فصل 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

That week, when I arrived at the Moving On Circle Jake wasn’t there. As Daphne discussed her inability to open jars without a man in her kitchen, and Sunil talked of the problems of dividing up his brother’s few belongings among his remaining siblings, I found myself waiting for the heavy red doors to open at the end of the church hall. I told myself it was his welfare I was concerned about, that he needed to be able to express his discomfort at his father’s behaviour in a safe place. I told myself firmly that it was not Sam I was hoping to see, leaning against his bike.

‘What are the small things that trip you up, Louisa?’

Perhaps Jake had finished with the group, I thought. Perhaps he had decided he didn’t need it any more. People did drop out, everyone said. And that would be it. I would never see either of them again.

‘Louisa? The daily things? There must be something.’

I kept thinking about that field, the neat confines of the railway carriage, the way Sam had strolled down the field with a hen under one arm, as if he was carrying a precious parcel. The feathers on her chest had been as soft as a whisper.

Daphne nudged me.

‘We were discussing the small things in day-to-day life that force you to contemplate loss,’ said Marc.

‘I miss sex,’ said Natasha.

‘That’s not a small thing,’ replied William.

‘You didn’t know my husband,’ said Natasha, and snorted a laugh. ‘Not really. That’s a terrible joke to make. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘It’s good to joke,’ said Marc, encouragingly.

‘Olaf was perfectly well endowed. Very well endowed, in fact.’ Natasha’s eyes flickered around us. When nobody spoke she held up her hands, a foot apart, and nodded emphatically. ‘We were very happy.’

There was a short silence.

‘Good,’ said Marc. ‘That’s nice to hear.’

‘I don’t want anyone thinking … I mean, that’s not what I want people thinking when they think of my husband. That he had a tiny

‘I’m sure nobody thinks that about your husband.’

‘I will, if you keep going on about it,’ said William.

‘I don’t want you thinking about my husband’s penis,’ said Natasha. ‘In fact, I forbid you to think about my husband’s penis.’

‘Stop going on about it then!’ said William.

‘Can we not talk about penises?’ said Daphne. ‘It makes me go a bit peculiar. The nuns used to smack us with rulers if we even used the word “undercarriage”.’

Marc’s voice was now tinged with desperation. ‘Can we steer the conversation away from – back to symbols of loss. Louisa, you were about to tell us which small things brought your loss home to you.’

I sat there, trying to ignore Natasha holding up her hands again, silently measuring some unlikely invisible length.

‘I think I miss having someone to discuss things with,’ I said carefully.

There was a murmur of agreement.

‘I mean, I’m not one of those people who has a massive circle of friends. I was with my last boyfriend for ages and we … we didn’t really go out much. And then there was … Bill. We just used to talk all the time. About music, and people, and things we’d done and wanted to do, and I never worried about whether I was going to say the wrong thing or offend someone because he just “got” me, you know? And now I’ve moved to London and I’m sort of on my own, apart from my family, and talking to them is always … tricky.’

‘Word,’ said Sunil.

‘And now there’s something going on that I’d really like to chat to him about. I talk to him in my head, but it isn’t the same. I miss having that … ability to just go, “Hey, what do you think of this?” And knowing that whatever he said was probably going to be the right thing.’

The group was silent for a minute.

‘You can talk to us, Louisa,’ said Marc.

‘It’s … complicated.’

‘It’s always complicated,’ said Leanne.

I looked at their faces, kind and expectant, and completely unlikely to understand anything I told them. Not really understand it.

Daphne adjusted her silk scarf. ‘What Louisa needs is another young man to talk to. Of course she does. You’re young and pretty. You’ll find someone else,’ she said. ‘And you, Natasha. Get back out there. It’s too late for me, but you two shouldn’t be sitting in this dingy old hall Sorry, Marc, but they shouldn’t. You should be out dancing, having a laugh.’

Natasha and I exchanged a look. Clearly, she wanted to go out dancing about as much as I did.

I had a sudden memory of Ambulance Sam and pushed the thought away.

‘And if you ever do want another penis,’ William said, ‘I’m sure I could pencil in a –’

‘Okay, everyone. Let’s move on to wills,’ said Marc. ‘Anyone surprised by what turned up?’

I got home, exhausted, at a quarter past nine, to find Lily lying on the sofa in front of the television in her pyjamas. I dropped my bag. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘Since breakfast.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Mm.’

Her face held a pallor that spoke of either illness or exhaustion.

‘Not feeling well?’

She was eating popcorn out of a bowl and lazily scooped her fingers around the bottom of the bowl for crumbs. ‘I just didn’t feel like doing anything today.’

Lily’s phone beeped. She stared listlessly at the message that came through, then pushed it away from her under a sofa cushion.

‘Everything really okay?’ I asked, after a minute.

‘Fine.’

She didn’t look fine.

‘Anything I can help with?’

‘I said I was fine.’

She didn’t look at me as she spoke.

Lily spent that night at the flat. The following day, as I was leaving for work, Mr Traynor rang and asked to speak to her. She was stretched across the sofa and looked blankly up at me when I told her who was on the phone, then finally, reluctantly, held out a hand for the receiver. I stood there as she listened to him. I couldn’t hear his words, but I could hear his tone: kind, reassuring, emollient. When he finished, she left a short pause, then said, ‘Okay. Fine.’

‘Are you going to see him again?’ I said, as she handed back the phone.

‘He wants to come to London to see me.’

‘Well, that’s nice.’

‘But he can’t be too far away from her just now in case she goes into labour.’

‘Do you want me to take you back there to see him?’

‘No.’

She tucked her knees underneath her chin, reached out the remote control and flicked through the channels.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I said, after a minute.

She didn’t respond, and after a minute or two, I realized the conversation was over.

On Thursday, I went into my bedroom, closed the door and called my sister. We were speaking several times a week. It was easier now that my estrangement from our parents no longer hung between us, like a conversational minefield.

‘Do you think it’s normal?’

‘Dad told me I once didn’t speak to him for two whole weeks when I was sixteen. Only grunts. And I was actually quite happy.’

‘She’s not even grunting. She just looks miserable.’

‘All teenagers do. It’s their default setting. It’s the cheerful ones you want to worry about they’re probably hiding some massive eating disorder or stealing lipsticks from Boots.’

‘She’s spent the last three days just lying on the sofa.’

‘And your point is?’

‘I think something’s wrong.’

‘She’s sixteen years old. Her dad never knew she existed, and popped his clogs before she could meet him. Her mother married someone she calls Fuckface, she has two little brothers who sound like trainee Reggie and Ronnie Kray, and they changed the locks to the family home. I would probably lie on a sofa for a year if I was her.’ Treena took a noisy slurp of her tea. ‘Plus she’s living with someone who wears glittery green Spandex to a bar job and calls it a career.’

‘Lurex. It’s Lurex.’

‘Whatever. So when are you going to find yourself a decent job?’

‘Soon. I just need to get this situation sorted first.’

‘This situation.’

‘She’s really down. I feel bad for her.’

‘You know what makes me feel down? The way you keep promising to live some kind of a life, then sacrifice yourself to every waif and stray who comes across your path.’

‘Will was not a waif and stray.’

‘But Lily is. You don’t even know this girl, Lou. You should be focusing on moving forward. You should be sending off your CV, talking to contacts, working out where your strengths are, not finding yet another excuse to put your own life on hold.’

I stared outside at the city sky. In the next room, I could hear the television burbling away, then Lily getting up, walking to the fridge and flopping down again. I lowered my voice: ‘So what would you do, Treen? The child of the man you loved turns up on your doorstep, and everyone else seems to have pretty much handed over responsibility for her. You’d walk away too, would you?’

My sister fell briefly silent. This was a rare occurrence and I felt obliged to keep talking. ‘So if Thom, in eight years’ time, had fallen out with you, for whatever reason – say he was pretty much on his own, and was going off the rails – you’d think it was great if the one person he asked for help decided it was altogether too much of a pain in the arse, would you? That they should just bugger off and suit themselves?’ I rested my head against the wall. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing here, Treen. Just cut me a break, okay?’

Nothing.

‘It makes me feel better. Okay? It makes me feel better knowing I’m helping.’

My sister was silent for so long I wondered whether she had hung up. ‘Treen?’

‘Okay. Well, I do remember reading a thing in social psychology about how teenagers find too much face-to-face contact exhausting.’

‘You want me to talk to her through a door?’ One day I would have a telephone conversation with my sister that didn’t involve the weary sigh of someone explaining something to a halfwit.

‘No, doofus. What it means is that if you’re going to get her to talk you need to be doing something together, side by side.’

On my way home on Friday evening I stopped off at the DIY superstore. Back at my block, I lugged the bags up the four flights of stairs, and let myself in. Lily was exactly where I was expecting to find her: stretched out in front of the television. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Paint. This flat’s a bit tired. You keep telling me I need to brighten it up. I thought we could get rid of this boring old magnolia.’

She couldn’t help herself. I pretended to be busy making myself a drink, watching out of the corner of my eye as she stretched, then walked over and examined the paint cans. ‘That’s hardly any less boring. It’s basically pale grey.’

‘I was told grey was the in thing. I’ll take it back if you think it won’t work.’

She peered at it. ‘No. It’s okay.’

‘I thought the spare room could have cream on two, then one grey wall. Do you think they go?’ I busied myself with unwrapping the paintbrushes and rollers as I spoke. I changed into an old shirt and some shorts and asked if she could put on some music.

‘What sort?’

‘You choose.’ I hauled a chair off to one side and laid some dust sheets along the wall. ‘Your dad said I was a musical Philistine.’

She didn’t say anything, but I had her attention. I cracked open a paint tin and began to mix it. ‘He made me go to my first ever concert. Classical, not pop. I only agreed because it meant he would leave the house. He didn’t like going out much in the early days. He put on a shirt and a good jacket and it was the first time I had seen him look like …’ I remembered the jolt as I had seen, emerging from the stiff blue collar, the man he had been before his accident. I swallowed. ‘Anyway. I went preparing to be bored, and cried my way through the second half like a complete loon. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard in my life.’

A short silence.

‘What was it? What did you listen to?’

‘I can’t remember. Sibelius? Does that sound right?’

She shrugged. I started painting, as she came up beside me. She picked up a brush. She said nothing at first, but she seemed to lose herself in the repetitive nature of the task. She was careful, too, adjusting the sheet so that she didn’t spill paint on the floor, wiping her brush on the edge of the pot. We didn’t speak, except for muttered requests: Can you pass me the smaller brush? Do you think that will still show through on the second coat? It took us just half an hour to do the first wall between us.

‘So what do you think?’ I said, admiring it. ‘Think we can do another?’

She moved a dust sheet and started on the next wall. She had put on some indie band I had never heard of, light-hearted and agreeable. I started to paint again, ignoring the ache in my shoulder, the urge to yawn.

‘You should get some pictures.’

‘You’re right.’

‘I’ve got this big print at home of a Kandinsky. It doesn’t really go in my room. You could have it if you want it.’

‘That would be great.’

She was working faster now, speeding across the wall, carefully cutting in around the large window.

‘So I was thinking,’ I said, ‘we should speak to Will’s mum. Your grandmother. Are you okay if I write to her?’

She said nothing. She crouched down, apparently absorbed in carefully coating the wall to the skirting-board. Finally, she stood up. ‘Is she like him?’

‘Like who?’

‘Mrs Traynor? Is she like Mr Traynor?’

I stepped down from the box I was using to stand on, and wiped my brush on the edge of the tin. ‘She’s … different.’

‘That’s your way of saying she’s a cow.’

‘She’s not a cow. She’s just It takes longer to get to know her is all.’

‘That’s your way of telling me she’s a cow and she’s not going to like me.’

‘I’m not saying that at all, Lily. But she is someone who doesn’t show her emotions easily.’

Lily sighed and put down her paintbrush. ‘I’m basically the only person in the world who could discover two grandparents I didn’t know I had, then find out that neither of them even likes me.’

We stared at each other. And suddenly, unexpectedly, we started to laugh.

I put the lid on the paint. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go out.’

‘Where?’

‘You’re the one who says I need to have some fun. You tell me.’

I pulled out a series of tops from one of my storage boxes until Lily finally determined which one was acceptable, and I let her take me to a tiny cavernous club in a back-street near the West End where the bouncers knew her by name and nobody seemed to consider for a minute that she might be under eighteen. ‘It’s nineties music. Olden-days stuff!’ she said cheerfully, and I tried not to think too hard about the fact that I was, in her eyes, basically geriatric.

We danced until I stopped feeling self-conscious, sweat came through our clothes, our hair stuck out in fronds and my hip hurt so much that I wondered whether I would be able to stand up behind the bar the following week. We danced as if we had nothing to do but dance. Lord, it felt good. I had forgotten the joy of just existing; of losing yourself in music, in a crowd of people, the sensations that came with becoming one communal, organic mass, alive only to a pulsing beat. For a few dark, thumping hours, I let go of everything, my problems floating away like helium balloons: my awful job, my picky boss, my failure to move on. I became a thing, alive, joyful. I looked over the crowd at Lily, her eyes closed as her hair flew about her face, that peculiar mixture of concentration and freedom in her features that comes when someone loses themselves in rhythm. Then she opened her eyes and I wanted to be angry that her raised arm held a bottle that clearly wasn’t cola, but I found myself smiling back at her a broad, euphoric grin and thinking how strange it was that a messed-up child who barely knew herself had so much to teach me about the business of living.

Around us London was shrill and heaving, even though it was two a.m. We paused for Lily to take joint selfies of us in front of a theatre, a Chinese sign and a man dressed as a large bear (apparently every event had to be marked by photographic evidence), then wove our way through crowded streets in search of a night bus, past the late-night kebab shops and the bellowing drunks, the pimps and the gaggles of screeching girls. My hip was throbbing badly, and sweat was cooling unpleasantly under my damp clothes, but I still felt energized, as if I had been snapped back on.

‘God knows how we’re going to get home,’ Lily said cheerfully.

And then I heard the shout.

‘Lou!’ There was Sam, leaning out of the driver’s window of an ambulance. As I lifted my hand in response, he pulled the truck across the road in a giant U-turn. ‘Where you headed?’

‘Home. If we can ever find a bus.’

‘Hop in. Go on. I won’t tell if you won’t. We’re just finishing our shift.’ He looked at the woman beside him. ‘Ah come on, Don. She’s a patient. Broken hip. Can’t leave her to walk home.’

Lily was delighted by this unexpected turn of events. And then the rear door opened and the woman, in a paramedic uniform, eyes rolling, was shepherding us in. ‘You’re going to get us sacked, Sam,’ she said, and motioned for us to sit down on the gurney. ‘Hiya. I’m Donna. Oh, no I do remember you. The one who …’

‘… fell off a building. Yup.’

Lily pulled me to her for an ‘ambulance selfie’ and I tried not to look as Donna rolled her eyes again.

‘So where have you been?’ Sam called through to the rear.

‘Dancing,’ said Lily. ‘I’ve been trying to persuade Louisa to be less of a boring old fart. Can we put the siren on?’

‘Nope. Where’d you go? That’s from another boring old fart, by the way. I won’t have a clue whatever you say.’

‘The Twenty-two,’ said Lily. ‘Down the back of Tottenham Court Road?’

‘That’s where we had the emergency tracheotomy, Sam.’

‘I remember. You look like you’ve had a good night.’ He met my eye in the mirror and I coloured a little. I was suddenly glad to have been out dancing. It made me seem like I might be someone else altogether. Not just a tragic airport barmaid whose idea of a night out was falling off a roof.

‘It was great,’ I said, beaming.

Then he looked down at the computer screen on the dashboard. ‘Oh, great. Got a Green One over at Spencer’s.’

‘But we’re headed back in,’ said Donna. ‘Why does Lennie always do this to us? That man’s a sadist.’

‘No one else available.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘A job’s come up. I might have to drop you. It’s not far from yours, though. Okay?’

‘Spencer’s,’ said Donna, and let out a deep sigh. ‘Oh, marvellous. Hold on tight, girls.’

The siren went on. And we were off, lurching through the London traffic with the blue light screaming above our head, Lily squealing with delight.

On any given week-night, Donna told us, as we clutched the handrails, the station would get calls from Spencer’s, summoned to fix those who hadn’t made it upright to closing time, or to stitch up the faces of young men for whom six pints in an evening left them combative and without any accompanying sense. ‘These youngsters should be feeling great about life, but instead they’re just knocking themselves out with every spare pound they earn. Every bloody week.’

We were there in minutes, the ambulance slowing outside to avoid the drunks spilling out onto the pavement. The signs in Spencer’s nightclub’s smoked windows advertised ‘Free drinks for girls before 10 p.m.’ Despite the stag and hen nights, the catcalling and gaudy clothes, the packed streets of the drinking zone had less of a carnival atmosphere than something tense and explosive. I found myself gazing out of the window warily.

Sam opened the rear doors and picked up his bag. ‘Stay in the rig,’ he said, and climbed out.

A police officer headed over to him, muttered something, and we watched as they walked over to a young man who was sitting in the gutter, blood streaming from a wound to his temple. Sam squatted beside him, while the officer attempted to keep back the drunken gawkers, the ‘helpful’ friends, the wailing girlfriends. He seemed to be surrounded by a bunch of well-dressed extras from The Walking Dead, swaying mindlessly and grunting, occasionally bloodied and toppling.

‘I hate these jobs,’ said Donna, checking briskly through her pack of plastic-wrapped medical supplies as we watched. ‘Give me a woman in labour or a nice old granny with cardiomyopathy any day. Oh, flipping heck, he’s off.’

Sam was tilting the young lad’s face to examine it when another boy, his hair thick with gel and the collar of his shirt soaked in blood, grabbed at his shoulder. ‘Oi! I need to go in the ambulance!’

Sam turned slowly towards the young drunk, who was spraying blood and saliva as he spoke. ‘Back away now, mate. All right? Let me do my job.’

Drink had made the boy stupid. He glanced at his mates, and then he was in Sam’s face, snarling, ‘Don’t you tell me to back away.’

Sam ignored him, and continued attending to the other boy’s face.

‘Hey! Hey you! I need to get to the hospital.’ He pushed Sam’s shoulder. ‘Hey!’

Sam stayed crouched for a moment, very still. Then he straightened slowly, and turned, so that he was nose to nose with the drunk. ‘I’ll explain something in terms you might be able to understand, son. You’re not getting in the truck, okay? That’s it. So save your energy, go finish your night with your mates, put a bit of ice on it, and see your GP in the morning.’

‘You don’t get to tell me nothing. I pay your wages. My effing nose is broke.’

As Sam gazed steadily back at him, the boy swung out a hand and pushed at Sam’s chest. Sam looked down at it.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Donna, beside me.

Sam’s voice, when it emerged, was a growl: ‘Okay. I’m warning you now –’

‘You don’t warn me!’ The boy’s face was scornful. ‘You don’t warn me! Who do you think you are?’

Donna was out of the truck and jogging towards a cop. She murmured something in his ear and I saw them both look over. Donna’s face was pleading. The boy was still yelling and swearing, now pushing at Sam’s chest. ‘So you sort me out before you deal with that wanker.’

Sam adjusted his collar. His face had become dangerously still.

And just as I realized I was holding my breath, the policeman was there, between them. Donna’s hand was on Sam’s sleeve and she was steering him back to the young lad on the kerb. The policeman muttered something into his radio, his hand on the drunk’s shoulder. The boy swung round and spat on Sam’s jacket. ‘Fuck you.’

There was a brief, shocked silence. Sam stiffened.

‘Sam! Come on, give me a hand, yes? I need you.’ Donna propelled him forwards. When I caught sight of Sam’s face, his eyes glittered as cold and hard as diamonds.

‘Come on,’ said Donna, as they loaded the semi-comatose lad into the back of the truck. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

He drove silently, Lily and I wedged into the front seat beside him. Donna cleaned the back of his jacket as he stared ahead, stubbly jaw jutting.

‘Could be worse,’ Donna said cheerfully. ‘I had one throw up in my hair last month. And the little monster did it on purpose. Shoved his fingers down the back of his throat and ran up behind me, just because I wouldn’t take him home, like I was some kind of bloody minicab.’

She stood up and motioned for the energy drink she kept in the front. ‘It’s a waste of resources. When you think what we could be doing, instead of scooping up a load of little …’ She took a swig, then looked down at the barely conscious young boy. ‘I don’t know. You have to wonder what goes on in their heads.’

‘Not much,’ said Sam.

‘Yeah. Well, we have to keep this one on a tight leash.’ Donna patted Sam’s shoulder. ‘He got a caution last year.’

Sam glanced sideways at me, suddenly sheepish. ‘We went to pick up a girl from the top of Commercial Street. Face smashed to a pulp. Domestic. As I went to lift her onto the gurney, her boyfriend came flying out of the pub and went for her again. Couldn’t help myself.’

‘You took a swing at him?’

‘More than one,’ Donna scoffed.

‘Yeah. Well. It wasn’t a good time.’

Donna shifted to grimace at me. ‘Well, this one can’t afford to get in trouble again. Or he’s out of the service.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, as he let us out. ‘For the lift, I mean.’

‘Couldn’t leave you in that open-air asylum,’ he said.

His eyes briefly met mine. Then Donna shut the door and they were gone, heading for the hospital with their battered human cargo.

‘You totally fancy him,’ said Lily, as we watched the ambulance disappear.

I had forgotten she was even there. I sighed as I reached into my pockets for the keys. ‘He’s a shagger.’

‘So? I would totally shag that,’ Lily said, as I opened the door to let her in. ‘I mean, if I was old. And a bit desperate. Like you.’

‘I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship, Lily.’

She was walking behind me, so there was no way I could actually prove it, but I swear I could feel her pulling faces at me the whole way up the stairs.