Tell Me Everything

‘And who exactly would pay for all our dresses?’

But when Miranda didn’t answer and I looked at her reflection, I saw it was her turn to shut her eyes and feel that tremor. She was even leaning against the chair with her whole weight, her head softly falling to one side. The only clue that she was still alive was the way her lips moved to mime along with the French words coming from the CD player. I picked the photograph up from the counter and turned it over and over in my hands, waiting for Miranda to come back down to earth and finish the hairdo.

Chapter Twelve (#ulink_f0c2d7d2-0bd5-522a-92e0-5c532a8c10c4)

It was partly because of that heavy-eyed look of Miranda’s and the fact that Tim hadn’t been in the park for a few days that I went looking in the library for some of the love stories Miranda had told me about. I wasn’t expecting much.

Certainly not to fall in love myself. Not in the library anyway. But there she was – my first proper crush on a French woman – nestling between Jonathan Coe and a misplaced George Eliot. I’d just been running my fingers over the spines of the books hoping for one to jump out at me. It was the single name that attracted me first. That, and the old-fashioned orange colour of her book. I pulled it out and turned to the back, as I usually did, to have a look at the writer’s photograph before I decided to bother with the story.

Colette had a long, varied and active life.

It was looking good.

At the age of twenty she had plunged herself into a different world. . .

Love at first read. By sheer luck, I’d picked on someone who understood the advantages of reinvention. Maybe I could even learn something from her.

‘Feathery near-pornography,’ read the quote on the back of the book. Perfect. It might be perfect for stories for Mr Roberts too. I took it straight to the desk and joined the queue. The man in front of me wanted to know where he could obtain proper back-copies of the Daily Telegraph. He twiddled his moustache as he shouted how he didn’t want to have to read them on microfiche, the stories weren’t the same on computer.

‘But they’re exactly the same words,’ said the librarian patiently, but the man hee-hawed in her face.

‘If God meant us to use computers, He’d have given us television aerials on the top of our heads. This is a library. For the written word. For which our God gave us eyes, ’ he said, looking for all the world as if he’d scored not just one point over her, but won the whole war.

She stared at him so fiercely though, he backed away.

‘In my day, sentences were meant to be treasured,’ he said in a weak parting shot. ‘Not computered out of all existence. And I would expect you of all people to understand that!’

The librarian merely looked past him to smile at me, but I was torn. Instinct and training meant I wanted to be the good girl for her because she was Authority, but I hated computers too. I compromised by trying to look as if I hadn’t heard anything.

‘Ooh Colette,’ she purred as she stamped my book. ‘How nice. And how unusual to see someone young enjoying a forgotten writer. Have you read her biography?’

I shook my head.

‘It’s super,’ she said. ‘You really must, but then again maybe it’s only when you get to my age that you prefer real life over fiction.’

As I left the library, the Daily Telegraph man was standing there, looking at the notice board in the entrance hall.

‘I liked what you said about having an aerial in your head,’ I said, but I must have been too quiet because he didn’t seem to hear me, just kept staring up at the mixture of handwritten cards and brightly coloured posters.

‘Goodbye then,’ I said, pausing a minute but he didn’t as much as turn round. I pinched myself hard on the thigh as I walked home clutching the book with my other hand so it wouldn’t fly away with all its feathery near-pornography.

I did exist. Pinch, pinch. I did exist.

Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_8b3adb9b-2e0c-599c-a509-3e63f041fe95)

Tim and I spent the evening pushing each other on the swings.

‘Did you have a happy childhood?’ I asked.

‘It was OK.’ It was my turn to push him. He had his head back so he was looking straight up at the sky. He was moving too quickly now for me to get hold of him properly so I just stood there behind him, watching his face loom in and out of sight. ‘You’re an upside down Molly,’ he laughed, finally slowing down.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me?’ I said, sitting down on the next swing. I tried to wind the ropes together so we were entwined, but they kept springing loose.

‘If you want me to.’

I thought about this. Tim was swinging faster again, pushing his legs up and down to speed himself up, so I started swinging myself.

‘I’m flying,’ I shouted, and then for several wonderful moments Tim and I were swinging in perfect synchronicity. I pushed my head right back, letting my hair fall down and watched the stars. It was as if they were all shooting in different directions.

Later as we walked back to the bench, Tim put his hand out to stroke my hair. ‘Beautiful,’ he said.

‘You need to ask me things because you want to know the answer, not because I ask you to,’ I said. ‘That’s the only way we’re going to find out about each other.’ I was still annoyed about his earlier lack of interest in my childhood.

‘But I know you already,’ he said. ‘It’s my job to know things like that. You’re Molly. Beautiful inside and out. What more do I need to know?’

I was quiet then. Too busy thinking.

Mr Roberts was breathing heavily below me as once more I shifted the stationery boxes from one side of the shelf to the other.

‘Remember I told you about Leanne,’ I said. ‘The one that gave me the red lipstick?’

‘The naughty one,’ Mr Roberts said.

‘She was different from the rest of us. We were tough country girls but she was like a town mouse, a timid little thing with these big eyes and a gentle voice. She needed looking after, but there was something about her that made me want to crush her and just stroke her hair, both at the same time. It’s hard to explain.’