Being Me

by Pete Kalu

  ‘Tony, you must stop teasing your sister like that. She has temper issues,’ Mum says, ‘Your teasing her doesn’t help.’

  ‘I do not have temper issues,’ I tell Mum. She ignores me.

  ‘Sorry,’ MTB says meekly to Mum. He blows me a silent raspberry as Mum moves a pillow to prop herself up with.

  ‘Mum?’ I say, fingering the bruise on her cheekbone.

  She traces the bruise with me. ‘It was the kitchen cupboard. When I get drunk, I bang my head on things.’ She shifts her pillows again. ‘Tony, what happened between me and your father had nothing to do with your sister’s sponsorship thing. That wasn’t ... that didn’t ... that isn’t...’

  Mum’s shaking her head side to side. She opens her eyes again as I pat her hand. ‘The thing is...’ She swallows. ‘Your dad’s having an affair.’

  MTB cuts Mum’s tears off. ‘Again?’ he says, sarcastically.

  I’m thinking, so Mum knows about Dad’s affair. I suppose that’s good. I look suitably shocked. ‘Who with?’ I ask.

  ‘What does it matter who with?’ snaps Mum.

  Now I know that Mum does not know that it’s with my best friend’s mum.

  ‘He admitted it,’ Mum continues, ‘so we had a discussion and we agreed that him moving out was the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘C’mon, Mum,’ MTB cuts in. ‘You had a blazing row, he admitted he’d been shagging this Bimbo for the last two months. You asked for his phone to check, he wouldn’t give it you so you chucked your wedding ring at him, he threw the swan at you and you threw the picture at him. You called him boring and he called you ugly and struck you across the face. Then he stormed out.’

  ‘Tony, I’ve told you before not to eavesdrop on your father and my conversations.’

  ‘It was ninety decibels, Mum. They heard you in France.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Mum says, ‘what happened’s happened. There’s no going back... I can’t find my medication. Did I take it already? Have you both done your homework? Your uniforms ... Adele, you’ve got split ends, dear.’

  She has been examining my hair as she says all this. MTB’s eyes flick with worry at me because Mum’s rambling. I shake my head to him to say ‘don’t worry’. He kisses Mum, almost on the bruise. She strokes his hand. Then it’s just me and Mum.

  ‘Did you have a nice time at ... at ... at ...?’ asks Mum.

  I’m impressed she remembers.

  I nod.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, Adele, about what I said. I didn’t mean it.’

  She sniffs my hair and lets out a little sob.

  ‘It’s OK, Mum. Do you need your medicine?’

  ‘I ... I think I took it already.’

  ‘Water?’

  She strokes my face. ‘You so look like your dad at times. I wonder where he’s gone,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t let Dad get away with it this time,’ I tell her, Anthony’s right, he’s done it too often.’

  For a brief moment Mum’s face hardens. ‘I told him to go be with his frigging fancy woman!’ she spits. Then her anger fades and something like fear takes over. ‘She’ll be pretty,’ Mum says, ‘very pretty... He’ll have booked into a hotel. He’s had work pressures. Something about Turkey. I think he might be having a breakdown actually. I hope he’s alright. He used to compliment me. ... I do have crows’ feet around my eyes ... I need Botox. And a boob job.’

  ‘Stop it, Mum, you’re not ugly. And Dad is boring.’

  ‘He wasn’t always boring, Adele. We used to go to parties together. He’d dance so wild and beautiful. Expressive. Everyone would be in a circle, cheering him on. He was hot then. We were the hot couple. Nobody did the clubs the way me and your dad did the clubs... Back then they played music you could dance to. Disco music.’

  Mum gets up and starts to dance in the room. It’s more Middle East dancing than disco, but that’s because of the drugs, I guess. I take her hands and we dance like this. It’s the first time we’ve danced together in ages and it feels good, even though she’s off her head and will never remember it.

  ‘I was a rock chick,’ Mum mumbles. ‘A dancer in a nightclub. I was paid to dance. I danced and other people came on and danced and filled the floor ... I got the party going. It’s how I met your dad.’

  ‘Show me your moves, Mum.’

  ‘I will one day, just you wait. It was none of this booty-shaking you do nowadays. It was all in the hands and the footwork.’

  Mum tries a fancy move, I think it was meant to be a spin, but she stumbles. I steady her, guide her back to the bed and prop her back up with pillows. She waves away the water I offer her. ‘I was good you know. A very sexy dancer.’

  ‘Of course you were, Mum.’

  ‘I was ...’ She starts a tuneful mumbling, making up nonsense lyrics. ‘“Disco queen ... see a thousand me’s spinning in that disco ball ... “See that girl ... she could dance...”’

  As Mum half-talks, half-sings, her eyes get hazier and hazier until she slides off the stack of pillows and falls asleep.

  I pull a cover over her then tiptoe out. MTB’s got his music blasting. When I get downstairs, I put the coffee table back together again and sweep up the flower picture glass. In the kitchen, I find whiskey behind the fridge and pour it down the sink. I decide to hide the empty bottle in the drum of the old washing machine in the garage but when I open the drum door, I find another half full bottle so I tip that down the sink too, then hide both bottles in the old plastic picnic box instead. I turn off all the lights.

  Next morning, there’s still no sign of Dad. I make some tea and take it to Mum on a tray with toast, bacon and eggs. MTB gallops past me. I’ve left him enough breakfast to keep him happy. I help Mum sit up, and as she pecks at the scrambled eggs (and moans, “why is it not still nighttime?”) I climb onto the bed and sit behind her, brushing her hair.

  ‘Is the bacon crispy enough, Mummy?’ I ask, as I coax a brush through her hair.

  ‘The bacon’s adorable, darling. Did Marcus snore?’ she asks, her canny-parent eyebrows flicking upwards at me.

  ‘I don’t know Mum, because I slept in Leah’s room. With the baby ... She got out of the cot and slept with me.’

  Mum goes quiet. Babies is a painful subject for her. Ever since she lost my sister. I keep on stroking her hair. I decide I’m going to plait it, French style. ‘My sister would have been eleven now, wouldn’t she, Mum?’

  ‘Eleven and three months,’ Mum says.

  ‘You could have been plaiting her hair while I plait yours,’ I say. ‘Putting those silver bobbles in what you used to put in mine, remember?’

  A circle of water appears on one of Mum’s thumbs.

  ‘She had big locks of hair,’ Mum says. ‘Curlier than yours. Like candyfloss. Your dad’s hair ... She was beautiful. We never got to know her. It hurts your dad. Sometimes he cries in his sleep. He wants another child. To replace Cara. I can’t give him one, I think that’s why he...’

  ‘No, Mum,’ I say. ‘He has affairs because he’s a cheating bastard!’

  ‘Adele! He’s your father.’

  ‘So?’ I’ve half plaited her hair. I stop. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Very chic,’ Mum says, looking across to her dressing room mirror.

  ‘You’ve said worse about him.’

  ‘But he’s my husband. That’s different.’

  ‘Is he good for you though, Mum?’

  Mum does one of her avoiding-the-question answers. ‘We may have to sell the house. I don’t know if the loan companies own it all now, I haven’t seen the papers...’

  She witters on as I finish plaiting her hair.

  I’m on edge all day, listening out for the sound of tyres on gravel, but Dad does not come back.

  At night I can’t sleep. Thoughts tumble around in the giant washing machine of my head. What is my dad up to? Has he really left Mum? Is he with Mrs Robinson? Are they going to go on holiday together? Is Mikaela to be his step-daughter now? Will he tell off
Mikaela, choose her A-levels and stuff, like Dads do? But that doesn’t make sense because Mikaela’s dad’s come back, she said. Does Mikaela have two dads now? Or maybe her dad came back and then left again? Is it my fault Mum and Dad have split? If I didn’t give Mum such a hard time, she wouldn’t be so alcoholic then she would pay more attention to Dad and he wouldn’t need go off with Mrs Robinson to get some attention. What if his car crashes into a river, with me and Mikaela in it and we’re both drowning? Who would he pull out first? Me? Mikaela? Why does he even like Mrs Robinson when he’s a racist? Is it like the thing we say we hate the most, secretly we love? What if Mikaela’s mum gets pregnant by Dad? Me and Mikaela would be related then. Does Dad really want another baby to replace my dead sister? Will Mikaela be seeing more of my dad than me? Will her mum start choosing my dad’s clothes? Where will he spend Christmas? Does Mum still get all Dad’s money if he dies? Will Mum leave and Dad come back and move Mikaela’s mum in, then me and Mikaela would be living together, maybe even sharing my room? Do I need to kill Mikaela to stop all of this?

  It’s all so brain-aching. My head goes numb. I try to sleep. All I get is nightmares.

  CHAPTER 21

  MUM’S BUCKET LIST

  It’s half term. We haven’t heard from Dad for forty-eight hours. Mum’s feeling it. I tell her forget him, what does she want to do with her life?

  We’re having a fried egg on granary bread lunch. Mum makes a bucket list:

  Mum’s Bucket List:

  GET FIT

  SOMEONE TO WANDER ROUND TOWN SHOPPING WITH

  SOMEONE TO SEE A MUSICAL WITH

  VISIT TO MILAN FASHION WEEK

  DANCE WITH A HOLLYWOOD STAR

  SEE THE AURORA BOREALIS (NORTHERN LIGHTS)

  We’re munching on the granary bread when the bell goes. It’s not Dad, it’s the pharmacist van. He drives up and delivers Mum a package. Mum’s eyes get all excited. I’m about to tell her off when she shushes me, hands me one of the boxes and tells me to read it.

  The drug has a name I can’t pronounce but which ends in iram. The instructions say it is a treatment against drinking and ‘reacts to ingestion of alcohol’.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘If I drink, it makes me throw up,’ Mum explains.

  ‘So it will cure you?’

  ‘Nothing’s ever that simple, but yes.’

  She takes a tablet with a swig of orange juice. We both wait a while to see if she drops dead, which she doesn’t. Or throws up. Which she doesn’t. Or starts hallucinating. Which she also doesn’t. I’m proud of her. Mum moves around the kitchen putting things away. Dad’s left but she’s holding her head up high and getting on with her life. I notice her hair is going a bit grey at the back. She’s a bit young to be going grey already. I hope it isn’t hereditary.

  ‘Mum, can we visit Cara?’

  Mum whips round. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I miss her sometimes. Don’t you?’

  Mum goes into a flood of tears.

  I wait till she’s settled. ‘Come on, Mum, it will be good for you.’

  ‘But I can’t just turn up, I don’t feel it’s the right time, I...’

  ‘You can. It is. Get changed then let’s go.’

  Mum moans but in the end she agrees.

  CHAPTER 22

  CONFRONTING GHOSTS

  A two mile drive later, me and Mum are in a graveyard. It’s a sunny afternoon. Mum has stuffed her face with pharmacy drugs. She’s dressed like she’s going to a cocktail bar – a blinged black and gold top, flapper trousers, white kid leather gloves, black Stilettos and a little black pill box hat. I’m wearing my ordinary clothes. My little sister will have to take me as I am.

  I’ve not been to a graveyard before and I keep my head down because when I look up all I see is about six football pitches of gravestones. I can’t get rid of this thought that among them there might be somebody who they’ve buried alive and maybe they’re trying to call out to me, or they’ve got a little bell in their coffin and they’re ringing it like mad trying to alert me.

  I take a deep breath and keep walking.

  Maybe they were right to keep me from my little sister’s funeral. All I remember of the day is Mum scrubbing me in the bath hard, lots of people I didn’t know rushing from room to room crying, others in corners talking in whispers, the cat chasing up the fireplace and staying there, Dad shouting about who has to ride in which car, Mum wanting the flowers in the coffin car rearranged, Dad’s mum squeezing my cheek and kissing me, rubbing her nose into mine and me thinking we look so alike, Mia the maid scooping me up as I screamed because I wanted to go to where my sister sleeping in the box was going.

  I follow Mum’s heels. She goes through the gravestones, lurching like a drunken slalom skier. Finally she stops by a beautiful, polished white headstone. She crosses herself, even though she’s not a Catholic, then falls to her knees and after a bit of wailing starts on a speech with lots of Angels and Forgives and Big Sister’s Here Too and If Onlys in it. I’m not listening because I’ve heard it all before when Mum’s drunk. Instead, I read the writing on the headstone. It’s then I realise it’s not even my sister’s grave.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, interrupting her and pointing to the name chipped into the stone. Mum clears her eyes carefully so she doesn’t brush her contact lenses out. ‘Oh God,’ she mutters. She gets up and starts off in a new direction. She makes bee-lines from place to place but none of her guesses are right. I start thinking maybe we’re not even in the right cemetery.

  ‘Mum, you don’t know where she is, do you?’

  I taste glove fibres on my lips as Mum’s smacked me across the face. She gasps and falls to the ground, pulling at my trousers. ‘What have I done to deserve this? Oh, God.’ This carries on for a while.

  Two men are standing by a pile of earth and some wooden boards. They say something to each other then one of them leans off his spade and comes clumping over to us. Mum’s not seen him so when he taps her on the shoulder she startles. He’s got a crinkly old face and listens patiently as Mum gets up and babbles twenty kinds of nonsense up his nose. Somehow he manages to get what he needs out of her. He lets her place an arm on his shoulder and leads her, slowly because her heels are sinking every step, across the graveyard. He counts headstone rows silently with little nods of his head, then cuts into a row, walks along and points. It’s a small white headstone. It has my sister’s name on it.

  Mum stands frozen, staring. I lift my head up and manage a smile at the gravedigger. He looks back at me with steady eyes. I think, if only I had him for a mum or a dad.

  As soon as the gravedigger has turned his back, Mum steals some fluffy toys off nearby graves and arranges them on my sister’s plot. She gets the little white plastic fence that goes round the grave upright then pulls a few weeds out that are growing through the white chip stones. She uses her hankie to clean the headstone. As she cleans, her wailing starts up again.

  ‘I know you are on God’s knee and he’s brushing your hair, you are one of his best angels. When I gazed into your eyes before you left I saw how graceful you were, you were going to be brilliant at school and look after your mum so well, you were going to be perfect, a mother’s dream. My angel, you would have been appalled at what your big sister gets up to. She would behave so much better if you’d been around, she’d have had to be an example. And your father would never have strayed, he would have kissed my hands every night, worshipped me as Mother Mary. You would have had all the best tings, I already had the Gabbana bootees, I would have been so proud showing you off. Everyone would have wanted a curl off your beautiful hair, your little toes were perfect, so was your little nose...’

  I tune out of Mum’s babble and whisper, ‘sleep well’ to my sister, then watch from the path as Mum talks on. She’s got her arms around the headstone now. I’m worried she’s trying to pull it up and take it with us. About fifteen minutes pass before Mum finishes.

  She makes it back to the cemetery p
ath, eyes streaming, and says, ‘I feel better now.’ Her hands are shaking, which I take to be the drugs kicking in more. When we get to the car, she passes me the key.

  ‘Drive, Adele, please.’

  ‘Mum–’

  ‘Don’t play innocent with me, Adele. I’ve seen you take your dad’s car up and down the drive, you can drive this little thing.’

  Handbrake. Neutral. Ignition. I move the car off. It lurches and Mum complains. She has the vanity mirror down on the passenger side and is redoing her lip stick. She settles back as I pull out of the cemetery. ‘I’m going to do this every Anniversary,’ she says. She keeps on. ‘Sometimes I see her on the back seat and I say, “put your seat belt on, Cara, silly girl”.’ Mum dabs her eyes.

  It’s a miracle, but I get us home.

  CHAPTER 23

  HALF TERM MATCH

  Even though it’s half term, we’ve got a football match at school which is crazy because everyone goes on holiday abroad at half term. I phone and text Mikaela but she’s not answering. I find out from other girls that she’s fed up and not playing. I decide to play. Mum begs to come. I allow her but tell her it’s my rules so she can’t run on the pitch, she can’t do any crazy arm pumping, and she has to pass an alcohol test before she can even stand on the touchline. She accepts all terms.

  We get there a bit late so I dash out of the car into the changing rooms and get changed fast. When I make it onto the pitch, Mum is on the touchline. I run up to her.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Breathe in my face.’

  ‘Must I?’

  I nod.

  While she breathes on me, I smell. It’s a mix of spicy sausage, cat breath, sour milk and brown sugar.

  ‘Do I pass?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes. Have a mint, though.’

  The match starts.

  Whenever I glance across, Mum is standing looking chilled, nodding. Not jumping up and down, not cursing, and not invading the pitch. Just once she can’t contain herself and calls out:

  ‘Get on Goal Attack, Dell, stick to her like Velcro!’