Something Only We Know (43 page)

I looked up and she was watching me. She knew what I was thinking.

‘I
couldn’t
tell you,’ she burst out. ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to. But if I’d failed – I mean, if the college had rejected me and I hadn’t
got a place – it would have been so much worse if you’d been in the loop. I thought, at least if I do it on my own and it comes to nothing, I can squash everything down and pretend it
never happened. I’d prepared myself for that, I could cope. But not if you’d all been in on it. If you’d been commiserating and blaming the admissions tutor and asking if I was
going to try again. Or saying it was for the best anyway and I’d never have stayed the course. I couldn’t have borne that. Jen, I almost told you. A couple of times I was so close. I
wanted
to.’

She was racked, I could see it. And I understood that was the way her mind worked, although it didn’t instantly cool my resentment. I said, ‘You’re going to have to stop
thinking like that. There are going to be failures. You’ll have to learn to handle them.’

‘I know.’

Dad picked up the brochure and studied the centre pages. Mum started spindling the paper napkin on her plate. ‘So what’s going to happen with Ned, Helen? Will he be going down there
too?’

Helen’s eyes swivelled to her boyfriend.

‘We’ll work something out,’ he said. I noticed he’d let go of her fingers, or she’d withdrawn them. How did he feel about her plans? At what point had she broken
them to him?

I found myself picturing my sister in scenes from my own university life: crossing St Ann’s Square, sitting in my old tutor’s study, buying stationery in the Student Union shop; I
saw her in some science lab, dripping something from a pipette into a test tube; in a white coat, filling up a needle so she could give an injection; bending over a poorly cat, examining a guinea
pig. No, not a guinea pig, a hamster. A fat orange hamster. Terrible timing, Ned. No wonder she hadn’t wanted his birthday present. Hammy would be staying in the pet shop for sure.

And here came the second blow, and a sense of what Mum must be feeling:
Helen was leaving us.
Finally my sister was going away, breaking up the family. We would never be the same again.
This year had been our last together. I was surprised at how much that hurt. I glanced over at Mum and she was looking scared and lost. Dad had his arm round her.

‘Come on,’ I said to Hel. ‘Mum’s upset.’

She nodded and got up from the table, squeezing past Ned. We flanked my mother and coaxed her out of her chair, led her over to the sofa. Then we sat on either side of her, hip to hip. Mr Wolski
spotted his cue and asked Ned if he could have a cup of tea, which meant both of them disappeared into the kitchen. Dad stayed where he was, poring over the brochure.

‘OK?’ asked Hel.

‘No,’ said Mum. ‘No.’

I sighed and squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t you want Hel to get a degree? Use those A levels she’s accrued? It’s the opportunity she’s been waiting for, that course has
got her name written all over it. And isn’t it great that she’s feeling confident enough to take such a step forward?’

‘I can see that.’

‘Well.’

‘But she could do the degree and stay here. She’d be happier. She doesn’t like being away from her things, does she?’

‘I’ll have to learn to cope,’ said Hel. ‘I need to stand on my own two feet. Like Jen did.’

‘You’re not the same as Jen, though.’

I said, ‘No. Helen’s a lot braver than me.’

She shot me a grateful look. ‘Thanks, sis.’ Then she adjusted her hair comb, and addressed Mum directly. ‘Come on, let’s get this out in the open. Say it. The
anorexia.’

I saw Dad’s head come up, heard the far-off chink of mugs from the kitchen.

Mum took a deep breath. ‘All right. I’m worried that if you go away and you’re not happy, you’ll start again.’

‘Even though I’ve been OK for years.’

‘You can’t guarantee the future.’

‘Oh, come on. No one can.
You
can’t guarantee you won’t have another heart attack.’

‘Hel!’ I said.

‘It’s true, though, sis. None of us knows what’s ahead, especially health-wise.’

My mother was frowning, trying to process her thoughts and get them into order. ‘A heart condition, though – it isn’t the same as anorexia. I’ve no control over
it.’

There was a long silence after that. Mum’s hand came up to her mouth, showing she was aware that what she’d said should probably not have slipped out.

Helen waited to see if she’d elaborate. Eventually she said, ‘You think I can control my anorexia?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mum in a small voice. ‘Yes. A little bit.’

‘You think what happened was that I decided to become ill and then I decided to recover?’

This time there was no answer.
I knew it
, said Hel’s expression.
Didn’t I tell you this was what she secretly thought?

‘Listen, Mum. Your heart attack seemed to come out of the blue, didn’t it? Well, it’s like that with anorexia. It just lands, boom. Nobody knows why it strikes some people and
not others, although there is a professor somewhere I read about recently who reckons it might be to do with brain development in the womb. Which is a bit like you being predisposed to heart
disease. Maybe. I don’t know, they’re still doing research. Anyway, think about how, when you’d got over your heart attack, you did those things to help you get better, like the
walking and the support sessions and changing your diet. And that’s like me, when I started to get better and I was able to take charge of myself and try to eat more. But when we were in the
middle of the worst of it, at the critical point, neither of us could do anything. We were too ill. Do you see what I’m saying? Mine was a mental illness and yours was physical, but
they’re both still diseases. Anorexia’s a full-blown mental health disorder, not an exercise in family-hating bloody-mindedness. Don’t ever think it had anything to do with you.
The counsellor told you that. What happened was no one’s fault. No one’s fault.’

Dad was sitting like a statue. I noticed Mum had her hands clasped in her lap and she was stroking one of her thumbs with the other.

Hel laid her palm over them, to still the nervous action. ‘We should have talked about it more.’

‘I never knew what to do for the best.’

‘Do you understand what I’m saying, though? Do you believe me?’

‘Mm.’

‘
Do
you believe me, Mum? It’s only what the doctors told you. And you, Dad? What do you say?’

Dad shook his head. ‘It’s above me. I’ll be honest, I’ve never understood. Which is my failing, I know. All I want is for you to keep well. And your mother not to be
sad.’

‘Hel’s trying to make you understand,’ I said.

‘But if what she says is right,’ said Mum, ‘then how is that any better? It means the anorexia could strike again. Like lightning.’

‘No, because she’ll do what you’re doing: she’ll take care of herself. She’ll let the college medical centre know, and she’ll talk to her tutors.’

‘That’s right,’ said Hel. ‘And I’ll let you know if I’m having problems. Any problems. And I’ll email you every week, and we can phone whenever you
want. You can visit. I can pop home sometimes. I’ll keep in touch. More than Jen did when she was away.’

I pulled a face at her.

‘I have strategies in place these days,’ she continued. ‘And in any case, the bad time feels such a long way away. I’ve sorted out so much stuff this year to get my head
straight. Jen’s helped me. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to face the world. And yes, I’m scared, I’m terrified, actually, but I’m going to go and at least have a
try.’

‘You can always come home if it doesn’t work out,’ said Mum, a note of hope in her voice.

‘I know that.’

‘I still don’t like the idea.’

‘No.’

Hel and I cuddled into her protectively. I said, ‘Hey, do you remember when I was little and you used to tell me that “life was made up of pie crusts as well as filling”? And
that I “had to eat the crusts up as well” because that was how life was?’

‘Did I?’ Mum wiped her eyes.

‘Uh huh. You’d recite it before we went to the dentist’s, and if I had a test or exam coming up, anything that I didn’t want to face. But you’d tell me to focus on
the pie filling that was coming up in the future. That would get me through the crusty times.’

‘To tell you the truth, it was one of my mother’s sayings.’

‘Well, it helped. So now I’m saying it back to you. The wisdom of Grandma Lyons, eh?’

Mum exhaled crossly. ‘Oh, when she said it, she never meant it as a consolation. She said it to spread the misery. What she meant was, “Life’s grim, girl, toughen up.”
Nearly all pie crusts, my childhood was. Hard work and not a lot of fun, and the strap if you were what she called cheeky.’

‘I can’t imagine you being a cheeky child.’

‘I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have said boo to a goose. She only meant if you were making too much noise playing with your friends outside the window, or if you left crumbs on the
tablecloth. Once she slapped my face till my ears rang because I accidentally dropped a dish on the hearth and it broke.’

Hel and I exchanged glances. We’d known Grandma Lyons was a sourpuss, but not that she’d been such a cow. Mum never talked about her life pre-marriage. It had never occurred to me to
ask, either.

‘She hit you?’ asked Hel.

‘She was just a very strict woman. It wasn’t unusual for those days. And I thought, from being tiny, if I grow up to have children of my own, I’ll make it really lovely for
them . . . You know, the only thing I
ever
wanted was for you two to be happy girls, and us to be a happy family.’

‘We are, Mum. We
are.
’

I leaned right forward and stretched out my hand to my father. He dithered, embarrassed, then reached over and gave my fingers a quick squeeze before letting go. Poor man, he’s not one for
group hugs.

Then I said, ‘Hel, do you remember that Christmas when Dad dressed up as Santa to creep past the window, but I spotted he was wearing his old slippers?’

She laughed. ‘Oh, yeah. God, and you were only about five. You and your damned observational skills. You were such a pain. It was supposed to be a magical moment, and all you could do was
bang on about how come they both had the exact same footwear.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

‘You were rubbish, little sis. Do you remember that chrysalis hatching out in the shed? How we’d go and visit it every day, and then when it did break open it turned out to be a huge
pink moth and you were freaked out by it.’

‘It was a monster, though. Size of a table mat.’

‘What about when you spread glitter glue over your pumps after you’d watched
The Wizard of Oz
?’

‘Ha, yes. I thought they looked ace. Except I walked on the lawn before they’d dried and picked up a load of grass clippings.’

‘And then Mum rushed out and got you a pair of sparkly pumps to make up for it. Spoilt, you were.’

‘I was.’

‘Here’s a good one. Do you remember when Mum tricked those Jehovah’s Witnesses into taking a great lump of treacle toffee each, and afterwards they couldn’t speak? The
Lord’s words were all gummed up. Were you there?’

‘I was sitting on the stairs, watching.’

‘And there was a really hot summer one year when Mum taught me how to make ice cubes with edible flowers in them. So pretty. I remember her showing me how to hem trousers, too. And a trick
to tell if an egg was rotten or not.’

‘Dad helped me learn the Highway Code. Sat testing me night after night, so I’d pass first time. Which I did. Not that I’m showing off or anything.’

‘Mum once made me a birthday cake with ballet shoes iced on the top of it, and real ribbons trailing down the sides.’

One after another we threw these memories out, hardly pausing for breath. ‘My God,’ said Helen when we ran out of steam. ‘It’s almost as if we had a great childhood,
isn’t it?’

Mum said, ‘We made a lot of mistakes, though.’

‘Show me a parent who hasn’t.’

I suddenly thought of Tadek Wolski, wondered what he was doing in our kitchen right now, and the things he might be saying. Who did he think he was, sneaking around the edges of our family? Last
year I’d thought my mother’s indignation at his providing Hel with a reference had been overreacting. Now I got it. What business was it of his to interfere, above the people who were
closest to her? And yet, almost as soon as the thought formed, I realised it was wrong to be angry with him. He was a decent bloke. Always had been. One of the few teachers who let you get away
with make up in class, and who didn’t blow a gasket if you handed in your homework late. The reason Helen had chosen to confide in him was because he knew what he was doing. He was an expert
on university and college submissions. That was his job. Ned and I might have backed her in her application, but we wouldn’t have been able to guide and advise her the way he obviously had.
And aside from all that, he was her friend. Hel had few enough of those. I had no right to feel resentful.

My mother lifted her finger and stroked my sister’s hair. ‘Tell me you’re not running away from me?’

‘I’m not running away. I’m setting out. I have to
do
something.’

‘You’ve done a lot!’

Hel sighed. ‘Yeah. Mostly I’ve sat at home collecting exam passes. You know, Mum, there was this woman I happened to meet last year who’d cycled the entire length of the
country to raise money for charity. All that way, and she was just ordinary, not an athlete or anything. But she’d collected thousands. Organised herself, and then got on with it. I’ve
not been able to stop thinking about her. To be that determined, that useful. I want to make
my
mark.’

‘Not by cycling, love?’

‘Not by cycling.’

‘Well, thank God for that at least.’

‘I mean, we have to . . .
engage
with life, or what are we?’

For a few moments Mum struggled. ‘Promise me you’ll look after yourself when you get there. Promise.’

‘I promise.’