‘Well come on, girls, get a move on. Get all those old toys sorted into cardboard boxes, then Dad will take them to the hospice shop in the car.’
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Mum glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Where did that mark come from?’ she said, frowning.
‘What mark?’ we said in unison.
‘You two!’ said Mum, but she was in too cheery a mood to get really angry. We heard her humming
‘Truly Scrumptious’ as she went back into her own room.
‘I don’t know what to keep and what to chuck,’ I said, stirring all my toys. ‘I never play with my Barbies now, or my cut-out paper dolls, or my giant set of wax crayons – they’re just for babies, but I don’t really want to throw them out.’
It was easier for Jodie. Most of her old toys were broken. Her old Barbies had skinhead haircuts and tattoos and assorted amputations; her teddy had led such an adventurous life that his head was hanging off his shoulders by a thread. Her crayons were stumps and her paints a sludgy mess.
‘Junk, junk, junketty junk,’ she chanted as she threw them rhythmically into a black plastic rubbish bag.
She grew wilder, throwing in her cream clutch bag and cream pumps, her pink crocheted poncho, her white fluffy towelling dressing gown, her floral toothmug and flannel and washbag, her pink alarm clock in the shape of a heart.
‘Jodie! You’ll hurt Mum’s feelings,’ I said.
‘She never minds hurting mine,’ said Jodie.
‘They were presents from her.’
‘Yeah, but they’re all stuff she likes, not me.’
‘I quite like them too,’ I said. ‘Can I have your dressing gown if you don’t want it?’
‘Sure,’ said Jodie, wrapping it round me. She 28
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laughed. ‘You look like a polar bear. Here, bear, want a fishy?’
She pretended to feed me the wooden rocket, and then chucked it carelessly into the black plastic bag
– but that night I heard her scrabbling in the bag, searching for something. I kept quiet. The next morning I saw she’d wedged the rocket beside her red shoes in her small suitcase of treasured possessions.
We lived with cases and cardboard boxes all around us for days, never quite sure where anything was, suddenly needing something that was packed right away. Dad was out all day and half the night, trying to complete all the book-shelves and bathroom cabinets on his order book.
He had a farewell do with his mates at work and came home all tearful, saying they were a cracking bunch of lads, like brothers to him.
We had a farewell Sunday lunch with Dad’s real brother, Uncle Jack, and Aunty Pauline and our two little cousins, Ashleigh and Aimee, and Dad’s mum came too. They all wished us the best, and Gran kept saying how much she’d miss us, though whenever we went round to her house she was always telling us off, especially Jodie.
Mum didn’t say goodbye to any of her family. She didn’t keep in touch. She always sniffed when she spoke about them. Jodie and I would have loved to meet this other gran who always ‘went down the boozer’, and the granddad who’d been on benefit all his life, and we especially wanted to meet the uncle who’d been ‘in and out of the nick’, but Mum had left home at seventeen and never gone back. She did her last shift at Jenny’s Teashop, coming home with a carved wooden spoon and a new apron with 29
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SUPERCOOK embroidered in white across the chest –
gifts from her regular customers.
Jodie missed school altogether for the last couple of weeks. Marie and Siobhan and Shanice had turned against her and it was simpler and safer to keep out of their way. Jodie said she mooched around the town in the mornings, ate the packed lunch Mum made for her down by the river, and then mostly hung around the park until it was time to come home. She liked the children’s playground.
She always loved little kids. She’d had plenty of practice looking after me. They all ran at her as soon as they spotted her, hanging on her arms, begging her to pick them up, to whirl them about, to give them a push on the swings or help them up and down the little slide. The mums made a fuss of her too because they could sit on the bench and chat amongst themselves while Jodie leaped about like Mary Poppins on skates.
‘Maybe I’ll be a nursery nurse when I’m older,’
Jodie said happily. ‘I seem to have the knack for it.
Or I could be a nanny. Or maybe I’ll just have heaps of kids of my own.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t want to get married,’ I said.
‘I don’t! You don’t have to have a husband to have lots of children,’ said Jodie, winking at me.
‘Mum would go spare if she heard you saying that,’ I said.
‘Mum goes spare at everything I say,’ said Jodie.
‘What if she finds out you’re bunking off from school?’
‘She won’t. I’m leaving anyway, so what does it matter?’ Jodie said carelessly.
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She didn’t bother to go back to say goodbye to anyone. I didn’t actually say goodbye to many people at my school either. I didn’t really have any proper friends. I did say a proper goodbye to my teacher, Mrs Lambert, because she was always kind to me.
‘I’m so happy for you that you’re going to this boarding school, Pearl. It’s a wonderful opportunity.
You’re a very bright girl. I know you’ll make the most of it.’ She straightened up, shaking her head now. ‘What about that big sister of yours? How does she feel about going?’
I shrugged awkwardly.
‘I was very fond of Jodie, though she was always a handful,’ she said, smiling. ‘Still, maybe she’ll turn into a lovely young lady at boarding school.’
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She’d guessed my wish, word for word.
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3
We got up at six sharp on moving day, even Jodie. Mum had been practising big breakfast fry-ups – egg and bacon and sausage, sometimes black pudding and hash browns and bubble-and-squeak as well – but this morning we had a marmalade sandwich and a mug of tea as we worked, doing all the last-minute packing up. Dad was useless, fretting about his work tools, taking them out of their boxes and unwinding all the bubble wrap.
‘I’m just checking, just checking,’ he kept muttering when Mum screamed at him.
I tried to help Mum pack up in the kitchen but I was trying to be too quick, too eager, because I knew she wanted everything out of the way before she gave the floor one last scrub. The milk jug slipped right out of my hands and crashed on the floor, shattering into blue and white shards and splashing all over my socks.
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‘For pity’s sake, Jodie!’ Mum snapped. It came out automatically – she was so used to telling Jodie off and not me. ‘ Pearl, I mean, you silly careless girl.’
Jodie herself was clearing up the bathroom, packing all the washing things into one last box and then cleaning the basin, the bath, the toilet, the floor.
‘I’ll give it a going-over after you. You’ll leave it all smeary,’ said Mum, but when Jodie called for her inspection, she had to shake her head.
‘Well, you’ve made a really good job of it, Jodie.
Look at that shine! There, it just shows what you can do when you put your mind to it.’ Mum sounded almost put out, as if Jodie was playing a trick on her.
As soon as the two removal men came, Mum got them clearing the living room first while she vacu-umed busily behind them. We followed when they went on to the big bedroom, trying to help with the small stuff while they tackled the heavy furniture and the carpets. Jodie rolled me right up in a rug, calling me her Pear
l Swiss Roll, while Big Alf and Young Bernie roared with laughter. Big Alf seemed the same size as Bernie and they looked about the same age too, but these were their official names for each other.
‘I’m Big Jodie then and you’re Young Pearl,’ said Jodie.
They laughed again and started chatting away to her as they collapsed the bed and swathed the mirrors in bubble wrap. Jodie tore off a strip herself and started popping it, sitting on the edge of the dressing table. She kept giggling at their jokes. I 34
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giggled too, though I didn’t understand half of them.
Mum peered round the door and looked cross.
‘Jodie, how dare you! Get off that dressing table, you’ll make marks on the wood. And Pearl, why is your dress all creased? Whatever have you been up to?’ She glared at Big Alf and Young Bernie too.
When she was gone, they waggled their eyebrows and pulled faces. Jodie pulled faces too and they pretended to tut at her.
‘You’re a saucy baggage,’ said Big Alf. ‘You’re going to be a handful in a couple of years.’
‘I reckon she’s a handful right now,’ said Young Bernie. He pursed his mouth up like a goldfish and made slurpy kissing noises at Jodie.
I suddenly stopped liking him, but Jodie laughed and made kissing noises back at him. I tried to tug her away, telling her I needed her to help me bubble-wrap my doll’s house.
‘That’s it, you go and pack up all your dollies –
but we need Big Jodie to give us a hand here,’ said Young Bernie.
Jodie jumped down from the dressing table, doing a little tap dance in her red shoes and finishing with a flourish, so that Big Alf and Young Bernie clapped. But then she smiled at me. ‘Come on, Pearl.’
She marched us out of the room, neatly avoiding Young Bernie’s patting hand with a twitch of her hips.
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ I whispered on the landing.
‘Of course not,’ said Jodie.
‘Then why were you mucking around flirting with him?’
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‘Because it’s fun,’ said Jodie. ‘Take that look off your face, you look like Mum. Now, let’s get your doll’s house done.’
She wrapped it up expertly, stopping for a few last pops of the bubbles. ‘There! All done.’
‘I don’t really play with it any more,’ I said, running my fingers over the chimney and sighing.
‘And it’ll make our new bedroom look ever so babyish. But I can’t chuck it out. Dad would be so hurt.’
‘Maybe we’ll be able to shove it in a cupboard,’
said Jodie. ‘So, we’re having a grown-up glamorous bedroom, are we? No fluffy teddies, no fairy lamps, no posters of cute little puppies?’
I hesitated. Jodie laughed. She knew I was devoted to Edgar, Allan and Poe, the little triplet black bears who lurked in a cave under my pillow all day and came out to play with me at night. She knew I was frightened in the dark, even cuddled up close with her in her bed. I needed my fairy nightlight to shine softly so I could see if there was anything creeping up on me. She knew how much I wanted a puppy, though Mum thought all animals were nasty messy nuisances and wouldn’t even let us have a hamster. I had one lovely poster of white poodle puppies that I pinned above my bed. I gave all four puppies names: Ice Cream, Sugar, Salt and Mashed Potato.
‘ Mashed Potato? ’ said Jodie, snorting.
‘Well, I wanted white food things and it was all I could think of,’ I said huffily. ‘I think it’s a lovely name for the big puppy. He looks like fluffy mashed potato.’
I pretended he was the naughtiest, forever 36
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fighting with his brother Salt and pushing his dainty little sisters out of the way. I even used to pretend to take them for walks, whistling to them and slapping my knees, but I’d grown out of that now.
I supposed I’d grown out of my poster and the lamp and the three teddies, but I couldn’t bear the thought of chucking them in a black plastic rubbish bag.
‘Don’t look so worried, Pearl,’ said Jodie. ‘Of course you’re keeping them. You can have your lamp by your bed, and the puppy poster above your bed and the teddies in your bed, same as always.’
‘But it won’t be very glamorous then,’ I said.
‘Yes it will! It’ll have us in it,’ said Jodie, striking a sexy-lady pose, her chest stuck out and her hand on her hip. ‘Come on, look glam too!’
She grabbed two rolled balls of socks out of my suitcase and stuck them up under my T-shirt.
‘There you are, Pearl, instant boob job. Show them off, then!’
I stuck out my socks and waggled my bottom, pursing my mouth up to do fishy kisses like Young Bernie. Jodie shrieked with laughter, clutching me so that we both over-balanced, falling onto my suitcase.
‘For pity’s sake!’ said Mum, poking her head round the door. ‘What are you two up to? We haven’t got time to mess about. We’ve got to be packed and out of here by lunch time.’
‘We’ve packed ourselves, Mum!’ said Jodie, tucking her legs right into the suitcase.
‘She’s a card, that girl of yours,’ said Young Bernie, putting his head round the door too.
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Mum glared at him. ‘She’s a very silly little girl,’
she said. ‘Now, I think we’d all better get on.’
Young Bernie bobbed back to the bedroom to help Big Alf with the wardrobe.
‘What are you playing at, showing off like that!’
Mum hissed at Jodie. ‘I won’t have you making eyes at that man!’
‘He’s the one making eyes at me,’ said Jodie, climbing out of the case.
‘You go out to the shed and help your father,’ said Mum. ‘Pearl, tidy this mess and then come and give me a hand. What’s that stuck up your T-shirt? Oh, for goodness’ sake!’
We were all exhausted by the time we’d emptied the house. Big Alf and Young Bernie went off for an early lunch break while Jodie and I wandered around the house hand in hand, saying goodbye to each room. It looked so strange now it was empty, almost as if we hadn’t really lived there. It was a comfort seeing the pencilled marks on the kitchen door where Dad measured our height each birthday, Jodie on the left, me on the right.
‘It’s not fair, I won’t ever be able to catch you up now,’ I said.
‘Quite right too, little Titchy Face,’ said Jodie, squeezing my hand.
When we looked round, there were marks made by Jodie everywhere: biro scribbles and paint spills, scuffs where she’d kicked the doors, crumbling plaster where she’d once whirled her school bag and it had banged the wall, a cracked window pane where she’d thrown a tennis ball, a splintered floorboard where she’d stamped hard. I’d been scared she’d stamp her way right 38
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through the floor like Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tale.
We walked this Jodie devastation trail, telling each other the story of every mark and crack and splinter, both of us giggling.
‘It’s not a laughing matter!’ said Mum. ‘You’re a total disgrace, Jodie. The landlord will think we’ve been keeping a wild animal in the house. I don’t think we stand a chance of getting our five hundred pounds deposit back.’
‘Every house has to put up with a little wear and tear,’ said Dad. His voice was hoarse, his eyes overly bright as if he was about to cry.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ said Jodie, sobering up. ‘Look, I’ll save up and pay the deposit out of my pocket money.’
‘Well, we’ll all be in our graves by the time you’ve paid it off.’ Mum sniffed.
Jodie glared at her. ‘I’ll get a Saturday job when I’m old enough, you’ll see. And I can do babysitting now, easy-peasy. Please don’t look so upset, Dad.’
‘No, no, it’s not the deposit, pet. I’m just – well, it sounds so soppy, but I’m sad to be leaving. We’ve been so happy here, the four of us.’
We stared at him.
‘My three girls,’ said Dad, holding out his arms.
‘You sentimental old sausage,’ said Mum, but she gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
Dad grabbed her and pulled Jodie and me into the hug too. We all clung together tightly for a moment. Jodie’s shoulders started shaking. I thought she might be laughing, but when I wriggled sideways to take a good look at her, I saw she was crying.
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‘Jodie!’ I said, stricken, because she hardly ever cried.
‘What’s up now?’ said Mum. ‘Jodie?’
‘I wish we weren’t going. Dad’s right, we have been so happy here. I don’t want to go to Melchester College.’
‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Mum. ‘We’ll be much happier there! It’s our golden opportunity. Now, dry your eyes and pull yourself together, you daft ha’p’orth.’ Mum looked at me. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Pearl, don’t you start blubbing too!’
I was crying because I felt so guilty. I knew Jodie had only agreed to go to Melchester College for my sake. Maybe I didn’t want to go there either now.
We all cheered up when we were in the car actually on our way. Mum had packed a picnic. We expected another round of marmalade sandwiches, but there was a surprise home-made chicken and ham pie, Scotch eggs and cheese straws and a tomato salad, and then Mum’s special pink iced fairy cakes studded with little silver balls. She always made them for our birthdays, and the birthday girl had to make a special wish, eating her cake with her eyes closed.
‘We can all make a wish today,’ said Mum, feeding Dad as he drove.
‘Well, I don’t think I’d better close my eyes,’ said Dad, chomping happily. He pretended he thought Mum’s fingers were the icing and licked them appreciatively.
‘Get off, you sloppy devil, you’re making me all slurpy,’ said Mum, but she was giggling.
Jodie wolfed down her own cake, eyes squeezed 40
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shut, her long lashes fanned out. Then she swallowed, opened her eyes and smiled.
My Sister Jodie Page 3