Closer (2 page)

“My mum would cut the gerbil's hair if it stood still long enough. Not that you look like a gerbil. She'd love to get her hands on yours. Give it a trim.” 

“No, I mean cut it.” I pull my long dark hair right up and act like I'm cutting it all off. Chloe's eyes go wide. 

“Do you mean it?” 

“Don't know, I'll see. What do you think?” 

It's something I've thought about for ages. I want to do it, but I'm scared. Not just about how it might look, though I don't really know. But I know Dad will hate it, he says he loves my hair long. And Mum won't let me have anything done without a huge discussion and the third degree and saying what if you don't like it, and don't come running to me when it goes wrong. I don't really know why I want it short, but I'm that fed up of doing what everyone else wants. 

Raj is important though. I've found out he likes girls with short hair. I pointed out a girl on the park with it cropped, and asked him if she was good-looking, and he laughed and said she was all right. 

Chloe looks at me one way and the other, studying the possibilities. 

“Cool,” she says, and the bell rings for class.

It's the end of the day and I swing my bag over my shoulder and I'm ready to go. If I see Raj in the park I'm planning to wander in as if I want to smell the flowers or something. We're all streaming out of the gates like it's paradise out there, which it's not. But at the end of a school day it feels like paradise, for a minute or two. 

Chloe's telling a joke about Mr. Donkin, our maths teacher. She's not so stressed out now – she never is for long. I turn at the gate and I see Dad leaning on the railings at the other side of the road looking out for me. He's got his tight leather jacket on and the tight faded jeans and the iPod he bought in New York, and his hair's longish and fair like he dyed it but it's real, and I can see people are looking at him thinking he's cool, and he seems like a stranger because my friends are looking at him wondering who he is. He doesn't look like a normal dad, that's for sure. 

I swerve away across the road and he opens his arms to me and hugs me close, then lets me go and holds my shoulders and looks at me. 

“Sweetheart! So this is where you hang out all day when you're away!” He's fooling about as usual, and I'm embarrassed because it's so public. 

“What're you doing here, Dad? Something wrong?” 

“I wanted to see my little girl, that's all. Thought I'd come along and meet you, like the old days when you were small.” Funny, I don't remember him doing that. 

“You been rowing with Mum again?” 

He looks sad for a second then the smile breaks out. 

“Me and your Mum, we've got an understanding. Yeah, we row, but I'll make it up to her, you'll see. I've got a great surprise planned for her birthday.” 

“But her birthday's weeks away, in August.” 

“Nothing like planning ahead. Come on, let's walk the long way by the shops, I'll tell you all about it.” 

I'm walking with him even though I don't think I want to. It's not what I planned. I catch sight of Raj across the road, one of the crowd still flooding out of the gates. He's talking to a girl in his year. I want to run over and grab his attention, but he's gone before I can wave. I'll have to text him later. 

“But I've got homework to do, before tomorrow.” 

“Never mind that, you can do it when you get home. I'll help you.” 

I have to smile. He'd never be able to concentrate, let alone understand the project. He'd be clowning around making stupid suggestions, anything to avoid getting down to work. George would be better at helping than Dad, even though he's still only eight. 

I link arms with him, match his pace as much as I can. 

“What was it like when you were at school, Dad?” 

“School? I had a great time. Me and the others started a band, and we used to play in the music department every lunch-time. I was lead guitar, and I did some of the vocals.” 

He demonstrates and I'm supposed to laugh but I'm not put off. 

“I mean your schoolwork, exams and that.” 

“Exams. Not my best subject, sweetheart. Never did do well in the exams department. I was always too busy with other things, making films, playing music. But look, I've not done badly for myself, have I? Got you three, and I can talk to you like a mate. There's your mum to keep it all going. And I'm a good photographer. I think there's a future for me.” 

“Dad, you haven't worked for months. You jump every time the phone rings.” 

His face falls. “Now you're sounding like your mother. Don't give me a lecture, I have enough of those.” He hangs his arm round my shoulder and we walk. I have to stride out to keep up with him, and we walk on, away from home, away from the coursework, away from Raj.

On the way home I'm trying to get Dad to hurry. He's kept me out for over an hour, shopping, doing what Mum asked him to do yesterday. He's forgotten the list, so he has to try and remember, and I'm following him round Morrisons with a trolley while he lobs in tins of tomatoes and stuff. He's telling me about his plans to make Mum a wonderful dinner for her birthday and the menu. I love talking about cooking, I even like doing it, so long as they don't make me eat the food. 

We pile the stuff on the conveyer belt, and Dad flirts with the checkout cashier who must be sixty at least while I fill the carriers. He pays with his card and we share out the bags. We head towards home. 

It's nearly five. Mum will be mad. 

Raj phones as we get towards our turnoff. Our road's called Knighton Fields Road East. It takes hours to write, must be the longest road name in the universe. 

“What's up, Raj?” 

“Where are you?” Raj sounds strange, distant. 

“I'm walking down Welford Road with my dad.” 

“Your dad?” 

“Yeah, he came and picked me up after school.” 

“Is that your dad? I thought…” 

“What?” 

“No worries, it's cool. See you later.” I hang up. I can't work out what it is but he still sounds strange. 

“That your boyfriend then?” Dad asks lightly. 

“Raj? No, he's not my boyfriend.” I so wish he was, but I'm not letting Dad in on that. Raj has never tried to kiss me or anything. I know he's a bit interested, the way we don't look each other in the eye or anything. But he'll never go for me until I get to a size eight. Don't ask me how I know, I just know. 

We let ourselves in through the new front door, painted a shiny blue so you can almost see yourself in it. Our house stands out from all the others on this road. That's the way Mum wants it. She's in the hall with the phone in her hand. 

“Where've you been, I've been worried sick. The hospital phoned. We need to go to the General to see Granma.” 

I'll never get the coursework done at this rate. 

“Do we all have to go?” I say, but looking at Mum I know the answer so I wish I hadn't. She's stressed out, she won't listen. 

I hate going to see Granma. She's been ill for ages and she doesn't know anyone now, so I don't see the point. A few weeks ago the nursing home she lived in said they couldn't take care of her any longer. I heard Dad on the speakerphone. He shouted at the matron, but she said she wasn't prepared to listen to abuse. It was so embarrassing. 

Now Granma's been in the General for a while. Dad goes every Sunday to see her on the bus, and he comes back really quiet. 

“Yes Mel, we do have to. She's your granma, and she's dying. It may be the last time.” Mum is serious, but I know she's never liked Granma, ever since she met Dad. From what she said, Granma didn't think Mum was good enough for her only son. Especially as Mum already had Hannah and me. Granma thought she was too old for him too, and that didn't go down well with Mum. There were loads of rows, and Dad said he was even more fixed on being with Mum because of what Granma thought. So for months he didn't speak to Granma, until George was born and they made it up. 

“Could you get changed, Mel. Put on something suitable.” I go upstairs really slowly, and I look in my wardrobe for what to wear. I don't know what's suitable to see somebody who's dying. I'd like to wear all black with my black trainers, but black would look like I wished she was dead already, which I sort of do because it's dragging on and on, but I know I can't show that. The way I see it, there isn't much point in going on taking up a bed in the hospital when all you do is lie there. But those are things I can't say. I have to make out I'm bothered even though Granma never bothered about me, or about Hannah, because we weren't her real grandchildren like George. I settle on my faded black jeans and flipflops and a skimpy blue top I like. When I go down Mum looks at me and sighs but doesn't say anything so I suppose it's all right. 

George is looking scrubbed with his hair combed back for once. Hannah looks like I feel, like she's doing something she hates. Mum and Dad are uncomfortable, you can tell. She's still got her work suit on, and he's got his hair combed back like George. 

We get in the car and there's the row about who sits in the middle of the back seat. We haven't all been in the car together for ages. I don't remember when we stopped doing that. 

“You go in the middle, Mel, you're really skinny,” says George, chewing his gum. 

“No, you, you're the littlest.” 

“Don't put George next to me,” says Hannah. “The smell of that gum makes me sick. You don't want me to be sick in the car, do you?” 

Mum sighs again. “Leave it out, you three. Negotiate.” 

So we negotiate it's me who goes in the middle on the way and George on the way back, which is fair I suppose as long as he sticks to it. Hannah and George look out of the windows all the way there and I listen to Mum and Dad talking in the front. Mum's driving. 

“I know she's your mother, Steve, but she never accepted me,” says Mum. She's not keen on going to the hospital either. 

“You know, I've never been able to ask her about when I was young. I'd just like to ask her if she knew. About Grandad.” 

I lean forward to hear. 

“It's too late now to bring all that up,” Mum says, taking a quick look behind at us. 

“I can't help thinking about it, now she's dying.” 

I can't stop myself. “What about Grandad?” 

It's Mum who speaks. 

“Grandad wasn't very nice to Dad when he was growing up.” 

It's so annoying, I mean when adults talk to you like you were three years old and you don't know anything. 

“What do you mean? Did he hit you, Dad?” I don't remember Grandad, he died when I was small. There's a photo of him in the front room with Granma when Dad was small. Granma's holding this baby that's going to be Dad in her arms and smiling at him, and Grandad's looking at the camera, wearing his army uniform and huge boots. He's really tall and thin and she's short and fat, he's squinting at the sun so he looks angry or something. They were really old when they had him. Gross. 

I want Dad to answer, but he looks out of the side window and acts like he hasn't heard me ask him about Grandad. Mum looks at me in the mirror and goes, “Shh! Not now Mel, please. I need to concentrate on driving.” 

I give up. It's quiet again and we stop in the car park. We climb out of the car and find Ward 10. It's like going into a TV set. Big windows, ceiling high enough for two floors, metal beds in rows along each wall and a nurses' station in the middle so they can keep an eye on everybody dying. They're all dying in this ward, or they look as if they'll be dying soon. It's like a premature graveyard in here. 

Everything's grey or white, the walls, the beds, even the people. There's a huge TV with
Eastenders
 and no sound on and nobody's watching. There are a few relatives looking bored sitting by beds. They all look up when we come in and you can see we're the most interesting thing happening round here, and I feel embarrassed walking in. Most of the visitors look old themselves, like they'll be the next ones in the beds when this lot die. Maybe they're not visitors, they're queuing up. I wish Chloe was here, I could tell her that and we could have a laugh. 

There's one bed with curtains round it, and Dad heads towards it. It must be Granma's. 

George is taking a scientific interest. “Why's she got the curtains shut? Does that mean she'll be dead soon?” 

Dad pulls one curtain back and there's a little hump in the middle of the white bed that's Granma, her face peeping out at the top, hunched up on her side. Her bed is like a cot with sides so she doesn't fall out. Her head looks too big for her body, like those pictures of foetuses in the pregnancy book in the school library. Only she's not being born, she's dying. She's not looking at any of us, even though her eyes are open and her mouth is moving. 

“Mam. It's us, Steve and Ali and the kids, your grandchildren come to say hello. How are you doing, Mam?” Dad is sounding desperate, he's shouting so there's a chance she'll hear him. I bet everybody else in the ward can hear him. But you can see she's miles away. She's not here anymore. We've not come to say hello, it's goodbye. 

“Mel, get some more chairs would you?” Mum sits down on the high-backed old people's chair, and I see a stack of chairs down the other end of the ward. 

I'm heading off there when a nurse comes up and asks me what I'm doing. I'd like to say I'm going round taking people's purses and false teeth from their lockers but I don't.