The Thing About Clare Page 7

Knocking gently on the door first, she pushed her way in. Her mother was sitting in bed. She was propped up with pillows and was wearing her housecoat over a cotton nightdress. Telltale damp circles were blooming over her breasts. Miriam tried not to stare but she was fascinated by them.

  Her mother pushed hair that couldn’t have seen a brush for a while away from her eyes.

  ‘You’d think now that I’ve finished feeding him myself that my milk would have dried up but still it flows out of me like a river. Pass me that bottle, Miriam. Or would you like to feed your brother?’

  Miriam had revision that she really ought to be getting on with but she reached down into the carrycot and picked Sebastian up. He had grown a lot since he had first slipped into her waiting arms. His face had taken shape, filling out around his cheeks and chin, and he had more hair, blond and with the first twists of curls just starting to form. He smiled now too, a beautiful, engaging smile which was hard to ignore.

  ‘It’s not a real smile,’ her mother had said the first time he had smiled at her. ‘It’s just wind.’ But Miriam knew that it was real. She could tell.

  ‘How are you feeling today, Mum?’ she asked. ‘Do you think you’ll feel up to getting up tomorrow?’

  Her mother patted at her wayward hair, no hope of controlling it with such a feeble gesture.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s see what kind of a sleep we have. At least he seems to have sorted his days and nights out now,’ she added.

  ‘Well, don’t worry,’ said Miriam. ‘We’re all coping without you. Clare and I are sharing the cooking and Dad has even done some ironing.’

  Her mother reached out and patted the arm that was supporting Sebastian’s head.

  ‘You’re a good girl, Miriam,’ she said, and then let her arm fall back on to the eiderdown as if the mere effort of moving it that far had been exhausting.

  Sebastian had fixed his eyes on hers as he sucked rhythmically on the teat. They had been blue when he was born but were now a smudgy grey.

  ‘I think they’re going to be brown,’ said her mother. ‘Imagine that. Brown eyes and blond hair. He’s going to be a good-looker. He’ll be breaking some hearts, so he will.’

  ‘Mum . . .’ began Miriam. When her mother didn’t respond, she pressed on. ‘Do you remember the day before he was born?’

  ‘The street party,’ said her mother absently. ‘All that effort and then I didn’t even get to go. Was it a good do? I bet it was. I bet they were all talking about me, weren’t they? That stupid woman at number twenty-four who’s gone and got herself up the duff and hasn’t even noticed?’

  Miriam would have liked to pursue this line of enquiry further. How her mother could have had a baby without realising was equally fascinating and terrifying. Not that she had any cause for concern herself but she worried about what Clare was getting up to with the string of boys she seemed to be dangling along behind her. However, she avoided the distraction. She needed to get her mother to focus on the other, far more important matter.

  ‘Before then,’ she continued. ‘The night before the street party. When I told you all that I wanted to go to RADA.’

  Her mother’s forehead creased as she struggled to recall. Things that had happened before Sebastian seemed to have been locked in a part of her memory that she seemed to be having trouble accessing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a few moments, her head nodding slowly. ‘Vaguely. And your dad said that, well, he said a lot of things but the gist was that you weren’t going?’ She smiled, pleased that she had recovered the information from wherever it had been hiding. ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘I do remember that now.’

  ‘Well,’ said Miriam slowly, ‘they’ve written back. They want me to go for a chat. It’s not like an audition. It’s more an open day when you can go and see what it’s all about.’

  Balancing Sebastian in the crook of her left arm, she snaked her right hand round and retrieved the letter from her back pocket.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Read it.’

  ‘I don’t have my reading specs, Miriam,’ her mother said, even though Miriam could see them sitting just next to her on the bedside table.

  ‘Okay. Well, basically it says that they are interested in my application but because I don’t have any experience, they want to have a talk to me to tell me what it’s all about in case I change my mind when I know all the ins and outs. So . . .’ She paused as she lifted Sebastian up on to her shoulder and began to rub his back to make him burp. ‘Can I go?’

  Her mother was staring out of the window at the telegraph wires and the roofs of the smart semi-detached houses on the opposite side of the street. She didn’t speak and Miriam thought she had lost her attention. Then Sebastian let out an enormous, satisfying belch and the noise of it seemed to bring her back.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Miriam. ‘That’s better, isn’t it?’

  Miriam put Sebastian back in the carrycot, where he could provide no further distraction. He grizzled a little but then began making small contented gurgles.

  ‘Mum?’ she tried again. ‘What do you think? Could I go? I mean, it’s only a chat and nothing might come of it. It wouldn’t do any harm to just go and see. I mean, I might hate it when I get there and then we could forget about the whole thing. But if I don’t go, if I never know . . .’ Her voice drifted off.

  Her mother reached out her hand and rested it on Miriam’s lap. She held it there for a long time without speaking. Sebastian gurgled. Miriam waited.

  ‘Everything’s changed, Miriam,’ she said eventually. ‘Nothing will ever be the same as it was. Your dad and I have four children to bring up now. All our plans have been thrown out of kilter. All my plans . . .’ Miriam had no idea that her mother had had any plans and the idea seemed odd but she kept quiet. ‘We’re all going to have to work together now,’ her mother continued. ‘Having a baby in the house is hard work and everyone needs to pull their weight. I know you’ve all been working hard since he was born but that’s just the beginning. As he grows, he’s going to need more and more attention. I can’t do that all by myself, Miriam. I have the rest of you to look after and I’m not getting any younger. I thought that it was the change coming over me and I was ready for that. But this, a new baby? At my age? It’s not something I would ever have dreamed of. Now don’t be thinking I don’t want him. I love the bones of him now he’s here but I don’t know how I’ll cope. I really don’t.’ Tears began to run down her face. Her mother never cried and Miriam felt totally lost as she seemed to crumple in front of her.

  ‘Anna’s too young to be much help and Clare – well, you know what Clare’s like. I’m going to need you, Miriam.’

  ‘Well, I’ll help, Mum, all I can. You know I will. I mean, I’ve got my schoolwork and everything. It’s an important time, with my exams and that. But by the time I want to go to RADA he’ll be two and all this sleepless-nights and bottle-baby bit will be over and done with.’

  Her mother shook her head wearily. ‘This baby stage is the easy bit,’ she said. She reached out for a handkerchief, almost upsetting a glass of water. It wobbled but did not topple. ‘It’s after that. The toddler, the terrible twos, playgroup, all of it. I can’t face it all again, Miriam. So help me God but I really can’t.’ She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  ‘Don’t cry, Mum,’ Miriam said anxiously. ‘We’ll all help. And I’m not going anywhere for ages yet. You’ll be feeling better by then. I know you will.’

  Her mother was shaking her head, more tears streaming down her face.

  ‘You don’t understand, my precious girl. I need you near me. I can’t have you all the way down in London. You’ll go to college, of course you will. You must. But it’ll have to be one nearby so you can live at home.’

  The impact of what her mother was saying slowly washed over Miriam. Her life, her plans and her dreams were all to be sacrificed.

  ‘You can’t mean that, Mum,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m happy to help out and all that but you c
an’t keep me trapped here like a prisoner. None of this is my fault. I didn’t ask for Sebastian to be born. It’s not fair.’ She could hear her voice rising but she tried to keep it in control so that she didn’t wake Sebastian, who was now slumbering.

  ‘Well, I can’t see any other way through it.’ Her mother was no longer crying. ‘And your dad already said that you couldn’t go to drama school, didn’t he?’ There was a slightly triumphant tone to her words, as if she had suddenly thought of the killer point in an argument. ‘He said that before any of this happened, so he did. So truly, this RADA dream of yours was never going to come true even if there wasn’t a baby to consider.’ She seemed to relax as she realised that the responsibility for this decision no longer lay with her. ‘I think it’s best, Miriam, if you put the whole thing to the back of your mind and concentrate on getting good grades.’

  Miriam didn’t know how to deal with this. Her mother wasn’t thinking straight, she couldn’t be. She seemed to be suggesting that Miriam gave up her life to look after her brother but that wasn’t right, surely? Miriam must have got the wrong end of the stick. She crushed her lips between her teeth and stood up. It was important that she didn’t lose her cool. If she just left now, without a row, then no doubt her mum would forget the whole thing. She would try her dad again. She had to. This could not be happening to her.

  ‘You’re an angel, Miriam, so you are. I knew you’d understand,’ said her mother. And then, as if a weight had suddenly been lifted from her shoulders, she said, ‘You know, I might even try getting up for a while tomorrow if it’s a nice day. Perhaps we could push him out in the pram, take a turn around the park together?’

  Miriam couldn’t speak and continue to hold herself together, so she just nodded her head. She walked to the door and was just opening it when her mother called after her.

  ‘Could you be a lamb and just change his nappy for me?’

  CLARE – 1979

  I

  Clare moved the ice cube from the side of her nostril and peered at her nose in the mirror. Her skin had gone a blotchy crimson. Rudolf the bloody Red-Nosed Reindeer, she thought. That was all she needed. She had to look her absolute best tonight. Christmas Eve was pretty much the biggest night out of the year and she was going to turn heads if it killed her. Yup. They’d all be looking at her this year.

  She flicked at her nose with her fingernail. It felt numb – well, numb-ish. It would have to do. Without giving herself a second to change her mind, she picked up the safety pin and stabbed it through the side of her nose. There was a disconcerting pop as the point of the pin pierced her flesh.

  Shit, that hurt. Her eyes started to water at exactly the same moment as her nose began to bleed. Quickly, she fastened the safety pin into place and grabbed for a tissue. She didn’t care about the blood but she had to stop her eyeliner from smudging. She hadn’t spent an hour drawing the careful black lines around her eyes for them all to run down her face. At least her mascara was waterproof.

  There wasn’t as much blood as she’d expected and a few minutes later she had all her bodily fluids back under control. Clare inspected her face in the mirror. The safety pin looked fantastic. She’d known it would. It was actually one of Sebastian’s nappy pins and it had a white fastener which made it even more noticeable – not that anyone was likely to miss the massive pin hanging from her nose. Clare gave a little shiver of delight. People were going to be so shocked.

  She stepped back to take in her full ensemble and nodded with satisfaction at what she saw. She’d really wanted some tartan bondage trousers but hadn’t found anything even vaguely similar in the shops in town. She’d have to hitchhike down to London after Christmas, go to the King’s Road and get some. She’d found the tight black jeans at the market and, with a bit of strategic slitting and fraying across the thighs and the knees, they were nearly as good. Maybe she could nick a loo chain or two from school? She’d also cut the sleeves off her T-shirt and slashed it down the front, the raw edges curling up obligingly.

  Her new hair was going to take some getting used to, mind you. Until this afternoon, her hair had been a boring kind of fair – not quite blonde but not brunette either. There was no mistaking its colour now. Black. Pure ebony-black and shiny like crow’s feathers. She had stuck the fringe up with gel and backcombed it. The rest wasn’t quite right yet but she could get it cut after Christmas – or cut it herself. The new colour made her skin look far paler than it was, an effect exacerbated by the dark eyes and panstick foundation. Her lips were ruby-red. And so was her nose.

  Clare reached for her concealer and gingerly applied another layer on the area around the safety pin. God, it hurt, but it was all for the greater good. You had to suffer for your art, wasn’t that what they said? Well, this wasn’t art as such but she was the first punk at school, which made her a trailblazer with her finger on the pulse of the nation. That was definitely worth a bit of pain. She should be in London, really. That’s where the scene was, not stuck up here in this godforsaken backwater.

  She picked up her money and the front door key and rammed them into her back pocket. Then she took a deep breath and headed downstairs to face the music.

  The others were in the lounge. The telly was on, some sitcom or other, and the canned laughter rang though the house. Miriam’s teacher training college had broken up for the holidays and so she was back in her other role of Mother Mark II. Clare missed the old Miriam. They had been close, back in the days before Sebastian had arrived and changed everything. Since then Miriam had altered. She was so bloody boring these days. It was like all the fun had been sucked out of her.

  Clare thought about just letting herself out of the house without saying goodbye to them all but she couldn’t resist trying her new look out on the family. They’d go mental – it was going to be brilliant.

  As she approached the lounge door she could hear the conversation going on inside.

  ‘For the love of Mary, what is that child still doing up?’ said her mother. ‘He should have been away in bed hours back.’

  ‘But it’s Christmas Eve,’ Anna said. ‘You can’t make him go to bed early on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘He’s two years old. He has no idea what Christmas is yet,’ replied her father.

  ‘He does. You do, don’t you, Sebastian? You can’t wait to see Father Christmas and his reindeer, can you?’

  Sebastian said something but as usual only Anna could tell what it was. Clare didn’t actually believe that Anna could interpret half of what Sebastian ‘said’. She just made stuff up so that she could win arguments.

  ‘Would you put him to bed now, Miriam? There’s a good girl.’

  Clare heard Miriam sigh.

  ‘Come on, Sebastian,’ she said in a fake, sing-songy voice. ‘Let’s get you to bed, then.’

  There were some objecting noises from Sebastian and then Clare judged that this was her moment to make an entrance, before Miriam went upstairs.

  She swung open the door and took a couple of steps into the room. No one looked away from the television.

  ‘Care!’ said Sebastian, who still couldn’t even master her name properly. He pointed his podgy little finger at her and then Miriam, following his gaze, saw her. Her jaw dropped gratifyingly.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she mouthed as she took in Clare’s new look. Clare just grinned at her. This was exactly the impact she was after.

  ‘Mum!’ said Anna. ‘Look what Clare’s done to her hair!’

  Anna always was a little snitch but for once Clare didn’t mind.

  ‘And what is that in your nose?’ asked Miriam, her voice restored.

  Finally, her parents pulled their eyes from the screen and Clare relished the looks of pure horror that passed across their faces.

  ‘Oh dear Lord, bless us and save us,’ said her mother. ‘What have you done? Your beautiful hair. Oh, Clare, how could you?’

  ‘With a box of dye,’ said Clare. ‘You know, the way people normally change their hair colo
ur.’ She was enjoying this even more than she’d thought she would. And when her parents noticed . . .

  ‘And what the hell is that in your nose?’ bellowed her father.

  Here we go, thought Clare.

  ‘A safety pin,’ she replied, slightly less cocky to her father, who might actually have a go at stopping her from leaving the house.

  ‘It’s not,’ said Anna. ‘It’s a nappy pin. A nappy pin!’

  Clare threw her a murderous look.

  ‘Through your nose? You stuck a safety pin—’

  ‘Nappy pin,’ clarified Anna, with a grin.

  ‘Though your own nose, willingly?’ asked her father. ‘Of all the imbecilic things.’

  ‘Did you sterilise it?’ interrupted her mother. ‘You might get blood poisoning. She might get blood poisoning, Frank. Do you think we should take her to Casualty?’

  ‘On Christmas Eve? You have to be joking.’

  ‘And are those the lovely new jeans you bought?’ asked her mother, looking forlornly at what was left of them. ‘You’ve totally ruined them. Why did you do that, Clare? They were lovely, so they were.’

  Clare, now starting to feel slightly more flustered by their reactions than she had anticipated, decided that this was the time to make her exit.

  ‘Right,’ she said as she turned to leave the room. ‘I’ll be off. I’ll be back later.’

  ‘You stay right there, young lady,’ her father thundered. ‘If you think for one minute that I am going to allow you to go out looking like that then you have another think coming. You can go straight back upstairs, take that thing out of your nose and put some proper clothes on.’

  ‘No,’ replied Clare. There was an audible gasp from Miriam. ‘It’s Christmas Eve and I’m going out with my friends. You can’t stop me. I’m seventeen years old. I’m virtually an adult. I can do what I want.’

  ‘Not and live under my roof, you can’t. Either you go back upstairs and get changed or you can find somewhere else to live tomorrow.’

  ‘On Christmas Day?’ smirked Clare. She’d show them. There was no way they’d kick her out, but they definitely wouldn’t kick her out at Christmas. She had played a blinder and she knew it. ‘Right,’ she said, buoyed up by her killer point. ‘I’m off. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Merry Christmas.’