Maggsie McNaughton's Second Chance

by Frances Maynard

  I looked at the calendar again. Nine more months of not losing my temper. Well, more than that. The rest of my life. How was I going to manage that?

  Ruby’s airy-fairy idea came back to me. Seeing anger as something separate from myself. Like, as belonging to someone else? Who could I load it onto, then? Or what? Would an animal count? That would be separate. An animal that would be angry for me. I quite liked that idea. Have to be something snappy, with loads of teeth. Not a cat or anything. Too fluffy. A crocodile, maybe? A small one, obviously, that I could keep in my holdall along with my anger management certificates. (Imagine I kept in my holdall, I mean. I ain’t bonkers.) I seen a couple of crocodiles in the aquarium at Skegness. Massive things, half underwater like floating logs. A crocodile didn’t take no prisoners. Snappy, I could call him.

  19

  Woman’s World, 4 April 2018

  Five Ways to Solve Those Domestic Disputes

  Things kicked off on account of Audrey, even though she was just a little innocent cat. Things that got me trying out the crocodile.

  I was getting my dinner ready. Not actual cooking, but I’d moved on to those plastic tubs of soup where you could see what you were getting. Juice was in the kitchen, chopping up something with leaves.

  Trudie was smearing some pink fish paste onto a slice of toast. She said it was Greek but I had my doubts. Showing off, more like. Or trying to tempt Audrey. Other things Trudie went in for was olives straight from a jar and white cheese in a plastic packet that came from sheep. Audrey was watching her with the fish paste, miaowing like I starved her. I had to get out her pilchard straight away. Then Trudie had the cheek to say I was hogging her.

  ‘Didn’t drag her over, did I? Her choice.’ Who’d want to be with you, I thought but didn’t say. Two or three months ago I would have. I saw Alastair smiling, a tick on the calendar.

  ‘Only, nice for the rest of us to see more of her, you know?’ Trudie’s wrinkles looked even deeper under the kitchen light. She added you know? to the end of everything she said. No, I didn’t know. Then she brought in again how she’d fed stray cats in Greece. How they’d followed her about. ‘Him I was shacked up with called me the Pied Piper.’

  Funny Audrey don’t do it, I nearly said. Funny it wasn’t you that spent hours out in the cold, trying to get her to show her face. Instead of saying it, I conjured up the crocodile, Snappy. Put feeling angry onto him. I saw him about the size of a Jack Russell terrier. Same sort of temperament. Jaws full of teeth. He climbed out of my holdall and crawled down the stairs. Slithered over to Trudie. I felt a bit foolish. Sort of thing a kid might do. Then I got into it. Added details. Heard his claws clicking, saw the rows of scales on his back; his yellow eyes, like Audrey’s, only evil. Saw him snapping at Trudie’s jeans’ hems.

  I nearly turned round from the fridge to watch him. A teacher told me once I had too much imag-in-a-tion. It was when I’d come up with a lie for not doing my homework. Said I’d been to Australia for the weekend, so I hadn’t had time. She’d burst out laughing. Then given me a detention.

  Audrey knew she was being talked about. She whisked her tail and stalked about a bit. Looked up at everyone, miaowing. She was getting to be a bossy little madam. I cut up some chicken skin I’d brought home from work. Primrose had wrapped it up for me in greaseproof. She knew I had a cat.

  Audrey rubbed against my ankles and Trudie headed upstairs. Ridiculous what she’d said about Audrey. Never saw Trudie with a tin opener, did you?

  ‘Good job that cat ain’t human.’ Juicy Lucy was chopping an onion now. Her heavy eyes were watery. ‘Wouldn’t never stop talking.’

  ‘Yeah! Reckon she’d be in charge.’ I tipped half the soup into a saucepan. The plastic tubs had fancy names and a lot of writing on the labels. I should have been trying to work out what it said, but sometimes all you wanted to do was eat a soup, not read about it. This one was a kind of chicken, ‘Something Something Chicken’. Frag . . . something. I looked over at Juice’s pile of veg. ‘Was it your mum that learnt you how to cook?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Juicy Lucy moved on to a pile of carrots. ‘She’s a good cook. Adoptive mum, she is.’

  ‘Oh?’ I stirred the soup. The spoon handle dug into my palm. ‘That feel the same as a real mum? Don’t feel, like, second best?’

  Juicy Lucy shook her head. ‘She is my real mum. Fostered me from a baby. Kept me on. Made me birthday cakes and that.’

  I stared into my soup, remembering a birthday cake Mum had made for Nella. She’d bought flour specially, used up our marge, breadcrumbs and all, cadged a couple of eggs off a neighbour, mixed it all up and bunged it in the oven. Flour in her hair where she’d pushed it back. She’d had to put an extra £1 in the electric first to get the oven to switch on.

  The cake had smelt nice, cooking. Turned out of its tin OK, although it was flatter than the ones you got in shops. Mum didn’t bother icing it. ‘I know my limits.’ Oh, yeah? She didn’t with men. She’d cut us all a big slice. It didn’t taste right. Something missing. Nella dropped hers back on the plate. ‘You didn’t put no sugar in, Mum.’ That was Mum all over. Her giggling about it after.

  Little flecks of green swirled around my soup. Didn’t know what they were except they weren’t chicken. ‘Ever thought about tracing her? Your birth mum?’

  I could see Juice’s lips moving, thinking. She chopped a stalk of celery. I never knew a girl what ate so many vegetables. Didn’t make her look healthy, in my opinion, or slim. Last week I’d bought a loose carrot from the Co-op for eleven pence. I’d chopped it up and added it to my Scotch broth. The carrot bits were still hard, though, and one got stuck in a back tooth. Gave me gip. You can’t tell me toothache’s healthy.

  Juice was always wanting to cook me something, only I knew what it would involve. Hours chewing. Probably hours of wind after. She looked up to me. Listened, like what I said was important. Asked me things like I’d know the answer. It was because of me rescuing Jack, and because she’d seen me using a dictionary. TJ said looking things up didn’t mean you were thick. It meant the opposite. He could be right, I suppose, although he was foreign.

  She finally shook her head. ‘Dunno what I’d find. She had me young. Might have had a string of other kids since. Kids she kept. Ones that were good enough.’

  I stirred the soup too quick. Some of it splashed out the saucepan. ‘She might not have wanted to give you up.’ Juice looked up. ‘Just thinking about what your mum must have gone through.’

  ‘Birth mum. I ain’t interested. Got teased at school for being adopted.’ Juice flung the celery on top of the other veg and moved on to something hard and round and orange – might have been a swede. ‘She gave me up. And it would upset my real mum.’

  I stared at Juice through the soup steam. But Juice’s ‘real mum’ had had her all her life.

  There was a skin on my soup now. I poured it out and sat down. Audrey sat by my chair. Lifted a dainty paw to wash her face. Something we had in common, being small. Not that I was dainty.

  Juicy Lucy opened a tin of tomatoes and dumped it on top of the chopped veg. It turned my stomach. ‘She could be a druggie, alkie, mental. Anything.’

  Yeah, a druggie, like you were, I wanted to say. I dipped my sandwich in the soup. Sometimes they were a bit dry from being in the display cabinet at work. A bit of bread took its time going down. ‘None of us here are whiter than white, Juice.’ Stealing from a post office was a crime, in case she’d forgotten. I didn’t say it because I liked old Juice. Liked her looking up to me. Let’s face it, it was a novelty.

  Another tin of tomatoes glugged out its red insides. ‘But you don’t want your mum to be like that, do you? You want to look up to your mum.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I slurped a spoonful of soup. Didn’t like the taste much, in spite of its posh name, whatever it was. You might want to respect your mum, but you couldn’t, not always.

  Mum had never been much of a law-breaker. Soft-hearted in her way. But respect? What for? H
er terrible taste in men, the way she’d landed us kids with them? Her flaky attitude to money and housework and cooking? Our shabby socks that was supposed to be white?

  When it came down to it you just wanted a normal mum. A boring one, with no problems to take her mind off her kids. That’s what Alastair would want. I couldn’t tell Juice about him. Not after she’d let rip about her birth mum. She’d stop looking up to me. I dipped the last of my sandwich into what was left of the soup, but I couldn’t finish it.

  Audrey followed me upstairs. She sat on the window sill, both of us looking out. She wasn’t brooding like I was, she was watching a pigeon strutting about on the roof opposite.

  I hadn’t wanted to give Alastair up. I hadn’t had loads more kids.

  Feeling low was a trigger for wanting a drink. I got the calendar down quick, flipped through the last three months. Ticked off today. Leant extra firm on the biro. Three more days and I’d have done a hundred.

  A whole row of pigeons were on the roof now, fluffing out their feathers. Settling down for the night. Peaceful. That was because they lived in a big group, not ruddy families.

  I was still off my stride next day at break. TJ and I shared the Metro. He had the outside bit first. I sat a bit closer now but that was only so I didn’t have to keep peering over to explain things. He was reading about a Polish football player on the back page. Being slow about it. I asked him for his half, twice – he must have learnt the words off by heart, the time he was taking – but he didn’t take any notice. I was breathing four, four, s-i-x, but I was still fit to burst. So I just reached over and took it off him. It was the way I’d been brought up.

  TJ hung on to it, which was a mistake. The page ripped. I toppled off the bench. Someone stirring a cup of coffee at a nearby table looked over and frowned. Like I done it on purpose.

  TJ was doubled over, his head practically on his knees, not in pain, bloody laughing.

  I got up. ‘Funny, am I? It was your effing fault!’ I shouted, through swirls of red mist. I didn’t say effing.

  TJ stopped laughing. ‘Sit down, Maggsie. Everyone is looking.’

  He was practically telling me to calm down! I opened my mouth to give him and all the people staring what for, only he jumped up. Took hold of my shoulders and pushed me through the swing doors. I struggled, but he kept hold of me. I shut my eyes and turned my head away. A sinking in my gut. TJ wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was still shouting, mind. You can shout with your eyes shut, though it might not be something you’ve ever tried.

  ‘I not want you to lose job, Maggsie.’

  Saying my name was a trigger. Snappy, I remembered, too late. Imagined him on the floor looking up at TJ. Flexing his jaws a bit half-hearted. Scuttling away.

  ‘One day you good cook,’ TJ winked, seeing me watching Primrose peeling some raw beetroots. Dark red stains on her pink palms. I wasn’t really interested. I was pretending. I shrugged. TJ was trying to make out us arguing hadn’t happened. Primrose stuck a beetroot in the food processor. I stared at it going round. Looked like roadkill.

  TJ was difficult to argue with. I’d noticed it before. Just looked puzzled or hurt, didn’t get angry back. Not what I was used to in a man. Dad had been the dead opposite – and Dougie. Maybe it was because he was Polish. Perhaps they were all like that over there. Al, my first boyfriend, he’d been a bit like that, come to think of it. Even worse.

  That evening, I went up to my room soon as I’d had my sandwich and the rest of the soup from the day before. Wasn’t going to waste it.

  I’d made a show of myself. Shouting and that. What would Alastair have thought? Jack? And if any of those posh gits staring had complained I’d have been in trouble. Lose my job and things would go downhill fast. No way would I ever contact Alastair from prison.

  Audrey was asleep. I lay on the bed next to her and stroked her little pointed ears. She started purring. They should play that at football matches to calm people down. I’d read in Woman’s World that stroking a cat lowered your blood pressure, only I think the cat was supposed to be awake for it to work.

  TJ could switch off from things. I’d seen it when he was reading the information signs on old buildings, or looking close at paintings. He got caught up in what he was doing. Shut himself off from the rest of the world. Well, from me. He’d had his nose buried in that football article. Maybe he hadn’t ignored me on purpose.

  I went downstairs. Fished my soup container out the kitchen bin. Rinsed the lid off and took it upstairs.

  I read the writing on it this time and looked up all the words I didn’t know. There were a lot of them. Don’t laugh. How much attention you ever paid to a soup label? Plenty anyone could learn. It took me ages to work out the soup’s name: Fragrant Thai Chicken. Well, not after ten minutes boiling, it hadn’t been.

  Next time I got worked up I’d start breathing o-u-t straight away. Have Snappy at my fingertips, ready to go. No. Wasn’t even going to be a next time.

  20

  Woman’s World, 4 April 2018

  Getting Outdoors with Nature

  At fag break TJ fished something out of his apron pocket, all sheepish. ‘I have something for you. Useful thing.’

  Awkward seeing as I’d lost my rag with him yesterday. Felt better soon as I saw it was only an old book. Something else he’d got from a charity shop.

  It was an address book, a little one. Letters of the alphabet down one side and a picture of a vase of flowers on the front. Later I saw there’d been some addresses already written in that TJ had stuck paper over.

  He handed it over, smiling. ‘Is personal spelling dictionary for you.’ His plain potato face was pink and I swear the bristles on his head were standing up.

  I wasn’t good at looking pleased when I wasn’t. Yeah, I was improving my English, but it was supposed to be me teaching TJ. I was the one that was English.

  ‘If it’s another dictionary, why ain’t it got no words in it, TJ?’

  ‘No words yet.’ His skin nearly split smiling. ‘Sandra in my class. She has one. She write tricky words in. And when she want to use word again, there is it!’

  ‘There it is.’ I shoved it in my pocket. ‘Helpful of Sandra. Know much about me, does she?’

  ‘No, no. I copy idea of Sandra. I sit next to her. Big fat lady.’ He spread his arms. ‘Not leave much room at table.’

  I paused, got the address book back out and handed it to him. His face fell. ‘Write your name in it then, your whole name: Tad . . . what is it?’

  Tadeusz Jancowitz, he wrote, under T. No one could spell that, could they? Even if they didn’t have dyslexia. No wonder people called him TJ.

  At home I copied some words into the address book, the personal spelling dictionary, under the right letters. Words I’d use again, tricky ones like because, friend, necessary.

  TJ’s face lit up when I told him I was using it. He had the sort of face that showed what he was feeling. Not a good thing, if you asked me. People could take advantage.

  We’d had a couple more Sunday outings together seeing as I didn’t have anything better to do. Not to places like Madame Tussauds, which is where I’d have liked to have gone. Museums and that, and parks. The outside of buildings with history.

  Neither of us had much money. Reckon his wife in Poland kept all his. Bet it was her that made him have his hair so short. Bet she’d shaved it off. With a blunt razor. A rusty one. And told him it looked fantastic. Bet she’d bought his awful clumpy shoes.

  TJ had said before about getting a boat along the Thames to Greenwich. It was near Lewisham where he lived. But nicer, he said, more history.

  I reminded him about it now. Fixed it up for next week to show willing.

  We met outside the bookshop at Waterloo again. TJ had gelled his hair up. What there was of it. Made him look like a hedgehog. When I saw him, I had to clamp my mouth shut to stop myself laughing. Pretend I was interested in a book in the window, which, trust me, wasn’t likely.

 
We got the boat from the London Eye. I didn’t let on I’d never been on a boat before. The floor moved under my feet when I stepped onto it. Felt like I’d had a couple of drinks, though I definitely hadn’t. A nice feeling.

  TJ pointed out the sights. Threw his arm out at the Tower of London. It used to be a prison, a cruel one, where they tortured people. Cut their heads off, like TJ’s arms was likely to do to me. I hadn’t told him I’d been in prison and I wasn’t going to. Not something you boasted about. You might think having a colourful past is interesting because you haven’t had one, but trust me, it’s not. It’s boring, actually. TJ didn’t seem to know that Scanda gave ex-cons a fresh start in life. He wasn’t the nosey type, anyway. Some people asked too many questions.

  We passed Canary Wharf with all the bankers counting their millions. Weird getting up so close to the shiny skyscrapers. Squashed between them there’d be an old church, or a little thin house with tiny windows. Sometimes a statue just loomed up out of nowhere. There was history and today all jumbled up together, but it still looked OK.

  The boat got up speed. Hard to keep your balance with the wind and the waves. I had to do up my ponytail again because of the wind whipping it about. TJ put his hand on my back to keep me steady. I let him, just as long as he didn’t get any ideas.

  Inside, there was a bar and proper comfy seats and toilets. I didn’t look at the bar. The other passengers were like the people on the tube: posh. TJ said Greenwich was an expensive part of London. All of London was posh and expensive, if you asked me.

  Arriving in Greenwich was like going abroad. Well, what I thought it would be like. A two-hundred-years-old country. A huge old ship, that you could look round if you paid, was stuck in the middle of the road. Old-fashioned shops and buildings and cobbles all about. TJ took my elbow and guided me to some big white houses, palaces, whatever. He knew one that was free to look around. I only let him because I didn’t know the way.