word.
‘It is far worse than they told us to expect, I’m afraid.’ She shot Mum a pitying look. ‘I won’t go into the details but you will have to brace yourself for it. We were desperate, in the end. To say that her passing away was a blessed relief would be an understatement.’ She stopped, then, as Mum put her hands over her face and began, noiselessly, to cry. I wanted to go and smack that woman in the face just then. I would have liked to storm in there and tell her to get the hell out. What business did she have, coming in here doing that to my mum, just because she’d been through a terrible time?
All that she’d been through—it must have changed her. She never used to be like that, and now she was regretting it because I could hear her saying, ‘I’m so sorry, Rachel. I shouldn’t have said that. I wanted to warn you, that’s all, so that you would be prepared for what is to come. Maybe there is something you can take some strength from?’ She hesitated. ‘Do you ever go to church?’
Mum shook her head at that. She blew her nose into a tissue. ‘It might not be the same for Shelley,’ she said when she put her face up. ‘Research is giving us new medicines all the time, things are getting better. And maybe the new doctor, Ari Lavelle, maybe he’ll be able to come up with some things that Doctor Ganz never thought of?’
‘I won’t hear a word spoken against Doctor Ganz,’ Miriam’s mum flared up and you could see Mum had hit on a real nerve there. ‘Doctor Ganz was the only one out of the lot of them who really cared. If you had your eyes open you’d know they’ve only taken away his consultancy and his research post to allow that Lavelle man to come in and…’ Our visitor sniffed loudly. I could see her fingers clutching tightly on to the handles of her bag. ‘I blame Doctor Lavelle, personally, for what happened to Miriam. She only started getting much worse when he came in and began messing around with her dosages and asking questions that Doctor Ganz never asked us. Messing things up, basically.’
‘I really think that might be a little…’ Mum didn’t know what to say, I could tell.
‘You got Doctor Ganz back for a little while, though, didn’t you?’ There was a hint of resentment in Miriam’s mother’s voice now. ‘I heard Doctor Ganz came back because Lavelle had some more important work to do at his other base in the US. But I hear the old man’s back at the department now, causing mischief again?’
‘I…I really don’t know about that. I believe that Ari Lavelle has very good credentials. And I still think…I think maybe there’s hope for Shelley yet. She may react differently to the drugs they give her. Everybody’s different you know.’
‘They are. You watch out for him, that’s all I’m saying. At least you can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.’ Miriam’s mum stood up then and pushed a small white card into her hand. ‘Anyway, I’ve taken up enough of your time. We’re having a memorial service for Miriam. The details are on the card. Let us know if you can come. Shelley, too, of course, if she’s able.’
‘Why would I be coming if she weren’t able?’ Mum’s voice had a new energy to it. I watched her as she shoved the front door closed with her foot. It slammed more loudly than seemed polite. I hoped Miriam’s mum hadn’t got offended. I don’t know why I cared, but I did. I thought maybe we should still try and be kind to her.
I remembered how many times she had brought Miriam to our house and what good friends we had all been then, Miriam’s mum and my mum, Miriam and me. The last time they had been here Miriam had been laughing and joking because she’d just made her mum buy her a bright green coat which made the ginger of her hair stand out even louder. She might have been sick, but she was still so full of life.
Now Miriam was ashes. I tried to think about that but it was more than my head could take. Where did the person go if they were ashes? Where was I going to go? What if I didn’t want to go there?
I’d talked about this sort of thing before, with Solly. Solly is very spiritual. He told me that Miriam would probably reincarnate sometime; that I shouldn’t worry. I told him that if I’d had the shit life she’d had then I wouldn’t bother reincarnating. Besides, it might sound selfish but I was more worried about myself just at that moment. It was going to be my turn next. I didn’t want to disappear into a pot of ashes under an ornamental tree.
‘I suppose you heard most of that?’ Mum reappeared from the front door looking tired and worn; and angry. I nodded.
‘Just who the hell does she think she is?’ she stormed.
‘She hasn’t come to terms with it,’ I muttered. ‘She’s angry that she had to go through seeing Miriam suffer so much. It’s that which has made her bitter.’ And the change of doctors, I thought. She hadn’t got over that yet, clearly. What if she’d got a point, though? I pushed that thought out of my mind quickly.
‘I know, I know. I feel sorry for her too. Even though I’m angry with her.’
‘Don’t be.’ I looked Mum straight in the eye for a minute. ‘She’s just jealous, you know, because you’ve still got me.’
‘You’re right.’ I could see Mum had tears in her eyes, though she was trying to hold them back. ‘It’s just…why do people have to change so much?’ she muttered under her breath. ‘First Annie-Jo, now her.’ She picked up the cushion where Miriam’s mum had been sitting and gave it a good punch then set it back down again. ‘Why can’t things ever just stay the same?’
They don’t, though. The unspoken thought hung in the air between us. I wasn’t going to stay the same, either, even though we were both in the habit of pretending otherwise.
Sickness.
That’s what was coming.
I looked at Mum’s face and I could tell exactly what she was thinking.
‘It’s not going to be the same for me, Mum, I promise you that.’ I don’t know if that made her feel any better, me telling her that I wasn’t going to suffer. It made me feel better, though, knowing that I wouldn’t be putting her through that final hell. It strengthened my resolve, as she would say.
Maybe Miriam’s mum had done us a favour after all.
8 Shelley
SugarShuli says: Hi Shelley. Am I the luckiest girl in the world or what? Sending you a jpg of Jallal so you can see why. (Isn’t he fit?) Got it through last night. Please don’t be jealous, just be pleased for me. Mum and Dad want to hold the wedding in the summer, so you should be okay to come, yes?
ShelleyPixie says: Jallal looks nice.
SugarShuli says: Nice? Is that all you can say?
ShelleyPixie says: He looks nice, Surinda. I hope he’s good to you when you get married. What is he like?
SugarShuli says: Haven’t met him yet. He comes over next month. My parents sorting him out with a job, that sort of thing.
ShelleyPixie says: Sounds real strange to me, to think of marrying someone you haven’t even met.
SugarShuli says: To you it does. We spoke over the phone for the first time yesterday too. I couldn’t sleep all night after hearing his voice. He sounds seriously sexy, my friend.
ShelleyPixie says: Sure.
I’m thinking maybe what Surinda is doing isn’t so very off after all. Krok jokes all the time that he’ll come for me one day to marry me and sometimes I pretend that it’s true. Only because I have nothing better to do. I know it’s just his online chat. But sometimes I pretend; and if it ever really did come true—let’s just say ‘if’—I wonder if I really would elope with him. Maybe I would.
SugarShuli says: I’ve never felt like this before. Have you ever been in love, Shelley? I mean, really, head-over-heels type in love?
ShelleyPixie says: No, what’s it like?
SugarShuli says: You can’t stop thinking about the person. It’s like an addiction. Some people need a drink or a chocolate to make them happy. I know what I need is Jallal.
Phew, she’s derived all this from a photo and one long-distance telephone conversation. Love must indeed be a powerful thing.
ShelleyPixie says: I’m just wondering—how do you know it’s love and not just a crush or something?
SugarShuli says: Well—you’ve read about it, haven’t you? It just takes over your whole world, just like Mystical Crystal said in ‘Superstars Secrets’ last month. All I can think about is the wedding. It’s, like, taken over my brain.
Surinda doesn’t have an enormous brain, so that shouldn’t be too hard, the uncharitable thought pops up.
SugarShuli says: All I can think about is…you know, the actual night. I’m working on my mum to buy me some nice stuff, lingerie, you know the type of thing. She says I won’t need it. It won’t matter. But I’m working on her; it’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?
ShelleyPixie says: I guess.
How would I know? She’s talking about sex. I’ve never even been kissed. I’m never going to be. I’m not much of a friend, I know, but her joy is making me miserable. The more wonderful Surinda assures me that her life is, the crappier I feel about my own. Not that any of that is her fault. Krok hasn’t answered my emails for ages and he’s never online these days. I don’t know how he spends his time. Having fun making music and going out with girls who can go out with him, I suppose. I want to ask him about the Beat the Bank tickets. Not that I’m planning on going, it’s just a thing we talk about online.
ShelleyPixie says: I don’t know how you can get so enthusiastic about someone you’ve never met.
There I go. I don’t want to rain on her parade, not really.
SugarShuli says: You’re enthusiastic over your Krok, aren’t you?
ShelleyPixie says: I’m not marrying him, though.
I wish I were. I can’t believe I just thought that. I’m jealous. I admit it. Surinda sees this Jallal as the easy way out of her life as she’s living it at the moment, stuck in that tiny house with her five brothers and sisters and her strict ‘do-as-I-say’ father and her timid-mouse mum. She was always a dunce at school so marriage is her only way out of it.
I wish I had an easy way out of my life too.
I guess I do.
I’ve already gone through all my options on that score and I’ve made my decision but it isn’t a very thrilling one. I’m going to have to tell someone soon because keeping it all to myself is killing me. Ha ha.
It has to be someone who won’t say anything, though, or my plans will be ruined. I have to tell Mum, of course, but I want to tell someone else as well. I don’t know if I can trust Surinda. I want Krok.
SugarShuli says: I wish you could be happy for me.
ShelleyPixie says: Don’t think I’m not. Once you’re married you’re stuck with him, though, aren’t you, Surinda? I mean, with your family being the way it is, you won’t have the option of a quickie divorce if things don’t work out.
SugarShuli says: I’m content, girl. I couldn’t be happier. I see your Kieran boy was in the papers this morning?
She means Krok. Kieran is his real name.
ShelleyPixie says: Was he? What for?
SugarShuli says: He must have got them places he was after. They were doing a piece about how today’s youth have such high expectations and it’s all because of the hype surrounding game shows. They all had to say what they hoped to gain if they won. Kieran’s bit got the biggest coverage—they said because he’d tragically lost his parents and here was a lad who wanted to do something positive in their memory, but I think really they’re targeting him because he’s so photo…photoginetic.
ShelleyPixie says: Photogenic?
SugarShuli says: ’God damn gorgeous, girl! Anyway, he’s on tonight’s show.
Christ, is that what he’s been up to? I didn’t know. He hasn’t even bothered to let me know…I feel like not even watching it now. Plus, now there’s the added worry that everybody else is noticing him. I don’t want everyone else making a fuss of him. He’s mine.
ShelleyPixie says: Not been talking to Krok lately.
SugarShuli says: He pissed with you?
ShelleyPixie says: Why would he be?
SugarShuli says: Dunno. Maybe because you wont send him a photo? And he hasn’t sent you them tickets.
ShelleyPixie says: NOYB, is it? Anyway, even if we did get tickets—assuming he’s not eliminated in the next few weeks—how would we get there? Mum won’t take us so how would we…
SugarShuli says: Yes she would. Your mum is the best mum in the world. She gives you everything. You’re so lucky. She’d give you the lingerie I’m after if it was you in my place.
ShelleyPixie says: If it were me.
SugarShuli says: That’s what I said, if it was you.
ShelleyPixie says: If it were me, not was me. Anyway, why don’t you ask Jallal if he’s so loaded? It’ll be mainly for his benefit, won’t it?
SugarShuli says: lol. Big brother wants the computer off me—he’s looking for jobs now. Speak to U tomorrow.
ShelleyPixie says: Okay, CU then.
God, she’s so excited. She’s like a jumpy bunny. I’m a cow, I know, but I don’t want to hear all about it really. I wish I had some proper friends I could speak to, like Miriam, not just Surinda. I wish Krok would come back online. Maybe I could phone him and speak to him at the DVD shop? Just the thought of doing that gives me butterflies in my stomach. What if he doesn’t want to take my call? I’d be so embarrassed.
I was thinking about that last night. I looked up his shop but they aren’t listed on the Internet and Mum keeps the telephone directories upstairs so I can’t get to them without her wanting to know why, and I don’t want to tell her so I’m stuck. Unless Surinda does it for me?
ShelleyPixie says: B4U go—could you look up the telephone number for David’s DVDs for me? It’s in Kensington somewhere.
SugarShuli says: Did you think of trying directory enquiries?
ShelleyPixie says: I haven’t got the full address—you might have to hunt for it.
Surinda’s brother works in telesales. He’s got a huge pile of directories beside his bed at home. Surinda told me he keeps his collection of top-shelf magazines hidden underneath them too, but that’s more than anybody wants to know.