Page 45 of The Pieces of Us

‘I still can’t believe you’re going tomorrow.

’ Sandra thinks she’s being helpful, handing me clothes that I won’t be able to fit into in a month or two.

Or possibly sooner, because I really don’t have a clue what’s going on with my body; it’s changing every day in the most unexpected ways.

The morning sickness – I don’t know why it’s called that, because it strikes at any time of the day – is long gone, but I wasn’t prepared for the change in my taste buds and hair sprouting on my belly.

I fold the clothes Sandra gives me and place them in my suitcase, because I don’t have a plausible reason not to.

‘I can’t believe I’m going either.’

‘I’m so jealous. You’re going to college .’ She shuts an empty drawer and moves on to my wardrobe. ‘Are you taking this?’

I glance at the dark green pinafore dress, the one she’s always coveted. ‘No. You can have it.’

‘Seriously?’ She peels off her cardigan and pulls the dress on over her T-shirt and jeans. ‘I love this dress.’

‘Sure. Think of it as a going-away present.’

‘You’re coming back, though?’ She takes her eyes away from her reflection in the mirror long enough to scrutinize my face.

‘Course I am.’ I laugh. ‘It looks better on you anyway.’

She twirls across the carpet, stops in front of me. ‘You think so?’

‘You’re a vision in green,’ I tell her.

We’ve grown closer over the last few months. Sandra’s fifteen now, so slightly more mature, and even though her breasts are still bigger than mine despite me being pregnant, which is so unfair , I can definitely handle her in longer doses.

‘Will you curl my hair tonight?’

‘I’d love to,’ I say.

While she washes her hair, I finish packing, picking up my ABBA record before Sandra asks for that as well.

I like her more than I used to but not that much.

I have no idea if there will be a record player where I’m going, but here’s hoping.

I take Tropic of Cancer from under my bed, not because I want to take it with me but because it doesn’t belong here, in the room I’ve slept in since I was seven.

I slide the record and the book into the suitcase, underneath my nighties.

It’s still only half full, but what else does a pregnant sixteen-year-old going to a fake college to be a fake secretary need?

My life as I know it is coming to an end.

I curl up on my bed and close my eyes, because I don’t know what else to do.

‘Hey, lazybones.’ Sandra bounds into the room with her hair dripping on her shoulders and an armful of foam rollers. I don’t know if a minute or an hour has passed.

She sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the mirror and I kneel behind her, using the pointy end of Mam’s comb to carefully separate her hair into sections.

‘Ooh, give me a middle parting, will you?’

I roll my eyes, comb through her hair to start over.

‘I want to look like Farrah Fawcett,’ she says.

‘I don’t think she has a middle parting.’

‘I want to look like Farrah Fawcett with a middle parting then,’ she retorts. ‘I’m giving it my own twist.’

I poke her in the back with the comb. ‘You’ll be knocking her off the cover of Cosmopolitan .’

‘Get the Sellotape from the kitchen for my cow’s lick, will you?’

‘You and your cow’s lick. Get it yourself.’

‘You’d understand if you had one,’ she grumbles.

I sing under my breath as I work, flitting between the chorus of one favourite song and another. My sister joins in; we’re putting our everything into ‘Waterloo’ and she has half a head of rollers when Reenie bursts into the room.

‘Family meeting,’ she says, then sticks her tongue out at Sandra and runs away.

‘Wee pest!’ Sandra yells after her.

I follow her out of our room and downstairs, where my parents are surrounded by their four youngest children, each of whom is sporting their distinctive expression of indisputable boredom.

‘Sit down, girls.’ Mam’s own face is unreadable. ‘We have some news.’

‘Has someone died?’ Sandra demands. ‘You all look miserable.’

‘We don’t know yet,’ Patrick snaps at her. ‘We’ve been waiting for you. I want to watch Planet of the Apes .’

Sandra sniggers. ‘God, you’re such a nerd. You and your TV Times and your red pen.’

‘Language, Sandra,’ Mam scolds.

Sandra opens her mouth but thinks better of it and closes it again.

Father clears his throat. ‘I won’t beat around the bush. I’m looking for a new job.’

Sandra looks at me, unable to hide her displeasure. Her face says it all: Is this it? The big announcement? Boring job stuff?

My sister doesn’t have to wait long to get the drama she was clearly hoping for.

‘I’m looking for a job in Ireland,’ Father says. ‘As soon as I have something lined up, we’ll be moving there.’

I say goodbye to my brothers and sisters after breakfast and it’s far from the emotional parting I feel like I deserve, because none of them know the truth.

Sandra and Reenie are excited and envious that I’m going to the big city to attend secretarial college; the rest of them don’t really care what’s going on and are more excited about the future move to Ireland.

‘We’ll come and visit you as much as we can!’ Sandra yells over her shoulder as she runs back into the house to finish getting ready for school.

No, you won’t. I walk down to the end of our path, watching the usual clusters of kids traipse along the street. You won’t be allowed. What I’d give to be traipsing along the street, worried about nothing but my history test.

Sandra, Patrick and Reenie leave first for the big school. ‘If you can’t be good, be careful!’ Sandra says as they pass me.

‘See ya … wouldn’t wanna be ya!’ is Patrick’s parting shot.

Reenie surprises me by throwing her arms round my waist and squeezing me tight.

I don’t have time to pull back, but it doesn’t matter – if she’s aware of my changing shape she’ll just assume it’s because I’m eating much more than I used to.

Mam and Father have been drawing attention to my propensity for second helpings and my irrepressible sweet tooth and it’s quickly become a source of much dinner table amusement.

Better to be known as a greedy pig than a pregnant big sister.

‘Bye, stinkers,’ I whisper after them.

Mam appears, with Aoife by her side and Joe in his buggy. ‘I’m walking Aoife halfway,’ she tells me pointlessly – she’s done this since my little sister started at the primary school.

‘Leave Joe with me if you want.’

‘He’s grumpy,’ she says, but not coldly.

‘OK. I’ll get the last of my things together.’

‘I won’t be long. Father is inside finishing his coffee.’

‘OK,’ I say again. I watch her – tall, straight, resolute – until they’ve crossed the road and disappeared from view.

Another tall figure catches my eye as I turn to go back into the house.

A man in a black suit. It’s unusually warm for this time of year but a shiver rushes through my body.

I know it’s not him , of course. He and his wife moved away last month – a covert operation, according to the snatches of Mam and Father’s conversations I overheard.

I also heard them talk about Father’s hand, about the scars that will never disappear.

I watch the man until he reaches the bus stop, then I put my head down and hurry into the house, wondering why a tiny part of me – the part I don’t ever give a voice to; I barely let it breathe, actually – is disappointed.