The Artificial Anatomy of Parks Read online

  I close my eyes and let my head connect with the wall. You’re pathetic, I tell myself. As if your teenage crush was all you needed to be happy. Even if it felt like much more than a teenage crush at the time.

  I remember Easter being late that year, so school broke up a few days after my birthday. In the end my father had to work throughout the holiday, so after days of roaming around the house by myself, I invited Toby over.

  “Nice place,” he said when I answered the door.

  “Thanks.”

  We grinned at each other, nervously. I’d been looking forward to meeting up with him, but now that he was on my doorstep, it felt weird to see him outside of school. He looked like he felt the same way; he kept ducking his eyes away from mine. His hands were deep in the pockets of a pair of baggy brown cargo trousers; he wore an orange t-shirt and, over that, an open denim shirt. His trainers were scruffy and suede and wide, making me wonder how big his feet were. I looked down at my outfit – black drainpipe jeans and a cropped lace cardigan.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “I went for Michael Jackson and you turn up as Snoop Dogg?”

  “I swear I always wear sequins and gloves at home.”

  “Come in,” I said. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  I led him into the kitchen and brought some beers up from the cellar. “I hope you don’t need a glass,” I said. “I haven’t been washing up.”

  “I can tell.”

  “Well, this is the kitchen,” I said. “We eat here.”

  I walked him to the dining-room. “There’s a big table in here for when guests come, except I can’t remember when we ever had any… and this is the hallway.” We trooped through. “This is where my dad hangs his hat and coat.”

  “Where’s he?”

  “At the hospital.”

  “He works long days?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  We went through the rest of the house, ending up in my bedroom.

  “It’s nice,” Toby said. He picked up one of my records. “Pretty old-school, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Put one on, if you want.”

  Toby flicked through them. I shooed Mr Tickles off the bed, and tried to wipe away all the fur he’d left behind.

  “No Nirvana then? No Red Hot Chili Peppers?”

  “Why?”

  “You always seemed like a grunge chick to me.”

  “I’m not sure you can pull off ‘chick’.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” he said. “What about this one?” He held up a Fleetwood Mac album. “And who’s Evelyn?”

  “My mum. They were hers.”

  “Oh.”

  We sat on the bed together. Halfway through the first track, Toby shifted away.

  “Do I stink?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  “You moved.” I cringed at hearing myself making weird jokes.

  “No.” He looked at me again. “You smell… good.”

  His face was close to mine. I swallowed, suddenly feeling the need for moisture in my mouth. The needle started skipping and Toby jumped up to fix it.

  “Want something to eat?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He sounded relieved.

  I made us cheese sandwiches and we sat on the floor to eat them, listening to The Beatles.

  “Have you used your paint brushes yet?” Toby asked.

  “I will this week.”

  “Well,” Toby said. “When you do, the girl in the shop said they were good for oils, especially.”

  I pictured him flirting with her – an art-student type, tiny and pretty, big-eyed and wearing black – then tried to put it out of my mind. “Maybe I’ll finally get As in art,” I said, “thanks to you.” I poked him in the ribs, but he wasn’t smiling.

  “Don’t you get As already?” he asked.

  “Maybe once.”

  “So why’s Mr Hicks your mentor?”

  “What’s your problem with him, anyway?”

  “It’s not me,” Toby said. “It’s the girls who always get obsessed with him. His last favourite got expelled. Apparently she had a showdown with him in class, asking why he didn’t love her.”

  I shrugged. “Well I’m not really the showdown type.”

  Afterwards we played snap and pairs and I won both games. I hoped Toby wasn’t finding the afternoon lame, but he seemed to be having fun. Mr Tickles came and lay on the cards and Toby stroked him under his chin, which made my toes tingle and Mr Tickles purr in ecstasy.

  We made pasta together for dinner. I added everything from the fridge, which was only garlic paste, basil leaves and salami. I left it too long without stirring and everything burnt, so there was a layer of flaky black carbon on the bottom.

  “It’s interesting,” Toby said.

  I fed the salami to Mr Tickles, and scraped the rest into the bin. “I get a lot of takeaway,” I said. “My mum was a really good cook – guess it’s not genetic.”

  “How did she…?”

  “Hit and run,” I said. “My dad was there. I wasn’t.”

  “Shit,” Toby said.

  I tried to shrug, but my whole body had stiffened up. Toby came and sat next to me, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” he said.

  “I was at a friend’s,” I said, “and when I got back he was all bloody and stuff. At first I thought he’d killed her… You know, beaten her up.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, crazy, huh?”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “Maybe I was delirious. And my dad’s brother was there, and they don’t get on. But then they said she’d been hit by a car. They said she ran out in front of it.”

  “Well… ” Toby looked uncomfortable. “At least it wasn’t your dad, I guess.”

  “He told the police it was his fault.”

  Toby’s eyebrows shot up. “Did he mean it?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  He looked at his hands in his lap. “Tal, I don’t know what to say.”

  “He was probably in shock too,” I said. Now that I’d started talking about it, I didn’t seem able to stop. “It was horrible, seeing her like that.” I felt sick when I remembered it.

  I wandered into the dining-room after that and picked out a few notes on the piano. If Toby had come and put his arms around me then, maybe everything would have been different. I know I wanted him to so badly it felt like I was going to break myself into tiny pieces wishing it.

  Instead, he came to the doorway and gave me a tight smile. “I better go.”

  I shut the piano lid with a bang and walked past him to the front door. I opened it and stood back. So Toby wanted nothing to do with my crazy family, I told myself. Fine by me. I could have told him more – about my mother really being in love with her husband’s brother, about my grandfather abusing my grandmother and my aunt. Or how my own dad couldn’t look me in the eye. That would really have freaked him out.

  “Sorry,” he said, avoiding my eye. “I just have to get back.”

  “I get it.”

  “I’ll see you when you’re back from your grandma’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at me then and bent down to kiss my cheek. I could feel him trembling. “See you.”

  “See you.”

  I was clipping Mr Tickles’ claws when the phone rang the next day.

  “Hi, it’s Toby.”

  “Yes?”

  “Look, I’m sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have run away like that.”

  I lay back on my bed. “Don’t worry about it.” I tried to make my voice sound dismissive, but it caught halfway through.

  “I just… freaked out.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m sorry. It kind of brought back memories of my brother. He died when I was younger.”

  He’d gone quiet, and for a moment I thought I hadn’t heard him right. “I thought you were an only child?”

  “
I am now.”

  “Shit,” I said. Which wasn’t exactly the most sympathetic I could have been. “I’m so, so sorry. What happened?”

  “He hanged himself. Apparently I found the body, but I don’t remember it at all.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, no one at school knows about it; it’s kind of grim. My parents won’t talk about it.”

  We didn’t speak for a moment while I tried to think of what to say. “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did they try to make you see a counsellor?”

  “Course. Finding the body – they loved that. I went twice. You?”

  “Yeah. For a while.”

  “Don’t tell anyone. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Course I won’t.” I felt a sudden thrill inside me – he trusts me – then felt guilty again.

  “Anyway,” he said, “enough family crap. Do you want to come camping with us next week?”

  “Who’s us?”

  “The guys. We go to Broadwater Forest every year.”

  “I’ll be at my Gran’s.”

  “Leave early. You’re seeing her over the summer.”

  “Well… ” I rolled onto my stomach and got the phone cord tangled up in my armpit. I unwrapped it from myself in time to hear Toby say, “We’ve never asked a girl before – think of it as an honour.”

  I felt a smile growing on my face. “I’m flattered.”

  “You should be. So is that a yes?”

  “Is Edith coming?”

  “I haven’t asked her.”

  “You going to?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “course.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Gimme details later.”

  I gave him my grandmother’s telephone number and we hung up.

  I thought about Toby a lot over the next few days, when I was packing for my grandmother’s, or tidying my room or showering, or doing anything. Maybe that was why we liked each other so much, I thought, because we’d both seen people we’d loved die. Except Toby hadn’t seen his brother die – he’d found him already dead. And it must have been worse than I could even imagine if his mind had wiped the image. But he was so together, no one would know. No one did know. I felt proud, in a weird way, that he’d been able to handle it so well.

  But he must have been supported by his family, too, I told myself. If my father had been more like them, I probably wouldn’t be so messed up. If I’d gone to live with my grandmother from the start…

  On the other hand, I told myself, maybe I would have frozen to death if I’d lived with my grandmother for any longer. The house was only slightly less icy in the spring than in the winter.

  “You shouldn’t be in the cold, it’s not good for you,” I said, pushing her into the sunshine. She dozed off while I did my homework nearby. Occasionally she woke up and demanded water. “I’m burning,” she said. “Are you trying to finish me off?”

  I rummaged around in her things until I found a floppy hat for her to wear. “It’s not even that sunny,” I told her. “You must be cold-blooded or something.”

  “I’ve heard that one before,” she said.

  “Who from?” I asked, but she waved the question away. “So, has Aunt Vivienne come to visit yet?” I asked, casually, arranging the hat on her head.

  “You’re not as dumb as you look, Tallulah.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  She seemed much better now; her cheeks were pinker and her eyes looked clearer. She was impatient being confined to her wheelchair; she followed me around more, poking her nose into everything I did. Toby called every day and it was hard to hide the conversations from her.

  “What’s with the heavy breathing?” he asked once.

  “Shut up, I’m jogging.”

  “Now?”

  “I’m going to the bottom of the garden.”

  “Why?”

  “Privacy.”

  “Who exactly are you hiding from?”

  “My grandma – she’s turned into a spy.”

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “London.”

  “Sorry – should I not have asked that?”

  I shrugged.

  “Tal?”

  “I shrugged.”

  “You know I can’t see that down the phone, right?”

  “It’s okay. We can talk about my dad being in London.”

  “How often do you see him?”

  “Maybe a few weeks a year.”

  “You’re lucky,” Toby said. “My dad’s around all the time – he took voluntary redundancy a few years ago.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Construction foreman.” He cleared his throat. “I got a scholarship.”

  “Oh.” I’d never even considered how other people paid their fees. “So he’s used to being in charge?”

  “Yeah,” Toby said. “But he’s cool. He kind of wanted Danny – my brother – to get into the business with him, but after he died, Dad said I should do whatever I wanted. He got a t-shirt saying I’m with Genius when I got the scholarship.”

  “You don’t want to be a foreman?”

  “I want to make a lot of money so my mum can retire.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She’s a teaching assistant.”

  “My mum used to be a waitress,” I said. “She was good with people.”

  “How come you’re so terrible, then?”

  “Har-dee-har-har.”

  “I’ll be quiet.”

  “She was nice,” I said. “Everyone liked her.” I thought of Aunt Vivienne. “Nearly everyone. And she was really beautiful.”

  “Yeah? Did she look like you?”

  “No,” I said, trying not to smirk. “She had really amazing hair – she used baby shampoo.”

  “You sound like you really got on.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “At least I had an amazing mum, right?”

  “True.”

  “What was your brother like?”

  “He was really sweet – the quiet type. He used to look out for me at school.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I used to be really tiny, and he was quite big for his age – he used to scare off all the kids who picked on me, even though he’d never have actually done anything.”

  “He sounds cool.”

  “You’d have liked him. You’d like my dad, too.”

  “You’d like my Grandma.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I should go check on her,” I said.

  “Talk tomorrow?”

  “Talk tomorrow.”

  “Who was that?” my grandmother asked when I went back up the lawn.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Who was it?” she asked again, ignoring me.

  “Toby.”

  “A boy from school?”

  I looked at her; she’d closed her eyes and was smiling to herself.

  “Just a friend.”

  “Of course he is.”

  “Can we drop this?”

  “If it’s bothering you,” she said, still smiling. “But he’s got you mooning all over the place, my girl.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.”

  I chewed my fingernail for a moment. “What did you do when you liked a boy?”

  “It’s been too long for me to remember.”

  “How long?”

  “I was sixteen when I met your grandfather – towards the end of the war.”

  “Did you have a boyfriend before Grandad?”

  She gave me a look.

  “What?”

  “In my day, young women were encouraged not to spread themselves too thinly.”

  “So no?”

  “No.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “He was a pilot,” she said. “He was a neighbour too, but I’d never really noticed him until a barn dance I went to on my birthday… I remember we danced the first dance together, and he wouldn�
�t let me partner anyone else afterwards.”

  “Was he handsome?”

  “The handsomest.”

  “And then what?”

  “I let him chase me for two years,” my grandmother said.

  “Why?”

  “Hruh,” she said. “I was young, but I knew what marriage meant for women. You think I wanted to cook and iron shirts all day?”

  “But you did marry him.”

  “He wore me down,” she said. “He was very persuasive.”

  I wondered if violence had been part of his persuasion.

  “I remember the day I said yes,” she said. “He disappeared, and came back with a suitcase full of roses. He said if I wanted, he’d bring me roses every day.”

  “Did he?”

  “Of course not,” she said, putting her hand over mine. “But don’t look so despondent about it, my darling.”

  “I don’t even know how to spell that.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  “My smart-aleck granddaughter.”

  The next time Toby called, my grandmother made a point of wheeling back and forth past the telephone. After four trips, I grabbed one of the handles of her chair, pulling her up short.

  “What?” she asked, trying to look innocent.

  “Why are you spying on me?”

  “I’m making myself a drink.”

  “Go away,” I said. “Now.”

  She gave me another innocent look and wheeled away, stopping just inside the living-room.

  “Go further than that,” I called.

  “I’m a prisoner in my own home,” she shouted back.

  “Sorry,” I said into the receiver. “She’s got nothing better to do.” I leaned back against the wall and slid down it until I was sitting on the carpet. “So, how’s tricks?”

  “Alright. What you up to?”

  “Hanging out with Grams.” I wove the fingers of my free hand into the wine-coloured shag-pile. “I feel bad leaving her.”

  “You don’t have to come,” Toby said. He cleared his throat. “I mean, obviously, it would be cool but… ”

  “I want to come,” I said. “It’s just, it’s not like my dad will come see how she is, or anything.”

  “Don’t they get on?”

  “I don’t know. One of my aunts – the younger one – doesn’t speak to her, and she doesn’t like spending too much time with the other aunt.”