Swimming on the moon, p.1
Swimming on the Moon, page 1
For Rosie and Larry
Praise for Brian Conaghan
WINNER OF THE COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD
WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS TEEN/YOUNG
ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE UKLA BOOK AWARD
(WITH SARAH CROSSAN)
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL
‘So much heart [his writing] bounces off the page’
Irish Independent
‘Conaghan is a sublime storyteller who can make the reader hang on his every last word (and all of the others)’
The Times
‘Laughter is inevitable’
Irish Times
‘[Writing] packed with energy and a brilliant distinctive voice’
Bookseller
Books by Brian Conaghan
Cardboard Cowboys
Swimming on the Moon
For older readers
When Mr Dog Bites
The Bombs That Brought Us Together
The Weight of a Thousand Feathers
The M Word
And with Sarah Crossan
We Come Apart
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
About the Author
Copyright
One
Here I am once again. Sitting on the edge of the bed. Just sitting. I gnaw on a loose pinky nail. Staring. Thinking. Dreaming. Hoping. There’s space on my bedroom wall for another poster. Or maybe a family photo. A happy-snappy one with tons of teeth on show. Maybe from that camper-van holiday we went on two years ago.
‘This thing’s a tent on wheels,’ I remember Dad saying.
He used to be dead funny. These days not so much. I can’t remember what Mum said in return, but the laughing caused the camper-van seats to bob up and down. She’s dead funny too. Or was. I used to be a proper wee comedian myself, but now I just stare. Think. Dream. Hope. It’s really hard knowing there won’t be any more family holidays. Like so hard it makes you cry. It’s worse wishing for them though. It’s so bad that I’d even settle for an actual tent on wheels one again.
My mind takes me back there loads. I remember how the colours in the sky were different to the sky outside my bedroom window at home and how the smell of sun cream didn’t leave my hands the entire time we were there. I want the salty taste of the seaside to touch my tongue again. I want the moon to be so huge and close that I can reach up and touch it. Dance on it. Swim on it. I’m always imagining what it’d be like to go back … I stare hard at the empty section of my bedroom wall until I see it. Like actually see it. Our family picture slowly appears. We’re all in it, bursting with joy.
Right, so, we’re all in this big clapped-out camper van. Mum and Dad are up front while me and Anto are bouncing around in the back. It’s scorching outside, but we’re definitely somewhere in Scotland. One of those summer days where everything looks hazy yellow, and all the adults talk about wanting to live in it forever. The windows are open and Mum’s singing like a champion to the music, her tonsils going like the clappers. She does have some voice. In another world she’d have been the lead singer in a wedding band instead of working in Asda.
‘But she’s high up in Asda,’ Dad always said to anyone who’d listen.
By high up he meant that she works directly above the food section, in clothes. It’s not exactly a laugh-out-loud joke, but it never failed to crack him up.
Dad’s elbow is half in, half out. He’s blowing cigarette smoke towards the sun. Green menthols, which don’t damage you as much. At least, that’s what he’s told us. It’s like smoking Polo mints. When finished, he flicks the butt over the roof and starts drumming the camper-van door. He should have been the wedding band’s drummer instead of being a baker in Greggs.
‘Someone’s got to put all those sausage rolls into the oven,’ Mum used to say to the neighbours.
Me and Anto like our neighbours.
Mum’s singing gets louder. Dad’s drumming fiercer. They look at each other. Lots of back-and-forth smiling. Their eyes are filled with sun. I imagine that if me and Anto weren’t here Dad would’ve probably pulled over for a big sloppy kiss. I notice Mum’s hand resting on Dad’s knee, she taps her finger off it. A new song comes on now, a much slower number, one of those rap ballad things. Halfway through the second verse she moves her hand to the back of his neck. I taste menthol everywhere, it’s clinging to my new blouse. George at Asda, obviously. I smack my tongue off my lips. Polo mints my eye! Mum tickles the little hairs on my dad’s neck. Anto, who’s next to me, sticks his tongue out as if he’s about to cover my face with the contents of his stomach. The fish and chips we had on the beach. Erm, no thanks. I glare at him and point to his face as if to say: Don’t even think about it. Anto might be the same age, but if it came down to it, I’d more than fancy my chances. I’ve seen enough Bullies Getting Owned YouTube videos to know how to handle annoying boys. We might’ve been born on the same day, in the same hospital, from the same mother, but technically I’m his big sister since I popped out a full six minutes before he did. So that’s sister, with a capital BIG. But, whatever happened in those six minutes is beyond me, beyond Mum, beyond Dad and beyond the doctors. Anto is another story. He’s just, well, Anto.
I squeeze my eyes shut and the picture disappears. Magic!
I let myself fall backwards so that I’m lying on the bed. My head’s squished too close to the headboard but my imagination covers me like a soft, warm duvet; especially when I return to our holiday, remembering when Mum and Dad seemed to be bouncing around in a happy bubble …
Dad takes his hand off the steering wheel and drops it on to Mum’s bare knee. She’s wearing a fluttery dress. The George summer range. Staff discount. The dress matches her headband.
When I grow up I want to look exactly like my mum. Beautiful, cool. But I won’t. Everyone says I’m the spit of Dad. It’s Anto who got Mum’s dark hair and velvet skin. Both of them could pass for a Spanish Italian any day of the week. Dad just looks Scottish. Pink in summer. Sad in winter.
She thinks I don’t hear when she leans into him and whispers, Love you, honey. And he replies, Love you too, chicken, before taking his hand off her knee cos we’re coming up to a roundabout. My stomach goes all woozy. Anto’s as well. I know the look on his face when his tummy tumbles. Maybe it’s a twin thing.
Suddenly our shabby camper van has transformed into this mega-cracking jalopy; one you only see in American films and stuff. Like, you could dance in it if you wanted to, that’s how big we’re talking. And we’re driving all the way towards the sun.
One big, mega-cracking family.
‘Anna!’
Driving in the hazy yellow.
‘Anna!’
Everyone touching necks and knees and loving each other.
‘ANNA!’
I break from my trance. My breathing is heavy. The thud of the stairs is loud. Anto thudding down. Mum thudding up. And that’s me back in normal land, with a bash. When the door crashes open I jump. Dreamtime over.
‘Anna, I’ve been down there shouting on you for ages.’ Mum’s standing at my door squeezing the life out of a dish towel. ‘Your dad’s back and dinner’s on the table.’
‘Right.’
‘Did you not hear me shouting?’
‘I must have dozed.’
‘Dozed,’ Mum scoffs. ‘Twelve-year-olds don’t doze, Anna.’ She looks up at the stars on my ceiling. ‘Dozed, would you listen to it.’
‘OK, I fell asleep then,’ I say.
‘Right, well, your dinner’s getting cold.’ Mum shakes her head and goes to leave.
‘Mum,’ I shout, mainly cos I don’t want her to leave. She stops. ‘What are we having?’
‘Sausage roll and chips.’
I should have known, it is Saturday after all. Although sometimes Dad brings us a couple on a Friday too. Anto doesn’t like much, but sausage rolls, well, he could eat them like sweets.
‘I’ll be down in a jiffy,’ I say.
‘Tonight, no reading to one in the morning, got it?’
‘I’ve finished my book anyway,’ I tell her.
Mum looks at the stars once more, twirls the dish towel and leaves.
What’s the point looking at the ceiling? All the stars have lost their power to glow. I’m far too old for new ones.
I tiptoe down the stairs.
Another night, another sausage roll. These ones are a bit flaky. Probably been drying out in the shop window all day long. Another night, another dinner where no one speaks. Only Anto chomping on food like a starving wildebeest breaks the silence. The three of us who can speak don’t utter a thing.
Wish I was still on that holiday.
Two
&nbs
Actually it was past midnight so it was really the 8th. Saturday night or Sunday morning, whichever you prefer. Nancy Drew was about to find out who had written the mysterious letter when I heard their voices sneak into my room. I stopped reading on the line You gotta be kiddin’ me when I heard Mum say, Think this is all one big joke, do you? I sat my book on top of my belly. Listened for more. When Dad said, I’m not laughing at you, I wouldn’t do that, I got out of bed and slid into my birthday present. Vans. Checkerboard, size four. Classics.
Doing my best slinking-mouse impression, I crept out of my room. Anto was already perched on the top stair when I got there; rocking and banging his coat hanger off the side of his head. I put my finger to my lips to shoosh him, but the coat hanger sped up. I mimed the word NO with a swipe and he stopped. He hates when I swipe. I sat down next to him and he placed the coat hanger across our legs, just as Gran and Papa do with their tartan shawl at the park. And, like an electricity flow, we were connected. From the top stair, with Anto’s coat-hanger shawl protecting us, we listened as Mum and Dad whisper-shouted to each other.
‘You know what, Tony?’ Mum went.
‘No, but I suppose you’re gonna tell me,’ Dad said.
‘You’re full of excuses. It’s always someone else’s fault.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Take responsibility for your actions.’
‘You think I haven’t done that, Liz? I’m trying to be as responsible as I can.’
‘Not hard enough.’
‘It’s not just me I’m thinking about here.’
We heard Mum snort, even though there wasn’t anything funny being said.
‘God, would you listen to this,’ she went.
‘Do you even know the meaning of the word listen?’
Mum did another two laughy snorts. She was definitely trying to get on Dad’s wick.
‘Oh, so that was it, was it? You wanted someone to listen to you? Aww.’
I pictured Mum with her hands across her chest, like she does.
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
Mum took a drink of something. Dad too. He swooshed open a can. We could hear their gulps from where we were sitting. They weren’t happy gulps.
‘No crime has been committed here, Liz.’
‘That’s how you justify it to yourself, is it?’ Mum had her teeth clenched. I’d heard that voice loads, she sounded well up for a battle.
‘I’m just saying, it’s a misjudgement. It’s a … just something that happened. I haven’t killed anyone.’
There was a dead long pause which made me hold my breath and worry that Anto might have given our game away.
‘Just this family,’ Mum said.
Dad drank more of his can. He puffed his cigarette too cos we could smell the menthol wafting up to us.
‘I don’t think this is good for either of us, Liz.’
‘Well, if I were you I’d get on to Rightmove and sort yourself out.’
‘YOU GET ON TO RIGHTMOVE,’ Dad screamed.
‘Tony! The kids.’
‘Anna’s not stupid, Liz. She knows what going on.’
‘And what about Anthony?’
I held the coat hanger tight against my thigh in case Anto needed to start rattling it off his head again. Mum’s right, I’m not stupid, but I actually didn’t know what was going on. Not at all. I was confused. And scared.
‘Go to bed, Liz.’
Neither of them went to bed after that. We heard Mum potter around the kitchen, taking her anger out on the dishwasher. Dad took his out on Netflix. I know the da-dum sound it makes when it starts up. The silence lasted for about five minutes and then they went for it again, only louder this time. I cupped my ears, but I released my hands one time and it seemed as if they were playing swear tennis. Worst. Sport. Ever.
More silence followed, but we did wait for it all to kick off again. It didn’t. I knew Anto was desperate to make a sound, any noise that would let everyone know he was steaming with rage, but he zipped up his mouth really well; squeezing every face muscle so hard. I was dead proud of him.
‘K … K … K … K,’ Anto sounded, which means one of two things: cuddle or cosy-in. I nodded. He rested his head on my shoulder. A cosy-in is what he was after. Me too. I didn’t put my arm around him cos that makes his body all tense. He tapped the coat hanger off my thigh to take away his stress and tension. Gentle taps.
Anto didn’t want to go back to bed, and neither did I. Our heads were far too fizzy for sleep. I switched on his lamp, fixed his sheets and I left him on his bedroom floor surrounded by a million coloured pieces of his birthday present. He was bang in the middle of building a Lego Land Rover. Before leaving him there I put my arms out and said ‘K … K … K … K?’ Anto looked up at me and shook his head.
‘You OK, Anto?’ He double-blinked a yes. ‘Don’t worry, all mums and dads argue. It’s just the bad part of being married.’ He did a long, angry blink. ‘What we heard was love talking, that’s what it sounds like sometimes.’ He started clicking bricks together. I definitely knew that in the morning a new Land Rover would be parked up on his floor. And then he’d destroy it and build it back up again.
I couldn’t be doing with Nancy Drew. Couldn’t care less who wrote that mysterious letter. The last thing I remember of that night was looking at the clock. Three forty-eight. By far the latest I’ve ever been awake. I hadn’t even taken off the checkerboard Vans. I had my dance group in the morning. How was I going to move, never mind dance?
I lay in my bed thinking and thinking and thinking. I felt it under my ribs. The fear. I couldn’t allow it to happen, I couldn’t allow Mum and Dad to throw everything away on a game of swear tennis. Me and Anto had to work some Lego magic on them.
Three
Since the arguments started I’ve begun trying to change everything: I’ve been doing tons of chats at the dinner table. Told them how school has been this past year, and no one my age talks to their parents about school. Not ever. Told them in really major detail about my experience at Adventureland, the place we went to on our last day of school before breaking up for the summer holidays. I couldn’t stop laughing when telling them how Karen McAfee screamed her head off when she was dangling on the zipline and how I had to cuddle her shaking body back to calmness when she came down. Miss Dunne said that I was a really compassionate friend and that my parents would be so proud.
I’ve not asked for the twentieth time, Anna, if we’re gonna go anywhere at the end of the summer; or a last-minute deal in July or something. Obviously I know the answer, but, still, there’s no harm in asking twenty times, is there?
I’ve told them about all the new dance routines Kim is teaching us at MadCrew, and how many fingers I’m crossing that I make the squad who’ll be going to Italy in late August. Yesterday I even mortified myself by demonstrating a really cool routine we’re working on in front of everyone. They gave me a small applause, said, That’s fantastic, sweetheart, and then went straight back to their phones. Anto watched my living-room takeover through slitted fingers, but I knew by his scrunched-up face afterwards that he loved it.
There’s loads of things I’ve done: I’ve filled the dishwasher without needing to be asked. I’ve brushed my teeth for the full two minutes. I’ve had more than one bath a week. I’ve not sulked when people give Anto things and forget about me. I haven’t said anything to Gran or Papa. What would I say?
But nothing changes, we still sit at the top of the stairs in the dark and listen to them. The fear still rests, snuggled up, under my ribs. I can’t remember the last time they looked each other in the eye and had a normal conversation. I mean, Dad used to wrap his arms around Mum’s waist when she was chopping onions and stuff for dinner; and she used to put her feet on his legs when watching 24 Hours in A&E, then he’d rub her ankles and they’d make comments about all the accidents until the programme ended. See, all that touching, it used to make me feel yucky with embarrassment inside. But if it happened now I’d be doing tumbles all over the house.
