‘I know, I know,’ Mum says. ‘Next time, I will. Promise.’
Ian laughs. ‘I know,’ he grins. ‘Heard it all before. I’m working the early shift on Saturday too.’
Misti and I go to Jane’s on Saturday, and Jane shows us how to make gingerbread. Misti makes gingerbread blobs and gingerbread lumps, and I use a small, sharp knife to cut out a wobbly gingerbread man specially for Mum. We bake them in Jane’s posh oven, watching through the smoked-glass door till they’re just the right shade of golden brown.
We watch cartoons on Jane’s TV while the cookies cool, then tear open the pack of coloured icing tubes she’s bought to decorate them. I use white icing to pipe collar, cuffs and buttons on my beautiful, wobbly gingerbread man. I use green for his eyes, red for his lips, blue for his belt and shoes. Misti ices her cookies with a frenzy of splotches and swirls, and has to be swabbed down with a warm flannel.
‘OK, girls,’ Jane announces after another dose of cartoons. ‘Time to go shopping. Time to meet Anna!’
The plan is to go get Jane’s shopping and see Mum in action at the checkout, then have lunch at the supermarket cafe.
We pack the cookies into a tin, strap Misti into the pushchair and set off.
Jane gets a different kind of shopping from us. She buys wine and profiteroles and ciabatta bread and lots of ready-cooked meals from the freezer cabinet. At 2.25 exactly, we line up at Mum’s checkout.
‘Terrible weather for June,’ Mum says as she packs groceries for the woman ahead of us. ‘Rain again. Isn’t it dreadful? Ooh, sweet potatoes – have you tried them before? How do you cook them?’
She winks at us, handing Jane a plastic sign that says This Till is Now Closed.
She swishes everything past the scanner neatly, so that the bar codes bleep and the prices flash up. Then she swipes Jane’s credit card through the till, waits for the signature and helps us pack up the shopping.
‘Meet you in the cafe, Anna,’ Jane says, steering us away. ‘I’ll just have a coffee, then I have to dash – Bob and I are shopping for a sofa this afternoon.’
‘Sure – won’t be five minutes,’ Mum says. ‘I’ll just cash up. I’ve got my shopping already, I just need to pick it up from the office.’
We order sausage, chips and beans, with strawberry tarts for pudding, and ice-cold milk in big paper cups. Jane pays for everything on her card while I grab cutlery, salt and pepper, tomato sauce.
‘Done,’ sighs Mum, slipping into the seat opposite Jane. She dumps three bags of groceries and a vast bag of nappies on to the floor. Not the cheap brand we usually get, I notice. The biggest and best.
Another bag is topped with a box of warm jam doughnuts. A third holds lemonade, garlic bread, bubble bath, a teen mag for me. Pay-day shopping.
‘Boy, did that shift go on forever,’ Mum says. ‘Thank you, Jane, for minding the girls. For everything. You’re the best friend ever.’
‘Hey, I thought that was me,’ Ian Turner says, stopping beside our table, a laden tray balancing dangerously in the air. ‘Shove up, Indie.’
Jane raises her eyebrows and Mum goes slightly pink. ‘You know Ian, don’t you, Jane? I asked him to join us,’ she says.
‘Hi there,’ Jane says. ‘Heard lots about you.’
Ian pulls a terrified face and sits down between me and Misti. Straight away, he tries to nick her sausage. She squeals with delight, and lets Ian feed her forkfuls of banger. In return, she feeds him soggy, sauce-drenched chips.
‘Well, anyway, Anna, no hassles about this morning,’ Jane says. ‘Any time.’ She drains her coffee.
‘Gotta go now,’ she grins, grabbing her bag and car keys. ‘I have a date with a big, squashy sofa and a big, handsome man.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ Ian says.
‘Expensive,’ Jane corrects him. ‘We’re buying a new suite. Call me, Anna.’
‘I will,’ Mum promises, and we wave till Jane’s out of sight.
Ian and Mum tuck into fish ‘n’ chips, then big slabs of chocolate gateau.
‘I’ll never eat all this, Ian,’ Mum protests, but she does all the same. Ian orders two more cappuccinos.
‘We’re celebrating,’ he says. ‘Anna’s first pay packet at the supermarket. A brilliant start to the job, so I’ve been told.’
‘We’ve got doughnuts for tea,’ I say. ‘And lemonade.’
‘Have we?’
Ian looks so smiley, it seems mean not to ask him down to share it.
‘After all, you did tell me about the job,’ Mum says.
‘But you got it,’ he points out. ‘You’ve stuck with it.’ He raises his mug in the air.
‘To Anna,’ he toasts. ‘The cutest checkout girl ever to live at 33 Hartington Drive.’
‘The only checkout girl ever to live…’ Mum starts to correct him, but suddenly her voice trails away and her face is white, frozen, still.
‘Anna?’ Ian nudges her. ‘What’s up? You OK?’
But still she stares into the distance, her eyes wide, her coffee mug stranded halfway to her mouth.
‘Mum?’
She drops the mug suddenly, spilling a last trickle of cappuccino over the table top. Grabbing a handful of napkins, she mops at the spill, fingers trembling.
‘Sorry – oh, sorry, I just thought – but no, it can’t have been. It can’t. It’s OK, really. I’m sorry.’
I’m on my feet, looking into the distance too, but there’s nobody there. I know who I’m looking for, though. Max. He wouldn’t come here. Would he?
Ian pushes the loaded trolley while Mum steers the buggy.
‘Hang on,’ Ian tells us, just outside the office near the door. ‘Left my jacket.’
He reappears a minute later with the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen. Red roses, pink carnations, clouds of starry white flowers on spider-thin stems.
‘For my three favourite girls,’ he tells us, bowing low, but he hands the bouquet to Mum alone.
‘Ian, you shouldn’t have…’
‘They were reduced,’ he says. ‘Past their sell-by date.’
‘And I’m the queen of China,’ Mum says.
‘At your service, Your Majesty,’ Ian says. ‘Your carriage awaits.’
Mum doesn’t argue about the lift this time. She lets Ian load the bags of shopping into the boot of his red Fiat. He unlocks the doors and we pile inside, stretching out on the plush seats. I pull Misti on to my lap and wrap the seat belt round the two of us.
The car floods with music as we ride home through the Saturday streets. Ian says he’ll order in a pizza if we promise to bring up our box of doughnuts and the bottle of lemonade. He stops by the video shop and lets us choose a video each. Mum picks Chocolat and I pick Oliver! and Misti takes ages to decide between Cinderella and The Lion King, but Ian doesn’t get impatient.
‘We’ll have The Lion King next week,’ he promises.
Mum catches his eye and whispers, ‘Thank you,’ as he checks out the videos. It feels like a private moment. It feels like I shouldn’t be watching.
Only once, as we drive home laughing through the drizzly afternoon, do I think I see a blue van following behind, at a distance. But I know I’m just imagining things. I know I am.
After we unload the shopping, Mum and Ian decide they need more coffee, so Ian comes in and puts the kettle on. There’s no vase for the flowers, so we prop them up in a saucepan in the centre of the table. Ian pulls out two pink carnations and sticks one behind Misti’s ear, one behind mine.
‘So. Anything you don’t like on your pizza?’ Ian asks. ‘Pineapple? Salami? Extra onion?’
‘No, we like everything,’ Mum says happily. ‘Don’t we?’
‘Jam,’ says Misti, and wonders why we all start laughing.
‘Chocolate spread,’ I say. ‘Vanilla ice cream.’
‘Toothpaste,’ Mum suggests. ‘Pink carnations.’
‘You’ll be sorry you said that,’ Ian grins, but doesn’t look sorry, not a bit.
&n
bsp; Ian says he’s off to tidy up the flat a bit, and tells us to come up any time, half four, five-ish, whenever we want. We can watch Misti’s video first and then order in the pizza.
He sticks his head back round the door. ‘Don’t forget the doughnuts!’
‘If they last till then,’ I shout.
The door slams shut. Mum starts putting away the shopping, stacking the tins neatly in the cupboard, the pasta high on the shelf. I remember the gingerbread cookies in their tin under the buggy. I fish them out, prise the lid off the tin.
‘Guess what we made at Jane’s?’ I say, just as the doorbell rings. I ditch the cookie tin and go to the door.
‘What’s he forgotten now?’ Mum calls out.
I open the door wide.
‘Hi, Indie.’
It’s Max.
He stands on the doorstep, smiling, effortlessly handsome in clean jeans and a tight black T-shirt.
‘Hi,’ I say listlessly. ‘Hi, Max.’
Mum drifts over to the door, a hand over her mouth.
‘Max.’
‘Anna. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
Mum stands back and he strides in, looking around, wrinkling up his nose a bit at the damp smell that we’ve all got so good at ignoring.
‘Nice place,’ he says, not meaning it.
Max sits at the table and Mum makes yet more coffee.
I stand with my back against the kitchen cupboard, staying close to Mum, watching Max from a distance. Misti, wide-eyed and chewing at her pink bunny, clings to my leg.
‘So. Haven’t heard from you for a while, Anna. You stopped calling.’
‘I thought it was for the best,’ Mum says.
‘Did you?’ asks Max. ‘I wonder. Best for who?’
‘Best for everyone,’ Mum says, but her voice wobbles slightly. She slumps down into the chair opposite Max, staring at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a truck.
‘You’re doing well for yourself, I hear,’ Max says. ‘Job, flat, boyfriend.’
‘No boyfriend,’ Mum says quickly. ‘Who told you that? No boyfriend.’
‘No? I’m glad they were wrong about that, at least,’ Max says. ‘That way I can kid myself you’re still missing me, even just a bit. How about you, Indie? Misti? Have you missed me?’
He stretches out an arm and Mum nods at us to come forward. I have to drag Misti. Max pulls us into a quick bear hug, then releases us. It feels awkward, wrong.
‘That’s my girls,’ Max says. ‘The house is so quiet without you. I messed up, Anna. How long are you going to go on punishing me?’
‘I – I’m not,’ Mum says, startled.
‘It feels like it,’ Max tells her. ‘I got the message, and I’ve changed, really I have. I suppose I didn’t know what I was losing till it was too late. Is it too late? Anna?’
‘I don’t know.’
There’s a long silence. Max stares into his coffee mug, frowning.
‘Can you give me another chance? Can we at least talk about this? For the kids’ sake, even? Misti deserves to know who her dad is.’
Mum bites her lip. Misti crawls on to her lap, pulling at her hair, her face.
‘I love you,’ Max says. ‘I love you all.’
Mum nods.
‘Are you really going to throw all this away?’ Max demands. ‘Everything we had together? Without giving me a chance to make amends?’
A tear slides down Mum’s pale cheek.
I’m trembling, sick with anger and fear and disgust.
‘So,’ says Max, suddenly brisk again. ‘Who are the flowers from?’
‘What? Oh, the flowers,’ Mum says. ‘They’re – not mine. Not ours. Are they, Indie? They belong to the man upstairs. He gave us a lift home today, and he must have left the flowers by mistake…’
Mum’s babbling, and Max sits back looking amused.
‘So hadn’t you better give them back?’ Max asks. ‘Tell him they’re not wanted?’
‘Yes, yes, I will…’
Mum lifts up the flowers, letting them drip all over the table.
‘Indie, could you…?’ she pushes them into my arms and I breathe in the sweet, heady smell. It’s almost overwhelming.
Mum picks the carnation out from behind my ear and tries to hide it in her hand. Misti’s has already disappeared.
‘Tell Mr Turner thank you for the lift. Tell him we picked up his flowers by mistake…’
Behind Max’s back, I try to mime eating pizza. ‘What about the videos?’ I say in a silent whisper. ‘The pizza?’
‘Not tonight,’ Mum says, without making a sound. ‘Not tonight.’
I run outside and up the big steps to the front door. I lean on Ian’s doorbell till I hear his footsteps on the big, creaky stairs.
The door opens.
‘Right,’ says Ian. ‘You’re early. Got the doughnuts?’
Then he sees the flowers.
‘What’s up, Indie? What’s wrong?’
‘Max is here,’ I say. ‘Max is Mum’s boyfriend. Well, he was. He’s Misti’s dad.’
‘So?’
‘Well, he thinks you left the flowers at our house by mistake.’
I can’t bring myself to say that he thinks that because it’s what Mum told him.
‘Does he now?’
‘Mmmm. And Mum says we can’t come up for pizza tonight, or videos. She’s very, very sorry.’
‘Right,’ says Ian. ‘Well, so am I. But another night, hey? No harm done.’
‘No.’
He looks at me, disappointed but still smiling, a stripy apron tied round him, a duster in his hand.
He doesn’t know, he hasn’t got a clue.
‘Everything OK, Indie?’ he asks.
It’s too long a story to even get started.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I say. ‘Everything’s fine.’
When I get back to the flat, Max is eating the big rainbow-coloured gingerbread man I made specially for Mum. He snaps its head off, chewing noisily. He dunks its blue icing feet in his second mug of coffee.
‘Good stuff, Indie,’ he says with his mouth full. ‘You must have known I was coming.’
I wish.
We could have run away, or hidden in the bedrooms until the doorbell stopped ringing. We could have gone sofa-shopping with Jane, or flat-dusting with Ian. We could have gone out to the park and stayed till dark, creeping home only when the streets were quiet and empty and clear of big blue vans.
It’s too late now. Mum’s shining Saturday-morning face is closed and pale and anxious, her eyes tearful, her lips trembling.
‘Come back,’ Max says. ‘Come back, Anna.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘It is that easy. It really is,’ Max says. ‘Just fling a few things in a bag, hop in the van. We’ll be home in ten minutes. We can come back next week, move the rest of your stuff – or ditch it – and everything’s back to normal. The way it should be.’
Mum stares down at the table top. Misti, asleep in a sprawl in her arms, shifts silently, finds her thumb and starts to suck.
‘What’s stopping you?’ Max says.
Mum shakes her head, buries her face in Misti’s hair.
‘Think of the kids,’ Max appeals. ‘What are you doing, Anna, making them live in this mould-ridden dump? Look at it. Smell it. It should have been condemned years ago.’
‘I like it,’ I say loyally, but Mum’s urgent look silences me. It is a dump, I think sadly. It does smell, it is damp, and the furniture looks like we found it on a skip. But I like it.
Max doesn’t take his eyes off Mum. ‘Look, I made a mistake, I know it,’ he says. ‘I’ve changed, Anna, believe me. Come home. I want you home.’
I walk to the bedroom and switch on my CD player. I turn up the volume till I can’t hear Max any more. I play the same CD three times over before I hear the door click shut. I peer out of the bedroom and see Mum alone at the table, her head in her hands.
It’s OK, Mum,’ I say.
‘He’s gone.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she says. ‘I don’t know how to make him see.’
‘You don’t have to,’ I tell her gently. ‘He’s gone.’
‘No, Indie,’ Mum says. ‘He’s coming back.’
Max is taking Mum out for a meal, so they can talk properly. He wants to show her how much he’s changed, how much he cares. He’s going to talk and talk at her till he wears her down, wipes her out, makes her back into the person she used to be.
He’s going to make us move back in.
‘Don’t go, Mum,’ I say. ‘Just tell him. We’re OK here, aren’t we?’
‘Mmmm. But I have to go, Indie. Don’t be scared – I’m not going back to him, I promise I’m not. I just need to explain, make him see. He’s not a bad man, Indie, but it was a bad relationship. We’re better off apart. I need to make him see that.’
Mum sounds so sussed, so strong. I almost believe that she’s right, that she can do it. But then I remember Max, and the way he makes her curl up inside herself, sad and lost and weak.
I know it’s not going to work.
Mum goes out to the phone box and calls Jane, to see if she’ll come over and sit with us, but Jane isn’t back.
‘Maybe Misti and I could go up and do the video and pizza thing with Ian?’ I suggest.
‘I don’t think so,’ Mum says. ‘His car’s gone. He must have gone out. Anyway, Max wouldn’t like it. No, I’ll ring Jane back later.’
Max wouldn’t like it?
And?
We search through Mum’s cupboard to find something beautiful, blue and posh enough for a smart restaurant. Misti unearths a battered felt hat with a curling blue feather, and pulls it on. Her face disappears, and she squeals with glee. Mum lets her wear an old pair of floral blue Doc Martens to match.
We drag out a long, flippy skirt in dark, storm-blue velvet and a matching gypsy top. Its flared sleeves have tiny blue beads stitched along their edges. Mum irons it, then has a bath and gets changed. She looks like a princess.
‘Boots or sandals?’ she asks, and we all vote for the kitten-heeled sandals with the tiny blue-flower trim. Mum pins up her hair and ties a floaty scarf into it, the ends trailing down like a veil.
She takes a whole lot of trouble to look beautiful just to tell Max she’s not coming back.
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