Queenie(83)

“I’ve never had a birthday like that, and I’m much older than you,” I pointed out.

“Well, maybe that’s why you’re depressed?” Diana asked as though she’d hit a eureka moment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. No offense. I just mean, maybe if you had more fun times, you wouldn’t think about bad stuff, maybe? I dunno. Sorry.” Diana shrugged, backing out of the bathroom.

I finished my bath, got dressed in a calf-length floral dress that used to be my grandmother’s, and went downstairs. Diana was standing in the hallway with her sneakers on.

“We’re going out,” she said, looking me up and down. “But get changed first.”

“But, Diana, I’m ready. This is vintage,” I said, standing in front of her, allowing her to take in the full outfit.

A change of clothes later, Diana and I were on the high street, me in the changing room of a charity shop. Not the one that our grandmother works in; we’re not allowed to go in there. She says it’s mixing business with pleasure.

I was struggling into an orange and turquoise Paul Smith shirt. Being out of the house for this long was taking its toll on my anxiety levels. When I did finally get it on, having had to negotiate the fabric over my sweating arms and back, it would pop open at the bust every time I took a deep breath. Diana opened the changing room curtain and looked at me.

“No.” She closed it again. “Do you wanna go to Morley’s? I want four wings and chips,” her voice asked from the other side of the curtain.

“No.”

“I should have known you’re too stuck-up for that. Let’s get a milkshake, then,” Diana said, grabbing me by the elbow as I emerged and steering me toward one of those weird urban-designed modern ice cream parlors.

We sat opposite one another in a booth in the corner by the bathrooms and peeled the sticky menus apart. “What do you want?” Diana said from behind the menu. “I know what I’m getting. Oreo waffle, I always get it.” Diana held up her phone and scanned the room with it. “Hold on, just snapchatting our settings! I’ve captioned it ‘Cuz is 26,’?” she said, showing me a picture of myself looking at the menu, bewildered by the choice.

Twenty-six, and this is my life, I thought, looking around at the teenagers leaning on tackily decorated walls, all staring at their phones. Three years from now and I was meant to have been getting married. I was meant to be stable, and loved, and . . . I looked back down, and the words on the page started to blur. I looked over at the loo door. If I ran in there and had a panic attack, I could at least not let Diana see me fall apart again. I was meant to be getting better, and if she saw me having a panic attack she’d tell my grandmother, and then there’d be a whole thing about me going to therapy and it not working so bringing shame on the family for no reason.

“You all right?” Diana asked, locking her phone and putting it on the table. I must have looked really bad if she was stepping away from her phone.

Set an example, I thought, breathing in slowly and counting to three, hoping that my nostrils weren’t flaring too obviously.

“All fine, just looking for a waiter,” I said.

“You’ve got to go up and order, obviously,” Diana said, looking at me suspiciously, and slipped out of the booth. “You sure you’re all right?”

“Sorry. I’m fine!” I said, my heart rate slowing. “Just get me the same thing as you.” I handed her the twenty-pound note from our grandmother and watched her walk to the counter. When she was there, I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. Just breathe, Queenie. Breathe, imagine you’re, what is it Janet said, why can’t you remember? That’s it, the safe space, find your safe space. Where is it? That’s it, it’s the attic room in Grandma and Granddad’s first house. The room that they said was haunted, but you didn’t mind, you used to love the creak of the floorboards, and the way that the temperature of the air dropped when you stepped into the ro—

“Are you sure you’re okay? We can go back if you’re feeling weird?” Diana threw herself back into the booth.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, surprising myself by meaning it. “It’s all good. So, what’s this Oreo waffle, then? How exactly does it work?”



* * *



We walked back to the house, the sugar from our treat coursing through my veins like a shot of adrenaline. Diana was telling me, and the street, exactly how annoying it was to have a mum as religious as Maggie. “She makes me pray before every meal, Queenie,” she moaned. “Even snacks! Have you ever had a packet of crisps smacked out of your hand because you didn’t thank Jesus for them first?”

That topic lasted all the way back to my grandparents’. We walked through the door, and I saw three extra sets of shoes in the hallway. I could hear voices coming from the front-front room. I stepped out of my sneakers.

“Hello!” Darcy said, walking out of the room, holding a bright pink helium balloon with BIRTHDAY WISHES emblazoned on both sides in blue bubble writing.

“Happy birthday, Queenie!” Maggie jumped out after Darcy, holding a small gift bag. I looked for the owner of the third pair of shoes and saw my mum trail out nervously, trembling arms holding a birthday cake studded with candles, only half of them lit. My stomach tightened, and I had to force myself to get back into my grandparents’ old attic, my safe place. What I actually wanted was to climb into my grandparents’ current attic to escape all of this attention.