Robert Swindells: Daz 4 Zoe

So I went to see Grandma. She has an apartment in a senior citizens’ block in another part of Silverdale. Wentworth Apartments. I hope I don’t need to tell you who put it up. This was a Saturday, by the way, two weeks after the fateful trip. I flashed my ID for the guy on the door, rode the elevator up and rang the bell. I had to wait a bit. Grandma has a quick mind but her legs’re slowing down some. She smiled when she opened the door.

‘Zoe. How nice.’ She peered at me. ‘Is something the matter, dear?’

I shrugged and smiled. ‘Nothing much, Grandma. I’ve got to talk to someone, that’s all.’

‘Then you’ve picked the right someone.’ She’s terrific, old Grandma. I mean, if I was a hundred and four I’m sure I’d be too busy wondering how much time I had left and what happens after you die to want to be bothered with other people’s problems. Grandma’s not like that. She takes the time to listen. Time’s the one thing I have, she’ll say.

She put me in a chair and fixed coffee like she was the kid and I was the old lady. When it was done she sat down facing me and said, ‘Now – what’s troubling young Zoe, eh?’

I told her. When I was through she sat for a long time, gazing into her coffee cup. I sipped from mine, thinking, she’s stumped. First time ever. She doesn’t know what to say to me.

Then she started talking, very softly. She didn’t look up at me. It was like she was talking to herself. ‘I was sixteen,’ she said, ‘and working in a music shop in Rawhampton city centre. One day a boy came in. A young man, really. Eighteen or nineteen.’ She smiled. ‘The instant I saw him my heart kicked me so hard in the ribs I couldn’t get my breath. I thought I’d die, right there behind the counter. He didn’t come to me. I was on records and he wanted a cassette. This friend of mine, Pauline, was on the cassette counter and he went to her. I stood and stared all the time she was attending to him. He was the most gorgeous creature I’d ever seen and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. If the boss had come in just then I’d probably have got the sack, but I couldn’t help it.’ She smiled, lifted her cup and sipped. ‘I followed him with my eyes as he left the shop. We didn’t have the cassette he wanted and Pauline was ordering it for him. I went across to look at his name on the order pad. I’ve never forgotten it. It was Gordon Payne, and it rang bells for me. I couldn’t understand why Pauline hadn’t passed out with excitement, but when I asked her when he was calling in again she said “Tuesday” in a matter-of-fact voice and slid the pad back under the counter.

‘Tuesday.’ Grandma sighed. ‘Of course, I can’t remember now whether it was a Tuesday or some other day. It doesn’t matter. The point is, it was four or five days before I saw him again, and during that time I was in torment. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I mooned all day and neglected my work. I lost interest in my friends and the things I liked to do. I somehow managed to convince myself that he’d noticed me, that he was pining for me right now as I was for him, and that when Tuesday came he’d declare his love and we’d live happily ever after.’

She paused and looked at me. ‘He didn’t, of course. I’d waited all that morning in what the novelists call an agony of suspense, and when hecame in he collected his cassette, paid and left. He hadn’t even glanced in my direction and I never saw him again, but it was months before I stopped hoping. Months.’

She sipped her coffee and I said, ‘You’re warning me, right? You’re saying he’s probably forgotten me already.’

‘I’m saying it’s a possibility you should bear in mind, Zoe. It could save you some pain, though of course it’ll cause you some, too.’ She smiled. ‘There was a song – oh, before my time even. “Love Hurts” it was called, and that’s what I’m trying to say. It hurts, even when it’s got everything going for it. When it hasn’t it hurts more, and this love of yours has nothing going for it. Nothing at all.’

She meant, with him being a Chippy and all, but she didn’t call it impossible or tell me I only thought I was in love, and that’s what I mean about Grandma.

I nodded. ‘I know.’ My voice was shaky with trying not to cry. ‘But I’ve got to see him again, Grandma. I’ve just got to.’

I cried then. I couldn’t help it. I slid down off my chair and knelt on the carpet and buried my face in her lap like I used to when I was very small, and she stroked my hair. Neither of us spoke for a while, and then Grandma said, still stroking my hair, ‘Wait, Zoe. It’s all you can do. If this boy feels anything for you he’ll find a way to tell you so. And if he doesn’t, you’ll be left riding out the pain, as I was.’

It sounded a bleak prospect. I mean, maybe the guy wasn’t feeling anything for me right now – he only saw me once, for a few hectic seconds. If we could meet again in different circumstances -.

I sniffled and said, ‘Couldn’t I go there, Grandma? Back to the Blue Moon?’ I felt her shake her head.

‘Better not, Zoe. Wait. I know it’s hard. It’s one of the hardest things there is, but you know we can’t make people love us. It happens, or it doesn’t. I hope it happens for you, but if it does it’ll only be the start of your real worries.’ She ruffled my hair and stirred and I lifted my face, leaving a damp place on her skirt. I said, ‘I feel much better, Grandma, now I’ve talked to you.’ It was true.

‘I feel better too,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I’m getting over Gordon Payne.’

Mister James sez Wots got in 2 you Darren? He calls me Darren. its a fursday and i’m in school. i dint jack it in cos i’m not in Dred. Well its som wear to go innit.

Noffing sir i sez, but thats a fib. somfing got in 2 me alrite and i know wot. Subby girl got in 2 me but i cant tell him that, can i?

It screwed evryfing up, that nite. Evryfing. i wish it never happen but it did. i cant stop finking abowt her, even thogh i know she dont give a monkeys abowt me. Subbys dont fink we human even, but i fink abowt her all the time. How she hung abowt 2 say fanks. Kiss me. Gotta mean somfing, rite?

Rong. Dont mean noffing. Subby trash playing arownd, like thay do. i wish i never helpt em. i do. Mick stopt coming 2 school. He’s in Dred. Only com 2 school cos i do and now hes gon. Week after that nite i call rownd his place. Arst him 2 fix anovver meeting wiv Cal. Yor joking, he sez. Cal risk his life 4 you and wot dos he see – he sees a guying lucking at Subbys like he lovs em. Sees a guy sooner help Subbys than his own sort. Own famly, mebbe. You make a prat outa me Daz, he sez, and nobody makes a prat outa me. Bog off he sez, and dont you com rownd no more.

i want 2 join Dred. i do, but i keep seeing Cal. Jumpy Gal. The luck in his eyes. The way he went frou that window.

So evryfings mucked up, rite? Only 1 happy our mam and she dont know abowt the girl. If she did she wont be 2 happy neever i can tell you.

Aniway thats wots got in 2 Darren Mister James.

Noffing.

I really did feel better after I talked to Grandma. I’d been hatching all sorts of wild plans aimed at getting back to the Blue Moon, torturing myself with pictures of him finding someone, telling myself I could be that someone if only I wasn’t trapped in a cage called Sil-verdale. Now I found I had the strength to shut out these thoughts, and it was one less thing to fret about. It’s out of my hands, I told myself. I can only wait. It was sort of restful for a while.

I’m not saying it was easy. It wasn’t. Waiting for something you really, really want and probably won’t get is terrible, and it’s particularly bad if you can’t share it with those around you. I mean I couldn’t say to my parents, oh by the way if you find me a little tense these days don’t worry. I’m expecting a message from this Chippy guy I met, or maybe even a midnight visit, and if it happens we just might go off together. I couldn’t tell them I was under a strain, and so I had to try to be my old sweet self, answering politely when they asked about school and friends and things like that – stuff I didn’t care about anymore. It affected me in various unexpected ways.