The Pools Read online

At the end of the song, he opens his eyes. He looks at every part of me, as if he’s never seen me before. It’s like that every time he looks at me. He examines me with his eyes, starting with the top of my head and ending with my feet. Taking in each hair, each bone, each vein, each blood vessel. I think about the diagrams we have to draw in biology. Close-ups of skin and blood, examined and dissected. Labels like corpuscle and epidermis. Shane looks at me and there’s this light in his eyes. It’s almost like a lamp that helps him see. Like the light the optician uses to go right into your eye. Look up, look down. And look into my light. But you can’t see them, because they’ve turned the ceiling light off and they’re so close to you in the dark, breathing on your nose, making it wet.

  ‘I like that song,’ I say.

  He continues his penetrating stare.

  I step forward. ‘You don’t mind if I come in.’

  He shrugs.

  I look up at the net curtain. ‘You’ve got this place looking – ’ I pause, let him watch me try to think of the right word. ‘Nice.’

  He shrugs.

  I lick my lips and shrug back. ‘Play me something else, then.’

  ‘Take your shoes off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You come in, you take off your shoes.’

  I begin to laugh, but Shane just stares.

  ‘What if I don’t want to?’ I say.

  ‘Take off your shoes.’

  ‘These are new shoes.’ I try to think of some other reason, something that will melt his stare. ‘From Dolcis. Don’t you like them?’

  ‘Off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My shed,’ he says. ‘My rules.’

  Leaning back in his armchair, he stares at my bare toes. I wiggle them a bit to unstick them.

  He presses play.

  We stay together in the shed for the rest of the afternoon. We don’t speak much. I sit on the rug and Shane plays his tapes. Sometimes he forward-winds through the ones he doesn’t like, but still I just sit there and listen to the spooling tape. Grandmaster Flash sings, don’t do it! Shane wiggles his toes in time to the music. It starts to rain outside, and as the wind gets up, small gusts of lilac-scent come in under the door.

  Then Shane’s mum brings the cake out. She knocks on the shed door once. Later I learn this is to signal she’s left it outside. Shane cuts into it with a flick knife he keeps in his back pocket. Each slice is even. He hands me a perfect triangle of cake, balanced on his blade. I bite into it. It’s light and sweet and full of smooth cream. After three slices, I begin to feel sick. But I eat more, because Shane keeps offering up slices on his shiny knife. Brushing the crumbs from his chest. Licking the cream from the corners of his mouth. Swallowing huge bites of buttery sponge. Looking at me.

  I spend all summer with Shane in his shed.

  From then on, my toenails are always perfect. Every Sunday night I remove the week’s colour and apply a new one. Hard Cherry. Frostbite Pink. Orange Daze. Each nail is totally covered, and absolutely even. Sometimes it takes me an hour, locked in the bathroom, Mum knocking at the door as I stroke the brush over, blow, and wait.

  I also buy a pink pencil skirt.

  Mum calls it a ‘hobble skirt’. So tight you can’t walk, only hobble.

  I buy it in the new Top Shop in Oxford. Mum pushes a twenty into my hand while we’re in C&A. ‘If you hate everything I pick, just get something yourself.’

  I run straight out of C&A and I’m in Top Shop before she can breathe out.

  The skirt’s cerise. The assistant tells me that means bright, shocking pink. ‘Cerise has been our biggest seller,’ she says, and I know I’ll have it.

  I cradle it into the changing room. Older girls stand about in their pants and bras, looking at themselves like they’re something. I’m glad I’m wearing my pink knickers with the spaghetti straps at the sides. I like running my finger along the crease the side strap leaves indented on my hip.

  The skirt is lined with shiny stuff. It sticks to my thighs in the heat of the changing room spotlights. A little pleat at the back kicks out as my legs move, flashing a slice of white calf. There’s a big pink button on each of the front pockets. I flick them against my hipbones, smile at myself in the mirror.

  ‘You haven’t got the arse to fill that,’ Mum says when I show her. ‘And I bet you can’t bloody wash it.’

  I love it.

  I arrive at Shane’s wearing the pencil skirt. A choking smell of creosote comes up from the warm wood of the shed. I think of Shane’s dad painting the walls with it, black treacly stuff dripping down his arms and onto the concrete path. Shane hasn’t seen his dad since the accident, five years ago. Derrick left before Sheila could chuck him out, Mum says. Who could bear to have him in the house after what he did? No one believes he wasn’t drunk.

  Shane looks at the skirt. He looks at me in the skirt. I run my hands over the creases where the material’s tight around my thighs. He swallows and wriggles his toes.

  ‘It’s new,’ I say.

  He nods, still staring at the skirt. Taking in every stitch. Every corpuscle of material.

  ‘Shall I turn around?’

  He catches my eye for a moment, then ducks his head.

  I turn to face the door. Spend a few moments studying a knot in the wood. Then turn back to face Shane.

  He licks his big lips, says nothing.

  ‘Do you like it?’ I ask.

  He keeps his eyes on the hem of the skirt. I wonder if he’s labelling each part in his head. Drawing a straight line and using neat capitals, like we do in Biology. HIPS. LEFT THIGH. RIGHT THIGH. NICE ARSE.

  He still doesn’t look up, so I sit at his feet. The skirt’s so tight I have to twist my legs beneath me, like a posh woman riding a horse side saddle in an old film.

  I rest my head against his knee.

  ‘Shall we listen to the new Prince?’ I twist round to face him. He catches my wrist and squeezes, hard.

  ‘Will you wear it every time you come?’ His voice is low. He’s not looking at my face, even now.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘if you want.’

  He lets go. I rub my wrist, but he takes no notice.

  After I while I say, ‘Perhaps you should think about what you could do for me.’

  He keeps staring right over my head.

  four

  August, 1985

  I come home from Shane’s shed and Dad’s on the front porch, waiting for me. He’s wearing Mum’s pinny.

  ‘I’m making Irish stew.’

  ‘Why aren’t you at work?’

  ‘I told you. I’m making Irish stew.’

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘I used to make it for your mother. Before we were married.’

  There’s been arguments for the last week, but there always are. Usually it goes on for a few nights, then there’s a reunion. ‘No one can resist a grin that wins,’ Dad will say, patting Mum on the bum. ‘Your mum tried to resist my winning grin, Joanna. But no one can resist a grin that wins.’

  But this time there’s been no winning grin.

  I’ve never known Dad to cook anything. When he’s in the kitchen he’s either eating or reading the paper. Or washing up, tea towel thrown over one shoulder, whistling an Elvis number. And that’s only on Sundays.

  But now here he is with Mum’s pinny around his waist, rustling through a pile of Tesco’s bags.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘Your mother didn’t have any food in the house. Real food, I mean. Not that frozen stuff. So I had to go out.’

  I reach into one of the plastic bags. My fingers meet something that feels like blancmange. I let out a yelp.

  Dad stretches across me, drags the meat out of the bag, whacks it on the table. ‘Look at that. Real shoulder of lamb. Bone in.’ The dark red flesh is squashed against the cellophane. Blood gathers in the dimples of the Styrofoam tray beneath. ‘That’s where the flavour is, Joanna.’

  He rips the cellophane from the meat and turns t
he flesh under the tap. The water runs pink.

  ‘You can scrape the spuds,’ says Dad. He holds the blade of Mum’s biggest knife up to his nose, flips it from side to side. ‘You need it sharp.’ He speaks slowly, like he’s dragging out each word. ‘The blunt ones are the most dangerous.’

  ‘When’s Mum coming back?’

  He has no answer. Instead, he positions himself at the counter, legs apart, and cuts into an onion. Beneath the pinny, he’s wearing a pair of very short yellow shorts. The meat of his thighs flattens out against the cupboard doors. Every now and then he scrunches up his eyes and sniffs. ‘Big slices for Irish stew,’ he says, scooping up the dry layers of skin and aiming for the bin.

  When Dad finally heaves the stew into the oven, there are bits of potato peel and onion skin on the floor, dribbles of gravy down the cupboards, splashes of fat on the wall. The sink is stained with blood and dirt.

  Dad wipes his brow with his forearm. ‘Dumplings,’ he says, emptying the fruit bowl all over the table. He waves the plastic dish in the air. ‘This will do. Now. Flour.’

  He instructs me in a loud voice. ‘Use your fingers to bring it together,’ he says, rolling a ball of dough around the fruit bowl.

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  Holding a dumpling in the air, he frowns. ‘It was the only thing,’ he says, ‘the only thing my dad taught me. He used to make it whenever Mum was out of the house.’ He drops the dumpling into the bowl and wipes his hands down his T-shirt. Grey lumps of dough stick to the terry-towelling. His bare legs are streaked with flour dust where the pinny doesn’t reach. His T-shirt is splattered with blood.

  Dad puts Tomorrow’s World on and we sit in silence while the presenters argue about whether nuclear fuel is safe or not.

  He stares at the television screen, hardly blinking. Occasionally he rubs at the flour streaks on his knees and sighs.

  I sit there and watch him watching the television.

  When Dad finally says that the stew’s ready, it’s nine thirty. The whole house smells unfamiliar, and I know Mum won’t come back tonight.

  five

  August, 1985

  ‘We’re going on an outing.’

  The morning after the Irish stew, Dad’s sitting on the edge of my bed. His grey-blond hair looks like a frayed brillo pad. His eyes are red. He’s wearing his only suit.

  I sit up. ‘Is Mum coming?’

  He rubs at a shaving nick on his throat. ‘Get your best togs on.’ Whistling ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, he pats the bottom of the duvet and leaves the room.

  A road sign reads ‘Heathrow’.

  ‘Is it a day trip to Ibiza?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Are these shoes OK?’

  I wriggle my feet in the footwell. Without glancing at my new cerise pink kitten heels, Dad says, ‘They’re fine, love.’ When we reach the multi-storey car park, I wind down my window so I can hear everything echoing. Brakes screeching round corners then screeching again. Doors slamming four times. Shouts going on forever.

  Dad parks the car.

  ‘A day trip to Oxford?’ I ask.

  He pulls the handbrake up, turns to me. ‘Somewhere in Oxford you haven’t been before,’ he says.

  The streets smell of old fat and melted ice cream.

  ‘Are you getting on all right with Shane?’

  Dad’s hand is hot between my bare shoulder blades as he guides me down the High Street. I’m wearing a jade green strappy top with a peek-a-boo eyelet in the front.

  ‘Because he needs looking after, you know?’

  I don’t say anything about anything.

  The shops thin out. A sign in a doorway says, ‘Queen’s College. Visitors welcome.’ Behind it there’s a patch of bright green grass.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  As we wait at the zebra crossing, a bus stops right by my legs and pumps hot exhaust fumes round my ankles. My shoes clamp tight to my toes.

  ‘How much further?’

  ‘Nearly there.’

  We pass a café with the word ‘Tiffin’ written on the window. I ask Dad what that means. He says he thinks it’s another name for tea.

  Crossing the bridge, Dad tries to take my hand. I let him hold it lightly for a minute, but when we reach the other side I slip my fingers away.

  ‘Here we are,’ he announces.

  He points at a huge dirty building with a tower and windows like you get in churches. We step through the doorway into a dark, silent passageway.

  ‘Is this the University?’ I whisper.

  ‘This is it,’ says Dad. ‘This is the University.’

  We walk through the passageway and out into a big garden at the back. Willow trees swish along the grass in the breeze. All round us, people are shielding their eyes and looking up. A lot of them are clutching guidebooks.

  ‘Where are the students?’ I ask.

  ‘Term hasn’t started yet.’

  ‘Lazy buggers.’

  Dad smiles and we stand for a minute, looking up, like everyone else, at the blank squares of glass that make up the college windows. I imagine the students sitting in there, reading, their un-hairsprayed heads bent over their desks.

  I look around at the other people on the lawn. Apart from the people with guidebooks, every girl seems to be wearing a longer skirt than me. And their hair isn’t flicked up or brushed out. It just hangs.

  I wait for Dad to say something.

  ‘Shall we sit over there?’ He points at a tree whose branches are so big and low they look like giant’s hands.

  ‘All this time living here, and we never came.’ Dad lays down beneath the branches. ‘Why didn’t we come here before?’

  I concentrate on sitting on the grass without showing Dad too much thigh.

  After a while he sits up. ‘I’m not making a very good job of this, am I?’

  I pick a handful of grass and throw it over his knee.

  ‘Do you like it here, Joanna?’

  I consider the willow trees with their long fingers, the girls with their long skirts, the blank, black windows. I don’t know the answer.

  ‘You could come here,’ says Dad, leaning close to me, ‘if you work hard.’

  I throw some more grass over his legs.

  ‘Mind the suit,’ he says, brushing it off. He scratches at his brillo-pad hair. ‘I mean it.’ His eyes are big and red. ‘I know you’ve got the brains, even if you don’t always use them. You can come here. It’s possible.’

  I pick up a shard of old bark, dig it under my nail to clean out the dirt.

  ‘No one told me things are possible. I mean, not everything you think is impossible is impossible.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  He sighs. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Shall we go then?’ I stand up.

  A bell begins to clang.

  ‘Wait. Sit down.’

  He grabs my hand and pulls me into his lap. ‘My girl,’ he whispers, crushing me against him and hiding his face in my hair.

  ‘Dad – ’ My legs are twisted under me. My skirt’s ridden up too far.

  Then he begins to rock slightly, and his breath goes funny, shaky. Hot air from his mouth makes my cheek wet. Above us, the branches make a slight creaking sound, like ships in films.

  ‘Dad – ’

  ‘Sorry, love.’

  But he’s still clinging on. I wonder what I can do to make his job easier. I know he’s leaving. I’ve heard them arguing for weeks. I’ve heard Dad say that he’d rather chew off his own hand than stay in her trap. Like an animal.

  Shoulders heaving, his fingers dig into my spine.

  We cling to each other under the tree. ‘It’s OK,’ is all I can think to say.

  Eventually, his hands release me. When he looks me in the eye his face is crumpled and red, like a bruise. ‘You’ll come and see me?’

  I nod.

  ‘And you’ll look after Shane?’

&
nbsp; After a pause, I nod again.

  Then he says, ‘Your mother’s not all bad.’

  Then he says, ‘I meant what I said, about working hard.’

  Then he says, ‘I’ll drop you off at home, but then I’ll go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not far. I’ll phone.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’ As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t.

  He reaches out and strokes my hair. ‘Not now, love. Maybe later.’

  As we walk back up the High Street, past the colleges with their bright green squares of light and back to the multi-storey, I let him hold my hand.

  six

  August, 1985

  In the shed, I sit on the floor at Shane’s feet and lean back against his shins.

  We’re both silent.

  Shane always closes the door and he never opens the window, but I’m used to the smell of the warm creosoted wood now. It smells like stewed tea. Cake crumbs are scattered over the floor, already drying in the heat. Spots of chocolate buttercream are smeared into the boards. I swallow the last of our chocolate layer cake and lick each finger clean.

  Shane dangles a pair of pink plastic hoops in front of my eyes. I try to turn to look at him, but he catches my face in his hands, tilts my head backwards and clamps his knees hard around my scalp. Taking each earlobe between his finger and thumb, he makes a dip and a pull with the earrings, hooking me up like a fish. Then he runs a finger along my bottom lip, hard. ‘Messy,’ he says, showing me the chocolate on his finger.

  ‘Mind my lipstick.’

  He laughs. Shane’s laugh is low and quiet, like it’s half-hidden, a long huh-huh. ‘Are you my girlfriend?’ he asks.

  I twist free of his knees and turn round. His T-shirt’s too small. What looks like a waistband of flesh bulges beneath it, and I can see his belly button sticking out. I haven’t seen that before. It looks like Shane has a hole that someone’s stuck a screw into. A flesh-coloured screw.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you my girlfriend?’ He keeps his eyes focused on the space above me. ‘I gave you the earrings,’ he says.