A Song for Issy Bradley (22 page)

“I’m a girl,” Zipporah says. “And I’m not crying, so what’s your point?”

“A proper girl would’ve done a better job of washing the clothes.”

Ian’s head is fuzzy from lack of sleep and he’s not up to refereeing a fight so he tells them to eat in silence or leave the room.

Later, as Zipporah is leaving for the bus, she turns and says, “Dad, can I stay at Lauren’s tonight?” She looks like she is expecting a firm “No,” and Ian is about to refuse when he realizes he’d rather not. She’s been so good about keeping up with the laundry and the washing-up, and if Claire doesn’t get out of bed next week and the Relief Society meals stop coming there’ll be the cooking to do too. She deserves a little break and her expression when he says “Yes” is priceless, he feels like a genie granting a wish. “Remember who you are and what you stand for,” he adds as she hurries up the stairs to pack some clothes. “The Spirit goes to bed before midnight and so should you!”

When it’s time for him to take Jacob to school, he rushes back into the kitchen to collect the sandwiches. That’s when he notices Issy’s fish, floating sideways near the surface of the tank. He bows his head; it’s too much, there’s been more than enough sadness—he’ll have to dash to the pet shop during his lunch hour.

I
AN GRABS THE
envelope from his pigeonhole as he passes. It’s too fat to be another sympathy card, and although he’s in a hurry to get to the pet shop, he’s curious. He pushes his thumb past the seal and pauses as he notices a scrawled message below:
“I think these belong to you.”
His thumb catches, changing the direction of the tear from horizontal to vertical, and the pass-along cards from the missionary meeting spill onto the floor. He kneels to pick them up,
stuffing them into his pockets: “Three Ways to Become a Happier Family,” “Finding Faith in Christ,” and “Truth Restored.”

He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he pulls out of the school parking lot—red flushes streak his cheeks like war paint; it’s unsettling to think that his missionary work may have offended one of his colleagues, but every man who has been warned
must
warn his neighbor, even if the effort leaves him raw and rebuffed.

He doesn’t have time to be fussy about the fish. The one he picks is almost the right color. It seems a bit bigger than Issy’s but he can’t afford to waste any more time over it or he’ll be late for Year Nine Trigonometry.

“Do you need a tank or any food?” the boy at the register asks.

“No thanks.” Ian pays and dips his hand into his pocket.

“Can I help you with anything else?”

“No, but I can help you,” he says as he presents the boy with “Three Ways to Become a Happier Family.”

“Y
OU
’
VE GOT SOME
felt tip on your hands. Go straight upstairs and give them a good wash before you have a cookie.”

Ian watches from the doorway as Jacob trundles up the stairs. When Jacob disappears he rushes back to the car, flips the glove compartment open, and grabs the fish bag.

He dashes into the kitchen, unknots the bag, and slides the new fish into the tank. He tries to take the dead fish out but it’s slippery, and when he finally grasps it, it shoots out of his hand like a bar of soap.

He is on his hands and knees with the slippery, cold fish pressed flat under one palm when Jacob appears to collect his cookie. Ian curls his fingers, scraping his cuticles against the floor until the fish is enclosed in his hand. Making sure not to squeeze, he stands, slowly. “I forgot to wash
my
hands,” he says. “Silly me. Back in a minute.”

In the bathroom he opens his hand and lets the fish fall into the
toilet. He unravels a stream of paper, which he balls up and drops on top of the fish. Then he flushes and it is gone.

After he’s washed his hands he steps out onto the landing and turns to glance at Issy and Jacob’s room. The door is half-closed, he can see the bump of Claire’s body under Issy’s duvet, and it suddenly occurs to him that maybe she can’t get up, maybe she really is ill. He tiptoes to the door and pushes it wide open, it squeaks, but she doesn’t move, so he stands there and watches the covers for evidence of respiration, as he did when the children were babies. He thinks there is movement—yes, there is, one breath, and another, she’s OK.

He tiptoes away and sits on the top stair. His mother warned him about marrying a nonmember, but he wouldn’t listen. If people find out about this, he could be released as Bishop. This trial is not the kind of trial he understands. He knows what to tell himself about death, but this is something else altogether. Pioneer women didn’t refuse to stop walking, they didn’t lie down on the plains when their children died. He digs in his pocket and pulls out last night’s list. He has to keep going. There’s the dinner to sort out. There wasn’t any food on the doorstep when they got home and Zipporah is going straight to Lauren’s house from school; they’ll have to manage with the leftovers in the fridge tonight. The bathroom looks a bit rough and there’s the ironing to do before he can even think about getting to bed. Tomorrow is the Work Day at the chapel and he’s got a pile of math homework to mark. He is so tired. He looks back over his shoulder at Jacob and Issy’s room. He’d like to sleep too, but someone’s got to
stand and face this
.

No one has touched Zippy since Issy died. Not properly. Dad sometimes pats her shoulder and Jacob occasionally climbs onto her knee, but no one has hugged her, no one has wrapped their arms around her and asked if she is all right. So when Lauren’s mum opens the front door and steps forward with outstretched arms it’s lovely but it’s also a bit sad, and Zippy has to try really hard not to cry while Lauren’s mum rubs her back, as if she is trying to alleviate sadness in the same way women at church rub the backs of their babies to alleviate wind.

“I thought about popping round to yours,” Lauren’s mum says as she lets go and ushers Lauren and Zippy indoors.

“And I would have, but I wasn’t sure … your mum’s so quiet. I didn’t know what to say.”

Zippy is glad Lauren’s mum didn’t pop round. Lauren’s mum isn’t married and she’s got a tattoo on her ankle. Her hair is yellow-blond and she says “Oh God” all the time. She even adds extra syllables: “Oh Go-o-o-o-d,” and Zippy can imagine Dad’s face if Lauren’s mum came to the house with a big helping of condolence and a side order of blasphemy.

“I’m glad you’ve come, Zippy. I told Lauren there was no way she was going to this Jordan Banks’s party on her own. You’ll stick together and be sensible, won’t you?”

Zippy nods; she always avoids addressing Lauren’s mum directly because it feels weird calling her Mel. Every adult she knows is either Mr. or Mrs., Brother or Sister. Lauren’s mum is the only person
who wants to be called by a first name and Zippy can’t get used to it.

“Come and sit down. This’ll be nice, won’t it? Give you a chance to have some fun.”

She’s horribly nervous; she hasn’t been to a party with nonmembers since she was in junior school—when she asked Dad, she wasn’t expecting him to say yes.

She sits next to Lauren on the brown leather sofa. Lauren’s house is always tidy because it’s just Lauren and her mum, and everything matches too, like in a catalog.

“I’ll leave you to yourselves, make yourself at home, Zippy.”

“Sorry about that,” Lauren says. “I told her not to make a fuss, but she said it’d be worse if she didn’t say anything.”

“ ’S OK.” Zippy flips her shoes off and lifts her feet onto the sofa.

“What are you wearing tonight?”

She opens her backpack and pulls out a Primark T-shirt and a pair of boot-cut jeans.

“Oh. You can wear something of mine. There’s this makeup tutorial we can watch and I’ll do your hair too, if you like.”

Z
IPPY CATCHES ANOTHER
glimpse of herself in the mirror above the fireplace in Jordan Banks’s living room and tries not to stare. The girl from the YouTube makeup tutorial promised soft, smoky eyes, but Lauren didn’t follow the instructions.

“It’s difficult with blue eyes and dark hair,” she said. “Browns are OK for every day, but I reckon blues are better for parties.”

Zippy’s eyes look enormous: boggly and metallic-bright like an insect’s. Her hair is different too—Lauren backcombed the front section, dragged it behind her ear, and secured it with a flower clip. She is wearing Lauren’s clothes: a little blue dress, a cardigan, leggings, and Ugg boots.

It had been lovely not to think, to follow Lauren’s persuasive
lead and allow herself to be fussed over and tended, ministered to. But if Dad could see her now he would say she looks worldly and immodest, he would be furious, and she isn’t sure whether she likes the version of herself that keeps darting past the mirror. It feels as if she is hiding inside someone else’s body, as if her eyes are cameras set to record an experience that is happening to someone else.

Music thumps out of an iPod dock in the corner of the room. A few people are half-dancing, others are jammed onto the sofa, vying for space, laughing, and some are sitting on the floor slotted around the perimeter of the room, like the edges of a jigsaw. Zippy recognizes plenty of sixth-formers and lots of them have said hi, but she doesn’t know anyone properly, there’s no one she can chat to or sit with, and even if there was, they might feel awkward—what to say to the girl whose sister has died?

She checks her watch. She has been wandering between the living room and dining room for almost three minutes since Lauren went upstairs with Jordan Banks. If she had the energy, she might manage to be cross, but everything seems so immaterial. What’s the point of being angry about something that won’t matter in the morning? She looks for something to do, something that won’t make her look lonely and friendless. If she had a phone, she could at least stand in a corner and play a game or pretend to text people. Instead, she studies the bookshelf and stretches something that would ordinarily take seconds into minutes. Jordan Banks’s family owns fifty-one books. She has read very few of them, just the Roald Dahl stories that came free with boxes of cereal a few years ago. The rest of the books are by Stephen King and there is also a slim, modern translation of the New Testament. Dad says that Stephen King isn’t uplifting; he also says that modern translations of the Bible are useless because they are diluted, like a game of telephone. If she was by herself, Zippy would slide the book off the shelf and have a go at reading the familiar stories in modern English.

When she has stared at the books for far too long, she plods back into the dining room. The table is buried under a flock of bottles and there are stacks of clear plastic cups on the windowsill. She squeezes past several people and helps herself to a cup, looking for something that’s OK to drink. She isn’t sure what’s alcoholic and what’s not. There’s Coke, which some people at church drink, but she’s never tried it. Dad says people who drink Coke aren’t obeying the spirit of the Word of Wisdom, and when it comes down to it, it’s pretty easy to avoid Coke, much easier than never imagining what it will be like to have sex. She looks for lemonade, but she can’t trust any of the clear drinks. One of the sixth-form lads, Will something-or-other, picks up a bottle and fills his cup with a drink that’s yellow and fizzy. He notices her watching and angles the bottle toward her cup.

“No thanks,” she says.

“Oh yeah. You’re Muslim, aren’t you?”

“Mormon,” she mutters.

Will’s wearing a cardigan and big glasses that he probably doesn’t need. At least he’s talking to her, even though she’d rather not talk about religion because whenever she has to stick up for the Church the words come out wrong. Dad makes it all sound sensible and logical, yet when she borrows his language and ideas, it always sounds absurd.

“Oh, right, a Mormon,” he says. “You shouldn’t be at a party, should you? It’s not allowed, is it?”

“I’m allowed.”

“Sorry, I must’ve got mixed up.”

“I think it’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, the no-parties thing.” Zippy’s face grows hot under its glaze of makeup. She’s embarrassed to have been mistaken for a Jehovah’s Witness. Dad says they don’t let people have blood transfusions and they believe only a few people can get to heaven. She doesn’t know much about them, but they sound weird and she doesn’t want anyone to imagine that she’s got anything to do with them.

“So what do you want to drink?” Will starts lifting other bottles off the table, reading out names she doesn’t recognize.

“Something nonalcoholic,” she says.

“A small one won’t hurt. Here”—he lifts a white bottle—“try some of this with a bit of Coke. You’ll like it.”

Zippy looks beneath the bottle’s palm tree and sunset picture and catches the word “rum.” “No, it’s OK, thanks. I’ll get some water.”

She presses through the crowd, past a kissing couple—“Excuse me, sorry”—and down a step into a long, narrow kitchen. The light is off and there’s another couple embracing near the back door; she tries not to look at them and heads straight for the sink.

“Zippy?”

She puts the cup down on the draining board and turns slowly because she doesn’t know what to say. It’s Adam standing by the back door, practically wearing a girl—she is hanging from his neck like a long scarf, her mouth fastened to his collarbone. And he is holding a green glass bottle.

“What are
you
doing here?”

“Same as you, probably,” she says, even though she hasn’t come to Jordan Banks’s party to drink beer and get off with people.

“Are you by yourself?”

“With Lauren.”

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs. With Jordan.”

Someone else follows Zippy into the kitchen, switches on the light, and walks to the far end of the room to open the fridge. The girl detaches herself from Adam’s neck and turns around. She is blond, tall. Adam rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand, and when the girl looks from him to Zippy her eyes slice a dislike so sharp it hits Zippy like a pair of throwing stars.

“Back in a minute,” Adam says to the girl. He puts the beer bottle down next to the sink and nudges Zippy to the back door, which he opens, making an after-you gesture.