Lost for Words

  …but

  i should rather than anything

  have(almost when hugeness will shut

  quietly)almost,

  your kiss

  I had to read it more than once. It’s true about hugeness shutting quietly. Kissing Dan was the only time I haven’t thought about Emily in forever. And I know I should feel bad about that but I don’t.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 16TH

  I got up for breakfast, and Mum had put all these chocolate eggs out on the table. She’d made scrambled eggs and bacon. She smiled at me. I hardly looked at her. I made myself a cup of tea.

  When I sat, she said, “Happy Easter.”

  I didn’t reply.

  She said, “We need to talk, Sophie.”

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t talk to her. Rage filled me up like I was a hot-air balloon about to burst. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I sit and have a nice breakfast with Mum? I got up and walked out. I didn’t want her to see me start crying. She called after me, but I slammed the door to my room and sat against it so she couldn’t get in. She tried to shove it open, and she banged on the wood a couple of times. Then she said, “I love you. You know that, right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  She said, “What should I do?”

  But I’m not supposed to know the answer to that question. She is. But she doesn’t because she still hasn’t gone back to work or got her life together or anything. I reached for my iPod and jammed the headphones in my ears, turning the volume up high.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 18TH

  Dan hasn’t called. And I forgot to see Lynda today. I only remembered when Rosa-Leigh and I were on our way to go shopping and I got this feeling like I’d left something behind. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d forgotten, and then I just had this sinking feeling like a ship was foundering in my stomach. Rosa-Leigh asked if I was okay. I didn’t tell her where I was supposed to be; I just changed the subject, which was hard because my mind was full of Dan and now full of Lynda. Lynda would have wondered where I was. Not that we ever have anything to talk about. I haven’t told her anything, really, nothing about the panic attacks, nothing about the past, but we keep up the charade.

  I’d like to hear from DAN. I don’t know if I should email him or call his mobile or wait for him to call me or what. Maybe kissing didn’t even mean anything to him, but the way he’d looked at me, I SWEAR I COULD SEE INSIDE HIM. I swear with that look he was saying to me that he’d made a mistake with Abigail and that he wanted to be with me. And being with him would be so great. He’s so cute and kind and such a good kisser. I can’t believe how much I like him. I wish he’d call.

  Mum was humming today. I heard her in the corridor. I stuck my head out of my room. She stopped and looked guilty, but then she smiled, all tired and weary looking, and started humming again. I smiled back. Just quickly.

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19TH

  Mum just came into my room. Apparently, Lynda called about me forgetting our appointment and I have to go and see her tomorrow. Why isn’t Lynda on her Easter HOLIDAY?

  Mum asked, “Why didn’t you go?”

  I just shrugged.

  Mum sighed and said, “Sophie,” and her voice was gentle.

  “What?”

  “You have to talk to me.”

  “I just forgot to go, all right? There’s nothing to say.”

  “What about how we’re getting on? Why couldn’t you have Easter breakfast with me? We need to talk about that.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to remember.”

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t know because you weren’t there. You have no idea what it’s like, what I see in my head when I close my eyes. Sometimes I’ll be in a room, like at a party, and I’ll imagine everyone in there being crushed to death.”

  She pressed her mouth together as if she were physically hurt for me. She said softly, “Tell me more. I want to be here for you.”

  “It happens when I least expect it; these images come into my head. I don’t WANT to go into it. It’s never going to get better, and there’s nothing you can do. If I hadn’t had to tie up my STUPID SHOELACE, everything would be different. Don’t you understand it’s my fault?”

  “Of course it’s not.”

  “What do you know? You act like you’re over it, but you haven’t gone back to work even though you’re making me go to school. I can’t deal with it.”

  “I am going back to work.”

  “When?”

  “Monday.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now.” Mum folded her arms across her chest. “You haven’t been very easy to talk to.” She said it softly, as if she was being kind, but that just bothered me more.

  I took a step back. I tried not to yell, but the words came out loudly. “I haven’t been easy to talk to. What about you?”

  “Sophie,” she said again.

  “You always had time for her. You never had time for me. It’s because you were the same—she was just like you. I’m different and awkward and nothing like her. You don’t want to make time for me. You just want her back.”

  “Let’s not start screaming at each other,” she said steadily. “We have to make room for dialogue.”

  “You’re not my stupid therapist, and you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.”

  She stepped forward and I stepped neatly around her. She said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going back to work. The doctor finished my compassionate leave a while ago, and I don’t want to use all of your father’s life insurance to keep us going. That money’s for you.” She spoke calmly and slowly.

  “I don’t care that you’re going back to work.”

  She said, “And I never want you to compare yourself to her.”

  “You can’t even say her name,” I hissed, and backed up to my bedroom door. “I’m going out,” I said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Stop all the stupid make room for dialogue crap and leave me alone.” I fled from my room and flew down the stairs and out the front door before she could say anything else.

  I ran up the road until I reached the high street, where cars roared, beeping at one another. A group of people tumbled out of a café into the dusk. The orange interior light spilled over the street. I imagined the flames of a huge fire flaring from the open door, people fleeing—the men coughing and dribbling with fear; the women, their eyes wide as those of dead fish, stumbling blindly in the smoke; the wail of ambulances. I leaned against a wall and took several deep breaths.

  Mum is going back to work. She’s over it. I should have been pleased, but anger surged inside me like lava in a volcano. She’s good at her job—our house is evidence of how good; everyone used to say how beautiful it is inside. Everyone being our family friends, friends who don’t come around anymore. Not that they didn’t try to come around after the funeral.

  THURSDAY, APRIL 20TH

  When I sat down for my rescheduled appointment with Lynda she asked me repeatedly if I was okay. She wanted to know why I’d forgotten to go last time. I ignored her. Each visit, it gets easier to sit in silence, pretending she’s not even there.

  She wanted to talk to me about Dad today. I didn’t have anything to say about him; I was so little when he died. I thought instead about Mark Haywood. I remembered Mark drinking too much one night and deciding to go swimming in the lake near their house. It was dark outside. Mum and Katherine were telling him not to be so stupid, that he’d freeze to death. Mark swam across the whole lake. When he came back in, he was shivering cold but he was FULL OF LIFE. Not dead, nowhere near it.

  Mark continues to get much better from his heart attack, although apparently he’s very shaken. Adults say that a lot: “shaken.” It doesn’t seem the right word to me to describe how you feel after something bad’s happened. Shaken is how you feel when you’ve been on a roller-coaster, all l
ively and buzzing. Shaken is how Mark felt when he swam in the lake that night, I’m sure. I could see in his eyes how he was all shaken up inside, happy, excited. When something bad’s happened, you feel numb, like it’s not real. You feel dead on the inside. Not shaken at all.

  I had a nap and dreamed that huge hands tore up a photograph of Emily, Mum, and me strip by strip. It was a heart-stopping dream. I woke up sweating and tiptoed to Mum’s collection room and opened the door. There was even more stuff in there than last time, but I wasn’t looking at her stuff. I was looking for the photographs. I found our birth certificates in the desk, along with all our passports and legal documents. The passport picture of Emily made me swell with tears. I tried to remember where Mum keeps the photo albums.

  I riffled through the shelves. I didn’t feel calm anymore or sad; instead I was panicky and disorganized. My breath was ragged. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. It was like I’d gone crazy. I pulled down all these gloves and scarves and a beautiful gold necklace with a red stone surrounded by silver petals. I shuffled through a little pile of papers that turned out to be letters that Mum must have found lying around over the years.

  Then I saw an album beneath. It was full of photographs of me and Emily. I started crying. I took the album with me as I left the room, hurried to the bathroom, and slipped out the window onto the roof. I looked at the photos until my heart felt like a badly bruised apple.

  At the back of the album is a photograph of us outside the house we lived in when I was really little. I touched the photograph. Mum is standing in the middle holding me in her arms, and Emily is on her right. Emily is wearing red plastic boots and is waving at the camera. I wonder if Dad was taking the picture—he died when I was two, and in the photograph I’m only a baby. I’m smiling up at Mum. I turned the photograph over. On the back it says 18 Bowood Road in Mum’s handwriting.

  Suddenly I felt like I know why she keeps lost things in her collection. And I felt like I wanted to go to our old house on Bowood Road and be back in that place where everything was still good. All I wanted to do was go back. Back to the moments before it happened when everything was okay.

  Sitting on the roof makes me feel calmer. It gives me a view of the world below, lets me take a breath. I stroked Emily’s cheek in the picture. She was so happy.

  I remembered that morning last summer. It feels so long ago, yet it’s all terribly clear in my head. I woke really early. Emily is home for the rest of the summer. The thought popped in my mind, and I launched myself out of bed and into her room. She wasn’t there. I went into the kitchen, and she was sitting at the breakfast table.

  “Hi,” I said. “How did you sleep?”

  “Good.” She didn’t look up; she was reading the paper.

  I said, “Where’s Mum?”

  “She’s gone to work already—a client needed her house done first thing.” She folded the paper and said, “So, little sister, wanna do something today.”

  “Sure? What?”

  “I want to see this exhibition at the National Gallery.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Just next to the National Portrait Gallery,” she said. I must have looked blank, because she rolled her eyes. “Trafalgar Square. We’ll get the train.”

  I nodded. “What’s the exhibition?”

  She passed me a brochure with the details and got up. She went to the counter. “Coffee?” she said.

  “Since when do you drink coffee?”

  “Since always.”

  “I’ll have tea.” I glanced at the brochure and then turned over the paper to the news. Emily sat back down with her coffee.

  She said, “I was reading that.”

  “Where’s my tea?” I said.

  She put her hand to her mouth in mock surprise. “Sorry,” she said sarcastically.

  “And to think I was looking forward to you coming home.”

  “Don’t be like that, Soph. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t be bothered to make tea. You can have a coffee, though; it’s ready.” She passed me her cup.

  “No, thanks,” I replied, and pushed the cup back across the table.

  I got up and made myself tea and some toast with peanut butter. Emily told me about her boyfriend. Turned out I hadn’t met him. The room was warm. The kitchen table was bright from the sun pouring through the window. The light made everything look angelic. I told Emily this. She laughed. Told me my imagination was on overdrive and I should get out of the house more. She jumped up. “Come on,” she said. “We should go.”

  “It’s still really early.”

  “Teenagers,” she said.

  “You’re still a teenager.”

  “Only just. Hurry up.”

  I didn’t answer; instead I read the back cover of a book I’d borrowed from the library. It was about three generations of women in the same family, all adventure and tragedy—the sort of book I liked to read during the summer holiday.

  Fluffy came in and prowled around the food bowl, and Emily got up to feed her. The cat danced around the bowl in anticipation. Emily’s phone rang and she went to talk to whoever it was. She gestured at me and at her watch. I fed Fluffy, who crunched away with pleasure. I wondered if Em was speaking to her boyfriend. I put the dishes in the dishwasher and wiped the counter free of crumbs. Emily always left a mess: clothes lying around, paintings and bits of fabric all over the house.

  I took a shower and put on jeans and one of her tops. She gave me a look when she saw me wearing her top but didn’t say anything. She was wearing a great skirt and loose layers of jumpers and shirts. If I wore an outfit like that, I’d look like I was trying to be cool, but she made it look arty and good. She had paint on her cheek. She said, “Are you finally ready?”

  We walked to the station together. She smoked a cigarette. Something else she’d taken up at art college. She talked about another project, something to do with lost gloves, which made me think of Mum’s collection, but I didn’t say anything, I just listened and nodded and admired her pretty blond hair as we waited on the platform together. We arrived at King’s Cross and changed for the Piccadilly line. It was close and busy on the Underground. We ran to catch a train. Emily got on, but the lace of my trainer was undone and I stumbled. She jumped off to help me, and the doors shut before we had a chance to get back on together. The next train was two minutes away. I didn’t think it mattered.

  The worst thing Emily ever did was wait for me to tie up my shoelace. If she hadn’t waited for me, we’d have been on a different train. If she had made me get on the first train and told me to leave my lace, then everything would be different. And if Mark hadn’t gone to play squash, he’d maybe be enjoying his day with Katherine today not knowing his heart was a time bomb.

  Everything’s a time bomb.

  FRIDAY, APRIL 21ST

  The temperature has dropped, although it should be getting warmer. I’m sitting outside King’s Cross Station wondering what to do with myself. I wish now I’d brought another jumper and some gloves.

  I left the house really early today, before Mum got up. I was going to Bowood Road. It was like a mantra. 18 Bowood Road. 18 Bowood Road. 18 Bowood Road. Not that I know where it is, really. Elephant & Castle somewhere. I figured I’d just go and work it out. So I walked all the way to King’s Cross, but then I got stuck outside. Since I got there, hundreds of people passed by, but no one seemed to see me. The air was acrid. People rushed past, looking down.

  I watched a man wearing a suit. I imagined blood on his cheek like a jagged, red pen mark. He dove into the entry point of the Underground. I wondered who he was and where he was going, which train he was catching. I wondered if he realized how it was just chance that he wasn’t sitting on that train. He’d already forgotten, probably forgot about it the very next day, moved on to his life, his office, his wife or girlfriend. I hated the man suddenly. But then he was gone into the crowd and he didn’t matter. Nobody mattered.

  I looked at the crush of people p
assing. I wanted to open out my arms and scream at them that they shouldn’t go down there. They shouldn’t go into the Underground!

  I couldn’t go into the train station. I couldn’t go in and catch a train. Just the thought of it made me want to weep. In the end I bought a London A–Z map book so I could find Bowood Road. If I caught a bus, there was a route I could walk afterward that went past St. Thomas’s Hospital, which was where I was born, so I decided to go that way. I caught the bus and then walked REALLY FAR. I had no real idea that London was so big. Or so lonely. I mean, I knew in my head it was big, but I’ve never felt it before.

  I arrived at St. Thomas’s Hospital and looked at the grey boxy windows, trying to picture myself as a baby. Had Emily been brought to visit me? She must have been. I tried to bring the building to life with any memory I had, but I didn’t have any. In my imagination the hospital had assumed more importance. Standing there, I realized how many thousands of babies must have been born behind those windows, were probably being born right now. I was no different. Not special, not anything.

  I walked south. The streets were filled with little shops and pubs, people busy with their own lives, buses streaming past, cars beeping, the noise and chaos of London.

  And I walked and walked.

  And then I got there.

  Bowood Road is narrow, full of identical terraced houses. I’d hoped to remember something, anything, but if it hadn’t been for the photograph, I would never have known our old house. The sun was out, full and warm. I sat on a low wall opposite 18 Bowood Road. At about four in the afternoon a boy came up to number 20 and went in. Ten minutes later he bounded back out like a puppy, smiled quickly at me, and rushed off. He looked about my age, a blond boy with a sweet smile. I smiled back. This blond boy could have been my friend if Dad hadn’t died and we hadn’t moved away from Bowood Road. We’d have gone to each other’s houses all the time and hung out. As babies I bet we played together.

  I walked away. My hands were shaking.

  I walked on automatic pilot. Ages later I realized I was hungry. I went into one place thinking I might find something to eat, but when I saw everyone was drinking and playing darts or pool, I backed out onto the pavement.