“Aimee.” I turn back. I can see from his face that I’ve got that wrong, too, of course he’s read it, he reads bloody everything. But I’m surprised to see that he’s wearing his kind face, not the disappointed-father one I expected. “If you only remember one thing that I tell you while I’m your agent, then I hope it’s this. You should always fight, especially when you think you are going to lose. That’s when you should fight the hardest.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, and leave before he can see me cry.
Thirty-three
Essex, 1988
Today is my birthday.
Not my real one in September, Maggie said I had to forget about that. Today is my new birthday, the one in April, and she says that I am seven years old. Even though I am only really six.
I don’t mind that I have a different name and birthday now, I’m starting to like it here. Maggie buys me little presents all the time, and even John got me something today. Maggie got all upset when he gave it to me, and he looked at the floor and played with his new beard, the way he always does when she gets cross. Then he said something that I can’t get out of my head, as if his words got stuck between my ears or something. “A child needs company.” I understood what he meant, but I think he’s wrong about that. I like being on my own.
I was still happy that he bought me a hamster though. I’ve named him Cheeks.
Cheeks doesn’t do much. He lives in a cage and sleeps a lot. Sometimes he likes to go for a run on his wheel. He runs and runs and runs, but he never gets anywhere. I wonder if he minds. Maggie does not like the hamster; she refuses to call him Cheeks and calls him Vermin instead, which does not sound like a nice name to me.
Maggie got me something called a Walkman, so that I can listen to my Story Teller tapes and elocution lessons without her and John having to listen too. I’m getting pretty good at sounding English so that I can go to school in September, and my Walkman is very cool. I’ve worn the headphones all day long, even when I wasn’t listening.
John got Maggie a present today, too, even though it is my pretend birthday, not hers. It was wrapped in the same She-Ra paper as my presents, and I felt a little bit funny about not being allowed to open it. She-Ra is a princess of power and my new favorite thing. She lives in a castle, flies around on a horse, and stops bad people from doing bad things. I would like to be like She-Ra when I grow up.
John said that Maggie deserved a present, too, because today is a special day for her as well. He said it is the day she brought a life into the world. He looked at me when he said that, but it wasn’t me he was talking about. I might only be six or seven, but I’m not stupid. Maggie didn’t look at me when he said it, she looked at the picture of the little girl inside a frame on the mantelpiece. She cried a little bit, but pretended it was her hay fever that made her do it, then she wiped the lie away with a tissue. I suppose it was just a white one.
When Maggie unwrapped her present, I didn’t know what it was. It’s called a Deep Fat Fryer. I don’t know why I think that’s a funny name, but every time John calls it that, I giggle. Maggie asked if he got it off the back of a lorry, and that seems like a strange place to buy presents to me. John ignored her and said that the Deep Fat Fryer would change our lives. I didn’t believe him at first, but he was right. We always ate everything on toast before, but now we eat everything with chips instead. It’s wonderful! Maggie has only had the Deep Fat Fryer for one day, but already we’ve had eggs and chips for lunch and burgers and chips for dinner!
It works like magic. Maggie peels potatoes, chops them into chip shapes, then throws them into the machine. When it beeps, it means that the potatoes have magically turned into chips! I’m not allowed to touch the Deep Fat Fryer. It has oil inside that gets very hot, so hot that Maggie burned her finger badly the first time she used it. John offered to kiss it better, but she pushed him away. It made me think that maybe sometimes kissing something better is really kissing something worse.
We’re having a special dessert tonight for my birthday, and Maggie says it is a surprise. I hope it is one of her nice ones. She makes me sit in the front room on the sofa beside the electric fire. The lights go out, but it’s because John has turned them off, not because the meter needs feeding. Maggie comes into the room carrying a cake with candles on it, then puts it down on the coffee table where we only drink tea. I’ve never had a birthday cake before. She tells me to make a wish and blow out all the candles, so I do, and John takes a picture of me on his Polaroid camera. There were seven candles, but I know I’m only six, so I don’t know whether my wish will still come true.
After we have all eaten two slices of chocolate cake, John stands up and walks over to the mantelpiece. He takes the picture of the other little girl; she is blowing out candles on a birthday cake too, but I only count six. He opens the frame and starts to put her photo in his pocket, but Maggie says no, so he puts it back and slides the new photo of me over the top. It’s strange seeing a photo of myself in the frame. The other little girl is tucked just behind me, I can’t see her anymore, but I know that she’s still there.
Thirty-four
London, 2017
I sit on the Central Line, trying but failing to read the book I bought earlier. It’s an old story, but it’s putting new thoughts in my head that I don’t currently have room for. Books can be mirrors, too, offering a reflection of our worst selves for appraisal; lessons tucked between pages, just waiting to be learned. I put the book back in my bag and drink in the faces of my fellow travelers instead, wondering who the people wearing them really are.
Ben and I used to play a game on the tube. We would pick a couple of people talking in the distance, and we’d take it in turns to speak when they spoke, making up silly voices and amusing dialogues that didn’t fit the faces we saw, finding ourselves hilarious. We were fun back then. It was good. The memory makes me smile, but then I realize I am grinning at strangers and a past I can never get back. It’s rude of me to stare like this, but nobody says anything, people don’t even see me doing it. They’re all far too busy staring at their phones, partaking in the daily withdrawal from wonder and the world around them. We’ve all got so busy staring down at our screens that we’ve forgotten to look up at the stars.
I think it can be dangerous to spend too long watching the lives of others; you might run out of time to live your own. Technology is devolving the human race. Eating up our emotional intelligence, spitting out any remnants of privacy it can’t quite swallow. The world will keep on spinning and the stars will always shine, regardless of whether anyone is looking.
Sometimes I think that every person might be his or her own star, shining at the center of his or her own solar system. I observe the changing expressions of my fellow commuters and am certain I witness an occasional flare on their surfaces, as they contemplate their past or worry about their future. Each walking, talking, thinking, feeling human star has its own planets revolving around it: parents, children, friends, lovers. Sometimes stars get too big, too hot, too dangerous, and the planets closest to them burn to oblivion. As I sit and stare at the galaxy of faces, trying to get from one place to another, I understand that it doesn’t matter who we are or what we do; we’re all the same. We are all just stars trying to shine in the darkness.