Authors: Nicky Singer
My father says I have to go to the Celeb Night. My grandmother says I have to go. Gerda says so.
“I’ve paid for the sodding tickets,” says my father.
“You’ll enjoy it once you get there,” says my grandmother.
“You have to,” says Gerda, with a full stop like a slap.
When she didn’t speak, she wasn’t dead, Gerda tells me. Just furious. All that time I waited for her to breathe and she’d just sent me to Coventry. It never occurred to me, but it should have done, because my mother could be like that. Cut you off in the middle of a sentence. Or, at least, cut Dad off. Never me. No. She never did it to me. My mother loved me. Loves
me. Gave me Gerda. But my father, there were times she wouldn’t speak to him for a week. Made a wall of ice if he came in the room. Like when he hid her motorcycle helmet.
“You’re not fit to be driving. You’re a danger on the road,” my father said.
So she sent him to Coventry for a week and drove without her helmet.
“That’ll show him,” she said.
And it did. He gave the helmet back.
“At least you’ll be safe,” he said. He always loved her. Always.
And me?
“If you don’t go to that Celeb Night,” says my father, shouting in the kitchen, “it’ll be a waste of money. I sweat blood for that money.”
“But if I go and I hate it, won’t that be a waste too?”
“But not of money!” he says.
No, not of money.
“In any case,” I try, “it’s for charity, and they get the money whether I go or not. In fact they’ve got the money already, so why does it matter?”
“It matters to me. I made a deal. With Mrs Van Day.
Part of my apology on your behalf. Now you have to complete your side of the deal.”
“So it’s a penance!”
“Yes,” says Gerda. “It’s a penance.”
“No,” says my father, “it’s a bloody expensive night out. You should be grateful.”
“It will cost more to go than not to go.”
“What?”
“You have to have an outfit. Dress up. That’s what it is, a Celeb Night, you have to be a celebrity.”
“Well, you have your mother’s sewing machine. Make something! Or didn’t she pass those genes on?”
The sewing room. That’s where Grandma found me the night I put my hand up Red Riding Hood’s skirts. Grandma scooped me up (even though she’s frail and old) and put me to bed. Least I imagine Grandma did that because I could not have made my own way to my bedroom, nor got undressed, and there I was in the morning, in a fresh nightgown in my own clean bed. So clean, in fact, I wondered if Grandma had had to change the sheets in the night. But nothing was said. Not by me and certainly not by Grandma. That’s not Grandma’s way. But she did take away the bottle. That is Grandma’s way. Not that there
was much—if anything—left of the retching, wretched liquid. Of course, I went to check, put my hand back up the petticoats. Nothing. It’s possible, of course, that there never was a bottle under Red Riding Hood’s skirt. It’s possible that I imagined the bottle, dreamed it in that nice clean bed.
“You dreamed nothing,” said Gerda. “Now go to the room and make the dress.”
Possible that I dreamed Jan’s lips over mine out at the bridge.
“Yes,” says Gerda. “That you did dream.”
That’s the problem with the Red Riding Hood liquid, it makes you confused. It makes you forget.
“Jan …” I begin.
“Cares nothing for you,” says Gerda. “Now make the dress.”
And if he had cared, he would have come, wouldn’t he? He would have rung. Left some message. A whole week of silence now. And he hasn’t been to the bridge, because I’ve been there.
So Gerda must be right.
I go upstairs to my mother’s sewing room. I will make the dress.
“That’s it,” says Gerda. “Good girl.”
Grandma’s words return to me: “It will be easy when you decide who you want to be. Who do you want to be, Tilly?”
“
You
are who you are
,” says my mother, “
why try to be someone
else
?”
And I know then what I will do. I take my mother’s sewing scissors, the Wilkinson Sword ones with the very sharp blades, and go to the linen basket in which my mother kept her remnants. I open the lid and pull out the brightly coloured entrails, the scarlet velvets, the fairy-tale blue satins, the offcuts of (fake) shocking pink snakeskin. I dig deeper, looking for the dun colours, the ugly colours: the oranges, the dirty yellows, the greys. Feel for the rougher fabrics, for my mother collected everything. “You never know,” she said, “when things will come in handy.” So here they are, of course, a yellowing piece of flannelette, the fraying lower leg of a pair of grey trousers, and yes, an old sheet, 60s orange. I pull out my spoils and attack them with the scissors. I cut and I hack and I tear. I know what I’m doing. I enjoy the sound of the ripping, imagine the blade that knifed through my mother’s leather biking gear.
Gerda looks on, impassive.
Then I begin to sew. I don’t use the treadle, partly because I don’t know how to make my feet and my hands act in rhythm, and partly because what I’m doing calls for hand stitching. I thread a needle with black, sew the severed pieces of cloth back together. The stitches are large, ungainly, they look like stitches you see on corpses in films after the body has been through an autopsy. But I don’t care. I try the frock on. It doesn’t fit, but that doesn’t matter either. So I keep cutting and I keep stitching until I am satisfied that the thing I am making is finished.
“It isn’t finished,” says Gerda. “There is no pocket for me.”
I cut more of the orange sheet, carefully now, sew a pouch, secure it beneath the skirt.
“That’s better,” says Gerda.
Then I walk to my mother’s bedroom, put on the garment and look at myself in my mother’s full-length mirror.
Gerda, looking out from the pocket, likes what she sees. She smiles.
We arrive late. I am wearing the garment, a coat (which totally covers the garment) and no shoes.
Grandma says: “You can’t go to a ball with no shoes.”
“It’s not a ball, Grandma. In any case, bare feet is what this outfit needs.”
“What outfit?” says Grandma. “Who are you going as? Why don’t you let me see?”
I contemplate saying, “You wouldn’t understand,” but actually, Grandma might understand, so I say: “You’re not dressed up. You’re just going as yourself.”
“Oh Tilly,” says Grandma. “I’m seventy-three years old. How many seventy-three-year-old pop stars do you know?”
“Not pop stars, Grandma, celebrities.”
But, of course, it is not about pop stars, or even celebrities, it’s about not pretending, about accepting who you are.
She looks at my feet. “I don’t think there are any celebrities who go barefoot. What would the shoe industry think? Why don’t you put on something, Tilly, if only to get to the car?”
And so the argument goes on, which is why we are late. Grandma takes her coat to the cloakroom, exchanges it for a white raffle ticket. I keep my coat on. Grandma sighs.
“You’re as stubborn as your mother,” she says. She takes my arm. “Come on.”
The double doors of the Oakwood Club function room are flung wide. The event comes to greet us before we step inside: the bright spangled lights (reflected in wall-sized mirrors), the excited buzz, the low throb of disco music, the clink of glasses, the laughter. I can hear Mercy laugh. I can also smell the alcohol, as it moves on the air, sweet and warm.
“Gosh,” says Grandma, “quite a turnout.”
We go in. I scan the room for Jan, but I can’t see him anywhere. Mercy I can see, she is standing very
close to the entrance, chatting to Charlie and to a boy I don’t know. She has put in blonde hair extensions and her normally trim bob is like a lion’s mane. As she moves the wildcat hair swings thickly about her, lapping her back and brushing the satin curves of her breasts. Her exposed stomach is bronzed and tight and her legs shimmer beneath the blue gauze trousers. At her wrist is a large plastic disc with the number 9 written on it in permanent ink. Her number for the celebrity parade. Vote Mercedes Van Day. Vote Britney. Star. Beauty. The boy I don’t know (who is wearing an England number 7 shirt and a blond mohican – Beckham) is looking at the star with hungry eyes. As Jan would, if he were here. How could he not?
I clutch the coat tighter about me. I have made a mistake. In my mother’s sewing room, with Gerda beside me, it all seemed so obvious, so right. Making the garment was an act of defiance. It said, “I don’t care. I’ll go – but on my own terms. I’ll be who I am. You won’t break me. None of you. It may be a penance but I can parade that penance. I can still be strong. I will not give up. I choose my own rags, flaunt myself as the Cinderella whose prince doesn’t care
and whose godmother is dead.” But, being here, I find I do care. I find, standing next to star and beauty, Mercedes Van Day, that I cannot take off my coat. My parade is a sham. To take off the coat would be to die of humiliation.
Britney Van Day turns around. “Hello Mrs Barker,” she says to my grandmother, teeth gleaming. And then she sees me, eyes me. Up. Down.
“Mercy,” says Grandma. “You look …” She pauses, observes the transparent trousers and the satin bikini bottoms beneath, “… magnificent. Who exactly are you?”
Mercy laughs. “Who exactly are you, Tilly?”
“Tilly …” Grandma begins – and then something catches her eye. It’s the hand of her old friend Audrey Phillips, waving from across the room. Grandma, who thought she would know no one here tonight, says, “Oh, excuse me …” and she walks away. My grandmother abandons me.
“Let me guess,” Mercy says to me, “you’re Mad Mac the Flasher?”
Charlie laughs, the Beckham boy laughs.
“Go on,” says Charlie. “Give us a look.” Even Charlie looks beautiful. She has kohled her eyes and put tiny black plaits in her hair. She’s dressed in white
lace and gold jewels. The disc at her wrist shows number 3, under which she’s written, in luminous pink (and in case of doubt): Jennifer Lopez.
“Give us a laugh more like,” says Mercy. “Take off the coat, why don’t you?”
“Do as she says,” says Gerda.
At least this is what I think Gerda says, but I’m not sure because that’s when the band strikes up. All eyes transfer to the podium where Mrs Van Day in an Oscar-winning sheath dress of silver lame addresses a microphone.
“The Johnny Zando Band!” she declares and there is another drum roll and a clash of cymbals, a hoot, a cheer and an instant round of applause. “Thank you so much,” says Mrs Van Day. “Well, we’ve seen celebrity stars numbers one to five and in a moment I’m going to call upon numbers six to ten to come up on to the stage.” More hoots and cheers. “But before that, it is my very great privilege to introduce to you the first of the very talented young musicians who are going to play for us tonight. With his own rendition of M People’s smash hit
Search For the Hero
, please put your hands together for the soon-to-be-legendary Jan Spark!”
The house lights dim, there is a crescendo from
Johnny Zando and into a sudden and slightly mistimed cone of brilliant white light, a figure steps. A young man with a guitar slung around his neck and dazzled eyes. The band pauses, he is to introduce himself. He hesitates, peers out from the glare into the darkened room, waits for his eyes to adjust. He is looking for something, someone. The moment lengthens. A band member drops a drumstick, it clatters on the floor. A man laughs, to relieve tension. And still Jan stares. He will not be hurried. I watch every slow turn of his body, hold my breath for him, try not to linger on his face, on those beautiful lips.
To my right, Mercy moves, she flicks her golden hair. Jan locates her and I see him smile, strum a very soft chord. At once the band responds, grateful to begin. Jan leans into the microphone. “This is,” he says looking again to where Mercy is standing, “for … for someone. She knows who she is.” But the band has lost patience, they are playing over him, urging him through the introduction. He lifts his head then, puts his hands on the fretboard.
Beside me Mercy flowers, her face unfurling under the gaze of the Inca god. She is radiant. Charlie looks at her in awe. Beckham lowers his head, crushed.
“You see,” says Gerda.
And I do see.
You are who you are. Small and foolish.
I take off the coat.
Normally, the feel of the strings under his fingers, the indent of them, calms Jan. But he has his fingers on the strings now and he is far from calm. He is in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. How has he come to be here? He would like to say they bullied him, coerced him, put a gun to his head. But they did nothing, unless you count saying, very politely, “please”, and “will you, Jan?” and “for me?”. And he wants them to be happy, all of them: his English mother, Mrs Van Day. Mercy. He’s not a person to make ructions, he keeps himself quiet, has never seen the point of making waves. And yet he finds himself now in this cone of light with fumbling fingers and a sense that something has gone terribly wrong, a truth is being denied, and it is all his fault.
He looks up one final time, over to the place where Mercy stands. He has, after all, given his word. And can it really matter? It’s just a charity affair, he’s not being asked to make a statement about himself, is he?
It’s only a bit of fun, a fun fundraiser. He’s taking it all just a little too seriously.
He has missed his cue and Johnny Zando has played on, has almost got to the chorus, to finding the key to your life, when there’s a skidding crescendo and a backtrack – Johnny’s starting again, playing him in again, so Jan really must press his fingers on the fretboards, strum that first chord. His eyes are used to auditorium dark now, he sees the blue satin shape of Mercy quite clearly. And also the figure beside her.
A small dark figure dressed in rags. And of course he could be dreaming (he feels himself in that strange, floating, limbo state), but there again, the figure has the right face. Can he really see the face from this distance? He can. It is the face of a Chilean Cinderella, beautiful and bereft. It is the face he has searched for all these long years, the one that’s always been just out of reach, just around the next corner. Violeta Veron. She has come. She has arrived. He puts his hand in the pocket of his jeans, clutches for the Worry Doll with the face of orange paper and the skirt of baked mud. His fingers prick on the wire stub of an arm. It is real. His finger bleeds.
And of course he would walk down from the stage
and across the floor and take Violeta in his arms. But he is afraid she will disappear, as she always has before, in a curl of smoke. He will be within reach of her
–
stretch out his hands – and, yet again, his fingers will close around nothing. Which is why he lays aside his guitar and pulls, from under his T-shirt, the Antara pipes. He will play to her. If he plays, she will understand. She will stay awhile.
What did I expect?
That I would take off the coat and the ground would open under my feet, swallow me whole? That Mercy’s howl of derision would give me an excuse to curl up and die? Is this what I planned, I hoped? Well, no one has so much as twitched, especially not Mercy. Her eyes are fixed on the stage. Mine are fixed on her. There is something wrong with her face. It no longer blooms. It’s tense, screwed up, etched with anxiety. She looks ugly. Can Mercy look ugly? I’m spellbound. It’s the music, I suppose, or rather the noise which used to be music. The band is colliding with itself, keyboard and drums crashing together. Johnny Zando has tried to play Jan in, twice, but he has not begun, and so the band flounders. Listening to the desperate
cacophony, Mercy’s face is a tight prayer: he must begin, must be again her Inca god.
Then I hear it, through the crashing, a note. Just a tiny note, a puff of breath, but I’d recognise it anywhere. The Antara. Mercy’s face registers disbelief. The note comes across the room as if it were directed at me alone. I turn towards the stage. Jan has the pipes around his neck, his lips to the openings. Johnny Zando, standing now, waves the band into a jerky silence. Another note. And another. Someone coughs, embarrassed. But the notes are pure and mellow and I know the tune. It is the music of the bridge, the melody he played when I cut myself and saw the blood flow. And I feel that blood again and also hear the high, melancholy wind of the bridge. And it seems to me that it is his song but also mine. That, looking at me now, facing me across the dark, he’s playing for me. Which is, of course, absurd.
“Absurd,” says Gerda.
But this is what I feel.
“Lift me out,” commands Gerda.
I take her from the pouch.
“Hold me.”
I do as she asks, hold her in my hands.
“Against your heart,” she says.
I press her there. The notes are fluent now, the tune from the bridge only deeper, more haunting. And also more lovely. Whereas before there was something missing – a tone, a colour – now there is a heartbreaking completeness.
“He doesn’t love you,” says Gerda.
Gerda says this because she knows this is what I’m thinking, because this is what the song says.
This is for someone. She knows who she is
. Through the rags at my breast I feel the sharp edges of the beads around Gerda’s wrist.
“How could he love you?” Gerda says. The beads are like little knife pricks. And then she says: “Not even your own mother loved you.”
Did I have my nail against Gerda’s wrist, was I pulling at those beads? Because now they are falling, like tiny red petals on to the floor. I watch them spin, but there is no noise when they hit the carpet, just a series of tiny, tiny splashes.
And then I’m back in that room again, the place where I’ve tried so hard not to be all this time. My mother’s room on the night that she died.
And didn’t die.
I see it as if in a film. Me coming home from school, unusually jaunty, book bag slung across my back. No Grandma in the house. Wednesday, her bridge day. But too much silence nonetheless. No mother sounds. No treadling, no
Pluie d’amour
, no radio, no kitchen clatter, no tremulous call from the sofa in the living room: “Is that you, Tilly?”
Is that why I ran? Because I did run, straight up the stairs and into my mother’s bedroom. Because of course she’d done it before. Or tried to. The door wasn’t locked, so I guess she wanted to be found.
“
Grandma
says it was you who found
her
,” my father said.
Of course, she knew what time I’d be back. Had it planned I suppose. Or maybe not, maybe it was just when the vodka ran out. Lying beside her was one Vladivar miniature and one full-sized Smirnoff bottle. Both empty.
She was kneeling by the bed. I can’t have stood looking for more than a few seconds but the picture has freeze-framed in my mind. I mainly see the cut. She’d dragged the knife – the thin-bladed carving knife – across her wrist and was just staring at the wound, a kind of beatific smile on her face. The cut gaped, red-rimmed like a mouth. We both looked at
the blood that ran along the edges, and also at the bright yellow buttery fat just inside the lips. The blood collected at the edge of the wound, some dribbled down her arm, some splashed on to the floor. Surprisingly little blood really, just small dots, like someone had got a brush and flicked red paint about. But I knew it was serious, because of that smile, and also because it was clear that she felt nothing.
Did I go to her, help her, bind her wrist with the clean tea towel she had so thoughtfully placed on the bed beside her? No, I did not. I thought about Grandma washing and ironing that towel. I wondered where the Savlon was. Often my mother put Savlon by the towel. No Savlon that afternoon. Just the knife, still in her right hand and me making no effort whatsoever to take it from her. She said nothing to me and I said nothing to her, not even: “How could you do it? How could you dare?” Because we’d been through all that.
“How could you do it, if you love me?”
“I do love you.”