by Jean Ure
I can’t remember whether we were invited last Christmas or not. Mum was in her wheelchair by then. Everything was getting a bit difficult for her, so we probably couldn’t have gone anyway. But most likely we weren’t invited, cos of having disgraced ourselves.
“Lol?” We’ve come off the motorway and pulled up at some traffic lights. Uncle Mark turns to look at me. “You sure you’re OK?”
I tell him yes. I try to force my lips back into a smile, but this time they won’t do it. I know Uncle Mark is only trying to be kind, but he shouldn’t call me Lol! That was one of Mum’s names for me. Lol, Lolly. Lollipop. Lol was for every day. Lollipop was when I was little. Lolly was for fun. I suppose now that I am frozen, I am an ice lolly…
That is a good joke! Ice Lolly. I wish I could tell Mum, we would have had such a laugh about it together. We laughed at most things, me and Mum. We didn’t believe in being miserable.
Mr Pooter reaches out a paw and dabs at my face.
“Laurel, I told you before, put that cat back in its box!” thunders Auntie Ellen.
The Ice Lolly does what she is told. She closes the box and sits, frozen, staring straight ahead.
“That’s better,” says Auntie Ellen.
CHAPTER TWO
I’m upstairs in my bedroom. My new bedroom, in my new home. I’ve been here four days, now. I suppose I’ll get used to it in time, though it is a bit like living in a foreign country where everyone has different customs and speaks a different language. However hard I try, I know that I don’t really fit in. Auntie Ellen blames Mum; I heard her say so to Uncle Mark. She said, “What can you expect, with that upbringing?”
When she says things like that, it makes me think that I just won’t bother, I’ll just go on being me. Except that if you are in someone else’s house, that is maybe not very polite. Mum always insisted on good manners. It is why she was so cross with us for giggling during the Queen’s speech. I wish she was here! I wish I could ask her what to do.
Holly is standing in the doorway, watching. “You going to get started?” she says.
I’m supposed to be choosing books to go on the bookshelf that Uncle Mark has put up for me. I’ve opened all the boxes, and very slowly, one by one, I’m taking out the books.
“Better get a move on,” says Holly. “Be here all day, otherwise.”
I know that she’s right. But there are far more books than there’s room for on the bookshelf. The shelf will only take about thirty. All the rest are going to have to be put back in their boxes and shut away in the loft. How can I possibly decide which ones get to stay and which ones are banished?
“Just pick your favourites,” says Holly. She makes it sound easy. But it’s not! They are all my favourites. Well, Mum’s favourites. I hate the thought of Mum’s books being sent into exile. I say this to Holly, and she looks at me like I’m something from another planet.
“They’re only books,” she says. This is what I mean about people speaking a different language. “Keep the ones with the nicest covers.”
I tell her that you don’t choose a book by its cover, but Holly says that way they’ll look good on the shelf. “Specially if you get them all the same size, so they line up. It’s untidy when some are short and some are tall. I think you should just have paperbacks, then you’ll get more in.” I guess she’s trying to be helpful. She’s come into the room and is rummaging about in the boxes, in search of books with nice covers that are all the same size. She takes one out and pulls a face. “What’s this, all falling to pieces?”
It’s Middlemarch. I have to admit it hasn’t got a very nice cover, and it is a bit tatty. Me and Mum found it in an Oxfam shop.
“Don’t want to keep that,” says Holly. She tosses Middlemarch on to the bed. Mr Pooter, who is snoozing, opens an eye. “Ought to be chucked out.”
I think sadly of poor Middlemarch, thrown away with the rubbish. Mum was so happy the day we found it. She said, “Middlemarch! I did that for A level. It’s a wonderful book, Lol! You must read it when you’re older.”
I’m not chucking out a book that Mum wanted me to read. But for the moment I reluctantly agree that it can go up to the loft. It still makes me feel like I’m some kind of traitor. Like I’m committing cruelty to books. Mum’s books are like free range. They’re used to being out in the open, where books ought to be. Not shut away in the dark.
“Maybe they could go on the floor,” I say, hopefully. I have visions of them lined up all the way round the room. But Holly looks outraged. She says, “This is where Nan sleeps when she stays.”
I personally think it would be quite comforting, sleeping in a room full of books. When I have my own house I will have shelves of books going from floor to ceiling in every room. I try saying this to Holly, but she doesn’t respond. She’s pulled out Mum’s Shakespeare that used to belong to Gran. She looks at the title – Collected Works of William Shakespeare – and pulls another face. “Don’t want that.” Shakespeare is dumped on the bed next to Middlemarch. I can’t help wondering what Mum would say. But the Collected Works are so big and fat they’d take up almost a quarter of the shelf. It wouldn’t be fair on all the others.
Holly is tossing books like mad, thump thump thump, on to the bed. Mr Pooter curls up into a tight ball and tries to pretend it’s not happening. I try too.
Thump. There goes another one. “Honestly! Is reading all you ever did?” says Holly.
I say no, of course not. But I’m thinking to myself that it was one of the best things we ever did. I used to love curling up on the sofa, cuddling Mr Pooter, while Mum read to me.
“So what else did you do?” says Holly.
I say, “Lots of things.”
“Like what?”
Like listening to music. Watching television. Playing Scrabble. Talking. Me and Mum used to talk all the time. But that isn’t what Holly means. She means didn’t we get out, and go places, like normal people. She thinks that me and Mum were seriously weird. She throws another book on to the bed.
“Didn’t you have any friends, or anything?”
I hesitate. If I say no, she’ll think I’m weirder than ever. Not that I really care what she thinks.
“You must have had some.” She yanks out another book. “Who was your best friend?”
I mutter that I didn’t have a best friend.
“Well, who did you hang out with?”
I hesitate again, then say, “Girl over the road.”
“What was her name?”
“Temeeka.” We didn’t really hang out. We just used to play together when we were little.
“Was she an immigrant?” says Holly.
I frown and say, “Why?”
“It’s a funny name.”
“So what?”
Holly tosses another book on to the pile of rejects. “Mum says there’s lots of them where you were. She says it made her feel like a stranger in her own land.”
I point out that Auntie Ellen is Welsh, which means it’s not her land anyway. Not if you’re going to think like that. I don’t, and neither did Mum, but I know that Auntie Ellen does. Was it rude of me to say about her being Welsh? Well, it doesn’t matter; Holly doesn’t get it. She’s still going on about Temeeka and her funny name and whether she was an immigrant. She says, “Was she?”
I play for time, trying to make up my mind. I say, “Was she what?”
“Was she an immigrant!”
OK. I take a deep breath and say, “Yes, since you ask.” It’s a whopping great lie. I only said it to show that I wouldn’t have given a rap even if she was. Holly rubs me up the wrong way, same as Auntie Ellen used to rub Mum. She’s nodding now, looking smug and satisfied, like she’s scored some sort of point. She picks up yet more books and lobs them on to the bed. In this really condescending voice she says that it must have been hard to make friends “living where you lived.”
It wasn’t anything to do with where we lived; it was cos of Mum not being well. At the end of school each d
ay I used to rush home fast as I could, cos of knowing Mum would be there waiting for me. I’d call her when I was on my way, to see if we needed anything, then I’d stop off at the shop on the corner. Weekends I stayed in so we could be together. Even if I was invited to parties, though that didn’t happen very often, I used to make excuses and say I couldn’t go. I didn’t tell Mum; I wouldn’t have wanted her thinking she was holding me back. Cos she wasn’t! It was my choice. I enjoyed being with Mum more than with anybody. If the weather was good we’d go up the park. I’d push Mum in her wheelchair and we’d go all the way round. Mum used to worry in case it was too much for me, but my arms are really strong. I could even push her uphill. There was that one time, though, when the chair tipped over going up a kerb and Mum nearly fell out. I was so ashamed! I feel ashamed even now, just thinking about it. How could I have let such a thing happen? To my own mum? Mum just giggled. She said, “You have to see the funny side of things!”
Mum always saw the funny side. It is what I try to do. It is just people like Holly and Auntie Ellen who make it so difficult.
Holly’s still throwing books on to the bed. “Don’t want that! Don’t want that! This one’s too big. Don’t want big ones! Don’t want—”
Quickly I say, “I want that one!”
“This one?” She looks at it, scornfully. “Winnie-the-Pooh? You can’t still be reading Winnie-the-Pooh! I grew out of that years ago.”
I tell her that you can’t grow out of Winnie-the-Pooh. Mum and me used to read it every Christmas. It was one of our traditions. “Anyway,” I say, “it was a present.”
“Who from?” She’s peering inside, to see what’s written there. “To Lollipop, from Mum.” Plus a row of kisses, but she doesn’t read that bit. “Was that what she called you?”
“When I was little.”
“Lollipop.” Holly giggles. “D’you know what I call you? The girl that laughed at the Queen!”
Mum and me apologised for that. And I wasn’t laughing at the Queen, I was laughing at Mum pretending to be the Queen.
“My husband and I…” The words come shooting out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“You’re doing it again!” Holly glares at me, accusingly. “You are such a rude person!”
I say that I’m sorry. I don’t quite see what’s rude about it, just standing here in the bedroom, but I’m sure Mum would say I shouldn’t have done it.
Holly slams Winnie-the-Pooh on to the shelf and dives back into the box. By the time she gets started on the last one I’ve managed to rescue thirty-five books, including Little Women, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, I Capture the Castle, Just William and all of Jane Austen, cos she was Mum’s favourite. Holly objects to David Copperfield on the grounds that he’s the wrong size and looks untidy.
“He’s too short and fat!”
For one wicked moment I’m almost tempted to say, “So are you!” But that would be really rude. And she isn’t exactly fat, just plumped up like a pillow cos of Auntie Ellen letting her eat junk food all the time. I suppose, actually, she’s quite pretty. She has this little round face with freckles, and her hair’s bright red and curly. She gets her hair from Auntie Ellen. And the freckles. Uncle Mark is fair, like me and Mum. I’d rather be fair than ginger, but it would be nice, I think, to be curly instead of dead straight and limp. I toss back my ponytail and wrench David Copperfield away from her.
“He’s staying!”
I put him on the shelf with the others. Holly, with an air of triumph, says that now I’ve only got room for one more. “You could have had two if you got rid of that fat one.”
I say yes, well, I don’t want two. I want David Copperfield.
“There’s not many left anyway,” says Holly. She burrows back into the box. “War and Peace…yuck! Poetry. Double yuck! Diary of a Nobody. Yuck yuck triple yuck! Pil—”
“Excuse me,” I say, “I want that one.”
“Which one?”
“Diary of a Nobody.”
“What for?” She looks at it, suspiciously, like it might be something dirty.
“It’s funny.”
“Doesn’t look funny.”
“Well,” I say, “it is.”
“Why? What’s it about?”
I tell her that it’s about a man called Mr Pooter and his wife Carrie. “They’ve just moved into a new house and Mr Pooter’s keeping a diary, all about the things that are happening to them.”
“Funny things.”
“Yes, and Mr Pooter keeps making these really bad jokes, like when he discovers his cuffs are frayed he says, I’m ’fraid, my love, my cuffs are rather frayed. And Carrie calls him a spooney old thing.”
“You think that’s funny?” says Holly.
I have to admit it doesn’t sound very funny. It did when Mum read it out, doing all the different voices. I try to think of a bit that doesn’t need voices.
“One time he’s doing some decorating and he’s got this red paint left over, so he paints the bath? Then later on when he’s lying there in the water the paint all comes off and he thinks he’s burst an artery!”
Holly doesn’t say anything; she just looks at me, like you are seriously weird. I know people think I’m weird. There was that girl at school, Alice Marshall, that I found crying in the girls’ toilets one day, and when I asked her what the matter was she said nobody liked her and she didn’t have any friends, so I said I’d be friends with her and she said what would be the point of that? “You’re just weird!”
I suppose I must be, if everyone thinks I am. I never used to mind, once upon a time; I was happy just being me. Now I’m not so sure. I begin to have this feeling that it might be easier if I could somehow learn to be a bit more like other people. I really would like to be! But I don’t seem to know how to do it.
I hold out my hand for the book. “Please,” I say. “I have to keep that one.”
Holly shrugs. “That’s it then. The rest’ll have to go. I’ll tell Michael.”
It’s Michael who’s going to take the boxes up to the loft. Into exile. Holly opens the door, then stops as something strikes her. “Is that why he’s called Mr Pooter?” she says.
Mr Pooter twitches an ear at the sound of his name. I say yes, Mum called him that because he has a long beard, like Mr Pooter in the book. Well, long for a cat; cats don’t usually have beards. But Mr Pooter is special. He has this lovely fringe of white fur all round his face.
“He’s odd-looking,” says Holly. “And he shouldn’t be on your bed! It’s not healthy, having cats in the bedroom. As for that—” She points an accusing finger at Mr Pooter’s litter box, tucked away in the corner. “That’s just disgusting!”
I tell her, indignantly, that it’s clean as can be. “I empty it all the time!”
“Cats ought to go in the garden,” says Holly.
“He can’t, he’s too old, and you haven’t got a cat flap. Anyway, it’s scary for him, a new place. He might get lost, or run over.”
Holly doesn’t actually say that she’d be glad if he did, but the truth is, nobody in this house likes cats. She grumbles that she doesn’t know what’s going to happen when her nan comes to say.
“You’ll have to sleep in my room, and I’m not sleeping with cat poo! Not sleeping with a cat in the room, either. He’ll have to go outside then.”
I say in that case I’ll go outside with him. “We’ll both sleep in the kitchen.”
“Then we’ll have cat poo in the kitchen! That’s even more disgusting. We’ll all get poisoned!”
Stevie’s never got poisoned. I wish I could have stayed and lived with Stevie! I’m sure it’s what Mum would have wanted. But maybe Stevie wouldn’t have liked it. In spite of being so good to Mum, she really only loves her cats.
Holly flounces off and I hear her thudding off down the stairs. I don’t have the heart to begin cramming all the books back into their boxes. I throw myself on to the bed and rub my face in Mr Pooter’s fur.
“It’s al
l right,” I whisper. “I won’t let them put you out.”
Mr Pooter gives a chirrup and stretches out an arm. He crimps a paw, then yawns and tucks his arm back again. I sit, cross-legged, beside him. What goes on in a cat’s mind? Does Mr Pooter ever wonder where Mum has gone? Does he miss her? I’m sure he must, he was with her such a long time. Ever since he was a tiny kitten. But while he has me to look after him, he is safe. And he will always have me. That is a promise.
I’m still holding Diary of a Nobody. Mum and me were in the middle of reading it again; the bookmark’s still in it. We’d got about halfway through. We were always reading Diary of a Nobody. I can’t remember how old I was when Mum introduced me to it. I think I must have been about eight. Too young to properly enjoy it. Now I know it almost word for word. Mum did too. We both had our favourite bits that we waited for. One bit Mum specially loved was where Carrie and Mr Pooter send out for a bottle of Jackson Frères champagne whenever they feel like celebrating. It always got Mum giggling, so I used to giggle too, though I was never absolutely certain what I was giggling at. But whenever Mum and me wanted a treat, like at Christmas, for instance, or on Mum’s birthday, she’d say, “Let’s have some Jackson Frères!” Then after a while everything became Jackson Frères. A can of Coke, a glass of milk. Even just a glass of water. “Pass the Jackson Frères!” we’d go. It was like our private joke.
Michael has arrived. “Come to take the boxes up,” he says.
I haven’t even started packing them. I scramble guiltily off the bed.
“’s OK,” says Michael. “I’ll do it.” Mr Pooter watches, carefully, as he starts collecting books. Michael looks at him. “Is he some kind of special breed?” he says.
I say no, he’s just a common domestic short hair. That’s what Stevie said.
“He looks like he’s some kind of breed.” Michael pats Mr Pooter on the head as if he’s a dog. Mr Pooter lets him. He is such a good cat. “Pretty,” says Michael. “Like sort of…dappled.”
My heart swells with pride. Me and Mum always thought Mr Pooter was pretty.