That Girl From Nowhere (12 page)

I’m not shaking. I am, but if I tell myself enough times that I’m not, it will become a reality.

‘Clemency, is that you?’ Mum’s voice calls. Today is a good day. The tentacles of pain and grief are not wrapped so tightly around her heart, its poison isn’t tainting her as potently. I know this by the volume of the television, blaring out enough to be heard throughout the flat; I can feel this by the calmness in her voice. If I was going to tell her – ever – today would be the day to do it.

‘No, Mum, it’s the milkman,’ I reply. I stand outside my bedroom, the wide corridor suddenly narrow and claustrophobic, not big enough for the secret I’ve hidden away in my heart and mind. The large honey-coloured wooden blocks of the parquet floor swim in front of me, their pattern suddenly a nauseating kaleidoscope of half-focused images and formations.

‘Clemency! Do you have to?’ Mum calls. ‘Can’t you just for once say, “Yes, Mum, it’s me”? Do you have to be sarcastic every time?’

‘Yeah, but— Yes, Mum, it’s me,’ I say.

‘That’s better,’ she replies. There’s no doubt a smile on her face, fuelled by the affection she now has for me because I didn’t argue with her for once, nor try to explain that saying things like that were just part of who I am. Instead, I simply did as I was told. Anyone other than my mother would be suspicious of why someone had suddenly changed a habit of a lifetime. But Mum doesn’t know because she always thinks if she tells me off enough, I will do as I’m told. If I were in Mum’s position, though, I’d guess without a doubt that I was being cheated on.

That’s what I’m doing. I’m cheating on my mother. Even though I didn’t mean to, and it really did ‘just happen’, I’m still cheating. Betraying her. Making her biggest nightmare part of my reality.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Mum asks.

I want to tell her. I want to throw myself on to the sofa beside her, rest my head on her shoulder and explain what happened. Then I want to explain about the cavernous hole that has unexpectedly, terrifyingly opened up inside me simply because of who I met today. The hole is always there, of course, and mostly I ignore it. Usually I replace the area where it is with the idea that I don’t belong anywhere and that I don’t need anything else to explain why I feel the way I do. Rarely, very rarely, I obliquely acknowledge the hole and feel for a little while that there is a part of me missing.

There is a part of me missing. I feel that now. It is huge and gaping and potentially unfillable. I want Mum to be able to listen to all that and understand without worrying about what it will mean for her.

I want my mum. My real mum, I mean. The mum who’ll be able to listen to all that and understand and put her arms around me and tell me it will all be OK. I want my real mum, except I don’t know who that is.

‘Clemency! Do you want a cup of tea?’ Mum repeats.

‘No, thanks. I’m going to get on with some work.’

‘Don’t work for too long,’ she calls back. ‘You know how involved you get.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ I say. It’s her of course; she’s my real mum. How could I, for even a moment, have ever thought otherwise?
She’s
my real mum. And I’ve cheated on her.

To: Jonas Zebila

From: Abi Zebila

Subject: NEWS!!!!!

Thursday, 11 June 2015

Are you sitting down?

I hope so. If you’re not and you’re reading this on your phone, SIT DOWN. You are not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.

We have a sister. Apart from me, you have another, real-life, full-blooded sister. It’s too complicated to explain all of it right now, but it was her that Mummy drew the butterflies for. This woman said when she was a baby, she slept in a box decorated with butterflies by her mother, who she never met because she was adopted as a baby.

All the while I’m talking to her, I’m thinking, this is mad, she’s not my sister, how can she be when Mummy and Daddy have been together since the beginning of time and have only done it three times to have us? And if she was really our sister then they would have … BEFORE marriage, and you know how much of a crime that is around here.

When I told her to come back to the house to meet Mummy and Daddy she got up and ran away. But butterflies. It all makes sense now.

All right, so by now I’m properly spooked. There’s some woman out there with my face and a sleep box like mine, so I leave work as early as I can. I come home, Mummy’s in the kitchen, Gran’s asleep in her room, Daddy’s still out and Ivor is on the computer in the living room with Lily so it’s safe to talk. I’m actually pretty impressed with myself that I didn’t think twice about going into the kitchen and shutting the door and fronting up to Mummy about it.

‘Abi, when you have washed your hands, wash the rice for me and put it on,’ Mummy said.

I went across the room and stood right next to her. ‘Mummy, do I have a sister that you had adopted?’ I said.

Yeah, all right, it’s not the most subtle or diplomatic thing to say but I had to get it out quick before I lost my nerve.

She was crushing big fat juicy plum tomatoes in her black mortar and pestle (you know the one Daddy brought her back from Nihanara the last time he went over there) and she just stopped. Only for about two seconds, then she started up again.

‘What foolishness are you talking now, Abi?’ she said. ‘Please, wash your hands and then put some rice on. Make sure you put enough on for today and tomorrow.’

‘I just met her,’ I said. ‘She looks exactly like me and she says she slept in a box covered in butterflies. I brought her home to meet you.’ Yeah, I know that last bit was mean but you know what Mummy and Daddy are like – they won’t admit to anything unless you have proof. As it turns out that was the worst thing I could have said because it shook Mummy up so much she knocked the black bowl off the worktop and it smashed on the floor and the tomato juice went everywhere.

Mummy looked really, really scared and said, ‘She’s here? You brought her here?’

I knew it was true then and I knew it was bad because she didn’t even notice about the bowl. I sort of shook my head, really nervous, and said that I’d wanted to but she ran away. ‘Is it true?’ I asked.

She still looked scared but she nodded. ‘You must not tell your father that you have seen her, nor your grandmother.’

‘Do they know about her?’ I asked. And she got angry! She’s the one lying all these years and now she was angry when she was caught out and I asked what I thought was a perfectly valid question.

‘Of course they know about her. Who do you think her father is? And you must not tell Ivor. None of them are to know until I’m ready to tell them, do you understand me?’ I didn’t say anything because what sort of a person would agree to something like that? ‘Do you understand me?’ she said again, more sternly, so obviously I’m the sort of person who would agree to that because I did. I sort of nodded and said yes, and I didn’t cross my fingers or toes. But she didn’t say I wasn’t to tell you, so I am.

Can you actually believe it? A sister. A SISTER. And I can’t tell anyone. Except you. I think Mummy wants to meet her, to see for herself, but after the way she ran away today, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

So there you have it. Big news. I’m typing this from Declan’s. I couldn’t trust myself not to shout something at the dinner table so I packed a bag for Lily and me and we’re going to stay here for a few days. Declan’s over the moon, Lily’s less than thrilled because I forgot her homework and I refuse to go back for it.

I don’t know how I feel about all this. I could scream at Mummy and Daddy, I really could. But on the other hand I know what good it would do me. I so want to see her again. A sister. I’ve always wanted a sister. (No offence.) I really hope there’s a way I can get her to talk to me.

Lots of love

Abi

xxxx

Mum is sitting at the kitchen table; she has a copy of
Friday Ads
spread open in front of her, a cup of tea in her hand. At this time of day the kitchen is a suntrap, light streaming in through the windows like water down a waterfall. Mum seems to be bathed in a golden glow because she is at the epicentre of the waterfall of light. She is dressed, hair done, make-up applied, ready for whatever the next few hours hold.

I struggled out of bed this morning after a sleepless night of replaying and reliving yesterday. It’s been a night of confusion and self-reproach and fear of what to do next. No matter which line of thought I followed, which path my fantasies led me, which way I tried to reason myself out of the mess, there really is only one thing to do next.

What I should do next is this: tell Mum.

Today is a good day and if I tell her now, it won’t set her too far back. In this light-drenched kitchen I should tell her and she can help me decide what to do next.

My fear, a visceral terror of her reaction, wouldn’t allow me to think of what to actually say, but it shouldn’t be too hard. ‘Mum, I met my biological sister yesterday’ would work. ‘Mum, I know this will upset you, but yesterday I met my sister’ that would be enough, too. ‘Mum, I need you to listen to me for a minute without saying anything. What I’m about to say will be unbelievable and really quite cool if you think about it but I’ve found my birth family.’ ‘Mum, I have a sister! I know! Isn’t that incredible!’

I clear my throat, which emanates from me as a small, choking sound. I’ll simply start talking. Whatever it is that comes out of my mouth, I will state it clearly and firmly, and I brace myself to face her response full on.

‘I’m going to buy myself a bicycle,’ my mother announces when she sees me.

‘Who with the what now?’ I reply. That, I was not expecting.

‘There are bicycle lanes all over Brighton, all down the seafront, I’m going to take advantage of them. I’m going to buy a bicycle.’

‘To ride?’

‘Yes, of course, to ride.’

‘You?’

Mum loudly settles her cup on the table and fixes me with a stern glare, her mouth a tight circle of indignation and irritation. ‘Yes, me.’ ‘
Do you have some sort of problem with that?
’ she adds silently.

‘
Really?
’ I say. Everything I was meant to tell her has been wisped away on this random revelation.

‘Yes, really,’ she says crossly.

‘
Really, really?
’

‘You are just like your father.’ Her voice is brittle. ‘You have no faith in me whatsoever. You think I’m not capable of doing anything beyond cooking and sewing and cleaning. I will have you know that when I was a young girl I had a bicycle and I used to go everywhere on it. I went to work at the factory on it and used to go out with my friends.’ Mum’s huff continues: ‘If you must know, I met your father while I was out riding in the countryside with my friends.’

‘Sorry. I was just a bit shocked, that’s all. Get a bike. It’ll be fun. Great idea.’
I won’t spend all my time worrying about you out there on the roads, wondering what havoc you’ll cause
, I think.
I’m sure there won’t be police at my door at least once a week telling me that you’ve been banged up in jail because you’ve taken some poor unsuspecting motorist to task for daring to come near you. I’m certain that this plan of yours is going to work out
brilliantly
for all concerned.

‘It will be,’ she says. She may as well cross her arms over her chest and stick out her tongue in a giant, defiant fit of pique.

‘
I have a sister, Mum!
’ I’d love to shout that at her. It’d wipe that sulk clean off her face. A bike. A freaking bike! ‘Right, well, I’m off to work. You enjoy looking for your bike.’

‘I will.’

‘Don’t forget to get a helmet.’

‘I won’t.’

This was not how today was meant to start. I haven’t even had a drink and I’m being forced out of the house by another of those ‘moments with Mum’ I’m expert at walking into. Each time I get to the end of such a ‘moment’ I look back and find that it was usually precipitated by me not knowing when to keep my mouth shut, and Mum not knowing how not to be herself.
A bike!
How was I meant to not comment at all when this woman – with her criticism of every other driver on the road, whose constant shouts at me to slow down and ‘mind that car’ made a five-hour journey to Brighton feel like I’d taken a wrong turn and was headed instead to Hades – decides she’s going to join those people out there?

I should have told her about Abi, though. This isn’t the sort of thing I should keep from her. I need someone to help me with what comes next. What do I want to come next, though? I left without getting Abi’s full name, without giving her my number or my full name. I suppose she could find me if she wanted to, and I could find her if I wanted to.

Do I want to, though?

Do I want to get in touch with her? Do I want to see her again?
I ask myself that question again and again with every one of the eighty-seven steps I take on my way out of the building.

Of course I do
, I conclude as I open the door.
Of course I don’t
, I decide as the door shuts behind me and I am out in the open air.
Of course I do and of course I don’t.
I have no idea which answer is the best one.

Tyler’s café is buzzing – energetic and alive with customers. It’s just past eight and everyone seems to have got the memo that told them to come here for breakfast and a chat.

‘What would Madame From Nowhere like to try today?’ Tyler asks. I hop myself up on to my favourite stool, place my bag on the seat beside me. ‘I have some wonderful smoky coffee beans that would make an interesting double-shot espresso. A nice Chilean blend – fair trade, of course – that would make a delightful mocha, and a truly unique Mexican mix that would make an out-of-this-world cappuccino—’

‘No cappuccino!’ I say this much louder than necessary. A few people turn to look at me and Tyler’s eyebrows come together in confusion. ‘I do not want a cappuccino type of day today,’ I state calmly.