Dad finally calls.
The messages must have done the trick. About fricking time.
‘Hello, Hedda,’ he says. My name sounds strange coming from him. I realise now how rarely he says it. It’s usually just ‘love’ or something like that. Like I’m not actually a person at all.
‘Dad, I need a favour,’ I say. ‘Could you –’
‘I’ve been meaning to call you and see how you both are,’ Dad says in his ‘jolly’ voice. ‘I’m in town actually – perhaps you could pop along and see me? I could take my girls out for lunch.’
It would be so easy to say no. To tell him where to go. But underneath the fake jollity is something like iron. I know I’m going to have to play it his way.
‘Sure,’ I say, forcing my voice up, ‘that would be great.’
We fix a time for the following day and I spend an age doing clothes and make-up to try and hide how thin I’ve got – bit of a turnaround for me.
I push Rose through town, my feet feeling too heavy to lift. A few heads turn as I go past and I know those looks so well. But now, I only partly want them. I’m running late because I have no money for the bus fare and it’s taken longer than I thought to walk; I keep having to stop and catch my breath. I get to the pub where he wants to ‘treat’ me to a meal and wheel Rose’s buggy in. I scan the dingy interior and spot Dad in the corner.
At least, I think it’s Dad, but he looks different. Younger. Like a man let out of prison. And with him is a woman I don’t recognise.
I pull the buggy back a few paces, but he’s already seen me and waves. ‘Over here!’
I trundle over slowly and force a smile. ‘Hello.’
‘Come here, sit down. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is my eldest and the little one.’
Rose, I think. She has a name.
But he’s already turning back to the woman, a dowdier version of Mum, with badly dyed hair and an unfriendly look in her eyes, though she’s showing a lot of teeth as she smiles.
‘This is Meg,’ he says.
‘As in Meg and Mog?’ I say, one eyebrow notched up, thinking about the witch in the books I used to read when I was little.
Meg’s smile gets even bigger and her eyes go so hard she reminds me of the bird of prey I saw with Lois. ‘That’s right. How clever of you.’
Dad doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss and he beams at us. ‘How lovely to have all my girls here,’ he says.
‘Except Tammy. And Mum,’ I say. ‘And I’m not actually a girl, though the “little one” is. Your granddaughter. Rose.’ I’m not quite shouting but I’m speaking loudly enough for a couple of people at the bar to glance over.
Dad’s face darkens, but before he can say anything, Meg says in a high, trilling voice, ‘I’ve always said you’re far too young to have a granddaughter, Peter.’
Vom. Then I realise she’s looking rather pointedly at me, and actually she’s probably right. He’s too young. I’m too young. This whole thing is a complete mess. How can I ask him for money with her watching? Her eyes are the same as the woman’s in the charity shop, the one who called me a scrounger.
I stand up. ‘I just remembered I have an appointment,’ I say.
‘At the “unit”?’ Meg says. Her eyes say she knows all about it. She puts her hand on Dad’s arm and turns sappy, fake-sympathetic eyes up at him.
‘No, at the bookie’s. Got to do something with all that lovely benefits money. Then I was planning to go out and see if I can’t get myself duffed up with another one. I hear you get extra,’ I say as sarcastically as I can manage, and then start to push Rose away.
But not before I hear Meg say, ‘I shouldn’t imagine so in that state. No, let her go, Peter. She’s a grown woman.’
Which one is it then? I nearly shout it. I’m always stuck in this space between what everyone expects me to do, to be. Too young and irresponsible for a baby; too old and hard for help. I consider going back to give her a good slap, or at least tip her drink into her roots, but I don’t. I keep walking.
It takes everything I have to get home again. I manage to feed and change Rose, and then I put her on her change mat and pretty much collapse on to the sofa.
Someone is really hammering on my door.
At first, swimming back up through layers of nightmares, with Nia whispering through them, I think: Robin. But he’s gone.
I turn my head, wondering where Rose is, what the time is, did I pass out or just fall asleep or into some form of daydream?
I’m on the sofa and Rose is kicking on her mat. She looks fine. I can’t have been out of it for long.
The door is still going. What if it’s the man from next door? But we’re being quiet.
Then I hear a voice call, ‘Hedda?’
I try and reply and it comes out in a croak. I stand up in slow stages, because if I go faster I know I’ll go down, and make it to the front door.
Tammy is in the corridor, swamped by a duffel coat. By the light, it’s early evening.
I pull the door open and she swivels round.
‘Hey,’ she says.
‘Hey.’
‘You look awful.’
‘Yeah.’
I let her in and we go into the living room. Rose is still on her mat, not looking at anything in particular. Has she simply got used to her mum sparking out now and again?
‘Can I hold her?’ Tammy says.
I hand Rose over and Tammy gazes down at her in her arms.
She puts a finger on Rose’s nose and says, ‘Beep.’
Rose giggles. It’s an amazing sound, this low chuckle that’s too big for her. Tammy and I both smile at each other. Rose is like candyfloss, making the air between us gentle and soft.
‘She knows who her auntie is,’ I say.
‘Yes, you do, don’t you?’ Tammy says and beeps Rose’s nose again.
I go to the kitchen to check Rose’s book. The clock says seven, which means she’s not due a feed for a while. Her weight is still on exactly the right percentile.
‘What’s that?’
Tammy has followed me into the kitchen and is staring over my shoulder at the book.
I flip it closed. ‘How’s Mum?’ I say.
Tammy gives the book another hard stare then follows me back to the sofa. ‘She’s cooking stuff. Think she’s worried I’m aiming to fill your shoes.’
‘Are you?’
She looks at the ceiling as if she’s considering, then says, ‘No. One’s enough for the family, don’t you think?’
‘You’re sure?’
Tammy looks me straight in the eyes. ‘I’m sure.’
And I know it’s true. A tiny breath I never realised I was holding releases.
Tammy’s still looking at me. ‘How about you? You look half dead,’ she says.
I flinch.
Tammy waits.
Where did this version of my sister come from? She seems old, suddenly, older than fourteen.
‘I guess … I guess I am.’ I say it so quietly I wonder if she’s heard me.
She strokes Rose’s face with the back of one finger.
‘Hedda … what about Rose?’
‘What about her?’
‘What are you going to do, when she’s older? Is she going to watch you like … like this? What will that feel like for her?’
And I realise that if anyone should know, it’s Tammy. I drop my head. ‘I’m sorry.’
Tammy sighs and I think for a minute she’s going to go, but instead she wriggles closer, Rose still in her arms. She hesitates, then puts her head on my shoulder. For a moment, I don’t move at all. Then, very slowly, like I’m trying not to scare away some wild animal, I wrap my arm around her shoulder. We stay like that for a while, my heart skipping all over the place.
‘Wanna watch something?’ Tammy says. She grabs the remote and flicks through channels, until she gets Strictly on.
‘Seriously?’ I say.
‘Oh just shut up and watch,’ Tammy says, but not in a cross way.
The couple are going some, hands and feet flying all over the place. Rose stares at the TV, mesmerised by all the glitter and fake tan.
‘Those two better be going out first,’ Tammy mutters.
‘Never knew you were into this,’ I say.
‘Well, don’t tell anyone.’
We watch a few more dances, and then there’s a waltz, the woman’s dress drifting behind her like she’s floating. It’s kind of beautiful. Tammy stands up and starts dancing Rose around. Rose’s eyes go wide and she stares at Tammy with such a cute look my heart pushes out and opens. For some reason the matching music boxes Tammy and I got one Christmas, with two dancers on them, pop into my head.
‘Come on,’ Tammy says, holding her hand out to me.
‘What? No.’
Tammy ignores my protests and pulls me up and then we’re dancing, me and her and Rose, in a strange circular waltz and that warm opening in my chest seems to lift like the lid of a music box until there’s a tiny space for my angry, annoying, little sister, right next to Rose.
But when she’s gone, the flat is so empty.
For once I do try to eat dinner, for Rose, for Tammy, but I just can’t.
* * *
The next day, the noise in my head only gets stronger. Nia is everywhere, seeping through the walls, echoing through the flat: Fat, fat, fat. It’s like a battering ram that won’t stop.
I run on the spot for half the night and in the morning I take Rose for a walk, away up and out of the town, and find myself at the gates of the cemetery.
I didn’t even know I was coming here, and yet part of me did.
It’s the first time I’ve been here and I search for an age, walking up and down under the quietly rustling trees.
Somewhere in all the static, I know what day it is. It’s a year since Molly died.
I find the grave finally, marked by a black marble slab. I trace Molly’s name and the dates of her short life and then take Rose out of her buggy and sit cross-legged with her in my lap.
‘Hi, Molly. This is Rose. Rose, Molly,’ I say.
Rose giggles.
I remember a night on the unit. Molly and I had gone into the garden to smoke. Above us, tall trees, I don’t know what kind, swayed in the wind.
‘It sounds like the sea,’ Molly said. She took a big sniff in through her nose and let it out again. ‘When I die, I want to be reincarnated as a tree.’
‘Thought you didn’t believe in that stuff?’ I said.
‘Oh, I believe in something all right.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. The way a butterfly looks, its symmetry. The smell of conkers. Cut grass. Snow. How much better the world would be without people in it.’
She looked up at the sky and that look was so dark and full of despair. ‘I love the world, you know.’ Then she stood up and shouted to the sky, ‘I love you!’
‘Settle down,’ the nurse watching us said.
Molly turned her back on her.
‘If you love it so much, then why … ?’ I left it hanging.
A week or so before, she’d run away and been brought back by the police a few hours later, but not before she’d necked a load of something that meant she needed her stomach pumped.
‘Because I’m not good enough for it,’ she said.
Nothing I could tell her would make her believe it wasn’t true. And I tried, back then. Believe me, I tried. Oh, they went on at the unit, trying to ferret out a why, but the most she’d ever say was that she felt like a black hole, that she’d pull everyone and everything she loved into it. And I wonder now why she would never explain. Was it because she wouldn’t or because she couldn’t?
From this distance, I realise I’m angry with her, that I’ve been angry for the longest time, but it’s faint under the Nia haze, like a memory of being scalded, when all you can see is the shrivelled skin left behind.
‘Molly, you have to tell me what to do,’ I whisper. ‘She won’t let me go. Or I can’t let her go.’
I look at the black stone and think about Molly’s fingers dancing on the sax, conjuring sadness and joy out of some deep place inside her. The blackness she carried around, the way she loved dark films and storms. How destruction was what she did best in the end. About fairground rides and tipping points and numbers.
‘I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do,’ I whisper.
I think about the pages I scribbled during those long weeks when Rose was still inside me, my ‘Crap Things about the Unit’ list. When I was writing it, I felt like Molly was really there, sitting by my side. And suddenly, I know. It was never about why I shouldn’t go back. I was writing for her. So I didn’t have to say goodbye.
I wait and wait for a sign, a feeling, anything that isn’t black emptiness, but any sense of Molly looking over me is gone.
She’s gone. This whole time I’ve been fooling myself.
There’s nothing left of her but cold stone and memories.