After Nothing (16 page)

It was a freezing cold night, and I heard her footsteps. That’s what started it – the next vine-growing idea. I heard her footsteps and I imagined them carrying her down the stairs, along the hall, past the kitchen and into the living room. She sat down on the worn rose-printed cloth that covered the couch, her head bowed and her eyes closed. And she thought of Dad. Dad, whose body was lying in his casket before her.

She sat there, with him, for most of the night. Then in the early hours, when the temperature sharply dropped, she realized that he was gone. Not just that he was dead, but that he’d left her. She went back upstairs and lay down in their bed, alone.

It was just a moment in my head; an alternative to what had actually occurred.

It was the middle of the night, and it was freezing cold, but my mother’s footsteps didn’t carry on down the stairs. I heard her stop; heard her open the cupboard door that was between her room and Lisa’s one, and knew she was getting an extra blanket.

Dad had been dead for three weeks.

Lisa’s bed had a down comforter. It was one of those ones that had maximum lightness for maximum warmth. Weight on her bones had been excruciating to her, but she was constantly cold.

I was cold. I wondered if I’d been cold in my mother’s womb. How could that woman have ever kept me warm?

And there was Lisa’s comforter, purposeless without a body to keep warm. How many children were cold that night? How many drunks and drug addicts and just people living without? How many of them were cold?

The ghost my mother was keeping had no use for heat.

I heard Lisa cry out. The sound came through the wall. A memory.

My sister had cried out in the dark, and both Dad and Mom had got up to her.

I’d heard their voices, murmurings of comfort. She must have had a nightmare. I cried out too.

Dad came in to me.

I needed to relieve myself, so I told him I felt sick. Dad knew that I was just scared to go to the bathroom on my own.

We passed the door to Lisa’s room as Mom started singing to her.

I wanted to remember the song my mother had sung, but I had no memory of the tune or the words. It was Lisa’s desperate cry through the wall that I could recall.

My gaze was on the barred window behind the teacher who headed the junior year. The window was too high to see out, but looking up at it meant I didn’t have to look at Mr Pembrooke as he talked non-stop. I kept running the gold heart-shaped pendant Kane had given me for Christmas along its chain, and wished I was anywhere else than in the meeting I’d been called out of science to attend.

It would have been appropriate for my parents to have been there – but Dad was dead, and Mom didn’t give a damn that I had dropped into the lowest percentile in every one of my subjects.

‘You’re forcing us to look at removing you into active classes,’ said Mr Pembrooke.

‘You know what that means, don’t you, Natalie?’ said Ms Kelley, who was also present, but had barely managed to get a word in till now.

‘Active classes’ was the latest name they’d given remedial classes.

Mr Pembrooke didn’t given me the time to answer, even cutting off Ms Kelley when she tried to say something more.

‘The reason why I haven’t put you in active classes yet is because every one of your teachers says you’re capable of the work. It seems to me, Natalie, you’ve simply decided you don’t want to learn anymore.’

On and on he went. Talking at me, not to me. In the end I interrupted him: ‘There’s no point me being here.’

It was like he didn’t hear me. He started talking about my dad’s death. Aunt Sarah had called the school and informed them he’d died, and Mr Pembrooke now took it upon himself to tell me how difficult my dad’s death had been for me, and that he knew this because when his own father had died from emphysema at the age of fifty-six it had taken a huge toll on him. He then came around his desk, and sat on the edge of it, I guess thinking his closeness would somehow be supportive.

‘When faced with adversity, Natalie, we have to strive to overcome it. And we have to be honest. Do you think it’s possible that pressure within your relationship with Kane Anderson is making it harder for you to concentrate in class?’

I swiftly turned to Ms Kelley.

‘I’m quitting school. Do I need to sign anything before I go?’

Cue Mr Pembrooke talking at me again. Didn’t I know I couldn’t legally leave school until a whole lot of paperwork had been done by my mother? And what about my future employer? Apparently I couldn’t leave school unless I had a job to go to.

No one I knew who had dropped out of school had a job.

Mr Pembrooke told me he’d give me another chance. I would not be moved into active classes. Yet. I was going through a terrible time, and needed to put off making any big decisions while I was still grieving for my dad.

I left without speaking, thinking fuck him. Fuck the whole school. I was leaving.

That is, I was leaving until I stepped inside the old storage room at lunch and told Kane I was dropping out.

‘The hell you are,’ he replied.

‘I am.’

‘To do what? Hang out with your mom?’

‘I’m going to get a job.’

He laughed at me. Not a nice ‘in-on-the-joke’ sort of laugh. More like a ‘you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me’ sort of laugh.

‘You’ve never worked in your life, Nat. Trust me, you won’t like it.’

‘It’ll be better than school.’

‘No baby, a shitty job with shitty pay is not better than school.’ He took one of my hands in his. ‘You ain’t leaving school ’cause I don’t want you to. Even though you hate it, you’re gonna stay just so we can do this.’

He kissed me.

I could have argued. I had it in me. Could have just tapped into all that frustration and anger that sitting in a classroom caused in me. But it was important to me that I gave Kane something he wanted. He’d been there for me every day since Dad had died. I told him between kisses that I wouldn’t leave school.

The next week I got called into Ms Kelley’s office.

She had a whole lot of agency printouts, which she handed me as I sat down opposite her. She asked me if I’d ever considered a career in modeling.

I shoved the printouts on her desk, folded my arms and glared at her.

‘Is this you giving me career advice?’

‘Have you done any modeling before?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you’re aware just how extraordinary your beauty is, Natalie.’

I was feeling far from attractive that day. I hadn’t been sleeping well since Dad died, and there were big circles under my eyes. I also had a zit on my chin that had been plaguing me for three days, and I could feel another one coming up in the corner of my nose. I usually never had bad skin, and I was feeling self-conscious about it. And the new zit was hurting like hell.

‘I’ve also been thinking,’ continued the guidance counsellor, ‘about your marks, and what you said last week about leaving school.’

‘And this is the solution?’

‘You’d have to see if you’re any good at it.’

‘Good at having people staring at me, telling me what to do, putting their hands on me, commenting on my body, not to mention showing off parts that aren’t for public viewing?’

That seemed to throw her a bit, but not for long.

‘A good agency could ensure all your work is reputable. Natalie, as long as you’re smart about it I don’t see any reason why one of your options after leaving school couldn’t be to use the way you look to your advantage.’

‘Kane wouldn’t like it,’ I said, looking her straight in the eye.

I watched her take a deep breath.

‘Tell me, Natalie, if you do intend on leaving school before graduating, what is it you’ll do?’

‘Do?’

‘Yes. What will you do with your time? What job will you get?’

I was over being in that office. I decided to shut the conversation down.

‘I’ll just have a baby,’ I said. ‘Kane will take care of everything else.’

She looked at me coldly. ‘It’s been my experience that teenage fathers rarely take care of anything.’

I stood up. ‘You don’t know Kane and you don’t know me.’

I walked out of her office before she had time to reply.

Coming out into the hall, I saw everything in red. Red linoleum floor, long red walls going in either direction; even the new posters advertising the school’s theatre production of a rapped
Macbeth
were red.

Red, red rage boiling over. She had implied that Kane was less than what I knew him to be. That’s what had really got to me.

What she’d said about the modeling meant little to me. She’d hardly been the first to say it. I had been approached in the mall by scouts for agencies a couple of times. Then once, at the bus stop, a guy had stopped his car to talk to me. He said he was an actor’s agent. He tried to give me his card, and asked me if I’d ever considered acting. He kept looking at my breasts, and even though I was fourteen at the time I knew exactly what sort of acting he was talking about. He was quite good-looking, with the kind of smile that just about had you smiling before you knew it. Fortunately I was neither naïve nor easily flattered, and I told him to fuck off. After that, the idea of ever taking money to give someone some sort of control over my body was repellent.

I was partway down the rage-red empty school hall when I heard Ms Kelley say my name. I turned around. She came closer.

‘What do you want to be, Natalie?’

My eyes narrowed.

‘I haven’t asked you yet, and I always ask. What do you want to be when you leave school?’

‘Why don’t you just fuck off and leave me alone?’ I said.

‘Because it’s my job not to,’ she replied, unperturbed, ‘and I don’t feel like it.’

‘You’re not any good at your job. I don’t want to talk to you. And you know everyone’s always wondering if you’re pregnant. You’ve looked pregnant the whole time I’ve been at this school.’

‘Natalie, you say anything you want to say to me. I can see your pain clear as day.’

I wasn’t touching that. I turned and hurried away. As I did, the hall came back into focus. The red drained away, and all its normal tones returned.

After that I couldn’t stop thinking about leaving school. Someone there had thought I was in pain; claimed to have seen it. What if other people saw it? For the first time I did ask myself what job I’d like to do when I left school. And I started looking around for jobs that were going. They were few and far between, and most of the ones I knew I might have a shot at were pretty grim. Mostly cleaning, usually at night.

I started to feel pretty desperate, and it was no longer about leaving school. You see, I had run out of money. What my grandmother had left me was long gone, and the automatic payment still coming into my bank account from Mom and Dad was an allowance set up for a twelve-year-old child. It covered my bus fares and not much more.

I told Kane I was broke. He started paying for everything we did together, as well as giving me money.

I hated taking it.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said to me.

‘You earned that, and you need it.’

‘Baby, you gotta be able to live.

‘I don’t need that much.’

He was trying to give me a hundred dollars, on the basis that he’d earned five hundred that week and he wouldn’t miss it. He couldn’t earn that every week though, and he was paying for all the food and bills at his house because Wayne was basically living with his girlfriend, and the only thing he helped Kane out with was part of the rent.

I ended up taking thirty dollars, and the feeling of shame was enough to have me go home and ask Mom for more money.

‘That account will be closed soon,’ she said when I brought up the idea of increasing my automatic payment.

‘Okay,’ I said slowly.

She didn’t say anything else.

‘You’re going to make me beg for money?’

‘You’re not getting any more money.’

‘I’m not getting any more, or I’m not getting any at all?’

She didn’t answer. Just kept frying the steak she always fried on Wednesdays.

The automatic payment didn’t come through that week. I had to ask Kane for more money so I could buy my normal bus pass.

He bought it for me, and he started giving me fifty dollars a week. I got serious about finding a job. I looked on every community noticeboard; I put out babysitting flyers in my street and the ones surrounding. I asked at just about every shop in the mall.

There wasn’t anything. There were so many people out of work looking, and the jobs that were advertised in the paper were for people with degrees, or experience. I sent in applications for four different night cleaning jobs, and no one even replied to my emails or the follow-up messages I left on answer-phones.

You know, I’d never thought about not having money. Even going out with Kane when he was having a broke month, I’d never actually thought about what that would have been like. How that felt. I’d just pay for anything we wanted to do, and that was that.

Now I had no money and all the choices I’d had were gone. I couldn’t go to the movies if I wanted to. I couldn’t go out shopping with Mel; see something I liked and buy it. I couldn’t even go to Mel’s without feeling guilty about the bus fare, because it was paid for with Kane’s money.

I couldn’t afford to buy food either. My only options were the school cafeteria lunches and whatever Mom had bought at the supermarket that week. I skipped taking the sugar pills in my pill pack so I wouldn’t get my period purely because I couldn’t afford to buy tampons.

One weekend I was out at the mall with Mel when I developed an overwhelming thirst. It worsened as I realized that any money I spent on a drink would mean less credit I could buy for my phone. I was so miserable, following Mel around from shop to shop. Her mom had said she’d buy her a new pair of jeans, and Mel was insisting on looking at all her options even though we both knew the exact pair of People Vs jeans she was going to end up buying online.

After an hour of getting thirstier and thirstier as I watched Mel trying on different pairs of jeans, I left her in a changing room and went in search of water.

In the mall’s bathrooms, there was a steady stream of women and girls coming in and out of the stalls, washing their hands, checking hair, checking makeup. I ignored them all. Ducking my head at the basin, I cupped my palm under the tepid tap water and drank from my hand.

Part of me was humiliated, but another part of me was so damn grateful to get a drink I decided not to care about the woman who paused in applying her lipstick to stop and stare at me.

Burying my pride, I told my mom about the problems I was having. I told her Kane was giving me money: money that he needed to survive himself. I begged her to give me just enough for the bus.

She didn’t reply. Not a word, not a look, not even an indication that she’d heard me. A fat woman with a raspy voice was on the television talking about crème fraîche, and Mom was listening to her.

One day I was round at Kane’s and realized the electricity had been turned off. He told me not to worry about it.