March 2000

There was a girl in Alex’s fundraising group named Melanie Spencer, and his heart gave a painful lurch whenever he saw her.  Her eyes were huge, with dark shadows underneath, her face was just a little too thin, and her hair was long and tangled.  Alex was worried about her.  There was something wrong- he just didn’t know what it was.

Every Friday night, they’d stand on the station concourse, rattling their tins and collecting for this month’s charity, and every twenty minutes, Alex would look around to see where Melanie was.  Usually she’d be in a group with two or three other girls from her class, and Alex would relax.  Sometimes, though, she’d wander off to the side on her own, and then Alex would try to keep an eye on her.  Nothing too overbearing- just making sure that he intercepted any drunken middle-aged businessmen he saw heading her way.  Sometimes he even managed to get them to put a few pounds in the collection tin.

Alex didn’t think he’d ever heard her speak.

*

Alex had eighteen months left until he could go away to university, and sometimes he wondered how he’d get through it.

He had fundraising on Friday, Maths tutoring on Wednesday and Thursday, football on Sunday, school council on Monday and his shift at the residential home on Saturday.  That still left Tuesday afternoons stuck in the house.

Marley was in the front room, playing Resident Evil and occasionally muttering curses as a zombie dodged his attack.  He sat back, slouched, with his legs spread wide, and he looked as though he was trying to merge with the sofa.  There was a strong smell of smoky bacon crisps in the air.

Alex sat in the chair opposite, making some notes for his English coursework.  He could have done it in his bedroom or the dining room, but he preferred to have company.  Marley was concentrating too hard on his game to say much, but at least he was there.

Angry, raised voices came through the ceiling.  Alex caught his breath.  Ancient Romans and their many methods of killing people.  “Do you know what they’re arguing about?”

Marley didn’t turn around.  “Oh.  Apparently Serena complained to Dad about something.  Then Dad talked to Mum about it, and now her feelings are all hurt.”

Alex nodded.  Their father had lived in Ireland for nearly three years now.  They talked on the phone, but none of them had ever visited.

The voices went on for a while.  Alex did his best to forget about it and concentrate on what was in front of him, and he thought he sensed Marley doing the same thing.  Then one of the upstairs doors slammed open, and the argument spilled down the stairs and into the hallway.

“I’m sorry I don’t have time for your sick little power play!” Mum spat from the landing.  Alex wasn’t going to go out and see.  He was just going to concentrate on his English notes.

“You don’t have time?!  What, in your busy schedule of sitting on your arse all day?”

“How dare you?”  Alex heard Mum’s footsteps on the stairs, but Serena was too quick for her.  The front door had already slammed shut behind her by the time Mum was halfway down.

Alex badly needed to find something to do on Tuesdays.

*

The weather was miserable that morning.  Alex drove through the rain, doing his best to account for the poor visibility and slippery roads, when he spotted a hunched figure in the distance, up against all the grey.  It was Melanie Spencer.

He pulled up to the curb a little way behind her, so that he could be sure that he wouldn’t hit a puddle and splash her.  She didn’t see him until he wound down his window and called out to her.  “Would you like a lift?”

A smile slowly spread across her face, as if she had to test the waters before fully committing to it.  “Thanks!”

It was all simple- you saw a classmate struggling in the rain, so you offered them a lift to school because it was the decent thing to do- right up until Melanie had sat down and closed the door behind her, and Alex remembered that he’d never actually talked to her before.  To the best of his recollection, that little thanks was probably the first word she’d ever spoken to him.  And now he didn’t know where to start.  Do you live around here?  No.  He’d sound like he was prying.

He cleared his throat.  “Would you like the radio on?”

She shrugged, still smiling.  “I don’t mind.”  She looked at the windscreen for a while, her eyes seeming to follow one particular raindrop as it travelled, then said, “Is Marley Rudd your brother?”

Alex started a little.  “Yes, he is.  Do you know him?”

Melanie nodded.  “I used to help run the Drama Club last term.  You know, during lunchtimes.  And Marley always came up with great ideas for things his group could do.  He seemed like a smart kid.”

“Well, thanks for saying that.  I’ll tell him you said hi.”  Alex remembered Marley mentioning Drama Club a few times last year, but he was almost certain that he didn’t go anymore.  Marley seemed to have checked out of a lot of things lately.

“You look alike, you know,” said Melanie.

Alex laughed.  “Really?”

“Yeah.  Around the eyes and nose.”  Melanie circled her own eyes and nose with her index finger.  “I haven’t seen him in a while- how’s he doing?”

And once again, Alex had no idea where to start.

*

Mum and Serena hadn’t spoken for nearly a week.  Whenever they were both in the house, each of them retreated to opposite corners of the house and expressed their frustration by slamming doors and playing music extra-loud.  It was at times like that that Alex missed Roxanne the most.  The house had seemed less cold and echoey before she’d gone to university.

This afternoon, however, Mum was out, so Serena came into the living room, flopped onto the sofa, and, without acknowledging Alex at all, grabbed the remotes and switched to MTV.  An All Saints video came on, followed by Blink 182, and Serena glowered at them both as if they were her mortal enemy.  

Serena’s hair was stringy, and there was always the faint smell of sweat under her perfume.  She looked as if she was falling to pieces.

Alex left it a while, then asked, “How was your day?”

Serena looked at him in surprised irritation.  “How do you think?”

“I… don’t know?”

Serena rolled her eyes.  “It was fucking fantastic, Alex.  Same as always.  Now let me listen to this.”  And she turned back to the TV.

And how was Alex supposed to respond to that?  Yell at her?  Hadn’t there been enough yelling around here lately?  Alex thought about Roxanne, who, as far as he could remember, hadn’t raised her voice to any of them in years.  If she wasn’t there, he needed to do his best to keep things to the standards she’d set.

He wouldn’t say anything.  He’d sit here in the living room, doing his homework, and wait.  If Serena decided she wanted to talk, whether that was in five minutes or two hours, he’d be there.  If not, then at least they wouldn’t be alone.

*

It was on the bulletin board in the Sixth Form building, and Alex saw it almost as soon as he got to school.  Through the crowds of people milling around looking for their friends and getting ready for their first lessons, he caught a glimpse and was sucked right in.

Self-improvement through meditation, Tuesday evenings.

Tuesday evenings.

Alex’s first thought after making a note of the address (St Andrew’s school for Boys, on the other side of town) was that he needed to find Melanie.  She’d never given him any hint that she was interested in meditation or that she was free on Tuesday evenings, but you never knew.

He found her in the corner, reading a battered old paperback whose title he couldn’t quite make out.  He manoeuvred his way through the crowd until they were fact-to-face.  She looked up and grinned, her top lip twitching oddly.  “Hi, Alex!”

“Hi, Melanie.  Did you see that flyer on the message board?”

“No?”

“Self-improvement through meditation.  It’s at St Andrew’s tomorrow.”  He gave her what he hoped was a winning smile.  “I’m thinking of checking it out- do you want to come with me?”

Melanie’s face lit up.

*

Marley had gone to the shops a few minutes ago, probably to get away from the screams in the hallway.  Serena had finally annoyed Mum into acknowledging her existence again.

“I could smell the cigarette smoke from all the way down the stairs!  How dare you?” 

Alex stared down at his coursework, rereading the same sentence he’d started reading when Mum had driven Serena’s friends out of the door.  It didn’t help him block it out.

“Disrespecting me, disrespecting this house…”

Serena gave a laugh that sounded like a gas explosion.  “Respecting this house?  What do you want me to do, salute the bricks?”

“This house, where I allow you to sleep…”

“You allow me?”

“Where would you be if I decided, sorry, you’re not sleeping under my roof anymore, find somewhere else?”

“Um… in touch with Social Services?”

Alex heard a sound.  It was muffled by the door, but he thought it might have been a slap.  Mum’s voice afterwards was a low growl.  “You are the most selfish, cruel, despicable person I have ever met…”

“Mm,” said Serena, “Says the woman who faked a suicide attempt just because she didn’t like her daughter’s A-level choices.”

Mum went silent.  Alex wasn’t surprised.  That had made him feel as though he’d been punched in the stomach, and he wasn’t even in the same room.

As Mum began to sob, Serena made her getaway.  Alex heard the door slam, and felt a little relieved.

He wondered if he should go out into the hallway and talk to Mum.  It might help, or it might just mean putting himself in the firing line.  Before he could decide one way or the other, though, Mum came into the living room.

Her eyes were red, but there was no hint of tears in her voice.  “Look at all this!”  She held her hands out to the middle of the room.  Marley had left a couple of crisp packets on the sofa.  “How can you stand to live in this filth?”

Alex put his book to one side.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t see…?”

“Don’t you care?” she demanded staring at him in shocked disgust.

“Well, like I said, I didn’t…”

“Some days, I think about turning you all out until you learn to act like human beings.”

Alex froze in the middle of standing up.  Suddenly it was hard to breathe.

“Some days I wonder how I managed to end up with you.”

Alex got his voice under control.  “Mum, I know you’re still upset about Serena…”

“I’m upset because my children all seem to think that they can go through life just being catered to!”  She looked over her shoulder, plucked up the crisp packets, and threw them at Alex’s chest.  They hit home and fluttered to the ground.  “Seventeen?  You act like a twelve-year-old!  I’m surprised you don’t still need someone to wipe your backside for you!”

Alex could gave turned around and left the room, but she’d just have followed him and come up with worse things to say by the second.  But if he shut his eyes and stayed still and silent, maybe she’d get fed up and leave.

*

St Andrew’s was just similar enough to their own school to be confusing- corridors that you expected to end in doors to the main hall ended up outside, and corridors you expected to take you outside just led to more corridors.  The gym was the same size as the one Alex and Melanie were used to, but the floor was more brown than yellow, with markings that were cracked and faded.  The air had that cold, dusty smell you always got in rooms that were suddenly empty.

The meeting started with trust exercises.  The idea was that one person would jump off the wooden bars, and the rest of the group would catch them and bear them down to the floor, like crowd surfing at a rock concert.  Melanie went first.  For a few seconds after she jumped off the bars, she looked like a bird flying through the air.

When it came to Alex’s turn, he was nervous.  He expected it to be awkward and uncomfortable- so many opportunities to land wrong and hurt yourself or someone else- but it wasn’t.  It felt almost like falling onto a mattress.

It wasn’t long afterwards that the guy in charge blew the whistle.  “Right!  Everybody shake yourselves out and come and sit down!”  He motioned towards a circle of chairs at the other end of the gym.  Once everyone had followed his instructions and settled down, he bounded into the middle. “I’m Shaun Pinder- Head Oakman!  Now, did everyone enjoy that?”

There was a happy rumbling sound from the circle.

“I said, did everyone enjoy that?”

This time, there was a ragged, self-conscious shout of, “Yes!”

“That’s better!  Now, do you know why I got you all to do it?”

Everyone shook their heads.  Even the ones who might have ordinarily taken a guess were far too worn out from the crowd surfing.

“I got you to do it because that’s how I think she world should be.”  His voice lowered to an awed whisper.  “Everybody supporting everybody else.  Knowing that there’s somebody there to catch you when you fall.  Or support you when you try to fly.”

Alex felt that echo in his head.  That’s how I think the world should be.  But whose fault was it if it wasn’t?

“People have been tricked into caring about money, or what’s on TV, or whether or not the bus is going to be late.  But that’s nothing.  The truth is, there is nothing more important, nothing more lasting, than your connections with other people.”

Alex’s eyes started to sting.  He tried to hold his face still, but he couldn’t.  That’s how the world should be.  Everything else is nothing.

Beside him, Melanie’s eyes widened in concern.  She put a hand on his back and whispered, “Alex, what’s wrong?”  But all he could do was shake his head.

*

The meeting went on for another hour, but Alex didn’t hear much of what was said.  All he could think about was people catching each other when they fell.

“Alright, guys,” said Shaun, “I’m going to call a short break.  Get yourselves a drink, go to the toilet, be back here in five minutes.  Go!”  He clapped his hands once, and people started getting up.

Alex turned straight to Melanie.  “I’m sorry about earlier.  For alarming you like that.”

Melanie shook her head.  “No.  No-o-o.  You don’t need to be sorry.  But what was…?”

“Heeey.” Came a voice from behind his shoulder.  He looked around and saw Shaun Pinder standing over him.  “Are you alright?”

So he’d noticed, too.  Alex swallowed and said, “Yes.  I’m sorry if I…”

“No!  Don’t apologise!  Sharing feelings is what tonight’s all about!”  And he flashed Alex a brilliant smile.  Alex still felt like crawling into a hole and never coming out, but he tried to smile back.

Shaun Pinder’s voice softened.  “Would I be right in thinking that you don’t have as many human connections as you’d like?”

Alex thought about Roxanne, hundreds of miles away, Dad, all the way across the ocean, and Marley, Serena and Mum, who made rooms feel empty even when they were in them.  “…Yes.”

“Well, that’s not necessarily a reflection on you.”  Pinder put a warm hand on his shoulder.  “You’re not stuck with the family you’re born into, or the friends you have at school.  And you’re not stuck with what they want to make you into, either.”

Alex smiled, genuinely this time.  “Well, that’s a comforting thought…”

“It’s the truth!” said Pinder.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex could see Melanie frowning.  He wanted to ask what was wrong, but then Pinder was talking again.  “What did you say your name was?”

“Um, I didn’t.  Alex.”

“Well, listen, Alex, we’re going to be doing some hot-seating in the second half.  Does that sound like something you’d be up for?”

Alex laughed.  “Sure.”

“Brilliant.  I’ll reserve a slot for you.”  He turned round and blew on his whistle, calling everybody back to the circle.