‘When did you know?’ he asked her as we walked along the Thames, heading towards the South Bank complex and an old black-and-white film.
‘A bit older than you, I suppose. Sixteen? I’m not sure really. I knew early on what I didn’t want, and I got a lot of what I didn’t want, so my choice became easy.’
‘But it’s not easy, is it?’ he said. ‘It stinks. All that hiding and shit.’
‘Then don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t hide.’
‘Sometimes I wish I was like everyone else,’ he said, and Nancy stopped in front of him and laughed.
‘No you don’t! You’d hate being like everyone else. Don’t kid yourself, sunshine – being gay’s your salvation and you know it.’
‘Bollocks,’ he said, trying to stifle a smile. He unwrapped a stick of chewing gum and checked out the dark-haired man who passed in front of him.
‘Saw you,’ I said, nudging him with my elbow.
He ignored me.
‘I saw him look, Nancy. At that man there.’
‘Shutup,’ he said and walked on, hands stuffed in too-tight jeans, the ones my mum said would make him sterile.
‘So, has your heart ever got broken?’ he added nonchalantly.
‘Oh God, YES!’ said Nancy.
‘Her name was Lilly Moss, actually,’ I said, finally able to interrupt their conversation, ‘the main one, that is. Everyone knows that story, Joe. She two-timed Nancy and tried to take her for all she was worth. Didn’t get away with it, though, did she, Nancy?’
‘No she didn’t,’ said Nancy, ‘although she did get away with a rather expensive diamond necklace, if I remember rightly.’
‘I’m never going to fall in love with anyone again,’ my brother declared robustly, and Nancy smiled and put her arm around him.
‘Never’s a long time, Joe. Bet you won’t make it.’
‘Bet I will. How much?’ he said.
‘Tenner,’ she said.
‘Fine,’ he said, and they shook hands, and Nancy walked on, safe in the knowledge that the ten-pound note would one day be hers.
‘We’re moving,’ my father suddenly said over a full English breakfast. My brother and I looked at each other and carried on eating. The back door was open and August’s heat was sending the bees wild, and their intoxicating buzz thankfully filled the silence that had settled in the wake of our cruel indifference.
My father looked disappointed; he thought his exciting declaration might have elicited more emotion, and he wondered if he really knew his own children; a thought that would trouble him many times throughout the coming years.
‘To Cornwall,’ he said enthusiastically, and he raised his arms as if he’d just scored a goal and said, ‘Yay!’
My mother left her position at the grill and sat with us at the table.
‘We know it’s sudden,’ she said. ‘But when we were away at Easter a property came onto the market and suddenly we knew: this was what we wanted. What we’ve dreamt of for our family. And so we bought it.’
She paused to allow the absurdity of what she was saying to slap us across our cheeks and to wake us up. It didn’t. We carried on eating in a daze.
‘We need you to trust us, that’s all,’ she said. (That book again.)
My brother pushed his plate away and said, ‘All right. When?’
‘Two weeks today,’ my father said apologetically.
‘OK,’ my brother said, and he got up clumsily from the table, leaving two untouched rashers of bacon, and headed towards the stairs.
My brother was lying on his bed flicking an elastic band across his arm; rising red welts crisscrossed on his skin.
‘What are you thinking?’ I said from the doorway.
‘I’m not,’ he said.
‘Do you want to go?’ I said, sitting down next to him.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘There’s fuck all for me here,’ and he turned towards the open window and its view of all he would leave. The sky had turned a deep violet grey since the morning. The atmosphere was sticky. Starting to aggravate.
‘What about Jenny Penny?’ I said to him.
‘What about her?’
‘Do you think she can come with us?’
‘What do you think?’ he said, turning towards me and flicking my knee.
‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Unnecessary.’
‘Of course she can’t come, Ell. She lives here, with that dopey cow of a mum,’ and he rolled back over to face the window.
‘How am I going to tell her?’ I said, suddenly feeling scared and sick.
‘Dunno,’ he said as he drew a line down the misted windowpane. ‘We need a storm. Clear the air. That’ll make things easier,’ and as if prompted by his careless words, the first rumble of thunder rolled across the horizon, displacing startled birds and settled picnics as it went.
The rain fell immediately. Large drops – nearly sleet – saturated the parched gardens and soon gutters were spilling over and the wash of dusty overflow filed down pathways and pooled in craters of mud. The sky lit up, one fork, and then another, lightning stabbing at the horizon between the fence of poplars. We saw Mr Harris run out to his washing line, too late to save his drenched jeans. We ran down the stairs and out through the back door, another fork of lightning – the sound of a fire engine. My brother reached into the hutch and pulled out my shivering rabbit.
‘About bloody time,’ said god as I held him close to my chest. ‘I could’ve died out here.’
‘Sorry about that,’ I said. ‘Really I am.’
‘Sorry about what?’ shouted my brother.
Dogs barked three houses over and children danced screaming into the onslaught, laughing and awash with joyful terror. The thunder roared and shook the ground. Mr Fisk, at the back, ran out to secure a tarpaulin, its unruly edges billowing in the wind, wanting to take flight. And we stood in the middle of our garden, unsheltered, unprotected and looked around at the turbulence of the lives we backed onto, sat next to, the lives of the neighbourhood, and it shook clear our apathy until we saw again what our life here had been. There was the sledge our father had made, the one we took to school, the envy of all; and the ghosts of swings and climbing frames that had held us, and dropped us, the sounds of our tears. And we saw again the cricket and football matches that had scuffed bare the grass of the bottom lawn. And we remembered the tents we had made and the nights spent within; imaginary countries, us the explorers. There was suddenly so much to say goodbye to. And as the storm blew across and the first of the sunbursts lifted our corner of the world, there she was. Her face drenched, peering over the fence. Not smiling. As if she knew.
‘Go to her,’ said god.
‘Why?’ she asked, pulling the towel away from her face. The clock ticked loudly in the silence. She stared pitifully across the kitchen table, and I longed for my brother to reappear, to bring back the recognisable into this scene of disquiet. My chair felt hard. The orange squash, too sweet. Our ease, now awkward. Nothing was the same.
‘Why?’ she asked again, tears instantly appearing in her eyes. ‘Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?’
I couldn’t answer her.
‘Is it me?’
I felt my throat clench.
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘My mum and dad said we have to.’
‘Where are you going?’ she said, gripping the rabbit so tightly, he started to struggle.
‘Cornwall.’
‘You may as well be dead,’ she said, and let god fall to the floor.
‘Fuck,’ he said, and scuttled under a box.
She slumped forwards, rested her elbows on her knees.
‘What about Atlantis?’ she said. ‘And all the things we were going to do?’
‘It could be in Cornwall,’ I said. ‘Maybe we’ll find it there.’
‘It can’t be in Cornwall,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it can’t. It has to be a place that’s ours. Can’t you see that? Not something that’s everyone e
lse’s,’ and she began to stamp her feet as rage overtook her, a rage my brother had so often felt when playing with her. It was an excess energy born of the dangerous, an energy that could unexpectedly turn play into war.
‘Don’t leave me, Elly,’ she pleaded. ‘Please don’t,’ she said again. ‘You don’t know what’ll happen.’
But what could I say? I reached out my hand. The gesture crass and dramatic.
‘I really love you,’ I said clumsily.
Pathetic.
‘No you don’t!’ she shouted. ‘You’re just like everyone else,’ and she got up and ran.
I followed her to the back fence, shouting her name, begging her to stop, pleading, but she never did. The shutter had come down. She would live behind it until I left.
We never did ask to see photographs, never did enquire about the village or the life we were to lead, not even about the schools we were to go to; instead we trusted our parents just like they’d asked us to, and allowed them to lead us blindly to an unknown place with an unknown future. I stood in the doorway of my room and looked around, feeling sad but strangely detached; I filled my favourite bag with Orinoco, my Womble, my hair brush and photographs, and my box of knick-knacks of very little worth but of surprising memory. I added my swimming costume and sunglasses, but not my flip-flops, intending to buy new ones in a shop by the sea. I realised I was happy to let the rest of it go. That at the age of nine years and eight months a child should welcome the chance to start again didn’t seem particularly unusual at the time. I sat down on my bed with a beach towel wrapped around my shoulders. I was packed and ready to leave; only twelve days and three hours early. I closed my eyes and heard the call of seagulls.
The moving company did everything, packing our life away with the professionalism of minimal fuss. I looked inside the van just before they pulled the rolling doors down and thought we hadn’t acquired much over the years; our belongings were scant and functional, almost forlorn. There was no piano to manoeuvre; no paintings to grace walls or heavy textured rugs to add warmth to slate floors, so cold and harsh on bare feet. There were no standing lamps that would soon cast shadows in corners like stowaways, or large wooden Victorian trunks that would house linen and sachets of lavender, and would work hard to keep out the damp over the winter months. No, these things were not ours yet; they would grace our life to come.
‘Five minutes, Elly,’ my father said, as he broke away from handshakes and well-wishers, and the teasing that accompanied their goodbyes. I placed god in his box on the back seat, and before I covered him with a blanket he looked up and said, ‘Leave something here. You must leave something here, Elly.’
‘But what?’ I said.
‘Something.’
I grabbed my brother and we ran back through the empty house, our steps loud and intrusive on the naked boards. I stopped and looked around. How easy not to exist any more. To just go and leave this; this that was my home.
‘Come on,’ shouted my brother, and I ran after him.
He closed the lid on the small red biscuit tin and buried it under the slatted back fence shaded by the wall. He covered it with extra bricks, a sprinkling of camouflage dirt and leaves.
‘Do you think someone will find it one day?’
‘Nah, never,’ he said. ‘Not unless they know where to look . . . What did you put in?’ he asked.
‘Photo,’ I said. ‘You?’
‘A secret,’ he said.
‘That’s not fair.’
‘No,’ he said, and looked at me strangely. I thought he might tickle me, or hit me even, but he didn’t. He reached out and cuddled me and it felt weird. As if he was saying goodbye to me as well.
I never expected her to come and see me off – I’d tucked that hope away somewhere in the back between the towels and old linen – but when I heard the unmistakable sound of her unruly run, my heart leapt; and as she voiced my name – a shout verging on a scream – I ran towards her flaying arms.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Jenny Penny, breathing hard. ‘It was my hair.’
We stood quietly looking at each other, frightened of speaking in case our words might wound.
‘I’ve got new shoes,’ she said finally in between quiet sobs.
‘They’re so nice,’ I said, and I held her hand. They were red with small white daisies positioned on the toe, and I really liked them; they were the best shoes I’d ever seen her wear and I told her so.
‘I wore them specially to show you,’ she said.
‘I know you did. Thanks,’ I said, suddenly feeling wretched.
‘I don’t think we’ll ever see each other again,’ she said, looking up at me, her face red and blotchy from her tears.
‘Of course we will,’ I said, putting my arms around her and smelling the familiar scent of chips in her hair. ‘We’re linked,’ I said. ‘Inextricably linked.’ (Something my brother had said about us the night before.)
And I was right. We would see each other again, but only the once – as children, anyway – before our lives diverged like rivers separating and carving across new terrain. But I didn’t know that as I waved to her from the car and shouted, ‘See you soon, I’ll miss you!’ I didn’t know that as I shouted, ‘You’re my best friend! Write to me!’ I knew none of that as I looked back and watched her and our street recede like the point of light in a tunnel, until the moment we turned the corner and she and it were gone. I felt the air sucked out of my lungs like life itself.
Trees surrounded us as we turned off the main road and left the holiday traffic to chug along in Bank Holiday formation. We followed the single-lane track down towards the river, veering sharply left then right, following raggedy signs that said Trehaven.
The late afternoon sun hadn’t lost its heat, and leaves from overhanging branches were dappled by its fractured intensity and flickered like broken mirrors onto my face. I breathed in this new air; it was damp; warm damp, and now and then I thought I could smell the sea, and could actually, because the tidal waters that fed the small river below were on the turn.
‘We’re nearly there,’ I whispered to my brother as I leant back into the car, and for the first time during the six-hour journey, he sat up, interested. He started to bite his nails.
‘It’s all right,’ I said to him, and he smiled at me and took his hand away from his mouth and concentrated on the green world outside. I lifted god out of his box and showed him his new home.
‘You’ll be safe here,’ he whispered.
The road levelled out and as we took a sharp right, it lost its tarmac surface and soon the car was riding uncomfortably on rocks and gravel and compacted dirt. We stopped in front of a dilapidated wooden gate, TREHAVEN carved down the left-hand gatepost. Moss had bedded down within its curves and edges, and made the lettering vivid green against the damp darkness of the wood. My father turned off the ignition. I held my breath, not wishing to impede on the sounds of birds and forest life; I was still an observer, a participant not yet.
‘We’re here,’ my father said. ‘Our new home. Trehaven.’
We saw the removal van first and the clearing, and then finally emerging into sight came the house: large and square and off-white in the sunshine, and standing alone except for a small dilapidated outbuilding hiding in the shadow at its side. A small tree had taken sole occupancy of the neglected space within; its branches reaching for the sky.
I got out of the car and stretched, felt small in the shadow of our home. This was a house for rich people and as I stood looking at its grace and majesty, I suddenly remembered that we were.
I put god on a lead and ran down the lawn with him towards the river, carefully negotiating my footing on the flimsy mooring planks. They were rotten; eaten away by years of salt and wet and neglect, and there was a boat attached by rope, holed and half submerged, but clinging to its home like an elder with nowhere else to go.
‘What do you think?’ said my brother, suddenly behind me.
I startled and turne
d around quickly, for this was the land of spirits and sprites and other beings too light to elicit the sound of tread.
‘Look!’ I said, pointing to the river. ‘A fish!’
And my brother lay down on the jetty and placed his hands gently into the cold water. The fish darted to the side. I watched him look at himself; follow the ripple of his reflection as the waters slowly rose around his fingertips. I heard him sigh deeply. A melancholy sound.
‘How old am I?’ he asked.