The One I Love
The One I Love
ANNA MCPARTLIN
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Ireland by Poolbeg as
So What If I’m Broken
2009
This edition published in Penguin Books 2010
Copyright © Anna McPartlin, 2009, 2010
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-241-95016-6
For Donal, and for all the fans of Jack
Throughout
The One I Love
you will come across the lyrics of the fantastic and inimitable Jack L. Jack’s people have kindly arranged for readers to download two of his songs for free. To get them, simply type the words ‘Finding Alexandra’ in the subject line of an email and send it to [email protected]
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Universe
Oh nothing lasts for ever
,
you can cry a million rivers
,
you can rage it ain’t no sin
but it won’t change a thing
,
’cos nothing lasts for ever
.
Jack L,
Universe
Alexandra, 21 June 2007
Tom,
When you are shopping can you pick up the following:
– Bread
– Milk × 2
– Water × 4
– Spaghetti
– Mince (lean! Make sure it’s lean and not the stuff they call lean and charge half price because it’s not lean. I want lean cut right in front of you and I don’t care how much it costs)
– Tin of tomatoes
– Basil
– Garlic
– Wine, if you don’t still have a case or two in the office and make sure it’s not Shiraz. I’m really sick of Shiraz.
– If you want dessert pick something up.
I’m meeting Sherri in Dalkey for a quick drink at five. She has the Jack Lukeman tickets so I took money from the kitty to pay for them. I’m taking a ticket for you so if you don’t want to go text me. I’ll be home around seven thirty. Your aunt called, she’s thinking about coming to Dublin next weekend. Try and talk her out of it. I’m exhausted and can’t handle running around after her for forty-eight hours straight. Your aunt is on cocaine. I’m not messing. An intervention is needed.
Oh, and washing-up liquid. We badly need washing-up liquid, and will you please call someone to get the dishwasher fixed?
OK, see you later,
Love you,
Alexandra
PS When somebody close to you dies, move seats.
God, I love Jimmy Carr.
Alexandra laughed to herself as she put her note up on the fridge and held it in position with her favourite magnet, which was a fat, grinning pig rubbing his tummy. She was damp and sweaty having run five miles, which was a record and she was extremely pleased. She unclipped her iPod from her tracksuit, placed it on the counter and headed upstairs to the shower. There she sang Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, and did a little dance move before washing shampoo out of her hair.
Forty-five minutes later she walked down the stairs with her shoulder-length hair perfectly coiffed. She was wearing black trousers, tucked into her favourite black high-heeled
boots, and a fitted black blouse complete with a large bow. She stopped at the hall mirror and applied lipstick, then rooted some gloss out of her handbag and applied that too. She stared at herself in the mirror for a moment or two, sighed and mumbled something about Angelina Jolie crapping her pants. She smiled at her own joke while putting on her jacket. She picked up her handbag and went out of the door.
Alexandra walked along the street and waved at Mrs Murphy from number fourteen. Mrs Murphy was busy sweeping her step but she waved and called out that it was a lovely day. Alexandra smiled and told her it was perfect. She waited for the DART and listened to a man talk to Joe Duffy about cruelty to animals on
Liveline
. It was too sad so she switched from radio to her music collection and only stopped humming along to James Morrison’s “Last Goodbye” when she realized that three spotty teenagers were laughing and pointing at her. She stuck out her tongue and grinned at them, and they laughed again.
She sat on the train next to a man in his fifties. He asked her to wake him at Tara Street station if he fell asleep, explaining that there was something about moving trains that always made him sleep. She assured him she would wake him and, true to his word, he was snoring less than five minutes later. Coming up to Tara Street she tapped his arm gently but he still woke with a start. Once he’d regained his senses, he thanked her and made his way off the train. He forgot his bag so she ran after him and handed it to him. He was grateful but she was in a hurry to get back on the train so she just waved and ran.
The woman sitting opposite her grinned and nodded. “My own dad would forget his head,” she said.
Alexandra smiled at her. “He was sweet.”
The woman nodded again. Alexandra got off the train in Dalkey. The woman got off at the same station but neither made eye contact again.
Alexandra made her way through the station and out into the sunshine. She continued straight onto the main street and took the left at the end of the street. After that she took a right and then another left, and after that Alexandra was gone.
Elle, 31 December 1989
Dear Universe,
Please don’t send a fiery ball of hellfire comet thing to kill us all. I’m only eight so if I die now I won’t get to do anything that I really want to. Miss Sullivan thinks that I could be an artist. If I’m dead I can’t paint and I love painting and living. Margaret Nolan says that everyone thinks that we’re going to be nuked in 1999 but the real truth is that a flaming ball of death is going to crash into earth at the stroke of midnight tonight. She sits next to me in class and sometimes smells like a hospital. Her dad’s a scientist and he told her so she has a good chance of being right. She’s already given her pocket money to the poor and says I should do the same so that when our time comes God will think we’re decent enough sorts and let us into heaven. I forgot to go to the church to put money in the poor box because I got carried away working on a painting of my family dying in dancing fire. Jane says I’m a depressing little cow. She’s always in a bad mood lately. Mum says it’s because she’s a teenager, she’s fighting with her boyfriend and she’s got fat. She thinks being eight is the same as being slow but I know Jane is pregnant because they shout about it all the time. I’m not slow and I’m not deaf either. I feel sorry for the baby because if we all die tonight it will never have known life but then again maybe that’s for the best.
OK, here are my promises to you if we make it past midnight.
- I’ll be good.
- I’ll do what my mum tells me to.
- I won’t swear.
- I won’t tell any lies unless my mum asks me to (see promise 2).
- I’ll be nicer to Jane.
- I’ll paint every day.
- I’ll help Jane take care of Mum a bit more. (I can’t help all the time – see promise 6.)
- I’ll give my pocket money to the poor tomorrow morning.
- I’ll be nice to Jane’s baby because I’ve a feeling I might be the only one.
- I won’t listen to anything Margaret Nolan has to say again.
And, Universe, if we do all die in fire tonight, thanks for nothing.
Yours,
Elle Moore
XXX
That was the first letter Elle Moore wrote to the Universe. She folded it and put it into an old shortbread tin. After her supper she tied her long brown hair in a knot and dressed in her brand-new Christmas coat, hat, gloves and her sister Jane’s favourite tie-dye fringed scarf. She made her way down the right-hand side of the long garden where she dug a hole between her mother’s roses and the graves of four dead gerbils: Jimmy, Jessica, Judy and Jeffrey. Once
the tin was placed in the hole and the earth covered it, she made a promise to herself that if she did live past midnight on that 31 December in 1989, the following year she’d retrieve her letter and replace it with another.
Little did she know it back then but Elle Moore would continue to write letters to the Universe every New Year’s Eve for the next eighteen years.
Jane, 5 May 1990
Dear Mrs Moore,
I am writing to you today about my concerns regarding your daughter Jane. I have attempted to reach out to Jane on a number of occasions in recent times but to no avail. As you are well aware I have also attempted to communicate with your good self but that too has proved difficult/nigh on impossible. Therefore I am now left with no choice but to write this letter.
It is clear to the teaching staff and to the student body that Jane is in the latter stages of pregnancy and so it is now urgent that we speak. Jane’s schoolwork and attendance suffered immeasurably last term and, as a Leaving Cert student, she now faces her mock examinations unprepared and with motherhood imminent. Jane seems to be incapable of coming to terms with her condition, as it would appear are you, but we in St Peter’s cannot simply stand by and act like nothing is happening to this seventeen-year-old girl.
I urge you, Mrs Moore, to phone me or to come into the school and meet with me at any time convenient for you. I cannot allow this silence to continue any longer and so if we do not hear from you within the next week we will be forced to ask your daughter not to return to school until such time as communication has been established.