‘OK.’
‘OK? You’re almost smiling. Is that a yes?’
‘Can I wear my monkey boots?’
‘Monkey what? Oh, yes. If you must.’
The house was silent when I went back downstairs. Kat was gone. Mum was in the bath and Eileen had left a note on the kitchen table saying that she was at her mate’s.
Every bit of furniture was back in its place. I studied the fixtures, the pictures, the thermometer on the wall that always read seventy-two degrees no matter what the temperature was. In the front room, I straightened the venetian blinds, blowing away a light layer of dust. I ruffled the curtains, closed the TV cabinet doors, put the cushions on the sofa straight and moved the rug a tiny bit to the left, sitting it parallel to the hearth.
The house was back to being ours. It was calm like early in the morning. In the kitchen the smell of Jif powder sizzled inside my nose, so I kept going, through to the dining room and out the back door. The garden was back to peaceful as well. Around the edge were Mum’s bunches of yellow flowers that only opened up in the sun. They all looked up. They glowed like giant buttercups. Bees hummed about, sounding busy and determined to get their jobs done. I walked around and, for once, they didn’t scare me. It was like they knew me and I knew them. The grass was trodden down, leaving two squares where the rugs had been. But under my bare feet, it felt cool and smooth and clean.
Our tiny garden was like a stadium to me. Dad called it his Wembley. Once a month he borrowed his mate’s expensive lawnmower to cut the grass in three lines, like different colours. Then he stood back and admired it, calling it a pool table or a bowling green.
I stopped in the middle and looked at the four sides, the four tall stands watching me. Two sides were slatted fencing – rows of terracing, people stood waiting. Dad’s shed was down the other side. Behind me was the house, the main stand. The best view was from the bathroom window. I imagined the Queen sat up there, in her Cup Final chair. I raised a hand to my left, to the apple tree leaning over the fence from Edna’s. I bowed to the terraces.
I waved to the royal box and the crowds and said, ‘Thank you. Stop it now. Please sit down.’ Everyone lowered. In my head I heard the sound of hushed, listening people. Ears switched on. I turned to the vegetable patch in the corner. I walked over and thanked the cabbages one by one, bending over, giving them a pat. ‘Thank you for coming. It means so much.’
Everything was planted in the right place. The rows of carrots, cabbages and potatoes. Dad said that watching his vegetables grow was the only thing that made his mind go quiet. That and Guinness, but not whiskey. That made his brain get wrongly wired. He used to test me on what was a weed and what was a flower. Even when I got it wrong he said I was right, saying something about who should decide? He said dogs are cleverer than cats, it’s just that cats are slicker, and that lemons are actually full of sugar, and onions could, with a bit of patience, be made juicy and sweet. His eyes lit up when he talked like that. I think he should have been a farmer.
I walked back to the middle, and leaning against the washing line was the pole that Mum used to raise it up. I took it in my hand and composed myself, cleared my throat. The crowd buzzed. I stepped back, angled the pole and said, ‘I want to thank you for being here today. It is a very proud day for me. Thank you for electing me as prime minister.’ I wondered how you got to be prime minister. Probably a special test. ‘Thank you for all my presents,’ I said. ‘Being prime minister is going to be very hard. There are lots of things that need changing. Like, schools should not have outside toilets. Roundabouts should not have more flowers than people’s gardens. Boys should not be in gangs. Girls shouldn’t put on so much make-up. Waterproof trousers should be banned, and skirts and smoking and whiskey and wars. While I am prime minister –’
‘A Labour prime minister?’ Mum said. She was stood at the back door, in her dressing gown.
My legs wobbled; the washing-line pole dropped to the ground.
‘Labour?’ Mum said louder.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s my girl.’
I looked up and she had a beaming smile. I felt dizzy.
‘Come here, love.’
I took a few steps closer.
‘So.’ She took a deep breath, like it was the start of a big, long message. ‘That little sod Martin was here an hour ago. Bringing me flowers.’ She pointed to the kitchen windowsill, and there stood a yellow bunch of flowers. ‘Trying to blackmail me, he was. And I looked after that boy as well.’ She opened her tobacco tin. ‘All crying his eyes out and saying sorry.’ Mum rolled a cigarette.
‘I didn’t hear him.’
‘But I told him that it was a matter for the police and then he turned nasty. The language on him. The anger.’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘I dealt with it myself. I tell you, if I were a young girl I would have belted him myself.’ Her hand was shaking. She looked up at me. ‘So now let the police deal with him.’
‘Will he be arrested? And locked up?’
‘Don’t know. I shouldn’t think so, love. He’s in deep trouble all right but they don’t put twelve-year-olds in police cells. Not here they don’t, anyhow. Not unless you did something heinous like murder.’
‘He nearly did.’
‘True enough. What made him do that to you?’
‘To me?’
‘Yes. Was it that scuffle on the school trip?’
‘Oh, maybe. It was maybe because I didn’t want to be in the gang no more, with the boys.’
‘Really? Why, love? They were your best pals.’
‘Because I got fed up with boys.’
‘All of them?’ Mum looked confused.
‘I’m going to try being friends with a girl.’
‘Right. OK. That girl that was here, upstairs with you?’
‘Yes. I’m just going to try it.’
‘Well, you try it, love. She seems nice.’
‘She is, Mum.’
‘You know that you don’t have to choose. Between boys and girls,’ Mum said and paused. ‘You can be friends with both. There’s lots of them about.’
‘I know.’
‘Everything else all right?’ Mum said.
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘Yes, I mean. Yes, Mum. Everything is fine.’
Chapter 17
I woke with excitement so early there was no movement down our street. No cars, no people, no milk float rattling. It was still: no wind or rain. It felt like the sun was somewhere getting dressed, ready to get up again. A strange stir in my belly had stopped me sleeping. A twisty pain, like a low-down stitch. I curled up under my blanket and listened to the birds waking up in the trees, chattering about the lazy humans that were all still asleep.
My bed wasn’t wet. The dryness hit me like a spine-tingling rush. I sat up. I felt around. I wanted to shout out loud. But something wasn’t right. I threw the bed covers back and stood up. I looked at my bed as if I’d built it with my bare hands. I whacked the curtains back to get a better look. I wanted everyone to know at first, but then I was happy with just me.
‘Be ready good and early,’ Eileen had ordered me.
Mum was still asleep. On the way to the bathroom I put my head round her bedroom door. I watched her gentle breathing, her eyes flickering under her eyelids. I wondered what she was dreaming.
With two hands on the handle, I closed her door with a gentle click. I did the same with the bathroom door, then sat down on the toilet and poured out wee. Through the open window I could hear the birds still chatting, and in the distance some car engine starting up its journey.
Then I saw the stain. Reddy brown. Definitely red. In my pyjama trousers. Then on the tissue. A bit slimy, like snot. A rotten cabbagey smell mixed with rust. I knew what it was. My heart felt crushed.
From inside me, my belly pulled tight to remind me. I wiped myself again, and again. I still felt dirty. I didn’t look but pulled my bottoms up and put the toilet lid down. I fl
ushed the tissue and the blood away, and checked to see that they were gone. I used soap to wash my hands. I dried them, smelt them. Then washed them again.
The muffled sound of Eileen calling my name came through the walls. She tapped on the bathroom door. I moved my head from staring at the window. I ran the tap on full.
‘I won’t be long.’
‘Are you ready?’ she said.
I stayed silent.
She tried the handle so I moved to push against the door.
‘Birdy, are you ready?’
‘No. Not quite,’ I said quietly, and I heard the floorboards creak as she walked away.
I felt sick. I knew the bathroom cabinet had a packet of huge skateboard-shaped cotton-wool pads, which is what I was supposed to use. Mum had tried to show me how they worked, but when she asked me to listen I refused.
So I took out a clean white flannel, which was crunchy from Mum’s boil washes, and went to my room. With my back against the door, I put on three pairs of pants, the darkest ones first, and I placed the flannel, folded flat and long, in between two layers. Then I put on some boxer shorts and my thickest combat trousers and my army jumper and my body warmer.
I opened my bedroom door, to see Eileen’s face turn from smile to frown.
‘We’re not going to war.’
‘You never know.’ I tied the laces on my boots with double knots. ‘Can I tell Edna where we’re going?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Can we walk past the school?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I feel sick.’ I stood up and adjusted my pants through my trousers.
Eileen winced.
‘I do feel a bit sick, Eileen.’
‘You’ll walk it off,’ she said.
The train ride was a clanky, grinding, jolty journey. I couldn’t get properly comfy – the flannel wouldn’t sit right – but the movement and bumps of the train took my mind off it, for most of the time.
After some tiny towns sitting in green and golden fields, we passed a smooth golf course with gentle hills, then blocky towns with sharp, metal buildings, a miniature airport with miniature planes, a massive cemetery and a building site with lots of cranes.
I could feel Eileen watching me as I looked out the window.
‘Birdy,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘You know that time that Gary came round for Sunday lunch?’
‘Gary?’
‘Mum did roast chicken.’
‘The History teacher?’
‘Well, he works in Sainsbury’s, but, yes, him.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, worried that she would attack me about her letter again.
‘You know I went upstairs for ages? Because I was angry with you.’
‘Tickets please,’ shouted a little man who looked like Captain Birdseye.
‘Hang on,’ Eileen said as she opened her handbag. ‘Oh, where the Hell are they?’ She looked up and he was still there, tapping his machine. ‘Here.’ She handed him hers.
‘What about his?’ Captain Birdseye said.
‘His?’ Eileen snapped.
I watched the miles of fields and smiled.
‘His?’ Eileen repeated.
And the cars zipping along the road running beside us.
‘Right. Where is it?’ Eileen sounded nervous. ‘Birdy.’ She poked me.
The captain tutted.
‘Birdy,’ she repeated.
I took her bag and found my ticket at the bottom. Captain Birdseye called me a good lad.
It took Eileen ages to settle and stop muttering after that, so she forgot about the Gary chat.
In the seat opposite a woman got on with a little dog no bigger than a cat, and she sat it on a small rug that she laid across her lap. Outside we speeded through small train stations and ugly chunks of buildings that Eileen called modern. Then past a horse-racing course, which got Eileen chattering about horses’ names and jockeys and trophies and all sorts of things that I’d never heard her say before.
‘Do you know any gypsies?’ I asked her.
‘I do actually,’ Eileen said and then paused, and I wanted her to talk and talk.
‘How?’
‘I don’t work in a bank, Birdy.’
‘Eh?’ It was like she was setting me another puzzle.
‘I don’t,’ she spoke slowly and loudly over the noise of the train, ‘work in a bank. I never have. Unfortunately.’ She brushed a hair off her black miniskirt and straightened her back.
When I didn’t respond, because my brain was struggling, she drew love hearts in the layer of dust on the window.
‘Aren’t you going to say something?’
‘I thought you worked in a bank.’
‘Well, yes, so did everyone, but I don’t.’
‘Not at all?’
‘You can’t half-work in a bank, Birdy. You either do or you don’t.’
‘Where then?’ I asked.
‘I’ll show you.’ She looked outside.
The view had changed and London stretched out. I looked at the back of her head and wondered what she was on about.
Bit by bit, the buildings got higher and wider and older. Proper massive graffiti was sprayed across brick walls and there were adverts that looked a hundred feet tall. As the train’s brakes screeched, I saw a bit of the river, then Big Ben, just like on telly but taller.
The train station was like a gigantic ants’ nest and I had to think about breathing as the air was gritty and sticky and the noise was too busy. Pigeon-feather dust got in my eyes and up my nose. All shapes and sizes and colours of people walked towards us.
‘Stop staring,’ Eileen said, but I couldn’t help myself. They were amazing.
I was excited and frightened, although my belly felt heavy and my legs were like jelly.
‘Birdy, you don’t have to smile at everyone,’ Eileen told me, but when I tried not to, she told me off for frowning. I nearly gave up looking at all, then Eileen stopped me. ‘Birdy, in London you have to look up, not down.’
As we walked out of the station, down wide grey steps, we covered our eyes as the sun dazzled off huge white buildings. On the bridge Eileen forced me to stand and look along the river Thames, to the House of Commons and St Paul’s Cathedral at the other end.
‘Hello, London town,’ she shouted with her arms stretched out, as if London was her best friend.
‘Do you think we’ll bump into Dad?’
‘No chance,’ she said as she set off walking.
We walked for miles.
‘You have to walk in London,’ she insisted.
At Oxford Circus – which was a crossroads, not a circus – pigeons marched about as if they were also going shopping. Eileen took me in and out of gigantic places called department stores, not shops. We went to the biggest record shop in the world. Eileen bought me an album by some people called Yazoo, and she bought herself one by Kajagoogoo. She wanted to buy me everything. In smaller shops she showed me clothes that only punks wore. There were pairs of boots with hundreds of holes for laces, jeans with zips in the wrong places, Russian soldiers’ coats and loads of army kit, and pointed shoes with leopard skin and shiny black leather that could kill someone with one kick.
‘Can I have some Farahs?’ I asked.
‘Is that all?’ she said.
I smiled.
She shook her head. ‘Loving you is exhausting, Birdy Flynn.’
I loved the clothes she got me, but London was so big and the flannel between my legs turned into agony, scraping and burning me.
‘I feel tired,’ I said.
‘Come on.’
She took me, to a pub for crisps and lemonade. It was an Irish pub, she told me, but the accents all sounded English. We stood on the pavement, in a nice bit of shade, watching gatherings of pigeons discussing their day.
We left Oxford Circus and found narrow little streets where the pavements were thin and curvy and the shops were squeezed into wonky houses with ti
ny doorways. It was another world. It was proof that another world existed. Where buildings and people and noises and smells were all totally different.
We looked in windows at food that we’d never seen before, brightly coloured and shiny. Pigs hanging up and birds that still had feathers. The strong smells shimmered through the thick air and stuck to my nostrils.
‘Go on, breathe it,’ Eileen said. ‘You don’t get this at home.’
In one of the windows I saw a display of beautiful multicoloured laces. We walked past them too fast, so I pulled Eileen back.
‘I love them,’ I said.
‘Those?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bit bright for you.’
‘Not for me,’ I said, and Eileen looked at me. She started to ask something, but stopped and nodded and opened the door and took me in.
She started marching big strides as if the length of her legs had grown. I wondered how she knew her way as we weaved in and out of smiling faces, dreamy faces, frightened faces and people zipping about to different places. Everyone had somewhere important to go. She put a hand on my shoulder and steered me down an alleyway where ladies in teeny red skirts gave out little cards and winked at me.
‘Don’t look,’ Eileen said. ‘Our mother will murder me.’
But I couldn’t control my eyes.
People stood about in groups, laughing and shouting. Grown-ups bumped into me and didn’t say sorry.
‘In you go,’ Eileen said, when we got to a door with a rainbow strip curtain like they had at our butcher’s.
‘I can’t go in there.’
‘Sure you can, I’ll look after you. We’ll be a minute, that’s all.’
‘In there?’
‘Come on.’ She went in first and pulled me with her.
It was smokier than our kitchen. My skin felt itchy.
‘This is how I make money,’ Eileen said, and she pointed at a stool and told me to sit.
‘He can’t come in here,’ a man said.
She whispered into his ear. He cackled and coughed. Eileen walked off.
I sat in the corner. Some of the men watched me. I looked around. Newspapers were pinned to walls. A TV was showing horse races high up in the corner. A small spinning fan kept turning left and right. I watched the back of Eileen while she talked through a see-through screen to a woman who was black and a woman who was white. My throat felt like I was swallowing hot ash and, although I tried to keep them down, coughs kept coming up. It made Eileen turn.
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