Beside Myself Page 5

  I look up. ‘Chloe!’ I shout. And quick as Count Duckula’s teleporting, I am out from behind the desk and into her arms, pressing my face against her soft, furry pink jumper and breathing in her flowery smell.

  ‘There,’ says Chloe, stroking my hair pulled into Ellie’s bunches. ‘There. Nice to see you too, Ellie.’

  And even though she says Ellie, I don’t mind, because I know now that Chloe is here everything will be OK.

  We go to the little room beside the hall, the one with carpet on the walls where they keep the TV on wheels. Chloe gets out her notes and I am surprised to see a big wodge of papers because when I was in here last year there was just one form and at the bit called Progress it said: ‘Very good’. I know because I saw Chloe writing it. Even though it was far away and upside down, I managed to read the words.

  ‘Now then, Ellie,’ says Chloe, turning on her bright smile like the light on the overhead projector in the hall. Either side of her face, the gold hoops of her earrings gleam. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you got up to on your summer holiday?’

  And suddenly it all rushes at me: Jessica forcing down my hand, and Charlotte and that lot laughing, and Ellie’s bunches pulling at my head and Mother keeping on putting them back in no matter how many times I pull them out, and the stupid, scratchy tunic dress, and Akela, and Thorpe Park. And there in the little TV room with the carpet smell from the walls, I feel all the things boiling around in my tummy until it comes bubbling up in sobs that spill out through my nose and mouth with big, wet tears.

  Chloe bends down to get some tissues from her bag.

  ‘There, there,’ she says. ‘Poor chicken.’

  And I nod because I am a poor chicken and for ages now no one has known it but me. I blow my nose into the tissues, which have little pink pictures of butterflies on them, and cry some more. Then Chloe comes and puts her arms round me and we stay like that for hours.

  ‘I’m sorry to see you’re still so sad,’ she says. ‘You seemed much better when I ran into you that day I was popping to see my mum.’

  With a lurch I remember about the lane and the game and tricking Chloe.

  ‘That’s it!’ I try to say. ‘That’s when it all went wrong!’

  But the words get sogged up in the sadness and for a while all I can do are bubbling, burbling sounds.

  At last, when Chloe is back on her side of the table and the sobs have quietened down, I open my mouth and start to tell. I tell it all: about the game when we saw her and the knickers and about Mr Greene who is really Akela and Ellie making me stay as her. About halfway through Chloe gets out a piece of paper and starts making notes. This makes me feel pleased because I know it means she is taking it seriously and soon everyone will know, so I talk on and on, telling everything I can think of, even when it’s not really to do with the main problem. Like, I tell about Mrs Dunkerley and her budgie Bill. And I tell about how we haven’t seen Mary for ages and the monster moving the boxes in the hall. The only thing I do not tell about is Mary’s brother and the ‘fucked’ because I suspect it wouldn’t fit nicely in the room.

  When I have finished telling, I am quite thirsty and my head is starting to ache from all the tears it has cried, but I wait because Chloe is still writing and I want her to get it all down with no mistakes. Chloe’s pen twirls and twitches over the paper, like an elegant lady whirling and swaying across a ballroom. Then it gets to the end, does a jump and stops.

  ‘Goodness,’ she says. ‘That is quite a story, isn’t it?’ Then she gets a bit of hair and twirls it round her finger like she’s trying to make it curl more. ‘And what about your daddy?’ she says. ‘Have you done any more thinking about him?’

  I think it’s a strange question to ask because Father made his Unfortunate Decision a long time ago, way before Ellie and me swapped places, and do we really still have to talk about all that? Plus, I can’t really remember what he looks like any more. My memories of him are like a sweet that you have sucked too long until all the flavour is gone. Now there is just a smoky smell and the picture in my head of the day in the precinct when he bought all the colours in the shop and we skipped and laughed all the way home. But it is a story I have told myself so many times, I’m not even sure if it’s true. Even the favourite green T-shirt is going a mustardy yellow now and there are rips in the neck from where Ellie has pulled it out of shape in the days of being me. I know he was a real man because there are still the Pointless Creations in the little room upstairs at the front of our house – I go in and see them sometimes and run my fingers over the rough paint and see how the colours are like exploding stars – but I don’t feel his realness any more. That part of him has vanished into thin air.

  At the funeral, Mother’s friend Susan read out a thing that said Father had just gone away into another room. Me and Ellie spent a long time looking for the door to that room. We looked all along the hallway and in every corner in the living room and I even made Ellie crawl all the way to the back of the cupboard under the stairs where the spiders are, but we never found it. So I am pretty sure that Father won’t be coming back from the other room now, which means talking about him is what Mother would call ‘an irrelevant question’. But I get the feeling this is not the answer Chloe wants to hear, so instead I screw up my eyes and try to imagine Father coming bursting through from a door to the other room and making Ellie behave.

  ‘I think he’d be furious if he knew what was going on now,’ I say. ‘I think he’d come punishing down hard on Ellie and not let her watch television for a week. I think he’d say: “Bad Ellie. Naughty Ellie. Go outside and stand in the corner and never darken my door again.”’

  Chloe takes a deep breath and taps her fingernails on the table. Her earrings jiggle.

  ‘Do you know what I think, Ellie?’ she says. ‘I think it would be a good idea if you drew all this out like we talked about before. Here’s a bit of paper. Just sit and let the pictures come out of your head and when you’ve finished we can put it in the file with all your other picture stories from last year.’

  And now I am surprised because when I look again at the wodge of papers, I see it is not forms with Chloe’s neat writing but stacks of graph paper covered in spidery drawings. There is one with a spaceship and another one with a witch zapping someone with a spell, and poking out the top I see a picture of a girl in bunches with tears flying out of her eyes and a long, dangly string. And now I am thinking of what Ellie said to Mother about Ellie always telling stories and suddenly here they all are, lined up, and I didn’t even know. And even though the pictures are rubbish, it is strange to think that everything here came out of Ellie’s brain. Ellie, who smells her fingers and stares at Bill the budgie for years and years.

  I am so surprised that I don’t notice that Chloe has used the wrong name until she reaches out across the table and says it again.

  ‘OK, Ellie love?’ she says.

  ‘But, but, but…’ I say, so it sounds like bubbles bursting all around. ‘But I’m not Ellie.’

  ‘I know, chicken,’ says Chloe, standing up and walking to the door. ‘We all feel like that sometimes. It’s part of being human. But do the drawing and you’ll feel better, I promise.’

  And with that, she goes out, leaving me staring at the graph paper. The little squares zoom towards me, getting bigger and bigger. They fill my view until, if I squint, I can almost believe they are doors that I could open and step through into another room.

  7

  Over the days that followed, he kept coming back. At first he stood at the front door, a dark shape against the panel of frosted glass, bending now and then to peer and call through the letterbox. As time went on, however, he got bolder, wandering away from the front door to peer in between the throws and scarves tacked across the living-room window into the gloom beyond.

  Sometimes she didn’t know if it was the head voices or him calling her. They cottoned on quickly and took to catching her at odd moments, mimicking his voice with a cruel edge,
sniggering when she jumped. They’d been getting worse since Nick arrived – nastier, more insistent.

  On the third morning he found the path round the side of the maisonette and made his way into the scrubby back garden, with its burnt patch and empty bottles of White Lightning and Buckfast left by the local kids. He peered in through the kitchen windows and banged on the back door. Smudge crouched amid the bags of rubbish behind one of the kitchen units as he did so, hoping against hope that she’d remembered to lock the back door the last time she’d stumbled in. Luckily he didn’t try it – not that time – but he did bang and call, his voice getting ever sharper, louder.

  ‘Go away,’ she moaned quietly, rocking back and forth with her head in her hands. ‘Go a-fucking-way!’

  On the fifth morning, after he’d been banging for what felt like several hours, wandering back and forth around the place, she picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello, Samaritans?’

  (‘Hello, Smarty Pants,’ sneered a head voice.)

  ‘He’s at it again,’ said Smudge. ‘He’s trying to get in. I’m here on my own and he won’t go away.’

  ‘Take your time,’ said the woman.

  (‘Put your back into it,’ insisted the voice. ‘Give it to her with both barrels.’)

  Smudge took a deep breath and tried to focus. She was young, the volunteer. A teacher, maybe, in a primary school. Or a librarian. Soft, like Ange at the unit all those years ago used to be; eager to be kind.

  ‘It’s just,’ she said, trembling, ‘I think I’ve had about as much as I can take.’

  (‘You’ve had about as much as you’re getting,’ said the voice. ‘You selfish bitch.’)

  There was a pause.

  (‘Animal, that’s what you are,’ muttered the voice. ‘Shouldn’t be allowed.’)

  ‘When you say you’ve had as much as you can take, what do you mean?’ said the woman, Ange.

  Smudge swallowed. The silence stood before her like an open door, waiting.

  (‘Do you think we’re made of money?’ said the voice.)

  ‘He beats me,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He abuses me. He won’t leave me alone. I’m covered in bruises – all up my arms. I can’t tell anyone. It’s a nightmare, it never ends.’

  ‘That must be awful,’ said Ange.

  (‘Windscreen wipers!’ shouted the voice.)

  Smudge nodded. It was awful. It was a nightmare. It was more than she could bear. She broke down and, against the heckling of the voice and the shouts from outside, she talked through juddering sobs about the abusive relationship she’d been in for three years. About how he kept coming back every time she threw him out. About how he was out there now, thudding and hammering like there was no tomorrow. About how he wouldn’t – wouldn’t – leave her alone. No, she wasn’t suicidal, she told Ange impatiently – she knew they had to ask it, that it was in their rules, but it still pissed her off every call – just tired and sad and lonely. So lonely. She’d been on her own with this for such a long time. They all wanted to hurt her. That was the thing. Every last one of them. Even the people she should be able to trust. Especially those. They were all out to do her harm.

  After a while, the banging subsided. She heard the letterbox flap shut for the last time and the soft slap of something dropping into the hall. Then the silence washed in. She felt peaceful sitting there amid the rubbish sacks with the sunlight slanting in through the bent slats of the blinds, serene.

  There was a hush on the line. They’d been sitting together saying nothing for some minutes. Even the voices were quiet.

  ‘And how are you feeling now?’ said Ange.

  Smudge started. She’d forgotten there was anyone there. She had forgotten who she was supposed to be.

  Impatience surged through her. She hated herself for her stupidity and felt disgusted at this soft-voiced stranger whispering sympathy for her lies.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘He’s gone now. I don’t expect he’ll be back today.’

  ‘And will you manage OK this evening?’ said Ange. She no longer sounded kind. She sounded pathetic. A mug. Smudge couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Yes, I will. You’ve been very helpful.’

  She put the receiver up on the side and sat hugging her knees. The golden light of the day was shifting and beginning to grey. A dog barked and she heard the family next door arrive home, kids bounding up the path, voices piping. A great sense of numbness washed in. (‘Mouldy old swizz,’ observed the voice.) Maybe suicide wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.

  8

  Autumn brings colours in reds, golds and browns and when you are in the upside-down tree in the park you get to be inside them all. What the upside-down tree is like is a big skirt of a lady’s dress from the olden days and it sweeps right down to the ground so that when you go under it no one can see you from outside, except in winter when the lady gets undressed and it is shivering-cold.

  Today, we are out by ourselves in the upside-down tree because Mother needs space to get organised for the dinner party that she and Akela are giving in the evening, where there will be people from Akela’s work and Mother’s friend Susan, whose laugh is hard and bright like a telephone. Space to get organised means space away from us and our nonsense. Even the nonsense we do when we are trying to help. We know this from the time when Mother cooked a roast lunch and the gravy went on the floor and I tried to help with a tea towel like Helen would always do, only it turned out it was the wrong one and Mother’s especial favourite – even though she’d never said about it before. And then it was like the day got scrunched up and thrown away like the spoilt pages in Ellie’s workbook and lunch turned into Akela pushing us out the door with five-pounds-to-spend-at-the-shops pressed into Ellie’s hand. Ellie spent it on a Tiny Tears doll and we sat in the upside-down tree watching it to see if it would come alive but it just stayed in its box and didn’t move even when it got dark and you’d think it would be scared.

  This Saturday has been a day of sorting things out. In the morning we went to the shopping centre. Mother was in a shiny mood and smiled at all the people, walking fast in her cloppy shoes so we had to run to keep up. First we went to the make-up place, where Mother had a long talk with an orange lady about what colours were right for her face. Mother’s credit card went zip-zip in the machine where it presses down on the paper and you have to sign your name. Next it was the nail bar, where the colours go on with a little brush that licks each fingernail like a tongue.

  Ellie got excited watching and her leg started to jiggle.

  ‘Can I have colour on my nails too?’ she said.

  Mother smiled and patted her head even though Ellie wasn’t minding her Ps and Qs.

  ‘Maybe when you’re a bit older, sweetheart,’ she said.

  ‘Can I?’ I said so that I could be a sweetheart too.

  Mother shot me a sharp look. ‘For God’s sake, Ellie,’ she said. ‘Didn’t I just say no?’

  Then it was time to do our clothes because we’ve been growing like Topsy and we just don’t know where the time goes. Before, I always liked buying clothes when Mother was in one of her shiny moods. She would whirl around the shop with a basket, throwing in all the things she thought would be nice and choosing extra-special things for me because I am the daintiest. But today Mother’s special things were for the Helen she thinks Ellie is and I was left with the practical top and the skirt that looks like it belongs to someone who is five. I put them on quietly, but when Ellie came out of the changing room in the princess dress with the shiny pink bow and everyone clapped their hands together and gasped like she was Cinderella, I couldn’t stop my hand from reaching out and pinching and grabbing at the bow till it tore off.

  Mother was coming back with another basketful of clothes and when she saw the bow flopping in my fingers with threads dangling like spiders’ legs the white, spiky look came about her mouth and suddenly it was time to go and no arguments and don’t you dare sa
y a word I’m warning you. She paid for everything, even the stuff that didn’t fit, and we drove home with the car charging and growling and the shiny mood all gone.

  Now in the upside-down tree, Ellie is talking in that way she always does when it’s just us two, like if she keeps speaking there won’t be any room for anything else. She is spinning around to see the swish of her new skirt, which has buttons down the back like someone getting married in a film, and she is saying how soon she’s going to ask Mother if she can have Magic Step shoes like Charlotte and that lot because she wants to see if it’s true that the key in the bottom can magic you into another world.

  I know it’s not true because last year Nadia spent all lunch break trying to get whooshed away and nothing happened. Even when we made her spin round three times and click her heels she just stayed right where she was. But I don’t say anything because I am too busy standing there in nobody’s clothes, watching the skirt that should be mine twirl and whip over the leaves and the cigarette packets and the old popped balloon that looks like the skin of a pink slug filled with slug slime. And suddenly it seems like the saddest thing of all.

  ‘Of course, you won’t be allowed the same shoes as me,’ says Ellie, sweeping round and making her arms go over her head like a ballerina. ‘You’ll have to have something else so everyone will know the difference. I expect Mother will make you get some of those Start-rite ones with the bar across or maybe—’