There’s a rattle of cups and spoons as Gran reappears in the living room. She doesn’t ask why I’ve stopped speaking, and there’s no mention of the play. I curl up in front of the fire, watching the elaborate dance of the flames as I sip tea, giving thanks for Gran, who’s not afraid of silence. For the first time since the play, it is a joint thing, a shared thing, something to cuddle up in, like a blanket.
“I’m sorry. I will cheer up. I’m just not in the mood for a party tonight,” Mum says as we approach La Dolce Vita, where we’re celebrating Gran’s birthday.
It’s only six o’clock but it’s already dark. I hang back, trying out how it feels to be Anna. I walk tall. I saunter. I take my time on each step, feeling my heel then my toes melt into the ground.
Manchester is big and booming, exploding in all directions for miles around. There must be thousands of streets. Millions of houses. It would take years to find out where Mr. Richardson lives… unless I checked inside his wallet for a driver’s license.
“No, Tess!” Mr. Goldfish hisses, just like he has every time this thought has entered my mind in the past twenty-four hours. “It’s madness! A crazy idea! And what would it achieve?”
“I could go to his house. Have a look at his son.”
“And then what?”
“See if I belong there,” I say because to me it’s simple. “Gut instinct. Intuition. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Insanity? Lunacy? Psychosis? You’re not really planning on doing this, are you?” I don’t reply.
Mum stops by the steps leading up to the restaurant, actually quite impressive with a big glass entrance. She looks at Jack. “You know I’ll put on a brave face. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Jack rubs her elbow. “It’ll be nice tonight.”
“Hard work, more like. It’s far too much for Mum at her age.” They start up the steps, the rhythm of their bodies perfectly in sync. “I don’t know what Susan was thinking, booking it here. But that’s her, isn’t it? Always has to be the one to do something extravagant. Doesn’t get involved in the nitty-gritty, the boring day-to-day care, though that has felt easier recently. Mum seems to be coping better.” I smile at this as I follow up the steps. “But organizing this for tonight! Mum doesn’t even like Italian food. It’s ridiculous, don’t you think?”
“We’re here now. Let’s just try to enjoy it, eh?”
“Fat chance. It’s going to be—” She pauses, pressing her temples. “Sorry. I’m tired, that’s all. It’s been the shittiest week, and that’s swearing.”
That is swearing, and I am not used to hearing it come out of Mum’s mouth. It sounds toxic, like she’s been poisoned with unusual thoughts and feelings, emerging from her lips in acrid green smoke. I can barely see the old Mum through the smog and I want to apologize and waft it away, to make her clean and wholesome and smiley again, but I don’t.
“Come on, Hels. Let’s not think about it tonight.”
“Fine.” She doesn’t sound convinced so Jack whispers something in her ear that makes her laugh and then they kiss at the top of the steps, this golden image of love bathed in the soft lights of La Dolce Vita as I skulk beneath them in the shadows.
The door’s one of those rotating ones. Mum and Jack squeeze into the same quarter, leaving me out in the cold. I gaze at the moon, this segment of silver watermelon, its seeds scattered across the sky. It seems wrong, so I mentally reassemble it, lifting each star and dropping it back into the moon where it belongs.
Jack bangs on the glass. “Tess? Get in here. It’s freezing!”
I don’t move. Fixing the universe is a whole lot easier than dealing with what’s about to happen on planet Earth in the next two hours, two and a half if everyone has dessert and coffee. I haven’t seen Aunt Susan or Uncle Paul since I gave up speaking. There will be questions. Lots of them. Mr. Goldfish glows in my pocket, warming the tips of my fingers.
“And you won’t have to face them alone.”
“I won’t tell you again,” Jack says, but he does, twice in fact when I still don’t move because things are on my terms now, let’s be clear about that. I only go through the revolving door when he’s given up trying to get me to come inside. I slow it to a stop by pushing back on the glass so I’m suspended between the night and the restaurant, looking out on both but not a part of either.
“I could live like this,” I tell Mr. Goldfish.
“You sort of do live like this.”
I walk into the restaurant without fully joining the scene. I don’t speak to the girl taking my coat and I don’t acknowledge the man leading us to a table and I don’t smile at Uncle Paul or Aunt Susan, who beam at me as I sit next to Gran. My heart fills with pride because she looks beautiful in a lilac blouse and matching brooch. I put her present under my chair, excited about giving it to her later.
“Good to see you, Tess,” Uncle Paul says as I reappear, catapulting his hand across the table to squeeze my own. I hide mine in my lap so he’s forced to swerve in the direction of the bread basket, grabbing a brown roll as if this was always his intention. He tears some off then throws it in his mouth. “Really good to see you.”
“Great to see you,” Aunt Susan says, upping the ante as usual. “How’re you feeling, sweetheart?” She tilts her head to the right. “Gorgeous girl.” I want to laugh as she takes in my face with a pained expression on her own. “So brave. How is she doing, Jack? How’re you doing?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” He shows his teeth to the whole table, this dazzling display of white, flickering in the candlelight. Reaching for the bottle of sparkling water, he starts to pour everyone a glass. “Elsie,” he says, talking to Gran in the patronizing tone that gets on my nerves, “can you manage something fizzy?”
“It will make her gassy,” Mum replies, and I almost giggle. I feel giddy. Alive. Full of hope because at last I have a plan, even if it does involve snooping inside a teacher’s wallet.
“Give her the still water instead.”
“Okeydokey. Still water for you, Elsie. Susan, sparkling? Yeah, like I say, I’m doing well. Hating this weather, though. Perishing out there, isn’t it?”
“How are you really?” Aunt Susan asks. She tilts her head the other way now. “And you, Hels? You look tired. I hope you’re looking after my little sister, Jacko.”
Jack’s teeth disappear. “We’re fine, thanks, Susan. Has it been the easiest week of our lives? Well, no. Of course not. But we’re getting there. We’ll crack it. Tess will be fine in a few days,” he says as I vow to be silent for the rest of my life.
“Of course she will,” Aunt Susan replies. “She’s a fighter.”
I study the Specials board to see if there’s anything with goat cheese. I’m hungrier than I’ve been for weeks because I’ve got work to do, haven’t I, a man to track down and a boy to meet to check for signs that we could be related. My mouth waters as I take in Garlic bread with mozzarella and Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and—but no, I can’t see the other starters because a massive head is blocking my line of vision.
“We all believe in you, Tess,” Aunt Susan breathes in my face.
“Yeah,” Uncle Paul says, appearing briefly over the top of a large menu. “Totally. Is anyone having a starter or are we going straight onto mains?”
A waitress in a pretty black dress appears. Telepathically I communicate my desire for something with goat cheese, but she scribbles down the dish that Aunt Susan orders for me, the same thing she picks out for Gran.
“Everyone likes spaghetti carbonara. You don’t mind do you, Hels? Me ordering for Tess? Thought it would be better than putting her on the spot.”
Mum seems distracted and lets it slide.
“Was it stage fright or something, Jack?” Uncle Paul asks in a low voice. I straighten up, intrigued to hear the answer. “Is that what caused it?”
“We’re not sure,” Mum mutters as Jack says, “Definitely. No question.” He takes a packet of bread sticks and tears it ope
n. “I mean, it happened onstage, just as she was about to say her line, didn’t it?” We share a glance. “She looked straight at me and—nothing. I gave her a shake and—nothing. She froze out there. That’s how it feels, as if her voice box is frozen. But we’ll find a way to thaw it, eh, Tessie-T?” He pats my shoulder like it’s a dog. It growls angrily, a rumble of warning, deep in the bone. “We’ll get there. It might take a while, but we’ll—”
“It might not, though, Jacko. Miracles happen all the time. You just have to believe. Have a little faith,” Aunt Susan says. She smiles too widely, the thermostat of her face turned up high because she wants to be the one to dissolve my silence. I can see it in her eyes—ice to water, that’s what she’s picturing, a curious gurgle deep in my throat, a miraculous thank you dripping from my lips when I realize that I’m cured.
No one seems to understand that it’s a choice. I could speak right now if I really wanted to, stand up in the middle of the restaurant and open my mouth to let out a blizzard. That’s the kind of winter in my voice box. There’s nothing solid about it. Nothing rigid. They might not be able to hear them, but there are words, thousands of them, flurrying about beneath the surface like flakes in a snow globe, hurling themselves noiselessly against the glass.
And I won’t shatter it. Not for anyone. And especially not for Jack.
22
“I do have faith in Tess, as a matter of fact. I have complete faith in her to get over this little”—Jack clears his throat—“blip.”
Mr. Goldfish chuckles. “Now’s probably not the best time to reveal you’re conversing inside your head with a goldfish.”
I smirk behind my curtain of hair. “No.”
“I know that, Jacko. Of course I do. I only meant that it’s important for you, for everyone, to—”
The arrival of the drinks prevents Aunt Susan from building up a head of steam. A lemonade I don’t want is put in front of me. Everyone else is having something alcoholic, apart from Gran, who’s been given an orange juice with a stripy straw meant for a child.
Jack holds up a glass of red wine by a long thin stem. “To Elsie.”
“To Elsie.”
“To Elsie.”
“To Elsie.”
“Happy birthday, Mum,” Aunt Susan bellows as the glasses are returned to the table. “Are you having a good time?”
“Of course she is,” Uncle Paul shouts back.
“Out past your bedtime, eh, Elsie?” Jack yells, and everyone laughs, except me and Gran. “Well, if you can’t misbehave on your birthday, when can you? Eighty years young, Elsie! That’s it, isn’t it? Eighty years young!”
“This was a good idea,” Aunt Susan congratulates herself, gazing insistently round the table so we have no choice but to nod and agree. “Just a shame that Dad can’t be here. Your grandpa would’ve loved this, Tess,” she tells me in a similar voice to the one she just used on Gran.
Jack takes a long sip of wine, kissing his lips together. “How long were they married, again? Fifty-five years, wasn’t it, Hels?”
“No, fifty-six,” Uncle Paul says. “Impressive.”
I give Gran my full attention to show I’m only interested in her response, but Aunt Susan butts in before she can reply.
“Fifty-eight, I think you’ll find. Dad died a couple of years before their diamond wedding anniversary. They’d have received a congratulatory note from the Queen as well.” She touches Gran’s frail wrist then shouts in her face. “You would have liked that, wouldn’t you, Mum? A note from the Queen?”
“If anyone deserved it, they did,” Uncle Paul says, helping himself to another brown roll. “Childhood sweethearts.” He starts to laugh. “They used to finish each other’s sentences. Remember, Hels? Sue? Mum would start saying something and Dad would complete it. Don’t forget to—get your car serviced, Paul. Make sure you—take a coat with you.”
“To Mum and Dad,” Aunt Susan says, raising her glass once more. “The perfect couple.”
“The perfect couple,” Uncle Paul agrees.
“The perfect couple,” Jack repeats.
“The perfect couple,” Mum says with a small smile. “They really were.”
Everyone drinks, except me and Gran.
“So, what’s the secret then, Elsie?” Jack asks. “You must know, after fifty-eight years of happy marriage. What’s the key?”
“The bedroom,” Gran replies without missing a beat.
For once, Jack is speechless. Uncle Paul examines the seeds on top of his brown roll and Aunt Susan takes a huge swig of wine as I cheer Gran on, pumping my fist beneath the table.
“Shall we do presents?” Mum asks eventually.
Gran receives a jigsaw of a steam train, a set of pink handkerchiefs, some lavender bubble bath and, best of all, a tea cozy in the shape of a lion’s head that I found in a craft shop in Manchester.
“Thanks, dear. I love it,” Gran says, and I glow.
“Apart from the obvious, did it go okay, then, Jack? The first night of the play?” Aunt Susan asks. “Sorry I couldn’t make it in the end. It was one of those weekends.”
“For me as well,” Uncle Paul says, too quickly. “You know how it is. Something always comes up that gets in the way at the last minute.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. We sold out, anyway. I was worried you were going to turn up to find there were no tickets left.” Jack pretends to laugh, biting the end off a bread stick, and I wonder if his lies are obvious to everyone, or if I am just unusually good at spotting them these days. He twiddles the bread stick between long fingers that wrote those six hundred and seventeen words. Even now, it’s hard to believe.
“Especially as there’s no evidence of the blog post on the website,” Mr. Goldfish says. “Unless you missed it.”
“Not possible,” I reply, because last night I spent two hours scouring seven pages of stories and found nothing from Jack.
“Did your agent come in the end?” Aunt Susan asks. “Hels said on the phone there was a chance he might travel up from London.”
“Nah, there was never a chance of that. He knows I’m in the play because, well, I have to keep him informed, don’t I? He is my agent. But I told him not to bother with something so local. I’m writing my own stuff now, anyway.”
“Sounds good,” Uncle Paul says, pulling a bread stick out of the open packet. He taps it on the table then points it at Jack. “I like that attitude. Got to make your own opportunities if there aren’t any coming your way.”
“Crikey, there’s plenty coming my way,” Jack replies, pointing his own bread stick at Paul, and I have the clearest image of two men circling each other, about to clash swords made out of dough. “That’s not why I’m doing it. I’ve got irons in the fire, some that are red-hot actually, but I’ve always loved writing. Got a lot buzzing about up here.” He jabs his head with the bread stick. A little bit snaps off, scattering crumbs over his shoulder. “It’s good to get it out on paper, you know? And it’s going well. Four thousand eight hundred and seventy-one words in—not that it’s about word count, of course. That’s crass. But still. I’ve written almost five thousand words in less than a week. That isn’t bad, is it?”
“What’s it about?” Aunt Susan asks. “Are we allowed to know?”
Jack is delighted to be asked. “It’s set in a garden shed and the characters are tools.”
There is no response from anyone whatsoever.
“I know it’s abstract, but that’s how my mind works, I’m afraid.” He lets out a sigh heavy with the burden of being blessed with such an almighty imagination, then rests his left elbow on the back of his chair and stretches his legs. “Here we go. Okay, there’s a rake and a spade and a bucket and they’re all waiting to be used, you know? Every morning they think that something’s going to happen, that this man referred to only as The Gardener is going to give them purpose—a job in the vegetable patch where they can be put to good use. But he never turns up. Gradually, they fall into disrepair. At the end
of the play, when The Gardener does finally open up the shed and light shines in from the outside world, it only reveals the tools’ rust, rather than the skills they used to have.”
“How does it end?” Uncle Paul asks.
Jack covers his mouth with his fingers, clearly moved. “The Gardener has no choice but to drive to the hardware store to replace them.”
“The hardware store,” Aunt Susan repeats. “Right.”
“It’s very Beckett-esque. Not for everyone.”
“No, no, it sounds… So, will you be in it?”
“That’s the plan. I’ll get a couple of the cast members from Peter Pan to have a crack at it too. Mr. Darling, and maybe Nana the dog.”
“But not you, I’m guessing, Tess?” Uncle Paul says with a sneaky squeeze of my arm, creeping his hand around the side of the table this time. “Like we said before—the limelight’s not for everyone.”
“Tess takes after me, though,” Jack replies.
“Do you think so, Jacko?” Aunt Susan asks.
“Yeah, definitely. That’s the funny thing about her reaction onstage. I thought she’d relish it. She’s a real chip off the old block in many ways.”
Maybe I imagine it, but Uncle Paul and Aunt Susan exchange the tiniest of glances, gone before I can double-check that it was actually there. My pulse quickens as I replay it in my head, and yes, I think I did see it, the truth passing between them. It hits me hard, the realization slamming into my chest, forcing me back into my chair with no air in my lungs.
“They know,” Mr. Goldfish whispers, and he’s right.
I mean, of course he’s right because Mum’s their sister, and there’s no way she wouldn’t have told them how I was conceived even if they don’t exactly get along. It’s too big, too important not to share with family. I stare around the table at all these dishonest blue eyes. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere, and I start to drift away. I float above the restaurant with the chandeliers, tingling with them, jittery and precarious, before bursting through the ceiling, just another lost star in the big black sky.