Lina and the Fern Flower

Lina and the Fern Flower

It’s June 23rd and the mirror version of my face is small and round. Red blotchy blubber sinks my eyes to squints; I’m practising my smile. I adjust my crown so it’s not perfect. My head’s full of cornflowers and buttercups, wild chamomile and mountain ash, purplish posies I’d weaved myself earlier today. I hope Dija likes it. I sniff my fingers and remember Auntie’s ribbon hair and smelly carpets, as cat wee whirls its way up my nostrils. Instead of washing my hands I spray them with the perfume Mama never wears and rub them on my short neck, back and forth.

The air is stuffed with bonfire and dancing; outside my square of window is hot fried grass, the sky is dull custard. All the way down on the ground I can see the line flailing, clothes shaking with sunstroke; they’ve been left to bleach. Pastel chalk circles scribble the pavements and big noses hang between them; the chalk eyes don’t have dots in their centres. They don’t look right, and I don’t trust them. Up here my skinny brother, Aidas, is with his friends, Benas and Petras. They’re all laughing at similar boy pitches, although when Mama calls Aidas boy, he says ‘Man’ and snarls. Their laughs make the hallway thump with big lanky booms that send shocks through my ribs. Aidas is calling,

Lina shoes now.

His voice cracking from the front door.

LINA!

I’m coming.

I mumble because my voice is muted with Aidas and his friends, they’re too tall to be fully myself in front of. I’m never usually allowed out with them. Before I walk out into the little hallway, my pink lip-gloss on, my favourite white skirt swishing like the long reeds that sway, I pass Mama’s room. I go over to the tired heap of quilt and kiss her forehead, it’s hot and sweet like fresh medutis.

Love you Mama.

I say in my quiet sing-song way. She groans and turns like an old slobbery man. When I leave, I glimpse the living room to see Tetis but his sofa bed’s been put away, the gingham moth-holed blanket we all used to picnic on rolled up on top of the cushions. He must be out working.

By the hallway I’m wearing this small pout I just can’t stop. Aidas, Petras and Benas all have their skateboards slung through their backpacks and they’re all wearing the same kind of huge shorts. Benas looks most like Travis (Hannah Montana) so I’m pouting in his direction but he’s not looking back, he’s playing with a spot on his face, cradling it, squeezing it so tight, wincing. He is so dreamy. His hair is so crispy, I want to crunch it so bad. Sniff it.

Lina stop staring.

Aidas catches me and stage whispers. I mime a raspberry and flare my nostrils, his flare back. Why do we have the same nose? I slide on my new peach trainers; rubber and air freshener. Aidas puts his hand on the small of my back to guide me out like I don’t know how to leave.

Got everything?

Yes, I think.

Just my pink messenger bag full of watermelon gum Mama doesn’t know I have, so if Dija asks, I have something to give her and so when I don’t speak, I’m still doing something with my mouth. Unpicking my wedgie discreetly as I go, me and this group of tall boys leave the blue door. Number 38. Aidas locks it and does his three knocks. I run down before them holding the white swish up with my left hand, my right squeaking down the brown, chipping banisters. The strawberry and cream chupachup walls —glossy— licked by a heat wafting in from the single glazed glass.

I bounce down two more flights and buzz myself out. It stinks of sweaty troll outside. They sleep with their bags of bottles under the balconies and Mama says not even to look at them. The block opposite, block B, looks just like mine: a jigsaw puzzle of windows tall enough to make your neck ache; no one wants to look up. It’s grey with faded primrose balconies that make you small and curious, there’s peeling, rusting sills with dots of plants in dots of pots and a ghost; She’s always waving really creepily from the bottom floor. She used to play with us, but then she got cancer in both her legs so she couldn’t climb anymore trees, and she couldn’t get any more points. Dija calls her ‘Cabbage’ because she’s a vegetable now.

I’m waiting, violently twiddling my hair and chewing three pieces of gum so my teeth clack when they part. I’m still in training for bubble blowing. Aidas and his boyfriends burst out the doors, doing ollies and kickflips and weaving between the boxy hatchbacks in the carpark, crunching over curbs. The hazy sun towers over me, promising more hours of play. I manage a bubble of elastic watermelon that makes me cross-eyed with concentration. Before anyone gets the chance to see, my best friend Rasa bundles out of block B and my bubble’s deflated, stuck to my chin. Her flower crown is nowhere near as cool as mine —not as full or as pink— but still, we lock hands and swing our arms towards the music for three short fields, the boys are way ahead. I like being next to her, it shows everyone how much better my crown really is. Lumzdelis pipe prettily above the būgnai banging, there’s a skip to our steps as the music squeezes us, the memories of midsummers past. I’m so grown up now, Mama says. Rasa is my age but much smaller and holding her hand feels like holding my doll’s. She’s wearing the same three-quarter length leggings Dija always wears, the lilac ones I wanted for my Birthday. Maybe my legs aren’t right for them anyway, maybe they’d look like logs compared to Rasa’s cute, breakable sticks.

The sky is lumpier and pregnant with clouds, evening oozing over us. This long grassy floor has a ceiling of pine and oak trees. They’re wearing lush uniforms in strict, upright position, sturdy like Tetis, above happy huddles of people I know. My heart is in rhythm with the mayhem, my belly fizzing with excitement. In the wide circle of neighbours, Auntie is dancing frantically, spinning with a man I don’t recognise. He’s wearing a pointy hat and a tight waistcoat and a long grey beard hangs in a fuzzy pyramid from his sticky-out chin. Maybe he’s here to help her? Auntie doesn’t notice I’m opposite, but I don’t wave because I’m acting cool for when Dija arrives. Auntie’s turning round and round and round and round like the sakotis cooking over the fire. But no matter how jolly she looks now, ribbon hair bouncing, I only see Auntie as someone who is sick. She has many cats that she can’t look after anymore. Mama told me Auntie’s been wiping herself on the curtains and eating litter as breakfast. Mama sends me up there, to Auntie’s scatty cat land, most afternoons when she can’t bend down; I’m her legs. The white Maine Coone’s called Tinkerbell, but I always whisper Stinkerbell when it's food time because that’s the truth. How can something so beautiful smell so gross? Auntie lives on the top floor and the lift gets stuck at three and Mama can’t walk all that way. She says she’s got bad knees and bad ankles but it’s her whole body that doesn’t work.

Hey babies.

Dija is in front of us —pulsing— wearing the most perfect crown of pink posies. The blue extensions in her hair twinkling in the twirl of her swirly curls. Her white vest top shows off the line in-between her boobs and she seems taller in this light. She’s moved on from the lilac leggings Rasa copied to a frayed denim hugging her thighs. The flipflops are extraordinary, they’re rectangular, they frame her feet so well I want to kiss them.

I love your crown.

Rasa butts in. But Dija’s pink toes, the base looks holographic in the firelight; what a touch.

Oh thank you I’ve got a real thing for posies at the moment.

Me too!

Rasa is being way too eager. I stare longer at Dija’s polka dot toenails, wishing we could match.

Cute trainers baby.

Dija says to me with her hands on her stomach, she’s got her own gum and blows a bubble bigger than my head.

You can have them…if you want.

I say on autopilot.

Should we trade? They might be a bit big for you baby.

No that’s fine, let’s swap, definitely.

Definitely.

I can feel Rasa burning holes in my skin with envy, but I don’t care because I’m about to try Dija’s flipflops on. Our feet practically touching. Dija is the coolest girl in Vilnius, six years older than me and Rasa and lives one floor below me, so I see her quite a lot. I wish I saw her more. She’s always smoking cigarettes and she’s always got purple inky fingers from spray painting corner shops. She’s even got a boyfriend but she’s way too cool for him. She smells like chemicals and mud and woman. My trainers will look so much better on her. I hand over my socks and new trainers like they’re desperate clammy friendship. Dija stubs out her cigarette because this is serious.

I play over what Mama might say.

I just bought you those trainers you brat! What are these stupid flipflops, you can’t even walk properly in them.

Well, you can’t walk properly full stop.

I would have said back, I could. I wouldn’t. Mama is strong and has a shaved head and makes hot food. Dinner every single night after working as a dinner lady every single day. She calls herself dinner woman because she says she doesn’t want to be a lady. She’s stoic like marbles and when I told her that Rasa laughed about her being so fat, she didn’t care.

What are we without thick skin? If Rasa only cares about what’s visible to the eyes, then think about getting some new friends.

She’s cool too. I’ve never seen her cry even though she must really want to sometimes. Her and Tetis sleep in separate rooms now, I think because of the snoring or the space.

Ta da! Look at them, they fit me fine.

Wow Dija! They suit you so well!

And my flipflops are swallowing your feet baby.

Me and Rasa laugh way too loud, a volume competition. Dija’s movements are jagged and fading but still I want to be her, or to be very, very close to her, so I could smell what gum she has in, so I could buy the same one next time, so she would like me more, so I’d be her favourite. I could be the Lilly Truscott to her Hannah Montana.

I’ve got a secret my babies.

Her eyes like glazed doughnuts, she lights another cigarette. We’re all so tiny below the trees.

I’m eleven weeks.

Inhale… exhale… then she explains to mine and Rasa’s confused moon faces.

Pregnant.

She whispers and chuckles, throwing her head back like it doesn’t matter if it snaps off her shoulders and rolls away. My trainers are peachier and fresher at the bottom of her limbs.

Don’t tell anyone. Okay?

Rasa squeaks her dolly version of congratulations, still in shock that we traded footwear without including her. Dija shakes her head like there’s a hornet nuzzling into her highlights,

No no no…

A big slurp from her drink,

It’s not congratulations babies, it’s going, it’s off next week. Cancelled. Dead. Gone.

She’s laughing just as recklessly as before.

Where’s it going?

I ask her sternly. My cheeks hot, piping with silent red.

Someplace out of here.

She pushes her hands into her belly.

Why?

You’ll get it soon Lina. When these start coming in.

She’s holding onto her boobs, ash fluttering between them.

My mama taught me nipples, these bits are called areolas.

Rasa pinches and twists me hard and blinks expectantly waiting for my reaction.

Get off me Rasa! I already knew that.

I lie convincingly. Dija’s laughing so I try to laugh too but I’m melting into my mind, bulging with questions; no cool way to ask them, so I declare I have to go, I have to go and look for the fern flower and I have to go alone. Rasa looks thrilled that she can dance with Dija without me. I feel my face aflush with noise, my heart now out of rhythm ribbiting on the grass like a fat, frumpy frog. Auntie’s fallen over in the corner of my eye, and I’ve got to leave before I cry and can’t explain myself.

I hate to run, so I’m skipping away from the cross-legged chanting to the open pond. An alien sunset pink, a cold, rippling Šaltibarščiai pink, dill-like moss quivering on top. It took twenty of my longest skips and now I’m watching all the flower crowns float off with tealights lying in their centres, like a vigil. In the hours that were a few minutes, the same chant whirred –

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la an alarming choir of rising and fleeting breath and Auntie’s big voice stood out and hasn’t stopped; drunk and insane.

My feet are colder in Dija’s flipflops, and I can’t find the fern flower. Until, feeling around with stalking fingertips, there, poking out of the shrubs, dry as cat tongues, its powers gleam and glitter amongst weeds and soil. I pick up the fern, wisdom blossoming in my flat chest, and place it safely in the hairless cave of my armpit.

The left flip-flop is flopping off, almost broken, it must have been the force of my skipping. I knot the red, glowing fern flower onto the tearing toe thong and kick the flops off my feet, burying them under my armpit and dragging dirt onto my frilly top. Ignoring where my feet go, I brush something slimy and fluffy and it yelps. A whiskered lump, a crying ball. At the edge of the water it’s distressed, it smells of Auntie’s flat when I bend down. Ammonia, Mama would say.

AIDAS!

No one can hear me in this havoc, so I run over to the fire and yank at his arm, he looks down at me like what now? Even though he’s not spoken to me tonight, not even once.

Aidas there’s a stinky crying cat.

He’s drinking the strong cider and laughing at me. His uglier friend, Petras, is perched close on his shoulder parroting the same mocking face, a devil in the flames.

Lina what are you talking about?

Please, just come.

My voice is a scratchy fiddle raised above the chorus. I pull his hand —he should be worried but he’s not— he shakes me off. My watermelon gum has lost its taste. I take it out of my mouth and play with it in my palm like a stress ball. I chew a fresh couple of pieces. There’s a moment of quiet as the choir breathes as one and I hear the cat scream. Benas (Travis) takes me seriously, there’s a dragon-fly sparkle that scintillates in his eyes when he asks me to take him. Wow. Aidas follows Benas’s handsome lead and finally starts acting like my brother.

Lina. Lina? Okay come on then, come on.

Aidas’s words are sluggish. The būgnai are getting faster with my heartbeat. I take them to the edge of the pond in a loopy, gloopy run like his and Petras’s drunkenness is contagious. The fluff ball is wriggling, licking the pink button under her slinky tail. Her eyes are flashing, the panic in them is green and cracking glass even in the pink pond shimmer. Her belly is bulging like there’s something trying to crawl out.

I didn’t know I could hear worse singing.

Petras jokes and stumbles back into a laugh, Aidas stumbling with him.

God make it stop! He’s almost there, you should make him stop Lina.

It’s a ‘she’, I know by the pain in her voice. It’s Mama’s, it’s Auntie’s, it’s Dija’s. MMROOWWW! They cover their ears and Aidas says they’ve got to go back because he needs another drink to make him forget about the racket. He doesn’t even tell me what to do. How do I make the crying stop? Benas doesn’t answer my thought but has a face like an alarm. They leave to go back to the frizzy, spewing fire.

When it’s just us and my fern flower, she whimpers to me, asking for my help.

Do you want it to stop?

Yes.

The cat says yes, glossy tear eyed-yes. Her voice is clear and subdued, feline and feminine. See Dija. I do get it. I get it already. I kiss the blossom and whisper thank you. I place my new, broken flipflops on the ground. I gulp down my pile of gum and feel it croaking. I think of Auntie again, all her cats weeing everywhere, uncared for. I look deeply at this one, she’s close to the murky reflection, wriggling, sore and desperate. I can’t see any other way to help, so I pick up the biggest rock I can carry with both hands. I bite my lip so hard it feels like my top and bottom teeth touch. Her big belly is covered in wet and dry paws. Is this okay? I’m helping. She’ll stop crying. I hammer the rock onto her head in time with the chanting. One. A shrill caterwaul. Two. Three is hardest because my arms are tired and she’s moaning worse than before. Three. A stain sprays like squished blackberries on the pale blank of my skirt. Cancelled. Her crying stops. Gone. I’m out of breath.

Cradling her, she’s twitching. Hot belly only warm. I slide on my broken flipflops, the fern still attached, and waddle back to the loudness.

I stopped her crying.

Aidas sees the dead cat, limp and broken in my weak arms and asks me what I’ve done. Now he’s shouting,

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

I put her down like she’s still alive and start my tears.

The fern flower helped me to speak…

THE FERN FLOWER DOESN’T EXIST IT’S A MYTH LINA. What have you done?

He’s spitting flicks of cider. Petras and Benas are staying out of it but they look disgusted. The air is unforgiving and stodgy. Rasa rushes over and sees. She vomits green viscous bile, wiping her mouth and crying,

Why Li?

This new nickname that doesn’t work and makes me retch too. Dija’s passed out (thank god) and Auntie must have gone off with the pointy, wizard-bearded man. The music has stopped, and the circle of people has scattered.

Li? Why?

Rasa asks me again. Hating me. I throw the flipflops onto the grass and scream, caterwaul, while I run back through the three short fields to 38 in the blackness. Running not skipping, barefoot on this heap of shame because I already broke those precious shoes like I break everything and,

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry She’s sorry She’s sorry

She’s sorry

A narrow hallway of sorrow. Outside her block she is breathless and a murderer. Sorry for herself after running like she hates to, up all those steps, midnight-snack sky shimmering outside, she only wants the supple flesh of Mama. Behind number 38, the paint is nostalgic, as blue as Lina’s face, opening the door before she even has to knock, Mama’s in her knitted dressing gown with raised, gentle eyebrows.

Had fun?

Lina bursts out into snotty sob language, muffled by Mama’s shoulder. She smells like butter and eggs. She’s playing with Lina’s split ends, saying shh shh shh like the tap. With her big fingers, her wedding ring unworn in a clumsy drawer, she pushes Lina’s flower crown further up her scalp to make nestling easier.

I did a b-bad thing.

Guttural spluttering out the word ‘bad’ like a baritone’s burp.

What happened Lina? Are you hurt?

Wishing she could answer yes, turn her cheek and show off something that proved how bad she felt, something that left a mark. She says,

I don’t want to tell you, you’ll hate me.

Mama’s gripping her by the scruff of her neck. Lina’s just a kitten.

I could never hate you…you don’t have to tell me now…Some food?

Swollen, sunken sallow-eyed Lina nods into Mama’s shoulder. Always some food. Floating on a pool of pink, quartered boiled eggs are scattered with dill, like the mossy pond. Like the dead cat’s insides. It sits ready in Mama’s hand-painted ceramic bowl. Open pickle and jam jar cupboards, deep brown floorboards with holes and creaks in every step, the fridge has a polaroid, stuck by a magnet that looks like a lemon slice: Auntie holding Stinkerbell like a baby. Lina dodges the eleventh of her Mama’s consoling kisses and goes to her bedroom, her mirror. Taking off her crown and lowering her head she gives her condolences. She lights a beeswax candle and holds it up. Her face is small and round and green and tired and stupid and sorry and murderous. She takes off everything, even her socks, and stands side on, sucking in and breathing out. Still puffed with crying. She pinches her stomach.

Mama I’m actually okay for food. I’m going to bed.

Her voice reluctant and pretending.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Glossy tear-eyed yes.