The Artificial Anatomy of Parks Read online

  Eventually he put his hands in his pockets and sighed. “You don’t have to have a birthday party if you don’t want to,” he said. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go back inside.”

  I stand back from the bed. I have to stop myself from wiping my hands on my jeans.

  “All good for another few hours,” the nurse says to my father. They talk to him like he’s listening, like Aunt Gillian does.

  “Shouldn’t he have woken up by now?” Aunt Gillian asks.

  “Recovery times can be different,” the nurse says, soothingly. She looks down at his chart and frowns slightly. “Although it has been nearly a week – we’ve rather lost track of time, here, haven’t we?” She bends over my father. “Now, Dr Park. We’re very busy and we need this bed.” She winks at me. “I’ll be back in a few hours to turn him again.”

  “How did he feel?” Aunt Gillian asks me when she’s gone.

  “What?”

  “When you were moving him.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Like a person.”

  “I keep worrying that he’ll have gone. And no one will notice.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “You never know,” she says. “You hear about patients being forgotten in hospitals all the time.”

  “We’re here,” I say.

  Her face relaxes. “Yes,” she says. “At least he has us.”

  That’s more than he can say for me.

  I avoided my father for the next few days, making a point of getting up before him and spending all day in the oak tree, reading. And then he left and Aunt Gillian and Uncle George and the kids arrived, and Aunt Gillian tried to rope me into sorting out old boxes with her.

  She found one full of my father’s books on the top shelf of my wardrobe.

  “Look how awful his handwriting was,” she said, holding up a history exercise book. “Born to be a doctor.”

  A medical textbook caught my eye. I pulled it out of the box and flipped it open.

  “Oh yes,” Aunt Gillian said. “Our parents gave him that when he went to university.” She put her hand up to pat her hair. “He was the only one of us to go, actually. Did you know that? Jack was going to, but didn’t… ” She looked around after mentioning his name, like it was going to make him appear.

  I ran my finger down the contents page. The book seemed to cover every part of the body, every possible complication.

  “Better move these somewhere less dusty,” Aunt Gillian said.

  I waited until I’d gone to my room that night before I put the textbook safely away in my suitcase. If I understood the medicine behind it, I told myself, I’d know for sure if my father was guilty or not. I didn’t believe it was possible that he could save everyone else but not my mother. That couldn’t be true.

  My grandmother walked me to the bus station when it was time to go back to school. “Be good,” she said, as I climbed onto the bus.

  “Bye,” I said, feeling strangely like crying.

  I kept my head pressed against the window as the bus carried me further away from her, trying to think about the cold glass and nothing else. At the other end, I collected my suitcase from the luggage compartment and walked to school. I was the first back, apart from Edith, who came down to help me with my stuff.

  “Thanks,” I said, realising that I’d barely spoken to her before.

  A couple of weeks later we were filing into assembly, and a girl with a cherry-pink headband stuck her foot out and sent Edith crashing to the floor. A few students in my form stopped, unsure, but quickly started walking again, picking their way around her. I saw Cressida and the others already sitting down, crane their necks to see who’d fallen. Cressida mouthed the word ‘Edith’ and all of them started to laugh.

  I stopped beside Edith and offered her my hand; her cheeks were dark red.

  “Get into your seats, girls,” our new form tutor hissed behind us. I felt a flash of anger at her, and everyone else. Edith walked in front of me, her hands dangling at her sides. We passed Cressida, and she said something that made Edith bring her hand up to her face like she’d been slapped. I gave Cressida a cool stare. Her eyes slid away from mine after a moment and she looked uncomfortable.

  We were learning about the dangers of drugs that term. Abi was in the States, so I was paired with Edith.

  “I wasn’t listening last lesson,” I told her.

  “I know it,” she said; her head was bent down a couple of inches away from the desk and her hair had fallen over her face like a curtain. “Don’t you care about your grades?”

  “Do you?”

  “My parents would kill me if I got a ‘C’.”

  “My dad wouldn’t,” I said. “We hardly talk.”

  I could see her wince out of the corner of my eye; she must have remembered my mother’s accident.

  Our teacher set us a quiz. Edith got every question right and we won book vouchers worth five pounds each.

  “You can have mine,” I said to her that evening.

  “Okay,” she said.

  I was starting to realise that she was easier to be around than Cressida, who I avoided even more now. I spent most of my time in the library, poring over my father’s book. I was sure I’d find something that could have saved my mother. I started off reading the section about skull fractures, depressed and linear, and then the one on aneurysms. I couldn’t really understand more than a few sentences, and reading about the brain made my own thump behind my eyes, reminding me it was there. Maybe aneurysms were genetic. Maybe I would fall and bump my head and die, like my mother had done. I flicked through the pages until I got to the lungs, then the heart. I liked the way the lungs looked like two birdcages; I liked the heart. Unlike its cartoon-shape, it was square-ish and smooth, without the sharp point at the bottom, although there was still a vague arch at the top. I drew doodles on my planner; my heart came out messy and stumpy-looking, with both vena cavas sawn off to give a cross-section.

  “That’s gross,” Cressida said when she saw the pictures. “What’s your problem, Tallulah?” She tossed her hair and stared at me, her eyes were cold and flat.

  My social decline happened almost overnight. Suddenly, whoever I sat next to would find some excuse to move elsewhere, until finally I was placed in the middle of the front row, by myself. I spent lunchtimes alone too, listening to other kids snigger about me. I knew Cressida was making up rumours. I didn’t know what she was saying, but I hoped it wasn’t about sharing a bed with my twin brother.

  I had a growth spurt and shot up almost a foot higher than anyone else in the year, even the boys. I felt gangly and ridiculous. I was given braces; when they took the braces off they gave me a retainer to wear and said I would need it for the rest of my life. I threw it into a bin on the way back to school.

  My father was barely in touch. I didn’t really want to talk to him, either. I couldn’t prove that the accident was his fault, even with what he’d said to the police, or that he should have done anything different after my mother had been hit. But I knew all about our relationship.

  At least with all the reading I’d picked something up about biology. We started a module on the human body, and I was getting B’s, and, one time, a B+. Now that I was off bounds, the only person willing to be my lab partner was Edith. She liked maths and brussels sprouts, I found out, and didn’t like art. She wore a necklace with a St Christopher pendant that her great aunt had given to her because epilepsy ran in their family, and he was the patron saint of epileptics.

  Edith’s father was a banker and her mother was an interior decorator. She had a younger brother, who she hated with a passion, and a girl-gerbil called Zorro who she loved.

  “I’ve got a cat called Mr Tickles,” I said. “But I haven’t seen him for ages.”

  Edith started tagging along with me wherever I went. At first, Cressida made snide comments whenever we walked past, but after a while, she went silent. I’d almost forgotten about her by summer term, until we came back into the dor
m after a Friday Prep and she was sitting on her bed, looking pissed off. “Do me a favour,” she said, when we walked in, “and just hang out somewhere else, yeah?”

  “Why don’t you?” I asked. “We sleep here too, remember?”

  “I’m grounded,” she said, giving me a dirty look. “The Housemistress found my cigarettes. Someone must have grassed me up.”

  “It wasn’t me, I swear,” Edith said.

  “Was it you?” Cressida asked me.

  “Nope.” I shrugged. “Maybe one of your sheep stabbed you in the back.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” she said, flushing. “I can tell.”

  “Why would I bother?”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Come on, Tal,” Edith said. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  I could feel a bubble of anger inside me that wasn’t all about Cressida and her stupid long legs and big tits. If I’d never been sent here I wouldn’t be in this situation now, I thought; if my mother had never run out in the road that day, I wouldn’t have a huge hole inside me.

  “No,” I said. “I want to stay here.”

  “You’re jealous that people like me,” Cressida said. “’Cos I’m not a weirdo or a lesbian.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “It’s not your fault really,” Cressida said. “You don’t have any female role models now your mum’s dead. Of course you’re gonna dress badly and… ”

  I grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged it until I felt it ripping out of her scalp. She was screaming “Fucking bitch,” at the top of her lungs and swinging at me. I dodged her arm, but then she was trying to kick me, and one of them landed. I let go of her hair and got behind her, twisting her arm back.

  “You crazy fucking bitch,” she screamed. “You’re in so much trouble.”

  “Whatever,” I said, panting.

  The Housemistress was called. I was put on toilet duty for a week.

  “See what happens when you try to touch me, lesbian?” Cressida said.

  “You want me to break your nose?” I asked.

  She backed away from me, covering her face with her hands. “You’re perfect for Edith,” she said. “You’re both freaks.”

  I took a step towards her and she fled. If I acted unstable, I realised, people would be more likely to leave me alone.

  After that I was definitely stuck with Edith. Starr wasn’t too happy about it – she cornered me on the back staircase a few days later and told me I was turning myself into a social pariah. “It’s fine that you beat up Cressida,” she said. “She’s a little snot. But don’t be such a weirdo with everyone else – they’re not all bad.”

  I shrugged.

  “I can’t protect you, you know.”

  “Please just leave me alone.”

  “Tal… ”

  “Just fuck off, Starr.”

  “Fine,” she said. “You get your wish.”

  In 1993, someone called Bill Clinton became the President of the United States, getting everyone excited, even in Britain. I wondered briefly what Malkie thought of it, but that just made me sad that I’d never see him again.

  Over the next year and a bit, more and more things that I didn’t understand seemed to happen in the world. All over school, people were talking about Fred West being arrested and Ayrton Senna’s death and other names I’d never heard of. Not that they were talking to me, anyway. By September 1994, the beginning of year nine, I was the most isolated I’d ever been. Starr still avoided me. My teachers had all reached breaking point with me, apart from Mr Hicks and my biology teacher, who thought I was enthusiastic and average. My father had spent a few days with me at my grandmother’s that summer, where they both pretty much ignored me, although my grandmother had at least bothered to haul me up for slouching. My father’s communication was confined to when we weren’t in the same town – brief letters about the hospital and Mr Tickles and the weather in London.

  Dear Tallie,

  I’m sure you don’t need filling in on everything, he wrote, so I’ll be quick. They’ve dug up the street to mend a broken water-pipe and the old sycamore tree outside the house had to go. Kathy and her parents are moving – she said it’s a shame she won’t get to say goodbye to you – apparently they’ve accepted an offer and the buyer’s quite keen to move in soon. They’re going out to Dubai to stay with an aunt until they decide what to do next. I passed on your regards – hope that was alright. I didn’t know if you two were still close – you haven’t seen her much since you left Primary, have you? People move on, I suppose.

  Hospital’s busy, as usual. The cat is being bullied by another tom. I keep hearing them fighting at night. If they keep it up I might have to start shutting him in – the noise is awful.

  Hope everything’s going well for you.

  Best,

  Dad

  I started to write a letter for Kathy, then gave up. I hovered between tearing up my father’s letter and keeping it as proof of how little he understood or cared about me. I tore it up in the end, and flushed it down the loo. Afterwards, I stood looking at my eyes in the mirror, amazed at how dry they were. No more mother, no more Kathy. My father would probably kill off Mr Tickles next.

  In the second week of term I was held back after a textiles class for not having my hair tied up. Edith had had to go in to lunch without me, so I was standing in a queue at the canteen by myself. Groups of older kids were jostling around me, shouting insults and in-jokes above my head. I saw Toby Gates and his friends just in front of me in the queue, flirting with some girls in the year above. The girls were all giggling and tossing their hair around; I tried not to be noticed. Someone behind me stumbled, and pushed me into the group ahead. I caught one of them with my elbow, and held on to someone’s shirt to stop myself from falling.

  “Watch it,” the girl said. She jerked away from me, making me stumble again.

  “Fucking Juniors,” someone else said, and everyone laughed.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I said, my face burning.

  “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to,” the first girl said, and pinched my arm. They all laughed again.

  “Don’t do that,” I said. I glared at the pincher. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Toby half-turn away, grinning awkwardly.

  “She’s gonna cry,” one of Toby’s friends said. “Look at her… ”

  “I’m not,” I said, but now that everyone was saying it, I felt like I might. I left the queue. I heard one of the girls call something after me, then more laughter.

  I got to my next class hungry and in a bad mood; Edith tried to talk to me when we were sitting down, but I ignored her, and she descended into a hurt silence. Our maths teacher arrived with a mug of coffee and a pile of marked homework sheets. “My hands are full, so everyone line up at the front to collect your homework,” she said.

  I stood up too quickly, catching my foot on the leg of my chair, which clattered backwards, making everyone turn their heads to look at me.

  “Tallulah,” the teacher said, frowning. “Pick up that chair at once.”

  I’d been halfway down to pick it up already, but when she told me to do it I stood up again.

  “Tallulah, I said pick it up.”

  “No,” I said.

  The teacher gave me a hard stare; I returned it and she looked away first. “Fine,” she said. “If you’re going to act like a child you can be treated like a child.” She tore a detention slip from her register and started scribbling on it.

  “No,” I said again, and flipped my desk over.

  Pens and pieces of paper rained down around me. Someone screamed, then laughed and everyone drew back.

  “Jonathan, go and get the Headmaster immediately,” my teacher shouted.

  “See ya,” I said, strolling towards the door. I watched my hand turn the knob and my feet carry me outside, but my brain wasn’t connecting with what was happening.

  After a moment, I heard footsteps run af
ter me, and then Edith was at my elbow. “Tallie, what are you doing?”

  “They’re gonna expel me anyway.”

  “They won’t,” she said, unconvincingly.

  “I’m not going back.” I pushed through the doors of the school entrance and started off down the driveway towards the school gates, my pulse gradually slowing.

  “I’m coming with you then,” Edith said. She linked arms with me. “Where are we going?”

  “Who cares,” I said. “We could join the circus, I guess.”

  Edith stopped.

  “I think there’s one in town,” I said. “I’ll be a trapeze artist, you be one of the clowns.”

  “I don’t want to be a clown,” Edith said. She was nibbling the pendant of St Christopher nervously.

  “Clean up after the elephants then, or something.”

  “You’re being mean.”

  “Sorry, Ed,” I said. “You can’t run away though – your parents would kill you.”

  “Your dad will too.”

  “He won’t even notice.”

  Edith started crying. I walked away.

  “Tallie please don’t go,” she called after me.

  “I have to,” I said.

  They found me an hour later, sitting by the side of the road, waiting. There was no point carrying on – I knew Edith would have told them which direction I’d gone in.

  “I’m going to Georgia’s for dinner,” Aunt Gillian says. “I’m sure she’d love to see you too.”

  “Maybe next time,” I say. My head’s too full of my father and Jack and Toby right now.

  We take the lift down together, hug outside the hospital, and she steps into the road, hailing a taxi. “See you tomorrow, darling.”

  “See you.”

  As soon as she’s out of sight I check my phone, although I already know Malkie hasn’t called yet, I would have felt it vibrate. Slow down, I tell myself, he said a couple of days. At least it’ll give me time to work out what I’m going to say.

  I don’t know if he’ll want to tell me anything though. I don’t even know if he’ll show up – the Uncle Jack I remember never seemed to do anyone any favours, he was too angry all the time. Which I guess is how I could have been described back then, too.