A Morris Gleitzman Collection

by Morris Gleitzman

  ‘This other one’s advertising my mum,’ he said to the counter woman, who was staring at him suspiciously.

  He held the other form up so she could see the words.

  ‘Council employee,’ he read, ‘only been 36 for a couple of weeks, very good at Monopoly, expert cuddler, never gets carsick, own TV, wants to meet kind man—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ interrupted the woman.

  For a sec Keith thought she’d spotted a bloke in the queue who wanted to invite Mum to the pictures, but she hadn’t.

  ‘Did your parents write these adverts themselves?’ asked the woman sternly.

  ‘No,’ said Keith quietly.

  The woman’s face grew even sterner.

  ‘They would have done,’ Keith added hurriedly, ‘but they’ve been a bit depressed lately. We went to live in Australia to try and save their marriage but it didn’t work out and they’ve been in the dumps a bit since we got back.’

  ‘I’m afraid we only accept Personals from the individuals concerned,’ said the woman.

  Keith sighed.

  This was what he’d feared.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Just this once.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman.

  ‘Go on,’ pleaded Keith. ‘You’ll be bringing happiness to two seriously depressed people.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman.

  ‘My best friend’s coming from Australia for a holiday,’ said Keith. ‘She’s only here for eleven days.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Tracy can perk anyone up,’ explained Keith, ‘even people who are seriously depressed. Starting next Thursday she’ll be here perking Mum and Dad up which’ll be the perfect time for them to be getting romantic letters and meeting new people and falling in love and cheering up and being happy for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman.

  ‘Tracy’s mum’s coming too,’ said Keith desperately. ‘She’s been married for eighteen years. She’ll be able to help them sort through the letters and pick the good partners.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman. ‘Next.’

  I bet you’re not sorry, thought Keith bitterly as he turned away. I bet you’re only doing the job for the cheap lawn mowers.

  As he walked dejectedly out of the newspaper office he looked closely at the people in the queue to see if anyone was having second thoughts about asking Mum or Dad out.

  No one was.

  The glamorous countess gave the dashing cavalry officer a smouldering look. She walked slowly across the moonlit balcony, slipped her hand inside his tunic and pulled out a jar of instant coffee.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said Mum, scowling at the TV. ‘That woman hasn’t got a bottom. And look at those ridiculous shoulders. She’s got enough padding in there to stuff a car seat.’

  Keith sighed and had another chocolate finger.

  It was getting worse.

  Only three months since Mum and Dad had split up and here was Mum spending every evening flopped in front of the telly in an old housecoat and bed socks, criticising the adverts and neglecting her waistline.

  ‘Pass the fingers, love,’ said Mum.

  Keith sighed again.

  Up until three months ago she’d been dead strict about chocolate fingers.

  Two a day and ten on birthdays, that had been the rule.

  Now it was a box a night.

  And she didn’t care how many he had, either.

  Perhaps if I pretend I didn’t hear, thought Keith, she’ll forget she asked.

  ‘Keith,’ said Mum, ‘use one of those chocolate fingers to clean the wax out of your ears and pass the rest to me please, love.’

  Tragic, thought Keith sadly as he handed her the box. A clever woman who used to be really good at homework and Monopoly reduced to a lonely chocolate-guzzling vegetable.

  But she could snap out of it, he knew she could.

  All she needed was some help.

  At Dad’s place things weren’t much better.

  Dad was staring at a naked woman.

  Keith stared too.

  She looked exactly like Mrs Lambert.

  It couldn’t be.

  A geography teacher wouldn’t lie on a red velvet settee wearing only a tiara and a pair of green slippers and let someone do a painting of her. Not if the painting was going to be shown on telly. The image on the TV changed to a reporter’s head.

  ‘. . . eighteenth century Italian masterpiece,’ the reporter was saying, ‘sold for a record twenty-seven million pounds.’

  ‘If I had twenty-seven million quid,’ said Dad bitterly to the screen, ‘I wouldn’t blow it on an old painting, I’d get the cooker in the cafe overhauled.’

  As Keith’s eyes got used to the darkness in Dad’s living room he saw that Dad was lying on the settee wearing only a knitted beanie and his striped pyjamas.

  ‘Hello Keith,’ he said without looking up. ‘Didn’t see you come in.’

  ‘OK if I stay tonight?’ said Keith.

  ‘Course,’ said Dad. ‘Any time you like, you know that.’

  He swung his legs off the settee so Keith could sit down.

  ‘Dad,’ said Keith, ‘do you feel like going bowling? I’ll pay.’

  Keith held his breath.

  Think positive.

  ‘Not tonight Keith,’ said Dad. ‘I’m settled here, now.

  Keith sighed.

  You’ve been settled there every night for the last three months, he thought sadly. Just as well this flat’s over the cafe and the heat from the frying stops it getting damp or you’d have moss on your bum.

  He sat down.

  Dad stretched out again with his legs over Keith’s knees.

  Tragic, thought Keith. If anyone could see Dad now they’d think he was a victim of some tropical disease that makes you spend all your spare time watching telly. They wouldn’t have a clue they were looking at a man who could score 120 at tenpin bowling and cook any sausage in the whole world without bursting the skin.

  ‘Dennis Baldwin’s dad met a film star at the bowling alley,’ said Keith, ‘and now they’re married and living in Malibu.’

  It wasn’t true but he was desperate.

  Dad didn’t answer.

  He was staring at the telly.

  On the screen an Alsatian was driving a golf buggy.

  Keith suddenly wanted to grab Dad and shake him and yell at him to pull himself together and get on with his life.

  Instead he took a deep breath and calmed down.

  Violence wouldn’t solve anything.

  Dad just needed some help.

  Keith stood at the sink in the cafe and plunged a baked-bean-encrusted plate into the hot soapy water.

  None of the baked beans moved.

  They were like pebbles.

  As Keith scrubbed at the pebbles with a piece of steel wool he pretended they were gall stones he’d removed from the stomach of the woman in the newspaper office.

  ‘Thank you, oh, thank you,’ he imagined her sobbing. ‘You can put those ads in now if you like.’

  ‘Don’t need to,’ he imagined himself replying airily as he took off his surgeon’s gown. ‘There are plenty of other places to advertise mums and dads.’

  Telly, for example.

  Or magazines.

  Or on the sides of buses.

  Keith grinned as he imagined painting a huge picture of Mum and Dad on the side of a bus including their phone numbers. Then his face fell as he wondered how much London Transport would charge.

  Thousands probably.

  Keith tried to work out how long he’d take to earn thousands of quid in washing up money at 5p a plate and 7p for saucepans.

  His brain went soupier than the washing up water.

  What I need, thought Keith, is somewhere cheap I can display a really attention-grabbing picture of Mum and Dad where it’ll be seen by loads of people who aren’t being distracted by lawn mower prices.

  Suddenly he
stopped scrubbing the plate.

  Of course.

  Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  2

  Keith peered through the keyhole into Dad’s bathroom.

  Come on Dad, he thought, stop moving about. Entries in the school art show close at lunchtime today.

  Dad carried on having his morning cough in front of the mirror.

  Bet the great painters of history didn’t have this trouble, thought Keith as he watched Dad’s body shake with each cough. Bet when the great painters of history painted people in the nude they didn’t have to wait for the people’s bottoms to stop wobbling.

  Keith started on the background, squinting through the keyhole to check that he was mixing the right shade of Pond Green to match the bathroom wallpaper.

  Bet the great painters of history didn’t have to work kneeling down outside a bathroom door, either, thought Keith bitterly. Bet people were only too glad to take their clothes off for them.

  Queued up to do it, probably.

  Not like Dad.

  ‘Paint me with my gear off?’ he’d spluttered, nearly choking on his bedtime cuppa. ‘Do you want to get us arrested?’

  Keith had tried to explain that the great painters of history had most of their big successes doing people with no clothes on.

  He’d reminded Dad about the twenty-seven million quid painting on telly.

  But all Dad had said was, ‘Give me twenty-seven million quid and I’ll think about it.’

  Keith had been tempted to tell Dad why he wanted to do the painting, but he’d decided against it.

  If Dad knew he was being advertised he’d get all tense and embarrassed.

  Tense and embarrassed’s no good, thought Keith as he brushed the Pond Green onto the thick paper. I’ve got to show Dad as he really is.

  Warm-hearted.

  Sensitive.

  A whiz with fried foods.

  Keith finished the background and peered through the keyhole again.

  In front of the mirror Dad gave one last cough, then stopped.

  After a bit, his bottom stopped wobbling.

  And his tummy.

  Then he sighed and his tummy sagged and his bottom drooped.

  Tragic, thought Keith sadly.

  And Dad only thirty-seven.

  Wonder if the great painters of history had this problem? Wonder if Picasso’s dad let himself go physically after he split up with Picasso’s mum?

  Keith’s heart sank as he watched Dad trying to arrange some wisps of hair over his bald patch.

  Then Keith took a deep breath, told himself to think positive, squeezed out some Flesh Pink and got on with the job.

  Keith stared at Mum’s bathroom door.

  No keyhole.

  OK, he thought, don’t panic. What would the great painters of history have done? Bathroom doors in fifteenth century Italy probably didn’t have keyholes either, so Botticelli would have faced this problem a lot.

  Keith crouched next to the door handle and peered at the crack of light between the door and the door frame.

  The door wasn’t bolted.

  Keith put his painting stuff on the floor and listened.

  He could hear Mum splashing in the bath, and the radio playing the sort of violin music that usually made him feel depressed.

  Not today, though, because it was just what he needed to drown out any door squeaks.

  Keith sent an urgent message to the batteries in Mum’s radio.

  Don’t conk out, please.

  Then he slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open a fraction.

  He held his breath and waited for an indignant yell from Mum. That was the trouble with her flat being seventeen floors up, the draughts were something chronic.

  Nothing.

  She must have the heater on.

  He peeked in.

  Through the steam he could see Mum in the bath, eyes closed, chin on her chest, listening to the music.

  He watched her sadly.

  Even in the bath her posture was bad, shoulders slumped and sort of curled forward.

  On her feet, which were resting on the end of the bath, he could see corns and bunions and other lumpy bits.

  And the veins in her legs looked like a road map of somewhere that had purple roads.

  Tragic.

  And Mum only thirty-six.

  Never mind, thought Keith, she’s got a wonderful personality.

  Think positive.

  All I’ve got to do is make sure this painting captures her good points.

  Her sense of humour.

  Her loving nature.

  Her talent for Monopoly.

  Keith chose a brush and started on her feet.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Mr Browning, staring at the painting, ‘interesting.’

  Mr Browning didn’t look very interested to Keith, he looked like he’d just eaten some varnish.

  Keith reminded himself that Mr Browning always looked like that while he was thinking about a picture. Must be something art teachers learn as part of their training.

  Keith glanced around the school hall and felt a tingle of excitement. The art show was filling up. Groups of people were arriving and staring with interest at the pictures on the walls, and they couldn’t all be married.

  Soon they’d be staring with interest at Mum and Dad.

  ‘Title?’ asked Mr Browning.

  ‘It’s got two titles,’ said Keith. ‘The left-hand side’s called Nude Dad With Frying Pan.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Mr Browning again.

  ‘I made him nude,’ said Keith hurriedly, ‘cause the great painters of history had some of their biggest successes with nudes. The frying pan is to show he’s a chef in a cafe. And to hide his rude bits.’

  Keith felt his cheeks go hot.

  He had an urgent word with his blood.

  Go back down to my legs. Now.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Mr Browning. ‘Very good use of colour, specially your dad’s blue hair.’

  Keith nodded.

  He decided not to mention that it was actually a plastic shower cap he’d added to cover Dad’s bald patch.

  ‘What’s the right-hand side called,’ asked Mr Browning, shifting his gaze to Mum in the bath.

  ‘Venus Soaking Her Corns,’ said Keith. ‘Mum’s name is actually Marge, but the great painters of history usually called their lady nudes Venus. Or Mona.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Mr Browning. ‘I like the way you’ve got the light falling across her shoulders like a cloak to remind us she’s an historical figure.’

  Keith nodded again and decided not to mention that it was actually a shower curtain he’d put in to hide Mum’s bad posture.

  ‘And having her playing Monopoly in the bath,’ said Mr Browning. ‘Very imaginative. She’s a real estate agent, is she?’

  Keith shook his head. ‘Parking inspector,’ he said.

  Mr Browning continued to look closely at Mum.

  ‘Is that a phone number’ he asked, ‘in soap suds, floating on the top of the water?’

  Keith nodded and felt his heart speed up.

  It was working.

  Mr Browning was becoming fascinated by Mum’s finer qualities.

  ‘She’s good at Scrabble, too,’ said Keith. ‘And cards.’

  Then he remembered Mr Browning was married.

  With triplets.

  ‘But she hasn’t got very good feet,’ Keith said hurriedly.

  Mr Browning smiled and glanced around the hall.

  ‘You’d better lower your voice,’ he said, ‘in case she hears you.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ said Keith. ‘She’s doing a late shift.’

  ‘Well, your dad then,’ said Mr Browning. ‘Don’t want him hearing you bad-mouthing, your mum feet.

  ‘Mum and Dad are separated,’ said Keith. ‘And Dad’s doing dinners at the cafe till nine.’

  Mr Browning looked at the painting again, and then at Keith.

  He seemed lost for words, which Kei
th hadn’t ever seen before with Mr Browning.

  He didn’t even say ‘Hmmmm.’

  ‘Well done, Keith,’ he said finally. ‘It’s a good effort. Keep it up. I hope you won’t stop painting just because term’s finished.’

  Then he turned and went to look at another picture.

  Keith pretended to go and look at another picture too.

  Best not hang around mine, he thought. People get nervous copying down phone numbers from paintings when the artist’s standing there watching them.

  He glanced around the hall.

  They couldn’t all be mums and dads.

  There must be some single people.

  Keith tried to work out which ones were unattached, separated, divorced, widowed, abandoned, or had partners in jail for life.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Then, with a jolt, he realised some people were looking at his painting.

  Two women by themselves and a man by himself.

  Keith liked the look of all of them, and he knew Mum and Dad would too.

  He strained to hear what they were saying.

  ‘Dodgy legs; said one of the women, pointing to Dad.

  They both sniggered.

  ‘Hers aren’t much better; said the man, pointing to Mum.

  The three of them walked away laughing.

  Tragic, thought Keith. Fancy thinking the most important thing about a person is whether the veins in their legs stick out a bit.

  He looked around again.

  The hall was even more crowded now.

  People were arriving all the time.

  Keith relaxed.

  He could tell that lots of them were sensitive mature single people who knew that leg veins weren’t really very important at all.

  Keith lay in bed and stared into the darkness and tried to stop seeing leg veins.

  He couldn’t.

  ‘Dodgy legs,’ said the school hall voices in his head.

  And ‘Yuk, look at that tummy.’

  And ‘I’ve seen better looking skin on a potato.’

  And ‘Who’s that in the bath, the Hunchback Of Notre Dame?’

  And ‘Fire! Fire!’

  Keith smiled grimly in the darkness.

  That would have shut them up.

  If he’d ripped his painting off the wall and grabbed Mr Browning’s matches and set fire to it.

  That would have stopped them saying unkind things about other people’s bodies.