school, for instance, even if it’s only part-time, even if it’s only for a few weeks. It might be worth thinking about trying to normalize your situation.’
I laugh right up at her. ‘Would you go to school if you were me?’
‘I might get lonely here by myself all day.’
‘I’m not by myself.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘But it’s tough on your dad.’
She’s a cow. You’re not supposed to say things like that. I stare at her. She gets the message then.
‘Goodbye, Tessa. I’m going to pop into the kitchen and have a word, then I’ll be off.’
Despite the fact that she’s fat already, Dad offers her fruitcake and coffee, and she accepts! The only thing we should be offering guests are plastic bags to wrap around their shoes. We should have a giant X marked on the gate.
I steal a fag from Dad’s jacket and go upstairs and lean out of Cal’s window. I want to see the street. There’s a view through the trees to the road. A car passes. Another car. A person.
I blow smoke out into the air. Every time I inhale I can hear my lungs crackle. Maybe I’ve got TB. I hope so. All the best poets had TB; it’s a mark of sensibility. Cancer’s just humiliating.
Philippa comes out of the front door and stands by the step. I flick ash on her hair, but she doesn’t notice, just says goodbye in that booming voice of hers and waddles off up the path.
I sit on Cal’s bed. Dad’ll come up in a minute. While I wait, I get a pen and write,
Dad’s taking ages. I go for a walk round the room. At the mirror I pull out a single hair. It’s growing back much darker, and strangely curly, like pubic hair. I examine it, let it fall. I like being able to spare one to the carpet.
There’s a map of the world on Cal’s wall. Oceans and deserts. He’s got the solar system staked out on his ceiling. I lie on his bed to look at it properly. It makes me feel tiny.
It’s literally five minutes later when I open my eyes and go downstairs to see what’s keeping Dad. He’s already scarpered, left some stupid note by his laptop.
I phone him. ‘Where are you?’
‘You were asleep, Tess.’
‘But where are you?’
‘I just came out for a quick coffee. I’m in the park.’
‘The park? Why would you go there? We’ve got coffee at home.’
‘Tess! Come on, I just need a bit of space. Turn the TV on if you’re lonely. I’ll be back soon.’
A woman cooks breaded chicken. Three men press a buzzer as they compete for fifty thousand pounds. Two actors argue about a dead cat. One of them makes a joke about stuffing it. I sit hunched. Mute. Stunned by how crap TV is, how little we all have to say.
I text Zoey. WHERE R U? She texts back that she’s at college, but that’s a lie because she doesn’t have classes on Fridays.
I wish I had a mobile number for Adam. I’d text, DID U DIE?
He should be outside digging in manure, peat and rotting vegetation. I looked up November in Dad’s Reader’s Digest
He hasn’t been out there for days though.
And he promised me a motorbike ride.
Sixteen
He’s uglier than I remember. It’s as if he warmed up in my memory. I don’t know why that should be. I think how Zoey would snort with derision if she knew I’d come knocking on his door, and that thought makes me want to never let her know. She says ugly people give her a headache.
‘You’re avoiding me,’ I tell him.
He looks surprised for a second, but covers it up pretty quick. ‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So it’s not because you think I’m contagious? Most people start acting as if they can catch cancer from me in the end, or as if I’ve done something to deserve it.’
He looks alarmed. ‘No, no! I don’t think that.’
‘Good. So when are we going out on your bike then?’
He shuffles his feet on the step and looks embarrassed. ‘I haven’t actually got a full licence. You’re not supposed to take passengers without it.’
I can think of a million reasons why going on the back of Adam’s bike might be a bad idea. Because we might crash. Because it might not be as good as I hope. Because what will I tell Zoey? Because it’s what I really want to do more than anything. But I’m not going to let the lack of a full licence be one of them.
‘Have you got a spare helmet?’ I ask him.
That slow smile again. I love that smile! Did I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.
‘In the shed. I’ve got a spare jacket too.’
I can’t help smiling back. I feel brave and certain. ‘Come on then. Before it rains.’
He shuts the door behind him. ‘It’s not going to rain.’
We go round the side of the house and get the stuff from the shed. But just as he helps me zip into the jacket, just as he tells me his bike is capable of ninety miles per hour and the wind will be cold, the back door opens and a woman steps into the garden. She’s wearing a dressing gown and slippers.
Adam says, ‘Go back inside, Mum, you’ll get cold.’
But she keeps walking down the path towards us. She has the saddest face I’ve ever seen, like she drowned once and the tide left its mark there.
‘Where are you going?’ she says, and she doesn’t look at me at all. ‘You didn’t say you were going anywhere.’
‘I won’t be long.’
She makes a funny little sound in the back of her throat. Adam looks up sharply. ‘Don’t, Mum,’ he says. ‘Go and have your bath and get dressed. I’ll be back before you know it.’
She nods forlornly, begins to walk up the path, then stops as if she remembered something, and turns and looks at me for the first time, a stranger in her garden.
‘Who are you?’ she says.
‘I live next door. I came to see Adam.’
The sadness in her eyes deepens. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’
Adam goes over to her and grips her gently by the elbows. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘You should go back inside.’
She allows herself to be helped up the path and walked to the back door. She goes up the step and then she turns and looks at me again. She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. We just look at each other, and then she goes through the door and into her kitchen. I wonder what happens then, what they say to each other.
‘Is she OK?’ I ask as Adam walks back out into the garden.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he says.
It’s not what I imagined, not like cycling fast downhill, or even sticking your head out of a car window on the motorway. It’s more elemental, like being on a beach in the winter when the wind howls in off the sea. The helmets have plastic visors. I’ve got mine down, but Adam’s got his up; he did it very deliberately.
He said, ‘I like to feel the wind in my eyes.’
