Shining On (13 page)

“Meg,” she said, “Ben and I were talking about some-thing the other night, and we want you to think it over and talk about it with your parents. If you want to, and if they don't mind, we'd like you to photograph the birth of the baby.”

I was floored. “Golly,” I said slowly, “I don't know. It never occurred to me. I mean, I don't want to intrude.”

But they were both shaking their heads. “No,” Ben said. “It wouldn't be an intrusion. We wouldn't want just anyone there, and of course you'd have to be careful to stay out of the way and not to touch anything sterile. But you're spe-cial, Meg; you're close to us. Someday Maria and I would like to be able to look back at that moment. We'd like the baby, someday, to be able to see it, too. You're the one who can do it, if you want to.”

I wanted to, desperately. But I had to be honest with them, also. “I've never seen a baby being born,” I said. “I don't even know much about it.”

“Neither have we!” Maria laughed. “But we'll pre-pare you for that part. Ben will show you our books, and ex-plain everything in advance so that you'll know exactly what to expect when the time comes. Only, Ben,” she added to him, “I think you'd better do it
soon,
because I don't know how much longer we have. The calendar says two weeks, but there are times when I wonder if it might be sooner.”

I promised to talk to my parents, and Ben said he would, too. Suddenly I thought of something. “What if it's born at night?” I asked. “There won't be enough light. I could use a flash, I suppose, but—”

Ben held up one hand. “Don't worry!” he said. He cupped his hands into a megaphone and held them against Maria's stomach. Then he spoke to the baby through his hands: “Now hear this, kid. You are under instructions to
wait until Molly comes home. Then come, but do it in day-light, you hear?

“That'll do it,” Ben said. “Maria and I are determined to have an obedient child.”

Before I left, I took Ben aside and spoke to him alone. “I'm sorry, Ben, for what I said that day.”

He squeezed my shoulders. “That's okay, Meg. We all say things we're sorry for. But do you understand now what I was talking about that day?”

I shook my head and answered him seriously, honestly. “No. I think you're wrong, to anticipate bad things. And I don't understand why you even want to think about some-thing like that. But I'm still sorry for what I said.”

“Well,” Ben said, “we're friends, anyway. Hang in there, Meg.” And he shook my hand.

Will walked me home across the field. He was very quiet. Halfway home, he said, “Meg, you're very young. Do you think it's a good idea, really, being there when that child is born?”

“Why not?”

“It might be very frightening. Birth isn't an easy thing, you know.”

“I know that.” I dislodged a small rock with one toe and kicked it through a clump of tall grass. “For Pete's sake, Will, how can I learn if I don't take risks? You're the one who taught me that!”

Will stopped short and thought for a minute. “You're
absolutely right, Meg. Absolutely right.” He looked a little sheepish.

I looked around the field. “Will, what happened to all those little yellow flowers that were here last month?”

“Gone until next June,” he told me. “They've all been replaced by July's flowers. Molly's goldenrod will be in bloom before long.”

“I
liked
those little yellow ones,” I said grumpily.

“‘Margaret, are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving?’ ” Will asked.

“What?” I was puzzled. He never called me Margaret; what was he talking about?

He smiled. “It's a poem by Hopkins. Your father would know it. ‘It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for,’” he went on.

“Not me,” I told him arrogantly. “I
never
mourn for myself.”

“We all do, Meg,” Will said. “We all do.”

That was three weeks ago. July is almost over. Molly isn't home yet. The baby hasn't been born, so I suppose it's following Ben's instructions and waiting for her. I've studied the books on delivering babies with Maria and Ben, and I'm ready to do the photographs. My parents don't mind. When I asked them, they said “Sure” without even dis-cussing it. They're very preoccupied. I know why, finally.

It was a few nights ago, after supper. My dad was smoking his pipe at the kitchen table. The dishes were done; Mom was sewing on the quilt, which is almost finished. I
was just hanging around, talking too much, trying to make up for the quiet that had been consuming our house. I even turned the radio on; there was some rock music playing.

“Hey, Dad, dance with me!” I said, pulling at his arm. It was something silly we used to do sometimes, back in town. My dad is a
terrible
dancer, but sometimes he used to dance with Molly and me in the kitchen; it used to break my mother up.

He finally put down his pipe and got up and started dancing. Poor Dad; he hadn't gotten any better since the last time we did it, and I think I have, a little. But he's pretty uninhibited, and he tried. It was dark outside; we had eaten late. Mom turned on the light, and I could see on the kitchen walls some of the drawings of wild flowers that Molly had been doing, that she had hung here and there. Dad and I danced and danced until he was sweating and laughing. Mom was laughing, too.

Then the music changed, to a slow piece. Dad breathed a great sigh of relief and said, “Ah, my tempo. May I have the pleasure, my dear?” He held out his arms to me and I curled up inside them. We waltzed slowly around the kitchen like people in an old movie until the music ended. We stood facing each other at the end, and I said suddenly, “I wish Molly was here.”

My mother made a small noise, and when I looked over at her, she was crying. I looked back at Dad in bewilder-ment, and there were tears on his face, too, the first time I had ever seen my father cry.

I reached out my arms to him, and we both held out our arms to Mom. She moved into them, and as the music started again, another slow, melancholy song from some past summer I couldn't remember, the three of us danced together. The wild flowers on the wall moved in a gradual blur through our circling and through my own tears. I held my arms tight around the two of them as we moved around in a kind of rhythm that kept us close, in an enclosure made of ourselves that kept the rest of the world away, as we danced and wept at the same time. I knew then what they hadn't wanted to tell me, and they knew that I knew, that Molly wouldn't be coming home again, that Molly was going to die.

“W
hat do you mean, you aren't coming?” My sister stared at me incredulously. “You can't miss it—everyone goes to the End of Year Ball.”

“So I'm breaking with tradition,” I retorted. I would have smiled if I could, but I can't, which is half the problem.

“But Ellie,” she pleaded, “you can't opt out. Like Matt was saying—”

“I'm not interested in what Matt or anyone else was saying!” I shouted. “Now just leave me alone, OK?”

After Jess had flounced out of the room, I felt a complete cow. I knew Jess had mentioned Matt because she thought it would make me change my mind, but in fact the opposite was true.

“Sorry, Ellie.” Jessica poked her head round the door
two seconds later. I wasn't surprised—people do a lot of apologizing to me these days. “It's just that—well, every-one's rooting for you and remember what Mum said? You can't hide away forever. And besides, I need you there.”

“Oh sure,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. Jess has been really good to me these last eleven months and I hate it when we fall out. “Like you're not going to be fully occu-pied with the Three Musketeers!” Or Four Musketeers, I thought to myself.

My sister—my not-in-the-least-bit-identical twin—is gorgeous. She has long, naturally blond hair, eyes the color of speedwells and tiny dimples in her cheeks and chin, which boys seem to find irresistible. Don't get me wrong—I used to look pretty OK too, in a chubby kind of way. My legs are my best assets—which is just as well considering what happened. But of course, I don't exactly attract the following that my sister manages. Currently, Jess has four guys salivating over her: Oliver—the class high-flyer, who is dark and sultry and up himself; Alex—who is fair and freckled and turns scarlet every time Jess flutters her eyelashes at him; and James—who's sweet and seems about three years younger than her. And then there's the one we don't mention, Matt. Who is—well, Matt.

We've known Matt since we were little kids at primary school. Our mum used to take him to school because his mother was often ill, and then, after she died, Matt used to
spend hours round at our house in the holidays while his dad was at work.

He was more like a brother in those days, I guess—but suddenly that changed.

I think I fell in love with Matt when I was fourteen. You know how it is—one day he's just the guy next door, the next you find yourself dreaming about him, and hanging out of the window in the hope of seeing him in his rugby gear going off to practice. Then he asked me to go with him to the rugby club awards party—he was dead chuffed about it because he was getting an award for Most Improved Player.

Jess was not happy about it.

“We always do everything together,” she asserted firmly. “You can't go without me—you won't talk to anyone.”

I'd always been known as the shy one, largely because once Jess is on a roll, no one can get a word in edgeways.

“I'll be talking to Matt,” I protested. Jess ignored me.

“Don't worry,” she said bossily. “I'll find a way to get there.”

And of course she did. Jess always finds a way to do what she wants. She started chatting up Ben Hardwick, who was one of Matt's best friends, and the next thing you know, she's coming to the party.

But it was OK, because Matt didn't leave my side all evening. We danced practically every dance and when we weren't dancing we sat and talked nonstop. He said I was
pretty and witty
(West Side Story
was being reshown at our local cinema) and he made me feel a million dollars. That night, he kissed me; my first really proper, long, slow, smoochy kiss. I could see Jess watching me out of the cor-ner of her eyes, and it was cool to see how surprised she looked.

After that, we were inseparable—Matt and me, not me and Jess. We would walk Matt's dog over the Downs and didn't have to say anything—we just held hands and drank in the views, and he didn't think it was boring like some of the guys I'd known.

But it wasn't all lovey-dovey stuff either: we talked for hours about everything from politics to rap music, and we laughed a lot.

We'd been together for six months when it happened. It was Saturday 25th July. Of course, everyone knows that date now—they call it 25/7. The day of our Town Carnival. It was a glorious, Technicolor summer day—the kind you get about once every three years in England. The papers said that made it worse, because there were even more peo-ple than usual. Everyone was in skimpy clothes, strolling about watching the jugglers and street musicians in the Market Place or lounging on the stone steps by the foun-tains, licking ice creams. I was on cloud nine because just before we left for the Carnival, Matt had gone all pink and shy and fumbled about in his pocket.

“I got you this,” he said, thrusting a little box into my hands. “For a six months' anniversary present. You proba-bly won't like it, and that's OK, you can change it, I mean, it's nothing really …”

By then I'd opened the box.

“It's beautiful,” I murmured, not just because I wanted him to feel good, but because it really was—a tiny silver shell with a pearl in the middle, hanging on a fine silver chain.

“It's not expensive or anything,” Matt apologized. “It's just from the market.”

“No, it's from you,” I said, and leaned forward so that he could fasten it round my neck. “I'll keep it forever.”

Dumb thing to say.

Anyway, after that we headed for the Carnival. It had taken over the whole town center; streets were packed with waltzers, bouncy castles and dodgems; food stalls crammed the side roads and music blared out from loudspeakers. We met up with loads of our mates, ate ice cream and hot dogs and chips, and then felt sick riding the roller coasters.

When I think about what happened, it's as if there's a movie playing in slow motion in my head.

“Come on,” Matt is saying again, “let's go on the Screamin' Spinner.”

I remember the sick feeling in my stomach, remember the way I shook my head, said that I was dying of thirst and couldn't do another thing till I'd had a drink. I remember
being afraid to say that I was terrified of fast roller coasters, because I knew Matt adored them and he'd once told me that he despised weedy girls who wouldn't have a laugh.

“Not me,” I said as casually as I could. “I need a drink— I'm fried. You go.”

“Not without you,” he replied. “Tell you what, I'll keep our place in the queue—you go and get some Pepsi.”

Then the pictures in my head fast-forward. I'm standing in line at the juice and cola bar outside Hendersons, I'm actually letting mums with little kids go ahead of me, because I reckon Matt will get to the front of the roller coaster queue and go on the ride without me. No way am I going spinning round at speed and turning upside down and disgracing myself by throwing up all over him.