The Things I Know(67)
‘You left work to come here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they mind?’
Grayson gave a soft burst of laughter. ‘I think they’re getting used to me not doing as I’m told any more. I said I had to go and see a girl.’ He kissed her on the head. ‘My boss was annoyed, but then, as I left, he patted me on the shoulder and said he’d had to go and see about a girl once too.’
‘And you’ve left your mum?’ She blinked, still a little embarrassed to raise the topic.
‘Auntie Eva is checking on her. I still feel so bad about the way she treated you. It was awful. I wanted to fall through the floor and disappear.’
‘Not sure Mr Waleed would have been too happy about that.’ She pictured the man by the bins.
‘God, can you imagine?’ He sighed.
‘I don’t want you to feel awful, Grayson. It wasn’t that bad, and she was drunk – not in her normal state.’ She gave the excuse she didn’t really believe, wanting to rid him of the embarrassment.
‘I think that more or less is her normal state.’ He gave her a knowing look, as if aware that she was offering a verbal balm, which he accepted gratefully.
‘Either way, I’m very glad you’re here. I like it when our paths cross.’
‘I can’t stand the things Emery said to you. I hate bullies.’
She felt his arm twitch beneath her head. ‘Have you been bullied?’ she asked softly.
‘My whole life,’ he answered, without hesitation but with an underlying air of sadness, no matter how resigned. ‘At school, at work . . . everywhere.’
‘I know what that feels like.’ She snuggled more closely into him.
‘I just never seemed to . . .’ he murmured, as if he couldn’t quite explain why he didn’t fit in. ‘Even when I was little, I remember feeling like I was the only one who didn’t get what was going on, as if everyone was speaking a foreign language, and they’d get angry with me because I didn’t get the most basic things.’
‘Like what?’ Thomasina was curious.
‘One time – I must have been about six – my teacher, Mrs Collier, asked us all what we wanted to be when we grew up, and she got all the usual answers. Gregory wanted to be a footballer and play for West Ham.’
‘Of course!’ she smiled.
‘Liam said he wanted to be a cabbie, like his dad. Tanzeela said a doctor, and then it came to me and Mrs Collier asked what I wanted to be and’ – he took a deep breath – ‘I shouted it out because I thought it was the right answer because it was my truth. I shouted, “I want to be happy!” The class roared, but it wasn’t nice, supportive laughter, it was loud and collective and sharp. It was this and moments like it that anchored me in my weirdness. My odd ideas rooted me forever in a particular time and place. I was encased by all the things I had ever said or done that others considered strange, and they’d laugh just to see me in the corridor or if I was out shopping with my mum, as if the memory or the tale of what I’d done or said lingered like an echo and was enough to start them off.’ He sniffed and wiped his face with his hand.
Thomasina didn’t know what to say to make it better. She knew how it felt to be at the mercy of words that cut you on the inside and over which you had no control. It was the worst feeling.
Grayson raised his voice, his tone quite passionate. ‘And it was always me – always! Me who sent Mallory Davies a Valentine’s Day card and wrote “I love you” and signed it Grayson Potts by accident. Me who was sick on the bus to Canvey Island and the driver insisted on turning back, and so no one got to go to the beach and the whole class threw apples and scrunched-up crisp packets from their lunches at me, and they’d shout, “Happy? You want to be ‘Happy!’” randomly whenever they saw me, as though this was as ridiculous as saying I wanted to be an astronaut!’
‘I think wanting to be happy is an admirable thing to want to be. It’s everything, really. I’d rather be a happy egg collector than a miserable astronaut,’ Thomasina offered sincerely, but for some reason it struck them both as hilarious and they laughed with ease, releasing the tension that had built up within the room.
‘Thomasina? Where are you, little one?’ her mum now called, her voice getting closer and louder with increasing urgency. ‘Where are you, love?’
‘I’m in the snug, Mum!’ she hollered towards the door, rolling her eyes at her guest.
‘Oh, thank God, I was having a bit of a panic. Didn’t know where you were! I thought you might have fallen or come over faint! My heart was thumping nineteen to the dozen! I was just saying to Pops . . . Oh!’ Her mum stopped talking when she walked into the snug and saw that her daughter was not alone. ‘Oh!’ she uttered again, fanning her face with her dishcloth, as if a little overcome, as well as lost for words. ‘Mr Potts!’
He stood up and faced her. ‘I came to see Thomasina.’
‘Well, that’s lovely – lovely!’ she said, smiling at him and then at her daughter, who enjoyed watching their interaction. It felt a lot like building the bridges she knew would be necessary for a happy future. ‘I’ll set you a place for supper – you will be staying for supper, won’t you?’
‘If that’s okay?’ His voice was quiet, and she guessed that he, like her, was thinking how very different her mum’s greeting was in comparison to the welcome, or rather lack of one, that she had received from his mother.