“You know what?” I cut in. “There is no-one on earth as useless and arrogant as you. What is that like? To be so sure you deserve whatever you want—but, at the same time, to be so painfully fucking shit?” I’m shouting. Somehow, I’m shouting. Staff members are milling awkwardly around the courtyard or peeking from the blinds that cover their office windows, eager to see the fuss. This is the part where I calm down and apologise and try to melt into the furniture.

  Fuck that.

  “Olu didn’t give you his contact details,” I say to Henry, “because he doesn’t fucking like you.” He told me that himself, but I’d know, even if he hadn’t. Olu doesn’t care for people like Henry. He doesn’t enjoy being around smug, snide pricks who look down on others, who use and manipulate them. No; he befriends people who are kind, and he worries about injured foxes, and he tells me how smart and capable and worthy I am, over and over again, even when I ignore him. That’s what Olu does. And the memory of it—of him—smashes through every chain that’s ever kept me here in Fernley. Every chain that’s ever kept me quiet.

  I’m so sick of this place.

  I thought it was enough, staying here to feel close to my mum, collecting whatever scraps of respect I could get through work or whisper-thin connections. But it’s not, is it? It’s not. Bottom line is, I deserve better than this. I deserve better from everyone and everything. And I’m going to get it.

  Henry’s kicking off, of course, his pale cheeks mottled as he spits, “Now, you watch what you say to me. I own this place!” His venom becomes a shout. “You wouldn’t have a job without me, you great, lumbering oaf, and I’ll thank you to remember that. I could terminate your employment for such shocking behaviour as easily as breathing!”

  “But you won’t,” I snap back. “You won’t. Because then who’d do your fucking job for you?”

  Henry sucks in his cheeks, shaking silently with rage—like it’s all trapped inside him, but he can’t let it escape—which is how I know I’m dead on. It took me years of hard work to reach this position, but now I’m here, he’s finally noticed I’m too good to let go. Who’d fill the gap?

  He’s about to find out. The hard way.

  “I quit.”

  His jaw drops. “You—what?”

  “I fucking quit, you piece of shit.” I turn away, then stop, turn back, and say, “I know you lied about my recipes. You owe me.”

  His skin turns as white as the clouds above us.

  “But don’t worry. I’m not going to collect, because I don’t need to.” Also, because I’m too fucking exhausted to bother, but he doesn’t need to know that. I tap my head and say, “I’m the one with the talent. I’m the one with the brain. There’s way more where that came from.” And I really believe it’s true.

  Then a familiar voice—a beautiful voice—a voice I fucking love, cries, “Yeah!” Rebecca appears out of nowhere, slightly breathless like she’s been running, and jabs a finger in Henry’s direction. “You’re a shithead, and I quit too!”

  Even now, she makes me want to laugh. Under my breath, I ask, “Didn’t you already hand in your notice?”

  “Shh,” she whispers. Out loud, she says, “Fuck you, Henry.” Then she hooks her arm through mine.

  We leave.

  Olu

  For roughly a week after leaving Fernley, I do nothing.

  Well, that’s not entirely true. I sleep—but only on the sofa, because my bed no longer feels right. I drink water when my head aches. I get too hungry to ignore, and start to miss the sun and the wind, so I pull a hat low over my face and leave the house. At the shop around the corner, I pick up twenty packets of frozen pasta bake and pay at the self-checkout machine. And once a day, when Elizabeth calls, I pick up the phone and pretend to be fine.

  But on the seventh day, Sunday, I make a mistake. When the phone rings that afternoon, I pick up automatically, but Lizzie’s voice doesn’t answer my cheery “Hello, darling!” Someone else’s does.

  “Keynes? You sound… off.”

  Shit. It’s Theo. My best friend, who was once very easy to fool when it came to emotional things, but has become much trickier since he got married.

  “Hi,” I say, rather inanely.

  Theo pauses. “I’m surprised you picked up the phone.”

  “Why?” As if I don’t know.

  “Because you’ve been off on one, that’s why. What’s wrong with your voice?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with my voice.” It’s hoarse because I haven’t used it since yesterday morning, the last time Elizabeth called. I clear my throat. “What do you want, Theo? I’m busy.”

  “Too busy to help me with something?”

  I’m not, but the thought of dragging myself up and pretending to be fine as I help him is just… nauseating. Rather like the prospect of running a marathon after days of starvation: anticipating how shit it will feel is enough to make me dizzy. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, pressing a hand to my stomach. “I can’t.”

  “Really?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Theo, I can’t.” I’m not ready to be around people yet; not when Griff is still in my blood. Not when I can’t forget the look on his face when I pushed him, once and for all, away. He never told me out loud that he feels constantly rejected, that it digs into his skin like a burr. I noticed that fact on my own, and then I used it.

  Now I tell myself it was the right choice, but how can it be? How can it be, when I have never hated myself as much as I do right now?

  “Alright,” Theo says. “Listen; I’m in Spanish Town.”

  Well, that catches me unawares. “Spanish Town, Jamaica? What on earth are you doing there?”

  “I’m on holiday. It’s a thing people often do with their spouses,” he says dryly. “So I can’t come to get you.”

  I pull back and stare at the phone. Come to get me? When I put my ear to the receiver again, Theo’s still talking.

  “…check on you instead.”

  “What are you saying right now?” I snap.

  His response is worryingly serious. “Sometimes I wonder if you realise how much you help me.”

  “Theo, what are we talking about?”

  “We’re talking about the fact that you’ve been avoiding my calls, your sister told my sister you’re acting weird, and then, for the first time in our lives, Keynes, you just claimed you were too busy to help someone. You, who almost missed your final tort law exam because you were helping your next-door neighbour bury their ferret.”

  “For Christ’s sake, will you ever stop bringing that up? I assure you, I really didn’t want to.”

  “But you did it anyway,” he says. “Don’t tell me you’re fine. I don’t believe you.”

  My jaw drops. “You don’t need help at all, do you? Did you just… entrap me?!”

  “Yes,” he says, annoyingly pleased with himself. “I wish you’d take your pills, Keynes.”

  “I have been taking them, thank you very much.” Which is presumably why I’ve spent the last week feeling as if my lungs have been dragged out of my arse. Not so long ago, all this agony would’ve been muffled and distant, easy to compartmentalise, as if it happened to someone else. I almost miss that.

  But not quite.

  “Hmm,” Theo says, and I imagine the slash of his inky eyebrows. “Well, whatever it is, we should talk about it.”

  Talk about it. For once, something in me leaps at the opportunity to do just that; to voice the doubt that’s been ripping my mind apart ever since I left Griff behind. Because Theo’s sensible, logical, trustworthy. He’ll tell me if I chose wrong, and I’ll believe him. “Okay,” I say. “Okay. We’ll talk.” I take a breath and gather my thoughts. “If Jen”—his wife—“ever felt like all the good parts of herself were submerged, and only the worst parts floated to the top, and she wanted to work on that, to feel more balanced, but she didn’t quite know how…” My words slow down, then grind to a cautious stop. Because, even as I ask this question, the answer is crystal-clear. I know exactly what Theo’s going to say.

  “What?” he prompts me. “Go on.”

  But I can’t. I can’t even ask, because it would be an insult. If depression or insecurity or shitty, hateful parents—or anything else in the world—ever made Jen feel like me, there’s only one thing Theo would do. He’d love her anyway, because all her good parts would still be there, and all her not-so-good parts would still be her. Because you don’t give up on someone when they’re drowning.

  Griff wouldn’t give up on someone who was drowning. I know that for a fact.

  “Olumide,” Theo says, which means he’s trying to be serious. “Speak.”

  Right, right. I’ve been coming to some sort of epiphany while he sits there in Spanish Town, worrying his pretty head about me. “Nothing. I have nothing to say.”

  “What? You can’t stop there.”

  With complete honesty, I tell him, “I don’t need to ask the question anymore.”

  It takes an unholy length of time and a mammoth amount of reassurance to get Theo off the phone. It’s a bit of a shock to realise that he thinks I’m far worse than I am; he’s trying to seem casual, but I think he’s actually concerned for my safety. In the end, I convince him that I’m not on the edge the way I was a month ago; I’m just fucking miserable.

  And, I’m starting to fear, completely brainwashed when it comes to my own self-worth.

  When we finally hang up, he mutters awkwardly that he loves me, and I decide that in the future, I’ll believe enough in that affection to tell him when I’m struggling with myself.

  I’ll try, anyway. The love of my life once told me that trying’s all we can do.

  When I’m alone with my silence again, I find myself doing something I’ve never done before. I go to the glass sideboard in my living room, opening the doors to reveal every journal I have ever finished. I rifle through the layers on layers of little books until I find the section filled by smaller, black ones marked F. Then I choose the very first one, and I start to read.

  Olu

  Almost two hours later, I’m on my third journal and have, thankfully, stopped crying. It seems awfully self-absorbed to sob over the story of yourself.

  But if these were someone else’s journals—if I were reading about a different young man who tried to do good, who heard over and over again that it wasn’t enough, who decided in the end to stop fucking trying and accept that he must be something awful—then I might cry over the words for hours and hours. Perhaps.

  The good news is that I am feeling far more confident in my ability to stop hating myself: all I have to do, it seems, is let go of everything my parents ever taught me. I know. Likely impossible, but I’m pleased to have a goal. The bad news is that I am feeling less confident about explaining all this to Griff. How, exactly, does one say, “I assumed you would stop loving me if you found out how depressed and anxious I am,” without making it sound as if you think the other person’s a bit of a prick?

  Then I stop and remember that Griff understands how certain worries can eat someone alive. In fact, Griff tries to understand everything, because he is kindness itself. And he’s told me in a thousand different ways that he’d never punish me for my demons. It’s probably time I listened to that.

  But before I can grapple with my growing urgency to see him, to fix this, the phone rings again. And this time, it really is Elizabeth.

  I answer with a smile that’s almost real. “Darling. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you,” she says briskly. Brisk might be Elizabeth’s defining characteristic. “And you?”

  “Absolutely peachy!”

  “I think you’re lying,” Liz tells me calmly. It takes a moment for me to absorb her meaning, but when I do, my mouth actually hangs open. I am awash with shock and indignation. Did this little brat just call me a liar? How dare she disbelieve my carefully constructed falsehoods! I expend all this energy on faking happiness for her, and she simply calls me out? Children are so ungrateful.

  “I’m not sure why you’d think that, Elizabeth,” I say firmly, “but I assure you, I’m very well.”

  “Really?”

  Is it me, or is her voice getting louder? After a moment, I decide it’s a psychological effect of my guilt. “Yes, really.”

  “Then you won’t mind answering the door, will you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The bell rings, and she says sweetly, “Theo called me, by the way. Do let me in, Olu. My back’s killing me.” Then she puts the phone down.

  Bloody bastard Theo.

  I shoot out of my nest of stale blankets on the sofa and curse until the air turns blue. Then I roll the blankets into a ball and shove them into a cupboard along with my journals, fluffing the sofa cushions to smooth out the indent left by my miserable arse. My thoughts are almost as frantic as my hands: Lizzie’s outside, can’t keep her on her feet, where the bloody hell is her husband? I collect empty glasses of water and packets of unfinished biscuits, dumping the debris into the cupboard under my kitchen sink. And then, finally, I go and answer the door.

  It swings open to reveal my tiny but formidable sister, leaning against her massive husband’s side with a frown on her pretty face. She looks as if she’s smuggling a bowling ball under her dress, and her golden-brown skin glows as if she’s swallowed the sun. In short, Lizzie looks wonderful, which means I can be annoyed with her instead of worried or concerned.

  “You didn’t tell me Isaac was here!” I scowl.

  I expect some smart comment back, but instead, she looks me up and down, biting her lip. “Olu, what on earth has happened to you?”

  Only then do I remember that I’m wearing a stained T-shirt and greying pyjama bottoms. “Nothing,” I say firmly.

  “Bullshit,” my brother-in-law tells me. “Now move.”

  A few minutes later, we’re all sitting in my living room, pretending not to notice the signs of disarray I failed to hide. Well, Lizzie and I are pretending not to notice; Isaac stares openly before giving me a lizard-like look that I believe I’m meant to find intimidating—and many people might. But those would be people who’ve never seen his wife use him as a literal stepladder to put up Christmas lights.

  “I’ve been ill,” I say into the silence, holding my cup of tea close to my chest. “That’s why I didn’t come to see you as soon as I was home.”

  Isaac snorts. “You didn’t come to see us because you were waiting for your face to stop doing that.”

  Oh, God. “For my face to stop doing what?”

  “Being honest,” Lizzie says softly. “Olu, you look so sad.”

  “Do I?” I’m horrified.

  “Also,” Isaac adds helpfully, “you smell, and you need a haircut.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Montgomery, I am speaking with my sister.” Still, I run an absent palm over my head and realise he’s right.

  “What’s going on?” Lizzie demands. “What happened to you in that awful northern place?”

  Isaac makes an odd, choked sound. “I don’t think Leicestershire’s north, Liz.”

  “Well it’s not home,” she snaps, and something in my chest constricts.

  Before I can stop myself, I’m muttering bitterly, “What is home, anyway?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth stares at me as if she might be moved to violence. My sister is small and round, with dark curls she now keeps in a pixie cut and whiskey-brown eyes that take up half of her face. She is also frequently terrifying. I’m proud to say that I contributed to the aura that makes her so; however, it still occasionally works on me.

  “This is home,” she says, quick and sharp. “We are home. I certainly hope you don’t think otherwise.”

  “We are home”. The words strike at something in me, reverberating through my chest, and I stare from my sister to her husband and back again. They’re home. But then, as if she’s reading my mind, she says, “You too, Olu. All of us. We’re home.”

  I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. Sheer brilliance falls free: “Ah.”

  Lizzie huffs out a laugh. Then she shuffles forward in her seat, hesitates, and raises a hand. Reaching for me. This is not the sort of thing my sister and I do, except in emergencies. Typically, of course, the emergencies are hers, because I keep my own to myself.

  But not today. Today, I raise a hand too, and she twines our fingers together. I stare at the carpet and try not to pass out through the stress of emoting.

  Gently, she asks me, “What happened, Olu?”

  For a moment, I can’t reply.

  Then Isaac says, “Bet you any money it’s a fella.”

  I scowl. “For fuck’s sake, Montgomery, disappear.”

  Lizzie puts a hand over her mouth. “Olu! Is it?”

  Oh, Christ. “Fine. Yes. I ran away to some ridiculous village and started carrying on with a bloody fruit farmer and ultimately realised, after ruining everything, that I have serious self-esteem issues to work on. Are you happy now?” I snap.

  “Yes,” Lizzie says, utterly matter-of-fact. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about family therapy, since the baby’s coming, and you suddenly seem much more receptive.”

  I splutter.

  “Well, I’m not happy,” Isaac interjects. “Who’s the farmer? Are you going back to him, or what?”

  The words are out of my mouth before I can think twice. “I intend to try, if he’ll have me.” I pause and stare down at myself, as if my body might not be my own. That was alarmingly candid. Since I appear to be on a roll, I look at Liz and say, “Family therapy sounds bearable, if you insist.”

  “For the sake of the child,” she tells me.

  “It is arguably our responsibility.”

  “You two,” Isaac snorts, rolling his eyes. Then he holds Lizzie’s hand and kisses her knuckles.

  “Well,” Elizabeth says. “Now that we’ve dealt with the most imminent issue; Olu, you’re on notice.”

  This conversation is not so much a rollercoaster as a wormhole. “Erm… I’m sorry, Liz. For what?”

  She gives me a severe sort of look that works very well on her students, and will doubtless work even better on her child. “Did you think I didn’t know you’ve been struggling?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26