We’ve had a busy Saturday. Nearly all of the cakes in the glass cabinet have been sold. One chocolate éclair and one jam doughnut left. I think I’ll ask Jimmy if I can have the éclair with my lunch. ‘Robyn, take table two’s order.’ Edna is in a good mood. She cracks big bubbles, sings along with every song on the radio. There’s another hour before Liverpool kick off, before Jimmy switches the radio station over.
I walk over to table two; he’s sitting there, blue denim jacket, blue jeans. He makes his eyes big for me to pretend I don’t know him. ‘Cup of tea and a jam doughnut,’ he says. I can see my hands shake when I write the order, place it on the counter. I try to think why he’s here. I can’t get him money out of this till. I look over at Mum’s stall; she has a queue. Why doesn’t he join it?
I take him his tea and cake, look where he’s looking. Jimmy counts out the notes from the till. Rolls them inside the blue cloth bag, puts the bag in the bread bin. Dad spoons two sugars in his tea, slow-stirs it. Breaks the cake in half and eats, jam dripping down the sides of his mouth like blood. My neck burns. I tell Jimmy I need the toilet. He nods. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Back in a minute.’
I lock the cubicle, put the toilet seat down and sit. He’s going to spoil everything. I try to think what to do. I need to let Jimmy know he’s being watched, but how? When I get back to the café Dad’s gone. ‘Have your break, Robyn, while it’s eased off,’ Jimmy says. I sit down with a glass of orange juice. ‘What are you having to eat?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Have a cake then.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Are you feeling okay?’
‘I’m fine. Go on then, I’ll have a cake.’
I eat half of the éclair so he’ll stop asking questions.
In Mum’s queue, blue denim jacket, blue jeans. I let out a big breath, pick up the rest of the éclair and eat.
‘Got your appetite back?’
I smile. ‘I’ll have a cheese sandwich, if that’s okay.’
‘One cheese sandwich coming up.’
After work, he’s waiting for us outside. Mum goes into a sweet shop to buy fags. I wait outside with Dad. ‘Fat Jimmy,’ he says, ‘he keep that cash there all day?’
‘No,’ I lie. ‘Some man tried to take it once. Jimmy cracked his skull open with a hammer, blood everywhere. An ambulance had to come.’
Dad looks me in the eye. ‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen the hammer. He still keeps it under the counter.’
‘You could get at it.’
‘There’s no way. I’m not allowed behind the counter.’
‘You’re a smart alec. Think of a way.’
Mum and Dad go to the Stanley. They won’t be back for ages. I’ve taken Mum’s key off the mantelpiece. I knock at Bernie’s to see if he’s coming out. Sylvia tells him to go on a message to his Auntie Jackie’s. ‘Want to come?’ Bernie says.
‘Where does she live?’
‘Ten minutes away. I’ll show you.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Mum’s sister.’
We walk up St Domingo Road, behind St George’s church, to the top of the grass hill. ‘Where about?’ I ask.
‘See that tower block over there?’
I nod.
‘Fourteenth floor, you can see the whole of Liverpool.’
Netherfield Road sits at the bottom of the hill. Cars speed by in both directions. Bernie looks at the hill then back at me. ‘Race you down.’
I shake my head. ‘What are you like?’
‘Wanna race or what?’
‘What do you think?’
We leg it towards the bottom, Bernie looks back, sees me beaten, starts to do a funny run. Legs wide, arms curled like an ape. ‘Come on, slow coach.’
‘I’m scared. There’s a road. Slow down so you can stop.’
Bernie stops, toes on the edge of the pavement, arms out, drawing sideways circles in the air. We cross the road and head for the tower block. The lift is tiny and it smells of pee. Bernie sees me crinkle up my nose.
‘You’ll stick like that,’ he says.
‘I want to,’ I say.
Jackie doesn’t look like Sylvia, she looks young. She’s tall with dark, little-girl hair that ends down her back. It nearly touches the hem of her short dress. ‘Come in, Bernie lad. Let me get you the money.’
I can’t stop staring at how high her heels are; she has eyelids topped with blue glitter. Bernie pulls me inside. ‘You’ve got to see this,’ he says. In the living room there are two armchairs with wooden handles, a television and a round, glass-top coffee table. The window has no nets or draw curtains. I look out through the glass. From here, everything looks like a toy town. A giant could lift up a car, a tree, a home from here and move it to another part of Liverpool.
‘Wow,’ I say.
Bernie looks at my face. ‘See?’
Jackie hands Bernie a ten pound note. ‘Keep that safe for your mum.’ Bernie stuffs it inside the front pocket of his jeans.
‘What’s your name?’ Jackie asks.
‘Robyn,’ I say.
‘Love your hair. This your girlfriend, Bernie?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘We’re mates.’
I don’t like the way she looks at us. Why doesn’t Bernie tell her off? I don’t want Bernie to think about me that way. Like the teenagers in Stanley Park, all kissy kissy behind the cocky watchman’s hut. There’s no way I want Bernie as a boyfriend. It would mess things up. I’ve got enough to think about with other stuff, like my dad. He won’t let me do anything. He’d probably murder Bernie if he knocked up for me at our flat. Right now Bernie’s a good mate; not somebody I need to worry about.
‘I believe you,’ Jackie says, in a sly voice.
Bernie turns back to the window.
Jackie checks her watch. ‘Come on, Bernie lad, shift yourself,’ she says. ‘I’ve got someone coming over any minute. He’s taking me dancin’. She takes a bottle of perfume out of her bag, sprays her neck and wrists. ‘Hold your wrists out,’ she says to me. She sprays them both, puts the bottle back in her bag. ‘Tap them together, like this.’ She nods at Bernie. ‘Drives the men crazy.’ Jackie sees us to the door. When she closes it the bang echoes around the block. Bernie presses the button for the lift. The doors open and an older man in a suit steps out. He doesn’t look at us. His eyes are on Jackie’s door; he straightens his tie before knocking.
‘How old is Jackie?’ I ask when the lift doors close.
‘Dunno, twenty something, why?’
‘Just wondered.’
When I get home there’s nobody in. I put the key back on the mantelpiece, watch a bit of telly, check I’ve got Anne of Green Gables in my pocket for tomorrow. I’m in bed when I hear them come in. I can’t stop thinking about Jackie, living up in the clouds just ten minutes away. I imagine her out in a fancy place, dancing. I want to go back and visit, try on her shoes and her make-up. I lift my wrists up to my face, press them to my nose.
I wonder what I’ll wear when I first go dancing. I want blond hair like Doris Day’s. A nipped-in, belted waist and pointy shoes with kitten heels under a sky blue dress. The dress will have a matching cloak that I swirl around my shoulders. If I’m seen, I can flip it over my head as a disguise. I’ll dance with a man wearing a light grey suit, burgundy tie and a white shirt. We’ll go to the dance in a carriage, a gold carriage with six white horses. The dance will be in a palace in London. We’ll dance all night under a crystal chandelier. A live band will play; violins and guitars. Outside on the balcony I’ll feel his breath on my neck. See his eyes look at me like Jimmy looks at Sue. What would I say when he asked me to marry him?
‘Robyn!’
Her voice like a needle in my head. ‘You’ve left the fucking telly on again.’
24
Nan sits in her straight-backed chair, pulls down the hem of her pinny. I open the book and begin reading. Anne has been invited to a picnic.
Marilla’s amethyst brooch has gone missing and Anne was the last one seen with it. Marilla says Anne isn’t going to the picnic unless she confesses to taking the brooch.
‘Has she taken it?’ Nan says.
‘No, she doesn’t know anything about it.’
Nan shakes her head. ‘Tell Anne to fetch the police.’
I can’t help laughing. ‘The story’s already been written, Nan.’
‘I know that. I mean, the police would get to the truth.’
I read on. Anne confesses to taking the brooch. She tells Marilla she lost it, so that she can go to the picnic. Nan shakes her head. ‘She won’t let her go. She’s got no chance now. I’d rather have a thief than a liar.’
Nan’s right. Marilla tells Anne she’s to miss the picnic as a punishment. Just before the picnic begins, Marilla finds the brooch dangling from a loose thread on her shawl.
‘I bet she gets to go now,’ Nan says.
I read on. Nan’s right again. She loves the happy ending. I turn the next page; even though the chapter has ended I pretend to read on. Something about Nan knowing what’s going to happen before I read annoys me.
I lie, tell her how Marilla only thought she’d found the brooch. When she looked closer, it was a worthless glass one she’d won in a raffle. The amethyst brooch is still missing. This new piece of information throws Nan. She picks her bag up off the floor, opens and closes the catch over and over. ‘Where did Anne see the brooch last?’ Nan says.
‘In Marilla’s room.’
‘Then she needs to get in that room and search it. It can’t be far. Is there a window open in the room?’
‘Why?’ I say.
‘Just flip back through the chapter and check.’
I pretend to find a sentence that says the window was open. My lies feel like the opposite of lies.
‘Got it,’ Nan says, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.’
‘Think of what?’ I say.
‘Magpies, they’re known for stealing from open windows. Shiny things. Marilla’s brooch is in a magpie’s nest.’
I open the book back up. Pretend to read on. This is fun. I tell Nan that Marilla found the amethyst brooch after all, dangling from a thread on her other shawl. ‘Stupid woman,’ Nan says. ‘Needs to get at the truth before she goes accusing people of stealing.’
I feel bad and want to laugh out loud at the same time. You can tell by the look on her face, the truth isn’t what she wants; she wants to be right. Like when Nan told me about my toes. She told me a long second toe means I am going to be a ballet dancer. That’s not true. She told Mum she was right about what things would be like for a bastard. I realize that the truth isn’t as important as getting things right.
I close the book. A thousand times since I heard Nan tell my mum about me being a bastard I’ve wanted to say:
‘Nan, what’s a bastard?’
The book is closed on my knee. Anne-Shirley says things as they pop into her head. I like that about her. I’ve never done that. I think too much about things. If I was Anne-Shirley, just for a minute, I’d say out loud, ‘Nan, what’s a bastard?’
Nan stares at me. Asks me to give her a minute, leaves the room. I feel like I’ve found a new side of me, a side that is something like Anne-Shirley. I hear the toilet flush. Nan sits back in her chair.
‘That’s not for me to say, love. Ask your mother.’
‘I wanna know, Nan. I know it’s something important, tell me the truth.’
‘Let me know what happens to Anne-Shirley in that next bit …’
‘Nan?’
‘Ask your mother.’
‘I’m asking you. Please, Nan?’
‘You can’t breathe a word.’
‘I won’t.’
She tells me my dad is not really my dad, but somebody my mum met on the rebound. My real dad, she says, was a gentleman. He was in the army when he found out about me, she says. When he got out of the army, he came back to marry my mum, not straight away cos he needed time to think. It wasn’t long before he found out she’d already married somebody else. He knocked at the door. I was three months old. But it was too late. Before he left he asked Nan for my name. To tell the truth, Nan says, I felt sorry for the lad.
I toss the book to the floor as if it had suddenly burst into flames in my hands, and I run from the room. I feel like I’ve been punched hard from the inside.
After a while, Nan taps on the bathroom door.
‘Robyn, love, open the door. I thought you had an idea he wasn’t your dad. I thought they might have told you something. I’m sorry, love.’
Snot and tears cover my face. I wipe it all away with toilet paper. Go back into the living room, sit down on the settee. Nan brings in tea and biscuits, puts them on the table by the back window. ‘Come and sit over here.’
She puts her hand over mine. ‘All right?’
I say nothing.
‘To answer your question, do you still want me to?’
I nod.
‘If a child is born without a dad, I mean, if the woman’s not married, or the dad buggers off, or if it’s a mistake, like they didn’t mean to have a baby, then the child’s called a – well, some people use the word …’
‘Bastard?’ I say.
Sunday, while I read the words from Anne of Green Gables, my eyes catch Nan’s. And we carry on another story that’s already been written. The story of how my mum didn’t know that the man she was really meant to marry would come back.
In our flat, I watch Mum light her cigarette off the cigarette of the man she pretends is my dad. And I think about how it began almost from the time I was born, the telling of lies that feel like the opposite of lies.
25
Saturday. It’s gone eight. I wake Mum up. Tell her we’ve overslept for work. She tells me I don’t have a job any more. She got the sack. The boss told her since she started working on the stall, his takings have been down. Mum goes into the kitchen, puts the kettle on. ‘And he told Jimmy everything, so that’s that.’ She takes out a fag from her pocket, taps it on the top of her hand.
‘They can fuck off, all of them,’ Mum says. ‘I won’t set foot in that market ever again, even if they start giving the stuff away.’ She points the fag at me. ‘And you’re not to either.’ She puts the fag to her lips and lights it. ‘His takings have been down since I started?’ The kitchen fills with smoke. ‘Cheeky bastard, they’re all robbing him blind. Four of us work on that stall. He hasn’t got rid of anyone else, though. It’s me that’s taken all the shit.’
I get washed and dressed, eat a bowl of cornflakes. When I’ve finished, Mum gives me a piece of paper. Three jars of coffee. Four tins of salmon, boneless. Hands me the bag with the handles frayed down to the white wire and money for a packet of malted milk biscuits. ‘Do I have to?’
‘I’ll find another job soon.’
I scrunch the list up in front of her face; drop the bag on the floor. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Look, if he gets up and there’s no money he’ll be a fucking nightmare all day.’
I think about what he did to Mum’s face before. ‘Why are you with him?’
Mum turns away, looks out of the kitchen window.
‘Mum?’
She doesn’t turn around when she speaks. ‘Will you do it or won’t you?’
‘I’ll do it this time.’
‘Thanks, love.’
I pick the bag back up.
I walk away, slam the front door hard. Back to this and all because of that lazy good-for-nothing. He spoils everything. If he’d get himself a job then he’d have his own money for ale. I don’t mind getting stuff for Sylvia, that’s different because I know it’s important; she asks me to get stuff she needs. When they sell this stuff, the money will be spent in the betting shop and the Stanley, then get pissed up the wall. I won’t do this again. I’m never doing this again.
‘Maybe there are jobs on Greaty,’ I say to Mum when I get ba
ck.
‘Doubt it.’
I tell Mum I’m taking a walk down the grass hill to Netherfield Road, and on to Great Homer Street. Mum nods at me. ‘Stay away from that old bastard’s flat,’ she says. ‘Don’t want her knowing my business.’
It feels wrong being in the market when I should be in Jimmy’s Café. At least I never went near his till, so I can’t get the blame for taking any of his money. ‘Any jobs, mate?’ I say at least fifty times. I even try the smelly fish stall. They’re nice to me. Shake their heads and say, sorry, love. Mum’s right. Most of them already have kids serving.
The market is packed. Outside the chippy, men eat from trays with plastic forks holding it all away from their red and white scarves. I follow them along Great Homer Street towards Anfield. I stand close to them outside Liverpool’s football ground and look for my real dad. Nan told me he was a red-hot Liverpool supporter when she knew him. He had a season ticket and went to the match with his brother. He had dark hair like mine and he wore glasses. Nan said he was a gentleman. Maybe he looks like John Steed out of The Avengers? I smile. Nobody in the queue wears a bowler hat.
On stalls smaller than the market ones, men sell scarves and rattles and badges. Kids queue up with rattles that they shake until my head feels like it’s going to split in two. It smells like the market, hot dogs and onions, pink candyfloss on a stick. I can’t stop thinking about my dad. Bit by bit, I have put together a picture of him in my head. And now I see his face everywhere. It changes all the time. Any dark-haired man with glasses that passes me could be him. I stand by the gate and wait. Hope he will see something of himself in my face, something that will help him remember me.
Nan said he always brought her two bottles of Guinness when he came to take my mum out on a date. He would laugh and joke with her, even ask her to follow them to the Stanley with Nellie for the last hour. ‘You don’t get many like him,’ Nan said. ‘I opened the front door to your real dad when he came back to marry your mother. I shouted down the lobby for her to come to the door. She screamed when she saw him. Screamed again when he asked to marry her. Then that lazy good-for-nothing appeared from the living room and told him to get lost because you were his kid now. He’d done it all legal. There was a fist fight outside on the landing. But in the end, there was nothing he could do. He didn’t even get to see you. Somebody told me he moved away after that, to Speke.’
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