‘Early bedtime?’ Jane suggests, holding Mum as her body shakes and shudders. ‘Pizza in bed?’
‘Hear that, Misti? Midnight feasts!’ I pick her up and troop across to the bathroom, hushing and stroking her, telling her things are fine.
My acting skills just get better and better.
I wash her tomato-smeared face and change her nappy, and we shuffle through to the bedroom, then huddle up together in bed. I read her Cinderella from the big book of fairy tales, feeding her bites of pizza and cuddling her till she falls asleep.
Who’s going to do that for me?
When I’m sure Misti won’t wake, I slip out of bed and creep to the bedroom door.
Mum and Jane are curled up in the twin brown armchairs, nursing coffees in the pool of blue light from the lamp.
‘Do you think that ringing him was a good idea?’ Jane is saying quietly.
‘Yes,’ Mum says. ‘I had to, didn’t I, to warn him off? We can’t make a fresh start with Max hanging around the whole time, trying to follow us, trying to find out where we live. I had to tell him to back off.’
‘And did you?’
‘Sort of,’ Mum stares down into her coffee cup. ‘Look, Jane, it’s not like you think. He’s a good man, really – why d’you think I stayed with him so long?’
Jane shakes her head.
‘He wants to change, he wants to work it out,’ Mum rushes on. ‘And he misses the kids – he’s Misti’s dad, after all. I just don’t know if I can trust him. Oh, Jane, he’s got me so mixed up – I don’t know what I want any more.’
‘To be safe? To be happy?’ Jane suggests.
Mum slumps forward, her head in her hands. ‘But it’s so hard,’ she says in a tiny, shaky voice. ‘It’s so hard to do it all alone.’
Later, when Jane tiptoes into the bedroom to check on Misti and me, I close my eyes and steady my breathing and pretend I’m asleep. It’s only after Jane’s left, after I hear the outside door click shut and the sound of her car on the gravel drive, when I know she’s gone back to her husband and her smart flat on the posh side of town, that I let the tears come.
Dear Gran,
Mum said she would ring you last week to tell you all about the move, but I’m wondering if maybe she forgot, because we haven’t heard from you and Mum is kind of forgetful just now. Anyway, in case she did forget, our new address is 33 Hartington Drive and it’s a bit of a dump but we’ve got it sorted pretty much.
Maybe you could come down and stay with us sometime? That would be great.
I miss you, Gran. I reckon Misti does too.
Well, I suppose I’m really writing to tell you my news. Guess what? I got the lead role in the school play! It’s Oliver!, so I get to wear raggedy trousers and hide all my hair in a big tweed cap. I also get to sing a solo, which is very scary but Miss McDougall says we’re not allowed to be scared, we have a show to put on, and we have to get on with it. So I suppose I will.
I had to audition for the play, and me and another girl called Aisha got the top part. We have to share it – she plays it one night. I play it the next. I was so proud on Friday when I heard, but my best friend. Jo (remember her?), didn’t get a part so I couldn’t really get excited about it or anything. It wouldn’t have been fair on her, would it?
So I ran home to tell Mum and Misti, but guess what, I was unlucky again, because Mum was in bed with flu. I told Misti and we danced around and had a laugh, but when I told Mum she didn’t really understand, or maybe she didn’t hear, I don’t know.
So that’s another reason why I’m writing, because Mum’s not well, and Jane says she’s emotionally exhausted and very stressed and time is the best healer. I think she’s missing Max, so maybe we’ll end up back there anyway in the end. I’m not really sure.
It’s not like this is a great flat or anything, but at least there’s no fighting. I don’t know if you knew about all that. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything. It’s not like it was all the time, anyway.
Anyway, maybe, if you’re not really busy or anything, you could come up for a few days and see us. It would be good for Misti to have someone around while Mum isn’t well. I asked Jane if I should stay off school to mind her, but Jane said no, best not. Mum’ll be better soon, she said. Then shell get a job and get back on top of things and maybe stop crying all the time.
If you did come, you could have my room. I mean, you’d have to share the bed with Misti, but she’s pretty small isn’t she? Wriggly, though! I can sleep on the floor, or in Mum’s bed if she falls asleep in the chair again. She keeps doing that lately.
We could go to the cinema and go swimming and make blackcurrant cheesecake like we do in Wales when we come down to visit. It’d be great.
I bet you won’t recognize me, I’m loads taller than last summer, and Misti can talk now – she jabbers on all day long, and she smiles all the time. Well, maybe not just lately, but she’ll be fine once Mum’s better.
I hope you can make it. I can’t wait to see you.
Please come, if you can.
Love from Indie
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I fold up the letter and hide it under my pillow. All I need to do now is find an envelope and a stamp, and then decide whether to send it or not.
Maybe Mum’ll be better soon, and I won’t need to.
Jane calls over at lunchtime with croissants and butter and apricot jam. She feeds Mum coffee and drags her up from the chair where she slept, runs her a bath and tells her to get washed and dressed. Then she takes me and Misti out to the park.
Misti plays on the swings and Jane pushes her till she screams with joy. After a while, she gangs up with a bunch of toddlers going headfirst down the slide, crawling through the tunnels, leaping across sandpits. Jane and I sit on the grass.
‘You OK?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, sure.’
I’m not, I know, but where do you start? It’s not like Jane can change anything. She can’t make Mum fall out of love with Max.
‘Anna’ll be fine,’ Jane says. ‘She’s been through a lot, and maybe it’s only just hit her. She needs some time to get herself sorted, get strong again. Hang on in there.’
‘Right.’
Jane explains that Mum never got around to signing on for social security money, or help with the rent, and that’s why the money’s run out. Jane’s going to sort it on Monday, first thing – get the forms, get things moving. Meanwhile, she gives me two powercards and two phonecards and five quid in silver in case we run out of milk or bread again.
‘Ring me any time,’ she says. ‘I mean it, Indie, any time. If I’m not there, leave a message on the answerphone and I’ll be round as soon as I can. And look, if you can’t talk to me, at least talk to someone. Anyone. You can’t cope with all this on your own. It’s too much.’
I take the fiver and the cards and I take the bit of paper with Jane’s scrawled number, but I don’t take the advice. Who am I going to talk to about the mess my life has turned into? Who is going to care?
Later, back home, Jane and Mum are doing heart-to-hearts while Misti makes potato prints all over a vast roll of computer paper.
I’m sick of being bored. Why can’t we have a TV, a computer, a phone?
I’m fed up being babysitter, fed up being sensible and sympathetic and endlessly understanding. I’m mad at Mum for getting us mixed up with Max, making a mess of it all. I’m mad with her for being so weak, for wanting him back even though she knows he’s a loser.
‘No homework, Indie?’ Jane asks, watching me sulk around the flat.
We’re meant to be working on our Victorian projects, but I haven’t started mine because I forgot to go to the library. At least, I didn’t forget, exactly, I just didn’t get to fit it in, between looking after Misti and worrying about Mum and Max and Jo.
How else am I meant to find out about the Victorians? The flicker of an idea starts to form in my mind.
I lean against the gate of number 33 and start to draw the
tall, spooky house. It’s complicated. I sketch in Ian Turner’s tiny attic window, poking up out of the grey slate roof. I draw the two windows beneath, both with balconies. If we lived there, we’d have a table and chairs and plants and little jam-jar lanterns like the ones we once made at school with tea lights and wire and glass paint. I think it’s students living on that floor, though. One balcony has a rusty bike, a clothes airer and a stepladder, all draped with washing. The other is bare, but the French window is ajar and waves of thumping, howling music float down on the breeze.
On the ground floor, there’s Mrs Green’s lace-curtained window with an ugly vase of yellow and orange flowers in the centre. The curtain twitches slightly as I look, but I don’t care. I sketch in the front door with its peeling paint and the six doorbells with names and numbers scrawled beside them. I sketch the window on the far side, all dusty and cobwebby, with a broken pane of glass boarded up with chipboard. I bet Mrs Green wonders how it all happened, her once-posh house reduced to a student dive.
The front door opens a crack. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Mrs Green shouts over crossly. ‘Hanging about on street corners, staring in at me for hours on end. I could call the police!’
She shuffles over in her tartan slippers, her face furious. As she gets closer, I can see how old she is, much older than my gran. It looks like it hurts her to walk. Maybe that’s why she’s so crabby?
‘I’m just drawing,’ I say, showing her the picture. It’s not very good, I know, but it’s hardly a criminal offence.
‘Why?’ she barks.
‘It’s homework. We’re doing a project on the Victorians, but I haven’t had a chance to go to the library yet. So I’m drawing the house because Mum says it’s Victorian.’
Mrs Green makes a harrumphing noise, like I’ve just admitted to something very stupid. She folds her arms and sniffs and looks at the drawing. She smells of powder and hairspray and too much perfume, and I notice that her lipstick, a kind of sickly Barbie pink, has spread out over her lips and sunk into the tiny cracks and wrinkles round her mouth.
After a minute or two, I carry on sketching. I put in the steps, the overgrown bushes, the glimpses of basement window behind them. I do the wheelie bins, the litter, the gravel drive.
‘It was built in 1852,’ Mrs Green announces suddenly. ‘My great-great-grandfather, William Henry Poole, lived in it then. He owned the old factory in Rathbone Street, you know.’
‘Oh,’ is all I can think of to say.
‘You’ve missed out the chimneys,’ she says tartly, and shuffles back to the steps. ‘William Henry Poole,’ she says again, and slams the door.
I take my drawing inside, sharpen my pencil crayons and colour it in carefully, remembering to put in the fancy pattern in the brickwork with red and cream-coloured bricks, and the ivy creeping up the right-hand side of the house.
On a fresh sheet, I make a heading, 33 Hartington Drive, and write down about Mrs Green’s great-great-grandfather and the factory in Rathbone Street and the date 1852. It might not be what Miss McDougall asked for, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?
Miss McDougall gives me a star for my project homework, and tells everybody that researching original material is an excellent way to find out about the Victorians.
‘Swot,’ Jo says.
And even though I get 7/20 for my maths test without even trying, she won’t forgive me.
At lunchtime, we sit at the side of the playground in silence, Jo and Aisha and me. Jo paints her own nails ‘Sizzling Sunset’, then puts the bottle away pointedly.
‘How was swimming club on Saturday?’ I ask, desperate for something to say that won’t spark off World War III. ‘Did you… do any good strokes?’
Jo looks at me like I’m insane. She may not be too far off the mark.
‘Erm, it was OK,’ Aisha says brightly. ‘I did mainly front crawl. But I’m in a different group from Jo –’
‘You two are so – boring!’ Jo bursts out. ‘You just run around sucking up to Miss McDougall, showing off about the play, telling everyone how great you are. Well, you are way off the mark. You can’t sing, you can’t act, and Shane Taggart definitely doesn’t fancy you. So there!’
She storms off, flicking back her hair and wiggling her bum in case Shane’s watching.
Aisha and I look at each other, speechless. I’m horrified.
Aisha’s mouth opens, then closes again. It twitches at the corners. If I smiled, or raised my eyebrows, or let my eyes sparkle at Aisha, she’d be laughing, I know. She’d nudge me and we’d double up together, giggling and spluttering at the cheek of it, the unfairness of it. But…
I want Jo back, my best, best mate.
I want her back the way she used to be, confident, careless, fun. I want her back the way she was before Aisha, before Shane, before the move.
Jo tries a hundred different tactics to pay me back.
She’s mad at me because of Shane and because of Miss McDougall and the part of Oliver. She’s punishing me.
I wish I could tell her how bad things are at home, how lost I’m feeling, how scared. I wish she could see how I feel. I wish she could see me.
She isn’t even looking.
On Tuesday, she sits by Carrie Naughton all day. At breaktime I hear her swearing – Jo Ashton, the girl who still says ‘Gosh’ and ‘Goodness’ and ‘Rats’ when things go wrong. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like Jo.
On Wednesday, she sits by Aisha. Aisha shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head at me when Jo’s not looking, by way of apology. But it’s not her fault. It’s not her fault my best mate has dumped me.
On Thursday, she asks Shane Taggart out. He doesn’t really fancy her, Buzz tells Aisha. But it’s hard to say no to Jo Ashton, a fact I learned way back in Reception. It takes a stronger man than Shane.
Carrie Naughton tells everyone that Jo and Shane went behind the school kitchens and snogged till the bell went for afternoon class.
‘Do you mind?’ Aisha asks me.
‘No! I don’t even like him, I keep trying to tell you. And Jo really does, so maybe this will make her feel better. I hope so.’
I do hope so, but even though I can’t tell Aisha, there’s still a tiny part of me that feels betrayed. By Jo, because she’s doing this to hurt me, to show me, to prove a point. And by Shane, because I know he likes me and I know he doesn’t like Jo, not the same way.
So what’s he doing snogging her behind the kitchens?
‘Boys,’ Aisha says gloomily. ‘They’re all the same.’
I’m feeling pretty punished now. I wish Jo would stop. She doesn’t.
On Friday, she pulls the rabbit out of the hat.
She tells everyone who will listen that Mum’s left Max, that we’re living in a dank, dark cellar with fungus on the walls. She says she feels sorry for me, because it’s tough when your mum can’t stick with one bloke. It’s tough when you don’t even know who your father is.
My heart hits the concrete playground, splat. I can’t see it, because hearts aren’t like that, but I can feel it all right.
Did she mean me to hear?
Her eyes catch mine and I know that she did.
Aisha sees me standing still, frozen in time. The colour drains from my face, my heart turns to ice, my body feels stiff and cold and heavy, like a drowned person.
She puts an arm round me and steers me away, out of the playground, down across the grass to the far corner of the playing fields.
‘If you want to cry, it’s OK,’ Aisha says. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
But I can’t cry. If I let the tears fall now, they’ll never stop. Tears of anger, tears of self-pity. Tears for Jo, for Mum, for Max.
I can’t.
‘I’m OK,’ I tell her. ‘I’m just – shocked. She was my friend.’
Was.
‘She didn’t mean it,’ Aisha says helplessly.
‘She did.’
We sit for ages in the long grass, back
s against the boundary fence.
I remember a day back in Year Three, when Miss Appleton was away and we had a supply teacher: a stern, speccy lady with a crew cut and a flowery blouse. It was the summer Danny left us and went to live back in Wales. I was sad that summer, but I knew Danny loved me even if he didn’t love Mum. I knew we’d be OK.
The supply teacher asked us to make Father’s Day cards, though, and I said I didn’t want to.
‘He’s still your dad,’ Jo had said. ‘Even if he’s gone, he’s still your dad. Nothing can change that.’
‘He’s not,’ I said in a small voice. ‘Not really.’
‘He is so,’ Jo said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘He really isn’t.’
So I told Jo about Danny, how he met Mum when I was two years old, how we lived together, the three of us, in a tiny cottage on the Welsh coast, all rainbow stripes and tie-dyed bedsheets and music festivals in the summer. When we moved up to the north of England, it was a caravan at first, then a council flat. Danny cut his hair and got a Job as a carpenter, but he wasn’t happy, not really. He moved back to Wales and left us alone.
‘He’s not my dad,’ I said to Jo again.
‘Sorry. I didn’t know,’ she said. She was silent for a long time, colouring in.
‘Who is, then?’ she asked eventually. ‘Who is your dad?’
I’d wanted to tell her something sad, something tragic, something glamorous, heroic, brave. I couldn’t think of anything.
‘I don’t know,’ I’d said.
Now, I lean back against the fence and hug my knees. When you look closely, the long grass is full of litter.
‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ I say heavily.
‘I know,’ says Aisha, with feeling.
I know now that my dad was called Blue, that he and Mum met up at Glastonbury Festival and fell in love. Trouble is, it was a two-day kind of love, a nice-while-it-lasted romance. They didn’t swap addresses. It wouldn’t have mattered, except for me, the baby who appeared nine months later, growing up, asking awkward questions.
Indigo Blue Page 7