He finds a seat right at the back, his eyes glued to the screen of his phone until he sees me turn the sign on the door. We are the only two people in there now.
I’m sorry if I upset you, when I saw you the other day.
I pull out the chair across from him, sit down slowly. They were things I needed to hear, I say.
Denz looks at the table. We’re thinking of leavin London. Me and Lewis. Mebbe go up north for a bit. Or Spain.
I swallow, not sure how to feel. And Danny? I say.
He takes a breath, shakes his head slowly. He int lost.
We say our goodbyes at the door, but we don’t hug. Just before he leaves, Denz hands me a piece of paper with a name scrawled on it that I don’t recognize. Christine O’Leary.
Some people want to be found, some people don’t. You know what I’m sayin, Neef?
I smile. It’s Jen, I tell him.
It takes me almost a week before I build the nerve to type the name on that scrap of paper into the little blue app on my phone. There are hundreds of Christine O’Learys, it turns out. I nearly shut it down there and then, but a photo catches my eye. Or a photo of a photo, I should say. Two girls, almost like sisters, posing on a sofa, both of them wearing Christmas-cracker crowns. Blurry and old, taken years and years ago now. A memory captured with a cardboard camera. In that moment it’s like I can see my mam clearly.
There was a conversation that I overheard between Chrissy and Barry once, when they first got together. I’d been sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for them to come up, like I often did in those very early days. It was late, the pub was closed, but they were in the back bar, pissed. Barry especially. He kept telling her how much he loved her, how beautiful she was, how grateful he was that she’d come into his life, but with every compliment, every lavished praise, I’d hear Chrissy say the same thing. And Jen, she’d say, and Jen? You love her too? You’re grateful fer her too? And he’d reply, yes, of course, I love that little lass, what a little gem, what a treasure, thank you fer bringin her to me, Chrissy, thankyouthankyou.
At the time, all I’d wanted was for Chrissy to shut up and come upstairs, to stop asking him for all that inane reassurance, but now I think maybe she was testing Barry, seeing if he could give me what she couldn’t. Perhaps it was always part of her plan to leave. Before Denz, before Barry, before we even left the flats. Maybe since I’d been tiny. Everyone thought she was a shit mam, but maybe they got it all wrong. Maybe she’d just been looking for a home for me, somewhere I would be settled. Somewhere that she could leave me, hoping that I’d be better off.
I stare at the photo for a long time, think about sending her a message. But in the end I slide my phone under my pillow, make my way downstairs to set up for the day ahead. Flick all the switches. Oven. Kettle. Coffee machine. Toaster. Butter bread, lay out bacon. Crack eggs. Sauces on the table, red and brown. Salt and pepper. Napkins. Cutlery. The pattern of it soothes me and I drag the black bag from under the sink, cart it toward the back door. The key is in my apron and, as I pull it from my pocket, it slips from my fingers, drops down on the floor.
It is only when I bend to pick it up that I see the envelope there. It is white, nondescript, and the front of it is blank, save for four letters scrawled in blue biro, the stroke of the script stirring a memory from long ago:
Neef
Inside there is a plastic bag no bigger than the size of my palm, filled with tiny black seeds. I turn it over in my hand and see the label, written in that same familiar stroke:
Calathea
For new beginnings.