I roll my eyes. Skipping class would never be an option for me, unless I was really sick. And I mean, really sick.
‘We’ll get the bus when the lunch bell rings at 11.35 and be back for the usual time UCAS Prep finishes. We’d have five hours together.’
‘What if someone sees us getting on the bus?’
‘They won’t. And to be safe, we’ll queue up separately and even sit apart.’ He shimmies closer to me. ‘Whatever it takes. Ulana. It’d be so nice to spend time with you off school grounds.’
His hand grips mine, tighter. I float my head back and see another RAF plane overhead. In the sky, no destination, no purpose. ‘OK,’ I say finally. ‘Next Wednesday.’
‘Next Wednesday,’ he echoes.
‘It’s a—’
‘—date,’ he laughs. ‘See, finishing each other’s sentences.’
I nudge him playfully, then tuck my legs up underneath me.
‘No,’ he moans rolling back on the ground. ‘Is it time already? Please say no.’
‘Don’t worry, this time next week we’ll have five hours. We can suffer through our usual hour today.’ I stretch my hand out and pull him up to standing. He holds his arms out wide and I collapse into them until I can feel his heartbeat against my right cheek.
Journal Entry 2: 14.09.2018
I’m not sure when it was that Lucy and I started hating each other. We’ve always been polar opposites. Style, sense of humour (I have one!), social circles, academic interests (I have none!), financial situation (I’m also lacking in that area), family…
Everything from how we style our hair to what we eat for breakfast to what we think is a priority in our lives couldn’t be further apart from the other’s. But I can’t really blame our long-standing feud on our differences. No, I think what we share is just a mutual dislike for one other, to the core. The deeeeeeeep core.
Which is funny because we were in most of the same classes at the beginning when we started Birchwood High School. Yes, she attended more classes than me overall, but there were times – a lot of times – we sat next to each other in class. I remember one particular English class that I’d forgotten my copy of Little Women and she shifted her chair closer to mine and let me read off her book. I didn’t even have to ask her, she just did it. And when my mind wandered, which was often, she pointed to the sentence that we were meant to be following along with, pressing into the ink with her manicured rose-hued fingernail that was gently shaped into an oval. We were different back then too but we didn’t hate each other. We weren’t friends, we didn’t eat lunch or even walk to the cafeteria together after the lunch bell rang, but if we saw each other in the hallway or in the girls’ toilets, we either smiled and nodded, or said ‘Hi’ like we meant it. We did mean it, I think. She was different back then. She was friendly, she was nice to people. And she smiled a lot more.
Now she’s an empty shell – plastic on the outside, hollow on the inside. Like one of those dolls that fit inside other dolls, you know the little one goes into the medium one which fits into the larger one and so on? That’s perhaps not the best analogy or maybe doesn’t even make sense, but I can’t think of another one right now. If I do, I’ll write it down later. Then I’ll remember it for the next time I try to analyse Lucy’s inner workings, which may take five seconds or five years. I don’t know why she’s so mean to everyone now. It’s like she gets off on making people miserable, highlighting their flaws or their mistakes. It’s like she looks for people’s secrets and exposes them purely for some evil enjoyment. Nothing stays hidden around Lucy McNeil. All you can hope for at Birchwood is a smooth-sailing school year of living under her radar. If not, good luck. Because – You. Will. Need. It.
Lucy Freaking McNeil.
Pretty, smart, popular, well-liked, with a perfect boyfriend (now a perfect ex-boyfriend…), perfect family unit. I envied her. I’d always wanted the perfect family. Both a mum and a dad. My mum is amazing. She’s a strong woman and she does what she can to support us, I understand that. There’s nothing more I can ask her to do. She’s trying to do it all. And she is. But I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like had Dad not left. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember him to be honest. I think he stuck around for the first year or two of my life but took off after that. Mum thinks he was working as a promoter in Ibiza for a while, but we don’t really hear too much about him now. That was just hearsay from old mutual friends they once shared. But Mum doesn’t even hear from them now. I remember I used to call one of them Uncle Rob. He’d bring over Liquorice Allsorts for me, and the odd bunch of yellow daffodils for Mum that I’m pretty sure he stole from the neighbour’s garden. I think he was quite keen on Mum for a while. But I don’t remember him much after that. I guess he got bored and left us too. Everyone leaves eventually, right? Nothing’s really permanent.
I don’t know too much about him, just a few details from things Mum has said, or things I’ve found. Once around my twelfth birthday I suddenly felt an urge to go up to the attic to see if I could find anything about my dad. I missed him more than usual that year. I always miss him on my birthdays, at Christmas, at Easter when Mum and I roll chocolate eggs down the hill at Kings Park and point out all the five-bedroom houses on Park Place that we’d live in if we won the lottery.
But I missed him more that year. I think because I started my period right before my twelfth birthday and suddenly I felt like I was a woman and that Dad had now officially missed my entire childhood. And I started to panic that he’d miss my adulthood as well, that he’d miss more of my growing up, especially at a time when I needed him the most. I was changing, and everything around me was too. I wasn’t a child anymore, but I wasn’t an adult quite yet either. A bit like now, I guess. I still don’t know what to do with my life, and no one can give me those answers but my mum and dad, right? They can at least steer me in the right direction, maybe? I needed my dad more than ever that birthday. And he’s gone. Still.
So I dragged the ladder up against the hatch, and climbed up. The door was stiff, probably hadn’t been opened for a while, and when it opened inwards it swung back and hit the floor. Mum wasn’t home yet from work, so I didn’t worry about waking her up. When I climbed up, I had to push through a cobweb and watch a spindly amber-hued spider scurry away, forced to rehome.
The boxes were in no clear order with the most recent at the front, the older years packed tightly at the back. No, nothing like that. Not here at 57 Huntley Road. Some of the boxes weren’t even sealed properly, or upright. My pyjama bottoms were covered in dust and attic dirt before I’d even sat down. I started going through the boxes, one at a time. Slowly at first, then faster. Every time I finished one, more appeared, multiplying faster than bacteria in a warm environment. I learned that in home economics during a food safety lesson two years ago. I liked home economics, although it sounds weird when I think about it – the economics of the home.
Box after box, and nothing. Until I hit the last six boxes and there it was. A large padded envelope filled with photos, letters, even a mix CD. His entire life – with us anyway – fit into one A4 envelope. I wonder if his new life – without us – would still fit, or if it would need more boxes than this entire attic. Did his life flourish without us? Were we dragging him down?
There weren’t many photos and in a couple, his face had been scraped out by a sharp utensil, likely by Mum in the weeks after he’d left. I’d do the same. But at least I saw his face in some. It wasn’t always clear – his head was turned away in some, others he was laughing and his face was all scrunched up. But I could tell that he’d had a beard back then, that he liked grey and navy clothes, that his hair was cut short, and that I had his smile.
I still have the mix CD. I haven’t played it yet. I’ve hidden it in my bra drawer for five years now and still haven’t brought myself to listen to it. I know it’ll just