I’m about to smile gratefully but say instead,
UCAS forms will cost extra.
The last one took forever.
Lucy grins. Of course.
I mean,
time is money.
Right?
Sexier
I am sitting at the kitchen table translating for cash.
Was there homework? Marla asks.
I thought we were on mid-term.
What’s that you’re doing?
God, Sister Gwendoline never gives up.
She peers over my shoulder.
Oh. French. Sexy.
Monsieur Hogan est plus sexy que
Monsieur Taylor,
tu ne penses pas?
Oui? Oui?
Oui! I say,
handing over some file paper
and putting her to work.
It’s not taking advantage.
Not really: it’s good for her brain.
Not Lost
It is on the news.
The story of a girl aged fifteen
who went missing five days ago.
She is not me.
Her name is Faye Paterson.
Her parents are frantic.
Her mother is speaking in grey tones.
Her father is grey.
She is not me.
Faye was last seen outside a cafe,
wearing jeans and a hoody,
holding her phone close,
waiting for friends.
She is not me.
Faye is MISSING,
and police would like help finding her.
Everyone is worried.
But who is looking for me?
I am missing
too.
And yet
I am lost to nobody.
Trick or Treat
Marla knows it is Halloween
and demands we trick or treat
for sweets
along the street
like little children.
It is beyond embarrassing,
the two of us in heavy eyeshadow
and not much else spooky
apart from lip liner
like blood
trickling down
our chins.
But we fill a basket with gum
and chocolate
and lollipops
and chews,
and once we are sitting to watch the news,
the humiliation,
the snickers, stares and furrowed brows
somehow seem worth it.
Whatever
Lucy pays me for more homework,
two essays and a science experiment.
I hold the money in my hand and say,
I lost my phone.
I don’t suppose you know anyone
selling theirs?
She looks at me with a bored expression.
Oh, I thought you didn’t have one
cos your parents are hippies or whatever.
Yeah, I’ve an old iPhone you can have.
I’d pay, I say.
Whatever. She waves me away.
I’ll have a look later.
Fireworks
Banging and cracking.
Darkness filled with
the dust of gunpowder.
Marla hides beneath her
duvet like a kitten.
Who knows what lurks
in the minds of others –
the grief they have gobbled up
and stashed away?
Phobia
Dad had a phobia of cats.
He jumped behind me whenever he saw one,
thumped on the windows
if a stray pissed in our garden.
When it was me, Dad and a cat,
I wasn’t scared.
When it was me, Dad and a cat,
I was safe.
Before Kelly-Anne
Dad liked showing me off,
boasting about how responsible I was:
Al’s been washing her own hair since she was six,
he’d tell his girlfriends,
like this was something to puff up over
and not a shitting disgrace.
The women would blink, shrug, smile,
until Dad took them upstairs
where they made sounds like
he was hurting them,
which is what I thought was happening,
until I realised
they liked it.
The hurting he was doing.
I’d play outside,
lie looking up at the sky.
Some women stayed a few days,
Tanya weeks,
Carol a whole six months,
but no one stayed as long as Kelly-Anne.
No one else was prepared
to put up with the pain
that came with loving him.
Apart from me.
The Missing Girl
Faye Paterson is found alive in Newcastle,
working behind a bar for her older boyfriend.
He called the police himself after the media storm.
I didn’t abduct her.
Didn’t know she was underage.
I promise. I promise. I promise.
No one expected it.
Everyone suspected her father
after his silence in the interviews –
his quiet tears.
He was a man with stubble
and a shirt buttoned up too tight
to be trusted.
They’d found blood
and were digging up her back garden.
Marla says,
She isn’t dead then?
That girl.
No, she was pulling pints.
She ran away.
Is that what happened to my Mary?
Is that where she is?
I don’t know to be honest.
Marla is silent for many minutes.
And you. Why did you run away?
When to Leave
I knew before the ruby ring got cold
on the hall table
that I should’ve left with Kelly-Anne.
I should have chased her down Dongola Road
with my laces undone.
I should’ve left sooner than I did.
Kelly-Anne stayed too long.
But people hang about at football matches
when their teams are losing
and sure to be beaten.
They wait until the end of films they hate
instead of walking out
and getting their money back.
People stay all the time –
endure boredom
and sorrow.
I suppose when it’s too painful to stay,
that is when we leave.
Because it isn’t true that love hurts.
It doesn’t always.
Love doesn’t always have to hurt.
Distrust
Sitting on the rocks by the lighthouse,
the occasional cool spray of ocean on our faces,
Lucy says,
Are you homeless?
No. I live up Poughill way.
Cool.
So we should go to yours.
Nothing about her voice believes me,
though I’m not sure how I gave anything away.
Is this how Marla feels whenever she speaks?
Like the world is sneering.
A seagull lands a few metres from us,
a half loaf of bread in its beak.
We can go whenever you like.
Right now if you want.
The seagull squawks.
I’m meeting someone. Can’t.
She throws a stone at the seagull.
Birds are idiots.
Slippers
I have commandeered Marla’s slippers.
She had four pairs
lined up neatly under the stairs –
tatty but tidy.
So I’ve taken the brown
ones
with the fur inside
and wear them in the house
instead of my trainers.
At home Dad didn’t like
slippers
or pyjamas
or anything that looked like
bedtime
wandering around during the day.
He said it made people look unemployed.
Marla points at my feet.
Aren’t those mine?
The hairy ankles?
No. They’re mine.
You can touch them if you like.
The slippers, she says,
grinning at the joke.
Oh yes, they’re yours.
Well, I hope your feet are clean.
Not that mine were last time I wore them!
Who Did That to Your Face?
She asks.
No One Did Anything to Me
I tell her.
Memories
If I could forget what he did
I could go home.
We could be like nothing awful
ever happened.
I wouldn’t even need to forgive him.
But my memory,
like an animal hungry to be fed,
hangs on
with gritted teeth
to
everything.
Witchy
I had a pet rabbit, Marla says.
I can’t remember its name for the life of me.
I wish I could remember its name.
A white fluff ball.
Fluffy? I suggest.
You’re a witch! she shouts.
Fluffy! Yes, Fluffy, that was it.
You’re a witch, you know that?
If I were a witch I’d do more
than guess animal names.
I’d cast spells on the whole world.
And on myself.
Sure, what would you change about yourself?
Aren’t you good enough as you are?
I have no reply.
It might be the kindest thing
anyone has ever said to me.
I Sort of Do, Yeah
The turnaround of homework is quick.
Lucy lines up more and more customers,
everyone pleased with what I’ve produced –
someone even asking if I can put together a
poetry portfolio.
What about their exams? I ask.
What’s the point of all this if they fail in the end?
Lucy snaps her chewing gum,
hands me eighteen pounds and fifty pence
plus some history-homework guidelines.
I don’t really care about their lives. Do you?
In Sainsbury’s
I buy a Snickers, Bounty, KitKat and Twix.
I buy Fruit Corner yogurts and salted butter.
I buy two microwaveable macaroni meals,
an iceberg lettuce and a loaf of brown bread.
I buy toilet rolls, tampons, soap.
I buy what I have stolen from Marla
and what I now need –
what can be paid for with cash anyway.
Alone
The whole house is dark.
The back door is locked.
I collect the spare key from
beneath the stone leprechaun
on the patio
and let myself in,
stare at my murky reflection
in the kitchen clock face.
Hello?
Nothing answers.
I am unsure what to do,
wondering where Marla could be,
if she’s with anybody,
whether there’s been an emergency.
I take the stairs two at a time,
march into Marla’s bedroom.
Her dressing table is littered with
little perfume bottles –
brands I don’t know,
the liquid inside piss-yellow
and smelling of Dettol.
And she has talc too,
like flour,
with a pink puff on top.
I sniff and realise this is Marla’s smell –
powdery petals.
In her black-lacquered jewellery box
are cheap chains and bracelets
clenched together in forever tangles.
I run my fingers along a row of rings,
pausing at a ruby,
then clutch the pendant
pressed against my own chest,
a silver chalice Mum was given
for her First Holy Communion –
the only token Dad was prepared to share.
I’m home! Marla calls out.
I step on to the landing, ready to reply,
ready to be annoyed with her for disappearing,
when I see Peggy pulling Marla out of a coat.
They murmur flatly.
Toffee? Marla calls again. I’m home.
I press my back against the woodchip wallpaper.
And you won twenty pounds,
Peggy says.
Maybe tell Toffee about it tomorrow.
She doesn’t seem to be here.
I’d love to meet her actually.
She’s here now, Marla says.
The carpet beneath my feet seems to murmur
and the air around me is heavy.
I hold my breath,
pray that Peggy doesn’t notice my stupid parka
that can have nothing to do with an old woman.
Maybe she’s asleep, Marla suggests.
Lazy scut.
Peggy calls out herself: Toffee!
But again,
this is pantomime, placation,
and I want to step forward,
stand at the top of the stairs and say,
She isn’t mad, I’m real.
Look at me. I am standing right here
and I am alive.
And then the thought strikes me that
perhaps
I’m not.
Perhaps
I am a figment
of Marla’s imagination
after all.
I touch the chalice against my skin.
Maybe I’m just like my mother –
mostly dead
and only barely
clinging on
in other people’s
memories.
Old Enough
On 7th March every year,
Mum’s anniversary,
we took time to remember her.
We went to the graveyard,
lay roses
and told her the good bits from
our lives –
when we could think of them.
Kelly-Anne left us to it.
Not that we did very much.
And one year
when we got home
Dad rummaged around in his room then came
down
with the silver chalice pendant
on a chain.
This was hers, he said.
You’re old enough to wear it
and take care of it, I suppose.
He held it a moment before handing it over.
Thanks, I said.
He shrugged.
Yeah. Well.
I’m not into all that religious bollocks
anyway.
Smash
Once Peggy is out the door
I dash downstairs.
Marla is reading a magazine
upside down,
her head at an angle.
Hey.
She reaches into the pocket of her skirt,
pulling out two tenners.
I won at bingo! she announces,
bobbing in her chair.
Three fat ladies.
Or two.
Fat ladies for the win!
I love a fat lady.
And fat men.
I’d love any man though.
Save it, I suggest.
O
r spend it on gin. She grins.
The off-licence is still open.
I saw the lights from the car.
I haven’t had alcohol
since Sophie stole
a bottle of Bacardi
from her aunt’s sideboard.
I hated the taste,
liked the feeling of being only half present.
I’ll get our coats, I say.
Gin Is Tonic
Marla snickers and pours,
dribbling in the gin
then topping up with tonic.
The drink fizzes
in delight.
Ice, she says.
See if there’s any in the … the …
Freezer, I finish,
and go on a hunt.
I crack cubes into the glasses,
booze splashing back at me.
Marla looks as nervous as I feel
with the rim to her lips,
like someone who’s never touched a drop
despite mixing them up
like an expert,
the recall
in her hands
if not in her head.
We are being bad, she says.
I swig. We are.
Toffee Page 8
