28
MILO
When Al had roared away on his bike, Milo checked that no one was looking and turned out of the school gates. He wasn’t in the mood for going to school any more. And anyway, he couldn’t take Hamlet with him. Milo had always thought that Hamlet would enjoy going to lessons and learning new things. People think that pigs are stupid and dirty and do nothing but eat and roll around in the mud, but that’s only because they haven’t lived with a pig or read up on them. Pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal in the world and they learn things really quickly, like how to play computer games by moving the joystick with their snout and how to turn off light switches. If Hamlet went to school, maybe he’d get so clever he could sit those stupid tests in Milo’s place.
Milo pulled his mobile out of his coat pocket. The contract was still in Dad’s name and the phone hadn’t cut out yet. Milo changed the setting to make his number Unknown and called the school secretary.
‘Hello, Slipton Primary.’
Milo cleared his throat and put on his newsreader voice.
‘Hello, this is Mr Moon, Milo Moon’s father.’
‘Good morning, Mr Moon, what can I help you with?’
Mrs Higgins didn’t use that tone when she spoke to Milo, or to any of the other children at Slipton Primary.
‘I’m afraid Milo won’t be coming in today.’
Hamlet snuffled. ‘Shhh!’ said Milo.
‘Mr Moon? Are you still there?’
‘Yes. My son’s got tonsillitis.’
‘Oh dear, I am sorry, Mr Moon. Will he be well enough to come in tomorrow?’
‘Probably, we will have to see how he feels.’
‘Poor Milo.’
‘Yes, poor Milo.’
‘Well, call again tomorrow to give us an update on his progress. In the meantime, I’ll have a word with Mrs Harris.’
‘Thank you.’
He pressed END CALL and let out a laugh. Hamlet squeaked. Milo hadn’t thought that his newsreader voice would work.
Now he had some time to think about how to get Gran out of Forget Me Not and away from that Petros guy and Nurse Thornhill who was giving her drugs to make her sleepy and stealing her money. But before that, there was something else he had to put right, something that might get Mum on his side so that she’d listen to him when he told her what he’d seen.
Mrs Hairy’s house wasn’t very different from the other houses in Slipton, but she’d done things to make it look posher like put a sparkly silver gate at the end of the path that led to her front door and built white columns by the door. Mum called it The Hairy Mansion.
Mrs Hairy worked as a head waitress in London, which is why she had to look her best. Mrs Hairy told Mum these cool stories about her guests, like this Zulu tribesman who came to dinner with nothing on but a leather pouch over his dangly bits and how he’d wanted to dance with her because she was black, like him.
Milo knew Mrs Hairy was in because she didn’t go anywhere without her red Mercedes. Mum said she’d saved for it for ten years and that she loved it more than her husband.
‘I’ve come to apologise.’ Milo tried hard not to zoom in on the dark fuzz on Mrs Hairy’s top lip.
Mrs Hairy took off her sunglasses and stared down at Milo.
‘I’m Sandy Moon’s son and it was my fault that Mum went off the other day. She was looking for me, she didn’t mean to leave you waiting.’
‘You’re the boy with the pig?’
‘What?’
‘You came in the other day, with your pig?’
On his way here, Milo had stopped by the canal to pick up an old piece of rope from one of the houseboats. He’d used it to tie Hamlet up behind a flowerpot at Mrs Hairy’s gate and hoped Hamlet wouldn’t have one of his squealing fits.
‘Yes, his name’s Hamlet.’ Milo gulped. ‘And he didn’t mean to come into the shed either.’
‘Ah – “when sorrows come they come not single spies, but in battalions”.’
‘What?’
‘Hamlet. I studied it at school. It means that bad things all happen at once.’
Well, that was true.
Up close, rather than from the door of the shed or through her car windscreen, Mrs Hairy looked quite young. Her neck was a bit wrinkly but the skin on her face was shiny, pulled up tight behind her ears.
‘Could you come back, please?’ Milo asked. ‘So that Mum can finish… doing… so that she can give you some more treatments?’
Mrs Hairy laughed.
‘She’ll give you a discount.’
‘Why don’t you come inside, Milo?’
Milo wasn’t sure about going into Mrs Hairy’s house with its big gates and its funny columns, but he couldn’t go home until after school was finished and that was hours away, so he might as well use up some time.
The hallway was built of sparkly pink stone; even without touching it you could feel how cold and smooth it must be. Plastic palm trees stood in pots leading up to the kitchen. At the end of the hall there was a swirly staircase that looked like it belonged in a castle rather than in a small house in Slipton. The kitchen was sparkly like the hall but smooth, black sparkly with glass walls all around.
Mrs Hairy poured Milo some orange juice, sat down on a high stool and crossed her legs. As Milo sat on the stool in front of her, he tried not to look at Mrs Hairy’s legs because he remembered what Mum said about her being half-plucked and he worried that one of them would be really smooth and the other one would be really hairy and that Mrs Hairy would notice him staring and get offended.
‘So, no school today, Milo?’
‘I’m sick.’
‘You are?’ Mrs Hairy raised her plucked eyebrows. Milo wondered how bushy they’d get if she let them go wild like the hairs around her bikini line.
‘I’ve got a bad throat.’
‘Oh.’
Milo nodded and coughed and tried to make his voice sound croaky.
‘Mum doesn’t know I’m here. But I had to come and see you to explain…’
‘Why your mother left me waiting for an hour?’
‘Like I said, it was my fault.’
‘I expected your mother to contact me herself.’
‘She’s embarrassed.’
‘Embarrassed?’
‘Because there’s no money left in the bank and she has to pay the mortgage and you’re her last client.’
There was a moment of silence which made Milo worry that he’d spoken too fast or said too much.
‘I understand, Milo. Your mother told me about your gran going to Forget Me Not. My mother is there too, and it is an expensive place, no wonder your mother is struggling. But that still doesn’t excuse —’
‘Your mum’s living there with Gran?’ Milo mentally scanned through images of the old ladies. And then he got it: Mrs Moseley with her dark skin and the black hairs sprouting out of her chin, she must be Old Mrs Hairy.
‘If it’s so expensive, why doesn’t your mum live with you, in your attic?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not good enough for that.’ Mrs Hairy’s eyes went a bit watery.
‘Why would you have to be good to have your mum living in the attic?’
‘She’s not really herself any more, not since my father died.’
‘Gran’s not herself any more either and when Gramps died she stopped speaking. But she isn’t too hard to look after, we coped just fine when she was at home.’ Milo thought of Gran sitting in the dark all sleepy without anyone looking after her properly and his throat tightened around his words. ‘I’m sure if you tried —’
‘My husband finds it difficult to have her here, there isn’t really room for all three of us.’
Mum told Milo how Mrs Hairy was sad because she didn’t have children and that that was why she spent so much time getting plucked and working in London, because it took her mind off things. So if Mrs Hairy lived in this house with Mr Hairy, there’d be plenty of room. Much more room than in Milo’s house.
Milo didn’t know whether to say anything about it not being a nice place in case it made her more upset.
‘Though goodness knows it’s ruining me. I do nothing but write cheques to that place, all those special treatments she needs. “The extras”, Nurse Thornhill calls them.’
Milo thought about the chandelier in Nurse Thornhill’s flat and the furry purple walls and the bottle of champagne and the drawer full of empty wallets. He hoped that Mum wasn’t paying for any extras.
‘I haven’t seen you there,’ he said.
‘I find it a bit hard, Milo. Visiting makes me sad.’
Milo understood what she meant. He’d thought going to see Gran every day would make him feel better, but the more time he spent with her, the further away she felt. Though he did think that it was sad that Mrs Hairy didn’t go to see Mrs Moseley at all. Plus, if she went, maybe she’d see that the Hairy Mansion was much nicer than Forget Me Not and she’d realise they had plenty of space and that sending her away was a mistake like sending Gran away was a mistake.
‘So will you come back to Mum’s salon?’
‘Like I said, Milo, your mother needs to rethink her approach to her customers…’
‘But she didn’t mean to leave the other day, it was my fault. Please —’
‘I’ll give it some thought, Milo.’
He was Insisting again and grown-ups didn’t like that. But he had to show Mum that he cared about her business and that he understood they needed more money, especially if Gran was going to come back and live with them.
Mrs Hairy walked him back to the front door. Milo stepped out into the drive and then he turned round.
‘Mrs H —’ Milo coughed. ‘Mrs…?’ What was her real name again?
‘Yes, Milo?’
‘I think maybe you should go and visit your mum. I think she’d like to see you.’
29
SANDY
Sandy sat at the kitchen counter eating a Hobnob and flipping through her salon diary. Every page blank, except for Gina’s appointments, which Sandy now crossed out. She barely had enough left in the bank to cover the food bills, let alone the mortgage and the debts on the equipment for the salon. And Milo needed new school shoes and she wanted to do some nice things for him too, like take him to London Zoo and to the Planetarium, some quality time just the two of them, things to take his mind off Lou.
Sandy prised another Hobnob out of the packet and licked her fingertips.
And Andy, sending those bloody baby photos every few weeks. He said to pass them on to Milo but as soon as they came in, she buried the photos in Mr Overend’s dustbin across the road. Andy didn’t get to play happy families, not when he hadn’t got the first clue what they were all going through.
Sandy loosened the cord of her tracksuit bottoms, poked a third Hobnob out of the packet and looked around the kitchen.
She’d banked on some damage, a few burnt tea towels, that sort of thing. But not this: the ash had got in everywhere, dirty marks on the walls, the top of the spice bottles sticky with soot, a grey film inside the mugs, dust at the back of her throat. Last night, the extractor fan above the stove screeched to a halt, clogged. And Milo’s eyes, rimmed red, redder than usual. And the insurance company stalling, saying they needed to carry out some further investigations about the fire.
Sandy swallowed the last bit of Hobnob. She wasn’t going to let them take away her house. It was their home, hers and Milo’s.
She turned to the back page of her address book and found the number Andy had given her for his flat in Abu Dhabi.
She put in the international code, dialled the number and waited.
A few rings and the answerphone clicked in.
Bubbles of laughter.
Marhaba, The Tart’s voice.
Hello, Andy’s voice.
More laughter.
You have reached the home of Andy and Angela, they chanted together.
God, their names made them sound like children’s TV presenters. And then she felt sick. Sandy and Andy, that was hardly any better. Worse, in fact. When they’d first got together, Andy had said, You see, I’m part of you, pointing to how his name fitted into hers. Now the similarity of their names felt like a joke.
And Bella, our Habibti, the Tart sang out.
What the hell was a Habibti?
Our baby girl, said Andy.
Sandy had always wanted a girl, someone whose hair she could brush, a little sister for Milo. When they went for tests to find out why she wasn’t getting pregnant, the doctor mumbled something about fallopian tubes and said that it was a miracle she’d had Milo, she should concentrate on him. And the worst part of it? She had to keep taking the pill to make sure she didn’t fall pregnant.
Leave a —
Sandy took the phone away from her ear and was about to hang up when she heard a voice, not recorded this time.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi.’
‘Is that you? Sandy?’
So he could still recognise her voice. ‘Yes. It’s me.’
‘I’m sorry, the machine clicks in too soon.’
Or maybe you were busy, thought Sandy. Fooling around with that Tart while the baby’s sleeping, I bet that’s a real turn-on.
‘How are you, Sandy?’
‘Fine.’ She dislodged a line of ash from under a fingernail.
‘And Gran?’
Sandy swallowed. ‘Oh, you know, same as always.’
‘But you’re coping?’
Coping? She could hear them now, talking about her as they sat on their sunny terrace drinking cocktails: Poor Sandy, stuck in rainy Slipton, holding it all together…
‘I’m fine.’
‘And Milo?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Doing well at school?’
‘You know Milo.’
‘We’d love to have him over sometime. Have you shown him the photos?’
‘Abu Dhabi is too bright for him, he’d struggle.’
‘Can’t he wear his glasses?’
Sandy didn’t answer. How long had it been since Milo had worn his glasses? And why hadn’t she noticed?
‘Was there a reason you called, Sandy?’
‘What?’
‘Only…’
‘Only what?’
‘Well, it’s a bit of a busy time for us.’
Us. We. It made her feel sick. She bit the nail of her little finger down to the quick and a drop of blood bubbled up onto her skin. She smudged it and sucked her finger.
‘I was just checking in. To see how you were doing. With, you know, the baby.’ The words stuck in her throat.
‘Wow, that’s really nice of you, Sandy. Hear that, love?’ he yelled out at The Tart. ‘Sandy called to ask how we were, how the baby was.’
Sandy pulled the phone away from her ear.
‘Angela’s on top form, a natural mother. And she’s looking great, her figure just pinged back into place, amazing. I don’t know how she does it with all this delicious food around, I guess it’s her fast metabolism.’
Sandy pulled at the raw bit of skin next to her thumb. Fast metabolism. Probably puked it all up as soon as his back was turned.
‘How’s the salon going?’ he asked.
‘Oh, Christmas rush, you know.’
‘The agency’s doing really well out here. Great properties in the Abu Dhabi area, very lucrative, come at just the right time too.’
Sandy pictured rows of white villas perched like storks in the clear, still water.
Andy babbled on. ‘You know how it is, babies are such expensive little creatures.’
She recognised an old nervousness in his laugh.
‘Yes, they are.’ And so are children. And old people.
‘About Christmas – and Milo’s birthday,’ Andy said.
Milo’s birthday, something else she’d have to find money for.
‘I thought it might be nice
—’
The Habibti wailed in the background. Maybe she was turning into a demon. Sandy imagined her sharp teeth clamped to Angela’s nipple.
What Milo Saw Page 13