The Real Thing Read Free Page B

him with her new eyes) sat bowed in his chair, tears running down his face.
    ‘She’s all right, Len,’ said Anne, Julie’s mother. She let go of her daughter and sat upright in her chair, knees together, feet together, dabbing her cheeks under her eyes, and stared at Len with a look that said, There, I told you so.
    ‘Get her a cup of tea, Anne,’ said Len. And then, to Julie, but without looking at her, looking at his wife in a heavy awful way that told Julie how full of calamity had beentheir discussions about her, ‘Sit down, we aren’t going to eat you.’
    Julie sat on the edge of a chair, but gingerly, because it hurt. It was as if she had been anaesthetized by urgency, but now she was safe, pains and soreness could make themselves felt. She watched her parents weep, their bitter faces full of loss. She saw how they sat, each in a chair well apart from the other, not comforting each other, or holding her, or wanting to hold each other, or to hold her.
    ‘Oh, Julie,’ said her mother, ‘oh,
Julie.’
    ‘Mum, can I have a sandwich?’
    ‘Of course you can. We’ve had our supper. I’ll just…’
    Julie smiled, she could not help it, and it was a sour little smile. She knew that what had been on those plates was exactly calculated, not a pea or a bit of potato left over. The next proper meal (lunch, tomorrow) would already be on a plate ready to cook, with a plastic film over it, in the fridge. Her mother went off to the kitchen, to work out how to feed Julie, and now Julie was alone with her father, and that wasn’t good.
    ‘You mustn’t think we are going to ask you awkward questions,’ said her father, still not looking at her, and Julie knew that her mother had said, ‘We mustn’t ask her any awkward questions. We must wait for her to tell us.’
    You bloody well ought to ask some questions, Julie was thinking, noting that already the raucous angry irritation her parents always made her feel was back, and strong. And, at the moment, dangerous.
    But they had expected her to come back, then? For she had been making things easier for herself by saying, They won’t care I’m not there! They probably won’t even notice! Now she could see how much they had been grieving for her. How was she going to get herself out of here up to the bathroom? If she could just have a bath! At this point her mother came back with a cup of tea. Julie took it, drank itdown at once, though it was too hot, and handed the cup back. She saw her mother had realized she meant it: she needed to eat, was hungry, could drink six cups of tea one after another. ‘Would you mind if I had a bath, Mum? I won’t take a minute. I fell and the street was all slippery. It was sleeting.’
    She had already got herself to the door, clutching the carrier in front of her.
    ‘You didn’t hurt yourself?’ enquired her father.
    ‘No, I only slipped, I got all muddy.’
    ‘You run along and have a bath, girl,’ said her mother. ‘It’ll give me time to boil an egg for sandwiches.’
    Julie ran upstairs. Quick, quick, she mustn’t make a big thing of this bath, mustn’t stay in it. Her bedroom was just so, all pretty and pink, and her big panda sat on her pillow. She flung off her clothes and waves of a nasty sour smell came up at her. She stuffed them all into the carrier and grabbed from the cupboard her pink-flowered dressing gown. What would Debbie have to say about that? she wondered, and wanted to laugh, thinking of Debbie here, sprawling on her bed with the panda. She found childish pyjamas stuffed into the back of a drawer. What was she going to do for padding? Her knickers showed patches of blood and that meant the pads hadn’t been enough. She found some old panties and went into the bathroom with them. The bath filled quickly and there were waves of steam. Careful, she didn’t want to faint, and her head was light. She got in and submerged her head. Quick, quick … She soaped and rubbed, getting rid of the birth, the