‘Hey, you’re watering my flower!’ said Marigold. ‘Come here, baby.’
She took the tea towel between two doughy fingers and dabbed at my face.
‘Don’t cry, little Dol. What’s the matter, eh?’
‘What do you think is the matter with her?’ said Star, standing in the kitchen door. ‘She was scared silly because you stayed out all night.’
‘Still, Marigold’s back now,’ I said quickly, silently begging Star not to spoil it.
Star was staring at Marigold, eyes narrowed.
‘Where did all that cooking stuff come from?’ she said, pointing at the baking trays and mixing bowls and rolling pins. The whole kitchen was covered with bags of flour and icing sugar and lots of little glinting bottles, ruby red colouring, silver balls, rainbow sprinkles, chocolate dots, like some magical cake factory.
‘I just wanted to make you girls cookies,’ said Marigold, kneading again. ‘There, I think that’s absolutely right now. The first lot went lumpy so I chucked them out. And the second batch were a teeny bit burnt. They’ve got to be perfect. N-o-w, here comes the best bit.’
‘Are you making chocolate chip cookies, Marigold?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Better better better. I’m making you both angel cookies,’ said Marigold, rolling out the dough and sculpting it into shape. Her fingers were long and deft, working so quickly it was as if she were conjuring the angel out of thin air.
‘Angel cookies,’ I said happily. ‘Two. Is that their wings? Can mine have long hair?’
‘Sure she can,’ said Marigold. ‘And if chocolate chip’s your favourite your angel can have little chocolate moles all over her!’
We both giggled. Marigold looked up at Star, still hovering in the doorway.
‘How would you like your angel to look, Star?’
‘I’m not a little kid. How can you do this? You go off, you stay out all night, you don’t even make it home for breakfast, you crucify Dol all day long at school, and then you bob up again without even an apology, let alone a word of explanation. And you act like you’re Mega-Mother of the Year making lousy cookies. Well, count me out. You can have my cookie. And I hope it chokes you.’
Star stomped off to our bedroom and slammed the door. The kitchen was suddenly silent. I knew Star was right. I knew I should go after her. I knew by the gleam in Marigold’s eye and the frenzy of her fingers and the kitchen clutter that Marigold wasn’t really all right at all. This was the start of one of her phases – but I couldn’t spoil it.
‘Star wants a cookie really,’ I said.
‘Of course she does,’ said Marigold. ‘We’ll make her a lovely angel, just like yours. And seeing as she’s so mad at me we’ll make my cookie. A fallen angel. A little devil. With horns and a tail. Do you think that’ll make her laugh?’
‘You bet.’
‘You weren’t really worried, were you, Dol? Maybe I should have phoned. Why didn’t I phone?’
‘You couldn’t phone. It’s been cut off because we didn’t pay the bill, remember?’ I said, nibbling raw cookie dough.
‘Right! So I couldn’t have phoned, could I?’ said Marigold.
‘Where were you?’ I whispered, so softly that she could pretend she hadn’t heard if she wanted.
‘Well – I popped out – and then I thought I’d meet up with some of the gang – and then there was a party.’ Marigold giggled. ‘You know how I like a party.’ She was doing the fallen angel now, her fingers skilled even though they were shaking. ‘And then it got so late and I didn’t come back to my girls and I was very bad,’ said Marigold, and she pointed one finger and smacked the dough devil hard. ‘Very very bad.’
I giggled too but Marigold picked up on my uncertainty.
‘Do you think I’m bad, Dol?’ she asked, staring at me with her big emerald eyes.
‘I think you’re the most magic mother in the whole world,’ I said, dodging the question.
The cookies went into the oven as real works of art – but when we took them out they had sprawled all over the baking tray, their elaborate hairstyles matting, their long-limbed bodies coarsening, their feathery wings fat fans of dough.
‘Oh!’ said Marigold, outraged. ‘Look what that stupid oven’s done to my angels!’
‘But they still taste delicious,’ I said, biting mine quickly and burning my tongue.
‘We’ll try another batch,’ said Marigold.
‘No, don’t. These are fine, really.’
‘OK, we’ll start the cakes now.’
‘Cakes?’
‘Yes, I want to make all sort of cakes. Angel cake and Devil cake. And cheesecake and eclairs and carrot cake and doughnuts and every other cake you can think of.’
‘But—’
‘You like cakes, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I love cakes, it’s just—’
‘We’ll make cakes,’ said Marigold, and she got a new mixing bowl and started.
I helped her for a while and then took the bowl into the bedroom. Star was sitting on the end of her bed doing homework.
‘Do you want to lick out the bowl? I’ve had heaps already,’ I said, offering it.
‘I thought she’d baked cookies.’
‘This is cake. The cookies went a bit funny.’
‘Surprise surprise. She’s spent a fortune on that kitchen stuff.’
‘Yes, I know. She shouldn’t have. But it was for us.’
‘You’re really a fully paid-up member of the Marigold fan club, aren’t you?’ Star said spitefully.
I blinked at her in surprise. Until recently it had always been Marigold and Star – and then me, trotting along behind, trying to keep up. They were like two lovebirds, bright and beautiful, billing and cooing, while I was a boring old budgie on a perch by myself.
‘I don’t suppose she’s thought to buy any normal food?’ said Star, running her finger round and round the bowl.
She’d been biting her nails so badly they were just little slithers surrounded by raw pink flesh.
‘Who wants normal food? This is much more fun. Hey, remember that time last summer when it was so hot and Marigold told us to open the fridge and there it was simply stuffed with ice cream. Wasn’t it wonderful?’
We ate Cornettos and Mars and Soleros and Magnums, one after another after another, and then when they all started to melt Star mixed them all up in the washing-up bowl and said it was ice cream soup.
‘We lived on stale bread and carrots all the rest of that week because she’d spent all the Giro,’ said Star.
‘Yes, but it didn’t matter because we’d had the ice cream and that was so lovely. And anyway, you made it a joke with the bread, remember? We broke each slice into little bits and played the duck game? And Marigold carved the carrots too. Remember the totem pole, that was brilliant. And the rude one!’
‘And she was so hyped up and crazy she carved her thumb too and wouldn’t go to Casualty like any normal person, though I suppose they could easily have committed her. And it got all infected and she got really ill, remember, remember?’ Star hissed.
I put my hands over my ears but her voice wriggled through my fingers into my head.
‘Shut up, Star!’
We never ever used words like crazy, even when Marigold was at her worst.
‘Maybe we should have told at school today,’ Star said.
‘What?’
‘She’s starting to get really manic, you know she is. Totally out of it. I don’t know what she’s going to do next. Neither does she. She might clear off again tonight and not come back for a fortnight.’
‘No, she won’t. She’s OK now, she’s being lovely.’
‘Well, make the most of it. You know what she’ll get like later on.’
‘She can’t help it, Star.’
Star had impressed this upon me over and over again. It was like a Holy Text. You never questioned it. Marigold was sometimes a little bit mad (only you never ever used such a blunt term) but we must never let a
nyone else find out and we must always remember that Marigold couldn’t help it. Her brain was just wired a different way from other people’s.
I imagined the ordinary brain, grey and wiggly and dull. Then I thought of Marigold’s brain. I pictured it bright pink and purple, glowing inside her head. I could almost see the wires sparking so that silver stars exploded behind her eyes.
‘Of course she can help it,’ Star said. ‘She could go into hospital and get treatment.’
‘You’re the one that’s mad,’ I said furiously. ‘You know what it’s like in there. It’s a torture chamber! You know they put live electric currents through your head and poison you with chemicals so that you’re sick and you shake and you can’t even remember your own name.’
Marigold had told us all about it. She still shook at the memory.
‘She was just exaggerating all that stuff.’
‘No she wasn’t! Look, I can remember what she was like then. And you can remember it even better than me because you were older. She was sick. She did shake. She didn’t play any games with us or make up stuff or invent things. She didn’t even look right, she just wore old jeans and a T-shirt all the time like any old mother.’
‘That’s what I want her to act like. Any old mother,’ said Star. She pushed the cake bowl away. ‘I’m fed up eating this muck. I’m going out to McDonald’s.’
‘You haven’t got any money.’
‘Half my school hang out down there. I bet one of the boys will buy me a Coke and some French fries.’
It was a pretty safe bet. All the boys thought Star was special. Even though she was only in Year Eight she had a lot of Year Nine and Ten boys keen on her.
I thought about McDonald’s and my mouth watered.
‘Can I come too?’
At one time Star took me everywhere with her. She didn’t question it. I was just part of her routine. But now I had to beg and plead and often she said no. She said no now.
‘Why don’t you want me any more?’
‘It’s not that I don’t want you, Dol. I just don’t need you to be tagging round after me all the time. No-one else has their kid sister hanging around.’
‘I wouldn’t get in the way. I wouldn’t even speak to your friends.’
‘No, Dol,’ Star said. ‘You should try to find your own friends.’
So Star went out and I stayed in with Marigold and ate raw cake and unrisen cake and burnt cake until I felt sick.
‘There! It’s been a lovely treat, hasn’t it?’ Marigold said anxiously.
‘Absolutely super-duper,’ I said.
‘I could make some more. There’s still heaps of stuff.’
‘No, I’m really really full. I couldn’t eat another thing,’ I said, wiping crumbs from my greasy lips. My tummy bulged over the top of my tight knickers. I was quite a skinny girl and small for ten but it said 6–8 year old on the label and the elastic made red ridges on my skin. It looked like I was wearing a transparent pair of pants for ages after I’d taken them off.
‘I’ve saved a slice of each cake for Star, in case she changes her mind,’ said Marigold. ‘I thought she’d love a cake treat.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said quickly. ‘She’s just being a bit moody.’
‘She takes after me,’ said Marigold.
I tried to smile.
‘Cheer up, little Dol,’ said Marigold. ‘Have some more . . . No. Shut up, Marigold.’
She hadn’t eaten any cake herself, but she’d drunk several small tumblers of vodka. She poured herself another. She saw my face.
‘It’s OK, I promise. Just one little weeny drink, that’s all. To cheer me up. Only maybe we won’t tell Star when she comes back,’ she said, hiding the bottle back in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. The tap was still dripping.
‘Stop dripping,’ said Marigold.
She tried to turn it off more tightly and hurt her hand.
‘Ouch!’
‘Oh, you poor thing. Don’t try any more. It won’t stop. Star says it needs a new washer.’ I cradled her sore hand in the grubby kitchen towel.
‘That’s nice, sweetie,’ Marigold suddenly chuckled. ‘Look!’ She clenched her fist, turning her finger and thumb into a mouth. ‘It’s a little baby. Sh, little baby.’ She made the mouth open and wail, and then rocked the towel baby. ‘It wants something to suck.’
I put my finger in the mouth and it smiled convincingly and made little gurgly sounds.
‘You’re such fun to play with, Marigold.’
‘Star doesn’t play with you much now, does she?’
I sighed. ‘Not really. She’s got her own friends. She says I should get some friends too.’
‘Maybe she’s right,’ said Marigold. ‘Would you like to have some friends round to play, Dol? They could eat up some of the cake.’
‘No! No, I don’t want anyone round.’
‘Haven’t you got a special friend at the moment?’
‘Well, I’ve got lots of friends,’ I lied. ‘But no-one special.’
I’d never been very good at making friends. I had a special friend way back in Year One at Keithstone Primary, a little girl called Diana who had bunches tied with pink bobbles and a Minnie Mouse doll. We sat together and shared wax crayons and plastic scissors and we played skipping in the playground together and we visited the scary smelly toilets together too, waiting outside the door for each other. I get an ache in the chest when I remember Diana and her soft bubblegum smell and her pink flowery knickers and the way her feet stuck out sideways in her red sandals, just like her own Minnie Mouse. But then we moved, we were always moving in those days, sometimes several times a year, and I never found another Diana. All the children had made their friends when I got to each new school and I was always the odd one out.
Star could arrive in a class and have a whole bunch of kids hanging on her every word by morning break – but she was different. She was born with the knack.
We hadn’t moved for ages now, because the Housing Trust found the three of us this flat. We thought at first they were letting us have the whole house because it wasn’t really that big, but Mrs Luft lurked below in the basement flat and Mr Rowling lived up above us in a bedsit until he died.
We’d never had such a good home but it meant I was stuck in the worst school I’d ever been at, where they nearly all hated me.
‘Who would you like to have as your special friend?’ Marigold persisted.
I thought it over carefully. I couldn’t stand some of the girls, especially Kayleigh and Yvonne. And then there were a lot of girls I didn’t even think about much. But I did think about Tasha sometimes. She looked a little like Star, only not quite as pretty of course, but her hair was blonde and even longer, way down past her waist. I stared at Tasha’s hair when the sun shone through the window and made it gleam like a white waterfall. My hands got sweaty I wanted to reach out and stroke her hair so much.
‘I’d like to be friends with Tasha,’ I said.
‘OK, fine, you can be Tasha’s friend,’ said Marigold, as if it was as simple as that.
‘No, I can’t. Tasha’s got heaps of friends already. And she doesn’t even like me,’ I said, sighing.
‘How could anyone not like my little Dol,’ said Marigold, and she pulled me on her lap and rocked me as if I was a big towel baby. I cuddled up, careful not to lean on the new cross tattoo which still looked very red and sore. I fingered the blue curve on her bicep. My tattoo. It was a beautiful turquoise dolphin arching its back as it skimmed a wave.
‘Make her swim,’ I begged.
Marigold flexed her muscles and the little dolphin swam up and down, up and down.
‘I’ll make you swim too, my little Dolphin,’ said Marigold, and she rocked me up and down, up and down.
I closed my eyes and imagined cold sea and rainbow spray and dazzling sun as I surfed the waves.
Star came back when we were still cuddled up together. She looked a little wistful.
‘Come and j
oin in the cuddle, even though you look too gorgeously grown-up to be true, Star of my heart,’ said Marigold.
‘You’ve been drinking,’ Star said coldly, though Marigold’s voice wasn’t really slurred. ‘Dol, you should go to bed.’
Marigold giggled.
‘It’s like you’re the mummy, Star. Should I go to bed too?’
Star ignored her and sloped off to our bedroom. I followed her. She was sorting through her school books.
‘Are you doing more homework? You’re already top of your class, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, and I’m going to stay top, and pass all my exams and clear off to university as soon as possible. I can’t wait to get out of this dump.’
‘This isn’t a dump, it’s a good flat. It’s a posh road. It’s the best we’ve had, you know that.’
‘It’s the best we’re ever going to get, with her.’
‘Oh Star, don’t. Hey, did you get French fries?’
‘Yep. And ice cream.’
‘Not the sort in the plastic cup, with butterscotch sauce?’ I said enviously.
‘Yes, it was yummy,’ said Star. She looked at me. ‘Look, I’ll siphon off some of the money when she gets her next Giro and I’ll take you to McDonald’s, OK?’
‘Oh, Star, you are kind.’
‘No, I’m not. Look, it’s nothing to get excited about. It’s what any other kid takes for granted. You’re so weird, Dol. You just accept all this stuff. It’s not like you mind.’
Star never used to mind either. She used to love Marigold, love me, love our life together. She thought everyone else was grey and boring then. We three were the colourful ones, like the glowing pictures inked all over Marigold.
‘I wish you were younger again, Star,’ I said. ‘You’re changing.’
‘Yes, well that’s what I’m supposed to do. Grow up. You will too. She’s the only one who won’t do anything about growing up.’
Star jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen. Marigold was playing an old Emerald City tape too loudly while she clattered kitchen pans, making yet more cakes.
‘I hate her,’ Star whispered.
It was like she’d spat the words.
‘No you don’t,’ I said quickly.
The Illustrated Mum Page 4