How the Light Gets In (21 page)

I have a pain in my stomach. I go downstairs to look for Gertie.

She’s in the kitchen, standing on a crate at the sink, and she wears her watch on the outside of her cardigan sleeve.

‘Are there any pain-killers?’ I ask.

‘Do you have a headache?’

‘No, it’s a cramp.’ She leads me into her bedroom, which is on the same floor as the common-room and kitchen.

‘Sit down,’ she says and I sit on her single bed.

Gertie shuts her bedroom door and I am overcome with a sad tiredness, a craving to lie down on top of the floral eiderdown, to cover myself in her crocheted blanket and her smell of lavender, and be read to sleep.

She puts her small warm hand – so warm it’s like a hot-water bottle made of flesh – on my shoulder. It’s remarkable how much heat is coming out of her old body.

‘What kind of cramp is it?’

I look at her eyes and realise I haven’t looked properly at them before. I never pay enough attention to people’s eyes. It’s time I learnt to pay closer attention to the details of people’s faces. I can’t remember what colour Margaret’s eyes are. This is something I should know. Maybe if I paid more attention to this kind of thing, I’d feel better and none of this would have happened.

So I look into Gertie’s eyes, and she looks into mine, and a shudder rips through me like a root being pulled from the soil. Suddenly what I feel has nothing to do with what I’m thinking. I’m thinking she’s old and senile and I don’t like her, but I feel like I want her to hug me.

‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘just a cramp.’

She holds my hand. ‘Is it your undercarriage?’

I want to say something sarcastic about the word undercarriage but I decide not to. I want to be kind. I want to see what it will feel like to act in a different way. I will practise on Gertie.

‘No,’ I say, ‘it’s just a stitch I get sometimes. Like someone’s sticking a knife in my side. I get it when I haven’t slept properly, which is nearly all the time.’

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘but don’t be afraid to tell me anything at all. I know teenage girls sometimes have things go wrong downstairs.’

I smile at her instead of saying something mean, and she squeezes my hand and then she hugs me and I feel as though I’ve been drugged. Maybe it’s because it’s warmer in her room.

‘Could I lie on your bed for a while?’ I ask.

I’m sure it’s against the rules for me to be in her room or to sleep in her bed.

‘Well,’ she says, ‘just this once.’

Gertie wakes me from my nap with a hot cup of tea, and I feel completely resuscitated. This is the best I’ve slept for months.

‘Better get up now. Rennie’s here to see you.’

I feel as though the sleep I’ve just had is my reward for being good to her, for something marvellous I have done. Maybe this is how life works.

‘Thanks for letting me sleep here,’ I say. ‘I’m really grateful.’

She nods and sits by my feet.

‘I know you’ve already made friends with Lishny,’ she says, ‘but it might pay to make friends with the others too. Lishny will be leaving soon.’

‘Why?’ I ask. ‘What’s he done?’

‘That’s for him to tell you. I just think it would be a good idea for you two not to get too attached.’

‘Does he know he’s leaving soon?’

‘Yes, of course. This isn’t the terrible place he likes to pretend it is.’

‘Then why can’t he tell me why he’s here?’

Gertie sighs.

‘He
can
tell you. There’s absolutely nothing stopping him. Maybe he just doesn’t want to.’

Rennie Parmenter is waiting for me in the counselling room. It’s a small room upstairs where the dormitories are. It has no window, a round table in the centre, two chairs, a small heater, and a box of tissues on the floor. Rennie is short, has greasy red hair and is wearing a loose woollen v-neck jumper without a t-shirt underneath.

When I sit down, Rennie gets up and slams the door shut.

‘Oopsie,’ he says. ‘Sorry. There must be a blizzard outside.’

I wonder if it’s still snowing and whether I’ll get to go out and walk around in it. I’ve never walked in snow before. This will be my first white Christmas.

Rennie talks to me for what feels like hours. His vocabulary is pretentious and annoying.

When I say, ‘You use a lot of very big words,’ he doesn’t realise I’m being sarcastic and says, ‘Well, you see, I like to think of myself as a member of the wording class. That’s my little joke. Perhaps you might see yourself in the same way one day, but you’ll need to value yourself a lot more than you do right now.’

‘I see,’ I say.

He tells me his entire life story and a heap of information I don’t need to know. He tells me that he visits every Tuesday and Thursday, without ever breaking for lunch. This business
of not eating lunch might explain his bad breath; the bad breath a person gets from not eating.

‘Gosh,’ I say.

Rennie is bursting with gormless good intentions, proclaiming – when his life story is done – that it’s time for a ‘nice two-way chat’.

I am being ‘briefed’ for my ‘new journey’ he tells me, as he leans forward.

‘So,’ he says, ‘I wonder to myself … how did pretty young Louise with the big IQ get herself into this mess? How did a capable sixteen-year-old girl manage to turn herself into an alcoholic?’

How could such an idiot be a counsellor? What kind of moron thinks that there’s a rational explanation for all human behaviour? What kind of fool thinks that perversity can be explained? It’s obvious. I felt like garbage for one reason or another and drank to make myself feel better even though it could ruin my chances of escape. What’s so hard to understand about that?

I would like to kick him in the shins, but instead I turn what has happened into a story with a tidy beginning and middle and end, throwing in all kinds of motivations for my behaviour. He seems happy with this version of events, especially when I talk about my behaviour being motivated by a deep need for approval and acceptance.

I tell the story without blaming anybody but myself, except that towards the end I make the mistake of saying that Margaret is a smothering kind of individual and that the house was riddled with rules and that maybe this made some of my behaviour worse.

He pounces on this comment as an excuse to launch into what Lishny has warned me is Rennie’s famous
How many people
are at this table?
routine.

‘Okay, Louise,’ he says. ‘So you’re in a terrible mess. Let’s logically analyse the real cause, shall we?’

This is so ludicrous I’m even more amazed that I don’t kick him.

‘Sure,’ I say.

He gets up from his chair and opens the door.

‘I can hear Gertie downstairs in the kitchen,’ he says, waving in that general direction. ‘Is it
her
fault that you’re in this mess?

‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not her fault.’

He shuts the door and sits down. ‘Okay. Well then, is it
my
fault?’ (he puts both hands on his chest, one hand crossed over the other as though he’s Jesus Christ lecturing an apostle).

‘No, it’s not your fault,’ I say.

‘All right, then. How many other people are sitting at this table, Louise?’

‘There’s one other person sitting at this table.’

‘Correct,’ he says, his buttocks flying off the seat with all the excitement. ‘And is that person Louise Connor?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘And is
she
a person who points the finger at other people for her own faults?’

‘No, she isn’t.’

He nods his head and swallows something that isn’t food. ‘Then you are ready to accept that you have nobody to blame but yourself.’

Rennie leans even further across the table. His face is too close to mine; a breathy claustrophobia. I have to move back in my chair to escape him. Oblivious to the effect of his breathing on my face, he remains in this thrusting forward position and wipes the table down with the sleeve of his sloppy jumper.

The impression this gesture creates is that he intends to have me lie down on my back across the table for some dubious, and possibly naked, examination.

‘Well, are you ready to accept this? Are you willing to accept this adult responsibility for your own actions?’

‘I am,’ I say, remembering Lishny’s warning that this is the only way to make the interview stop.

Rennie stands up. ‘On that basis I think we can make real progress.’

He comes around to my side of the table, and rests his hand on the top of my head like an amateur priest at a dry christening.

‘Perhaps you’d like me to leave you alone for a moment to think through what we’ve talked about, all right?’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Thank you very, very much.’

It is the afternoon of my third day. The others have gone on their second excursion this week, which, Gertie tells me, is unusual. It’s just because it’s so close to Christmas and people need ‘extra cheering up’. I couldn’t go, because I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist this morning.

Her name is Dr Trevor. She gave me a prescription for some sleeping pills and I talked her into giving me two right away from the sample packet on her desk. I took both of them straight after the session, which is probably why I’ve slept most of the day. I feel drowsy.

I write a letter to Henry and Margaret. I write like an automaton, hardly thinking about what I’m saying at all. I say that I am sorry, countless times, and say that I miss them and I ask them to forgive me. I can’t say whether I mean any of it. All I know for sure is that I wish I had been a different person and that they had been different people. I ask them to take me back. I tell them that I don’t want to go home. I tell them there’s no way on this earth I can face my sisters.

When I’ve finished this letter, I think about calling my mum but I can’t face the prospect of Erin or Leona answering the phone and gloating about my downfall.

Perhaps I’ll ask Gertie if I can go outside so I can buy my mum a card. She likes cards, especially Hallmark ones with printed messages inside. She reacts to them as though they have
been composed especially for her, even if all I’ve added is
Dear
Mum, from Lou
. Still, I’d like to send her something.

It is nearly four o’clock. I go to the bathroom to have a shower. I am desperate for some hot water but it has run out.

We are permitted one shower every two days and I may not get another turn tomorrow. I pick up my towel. Even with two days to dry on the rail, it is still damp.

I go down to the kitchen. Gertie is doing some knitting and I sit at the table and talk to her. I ask her why one of the bunks upstairs has been stripped of bedding and she tells me that Greta left this morning while I was with Dr Trevor. I met Greta last night. She had a very loud laugh.

‘Why was she here?’

‘She wasn’t well.’

‘She seemed well to me. She was laughing her head off all night.’

‘Did she tell you that she changed her name from Greta Le Paige to Lumpy Green Cheese?’

Gertie starts to laugh even though she knows she shouldn’t, and I laugh too.

‘Maybe she was just eccentric,’ I say.

‘Maybe. That would explain why she rode her bike to school naked.’

‘Wow,’ I say, impressed. I might have liked Greta.

Gertie and I talk for an hour or more until she says, ‘I need to start cooking. You better scat.’

‘I can help,’ I say.

‘No, you go and rest. You look very tired.’

I hate when people tell me I look tired. Especially when I’m tired.

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘thanks.’

I go to the common-room and turn on the TV but there’s
nothing decent on, unless you like mawkish crap about angels, pointless violence or evangelical brainwashers. This common-room isn’t very comfortable, but if I spend any more time lying on my bunk, I’m sure I’ll get bedsores. My limbs are starting to suffer from a squashed feeling.

One of the things I dislike about this place, besides the cold, is the bright and cheerful mural that covers two walls of the common-room. Over the years, inmates have painted sickening and happy pictures of mountains and meadows full of daisies and horses. It looks like the picture of Mormon heaven Yvonne showed me. Maybe I should find out where Yvonne is. Perhaps her family could take me in? It’s an option worth exploring, even if it means living with Mormons. At least I’d be with Yvonne.

The sleeping pills have really helped me out. I feel more resourceful, more relaxed, and I know, in one way or another, I’m going to find a way to stay.

I sit at the table and flick through a stupid fashion magazine (the kind that girls are meant to like). I turn the radio on, but it’s a country and western song followed by a commercial for cars. After a few bored minutes of sitting at the table, my fingers are so cold it’s hard to believe that the heater in this barren room works at all.

Just when I’m about to go back to my dorm, the others come back from their excursion. Lishny walks over to me, lifts me out of my seat, gives me a big hug and asks me how I am. Nobody seems surprised by this. Probably because almost all of the others have paired off in one way or another. Even though it’s against the rules for boys to go into the girls’ dormitories and
vice versa
, Lily is the only guard who seems bothered by us doing it.

Lishny tells me what he thinks of Chicago.

‘I would love to live here,’ he says. ‘It may be possible.’

I don’t take this comment particularly seriously.

‘So why did your host-family throw you out?’ I ask, again. ‘Gertie says you can tell me if you want.’

‘She’s not lying. I can tell you, but I don’t want to yet. Can you wait a few more days?’

‘Okay,’ I say.

At seven o’clock the bell rings for dinner. Gertie tells us we can eat dinner on our laps tonight. She brings each of us a bowl of soup and puts a plate with about a hundred slices of buttered bread on the table. Lishny and I take four slices each and sit behind the couch, huddled under our blankets. Unlike Lily, Gertie doesn’t ask us to move.

‘It’s pumpkin,’ she says. ‘Nice and warm.’

Lishny and I wrap our hands around the hot bowls and thank her.

‘You’re very welcome,’ she says and winks at me.

I wink back and feel happy.

Gertie puts her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, I forgot. There’s a message for you.’

‘Who from?’

‘Tom. He said to call back tomorrow.’

‘Thanks, Gertie.’

I have no desire to talk to Tom. But I probably should if I want to keep my options open.

After dinner, Lishny and I play a game of chess. He slaughters me and says, ‘I bet nobody has ever beaten you so easily before.’

‘That’s a bit vain,’ I say.

‘You’re a bit vain if you think you should have been able to beat me.’

‘Fuck off,’ I say.

‘No. You fuck off.’

We carry on like this for a while. It’s a real fight, but a nice fight. I’ve never had a nice fight with anybody before. When we finish, we laugh and he grabs both of my hands.

‘It was a compliment,’ he says. ‘You play a really beautiful game.’

‘Thanks,’ I say.

Gertie is in the kitchen washing up with the two inmates on cleaning duty and Lily comes around to the back of the couch to inspect us.

‘You should teach me to play one day,’ she says. ‘I like checkers and games like that.’

I smile weakly but don’t insult her. I say, ‘I’ll teach you. Maybe tomorrow.’

Lishny and I go up to my dorm. I go first and he follows about twenty minutes later.

We sit in separate bunks in case Lily bursts in. We read and talk. Lishny goes to his dorm and comes back with a pair of mittens.

‘I want you to try to tie your shoelaces with the mittens on,’ he says.

‘How come?’

‘Because it makes it easy to remember what it was like to be a child.’

‘Okay.’ I put my shoes on, then try to tie the laces with the mittens on. ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I feel completely helpless.’

‘Interesting isn’t it?’

What I feel like saying is that he is the most fascinating human being I’ve ever met.

‘Yeah. I thought you were going to try and push me over or something.’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘Yes please.’

He pushes me over and we fall onto the bunk and laugh. We start undressing. I take Lishny’s t-shirt off and he lifts my shirt.

Lily barges in without knocking.

‘You know you’re not allowed in here,’ she says.

‘Sorry,’ I say.

I feel bad that we have made her blush. I stand up.

‘Sorry. We were just playing.’

‘You two are just like little children,’ she says.

Lishny nods solemnly.

‘That’s exactly what we are,’ I say.

‘That’s the whole point,’ says Lishny. ‘We are just children.’

‘Anyway,’ she says, confused, ‘it’s time for bed and lights out.’

Gertie comes to my dorm after breakfast and asks me if I will come with her to visit a girl in hospital.

‘She has anorexia. She was staying here until last week. She’ll die if she doesn’t eat soon.’

I wonder if this is part of a secret test; part of my rehabilitation.

‘Of course,’ I say. I wonder about Miranda, one of my roommates, who is also anorexic.

‘What about Miranda? Will she go into hospital if she doesn’t eat soon?’

‘Maybe. But this girl is much worse.’

Gertie and I get a taxi all the way to the other side of the city but because she has written down the wrong visiting hours, we are three hours early and have time to kill. I wonder if this is also part of a secret test.

‘Is there anywhere you’d like to go?’ she asks.

I’d like to go to a pub or a café where I could drink strong coffee and smoke.

‘The museum,’ I say.

We spend the afternoon at an exhibition of Mexican art from the Day of the Dead. There are giant papier-mâché coffins and miniature skeletons frolicking in the afterlife: skeletons engaged in everyday things, like reading in bed, eating a packed lunch and walking the dog. And there’s a girl skeleton on a bicycle, wearing a small red top with sleeves too short, and long black plaits tied with velvet ribbon.

‘This is great,’ I say, and Gertie squeezes my arm.

We go to the hospital and into the ward where the anorexic girl is. She has a tube with cream-coloured fluid feeding into her arm. We sit at her bedside and although neither of us says a word, we are stunned to see that the Anorexic is wearing a red top with sleeves too short and that her long dark hair is in two plaits, tied with red ribbon.

Gertie clutches my hand and speaks in a soft voice about the weather (last night there was a blizzard) and then offers to read quietly from a book.

‘If you want,’ says the Anorexic. ‘I don’t really care.’

Gertie reads in a whisper, as though the Anorexic has grown large ears and loud voices would hurt her.

‘That’s really boring,’ says the Anorexic. ‘Don’t read any more.’ I ask her what it feels like to be ravenously hungry all the time.

‘I’m not hungry,’ she says, and closes her eyes.

Even though Gertie tries to talk to her, the Anorexic refuses to open her eyes again, and so we leave.

In the taxi Gertie starts to cry. I don’t know what to do.

‘Do you think she’s going to die?’ I ask.

Gertie sighs. ‘I don’t know. If she wants to, I suppose.’

‘Where are her parents?’

‘They flew out from Germany last week, but they’ve hardly left their hotel room. Strange family.’

‘All families are strange,’ I say. ‘They all have people in them. People who probably wouldn’t talk to each other if they met at a party.’

Gertie laughs.

‘Can we get out of the taxi a few blocks away from the hostel and walk in the snow?’ I ask. ‘I want to buy a card to send to my mum and dad.’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Have you seen snow before?’

‘Only in a snow dome.’

‘It will be a great joy to show you the snow then,’ she says and I realise I don’t think she’s senile and old, like I did at first. Or maybe I just hope she’ll take me into a café and let me smoke a cigarette.

I spend the next morning in the common-room hanging out with the others. Lishny has been taken away by the police for an interview. I ring Tom and we have a long and boring conversation. He sounds like he’s reading from a script, playing the part of the boyfriend. ‘I miss you,’ he says. What does that feel like? I wonder. When I tell him I have to get off the phone, I sense his relief. Perhaps we are not so different.

I write another letter to Henry and Margaret and I give each of them a list of the twenty things I like most about them. As I write these lists, a strange thing happens. I begin to feel nostalgic – it’s like a wave of nausea and sadness, a heat in my stomach and a stinging in my eyes. And I think that while I was with them, I was truly happy. I tell them that my time with them is the only time in my life I’ve ever been happy and that they are my true kin. ‘I love my own mum and dad,’ I write, ‘but they aren’t my true kin. I can talk to you in ways I could never talk to them.’

This, of course, is rubbish. In theory it should be true. In theory I should be able to talk to Henry and Margaret in ways
I would never be able to talk to my parents, about all manner of things, but this never did happen. It was meant to, but it didn’t. I was no more at home with them than I am with my real family. The only real difference is that here I have a chance of becoming somebody else, of transforming myself. At home, they know me too well and I can only be my old self.

So, I tell Margaret and Henry that my sisters are heroin addicts and that my mum and dad don’t know this. If they did – I write – it would kill them. The truth is this: I don’t want to go back to that stinking council flat where every dollar spent gives rise to panic, and I don’t want to reverse my original decision never to go home again.

I decide to spend a few hours getting to know the other inmates. There are five girls including me. Other than Miranda, I share with Rachel and Veronique. Rachel was sent here because she drove her host-father’s car into a wall. She has the bunk above mine. She tells me she has persistent nightmares about bricks being in her bed and is haunted by the sensation of tiny shards of brick in her ears.

Veronique smothered her host-family’s dog, allegedly because she believed that her host-parents weren’t paying her enough attention. She says it was an accident.

The fifth girl, Kris, has a dorm to herself. I don’t know why she is here. She never comes downstairs to the common-room.

The six boys are here for drinking, drug-taking, drug-selling, stealing, attempting or conspiring to escape from their host-families in order to avoid returning home, and for driving cars under the influence.