I was almost tempted to go home with Hilary and Charley and stay with them till after Boxing Day. They wanted me to. Well, they wanted Shinola to. Even Charley. They couldn’t leave her alone. Here I was trying to teach her not to expect to be picked up every time she cried, and there they were, practically arm-wrestling over which one was going to hold her. But I had too much to do to waste time with them. I was full of plans and energy again. Hilary and Charley were coming to move the rest of her stuff in the week, but I said I’d start packing things up before then. I couldn’t wait to get started. The sooner she was really out, the sooner I was really in and my life could finally begin properly.
And, of course, there was Les to tell. He’d probably ring on Boxing Day to wish me a Merry Christmas, after his mother had calmed down from the excitement of having him home for a week. I was going to be there when he did.
I spent Boxing Day waiting for Les’s call, but it never came. I reckoned his mother must have dragged him off to relatives, so he never had a chance. The first thing the next morning I tied Hilary’s books in bundles and put everything that wasn’t breakable into black bin liners. I got so involved in packing that I didn’t realize Les hadn’t rung till ten o’clock that night, when I finally collapsed. I was lying there, surrounded by all the garbage Hilary Spiggs had collected over the years, imagining the flat the way it was going to be. The walls and the furniture were white. There was a set of those stackable glass and chrome tables beside the leather sofa. The coffee table was big and round and also made of glass and chrome. The lights had frosted glass shades and pointed at the ceiling. Les was in our blue and yellow kitchen, making us a nightcap. He sat beside me and handed me my glass. He kissed my cheek. He raised his glass. “Merry Christmas, baby,” he whispered. “And a Happy New Year.” That was when I realized that he hadn’t rung. I was almost too tired to care.
“He’ll ring,” I told myself as I pulled my new quilt around me. “Probably when Hilary and Charley are here.”
I pushed Les out of my mind. I knew what his mother was like. She was a clinger. Plus, she’d have about a million things for him to do in her house when he was there. Plus, he had a couple of aunts and uncles to see. He was probably too busy to get to a phone. Since he couldn’t use hers ’cause her income was fixed.
But I was busy, too.
Hilary and Charley came two days after Boxing Day.
“Well, you’ve certainly been busy,” said Hilary, looking round. “I hope you don’t dance on my grave as fast as this.”
Even though I’d packed up tons of her junk, it took the three of us the whole day to finish sorting all her stuff and loading the van.
Then I threw myself into cleaning the flat with every bit of energy I had left. I worked like a woman possessed, dusting, hoovering, mopping and hauling furniture. By the time I was done, I had blisters on my hands, two splinters and a cut on my forehead from walking into a shelf.
I’d literally just put the hoover away when the doorbell rang.
Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve. Which meant it couldn’t be Shanee. Shanee’d be running around getting ready for her party.
It had to be Les. That was why he hadn’t rung, because he was going to surprise me by turning up for New Year’s Eve.
I practically tripped over myself to get to the door before he could ring again and wake Shinola.
Shanee was standing on the doorstep with her arms full of shopping.
“Don’t look so happy to see me,” said Shanee. “I can’t stay for long.”
It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy to see her. It was just that I’d been about to fling myself into her arms. I put a smile on my face and waved her inside.
“Come on!” I cried. “You’re the first visitor to our new flat.”
Shanee waggled her eyebrows. “And to think I didn’t even know you’d moved. It’s been longer than I thought.”
“Wait till you hear what happened,” I said as I led her inside.
Shanee got as far as the living-room and stopped dead.
“Geez,” said Shanee. “It looks like you’ve been robbed.”
“Hilary’s moved out for good,” I told her. “The flat’s officially mine!”
Shanee’s eyes moved from one corner to the next. “What’s left of it,” said Shanee.
“Oh, please… It’s not done yet, is it? Wait till I paint it all. It’ll look really brilliant. And once I save some money I’m going to go really modern.” Hilary was too cheap to even buy a toaster, but I was going to have an all-electric kitchen. “You know, with those hobs that don’t look like hobs, and an electric kettle, an electric coffee-maker and an electric toaster. And a microwave, of course.”
Shanee kept nodding and looking around.
“Everything will be colour co-ordinated eventually.”
Shanee gave me a look. “So does this mean that Les will be moving in?”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
“Well, that’s really great.” Shanee let go of her carrier bags and gave me a hug. “Then he’ll be coming with you tomorrow night.”
“’Fraid not. He’s been held up at his mum’s.”
Shanee was looking at me the same way she’d looked at me when the socks fell out of Shinola’s blanket.
“But you’re still coming, aren’t you?” she asked. “You have to come.”
“I know… I have to meet Guy.”
Shanee waved Guy away with one hand. “Not any more. Now you have to meet Andy.” She laughed. “I met him on Christmas Eve at Edna Husser’s. He’s a friend of her brother’s.”
I had to laugh, too. “You’ve changed a bit. You never used to go out with blokes at all and now you’re running through men like they’re traffic lights.”
“You know what they say,” said Shanee.
“Make hay while the sun shines?” I guessed. It was one of my nan’s.
“No,” said Shanee. “You’re only young once.”
I spent most of New Year’s Eve day debating whether to go to Shanee’s party or not. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I? Shouldn’t I? At about nine o’clock, when everyone on the telly was gearing up for the big hour, I decided that I should. Madonna would have.
But the minute Shanee opened the door I knew that I’d made a mistake.
“Lana!” she shrieked. “I can’t believe it! You actually came.”
Already I didn’t know why I had. One minute I was sitting there on my own in my new, empty flat with nothing to do, listening to the echoes, seeing Les in his yellow shirt dancing like John Travolta. And the next I was getting me and Shinola into our velvet dresses.
“I didn’t realize it was casual,” I mumbled. From what I could see, lots of the girls were in jeans or leggings with see-through or sequinned tops. And almost all of them were wearing black or grey, or some combination of black and grey. Red was obviously not the in-colour this season.
“You look beautiful,” Shanee assured me. “Very mature.”
I took this to mean “old”.
Shanee was wearing a dress for a change, but it didn’t have a lace collar and cuffs. It didn’t have any collar or cuffs. It was long and gauzy and in layers. The top layer was black but underneath it was purple and, underneath that, red. It was very sexy in a quiet sort of way. I’d never seen Shanee look sexy before. It was a bit of a shock.
“You look pretty mature, too,” I said.
Shanee grabbed my arm. “Come on, let’s put Shinola in my room, then I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
“Right,” I said. “Brilliant.”
I followed her through the mob. A couple of people looked at me as if I was carrying an orangutan and not a human baby, but mostly nobody seemed to see me. Nobody waved hello or anything. I recognized a few faces, but not as many as you’d think.
“You’ve certainly made a lot of new friends since I left school,” I joked.
“Yeah,” said Shanee. “I suppose I have. There’s so much going on.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I know.” There was a lot going on in my life, too, only it all seemed to be going in a circle.
Shanee giggled. “Who ever thought growing up would be so much fun?”
“Not me,” I said.
Shinola, of course, was not about to go to sleep just because I wanted her to. She was in play mode.
“I have to get back to the party,” said Shanee. She made a face. “The responsibilities of the hostess. Come and get me when she’s asleep.”
“Sure,” I said. “If I can still recognize you by then.”
I sat on Shanee’s bed while I waited for Shinola to nod off. A boy and a girl I didn’t know poked their heads in once, looking for the snogging room, but other than that we were on our own.
Being in Shanee’s room was like going back in time. She still had every photo we’d ever taken of ourselves stuck around her mirror. And she still had the picture of us with her mum and the kids standing in the rain at Thorpe Park. And the traffic cone we found in the road. And her James Dean poster on the wall. I thought about how many hours of my life I’d spent looking at that poster while me and Shanee talked. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. I could actually see us sitting there. We were eating biscuits and spraying crumbs everywhere when we laughed.
Shanee was in a clinch in the kitchen when I finally found her.
She didn’t even look embarrassed.
“Lana,” she gushed. “This is Andy. Andy, this is Lana.”
Andy was possibly the most gorgeous bloke I’d ever seen in real life. He wasn’t my type – he had a long ponytail and a nose-ring – but he was incredible to look at. Like a film star. Like Johnny Depp. He had to be at least twenty.
Andy said, “How’s it goin’, Lana?” And ran one hand down Shanee’s side.
“I’ll be right out,” Shanee promised. She kind of bumped her hip into Andy’s hip. “I came in for more food. Amie and Gerri are out there. Ask them to introduce you to anyone you don’t know.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
I couldn’t get Amie’s attention. She was laughing her head off with two boys I didn’t know. They didn’t go to our school, that was for sure.
I couldn’t get Gerri’s attention either. She was in the snogging room.
I wandered round, picking at the snacks and smiling as if I was having a good time. I got a beer and tried to mingle. I stood on the edge of a group of people and listened with a smile on my face. But they were all talking about people and things that had nothing to do with me. I got another beer. The beer made me feel a little better. I stood myself in a corner and kind of swayed to the music, like I was waiting for someone to ask me to dance.
And then I spotted Gary Lightfoot over by the drinks table. He used to be in my form. He’d always been a bit gawky and stupid, but he was a friendly face, so I gave him a smile. It was like waving a red flag at a bull. He was beside me so fast I bumped into the wall.
“Lana,” said Gary. “Long time no see. How’s it goin’?”
I said it was going great. How about him?
“Brilliant,” said Gary. “So everything’s all right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Everything’s great.”
He was smiling at me like he was posing for a photograph.
“So,” Gary cleared his throat. “Did you have the kid?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I had the kid.” I nodded towards the hall. “She’s sleeping in Shanee’s room.”
“Brilliant.” Gary nodded. “So what’s its name?”
“She’s a girl,” I said. “Her name’s Shinola.”
Gary’s smile started to quiver.
“You what?”
“Shinola. It means beauti—”
“Shinola?” Gary’s smile was all over the place. “You mean like the shoe polish?”
“Shoe polish?” I wasn’t smiling at all. “What are you on about, shoe polish?”
“Shinola,” said Gary. “It’s a shoe polish.”
“No, it isn’t.” Not only was I not smiling, I was hardly moving my lips. “It means beautiful morning. In African.”
Gary gave up trying not to laugh. “No, it doesn’t. It means shoe polish in American.”
I was still trying to explain that it meant beautiful morning or something like that in some language when he suddenly grabbed a nearby boy and dragged him into the conversation.
“Jake,” said Gary. “Isn’t Shinola an American shoe polish?”
Jake grinned. “Can’t tell shit from Shinola,” said Jake.
Gary started cracking up but I just stood there, looking blank.
“It’s a saying. It means you’re really stupid,” Jake explained. “So stupid you can’t tell shit from Shinola.”
“I suppose that means it’s brown,” I said.
Gary spluttered. “Is your baby brown?”
“No,” I said. “Not last time I looked.”
I didn’t feel much like partying after that. I watched Gary and Jake stagger off, still laughing. It’d take them about two minutes to make sure that everybody knew I’d named my baby after a shoe polish that looks like shit. I got Shinola and went home.
I walked through my front door just in time to hear Les say, “Well, Happy New Year! See you soon!” And then the answering machine started to whirr.
I couldn’t believe it! I’d been at home practically every minute since Christmas Day and the one time I leave the house he rings! I stood there holding Shinola, staring down at the answering machine. A couple of tears slid down my cheek. But then desperation inspired me and I did something I’d never even thought of doing before. I picked up the phone and dialled one-four-seven-one.
It went so fast I wasn’t sure I got the number right. I hung up, got a pen and a piece of paper, and dialled it again.
It wasn’t a Norwich number at all. It was a London number.
Les must be at home. He’d phoned me as soon as he got back. He did want to spend New Year’s Eve with me. It was his surprise. Me and Shinola still had our coats on. I didn’t think twice about it. Thank God my nan’d given me a tenner for Christmas. I just turned right round and went back outside and got a taxi.
I know exactly what I was expecting. I was expecting Les in his yellow shirt with a happy grin on his face and a bottle of champagne.
“I was just about to ring you again,” he’d say when he opened the door. “I reckoned you must be putting the baby to sleep.”
A woman answered the door. She was about Hilary’s age, but her hair was grey. I got this really bad feeling when I saw her. The time me and Hilary got robbed, a coldness came over me the second I stepped through the door. Because there was a cassette on the floor, and I knew it shouldn’t be there. That was how I was feeling now. This woman shouldn’t be here.
“Yes?” She looked from me to Shinola and back again. “Can I help you?”
“Oh,” I said. She was wearing an apron and slippers. It had to be the wrong house. I told the driver Number Seventy-one, but he must’ve misheard me. And I didn’t think to check. “I-I’m sorry to bother you… I was looking for Les. Les Craft? He lives on this road.”
She smiled very slightly. It was a familiar smile. I could feel myself really start to panic. Trillions of thoughts were shooting through my brain.
“Yes? You’re looking for Les?”
No, shrieked one of the voices in my head. Les is looking for me!
“Do you know him?” Maybe she was the mother of one of his flatmates. Or he helped carry her shopping in sometimes. “If you could just point out his house…”
That made her laugh. “I think you could say I know him. I’m Les’s mother. And this is his house.” Her eyes moved from me to Shinola. “Are you a friend of his?”
“Oh…” It was like I had this tower of cards built up inside of me and someone had taken out one of the cards at the bottom. Everything was collapsing at once. I could feel it. I could even see it. I tried to stop it. “You’re Les’s mum?” I forced myself to smile. “Les didn’t say you were coming down to London.”
She gave me a puzzled look. “But I live in London. Here. I’ve lived in this house for thirty years.”
Crash went why Les never gave me his home phone number. Crash went why his mobile was never on. Crash went why I could never go to his. Crash went the flu Les had last year. Crash went why he couldn’t spend any of Christmas with me. Crashcrashcrash. But I still tried to stop it.
“But you can’t,” I blurted out. “Les – I mean, I thought you lived in Norwich.”
“Norwich?” She smiled like she thought I must be on drugs. “My sister lives in Norwich, but I live here. With Les.” She pushed the door forward just a bit. “How do you know Les?” She gave me and Shinola another once-over. “You are a friend of his?”
I was standing on her doorstep with a baby in my arms on New Year’s Eve. What did she think I was, a Girl Guide? But I couldn’t say anything like that. I knew that once I started, I’d never stop. And the crashing cards would never stop either.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course I am.” I bounced Shinola gently in my arms. “A very good friend.”
Her smile was polite at first, but now it was just kind of there.
“A very good friend who doesn’t know that he lives with his mother?”
“Well, I—” No wonder the kitchen was so tidy. No wonder I never saw any room but Les’s. I made my voice not shake. “Is Les at home?”
She held the door steady. “I’m afraid you just missed him.” She sounded anything but sorry.
“Well, will he be back soon?”
She shook her head. “It’s New Year’s Eve.” In case I’d missed that. “He’s gone to a party.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “So there’s no point in waiting.”
“No,” said Mrs Craft. “No, there’s no point in waiting. I believe he’s spending the night at a friend’s.”
I didn’t cry while I was talking to Les’s mother, and I didn’t cry after she went back inside and turned off the outside light either. I just stood there, staring at the door. It was a wooden door, painted white. It had a brass letterbox and four tiny windows of coloured glass. I stood there until the shock wore off enough for me to feel the cold. Then I turned round and headed home.
There was nothing inside me except this big hole. This big, cold hole. It made me numb from the inside out. I remember looking up at the sky to see if there were any stars, but Dollis Hill wasn’t like the hospital ward with its shiny silver stars. The sky was browny pink and blank, as if we were underground.
I don’t remember the walk home. Maybe Shinola was awake, and maybe she was sleeping. Maybe we walked on the main road, and maybe we stayed on the side streets. I do remember the Christmas decorations and faraway laughter.
I wasn’t scared. There were lots of drunks out, and probably lots of muggers, too, but I couldn’t give a used tampon. So what if someone attacked me? What could they do? Beat me up? Kill me? Big deal.
Anyway, I was really sure God wouldn’t let anyone rape or murder me. It was too easy. My life was punishment enough.
I was in one of those films I didn’t like to watch. The sort of film that Charley liked. He thought they were realistic. “Sit down and watch this with us,” he’d say. “This is about real life.” But they weren’t realistic, they were depressing. They never had happy endings, and most of the time somebody died, or might as well have. Even if they were in colour I always felt like they were in black and white.
And that was me, walking through the dark on New Year’s Eve with my baby in my arms and about a trillion things in my mind all at once. All the lies Les had told me. All the half-truths. Even all the truths. Nothing was how I thought it was. And nothing was going to be how I thought it would be. I could see that now. I could see it really clearly. Like I should’ve seen it all along.
It was like I’d been sleeping for about a hundred years, and now I’d woken up. But it wasn’t the Prince’s kiss that woke me. It was the toe of his boot in my face.
Les had never really been interested in me. Not really interested. Not like I was in him. He probably had another girlfriend. Maybe more than one. That was why he was always so busy. I wondered who he really went to Greece with. Or maybe he went to Greece like he went to Norwich. Maybe he’d been in London all the time. All the time I was sitting in the house on my own. All the time I was in labour. All the time.
I made up our love. I made up our happiness. I made up our future and our present. But of all the things I made up maybe the worst thing was that I made up Les. He wasn’t independent. He wasn’t going to be a big success. He wasn’t even very nice really. He was just OK. He was an OK bloke with a boring job he pretended was important who still lived with his mum. For all I knew, she did pick out his clothes. Maybe he didn’t even have good dress sense.
I kept hearing Shanee say, You’re only young once… You’re only young once…
Yeah, I thought. And I’d thrown it away. I’d never done anything in my whole life that wasn’t a mistake.
I was only young once and now I was old. Five years from now, I’d still be exactly where I was. I’d be scrimping for this and saving for that. I’d be shopping in Kwik Save and charity shops. I wouldn’t go to art school like Shanee, or for weekends in the country with my friends. I’d never have my dream house or my dream family. Because that was all they were. Just dreams. My real house was the flat I’d lived in since I was little. My real family was Shinola.
We passed Shanee’s on the way up the road. You could hear the music all the way down at the corner. The music and the laughter and the shouting of teenagers who’d had a few drinks and were having a good time. And for a second I could actually see myself in there with them. Not like I was earlier in the evening, but like I should’ve been. Like who I used to be.
Shinola was crying by the time we got to the flat. I turned the telly on loud so I’d hear another voice and then I got Shinola ready for bed. I did it like I was a robot. Change nappy … heat bottle … put on pyjamas…
She took her bottle all right, but she didn’t want to be put in her cot. Because I’d been holding her so much.
“Tough titties,” I told her. And I slammed the bedroom door behind me.
I could still hear her in the living-room. I turned the telly up even louder and put on the stereo, but I couldn’t drown her out. Mrs Mugurdy started doing her dance on my ceiling. I didn’t want a fight with Mrs Mugurdy just then. I turned everything down and went back to the bedroom.
I had the hall light on, so I could see her even though the room was dark. I looked down on Shinola, wide-awake and screaming, but what I saw was Les’s mother, blocking the entrance to Number Seventy-one and smiling like I was a beggar or something.
She didn’t know about me even vaguely. It never occurred to her that I was Les’s girlfriend. It never occurred to her that I was holding her grandchild in my arms.
And that’s when I finally started to cry.
It was like some giant was shaking me, I was sobbing so much.
What did my life amount to? Bloody nothing, that’s what. I had a ratty old council flat that I’d end up dying in, and a baby named after a shoe polish. And it wasn’t even British shoe polish.
Shinola cried and I cried. I don’t know for how long. And all I wanted was to go back. To go back a year and be Lana Spiggs again, not Shinola Spiggs’ mum. That’s all I wanted. I just wanted to be where I used to be, with a future.
I stopped crying, but Shinola didn’t.
I wished she would go away. Just disappear. Then everything could go back to the way it was. I’d go back to do my GCSEs and go to parties and maybe even go to drama school. Shanee could move in with me and share the flat. We’d be like Friends. Mrs Mugurdy might die and a couple of guys get her flat. Then we’d really be like Friends.
Shinola kept shrieking.
“Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut bloody up!”
But she wouldn’t, would she?
“Just go away!” I begged. “Just go away!”
Suddenly I saw how easy it would be to wipe the last year right out of my life. Just put the pillow over her head for a couple of minutes. That was all. Just hold it there.
It wasn’t really like I was thinking it, it was like I was dreaming it.
I watched myself pick up the quilt Nan had made her and throw it over Shinola. I watched myself pick up the pillow and put it over her head.
The New Year’s chimes started ringing on the telly. Outside I could hear fireworks and people shouting. I pressed down.
One … two … three … four … five…
One tiny fist poked out from under the quilt and the pillow. It waved in the air.
And I could see her holding on to my hair, the way she always did. She wasn’t covered up in the cot, she was in my arms, pulling my hair so much it hurt. I don’t know, it just got to me, that’s all. It was Shinola’s hand, and there was always gunge between the fingers. I remembered counting them in the hospital.
Six … seven … eight … nine…
I could never go back. Unless I got amnesia, I was never going to be the way I was. If I’d wanted to get rid of Shinola, I should’ve done it before she was born.
Ten … eleven…
If I wasn’t going to go back, then I might as well go forward. I couldn’t see that I had much choice.
I threw the pillow and quilt across the room. Shinola was purple and gasping. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there hugging her.
Twelve…
I hadn’t heard the phone ring but I heard the answering machine pick up.
“Happy New Year, Lana and Shinola!” shouted Hilary and Charley. “Happy New Year!”
Shinola coughed and all this baby snot blew across the front of my dress.
“Well, I guess it’s just you and me,” I told Shinola.
Shinola’s fingers twisted themselves around my hair.
I winced in pain.
“Happy New Year to you, Shinola Spiggs,” I said. “Happy New Year to us.”