Beside Myself Read online

  ‘That’s good, Ellie,’ I say, calm and kind, like Mrs Appleby at school when she’s explaining number work. ‘Now all you have to do is be like that and the rest will take care of itself.’

  We do some more walking and talking up and down the lane. But it’s boring being Ellie when there’s no one there to see. I am beginning to think the game has finished its chips when who should come walking up to the cottage by the postbox carrying a big tin but Chloe, who normally sits in the little room by the hall at school and nods and smiles and writes down everything we say.

  ‘Well hello there, Ellie love,’ she says to me, and a surge of pleasedness floods through me that the bunches are doing the trick.

  ‘Hello Chloe,’ I say, and I swivel from side to side and scuff my shoe in the dirt in that way Ellie has. Away by the postbox, I see Ellie putting her hand to her mouth like it is about to spill a giggle, but I ignore her and look up at Chloe, determined to do the game.

  ‘Are you having a nice summer holiday?’ says Chloe, taking one hand off the tin to brush her hair back from her face. Today Chloe’s nails are pink and glittery and she is wearing a big silver butterfly ring.

  I nod and try to think about what Ellie would say next but Chloe doesn’t wait like she normally does in the little room at school. Today it’s like she’s doing my side of the talking as well.

  ‘I’m just off to see my mum,’ she says, nodding at the cottage. ‘She’s not been well, so I’m taking her a cake.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, and I put my fingers to my nose the way that Ellie would. A chuckle comes, but I swallow it down and stare sadly at the cracks in the tarmac.

  ‘And what about you, Helen?’ says Chloe, looking over at Ellie. ‘Are you enjoying the summer? I’m sure you’re taking good care of your sister, aren’t you?’

  I expect that Ellie will be silly and laugh right away or else go serious and quiet, but instead she looks at me and does a big swallow. A flash of fun glimmers from her eyes to mine and she goes, ‘Yes, thank you very much. The weather has really been marvellous.’

  She does it in a funny, pinched old-lady voice and I’m sure that Chloe will know it’s really her. But Chloe does not notice a thing. She shifts the tin from one hand to the other and yawns.

  ‘Great. That’s wonderful,’ she says. Then she looks at the cottage. ‘Well, I’d better get going otherwise Mum’ll wonder where I’ve got to. You two take care, won’t you? I’ll see you next year.’

  And with that she bustles up to the front door, puts a key in the lock and disappears.

  Ellie and I look at each other as the quiet settles back into the lane. Then the laughs explode and it is like our tummies have turned into trampolines, bouncing giggle after giggle up our throats. I stagger over to Ellie and put my arms around her shoulders, gasping with the effort of the laughs.

  ‘We tricked her good and proper,’ I say.

  ‘She thought you were the one who needed looking after,’ giggles Ellie. ‘She thought I was the leader.’

  ‘She didn’t smell a rat at all,’ I say.

  ‘She thought I was the leader,’ says Ellie again.

  I think she doesn’t need to say it twice, but I still laugh along because it was very funny how well the game went and really I am very pleased.

  ‘You did well, Ellie, you did well,’ I say, stroking the wispy bit of hair that snakes out of her me-plait. ‘If only you could be as good as that all the time, I wouldn’t need to threaten down on you nearly as hard. We could always have the sort of fun we used to have back before.’

  Because, when I think about it, tricking Chloe is the most fun there has been for a very long time. Even more than the day when the actors came to school and did a show about a dog who got lost and all the while he was hiding in the cupboard and kept popping out to say ‘HELLO!’ in a funny voice when they weren’t looking. Even more than being included in the lessons with Mary. The truth is that this game today is the best fun there’s been since the days back before the Unfortunate Decision when we’d do things like go on the merry-go-round until they locked the park and throw paint in the air just to watch it splatter – and sometimes even Mother would laugh.

  Thinking about Mother makes another idea put its hand up for attention. Because what if this is the sort of fun that could jump her out of herself and make the house sunny again? What if we could surprise her into smiles with our cleverness? As soon as I think it, I know what we are going to do.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, taking Ellie’s hand and pulling her over to our garden gate. ‘We’re going to do the game to Mother.’

  ‘What?’ says Ellie. ‘We’re going to tell about tricking Chloe?’

  ‘No-wuh!’ I say, and a bit of the impatience comes and I am afraid she is going back to her silly ways. ‘We’re going to play the swap and then, when Mother thinks she knows what’s what, we’re going to take her unawares and shout “Surprise” and make her know it was all a game.’

  Ellie puts her fingers to her nose. ‘Do you think Mother will like that?’

  ‘Yes!’ I say, pushing her inside the garden and shutting the gate with a crash. ‘She’ll think it’s the best fun ever.’

  And now I hear myself say it, I know it’s really true. I can see Mother laughing and putting her arms round us. I can see the days of the shut bedroom door and wonky-cut bread and margarine for supper going away for good.

  Ellie leans her head on one side. ‘Will it be better than the Christmas when we all played at being astronauts?’

  I think carefully. ‘At least as good as that,’ I say. ‘But we have to do the game properly otherwise it won’t work. No forgetting and being you by mistake. Otherwise it will be worse than useless.’

  I hold up a finger to show it’s not a joke. Ellie looks at me with a solemn face and gives a nod.

  We walk up the garden, over the tufty lawn, Ellie carefully being me and me following behind. When she gets to the edge of the patio, she stops and looks up at the glass doors that stand open to the dining room.

  ‘Come on, H-Elle-n,’ I say, keeping my voice strict so Ellie knows there is no way out of the game. ‘Let’s go in.’

  We step up on to the patio. From inside the house comes the sound of banging and heavy footsteps like there is a really good bit of cleaning going on somewhere in there. I think of Mother’s face when she sees us and how she won’t know what’s hit her, and suddenly the excitedness is back again, sending giggles bubbling up my throat and bringing a needing-the-toilet feeling that makes me press my legs together tight.

  Ellie looks back and sees me and she starts to smile too, so I frown to show that now is not a laughing matter.

  We go up the steps to the inside. In the dining room, facing us, there is a big, fat chest that wasn’t there before. It looks funny behind the thin legs of the chairs and the table, like a toad, and I know that if I opened it there would be questions inside. But there isn’t time for that right now this minute because me and Ellie have to do the game.

  Outside in the hall I hear a cough, and the needing-the-toilet feeling floods in more. I push Ellie forward to the edge of the doorway.

  ‘Look round,’ I say.

  So Ellie puts her head out, over the little gold line that marks the change from the swirly, brown carpet of the dining room to the Angel Delight-coloured carpet of the hall. She looks back at me.

  ‘There’s a man,’ she says.

  ‘What sort of a man?’ I say. Ellie looks again.

  ‘A big man,’ she says, ‘with glasses like a teacher.’ Then she jerks back into the room. ‘He’s coming!’

  We hear footsteps and a voice booms out.

  ‘Hello there!’ says the voice. ‘Now is that Nellie or Ellen?’

  A shadow comes over the doorway and the man’s head peers round. It is a big head, pinkish and blobbing out of its shirt collar like it is made of Plasticine and someone had to squash it hard to get it in there.

  ‘Well hello, girls,’ says the man in a voice like F
ather Christmas’s. ‘Which one’s Nellie and which one’s Ellen?’ And the way he says it makes me want to laugh because Nellie and Ellen are names from a story book where everyone is about to have a picnic and drink ginger beer, and they are not our names at all. I am about to tell him which one’s which when I notice something strange about his face, so instead I close my mouth and stand looking up at his round nose and his little raisin eyes behind his glasses and try to make my brain think.

  A click-clacking sound comes across the kitchen floor and Mother stares down at us. But this is not the normal Mother. This is like Mother times ten plus three. Her hair is all fluffed in curls and her mouth is small and red like a rosebud. The flannel dressing gown is nowhere to be seen and instead there is a smart jacket like a doctor’s receptionist.

  ‘Come on, girls,’ she says. ‘Come out of there and say hello.’

  So we go out into the hall, which is the proper place for hellos and goodbyes. Mother brushes past us and goes to stand next to the man, with her hand on his arm. Behind her wafts a sharp, lemony smell.

  ‘This is Mr Greene,’ she says with a smile, all the while looking at the side of the man’s big, pink head. I watch carefully but there is no sign of what-in-God’s-name-do-you-want-now and the mopey why-mes. It is like all the glum days have been shoved into the cupboard under the stairs and the door locked tight.

  ‘Horace,’ says the man.

  ‘Mr Greene,’ says Mother again firmly, with a little squeeze of Mr Greene’s arm.

  And this is the first lie, because now the light from the kitchen window is shining on his face, I can tell who it is: it is Akela from the Scouts who does games of quick-cricket in the park. There is no woggle today but it’s him all right – Akela, trying to pretend to be Mr Greene.

  ‘This is Helen, and this is Ellie,’ says Mother, glancing at the plait on the top of Ellie’s head and getting us the wrong way round like the plan says she’s supposed to. Only now I am not pleased because, out of the corner of my eye, through the doorway into the lounge, I can see lots of new things and they are saying ‘look at us and give us attention’, so there is no time to be happy about the plan. There are cardboard boxes and things wrapped in plastic and over by the electric fire there is a fat, shiny armchair with cushions as bulgy as Akela’s head. The room that has been thin and empty since Father made his Unfortunate Decision is now full and bustling, and there is no space to breathe.

  ‘Mr Greene is going to come and live with us,’ says Mother in a strange, breezy voice, smiling and craning her neck back to give her eyes a chance to look at all of Akela’s head in one go. ‘Won’t that be fun?’

  Next to me, Ellie’s leg starts to jiggle.

  ‘But—’ she says. ‘But doesn’t Mr Greene have his own house?’

  Akela and Mother look at each other and give a chuckle.

  ‘I think yours is much nicer,’ says Akela, reaching a hand around Mother’s waist and squeezing it with his sausage fingers. The wee inside me gives a surge and I squash my legs together tight.

  ‘Why?’ says Ellie.

  But another question is brimming up in me because I am thinking about our room and Mother’s room and the box room at the front full of bric-a-brac and things from back before, and no matter which way round I think it, I can’t see a space for Akela. Suddenly I am worried that he will have to come and sleep in our room, stretched out on the floor between Ellie and my beds.

  ‘But where will Ak— Mr Greene sleep?’ I say.

  At that, Mother purses her lips. ‘Never you mind,’ she says. And then with a flash of spikiness: ‘Honestly Ellie, why do you always have to go lowering the tone?’

  For a minute I am confused until I remember that I am wearing Ellie’s clothes and bunches and she is dressed like me. I stare up at them while my brain sorts the muddle out and see Mother mouthing words at Akela and doing the eye-rolling look that comes out when Ellie lets the side down. It is strange to think it’s me that’s caused it – me, Helen, the one who’s always good.

  Akela is fussing at Mother, patting and stroking her face and her arms in a way that you’d think would be annoying but actually seems to be making her smile. Then he turns and looks at us. I give a twitch as the wee inside me gives a rush, trying to come out.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ he says in his Father Christmas voice, and he fumbles in his trouser pocket. ‘Here,’ he says, and hands over two chocolate bars – a Marathon for Ellie and a Wispa for me.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Ellie, and without waiting to see if she’s allowed, she rips open the wrapper and begins to stuff her face.

  I expect there will be hell to pay because it can’t be long til supper, but instead when I look up Mother is staring at me.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ellie?’ she says. ‘Aren’t you grateful to Mr Greene for bringing you a treat?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  And even though the Wispa is warm and soft from Akela’s pocket, and even though the wee inside me has started to tug and jiggle so that I have to cross my legs to keep it in, I tear open the bar, being careful not to drop the spare bit of wrapper on the carpet, and begin to eat. The chocolate sticks all around the inside of my mouth.

  Suddenly the front door swings back and a monster comes in.

  ‘Where do you want this?’ he grunts, and then I see it’s not a monster but a man with bits of metal stuck in his face and blue drawings up his arms.

  ‘Just put it in the second bedroom for now,’ says Mother with a wave of her arm, and the man starts off up the stairs, scuffing at the walls as he goes.

  ‘Well, then,’ says Akela, rubbing his hands in a pleased way. ‘What do you girls say we give Mummy a break for the evening and order a Chinese takeaway to celebrate?’

  ‘Yay!’ shouts Ellie, jumping up and down. ‘Sweet and sour chicken!’

  Chinese takeaway is my favourite too but I don’t bounce around. I just stand where I am, gripping the doorframe. Because as the man climbs past me up the stairs, my body gives a jerk and the wee that has been struggling to get out comes in a hot flood, running down my legs to soak into Ellie’s socks and leaving a dark patch on the front of the silly orange shorts.

  Everyone looks at me and I crouch away against the wall, trying to hide the stain.

  ‘Oh Ellie,’ says Mother in a small, disappointed voice. ‘I thought we’d got past the accident stage.’

  ‘Too much lemonade at lunch!’ Ellie pipes up. Even though nobody asked her.

  ‘Horace, I’m so sorry,’ says Mother. ‘As I explained, there have been—’ And here she stretches her lips as though the word needs a mouth bigger than hers to say it: ‘PROB-LEMS.’

  I stand, feeling the hot go cold on my bottom half and the cold go hot on my face.

  Mother gives a sigh as the monster-man clumps down the stairs and out the door again. Her shoulders slump and I worry a glum day might be hovering. Then she gives a little twitch and shakes her head.

  ‘Helen,’ she says to Ellie in her bright, breezy voice once more. ‘Would you take your sister upstairs to the bathroom and get her some clean clothes so we can all have a nice evening together?’

  Ellie takes my hand and leads me off up the stairs and pushes me into the bathroom. I peel off the wet shorts and knickers and do my best to wash the wee away. When I have finished, Ellie comes back with a little heap of her clothes: a blue T-shirt with a rip at the neck where she has tugged too hard, shorts with orange stripes, socks and a pair of her Tinker Bell pants.

  ‘You can give me my own knickers,’ I say. ‘No one will know about those.’

  Ellie stares at me.

  ‘Come on, Ellie,’ I say. ‘It’s not like anyone’s going to make us show our pants.’

  But Ellie just stands there. In her eyes I can see the reflection of the bobbly bathroom window, where the sun is starting to sink down to get ready for the end of the day.

  ‘Actually, I think it’s time we stopped,’ I say. ‘We’ve played a goo
d trick, but it’s different now Mr Greene is here. Let’s go back to normal.’

  Ellie puts a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh, Ellie,’ she says. ‘Mother will come and you’ll make her sad if you’re difficult.’

  ‘Ellie,’ I say, ‘the game’s not being played between us. Give me my pants.’

  I reach out to do the pinch that always makes her do what I say. But she steps out on to the landing. I hear the thuds of the man coming up again and fear fizzes in my tummy. I don’t want him to see me with no clothes on, looking down at me with his monster face.

  ‘All right,’ I say in a hurry. ‘Give them to me. But this is just for today, do you hear me, Ellie? After that everything goes back to the way it was.’

  And I take the clothes and start to get dressed.

  3

  Nothing under the bare mattress in the bedroom. Nothing in the hall, apart from the drift of letters banked up about the front door. The fag packet on the table in the living room: empty. Shit.

  The sight of the chair made her pause for a moment. A faint memory of metallic trilling, sunlight and a child’s giggle tugged at the sleeve of her mind. Hadn’t there been something? Hadn’t something happened? Something to do with before. Something significant. Then anxiety burst in and set up its festival, amps blaring, chasing away the thought.

  She needed a smoke. Rummaging through the rubbish on the table, her fingernails crescent moons of dirt. Keys, tissues, Rizlas. Ah, here it was, the pouch – empty except for a few wisps at the bottom. Not enough to go on. She’d have to go out to the shop.

  On to the mantelpiece, sweeping the painting to the floor. Something hard went with it too and smashed on the lino. She glanced down and saw the fragments of the windmill mug from Amsterdam. The last thing she had from back then. A pang tried to get her, but she flinched it away. All that was over a long time ago. It was not like the mug was keeping anything alive. Fuck it.

  Here it was. She snatched up the money on the shelf: a tenner and some shrapnel; £11.13 in all. Irritation crackled along her nerves. There should have been more than that. Why wasn’t there more than that? Her fingers drummed out a nervous tattoo on the shelf.