Mira in the Present Tense Read online

  “I find it easier to paint than write,” I tell her.

  “Mira, we can’t all be talkers. Think of writing this diary as painting a portrait in words. Make a start in the present tense if it’s easier for you, but you can be sure that before long, the past will creep its way in there somewhere. Even at your age, there’s plenty of past. Right then! See you next week.” She waves me off without looking up.

  As she walks out of school, she leaves a trail of dry mud behind her.

  My May Day Diary

  Saturday, 30 April

  It’s a weird thing, a diary, isn’t it? I mean who do you talk to? Yourself? I suppose…but that just doesn’t feel right. The only way I can think of to do this diary thing is to imagine that I’m talking to someone else. But what kind of someone could I let into the mixed-up mind-maze that is me, Mira Levenson? I’ll have to imagine that I’m writing to a friend, a best friend like Millie. The strange thing is that I used to be able to tell her anything, but recently—I don’t really know why—I’ve started to keep some things to myself…secrets. Perhaps the thing is not to think too much about anything, but just start writing and see where it takes me.

  OK, here goes. Facts are the easiest…start with the facts. I’m twelve years old today. Twelve years and four hours old. I was born at seven o’clock in the morning. So, to be exact, twelve years, four hours, and twenty-two minutes old. My twelve-year-old self is neither tall nor small, neither skinny nor “plumpy,” as Krish calls Laila. My twelve-year-old self has long, dead-straight black hair, and dark brown eyes that my dad says sometimes turn black with emotion. My skin’s brown, but not dark enough to hide my blushes. Looking in the mirror, which I do quite a lot recently, I would say I don’t love myself (my teeth have come down a bit wonky), but I don’t really mind how I look. My nana calls me a “beauty,” but she would, wouldn’t she?

  Like I said, facts are easiest, but none of this really says very much, does it? Maybe words just aren’t my thing. Give me a paintbrush any day. My school reports always say stuff like “Mira now needs to work on building her confidence and contributing to class discussions.” Now that is something I really hate to do. The main thing about me is whenever I go to say anything in class I blush up bright red so that before I’ve even opened my mouth, everyone knows how embarrassed I am, and after that I just clam up and lose the will to live. The crazy thing is I actually can’t stop thinking. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things like…how I’m going to get through a lunch hour if Millie’s not around…and, well, I suppose I can say it here, can’t I? Since Pat Print’s writing class I have mostly been waking up thinking about Jidé Jackson’s smile.

  I’m a doodler and a daydreamer and a night dreamer.

  The last few weeks it’s been nightmares mostly, really bizarre stuff that freaks me out. Actually, I’ve been feeling a bit strange lately—it’s hard to say exactly how, but it feels like I’m walking a tightrope. I’m not sure what it is I’m going to fall off of, but it definitely feels like I’m about to find out.

  I am sitting in my Nana Josie’s flat with the rest of my family gathered for the usual birthday tea. I would rather not be here. Mum and Dad have given me a mobile phone, a watch, and a diary. The mobile is a sea-green pebble, and it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. The watch has a black leather strap, glass face, silver edging, and a number for each hour. It’s definitely my first grown-up watch and that somehow seems like a sign. I’m into signs, omens, superstitions…whatever you want to call them…mostly I call them “Notsurewho Notsurewhat.” This watch makes me think that something is about to happen to time. Today feels like the end of something, and the countdown to the beginning of this, my red leather diary with golden edging at the corners of each page.

  “Where are the dates?” I ask Mum as I flick through the pages of the diary.

  “I thought you’d prefer to fill them in yourself. That way you can write as much or as little as you want and, knowing you, I expect you’ll want to add the odd artwork. When I used to keep a diary, some days I had nothing much to write about and other days I’d write pages. It’s more of a journal really…for your writing class.”

  So I start writing, just like I would for any other piece of homework, because Pat Print’s told us to, only now that I’ve found something to keep all my secrets wrapped up in, I can’t stop, because no matter what’s happened to me before today or what’s going to happen in the future, something is happening to me right now. Present tense.

  Nana is inspecting my new mobile phone.

  “It’s quite pretty, I suppose, but I just don’t understand the point of having a mobile phone at your age…and I’m sure I read somewhere that the rays can cause tumors. Uma, have you checked that out?” Nana calls out to Mum, who’s in the next room. I don’t think Mum even hears. She’s too busy trying to get Laila to stay still while she changes her cacky nappy.

  “I mean, who are you going to call? You’re always with your mum and dad or me anyway.”

  Jidé Jackson…he’s the person I would most like to call, but I’ll never have the guts to actually do it.

  “Well?” nudges Nana.

  “You, Mum and Dad, Millie, Aunty Abi, Nana Kath and Granddad Bimal,” I list.

  “That’s five numbers. I rest my case.”

  Nana Josie is quite hard to argue against, even if you really disagree with her, which I do about the phone, but of course I don’t say anything. She has her feet up, resting on my knees. I smooth my hands over the skin of her cracked brown leather soles. On the sides of each foot, she has hard, bony, knobbly bits bulging, where mine are smooth. Her feet are icy cold, like she’s just stepped out of the North Sea, but it isn’t cold. In fact, it’s a sunny day, the cherry blossom trees are out in the garden, like they are every year on my birthday…but Nana feels cold because she’s so thin. She feels cold all the time these days.

  Nana lies on her schlumfy old sofa with her bright purple shawl wrapped round her shoulders, holding her present for me in her hands.

  “Come on, Mira, aren’t you going to open it?”

  What I love about Nana is how she’s always so excited when she gives you a present. Even though she’s this ill, she’s still gone to the bother of wrapping it up in pale green tissue paper and covering it with sparkly butterfly stickers. I always open her presents so carefully, because it’s like the wrapping is part of the gift, and I don’t want to do it too quickly or it would seem clumsy.

  It’s a skirt, folded between sheets of tissue paper. It’s bright pink (why can’t people notice when you’ve moved on from pink, like, years ago?) and sea green, with sequins and butterflies sewn all over it…and there’s something else…a tiny Indian purse, with a button for a clasp. It’s one of Nana’s; I’ve seen it before.

  “Open it then,” she orders.

  As soon as I see her bare wrist, I know what’s inside.

  For as long as I can remember Nana has always worn this silver bracelet. It’s a delicate silver chain with just one charm on it in the shape of what I always thought was a flower, but now that I look closer I see that it’s actually some kind of vegetable.

  “What is it?” I ask Nana, inspecting it closer.

  “An artichoke. Uma! Haven’t you ever cooked up an artichoke for them?” Nana calls out to Mum.

  “Probably not!” Mum calls back wearily.

  The artichoke charm is the size of the nail on my little finger. It has layers and layers of silver leaves, painted at their tips with green enamel. Each leaf gets smaller and more delicate until it reaches the center…a tiny bloodred heart. I look down at Nana’s bare wrist, where this charm bracelet has always lain against her skin, until today, that is.

  “This hand is past adornment,” she sighs, lifting her bony wrist up to the light and staring at it as if she doesn’t recognize it as her own.

  I walk into the bathroom to get changed and I lean hard against the door so Krish doesn’t barge in. There is no lock; Nana
doesn’t believe in them. There are lots of things my nana believes in or doesn’t believe in.

  I look in the mirror. The skirt is too pretty but it’ll be all right with jeans underneath and some Converse, I suppose. I fumble to close the catch on Nana’s bracelet, but it’s tricky to hold it together and seal the clasp at the same time.

  “I can’t do up the bracelet,” I tell Nana, coming out of the bathroom.

  “Ah! You’re a vision,” she whispers, swirling me around.

  I hold my wrist out for her to fasten the clasp.

  “No, no, no, no!”

  At first I don’t understand why she’s got herself worked up into such a state, but then she holds the two pieces of broken chain apart, one in each hand, as the artichoke heart rolls onto the floor.

  “Isn’t that typical? I’ve worn this bracelet forever, and it has to go and break today of all days.”

  The charm rolls toward Laila. Her beady eyes are following its path across the wooden floor as her crablike fingers reach out to grab it, but I get there first so of course she sends up one of her bloodcurdling screams.

  “Never mind, you can always replace the chain,” Nana sighs, sliding the charm back into the little purse. “It’s the heart that matters.”

  She’s upset. I can tell she’s upset and trying to hide it. It matters to her that the chain is broken, and it matters to me, and you can tell by the way no one knows what to do or say next that somehow all this seems to mean more than it should. Birthdays are like that, aren’t they? Too much pressure.

  Aunty Abi draws the curtains. We’re in the half dark now. It’s a bit embarrassing but I have to admit the flickering candles still make me breathless with excitement. Everyone sings “Happy Birthday.” It’s one of those “Happy Birthdays” where people start off slightly after one another and in a different pitch. Krish sings “crushed tomatoes and pooh,” as usual, but the rest of them plough on, willing a harmony that never quite happens in our family…it’s a relief when they get to the final “you.”

  Aunty Abi, who is brilliant at baking, has made me a heart-shaped cake with pink icing (of course!) and white marshmallows on the top. Mum can’t bake because she doesn’t use weighing scales and she’s not precise enough. But Aunty Abi’s cakes always look so pretty—prettier than you could buy in a posh cake shop—and they taste even better.

  Before I have the chance to get a closer look, Laila dives at the marshmallows, burning her podgy fingers on the candles and sending up an outrageous screech as Mum pulls her clenched fist away. There is no way she’s going to let go of those marshmallows. Now that the spongy sweet goo is safely stored in her hamster cheeks, she scrunches her eyes closed tight and wills it to melt on her tongue.

  I blow out my candles in one go. I like to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Krish loves all the attention on his birthday, not me.

  “Make a wish,” says Mum as I slice into the cake.

  I close my eyes and start out wishing that this wasn’t my birthday…that it could all be over, but then I end up wishing…well, thinking about Jidé. The truth is I can’t get his smile out of my head. Wishes are like that, aren’t they? Sometimes you don’t know what to wish for and then something or, in this case, someone just springs into your mind…

  “Be careful what you wish for.” Nana breaks the spell and I open my eyes. “It might just come true.”

  I hope so.

  We all take a slice of cake except for Nana, who promises she’ll have some later, but I know she won’t. Inside the pink icing, the cake is chocolate goo, not just spongy, but thick, puddingy chocolate. There’s a moment’s silence while we pay our respects to Abi’s cake. I watch Nana bobbing Laila up and down on her knee and stroking her little plump wrists—“fat bracelets,” Nana calls them.

  The bell rings, making us all jump. Dad goes to answer, with Piper yapping and hurtling up the garden path after him. Dad walks slowly back down the path and whispers to Nana very gently.

  “Well, go on then, show him in,” orders Nana, setting Laila down on the floor and slowly pulling herself up off the sofa. She’s quite out of breath, but you can see how keen she is to greet this visitor. She’s expecting…him.

  A ridiculously tall man strides down the path, chased by Piper leaping up into the air, all four paws off the ground at the same time, but even his highest jump only brings him to the man’s knee.

  “A Norfolk terrier,” he says fondly, bending down and scooping Piper up into his arms.

  “That’s right,” Nana laughs. “My faithful guard dog!”

  I can see Nana instantly likes this crane-like man who has to stoop to get through her door.

  “I’m Josie. You must be Moses.” Nana smiles and shakes his hand as her words come tumbling out. “Thank you so much. I wasn’t expecting express delivery, but I’m delighted because I’ve got to crack on with this thing now. You see I want to paint it myself, but I’m afraid if I don’t do it soon I’ll run out of energy or time or both.”

  “It is my privilege.” The man called Moses bows and flashes Nana, Mum, and Aunty Abi—especially Aunty Abi—a smile full of white teeth. He turns to Dad and nods. I know exactly what Dad’s thinking: You can’t trust anyone with teeth that good.

  Dad always says that.

  “This is my son, Sam,” says Nana, gesturing to Dad.

  Moses holds out his hand for Dad to shake, but he doesn’t exactly shake it, not properly, like he’s taught Krish and me to do. He doesn’t look Moses in the eye either. Instead his attention is caught by the state of Moses’s feet. Moses has sawdust stuck to the bottom of his floppy pink shoes. They’re handmade, like the ones Nana wears.

  Moses gives Dad a look as if he thinks he’s being a bit rude staring at his feet.

  Nana coughs.

  “And this is my daughter, Abi, and Mel…and Uma.” Nana points to Abi, Aunty Mel—who is actually Abi’s girlfriend, but we call her aunty anyway—then Mum.

  “We spoke on the phone,” Abi reminds Moses.

  “Of course, I remember your voice.”

  “It’s her profession, her memorable voice,” chips in Nana proudly.

  “You are a singer?”

  “Actress,” Abi mumbles, shooting Nana her “Mum, did you have to bring that up?” look.

  But it’s true. Aunty Abi does have a beautiful, low, velvety voice.

  “And these are my grandchildren, Mira and Krish.”

  I nod. Krish says hi and Laila makes a high-pitched screechy noise, throwing both her arms into space, demanding to be picked up.

  “Oh! And not forgetting Laila, of course.” Nana laughs at the spectacle of Laila’s desperate outstretched arms.

  “Pleased to meet you all.”

  Moses talks slowly and just a bit too quietly, so you have to lean forward to hear him.

  “Where are you from?” asks Nana.

  “Denmark.”

  “I knew it,” Nana laughs, patting Moses on the shoulder. “It’s a hobby of mine, accent spotting.”

  “Usually people think that I am from Germany,” Moses says, flicking his long bangs away from his eyes.

  Moses has a thick mane of blond hair flowing right down to his shoulders. He’s a definite hippy. From the back he looks like a girl, with his green linen shirt and white baggy trousers and his collection of woven friendship bracelets and rings. Round his neck he’s wearing a white stone with a hole in the middle on a leather strap. Moses is the sort of hippy you always meet round Nana’s.

  “Ah! A fellow lover of holey stones.” Nana claps her hands together in excitement. “I have quite a collection of those at my cottage in Suffolk.”

  “This is certainly a coincidence,” Moses smiles, holding up his holey stone. “That is the exact place I found it, on a beach in Surf-folk.” That’s how he pronounces it, with an “l” in “folk.” “The ladies in the museum told me they call them ‘hag stones.’ If you hang them in the doorway they keep those evil spirits from your door.”


  “Nonsense! I don’t believe in all that. I collect them because I figure, if they’ve got a hole in them, they’ve already had a long and interesting life. I often wonder how many human lifetimes it takes to make a hole in a stone,” Nana babbles on.

  You can always tell when Nana’s nervous because usually she chooses her words quite carefully.

  Dad raises his eyes to the sky and smiles at Mum, but I agree with Moses: it is a real coincidence about the holey stones, because they are one of the things that Nana’s obsessed with. We’ve got our collection in Suffolk, and she always carries one in her pocket, and she’s given me one of her favorites, which I never take off, even at school. (Well, it’s not strictly speaking “jewelry,” is it?) Nana says a holey stone can tell a better story than a whole one. She talks like that, my nana. I’m never quite sure I’ve understood exactly what she means.

  Moses is still grinning from ear to ear. He casts his eyes around the flat at all Nana’s objects and paintings. He especially likes the half-finished painting on Nana’s easel, the one with the baby Indian elephant standing on a giant pink lotus leaf.

  “These are your paintings?” Moses asks, walking over to take a closer look.

  “A spattering of them,” Nana says, following Moses’s eyes around the room.

  He smiles and bows to her admiringly. Then he turns to Dad.

  “I’ll need some help carrying it in from the car.”

  “Of course,” mutters Dad, looking as if he’d rather not.

  Dad and Moses walk out into the garden together.

  “This garden is beautiful,” Moses declares.

  I hear Dad telling him that we used to live here but that, since we left, Nana has transformed the garden. It’s true—when we lived here, it was a real mess.

  This is the flat we were born in, me and Krish. You walk in through a wooden gate in a tall brick wall, which in summer is covered in roses, like you’re in a secret picture-book garden. Once you’re inside, you step onto the sloping brick path, the “herringbone path,” Mum calls it. When we lived here, the garden was all overgrown with trees, and the grass was mud because we used to wheel our bikes all over it, but Nana has made the garden grow. These days, as soon as you walk in you get blasted by the smell of cherry blossom, hyacinths, and the sweet scent of straggly honeysuckle, which Nana says just goes to prove that beauty is more than skin deep. I wish we still lived here.