I kept away from Ty all through this time; if he’d taken a close look at me he’d have run screaming from the room, and I needed him to be on my side here, not repulsed because I’d exploded, and then the weird conversations with mummy and Aunt Kay started, stuff about how I was becoming a woman, which freaked me out because just what in the Hell were they talking about? If becoming a woman meant I’d have to live looking like some sideshow freak then I wasn’t having any of it, and if it was all the same to them, I’d just go back to being a girl and stay there, thank you very much…
Then they started telling us all about it in school, and showing us the most disgusting video-clips about what was going on with our bodies, oh ick! Barf! Gag-puke! Were they bloody serious? For the next forty years? I resolved to have nothing to do with it, not my problem, but it was, and it was really painful too. Eventually mummy took me to see a doctor with a waiting room full of teenage girls hugging cushions and looking miserable. She examined me, and we shall gloss over that, I’m trying to forget it, but the upshot was she gave me some pills, one a day, every day, read the instructions carefully, next!
The pills sort of worked, but the knowledge that this was my monthly fate forever didn’t feel like a rite of passage, it felt like a curse, based on the cycle of the moon, just like a werewolf, only every month instead of going on a satisfying killing spree I get to bloat, cramp, crave chocolate, and cry a lot. Thank you, God…
At least my join-the-dots face cleared up, but that was a minor ‘whoopee’ compared to what was in store; it was like being told “congratulations, we’re not cutting your leg off; unfortunately, you now have leprosy…”
In the midst of all this teen angst and turmoil, there was Will, looking more handsome and getting more distant every day. Okay, I got that he was a boy, he wasn’t a playmate anymore, he was just my big brother now, and he wanted to do big-boy things with his friends, I got that; hated it, but I got it, which just made me feel even lower and more despondent, and to cap it all, daddy wasn’t well; every time he came back from his regiment he looked thinner and more tired, and then one day he told me he wasn’t going back, he’d retired from the regiment.
I was so happy, I had my daddy where I needed him, not somewhere else in the world being a soldier, but he was… different, always tired, and he’d started using a walking stick, and the worst part was, every time Will showed up, daddy suddenly turned into ‘Mr. Sunshine’, joking and bantering with Will, being helpful and just being the perfect dad, and I know it was all a lie, that he was hiding something from me, but even more so from Will.
And then I found out; they told me. Mummy and daddy cornered me one day when Willie was out with his friends and they told me how I was going to lie to Willie. It was no secret Will wanted to be an officer in daddy’s regiment just like his daddy (and I’d had a minor freak-out when Mummy and Aunt Kay told me about Willie’s daddy, that he’d been killed and mummy had remarried and that was why Willie was Tyler Wilmot and I was Georgina Lassiter; I never put it together, I’d always thought his name was different because that was just Will being Will…)
I learned that my daddy and his daddy had studied and trained together, graduated together, served together, been the best of friends, and when his daddy was killed in an accident, daddy had helped mummy raise his best friend’s little boy, and along the way he fell in love with mummy, and that’s where I came from. Will wanted to be what his daddy was, an armoured vehicle crew commander in the Household Cavalry Regiment. Willie wanted more than anything in the world to be part of the Blues and Royals, like daddy, and like his daddy before him.
What they told me shattered my world; daddy had cancer, it was bad, Mummy was trying to deal with it, and she and Aunt Kay were heartbroken, but they and daddy were adamant in one thing; Will wasn’t to know, because if he knew he’d kick his dreams to the kerb in a heartbeat just to be with daddy and mummy, and neither of them wanted that. Will was his father’s son, but he was daddy’s son too, and if he knew daddy was so sick it would destroy him. And so I promised I’d help mummy and daddy and Aunt Kay lie to him and keep him from blowing his life and dreams apart over something he couldn’t change.
I was only fourteen, and I thought my world was ending; I was going to lose my daddy, Will was being prepared to go and learn how to be a soldier so he could go off and fight on the other side of the planet, and I was supposed to smile and lie to him and watch him do it, but I did, because I loved my Will, I loved and adored my favourite Bear, and so I allowed myself to hurt if it meant he didn’t have to.
The day he left I nearly blurted it all out just to make him stay; when it came time to let him go I really, really didn’t want to; the effort it took to bite my tongue nearly killed me, and I still broke and tried to stop him leaving, I actually tried to stop him getting in the car, I couldn’t let him go, I needed my Will, he was MY Tyler Wilmot, not the bloody army’s, the best thing I had and I wasn’t about to let him go. I saw the look on Will’s face when he got in the car, and I honestly believe if I’d had five more minutes I could have made him forget all that army nonsense and stay home where I needed him.
But he shut the car door and mummy and daddy drove away and I cried with Aunt Kay until the car disappeared in the distance.
*****
Georgy-Girl, Bring Out All The Love You Hide:
When mummy and daddy arrived back home I did what I do to all traitors who betray me, hurt me, or let me down: I ignored them, I cut them dead, and I looked right through them; if they thought I’d been a brat before they were in for an eye-opener or two; they let my Will go, they actually, no kidding, for God-damned real took him away, and they want me to play nice? So not happening, no way!
Mummy tried to cosy up to me but I wasn’t having it; SHE let him go; SHE helped him leave; SHE made me lie so he’d go; SHE made me part of the lie, they all had, I couldn’t bear to be around any of them, everyone had hurt me and cost me my Will, I was never going to forgive them!
Eventually Aunt Kay knocked on my door. I shouted at her to go away but she came in anyway, angering me even more; this was MY room, how dare she just barge in where she wasn’t wanted! I started to tell her exactly what I thought of all of them but she shut me down with “that” look.
“Georgy, I know you’re angry now, but please, listen; Will wanted to go, this was something he needed to do, would you have taken that away from him? Think before you answer, Georgy, think about Will, about what he wanted, not you. Your dear mother loves you, baby, and she loves Will too, and because she loves him she had to let him go so he could be what he always wanted to be. I know you hate that, I know you’re lonely, but please, think of everything Willie ever meant to you, how much he cared for you, how much he adored his baby sister; how easy do you think it was for him to leave?”
My jaw dropped as realisation struck; Willie going away was what he needed, but it didn’t mean it was easy for him; all I’d thought about was me, how about him? Oh God!
Aunt Kay held her arms open as I collapsed in a storm of weeping, tears for me, for mummy, but mostly for Willie, alone far away, doing what he thought he needed to do, and how must mummy be feeling with him gone and me hating her like a spiteful baby? And daddy, sick and needing all of us and this was how I was behaving!
“It’s okay, Georgy, it’s okay to cry, sweetheart,” she crooned, her eyes shining with unshed tears, “I know how sad you are, I am too, I had Will before I had you, baby, I miss him as much as you do, but we had to let him go, it’s what he needed, but I still need him, baby, he’s my Will too. It will get better, sweetie, I promise, we’ll make it better again.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” was all I could keep repeating, but Aunt Kay’s arms around me let me know it was alright, we were alright, except for that hollow space inside me where my Will should have been; I missed him so much, and all I had was that empty space inside me, how was that ever going to get better?