Page 40 of Little Wing
‘Yes.’
And then they were laughing, snorting into their tea, laughing until they wheezed and Nell begged to stop because her head was splitting.
‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,’ Debbie murmured.
‘The last time I had sex was with Billy,’ said Nell. ‘God – that’s almost two years ago.’ She looked at Debbie searchingly. ‘And my mother’s called Florence and my aunt’s a cold old bitch and my other mum isn’t even my mum.’ Nell paused. ‘And no one told me. And no one will tell me anything. And I don’t understand. And I got completely pissed and shagged a stranger. Which isn’t me. But the thing is – none of it is me. Nothing. It’s all been a lie.’
She rested her head on her arms on the table, Debbie’s hand between Nell’s shoulders.
‘Just go with it, Nell,’ Debbie told her.
‘I don’t want to. I want everything to go back to how it was.’ Nell paused. ‘And what’s so alarming is that all the while I’ve been assuming it’s just my mum’s batty ramblings. But now I find there’s truth in it.’
‘You’re raw and tired and on your way to the hangover from hell. I’m going to run you a bath and then you stay here for a few hours – come in to work if you really feel like it, but first just rest up here awhile. OK?’
Nell looked up. She wanted to say to Debbie won’t you stay with me? Wanted to confide that she dreaded going to sleep because when she woke up she’d have to deal with the huge wave of facts flooding back and engulfing her.
‘Have a duvet day,’ Debbie said.
‘Sometimes my mum couldn’t go to work,’ Nell said. ‘She’d be—She’d just lie there with her eyes glassed over. She couldn’t talk on those days. Sometimes two, three days at a time.’ Nell paused. ‘I’d stay home from school. I couldn’t leave her.’
‘That’s really hard, Nell. For a little one.’
Nell shrugged. ‘But when she came to, she’d compose these extraordinary letters to the school to explain my absence. Beautifully written crackpot fiction. So I’d copy her handwriting and write my own and say I’d had a slight temperature for a couple of days, that’s all.’
It was novel waking up at midday within the fresh sheets of someone else’s bed. Being woken up in the small hours by Jimi Hendrix now seemed a hazy dream belonging to someone else entirely. Nell scissored her legs; the sheets were cool and she was warm and Debbie’s sofa bed cocooned her in comfort and safety. She felt peaceful at last, lying in the slatted light from the venetian blinds and gazing at all the interesting belongings and books, art and photographs and odd little ornaments and knick-knacks, that told the story of Debbie’s life. The room was replete with possessions and everything had its place. The purpose of everything was memories and proof, little mementos of a life lived, small objects that gladdened the heart. Nell’s head started to swirl again with disjointed thoughts about Wendy and Florence and Florence and Marjorie and Marjorie and Wendy and where, in their fucked-up triumvirate, Nell fitted in. Just briefly she was accosted by memories of the Jake bloke from last night, of reeling around the bar and his skanky room, and the booze and the fags and the shit sex and she was appalled. But most of all she hated herself for having shaken her mum, for shouting at her, frightening her in a fit of frustration and hurt.
She needed more painkillers, more water and she either needed to be on her own or in company, but she couldn’t figure out which. After the bath she pottered around Debbie’s flat wishing she lived there, in the company of things, with the souvenirs of good times and memories to be proud of.
Enormously tired but wired with adrenaline. Back to her building and up the stairs and there was her boot stamp on the wall. Along the corridor blocking out the sounds of lives going on beyond the doormats and behind the walls of her neighbours. She headed for the calm in Flat 428. Today, the white walls and minimalism seemed staringly cold. Nell sat on the love seat surrounded by a dull and sterile silence and she longed to be back at Debbie’s. She was so tired and her head was still half full of fuzz, her eyes stung and her stomach ached. This time yesterday – no! But yes – this time yesterday she was just back from Cambridge and about to visit her mum. Stop.
She turned away from her thoughts and went over to the kitchen, opening and then shutting the fridge and the cupboard before eating baked beans cold, straight from the tin. Her eyes slid around the photos of her montage and all that smiling. Little had she known. There, near the top corner, a bleached-out photo of Nell on her sixth birthday with Wendy grinning wildly amongst a scatter of children in fancy dress around her. Marjorie in the background, po-faced, as straight and as cold as a steel rod. Nell pointed her fork at the picture, nodding slowly. She had answers, that woman, and Nell deserved to hear them.
The previous evening Marjorie had sat quite still in her chair, hands loosely on her lap, television off, anticipating that Nell would be hammering on her door with a battering ram of questions. She’d stayed like that until almost eleven o’clock, unaware that, at the time, her niece was roaring drunk in a pub. Now, after the briefest of phone calls, Nell was on her way and Marjorie told herself to concentrate, to be prepared and, when her doorbell rang less than an hour later, her wits were already neatly gathered about her.
Marjorie did not offer tea, or coffee, or water or anything, she simply led the way to the sitting room and motioned for Nell to sit. The curtains now concealed the paperweights on the sill. The curtains, Nell thought with some satisfaction, were actually horrible. And there they sat in silence. Nell not knowing what she wanted to ask, or what answers she was most dreading. Marjorie just wishing she’d get on with it.
‘Mum was useless,’ Nell said.
Marjorie was not having that. ‘Don’t you dare – don’t you ever!’
‘Yesterday,’ Nell qualified evenly. ‘She was no help yesterday – she was in gaga land.’
Marjorie bristled. She did not like being wrong-footed. She looked at Nell levelly. ‘Nell – whatisit that you wish to know?’
So much, Nell thought. I want to know so much I don’t know where to start. Her mind was so full that, momentarily, she had nothing to ask. But then Nell thought about her absent father remembered only from the details of a few photographs. ‘Did my mum – Wendy – did she know about Jimmy and Florence?’
‘Jimmy?’
‘My dad – Jimmy?’ Nell read the confusion on Marjorie’s face and she felt herself grow a little thinner. ‘Is Jimmy my dad at all?’
‘No.’
Nell’s blood was churning. ‘Then – but whoismy father?’
‘I don’t know.’
Nell sat back, deflated. ‘You don’t know?’
