I wrote this piece as an entry for the Grazia First Chapter competition, a part of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021. Sadly the competition has been discontinued with its last year in 2022. You can read more about it and the winner, Naomi George here.
The idea was you had a start point from an author, in 2021 that was Dorothy Koomson and it was called “When I fell”.
Then it was over to us, 1000 words was the limit. Hope you enjoy.
‘When I fell‘
I’m very good at pretending I believe in love. No one can tell that I don’t. I can act as if a ‘special someone’ makes my heart flutter; I convincingly swoon at other people’s romantic joy. I even rustle up tears when a relationship ends. But my heart is a patchwork of honour badges, each stitched over a scar from believing in love before. So being a love sceptic keeps me safe and pain free. And then I fell down those stone steps near Brighton Pier. A stumble, a trip and several sharp bounces down, and there I was at the bottom. Agonised and humiliated. Too ashamed to move.
B.W. was there too.
“You have scuffed your knee now, you silly cow,” she spoke to me like I was one of her snotty-faced children. It didn’t help that at five foot eleven she towered over me. She had a knack for making me feel like a bug she had squashed under her kitten heel and today was no different. A sharp pain shot up my spine. I had no doubt I had bruised my backside as well as my pride. She didn’t need to make me feel worse, but she did. She always did.
I got up from the bottom step and pulled down my burgundy corduroy skirt over my black leggings. There was no hiding it; there was a tear in the knee the size of a 50 pence piece framing my pale skin underneath. Now, I would visit our grandmother looking a mess. Clumsy Claudia; a mess is what they had come to expect from my tangled hair and countless failed relationships. I couldn’t do anything right.
We had come to Brighton to visit B.W: Bossy Witch, Mum had called her. She doesn’t speak much about her any more, which is probably how we had gotten away with such an uninventive code name. It was a special occasion. I had wanted to look my best.
Sophie was agitated, “Come on, Claudia,” she moaned. “We are so late. I need to get back to London for the kids tonight.”
“Sorry,” I brushed my coat down and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I was relieved to see the screen was still intact. “It’s the 46 bus we need. That should take us straight to Stoneacre.”
“Stone Acre? Sounds posh.”
Anywhere sounded posh compared to Walworth, but the way she said it, Stoneacre did sound like it had a little glamour about it. I shrugged, “I doubt it.”
The truth was we had no idea what to expect. Would she be sat tending to flowers in a pruned garden in front of an ivy-covered cottage? Or was she in a nursing home, drooling out of the side of her mouth while some poor nurse spoon-fed her mashed food three times a day? We hadn’t seen this woman for twenty years. She may not even know who we were. We certainly didn’t know who she was.
After all those stories Mum had told us, I’m not sure I wanted to get to know her. It was Sophie who had insisted on this mission. I had come along for moral support, although not without complaint. She always said the same thing, “When you have your own kids, you’ll understand.” As if being child-less was the reason I showed no interest in meeting our estranged grandmother. As if me not having children was a choice.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to contact her; I had shown willing. I had sent several letters and a photo I had taken on Mum’s 50th birthday. She had seen her daughter sat at the heart of the family, surrounded by a handful of grandchildren of her own. A brood of blonde ringlets and eyes the colour of the Mediterranean Sea, not that any of them had ever been there. They were all beautiful children, no ugly ducklings. Despite all the love on show, there was a sadness in Mum’s face, like there was something missing. It was a good one: a real tearjerker.
On the bus, we climbed to the top and sat in the front seats. It was empty save for an elderly lady sat three rows behind. We spread out taking up the whole front row. Sophie thought we would be in with a chance of a sea view as the bus crawled up the hill out into the suburbs, but all I could see was grey housing estates and a sky pregnant with rain. Sat at the top of the bus, the motion was making me queasy but I didn’t argue, it was clear my opinion didn’t matter.
I was used to people letting me down but Sophie had always been an idealist. She was one of those annoying happy people. The pretty kind: she was never bullied at school and the boys followed her round as if she was some sort of deity. I particularly found it hard to share the hope she had for our family, which had been in tatters as long as I could remember. Perhaps she thought she could fix it before it was too late. Mum was getting older, everyone was having children and moving on. She could make us into this one big, smiling family to parade on Instagram, applying a filter to our faces to match her own pronounced cheekbones. Either that or the she was after some inheritance money, now that her husband had left her and the kids, but perhaps that was unfair. It was hard to believe B.W. had any money if our own mother’s stories of a childhood living on tinned Spam were anything to go by.
I pulled out my phone from my pocket again to check how far away we were. “Two stops,” I announced, acutely aware of my voice travelling a little too far down the bus. The elderly lady was still there, her face turned out towards the bleak view.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket. My fingers caught the envelope that was tucked alongside it. An opened envelope inside which was a photo torn in half down through our mother’s face and that of the baby she held in her arms. On one of the halves a message was scrawled in black permanent marker directly over the image.
“LEAVE ME ALONE,” is all it said.
I gazed across to my sister. Poised on the seat edge, she stared out through the rain-covered glass. I could see the anticipation of the little girl inside; she was ready to meet her grandmother. For the first time all day, I felt a little excitement too.