‘Ah, don’t worry,’ Michael said after I’d told him. ‘Who wants to be a paperbitch anyway…’
My next job was at the local newsagents, but my attitude stank. Hell, even I wouldn’t have employed me. I stumbled into work one morning with a killer hangover, telling my boss I wouldn’t start working until I’d had a cigarette.
‘You’re so bloody arrogant,’ my employer groaned.
‘Listen. I’m fucking gasping!’
‘You’re fucking fired.’
I stormed out and then came back a moment later to purchase a lighter.
My third job was as a window cleaner. I know how shocking it can be when a stranger appears at your window, armed with a bucket of soap, and proceeds to wipe away when you’ve got your tackle out after showering. They get to see things you couldn’t possibly imagine. Screw the soap operas. The window cleaner sees all the action, all the scandals, and all he has to do is wipe away.
I published
The Word Scrawled Sky
, a collection of sonnets, villanelles and blank verse, after a couple of months of cleaning windows. Eventually, a publisher took interest in my work. My mother warned me that writing, like acting, was a capricious occupation. But I paid no attention to her as I spent the little money I’d earned for my work on nights out and visits to the theatre with Michael. After watching a play, we’d sit among the wine-sipping philosophers, critics and self-confessed arty folk. We’d chat about our dreams of becoming famous, and I knew he’d make it. He had such star quality.
We always told each other about upcoming auditions. He focused on the theatre, while I juggled my dreams of becoming an actor and a writer. While basking in the carelessness of youth, we thought we could seize the world itself, in all its spherical glory.
We didn’t think anything could intervene.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bearing a Coffin
I hadn’t known her very well. B
ut she’d been close to my mother when they were children. So when my distant cousin Jayne died of ovarian cancer, I attended her funeral with my mother and my aunts. I’d only spoken to Jayne once, when she’d phoned to give her condolences after my grandmother passed away.
The cold wind blew crisp leaves across the tarmac road as everyone congregated outside the church gates. I adjusted my tie and gazed at the grey clouds obscuring the sun. The air seemed to grow even colder when the hearse arrived, and tears plummeted towards the ground like shards of ice. I squeezed my mother’s hand and she smiled at me, her eyes filled with sadness and memories of the times when the sun hadn’t been blocked by heavy clouds, when the leaves had been green. Cars slowed down as they overtook the hearse. A teenager walking his dog crossed the road to avoid the crowd of mourners. At the sight of the coffin, passers-by stopped to ponder, for the briefest of moments, about their own ends. And then their steps quickened, and the deliberations ended. But not for the mourners. Not for that ceremony.
Someone said my name, distracting me from my thoughts. My uncle James touched my arm.
‘Eddie isn’t here. He was supposed to be pallbearer. Could you help carry the coffin into the church, Daniel?’
‘It would be an honor.’
A delicate tear fell down my mother’s left cheek.
Eddie must have been close to Jayne. He’d have a right to carry her coffin.
Six of us carried the coffin towards the altar. The scent of dust greeted my nostrils as I fixed my eyes on the priest ahead. My hands trembled. I feared I might lose my grip. Of all the voices Jayne had heard in her lifetime, of all the friends she’d met, I had been elected as one of just six people to carry her body through the church. All the teary eyes were turned on us, as the church echoed with the mourners’ sobs and the cries of a baby in its mother’s arms.
When the funeral ended, I knew Jayne had taught me something. I’d only spoken to her once, but I would never forget that funeral. It didn’t matter that she’d only been a distant relative.
The group of mourners made its way to a pub in Grangetown afterwards. I sat next to my mother and my aunts, having just come back from the buffet table.
‘He eats too much.’ My mother looked at my plate and shook her head.
‘Nonsense,’ my aunt Mary said. ‘He’s a growing lad. He needs all the food he can get.’
‘Mary certainly believes in indulgence,’ my aunt Chloe sniped.
‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’
‘I was merely referring to your Sunday roast dinners. They’re rather excessive.’ Chloe assiduously pronounced every syllable in her sentences, but I knew her Welsh accent would come back with a vengeance once she’d had a few drinks.
‘Well, you need more meat on your bones anyway.’ My mother prodded Chloe in the ribs. ‘But Daniel eats me out of house and home.’
‘You enjoy my roast dinners don’t you, Jackie?’ Mary asked.
‘They’re the best in Wales.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Chloe rose from her seat. ‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with your bloody dinners!’
‘You said they were excessive, which insinuates that you don’t like them!’
‘Ooh, insinuates. That’s a big word!’
‘Another insinuation.’ I grinned.
Mary spoke in monosyllables for the next hour, while Chloe became louder with each fresh drink, emptied glasses forming an amorphous structure in front of her.
‘It really is a shame about Jayne’s death, ain’t it?’ Chloe slurred after her sixth vodka.
‘Yes, life’s too short,’ my mother said.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Life
is
too short. It’s far too short to sit there n’ act grumpy like our darling sister is right now.’
Mary gave her a scolding look.
‘She weren’t ever happy as a child, either.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Mary snapped.
People turned around, disturbed by the vociferousness of our table.
‘Well, you never thanked mum n’ dad for what they gave us.’
‘Do you mean the fleas, the bruises or the mental scars?’ Mary pounded the table with her fist.
‘It’s all in the past,’ my mother said.
‘Oh, God.’ Mary rolled her eyes. ‘You can‘t talk, Jackie. You were mum’s least favorite and you never got over it.’
‘You horrible bitch!’
‘Now we see the true side of her, Jackie.’ Chloe finished the last dregs of her drink.
‘You were her favorite!’ Mary pointed a vindictive finger at Chloe.
‘You’re a hypocrite, Mary,’ my mother spat.
‘Who had the first pair of shoes? Chloe. Who was sometimes allowed to sleep next to the fire? Chloe. Who had everything? Chloe!’
‘I was the eldest. It’s not like I had everything easy, but I was grateful for what mum and dad gave us. We turned out okay, didn’t we?’ Chloe looked at her sisters, shook her head and then burst into tears.
We tried to console her, but she’d had an awful lot of vodka and the only way to cheer her up was the offer of another drink.
‘You’re right,’ Chloe said. ‘But I loved them.’
‘We all did.’ My mother held Chloe’s hands in hers, rubbing them vigorously as if an icy wind had blown into the pub.
‘I do miss them.’ Mary looked down at the ground. ‘I even miss the Wellington boots. It’s wrong of me to be so ungrateful.’
‘Funerals remind me of everything we’ve lost,’ Chloe whispered.
The rest of the evening consisted of stories about Jayne, forgotten memories unearthed. Family and friends sat in a large circle. The morning light touched the sky as everyone left the pub. Chloe received a round of applause when she fell flat on her face and kissed the pavement like the Pope.
I’d learned a lot about my lost family members: my grandmother, my grandfather and Jayne. I went to bed, tired and glum. But my sleeping thoughts rested on the comical side of things. I thought about Mary’s indignation and Chloe’s drunken rant, and I smiled at the thought of them waking up the next day with their regrettable memories.
CHAPTER NINE
A Ghost from the Past
Someone singularly special swam among the first years, when I entered my second year of college. Her golden hair fell just below her shoulders, and her wide green eyes smiled at me whenever she passed me in the corridors. I asked around and found out who she was.
Could this be the same gummy-mouthed girl I’d known throughout my childhood? The tomboy I’d once promised to marry, so we could be mates forever? Lisa Cartwright had become pretty darn gorgeous in my absence. I could tell she recognized me. But we still hadn’t spoken in college, so she might have thought I’d been ignoring her.
Sunbeams ignited the concrete path on the September afternoon that she spoke to me. I smoked a cigarette outside the main college building. Students chatted away in the background, filling the air with jovial laughter.
‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’
Her voice traveled through the laughter. I turned around and smiled broadly.
‘You’ve changed, Lisa.’
‘In a good way, I hope!’ She chuckled.
‘Of course.’
‘I switched colleges. The one I went to didn’t do Film studies, so I’ll finish my A levels this year and just do Film as an AS.’ She played with her silky hair.
‘You always loved your films.’ I lit another cigarette. ‘How’s your mum?’
‘Same as ever. How about yours? Still crazy?’
‘Yep. Where do you live now?’
‘Same place. Still in our old neighborhood.’
We sat on a bench under the cool shade of a tree and talked about old times. She brought many memories back to me. We chatted about our ghost stories and bike rides. We laughed hard when she reminded me of the time we’d ventured into the mysterious warehouse at the end of the street.
The building had always fascinated us. So at the age of eleven, Lisa, Elliott and I wandered through the shady summer night, gazing up at the proud building with its two large, circular windows. The windows surveyed the street like a pair of phantom eyes; they reminded me of the movie,
The Amityville Horror
. A melancholy mist crept under a rusty door protruding from a moldy wall at the side of the warehouse. The naked moon bathed in the twilight darkness, and a parliament of owls cooed conspiratorially among the trees as we tried kicking the door open.
Our hearts raced when the door finally opened, revealing broad shadows. We couldn’t go back. Lisa’s parents thought she was staying over mine. My mother thought I was staying over Elliott’s, and his parents thought he was spending the night at my place. The lies had been told, the die had been cast -
jacta alea est
.
We wandered through the blackness until we found a switch. Light spilled into the room, revealing old washing machines and other household stuff. Frankly, I’d expected something creepier. Whiffs of dust and damp earth filled the air as we crept up a wooden staircase, which creaked under our footsteps. Moonlight filtered through the circular windows, submerging the upstairs storeroom in white light. Our neighborhood looked small from such a high viewpoint, the grey rooftops mere flecks under the shadowy warehouse.