Pandora’s Box

I am never going to mention to Annie-Jo how hurt I was that Shelley didn’t get an invite; I won’t, because there is simply no point. It’s gone. You can’t bring the past back. I can’t change anything, can I?

It’s the same reason why I don’t see any point hanging on to all the trash that people accumulate about the past. Like all the things Pandora sent me that I’ve shoved behind the pedal bin. What could possibly be in there that anyone could have judged worth keeping for all these years?

In fact, now that I’m down here throwing the crumbs away I can see I really need to clean out this cupboard under the sink, too. There are no less than three dried-up used teabags under here that never quite made the bin. And Pandora’s blooming box is taking up too much space. It makes the pedal bin stick out at the front so the door won’t close properly. It’s a darn nuisance having to hang on to all this for Lily, it really is. Pandora should have sent it all to her in the first place. Still, there is nothing stopping me from sticking it all in a slightly smaller (and fresher-smelling!) box that will fit more neatly behind the door. I don’t know where else I would put it; we’re bursting at the seams as it is.

Oh my god, there’s my old diary. I can’t believe she kept that! I just hope Pandora never read any of it. How embarrassing. I must have written pages and pages, what on earth did I go on about? Better take that out before Lily gets her mitts on it!

8 February 1978

Today my feet hurt and my legs hurt so much. We have to strengthen all our muscles, Mrs Legrange says. We have to keep on practising daily, practising and smiling, all the way through the pain because that’s what the pros do. Ha, if only she knew there is no way I am ever going to do this as my grown-up job, no way, ever! The competition season is coming up again and that means extra lessons which we’ve got no option but to go to because once it’s paid for, Dad says, it’s paid for and we go. But—here is my big secret—at the moment I don’t mind.

There’s this boy called Gordon. He’s sixteen. His partner is called Amelie and she’s two years younger than him. They aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, though. You can tell it by the way they automatically separate once the dance is over. Their gaze goes to different things. She looks up to the balcony where someone else is watching her. He looks around at the edges of the dance floor, scanning the other couples, sussing out the opposition. He’s very focused. You can just see, he so much wants to win. He’s got what Dad calls ‘the hunger’; he says he’s one to watch. So I do; oh, I do.

I watch him when he’s dancing with Amelie; I watch the way that he looks at her, his eyes melting right into the very heart of her, and I find myself wondering, what might it be like if only he looked at me like that? Just the thought of it is enough to make me shiver. Just thinking about what it might be like if—just for one day—I could be his partner instead of Amelie, it’s been enough to get me into trouble with Legrange for not ‘paying proper attention’ already.

Oh, wow, I remember him now. I do. I remember how I used to hang about after class, looking out for him. He used to turn my insides to jelly! Just thinking about it is bringing a smile to my face because I can remember how it used to be, god, what it is, to be in love. I suppose it must be just a teenage thing, because I never remember feeling anything like it with Bill. Not that I didn’t love Bill, I did, but it wasn’t this kind of head-over-heels, all-consuming thing that I felt for this boy Gordon. And here’s the strange thing. When I think about it, I can hardly remember Gordon at all. I cannot bring to mind his face, or hear the sound of his voice any longer, it’s all faded. What I do remember, reading this, is how I felt about that boy!

4 March 1978

He asked me my name today. He’s been looking out for me. Well, that’s what I think anyway. My class finishes ten minutes earlier than his but three weeks in a row he’s come through the door into the hall at exactly the same time as me—can that be a coincidence? I told him, ‘Rachel’. He said that’s real nice. He’s got a soft voice but it’s got a strength about it, you can tell. He might be a dancer but he’s not the kind of boy any of the other lads would want to mess with. He told me his name was Gordon, and I already knew that but I pretended I didn’t.

I got some other info from his partner, Amelie, too. He’s got a younger sister who’s only six, and he’s got a dog called Blanche and he’s into Guns N’ Roses. She told me all that without me having to probe too much and I don’t think she even suspects I’m interested in him yet cos I was pretty casual about it.

Gordon didn’t say anything else to me apart from ‘That’s real nice’ and then he kind of shrugged and said, ‘Well, see ya’. And then Lily came out at that moment so I was pretty glad he was gone because I don’t want her getting involved. Next week I’ll get to talk to him for longer because she’ll be at the dentist and I’ll have the field clear, all to myself. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next seven days without seeing him. It’s torture. But a kind of wonderful torture at the same time because him being there has made going to practice so much more exciting. I’ve been trying to find out what other times he and Amelie are there but I’ve got to be careful. If anyone finds out they will make so much fun of me that my life will be one Holy hell, as if it isn’t bad enough already.

It’s all because I have to be the one to dress up and be the ‘boy’, of course. When we were younger it didn’t matter. Nobody cared. But now that the other kids are older it’s the kind of thing they notice and they laugh at me for it and I hate, hate it! I don’t want to be a bloody boy, I never did. But now Mum and Dad say me and Lily have got to stay together for at least one more season because we’ve been dancing together for so long nobody else is going to be able to partner her as well as I can.

I don’t want to have my hair cut short any more. I don’t want that nasty top hat or to have that moustache painted onto my face.

Gordon doesn’t know because he only sees me on a Tuesday evening after we finish general dance fitness classes. Then I’m allowed to wear my pink leotard and look like any other girl so he doesn’t know. If he did he’d probably hate me and call me nasty things like all the other boys do. God, it doesn’t bear thinking about, it really doesn’t.

Ugh! It brings it all back, it really does. I would never have thought that just a few simple words written in a diary could have such a strong emotional impact, but it’s almost as good as a time-machine, this. I’m transported. I’m actually there.

‘Mu-um, are you coming? Mu-um?’

‘Just one second, Dan. Do the bits of your maths that you can and I’ll be along in a moment.’

He’s waiting upstairs. I said I would just finish in the kitchen but I’m taking an age over it because I was feeling so upset about Annie-Jo.

‘I’ve already done the bits that I can do.’ His voice is languid. He’s probably hoping that I’ll get sidetracked and forget all about it but I can’t, I mustn’t.

‘Okay I’ll be up at exactly quarter to. Five minutes.’

Five minutes—just one more and then I’ll have to leave reading the rest of these diary entries till later.

11 March 1978

I had to make the most of it tonight, I knew that and I went for it. I kept thinking there’s never going to be another good time like this when Liliana is out of the picture. It couldn’t have been better really. First, she and Dad got stuck behind a long appointment at the dentist. I got a message through the office that they were going to be delayed. Then that was nearly ruined when my class overran by fifteen minutes. My heart felt so tense in my chest it was just unreal. I kept thinking he’s going to be gone by the time I get out of this bloody lesson, my whole week of waiting will have all been for nothing and I can’t stand this, I really can’t.

But when I finally got out, blasting through the double-doors like a bat out of hell, he was still there, leaning all casually up against the doorway opposite, waiting for me. I could feel it. He smiled at me and then he…just sort of put his head a little to one side, indicating the courtyard, and I followed him out without speaking. And outside there was a chill spring wind blowing, I could feel it goose-pimpling up my arms but I was too excited to feel any cold at all. It was getting dark, quarter to five already, and there was only the lamplight from the street opposite for us to see each other by. It didn’t matter.

I was worried I wouldn’t know what to say. Gordon was so quiet at first I thought maybe he’s shy too, but he wasn’t. Not at all.

They say you always remember your first kiss, but what do you remember? Is it the surprise of first having someone else’s ardent lips on your own, that feeling of having them so near, dangerous and exciting as it is, the heat of their body up close against yours? If we’d had more time to get to know each other, more opportunities during the week to meet, I would have hung back forever shy, I would have taken forever to let him get near to me.

But tonight…all I could think of was, I won’t get to see him again for another seven whole days. And when I do, next time, stupid Lily will be there. And by then maybe someone will have told him about my nasty tuxedos and painted-on moustaches and he will have gone right off me. Hell, if I were him I would have!

So we kissed. And I didn’t feel shy and awkward about it, not at all. I felt powerful and feminine and beautiful even though we didn’t say a word, no, I swear, we didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. Only when, after an entire age had passed at last I heard my father’s voice calling through the corridors inside; I heard his footsteps coming quickly and the janitor following behind him saying grumpily ‘I’m already locking up here’. And only then did Gordon let me go. He had this peaceful smile on his face. He said, ‘See ya’. That was all he said but it echoed in my heart all the way home and for a long time afterwards. I think it will echo in my heart forever.

Reading that has just lightened up my day, it really has. I didn’t always feel like such a dried-up old husk of a fruit bat like I do now. I did once know what it felt like to fall in love with someone. Puppy love, maybe, but who cares what it was? It’s all come rushing back and it’s made me feel all funny inside.

‘Mum, it’s quarter to already!’

Hell, so it is, and I did promise Dan.

I don’t want to read on, though. I’m not really sure why. It reminds me of who I used to be, I suppose. It reminds me of the person I might still be, inside, underneath the crusty layers of all the years and all the vicissitudes. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

‘Coming, Danny. I’m coming.’ I jump up, pushing the journal back in Pandora’s box. I’m going to have to find some other hiding place, well and truly hidden out of sight. I don’t want any of the kids cottoning on to this before I have a chance to destroy it.

‘Okay, Mum?’ Shelley’s caught a glimpse of the smile in my heart, I know she has, because she’s just looked at me curiously, passing me on the way to the stairs.

‘I’m fine,’ I tell her automatically. Maybe I am, too, I think. I’ve just had a reminder of the fact that, after all, I am still human. I am still capable of remembering what it feels like to love and be loved.

Maybe at the end of the day that’s the only thing that counts?

7 Shelley (#ulink_d1ed54fb-2018-513e-b3bf-d25f5e01f6b2)

Miriam’s mum came round this morning. When she came through the door I thought she was someone else. She didn’t look the same. Her hair has gotten much thinner than it used to be, much lighter, almost white. Her face has been leached of all its colour, of all its life. I think she was wearing a thin beige jacket; the kind that the old ladies wear who queue up at the post office on a Thursday morning. She’s gotten old.

She’s not that old, though. She’s only the same age as my mum is. She shouldn’t look like that.

‘I’m getting there,’ she said, when Mum asked her how she was coping. ‘Slowly.’ She wanted to see me, to say hello, and I wanted to see her too, but when I came into the hallway she looked at me so long and hard I felt she might be X-raying me with her eyes. It was as if she was trying to look right through to my bones, to see how they were holding up, assessing just how much longer I might have left.

She told me I was looking well, but she didn’t say it with any happiness in her voice. She made me feel guilty. When they went to drink their tea I left them and went into my bedroom, which is downstairs nowadays. My heart was pounding. My arms felt all weak. I needed to stay there for a minute and just rest. I didn’t want to be with them, but I still peered at them from where I was behind my door. I felt hypnotised.

Miriam’s mum and her husband David have split up now, apparently. She said they didn’t know how to be together any more; they couldn’t remember who they each were.

I wondered if my mum would remember who she was, once I’d gone. It seemed a strange kind of thing for Miriam’s mum to say, and it stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

‘Well at least that’s one bridge I won’t have to cross.’ Mum had smiled tightly at her. She had no one to split up with. I guess that’s what she meant.

‘Splitting with David was the least of my worries,’ Miriam’s mum had shrugged. ‘I’m leaving for Spain in three months. I’m leaving this country for good. I’m taking her ashes with me. I plan to plant them beneath an olive tree under the glorious Mediterranean sun.’

‘I’m sorry about David,’ Mum said.

‘Look, I just don’t care any more. When you see someone you love—your child—go through that suffering, everything else in the world…it just turns a shade of black or white or grey. Nothing matters. In the end,’ she looked at my mum sharply, ‘I just wanted her gone.’

‘Was it that bad?’