Toffee

by Sarah Crossan

  so I will not have it

  or inherit it either.

  Lucy stole the clock simply

  to prove she could.

  Lucy doesn’t need stuff.

  And she obviously doesn’t need me.

  Lion Bar

  Dad left a Lion Bar in the fridge door.

  It was there weeks:

  cold,

  hard.

  One day after school I took it,

  ate it,

  enjoyed every bit of it

  with a Coke can

  and Kelly-Anne’s Hello! magazine.

  That night Dad said, My Lion Bar’s gone.

  Kelly-Anne looked up from her Sudoku.

  Not me. I’m too fat for any more chocolate.

  I stared at my lap.

  I took it, I muttered.

  Dad didn’t say any more,

  just slammed the fridge door

  and went to work

  in a mood.

  He always noticed when things went missing.

  And sometimes he set me up.

  Taking the Lion Bar was exactly

  what he had wanted.

  It gave him a reason for his rage.

  The Blackbird

  A blackbird is in the shed

  while I am clearing

  away evidence of my evening with Lucy.

  The bird blinks,

  perched on rolled-up, rusting metal wiring.

  I startle, scream,

  but he doesn’t move,

  even when I come close.

  He blinks again.

  Fearlessly leers.

  Is he injured or gutsy?

  Did he see everything from last night?

  I open the door wide

  so he can fly free.

  He turns away

  and I’m too creeped out to

  clean any more.

  Back in the house,

  Marla is watching TV with the sound down.

  Stuff

  How old is Marla now?

  Seventy-five perhaps.

  Eighty?

  Will anyone want her things when she is gone?

  Who will get rid of them?

  Marla’s house does not contain surfaces.

  Her walls are plastered with pictures and plates.

  The shelves are stacked with books and

  oddments thick with dust.

  The candles are unlit,

  their wicks still white and waxy.

  So many things,

  many she might miss

  but which,

  at the end of the day,

  mean very little

  if anything

  at all.

  I hope.

  Concern

  The neighbour’s dog

  trapped himself in our garden

  and fastened his jaw to my face,

  chowed down.

  The neighbour hit the poor hound with a shovel,

  leaving me with only a punctured lip

  and not a proper mauling,

  though Kelly-Anne said

  I looked like a bomb victim.

  I wiped bloody hands

  down my white T-shirt

  and went inside.

  Dad was watching from the window.

  That’ll stain if you don’t bleach it, he said,

  and went back to stirring soup.

  Later he argued with our neighbour

  over the wall

  about unsafe pets

  and compensation.

  If I’d had the shovel,

  that dog wouldn’t still be barking.

  I didn’t see the dog again:

  they had it put down.

  A week later Dad bought a watch on eBay.

  In Knots

  Marla is trying to untie

  the laces from a pair of

  leather shoes in her lap.

  Her fingers scratch the eyelets,

  worry at tight knots.

  She tuts and sighs constantly,

  then shouts,

  Jesus! Why can’t I …

  Stupid fecking things!

  She flings the disobedient shoes

  against the fireplace.

  I pick them up, check the laces,

  which are tight

  but not impossible.

  Don’t! Marla is on the verge of tears.

  Don’t even try.

  I wasn’t going to, I lie,

  seizing a pair of scissors

  from her sewing basket

  and snipping the laces away from the shoes.

  We’ll buy laces for them tomorrow.

  She says,

  Did we get the gig at the Tivoli?

  I’ll speak to Roger.

  God, I hope he didn’t give the job to Moira.

  She’s always sniffing around.

  We’ll practise tomorrow when we have shoes.

  Are you free to dance tomorrow, Toff?

  Yes, I tell her. I am.

  What John Lennon Does

  We dance.

  Marla’s choice of music.

  The Beatles.

  ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’.

  Marla says,

  Sure, will you smile, for Christ’s sake.

  There’s no use dancing if you’re not going to mean it.

  There’s no use having a high kick

  and fast twirl

  if you’re going to look like a miserable mallard.

  Who pissed in your pond anyway?

  She gyrates and gestures,

  closes her eyes

  and grins.

  John Lennon always makes

  me cream myself.

  Marla!

  What? Well he does.

  After Donal

  For only the second time since I’ve been with Marla,

  Donal visits.

  The calendar says weekly,

  but that’s a lie.

  He marches in – I hide.

  His footsteps are heavy and possessive,

  his voice a dark din.

  Peggy says she caught you dancing.

  And that’s all great and everything

  until you have a fall

  and who’ll have to deal with that?

  I got you a big TV so you’d have something to do.

  What more is it you need?

  I’d like to see Mary.

  Is she coming to visit soon?

  No, she isn’t.

  Stop going on about it.

  I wasn’t. I just wondered.

  Do you want me to change

  the bulb in that lamp?

  Yes, please.

  You’re very good, she says.

  After he is gone,

  Marla dims

  like a candle

  blown out.

  Are you still in there? I want to ask,

  watching her eyes glaze over,

  her mouth chewing on itself,

  her hands busy with nothing.

  Shall we dance? I try instead,

  finding ‘Gangnam Style’ on my phone,

  playing it for her,

  showing off the ridiculous moves,

  searching for a pathway to her smile.

  When does Coronation Street start? she asks.

  I don’t push her to be happy.

  I go to the shop for dinner,

  leaving her alone to remember herself,

  giving her time to creep out of

  the hole

  she is

  hiding in.

  When she is ready

  she will come back

  and

  I will be here.

  Police

  I set up the email on my phone,

  log in to Facebook and Instagram.

  Seconds later it is pinging and vibrating

  like I’m the most popular person alive.

  Dad has sent twelve angry emails,

  mostly asking if I’ve blocked him on my phone,

  twice threatening
to call the police

  if I don’t come home,

  once telling me he is very sad alone.

  Kelly-Anne emails too.

  Bude is a big place, Allison. Answer my calls.

  Or WhatsApp me. PLEASE.

  I’m waiting. And I’m worried.

  CALL ME, FFS.

  The good thing about email is that no one

  knows whether or not you’ve read the messages.

  So I pretend I haven’t.

  I am not quite sure why I don’t reply

  to Kelly-Anne.

  I think Allison is gone.

  I am Toffee now.

  Loitering

  A blackbird is perched on a branch

  of the plum tree in the garden.

  I saw him in the shed, I say.

  The same one? Let’s keep it as a pet.

  I had a budgie once.

  The cat ate it.

  A cliché but not a lie.

  Cat ate her own kittens too.

  Horrible yoke.

  Marla crosses her arms.

  Why is he just sitting there? Is he sick?

  I open the door.

  The bird defiantly does not move.

  Pain rims its yellowy eyes.

  Are you sick? I say stupidly.

  The blackbird opens its beak a bit,

  taps it together – click-clack – but doesn’t tweet.

  Marla already has a saucer of water in her hands.

  It’s hurt, I say.

  She goes to the bird,

  holds out the dish.

  Nothing stirs.

  And then something does:

  from beneath a bush

  the grey cat I met on my first night in the shed,

  slinking with his

  tummy low,

  his eyes anchored to the blackbird.

  The bird’ll be grand, Marla says

  for no good reason.

  I’ll get some seeds.

  I think I have seeds.

  Or we could get some grubs.

  Daddy always has maggots for his fishing.

  She searches for something in her memory,

  then stares at the space around her like an answer

  might be hidden in the air.

  Where is Daddy?

  Is Daddy at home?

  We have seeds, I say, and if we don’t,

  I can go to the shops to get some.

  I help you now, not your daddy.

  The cat edges along the garden.

  You help me? Do I need help?

  Sometimes.

  And do I help you?

  She peers at the motionless bird.

  I shoo away the cat.

  Yes. You help me all the time.

  Small Talk

  I muted the podcast when his car pulled up,

  rubber squeaking against the path as he parked.

  He saw me from the hall but didn’t speak.

  In the kitchen he sat at the table,

  rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

  I made pasta. I stirred a pot of penne,

  black olives in red sauce.

  The meal was bland, I knew that,

  but it was better than cereal

  or frozen waffles cooked in the toaster.

  Dad went to the window.

  How was work?

  It was a question regular people

  asked each other –

  small talk about the day,

  a way of taking an interest.

  I’d be better off on the dole, he said,

  picking at a blemish in the wooded table.

  Give me some of that crap you’ve cooked.

  He took out his phone and

  aimlessly scrolled

  through one app,

  then another.

  I dished the dinner into two bowls

  and sat opposite him,

  no longer hungry,

  waiting for him to finish

  so I could go to my room

  and pretend to be busy.

  The biggest crime on earth was laziness.

  I didn’t want him to catch me at it.

  Wasted

  I wasted a lot of time

  waiting for my father to be a better person,

  wondering if he could change,

  if I could change him

  by being quiet,

  disrupting his life

  as little as possible.

  I should have used my time more wisely:

  I could have counted the hairs on Sophie’s dog;

  I could have emptied a swimming pool

  with a spoon;

  I could have memorised Shakespeare’s plays,

  the sonnets too.

  I wasted precious time thinking

  I could change my father

  if only I were more

  than I knew how to be.

  Bra Shopping

  I thought I’d done a good job hiding

  my boobs behind layers

  of vests and jumpers

  but Kelly-Anne still noticed,

  marched me down to New Look

  and made me choose some bras.

  In the changing room,

  half naked, seeing myself full length

  for the first time,

  I shouted back answers like:

  It’s a bit tight. Too lacy. Too puffy!

  while Kelly-Anne’s hand kept creeping

  under the door with new options.

  Afterwards we got a Burger King.

  Don’t tell Dad about this, I said,

  not sure why he couldn’t know.

  Kelly-Anne stole a chicken nugget

  and bit it in half.

  I don’t tell your dad anything, she said.

  Her phone pinged and she laughed,

  turned the screen around to me to show me

  a video of a deer chasing a bear.

  I knew then that everything was temporary,

  that there was no way Kelly-Anne would stay.

  Tweeting

  A sound like optimism wakes me,

  a bird with so much music in his tiny body

  he is bullying us to begin the day –

  Wake up, come and see this world, he sings.

  Wake up, there are so many wonderful things.

  And here’s me,

  a hundred times bigger

  with only half his voice

  and so little music

  inside me.

  Could it be the brazen blackbird singing?

  Could he have finally found his voice

  and is back to boast?

  I look out the window.

  A speckled sparrow is settled on the holly bush.

  The blackbird is

  nowhere

  to be seen.

  I get up and make pancakes.

  Recycling

  It is pouring with rain,

  white noise beyond the windows.

  I slip my feet into Marla’s wellies,

  clomp to the side of the house

  and pour a box of plastics

  into the recycling bin.

  By my feet a wet lump,

  a clump of unflying feathers.

  The blackbird is back,

  this time with no nerve at all –

  dead, still, soaking in the rain.

  Water pummels me from the sky

  but I won’t let Marla find the bird.

  Wish I hadn’t myself.

  I pick him up,

  heavy in my bare hands,

  and take him to the compost pile

  at the back of the garden,

  bury him in brown leaves.

  I hope he will decay back into the earth

  and return as something beautiful.

  At the back door I hear a mewling.

  A hungry cat on the hunt.

  Scabby

  Marla trips on the patio,

  tears her tights,

  bloodies her knee.


  Within a week the cut

  is a thick slab of scab

  like knobbled rust.

  She picks at its crusty edges,

  risks ripping fresh flesh.

  I push away her ferreting fingers.

  Please stop.

  We stare down at a loose flake.

  One last bit, she begs.

  And I do understand her need to pick,

  finish the job,

  the frustration of seeing something so frayed

  and close to clean.

  No.

  I won’t watch you hurt yourself.

  Power

  Butterflies loved my old bedroom.

  In summer they wheeled in through open windows

  to dance

  before desperately seeking

  a way out.

  There were days when I woke with

  paper-thin wings on my face,

  bands of butterflies

  tiptoeing in with

  the morning.

  I tried to catch them,

  tease them outside,

  but they were so easily broken,

  so easily crushed and killed.

  I had to chase gently,

  clasp my fingers together to

  trap them,

  keep my hands a cave.

  Before the release,

  I’d always hold the butterfly