That Girl From Nowhere (40 page)

Her body still trembles, but she is back to being pensive, unsure.

‘That’s the only way I can help you. That’s my only condition.’

She says nothing for a time. Eventually, so eventually I think she is not going to speak to me again, she states, ‘Agreed.’

‘Right.’ I’d been hoping she wouldn’t agree. It would have given me an easy out then. I only have her word that she will do it. But I have to trust her. She trusts me enough to ask me to do this for her, so I have to trust her back. Anyway, who wouldn’t do something that could possibly prevent the person, the
granddaughter
, who has risked everything to help you, from going to prison?

‘How …’ I can’t quite believe we’re going to have this conversation. ‘How do you want me to help you?’

Slowly, haltingly, she explains it all to me and she starts by telling me where to find a key to the house.

I am counting down time until I have to do this thing. The key burns a hole in my pocket, and the ‘plan’ burns a hole in my mind.

In the workshop at Karina’s Jewels, I used to have a clear glass jar that I would fill with beads when I was counting down to something. It lived at the centre of the first shelf, between the plastic drawer set of different wires and the drawers of different sandpaper grades, and I would drop a coloured bead in every day. Karina said that I should be doing it the other way round, that I should put the same number of beads as number of days into the jar and take one out each day. That way, I could see the days until D-day (whatever ‘D’ happened to be) getting closer and closer. I explained, though, that I needed to see how patient I had been, how many days I’d survived without D-day. Doing it my way was as a visual reminder to myself that no matter how long it seemed until something arrived, it would always come;

I’ve been trying to fill up the days until this D-day arrives. She has a specific day in mind – it will give her a chance to get her affairs in order, she said. It will be soon, but not that soon. Until then I have to get from here to there without the benefit of a bead jar.

Now that I’m not looking after Lily and Sienna I can work during the day again, but I can’t face it. Being in the workshop during the day makes me claustrophobic and scared. I keep wondering what’s going on outside, what I’m missing out on. If I do this thing, there’s every chance that I won’t have the ability to walk around whenever I want during the day. I need to enjoy it as much as I can.

Working at night fills up those sets of hours, keeps me away from the flat and Seth and Nancy and Mum. Seth doesn’t speak to Nancy at all. She gave him a look the first day he was there, to try to gauge what was happening. ‘I’ve told Smitty everything, Nancy,’ he said. ‘No more secrets, no more lies, OK? Leave me alone now.’

He works a lot at the kitchen table, sometimes he walks up into Portslade to work in a café, but we make polite conversation and I generally avoid him because if I’m around him too long I dwell on our past.

I want to tell someone. I want to tell someone what I’ve decided to do and I want them to tell me that it’s the right thing, or the wrong thing, or that it’s
some
thing. I just want to share the knowledge, the decision that has become the weight of the world and is pressing down on my shoulders.

My feet have walked me all over Brighton and Hove these past few days and here I am outside a church. It is a little deeper into Hove and seems welcoming. It is a large bright-red brick building on a junction and the way the building stretches out along the side road and main road, it reminds me of someone offering a hug, standing still with their arms outstretched in hopeful expectation. To the side of the building that sits on the main road there is a large arch and at the end is a huge tower, topped with a green steeple that reaches right up into the sky, as though attempting to touch the heavens. The doors are open and I step into the church.

I’m going to light a candle for Dad, see if I can sit in the quiet and talk to him. Maybe it’ll be the same as telling someone else. A glass wall with double doors set into it greets me when I enter the church. It separates the main area from the entrance and, I’d imagine, must have significantly cut down on their heating bills.

There is a mass going on so I move towards the noticeboard to wait patiently for the service to finish. I stare at the flyers pinned to the corkboard, the handwritten welcome note from the priest, the signs asking for volunteers to help them with various activities.

A whoosh and the glass doors are open, and the priest leaves first. His white hair looks almost unrealistically perfect and, I suspect as he walks past in his green vestments, that he might curl his hair. Wouldn’t that be something – a priest in rollers! I watch the people leave, quite a few for a Wednesday morning mass. Some people have got out their Sunday finest but most of them are dressed as though they do this as part of their normal daily routine.

The steady flow slows to a trickle and I am about to step into the church but have to stop because there is someone I wasn’t expecting to see about to leave the mass. Quickly, I step back in case the person – Tyler – sees me.

I risk another look and notice he isn’t alone. He is pushing a wheelchair in which sits an elderly woman who wears a red and black hat that is an elaborate design of lace and netting. I move back to my space beside a pillar where hopefully I’ll be out of sight.

Who is the woman? His mother? Grandmother? Great Aunt?
They are the last to leave and, as they approach, it’s obvious Tyler’s going to find it difficult to open the doors on his own.

I step forward, my fingers close on the metal D handle and pull it open as far as it will go. Then I step across and open the other door.

‘Ahh, thank you, thank you,’ the woman in the wheelchair says with a strong Jamaican lilt. ‘You’ve appeared like an angel to save my feet being bashed on yet another door.’

I smile but keep my head lowered to avoid looking at the man who is pushing her. I can sense him staring at me, willing me to raise my head. Technically, we’ve not had a falling out and we can still speak to each other, but realistically, I’m far too humiliated and guilt-ridden to face him. Once they have cleared the doors, Tyler says a heartfelt, ‘Thank you,’ but still I do not lift my gaze.

I don’t even glance at them as they move towards the doors to the outside. I close the door I am holding on to, and shut the other one behind me as I enter the church.

The church has white walls and cream pillars that flank the pews all the way down to the altar. The pews are in a light-coloured wood, while the altar and pulpit are carved from white marble. It seems an effort has been made to create a bright, light space. When I was younger I used to think that Heaven was a bright, white space that was also warm and comfortable. It would be filled with clouds and gentle soothing music. You could have whatever you wanted, you could be alone or with people, you would never get tired but you would sleep if you wanted to. You would never be hungry, but you could eat anything you wanted. It was the most amazing place in the world and you would always feel wonderful.

Yet, in every thought or imagining of Heaven I had, I didn’t really want to be there. Because I couldn’t come back here when I wanted, I wouldn’t have the people I loved around when I wanted. What was the point of Heaven if I couldn’t be with the people who I wanted to be with and for that to happen, they’d have to die. And I wouldn’t want that.

I haven’t been in a church since Dad’s funeral, before that it was probably for Karina’s wedding, before that probably Sienna’s christening. I don’t make a habit of going to church, even though we went every week when I was a child.

This church has the serenity of silence. I remember to genuflect before I slide into a pew. I close my eyes and try to tune in. Try to link myself with the serenity and hush of the building. I want to climb on to that other reality and stand there, looking, searching. If I manage to do that, to be there, to ground myself in that other reality, I may find him. I may feel Dad’s presence.

The quiet comes slowly, unlinks itself blood cell by blood cell throughout my body until every part of me feels it. I am not here. I am not there. I am everywhere and nowhere.

‘Hi, Dad,’ I whisper. ‘Can I talk to you?’

Tyler is leaning against the wall beside the church door. His arms are folded across his chest, and although it’s a cool day, he’s in one of his seemingly never-ending supply of bright white T-shirts that show off his sleek, beautiful arms.

‘Hello,’ he says when I spot him.

‘Hi,’ I reply. ‘Bye.’ I don’t want to hang around, having awkward conversations with him, so set off in the direction of home. Maybe Seth has gone to work in a café and Mum will probably be out with Nancy and Sienna. Maybe I will be alone in the flat for a while. If Seth isn’t out, I’ll ask him to go—

‘I’m sorry,’ Tyler calls at me.

I stop and, confused, turn back to him. ‘What are you sorry for?’

‘I didn’t behave very well the last time I saw you,’ he says. ‘I was shocked, humiliated, and a little angry, so I behaved badly. I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t behave badly at all. And even if you did, I think you were entitled.’

‘No. I had the right to be angry, but not to be condescending and downright rude. I apologise.’

‘Apology – as unnecessary as it is – accepted. I’ll see you, Tyler.’

‘Clemency,’ he calls.

‘Yes?’ I ask without bothering to turn around.

‘Are you all right? You seem so sad.’

‘I know.’ That’s the simple fact: I am sad. About Dad, about Seth, about Mum, about my mother and father and sister and brothers and grandmother. About what I have to do for my grandmother. I am sad. ‘I’ve been sad for weeks, though, have you only just noticed?’

‘No. Before, though, you looked sad, which is understandable since your dad had recently died, but now you seem bereft. As though nothing will make any of it any better.’

I turn to him. ‘I don’t look that bad,’ I say with a smile.

The concerned look on his face chokes the laugh in my throat. He steps closer. After another step, he reaches for my hand. ‘You don’t look bad at all.’

I like the feeling of my hand in his, the touch of his skin against mine. He steps closer and the smell of him – sharp tangy citrus, woody notes and, of course, coffee – fills my senses. I inhale deeply, breathe him in. I exhale, push him out again. This is a distraction, a way to escape my complicated, sad life. His hand is on my face, warm and reassuring. He fills my senses on my next in-breath, leaves again as I breathe out. My hand is on his face. Another inhalation that draws him in, an exhalation that pushes him out. His lips are on mine, my lips are on his. We stand in the middle of the pavement of a busy street kissing, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

In the park around the corner from the church, we sit on a bench and watch parents play with their children. I find children fascinating. They seem so free, easy. One girl has sleek pigtails that bounce as she swings arm over arm from one end of the monkey bars to the other. A four-year-old boy with a curtain of blond hair ‘Wheeeee!’s his way down the largest slide in the park, stands up and runs around to climb back up the steps. A little girl, tall but probably younger than she looks, is on the climbing frame, confidently making her way to the top, while a woman who looks like she could be her mother waits fretfully at the bottom of the equipment. They could be mother and daughter – but like me and Mum. The woman is a pale white with light brown hair, the little girl is a warm, dark brown like me.

Tyler and I haven’t really spoken. We stopped kissing after a couple of minutes and then were completely awkward and embarrassed. I was surprised, not only because we were standing on a main road and it was broad daylight and we were outside a church, but also because, well, I’m a married woman and he was very clear that he didn’t mess with married women.

I rest my head on his shoulder, he has his hand on my leg. We sit like an established couple spending precious time together, doing not much.

‘Who was the woman in the wheelchair?’ I ask.

‘Manma,’ he replies. ‘My grandma. I take her to church every other Wednesday, my brother does the other week. My mum sits outside and waits for us to load her into the car then drives her home.’

‘She waits outside?’

‘Yup, my mum isn’t setting foot in a church. Her and Manma have had some spectacular rows about it, but my mum isn’t having it. She takes Manma there and takes her home, but she won’t step inside.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘Lots of reasons, none that I completely agree with or understand to be honest, not that I completely agree with Manma’s arguments either, but that’s my family for you – they’re always on the verge of falling out and then straight back to normal.’

‘It must be so strange, growing up in a big family. I had no siblings and only really had my cousin Nancy who was my age. How many siblings do you have?’

‘Six.’

‘Wow! It must have been so noisy.’ Envy is oozing out of me so fast I’m surprised Tyler can’t see big, green globules of it. ‘It must have been brilliant. Not that only having Mum and Dad wasn’t brilliant because it was.’

‘It drove me mad. There was never any peace and quiet, no privacy. My mum and dad kept trying until my mum got her girl in the end, that’s the main thing.’

I laugh. I’ve heard of people doing that. It took me a lifetime to get my head around the idea of having a child. Seth and I talked and talked and talked about it and I was still uncertain. When I had got my head around it, I had been so excited about the prospect of having a baby with him. I knew he’d love the child and I would, too. And I would have someone who was not only linked to me biologically, but would link me to him, too. The fact he had told Nancy about that still breaks my heart.

‘A lot of thinking going on in that head of yours,’ Tyler says. He’s looking down at me. His eyes are a shade of brown that I’ve only ever seen on a pebble pendant I bought on holiday in Lisbon. It wasn’t quite a dark chocolate, it was a colour in between that and mahogany. I’d stripped the pendant of its chain and jumprings, then set it into a little silver tray and strung it with little cream beads as a belt. I’d sold it for £125. The most I’d ever got for something so small and unrelated to a wedding.