To Be Someone (10 page)

She lived a few blocks away from me, and as I turned the corner onto her tree-lined road, I noticed a large yard sale on the other side of the street. I still couldn’t resist yard sales—they were the closest thing Freehold had to a good old church hall jumble sale—and went over to have a poke around. The house itself was shabby and unkempt, by far the least affluent-looking on the block. Most of the stuff was laid out on the front porch, and surprisingly, the pickings were very rich: cool books, records, some decent-looking granddad shirts, posters. Usually I had to sort through a multitude of used Tupperware and broken kitchen utensils to find anything worth taking home.

A sullen girl of about eighteen sat on the stoop, presumably in charge. I couldn’t help noticing what massive feet she had, encased in cheap plastic sandals. She was talking to an older man, who was, I presumed, either a neighbor or another customer.

“Yeah, Scott run away and joined the Marines without tellin’ no one. Mama’s so mad at him she’s sellin’ all his gear. She says she don’t never wanna see him again.”

Wow, I thought, that’s harsh. Selling all his things! Poor Scott. Nevertheless, I picked up a battered copy of
Catcher in the Rye
and a stripy shirt.

“How much are these?” I asked.

“Book’s five cents, shirt’s a quarter,” she replied, chewing the ends of her hair. I fumbled in my pocket for the change, paid her, and turned to walk away with my purchases under my arm. Just then the screen door slammed and someone came out onto the porch. I heard a screechy Southern voice.

“Janeane, I’m gettin’ rid of this, too. It’ll only clutter up the place. Don’t see no point in keepin’ it.”

The daughter sounded shocked. “Mama, you’re surely not sellin’ Scotty’s guitar?”

I wheeled around and stared. Sure enough, the sour-faced owner of the voice had propped a hard black guitar traveling case against the side of the porch. My heart sang.

“Thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you,” I whispered under my breath. I approached the woman, who glared at me. “Er, how much do you want for the guitar? ”

“Fifteen bucks,” she snapped. Her eyes were small and mean. I was starting to understand why Scott had left home.

Janeane looked even more horrified. “Fifteen bucks? Mama, let me take it downtown to Merchants. They buy used guitars—it’s worth more than that!”

“No, Janeane, I jus’ want it out my sight. I doan care about the money.”

“I’ll take it!” I interrupted. “Please could you hold it for me while I go over to my friend’s house and borrow some money? I’ll be right back. Mary Ellen Randall, your neighbor, that’s my friend, she lives across the street.”

The woman nodded, tight lipped, at me, and I felt her eyes boring into my back as I hurried across the road to Mary Ellen’s house.

I rang her doorbell and pounded on the door so hard that Mary Ellen stuck her head out of the window.

“Helena—what’s the matter? ”

“Oh, oh, Mary Ellen, please come quick, there’s this guitar but I don’t have enough money. I wonder, I mean, please could you …?”

“I’ll be right down,” she said.

A moment later her blond head loomed behind the frosted glass of the front door, and she opened it, beckoning me inside. I dumped the book and shirt on the Randalls’ hall table as Mary Ellen looked on, mystified.

“Okay, what guitar? Where?”

I took a deep breath. “It’s across the road, at a yard sale. It’s only fifteen dollars but I only have five on me. Do you think you could possibly lend me the other ten until tomorrow? It’s just that I’ve been praying all week for a guitar, and now here it is—I’m sure it’s meant to be!”

Mary Ellen nodded sagely. “Sounds like it is. Hold on, I’ll get my purse.” I could have hugged her.

We walked back across the street. Mary Ellen shuddered slightly when she saw which house.

“That’s the Applebaums’ place. They moved up from Tennessee a while back. They’re a little … unusual.”

I had the feeling that if she were not so Christian she would have elaborated, and normally I would have asked her to, but at that moment I couldn’t have cared less if they’d all had two heads. We approached the porch. The guitar case was still there.

“What kind of condition is it in?” Mary Ellen inquired.

“Er—actually, I haven’t looked at it yet,” I admitted, feeling a bit foolish.

“Well, you’d better, before you give them any money,” she hissed in my ear. Mrs. Applebaum was standing belligerently in front of the door, her hands on her hips.

“Mrs. Applebaum, hi, it’s me again, about the guitar—could I have a look at it please?” I asked. She nodded once, and I walked over to the case. Laying it flat on the grass, I popped the stiff metal catches open and pulled the lid up.

“It’s
huge
,” said Mary Ellen, in awed tones. “Why does it only have four strings? ”

Damn! I thought. It’s a bass. Now what? This was an unexpected turn of events. I stared at it. It was in fairly good condition; black, with a lovely pearl-effect white scratch plate. I plucked each of the heavy strings with a forefinger, and they all made unpleasant and unmelodic muffled, twanging sounds. How on earth did you get it to play? I wondered. Suddenly I felt terribly disappointed, and nearly closed the case and walked away. But then I thought about my prayers, and how much more than coincidence it had felt when Mrs. Applebaum brought the guitar outside at the precise moment I was there. No, I had prayed for a guitar, and God had sent me a guitar. Everything else I would figure out.

“I’ll take it,” I said, standing up. Mary Ellen and I pooled our resources, and I paid Janeane. Mrs. Applebaum had vanished into the house, but she reappeared at that point lugging a small black box-thing trailing cables.

“Here,” she said, thrusting at me. “I sure don’t know what this is, but it goes with the guitar. Take the darn thing.”

A practice amp! I offered up another silent prayer. I would not have had the first idea how to go about buying one of those. I collected the stray wires together in a coil and looped them over my forearm.

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Applebaum,” I said sincerely, toying with the idea of adding that I hoped Scotty came back soon, but wisely thinking better of it.

“Bye, Mrs. Applebaum,” added Mary Ellen, closing the guitar case for me and picking it up. We proceeded back across the road with my strange electrical acquisitions, the start of my future as a bassist.

MY MESSED-UP HEAD

T
OBY’S VISITS TO MY ROOM DRAMATICALLY DECREASED IN LENGTH
and frequency as Kate began to recover. He did still pop in occasionally, but nothing was said about our kiss, and he avoided the subject of Kate’s progress, or any reference to the future. I felt glad in one way and gutted in another.

It would be no good at all for me to go forging complicated relationships with married men at this point in my life, not when I was planning such a huge … thing. All my energies had to go into the Plan, and some days I even enjoyed it. I had a secret that no one else knew about.

But on other days I was really sad that I couldn’t share it with Toby, and that I could never be part of his future.

One morning, before visiting time, I got dressed. I left my room quite often for little walks, but this was the first time I’d worn proper clothes instead of just pajamas and a dressing gown. It felt like a big deal.

Mum had brought me in a couple of outfits the day before, since I obviously couldn’t wear the dress I’d had on at the UKMAs. I didn’t know what had happened to that dress—incinerated, I hoped. I shuddered at the thought of the beautiful orange velvet all sticky and matted with blood.

My freshly laundered jeans felt cool and stiff on my still-shaky legs, and I could button them with far more ease than before. Newly ironed jeans usually required a lying-down hip-raiser to make ends meet—wow, if I kept going at this rate, I’d be able to die skinny! Just what I’d always wanted …

I put on a big cardigan and a baseball cap and walked slowly out into the corridor. Catriona was writing up some notes at the nurses’ station down at the end of the hall.

“Where’s Kate Middleton’s room?” I asked.

Catriona looked up, surprised.

“You’re up and out early, Helena. Dressed, too—good for you. It’s a bit early for visiting, though. Kate’s still in quite a bad way. She gets tired very easily.”

“I don’t want to visit her,” I said, a bit too sharply. “I mean, not now. I just thought I’d find out where she is in case I decide to go later. While I’m out for a walk. You won’t tell her that I might visit, will you? ”

Catriona looked at me as if I had a screw loose.

“Turn right, through the double doors, Room 17. She’s still in Intensive Care, but we’ll be moving her downstairs to a non-ICU room tomorrow, all being well.”

I thanked her and shuffled off. I still had this weird floaty feeling whenever I walked anywhere, so I hung on to the wall to prevent myself from weaving about like a drunkard.

The blinds were down in Room 17, to my annoyance. I just wanted a peek at Kate, to see what she looked like. It was a totally unfair thing to do, since I would have so loathed anyone trying that with me, but my curiosity was overpowering. I was sure I’d dislike her—talented, arty, loads of friends, gorgeous husband and daughter. Beautiful, too: Toby had said that her scars wouldn’t show, the lucky bitch.

Really, Helena, I thought. You’re often not a very nice person, are you?

I loitered casually around in the corridor for a bit, then gave up, intending to go back to my own room to carry on with my writing. I reckoned I was about a quarter of the way through the manuscript. Which meant D day minus three-quarters.

One corridor further down, I heard Nurse Grace’s voice floating through an open door:

“Oh, Ruby love, I haven’t got any sweeties! Bad for your teeth, anyway, makes them all mossy and soft. Yuck! How about making a nice house out of some of these LEGOs?”

I couldn’t resist walking along and peeking into the room. “Hi, Grace. Hi, Ruby,”

Grace looked up, relief at seeing me potato-printed all over her face. She was half-sitting, half-lying on the purple carpet-tiled floor of some kind of visitors’ room, with Ruby straddling her, both of them looking squashed in between too many armchairs and coffee tables. They were surrounded by a plastic picnic of bits of LEGO, unfeasibly simplistic dump trucks and locomotives, and a scattering of chunky animal playing cards.

Ruby was in the process of frisking Grace, briskly and efficiently, keeping up a low, growling chant of “ ‘Weeties, ‘weeties, ‘weeties.” When she spotted me, she released Grace and ran up to me, smiling winsomely.

“You got ‘weeties, Ellna!” she announced hopefully.

I laughed. “My disguise obviously isn’t as foolproof as I’d thought,” I said to Grace, crouching down so I was at eye level with Ruby. “You’re a sucker for punishment, Ruby,” I told her. “Don’t you remember what happened last time I gave you a sweet? ”

Ruby considered. “Oh, yeth,” she said, cowed. “I done coughing.”

She backed away momentarily, worried perhaps that I might jam a gobstopper down her esophagus. Then she brightened again. “How ‘bout play Animal Nap, yeah? ”

She took my hand and dragged me to the pile of toys on the floor.

“Animal Snap,” explained Grace helpfully. “Oh, Helena, you wouldn’t do me a huge favor and play with her for a bit, would you? I won’t be far away, just outside in the store cupboard. I’m supposed to be doing a stock-take, but I wanted to give Kate and Toby a bit of time on their own.”

I began to sweat at the thought that Toby might have caught me hanging around outside Kate’s room.

“He’s in there now, is he?” I asked, as casually as I could manage.

Grace stood up, brushing a little piece of red LEGO off the knee of her tights and smoothing down her uniform. “Well, he was on his way to her room. He said he had something to do first.”

My heart leapt. Perhaps he’d been planning to sneak in to see me first; damn, damn, I wasn’t there, my own fault for—

Just then Ruby piped up. “Daddy went to do poo. In
toilet,”
she explained carefully. “Then he go thee my mummy.”

I was deflated. So much for the romantic notions. But if I hung out with Ruby for a while, then at least I’d probably get to see Toby when he returned, post-dump and post-visit.

“Will you show me how to play Animal Snap, Ruby?” I asked.

“I get cardth,” she said enthusiastically.

Grace laughed again. “Thanks, Helena. I’m just next door if you need me. I warn you, though. This may not be the tension-filled, fast-moving game you remember from your childhood, okay? ”

She swished out, waving gratefully at me as she went.

“Right,” said Ruby bossily. “Eye down.”

It took me a few seconds to realize that she wasn’t referring to my injured face, but was ordering me to join her where she lay on her tummy on the floor. I thought about the logistics of this—it was a small room, and I’d have had to lie with my legs wedged underneath an armchair, thus risking looking a total prat when Toby came back.

“Tell you what, Ruby. You lie there and I’ll sit next to you. Here, shall I deal?”

I sat cross-legged on the dusty carpet, split the pack of animal cards approximately in half, and gave Ruby one of the piles.

“I go firtht.” Very slowly, she selected two cards and put them facedown on the carpet. “Your turn,” she said.

Discreetly I turned one of Ruby’s cards over—a giraffe—before adding a zebra of my own.

Ruby put down a horse, faceup this time. “Horthey.”

I turned over a tiger. “Tiger.”

The game continued with a tortuous lack of speed, until I placed a pig on the pile, to which Ruby added an identical pig. There was a long pause.

I pointed meaningfully at the twin pigs. “Two pigs, Ruby.”

Ruby gazed blankly at them.

I tried again. “Look, Ruby, what do you say when you’ve got two cards the same? ”

Another blank look. Then, “Pigth?” she suggested.

“No. How about ‘Sn …,’ ” I began, waiting for her to catch on.

Nothing.

“Snaaaa …?”

Light finally dawned.

“NAAAAP!” she yelled, as if coming out of delayed shock, and grabbed all the cards. “New game now. Deal prop’ly, Ellna.”

I shuffled the pack and did as I was told. Ruby wiggled around on her stomach until she was lying next to me.

“Deal cardth on my botham,” she commanded, sticking her backside in the air and looking back at me over her shoulder, in a very sex-kittenish fashion.

I giggled. “On your bottom? ”

“Yeth, on my botham.”

Feeling perhaps that this was not entirely appropriate behavior, from either of us, but not wanting to risk her wrath, I obliged, dealing Ruby’s hand onto the seat of her stripy velour leggings.

Ruby roared with appreciative laughter and rolled around, scattering the cards around her. “More!” she shouted, and I began to laugh, too, flipping the cards one by one on the moving target of her little butt. I felt an unfamiliar stiffness in my chest, and worried for a second that I’d strained something, until I realized that it was just the exertion of laughing out loud after such a long time.

Ruby, encouraged by my response, was becoming more and more overexcited, squirming like an eel in a fishing net, and squealing with joy. I was just beginning to wonder how to go about calming her down a bit, when she flipped over onto her back, spread her legs wide, grabbed her crotch, and yelled, “DEAL THEM ON MY DINKY!”

Of course that had to be the moment that Toby appeared in the doorway. Ruby looked up at him.

“Nice poo, Daddy?”

For a second he and I gazed at each other, and then at Ruby, spread-eagled on the floor surrounded by animal playing cards.

Toby’s face was inscrutable. “Yes, thanks, Rubes.”

She beamed up at him. “Oh, good
boy
, Daddy!”

That was it. I exploded, belly-laughing until I was worried I’d pop open my skin grafts. To my relief, Toby joined in, and the three of us were united in a magic circle of cartoon zebras and lions and warm, briefly uncomplicated pleasure. Ruby ran over to Toby and he scooped her up into an enormous hug, which somehow seemed to include me, too.

“Grandma’s here, darling,” he said to her. “She’s with Mummy. Let’s go and see them.”

I began to collect the scattered cards, my spirits already beginning to plummet again.

“Stay there, Helena, would you? I’ll just drop Ruby off and nip back, okay?”

“Bye, Ellna, nithe to meet you,” said Ruby solemnly, puckering her lips into a fish’s mouth and pressing the tenderest little kiss onto my scarred cheek.

Those Middletons and their casual kisses, I thought, trying not to seem too absurdly pleased.

Once they were gone I spent a few minutes slowly tidying up all the toys, and then sat down and flipped through the very poor selection of tatty women’s magazines. I was just gazing at a recipe for a radioactive-looking zabaglione and wondering if Toby was actually going to come back at all this time, when I glanced up to find him framed in the doorway, looking at me. I jumped, in my skin and in my heart.

“Didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry. I did knock.”

I pointed at my ear, as if there might be a small
OUT OF ORDER
sign swinging off it like a novelty earring. “Not loudly enough, obviously.” I worried that he’d think I was annoyed, so I continued, “But it doesn’t matter. It’s good to see you. How’s Kate?”

Toby came in and sat next to me, dragging his chair closer so our arms were almost touching. “She’s okay. How are you?”

“Okay. You?”

We laughed at the small talk.

“I’ve missed you,” I said without thinking.

“I know what you mean,” he replied, tucking a strand of my hair back underneath my cap. “I’m so sorry, Helena, the way that I’ve been so … standoffish with you. I want to see you so badly, but when I do, I feel so guilty about Kate. And of course, I can’t let Ruby see the way I feel about you … she picks up on everything.”

He was looking so tenderly into my face that I didn’t even mind when he gently traced the scars on my cheek and eyebrow with his finger.

“Augenbrau,” I whispered, thinking of Sam, and how much she would have liked Toby.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said hastily, feeling silly. “God, Toby, what are we doing here? I don’t even know if there’s something between us, or nothing at all. You say you feel guilty about Kate. Were things bad between you before? ”

Toby leaned his head back in his chair in a gesture of desperation. “You have no idea what a complete and utter lowlife I feel when I think about Kate, but I can’t change the fact that I fell in love with you the first time we met. It makes me sick to think that I didn’t do something about it then, or in the months or even years since then, but you were away on the road, and by the time you came back to the U.K., I’d met Kate. I was afraid to organize another interview or a backstage pass to see you because I knew it would compromise my relationship with her. As it’s doing now.

“I do love Kate; she’s my wife and the mother of my child. But you …” He looked at me with such passion in his eyes that I almost forgave him for having a wife.

“I want to feel every bit of you next to me,” he whispered. “Please.”

“Except my nose, if you don’t mind,” I said, grinning.

I stood up and straddled him in his chair, pressing myself against him until as much of our bodies as possible were connected. My stomach felt his stomach, my breasts touched his chest, my arms wrapped themselves around his back. Our lips met, and then our tongues, and finally, with a shiver of electricity we both felt, there was a clash of hard and soft at the heart of us.

That kiss went on even longer than the elevator kiss. It was the strangest and yet the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me—in a hospital, surrounded by death and pain, me and a married man nearly ripping each other’s clothes off. It was utterly surreal. But after crying together and laughing together, it seemed natural that Toby and I were practically making love right there in that chair, surrounded by watchful furniture and out-of-date women’s magazines. Perhaps it was the air of heightened emotion that existed in hospitals, the sense that nothing was as it should be, not perspective nor time nor even conscience.

I had no idea how much time elapsed. Just as I thought I was going to explode with lust, there was a sharp accusatory knock at the door. I leapt off Toby as quickly as I could and rolled back into my own chair, puce in the face and aching with passion and exertion. Toby adjusted his trousers and sat up straight, running a hand swiftly through his curly hair as if that would erase all the obvious signs of infidelity.