Page 27 of The First Time I Saw You
Samuel
‘How are you, my boy?’ Da’s voice fills the room.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, look at the state of your pillow! How do they ever expect you to get better when your pillow case is all ruffled?’ I try not to let Mam know that her every movement is sending shots of pain up my back and my chest.
I wince as Da ‘whispers’ into my ear, ‘I’ve got you some whiskey. It’s in your drawer, but mum’s the word, eh?’ He slaps me on my leg, the only part of me that doesn’t hurt.
‘Mr McLaughlin, don’t you think I can’t hear you. It’ll mess with his medication.’ I close my eyes as I hear her open a drawer and take it out. My parents have always called each other Mr and Mrs McLaughlin respectively.
‘For the love of God, woman, whiskey has been putting the Irish back on the road to recovery for hundreds of years.’ Da’s voice is sinking into the floor, becoming quieter and more distant.
‘It’s put them on the path to ruin, too, now behave yourself.’ Mam’s voice shrinks away as I close my eyes again.
‘Will you both shut your holes? He needs to rest,’ Sarah says, but her voice skips away.
I slip into an opiate-filled dream as memories play in black and white like a Charlie Chaplin movie. Blacks, whites and greys flicker as the tape rolls, organ music playing as I see us: me walking hurriedly along the pavement while Sophie sits inside a café opposite, her big, sad eyes with fluttering eyelashes staring at me. She is wearing a twenties outfit, her blond hair arranged in sleek curls framing her face; she looks away bashfully. I give her a little wave and doff my bowler hat as my hand reaches for the door. I try the door but a white light consumes the shot, sending me somersaulting back. I reach for the door again. The white light sends me backflipping away. Again and again, I reach for the door, and again and again I am sent spiralling away. The sky darkens around me as the film comes to an end with the image of me sitting in the dust as the camera closes in on my pale, desolate face, a single tear running down my cheek: a small, circular shot of film, the rest of the frame black.
Week Ten
Sophie
Charlie Evans. Gorgeous, kind Charlie Evans. Charlie Evans, who took pity on me as a shy, awkward fourteen-year-old girl when I was being teased at school for my hand-me-down uniform and home-cut hair, who began sitting next to me at lunch, putting up with me hanging around him – even though I was two years younger. He introduced me to his girlfriend Olivia, listened to my opinions and ruffled my hair like I was his younger sister. The teasing stopped and I was left alone; I had a friend. That was until Jeanette Jones started telling everyone that I was in love with him.
After that, Charlie would blush every time I looked at him, would avoid me when I walked towards him at lunch time, because the whole school knew. And once again, I was the awkward girl with the scuffed shoes who buried her head in books.
And now, Charlie Evans has moved in next door.
I stood there, my foot still tangled in the grass. He had stopped short and looked straight at me. His expression slowly changed, his eyebrows folding into a scowl, whereas at school, they were raised; like he was always in a state of alarm. He lifted his chin as he no doubt tried to remember where he knew me from, the gesture defensive and wary. I smiled at him, trying to embody the London me, the straight-backed, perfectly groomed version of me that didn’t have her heel stuck in grass and wasn’t desperate for a wee.
‘Hello!’ I said, my confident London voice coming out over-enthusiastic, like I was trying too hard. He gave me a short nod in response. His light-brown hair needed a cut; waves that used to bob up and down as he walked seemed stiff and unwashed. I used to love how he walked, almost rocking on to the balls of his feet with every step. It always looked as though he was eager to go wherever it was he was going – even double French.
‘I thought next door was empty,’ he answered, turning his back and walking back through the open door. My welcoming smile dropped, and irritation replaced it. I bent down and released my foot, trying to keep my legs clamped together as I regretted not making a dash for the loo before I left town. I fiddled with the key in my own front door, as he dragged out a roll of carpet. In my peripheral vision, I could see him hauling it towards the skip which I had ordered, ready for the kitchen fitters.
‘That’s my skip.’ The words were out before I could help them. He stopped the dragging motion and turned to face me.
‘Pardon?’
‘The skip,’ I replied, holding my head a little straighter, my shoulders a little further back, enjoying the sense of control I was feeling. ‘It’s mine. But feel free to use it, if that’s all that you need to get rid of. I don’t mind.’
‘Right,’ he replied, and with a slight grunt, chucked the carpet into the skip, wiped his hands on his jeans, walked into his house and slammed the door behind him.
Bean seems to really like chocolate milk. Who would have thought that I would prefer to drink this than coffee? I suck on the straw and drain the last of the carton with a slurping rattle as I smooth down the pages of The Book. My baby is approximately the size of a sherbet lemon now; the skin is covered in soft hair; eyelids are now fully formed and sealed. Bean is apparently moving around quite a bit, too. I picture it doing a little somersault to celebrate. Bean’s fingers now have tiny nails. Cute.
I hear a bang from next door and ignore the little niggle of annoyance. Charlie Evans has turned into a knob, I have decided.
I close The Book, put it on the floor and walk over to Mum’s old battery-operated radio. I fiddle with the dial until it tunes into a classical station, then settle myself down into her chair.Great Expectationssits in my lap again, but I keep getting distracted by thoughts of Samuel. The urge to fetch my laptop from upstairs is proving harder for me to suppress than I would like. I keep ignoring the whispers from Bean that he has a right to know.
‘We’ll be fine on our own,’ I say. ‘What kind of father would he be to you? He slept with me because of revenge, Bean, not love.’ I dismiss the way he had looked at me: the anger in his eyes in the meeting; the way he smiled. I clear my throat and return my attention to the book, re-reading the passage again.
My hand drops to my knees, the pages remaining open.
‘Do you think he would like it here? You know, if things were different and he didn’t hate me? Didn’t sleep with me and then destroy everything that I had worked for?’
Deep down I know the answer to that. He often talked about his mam’s house, about how nothing ever matched, how nothing ever worked without a swift kick or bang in the right place . . . maybe I should call him? ‘Should I call him, Bean?’ I imagine the tiny human floating around in a pink pool, the thick cord anchoring it as it kicks and nods its head. ‘What would I say?’ I sigh and return to my book. ‘We’re better off without him.’
I’m starting to get bored. I have cleaned the kitchen twice, which is pointless because I have chosen a new one and it will be fitted tomorrow. Pip and Miss Haversham have been discarded again and instead I have begun a crossword.
‘Three down, six letters, Bean . . . sequence of notes that are pleasing to the ear . . . Melody.’
