What Milo Saw

by Virginia MacGregor

  Tripi had never seen a grown woman cry like this, big, fat tears. Her whole body heaved, streams of mascara ran down her cheeks. She had got dressed up, she had wanted to make Milo happy and now she was crying and it was his fault.

  He stepped forward and folded her into his arms. Her muscles relaxed and her body sank into his chest.

  ‘It is okay,’ he said, smoothing down the back of her head. He placed his fingers at the nape of her neck and stroked the loose strands of hair. ‘It will all be okay.’

  She lifted her head to him, her eyes swollen, the tip of her nose red from the cold, and then she reached up and kissed him.

  He closed his eyes and felt her lips and, for a moment, the world fell away.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw a smile coming through the streaks of her tears.

  Tripi rocked backwards, his heart swelling.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Okay, let us get going. We might find Petros on our way out of town.’

  They walked across the grass to the house, Tripi holding Sandy steady as her heels sank into the soft grass.

  Before they went back into the kitchen, he looked over his shoulder at the shed: Milo’s face peered out of the small window.

  Every seat in the bus was taken, the air full of old ladies’ perfume, rose and lavender and soap. With Mrs Swift as an apprentice, Sandy had done their hair and their make-up.

  Mrs Zimmer had stayed awake long enough to get onto the bus.

  Nurse Heidi had rescued Mrs Sharp’s iPad from Nurse Thornhill’s confiscation box so now she could play Angry Birds all the way to London.

  They were excited that they might be on the news, especially Mrs Turner who said she would show the cameras all the food she had stored in her pockets and Mrs Foxton who thought that maybe she could ask The British Public whether they’d seen anyone throw that brick into her conservatory.

  As for Mrs Wong, she knew for sure that there’d be Chinese restaurants in London and that meant rice.

  Above the bus an old man stood whistling at his window and for some reason, Mrs Moseley recognised the tune and joined in. She had not stopped smiling since she left Forget Me Not.

  Sandy switched on the ignition, her small plump body lost behind the steering wheel.

  ‘You are sure you are happy to drive?’ asked Tripi.

  She looked at Tripi as Ayishah had whenever he had said something stupid. Sandy pressed on the accelerator and the bus lurched down the road.

  62

  MILO

  Milo stepped out of the shed. The whole house was dark now, even Gran’s room. He looked up and zoomed in on the full moon and felt like he had to say sorry to it: he’d wished it into existence and now here it was, ready for the big night, and he’d given up. But he couldn’t go to the awards ceremony, could he? Not after all the lies. Even Gran had lied. She hadn’t told him that she started the fire on purpose. She hadn’t said she didn’t want him looking after her any more.

  And then Tripi kissing Mum, right there in their back garden.

  He’d trusted Tripi – he was meant to be Milo’s friend, not Mum’s. But now Milo realised that Tripi probably only came back from London for her: because he wanted to grab her titties, like Big Mike with Lalana and Dad with his Tart and Petros with Gran. When he was older Milo wasn’t ever going to kiss anyone or have a girlfriend or get married.

  After what happened at school, Milo should have known that the day would end badly.

  And then when he got home he heard Mum talking on the phone to Dad and all the lies she’d been storing up and that made his day even worse.

  Maybe he could run away and live like Tripi with nothing but a sleeping bag and a backpack. He could work in a kitchen doing the washing up to earn money for tea and Fluff on toast.

  Or maybe his eyes would suddenly get worse, quicker than anyone expected and he wouldn’t be able to see anything any more, not even the tiniest pinhole, and then the world would be black and he could pretend it wasn’t there.

  Milo heard footsteps on the pavement outside the house and then saw someone walking towards him across the grass. A man wearing a yellow cap, a big black and white lump in his arms.

  ‘Milo?’

  Milo stepped back towards the shed.

  ‘Milo, look what I found.’ Petros came and stood in front of him and held out Hamlet. ‘He is very heavy. Here, take him.’ He dropped Hamlet into Milo’s arms and Milo nearly fell over backwards from the weight of him.

  Hamlet snuffled and grunted and rubbed his wet snout against Milo’s chin. Milo held him in tight against his chest and buried his face into his fur and sighed into it. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ he said over and over. ‘But you came back. You came back.’ He breathed in the scent of Hamlet’s skin: he smelt of earth and leaves and of the night sky; he even, Milo thought, smelt of the bright sharp moon looking down on them. ‘You came back,’ he said again, his voice all choked up.

  ‘He has been looking for you. I found him in the park, he told me you liked the park and that you would come and find him there.’

  Milo didn’t believe Petros: Hamlet wouldn’t speak to him, not in a million years.

  ‘So, are you ready to go?’

  ‘They left without us,’ said Milo.

  ‘I know.’ Petros held up Milo’s phone. ‘Al gave me this before he went to his office. He called me to ask where I was and I said I was busy and not to say anything to Lou or Sandy or Tripi.’

  ‘You went out looking for Hamlet?’

  Petros nodded.

  ‘You said that pigs were only good for salami.’

  Petros laughed from his belly. ‘Well, maybe I was wrong, or maybe some pigs are different, like your Hamlet, though he has got so fat that he would make very good salami…’

  Milo didn’t like Petros’s jokes, though he had a point: Hamlet was getting fat, much fatter than the pictures of fully-grown teacup pigs on the internet. Milo had asked Dad for Hamlet’s birth certificate, like it said you should do on the website, so that you can be confident that the teacup pig has come from a good litter, but Dad had laughed and said it wasn’t necessary.

  Petros gave Hamlet a little rub behind his black ear. ‘So, are you coming, Milo?’

  ‘We can’t go – I told you, they’ve left.’

  ‘Ah, but I have a much better means of transportation than a bus, Milo.’

  Milo didn’t like that Petros just assumed he was coming when he hadn’t even made up his mind about whether he wanted to go or not.

  ‘Come with me. You can bring Hamlet if you like.’

  Petros walked across the grass to the gate.

  ‘Are you still marrying Gran?’ Milo called after him.

  Petros stopped and turned round. ‘With your permission, Milo, that would make me very happy, yes.’

  Milo looked at Hamlet and then up at the moon and then back at Petros and he thought how Petros wasn’t nearly as handsome as Great-Gramps in his army uniform. But Petros made Gran happy, didn’t he? And Gran wouldn’t let just anyone make her happy, especially as she still loved Great-Gramps. Plus, she must have asked Great-Gramps about it.

  ‘How are we getting to London, then?’ asked Milo.

  Milo hadn’t felt so car-sick in all his life. Lurching forwards and backwards, getting pressed up against the door when the car veered around sharp bends, the clunk of speed bumps, the starting and stopping and the rattling of the old engine and the smell of petrol and exhaust fumes.

  ‘How old’s this car anyway?’ asked Milo.

  He’d walked past the rusty Volvo a thousand times but he’d never thought Mr Overend could drive it.

  ‘Probably as old as me!’ Mr Overend laughed and swerved down a side road.

  The dream he’d had last night. Mr Overend helping him find Hamlet. Mr Overend coming to the rescue. It had been pointing to this moment.

  With his slippers on, Mr Overend didn’t have a proper grip of the pedals and so he kept missing the brake and pressing the accelerat
or instead.

  Milo made sure the seatbelt was still secure over Hamlet and then gripped the door handle.

  Dad used to complain about old people driving. He said that once someone got over seventy the government should make them re-sit their driving test every few years. At the time it had made Milo laugh, thinking about all those old people whizzing around in driving school cars with the big L plates on the back, but maybe Dad had a point.

  As they stopped at the traffic lights, people glanced into the car: they stared at Mr Overend in his PJs and at Milo holding Hamlet in the passenger seat and at Petros with his yellow cap in the back seat.

  What if a policeman walked by and arrested them for looking weird and threw them into a mental home? Milo had seen this film where that happened and the more the people who got locked up tried to persuade the doctors and the nurses and the police that they were sane, the crazier they sounded and the more people thought they really were mad and in the end they went properly crazy from staying in the mental home with all the other crazy people and they had to stay there for ever and have their brains zapped by electrodes.

  ‘We’re here!’ Mr Overend pulled up behind the Slipton Primary minibus parked in the disabled bay outside The Prince Albert Hotel.

  It turned out Mr Overend used to be a London cabbie and knew the roads better than an A-Z. He told Milo and Petros how London cabbies were the cleverest people in the world and that it had been proven that they had bigger brains than normal people because they had to remember everything in 3D, except that had changed now because of satnav so the cabbies were as thick as everyone else. And some of the roads and roundabouts and road signs had changed since Mr Overend last drove around London too.

  Milo climbed out of the car with Hamlet and Petros, and Mr Overend said he would drive the car back to Crescent Way and that he looked forward to hearing all about what happened to Nurse Thornhill. Before he left he handed Milo an envelope of photographs.

  ‘They are of your baby sister,’ he said. ‘I found them in my dustbin.’

  ‘Photos of my sister?’

  Mr Overend nodded. ‘She looks like you, Milo.’

  Milo tucked the photos into his pocket. He would look at them later and work out why they’d ended up in Mr Overend’s dustbin.

  63

  MILO

  The old women from Forget Me Not filled the lobby of The Prince Albert Hotel. They looked almost normal in their frilly dresses with their make-up and their hair done in tight buns or curls, though most of them still wore their slippers, like Mr Overend. And Mrs Moseley still smelt of wee but she looked happier than she did at Forget Me Not. She stood at the window waving at Mr Overend with her cane as he did a three-point turn in the middle of the main road. Cars whooshed past and honked and people poked their heads out of their windows and yelled at him: Get out of the road, Grandad! But Mr Overend just grinned and so did Mrs Moseley. Maybe Gran and Petros and Mr Overend and Mrs Moseley could have a double wedding.

  So this was the plan: as soon as the guy on stage announced the prize and the techie people switched on the film, Gran, Mrs Moseley, Mrs Zimmer, Mrs Swift, Mrs Sharp, Mrs Foxton, Mrs Wong and Petros would burst through the back doors and point to Nurse Thornhill and they’d all shout something that Milo hadn’t worked out yet, because he’d planned to think of it before he decided to stay in the shed and since then he’d forgotten.

  It took a while for them to notice Milo, but then Hamlet squealed and everyone turned round and Hamlet did his business on the floor of the lobby and the hotel staff went mental, but it didn’t matter because Gran came over and gave Milo a hug. Even though she walked really slowly and her face looked lopsided, as he stood there wrapped up in her arms smelling her apricot skin, Milo felt that maybe everything might be okay after all.

  ‘Quick, Milo, they’re about to make the announcement.’ Petros came over and stretched out his arms for Hamlet. ‘I’ll look after your little pig.’

  Milo clung onto Hamlet.

  ‘We’re friends now, aren’t we, Hamlet?’ said Petros, rubbing behind Hamlet’s white ear. Hamlet wriggled and didn’t look convinced but Milo handed him over all the same.

  Mum poked her head round the door of the conference room and waved at Milo to come over.

  Gran squeezed Milo’s hand. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Be brave.’

  Milo liked the sound of Gran’s voice. And he liked that soon she’d be back home and he’d get to hear it more and more. They wouldn’t have to write everything down any more, they could have proper conversations.

  Milo didn’t know where to look. So many people all crammed together, rows and rows of chairs, a platform full of grown-ups in suits and robes.

  The swirly red bits on the carpet made Milo feel dizzy and the ceiling felt too low and there weren’t any windows.

  He tugged at the collar of his orange sweatshirt.

  Tripi came over and rubbed Milo’s shoulders. ‘I am glad you came, my friend.’

  Milo nodded, though he couldn’t look him in the eye, not with that picture still in his head of Tripi standing in the back garden kissing Mum.

  He turned to Tripi. ‘Did you give the sound people the new film?’

  ‘Of course. We are a team now, Milo, I would never let you down. Nurse Thornhill is in for a surprise.’

  ‘Shhh!’ said a woman with fuzzy purple-grey hair sitting at the back.

  Milo looked at Mum in her orange dress and thought about how pretty she looked and about the hug they’d had last night in the shed, and all the bad thoughts melted away. He went up to her and put his arms around her waist. ‘You look beautiful, Mum,’ he said.

  ‘Had to look the part for your special day, Milo,’ she said and bent her head over his and squeezed him tight.

  Mum, Tripi and Milo took their seats.

  ‘And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for,’ said a guy with a black gown and loads of gold medals round his neck. ‘Drum roll, please,’ he said, except there wasn’t a drum roll, just people fidgeting in their seats and coughing and sniffing and waiting.

  The pictures of three nurses came up on the screen behind him: Nurse Thornhill in the middle with her wrinkles ironed out, though with the same stuck-on smile.

  ‘In third place…’ The medallion guy opened a gold envelope like at the Oscars and read out the name: ‘Miss Theresa Bone from Bird’s Eye View Home for the Elderly.’

  Milo thought Bird’s Eye was a type of fish finger.

  There were gasps and claps and a woman shuffled out of the front row. She smiled but you could tell it was pretend smiling because her lips were too tight. Milo thought it must be hard to come third when you’d hoped to come first and to have everyone stare at you while you went up and got an award you didn’t really want.

  ‘We’re getting closer now,’ said medallion guy. ‘In second place…’ He yanked at the envelope. ‘Daphne’s been using superglue on these things,’ he said and laughed. Daphne must be his secretary. Maybe medallion man had slept with her like Dad slept with his Tart. ‘In second place… Nurse Thornhill from Forget Me Not, Slipton.’

  Milo looked at Mum and then at Tripi. Their faces froze. And then he looked back to the front of the room and saw Nurse Thornhill getting up and her stuck-on smile was worse than ever, and her face went as red as the swirls on the carpet and he nearly felt sorry for her before he realised that their plan had been blown out of the water.

  You’re the horse everyone’s backing, that’s what the bald inspector guy had said on Tuesday. No one’s as good as you, Ruth. He even winked at her.

  Milo had to do something.

  ‘Tripi, go to the sound and lighting deck and tell them to play the film.’

  ‘But they won’t listen to me…’

  ‘Yes, they will. Just tell them how horrible she is and if they refuse, say you’ll give them some money.’

  ‘Milo…’ started Mum.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum, once they’ve seen the film they’ll forget about the mo
ney.’ Tripi knocked into people’s knees, stumbled out into the gangway and disappeared through the back doors.

  ‘Mum, get everyone ready in the lobby.’

  ‘Milo… are you sure?’

  ‘You wanted me to do this, right? That’s what you said back home, outside the shed?’

  Mum put the nail of her small finger in her mouth and then nodded and followed Tripi through the back doors.

  Milo took a deep breath and stepped forward.