Talia
When my phone rings the next day I’m concentrating on a research paper about the nonexponential decay of quantum tunnelling, and I don’t notice straight away.
“Talia,” Matt says. I ignore him at first, and he puts his hand in my head like the little poltergeist bastard he is.
“What the fuck?”
“Kitty’s calling,” he says, pointing at the phone.
I rub my face, muttering oaths at him, and tap answer. “Uh, hello?”
“Talia?” Kitty says. I frown. Her voice sounds little over the phone, and something protective rises in me.
“Aye, it’s me, you all right?”
“Is Matt there?”
I put the phone back down on the bed and flick it to speaker. “He’s here,” I say. “Can you hear him?”
“Kitty?” he says obediently.
“Matt?” Kitty says. “I, uh…” She swallows audibly. “I saw Connor today.”
Matt sits on the bed like his strings’ve been cut. He’s silent, and I rack my brain for something helpful to say. “Is he okay?” I manage eventually.
Kitty sniffles. “He’s…yeah, I guess. He’s been in hospital after the crash and all. He’s, uh, he’s on crutches, but he’s fine. Well. No. He’s sad, Matt. I wanted to…I don’t know why, but I thought you’d want to know. He misses you so much.”
Matt’s staring into space. I slowly pick the phone up and turn it off speaker. “He’s processing, Kitty,” I explain.
She sniffs again, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Too far away to offer comfort to her, too alive to offer comfort to him. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, and somehow, I can visualise her waving, dismissing concern for herself. “God. I wasn’t sure if it was the best thing to do, you know?” she says. She pronounces it fing, her accent more London than Oxfordshire, and I find it endearing. “I want to tell Connor that Matt’s okay. I want to tell him I can see him, you know? But no way that’d go down well.”
“No, I doubt it.”
She sighs, and there’s a rustling over the line, like she’s rubbing her head, moving in some way that rubs the mic. “S’weird, that’s all, I guess. He’s here, but he’s not here. I mean, I thought my relationship with death was weird enough what with what I do. Anyway. Sorry, I wanted him to know. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise,” I say.
“Sure,” she says. “Thanks, I’ll, uh, I’ll leave ya to it, okay? I…sorry.”
Before I can remind her not to apologise, she hangs up. I put the phone down and look at Matt. He’s crying silently, and I bite my lip.
“You all right?”
He shakes his head. I scratch my head, tug at my hair. “Sorry.” I frown at myself. Too many apologies all over the place.
Matt wipes his face and sniffs. “It’s not fair,” he says in a whisper. “It’s not fair.”
“Aye, I know.”
“Do you think…” He glances at me. “Do you think I was too happy?”
“What?” I cock my head.
“I, uh. I was so happy. So lucky. And I don’t think…I don’t think I appreciated it enough, you know? Do you think I was punished?”
He looks at me like my opinion matters, like I can make a difference, and it’s scary, but it’s also bullshit. I put my hand right over his and look at him hard. “No, I don’t,” I say. “I think life and death, they’re random bastards, and it’s shit, and I’m so, so sorry that you’re dead, but no, I don’t think you’re being punished.”
“You think?”
I nod firmly. “It’s hard enough to find happiness, but when you find it, you hold on to it, okay? For as long as it lasts.”
He wipes his eyes. “Not very fucking long, that’s the thing,” he says softly.
“I know.” I nod. “I know.”
It’s only an hour or so later when the phone rings again. That’s what gets me. That’s why I screw up. I assume it’s Kitty again. I don’t check the caller ID.
I regret it instantly.
“Morag?”
It’s Ma’s voice, and I sit up, my eyes widening, my heartrate rising. “Uh, yeah?”
Matt, sitting on the windowsill with a leg hanging over the drop, turns with a quizzical look. I shake my head, forgetting she can’t hear him.
“It’s me, your mam.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I clear my throat. “How are you?”
“Aye, not bad, lass,” she says, and there’s this treacherous part of my heart that goes she loves you really, she can say nice things. “How’s Oxford?”
“It’s good, Ma. Thanks. Um. Difficult but I’m enjoying it.”
“Good, good,” she says. She trails off. I can tell something’s coming. “Love, I don’t suppose you can send me some cash till the end of the month, could you? Your auld Ma’s a bit skint.”
I bite my lip and grimace wide. Matt’s eyebrows shoot up, and he’s over on the bed in a blink. “I can’t, Ma. I don’t have any spare cash.”
“But you’re down there in England in your fancy school, and you’re not even getting a loan for it with that scholarship of yours.”
“That’s not how it works.” I sigh. I don’t know why I think explaining again will work. “The scholarship’s only part of the fee. You signed off on the student loan paperwork, you know.”
“And you don’t have a job yet?” she says, and how, how does she manage to make me feel guilty about that when she’s not had a job since April, when she lost the Working Men’s club gig? “Don’t play me like that, Morag, I know you. You’d get one as soon as you could.”
“I’m not,” I insist. “I’m working too hard at my studies for a job.” But I could get one, my mind whispers. I’m sure I could spare a few hours a week.
“How’re you getting food, then, hmm?” Ma asks.
“I get an allowance,” I say before I can rein it in.
It’s like a match thrown into a puddle of petrol. “Oh, she gets an ‘allowance,’” says Ma, and she puts on a mocking accent which I suppose is meant to be English. “You get an allowance from the bloody Tories to party all night long, not having to do a day’s honest work in your life, and you won’t share with your ma?”
“No, it’s—”
“You always were a selfish little bitch, and now you’ve gone off to that posh school, and you’re putting on airs, too good for me now, aren’t you? Fucking ungrateful little bitch, after I gave you everything I had. I gave up my life for you! I put a roof over your head and you repay me by walking out on me an’ buggering off to England to be all hoity-toity with your spoilt brat friends.”
I feel like I’m fusing to the bed, like my body has lost all life. It’s draining out through any point of contact with the mattress, dripping down into the carpet and spreading through the building. Soon the floorboards will sprout leaves because I’ll be nothing but an empty husk, holding the phone to my ear as my mother spews poison into me.
And then I drop the phone. It lands on the bed, faceup, Ma’s voice tinny with distance. Matt bends his messy head over it, yells “Ey, fuck you, Talia’s mum,” screws up his face and presses the cancel button.
“What the…how did you…”
He looks flushed, almost breathless, considering he’s a ghost and can’t breathe. “Told you I could move stuff.”
I stare at him, then look back at the dark screen. “Why did you do that?” I ask, my voice croaky.
“I figured she didn’t have anything useful to say after she started calling you a bitch,” he says with a shrug. It seems calculated to look unconcerned, but he’s tense and still glaring daggers at the phone.
My hand drops to my lap at last. I still feel like I’ve been hollowed out. “I should send her—”
“No, you shouldn’t,” he says. “Unless that sentence was gonna be ‘I should send her a text filled with the middle finger emoji,’ the answer is no. And if you send her any money, I will use my awesome ghost powers to cancel it.” He pokes at my phone again and gives it a glare when it doesn’t light up on the first try.
I look at him. I want to ask…I want to beg…I don’t know what I want so badly, but I want it. I stare at him.
Matt looks up again, his face softening. “You’re not a bitch,” he says firmly, holding my gaze. “She is.”
The first tears take me by surprise. I curl up, wrapping my arms tightly around my knees, and breathe slowly, controlling the trembling of my lungs, forcing the tears back down. “You don’t think I’m ungrateful? After all she—”
Matt snorts and sits in front of me, facing away, for which I’m pathetically grateful. “What, she put a roof over your head? Great, she did the bare minimum. That’s literally what parents are supposed to do, innit? You don’t owe her shit.”
My mind brings up all the arguments, how she never wanted me, but she kept me and didn’t get an abortion. I should be grateful for that because I’m alive. How she lost her chance to graduate because of me. I caused her life to fall apart just by existing. How it wasn’t all bad. She smiled sometimes, we had a laugh sometimes, she did my hair, and she took me to the park as a little kid, and one year, she bought me a bike for my birthday.
I cry so hard it hurts. Matt spends half an hour blocking her number from my phone, and I think I should stop him, but I don’t.
* * *
“Isn’t it Friday?” Matt asks.
I look up from my notes, my mind still buzzing with Schrödinger’s equation. “What?”
“Friday,” he says, jerking his chin toward the calendar. “Don’t you go to the synagogue on Fridays?”
I lean my chin on my knee and frown at the pages spread over the bed. “I, well, Friday night or Saturday morning, I guess, but—”
“And you met the rabbi. He was nice, wasn’t he?”
“What’s this about?” I say.
“I’m bored,” he moans, throwing himself onto my bed. “Talia, you spend all your time in this bedroom or in your tutorials or the library. You’re so freaking boring. I’m begging you, please, let’s do something involving other people.”
I snort a laugh, and I see the mischief spark in his eyes. He crawls off the bed and over to me, clasping his hands. “I’m not even asking you to take me to a nightclub, although that is something you could totally do with, you know. Just saying.”
“Does that really look like my scene?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Haven’t I been good?” he wheedles. “I’ve been sitting in your bloody lectures for weeks—”
“It’s been one week.”
“—and I haven’t made a peep, please, Talia. I’m an extrovert. I need people.”
“Fine. God.” I shake my head and laugh, putting my work aside. I was at a good stopping place anyway, and he’s right. He has behaved himself. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask to go to a café or something.”
“I know your limits.” He grins. He’s standing by the door, and I’m reminded of a dog that needs walking. “Anyway, your rabbi is cute.”
I throw a shoe at him. It passes through his shoulders, and he shrieks. I laugh and forget to be nervous.
Of course, sitting on the bus and having to ignore Matt’s constant chatting, my nerves come back, and it’s all I can do to get off at our stop, force my legs to respond.
Morgan would be disappointed if he knew I’d been missing Shabbat. Probably. I mean, I’m disappointed in myself, so it would make sense. And I’ve even missed Sukkot and even Yom Kippur and everything in October. I squeeze my eyes shut against the wave of shame.
What if Daniel is irritated that I didn’t come back for service last week after I met him? What if he realises I’ve been in Oxford all this time, and I haven’t done anything. I’ve barely even been managing my prayers once a day.
My heart beats faster and faster, my feet move slower, and I think now I’ll turn around, now I’ll give up and go back to my dorm room.
And then we’re there, up the steps, into the building. I shed my coat and hat, my tallit around my shoulders a comfort. Through the double doors that open to the sanctuary, gestured in with shabbat shalom. I find a seat in the corner, look up to the podium, and breathe.
When the service is over, the peace I’ve regained lasts long enough for me to follow the congregation out of the sanctuary and into a long room that smells of floor polish and challah. Matt’s wandering around between people, listening to conversations and pretending to be a contributing part. He sees me watching and puts on a thoughtful face, answering the question one woman is posing to another. I have to bite my lip to stop from laughing. God knows I look strange enough as it is when wandering around alone.
I’m not the only young person here. That’s the first thing that makes me notice how different this shul is to my own back in Glasgow. It makes sense. Most of the Glasgow uni students would have gone to the central synagogue, might have had services on campus even. Here, it seems like half the congregation is my age.
I miss my home. I find a hidden corner and cross my arms and wonder if I’ll ever go back. On the one hand, it would mean being in the same city as my mother once more, and I seem to have burnt that bridge. I don’t regret it. I should feel bereft, but there’s nothing but peace when I consider a future without her in it.
On the other hand, the thought of never seeing Morgan or Mrs. Jacobs or Frank or Ruth or any of the rest of them, the people who gave me a family when I didn’t know the meaning of the word…I can’t bear it.
“Talia?” says Rabbi Daniel, and I startle violently, jerking my elbow out of his hand where he’s lightly touched it. He steps back and holds his hands up. “Sorry. Are you okay?”
I rub my forehead and nod. “Aye, sorry. Thank you for the service tonight.”
He smiles. “Thank you for coming along. It’s good to see you.” He seems to waver a moment. “So last weekend…”
I chuckle. “I met Kitty Wilson,” I nod. “And she can do magic.”
He raises his eyebrows, incredulity sparking through his eyes. “Really?”
I nod. “Yeah, we turned up during Matt’s funeral. It was…awkward.”
He huffs a laugh. “I honestly don’t know what to say to that.”
“I didn’t either.” I wonder if he believes me. If he’s talked himself out of any belief he had last week, if he’s writing me off as delusional even now. Part of me is offended and wants to bring Kitty to him, but I’m tired. It all feels pointless. I wonder if Morgan would have been able to believe me if I’d still been in Glasgow when this whole thing started. I wonder if he would have believed that the “near miss” had caused temporary insanity and would have had me institutionalised or something. I don’t want to believe him capable of that, not without my say-so.
I cross my arms again and sigh. I feel heavy, like any movement, even breathing, is an effort not worth the results. Matt is flitting from group to group and seems to barely register when people walk through him anymore.
Daniel shifts restlessly. “How are your studies going?”
I nod. “I’m catching up at last. I hope.” Thinking about it exhausts me even more. “I have to catch up,” I admit. “I need to find time to work too, need petrol money.”
He tilts his head a little. “What kind of work would you apply for?”
“I don’t know. Anything, I guess.” My heart sinks. “Not that I’ll get anything. I’ve barely got any time to spare.”
“Can you touch-type?”
“Aye, of course.”
“I can’t,” he says. “I’ve been looking for someone to do a couple of hours a week for me, mostly on Sundays and Wednesday evenings—”
“I’m not a charity case,” I snap.
He smiles serenely and points to a noticeboard to my left. Help Wanted!!! it says, and my first thought is that I really must introduce him to Terry Pratchett’s opinions on the dangers of overusing exclamation marks. “You’re really looking,” I say.
“I am.” He nods. “Hazell, who does most of the admin, has just had her first baby, and though she still comes in when she can, it’s not so easy to juggle anymore. Do you think it’s something you could do?”
I bite my lip and study the flier. It really is too good to be true, and I’m deeply suspicious that he’s only doing this to be nice or to manipulate me into continuing to come or…but there are phone number tabs at the bottom, and a couple are missing.
My fear swings the other way, and I’m panicking that I’m not good enough, that the others who took the tabs will be better, that this is the only hope I have for a job, that I’ve still got to save up for the holidays because my allowance doesn’t cover those.
I take a deep breath. “I think so,” I say. My eyes want to go everywhere but at him, but I glance up. He’s smiling, but he seems to do that a lot.
“Excellent,” he says. “Do you think you’ll be able to come next Wednesday, see what the setup is, and whether it’s something you’re familiar with?”
“I don’t…what about the others?”
He shrugs. “I was excited when I saw the tabs missing, but I haven’t had any calls. I suppose if they call between now and Wednesday, we’ll have to have some sort of interview process.” He frowns at the flier and rubs his chin, then brightens again. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we? What time can you make it on Wednesday?”