I was working in a department store and Johnny’s apprenticeship had led to a job at Dutton’s – a glassmakers that specialized in windows and mirrors, which made perfect sense because Johnny was both a window and a mirror to me. Sometimes, I felt I could see right through him, and other times, when I looked for Johnny, or at Johnny, all I could really see was a reflection of myself.
He was still tall, still slender, still thoughtful, but he was different to me now that I knew how his mouth hung open when he was drifting off to sleep. Now I knew the one song he would whistle over and over again. He was less interesting to me now that I knew he could sit with me for hours and not say a word. He was less charming now that I’d seen him swearing when he couldn’t screw the living-room lightbulb back into its casing. He was sillier to me now that I’d seen him in church on Sundays in his odd-fitting suit, his hair combed into a side parting, kicking his brother Thomas in the shins for stealing his hymnal.
Johnny’s mother insisted the whole family went to church every Sunday: Johnny’s mother, his aunt, Thomas, Johnny and me. We would always have the same pew, the one on the right next to the statue of Baby Jesus in the arms of Mary. We would have to be seated by 8.20 in order to secure it for the nine o’clock service.
For our first wedding anniversary, he saved up for an overnight train trip in the Highlands. We’d packed a picnic to have beside the loch, and while we’d set off on our trip a twosome, we’d returned home a trio. Everything was happening as it was supposed to. I was married and there was going to be a child.
I didn’t tell Johnny until December. In fact, I didn’t tell him at all. I let the dress tell him. A white dress with sailboats stitched on the hem. It was silk and soft and delicate. Perfect for a girl or a boy. On Christmas Eve, as I folded it inside the tissue paper and then carefully placed the package inside the box, I began to feel sad that the baby and I were about to lose the confidence of each other’s existence. In all the world, only I knew my baby existed. And to my baby, I was the whole world. Every sound and sense of his was mine.
On the morning of the twenty-fifth, Johnny pulled back the tissue paper and stared at the inside of the box. I thought I could see him smiling, I thought I could see excitement, but that might have only been a reflection of my own feelings.
So, the baby and I waited for his response. In the end, he put down the white dress, came over to me and scooped me up in his arms. He told me it was wonderful and then insisted we put our coats on and go round to tell his mother.
Lenni Moves to Glasgow
?rebro to Glasgow, February 2004
Lenni Pettersson is Seven Years Old
THERE’S A VIDEO of this, too.
I’m standing beside my mother in a pair of dinosaur pyjamas with a coat on over the top. In one hand is my beanbag pig, Benni, and in the other is my passport, which I was allowed to be in charge of on the trip on account of how I was now a big girl.
‘Wave bye to the house, Lenni!’ my father says from behind the camera.
I do it half-heartedly.
‘Say, “Bye, house!”’ he tells me.
At this point I stare at the video camera.
My mother crouches beside me, puts her arm around my squishy coat and joins in.
‘Hej d? huset!’ We wave at the locked front door.
Then, the camera follows us as we all climb into the back of the taxi. The driver seems harassed by the wait. My father passes the camera to my mother as he struggles to get my seatbelt to clip in.
Then, blackout.
The camera springs to life again in the airport departure lounge. Quite the film-maker, my father pans across the shuttered shops – perfume, surf wear, expensive sweets and snacks. They are all closed because it’s 4 a.m. and no human wants to buy perfume or overpriced swimming shorts at this hour. My mother is asleep on a chair; she is almost translucent. I am sitting beside her, crying.
‘Don’t cry, sweetheart!’ my father says, and I look up at the camera.
Then, blackout.
There’s incredibly shaky footage of the plane taking off from the window, but because of the darkness all you can see is red and white dots shaking and then disappearing down the bottom of the screen. ‘And we’re off,’ my father says quietly into the camera, as though it is a secret they’re sharing. Then he turns the camera on me. I’m holding on to Benni tightly. I have my nose pressed against his beanbag snout.
‘It’ll be okay, pickle,’ my father says softly.
Panning from the front door and around the living room, where there are boxes and suitcases and a distinct lack of furniture, my father narrates, ‘Well, here we are!’ And he does a tour of the house – the kitchen with only one working lightbulb and the bathroom, where the previous owners have left peach-coloured toilet paper and a shower radio in the shape of a seahorse, then into the bedroom with the double bed, where my mother is unpacking clothes. Then he goes into my bedroom where, clutching Benni, I am finally asleep.