Alice by Accident

by Lynne Reid Banks

  I suppose my dad didn’t respect her enough as well as not love her. I have fights with my mum but I don’t understand how anyone could not love and respect her.

  I’ll write a list of why she should be respected.

  First she’s a woman and women are better than men. They aren’t so vilent and by far the most criminles are men. Women live longer and they have babies which you need to be strong for and it’s nearly always the man who runs off when they’ve had them and the women stay.

  Second she’s done everything she’s done by herself. She hasn’t got a family to help her. My other grandma married a man who

  No, I’m going to tell that part properly, like a story.

  My mum grew up in Liverpool. She had a big sister called Dawn and a big brother called Robert and a younger sister Carla. She’s the aunt I met, the one with baby James (he hasn’t got a dad either). Mum’s father was OK to the others but he used to pick on Mum and hit her all the time. I just can’t imagine what my mum would do if some man tried to hit me, I think she’d kill him. She nearly killed a babysitter we had once who slapped me. But her mother just sat there. She let Big Pig get away with it and sometimes she even joined in. (Big Pig’s what Mum calls him.)

  Then one day when my mum was sixteen she was out shopping and she saw a man. He was walking down the street towards her. She looked at him and she couldn’t believe it because he looked like her. He looked so like her she suddenly knew something. She knew the man who had picked on her and hit her all her life and that she thought was her dad wasn’t her dad at all. The man in the street was her dad. Only by the time she knew this he’d gone past into the crowds.

  She ran home as fast as lightning and burst in and there was her mum and she shouted at her, “Your Big Pig husband isn’t my dad and why did you let me think he was?” and her mum was shattered. She said “How do you know?” and Mum said because I’ve just seen my real dad. And her mum burst out crying and locked herself in her bedroom.

  Then the Big Pig came home and Mum had a good look. She saw him with new eyes. She’d sometimes wondered why she looked so different from him, when her brother and sisters were like him. (AND she was cleverer than all of them. She didn’t tell me that but I know it’s true because of what she did later.)

  So anyway B.P. started shouting and swaring at her and putting her down and she said you can’t talk to me like that any more because you’re not my father.” And he went mad and said I’ve always looked after you you ungreatful little something really rude, and she said all you’ve done was made me out to be a nothing and then he tried to hit her and she went mad and picked up a big kitchen knife and said if you touch me I’ll use this and he swore at her more but he was really scared and her mum came running in acting crazy and tried to get the knife off her. They were all acting crazy.

  In the end Mum’s big sister Dawn who was really her half-sister came home and she got the knife away from Mum and calmed things down, but that night Mum packed some things and went out of their house where she’d always lived and she went to a friend’s house from school and stayed there. After that she never went back home exept once to get her things. She got an after school and Saturdays job and paid her friend’s parents for the room and later she got her A-levels and got into university which no one else in her whole family ever had. And that’s one good reason why you have to respect my mum because most people of sixteen would of crawled home and just put up with it because they’d of been so scared of everything being different and being on their own.

  My grandma Gene told my mum off when she found out she’d told me all this about her stepfather hitting her with his belt and about the knife and everything when I was only about five. I heard her when I was ment to be asleep. She said “How could you wish all that on to a little girl. But Mum said “Alice had to know about it to understand why we don’t see my mother and why I would never ever go back to Liverpool.” I’m glad now that she told me when I was young before I could imagine it properly. I kind of got used to it but when I think about it like now, I just want to go and do something really bad to Big Pig for hurting my mum and spoiling her child time and not respecting her. It makes me wish she’d stuck the knife right into him and made him scream like he did her when he hit her bare legs with his belt when she was only little just because she wasn’t his little girl.

  I’m writing this over days and days, not all at once. My cursive’s getting better. I can write much faster now.

  Today I drew a picture of my old room in Brighton in Art and got another A. It was fun drawing the hammock and I put Benny in it even though he’s with me.

  Now the number three reason why my mum deserves to be respected.

  In my old school there were other girls in my class with single mothers and not one of them’s mother was a professional exept one and she had her profession before she got divorced. They mostly either lived on benefit or had part-time jobs or low-paid jobs. My mum had me right after she finished university but just before I was born she passed her exams and got her degree but she was pregnant and living with the medical students so it was only a desmond.

  That’s a joke Mum told me. There’s this famous black priest called Desmond Tutu in South Africa. And when you say you got a desmond at university it means you got a 2–2 degree. 2–2 like Tutu. A First is the best, then there’s a 2–1, then there’s a desmond which is third-best but for Mum it was brilliant because she was pregnant and didn’t have anyone to help her.

  She was living with five other students and they were all men medical students exept her. They drank loads of beer and they never ever washed up and the table that was for all of them was always covered with dirty dishes and jars of jam and beer tins and stuff so if you made room for a mug at one end, something fell off at the other end (Mum told me this like a big joke but I tried it once, I put every single dish and pot we had on our table in Brighton and then tried to push a mug on, and a glass fell off the other end!! Lucky it was a thick one so it didn’t break.) and the place kept getting filthy and she was the only one who cared so she was the only one who cleaned up.

  They often got drunk and noisy so she could hardly study or even sleep and they teased her rotten and they made sexist remarks. They even teased her if she stood up for herself. They wouldn’t let her watch her favourite programmes on TV either, they only wanted to watch sport and other stupid stuff and if she argued they said this flat is a democracy and it’s five votes to one. She says she still doesn’t know the end of a really good old film called “The Letter” that starts with Betty Davis shooting someone because they just turned it off in the middle to watch stupid football.

  When they found out she was pregnant though, they got a bit nicer and didn’t let her lift things and didn’t tease her and one of them used to bring her mugs of tea in bed in the mornings to stop her being sick. But they still got drunk and made a noise and a mess and it was really hard for her to study so that’s why she got a desmond instead of a First which she could of I bet if things had been different, like she’d had a proper family to help her and a proper home.

  But getting a degree doesn’t mean you’re a professional. You have to go on studying, and when I was about three Mum started studying to be a solicitor. It takes about four years only it took Mum five because she had to look after me. She was on benefit then because she didn’t want to leave me and she couldn’t afford proper child care. But she studied at home mostly after I was asleep.

  Sometimes she had to go to classes and take exams and then she had to leave me with a neighbour. Mrs Blewitt. I still remember her really well. She was old and fat and her flat smelled. Mum said it was her dog but I think it was her. She was always creepy-crawly in front of Mum and said things like “Alice and I are going to wonderland today aren’t we dearie? but when Mum went away she changed and got really cross and crabby. She used to stick me on her mouldy old sofa covered with dog-hairs and say “don’t you move miss or Lady will bite you. Lady was the dog. She
never bit me but I always thought she would and I was dead scared of dogs for years until Gene and Copper cured me. Copper was Gene’s dog, a water spaniel, much bigger than Lady and when I first went to Gene’s and Grandad’s cottage I was scared to death of her but I’m not scared of her any more even when she jumps up on me. I wonder how she is I haven’t seen her for ages and when I saw her last which was last summer she was going to have puppies. Last summer was really good but I don’t want to write about it because it gives me that pain. I wish I wish I wish Gene and Mum hadn’t quarrelled. A real quarrel not a fratch.

  Mrs Blewitt brought me my lunch that was always jam sandwiches on a plate to the sofa but she didn’t talk to me exept to tell me don’t move. She would shuffle around and dust all her dinky little ornaments and go into her bedroom for a lay-down. She didn’t have a TV. She played the radio all day, but it was all talk radio and I didn’t understand it much. I was so bored I slept most of the time.

  She always told Mum in her creepy-crawly voice that we’d been for a nice walk but we never went out exept once she had to take Lady to the vet. She didn’t hold my hand crossing the road like Mum always did because she was holding Lady and saying goo-goo things to her like poor little girlikins got a pain in her wickle toofipeg. (Yuck.) She had to leave Lady there. When we got back she made me go to the sofa, but when she was having her lay-down I got off the sofa and walked about the room and took some of her little china animals and played with them on the floor. I felt quite safe because Lady couldn’t bite me from the vet’s, but she came out and caught me. Mrs Blewitt did, not Lady. Mrs B was so mad she trod on a china elefant on the floor and then she said “Look what you made me do, I ought to beat you black and blue!!!”

  She picked me up and threw me back on the sofa, really threw me, like a doll or something. It didn’t hurt much but it scared me so badly I threw up, and then she shouted and screamed at me and made me clean it up. After that the sofa stank of my sick.

  I was going to tell Mum that time, but in the end I didn’t. I never told how Mrs Blewitt changed or about the sofa and Lady. I even made things up that we’d done. Of course I know now it was stupid but I was only five and I thought Mrs Blewitt would know I’d told and would tell Lady to bite me next time I was there. So I stayed on the sofa all day exept when I had to pee and then I called Mrs Blewitt to take me to the loo and make Lady stay in her basket.

  Around that time I got different. I just sulked and got angry with Mum alot and had tantrums. I threw things and shouted at her and wouldn’t go to bed. That’s when I started really fussing about what I ate. I started peeing my bed and even peed on the floor in our flat. I didn’t know why I was doing it. Mum got very worried about me. She asked if there was ever a man at Mrs Blewitt’s but there wasn’t.

  Then she took me to Brenda. Brenda was my therapist. I used to go there once a week to play and I loved it there. There was a sandpit and dolls and things to draw with. I had toys at home but it was nice to have different ones at Brenda’s and Brenda sort of played with me. She would ask me to pretend that one of the dolls was me and one was Mummy and there was a man doll that Brenda said was daddy. He made me giggle because he had a willy under his trowsers. I said I don’t have a daddy but she said, everyone does, pretend this doll is your daddy. Would you like to talk to him? I said no. She said try, and I said hello daddy, and the doll just lay there with his willy and I couldn’t think of anything for him to say back.

  But I knew how to make up plays with dolls because I used to do it all the time with Gene. So I made the man doll be Pierre-Luc (he was still around then). I made them fratch and then I was going to make them kiss and make up like they really did but I stopped because even when I was only five I knew that grown-up cuddling is private.

  One time I pretended that the woman doll was Mrs Blewitt and I told her I thought she was the meanest person in the world and that she smelled and then I buried her in the sand. She said don’t don’t and I did her voice, like Gene did when we played to make it seem real, and dropped wooden bricks on her. I asked if there was a dog doll (to be Lady) and Brenda gave me a stuffed dog. I made Lady try to dig Mrs Blewitt up while I threw more sand on her with my other hand. In the end I made Lady growl and bite me and I dropped a big wooden brick on her and killed her.

  But that went wrong because Brenda thought I’d killed Mummy!!! And I said of course not, that’s not Mummy. Then she said poor old dog, and I didn’t say anything. Then she said what dog is that? I said it’s just a dog. She said have you got a dog and I said NO THANKS I hate dogs. She said well you certainly seem to hate that one.

  I think maybe she asked Mummy about the dog and Mummy caught on because I never had to go to Mrs Blewitts after that. When Mum had to go to classes she used to take me to the council playgroup. It was rough and noisy there but it was better than Mrs Blewitt and I stopped wetting my bed and only had a tantrum sometimes. I kept on fussing about food though.

  Another time Brenda said I should draw pictures of my family and I drew me in bed with Mummy. It was a really good drawing, I did the whole living room with the futon unfolded and I put some of my pictures on the walls. Brenda said do you and Mummy sleep in the same bed and I said the same futon. She said don’t you have a bed of your own and I said yes but it’s wobbly and besides it’s upstairs and I like to sleep downstairs where Mummy is. I didn’t tell Brenda how I lay awake sometimes feeling scared of prowlers and wishing she’d stop studying and cuddle in with me. Sometimes I made myself cry so she’d come to bed early.

  I was eight before Gene bought me a new bed. She said it was obseen to be sleeping with my mum at my age. Mum wanted Gene to give me the bed so she didn’t say anything but later she told me obseen means something dirty and that Gene had no right to say that even though she didn’t exactly mean it, Mum said actresses use exajerated language. She said “Gene always hints I’m not bringing you up properly and it’s none of her dam business. She should just stick to being a grandma.”

  I haven’t written anything for three weeks. I wanted to write only about my life till now but my life keeps getting new things to write about. I wish it would stay still for a bit and let me catch up. The big news is, Gene wrote to us to say we have to leave this house because she’s given it to my father.

  My father’s got married. It was in the letter and Mum cried and I snatched the letter and read it. Lucky I can read cursive. I asked Mum if she was crying because she loved my dad and was angry he married another person and she said “I don’t know. I suppose I always dreamed he might come back one day and make us a family but I knew deep down that he wouldn’t.”

  I said but what does it mean if Gene’s given him the house, does it mean he’ll come and live here?” Mum said “No. Your dad married a Dutch woman and he’s gone to live in Holland.” I wondered how she knew but I suppose Gene told her. She and Gene used to be friends even though they fratched sometimes. Once Gene called Mum her daughter-out-law. Mum told me that means a woman who is NOT married to your son.

  I said, “So why has Gene given my dad our house if he doesn’t want to live in it?” and Mum said houses are useful for earning money from rent. I said don’t we pay rent for this house, because we did at Brighton, Mum was always on about finding the rent, and Mum said no, Gene said we could stay in it for nothing. So I said well we could pay Dad rent, and Mum shouted through her crying, us pay him, I’d rather die than give him money. He should give us money. I said why and she said mentenance. I said what’s mentenance and she said, “it’s the money fathers are supposed to pay for their children even if they don’t live with them. That’s the law. Now please stop asking questions because this is bad news and I have to think it through.”

  I said will we go back to Brighton and she said, we can’t, you’ve started school here and my work’s in London and we can’t commute, it’s impossible. Then she just shouted “God I hate that bloody woman she makes me just want to die or kill someone!” She used to like Gene, sort of, but she
hates her now. I get very scared when my mum gets like that. I remember about the knife and Big Pig and think she might really get vilent.

  Brandy always said you should give background in a story. So I am going to be calm (not like Mum) and give the background.

  Mum told me that when I was about three and things were really hard before she was a professional, she decided I needed a grandma and she wrote to Gene and asked her if she would be my grandmother. Gene’d never even seen me then and she hadn’t seen my mum since before I was born.

  Mum was really nervous after she sent the letter. She thought Gene might write back and say get lost or something worse but she didn’t. She rang Mum (in Brighton this was) and they had a row strait off because Mum had called me Williamson-Stone on my birth certificate. Stone is her name and Williamson is my father’s name and Gene’s too. Gene said I had no right to that name because Mum wasn’t married to my dad and she said Mum’d stolen it. Of course that’s stupid, you can’t steal a name and you can call your child anything you like, she could’ve called me Alice Pokémon or Alice Peanut Butter Sandwich if she’d liked but Gene didn’t see it like that so she said at first that she didn’t agree to be my grandmother.

  But then one day she just turned up outside our door. I found out later that Gene had always been thinking about me since I was born and even before, when she’d come to see Mum at the digs with the medical students and told her off for being pregnant. She said it would spoil my dad’s life and she called my mum a little tart.