by Amy Mason
“I wouldn’t sit there,” said Alice.
Ida noticed the mattress was dotted with wet stains. “It’s fine.”
“Really? You don’t want to know what that is. I’ll get Tom, he’s got some bungees in his car. He can take it to the tip. Fuck, he got more than he bargained for when he started seeing me.”
Ida stood up and they both looked down at the bed, until a laugh started to form somewhere in her throat. She could never stop herself when the worst things happened.
Alice sensed it.
“Did you speak to Peter?” she asked.
“Yes, thank goodness. He’s coming down.”
“I’m glad… for you. I know you’re very fond of each other,” Alice said. “He can help you through it all.”
Ida had an almost overwhelming urge to push her sister, head first, onto the nasty bit of the mattress and it took a great deal of strength to turn and walk out of the room.
Chapter eight
~ 1976 ~
The first time the man shouted her name Ida thought she must have misheard. She knew it was a man, although Alice didn’t, because of his height and the long, bendy legs in their stripy tights that came out from under his skirt.
“That lady wants you, that lady wants you,” said Alice loudly in her little voice, standing up on her seat, making the people in the row in front turn round and laugh right in Ida’s face.
Everyone was clapping. Ida knew they were waiting for something – something that involved her.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Unlike Bridie, Da wouldn’t have smelling salts, so Ida put her head in between her legs like she’d been taught to when she felt faint. Everything was scratchy – the red seat on her hands, her white woolly tights, her silky dress, her velvet headband. She tried to think about the scratchiness, to be annoyed about the scratchiness, and not to think about all the people who were waiting for her.
“Ida, Iddy Iddy Ida, I’ve been told you want to come up and see me,” said the man from the stage in a kind of song. The clapping got slower, someone coughed and a baby started to cry.
“For goodness sake pull yourself together,” her father whispered into her ear.
“She looks ill, Bryan, is she going to be sick?” It was the strange lady who’d come with them, a neat, smiling woman who smelled of tinned peaches.
“Ida, darling, my poppet, where are you hiding – watch out or you’ll get a right good hiding,” sang the man and then everyone in the whole theatre was laughing again.
“Right, that’s it.” Ida felt her father’s hands round the waist of her taffeta party dress and she was lifted into the air, her eyes still closed tight, her arms by her sides and her head down. She had borrowed a book about sharks from the library and had been practicing playing dead for weeks.
As she was carried through the air people cheered. And then there were bigger hands on her waist, lifting her higher into the air and a new, kind voice whispering, “Stand up, sweetheart, it won’t last long.” She straightened her legs, took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The light was so bright she couldn’t see at first and felt all wobbly like she often did at Mass. The man took her hand and Ida put her other arm in front of her face to shield her eyes.
“Now, have you been a good little girl?” the man asked in his big loud lady voice.
“No. Not really.”
Everyone laughed, and under her arm Ida could see children pointing up at her.
“What a serious girl. You’re meant to say yes, sweetheart, or there won’t be any chocs. Shall we try again? All together now – have you been a good little girl?”
Everyone said it together and Ida wondered if Alice and Da and the strange woman – Terri – would be saying it too.
“Yes.”
“Well done deary. Everyone give her a round of applause.” The man patted her on the bottom, handed her a Cadbury’s selection box, and whispered, “Go along now dear,” while the smiling blonde ice cream lady walked towards the stage and led her down some wooden stairs and back towards her seat.
“That was bloody embarrassing. Now you have to thank him for the chocolate and tell him how much you enjoyed it or that’s it,” said Ida’s da.
They were walking through the stage door to Peter’s dressing room. Peter was Da’s friend.
There were people standing around in the corridor, some little girls still in the sequinned leotards they’d been dancing in earlier on stage. They had their hands on their hips, were chewing gum and even had make-up on, Ida could tell.
A door opened and there were some long skinny legs in suit trousers.
“Bry!” the man shouted and hugged Ida’s da, while the strange woman held Ida’s hand for the first time. Ida looked at her shoes. She wished she’d stayed at home with Ma, and watched her eat crystallised ginger, get drunk and mouth all the words along with The Wizard of Oz.
“Come in, come in, get yourselves comfortable. Sorry there’s not much room, that stupid Jeanine tart has got the best dressing room obviously, despite being a terrible trollop and a bloody – excuse my French – awful actress to boot. Enough of that, here’s the star of the show!”
Ida was jostled in until she was half under a rail stuffed with shiny dresses and feathery things. There was an electric heater in the corner, the fake-coal type that Bridie said was naff, and a table covered in make-up and brushes and vases of flowers. It was so cold Ida could see her breath and she jiggled from side to side.
Peter walked over and crouched down until he was face-to-face with Ida. She gasped, although she knew that was rude. Although he was wearing a suit and had short, grey hair, there was sparkly blue stuff all round his eyes and on his thin cheeks there were two red circles. Ida wondered if he realised.
“Thank you so much for the chocolate. I had a lovely time.”
“See! She’s a better actress than Jeanine, Bry, and she’s, what, eight?”
“Seven and a half,” said Ida.
“Only seven and a half! Goodness you’re tall. Now you didn’t seem like you were having a lovely time while you were on that stage, but I may well be wrong. And I have to say you look a little scared right now, of me in all my slap. But, your word is your honour, right?”
“Right.”
“Good girl,” he said and ruffled her hair.
From behind his back he brought out a big red flower. It had seemed real on stage when it had gone limp and straight again over-and-over – but now Ida could see it was papery and had wire inside.
She went to touch it and pulled back her hand. The man laughed.
“You can touch it, I’ll show you how to make it work too. You know what? You’re going to be famous one day, sweetheart. I’ve a nose for these things.”
He sniffed the flower and pretended to sneeze.
The waiter had said the soup was homemade but Ida knew it was Heinz, which was fine as Heinz was her favourite. In the corner was a white piano, covered in red tinsel, with a man in a white suit playing it. Ida couldn’t take her eyes off him – he had black hair and was moving his face around so much while he played that he looked like Jerry Lewis.
Alice sat next to her eating a runny boiled egg which was dribbling down her chin. “More soldiers, I want more soldiers,” she said and everyone ignored her. Next to both girls were giant teddy bears with red sparkly bows round their necks and hard black plastic eyes. Ida and Alice were both scared of them but they’d said thank you politely.
“I’ve been gone for more than a year now,” said her da.
“About eighteen months,” said Terri. “It was just after you’d moved into the new house. And then you left… and we met.” She turned to Peter, “I always say we met through the Yellow Pages. He called me to make some curtains for his new place... and that was it!”
Bryan ignored her and carried on.
“I couldn’t stay, she was being bloody unreasonable, and her drinking was getting out of hand. First she sacked the au pair, back in London, because she thought she was stealing. You know she takes these slimming pills? God they make her mad. Moving out of London was a last ditch attempt. She didn’t want to move to Bournemouth but I thought it would help. We met here after all. We were happy here, once.”
“And what about the girls?” asked Peter.
“If I could have taken them with me I would have done. But there isn’t room in our flat. I mean, I think they’re fine. They go to a good school, and it’s better that we’re separated than arguing all the damn time.”
“Hmmm,” said Peter, “you know I love Bridie. She’s a good woman deep down – if she’d write, she’d be fine.”
“Write?” said Bryan. “I don’t know how she wrote that play in the bloody first place. She’s never finished anything else. I don’t think she ever will. She’s not a finisher.”
“I’ll drop in on her tomorrow, we could go to Mass,” Peter said.
“I’m not sure about Mass. I don’t think she goes any more. I don’t think she goes anywhere any more. We’re going to Terri’s sister’s or we could have met you at the house.”
Ida kept her eyes on the piano man. She would not look at Terri with her blue eyeshadow and helmet-hair. And if there was one person she loved in the whole entire world – more than any other – it had to be Jerry Lewis.
At six she and Alice watched Batman in the sitting room under the pink silky quilt they’d brought down from Ida’s bed. Alice had her potty next to her as Ida had sworn she wasn’t going to miss any of the action to take her to the loo. Alice had wet her pyjamas in the night, so was naked except for a red hat and mittens. Ida was wearing a blue towelling beach dress with a knitted green hat she’d found in the shed while playing hide and seek with Da before he left. The girls had wrapped the quilt around them so their bottoms weren’t too cold, but their feet were sticking out which they didn’t mind that much. They were both used to the freezing floorboards and quarry tiles in the downstairs of the house. It made it nicer, somehow, when Ida reached the red carpet in her bedroom – like she was taking her feet on holiday.
The television was black and white with a knob to tune it in. It was very small, which was why it felt too far away to sit on the sofa and watch it. Behind the girls was a low, glass-topped coffee table, and on it was their mother’s wine glass and the half-eaten box of crystallised ginger. It was the adverts.
“Have a sweetie, Alice.”
“Don’t like them.” She shut her mouth tight.
“They’re different ones. These ones are like Fruit Salads.”
Alice kept her mouth shut but opened her eyes wide. Ida knew she was thinking about it.
“But…”
Ida grabbed her sister and put her fingers in her mouth. With her other hand she took a piece of ginger, forced it between Alice’s teeth, and held shut her lips.
“Chew it. Chew it, mmmm delicious sweets,” she was cackling.
Tears rolled down Alice’s face and her cheeks went red. She started to cough and Ida released her.
“Don’t be a baby, Alice, for goodness sake. They’re good for you. Like medicine. See?” She pretended to take one and eat it.
From nine until ten past twelve Ida sat on the back of the sofa eating cornflakes straight from the packet, waiting for him to arrive. Alice had cried for Ida to play with her until she’d sent herself to sleep and was lying by Ida’s feet, rolled up in the quilt. From experience Ida knew that it was best to do something else, to make some tea or have a bath, while you were waiting. But this man was so interesting, so magical somehow, that she was scared to move from the spot.
From where she was sitting she could see the play poster, the one with the wavy-haired girl, which hung above the mantelpiece. Despite all the bad things that the the girl in the play did (grown-up things she wasn’t supposed to know about) Ida wanted to be her more than anyone.
While Ida’s face was rounded and monkey-like, the girl in the poster had a long thin face and a pointy nose. While Ida’s hair was frizzy and full of knots, the girl in the poster had perfect wavy mermaid-ish hair. A couple of months ago she had used a whole bottle of conditioner while trying to make her hair as soft and lovely as the other, pretty Ida’s. Bridie had been annoyed but then, as she got drunker throughout the day, had tried to help, cracking an egg on Ida’s head and accidentally scrambling it when she tried to wash it off under the hot tap.
Next to the poster was the painting of her mother, the one where she was looking in the mirror with her bosoms out. This picture was one of the many reasons Ida couldn’t bring friends home from school. Secretly she loved it though, the big splodgy brush strokes, the way her mother’s skin was made of greens and reds, nothing like the ‘skin coloured’ crayon they told her to use at school. And her eyes were beautiful – black and mysterious as she gazed at herself. Other-Ida’s face and hair, her own mother’s bosoms and eyes – some of the things she prayed she’d develop when she finally grew up.
“Tea sweet pea, I’m dehydrating. Help!” shouted Bridie from upstairs at just past twelve and Ida did as she was told, stepping over her sleeping sister and walking into the kitchen over the cold tiles, lifting each foot high and treading lightly as if she were walking on hot coals.
“So is she thin? How thin?” asked Bridie. She was sitting up in bed drinking her tea while Ida lay by her feet like a cat, staring into the mirror opposite. The reflection showed Ida’s frowning face, long legs and matted hair, but she wasn’t interested in looking at herself. Instead she was looking at her wonderful mother, whose black hair was pouring onto her tatty blue kimono. Ida liked her best like this, make-up free and straight backed.
“Not as thin as you,” she said.
“She’s younger though. How young?”
“I don’t know. Twenty?”
“Twenty!”
“I mean, a bit younger than you, but not much. Thirty?”
“She’s either twenty or thirty. There’s a ten year gap. You wouldn’t like it if I said you and Ally were the same age, would you?”
“No, but you know we’re not.”
“Sometimes I don’t know who’s more grown up.”
Ida frowned and bit her lip.
“Ally can’t make tea.”
Bridie laughed.
“Alright, you’re a very grown up little lady who loves Batman and digging and her Sindy doll.”
Ida tried to laugh but it came out as a squeak.
“Did you have a good time anyway?”
“It was okay. They made me get up on stage.”
“‘Okay’ is not an ‘okay’ word for you to use. It might be worse than nice. Did you have a good time? Give me three words.”
“It was… scary, and magical, and… scratchy.”
“Ha! Now there’s my daughter, you funny old thing. Happy Christmas – come here.”
Ida crawled up the bed and into the crook of her mother’s arm. She smelled of sweat and cigarettes, but Ida didn’t mind.
“Did you like being on stage?”
“No. Well, by the end I didn’t mind.”
“You’ll have to get used to it. Everyone has to get used to it.”
Ida thought about that. She knew not everyone had to get used to it, not ice cream ladies or people in the bank, but Bridie always talked about ‘everyone’ as just being everyone she knew.
There was a knock at the front door.
“Who the bugger could that be? Tell them to piss off, Ida, tell them I’m working.”
Peter stood on the doorstep in a cream suit with a dark blue coat that went all the way to the ground. With his thin, pale face clean of make-up, he was like a normal man and Ida was disappointed. He held a little bunch of flowers and a briefcase.
; “Good morning, Princess Ida of Bournemouth. I come bearing gifts.”
From his pocket he pulled two Milky Bars.
Ida took one and handed it to Alice who was standing behind her, shy and clinging onto her beach dress.
“Oh, thank you, Peter. Good morning – or afternoon. Mummy’s working.”
“Is she now? Well, I have to say that’s a surprise. But a good one. I’ll look in on her for a minute then, shall I? I’ll take her up these freesias.”
“Umm, she won’t like it.”
“I’ll be quick. Open the door wide, there’s a good girl.”
He stepped through into the hallway and Ida felt a bit embarrassed, but mostly scared her mother would hit the roof. She knew it was dusty, and there were empty bottles on the telephone table, two of the reasons she was under strict instructions not to let anyone into the house.
“Christmas festivities I see! Have you had people to stay?” asked Peter, but Ida knew he realised that Bridie had drunk all the bottles herself.
“No,” Ida said.
Peter frowned, sympathetically, and tapped her on the head.
“The queen is upstairs I take it?”
Ida didn’t reply.
“Take my coat, there’s a good girl.”
It was very heavy and Ida struggled to hold it while Peter bounded up the creaky stairs three at a time, clutching the little bunch of flowers. Ida closed her eyes. She hadn’t got a clue what was going to happen. She dragged the coat into the sitting room and sat, listening hard for raised voices, as Alice sucked her chocolate through the foil.
It was almost four before they came down the stairs for good. A few hours before, Ida had heard the bath running, and when Bridie walked into the sitting room Ida could tell she’d had a wash. She was wearing her best beaded black dress, and on top of her clean hair was her wavy hairpiece that slid in with a comb. Her make-up was different to normal, prettier and sparklier, and she was smiling, although her eyes were puffy as if she’d been crying.