Chapter 4: Wednesday Afternoon November 24th

There’s something magical about cars. They’re like spaceships. They carry you from one world to another. For example, Nana’s car was carrying me from the world of school to the world of home – two entirely different worlds with their own rules and expectations. I think even the laws of gravity are different. And since I’m a different person in each of those worlds, the spaceship-car has the additional power to transform me from one person into another. I get into the car as Rebecca Freeman the student and get out of it as Bec the ... whatever I am when I’m at home.

I guess the school bus does something similar, but it’s not the same. Sitting on the school bus, I’m pretty much already Rebecca the student. Maybe the magic on the school bus is in the doorway. As you climb onto the bus, you get zapped and kapow – instant transformation.

“Are you mad at me for coming to school?” Nana’s voice broke the silence.

“What? No! Well sort of, but not really. What makes you think I’m mad at you?”

“You were ignoring me. You were sitting and staring out the window and not talking to me.”

“Oh! I was transforming into Bec. I don’t have to be Rebecca the student again for four whole days. It’s a nice feeling.”

Nana chuckled. “Ah! So you aren’t mad at me, then? I was getting worried. When you were in primary school, you loved having me coming up to check on you. I keep forgetting the rules for high school are different.”

“I’m in middle school, not high school.”

“Middle school, junior high school, high school – they’re all the same, aren’t they?”

I snorted. “Dan once said that the difference between junior high and high school is like the difference between a zoo and a nature preserve. They’re both designed to keep the animals away from the people, but one of them does it with cages so they can keep the animals apart from each other, as well.”

“Daniel shouldn’t be filling your head with such cynical ideas. He should know better.”

“Nana, I’m thirteen years old. I’m quite capable of being cynical on my own, without Dan’s help.”

She glanced over at me and smiled, before turning her attention back to the road.

“I’m sorry. I never learnt about teenagers. I know grandmothers are supposed to know everything, but this is still a new experience for me. Teenagers didn’t exist in my day – we went straight from being a child to being an adult. And they took Louise away and locked her in that place before she turned thirteen. It took nearly four years of argy-bargy and going in and out of courts before I got her back permanently. By that time she was an adult – so I missed out on her being a teenager.”

“Didn’t you get to see her in all of that time?”

“Oh yes! I visited her all the time. They let her out for day trips and even a few weekends. And a couple of times they released her, but then she’d do something a bit ... well ... unusual and her father would have her put back in again. Visiting someone in an asylum is not the same as having them living in the house with you.”

She sounded really sad. “I’m sorry, Nana. I’m sorry it all happened like that. It was all so unfair.”

“No point banging on about it now. That’s all over and done with.”

I watched as she pushed the sadness away with her usual iron-willed determination. She smiled to herself as she obviously thought about something happier.

It wasn’t until Nana was stopping the car outside our house that it occurred to me to ask a different question.

“But what about Uncle Stan? Didn’t you get to see him being a teenager?”

“Ah!” A strange look flashed across her face and then disappeared before I could sort out what it meant. “That’s a completely different story.” Then her face completely closed up.

She took three goes to change the gear shift into park and then she turned the motor off. When she struggled to undo the seatbelt, I leaned over and undid it for her.

“Now what did I do?” I thought to myself as I watched her wordlessly lever herself out of the car and push the door shut.

I scrambled to grab my schoolbag and get out of the car before she got all the way up the drive to the front door.

“Nana, wait!”

She paused and looked at me, completely without expression.

“You didn’t lock the car.”

She scowled and fiddled with the little device on the key-chain. After she’d poked at it several times, I gently took it from her. “Let me, Nana.”

I pressed the button and watched as the car horn beeped and the lights flashed. Then I used the key on Nana’s chain to open the front door, saving me from digging into my bag to find my own key.

I gave Nana’s keys back and held the door open for her.

“How about you let me make you a nice cup of tea?” I said. “Come and sit down in the kitchen.”

I filled the kettle and put it on and then left Nana sitting in the kitchen while I dumped my schoolbag in my bedroom. Back in the kitchen, I stooped down and hugged Nana while she was sitting in her chair. I held on to her and tucked my head over her shoulder. I could feel her patting my arm with her hand.

I sat down next to her and kept a hand resting on her arm. “Nana, I love you so much. Thank you for coming to school today. It means a lot to me that you would drop everything and go racing over there when you thought I might be having a problem.”

She smiled and put her other hand on top of my hand – the one I had sitting on her arm. She stroked my hand with her fingers. Her skin felt thin. Regular use of hand-cream had kept it feeling as smooth as silk but it was definitely an old person’s skin. Today, in a number of ways, I’d really had it driven home to me that Nana is getting old. It shook me up so much that my insides felt like they’d been turned into a milk-shake – all froth and bubbles.

“Nana, I love the way you did that, but I don’t want you to do it again. Before, you said that the rules are different from primary school. They totally are! Kids get laughed at and teased if their family keeps turning up at school for the slightest problem. Junior High really is like a zoo. All of us are trapped in there with people we don’t like, in way too little space, doing things we don’t really want to do. We all go a bit crazy. I doubt if I get through a single day of school without getting upset about something. It’s going to get really embarrassing if my family keeps scrambling around in a panic every time I get upset.”

“From what Peter was saying, you haven’t actually missed a class before.”

“Yes, that was wrong. I’ll try not to do that again.”

Nana patted my hand and then squeezed it. “You’re a good girl. Your schooling is much too important to throw away. I had to fight like billy-o just to get to school. Things are much easier for you, these days. You’re even getting to go to college one day a week. At your age? Who ever heard of such a thing? I’m wracked with jealousy. If you waste that opportunity, I’ll take my walking stick to your backside.”

I smiled at her. “Nana, you don’t own a walking stick.”

“Hmph! I could get one without too much trouble and no, you don’t need to make any smarty-pant comments about me needing a walking stick. Don’t be impertinent.”

The kettle started singing, so I stood up and made a pot of tea.

I set the pot on its coaster on the table so that the tea could brew while I pottered around setting out cups and saucers. I also put some cookies onto a plate.

Once I was done, I sat down again beside Nana.

She’d watched me perform that little routine with a gentle little smile on her face. She waited until I was seated before starting up the conversation again.

“You look so pretty right now. You’re growing up into a beautiful woman.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “I’m growing up to look exactly like Mum and she looks exactly like you did when you were her age.”

She gave me her crafty smile. “That’s precisely what I said. You’re growing up into a beautiful woman. I was beautiful once you know.”

“Nana, you’re fishing for compliments. Do you want me to say that you still look beautiful? Well, you do. But I know what you used to look like. You don’t have to tell me about it.”

“Oh? As far as I recall, you weren’t around back then.”

“Yes, but Mum was. Look!”

I reached down the neck of my top and pulled out the locket I always wear. It used to be Nana’s locket. I could see her eyes light up in recognition, when she saw it. It’s a big and solid metal locket that always presses against the center of my chest, constantly reminding me of its presence with its weight. I lifted the chain over my head and held the locket in my hand, flicking it open with one fingernail. Inside was an old picture Mum had drawn of her and Nana together soon after Mum came home from the asylum.

I handed the locket over to Nana. “See? I know what you looked like from Mum’s drawing. And you have those old photos of yourself on the wall in your bedroom.”

Nana pointed at the locket. “What’s this? This is new.”

In the other half of the locket, I’d put a new picture. It showed three girls standing together.

“In the middle is me, on the left is Mum – looking like she did when she drew that other picture in the locket. And the girl on the right is you. Or at least it’s what I think you looked like at that age based on those old photos of yours.”

I’d drawn it as if we were three girlfriends of the same age hanging out together. The two girls who would become Mum and Nana are there, standing beside me and supporting me. I think it’s symbolic, but I’m not sure of what. The bit of my brain that drew that picture isn’t talking to me. It won’t tell me what it means. That picture came from somewhere deep inside me – a part of me that never uses words, only feelings. I’m left staring at one of my own pictures, trying to figure it out like everyone else has to. I think I finally get why, sometimes, my family look at my pictures and scratch their heads. So what do you think, Doctor K? What do you think it means? Remind me to show it to you at our next session and you can have a go at explaining it to me.

“I love it,” said Nana. “The three of us together like that. It’s so beautiful. And look, your picture is even better drawn than the one your mother did. The lines are finer.”

I sighed.

“I’m not as good as Mum. I cheated. I drew the picture bigger and used the school photocopier to reduce it to the right size. Mum drew hers tiny to start with. That’s why I’m going to the college class, remember? I’m going so that one day, maybe, I’ll be as good as Mum – or maybe even better.”

The tea was ready so I poured out cups for the two of us. We both tasted the tea and put our cups back down. It’s like the English version of the Japanese tea ceremony. You prepare the pot. You talk. You pour out the tea. You each take one sip. You talk. You take two more sips each. And so on. Okay, it’s not as steeped in tradition and meaning like the Japanese version, but it is comfortable and familiar.

“Are you excited about the college?”

I thought about my answer to that while I attached the locket chain back around my neck and slid the locket down inside my top. I wiggled a bit until it slid properly into place. I’m quite sure I’m getting a little indentation in my chest where the locket sits.

“I’m very excited. I’m also a bit nervous.”

“What is there to be nervous about?”

“I’m worried about making a fool of myself. I’m worried that I won’t be able to keep up. I’m worried that all the college students will sneer at me because I’m so young. Like you said, it’s a fantastic opportunity and I’m worried that I might waste it because I’m not ready.”

Nana looked at me carefully, as if peering inside my head at the quivering little brain hiding inside my skull. Then she nodded.

“Those are good things to think about, but you shouldn’t be worried. As your Miss Webster pointed out, you and I have a lot in common. We’re both as stubborn as mules. When I first had cancer I was a terrible patient – fussing and carrying on. The doctors kept saying I had to do everything they told me to do or I would get worse. That wasn’t good enough for me, so I let them have it a few times. Then one day, a doctor came in and looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You have six months to live, twelve at the most. You can’t possibly live more than twelve months.’ Well, that did the trick. I sat there in the hospital bed and thought, ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do!’ and I set about proving him wrong. Here I am, five years later and I’m in complete remission. I’m a cancer survivor thanks to that doctor.”

We both took two sips of our tea, each lost in our own thoughts. I was thinking that after half an hour with Nana, my broad Lancashire accent had come back. I was also thinking that it sounded like a strange thing for the doctor to say that stuff to Nana. Nana must be a mind-reader because she answered my question before I even asked it.

“I’m not a complete idiot. I used to be a nurse, remember? No doctor would ever say such a thing to a patient. I’m quite certain your mother got to him and persuaded him to say that to me. She deliberately manipulated me to get my dander up. She denied it when I asked her, but I know what must have happened.”

“Weren’t you angry with Mum for manipulating you like that?”

“No, sweetie, I wasn’t angry. It had the desired effect so I let it pass. Besides, I’ve done the same thing to her once or twice – she was only getting her own back.”

The skin around her eyes got all crinkly as she smiled.

“That’s why I’m not worried about you at college. It’ll only take one uppity, spoilt young thing to sneer at you, and you’ll be so busy proving her wrong that you’ll fly through.”

She pointed her teacup at me. “Of course, if nobody says anything like that to you at college, we can always rely on Tara to stir you up. She seems to be good at that.”

I grimaced. That was certainly true.

We both sipped our tea.

It was time for the next step in the dance.

I reached for the plate of cookies. “Have a cookie, Nana.”

She looked at them carefully. “They’re biscuits!”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Have a biscuit, Nana.”

She took one and nibbled on it. That was a relief, because it meant I could eat a couple and not be rude. I wondered why I was feeling so hungry – I’m not normally that hungry when I get home from school. Then I remembered that it had been a half-day and I hadn’t eaten any lunch. No wonder I was hungry.

“I’ve been in America for six years and calling these things cookies still sounds completely wrong to me. I doubt I shall ever get used to it,” said Nana.

I looked at her sideways. “So why did you move out here? You must have known it would be difficult to get used to things being so different.”

Nana looked at me calmly. “Louise told me you’d started asking questions. That’s one I don’t mind answering. I had a choice of staying on my own in England and growing old with only cats to talk to, or coming out here where I could watch my beautiful grandchildren grow up. I chose to come out here where I could be a part of your lives. What’s that modern expression? It was a no-brainer. Is that right?”

I grinned at her. “You nailed it!”

I nibbled on a biscuit while she sipped some more tea.

“So that’s the reason why you moved out here. Why did we?” I asked.

Nana sighed and put her tea cup down.

“You must know!” I said. “You were there at all the family meetings where they decided to come here.”

“Love, I know you’re curious, but you should leave it alone. You weren’t told all the whys and wherefores for good reasons. Those reasons haven’t gone away.”

I bit my lip and looked down at the table.