‘Keith,’ pleaded Tracy, ‘make her go away.’
‘Aunty Bev,’ said Keith, ‘Tracy’s not feeling so hot at the moment so I was going to let her have a bit of a snooze up here on her own. Do you like tenpin bowling?’
Aunty Bev didn’t reply.
She was crouched down examining the empty tin of Irish stew.
‘Sometimes Tracy,’ she said wearily, ‘I think you want to be a lardbucket.’
Keith was about to point out that many top athletes had large appetites, not to mention some of the world’s best racehorses, when Tracy leapt to her feet.
‘Leave me alone!’ she screamed at Aunty Bev. ‘Rack off and leave me alone!’
Keith watched horrified as Tracy ran across the roof and down into the stairwell.
He could feel Dazzle cowering behind his legs.
He turned to Aunty Bev.
‘It wasn’t Tracy,’ he said. ‘Me and Dazzle had it.’
Aunty Bev patted his arm.
‘S’OK mate,’ she said, ‘I’m not crook at you. In fact I’ve been meaning to thank you for giving me the idea of coming over here with Tracy. Get her away from those parents of hers. They haven’t got a clue what they’ve got with that kid. She could be a top international model one day if she wasn’t such a guts.’
Keith stared at her.
Tracy, a model?
The girl who could haul herself onto a steep tin roof at night in a downpour and catch cane toads with a torch and a bucket and no bait?
What a waste.
Keith was about to tell Aunty Bev that she’d got Tracy all wrong, that she was trying to turn Tracy into a person Tracy wasn’t, when something distracted him.
In each of the mirrored lenses in Aunty Bev’s sunglasses Keith could see his own face staring back at him.
Tracy was huddled in a corner on the thirty-sixth floor landing.
Keith had never seen anyone crying so hard.
He went over, feeling in his pockets for a hanky.
He couldn’t find one, so he put his arms round her.
‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ sobbed Tracy. ‘If she doesn’t stop this I’m gunna end up like Dawn Rickson.’
‘Who’s Dawn Rickson?’ asked Keith.
‘Kid in my school,’ said Tracy between ragged breaths. ‘Thought she was fat. Stuck her fingers down her throat every day after lunch and made herself chuck. Even after they took her to hospital. Poor bugger.’
Dazzle poked his head out of Keith’s jacket and licked the tears on Tracy’s cheeks.
‘You won’t have to do that,’ said Keith quietly.
‘Aunty Bev is going to stop because we’re going to make her.’
Tracy didn’t say anything.
Keith kept his arms round her.
After a while they heard Aunty Bev go down in the lift.
Quite a bit later Tracy gave a wobbly sigh.
‘Hope you’re right,’ she whispered.
14
Keith found Aunty Bev at Dad’s place, curled up on the settee reading a glossy magazine with a woman on the front even thinner than she was.
He cleared his throat until she looked up.
‘I think what you’re doing to Tracy is wrong,’ he said, ‘and I think you should stop.’
Aunty Bev looked at him for what seemed like months.
Keith’s stomach felt like it was being jabbed from the inside by a whole lot of chocolate fingers.
A muscle in his left buttock was quivering.
He wondered if his stomach was sagging and his bottom was wobbling.
Don’t care if they are, he thought.
Then Aunty Bev smiled.
‘You’re a good mate to Tracy,’ she said. ‘Tracy’s lucky to have you. But you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes I do,’ said Keith softly.
Aunty Bev closed her magazine.
‘Keith,’ she said, ‘I’m a beautician. I’m trained to know what’s best for people.’
‘Only on the outside,’ said Keith.
Keith noticed that even though Aunty Bev’s head was completely still, her plastic parrot earrings were trembling.
This is it, he thought. This is where she either agrees with me or attacks me with a vacuum cleaner.
Aunty Bev suddenly stood up.
Keith flinched, then remembered Dad’s Hoover was broken.
‘You probably think Tracy’s just got a bit of puppy fat, right?’ said Aunty Bev. ‘You probably think all kids put on a bit of weight at your age and it’s perfectly OK.’
Keith nodded.
He was in the middle of wondering whether he should remind her it was called growing when she suddenly scowled.
‘Puppy fat,’ she said, ‘is not OK.’
She put her face close to Keith’s.
Keith swallowed.
He noticed that one of her eyelashes was crooked.
Hope it’s false, he thought.
‘Do you know why puppy fat is not OK?’ she asked.
Keith shook his head.
‘Because,’ she said, ‘puppy fat doesn’t always go away. Puppy fat can stay with you for the rest of your life.’
Keith thought about this.
‘So what?’ he asked.
‘So what?’ shouted Aunty Bev. ‘So what?’
Keith’s left buttock felt like it was going to run out the door on its own.
The chocolate fingers grabbed his guts and twisted.
But he found himself thinking of all the happy people he knew who weren’t thin. Mr Gambaso in the Orchid Cove milkbar and the bloke who’d sold him the sugar cane and Ronnie Barker and the woman in the twenty-seven million quid painting.
‘Yes,’ shouted Keith. ‘So what?’
‘Keith!’ boomed Dad’s angry voice from the kitchen. ‘Don’t you ever talk to Bev like that again!’
Keith sighed.
He braced himself for the combined sight of Dad’s angry red face and his spiky short haircut.
He heard Dad striding out of the kitchen and turned and started to explain that he hadn’t meant to be rude but you have to be firm when you’re arguing with a fanatic.
He didn’t finish.
Dad’s face wasn’t red, it was shiny white.
His whole face was covered with white slime.
Stuck to the slime, beneath each eye, was a slice of cucumber.
Keith stared.
Then he saw that Dad was holding a large pot of yoghurt.
Dad went over to Aunty Bev and put a protective arm round her shoulders.
‘Did you hear what I said, Keith?’ boomed Dad.
Keith managed to nod.
‘Leave the cucumber over your eyes, Vin,’ said Aunty Bev, slipping her arm round Dad’s waist, ‘or it won’t absorb the muck from your eye sockets. It’s OK, me and Keith were just having a bit of a debate, weren’t we love?’
Keith tried to nod again but his neck had stopped working.
All he could do was stare in horror as Dad and Aunty Bev stood there with their arms round each other and Aunty Bev didn’t even mind the yoghurt getting on her tracksuit.
‘Thanks for trying,’ said Tracy.
‘That’s OK,’ said Keith.
They toyed listlessly with their bacon, egg, sausage, onion and baked bean sandwiches.
‘Do you think they’ll get married?’ asked Tracy.
‘Dunno,’ said Keith numbly.
He didn’t even want to think about it.
Aunty Bev as a stepmother.
Bursting into his room checking he wasn’t eating the tinned apricots.
Not that I’d have any appetite with her in the family, he thought gloomily.
‘Perhaps,’ said Tracy, ‘falling in love will make her more relaxed about things.’
Keith looked at Tracy.
He could see she was just trying to cheer them both up, but it felt good all the same.
‘Perhaps,’ he said quietly.
Then
the kitchen door flew open and Aunty Bev stood there looking at them both.
‘G’day,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d find you in here.’
Tracy looked away.
Dazzle growled.
Keith gaped.
Underneath the tight fabric of Aunty Bev’s pink tracksuit her stomach bulged out even further than Dad’s.
No, he thought, it’s not possible. She and Dad can’t be having a baby already, not when she’s only been in the country nine days.
‘It’s a cushion,’ said Tracy wearily. ‘It’s to remind me that if I eat too much I’ll get fat.’
‘Good girl,’ smiled Aunty Bev. ‘You’re getting the message.’ She turned to Keith. ‘And I hope you are too, young man. Short people have to be extra careful about their weight.’
Once they were alone again, Keith gave Tracy’s arm a sympathetic squeeze.
‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘at least you’ve got Nepal to look forward to.’
Tracy shook her head.
‘I’m not going,’ she said quietly. ‘Not even the highest mountains in the world are worth another week of this. Anyway, Aunty Bev reckons she’s gunna stay on here with your dad for a bit and I’ve got to fly home by myself.’
Keith watched miserably as Tracy dabbed her tears with her sandwich.
He had a vision of his life in London with Aunty Bev ruining most meals by nagging and Dad ruining the rest by wearing yoghurt to the table.
He had a vision of Tracy’s life in Australia, self-confidence shattered, hiding away by herself, pining for Nepal and watching telly and eating chocolate fingers and probably dying a lonely death tragically young.
It’s all my fault, he thought.
Everything.
Then he knew what he had to do.
While he rummaged through Aunty Bev’s suitcase he sent her a message.
Sorry to be going through your things but Tracy needs someone to go with her to Nepal and then perk her up back in Australia and as you’re staying here now I’m going to use your ticket.
That’s if I can find it, he thought.
He put the bras and tracksuits back into the suitcase and knelt down and opened the zip-up bag.
Shoes and a camera but no plane ticket.
There was only the make-up bag to go.
Keith sent an urgent message to the ticket.
Please be in there.
I need you.
The bedroom door creaked and slowly started to open.
Keith froze.
Aunty Bev and Tracy couldn’t be back from the newsagent already. It was a good ten minutes each way and that didn’t include actually buying Tracy’s diet book.
The door swung open and Dazzle trotted in.
He put his paws on Keith’s chest and licked his face.
Keith started breathing again and gave Dazzle a hug.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘you’re coming with me and Tracy.’
He opened the make-up bag.
A jolt of excitement ran through him.
Lying on top of the bottles and jars was a plastic travel wallet.
He picked it up, hands shaking.
Inside was a passport and some Australian money and some duty free vouchers.
And a plane ticket.
Keith pulled the ticket out of the wallet.
His shoulders slumped.
Aunty Bev’s name was in computer print.
That’s it, thought Keith, sick with disappointment. Forget it.
You can change handwriting, but not computer print.
He was about to put the ticket back when he noticed something had fallen out of the wallet.
A photo.
A faded, tattered photo of a girl about Tracy’s age in a swimming costume with plump arms and stocky legs and a round body and a chubby face.
Aunty Bev’s face.
15
‘It’s definitely her,’ said Tracy. ‘See that badge on her swimmers? That’s the school she went to.’
Keith waited for his heart to stop thumping.
He realised it wasn’t going to so he carried on anyway.
‘You’re dead sure?’ he said.
‘I’d bet my dad’s crutches on it,’ said Tracy. ‘That dunny she’s standing in front of was my grandma’s.’
They crouched in the phone box and stared at the photo for a long time.
Keith’s mind was racing and he could tell from Tracy’s frown that hers probably was too.
After a while he slid the photo inside his jacket.
‘I’m going to put it back before Mum gets home from work,’ he said.
‘Why?’ asked Tracy. ‘Why don’t we go to the cafe and give Aunty Bev a squiz and remind her she used to be a normal kid so she’ll leave me alone?’
‘Cause if she’s carrying this round with her,’ said Keith, ‘she doesn’t need to be reminded.’
Tracy’s face fell.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Keith. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’
Keith stood outside Mum’s bathroom door and made sure he had a firm grip on his sketch pad and his nerves.
He could hear water splashing and the Beach Boys singing.
He sent an urgent message to the batteries in Mum’s radio.
Just five more minutes, please. Last time if you’d conked out I’d have been sent to my room. This time I could go to jail.
Then he slowly turned the door handle and eased the door open a fraction.
He held his breath and hoped Aunty Bev couldn’t hear the blood pounding in his ears.
She didn’t seem to be able to.
She was lying back in the bath, eyes closed, waving a sponge in time to the music.
Just stay like that for five minutes, begged Keith. Please.
He peered through the steam and started sketching.
Suddenly Aunty Bev started screaming.
Keith slammed the door and ran out of the flat and down the street to the police station and explained frantically to the sergeant that he hadn’t been sketching her rude bits, just her face.
That’s what he did in his mind.
Before his body could follow along, he realised Aunty Bev was just singing.
He breathed a sigh of relief as quietly as he could and carried on sketching.
‘Try and hold the torch steadier,’ whispered Keith.
‘Sorry,’ said Tracy. ‘It’s this ladder, it’s not designed for two people.’
Keith sighed to himself.
Bet the great painters of history didn’t have to do their best work in pitch darkness up Mitch Wilson’s dad’s gardening ladder with only a wobbly torch to see by.
Bet when Michelangelo made alterations to the mural in the Sistine Chapel he had scaffolding and floodlights.
Well, big candles anyway.
Plus he probably had more than the leftover Pond Green and Contemporary Beige from Dad’s flat to work with.
‘How’s the torch now?’ asked Tracy.
‘Perfect, thanks,’ said Keith, mixing up some more grey and brushing it onto the wall.
Then again, he thought, Michelangelo probably didn’t have his best mate to help him.
Keith leant back and looked at the expanse of mural in front of him.
That was Mum and Dad painted over.
Now to start on Aunty Bev.
‘I still think this suit’s too tight,’ said Dad, pulling at the legs as he stepped off the kerb.
‘No it’s not,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘It’ll be fine once you’ve sculpted your body profile. Plus that fabric’ll stretch with wear. Take bigger steps.’
Dad took bigger steps as they crossed the road, but Keith could see he wasn’t happy.
Keith wasn’t happy either.
He sent Dad an urgent message.
Don’t worry about the new suit now, please, it’ll distract Aunty Bev from the mural.
Keith glanced at Tracy and could see from her tense face that she was worried about the same thing.
Dad p
ulled at the sleeves of the suit.
‘The mural’s just round this corner,’ said Keith.
‘This is very exciting,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it before?’
‘Keith’s a bit nervous about his paintings,’ said Tracy. ‘He’s worried that people won’t understand them.’
Keith and Tracy exchanged a glance and Keith saw that her fingers were crossed as tightly as his.
He held his breath as they turned the corner.
‘Jeez,’ said Aunty Bev, staring up at the mural. ‘Look at the size of it.’
For a horrible moment Keith thought she meant the body of the attractive and stylish Contemporary Beige woman with the Pond Green swimsuit and the plump arms and the stocky legs and the round body and the chubby face which, Keith was relieved to see, even in daylight was a pretty good likeness of Aunty Bev.
But she didn’t.
‘The colours on the houses are fabulous,’ said Aunty Bev.
‘What happened to the weightlifters?’ said Dad with a puzzled frown.
‘I changed it,’ said Keith quietly.
Please, he begged Aunty Bev silently, please do us all a favour and recognise your real self and feel OK about it.
Aunty Bev stared at herself on the wall.
Keith’s heart thumped with excitement.
Aunty Bev turned to Tracy.
‘That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ she said, pointing up at the woman. ‘Puppy fat can stay with you and ruin your life.’
Then she turned to Dad.
‘On second thoughts,’ she said, ‘I think that suit is too tight.’
Keith’s feet hurt.
Not surprising, he thought gloomily, I must have walked hundreds of miles.
He walked a bit more, then it hit him that if his feet hurt, Dazzle’s probably did too.
He picked Dazzle up and tucked the panting dog inside his jacket.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
Dazzle licked his chin.
Under the next street light Keith looked at his watch but it had stopped.
Dad and Aunty Bev were probably home from their visit to the doctor to see if Dad could get liposuction on the Government and were probably wondering where he was.
Tracy had probably slept off her headache and was probably wondering where he was too.
Keith realised he didn’t know where he was.
He peered around but the dark houses all looked the same.
A Morris Gleitzman Collection Page 23
