The Weight of Small Things by Julie Lancaster

Author:Julie Lancaster [Lancaster, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction/coming of age
ISBN: 9781913406189
Publisher: Mirror Books
Published: 2020-05-27T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Instructions on How to Make a Margarita

1988

‘Hello, Frankie.’

‘Have you found him?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. I was just explaining the situation to your grandmother.’

‘What about Sylvia? Have you asked her?’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t been able to locate her. We found a neighbour who remembered her, but she no longer lives at the same address. I’m sorry, but there’s no evidence to suggest that your mother’s death was anything other than suicide.’

‘Well, you’re wrong. He was there. His fingerprints would have been all over the house, all over the rope. He was always there. You obviously didn’t look hard enough. Mum always said that you didn’t know your arses from your elbows.’

‘Frankie, there’s no need to be rude.’ Her grandmother frowned.

‘There’s every need. A serious crime has been committed and nobody cares. Close the door on your way out.’

Her mother always used to say that to her whenever she didn’t want her in the bedroom any more, whenever she found something better to do with someone else. Close the door on your way out, Frankie.

She slammed the bedroom door shut, scaring the birds on the bedroom walls, and didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the weekend.

She was actually relieved when Monday arrived and she could go back to school, because refusing to talk to people was far more exhausting than actually talking to them, almost as exhausting as trying to make yourself invisible. She spent the morning studying the names etched into her school desk with a biro, sometimes the same name with only the first letter of their surname to distinguish them – Sarah C, Sarah K – and wondered if their attempts to become invisible had caused them to carve themselves into the wood and become part of the furniture instead. Some names were sharp and livid, Alex, Neil, Karl, others wriggled like worms, Sharon, Jennifer, Deborah, slack and limp. She wondered when she would be ready to add her name. Soon, she imagined.

Most days something would be missing from her locker, or something unpleasant left inside it, like rabbit droppings or cat food. Only yesterday another girl’s purse had been found sandwiched between her PE shorts and an aetex T-shirt and she was due to see the headmaster later today. She didn’t even know how they were getting into the locker, although many of the toilet-congregating girls had suddenly started wearing clips in their hair.

Vinnie still wasn’t back from Torquay and Frankie wondered if he was ever coming back. Had his parents packed a suitcase as if it was the last thing they’d ever do? Why did everyone want to disappear to Torquay? He’d called her once and she’d spent the entire telephone call complaining about Lisa Newman. He told her that Lisa’s father was serving a twenty-five-year prison sentence for stabbing and killing his business partner, and her brother had been arrested for having pornographic images on his computer, and he told her to tell Lisa to piss off, but she went one better and told her to ‘fuck off’ instead.

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