The Name I Call Myself Page 7

  Sorry, mate, you can waltz in here and wave your fat chequebook around, but neither I – nor my church – can be bought.

  Perry paused, one hand on the door handle. It felt like a wrestling match without any actual wrestling. “Well, it’s your church, vicar. Whatever you think is best.”

  Spend it on what you like – there’s plenty more where that came from.

  “Thanks, Dylan. I’ll see you Wednesday.” I barrelled Perry outside before his testosterone levels rose any further, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I will never forget my sixteenth birthday, for several reasons, none of them sweet. Life settled into a sort of pattern after Grandma died and Sam came home. He found work in a factory near Mansfield, a bus ride away, and with the odd double shift we managed to budget for the occasional take-away pizza. I spent my days at school and my evenings and weekends either doing homework, housework, or washing pots in the local pub kitchen. I relished being the woman of the house, sorting our money and cooking dinner for Sam every night without anybody telling me what to do or how to do it. I had no friends, no social life, and no plans for my future, but in many ways those were the most contented days of my life. I lived for Sam – put all I had into making him happy, believing if I loved him enough, took care of him, was a good enough sister, it would keep his demons at bay. Maybe he was only that way before because of Grandma. It was different now, wasn’t it?

  Then my sixteenth birthday arrived. It was November, and a thick layer of frost lined the outside of the window when I woke that morning. Sam had an early shift, so I got ready for school in an empty house, pausing to grab a couple of pounds out of the money pot to treat myself to a hot dinner. The pot was empty. Momentarily startled, my mind flashed back to Sam stumbling in through the front door while Grandma wept about her stolen pension. And the safe she bought to keep her valuables in, until she found the back forced off and her jewellery gone.

  Then I remembered about my birthday. Of course! Sam had taken the money to buy a present. I was sixteen. That needed a special present. I hugged myself inside as I put the lid back on the pot, wondering what he could possibly have bought with all that money.

  Later that day I found out. He had bought me a foul-mouthed, violent, out-of-control brother.

  My sixteenth birthday also happened to be ten years to the day since Kane had killed our mother. Something in Sam snapped. I was no longer a child. He had done his duty and seen me through to adulthood. The bomb of rage and pain and guilt and grief exploded, blasting away the delicate shoots of the life I had been nurturing for us, my dreams, my security, and the last lingering wisp of my innocence.

  My old brother disappeared, rapidly consumed by his addiction and anguish. He lost his job a few weeks later. Not long after that he began selling off Grandma’s remaining possessions. I bought a money belt, wearing it under my clothes twenty-four hours a day to protect my paltry earnings. He broke down the bathroom door while I showered and took it. I started working longer shifts – cramming in homework during breaks and before school. I often had to choose between heating or electricity, food or sanitary towels. Sam vanished for days at a time. I could never relax, never switch off, never take a break. But, lowering my head like a mountain goat, I ploughed on, determined to finish the last few months of school and keep some hope of a future that didn’t include all the knives and forks being sold at the local car boot sale.

  And then Snake slithered in.

  Snake was a parasite. Sam let him stay because he sold drugs from the back door, paid rent in the form of heroin, and Sam was too weak, too lost, too messed up, and too scared to make him leave. He got his name from a tattoo of a python that started on his ankle and coiled itself around his leg, up past his groin, and in a loop around his torso before slinking up his neck to end in an open mouth enveloping his bottom jaw and one side of his skull as if the snake was in the process of swallowing his head. I wished a real python would swallow his head.

  I bought two solid bolts for my bedroom door, and for the bathroom. For three weeks I stayed away as much as possible: at school, at the pub where I worked, in the local library, the café, on the streets, anywhere but at the place I had called home. I still feel ill when I think about it. The stench of vomit and sweat and filth, the wizened, grey bodies passed out on the living room floor, the fights and the moaning and the girls, some younger than me, who came round trading their dignity for a fix. The night after night after night when I lay awake with the fear and the misery pounding in my head in time to the banging on the door and the creak of broken bedsprings.

  I cried to my brother, wept and cursed and threw empty bottles. Swore I would call the police if he didn’t do something. The men disappeared, and most of the girls. Snake stayed, his eyes glittering hard when we crossed paths in the kitchen, or on the stairs. But then he started talking to me, asking how my schoolwork was going, when my exams started, what I planned to do afterwards. I would answer in shaky monosyllables, darting out of the room to the sound of his rasping laughter. In the new-found quiet, I felt no less afraid.

  I felt watched.

  I was being watched.

  By an evil snake.

  Chapter Six

  The third Saturday in September, Hester arranged an outing for the choir. The heat of summer had begun to fade, replaced with the faint whisper of autumn carried along on crisp air, and I dressed in dark grey tracksuit bottoms and a long-sleeved top for our outdoor adventure day. This was no fun trip, but a necessary requirement, according to our choir director, to get us “working together in time, rather than bumbling along like a herd of blind sheep who happen to randomly knock into each other but have no idea what any of the others are doing”. She insisted on settling for nothing less than us being able to read our fellow choir members’ minds.

  Fair enough. We would give it a go.

  Having said that, if anyone managed to read the depths of my mind that lurked beneath how petrified I felt about the challenge ahead, I would have to resign from the choir forthwith. I stuffed my waterproof jacket into my old rucksack and waited for Marilyn to pick me up. As she wasn’t, strictly speaking, a member of the choir, Marilyn was going to watch from the sidelines and supervise refreshments.

  Having parked in Brooksby, we boarded the church minibus with the other choir members. Dylan had agreed to be our driver. I sat near the back, away from him, still cringing about Perry’s behaviour at the chapel. It took an hour to reach our destination, the landscape changing dramatically from the rolling fields and forests of Nottinghamshire to the Peak District’s craggy moorland. Eventually, the road narrowed to a winding trail that ended up as a rough car park surrounded by nothing but coarse grass and enormous rocks. In front of us rose a cliff face, which I reckoned stood slightly lower than Mount Everest. There were a few brightly coloured spots dotted along the cliff, which I suspected were climbers, and a couple of other cars parked up. That was it.

  We scrambled out of the van into a brisk wind that whipped the hair out of my ponytail, stealing my whimper away before the others could catch it. Two tanned, athletic, hardy-looking men jogged over carrying ropes and metal things that I assumed were going to prevent us from falling off the cliff face and splattering into smithereens.

  “You the choir?”

  Hester, wearing a black, belted trench coat and brogues, nodded briskly. “We are. We are here to learn trust, courage, and each other’s secrets. Working as a team is not good enough. I want these women as one organism. Can you do that?”

  The tallest man, with a thick blond beard and very broken-looking nose, grinned at her. “I’ll give it a flaming good go, ma’am, so long as they’re game.”

  He moved his gaze to us, eyes crinkling in the breeze. None of us looked game. The others appeared exactly how I felt: like clueless wimps. That is, except for Janice and Millie, our older choir members who had kitted themselves out in full-on outdoor gear – skin-tight Lycra leggings and tops, climbing shoes, and fingerless g
loves. “There was an outdoor special at the market!”

  They looked like jelly babies left out in the sun too long. One of them propped up on two walking sticks and wearing a bobble hat.

  Also, one of the other altos, Polly, appeared tranquil. She took a folding chair out of the van and created a small nest including a book, a newspaper, an MP3 player, a bag of knitting, a flask of hot chocolate, and a jumbo packet of cheese puffs. Polly was fourteen weeks pregnant, and therefore excused from climbing, but not the trip. She would be keeping Marilyn company and cheering us on from the sidelines in between naps. I didn’t know much about Polly, but behind her polite smile and immaculate outfits I suspected she carried as many burdens as the rest of us. She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and breathed in a long, slow lungful of wide open sky. A secretive smile played at the corner of her mouth and within seconds she fell asleep.

  What is going on in someone’s life when they are so desperate for sleep they can find it buffeted about on a folding chair on the edge of a mountain?

  We got through the safety bit, the initial instructions, and were told to choose a partner to hold the other end of the rope for us while we climbed the smallest rock face. Smallest being relative, of course.

  “Stick to your groups!” Hester ordered, as she marched up and down behind the instructors. “No inter-subsection partnering!”

  That made things a little simpler – or more difficult. I shuffled over to my fellow altos. Apart from Polly, now faintly snoring in her chair, there was Rosa – a fifty-something woman from Bulgaria, Melody – exactly the kind of woman I would trust to hold the rope that might potentially save me from serious injury, and Kim. Kim, who had so far spent the whole trip Snapchatting her boyfriend Scotty, had chosen to wear a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a cropped top. If I happened to look up while holding her rope I would get to see a lot more than I had paid for.

  Rosa and Kim moved next to each other, like girls pairing up for school sports lessons. Relieved, I joined Melody.

  Hester strode over. “Right, Kim, you’re working with Faith.”

  “Actually I’m with Melody.” I turned to show my choice of partner.

  “Do you think it would be easier to work with Melody, or Kim?”

  “Um, well, I know Melody better.” I shrugged.

  “Precisely! Have you not understood the point of today? Are we here for a jolly up a mountain together? To have a lovely time with our friends?”

  I scuffed my shoe against the rocky ground. “I guess not.”

  Hester barked, “Why do you always look for the easiest option? How is that going to strengthen your spine and destroy your cowardice?”

  “I’m not a coward.”

  Hester stared at me for a minute. “You are a survivor, Faith. I don’t suppose most things scare you – hardship, or trouble, being alone. But having to depend on someone else? Trust them with your life? Dare you do that?”

  “No offence to Kim, but I trust Melody. I know her better, and to be honest I’m nervous about working with someone wearing gold wedge heels to rock climb.”

  Kim bristled enough to pull her eyes off her phone. “They’re trainers! The letter said wear trainers. These cost sixty quid. I bought them special.”

  “Faith, if you are going to be in this choir, you have to start by getting to know your fellow altos,” Hester said. “You need to love them, respect and depend on them. You need to know that when you jump off a cliff, they will catch you. That when you open your mouth to sing the next note, they will be right there with you to the demisemiquaver. Unless you want to form a duo with Melody, you need to know Kim. And let her know you. Now! Enough time wasted on me repeating myself. We are seven and a half minutes behind schedule.”

  We were further delayed by fifteen minutes while Kim argued with the black-bearded instructor about her footwear, stomping around the whole time trying to find a phone signal. Hester had brought a spare pair of walking boots which Kim declared too heavy, too small, too filthy, too soaked in other people’s sweat, too uncomfortable, too flat (“I can only walk in heels!”), and too ugly. Our patient instructor answered every whine with, “You ain’t climbing unless you change ya shoes.”

  In the end, huffing and puffing and throwing in a couple of snorts, Kim changed shoes and began to climb. She was strong, and fit, and made it up to the top first, seeing as Hester had made everyone start together “as one organism”! Twisting slightly as she gripped the edge of the clifftop she called out, “There. I’ve done it. Can I get down now?”

  “You have to share a secret!” replied Mags, one of the sopranos holding a rope.

  “What?”

  “You have to tell Faith a secret before you come down.”

  Kim tossed her head, pretty impressive considering she was clinging on to a rock. “I hate these shoes. There you go.”

  I laughed. “That’s not a secret.”

  “I hate Hester.”

  “That’s not true. Go again,” Hester called.

  “I once wet my pants in school assembly.”

  “No. Go again.”

  Kim swore. “That’s true!”

  “Maybe, but it’s not what you need to share with us today. Come on, think about it. Faith’s waiting. What is the secret in your heart, Kim?”

  Kim turned back around and faced the cliff. I waited so long, I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she spoke out in a voice I strained to hear. “I spend nearly every penny I’ve got on looking like this. But when I face the mirror I still see the fat girl the boys mooed at. I hate that girl and I hate that it still matters. There. That’s the secret in my heart. Can I come down now?”

  She came down.

  Kim was not the only one to share her heart that day. Oh – the secrets women keep tucked away in there! Melody told us she was awaiting the results of a biopsy – all that fear, hidden behind soft brown eyes and a gentle smile. Rosa had left behind a husband in Bulgaria who didn’t know where she was, and she had no plans to tell him.

  We cheered as Millie, the last of the initial climbers, eventually reached the top. She clutched on to her rope with gnarled fingers, whooping and hollering as she scanned the horizon. It took her a long time to find a secret to share.

  “My husband left me for his personal assistant.”

  “We know that, Millie. We even know her bra size. That is not a secret,” Hester scolded.

  “I once went to an illegal rave.”

  “We know. A secret, please.”

  “I have an intimate piercing.” She wiggled the relevant body part.

  “You showed us at the Christmas party. None of these are the secret on your heart, Millie!”

  Millie closed her eyes, wobbling a little on her ledge, and clutched the rope tighter. “I’m terrified I’m going to die alone.”

  Oh my goodness. Janice helped her partner down lickety-split and wrapped her in the kind of hug that says, “You will not die alone; I will be with you. No matter what it takes, or how hard it is, or when or where or how. I am your friend and the only way you’ll die alone is if I go first.”

  Did I mention that I’m crying a lot these days?

  I felt more than a little nervous when it was my turn to climb. Kim had grown bored, and was spending more time waving her phone about to find a signal than listening to the instructor’s recap. I stood at the bottom of the cliff face and asked her one last time, “Kim? Are you ready?”

  “Yeah.” She held the rope in one hand, phone in the other.

  “You can’t be on your phone while I’m climbing. It takes two hands. If I slip, you have to support me.”

  “I know that, Faith, but you’re not climbing yet, are you?”

  I glanced around, searching for the instructors, but they were busy with the sopranos. I thought about asking Marilyn to come and keep an eye on Kim, but she appeared to be snoozing along with Polly. Dylan, sitting on a large boulder enjoying the view, caught me looking around. “Okay?”

&nbs
p; I jerked my head towards Kim and shrugged. “Just waiting for Kim to check her Twitter feed.”

  He grinned. “You’ll be fine. I heard someone say you’re not a coward.”

  That irked me. I’m not a coward, but neither am I a fool. Or so I thought, until the need to prove myself to a church minister had me launching myself up a gigantic rock, trying to ignore what Kim may or may not have been doing below me. The climb quickly took all of my focus, finding the hand and foot holds, attempting to combine heaving myself up with my arms and pushing with my feet. I could sense Rosa somewhere to the left of me, hear her humming to herself as she ascended, the pace and urgency of her notes increasing during the tricky spots.

  Despite the cold wind whipping into my face and neck, I started sweating by the halfway point, the exertion of using long-forgotten muscles causing my chest to heave as I fought to catch a breath.

  Someone in the soprano section had already reached the top. It sounded like Uzma, who called out, “Underneath these boring clothes I wear red lace, purple silk, or leopard print underwear. I hide them in my drawer behind all the respectable white and beige bras and knickers my mother gets me. Sorry to mention unmentionables, Dylan.”

  I began to slow my pace as a couple more climbers reached the top and shared their secrets. What secret would I share today?

  What is the secret on your heart, Faith?

  My heart was so squashed with secrets I didn’t know where to begin.

  My brother is an addict struggling to resist falling off the wagon.

  I’ve done desperate things I am too ashamed to tell the man I’m going to marry.

  The monster who murdered my mother is out of prison and I am filled with dread he will find us.

  When the minister of Grace Chapel smiles at me, for the first time in my life I feel beautiful.