Sisters ... No Way!

by Siobhán Parkinson

  I tried to reason with her, Alva, I mean. I said Mum needed to form new relationships, and that it wasn’t fair of us to try to stop her.

  She doesn’t need new relationships, Alva kept insisting, she’s got us. We’re relations, the closest she’s got.

  The word I wanted to use to Alva was ‘childish’, but I knew if I said that was how she was behaving it would only make her worse. And I must admit that a little bit of me is on her side. I was a bit shocked at the idea of Mum going away for the weekend with this man she hardly knows. I have to remind myself that she probably knows him quite well. It’s just that we don’t know him so well. And he seems such a nice man. Maybe it would have been better if Mum hadn’t said anything to Alva about it. But the cat is out of the bag now. Mum is too honest for her own good.

  I brought Alva to work with me today, to keep her out of Mum’s way. I introduced her to Mr George – I found out by the way that George really is his christian name, his surname is Chiswick, isn’t it a hoot that he calls himself Mr George? – and said I was minding her for the day. He said he wasn’t running a creche. He can be a bit surly at times. I said of course not, but that she would earn her keep. I put her dusting books in the storeroom. I could hear her sneezing from my spot at the till. Then I sent her out to the bakery for doughnuts for everyone at 11 o’clock and I got her to make the tea. We usually all just snatch a cup of tea when we can, so it was a treat to have somebody serve it up. Mr George complained that the doughnuts were too sugary and that we would get sticky fingerprints all over the books, but he was stuffing his doughnut into his mouth as he said this, so I wasn’t too concerned.

  I paid for the doughnuts myself. And I slipped out at lunchtime and bought Alva some sheet music, Carolan’s concerto, transposed for the flute. She said she wanted to learn some traditional music, for a change. It’s lovely to have money to be able to do things like that. It certainly smoothes things over. Maybe I’ll be a negotiator when I grow up. I’d be good at it, as long as they give me a doughnut budget. Bob always said that a doughnut mightn’t solve a problem, but it made you feel better while you were thinking about it. Bob was dead on in a lot of ways. I have to admit that I miss him.

  Monday 7th July

  I think the less said about the weekend the better. Things were very tense in Dad’s house. He and Naomi were barely civil to each other. I kept feeling that if we weren’t there they’d have been at each other’s throats. It’s horrible to feel like a visitor in your own father’s house. But then, I have to remember it is Naomi’s house too, and as far as she is concerned we are visitors.

  I should point out that Mum and Dad separated amicably. Fairly. I mean, it wasn’t as though there was violence or anything. I think there might have been a bit of a drink problem with Dad, I have to say. But he never got aggressive when we was drunk. He just got slobbery and sentimental.

  There was Naomi, of course. She’s Dad’s ‘partner’ now. She probably calls herself his ‘fiancée’, now that he’s got a divorce. It always amuses me how people use that word to be respectable. But back then she was ‘the other woman’. I like her. She’s a good laugh. She’s much younger than Dad, closer to us in age, really, and she talks to me about hairstyles and fashions and makeup. I never have those conversations with my friends. I think maybe girls today are more serious than they were even ten years ago.

  But I haven’t forgotten that this is the woman that Dad left Mum for, and no matter how civilised Mum is about it, she did go through hell at the time, and basically it was Naomi’s fault, or rather Dad’s and Naomi’s together. I think it is noble of Mum to let us come here for weekends. But that’s Mum all over. She is so fair and balanced. That’s why I feel so strongly that she deserves a new relationship of her own. But try telling Alva that!

  I asked Mum if she had enjoyed her weekend. She said she had a whale of a time. It was great to hear her saying that. They had super food and delicious wine and a jacuzzi. I’ve never been in a jacuzzi. It sounds sort of weird, but nice. She got back late last night. It was a pity they couldn’t have had an extra day. Mum’s free all the time at the moment, apart from her commitments to the garden, which she takes nearly as seriously as other people take their jobs, but Richard has to be at his desk by eight o’clock every morning. I think he works in computers. People in jobs like that seem to kill themselves. I thought computers were supposed to make life easier, not harder, but it doesn’t seem to work like that.

  Wednesday 9th July

  Mr George asked me if Alva would like to work in the bookshop, just covering at lunchtimes, for a few weeks. She’s thrilled. She’s never had a job before. She’s starting tomorrow.

  Thursday 10th July

  Mum is gone into one of her distracted moods again, as if she is worried about something, but when I ask her if everything is all right, she just mutters yes, yes, and moves away. I hope everything is all right between her and Richard. I think it is, because he still rings often, and when he does she’s all of a flutter. I think that’s very sweet, at her age.

  Alva is doing fine at the job. The other people in the shop all treat her as a pet, rather than a colleague. This is not very good for her character. It means she gets away with not doing very much work. She just swans around being charming, and they fall for it. People always do with Alva. I don’t understand it.

  Wednesday 16th July

  Bob came into the shop again yesterday. I was in the storeroom getting some more copies of Sophie’s World for the dumpbin at the front, and when I came out with my arms full of books, there he was, sort of lingering near the cashdesk. It’s quite dark in the storeroom, and when you come out of there, the people in the shop are like shadow-puppets moving against the light from the street, until your eyes adjust again to the daylight, so I just saw this Bob-shape sort of hovering in front of me, all fuzzy and purply-coloured around the edges, like a vision. My heart did a little flip and moved up a gear, and I could feel my whole circulation system racing around my body as if it was in a terrible hurry. I wasn’t sure it was he, because of the shadowy effect, but then he spoke, and my heart did another little flip, and went into an even higher gear. I could feel the books starting to slip, and I had to make a conscious effort to hold on to them. I didn’t want them cascading all over the floor and getting damaged.

  I can’t remember what it was that Bob actually said. It was more the sound of his voice that I remember. It’s quite a gravelly voice, and you can feel it as much as hear it. I bet a deaf person would be able to sense it, the way they are supposed to be able to feel music. He must have come deliberately to see me, because I don’t think he bought anything. He asked about Mum. Then, quite casually, he asked if I would meet him for a cup of coffee after work.

  I put the books on the counter and started to line them up into groups of three. I didn’t answer about the coffee. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to have a coffee with him. I wanted to sit down opposite him and have a good long chat, and I wanted him to play with my fingers as I spoke and push my hair back behind my ears the way he used to, and to walk me home with his arm around me and to wrap me up in a hug and give me some of those wonderful kisses of his, but I knew I would want him to turn around then and just go away and leave me alone. It wouldn’t be fair to do that. To spend time with him, enjoy his company, take comfort from him and then wave him goodbye again.

  I was just thinking all this through, when I heard that gravelly voice again, closer to my ear this time, repeating the invitation to coffee, and I said No, no, quite firmly, maybe it even sounded hysterical, because he just turned and walked out of the shop, without saying anything more, and I was left senselessly shuffling books and counting them one-two-three, one-two-three under my breath, for something to concentrate on until my heart slowed down again.

  I’ve been trying to understand why I broke up with Bob. I like him, and I miss him, and, outside my immediate family, I don’t think I know anyone as well as I know him. But I just don’t wan
t to be involved with him right now. It’s nothing to do with him, really. I think it’s all mixed up with the Mum-and-Richard business. Bob’s just a complication I don’t need in my life at the moment.

  Monday 21st July

  All hell broke loose here last night. Dad turned up on the doorstep at nearly midnight, with Gavin in his arms. I was asleep, so I didn’t hear his car pulling up, but I faintly heard the doorbell, through my dream. Then there were these voices in the hall, and the sound of a child crying, and I gradually woke up. When I got downstairs, there was Mum in her dressing gown, with her hair in a hairnet – I didn’t know she possessed such a thing – standing at the door, talking in fierce whispers. I don’t know why she was whispering when there was so much noise going on anyway, but I suppose it’s a natural reaction when you know people are asleep. There was an icy draft in the hall. I was just in my pyjamas and slippers, and my teeth started to chatter. Mum swung around when she heard that and then she dragged whoever she was whispering at into the hall and closed the door. It was then I realised it was Daddy. Gavin’s face was red and wet, and he had one fat fist in his mouth and the other hand was flailing about in anger or distress or something.

  At first I thought there was something wrong with Gavin, that that’s what all this was about. Mum and I got Dad and Gavin into the kitchen, which was nearly as cold as the hall, with that heavy, almost damp sort of cold you get in a north-facing room at night time, even in the summer. The fluorescent lights don’t help to make it any more cheerful, but it was better than standing in the hall, expecting Alva to appear at any moment. Whatever was up, Alva would only have made things worse. She has this knack.

  Dad put Gavin down on the kitchen table, as if he was a bag of shopping or a parcel, and I noticed that he was wearing his pyjamas under his dungarees. Dad sat down at the table and put his head in his hands, ignoring Gavin, who went on wailing loudly, through his slimy fist. It was so strange to see Dad sitting there. He hasn’t been in this house for nearly four years, but he sat down automatically at his place at the table, beside the fridge. We always used to say he sat there so he could monitor everything everyone ate. Since he left, we sort of moved gradually around out of our old places – it’s a round table – to fill in the gap, and now Dad’s old place doesn’t really exist any more. It’s been partially taken over by me on one side and Mum on the other. He still managed to shift the chair into the old spot, though, obviously without thinking.

  When I saw that Dad wasn’t taking any notice of Gavin, I decided the problem couldn’t be with the child, but he was crying so bitterly I still checked him over for bruises and scratches as I mopped his face with tissues. I took his fist out of his mouth and dried it. He went on bawling as I did this, his mouth hanging open and a stream of saliva hanging from it, like a thread dropped by a spider onto the bib of his dungarees. I wiped it up and dried his face and around his mouth, and then I gently pushed his chin up until his mouth closed. He looked surprised when I did that, and he went on snuffling, but he didn’t open his mouth again, just sat there glumly on the tweed table mat that Dad hadn’t noticed was under him, his eyes streaming and little sobs escaping now and then. His little tummy heaved when he sobbed.

  I reached up to the top press and got him a Kit-Kat. I thought that would cheer him up. It didn’t exactly elicit a smile, but his big round eyes seemed to get even rounder in his big round face. He showed intense interest in it and opened it very gingerly, breaking the fingers carefully apart and then commencing to eat them solemnly, one by one, with small precise bites. It was amazing, considering how carefully he applied himself to the task of eating the Kit-Kat, that he still managed to smear chocolate all over the lower half of his face and get chocolate crumbs down his front, onto the table top and lodged between his damp little fingers. There is really only a very thin coating of chocolate on a Kit-Kat, but a three-year-old can manage to distribute it very widely.

  While all this was going on, Mum and Dad were deep in a whispered, urgent conversation. I was trying very hard not to listen, as I felt it was not the sort of conversation that anyone should overhear. Dad smelt of drink. I don’t think he was actually drunk, but he certainly shouldn’t have been driving, especially not with the baby. It crossed my mind that Mum couldn’t send him home like that.

  I would have made some tea, only I was afraid Gavin might fall off the table if I left him, and I couldn’t think of any place else to put him, apart from the floor, but I thought that was too cold. I started to croon nursery rhymes to him, not so much to soothe him as to make a noise so that I wouldn’t have to hear the grownups talking. I was afraid of what I might hear.

  Gavin liked it when I sang to him. He even smiled when he recognised a rhyme. He’d finished his Kit-Kat by now, and he started to clap and sing along with me, humming when he didn’t know the words. After a while he lifted up his arms, to be picked up, so I gathered him up and we waltzed around the kitchen. Dad and Mum were still talking, so I opened the kitchen door and waltzed out into the hall. The hall smelt of carpet, something you don’t notice during the day. By now Gavin’s head had started to loll against my shoulder, and he had got heavier. His solid little body felt soft and tough at the same time.

  I waltzed into the sitting room. It smelt of carpet in there too. Perhaps all carpeted rooms smell like that at night. I laid Gavin down on the sofa, and I tucked the old crocheted rug that we usually drape over the sofa, to hide the stains and the worn patches, over his sleeping little body. His mouth fell open, showing all his tiny little milk teeth. I pushed his chin up again gently to close it, and he tossed his head from side to side, his silky brown hair slithering across his forehead as he did so, and ground his teeth, but his mouth stayed closed. He breathed so quietly I had to put my ear close to his face to hear him. He made little gasping sounds as he breathed in, but he breathed out on a silent air flow. I stayed for a while, in the semi-darkness (I’d left the door ajar), listening to the shallow rhythm, and then I slipped away.

  There was a crack of light still under the kitchen door, and I could hear their voices rising and falling. I went back to bed and lay there rigid, my feet like two blocks of ice and my eyes wide open. I knew I would be awake for hours and hours, but then suddenly it was morning and Mum was calling me for breakfast. I ran down the stairs, sure that Gavin would have fallen off the sofa and be lying in a snivelling heap on the sitting-room floor, but there was no Gavin there, just the multicoloured rug in a bundle at the end of the sofa.

  Mum looked really drawn, as if she had lain awake most of the night. Goodness knows what time she got rid of Dad at. And how had she done that? She couldn’t have let him drive. She must have driven them herself.

  Don’t ask, love, she said, as I sat down at the table. And don’t, for heaven’s sake, breathe a word of this to Alva.

  As if I would! But I had a quick look out at the front, and sure enough, Mum’s car was in the drive. I could have sworn it was in the garage last night.

  Tuesday 22nd July

  Mum didn’t get up this morning. She’s one of those people who can’t lie in bed once they are awake, so it’s very unlike her not to be singing in the kitchen at half-past seven. She usually calls me at about eight, but I’m often already awake, listening to her moving around downstairs, the fridge door squeaking open and shutting with a soft thud, Mum’s pattery little footsteps on the vinyl, her sweet, rather breathy soprano voice lifted up over the clinking of the breakfast dishes, telling us that she dreamt she dwelt in marble halls, or calling out to sweet Caroline. (She has a funny combination of musical tastes.) It’s one of my favourite times of the day, just lying there in the warm, knowing I have a few minutes still left in bed, listening to those comfortable sounds.

  But not this morning. I woke at about a quarter past eight and leapt out of bed. The house was silent. Alva never gets up without physical encouragement. It was half past by the time I’d showered and dressed, and there was still no sound except the water filling bac
k into the cylinder in the hot press on the landing. I thought I’d better check up on Mum, make sure she was OK. I had a moment of fear that maybe she’d slipped off somewhere in the night. A ridiculous idea, but it was like one of those leftover fears from childhood that still surface occasionally. And maybe not all that ridiculous. After all, she drove off the other night with Dad.

  Her bedroom was in darkness. She has very thick curtains, so even in the summer it’s dark in there when the curtains are closed. But I could hear her breathing, so I knew she was there. I knew she was awake too, because of the quality of her breathing, but she didn’t say anything, as if she was pretending to be asleep.

  Are you OK, Mum? I asked the small mound that I could make out, now that my eyes had become accustomed to the twilight, under the duvet.

  She groaned.

  Mum! I squeaked, panicking. Are you OK?

  No, she muttered. Sick as a dog. Must be a tummy bug.

  Would you like some tea? I asked.

  Earl Grey, she answered. Black and weak. And could you bring a bucket or a basin or something?

  She always asks for Earl Grey when she’s ill. I made it quickly, in the cup, because I was rushing out for work, and flew upstairs with it and a large white bowl I found under the sink. I also brought a towel, a packet of tissues and a little bottle of eau de cologne, which I thought might be refreshing.

  She was sitting up in bed this time. At least she wasn’t too sick to plump up her pillows. She took the tea gratefully, and waved to me to put the other things down. She winced when I drew the curtains. She looked so pale in the morning light.