Pandora’s Box

I cut the masking tape away from my fingers with the knife and flick open the door under the sink to throw it in the bin. Damn it. Why did things have to work out this way? Nothing matters any more. Things only ever matter when you’ve got hope, and today I don’t have any.

My daughter might seem fine, but I know she isn’t. Recently her consultant has been keeping an even tighter check on Shelley. Our one-monthly check-ups have become fortnightly. Lately he even offered to make them weekly, even though there has been no real change in her condition for a long while. But there has to be a reason why he is tightening up on her care, doesn’t there? They warned me last year, after her friend Miriam died with the same condition, ‘Shelley doesn’t have long.’ But how long is ‘not long’? How long is a piece of string?

And how long do I really want to waste this morning, going through all this old junk? I stare at the space behind the little pedal bin. There is just about enough room in there for me to store this old box away without ever having to give it another thought. What do I care about old certificates and photos, anyway?

‘Mum? What was that, Mum? What did the postie bring?’

Shelley can be deadly silent on that wheelchair of hers. She must have oiled the wheels because I didn’t hear her come in at all. She looks wan in the pale morning light, I think, even younger than her fourteen years without all her usual Goth war-paint on.

‘Um, just some paperwork your gran sent through. I’ll have to plough through it sometime. Nothing for you to concern yourself with.’

‘And you’re putting it in the bin?’ She leans forward in her wheelchair to see what I’ve been up to.

‘No. Behind the bin.’

‘You don’t usually put stuff there,’ she notes. She knows I’m angry. She can tell, just like I can always tell what she is feeling. We spend too much time in each other’s company for it to be otherwise.

‘Are you upset because Granny Panny’s left the country?’ Shelley enquires sagely. ‘She was never really much use to you anyway, even when she was here.’

‘Well, what use would you expect her to be? She’s got her own life to live, hasn’t she?’

Shelley sits back, slender shoulders slumped. She is wearing the same pink pyjamas she wore last summer. She hasn’t grown much in the year when most of the girls in her class have shot up to about six foot, it seems. The rest of them have all begun to blossom out.

But something in Shelley’s face has definitely changed. There is a different look in her eye that I don’t remember being there before, a certain angle to her jaw that has made her face more defined, another year older, more worn by life.

And she shouldn’t be worn by life, why should she? She’s never had any fun, never been anywhere, never done anything. She doesn’t know yet what it is like to love or to be loved. How can she be so worn by life when she has never really lived?

‘This will cheer you up’ indeed! I shove the pedal bin in front of Pandora’s box with my foot and close the cupboard door. I’ll give the whole lot to Liliana when I see her. She’s into nostalgic memories and memorabilia. It isn’t of any use to me, that’s for sure.

As far as I’m concerned, the past is dead and buried, and all my hopes were buried years ago, right along with it.

2 Rachel (#ulink_083ca9aa-dfa2-5c8a-b446-925bf5838aab)

‘Why can’t I pull it down? I don’t want any “New Year resolutions” hanging up there for me. Daniel can keep his own if he wants to but I don’t see why I have to have any. It’s just plain silly.’ Shelley grimaces at me as I squeeze past her to get milk from the fridge. ‘It is March, after all.’

‘No.’ I push the door firmly shut with my elbow and take another look at the list her brother had Blu-Tacked onto the fridge door in January.

Family New Year’s Resolutions List (by Daniel Wetherby)

Daniel

1. Find mate for Hattie.

2. Ride bike without stabilisers (before I am eleven).

3. Help mum more.

Mum

1. Become famous artist and get rich.

2. Find cure for Shelley.

3. Buy the house on Strawberry Crescent.

4. Have a proper holiday.

Shelley

1. Get cured and be healthy and walk.

2. Get a boyfriend.

3. Do well at school.

‘If it’s March, that still gives us the next nine months of the year, doesn’t it? All we’ve got to do is find you a cure, make me a famous artist, buy that gorgeous property up on Strawberry Crescent and get you a boyfriend.’

‘Huh. Granny Panny is the only one of us who’s ever going to get herself a boyfriend, Mum. And the fame, the house and the cure are all non-starters, wouldn’t you say?’ She gives a little laugh. ‘I mean, you, famous? What could you ever be famous for? You don’t actually do anything, do you? Daniel’s mad. And you haven’t done any art since you left art college.’

‘He’s just a kid, Shell. You’ve got to let him have his dreams. Don’t you dare take his list down.’ I stay her arm as she reaches out to pull it off.

I don’t care if there’s no point in you going to school any more, I think suddenly. At least it gave us some respite from each other when you did.

I should never have given in to her on that point. I should have made her keep on going.

‘It doesn’t matter if it’s silly, or if none of it can come true. It matters that he’s still got things he’s hoping for in his life. That’s all. He wants us to have things to look forward to as well. That’s why he wrote us lists, don’t you see?’ Her comment that I don’t actually do anything is one that I choose to ignore. Oh, I do things all right. She just doesn’t see it because everything I do is invisible. I’m like the invisible thread that holds the whole fabric of our household together—but she’s right, it’s not something I’m ever going to become famous for.

‘Oh don’t worry, Mum.’ Shelley’s voice is suddenly dripping with sarcasm. ‘He can leave it up there if he likes.’ She turns to gaze through the window where a sudden squall has sent a splatter of rain across the glass. Outside, a disused flowerpot is rolling up and down on the patio. We are supposed to be planting seeds this weekend. I don’t suppose we’ll get round to it now.

The kettle boils and I fill up two mugs with some coffee. There is a moment’s silence. A truce.

‘So. Are you going to tell me what’s in the box from Granny then, or what?’ Shelley’s voice is amicable, conciliatory. She seems to have forgotten about the resolutions list already. She feels more like the old Shelley when she’s like this, more like the daughter I remember. When she’s all done up with that black lipstick she favours these days I hardly recognise her.

‘I think I’ll go for “or what”’. I pull a face at her. She should just take the hint that I don’t want to talk about it or accept what I tell her at face value. But teenagers never do.

‘It’s something to do with Aunt Lily, isn’t it?’ Shelley sucks on her lower lip, pensive. ‘Why don’t you two ever meet up? Are you making arrangements to meet up sometime soon?’

‘You’ve been eavesdropping,’ I accuse her.

‘I can’t help it if I occasionally overhear things,’ she counters. ‘This house isn’t exactly massive, is it?’

‘Well no, it isn’t.’ Not as big as the one we lived in before Bill and I split up, which is the subtext to her comment, I know. But there is nothing that can be done about that. ‘However, it would be polite to…move somewhere else in the house if that happens.’

‘If I moved far away enough in this house I’d end up next door,’ she observes. ‘Come on, Mum,’ she adds before I can reply. ‘What’s the big secret? Just tell me what’s in the box? Why are you trying to hide it?’

‘Oh, fine!’ I kick the pedal bin out of the way and heave the box out again. The cardboard sides are soft and a bit mushy and the whole thing smells musty, like the dark secret place at the back of unused cupboards where nobody ever goes and the spiders breed, un molested, for years. You’d think Pandora would have rummaged around for a new box before she posted all this stuff off.

‘Here we go, if it will keep you quiet, madam.’ It isn’t a big secret after all. There is nothing in there that matters; just a load of old dust and memories I’d rather not be dredging up at this moment. But it’s guilt that makes me cave in to her, guilt about the fact that she might not be around to ever see any of it, if I wait too long. ‘It’s just some old keepsakes, photos and things that Granny sent over. Most of it will go to Lily. When we meet up.’