Being Emily Read online

  He likes me like this.

  She gied me a pitying look. He may say that but what men say and what they dae are two different things.

  She followed Rona out the room.

  Jas ate the veggie stew – even asked for seconds – but I knew by the slight tightening round his lips that he was being polite. The chilli was mushy and bland and every noo and again there was a hot nip fae the spice somewhere on the roof of my mouth. I wasnae sure what veggie chilli should taste like, had never had vegetarian food afore except for salad or macaroni cheese, but I guessed this wasnae it.

  Would you like some yoghurt with it? I asked. It said in the recipe yoghurt could be an accompaniment to the chilli, cooled doon the spicy food.

  Aye, please, said Jas.

  I jumped up and rummled in the back of the fridge, pulled out a pack of four.

  Strawberry, Apricot, Peach or Fruits of the Forest?

  Oh … Peach, please.

  Later, when I discovered it should of been natural yoghurt, I was that mortified I couldnae even laugh, but it’s one of the scenes from then that keeps coming back tae me. It seems to sum up who he is, or was, something about the essence of him. He must of thought I was aff my heid offering him fruit yoghurt to put on the terrible chilli, but he never batted an eyelid, tipped the sickly yellow synthetically flavoured stuff over his food and ate it all up.

  Later still, when I spent time at his house and realised how wonderful his ma’s cooking was – vegetables with subtle spices, light home-made parathas and minted yoghurt raita – I realised even more just how well-mannered, how kind Jas was.

  Even the way their food was presented was nice – no posh, just a cosy family meal, but there was a bright tablecloth and colourful dishes. The thin plastic covering on our placemats was beginning to curl up fae the surface and the twins sat and picked at it through the meal. We didnae have enough plates that werenae chipped and I spent the meal covering mines with the edge of my airm. Their kitchen was warm while ours was draughty. I wondered if this was what it would of been like if it’d been my daddy, no my mammy, that had died. And in my bed that night, when I heard him stumble through the hall, cursing the shoes that someone had left lying, or the hall table he’d stubbed his toe on, I wished it had been.

  He wasnae there again at breakfast. Used tae be just Saturdays that happened. Out for a few beers on a Friday, long lie tae make up for the early morning starts through the week. Normal, no like this. I didnae see how he could keep his job if it went on much longer. He’d worked for this wee company for ever and the guys’d been dead sympathetic about Mammy, but they must be getting pissed aff by noo. Every morning it was just the twins and me, trying tae force them to eat a plate of cornflakes and drink some orange juice afore they left for school. They spent that long getting ready in the mornings they didnae have time for breakfast but I’d fill the bowls for them, stand over them while they chewed a few mouthfuls afore gaun back to their room tae tweak their belts intae just the right angle, redo their ties so there was just the right length left dangling. I’d clear the dishes then nag them tae get out on time. I could of left them tae go to school by theirsels – Burnside was nearer than St Phil’s and, with me in sixth year, I just signed in at the office insteady gaun to regi – but I always walked alang the road with them till we had tae go wur separate ways at the traffic lights.

  Jas and me had a free period first thing, bagged wur favourite table in the school library, the one in the corner with a view over the playground. There was naebody else in; sixth year could stay hame until they had a class and maist folk did. Jas took out his Chemistry folder and I looked through my notes on Wuthering Heights. The librarian checked her post, replaced a few books on the shelf, then heided intae the wee office behind her desk. There was the sound of a kettle being filled and switched on. Jas smiled at me and I squeezed his haund under the table.

  You look tired. He traced his finger in a hauf-circle under my left eye.

  Couldnae sleep. Da was at it again.

  Not good.

  I’m getting worried, Jas. That’s three nights in a row he’s been out this week. And the nights he’s no out he’s sitting in the living room till all hours.

  Is there anyone in your family you could tell?

  There’s Patrick, but he’d never listen tae him. Anyway, he’s in London.

  What about your auntie?

  Mibbe, but she has her haunds full with Evie.

  Did he ever drink too much when your mum was alive?

  Only at the New Year. Or weddings. You know.

  Jas nodded.

  He’s so different, Jas. I’m scared.

  I thought I could tell Jas everything, thought there were nae secrets between us but the previous night, unable to sleep with the knowledge that my da was in the living room alone, drinking hissel intae a stupor, I’d got up, thinking I’d persuade him tae go to bed, offer to make him a cuppa tea. When I reached the door of the living room and looked in, he was slumped in front of the TV with the sound turned doon on some OU programme about learning Spanish. Flamenco dancers snapped their heels silently, tossing their heids proudly above the subtitles. Da, jerked out of a hauf-sleep, turned and looked at me and I saw such darkness in his eyes, such huge swirling pools of unspeakable emotion that I couldnae bear tae look.

  Fiona? His voice slurred like a comic drunk.

  I turned and scurried back to the warmth of my bed.

  How could I share that with Jas? The sour smell of the room, of my da, who didnae wash or change his clothes as he used tae. I’d found stains on his underwear as I was loading the washing machine, made me feel sick, even as I shut my eyes. I scrubbed and scrubbed my haunds afterwards with disinfectant. But that was nothing compared to the voice that was not him and that hellish look in his eyes.

  Jas never drank or smoked. A lot of folk thought it was because of his religion, his culture, and that pissed him aff good style. Sent him intae wanny his rants.

  See, Fiona, that’s what really gets to me – it’s no racism as such, folk arenae racist in the sense that they want to beat you up or call you names, no they’re really nice – it’s the assumptions they make. Everything you dae is because of your religion or because you’re Asian. If I’m vegetarian it’s because I’m a Sikh, if I don’t drink it’s because I’m Asian. Jeezo, last week I’d on an orange jumper and some wee wifie in the shop said, ‘Is that a special festival the day son?’ and I said, ‘No it was a friggin special offer in Topshop missus.’

  Sometimes I get it too with being Catholic. Like when I say there’s four of us they assume my ma and da never used contraception.

  Did they?

  What?

  Use contraception?

  Don’t think so, but then how would I know? It wasnae exactly a topic of conversation round the tea table.

  Jas laughed. I mind when I was wee I was in the shop with my da and he was putting stock away and there was this box of johnnies and I said, ‘Da can I get some of they big balloons when it’s my birthday?’

  What did he say?

  He was pure mortified but Ma laughed and said, ‘You only get special balloons like that when you are a big man.’ He was much shyer than her about things like that. See that’s another thing, because she’s an older Asian lady folk think she will be very prim and proper and she’s no. I hate assumptions!

  Knock knock.

  Who’s there?

  Consumption.

  Consumption who?

  Consumption no be done about they assumptions?

  My da’s a nice man. That’s what everyone always said about him. Your daddy’s such a nice man. Nice. The cop-out term for anyone you cannae say anything special about. Not a good man. Goodness has depth tae it, good means you think about things, you make decisions about your life, about right or wrong. So does bad. Nice means you bumble along, no giving anyone offence, you’re no specially anything anyone can put their finger on, you’re nice. No one in Wuthering Heights is nice.
Good, bad, mad, yes, but no nice.

  MISS MULHERN TOOK one of Jas’s photies and held it up in fronty the class, indicated what was good about it.

  Look at the line here, she said, tracing it wi the blunt end of a pencil. See how it flows.

  If it’d been anyone else they’d of sat, embarrassed intae a big lump, but no Jas. He could take compliments and criticisms of his work as though it was somebody else’s, as if it was something apart fae him. If anybody said anything, good or bad, about mines, it felt like they’d lifted a flap of skin, inserted a needle intae me.

  Whether it was his attitude or just something about him, naebody else ever bothered that Jas was singled out for praise; he never got slagged like Kieran was when Miss Mulhern raved about his collage.

  Jas worked in black and white mainly, stark urban images: litter gathered under a rusty metal fence, flyposted streetlamps. He wrote cards tae explain what he was daeing, set it in context.

  When I started taking photies in the park, I found mysel homing in on the detail, but it was the natural world, leaves and branches, that took my attention. Urban too but, scabby and scratched. Sometimes I’d take shots of leaves keeking through rusty fences or dirty footsteps in the snow. I used colour, even moved litter intae the picture to contrast wi the snow or the brown earth.

  Miss Mulhern studied them carefully, then said, There’s some nice composition here, Fiona, but try to find your own style. She looked at Jas. More edge, maybe, less … pretty pictures.

  I picked through the plastic jewellery, bits of Lego and dried up felties wi nae tops on, collecting limbless trunks, heidless bodies. A few of the dolls were intact but maist were relics fae the time the twins were obsessed with ER and spent all their time performing operations on them. One had its haunds and feet cut aff, like the victim of kidnappers trying to freak out relatives by sending them a body part in the post. Then there were the makeover Barbies with hair cut in weird styles or painted streaky colours, and one tattooed wi blue biro like a woad-decorated Pictish princess.

  I laid them on the carpet beside me. I knew exactly what I wanted to dae with them but I hadnae the technical knowledge tae realise the vision that was so strong in my mind. Jas would know but I was reluctant tae tell him afore it was done. I was scared that if he was involved it wouldnae feel like my work and I had tae dae it mysel. I gathered the Barbie bits thegether and put them in a poly bag at the back of my wardrobe.

  The deadline for the competition was the 6th of December. It was one of these young artist things sponsored by a company that sold crisps and the form had a trendy design but with this really tacky cartoon potato face stamped in the corners. Miss Mulhern had persuaded the Heidie to pay the entry fees. She thought it was a good incentive for us to get portfolios thegether early insteady waiting till the last minute afore the exam.

  They want a show, rather than just a one-off piece – groups of related work, installations … it’s a great chance to think outside the box.

  What about a group of paintings? Maybe on the same theme? Matt hated Miss Mulhern’s insistence that we try out different media. He didnae want to do videos and photography and place his work in conceptual terms. He just wanted to paint portraits and landscapes.

  According to the rules you can use any medium, but they’re looking for something cutting edge rather than conventional.

  She arranged individual tutorials with us and mines was last period on the Friday.

  So Fiona, what are you planning – are you going to concentrate on photography?

  I was a bit awkward with her, partly because I’d come to the school so recently, and partly because of Jas – I always felt as if I was in his shadow.

  The photies are just a starting point – I want to add other images.

  Great.

  I’d like to use Photoshop.

  Sure – computer-aided images are perfectly acceptable.

  But I’d need help to learn how to use the program.

  She opened her desk diary. I can book time for you on one of the departmental computers – Jaswinder would show you how it works, I’m sure.

  I don’t want him tae help.

  She looked up. Sorry, Fiona, I thought you two …

  No, it’s no that – it’s just – I don’t want anyone else’s ideas.

  I’m not very well up on it myself but I can arrange for Mr Lyons to give you a tutorial – I believe it’s pretty straightforward.

  Thanks.

  If you leave me a copy of your timetable I’ll sort out some sessions, Fiona. I’m intrigued to find out what you’re going to do.

  After he’d shown me how tae use the program, Mr Lyons let me go on the computer in his room any time I was free. I was that absorbed in what I was daeing that, even though his classes were quite noisy, they never bothered me. He only paid attention to the exam classes in fourth and fifth year and ignored the rest of the kids, just set up a still life and let them draw while he got on with his ain stuff, telling them aff occasionally when they got a bit over the top.

  The computer program was easy enough and you could dae almost anything with it – crop and resize pictures, place them on top of one another and move everything round – but it took me ages tae get any images I was happy with. The pictures I saw in my heid when I looked at the Barbie bits were completely different when I put them on the screen, and I tried out every possible variation afore I came up with anything that looked remotely like my vision.

  WE’D JUST TWO hours tae set up our work in a space ten feet by four, like a box with three sides, painted white. Even though I knew which photies I was gonnae use I hadnae decided how to display them. In the end I worked totally on instinct, with nae idea whether it’d be brilliant or a load of posy rubbish.

  When time was up we all stood back. Each space looked completely different: Rosie’s garishly coloured papier-mâché sculptures of exotic birds with sweetie necklaces tied round them, Jas’s stark sleek black and white images, Matt’s ethereal abstract watercolours, and mines.

  Four big colour photographs hung on the back wall; apparently idyllic winter scenes of snow and ice from the November day in the park, crystallised puddles or delicate leaves rimed in frost, but each with an amputated or mutilated doll superimposed over it. One floated heidless above the trees, another looked as if it had been stamped tae bits in a frozen puddle. And in front of the photographs, on a table covered by a white cloth, lay a mountain of doll parts, each with a Barbie Elastoplast over some part of it. Some had their eyes covered, others their ears, and some wore crossed plasters like a bikini. The title ‘Barbie Bits’ was printed in pink italics on a card in front of them.

  Jas stood beside me, looking intently. After what seemed like ages he spoke. Awesome, Fiona.

  Really?

  Yeah, I’d never in a million years have thought of doing anything like that with those photos.

  Hey, Fiona, what have you done? Rosie appeared behind us. Barbie Bits – wicked.

  Miss Mulhern was making her way along our exhibits. When she came to mines she looked critically as if taking in every detail, then started to nod and smile. Nice concept, Fiona – good placing of the doll parts and the plasters – but … She looked around worriedly. Where’s your text?

  I didnae know you had tae write one.

  There’s nothing in the rules to stop you hanging the visual work on its own, but, nowadays, the artist has to contextualise their work … too late now, of course, but you can do it for your exam.

  I don’t see why you need tae explain your art. Turner and all these guys just painted.

  That’s not really the point, Fiona … anyway, the adjudicators are coming.

  We stood back while the three judges – two artists and one guy fae the crisp company – looked at the pieces, clipboards in haund, ticking boxes and scribbling on their sheets. They were judging all the entries from schools in the Glasgow area. The winner would get through to the final with folk fae the other regions in Scotland.

&n
bsp; Miss Mulhern looked at her watch. The adjudicators are giving their decision at twelve, so be back here at five to. You could go and see what the other entries are like, get some ideas.

  Jas whispered in my ear. Let’s go and get a coffee.

  The main foyer was a soulless barn of a place, all plastic and metal with posters advertising concerts for has-been bands at extortionate prices. In one of the other halls there was a craft show, and teams of auld dollies in haund-knitted jumpers and lace-up shoes daundered about, carrying poly bags full of cross-stitch kits. Jas and me sat on a bench, sipping coffee out of paper cups.

  You know, I think I prefer coffee like this. It tastes better than out of real cups.

  Stays hot for longer. But then, paper cups are so bad for the environment.

  Afore I met Jas, I’d never thought much about the environment but it was one of his things. I even knew what he was gonnae say next.

  It’d be so easy to have recycling bins in here.

  He was right, of course, and being with him had made me aware of how folk just chucked stuff out, of the overpackaged products and the way you got handed a poly bag in every shop – I’d even started taking bags to the supermarket mysel. But there was a difference between us. I knew in my heid that throwing a paper cup away was wrong and wasteful, but it actually pained Jas to dae it. I knew that when it was time for us to go back in the hall he’d place the cup in the bin gently and a look of distress would cross his foreheid; Jas could feel the hole in the ozone layer growing even by a particle, could sense the tiniest molecule of carbon monoxide sighing into the air.

  I looked at the time on my phone. Ten to.

  Finished?

  Jas nodded, and I took the cup fae him, put it inside mines as if somehow that made it less bad, then threw them in the bin.

  He stood up, held out his haund, and the two of us heided towards the door.

  Everyone expected Jas tae win, of course. He’d always been the golden boy of the class, got the school Art prize every year. His photies were perfect; not only were his composition and technique breathtaking, his work had a way of making you feel as if you were seeing an everyday object for the first time. It was true, shot through with Jas’s directness, his sense of purpose.