If This Is Home Page 18

  At the end of the road we hit a junction and Ferne looked at the oncoming traffic. ‘So where to now?’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘then first left. We go the other way we end up in Stoke. Nothing good can happen in Stoke.’

  Ferne laughed. ‘Okay, navigator.’

  It only struck me as I directed Ferne that I had a half-idea as to where we were going. She was an attentive driver, so long as she had cigarettes, and did not speak as she awaited instructions. The motion was soothing, the traffic light, and the crispness of the afternoon made everything somehow burnished and new. We were in the countryside proper now, bisected only by the M6 and the various small towns we passed through quickly, despite being told to drive carefully.

  ‘I used to ask my dad where the countryside was,’ I said as we passed a field stripped and dotted with black, tautened bales. ‘I assumed that it was down in London somewhere. He’d tell me that the countryside was all around us, but I wouldn’t believe him. I thought it would be somewhere like Little Moreton Hall.’ She turned to look at me. ‘It’s a National Trust place not far from here. I thought you’d have to buy tickets and queue up.’

  ‘I’ve never much liked the countryside,’ Ferne said eventually. ‘Despite my stupid name.’ We slowed behind a farming vehicle, its back mud-splattered and rusted.

  ‘It’s actually short for Fernanda. A bloody stupid name to give a kid, if you ask me, but my mum was set on it, apparently. Her great-grandmother had been called that, or at least someone told her that was her name. My dad’s not the kind of person to argue. He’s that type, you know?’

  ‘They’re still together?’

  She nodded and tapped the box of cigarettes. I lit one and passed it to her.

  ‘My parents are nauseatingly in love even now. They’re in their sixties and still act like teenagers.’

  ‘Sounds lovely.’

  ‘For them, maybe. For everyone else it’s a bit of a tough act to follow, you know? My elder brother – you know the one who lives in Scotland? – he’s been married twice already and he’s only forty. He keeps trying to recreate it, replicate their relationship. Doomed to romance as my sister says, though she’s no better. The way I see it, we’re all sort of fated to try and improve on the life of our parents. You know, do better at school, earn more money, be better people. But if you set the bar that high it’s impossible to compete. You end up failing, or you end up not trying.’

  ‘So you don’t try?’ I said, as we finally saw Jodrell Bank in the distance.

  ‘Not any more,’ she said.

  There were few recognizable landmarks in the county, few places anyone would consider visiting from afar, but the observatory at Jodrell Bank was undoubtedly the only one that contestants on a television quiz show would be able to name: its space-age dish, its incongruity with the vast swathes of fields surrounding it. Every school trip would find a reason to end there; every tourist brochure featured it prominently on the cover. Dad considered it a feat of engineering, the way it moved imperceptibly to reach ever further into the heavens, and would describe it as the ultimate example of man’s progress. I had, however, always been terrified by it.

  People forget, that’s what you always say, right? Bethany said. Forget about the Russians in Afghanistan. She laughed, sitting in the back, kicking her legs against my seat.

  People do forget, though. I can’t remember who it was who told me about the threat, but probably it was Neil Jackson from school, a puny lad with asthma and a medical condition that made him smell ever so slightly of urine. He knew more about the military than anyone, and during the Falklands War drew ever more startlingly realistic sketches of destroyers, tanks, aircraft carriers and Harrier jump jets. If it was him, then he no doubt would have explained in simple, nightmarish terms – probably cribbed from his VHS of Threads, which he often asked to be shown in history class – the effect of a close-by nuclear attack. Jodrell Bank would be the primary target, he or whoever else it was told me. The Russians would go after it immediately because the observatory was just a cover for an extensive satellite programme that was monitoring all known weapon silos in the world. We would be in the first wave after the blast: there would be a white light and then nothing. I can imagine Neil Jackson smiling then, perhaps wishing it would happen every night before school started again.

  ‘Let’s stop here,’ I said. ‘You ever seen Jodrell Bank before?’

  Ferne looked at the huge structure and then back at me.

  ‘Can’t we just get some lunch instead? I’m starving. Unless you really want to go there.’

  ‘No. You’re right. Lunch is perfect.’

  *

  We ate steak sandwiches in a pub with a thatched roof and the remnants of a cycling club drinking in the back room, skinny men in skin-tight outfits, their legs muscular and shaved. Ferne was quiet and drank her one allotted glass of wine in careful sips. We did not talk about my hotel room, nor my confessions of the night before; instead we told humorous anecdotes as though we had known each other for years and were beginning to realize that we had little to talk about. I asked about her perfect parents, but she didn’t want to discuss them, or indeed any of her family.

  ‘What about yours?’ she said. ‘You always change the subject.’

  ‘Like you just did.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because they’re boring. Happy but boring. Yours are just like an absence. Like you’re trying to pretend you came from a Petri dish or something.’

  The story of Joe’s parents came immediately; the car crash, my great-aunt, my longed-for sister. You can’t, though, can you? Bethany said. You’ve said too much. Already you’ve said too much.

  ‘My father and mother split up when I was about thirteen or so. They’d been childhood sweethearts, not so perfect as yours, but still pretty solid. My dad worked in aeroplanes and my mother worked as a secretary for a law firm.’

  ‘So what happened?’ she said, taking another carefully moderated sip of wine and lighting a cigarette.

  ‘What always happens. He lost interest, worked all the time. She had an affair with her boss.’

  So simple! And that’s all that happened, isn’t it? A mid-life crisis, an affair, the end of a relationship?

  ‘Do you still see her?’

  ‘I haven’t seen either of them since Bethany died. Haven’t seen my mum since she left.’

  ‘You don’t miss her?’

  ‘I don’t really remember her that well.’

  Ferne put down her napkin and shook her head.

  ‘I don’t believe you. She’s your mother, you can’t not remember her! It’s just not possible.’

  I pushed away my plate. Bethany was sitting on the bar, her Dr Martens boots kicking at the wood below. Tell her, she mouthed.

  ‘Mum got pregnant when I was eleven. It was an accident, one of those unplanned things. But the two of them were so happy about it. They couldn’t believe it was real. My mother kept saying that we had been blessed, even though she wasn’t religious. I told them they were sick for keeping it. I told them I hoped the baby would never be born.’

  I looked over at Bethany. She had her eyes closed.

  ‘And it wasn’t,’ I said, still looking at Bethany. ‘She miscarried and that was that. One minute we were a family, the next we were just three people sharing a house, each of us blaming the others.’

  Ferne put her hand on my arm, then her hand in mine. We stayed like that for a long time.

  ‘Are you going to see him?’ she said after a while.

  ‘I want to, but … today I went to see Bethany’s father. He told me to fuck off. To never go to his house again. He has kids now. A new family. Maybe my dad’s the same. Maybe I’ll turn up and he’ll tell me to get lost, that it’s just been too long.’

  ‘He’s your dad, Joe. He’ll understand.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  She stubbed out her cigarette, and drained t
he last of her wine.

  ‘Let’s go, okay? We can talk in the car.’

  With Jodrell Bank behind us we got in the car and drove back to town. We listened to the Top 40 on Radio One as the fields roiled alongside the car. When she said, ‘Did you ever?’ I nodded and we did not talk for the remainder of the trip. I imagined the two of us, miles apart, both putting cassettes into ghetto-blasters, pausing the tape and recording the songs that we liked. Her younger than me. Her dealing with the same kind of boredoms and dreams of leaving. What was she like then? What was I like, in that silent house that should have rung with the sound of a baby howling, of a mother feeding her child, of a brother holding his sister in his arms and telling her he’d never let her down, always protect her?

  We arrived back at the hotel and parked up in the same space. Ferne stayed there for a while; the radio still going, a song I didn’t know by a pair of Russian girls that had, according to the DJ, been a number one.

  ‘I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,’ Ferne said, taking her hands from the wheel. ‘But if there’s anything I can do. Anything at all, you’ve got to let me know, okay?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For everything. For today.’

  I moved to kiss her and connected with her cheek. She turned to face me.

  ‘But I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I can feel her here with us now. You know what I mean? It’s fucking creepy.’

  Bethany was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I should never have, well you know. I just wanted. I don’t know, something.’

  ‘Joe. I can be here for you, but it can’t be like that. Not with all of this stuff just hanging around. I called a friend of mine last night, Sara. I told her about you and she said that nothing good can come of any of this.’

  I opened the door.

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you do,’ she replied. ‘Because I’m struggling here.’

  Saturday, 7th July 1990, 4.10 pm

  Inside the van it is musty and warm. Bethany lies down on the mattress and Daniel half stands, half crouches. He takes off his T-shirt, his torso is thin and honed, almost hairless. He has a smattering of freckles on his chest and too-small nipples. He lies down next to her and kicks off his boots and socks. He unlaces her Dr Martens and removes them. Bethany thinks of the times her father has told her to take her shoes off when lying on her bed. It makes her laugh a little; perhaps it’s the pot. He puts his hands on her stomach.

  ‘What’s funny, baby girl?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘And don’t call me baby girl.’

  He rakes his fingers up her stomach and onto her breasts. He squeezes them and tries to take off the Big Black T-shirt.

  ‘I’m keeping it on, okay?’ she says.

  They kiss finally, his hands fumbling with her bra, finally unclasping it without her help. He starts then on her jeans, rolling them down her legs. She feels exposed.

  She has bought new underwear for Daniel. She did not want to see her bra and think of Mark taking it off, her knickers having once had Mark so close to them. In Ethel Austin, she had felt somehow clandestine, as though anyone would be able to detect her intentions. Still, she had spent a while deliberating before settling on something black and indistinct. He pulls the knickers down without even looking at them, instead looking at where they have so recently been.

  She has a small birthmark on the right of her groin. He kisses it. He puts his head between her legs, his tongue is inside her and then his fingers. She feels she should not be surprised, but nonetheless she is. His nails are too long and his stubble scratches at her skin. She will not tell him what to do. With Mark, she had given helpful tutorials. He seemed to have enjoyed them, Bethany’s voice explaining what was pleasurable and what was not. It had not taken him long to understand. She understands, as Daniel’s tongue plays along her, his fingers moving in and out, that this is not really for her benefit.

  *

  There are so many things that could have come to mind. The first time he made her come, or the night by the quarry where they talked about their wildest fantasies, or the sex they had on a Sunday morning while her father was out walking. It could have been the post-revision, postsex conversations, the late-night whispers about their mothers, the increased speculation about her father and Hannah. It could have been any number of telephone calls, or random moments when one had told the other that they loved them. It could have been handing over all that money to the travel agent, the woman dabbing at her fingers as she counted out the notes. It could easily have been them imagining the brownstone in which they would live, the coffee shop they would go to on Sunday mornings and the bars they’d drink dry.

  When it comes to it, though, Bethany does not think of anything specific. There is just a dull ache in her stomach; a reminder, like the Sunday evening feeling of not having completed her homework. Daniel is still between her legs, but he might as well be eating ice cream for all the sensation she feels.

  She looks up to the roof of the van, the corrugated metal, the dirt that clings there. She knows exactly how she got here, but it still feels utterly alien. She watches his head bob up and down. He does not look up like Mark, checking that what he is doing is right. And it’s not that she misses Mark, or that she feels that she is letting him down. It is simply that this is not working for her. When Mark finishes, he always asks her if it was good. Sometimes it irritates her, but mostly she thinks it’s sweet.

  ‘Enough. Stop,’ she says. He looks up, his mouth moist and his eyes wide. He hitches himself up, unzips his trousers. His cock is straining and silverishly tipped. It revolts her. His smile revolts her.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. I can’t do this. Not here. Not now.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ he says. ‘I can’t stop now.’

  She kneels and starts to fumble around for her underwear. She is in front of him now and he tries to slip a finger inside her from behind. She slaps him away.

  ‘I said no, okay. Just fuck off will you.’

  She feels arms around her. He twists her around and throws her down on the mattress. He holds her arms and she kicks her legs, kicks them hard. He is powerful though and uses his thighs to quieten her.

  ‘What’s wrong,’ he says. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Get off me, Daniel. Get off me right now, okay?’

  She can feel his penis. She can see the burn in his eyes. She closes her eyes. She has been told about this. At school. By her mother. It can happen anywhere, any time. Be vigilant. Be sensible. Do not put yourself at undue risk.

  He relaxes his grip, then rolls off her body. He buttons up his jeans and pulls on his T-shirt. Bethany wants to get up, to hit him, to kick him, but she is immobile. He picks up her knickers and bra and offers them to her. His breaths are shallow. She sees sweat at the corner of his brow, little beads.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to … if I scared you, then I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’

  He looks pathetic and lost, nothing like the man in the pub, the lad with his mates. Is it shame? Or is it that he didn’t have the bottle to actually do it? Hurriedly she puts on her underwear. He opens the door and jumps down to the ground. From the cab of the van he takes a pre-rolled spliff and lights it.

  As Bethany gets out, Daniel apologizes again. She shakes her head.

  ‘I just couldn’t, you know? It’s … I have a boyfriend and I thought I could do this. Wanted to do this, but I just couldn’t. It’s hard to explain.’

  Daniel passes her the spliff and takes a can from a bag on the seat. He pops it open and drinks, then picks up a stone and skims it on the water.

  ‘Had a feeling it were all too good to be true,’ he says smiling sadly. ‘Still …’

  She smokes the joint and passes it back. He hands her the can. Her mouth is dry and the lager is cool and refreshing.

  ‘So what now?’ he says. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘New York,�
�� she says. ‘Mark and I are going to New York.’

  ‘I’ve never been,’ he says. ‘One day, you know? I wanna play a gig there before I die. Something small, anything really.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again.

  ‘Don’t be,’ he says. ‘No harm done.’

  He takes the can of beer from her and drains it. He crushes the can and throws it into the river. It floats for a time, then sinks.

  ‘I need to get off,’ he says looking at his watch. ‘You need a lift somewhere?’

  Bethany shakes her head. ‘I think I’ll hang around here for a while. I don’t feel like going back, you know? You got a can you can spare?’

  He nods and throws her one from the cab. He gets in the driver’s side and the engine takes on the third attempt. She waves goodbye. He toots the horn. There is silence. She stands there holding the beer. Around her everything is still. On the breeze she can hear the fairground. She feels relieved, lightheaded; her watch tells her that she has time enough to make it to the pub, perhaps enough to have a drink. But she wants to take stock, to pause for once. Her mother would be proud, she realizes. The relief turns into a sense of freedom, of being let loose. The van is gone, and so is Daniel. She can never return and she has not betrayed anyone, not really. She opens the beer and tries not to think of the moment he was on top of her, but instead the look of contrition that he shot her afterwards. The apology. She is grateful to him. She feels, at last, that she is truly ready to leave.

  She takes her cigarettes from her bag and walks down to the river. She sits on the bank and puts her feet in the cool water. She lights a cigarette and closes her eyes. She has an hour or so before she needs to get back. An hour, just for herself.