It is personal.
I grab the phone out of her clawlike hand and throw it onto the stone floor, then I smash the face of it with the heel of my red shoe. Quite an audience gathers around us, including the director, who has summoned security.
“I guess you won’t be filing a story about me tonight after all.”
As she is led towards the exit, she turns to look over her shoulder, still smiling. “Oh, I already filed a piece about you tonight. I had a tip-off to visit your home address this afternoon, and I got it all. It will go live in an hour or so. I’d say it’s the showbiz scoop of the month, but I might be biased. Either way, it’s a killer of a story.”
She disappears into the crowd of faces all staring in my direction.
Forty-five
Essex, 1988
I do not like people staring at me.
Maggie and John have hired someone to help today. She is called Susan. Susan keeps staring at me and I wish that she wouldn’t.
Today is something called the Grand National. John says it is the busiest day of the year. He keeps saying that, as though he is worried I might forget. He doesn’t need to worry, my memory works just fine, and the only time I forget things is when I do it on purpose. Even then, I don’t really forget. I can remember my old name, the one I’m not allowed to use. Sometimes I still say it inside my head when I’m in bed at night. Sometimes it feels like something I maybe ought to remember.
Ciara. Ciara. Ciara.
I don’t like the idea of people forgetting me, it scares me a little bit. Sometimes it scares me a lot. As though if I am forgotten, then maybe I didn’t exist in the first place. John said the little girl who used to live here disappeared. I don’t ever want to disappear. I want people to remember who I am, even if the me they remember isn’t the real me. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, but I’m sure if I think about it long enough, then I will. Maggie says that I am smart, and she says that I can be whoever I want to be when I grow up, and I like the sound of that.
John says that this is the busiest day of the year for the hundredth time, then tells me to be kind to Susan. They hired her to help answer the phones, I don’t know why, I could have done it but Maggie says I sound too young. I’m going to start practicing sounding older, as well as sounding English, so we don’t have to hire strange people to help out again.
I do not like Susan.
I think it’s better when it is just the three of us.
Susan brought in a tin of Quality Street for us all to share, pretending to be kind, but she’d already taken out all the toffee pennies, which are the best ones. So she clearly can’t be trusted. Maggie says that Susan is an old friend, so to be nice to her, but I don’t know about that. She is definitely old. She has gray hair and lots of little lines around her eyes, and her teeth are yellow. I think it might have been all the toffee pennies she ate that did that. She’s short and round, a bit like a toffee penny. I’m going to keep an eye on Susan, maybe both eyes, I think she’s sneaky.
Today is so busy that I am helping too. We have to go to the bank three times instead of once today, I’m not sure why. John says it’s important for the safe not to be too full. I think maybe he is worried he won’t be able to close it if too much money is in there. We drive to the bank nowadays, even though it isn’t far. The third time we go, I ask if we can get a McDonald’s, but John says no. He gives the woman the bundles of cash out of the HEAD bag and gets cross when she takes too long to give him the bags of change he asked for. I’m cross too, because I’m hungry, and because he isn’t being nice. Nobody is being nice to me today. It’s just a bunch of horses jumping over fences and I don’t understand it, I’d rather read a book.
John kicks the car outside the bank because it has a flat tire, but I’m not sure kicking it will help. We walk super fast all the way back to the shop, with no talking allowed. John tells me to lock the gates, then he makes sure the back door is locked twice, before disappearing behind the stripy curtain to serve all the customers that are waiting. It’s very noisy today, even more than normal, and I can see them pushing each other to get to the till. The smoke from their cigarettes has turned into an indoor cloud, and it stings my eyes.
I turn back towards my little room and see Susan sitting by the phones, eating. She’s always eating. I’d forgotten she was here and I give her my best evil stare, because I don’t care whether she knows I don’t like her.
She stops chewing her lunch and smiles. “Would you like some of my sandwich?”
I am hungry, but I don’t know whether I do.
“What’s in it?”
“Just Flora and corned beef.”
I do like corned beef, so I say yes. Her sandwich is cut into triangles, she gives me one from her plate, and I dislike her a little less than I did before.
“I know today isn’t much fun for a little girl like you. You should be outside playing in the fresh air.”
I ignore her and go sit in the little back room, then I watch TV without watching it. Susan appears in the doorway, and I wish one of the phones would ring so that she would just go away. They haven’t rung for ages, which is strange.
“I don’t think you locked the gate properly,” she says, looking out the window.
“Yes, I did,” I say with my mouth full.
“No, I don’t think so, and I think your dad is going to be real mad when he finds out.”
I’m sure I locked it.
“Do you want me to go check? It can be our little secret?” I notice a little bit of corned beef stuck between her yellow teeth.
“We’re not allowed to open the back door,” I say, remembering the bad man with the knife.
“It will only take me a minute. Otherwise, when they find out you didn’t lock it, you’ll get in such big trouble. I’m only thinking of you.”
I don’t want to get in trouble. “Okay.”
I watch as she takes the keys, unlocks the back door, then walks down to the gate. I can’t see what she is doing, but when she comes back, she says that I had locked it properly after all. I knew I had. I do not like Susan.
She starts to lock the door. I see her put the key in the hole, but then she stops. “Do you like Dairy Milk chocolate?”
“Only if it doesn’t have nuts or raisins in it.”
She smiles, and I stare at the corned beef in her teeth again. Maggie says that it is wrong to stare at people’s imperfections, but I can’t stop my eyeballs from looking at what they want.
“See, I brought a big bar of Dairy Milk with me today, one of those giant ones, but then I realized I couldn’t possibly eat it all by myself. Do you think you could help me?”
I love Dairy Milk. I like putting the little squares on my tongue and sucking on them until all the chocolate melts away inside my mouth. I nod, hoping she won’t change her mind because I’ve been so unfriendly all day long.
“Thank you, you are a good girl. It’s no wonder your mum loves you so much. The bar is in my bag. Why don’t you go on through and open it for me, while I make sure this door is properly locked.”
I walk into the phone room and find the chocolate straightaway. I open it, careful not to tear the purple paper or foil, then snap off a little bit and pop it in my mouth. I think about what Susan just said, about Maggie loving me, and I realize that I love her, too, and that makes me feel happy.