If I Were You

Chapter 58 Amy

Five Years Ago

Mum’s left me a vegetarian lasagne. It’s on the kitchen counter when I get back from work. I slip out of my rank purple polyester shirt with the garish gold estate agent emblem on the pocket and pad across in just my bra. Mum’s left me food almost every week since I moved out last month. The accompanying note tells me to cook it at 180 for 25 minutes and then has lots of kisses. I think she feels guilty about Geoffrey moving in.

Maybe she should – I don’t really get why he had to – he had his own terraced house a few streets away. Laura told me I should be more supportive, that they’d been dating for more than a year.

Mum is giddy. I just don’t get the appeal; she is energetic and fun and has incredible legs – Geoffrey’s a part-time geography teacher who has a hobby that involves owning over 1,000 different types of rocks. Seeing him sitting in the armchair Dad used to sit in still makes me catch my breath. Dad had dynamism, charisma, big opinions. Geoffrey has a soft voice and eczema. Laura says I need to give him a chance, but Laura isn’t here watching him steal Mum away, is she?

I pick up a spoon and pick at the lasagne; some of the sheets stick to the roof of my mouth. My phone pings and I glance at it: ‘Ralf’.

‘Going to head to the city centre for more signatures – wanna come?’

Do I feel like standing in the cold asking people to sign a petition? This one is something Ralf and I both believe in – to create an animal registry so that people who abuse animals can’t own another one. I know I should go, I need to put the hours in. Dad was always fighting the system, trying to give people without a voice a platform. The hard ball of hurt inside me feels less hideous when I’m fighting something.

Sometimes, though, the causes blur into one another and I despair we’ll never change anything. Ralf is so much more determined than me, it’s one of the reasons I like him, that focus. And he is always fighting something. He gives me books about Marxism and human rights abuses in other countries too. I try to read them. I do. A flash of guilt runs through me. It should be enough to be with someone who cares about the world, but sometimes I see Mum giggling at something Geoffrey does and feel a flash of jealousy.

I set the phone aside. I don’t think I have the energy tonight. I know people should care about things like he does, but sometimes I just want to curl into a ball on the sofa, drape a rug over my legs and binge-watch something. That thought makes my toes curl with guilt. I know I need to fight on. Dad isn’t here to do it, and I want to spend my life making up for how I let him down at the end.

A video call starts and I smile in relief as I see the name. Laura’s face is very close up and she seems to have drawn-on whiskers, which immediately makes me snort.

‘What’s with the beard, babe?’

She widens the shot and I take in some ears.

‘Why are you dressed as a cat?’

‘I lost a bet with my housemate. Why are you in your bra?’

‘No good reason.’

‘It’s very sexy!’ She waggles her eyebrows and I laugh.

‘MS finest! Why are you phoning me?’

‘Because I love you, weirdo.’

‘Oh!’

‘When are you coming to see me? It’s been ages.’

‘Soon,’ I promise.

‘No, you won’t,’ she says, but she’s still smiling.

She’s right, I’ve visited her new Clapham flat once and refused to stay the night. I told her I had to get back to Bristol, that work only agreed the one day off. It wasn’t that at all, but I was too ashamed to tell her the real reason. Something about seeing her up there in London, a wardrobe of trouser suits, friends I didn’t recognize, made me feel smaller.

‘I’m down next month but Mum’s not about – apparently, she’s going to some rock convention or something to do with the Cheddar man, or, I forget. She showed me her new Birkenstocks. I’m worried, Ames – will she be wearing them with white socks like he does?’

‘Very possibly,’ I say, nodding earnestly.

‘I like him, though,’ Laura adds, ‘Geoffrey.’

‘He’s OK,’ I say, that strange feeling I’m betraying Dad. Laura sees right through me.

‘He would have liked him,’ she says gently, and yet again Laura is spot on.

I miss her. For a second I can’t speak, I miss her so much. No one knows me like Laura, no one calls out my shit like my sister. It had always been me and her in corners, inventing games, staring at the sky together, making plans. I want to be dressed like a cat with her, making her laugh.

‘Still with Ralf? How’s it going with him?’

‘He just messaged,’ I say, avoiding the question. How is it going? Sometimes I think we’re colleagues raving against the world, rather than a couple. None of my relationships have lasted a year as yet. I’m not absolutely sure what I’m looking for and get teased for dumping them before it gets going. I just know I want a love like Mum and Dad had.

I’m about to say that, wanting to talk more about Dad, about the past, sift through memories like picking at a painful scab. I know Laura will indulge me. But I notice she isn’t concentrating, she is glancing over her shoulder.

‘I’ve got to go, Ames, we’re going out.’

‘As a cat.’

‘As a cat,’ she laughs.

‘Oh yeah, well, I’m … I’m off out,’ I say, not wanting her to feel she has to stay, but most of me wanting to kick back on the sofa and talk to her all night. I’m alarmed to feel tears push their way up my throat. I blow her a quick kiss and hang up with a ‘Miaoww’ that makes her laugh.

The sound makes me smile sadly as I flop down onto a chair in the kitchen.

Mum on a rock convention with Geoffrey, Laura with her life in London. Sadness sweeps over me and I sit on my sofa, look around the barely furnished flat. I wanted adventures, I wanted a bigger life. Where did that Amy go? I crave more but have no idea how to go about it. What it even looks like.

A ping and it is Ralf sending another message – this one with a time and place. I stare at the words, like a little lifebuoy. I’ll go and meet him. At least he seems to know what he wants and I can just put off thinking about any of this stuff for another day. We can rage against the world together, I can direct my anger at other things, other people and put off focusing on what I need to do, what I need to fix. I pick up the phone and tap out a reply.

‘See you in ten!’

Taking a slow breath, I stand, push my shoulders back, ready to go into battle.