Sundae Girl

by Cathy Cassidy

  Then she turns on her heel, grabs up my hand and drags me back through the scullery, the kitchen, the restaurant, everyone staring, mouths open. When she gets to the door, she looks round at all the diners, the couples, the families, and she says she hopes they’ve all had a good look and she hopes their spaghetti chokes them. Then she drags me out on to the pavement and slams the door so hard behind us that the glass cracks from corner to corner, in little zigzags, like those graphs they make us draw in maths sometimes.

  A couple of waiters come out after us and say that they’re going to call the police, but Mum just laughs and shouts something so rude I cover my ears, and she grabs my hand and we run and run until we can’t run any more.

  Carter rings just about every night to ask if I’d like to go out with him, skating or swimming or to the movies. I say no, so he suggests a bike ride, a cross-country run, a trip in a hot-air balloon far, far above the city.

  ‘Do you know how much a trip in a hot-air balloon costs?’ I ask him.

  ‘I’ve got a fiver left over from my Christmas money,’ he tells me, proudly.

  ‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘No chance. Besides, I haven’t said I’ll go out with you.’

  ‘You will,’ Carter says. ‘You will.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I correct him. ‘I can’t. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Should I come round and talk to your grandad?’ he asks. ‘Would that help?’

  ‘No!’ I shriek. ‘Seriously, Carter, stay away. It’s nothing to do with Grandad – I just don’t have time for boyfriends.’

  ‘I’m different,’ he says, confidently. ‘Make time.’

  ‘Can’t,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Life doesn’t have to be complicated,’ Carter says.

  I look through the doorway into the living room. Grandad is huffing and emptying drawers, pockets and bags out all over the rug, looking for something, and Gran is knitting a long, black scarf and watching Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Mum is asleep on the settee, still in her pyjamas, a bottle of so-called ginger beer stuffed in behind the cushions and Toto at her feet. She’s stopped trying to hide it, stopped trying to pretend, ever since that night with Giovanni. I don’t know exactly how much she’s drinking, but it’s a lot. She doesn’t care any more.

  Complicated? That doesn’t even start to cover it.

  I say goodbye to Carter and pad through to the kitchen to make tea for Gran and Grandad. ‘Lost something?’ I ask, lowering the mugs on to the coffee table.

  ‘It was in my wallet, I know it was,’ Grandad grunts. ‘Either there or in my coat pocket. Where else could it be?’

  He leans over and scrabbles about in Gran’s knitting bag, and she swats him off with the tail end of the scarf.

  ‘What was?’ I ask, scooping everything back into the emptied drawers and slotting them back into the sideboard while Grandad roots through his wallet and his pockets yet again.

  ‘I must be getting forgetful,’ he grumbles, scratching his head. ‘I cashed my pension on Monday, and Molly’s. I did a food shop, and then I put some aside to pay the phone bill, and now I just can’t find it! Forty quid doesn’t vanish, just like that!’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ I say grimly, and my eyes slide over to Mum, then back to Grandad. She wouldn’t, though. She really, really wouldn’t. Would she?

  ‘Really Patrick, you’re getting very forgetful,’ Gran sighs, and Grandad’s eyes open wide. He hugs her gently, laughing.

  ‘Perhaps I am,’ he says, and we leave it at that.

  On Thursday afternoon, after school, I call into Thorntons in town to buy my piano teacher a box of chocolates. It’s a tradition at exam time.

  Tomorrow afternoon I’ll go straight from school to Miss Lloyd’s. I’ll have one final lesson, then the two of us will head into town to the exam hall. Once it’s all over, I’ll give Miss Lloyd the box of chocolates to thank her for all her help, and Grandad will meet me outside, to walk to the station and catch the 18.23 train.

  Dad and Victoria have already got my suitcase, complete with toothbrush, undies and that spectacularly hideous sugar-pink dress. They’re taking it up to the hotel tomorrow morning, so I don’t have to worry about anything except a drink and a sandwich for the train. It’s all arranged.

  I pick out a big box of truffles with a gold bow. Grade Four is hard work, and I couldn’t have done it without Miss Lloyd. Well, I haven’t done it yet, but I will.

  ‘That’s £6.75 please,’ the assistant says, and I take out my purse, unzip the pocket. The ten pound note I’ve been saving all week isn’t there, and my heart plummets. I unzip the other pocket, but all I find there is a bus pass, a library card, a small photo of me and Mum and Toto. The money’s gone.

  ‘Hang on,’ I tell the assistant. ‘It’s definitely here somewhere.’ I start a long rummage through my bag, unpacking maths worksheets and exercise books and crumpled gym kit all over the floor of the shop. The assistant moves on to the next customer, leaving me to pull out the pockets of my blazer, pick along the lining of my empty rucksack, my fingers finding crisp crumbs, lost biros, strawberry-flavoured lipgloss, but no tenner.

  I repack my bag, pink-faced.

  ‘Sorry,’ I tell the assistant. ‘I’ll have to come back.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve spent it already!’ she says, cheerily. ‘Happens to me all the time!’

  It doesn’t happen to me, though. I don’t have enough money in the first place to get muddled up about what I have and haven’t got. I don’t go losing whole chunks of it, and nor does Grandad. This has never happened before.

  Somebody’s taken it, and I just bet I know who.

  Mum.

  I’m supposed to be home early. I’m supposed to practise my piano stuff for an hour, eat, then practise some more. Dad’s going to ring to wish me luck in the exam tomorrow, and make sure everything is ready for afterwards, the train journey north. Carter will probably ring too. Then, Grandad says, I’m to have a long bath, an early night and dream sweet dreams all night long.

  Some chance.

  I don’t want to go home, because it doesn’t feel like a home any more, not when your own mum has been going through your purse, taking money to buy drink.

  I start walking instead, following the bus route, the way Carter and I walked on the last day of term, in the snow. I wish he was with me now. It’s not snowing today, but it’s cold, and before long it’s dark too, street lamps sparkling orange above me.

  When I get to the church of Our Lady of Sorrows, I turn off the pavement, cut across the car park. I don’t believe in miracles any more, but I could use one today.

  When I get round to the back of the church, I stop short. In the pool of light around the shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows, I can see the Bird Boy, sitting with his back against the kneeling rail. There are no birds around him tonight – it’s dark, after all, and he doesn’t seem to have any bread.

  He’s just sitting, huddled, his legs bunched up in front of him, long light-brown hair hiding his face. He’s wearing a handknitted sweater instead of the duffel coat, the kind that doting grannies might knit for a favourite toddler. Its brash primary colours and cartoon motif look all wrong on a teenager.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  He looks up, his blue eyes starred with tears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, forgetting my own troubles in a minute. ‘What happened?’ I edge closer slowly, not wanting to scare him, but he’s not scared of me. He’s wrapped up in some sadness of his own. I shrug off my rucksack and sit down next to him. ‘What’s wrong?’ I repeat.

  He looks at me then, and holds out his hand for me to see. In his palm, tiny and still and perfect, there is a dead bird. It’s green, with a vivid flash of yellow edging its grey wings, a sliver of lime at its tail. A greenfinch, I think.

  ‘Oh no,’ I whisper. ‘That’s sad. Where did you find it?’

  Bird Boy doesn’t try to answer that. ‘Gone,’ he sniffs. ‘All gone.’

  ‘It’s dead,’ I tell him,
gently. ‘Maybe it was just old? Or maybe it flew into a car, or a cat got it.’

  We look at the bird, still perfect, its twiggy little legs pink and tipped with claw-like feet, its black eyes still shiny, the downy feathers on its head as soft as silk. We sit in silence for a long time, him cradling the little bird and snuffling quietly. Finally, he wipes his nose on his sleeve, pulls a hand across his eyes to dry the tears, and gives me the dead greenfinch.

  I’m horrified.

  ‘Oh, no, really, it’s OK,’ I falter, giving it back quickly. ‘I don’t want it!’

  ‘Dead,’ Bird Boy says, offering me the bird again. And then I realize what he means, and I jump up, kicking around the stones at my feet until I find a piece of slate that’s big enough and long enough to dig with. We squeeze round the side of the handrail, him perched on a rock while I find a patch of dark soil and weeds and dig down, hollowing out a little grave.

  Bird Boy lowers the dead bird in, and I pick some primrose flowers from the little plants tucked in among the rocks and drop the pale-yellow flower heads down on top of the green feathers. I fill in the hole and Bird Boy carefully wedges the piece of slate across the top of it, like a flattened tombstone.

  We edge back out and lean against the handrail. ‘What’s your name?’ I ask him. ‘Mine’s Jude.’

  ‘’lo, Jude,’ he says.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  He smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out. ‘Alex,’ he says.

  ‘Hello, Alex. Where do you live?’

  ‘Live there!’ He points towards the tall, overgrown hedge that divides the church car park from the houses beyond.

  ‘Nobody lives in a hedge,’ I argue, but at that moment a distant voice starts shouting, ‘Alex, Alex! Where are you?’ Bird Boy must live on the other side of the hedge, in one of the big old houses.

  ‘Not yet,’ he says, sulky.

  ‘It’s probably teatime,’ I explain. ‘They’ll be worried about you.’

  ‘Alex?’ The voice is much nearer now, but Bird Boy isn’t answering. ‘Alex? Come on! Dad’s home. Are you there?’

  There’s a rustling, crackling noise and a tawny, tousled head appears through a gap in the hedge. I can’t believe it. It’s Kristina Kowalski, on her hands and knees in the dirt, with twigs in her hair.

  ‘Alex, come on, Dad’s looking for you, and it’s nearly time to eat …’ Her voice fizzles out as she catches sight of my shoes, and her eyes travel slowly, disgustedly, upwards until they lock with mine. She gets to her feet, brushing dead leaves from her sprayed-on hipster jeans.

  ‘You!’ she splutters in disgust. ‘Well, that’s just great. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Alex!’ A new, deeper voice shouts out from behind the hedge. ‘Come on, son! It’s getting late!’

  Alex dives for the gap in the hedge and scrambles through without a backward glance. ‘Comin’, Dad,’ he shouts. ‘Comin’!’

  I look at Kristina, who is picking a twig from her hair. Same light-brown hair, same blue eyes as Bird Boy. ‘Alex is your brother,’ I say.

  ‘So?’ she snaps. ‘So what if he is?’

  ‘You told everyone at school you were an only child.’

  ‘Look, just shut up about this, OK?’ Kristina bursts out. ‘It’s none of your business whether I have a brother or not. Just forget you ever saw me, or Alex. You’d better not go shooting your mouth off about him, Jude Reilly, understand? He has enough problems without losers like you adding to them …’

  ‘Why did you say you were an only child?’ I repeat, baffled.

  Kristina chews her lip. ‘Please, Jude,’ she says, her voice softer. ‘Please don’t say anything at school.’

  And then it dawns on me – this is the reason Kristina Kowalski is such a mystery girl. This is the reason she doesn’t have friends round to the house. She doesn’t want anyone to find out about Alex.

  ‘I like Alex,’ I say, frowning. ‘You can’t be … ashamed of him.’

  ‘I’m not ashamed!’ she flings back, fiercely. ‘It’s not that. It’s just … look, I’ve had years of being Alex Kowalski’s little sister. At home, Alex comes first – he has to, I understand that, but it’s still hard. Outside, it’s even worse. Adults feel sorry for him, kids make fun of him, nobody actually sees the person inside. Back in London, I spent the whole time standing up for him, being strong for him, because he couldn’t do it for himself.’

  Kristina’s face is creased and clouded in the dim light from the church wall. She looks like she might cry, or maybe slap my face, I can’t tell which.

  ‘Then we moved here,’ Kristina tells me. ‘We’re on the edge of the catchment area for St Joe’s, so there’s nobody from school living in my street. Nobody to see the stupid blue bus turn up each morning to take Alex to school. Nobody knows about him. Don’t you see?’

  I don’t see, not really. I’ve spent my whole life longing for a brother or sister, someone to look after, someone to share my crazy family with. I can’t imagine having one and wishing I didn’t.

  ‘Alex is cool,’ I say in a small voice.

  ‘Yes, Alex is cool!’ she tells me. ‘Alex is cool and cute and funny and I love him like mad. But he’s hard work too, and he does crazy things, like sneaking through here to feed the birds and sit by the statue the whole time. It’s not easy.’

  ‘Suppose not,’ I say.

  Kristina slumps down on to the bench. ‘You don’t understand,’ she says. ‘He gets ill sometimes. He has seizures. There has to be someone with him, every minute of every day, just in case. And if you take your eye off him for a minute and he wanders off – guess who gets in trouble? He’s all they think about, my mum and dad. Sometimes I think he’s all they care about.’

  I sink down beside her. ‘You just can’t keep him a secret, that’s all.’ I shrug. ‘He’s a person. He’s too big to hide.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Kristina snaps. ‘How could you? Little Miss Perfect, with your shiny shoes and your grade A homeworks and your perfect family. I’m not perfect, OK? I’m mean and selfish and spiteful, and yeah, I’m not proud of it, but sometimes my brother embarrasses me. Happy now? How could you possibly understand what that’s like?’

  There’s a silence, broken only by a soft, snuffling sound, and I realize with a jolt that Kristina Kowalski is crying. I unzip my rucksack, dig out a packet of tissues and hand them over. I can hear her sniffing and sobbing in the dark beside me.

  ‘I’m not perfect, either,’ I reply, and Kristina gives a snorting laugh, but I keep talking. ‘Nor is my family. You remember my gran and grandad from Parents’ Night, don’t you? Kind of embarrassing, yeah?’

  ‘Too right,’ Kristina says.

  I shrug. ‘Well, Gran’s got problems – she’s got that old-people illness, Alzheimer’s. She gets confused. Sometimes she wanders off too. So I do understand about Alex, just a little bit.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kristina says, blowing her nose.

  ‘Trust me,’ I tell her. ‘My family’s about as far from perfect as it’s possible to get. You haven’t met my dad, but I bet you saw him in the papers last week – Elvis Impersonator Wows City Councillors. He did a gig at a council banquet, and got his picture taken with the Lord Mayor. He was wearing a bright blue catsuit, sunglasses and more gold chains than the Mayor.’

  ‘That’s your dad?’ Kristina gawps.

  I tell her about Victoria too, and the Scottish wedding scheduled for April Fool’s Day, with me dressed up as a 1960s bridesmaid.

  ‘Eeeughh,’ Kristina sniffs. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

  ‘Because I’m sorry if I made you feel bad about keeping Alex a secret,’ I explain. ‘I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, but hey, I’m a fine one to talk. I keep my family secret too. I don’t want people to laugh at them. I don’t want people to laugh at me. I guess that makes us even.’

  ‘I’ve been stupid, haven’t I?’ Kristina says, dabbing at her eyes.

  ‘Yeah well, I’
ve been stupid too.’

  And then, somehow, I forget that the mud-spattered, snivelling girl next to me is Kristina Kowalski, lippy hard-faced Year Eight siren. I tell her stuff I’ve never told anyone – about Mum, about the drink and the stealing and the night in the police cells, about just how far from perfect my family really is.

  We sit together on the bench in front of the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, and somewhere along the line Kristina hands the tissues back to me because I’m crying now, fat tears of shame and fear rolling down my cheeks in the dark. When I’ve told her all of it, she puts an arm around me and tells me it’ll be OK, and although I know that probably isn’t true, it helps. It helps to know that someone cares.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ Kristina whispers.

  I smile into the darkness. ‘No, but maybe I will,’ I say. ‘One day. It doesn’t have to be a secret, does it?’

  Kristina shakes her head.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone either,’ I promise. ‘About Alex. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Thanks, Jude,’ she says. ‘You’re OK, you are. For a geek.’

  I look up at the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. Her face is still sad, beautiful, marble-cool, but as I sit on the bench in the dark with Kristina Kowalski, I’d swear I can see her smile.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Reilly, you can go now.’

  I take a deep breath in and thank the examiner, and he nods and smiles and writes on his clipboard as I bolt out of the room. It’s over, and it went OK. I am light-headed with relief.

  Miss Lloyd is waiting on the soft chairs outside.

  ‘That was great, Jude, from what I heard. Well done!’

  ‘Think I passed?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ Miss Lloyd says. ‘Flying colours.’

  ‘Well, my scales weren’t perfect, and the sight reading was slow …’

  ‘You passed,’ Miss Lloyd insists. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  I hand her a small package, wrapped in tissue paper. It’s a bag of fudge from the corner shop, not the box of chocolates I wanted her to have, but I’ve made it look as special as I can.