Tell Me Everything (22 page)

I was dressing like a boy. Mrs. Roberts kept insisting I was going for the urchin look and, as I found it harder and harder to eat every day, I had to agree my hipbones were developing nicely. I'd rest my hands on them sometimes when I stood still, feel them move under my palms as I walked upstairs.

“I'd like to see him,” I persisted. “Could I come and visit one day?”

“And why would you want to spend time with an old man?” she asked. “When I was your age, I was out dancing with boys my own age every night. A young girl like you, with the world at your feet.”

I looked down at my shoes; white basketball trainers with yellow-and-white-striped laces. “I'm not like you, though,” I said, realizing as I spoke that it didn't make me feel as sad as I might once have been.

“That, darling, is quite clear.” And she laughed, brushing imaginary dust off the shoulders of my waistcoat and pulling straight the tails of the man's white shirt I was wearing. She clapped her hands, just touching the ends of her fingers together so the acrylic sheen of her false beige nails glittered under the bright window lights. “And now back to work, Molly. So much to be done.”

Always so much to be done. These days there was rarely any time to think.

“Molly, would you make tea?” she called about fifteen minutes later.

While the kettle boiled I laid the white cotton napkin on the tray and placed the flowered, bone-thin china cup and saucer carefully on top. I couldn't resist tapping the silver spoon against
the china as I rested it on the saucer, but the milk I poured into the small jug without spilling a drop. Teapot warmed, I made the tea and brought it through to Mrs. Roberts at the counter.

“This is good, Molly,” she said. “Not just this, but everything here today. Well done. You're not having yours with me?”

“I'll take it in the kitchen,” I said. “Just have a bit of a breather.”

I sat at the table and breathed in the steam from my mug. It was too quiet. From the shop, I could hear Mrs. Roberts humming to herself as she went through the files of paperwork she always seemed to have around her.

“I would like to see Mr. Roberts, please,” I said, going through and standing in front of her. “Just to chat.”

“If you wish, Molly.” She looked up and frowned at me. “But he doesn't live at home anymore.”

“Not with you? Where is he then?”

“Where they can take proper care of him. He is happy there, I think.”

“He can't be. He'll miss you terribly. Oh, I must see him.”

Mrs. Roberts leaned over and pushed my hair back behind my ears. “Your hair, Molly. You must keep it neater. Go and sort yourself out in the mirror.”

Right shoulder, left hip, head straight, chin up, neck like a swan; appearances being everything, I sashayed off to the toilet.

“
I
want you to cut my hair.” I went over to the salon to find Miranda.

“Never heard of the word please?”

“Please will you cut my hair?” I tried again.

“No.” She turned back to her magazine.

“Miranda,” I complained, suddenly unable to stop myself.

“You never have any time for me these days. You used to beg to do my hair. Can't we get back to how we were? Why does everything have to change? Is it me? Have I done something wrong?” I was horrified to feel the tears come.

Miranda quietly passed me a tissue. “Sit yourself down, girl. In fact, there's a style I was looking at just here that would be darling for you.”

I looked. The model had long, ironed hair, cut along the bottom with a zigzag edge and bangs coming below her eyes. “Are you serious?”

Miranda gave a peal of laughter. “Not on your nelly.” She clapped her hands together. “But at least it made you smile. So how do you want it?”

“You're happy,” I said, remembering seeing her dancing round the last time. “And you're too busy to see me. I think I know why.”

I was putting two and two together and getting one. Joe-and-Miranda. Of course. Every time I'd seen him, he'd been around the high street but not at the dentist. Instead, he'd been coming to see Miranda. It made perfect sense. She had been watching me that day and had asked about him. He must have come back and she'd met him then. That's why she'd been cool with me too. I didn't know what lies Joe had been telling her. Or even what he knew.

Miranda started combing my hair out. “I want it short,” I said. “Really short. You know, like a boy's.” “Are you sure?”

I put my hand out and felt the wall of the salon. Only good things happened in here. “Yes,” I said. “I'm going to see Mr. Roberts tomorrow. I'd like to give him a surprise.”

Miranda smiled at me. Not the old girly grins but a real smirk that made me smirk back. “Let's go for it,” she said.

She took a long time shampooing and washing my hair. “This
could be the last time I get to wash your beautiful long hair,” she said as she checked the temperature of the water against her arm.

“So, are you going anywhere nice on holiday this year?” She put on a singsong voice.

“Paris,” I said. “In between New York and Morocco. One finds one needs the sun at this time of year.”

“Lovely.” Miranda pulled my wet hair up above my head as if she was measuring it. “So why am I so happy then, clever Miss Molly?”

“A boy.”

“Wrong.”

“I am so not wrong.”

“Couldn't be further from the truth,” Miranda crowed.

We moved over to the chair, my hair wrapped up in a towel turban. “I'd shut my eyes for the next bit if I were you,” Miranda said. “I'll tell you when it's too late to turn back and then it'll be safe to open them.”

She pottered round for a moment and came back with some scissors and a handful of pins.

“Put Bryan Ferry on,” I purred. “Just for me. Please.”

“I'm not sure we've still got it, but I'll look.”

She went over to the music system, hunting through the pile of CDs and soon our favorite old ballads started to fill the salon. I felt myself purring. “Some customers are easily satisfied,” she said. “So, any boy, or did you have a particular one in mind?”

I looked strange with my hair looped up on one side. Miranda took her scissors and cut about four inches off at once. I gasped. “Told you to keep your eyes shut,” she said. “Listen to the music instead. Doesn't that always tell it like it is?”

The way you look tonight
… We both smiled.

“Joe,” I said, blowing away a strand of cut hair that landed
near my mouth. I could hear Miranda's intake of breath and her sudden stop of motion.

“Joe! Are you for real? He's about six.”

“He's almost the same age as us, older than me,” I pointed out. “But you have met him, haven't you? You've been seeing him? Otherwise how would you know who I mean?” Above me, Miranda bustled back into action.

“He helped me with college applications, that's all. To be honest, when I first asked him, he thought I was doing it on your behalf but he was still as nice as pie when he realized it was really for me. Very fond of you too. He said you were the pinup at school.”

“Joe's helping you go to college?”

“I couldn't think who else to ask.”

“But how did you meet him in the first place?”

“He popped into the salon a couple of days after he bumped into you, wondering if we knew you and wanting to make sure you were OK. We got talking and he was telling me all about how he was going to university.”

I could just imagine that.

“And I suddenly got all Gloria-like,” Miranda said.

“Gloria-like?”

“I thought it should have been me, silly. I should have gone to uni straight from school too.” I could feel Miranda letting the pins on the other side down now. My eyes were still shut, and when I put my hand up to feel my neck she pushed it away. “Better not, doll. Not just yet,” she said.

“Why didn't you go?” I asked.

“Life.”

“No, what happened really?”

“And life's not real?” she laughed. “There was a teacher at school who used to encourage me a lot. We liked the same kind
of books. Had some of the same silly dreams even. I suppose he saw me as a kind of project, and we became friends. But all sorts of people got the wrong end of the stick and the headmaster called him in one day and threatened him with I don't know what, and he left the school just like that. Without even saying goodbye. I felt so sick about it all, I just gave up too. I'd been working here as a Saturday girl so as soon as I could I came here to work full-time. It hasn't been bad but, I don't know, after getting to know you and everything, I started to want more. Listening to Joe just made that all come together.”

“Me?”

“Can I tell you the truth without you getting upset, Molly?” Miranda's hand was flat on my head, holding it straight so I couldn't twist it. I could hear her heavy breathing as she concentrated hard. I kept my eyes tight shut. If there was one thing I didn't want to hear it was the truth, but Miranda's voice kept coming. “I didn't want to end up like an older version of you,” she said. “Content to waste all your potential. That was one of the reasons I let Joe talk to me about you at the beginning. I suppose I wanted to understand what happened to you.”

“I'm not stuck.” I was suddenly reminded of being with Liz. Of the time she told me I'd never be nothing.

“No, of course not. You've got spy-boy, haven't you?”

“Tim,” I corrected her automatically. I hadn't told Miranda, hadn't told anyone about the night Tim left and that I hadn't seen him since. “So what did Joe say about me?”

“Very little actually. It seems you were as much of an enigma then as you are now. One minute you were the most popular girl at school, the next you were a recluse and then the next you were gone. Apparently they still talk about you, but no one can find out anything. I think Joe was hoping I'd give him some clues.”

“Did he talk about Leanne?”

“No. Funny though, because he asked if I knew someone of that name. Said she'd gone to France or something. Who's she then?”

“A French girl. She went home,” I said.

“And what about the elusive Molly then? Are you going to tell me?”

I opened my eyes then to look at her, but at that moment caught sight of my own reflection instead. “Oh holy fuck.”

“You like it.” Miranda leaned back, scissors in hand, and smiled at me in the mirror. It wasn't a question.

I ruffled the short layers on top, rubbed my fingertips over the graduated stubble at the back of my neck, pulled the two side bits down until they made kiss curls on my cheeks.

“I love it.” And the best thing was that it wasn't Molly looking back at me at all. It was Charlie Canterbury. We winked at each other.

“Do you want to tell me about how you came here?” Miranda asked. “Now that I've told you about my English teacher you'll know why I'm not a great one for secrets, but I'd like to know yours.”

“You've never asked,” I said.

“I am now.” She leaned over and forked gel through my hair with her fingers, getting the hair to stand up at the front. “If you want to tell me.” Charlie Canterbury looked back at me from the mirror, her lips tight-shut.

“Too late,” I said. But then I did a very un-Charlie-like thing. I kissed Miranda on the cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.

S
ummerfields had the wrong name. It should have been called Wintergraveyard. This was clear even before I'd gone through the depressingly smeared and dirty glass doors. The red-bricked, one-story building hemmed in a concrete courtyard, round which was hung a collection of hanging baskets filled with what looked like dead twigs. There were mounds of moldy leaves blocking the two drain holes; the three wooden benches were dripping with bird shit, and one was missing a plank at the back; in the middle of the square there was something that resembled an old boot.

I squinted to see it better. It was an old boot, left to rot on its side. The smell of weak, wet cabbage mixed with disinfectant got stronger as I waited in the reception area for someone to answer the bell I'd just rung. I tried to calm my nerves by reading the line of framed certificates hanging crookedly from the flocked wallpaper. At least the staff were properly trained, I thought, until I realized that they all belonged to the same person. Dawn Carey.

It wasn't a surprise, then, when the person who bobbed up behind the reception desk was wearing a white apron with “Dawn” embroidered on the front pocket. She beamed at me as if we were old friends, and I found myself smiling back.

“They're all in the sitting room,” she said. “It's time for the music and movement class, my favorite.” Sure enough, I could hear a piano from down the corridor, thin voices singing out an approximate rhythm. “Although I can't say that to our other volunteers,” Dawn giggled. “I tell them all that they're my favorites, even the sugared-flower petal lady, and we all fall asleep in that one.”

I nodded. “I'm here to see Mr. Roberts,” I said.

Dawn clapped her hands. “A visitor,” she said. “How wonderful. Everyone will be so pleased. Why don't you come and join us? There's only another quarter of an hour to go. It would be a shame to miss it.”

“I'll wait,” I said.

Dawn looked so disappointed it was all I could do to stop myself from changing my mind. She tapped her fingers on the top of the desk and kept looking down the corridor.

“Please don't let me hold you up,” I said. “I'll be fine on my own.”

“Well, if you don't mind,” she said. She really was enthusiastic about all this. Everything about her was scrubbed and clean, but in a good way. Mrs. Roberts would love her. I wondered if I'd like working here as much. I could imagine the two of us together like a pair of angels, cheering up the old people's lives, doing good just by our presence. What would my favorite activity at the home be? Somehow I didn't think it would be music and movement. I'd probably like the sugared-flower petal class. Dawn and I would have little rivalries about it, egged on by the happy patients.

“Mr. Roberts,” I said quickly, before she disappeared, “does he enjoy music and movement too?”

Dawn smiled at this idea. “He hates it.” She leaned over the reception desk as if she was confiding something. “We made him
go for three sessions because his wife insisted, but now we just let him stay in his bedroom and pretend to her that he's attending. Naughty, but we thought, well, that maybe the French men she was used to were different. Mr. Roberts isn't really the dancing kind. To be honest not many of our men here are.”