‘Poor thing,’ said Keith. ‘Do you think it knows Mr Mellish is dead?’
Tracy shook her head. ‘That’s why it stayed by the bed. Waiting for him to come back.’
Keith’s eyes suddenly felt prickly.
He swallowed and took a deep breath.
‘I’ll have a chat with it,’ he said, ‘when it’s got its strength back.’
‘Wonder why the ambulance officers and the police left it behind?’ said Tracy.
‘Must have thought there’d be relatives coming round to collect it and do the washing up,’ said Keith. ‘Mustn’t have known Mr Mellish’s death was such a tragically lonely one.’
‘Keith,’ said Tracy quietly, ‘don’t be a dope. How could Mr Mellish die of loneliness when he had such a loyal and devoted friend in the house?’
Later, curled up in Mum’s bed on the settee, Keith finally worked it out.
OK, he thought, so Mr Mellish didn’t die of loneliness.
But that was only because he had a dog to love him and keep him company and perk him up.
Mum and Dad haven’t got that.
All they’ve got is me and Tracy and Aunty Bev.
They’re depending on us.
Keith looked at the dog breathing quietly next to him.
He felt very fond of it already.
You brave little thing, he thought. You’d have starved to death worrying about your master.
Bit like me, stunting my growth worrying about Mum and Dad.
He gave the dog a hug.
Except I’m lucky, he thought. Thanks to me worrying, Mum and Dad are going to be OK.
‘Dazzle?’ said Tracy, exploding with laughter and spraying cereal across the kitchen. ‘You’ve called him Dazzle?’
‘Yes,’ said Keith, giving Dazzle a third helping of Irish stew. ‘I like it. And we don’t know what his real name is.’
‘I doubt if it’s Dazzle,’ said Tracy. ‘Pretty unusual name, but.’
‘I got the idea from something Aunty Bev once said,’ replied Keith. ‘Dazzle the buggers.’
‘I should have guessed,’ said Tracy bitterly. ‘That’s the sort of thing that prawn-brain would say.’
Keith stared at her, stunned.
‘Keep your voice down,’ he stammered, ‘she’ll hear you.’
‘She went out early,’ said Tracy. ‘Gone to make your dad look even more dopey.’
Keith felt anger rush through him.
‘Aunty Bev,’ he said, ‘is saving the lives of two seriously depressed people. And that’s more important than whether she nags a bit about aerobics.’
Tracy frowned for a moment, then wearily put her cereal spoon down and looked hard at Keith.
‘Aunty Bev,’ she said, ‘is a fanatic. If she came in here now and saw Dazzle stuffing his face with Irish stew, do you know what she’d say?’
‘What?’ asked Keith, wondering if a person could get inflammation of the brain from cutting their finger on a dirty milk bottle.
‘She’d say,’ mimicked Tracy angrily, ‘“Dazzle, mate, that extra helping’ll go straight to your thighs and hips and then you’ll be dumpy and no one’ll like you and everyone’ll laugh at you and you’ll be lonely and unhappy for the rest of your life".’
Keith stared at her.
‘How do you know?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ said Tracy tearfully, standing up and tweaking underneath her arms, ‘that’s what she says to me.’
Tragic, thought Keith as he left Mum’s block.
His ears were still ringing from Tracy slamming the bedroom door in his face.
All he’d done was try and talk a bit of sense to her.
Suggest to her that Aunty Bev was probably just worried about her because she’d grown upwards so fast it could mean her metabolism was a bit unstable and she was in danger of growing outwards very fast too.
She hadn’t even let him finish.
Slam.
‘I’m worried about her too,’ Keith said to Dazzle. ‘I think this might be something more than jet lag.’
Dazzle nodded.
He understands me, thought Keith.
Either that or he’s not used to having string tied to his collar.
‘G’day Keith,’ said a cheery voice.
Keith looked up.
Aunty Bev was striding towards him in her pink tracksuit.
‘Didn’t know you had a dog,’ she said. She stopped and patted Dazzle. ‘He’s in lovely condition, but. Not an ounce of fat on him.’
‘Aunty Bev,’ said Keith, ‘did you and Tracy have any injections to stop you getting typhoid and cholera when you go to Nepal?’
‘Yes,’ she said ‘why?.’
‘I’m worried about Tracy,’ he replied. ‘I think she might be allergic to them.’
‘Is she sick?’ asked Aunty Bev, concerned.
‘No,’ said Keith, ‘just sort of emotional.’
Aunty Bev nodded.
‘I’ll go and have a chat with her,’ she said. ‘No drama. Her hormones are playing up a bit at the moment, that’s all.’
Keith felt relief trickle through him.
Hormones.
Of course.
‘Go and say g’day to your dad,’ grinned Aunty Bev. ‘That’s if you recognise him.’
Keith watched Aunty Bev hurry into the flats.
‘That woman,’ he said to Dazzle, ‘is a saint.’
Dazzle did a pee on the pavement.
On the way to the cafe Keith decided it would either be a new suit or a wig.
He imagined Dad’s bald patch covered with thick luxurious hair.
He grinned.
Nice one.
Then a thought hit him.
Wigs had to be made to measure. Even Aunty Bev couldn’t get a wig made on a Saturday morning.
‘Unless,’ he said to Dazzle, who was panting inside Keith’s jacket trying to lick his face, ‘they got lucky and picked up one his size second hand from the classifieds.’
He pushed open the cafe door and went in.
‘Hello Keith,’ said Dad, looking up from the table he was wiping. He ran his hand over his head. ‘What do you think?’
Oh no, thought Keith.
Please no.
He stared in horror.
12
It was the worst haircut Keith had ever seen.
‘Bev reckons short hair looks better on balding men,’ said Dad. ‘She’s right, eh?’
Keith sighed.
The longest hairs on Dad’s entire head were the ones growing out of his ears.
Keith sent an urgent message to his own head.
Be positive.
Nod.
But it wouldn’t.
‘You’ll use much less shampoo,’ said Keith after a bit.
It was the best he could do.
Dad grinned and moved on to the next table.
Keith sent Dad’s hair an urgent message.
Grow back.
Please.
Later in the weekend Keith saw another haircut just as bad.
The same bristles all over the scalp.
The same sticking-out veins on the temples.
Even the same hair in the ears.
Keith stared at it.
Oh well, he thought, at least Dad’s not the only one.
But he didn’t feel any better.
It was hard to when the only other haircut in London as tragic as Dad’s belonged to an escaped convict who’d killed eight people with a whale knife.
Keith reached up and ran his fingers over the murderer’s bristles.
They felt exactly the same as Dad’s.
‘Hey you,’ said a museum attendant, ‘no touching the exhibits.’
‘Sorry,’ said Keith.
He pointed at the wax figure of the murderer.
‘Would you invite someone who looks like him to the pictures,’ he asked the attendant, ‘if you knew he was kind and gentle and a whiz with fried foods?’
The attendant smile
d.
‘Only if I was his mother,’ she said.
Keith sighed and went back over to Dad and Aunty Bev.
‘Glad you came?’ Aunty Bev was saying to Dad.
‘You can say that again,’ said Dad. ‘Best wax museum in Britain and it took a foreigner to bring me here.’
Aunty Bev grinned and pretended to clout him round the head with her bag.
Dad pretended to duck.
Keith noticed a small roll of fat appear at the top of Dad’s neck.
It’ll take weeks for the hair to grow back over that, thought Keith gloomily.
Months probably.
‘A manicurist at a beauty therapy conference in Townsville told me about this place,’ said Aunty Bev. She pointed to a nineteenth century fish shop assistant who minced up her neighbour’s children. ‘Look at those exquisite nails.’
Dad leant forward to look and his bottom wobbled.
Keith sighed again.
He looked at the flat stomach and firm buttocks of the police officer who was arresting the fish shop assistant, and wished you could get wax parents.
At least if they were beyond help you could melt them down and start again.
A bit later Dad lingered to look at a famous chef and Keith found himself walking on with Aunty Bev.
‘Suits him, eh, the haircut?’ she said, glancing back at Dad. ‘Short hair always looks better on balding men.’
Keith didn’t know what to say.
He wished he’d stayed at home with Tracy and Dazzle.
Then he told himself to stop being silly.
OK, he thought, Aunty Bev made a mistake with the haircut. That doesn’t mean she’s a prawn-brain. Even highly-skilled professionals make mistakes sometimes.
Keith looked back at Dad, who was studying the contents of the chef’s saucepan with his hands in his pockets and his tummy bulging under the parrot shirt.
Think positive, Keith told himself. There’s still heaps Aunty Bev can do.
‘Aunty Bev,’ he said, ‘have you done much work with tummies and bottoms?’
‘You mean sculpting the basic lines of the body,’ said Aunty Bev.
Keith thought that was probably what he meant.
‘Exercise and stuff,’ he said.
He had a vision of Aunty Bev making Dad do push-ups with a box of tinned pineapple on his back.
He grinned.
If that didn’t cure bottom wobble, nothing would.
‘Exercise is OK,’ said Aunty Bev, ‘but it doesn’t go far enough. I prefer a combination of diet and cosmetic surgery.’
‘Cosmetic surgery?’ said Keith. ‘What’s that?’
‘It means when bits of your body are stopping you looking good, you have them altered or cut off,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘Bits of skin, flesh, even bone.’
Keith stared at her.
Cut off?
With a scalpel?
Just to look good?
Keith had a vision of Dad without his bottom.
He felt dizzy and a bit sick.
‘I think liposuction would be perfect for your dad,’ said Aunty Bev.
‘Liposuction?’ said Keith. ‘What’s that?’
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
‘It’s very clever,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘They’ve got a special sort of vacuum cleaner that can suck the fat out from under your skin.’
Keith sat down next to an attendant and hoped he wouldn’t be sick over her handbag.
‘Of course that leaves the skin a bit baggy,’ continued Aunty Bev, ‘so they have to cut some strips out and seam it up. Like having jeans taken in.’
Keith realised what was going on.
Aunty Bev was sending him up.
Joking.
He glanced over to see if the attendant was getting it.
The attendant didn’t seem to be.
The attendant was looking a bit queasy too.
‘I’ve had it done,’ said Aunty Bev, running her hand down her neck.
Keith looked at her.
She wasn’t joking.
‘It’ll be time for Tracy to have it done in a couple of years,’ she said.
Keith gaped.
Tracy?
He had another vision.
A wax Aunty Bev standing between the Whale Knife Killer and the Fish Shop Mincer holding a blood-stained vacuum cleaner.
On the way home, after Dad and Aunty Bev had said goodbye and gone off to the pictures, Keith told himself to calm down.
Aunty Bev wouldn’t let Tracy have her fat vacuumed unless she really needed it.
Course she wouldn’t.
Aunty Bev’s a trained professional.
Look at the great job she’s done with Mum.
‘Keith,’ called Mum’s voice as he closed the front door, ‘is that you?’
A pit opened up in Keith’s stomach.
He recognised the tone in her voice.
It was the tone she’d used when she told him she and Dad were going to split up.
Oh no, thought Keith. Her weekend’s been a disaster.
But how could it have been?
She’d looked wonderful.
Men would have been flocking to Bognor just for a look.
‘Yes,’ said Keith, ‘it’s me.’
What could have gone wrong?
Then Dazzle ran out of the kitchen and Keith realised what must have happened.
Mum must have come home, found Dazzle, plus a big puddle on the carpet, and now Mum was going to tell him that Dazzle had to go.
‘Please let me keep him,’ pleaded Keith as Mum came out of the kitchen. ‘He’s been under a lot of emotional stress but he’ll start controlling his bladder soon, I promise, please.’
‘Keith,’ said Mum, ‘it’s OK. Tracy’s explained about Dazzle. I don’t mind you having him as long as you take responsibility for him and keep him off the beds.’
Keith’s insides soared.
Then dropped again.
He stared at Mum.
Her hair was flat.
Her face was pale.
She was wearing her old baggy shorts.
Keith could see her leg veins even though the lighting was low.
He felt like giving her a shake.
‘Mum,’ he felt like yelling, ‘how can you expect to meet people and fall in love and be happy if you won’t leave your makeup and your lilac tracksuit on?’
He didn’t, because while he was thinking about it a man followed Mum out of the kitchen.
‘This is Donald,’ said Mum.
The man took Mum’s hand.
‘Hello Keith,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard lots about you.
Keith opened his mouth but it felt like it was made of wax.
‘Donald and me work together,’ said Mum quietly. ‘And we’re going out together as well.’
Keith saw she didn’t just mean tonight.
Suddenly his mouth was working.
‘Did you meet this weekend?’ he asked.
Mum and Donald exchanged a look.
‘No,’ said Mum in a small voice. ‘We’ve been going out for about six weeks.’
Keith’s whole head felt like it was made of wax.
Six weeks.
‘Just at lunchtimes and after work,’ said Mum. ‘I didn’t want to tell you until I knew it was serious. I’m sorry love, I know this must be a shock for you.’
Keith lowered his eyes.
Just above Mum’s ankle, he saw, was a leg vein in the shape of a mouth laughing at him.
13
Keith gazed at half of London spread out shimmering below him and felt the sun on his cheeks and the breeze in his hair and tried not to think about how many people down there were having their fat vacuumed.
Think positive.
It’s a knockout summer day, he told himself, and I’m having a picnic with my best friend and the view’s brilliant and I’ve got a really nice dog and Mum’s had the incredible good fortune to find the one man in London who doesn’t mind ro
ad-map legs and Dad’s pulling himself together very nicely thank-you and will almost certainly be swept off his feet by crowds of women just as soon as his hair grows a bit.
Keith felt his guts relax.
It was working.
He was feeling happy.
Now all he had to do was cheer Tracy up.
He took a big breath.
‘Mmmm,’ he said to Tracy, ‘the air’s so fresh up here. Hardly any pong from the chemical works. It’s giving me an appetite.’
Tracy didn’t reply.
‘I love picnics out of tins,’ said Keith, ‘don’t you?’
Tracy didn’t reply.
Keith spooned cold Irish stew into his mouth and poured the rest into Dazzle’s bowl and watched the cars far below glinting in the sunlight.
‘Great view, eh?’ he said to Tracy. ‘I bet even people from Nepal would be impressed by this view.
Tracy didn’t reply.
Keith saw she’d flopped down on Mum’s tablecloth among the tins and was staring at the sky.
She still hadn’t eaten anything.
Not the apricot halves or the spaghetti or the peas or the Irish stew or the fruit salad in heavy syrup.
Keith sighed.
She looked so miserable.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘they probably don’t have thirty-eight-storey blocks of flats in Nepal, not ones with flat roofs that are good for picnics. But the mountains sound great. I bet the views from them are brilliant.’
Tracy didn’t reply.
Dazzle finished the Irish stew and went over and licked her cheek.
She didn’t even seem to notice that.
Keith sighed again.
It wasn’t working.
Him being happy wasn’t making her feel better.
He took another deep breath and tried to think what else he could do.
‘1 know,’ he said, ‘let’s go tenpin bowling.’
Tracy looked at him and shook her head.
Keith was shocked. It was the first time he’d ever seen her refuse an invitation to play a sport, including rugby league.
This is hopeless, he thought.
Before he could get back to thinking positive, a cry rang out.
‘There you are!’
Aunty Bev emerged from the stairwell and came across the roof towards them.
Keith groaned inside and Tracy groaned out loud.
‘Your dad reckoned you’d probably be up here,’ called Aunty Bev. ‘Jeez, this view’s even better than the one from the silo at Uncle Leo’s.’
A Morris Gleitzman Collection Page 22
