Pandora’s Box

‘Sure thing, honey bunch.’ He is still thinking about Justin, I can tell.

‘Hello, Rachel?’ Bill is back on the phone.

‘Hello. All sorted then?’

There is a pause.

‘No.’ Bill is sounding surprisingly determined. You’d think he’d got enough on his plate with the demon child he and Stella have produced, but no. ‘This might be what Shelley’s asked you for, Rachel, but there are other people’s feelings to be considered here too. She’s used to getting too much of her own way, I think. That’s the trouble with it. When she comes over to us we stick to a much stricter regime and she has to deal with it. She has to eat whatever Stella puts on her plate for one thing.’

‘Meaning?’ What the hell has that got to do with anything? The two of them have obviously had a very long conversation while I’ve been hanging on that damned phone. I can feel my ire rising. Why do I always let him do this to me? I swore that I wouldn’t, not today.

‘She’s as thin as a stick, Rach. She can’t eat more than a morsel of food on an ordinary day, be honest now. We weighed her when she came to us for that week over Christmas, at the beginning, and then again at the end.’ I can hear him sounding a little bit sheepish as he realises what he is admitting to but he ploughs on with it anyway. ‘And she’d put on five pounds at the end.’ Sheepish, but triumphant nonetheless.

‘Now you’re telling me that I don’t feed her?’

‘Stella said when she handed her the bath towel she could see her ribs sticking out. You’ve got to be aware of this, surely? I have to say it, even if it hurts you to hear it.’

‘If you think you could do a better job then we could talk about options here. I’m worn out myself, with being her carer. I love her, but I’m worn out. Maybe you’re right. You two might be able to do a much better job than I can manage these days.’ My voice is surprisingly calm. A year before I might have made that as a throw-away comment in temper, knowing full well he would never agree to take me up on it. I wouldn’t have wanted him to, anyway. But this time I really mean it.

Sol’s face is a picture. I cover the phone with my hands while Bill relays what I’ve just said to his wife. ‘He won’t take me up on it, of course. There is no way they could hack it. They are both stressed up to the eyeballs with their own child as it is. And,’ I turn my face away from the phone to make doubly sure they won’t overhear, ‘to tell you the truth I think there is nothing wrong with little Nikolai, not at all. It’s just that some two-year-olds don’t want to learn the violin and take French language lessons and gymnastics classes every week. They get tantrummy about it. It is all very well to keep up a military regime for one or two days every couple of weeks but it’s not so easy when the child is resisting you all the way, on a day in, day out basis. Shelley won’t eat much because the tablets she has to take with her food sit like a pile of gravel in her belly and they ruin her appetite. She copes at her dad’s because she just doesn’t take the tablets for those days, just so as not to make a fuss.’

Sol nods sympathetically.

I know she’s too thin. I’d like her to be a lot heavier. I’d like a lot of things that just aren’t going to happen.

‘Let’s not argue over this.’ Bill is back and has gone into reasonable mode. ‘You know that suggestion isn’t practicable.’

‘I thought not.’

‘But to get back to my previous point, there are certain procedures you could put in place…’

‘Save it.’ I am the one feeling tetchy now. ‘Save your parenting theories for the one you have to deal with, will you? And let’s keep our conversation to the birthday plans. That’s what I rang about, and I too have a schedule to keep to this afternoon.’

I have to ring the surgery after speaking to Bill and ask why they’d only given me one month’s supply of Shelley’s tablets again. They used to give me six months, then it went down to three months, and then it became a ridiculous one month’s supply! I can’t spend my life going up and down putting in repeat prescriptions every four weeks. Everything takes up so much time. Bill doesn’t have to deal with any of that, and so he can’t possibly know what it is like.

‘I want to spend time with her on her birthday too.’ He is sad. I can hear it in his voice, and I wish now I had been kinder to him. Why do we always do this? Why can’t we just be civil to each other? I can’t bear to hear him feeling sad. It reminds me of that small battered place in my heart where I keep all the cherished memories of what we used to mean to each other.

‘We don’t know if she’ll have any more birthdays.’ His voice breaks here and I just cave in. It is true. He is right. I don’t want to be unfair about this.

‘Look, we can work something out. Perhaps you can come down and spend the Saturday with us down there then? She specifically asked to be in Summer Bay for her birthday. And she wanted some time alone with me. But if you could make it down for the Saturday, that would be a lovely surprise. We could throw her a party—organise something that she’d never even suspect. You can bring Daniel and Nikolai too. And Stella, of course.’

‘It’ll be a long drive,’ Bill grumbles, but he is caving, I can tell. ‘Just for the one day.’

‘Stay for the long weekend then. Make it worth your while.’

‘Maybe,’ Bill concedes. ‘I’d have to discuss this more with Stella.’

‘Do it then. I know Shelley would love to see you on her birthday.’

‘Don’t make any plans,’ he warns me, ‘not just yet. There’s a lot we’ve got to think about here. I’ll get back to you about it within the next couple of weeks.’

The next couple of weeks, I know, will be too late. I have a letter, still on the kitchen table, that I received this morning from Maggie at the bed and breakfast; we have to confirm straight away or the last two spaces will be taken.

‘We’ll talk about this again,’ he tells me.

‘Sure,’ I say, and I remember all over again just what he is like. I know I am never going to get anywhere with him. Bill isn’t the reasonable sort. ‘We’ll talk about it soon.’

Deceit, I think now. This isn’t like me at all. This is another one of Pandora’s vices. Oh well. Looks as though they’re thrumming through the air at a rate of knots at the moment, just waiting to home in on us at any opportunity.

‘Who are you ringing now?’ Solly watches me curiously as I punch the next number into the phone. ‘All sorted, is it?’

‘All sorted,’ I tell him. ‘I’m booking Maggie’s place for Shelley and me for the last week in May, just like she wanted.’

10 Shelley (#ulink_26eff819-f8c6-5d3e-809e-57c52c599f82)

Mum’s gone out, thank god. I thought she never would. I’ve had this paper with Kieran’s telephone number on it in my hand since breakfast time when Surinda phoned me. It’s gone all crumpled and hot because I’ve had to wait so long. I probably won’t even be able to read my own handwriting now.

To be honest, I’ve waited so long I’ve gone off the boil with the whole idea. He would probably be horrified if I tried to ring him anyway. In fact, I’m sure he would.

I’m not going to do it.

I’m going to read a bit more of Mum’s diary instead. That’s another thing that I can’t do when she’s around. I shouldn’t be peeking in Mum’s old diary, I know. It might all be ancient history now but it’s still private and she has a right to privacy, but I…I just want to know what it used to be like for her.

Her writing was a bit smaller in those days. It was a lot neater too. Her diary has a pale pink plastic cover and she’s drawn lots of hearts and loopy-petalled flowers in biro all the way around some of the entries. I can’t believe she did that. Ohmigod, it’s just what I do when I’m daydreaming. I wonder if that kind of stuff can be inherited? That’s just weird, man.

It’s real funny, thinking about her being a girl my age, having so much stuff to say and the only one she has to say it to is her diary. Just like Anne Frank, when you think about it. God, how sad is that? We all just email each other these days but they had to make do with diaries, I guess. I wonder if people read each other’s diaries after they’d written them? What would be the point of it otherwise?

20 October 1978

We have to be careful. I’ve told Gordon that my dad won’t let us have boyfriends and he accepts that. So we take whatever snatched time we can get. It helps that Legrange Studios are having a big refit at the moment. It means everything’s a bit chaotic so a lot of the time people are coming and going from all sorts of places where they wouldn’t normally be.

Mr Legrange nearly caught me out today. I took a short-cut coming in from the courtyard after seeing Gordon. I ran across the new stage area where none of us are allowed to go, yet. It was the quickest route but Mr Legrange caught me and it was the nearest I’ve come to being rumbled so far. It reminds me that I mustn’t get careless. He gave me that look adults give kids when they catch them doing what they’re not supposed to. Luckily, I’ve got a good reputation. I could see him waiting for an explanation so I told him one of the planks on stage was loose and I’d come back in especially to tell him that. He said which plank, and I pointed to one, and he went and jumped up and down on it a few times. He said he’d have it checked out and he let me go, thank god.

Lily is getting suspicious, too. She’s wondering why I keep finding excuses to go back inside the studio once we’ve already come out. By the time I got through Mr Legrange, I found her waiting, arms folded and looking fed up, by the toilets. I told her I had to use the ones usually reserved for the adults but I don’t think she believed me. God, why can’t she just leave me in peace for once?

God, they were all at it in those days, weren’t they? Sneaking round behind each other’s backs like there was no tomorrow.

Why shouldn’t I ring Kieran, come to think of it? So what if Mum won’t like it? She’s had her moments, ‘snatching whatever time she can get’, hasn’t she? Hell, I’m just doing it. I’m ringing him now before she gets back and that’s an end of it.

I mean, Krok might not even be there. Kieran. I must remember to ask for Kieran. He doesn’t work there every day. I hope he’s there. I’m not actually sure if I’ve rung the right number. It’s been ringing a while. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe I’ll ring back later. Maybe I just won’t bother…

‘Hello?’ It’s a woman. She sounds middle-aged. ‘David’s DVDs. Can I help you?’

‘Yeah. Er…is…er, is Krok, I mean Kieran, there?’

‘Who’s speaking please?’

‘Tell him it’s Shelley.’