Pandora’s Box

27 October 1978

In the car on the way home tonight Dad said something that made me sit up. He’s heard that Gordon—that Ilkeley chap, he called him—is going to be needing a new partner soon. Amelie’s leaving, apparently. Dad said, perhaps we should ask his parents to take a look at what you two are capable of, eh? And he glanced at me in his rear-view mirror when he said it.

Could it be true that they would consider it? I knew about Amelie leaving, of course, from Gordon, but even though we’ve talked about it secretly, what it would be like if we could dance together, I never in a million years dreamed that it might possibly come true. Mum and Dad have always been so strict about me and Lily sticking together; they never would have even considered anything like this before.

Oh god, if it could happen, though, I would surely be the happiest girl in the whole wide world!

I like the thought of that: my mum being young and having dreams and being happy. Once upon a time, when I was still a princess, twirling in my mum’s high heels in front of this mirror, my dad caught me in his arms and told me: ‘One of these days I’m going to make all your dreams come true, princess, you just see if I don’t.’ That’s the kind of sugar-coated person my dad is, really. He might be a corporate hot-shot and all that, doing law for the stock exchange, dealing in ‘futures’ as Mum once told me, but one thing I do know is he can’t deal with ‘futures’ that look less rosy than he wants them to be.

Still, I remember him saying that now. Not because he stuck with us for long enough to ever find out what my dreams might be. Not because of that. But because, in some way I really can’t explain, him saying that made me believe that there were certain doors that one day might be opened. Even if it’s me who has to open them for myself, and not him that does it. And I’ve just got myself a date with Kieran O’Keefe, haven’t I? So something’s going right…

11 Shelley (#ulink_cafba081-c198-50b1-87af-de9ff290aabb)

Surinda is coming round after school, she said. She’s suddenly become interested in schoolwork whereas she never was before. ‘I’ve got to get my exams, haven’t I? I’ve got to do something with my life. Jallal will expect me to work.’ This coming on top of a year in which she’s spent the best part of each term off playing hooky.

I’m not even sure I want her around today. Not if she’s going to be as narky as she was to me on the phone last night. I told her I’d got the Beat the Bank tickets and that’s why she’s coming, but you’d think she’s the one doing me a favour and not the other way round. Ever since this Jallal business she’s become a very different person, I think.

It’s only 3.30 p.m. so it’ll be a little while before she shows; this afternoon is dragging on forever. I’ve tidied the place up a bit. This room is not huge so I had to. By the time you take into account the bed, the ward robe, the desk with the keyboard and Bessie, there isn’t enough room left to swing a cat. She’ll have to sit on the end of the mattress, that’s all.

I don’t suppose she’ll be staying that long. Just as long as she agrees to take me to Blackberry Common I don’t care how long she stays. My stomach’s all in a knot over it.

If she says no I don’t think I’ll ever speak to her again.

She’ll have to be prepared to help me get onto the bus. She won’t like that. Surinda isn’t known for her patience. She’s meeting Jallal the week after next, and she’s angry because they’ve had to put it off a few days. It seems he couldn’t get an earlier flight out from Jakarta. I pointed out that gives her a few extra days to drop those ten pounds she’s on about losing before she meets the bridegroom but that didn’t cheer her up any.

Anyway, the bus. I haven’t been on one for a very long time. Daniel gets on one sometimes and he says they’re often empty. I wanted to ask him this morning if he’s ever seen anyone get on it in a wheelchair but I don’t want to arouse his suspicions.

He’s back from school now, I heard him rooting around in the kitchen a minute ago, getting himself a drink.

‘Shell?’ Talk of the devil.

‘Yeah?’

‘Your room looks different.’ He’s standing at the door, looking puzzled. He’s probably wondering why there aren’t any papers or clothes on the floor.

‘I’ve tidied it, dunderhead. You should do yours more often too.’

‘Oh.’ My brother stands there for a moment, flummoxed. His face is red, his hair all sticky-up and sweaty because it’s hot outside and he’s just got back from school. ‘I’m going out on my bike,’ he says shortly. ‘Tell Mum.’

‘You’ve just come in’, I say. I return my attention to the nail varnish I was applying just a moment before. He’s just come in and now he’s going out again. And why? Because he can. My heart sinks a little. I remember the times when we used to go out on our bikes together. I was the one who used to encourage him to ride. He was so scared. He would never have done anything at all if it weren’t for me. I wonder if he’s still got those stabilisers on. In a minute I will hear him practising, round and round the drive up front.

Sometimes lately the sounds outside go quiet and I know he’s gone a little way up the road to his friend’s house. His world is expanding. That’s good; that’s the way it should be. I envy my brother that.

When I look at the light brown side-panel of my wardrobe and the jutting-out edge of my computer desk, my world feels as if it’s shrinking, even though I’ve just picked up all the crap off the floor.

I want to see something different. A different view; different faces. I want to be somewhere else.

I wheel myself over to the window and take a look at the view from there. We have a little garden. Just in front of my window there’s a tiny azalea bush just coming into pink bloom. It’s the same colour as my nail varnish, I realise now. The bird feeder that Daniel hung from the washing line is empty again. The garden is very green. It wasn’t a couple of weeks ago, but now we’ve entered May the whole earth seems to have woken up with a flourish.

I wish my room were a tiny bit bigger. I wish I could get in and out of it a bit more easily. I feel so stuck. Deep in the pit of my stomach there’s this feeling of stuckness. I’m like a rat in a cage. I’ve got to get out of this place, I’ve got to. I’m withering away.

And with a sinking feeling I realise that it’s already begun, the shrivelling that happened to Miriam; it’s happening to me! Not in my body, not yet, but it’s happening in my heart.

The knock on my bedroom door, when it comes, is so loud that it really startles me.

‘You in there?’ Surinda is standing in the doorway, her schoolbag placed primly in front of her. It doesn’t look very full.

‘Your front door was just…wide open, man.’ Her kohl-lined eyes take in my little bedroom in one quick sweep. She looks at me, smiling. I get the feeling my place is smaller than she imagined. ‘So, you got those tickets, Shell?’ Surinda doesn’t sit down. Does she think I’m going to hand over the precious tickets just like that so she can make her excuses and be gone? ‘Because I’ve got to get back,’ she’s saying, ‘me mam’s taking me shopping for Jallal-clothes.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘Jallal-clothes. Look, Surinda, you’d better sit down because there’s something I’ve got to explain about the tickets.’

She perches obediently on the edge of my bed and I try to figure out what it is that is different about her. Something is. Her hair is slicked back and held in a pink rosette in the middle so you can see her dangly golden earrings. Her skin is dark, a little more greasy, with dark spots over her forehead. She has dark circles under her eyes. She used to look better than this, I think. But that isn’t what’s changed; it’s something else. She’s got a bit more confidence about her, that’s what it is. Like she’s been places and done some things. She’s had a little experience of the world. And me, stuck here, I’m feeling at a distinct disadvantage: I’ve had none.

‘Go on,’ she says. She’s picked up my nail-varnish bottle and is looking at the label.

‘Those tickets that we’re after, we’ve got to go down to Blackberry Common this Saturday and collect them.’

‘What?’ She’s frowning in annoyance now. ‘I’ve got things planned for this weekend, girl. My hair, for one.’

‘If you want the tickets…’ I say.

‘Why can’t they just be posted?’ She puts the nail-polish bottle down on my bed. ‘You ring them and tell them that you want those tickets posted.’

‘Ring who?’ Surinda is looking cross now. I thought she was desperate for those tickets. This whole Jallal business is ruining everything. ‘We can’t ring anyone. We’ve got to go in person.’

‘I don’t think I can help you.’ She’s shaking her head in a vague kind of way. ‘My time’s all taken up now. Things aren’t turning out exactly how we’d like them, either.’

‘What things?’ My heart is thumping again. If Surinda won’t take me to meet Kieran, then who will? Daniel is too young to be of any use. Solly would never approve of me meeting an Internet bloke—and he’d be sure to tell my mum. And she can’t know. She’d tell Dad and he’d never have any of it. They’ll ruin everything for me if they know. Surinda is the only one who I can trust with this; she has to do it.

‘Jallal’s dad, it turns out, doesn’t actually own the factory in Jakarta that we were told he did.’

‘What factory?’

‘The condom factory!’ She gives me a look that suggests I must be a total imbecile. ‘The one my family were told he owns. It turns out he’s just the manager.’

‘And this matters because…?’

‘Because it means they aren’t so rich, of course. Why else would it matter?’

‘Why indeed?’ I’m getting this incredibly strong urge to giggle but I have a feeling it might not do my case any good so I try my best to stifle it by coughing into my hand.

‘I’m still marrying him, though,’ she says decisively. ‘Mum and Dad still reckon he’s a good catch. He has a third cousin who’s very high up in the government, they say.’

Well, if he doesn’t make the condom-factory-owner grade there’s always the third cousin to fall back on, I think.

‘Always useful to have,’ I agree.

‘I don’t think you’re quite getting this, are you?’ She takes her chewing-gum in between her fingers and looks around for somewhere to deposit it. ‘This is serious,’ she tells me heatedly. ‘This is my life we’re talking about here. It matters very much.’