Ginger and Me

  ELISSA SOAVE won the inaugural Primadonna Prize in 2019. She currently lives in South Lanarkshire and Ginger and Me is her debut novel.

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2022

  Copyright © Elissa Soave 2022

  Elissa Soave asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © July 2022 ISBN: 9780008458430

  Version 2022-06-20

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

  Change of background and font colours

  Change of font

  Change justification

  Text to speech

  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008458416

  For my boys, Luca and Sebastian, with love

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One Year Earlier: After Mum Died

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  The Beginning of Ginger and Me

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Ginger and Me and the Best Summer Ever

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Bad Times for Ginger and Me

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Saving Diane: Where Everything Went Wrong

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Present, Polmont Prison

  THEY KEPT ASKING ME why I was outside her house that day, and who was with me. I tried to say I would never harm Diane, I loved her. And I mean I loved her, not just the writing. Though I do love her writing too. The way she can squeeze the juice out of a metaphor, take you back to being eight years old with a sound, or a smell. Make you cringe. Or cry. It’s genius, and I know because I’m a writer too. Just because I drive a bus, it doesn’t mean I can’t write. I’m even in a writers’ group – though they don’t always appreciate how good my stories are. One of the things I tried to tell the police was I’m a writer like Diane, that’s what we’ve got in common, but they wouldn’t listen. They arrested me and told me anything I said would be admissible in court, even though I loved Diane. I can’t speak for Ginger, I can only tell you what I told them – I’d never hurt Diane. That didn’t stop them putting me in a police car and taking me to Motherwell Police Station, practically via the same route as the 240, which was not my favourite route to drive at the best of times. I don’t know where they took Ginger.

  Next day, they took me to court. They woke me up at seven with a bowl of Cheerios and a cup of lukewarm tea.

  ‘Do you have someone who can bring you some clothes?’ It was the same policewoman from the night before. She looked more feminine than I’d imagined female officers looked, even with the uniform. Her hair was tied back in one of those low buns but you could tell she would be pretty when she took it down. I wondered if she had a female sidekick, like Scott and Bailey, or whether she was more the lone wolf sort of detective, like Vera or maybe a brilliant female Morse.

  ‘Wendy. Wendy!’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘You’ll need clothes for court this morning. Is there someone we can call to bring you in some stuff?’

  The only person would have been Ginger so I shook my head.

  ‘Where are my own clothes? Someone took them off me yesterday but I don’t have a lot of jeans so I’d like them back.’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Those are evidence now, Wendy. You won’t be able to wear them. Look, don’t worry, we’ll find you something here.’

  ‘What about my phone?’ I called after her. ‘They took that off me yesterday too and I really need it.’ But I don’t think she heard me because she didn’t turn round.

  I got changed in the toilet next to my cell while the policewoman stood outside. I wasn’t too pleased with the skirt and sweatshirt combo she’d brought me but I wasn’t in any position to argue, and at least they more or less fitted my long skinny frame. I washed my face in cold water, and risked a look at my morning-after self, surprised that it still looked like me. My forehead deep and broad, dominating over narrow eyes, still dull mahogany and revealing nothing. My pale skin remained so, though there was faint bruising on my right cheek, which must have happened the day before. My nose was long and straight, my dad’s nose, but my smile was terrible, like I’d spotted someone across the room that I had to pretend to be pleased to see.

  ‘If it pleases Your Honour this has all been a big misunderstanding,’ I said into the mirror. I leaned in closer and turned my head to the left and right. My lank black hair was unaffected by a night in the cells. It was still in more or less the same style I’ve always worn it – a bob to my shoulders – though I had let Ginger cut the fringe a bit shorter recently. I wasn’t sure about it but she said it would balance out my huge, shiny forehead and she was usually right about that sort of thing. I patted my hair down ten times on each side before smoothing it against the back of my neck. ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear Wendy,’ I whispered to myself. They were my mum’s words. Just as well I’ve never been the kind of person to put much store in looks. I left the bathroom counting backwards from twenty under my breath to keep me steady.

  They put me in a small, windowless van with three other women and took us to Hamilton Sheriff Court. The skinny girl curled into the front seat raised her chin at me as I got on so I sat next to her.

  ‘I’m Wendy,’ I said. ‘What are you going to court for?’ But she didn’t answer. I really wanted to tell her that these weren’t my own clothes, I wouldn’t have chosen a skirt for one thing, never mind pairing it with trainers. I could tell she didn’t want to tal
k though and, to be fair, she probably thought I was some sort of criminal, so I just sat and bit my lips and tried not to think too much about where Ginger and Diane were now.

  When we got to the court, I was assigned a duty solicitor called Mr Cameron. He was a small, V-neck jumper kind of man and I could imagine him cutting his grass on his weekends off, or going on mini-breaks to do nothing in Dunkeld. He shook my hand sweatily and told me we’d ‘be up in five’. If you’ve watched as many courtroom dramas as I have, you might have the idea that a courtroom is an impressive place, dark wood lining the walls and men in wigs milling around with folders of important papers. The room they took me into was about the size of my living room, and the only people in there were me, Mr Cameron, another lawyer sitting across from us, and the judge. It was all over in a few minutes – they charged me, Mr Cameron said I made no plea and moved for bail, the other lawyer opposed it while they ‘made further inquiries’, and the judge said I’d be taken to Polmont Prison ‘forthwith’.

  The judge left the room and I watched as Mr Cameron got up and shook hands with the other lawyer. He walked back to me and said, ‘We’ll renew our motion for bail in a week but don’t get your hopes up.’

  ‘What do you mean? I can’t go to prison – what about my house? My job? My passengers would miss me, they’d wonder where I was.’

  ‘Wendy,’ he said, frowning. ‘I’m not sure if you realize just how much trouble you’re in. These are extremely serious charges.’

  ‘But it’s a misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘Look, Diane and I are both writers, we’ve got a long history together. Ask her, she’ll tell you.’

  He shook his head, and told me he’d see me in Polmont some time during the week.

  And that was it.

  One Year Earlier: After Mum Died

  1

  IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE this now but there was a life before Ginger and Diane. After Mum died the most important person in my life was my support worker so I probably need to talk about her first because, in a way, she brought us all together.

  Apart from work – and I didn’t really count the people on my bus as friends, except maybe the regulars – my support worker was sometimes the only person I spoke to all week. I really liked her. Her name was Saanvi, and she always wore a sari, a different colour every time she came. My favourite was the red and gold one, it sparkled when the sun caught it, and she’d hoist it over her arm as she walked so she wouldn’t get the hem dirty. Sometimes when she was speaking, I found myself staring at the blood-red spot in the centre of her forehead, mesmerized by it so that I wasn’t really listening to what she was telling me at all. When she coughed, or called my name a couple of times, I’d bring myself back to the present and go, ‘Yeah you’re right,’ or something like that so she wouldn’t know I’d stopped listening. She’d sigh and say, ‘There’s only so much I can do Wendy. You’re nineteen years old now, an adult, you have to try and help yourself too.’ Or ‘You know, social clubs and making new friends are open to everyone.’ It’s true, they are, but only in the same way that staying at the Savoy or jet skiing is available to everyone, and I won’t be doing those things any time soon either.

  In fact I hadn’t been doing anything much at all since Mum died and Saanvi said that was one of my problems. Mum had died in August, and I’m not saying it was harder for me than anyone else who’d lost their mum but … I didn’t realize how much I relied on her till she wasn’t there. Maybe it was because I’d never had much luck making friends, and it had been just me and her for so long, living in our house in Birkenshaw. Before she got sick she was out working a lot of the time but, even when she wasn’t at home, she left me lots of little notes, on the table and sometimes stuck to mirrors. In the kitchen they’d say things like: Take the bin out Wendy. Remember to get milk on your way home. Put the stew on at three o’clock. There was always a note about something or other. Up in the bathroom or my bedroom they’d say: You’re your own best friend. God made you perfect as you are. And there was one that I kept stuck inside my wardrobe that just said: Love yourself. After she was gone, I missed those scribbled notes pasted all over the house. Suddenly there was no one to care if I got the milk or not, and I realized she hadn’t told me how to love myself.

  I didn’t go to work or eat or even take a bath for weeks after she died. I was finding it really hard to know what I was doing all those things for when Mum and me weren’t going to Tunnock’s for our tea, or into town window shopping at the posh shops, or even just talking over dinner about what had happened on my bus that day. With Mum gone, I didn’t think anyone would notice or care if life caved in on me, and I just stopped being part of it all. But Mr Laverty came round to see why I wasn’t at work and called in social services as soon as he saw my house and the way I was living. I was angry about that at the time, he may have been my boss but he didn’t have the right to get strangers to come to my house and judge me. I refused to go to hospital but it turns out if you’re not coping as well as other people say you should be they can slap a section on you and make you go to hospital anyway. They seemed surprised I hadn’t spoken to a counsellor before but why would I need that when I always had my mum to help me through life? I didn’t agree with most of the stuff they said, like how I had to make peace with Mum dying and be grateful for the life I had; and that the way to happiness was to strike a balance between the terror that is life and the wonder that is living, but I nodded and pretended to agree with everything. They lifted the section after a week, but it was another four months before they said I was well enough to leave the hospital and come home.

  Saanvi came to see me every Wednesday because it’s important to establish a routine. That’s one of the first things she told me. She said to start small, and I did find that small things became important, ways of eating up the hours till the day was over, then the week, and then a month had passed.

  I went back to work in the February, and I loved my job on the buses so that helped a bit. My favourite was the 255 – that’s the hourly service from Birkenshaw bus bay, through Mossend and up to Bellshill. A lot of the other drivers don’t like doing the local services – you do have to go back and forth over the same route a lot of times in one shift – but I liked it, especially before I knew Ginger and Diane, when my regulars would keep me going. I’d start off in front of Naf’s in Birkenshaw, not far from my house in fact, then head up Old Edinburgh Road towards Viewpark. I’d fly along the top road past the Viewpark Community Centre, where the pre-school children all went to Rising 5s, and loads of kids from my own school had gone to basketball and karate and that sort of thing. I didn’t go to any clubs but my dad once took me to see a pro wrestling show in there and a block-jawed wrestler called the Dynamite Kid signed a gigantic foam finger for me. There was a stop outside JR’s Tyres, and The Ashley was just opposite. It didn’t matter what shift you were on, the drunks would be slumped outside, gulping down nicotine like oxygen, or standing about gabbing the way they say women do. No one ever called it The Ashley, it was always known as The Flying Tumbler, I don’t know why. I knew it well though as it was one of my dad’s favourites when he first got made redundant. A young guy that Ginger told me later was Wee Eddie would be running on the street somewhere, either on his way to Coral or heading back to The Olde Club, as we drove by. Beyond St Columbas and a couple more stops took you to the memorial garden with the bronze statue of Jimmy Johnstone, and then round the corner past The Laughing Buddha and The Rolling Barrel, the pub my dad went to after The Flying Tumbler wouldn’t have him any more. ‘I’ve changed my allegiance,’ was how he put it to me as Mum snorted from the kitchen beyond. By the time I pulled up in front of the Spar in Bellshill the bus would generally be full, no matter the weather. The laughter and chatter from Irish Mary, Terry, Myra and the rest of my regulars would float down the bus, so it was just as though I was part of the conversation myself.

  I finished early on Thursdays, so I’d go home and change out of my uniform, have a hot showe
r and put on my jeans. If I stayed a while in the shower, that could use up almost an hour. It took about twenty minutes to walk from my house in Birkenshaw, down the Holm Brae and across the motorway bridge to Uddingston proper. The village, as Mum used to call it, though it’s hardly a village now with all the new houses they’ve built, there’s even a sushi restaurant. Sushi in Uddingston! Main Street’s always busy, in the early afternoons you’ve got the mums and the prams, usually walking three abreast so you can’t get by without one of them tutting and saying ‘excuse us’. You’ve got the rich old folk coming back from Bothwell Golf Club to have a drink at Angels or the new wine bar they’ve opened, Rosso’s or Rossi’s I think, I’ve never been in. My dad wouldn’t recognize Uddingston these days, I don’t think he would’ve liked it. He certainly wouldn’t have been seen dead drinking in a wine bar.

  At first it felt strange going into Tunnock’s for my steak pie because me and Mum used to go there together every Thursday. We’d have a cup of tea and a scone in the café at the back and then pick up the large pie the ladies behind the counter would have all packaged and ready for us on the way out. Mum would ask the woman handing over the pie about her daughter who’d gone to university, and check with the woman at the till how her uncle who’d had a stroke was doing. And she’d been at school with the manageress so they used to joke about not getting any younger and how old age doesn’t come alone. She always knew the right thing to say, and made it easy for me to hang back and say nothing, which was what we were both used to.

  The first time I went in after was a bit awkward. The ladies knew Mum had died and felt they had to say something but I couldn’t talk about it – another issue according to Saanvi. After one of them said, ‘So sorry to hear about your mum,’ I looked past her into the chilled cabinet and said, ‘A steak pie please. A small one.’ She must have thought I hadn’t heard because she said again what a shame Mum had died, and I said, ‘Will you wrap it up for me and I’ll get it after my tea?’ and left the three women behind the counter looking at each other in surprise as I headed to the back of the shop. I could tell I’d handled it all wrong because of the way they huddled and whispered together behind me, and I was glad Saanvi hadn’t been there to see it. I wasn’t trying to be rude. After Mum died, I realized it was just another thing I hadn’t learned – how to talk to people about little things, like family, or what cakes they liked, or whether it looked like rain. And even after my stay in hospital, I still didn’t know what people wanted from me when they said they were sorry she’d died, tears maybe, or some other emotion. I never knew the right response, better just to say nothing.