Do Not Feed the Bear

by Rachel Elliott

Genres: Literary Fiction; General Fiction

Synopsis

A life-affirming novel of love, loss and letting go - for fans of Eleanor Oliphant, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and When God Was a Rabbit.

On her 47th birthday, Sydney Smith stands on a rooftop and prepares to jump....

Sydney is a cartoonist and freerunner. Feet constantly twitching, always teetering on the edge of life, she's never come to terms with the event that ripped her family apart when she was 10 years old. And so, on a birthday that she doesn't want to celebrate, she returns alone to St Ives to face up to her guilt and grief. It's a trip that turns out to be life-changing - and not only for herself.

Do Not Feed the Bear is a book about lives not yet lived, about the kindness of others and about how, when our worlds stop, we find a way to keep on moving.

Release date: August 8, 2019

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

I am eight years old when I see a dead body for the first time. Mum is leading me through Flannery’s, the department store we visit every summer. Before we find the dead body, we have to buy Dad a birthday present.

I’ve got it, Mum says. Driving gloves, she says.

These words set off an intense decision-making process that will last fifty-three minutes.

We stand in front of a long glass counter, staring at five pairs of leather driving gloves, all of which cost more than Mum would like to pay.

Around the block? she says. Which is her secret code for I think we need a private talk. In this particular case, it means let’s walk a while so we can discuss our decision:

black versus brown

stylish versus warm in all temperatures

longevity versus low initial investment

or, shall we just make him an origami owl?

or, shall we just make him a mushroom quiche?

We stroll through a jungle of lingerie, and I listen to all this without interrupting.

We pass the elevator, and a man pops out from nowhere, pointing a bottle of scent in our direction.

Absolutely not, Mum says, holding up her hand.

It’s jasmine and iris, the man says.

I doubt that very much, Mum says. It’s all artificial, and it probably contains horse’s urine.

I’m sure it doesn’t, the man says.

It’s not your fault. You’re just earning a living.

I am deeply embarrassed. This is not the first time she has spoken about horse’s urine in public.

Mum? I say.

Sydney, she says.

What does horse’s urine actually smell like?

Like jasmine and iris. And I don’t want it in your lungs, it may never come out.

I am baffled.

Now we are back at the long glass counter, staring at the gloves.

Hello again, the shop assistant says. Any closer to making a decision?

Mum takes a sharp breath in, as if she’s about to speak.

Nothing.

Oh dear, she finally says.

The shop assistant smiles. Her name is Vita, it says so on the name tag pinned to her silk blouse. Vita’s hair is deeply perplexing. To me, it looks like a black helmet has fallen from outer space and landed on her head. It’s perfectly round, with a straight fringe that dips into her eyes. Blocky, that’s the word. I don’t know this word yet, but I will use it later when I am remembering the dead body and telling Ruth all about it.

I inspect the helmet for antennae, for alien surveillance technology. No, nothing obvious here. Just immaculate shiny plastic. Disappointing and pleasing, all at once.

You look like one of my Playmobil people, I say. You have the exact same hair.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Vita says.

Sensing a loaded question, I look at Mum.

Oh she loves Playmobil people, Mum says. She ties string around their waists and makes them abseil down the side of buildings. We’re off to look for a cowboy in a minute.

Lovely, Vita says. She looks down at the gloves. So are these for yourself? she asks.

Well no, Mum says. Because they’re men’s gloves aren’t they?

That’s right, Vita says, aware that she has swerved off track, deviated from the script.

Okay, Mum says.

She is stressed, which often happens when she is about to spend money. I stand on tiptoe, and all three of us stare at the gloves as if we are waiting for them to do something exciting like shuffle around by themselves.

But Vita is not a magician. Not between nine and five, anyway. What she does when she gets home is anyone’s business.

(Little do we know, at this moment, that one thing Vita does is put on a policeman’s uniform that she bought from a fancy dress shop and walk through the streets late at night. Later this week, when Mum reads about this in the local paper, she will call it totally fascinating.)

Mum finds a lot of things fascinating, and she tries to ignite the same delighted curiosity in my brother and me.

Her, while walking through the woods: Don’t you think this leaf is fascinating, Sydney?

Me, looking down: Not really.

I think I’ll take these, Mum says to Vita, pointing at pair number three, the gloves in the middle. This is unusual for Mum, who would normally go for the cheapest.

Excellent choice, Vita says.

I bet you’d say that if I chose any of these, Mum says. Then she seems to panic, she starts talking really quickly. That sounded rude, she says. What I meant was, you must have to say nice things all day, reassuring things, it’s part of your job really isn’t it, to say things like excellent choice.

Without speaking, Vita wraps the gloves in tissue paper and puts them in a bag. The bag is stiff and square and the colour of peaches, with the word Flannery’s on the side in a flamboyant font. Next week, once we are back from our holiday, Mum will use the bag for storing envelopes, and the tissue paper for wrapping a friend’s house-warming gift. This is what’s known as being resourceful and creative, or so she will tell Jason and me while we eat our Sugar Puffs and listen to an incredibly long lecture about our throwaway world. Mum enjoys giving us lectures. Her favourite topics are wastefulness, commercialism and the importance of boredom for children’s brains. She needn’t worry about that final topic – mine and Jason’s brains are super healthy, mainly thanks to these lectures.

Finally, we’re done. Vita’s helmet and the cloying smell of her perfume are behind us as we set off for the toy department on the fifth floor. Ahead of us now is a runway, a track, a maze of carpeted lanes. I am moving as fast as I can without breaking into a run, I am speeding along, and Mum is saying slow down, Sydney, take it easy, slow down. She knows what’s going on, the battle inside me: how I want to cut loose, make a dash for it, my hands reaching for anything I can climb and jump off. Any minute now we will have yet another conversation about safety and etiquette, the things you just don’t do unless you are (a) a much younger child in a play area or (b) an athlete performing in the Olympics. I am neither (a) nor (b), so which letter am I? Sometimes (i) for infuriating, (w) for wild, but mainly (n) for naughty. The thing is, I don’t understand why people move in the Pway they do – small steps, robotic. Why aren’t they leaping about, exploring all these surfaces, trying out different speeds, making new shapes with their bodies instead of left right, left right, steady and sensible on the ground.

To reach the toys you have to walk through the bed department. My eyes are wide. All these springboards and soft landings. You can keep your sweets, your dolls, your telly. I would swap them all for half an hour by myself on this obstacle course, jumping from mattress to mattress.

But today I am good. I don’t test Mum’s patience, to use her phrase. I walk properly.

Until I see a man, lying on one of the beds. This man is propped up on two pillows. I notice him because he is wearing his shoes, and you’re not supposed to wear shoes in bed.

How do I know this? I know because Jason got into bed one night wearing his pyjamas and new trainers. An hour earlier, he had worn them in the front garden, where the neighbour’s dog had been, and he and his Pumas had run into a pile of dog shit – or poop, as we were taught to call it throughout this whole dramatic incident. When Mum came up to say goodnight there were sniffs, quick and shallow, followed by squealing and shouting. She went away and came back, accompanied by Dad, who was wearing rubber gloves and a look of grave seriousness. Jason’s sheets and duvet cover were wrapped in three bags and placed in the bin outside, because Dad wasn’t sure that any amount of disinfectant would make them hygienic, and they were still quite new, which made Mum cry, drink gin and tonic and listen to Stevie Wonder (Mum is in love with Stevie Wonder). The next day, a woman in a white jumpsuit came to clean the carpets. Her name was Lulu. Is that your real name? Mum said. Is Ila your real name? Lulu said. Well yes, Mum said. Lulu’s jumpsuit was wipe-clean, like our tablecloth. May I touch it? Mum said. Whatever tickles your fancy, Lulu said. Around her waist was the biggest belt I had ever seen, its golden buckle as wide as my head. I clean up people’s shit, she said. In this house we call it poop, Mum said. Call it what you like, it still stinks, Lulu said.

I stop to look at the man, the one propped up on two pillows, which makes Mum stop too.

It’s rude to stare, she says.

But then she sees what I see.

The man isn’t moving.

We are side by side at the foot of a double bed, looking at his open mouth and his open eyes. I reach out to touch his black brogues – super clean, super shiny.

I like his red socks, I say. I’d like some red socks. What’s he doing?

Goodness me, Mum says. She moves now, as though she has been startled, squeezes my hand and drags me away, over to the till, where she whispers about a man on a bed who could possibly be dead. It reminds me of the poems Dad has been reading to me at night.

A man on a bed who could possibly be dead

He looks quite ill has he taken a pill?

The bedspread is pink like the soap on our sink

This man needs a doctor not a toy helicopter

Seeing the dead man does not upset me, but Mum expects it to, and this is very useful. To make me feel better, instead of buying a cowboy as promised, she buys me a Playmobil ambulance. I can’t believe it. This is the kind of present you get for Christmas, not just on any old day of the week.

Well, Mum says, as we get in the car. That was quite a morning. Are you all right, Sydney?

I’m good, I say, sniffing my ambulance.

Mum opens her handbag, takes out two custard creams wrapped in a tissue and passes one to me.

Shall we listen to some music? she says. It might be good to sing.

Why might it?

It’s cathartic.

As she drives us back to the campsite in St Ives, we sing along to ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’, ‘Rivers of Babylon’ and ‘Take a Chance on Me’.

How do you know all the words? I say.

I have a head for lyrics, Mum says.

We park beside our tent and head straight to the beach to find Dad and Jason.

They are sitting on a blanket, heads down, busy. Jason is dismantling a broken radio that he has saved for this trip.

What’s that? he says, looking up.

It’s a present, I say, and I hand him the set of mini screwdrivers Mum bought him in Flannery’s.

Oh yes, he says, because Jason loves tools in the way I love pencils and pens. Weird fact about my brother: sometimes he buries his favourite things in the garden. Yes, like a dog hiding its bone, saving it for later. Except that Jason puts his things in Tupperware to keep them clean. He has been doing this for years, beginning with his Action Man and Lego. Mum and Dad don’t know. When we’re back home, Mum will ask where the new screwdrivers are. They’re in a very safe place, Jason will say, while I eat my alphabet spaghetti and keep quiet. Everyone deserves some privacy, even my weird brother.

Dad is varnishing his latest creation: a wooden box with lots of open compartments inside, each containing a hook.

What is that? I say.

Never you mind, he says. Did you buy anything nice?

I tell him about the man on a bed who could possibly be dead and show him my ambulance. He asks if I need a sweet, sugar for shock, always does the trick. Yes please, I say. He reaches into a cool box and pulls out a tin of powdery boiled sweets.

Thanks. Why were these in the cool box? I say.

Why not? he says.

What else do you have in there? Mum says.

Well, he says, rummaging about.

Sausage rolls, egg sandwiches, cheese-and-onion crisps, Opal Fruits, chocolate teacakes and a bottle of diluted squash.

Not bad, Mum says.

We get comfy, sit in a row, eat our picnic, stare at the sea.

It’s a bit cold out here isn’t it, Jason says.

All in the mind, Mum says.

I am ten years old when I see a dead body for the second time.

There is nothing cathartic.

There is no singing along to the radio.

I remember you well, Sydney Smith. You squeezed the end of my shoe. I loved those Italian brogues, used to polish them all the time. You could almost see your face in my shoes.

Your rhyme made me smile. To be honest though, I think a toy helicopter would have been about as much use to me as a doctor, because I was stone dead, dead as a dodo, dead as a bloke who can’t even smoke because his useless body had a stroke. You have to laugh at the timing, Sydney. I was trying out beds for my girlfriend and me, only a week to go until our wedding day.

I’d tried so many beds before I went to Flannery’s. I knew this was the one as soon as I sat on it, even before my head fell back onto the pillows. No surface had ever held me like that. My weight sank into it, I was floating, I was happy.

I’m a big reader, Sydney. I love to read in bed. So I wondered what it would be like to sit up against the headboard and read my book in this particular bed. I plumped and readjusted and sat up straight, imagined myself in pyjamas, holding a paperback, saying listen to this sentence, Maria, can I read you this amazing sentence?

And while I was imagining this, it happened.

Somehow, I just died.

Fucking hell, Sydney. What else is there to say but fucking hell?

A girl stood at the end of the bed and squeezed my toes. I could feel that, by the way. The life hadn’t left me, not yet. It takes a few days to pass. If only the living knew this. Different kinds of care would be given to the dying, the newly dead and the properly dead. Me? I was newly and improperly dead. And you? You were a sweet thing in dungarees and a stripy top, admiring my red socks.

While you were singing in the car with your mum, a policeman was knocking on Maria’s front door. His words would enter her parents’ house like a forest fire: impossible flames, rolling through the suburbs from nowhere.

You never know what’s around the corner. People say that all the time, don’t they? But bloody hell, I feel like slapping them when they say it, or kicking them in the shins, to make them take it seriously, drag it up from platitude to life-altering fact. Because honestly, I’m telling you, it can happen at any fucking moment. Don’t forget, all right? Don’t be so complacent.

I suppose I should thank you, Sydney Smith, for making autobiographical use of me. Your drawing is wonderful. I look like I’m sleeping, I wish I was sleeping. I’ve never been in a graphic memoir before. Never been in a book of any sort. Had I known this when I was alive, that I’d feature in an opening chapter, it would have been cause for great celebration. Thankfully, I got that bit right. I celebrated everything. Nothing grand, obviously. You can celebrate in all kinds of ways, can’t you? By making bread. By opening all the windows. By telling her she’s beautiful.

Her.

Yes.

My God, you’ve stirred me up, Sydney Smith. So can I ask you a favour, in return? Will you put me in the hands of a woman called Maria Norton? I’d love to be in her hands one more time. I know I’m small and peripheral in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of this story, but maybe you could make me a pebble on a beach? You could make me hard and delicate and beautiful. You could make me soft to touch, bluish white. And a woman called Maria Norton could pick me up and admire me, she could roll me between her fingers and throw me into the sea. I’ll make an inaudible splash, then I’ll sink.

Put me in her hands, I beg you.

Many thanks in advance, Sydney.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Andy

PS I was more than a pebble to Maria. I was the whole damn beach. I was the sand and the sea, the fish and the ocean floor, the clouds, the seagulls, the litter. I don’t even know what happened to her. I don’t even know where she is.

Are you the whole beach to anyone, Sydney?

I hope so. I really hope so.

I’m just checking, is there anything you’d like to do on your birthday? Ruth says.

Oh, probably just the usual, Sydney says, as she stands by the cooker, making coffee.

The usual, Ruth says.

If that’s all right, Sydney says.

They are silent.

Sydney pours espresso into blue-and-white striped cups, places Ruth’s on the table in front of her.

Well, maybe we can go out for some food after your birthday, Ruth says. Before you go away?

That sounds great, Sydney says.

She knows that something important just happened: a moment of kindness. Ruth could have vented her frustration, shown her disapproval, and chose not to.

I’m only going for a week though, she says.

I know. Did you book the B&B?

I did it yesterday. Sorry, I forgot to say.

Did you get the one you liked?

All booked.

I think it’ll be good for us actually, Ruth says.

Do you?

Ruth nods. It does everyone good doesn’t it, a bit of space.

I suppose it does, Sydney says. Well, I’d better get back to work. We can talk about this later if you like. Book a table somewhere?

Fine, Ruth says.

Upstairs, Sydney sits at her desk and sketches Ruth’s unhappiness, depicting it as a brown bear with its head low to the floor. This bear is an unspoken creature, but she can sense it padding around the house sometimes, can almost hear its heavy feet on the stairs. To be honest, it will be good to get away from it when she heads down to the coast for a week of freerunning and sketching. Is that an awful thing to think? She adds a sign to her drawing: DO NOT FEED THE BEAR.

She puts the drawing in a wooden box, settles down to work. She looks at the sketch of Vita from Flannery’s, creeping through a dark street, dressed in a policeman’s uniform. Then the one of Jason, carefully inserting the inner pieces of an old radio into a plastic box, before burying this box in the garden. She places these aside, and focuses on the one she hasn’t finished yet, the one of her mother approaching a stranger in a cafe.

Alone in the kitchen, Ruth is swearing under her breath: For fuck’s sake.

Why must every year be exactly the same? A few days before Sydney’s birthday she will ask the same question, hoping they might go for a long walk, have dinner, drive to a place they haven’t been to before. Hoping they might spend it together.

But no.

Sydney will want to do what she always does: run up to a wall, take two steps up it, push off and swing into a backward turn. That’s how she’ll mark her forty-seventh birthday. She’ll use a railing as an axis while her body rotates in a 360-degree spin. Not in that skirt and jumper, obviously. She’ll change into loose trousers, pull a T-shirt over a long-sleeved top, slip on her beanie and head into the city by herself like a teenage boy. It’s a ritual, a thing. Will she still be doing this when she’s sixty or seventy? When her bones are more likely to break?

Ruth grits her teeth. Is it wrong to want just a little normality?

Normality: it’s in the eye of the beholder, obviously. One person’s normal is another person’s strange. Yes yes, Ruth gets all that. And freerunning is impressive, of course it is. The endless practice and training, the special diet, the sit-ups and push-ups, the discipline and drive. It takes all kinds of strength, both physical and emotional, not to mention grace. But how would you feel if every time you walked through town with your partner, they launched into some kind of superhero gymnastics routine? It’s awesome and tedious. It’s amazing and embarrassing. Parkour is the third person in their relationship, and next week, yet again, it will take Sydney out on the town to celebrate her birthday. Déjà vu. Just once in the fourteen years they’ve been together, Ruth would like to be the one who takes her out. Just the two of them. No loose trousers, no trainers, and definitely no backflips.

Ruth drinks her coffee, tries to stop herself from seething.

No, it will not be good to go upstairs and shout at Sydney. She’s working on her book. It took her ages to get going on this project, to even confront the idea of it. Don’t be selfish. Ha! Me, selfish? I’m not the sel. . .