It was her mother’s fault. She was consumed with what to do with the leftovers from the funeral. Should she throw them out, try to give them to someone, or should they freeze them? Norah knew her mother didn’t want an answer; she just wanted to talk at Norah.
Norah had stood nodding and mirroring like a parrot, saying things like, ‘Mmm, that is a lot of sausage rolls,’ until her mother released her.
Norah thought it was possible that in other families, they would have cried together over this monumental loss. But that was for functional types. In Norah’s house, they processed together via trivialities. If her mum was crying, she did it privately. Norah did the same. The shower was a good place for it, masking both sound and moist eyes.
But anyway, that was the reason that Norah was walking into Art and Design at twenty past nine. Mrs Kane noticed but only gave her a nod. The teachers had been told to ‘understand’ about her current situation. Norah didn’t know how far that understanding would extend.
It had been three weeks since her dad had departed the planet, but when would the grace period run out? Would she be expected to get her shit together after the funeral? When was the grieving meant to be over? When was everything supposed to be normal?
Norah sat down next to her friend, Joy. She looked over in surprise. ‘Oh. You came. Thought you might have fucked it off today.’
Joy was a casual friend, more due to table geography than anything else. She was slightly disconnected, but she was certainly unique, and Norah appreciated that about her. Joy had a very particular artistic style she called Contemporary Despair, where she took gothic figures of the past and put them in situations of modern ennui. She was currently painting a picture of Edgar Allan Poe trying to assemble Ikea furniture. Needless to say, her parents had not correctly anticipated their daughter’s personality at the time of naming.
‘I got waylaid,’ Norah explained vaguely.
She got out her latest project, a graphic novel she’d been working on for months. She was a bit stalled with it currently. It was the story of a girl who accidentally dug up an ancient alien artefact in her back garden that gave her super strength. Norah had started it without knowing where it went.
She felt stupid for attempting it now. But she’d gotten ambitious, and there was no going back. She’d put too much time into it. She couldn’t afford to drop it. There wasn’t time to start a fresh project without her grade going to shit. And she needed this grade. It was gonna take her to art school.
‘Yeah?’ Joy asked.
‘Yeah. Needed to chat to my mum about stuff,’ Norah told her.
Joy looked like she wanted to say something about that. But then she seemed to chicken out and went back to adding shade to an Allen key that Edgar was squeezing hard enough to draw blood from his palm.
Sometime later, paused mid-stroke and said, ‘Oh, that girl asked for you, by the way,’ she said.
‘What girl?’ Norah frowned.
‘That girl who does the thing.’
‘I know exactly who you mean now,’ Norah said dryly.
Joy frowned, trying to summon anything that might place this mystery figure. ‘You know, she’s like... That guitar player.’
That lit a bulb. ‘Oh, do you mean, um, Poppy?’ Norah asked, confused.
Poppy lived on her street; their mothers knew each other. They’d been friends when they were little. But then they were placed in different classes at eight. Poppy had been considered a wee bit tricky for their new and anxious teacher, her lack of attention span and general distractibility making her a bit of an obstruction to the lesson plan. She’d been shifted to a more experienced teacher who knew how to handle her mercurial nature, and they had gone their own ways.
Poppy’s friends were now the cool muso crowd. Norah knew she could never be cool enough for them and didn’t care to be. Norah had friends, loosely speaking, but mainly, she liked to spend a lot of time drawing, which happened to be a solo pursuit. Hanging out with other people had never been a priority.
Though Norah’s and Poppy’s lives ran parallel, they didn’t intersect much. Occasionally, they’d see each other on their street and smile and say hello—nothing more. Norah thought she seemed alright, but who could tell at a distance?
Only Poppy was asking for her. She’d never done that before.
‘Did she say what she wanted?’ Norah questioned Joy.
‘No, she just asked if you were here. Which you weren’t. And she left.’ Joy dabbed at her piece.
Norah frowned. ‘OK. Weird.’
She turned back to her bastard project and soon forgot about it.
Four
Now
Poppy sat in a boxy, drab kitchen, looking at the clock in agony: 2.15. She was due to pick up Luna in an hour, which meant running into Norah again. Poppy had had all day to mull over their interaction. That was no good thing. She was feeling very paranoid.
Norah had been here building relationships with the other parents for a while, and Poppy was a newcomer. If Norah hated her and decided to do something with that feeling, it might not be too hard to make everyone else hate her.
Was Norah that person, though? She hadn’t been when Poppy knew her. But a lot of time had passed. And the way she’d treated Poppy today.... There was anger there, still. That much was clear.
But who was she now? What was her life? She’d always carried a melancholy; it had been part of her charm. But where was the shine that went with it? Those grey, almond-shaped eyes had always been deep and mysterious, but a little of the soul in them had seeped out somewhere along the way. She still had that sexy, sarcastic mouth, but it didn’t smile.
Who was Norah Cauldwell now? Poppy didn’t know. She only knew who she had been.
Twenty Years Ago
‘I did look for her. She wasn’t in,’ Poppy explained to her mum, sitting in the kitchen eating a biscuit.
Her mother was stirring something mysterious on the hob. It didn’t smell very good.
‘Then go and call for her,’ her mother said.
Poppy sighed. ‘I’m not eight. I can’t just bang on someone’s door and ask them to play.’ She paused. ‘I don’t even know what you think I can do, anyway.’
‘Come on, Pop,’ her mother said. ‘I’m not going through this again.’
