by Guy Johnson
‘It’s your new mother!’
I’ll swear that’s what Dad said.
‘Someone to help us get by!’
Della corrected me later: ‘He said microwave oven, and ‘something’, not ‘someone’.’ She’d been quite cross at the time, not sure who with. But I reckon she knew I was right - whatever he’d actually said, it’s what he meant: your new mother.
‘Oh, Tony. Very nice. They’re new, aren’t they?’ Auntie Stella.
‘She’ll help us get by,’ Dad added, nodding a ‘yes’ at Auntie Stella, tapping her on the top, like he was proud. ‘What do you think of her, kids?’
We all said we liked her very much and then our Dad carried her through to the kitchen, where Auntie Stella fussed, helping him to find a place and plug her in.
It was Della who starting calling her Marilyn.
Dad didn’t know and neither did Auntie Stella, who kept having nights over and started wearing Mum’s dressing gown regularly.
‘That’s Mum’s,’ Della told her one morning, in case she’d forgotten.
Her tone was a bit cold, leaving a frosty crust over the atmosphere. Auntie Stella cracked it with a quiet, verbal ice-pick: ‘Was, Della.’ Her voice a subtle, metallic tap. ‘But your daddy gave it to me.’
Della said nothing else, like she’d gone dumb for a bit, struck mute, what she wanted to stay trapped behind sewn-up lips. She didn’t like it, though. Not one bit.
None of us did.
Carry-On-Auntie, so it seemed, had joined the unspoken competition to replace our Mum. Marilyn was the only other contender and, despite initial misgivings from me, was clearly the favourite for the three-of-us. The three-of-us: down from the four-of-us, as Dad appeared to be backing Auntie Stella. She still slept on the sofa when she stayed, but we were just waiting. Well, Ian and Della were, so they said.
‘But what you waiting for?’ I asked several times.
‘You know exactly what,’ was the gist of their replies and I let it go.
Marilyn did have a lot going for her, though.
A timer, for starters – so she heated up our food to the temperature it actually needed. No less – and no more. ‘Ping,’ she said, whenever she was done. Not: ‘Oh, bugger, gonna have to open another tin of ravioli, kids. The little sods have stuck themselves to the pan.’ The burnt meal was a casualty of Auntie Stella painting her nails and not moving the wooden spoon.
Marilyn didn’t get fag-ash on your bread and butter, either. ‘Oh, just rub it in and stop fussing.’
Marilyn had built-in instructions on how to cook different types of food.
‘What tin tonight then, kids?’ was Auntie Stella’s main offering, other than ‘a fish supper’ that she deliciously announced one evening – a dish that spoke of tender flavour and much promise, but turned out to be Harry’s battered best.
People were generally impressed with Marilyn, too. Couple of the neighbours coming round to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ like she was a newborn. Justin reckoned they were getting one, too.
‘My Dad says we’re getting one next week,’ he bragged, but we knew about his Dad. He could get hold of them – just like our dad could - but Adrian Tankard just sold his share on. His family never saw the money, either – the pub did. But I wasn’t supposed to know that and I’d definitely never say it to Justin.
Best of all, though, Marilyn just stuck to what she was good at: cooking. No branching out; no pretending she was something she wasn’t. No pretending she’d make a nice housekeeper. No ironing iron-shaped patterns into our Ian’s football shirts; no tidying away our stuff into the bin by accident; no putting a perfectly good parka coat through the wash and pulling out nothing but foam and loose rags from the machine. In short, Marilyn’s big achievement was not making herself public enemy number one.
‘We don’t need a new mum,’ Della declared, as I sat in front of the washing machine, tears dripping from my face onto the remains of my protective armour. ‘Maybe you were right. Maybe Dad did introduce Marilyn as our new mum. Maybe she’ll do.’
I giggled and sniffed away some tears and snot.
‘Marilyn? Who’s Marilyn?’
‘Marilyn Microwave, of course.’
Another shared moment; another sticky plaster stuck over the wounds that had divided us the summer before.
‘How do we stop her? How do we keep Auntie Stella just as our auntie?’
‘We need a plan,’ said Ian. We were still in the kitchen, sitting on the red and black lino that was covered in foamy lining from my special parka. Ian was stood in the doorway, his feet in the back room. A big grin covered his face. ‘A good plan.’
Our campaign to curb-Auntie-Stella’s-advancement, as Ian put it, took several weeks to work. There were a few facts-of-life – Dad’s words – that didn’t help our cause.
‘Your auntie’s lost her flat,’ we discovered one evening, when Ian asked Dad to explain why a red leather suitcase had appeared in front room. We recognised it from annual caravanning trips. It was where Lady-Muck-kept-her-war-paint, according to Mum. I was certain it belonged to Auntie Stella, but I was quickly hushed-up when I said this in company. I’d been right though, because there it was, full of tights, knickers, bras and short skirts, when Della had a nosey, and no sign of any paint tins. ‘So, I’m kipping on the sofa and she’s having the upstairs room for a bit. Whilst she gets sorted.’
The upstairs room. Dad used to call it our room. Dad couldn’t bring himself to call it that anymore, Ian had said later.
We had all gathered to plot things in Della’s room.
‘How could she lose her flat?’ I asked, acting up all puzzled. It wasn’t like losing your purse. Although, it could have been a bit like losing your mind, and I didn’t get that one either. For starters, your mind is invisible, so how could you know that you’d lost it, even if you could lose it. Sorry for your loss. I said all of this to Ian and Della, but they didn’t really answer.
‘She’s behind on the rent,’ Ian eventually said, and I tried not to over-think that phrase too. I imagined her queuing up behind something that wasn’t really a physical thing. ‘So, her landlord kicked her out. I heard Dad saying that most of her stuff was at his lock-up.’ The lock-up was where Dad kept the big stuff that came in big boxes; things that wouldn’t fit in our front room or under the lean-to out the back. He kept his big van there too, the one he’d driven on our last caravan trip. I’d never been there, but I imagined a big warehouse, with huge doors and lots of padlocks keeping people out. A fierce dog, too; but no one had ever mentioned a dog.
‘What about Gary?’ Della threw in and Ian shrugged. ‘Couldn’t she live with him?’
‘She’s gone a bit quiet on that front.’
It was true. In the weeks that had followed the funeral, we hadn’t really seen Uncle Gary. He usually came round, delivering stuff, several times a week. We’d had no white boxes of any shape delivered to our house since the police had come. Only Marilyn, and she didn’t count because she wasn’t business.
‘Maybe we should have a word with him?’ I suggested, but Ian ignored the comment.
Ian sighed. ‘Look, let’s just stick to what we’ve agreed for now. It might work. So, just play it cool. Nothing too obvious. Just make it look like things have gone back to normal. Like nothing has really changed.’
But that was easier said than done, because things were changing; things were moving on. Not everything, but most things.
Ian was true to his word – Mum had been gone less than a month and he was back to his late night huff-puffing and grunting palaver. Just make it look like things have gone back to normal. But I wasn’t sure there was much normal about making a tent with your bed covers and shuffling about the way he did.
Della didn’t quite go back to normal, because she was still being nice to me; surely that was enough to make our entire family suspicious that something was up?
I did my best to act like nothing was different, but it was difficult without my coat. What I needed w
as a new one – I needed a plan for that as well.
Alongside acting as if nothing had changed, the plan to oust Auntie Stella by playing up a bit.
‘Put her off us as much as possible, okay?’
Ian stopped washing himself, did lots of farts and burps, and left his plate on the table at mealtimes. Della followed suit - minus the bodily malfunctions - and left dirty clothes and wet towels on the floor. Both were cheeky to Auntie Stella and sometimes ignored her completely, but only when Dad wasn’t about. I tried to join in, but found it hard – I didn’t want to blow off all day or let her find my grubby pants on the floor; I felt a sense of pride. So, I tried a different approach – I tried to make our dad look bad instead. I took one of Ian’s magazine’s from under his bed and put it under Dad’s pillow, knowing Auntie Stella would find it there when she went to bed. What you do that for? Ian had cursed, when I told him. Get it back now, before Dad finds out! Following that particular failure, I put a spoonful of curry paste inside a pair of Dad’s pants and left them under the sofa where he was sleeping. This met with greater success. Oh, Tony, really! I heard Auntie Stella cry, rushing them off to the outside bin. I quietly cheered to myself, thinking I’d cracked it – but she remained.
‘Sooner or later, it’ll all get to her,’ Ian had reassured us. ‘Slowly but surely. You’ll see.’
So, we stuck to the plan.
With Mum gone, there were some things that changed for the better - like hanging out with Justin. She couldn’t stop me anymore. Dad didn’t really notice; he had business-to-attend-to most days.
So in the last weeks of the summer holidays, as Mum started to fade away and we quietly worked on getting rid of her unwelcome replacement, I started hanging out with Justin Tankard more and more, and didn’t really bother about who knew or who cared.
Hanging out with Justin meant going into town. I wasn’t entirely sure if going into town was allowed, but I’d never been told I couldn’t go, whereas I was definitely to keep away from the estate, the river and that Tankard household. (Mum’s words.)
Justin turned up one morning, with a towel rolled up under one arm and Tina at his side.
‘Going to the pool in town. You allowed out?’ he asked.
Justin saw me look at Tina and he grinned.
‘She ain’t coming in,’ he reassured me.
I’d never been to the swimming pool without school or my parents before. Something else Mum hadn’t allowed.
‘Not until you can do it without armbands,’ she had insisted.
Ian and Della were allowed to go, though – on Sunday mornings, stopping at the old fashioned sweet shop by the park on their way home, 50p each to spend. I had to stay at home; bored. Nothing better to do than visit Nan Buckley – or Red Nanny as we had started to call her on the sly. Red on account of her perfectly painted nails and her lips that peaked like a heart at the top, just under her nose.
I knew the pool though – through school swimming lessons and watching Della in the evenings, when she did her championship stuff that one year.
‘You still heading for the Olympics?’ Red Nanny would say on every visit, lips and nails perfect like she’d been born with them, a red tartan blanket across her legs, whatever the weather.
‘What’s she hiding under there?’ I asked Della once.
‘Lumpy legs,’ she’d replied with a shudder.
Whenever Nan Buckley asked about the swimming, Della would do one of her faces and Mum would do one of her faces in return, the one that said don’t-let-your-Dad-see-you-act-like-that. There was a rumour that Ian had spoken out-of-turn to Nan Buckley once and hadn’t been able to sit down for a whole week.
‘So, you coming then?’ Justin asked, as I stood there drifting, saying nothing.
Quickly, I got my trunks and a towel from the airing cupboard, not really taking any notice of which towel I picked – something I later regretted.
‘Going out!’ I shouted back into the house, dashing out and racing up the road, before Dad or the others could ask questions or stop me going.
‘Wait up!’ Justin cried, pulling at Tina, who’d stopped in her tracks, stubbornly refusing to move. He gave her a quick yank and they were off.
The swimming pool appeared just as you reached the edge of town. After several residential streets, we reached a long road lined on both sides with car showrooms, gardening shops, and smaller, specialist shops. At the end of it there was a pelican crossing; once across it, you were in the centre. On the right, just before the crossing, where you diced-with-death according to local legend, was the swimming pool itself: a long building with a curved front. Behind it, was a big park – Jubilee Park – where Mum would sometimes take us for a bit. A little further right was the car park that cost-you-an-arm-and-a-leg – from our Dad, who had all four limbs, so I guessed he never parked there. Although, Beery-Dave was missing a foot; when I’d asked him if he’d lost it parking near the swimming pool I got a look that suggested I stop speaking instantly and a clip round the ear that confirmed it.
When we were outside the pool, Tina was still with us.
‘Thought she wasn’t coming?’ I’d kept saying all the way there.
‘She ain’t,’ Justin kept replying.
At the last minute, he left her just outside, next to the bicycle rack.
‘With all the other bikes,’ he’d said, laughing. All of Justin’s jokes were about tarts, bikes and lezzies, as he put it. Sometimes his sister, Sharon, featured in the jokes too – usually as a tart, bike or lezzy; she heard him once and smacked his head against a wall. Sharon Tankard was a force to be reckoned with.
‘Will she be alright?’ I asked, as we went up the steps to the pool entrance.
‘Done it before,’ Justin said with a shrug and then he looked at me strangely, trying to work out what was different about me. Eventually he clicked: ‘Why ain’t you wearing your parka?’
From the minute we were inside, a mixed feeling spread throughout me, sloshing about like too many fizzy drinks in my stomach. There was the thrill – my secret trip to the pool, without my armbands, with no one telling me I couldn’t do it. Then there was the fear – the smell of the place, damp, cold and sterile all at once. Wet pools of water under your feet where everyone was treading, leaving their germs, leaving you their cells, leaving their corns for you to catch. But it wasn’t just the smell. It was the sound, too – the little echoes in the changing rooms, voices running into each other, getting worse and louder as you went through the showers to the actual pool, where the echoes were bigger. It was there that the fear outdid the thrills.
Whilst Justin went to the communal bit, I changed in a cubicle; I wasn’t showing him my thingy if I could help it.
When I unravelled my towel, I discovered the trunks I’d snatched were mustard yellow, which meant they were a bit eye catching. It could have been worse, because at least they were mine. However, the same couldn’t be said of the towel I’d seized. Whilst I had noted the colours as I’d grabbed it from the airing cupboard – reds and blacks – I wasn’t until I laid it out on the changing cubicle bench that I realised it was Della’s Minnie Mouse beach towel. Justin was bound to say something about that, as might any other boys that noticed. Once changed, I bundled it up quickly with my clothes and shoved it in a locker. Maybe no one would notice, and, if they did, maybe no one would really care.
‘You ready?’ said Justin, as I pinned the locker key to my trunks. I noticed him taking them in, looking alarmed at the yellow fabric. I tried not to look at his, but they were unavoidable: bright purple and there was a big wet patch at the front.
‘What you staring at?’ I thought I heard him say and went to mumble something, when I realised the voice had come from over my shoulder, not in front of me. It wasn’t Justin speaking at all.
‘A big fat wanker!’ said Justin and then he turned and walked towards the showers, which led to the pool.
I went to follow, but a hand went on my shoulder.
�
��You wanna steer clear of that one, Scot.’
I realised I knew the voice. I turned and saw Russell Dunbar, a mate of Ian’s. I hadn’t seen him round ours recently, but he and Ian had been good friends for years. I shrugged, shaking off the advice. Justin was my friend, after all; my only good friend.
‘Just watch yourself with him,’ Russell added, like an adult’s warning, as I walked away, following trouble and fear out to the swimming pool.
I felt sick. And I knew that any second now I was gonna get found out. Justin had jumped straight in, going under the water, streaming through the pool surface, and bobbing up with a smile on his face.
‘Get in then, Scot!’ he shouted, but he didn’t wait for me; he just went below the surface again, and swam off.
I sat on the edge, putting my feet in. Taking small steps. Very. Small. Steps.
I knew where my fear had started. I had a memory of it. Bits of a memory I had reconstructed, in any case, as I was five when it happened.
Infant school.
There was a big square outdoor pool in the middle of our school, in a courtyard cut right out of the middle. You reached it through two French doors that led from one of the corridors. The boys had to get changed in the class room; the girls in the toilets. The boys couldn’t-be-trusted-on-their-own, which was interesting, because in our house none of us were trusted-to-be-on-our-own, including Della. So, we had to get changed in the classroom, and there was a bit of staring, and laughing at people’s pants and their winkies, too. Darren Smith had a big skid that Steven Harcourt noticed and that caused a bit of tension and distraction. We were still laughing about that as we scuttled down the corridor, holding our towels, bare feet slapping on the wooden boards of the floor, the girls joining us at the back. Outside, you got grit under your feet, which hurt a bit, unless you had flip-flops. (Some of the girls did, so did Paul Benson, who was tripped up and called a queer by Roy Fallick.)