Page 114 of The Truth About You and Me
The woman is still talking, but my eyes have dropped to the sign above the sink. A hand inside a red circle and big red strikethrough and the words:Don’t Touch. Stay Safe.
Here, inside my flat, my hands want to release their grip on my arms, but I don’t let them. I take myself deeper into my past.
I’m a little older now.
I don’t remember a woman with curly hair and green eyes, or a man with me on his shoulders and a kind laugh. Now I see other people’s homes. Images of my childhood flash by, things I’ve never looked at before: a warm hug from a foster mother, a robust laugh from a foster father playing Snap! with me. A deep sadness pulls me away when I return to the children’s home. Christmases, Easter egg hunts, and the feeling of being ripped away from the warmth and safety of a ready-made family on repeat. Of not understanding why they say one thing and do another.
The tapestry of my childhood is made up of hundreds of stitches of hope, hope that this family would be the one to keep me; that maybe this time, I wouldn’t go back to the children’s home. Always living half a life, being half a person, half a daughter, half a sister.
I see kind families extending a helping hand towards me only to pass me back when the damage in me was exposed. That quiet girl with big wide eyes and dimples who they let into their home soon became a child who would scream when kindness touched her, would push and kick when she couldn’t process what and who it was she could hear inside her infantile mind.
And so that little girl had learnt that the only way to protect herself from the cruelty of hope was to carve a space around her where hope couldn’t get in, where she wouldn’t get hurt, where she was the only person in control. Where she could hear the truth, not the lies they said about being welcome. Wanted.
But I’m not that little girl any more.
A sharp pain rips through me. My body feels like it’s splitting in two but I wrap my hands tighter and tighter around myself, feeling and seeing everything that I’ve kept hidden from myself for so long.
I release my hands. Nausea rushes through my body, hands gripping the carpet. My body is aching, shaking, thick snot beneath my nose, my face wet.
That empty cold space inside me is flooding with warmth.
I was loved.
I was wanted.
I had a family.
There is a boom, a flash of white and then?—
52
JACK
I pull at the collar of my shirt. It feels too tight but I know it’s just nerves. Nell pops another cork and half fills glasses while Mum arranges canapés on a silver platter. Dad is in the corner nursing a glass of red, while he reads the blurb of one of the new arrivals. I sidestep Charl who, glass and book in hand, is already heading for one of the beanbags at the back. ‘Call me if you need me!’ she says taking a huge bite out of a sausage roll.
‘Any good?’ I ask nodding to the book in Dad’s hand. ‘It’s been done before but…’ He taps the hardback. I love that sound. That bracken echo that links it back to the tree that broke it’s back to be here. ‘The reviews are stellar.’
‘May I?’ I take the book from his hand, turning it over. My eyes run around the outline of the letters, I smell rosemary, hear the melody ofSwan Lake, taste lemon.
The bell above the door rings and I glance up, my heart crashing back into my boots with every new customer that isn’t Maggie. I know it’s a long shot, I know this would be too much for her, but my hopeful heart keeps being drawn to the bell.
‘The Night and the Im-something Daylight?’
‘Impeccable.’
‘Good title.’
‘Hmmmm,’ Dad reluctantly agrees.
Nell walks towards me; an anxious pull around her mouth. I check the time; it’s almost half seven already. I scan the room. Patrick Shaw is nowhere to be seen. In the children’s corner, eager kids are clutching their books while watching the magician I’d hired to keep them entertained. Parents are sipping wine and watching on, waiting for the author. Who is late. Fifteen minutes late. Probably a cancelled train but I can feel the swell of concern. The big pull of tonight is his appearance. This could cripple the reputation of the shop before it’s even had a chance.
‘Patrick can’t make it,’ Nell says.
‘What?’ I look to the eager children.
‘Been sick on the tube, and let me tell you, that is not something anyone should be privy to hearing.’ She shudders.
Fuck.
