My dad was a journalist. I remember him as the man in the room that people wanted to be next to, the one they were interested in. I’m more like the one in the room that people forget is there.
Mum and Dad might even have been in love before they got married. I think they were having the time of their lives until Mum got pregnant with Mercy. Everyone was really down on them for doing it without rings on their fingers, so they did the right thing in a church before the bump that became Mercy was big enough to show. Mum says it wasn’t Mercy that screwed things up, because Dad loved being a dad. It was the getting married that really hacked him off because he hated doing what he was told.
What is it about people that makes them want to get married anyway? I don’t know how anyone could ever be sure enough of something like that. I can’t decide how to get to school. I can’t order food in a caff without spending the rest of the meal worrying I’ve made the wrong choice. I don’t reckon I’ll ever be able to do it. And on the evidence I’ve got, meaning my family (exhibit A: big empty space where a husband and dad used to be) I’m not sure it’s even worth the bother.
And how come if Mum knew it was a bad idea the moment she’d done it, she didn’t have the sense to know it a week or a day or even ten minutes earlier? I just don’t get it. And when I see what Mum’s left with after so many years, and hear her complaining that she can’t even remember loving Dad or wanting kids or whatever, it makes no sense to me at all.
It makes me determined to do life with my eyes open, even if it means making no decisions at all.
On Monday, instead of double geography and French, I went back to the mini cab office for another look at the urn. There were more people around, the shops were open on the high street and there were some last ditch battles for parking. Basically, a much less attractive place when awake, but the mews itself was pretty quiet. There was a lady walking up and down and the way she was walking had this strange rhythm, like four steps forward – stop – up on tiptoes – stop – three steps forward – stop, and when she got to the top of the mews she turned round and started again.
When I passed her she said, “Sorry to ask, but can you spare a cigarette?” and she made me jump and I said “No” and took my hands out of my pockets to show her I wasn’t hiding any. And I wasn’t, because I might smoke weed now and again, but I would never smoke tobacco for these reasons, among others.
1 It doesn’t get you high. What’s the point of being addicted to something that will kill you and doesn’t even make you laugh or feel good or anything?
2 It kills you.
3 It smells bad.
4 Cigarettes cost very little to make but there’s a load of tax on them that goes straight to the government, making them rich. That means the people who are supposed to take care of our health and welfare and help keep the fabric of society together are making a profit out of something really addictive that doesn’t get you high and will kill you. Also I’m not old enough to vote so I’m avoiding tax generally, where I can help it.
5 Mercy told me something about the tobacco giants ripping off their farmers and paying them next to nothing. Mercy’s boyfriend smokes American Spirit, which are fair trade and organic, apparently, if you can get your head round the idea of an organic cigarette.
6 Not-organic cigarettes contain about 250 poisonous toxins which will also kill you.
I stood outside Apollo Cars for a while, with the lady pacing behind me, and I tried to think about what I might say when I went in. There were those vertical Venetian blinds in the window, like you see in dentists and too-trendy apartments, the kind that are made out of plasticky cardboard pieces held together with cheap chains made of tiny ball bearings. The blinds were really dirty, but I liked the way they cut up the view inside, as if somebody got a photo of a minicab office out of a magazine and cut it into strips. If I took a step to the right I could see the urn on its shelf, and if I moved back to where I was it disappeared from view and I could see somebody’s profile and the front page of two different newspapers. The urn looked so precious in there compared to everything else, so completely out of place.
Anyone walking into the mews just then would have seen a lady with a demented walk and a boy hopping from one foot to the other, and would most probably have turned round and walked back out again.
As soon as I went in I knew I hadn’t really thought this thing through. I was way under prepared. I could hear my blood shushing through my ears like a pulse. For a start, I’d been standing outside for longer than I realised, arousing suspicion. Tony Soprano was halfway down his stairs already. Whether he remembered me from the other night or not, he had every right to think I was a nutter. I was sort of hovering on the spot, smiling like an idiot. And anyway, paying a call on the remains of a dead stranger isn’t the sanest thing I’ve ever tried to do.
He asked me if I wanted a cab and I said no, and then when he turned his back to me I changed my mind and said yes, and he laughed and asked if I had any money, which I didn’t. Then he told me to leave, which wasn’t the cleverest time to ask him about the dead lady. He walked right up to me then, younger than he looked, sallow with grey bags under his eyes and cigar breath.
This, as far as I can remember it, is the conversation I had with Tony Soprano.
Me: Why have you got a dead lady’s ashes?
TS: What’s it to you?
Me: Is she yours?
TS: What? (Looks at colleagues) What a question!
Me: I mean did you know her? Was she a relative or something?
TS: No.
Me: What are you going to do with her?
TS: Who? None of your business mate.
Me: Well—
TS: When they collect they can do whatever they want.
Me: Who?
TS: The family, whoever left her, who d’you think?
Me: Are they going to?
TS: No idea. You’re not touching it. Get that idea out of your head right now.
Me: What’s her name?
TS: (giving me the hard stare for the count of five and sighing) If I tell you, will you sod off?
Me: Yes
TS: (picking up the urn and showing me the metal plaque on the side that reads VIOLET PARK 1927 – 2002) Now sod off.
It was like a light going on in my brain.
I read once in a comic about readiness potential, the way your brain is always one step ahead of you, even though you think you’re the one in charge. It’s pretty complicated, but I think I understand it and it goes like this.
First
