Sister Crazy

I have not washed properly in five days, I only splash at the sink. I eat bread and cheese and stay up watching videos of westerns, way into the night, when it is only afternoon for my dad and the family. I watch The Gunfighter, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, My Darling Clementine, and Shane. Shane is my favourite of all time.

‘He’d never have been able to shoot you if you’d seen him!’

‘Bye, little Joe.’

‘He’d never even have cleared the holster, would he, Shane? … Shane? Shane! Come back! … Bye, Shane!’

Finally, Mum puts my dad on the phone.

‘Hey, Dad.’

‘You are going to be fine,’ he says.

What?

‘YOU-are-going-to-be JUST-FINE.’

‘You mean you are going to be just fine, right? You. How are you, Dad?’

‘Everything is going to be all right, you are going to be fine, we are going to be—’

He does mean me.

‘Dad?’

‘Jem, you are—’

‘Dad? Are you okay?’

‘I am okay! I am o-KKKAAY—’

I clasp the receiver even tighter and jump up from a sitting position. I join in. ‘O-KKAAAY … co-RRAAAL, o—’ but my mother has taken the phone from him and I don’t know now. I do not know if he was really singing the tune from Gunfight at the O.K. Corral or not.

Mum stays on the line for only a second or two, enough time to say she’ll call back later or tomorrow and I hang up and sit in the dark room and feel cut off and panicky and manacled by this question. I want to know if my dad was doing the tune from the western with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas playing Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I need to know. And I wonder if the whisky-soaked angels are still hanging out with my dad, if they are hovering over the hospital, getting all confused, some of them keeling over suddenly and looking surprised and silly. What is going on here? That must be morphine! Some of them want to go, but the big-cheese angel says, Hang in there, this man is a gunfighter and he will get up to pour single malt another day. That’s right, guys, I think. Hang in there.

That is rule number ten. HANG IN THERE.

I practise it, the gunslinger squint.

Hang in there.

Party Spirit

I am eight years old and I am home from school. I’m at my first convent, the one where the nuns are Irish. Harriet comes with me now, she is five. I have to look out for her because she is a little wild and gets scuffy knees and her fair hair flies about in an unruly fashion. It’s like angel hair. Despite her likeness to an angel, the nuns prefer her to be neat and not run around like a wild thing. They like neat angels at my convent. So I look out for Harriet at my school, I keep my eye on her, in the playground, in the echoing corridors and hallways and in the high-ceilinged dining room, places where there are dangers for Harriet, things such as stones and puddles, sharp bits of moulding and hard tiled floors. I saw her fly right into a French window once, as if she could dance right through it into the courtyard. Harriet feels that if you can see through glass, you can skip right through it to the other side, why not. I have quite a lot of tolerance for this behaviour in my sister because I know how she thinks. She is high-spirited. The nuns say this, ‘Your sister is high-spirited,’ meaning can’t you stop her from running all over the place, especially out of bounds. The grounds at my convent are pretty extensive and you can easily stray into out-of-bounds areas, especially if you are Harriet and pay no attention to instructions regarding out-of-bounds areas. Never mind. We are home now, we got here safely and she is out of my hands for a while. Harriet dashes off to find Mum, who is probably with Gus. She drops things on the way, hat, gloves, satchel. Even in summer we wear gloves at school, white ones. Harriet does not like a lot of extra haberdashery. Angels are not keen on heavy clothes, I guess.

I need a snack. Oh great, binoculars. Mum has been to Zetland’s. This is a bakery and they make fantastic rolls that resemble pairs of binoculars. When Jude and I are World War II British commandos, we use them as binoculars until we get tired and need a snack, whereupon we eat them.

I take half a binocular. Ben is standing near the kitchen table, his feet crossed, one of them bent at the ankle and splayed out to the side. I like the way he tangles up. He has one hand in the nut and raisin bowl which Mum always puts out for him as he is crazy for nuts and raisins and likes something you can eat steadily but is already in small pieces.

He is looking at me expectantly.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Hey, Ben.’

‘Hey,’ he answers, with staring eyes.

Ben is not ready to tell me what he wants to tell me. Okay. I am patient. I decide on the other binocular half and sit down at the long white oak table, on the chair I learned to make bows on, so I could tie my own shoes. We all did this. We sat on the floor while Mum cooked and she’d tie a shoelace on the strut of a chair back and we’d tie and untie until we got it right. She’d feed us little slivers of vegetable or something while we practised.

Eating my binocular and waiting for Ben to come out with it, I think about finishing up my homework in time to watch The Wizard of Oz with everyone tonight. This film is free, in other words, we do not have to pull out time from the bank to watch it. We are only allowed one hour of television a day and have to save up for things, except free things such as The Wizard of Oz or To Kill a Mockingbird or The Grapes of Wrath. The Grapes of Wrath is an old film and pretty depressing. I didn’t really want to watch the whole thing. It featured scrawny types at campsites surrounded by horrible dilapidated vehicles spilling rickety belongings and little kids in flimsy clothing. They huddled around fires and ate sloppy food out of tin saucers and kept driving to different sites, working all day and getting more and more depressed and saying brave things in short gloomy sentences. I had to stay and watch though, because Dad was sitting up on the sofa, instead of lying down, meaning, this is an important viewing experience, Jem. You stay.

Other free programmes are documentaries about Nazis. Now I cannot look at anyone wearing up and down stripy pyjamas. Clearly they have not watched as many documentaries about Nazis as I have.

Here is one thing my dad always asks me whenever we watch documentaries about Nazis.

‘Jem?’

I break out of my reverie, which has to do with wanting to play Action Man with Jude right now and not watching a gruesome documentary featuring death.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re not making the sign of the cross or anything like that at school, are you?’

He gives me a stern look, his dark brown irises fixing me from the corners of his eyelids, the skin bunching up there for emphasis. How can I say yes to a look like that, daring me to say yes but expecting no? My dad has brown eyes and all the rest of us are various shades of blue. At school, they said in biology that women carry the dominant genes for eye colour. Mum has blue eyes. My dad is Jewish. My mum is Protestant. I am wondering who carries the dominant genes for religion.

‘No, Dad.’

I do, though.

Sometimes, when no one is looking, I make the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, ah-men. Then we learned to say Holy Spirit, not Ghost, due to modernism. I liked Ghost better. Never mind. I watch the girls do this at assembly and I never join in. I am Jewish, can’t they see that? It’s cool, being different. On my own though, sometimes I try it out, this cross in the air, touching forehead and shoulders and heart, just to see, and it feels spooky, like lying or stealing, neither of which I am good at, betraying myself with blushes and a racing heart and a stark look in my eyes. My mum is a Protestant but I am pretty sure she does not do any of that stuff, signs of the cross and genuflection and so on. I don’t think she needs to because she may not come from Earth like we do, she may come from elsewhere, where they do things their own way. I’ve been watching her closely and I am on the case. I am gathering clues all the time.

‘Ben?’ Come on, Ben.

‘Yeh?’

‘Do you think they’ll let me stay up to see the whole thing? Do you?’

‘Oh yes,’ says Ben. ‘It’s a classic. You know.’

Oh. I am beginning to worry there may be Nazis in this film because besides being a free film, I will not, it seems, have to go to bed in the middle of it. This is the other impediment to sheer viewing pleasure in our house. Bedtime. I have huddled on the sofa with Jude, watching some war film not classic enough, such as The Great Escape, not even able to concentrate, knowing bedtime was a few paces away, listening out for the gentle swish of my mother and those two words from the doorway, ‘Jem. Bedtime.’

Once, when my dad was watching with us, I tried to argue, to fight for my rights. Most kids I knew stayed up all hours and there was no TV rationing. They did not have to smuggle sweets into their homes, either, no, and they could even read Enid Blyton books, forbidden in our house due to prejudiced views expressed in dodgy writing.

‘Please can I stay up?’

‘“May I,” do you mean? Anyone can stay up,’ my mother says gently.

‘Yes. May I? Please.’

‘Oh, darling. It will come round again.’ I hate this. Promises to do with days and times beyond contemplation. You’ll feel better soon. It’ll be over before you know it. We can buy another one. I’ll be back. All these assurances without places and dates are no good to me.

‘When though? What if I go blind? What if I do not have a TV later in life and the film has come round again?’

‘Jem,’ my dad says, sensing hysteria.

‘What if I just don’t notice it is on? What if I don’t even want to watch it then? What if I’m too busy or I have a TV and it is broken? What if—’

‘JEM!’

Then my mother speaks. She is standing in the doorway, she is leaning into the frame, her head tilted to one side, her hands clasped loosely in front. ‘Jem. Bedtime.’ And suddenly all the noise goes out of the world and bed seems like the best place to go and I don’t get this movie anyway. Where does all the fresh dark earth go when they are digging out the tunnels, where does all that wood come from, and the material for the uniforms? The guy going blind and the one with claustrophobia are a bit depressing and I am tired and I am going to bed. Jude, who is lying on his side, getting his usual sideways view of the TV, will explain it all to me tomorrow. He will tell me the good bits I missed, if he is in the mood. Mum holds out a hand for me, but I can’t take it right away due to a cross feeling within. I am cross with my dad who is pretending to shoot a machine gun.

‘Quick! Run for it! I’ll cover you!’ He is creased up with mirth but I ignore him, I do my best. Bloody.

I take Mum’s hand at the foot of the stairs and it’s the best grip in the world. It’s loose, not too loose, firm not tight. She has long fingers and incredibly silky skin and the temperature is just right, cool not cold, and the feel is dry not rough, never rough. I take in all these details about her hand and the way she holds mine because I am not crazy for holding hands; I get squirmy and bad-tempered, I feel my fingers getting squashed or my elbow twisted and wrenched in the grip of most people. But I could hold my mum’s hand and never let go, and stay happy, I know it. I may not believe in angels, I find the whole subject confusing. At the convent, for instance, I remember when my friend Christina’s little brother died, having fallen out of a window playing hide and seek, the mother superior said at assembly, ‘Now let us all pray for Julian who is with the saints and angels in heaven.’ Then Christina cried, the first time I saw her do so, and I was mad at the nuns, all of them. No. No. He is not with the saints and angels in heaven.

Holding my mother’s hand, I wonder if angels can sneak inside people, because I think this is what it must feel like to hold hands with one. It’s a weird thought, but as I said, I have these suspicions about my mother.

‘Jem,’ Ben says, ready to make an announcement.

I look at him, showing him I am ready too.

‘I dreamed about Mummy and in the dream she was a witch and she looked like Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians. You know.’ His eyes have a spooked look.

‘Whoa,’ I say.

‘Yeah.’

‘Bloody!’

‘Yeah.’

I try to look spooked and nervous too, because I do not want to disappoint Ben. I know that a big part of having a gothic imagination like Ben’s is making other people nervous about your gothic view of things, and I do not want to let my brother down, especially since it cost him so much to tell me this news. I even take in and let out a big breath and gaze at the floor and hold off finishing my binocular, which I’d really like to be eating. But I do not want to hear any more from Ben. Our mother does look like Cruella De Vil, if Cruella suddenly became a lovely character, and she even has that shock of white at her forehead, a zap of lightning almost, in a black sky. I like it. It’s cool. So this Cruella business does not strike me as at all gothic, but the witch part is a bit worrying and if my mother does strange witch type things in this dream, I do not want the details, no thank you.

‘Whoa. Bloody,’ I repeat. ‘Ben, I am going to do my homework so I can see the film with you, okay?’

‘Sure,’ he says, still giving me a spooky look. ‘Okay.’

I need to change out of my uniform and as I push open the door of the room I share with my sister, I get ready for Harriet to leap out at me from somewhere, from the cupboard or behind the door. This is something she really enjoys doing and I always act really scared so she can have a good time. Today Harriet does not fly at me. She must have grown bored waiting for me as I was so long downstairs with Ben.

I put on jeans and one of Jude’s old rugby tops. I like to wear Jude’s old clothes. I plan to do my homework outside at the wrought-iron table on the terrace with all the cherub statues standing all around. Statuary, Mum calls it. Some of the statues are not cherubs but naked grown-ups carrying sheaves of wheat and scythes and things or carrying nothing at all but looking wistful, leaning their weight on one leg. I like doing my homework there.

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