Waiting for Lily

WAITING FOR LILY

My Tree

I'm sitting in my tree, shaking and furious. I am so fed up and I grip the branch tighter and tighter and the rough bark scrapes my hands. I am so pathetic, when I am like this the only thing I can think of to do, is to climb the tree. No one climbs it but me, even my cat doesn't come up here. Pudding is a floor cat, she doesn’t even jump on chairs which makes me think she is afraid of heights. My mother, who occasionally does craft work as if it is a penance, has made one of her disastrous rugs just for Pudding. Pudding hasn't peed on it, but she hasn't sat on it much either which hurts my mother’s feelings, but then just about everything hurts her feelings these days. Or upsets her. Or angers her. They are all good reasons for me to climb my tree because it doesn't matter what I do, it is wrong. Up here I am motherless.

'You're far too old to climb trees, Bethany. You're a teenager, you need to be more mature,' she says. She slams her mug onto the sink. 'I don't know what to do with you, I can't get through to you. You have to grow up.'

'Everyone climbs trees, there's nothing wrong with it.' And I leave the kitchen and the chaos and retreat to my tree again.

Being fifteen has absolutely nothing going for it. It really doesn't matter what I do, or what I don't do, it is always wrong so it's good to have somewhere to escape to, to be alone. I'm lonely, I can't do much about that, but when my mother carries on I'm glad to be able to be alone, just me and my thoughts which whirl around and around in my head as if there is a tiny tornado in there. My thoughts are a jumble and when I try to sort them out it is even worse so I try and clear my head whenever I can. I recite 'The Wreck of the Hesperus' which is a poem I found in a very old book. It is quite a sad story and the girl ends up dead and frozen. When I say the words out loud I can't think of anything else, and that is excellent. And it's good to think about the cold when the weather is so hot and humid.

Yesterday it rained and the branches are still wet which means my school uniform is also wet because I forgot to change when I came home from school, but I have done my home work so that is a good mark in my favour even if my mother is cross with me yet again because of my tree.

Up here, up so high that if I fell I would severely injure myself, I am completely alone. The branch is uncomfortable, I need to put on some weight, or bring a cushion up here, but it is my place and the tree is so thick with branches and leaves that I'm quite hidden. Lily loves it up here, but I haven’t seen her for a while. I don't think I've seen her for ages. She is the only other person who has ever come up here.

I wouldn't mind if Jason climbed up here but that isn't likely to happen. He doesn't know where I live, he probably doesn't even know my name. I've heard him talking to his friends and he's so funny, but he's also mature, probably in a way I will never be. I don't even know if I care about that, maturity isn't so great, not much to aspire to at all.

I should talk to him one day, just say hi and make some brief comment but then, me being a perfect coward, I will probably never speak to him. And school is mostly awful, Jason is one of the few people who doesn't frighten nor upset me.

I'm so glad to be home, to be away from school. It is a great relief for me not to be there. I'm sure I used to love school, that's another thing, my memories are very odd and I'm not always sure if they are real memories, or even hopeful memories. School terrifies me now and I have to do all sorts of things to try and make the situation better.

I can't talk to Mum about my problems at school, in fact it is very difficult to talk to my mother about anything. Sometimes she looks at me as if she doesn't know me. When she does talk to me it is because she is angry.

I have to calm down before I go inside, but why should I? Aren't I allowed to be angry? My mother is always cranky, the kids at school are wild and out of control, and the world is just spinning, spinning.....

There is a twig close by that infuriates me, it is all out of shape and looks wrong. I wave my free hand at it and it snaps right off. Jolly good, now it won't annoy me any more.

I'm really hungry, I can't stay up here any longer. As I climb down I catch my school tee shirt on a bit of bark sticking out of the trunk but I act quickly and don't tear anything. The grass is very thick because of the rain and it's quite high, hasn't it been mown lately? I hope that isn't something I'm supposed to do but I have no recollection of ever mowing anything.

I test the back door gently, sometimes it has been locked and I have had to knock. It's humiliating when you have to knock at your own back door. Mum won't give me a key although I have asked her several times for one. She mutters about me losing it and burglars breaking in but if I had a key I would wear it around my neck to keep it safe. In some of the English books I used to read there were children with keys worn like that, and I think they're called latchkey kids. I have no idea what a latch is, perhaps some sort of lock.

I open the back door carefully and see Mum standing in the middle of the kitchen staring into space. She's wearing her floral pyjamas which she had on when I left for school, and when I came home. At least she hasn't gone back to bed. I think her bed is her equivalent of my tree.

‘What’s for dinner?’ I'm careful what I say to her because she often takes offense but I don't think I can go wrong with that question. It's quite a normal question, asked, I am sure, by many normal children after their day at school. It should prove to her that I am a perfectly normal fifteen year old. She doesn't need to know I have been up my tree yet again.

She jumps as if I have frightened her and she looks at me yet again as if she has forgotten who I am and maybe she has. I might as well be a ghost for all the attention she pays me. She shakes her head and blinks rapidly. She has very pretty eyes, they are big and blue, and she has long eyelashes too, but she hasn't worn makeup for ages and she seems to live in her pyjamas. Her hair looks awful, I don't think she has brushed it for days. And that is typical, she is always telling me to take care of my appearance yet she doesn't give a damn.

‘Okay, dinner,' she speaks slowly, 'why don’t we have sandwiches, we can pretend we’re camping. It will be fun.’ Mum puts on one of her cheesy fake smiles that irritate the hell out of me.

We’ve been pretending to be camping for weeks now. The first few times it was okay but I am desperate for red meat. I open the freezer and it is chock-a-block with chops and steaks and roasts. I'm even interested in the frozen bags of vegetables which must be proof I am really hungry. Or perhaps I am becoming an adult because teenagers don't like vegetables.

‘I can defrost something,’ I say. ‘The chops won’t take long.’

‘It’s too late,’ says Mum.

She always says things like that. It doesn't matter what time we have dinner, it's not as if there is some television program we can watch.

'I know you used to cook roasts,' I say, a faint memory of beef and potatoes and pumpkins reaches me. 'They were wonderful. Why did you stop?'

And I remember apple tarts and sponges. We haven't had anything sweet for a long time. The kitchen is very clean, quite sterile, as if nothing has ever been cooked in here. Perhaps I am remembering wrongly, perhaps we have always lived on sandwiches, but if we have only ever had sandwiches why is there so much meat in the freezer?

Mum doesn't answer my question about her cooking. She often does that, just ignores me as if I haven't even spoken but I remember my lips moving. I think it is quite rude when she does that. I wonder how she would like it if I did that to her. I suppose then I would be a rude and ignorant child, can a mother be rude and ignorant? Mine certainly can.

Mum reaches over to the bread bin. She throws up her hands when she realises it is empty. The bread thieves have been at it again or perhaps there is no bread because as fast as a loaf appears, it is eaten during fun camping expeditions. And what fun they are! I learned about sarcasm at school and I'm getting quite good at it.

‘You'd better go down to the shop.’ Mum does that awful smile again. 'It won't take you long.'

I stand in the middle of the kitchen like a log. If I remain still for long enough she might forget about me but she doesn’t, instead she picks up her purse from the counter and hands me some money.

‘We could have something from a tin,’ I say but she pushes me, suddenly quite angry, and pushes me again. I stumble and hold on to the counter. My heart is beating fast, I want to vanish. Pudding is hiding under a chair, her heart is probably beating very quickly too.

'Just go,' she shrieks. 'Why do you make my life so difficult?' Her face is red and she shakes her fists at me. 'Go and get the bread, Bethany. For once in your life do as I ask. Why do I always have to repeat myself?'

I run out the back door and race halfway down the garden to the little gate in the side fence. I am very careful about where I look. The garden has changed and it bothers me. It takes me a while to get out of the gate because there are loops of wire I have to undo, then of course I have to put them all back again. I am so angry my hands shake which makes the task even more difficult.

My life isn’t fair, she knows I hate going to the shop, but I'm really hungry. I'm sure Mum used to make marvellous meals and I suddenly remember dumplings in a thick meat stew. Surely I can't remember things that aren't real?

What happened to our meals and why do we live on bread? Bread is the staff of life, it's the only thing between me and starvation, but it is not very exciting. Actually it is extremely boring especially when the only things that go on it are spreads. It's not as if we have salad sandwiches, or ones filled with curried egg. We don't even have them toasted.

My trip to the shops is the same as it has been for a long time. I run down the lane which is my choice for a route as it is usually deserted. This lane is really a drain. There is a big concrete thing in the middle. Sometimes it's almost empty but I don't like it then because all the thrown away stuff is revealed and some of it is definitely not nice. There is grass on both sides and a few roads bisect it. I hardly ever see anyone and if I do I just turn around and run back the other way.

I slow down at the end of the lane, slow my mad running, and change to a slow walk. I peek into the street and, apart from a few cars which are going much too fast, it is empty of people. I walk across the road to the corner shop which really is on a corner. There are other shops around here called corner shops, but they aren't, they're midway down the block. That's just wrong, it's false advertising which we have studied in school, and which fascinates me.

The shop is very old but it has been done up as a mini supermarket and has new paint and new flooring. The door is original and the chime rings as I walk into the shop. Perhaps this time it will be different. Although I have been walking, my heart is racing so hard I wonder if I might faint. Mr Boardman, who is hulking behind the counter, gives me the evil eye. He has a great deal of very white hair and a pallid moustache and has looked the same for as long as I can remember. I have no idea how long that is, perhaps I've only known him for a few weeks? I go over to the stand and pull out some bread, I don’t care what sort it is, and I don't care if the plastic tears, and take it over to the cash register. I can hear muttering in the background and I draw in some quick breaths and bounce the bread in my hands.

Mr Boardman just stands there, unmoving, like a giant Redwood tree, and almost as tall. My English teacher would say his posture is intimidating, and it is. He is a large man, with a thick neck, and he has rolled his lips together so they have vanished. He glares down at me and blows up at the ends of his moutache so they flutter. I put the money on the counter next to the bread.

‘You want bread do you? You think you deserve bread? You think you deserve any food?’

'Please,' I say but it is hard to keep the tears out of my voice. 'My mother...... '

'Your mother!' he shouts.

There’s a swish of air and Mrs Boardman stalks out from the cold room. ‘Just give it to her, Fred, the faster you serve her the faster she is out of here. We don't want people like her in here polluting our shop.’

Her mean little eyes become even smaller when she screws up her face. She waves her skeletal arms in the air as if to push me out. I'm sure if I was closer to her she would physically eject me from her horrid shop. They might have done it up with white paint and floor tiles but the shop has an awful ambiance and the background sounds make me feel sick..

I glance over to the shelves which hold biscuits and tins and then they are all over the floor. The noise is stupendous and Mrs Boardman screams and runs over to the wall.

'You little bitch,' says Mr Boardman, 'you'll pay for that!' He throws my change on the counter and hits it with his fist.

'I was nowhere near! Your wife was closer than I was! Don't you dare blame me!' I shout as loudly as I can and stamp my foot.

I grab the bread and my change and walk as slowly as I can to the door. I open it gently, glance briefly back at the wonderful mess, and leave their awful shop. Mr and Mrs Boardman scream out after me but their voices are muffled by the door.

And as I walk out into the street I have a sudden clear memory that Mrs Boardman used to give me sweets when I was smaller, and she’d smile, and Mr Boardman would make really terrible jokes. I remembered all that very clearly so why did things change? Now they consider me an evil person and I don't understand why. The whole world has changed and no-one has told me what is going on.