While My Eyes Were Closed: The #1 Bestseller Read online

  I reach over and turn on the radio. I am not particularly fond of Classic FM. I rather like John Suchet – although I could never understand what he was doing on ITV instead of the BBC – but I would prefer not to have to listen to the adverts. Still, it was one of the things I discovered after Malcolm left – that not having Classic FM on in the mornings reminded me more of his absence than having it on.

  I think Matthew preferred it on too. Although maybe for the same reasons I did. I don’t know because he never spoke about his father after he left. Matthew knew better than to bring such things up at the dinner table. Or anywhere else for that matter. And I, of course, know better than to discuss Matthew’s departure too.

  I hear Melody miaowing outside the door. She has never been allowed in the bedrooms. It troubles me that so many people do permit such things. Certainly she has been a huge comfort to me, and I understand the human soul’s need for comfort, I truly do. But we should not accept another species into our most private room. That is how the lines start to become blurred. People have this ridiculous notion that we and animals are somehow on the same level. I blame Disney films. I blame them for a lot of things. All of this over-sentimentality and the vulgar Americanisms which have crept into our language. I saw the P. L. Travers film at the cinema. They had it on for elevenses at the Picture House in Hebden Bridge. Saving Mr Banks, I think they called it. Though personally I think it was Mr Disney who needed saving. Poor Miss Travers was rather lazily portrayed, I thought. I mean it’s all too easy, isn’t it? The middle-aged, middle-class Englishwoman as an odd and emotionally cold spinster, out of step with the modern world. Maybe if we’d listened more to the likes of her then the world would be in a rather better state today.

  I prop myself up with the pillows. I’ve never believed in jumping straight out of bed. You need a little time to acclimatise, to see the world from a vertical position before you actually set foot in it. I listen to the news, or rather I am aware that the news is on. The words themselves wash over me. You get to an age where you have heard it all before. Each item only a variation on well-worn themes, and it doesn’t really matter that the names are different, or even some of the details. Because nothing changes. Whatever sort of fuss is kicked up about these things, the old order will be maintained. And one day these young people, young people like Matthew, will accept it as I do, rather than thinking they can somehow change the way things are.

  I tune back in for the weather. It is going to be another hot day. Too hot by far for what is the tail end of summer. I miss the seasons we used to have. Four distinct ones with clear demarcations between them. Not two. Summer and winter. Both of them being far too long. One shouldn’t complain. That is what people always say. The lady in the baker’s does, at least. Not that I subscribe to that view. These over-long over-hot summers are not good for people. They become suffocating. People find it difficult to breathe. At least one of the benefits of living in a Victorian house is that the high ceilings give the air more room to circulate. And the thickness of the walls keeps the temperature down to a bearable level. It is one of the reasons I never liked staying in Jennifer’s house. It was like a pressure cooker in weather like this. I don’t know how she and Peter could stand it. Why she went for a newbuild I’ll never know. There again I’ll never know why she went for Peter either. Odd to think that a sister of mine should have such questionable taste. I suppose that’s the one good thing to have come out of all of this. They’ve given up asking me to stay. You can only ask someone so many times, you see. And at least now I don’t have to feel embarrassed about declining. Everyone deals with these things in their own way. That is what Jennifer says.

  Melody miaows again. I let Matthew name her. Even when he was young I could trust him to do things like that. He was always such a sensible child. He chose it because she used to walk along the keys when he was practising the piano. I suppose the name overstates Melody’s musical capabilities somewhat but it does have such a lovely, lyrical tone. It would have been a nice name for a girl. I often used to think that. Melody or Meredith. You don’t hear those names nowadays. They say that all names come round again in time but I have not heard those two. I have several Olivias who come to me for piano lessons, which is nice as it was my mother’s name. And at least two Graces – though I have noticed that those who are called Grace rarely possess the quality themselves. No Melodies or Merediths though. Or Muriels, come to that. I think my name is one which has been consigned to history, never to be brought out again. There was a film about a girl of the same name some years ago. Awful thing it was. Australian. A rather uncouth young woman playing the supposed bride-to-be. I remember sitting through the whole thing and not laughing once while those around me appeared to find it hilarious. I do not go the cinema very often. Perhaps that is why.

  Melody miaows for a third time. That is my cue to get up. I put on my slippers, pull my dressing gown over my nightdress and walk over to the sash window. I draw back the curtains and twist the blinds just enough so that I can see the world but it can’t see me. I look beyond the rows of terraced houses to the line of trees in the distance. Matthew used to love living so close to the park. It made up for not having a proper garden. Only a paved yard at the back and a small, neat front rose garden, not the sort a child could play out in.

  The park provided open space for him to let off steam. Not that he used to charge around it like so many children do nowadays. But he could play on the grass. We would sit and make daisy chains. Little boys would sit still and do such things in those days. He would wear the crown of daisies on his head for the rest of the day, telling anyone who asked that he was the prince of the fairies. Never the king. Always the prince.

  I sigh and turn away. Sometimes it is too painful to remember him like that. When these empty-nesters complain about missing their offspring once they have gone to university, I don’t think it is the eighteen-year-olds they miss. It is the children they once were.

  3

  Lisa

  As soon as I pull into Mum’s road I become sixteen again. You would have thought after twenty years I would have broken free of the place. Not so. I hear Alex saying, ‘You can take the girl out of Mixenden . . .’ He never gets any further than that because I always give him a clout. It’s not that I’m embarrassed about where I grew up. Not really. Simply that I like to think I’ve moved on. I’m not known as the ‘chippy girl’ in Warley for a start. We don’t even have a chippy in Warley. Although I smile as I remember Mum saying, ‘Well, what on earth are you going to do for your tea on Friday night?’ when I told her we were moving there.

  Still, there’s something reassuringly familiar about my old road. The cluster of precariously angled Sky dishes, the broken cooker dumped in the front garden of number 12 that’s been there for as long as I can remember, the kids hanging about on the corner, mouthing off at each other and taking the piss out of whichever one of them hasn’t got the right trainers on.

  I swerve to avoid a pile of glass in the road and pull up outside Mum’s house. Ella is at the front door before I have even turned off the car engine. She jumps up and down and waves something in the air from the doorstep. Mum is standing behind her, wiping her hands on her apron. She looks knackered. It’s easy to forget how much of a handful Ella is and that Mum isn’t as young as she used to be. Added to which she isn’t good in the heat; the tan is out of a bottle.

  ‘Mummy,’ shouts Ella, running out onto the pavement to throw her arms around me. There are tell–tale smears of chocolate on her face.

  I shake my head and smile down at her. ‘Hello, chocolate-chops.’

  ‘We had choc ices at Charlie’s party. They’re like Magnums but they forgot to put sticks in them.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Grandma says I’m a lucky girl because I’ve had ice cream every day this week.’

  I give Mum the same look she used to give me when she caught me wearing her shoes as a teenager.

  Mum shrugs. ‘Well, a
few ice creams never did you any harm. I mean look at the size of you. Proper skinny-minny you are.’

  I resist the urge to point out that being a gym instructor and running ten miles a week may have something to do with it.

  ‘Well, thanks for taking her,’ I say. ‘I think you deserve a rest this afternoon.’

  ‘Bathroom won’t clean itself.’

  ‘You should get Tony to do it when he comes home.’

  ‘Fat chance of that happening.’

  ‘And whose fault is that?’

  Mum makes a face at me. She is well aware of my views about why my younger brother is such a lazy arse.

  ‘Any road, I’ve got to be at chippy at four to give your dad a hand with Friday-evening rush.’

  ‘People won’t want chips on a day like this. They’ll be having barbies in the back garden.’

  ‘Not our regulars, they won’t. Besides, they reckon the weather’s going to break. Might even be a thunderstorm. It needs it, mind. Too muggy for my liking.’

  Ella is tugging at my hand, clearly desperate to get to the park.

  ‘Right, missy,’ I say, looking down at her. ‘What do we need to say to Grandma?’

  ‘Can I have my party bag?’

  I roll my eyes. Mum laughs. ‘Oh bless her, she’s right. I nearly forgot. And her balloon, she’ll be wanting that.’

  Mum goes back inside and emerges a few moments later with a party bag with pirates on it and a red balloon on a piece of ribbon. Ella rushes up and takes them from her.

  ‘My balloon from Charlie’s party,’ she says proudly. ‘And there are bubbles and loom bands and sweeties too.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ I say, seeing the sea of tat on the kitchen table swelling in my head. ‘Now, what else do you have to say to Grandma?’

  She looks at me blankly for a moment before the penny finally drops and she turns to Mum. ‘Thank you,’ she says, giving her a big hug and one of her best sloppy kisses. Mum’s eyes glisten.

  ‘Bye bye, sweetheart. You be good for Mummy now.’

  ‘I’m going to show Mummy how to climb up to big slide.’

  ‘Well just you be careful,’ says Mum. ‘Nearly gave me a heart attack first time she did it with me.’

  Ella grabs back hold of my hand and pulls me to the car.

  ‘Thanks again,’ I call over my shoulder as I take the balloon and party bag from Ella, strap her into her seat and walk around to the driver’s side. Across the road a group of teenage lads are mucking about with a shopping trolley. Bashing it against someone’s wall. If Dad was here they wouldn’t dare. Not that he’s a hard nut or anything, certainly not any more. But he’s lived here all his life and knows too many people to be messed with. I look at them again and remember another of Dad’s favourite sayings. You don’t shit on your own doorstep.

  ‘Oi, sling your hooks,’ I call out to them. They look over, scowl at me, then slink off with the trolley. I smile to myself. I still get a little kick out of it sometimes. Being Vince Benson’s daughter.

  ‘Right, let’s go,’ I say, getting into the car and fastening my seat belt.

  ‘What did you say to the big boys?’ Ella asks.

  ‘I told them to go away.’

  ‘Were they being naughty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where will they go now?’

  ‘I don’t know. But at least they won’t be bothering people in Grandma’s street.’

  I glance at Ella in the rear-view mirror. She nods, apparently satisfied with that, and picks up her Frozen sticker book from the back seat.

  *

  The car park is packed. I wonder whether to wait for a space or try to find one outside. I pull over when I see a woman struggling towards her car with a toddler, a baby in a sling and a massive changing bag. Quite why people take that much stuff with them when they are simply going to the park, I don’t understand. I’d never been one for designer changing bags, opting instead to stuff a spare nappy, wipes and a little gym towel which doubled as a changing mat into my bag. I’d always got by fine like that, although no doubt I would have failed those ‘Are you a super-mum?’ questionnaires in the baby magazines.

  The woman mouths ‘Sorry’ to me as she begins loading both offspring and baggage into her car. I smile and back up a bit so she doesn’t feel I’m hassling her.

  ‘Can we go to the park now?’ asks Ella.

  ‘In a minute. We just need to let this lady get sorted and then we can have her space.’

  ‘Have they been to the park already?’

  ‘Yep, looks like it.’

  ‘Did that boy climb up to big slide?’

  ‘I doubt it. He only looks about three.’

  ‘How old was Otis when he could climb up to big slide?’

  ‘I don’t know. Four or five, I expect. I don’t think he did it till he started school.’

  I glance in the rear view mirror. Ella is sitting there with such an incredibly smug look on her face that I have to try hard not to laugh.

  The woman finally pulls away and we squeeze into the space she has left. I hold the car door as Ella scrambles out, balloon in hand.

  ‘You don’t need to take that with you.’

  ‘Charlie gave it to me.’

  ‘I know. But you’re going on the climbing frame now and you can’t take it with you.’

  ‘You can hold it for me when I’m climbing.’

  ‘Why don’t you just leave it in the car?’

  ‘Because I don’t want anyone to steal it.’

  I sigh. My car was broken into a few months ago when I left the satnav on the dashboard. Ella woke every night for the next week and asked a million questions about it. Clearly, she still hasn’t forgotten.

  ‘OK,’ I say, deciding it will be quicker to go with it than to get into another protracted conversation about why the naughty boys did it. ‘But I’ll carry it for you so you don’t lose it.’

  She nods. I take the balloon from her and grab her hand to stop her careering across the car park, noticing as I do so that her nails are dirty and need cutting.

  ‘This is where Grandma parks,’ Ella says as she steps onto the gravel. ‘Near the ice cream van.’

  ‘Well you’ve had quite enough ice cream this week, remember. Do you want to go to the butterfly house before we go to the playground?’

  Ella gives me a look. She is not a butterfly-house kind of girl. She wants to be where her brother would be. Even when he is not here.

  ‘OK,’ I say, as we reach the grass. ‘You can run now.’

  I let go of her hand and she tears off towards the playground, her lime-green Crocs kicking up dust on the parched, worn grass. The playground is heaving but she makes straight for the climbing frame, undeterred by the number of children already on it. She glances back once, to check I am watching, before beginning to climb. By the time I reach the base of the frame she is already halfway up. Her face is determined, her hands straining to reach each new level. There is no way she will ask for help, though. She passes a bigger girl dressed entirely in pink, whose father is coaxing her up, showing her where to put her feet as she picks her way daintily up the frame. I see Ella open her mouth and say something. It is impossible to hear it above the noise of the playground but I am pretty good at lip-reading. ‘I can do it all by myself.’ I know I should feel embarrassed, maybe even say something. I’m sure the other girl’s dad didn’t appreciate the boast. But what I actually feel is a surge of pride. No one is going to tell my kick-ass daughter that there are things she can’t do. Not now. Not ever.

  There is a whoop as Ella gets to the top. I look up at her grinning face, shielding my eyes from the sun and wishing I hadn’t left my shades in the car. I raise my fist in celebration of her triumph. A second later she has disappeared inside the tube slide. I hear her yelling ‘Geronimo’ from inside the slide as she comes down. She has picked it up from Otis, who got into Doctor Who when Matt Smith used to say it all the time. A moment later she explodes out of the end of the sli
de and straight into my arms.

  ‘Hey. Well done you,’ I say, ruffling her hair.

  ‘I’m going to do it again,’ she says. And with that she is off. Straight back up the climbing frame. I glance at my watch. Quarter to three. We have about half an hour before we need to leave for Otis’s presentation. He will have to put up with Ella going on about this all the way home in the car. And I will probably get it in the neck for saying Otis was older than her when he learned to do it. The toddler in the buggy next to me wakes up and starts crying. His mum thrusts a packet of Haribo sweets into his hand, takes a drag on her cigarette then puts her hand, still holding the lighted cigarette, back on the buggy handle. I am tempted to ask her how she thinks her toddler feels about having smoke forced down his lungs but decide against it. Mainly because I can imagine what Alex would say if I start some scrap in the playground. It was me who once told Alex he was a ‘fucking idiot’ for going to the gym and standing outside having a fag afterwards. Apparently he’d gone home and smoked five cigarettes straight off that night because I’d riled him so much. It worked though. He’d stopped by the time he asked me out the following Christmas.

  When Ella slides down the next time, I manage to shout ‘One more go’ as she whizzes past me on her way back up again. She always wants to play hide-and-seek before we leave, and I don’t want to be late for Otis. I watch her on the final climb. She knows exactly where to put each hand and foot now, expertly manoeuvring past several children older than herself on her way to the top. I sometimes wish I could transplant just an ounce of Ella’s confidence into Chloe – like parents ask one of their kids to donate an organ to a brother or sister who desperately needs one. Not that Chloe would agree. You can’t address a problem until you acknowledge you have one.

  Ella arrives back at the foot of the slide. Her cheeks are almost as red as her balloon but she appears barely out of breath.

  ‘Can you time me?’ she says. ‘I want to see how fast I can do it.’