How to Kill Your Family(27)
A month later and my bags were packed. The fish and I took a taxi over to Jimmy’s house. Helene was in the midst of packing up her life for the move back to France and fairly frantic, so I took the opportunity to grab the box she’d hidden under the bed. I assumed she wouldn’t miss it, but I wasn’t too concerned if she did. The files were about me and my family, and I doubted she’d want to cause a scene – by the time she realised, she’d be across the Channel and immersed in a new life. Jimmy and Sophie welcomed me at the door, their dog Angus nearly knocking RIP out of my hands as he jumped up to lick my face.
‘We’ve made you a welcome dinner, Grace. Vegetable lasagne, and Annabelle has made dessert.’ Jimmy rolled his eyes at his mother.
‘Can she at least see her room before she’s made to sit down and eat that mess of a cake?’ He grabbed my bags and leapt the stairs, two at a time, as I thanked Sophie and waved at Annabelle, busy in the kitchen with a piping bag. His little sister was a spindly and nervy 11-year-old. I hadn’t seen her recently, but Jimmy had informed me that she was already in analysis. Sophie was very keen on juvenile therapy, unsurprisingly. I sincerely hoped she wasn’t going to suggest it to me, and made a note to pretend that the school was already providing a counsellor if she did.
My bedroom was on the top floor, under the eaves and across from Annabelle. Jimmy was on the floor below (this was the first place I had lived with floors and the climb from the kitchen to the bedroom already seemed tiresome), which he explained was no accident. Annabelle and he had swapped rooms the week before after Sophie and John had panicked about Jimmy and me sleeping on the same floor. Although nothing was said explicitly, I could imagine them getting in a lather over a bottle of red wine one night, discussing things like consent and hormones and whether their home would be a comfortable environment for a vulnerable girl. They needn’t have worried, though I thought Jimmy was a nice boy and valued his friendship immensely, I’d always thought he looked a bit like a potato from some angles (the root vegetable likeness mostly dissipated later in life, thankfully). And anyway, normal teenage distractions like sex and alcohol didn’t appeal to me. I wasn’t going to be one of those skunk smoking layabouts who dithered about university and went backpacking to delay having to deal with adult choices. I wanted to get on with it all.
After I’d dumped my bags and caught up with Jimmy, we went down to eat. John had just got home, and was pouring a glass of red wine with one hand and absent-mindedly pulling off his tie with the other. He turned to greet me, kissing me on the forehead and rubbing my shoulder before Sophie handed him a stack of plates for the table. The embrace left me feeling slightly odd. Jimmy’s family were so affectionate with each other, his mum and dad were always hugging, or holding hands, and nobody seemed to find it invasive or annoying. There was always someone around in this house, something cooking, the constant noise of daily life. I didn’t mind John’s embrace, in fact it felt nice, warm, gentle. But it niggled, perhaps because I realised that I’d missed out on this stuff. That thought angered me. Normal – I wasn’t used to normal, however much Marie had tried to give me some semblance of it. I wondered if this family set-up was something I’d learn to love, whether I too would hug and kiss without a thought, whether I’d forget the time I spent with my mother and lean into this new life. The idea had appeal, but I’d have to guard against going soft. The Latimers are lovely people, and I was glad to be living there, but if I embraced their way of life too enthusiastically I’d risk ending up reading the Guardian, working in the arts, and buying people organic British wine for Christmas. A lovely warm bath of a life, apart from the embedded guilt and the glaring hypocrisy that Sophie exhibits so well, but totally pointless.
Despite being fearful of letting myself relax too much, I settled into life with the Latimers quickly. Sophie spent a lot of time trying to make me comfortable.
‘Sit anywhere you like, darling girl. Please eat whatever you fancy.’
The constant emphasis on making me feel like part of the family served to show me that I wasn’t, but I understood that this was the only way Sophie knew how to Be A Good Person. I returned to my old school, and worked towards my GCSEs, eventually getting straight As and earning a commendation from the head teacher for my success ‘in the face of particular hardship’. The head tilt of sympathy I got from her as she presented me with a sad piece of paper with my name written in badly done calligraphy was only mildly aggravating. I still threw the certificate in the bin on the way home from school.
Jimmy and I spent nearly all of our free time together. I got on with the other kids at school, but wasn’t concerned with having a clique, spending my life joined at the hip with girls who enjoyed spending hours forensically examining what a boy’s greeting meant really. Jimmy had always had a group of boys he’d hung about with since primary school – they played football in the local park and had game nights on weekends – but when I moved in, these mates were demoted to bit-part players. Sophie worried about this, I could tell. She would suggest a game of tennis, or offer to host a pizza night for ‘all our friends’, which really just meant Jimmy’s friends. But he’d just roll his eyes and tell her maybe another time. I couldn’t share her anxiety. Jimmy’s friends were monosyllabic, unless they were taking the piss out of each other, and not one of them would make eye contact with me when spoken to, as though making eye contact with someone of the opposite sex would signify a serious commitment of some sort and they’d be forced to hand over their Xbox in the inevitable break-up. Besides, Jimmy and I got on – we didn’t really need anyone else. We enjoyed talking for hours, lounging around in silence, and even doing our homework together. Jimmy never pushed me on my grief, but I knew he understood it when he looked at me. No head tilts necessary.