Sundae Girl

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘You may be coming down with something,’ the nurse decides. ‘Is there anyone in at home? Anyone who can come and pick you up?’

  ‘My gran and grandad are there,’ I tell her. ‘They haven’t got a car, but I could walk. I think the fresh air would help, Miss. It’s not far.’

  ‘I’ll just ring and make sure they’re in.’ The nurse purses her lips, taps out the number and speaks briefly to Grandad. ‘They’re waiting for you,’ she says. ‘Walk straight home, mind, then stay in the warm with lots of hot drinks. Call the doctor if things seem any worse.’

  And that’s that. I walk out of school, my rucksack swinging, up the avenue and out along the main road towards Tile Hill. As I pass my old primary school and the church of Our Lady of Sorrows, I can feel the tears prickling my eyes. I’d like to go inside, where it will be dark and safe and quiet, with the smell of incense and candles and wood polish. I’d like to kneel down and close my eyes and pray.

  I’d ask for Mum to come home safely, obviously. She’d come home full of regret and apologies, kick the whisky and stop trampling all over my heart in her red stilettos. I’d pray for a nationwide ban on alcohol and Rollerblades too, a dad who doesn’t wear rhinestone-studded catsuits and a pass with Merit in my Grade Four piano exam. I don’t want tragedy or embarrassment or drama, I just want ordinary. Is that too much to ask?

  I get as far as the top of the church steps, but the sound of singing wafts out to me, distant, other-worldly. The kids from the primary school are having a Mass, playing hymns on recorder and guitar and reading chunks of Gospel in halting, sing-song voices.

  I duck along the side of the church, round to the back where the little shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows is. This is the place where miracles happen, after all. Some chance.

  I fling my rucksack down and slump on to one of the benches, but when I look up at the statue my eyes open wide. There is a boy on the other side of the handrail, sitting at the feet of Our Lady of Sorrows. He is older than me, maybe sixteen, with long tawny-fair hair, pink cheeks and very blue eyes.

  The boy is holding half a loaf of uncut white bread, which he is tearing into pieces, scattering on to the rocks nearby like bits of torn tissue. All around him, birds are sitting, sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, even a robin, pecking at the crumbs of bread. They are so close he could easily reach out his hand and touch half a dozen of them. As I stare, hardly daring to breathe, a couple flutter closer still. One perches on the shoulder of his beige duffel coat, another lands on his denim-patched knee, ruffling its feathers.

  The boy holds out a hand, filled with breadcrumbs, and the little brown bird hops right on to his palm. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. A sense of magic hangs in the air like mist.

  When I was little, Nuala and I sat telling jokes to the statue of Our Lady until our eyes blurred and we thought we saw her smile, but it wasn’t a miracle, not really, just wishful thinking.

  This is different. The boy with the bread looks spookily like a picture I once saw of a saint called Francis of Assisi, an Italian monk who lived in a forest surrounded by animals and birds.

  Then he speaks, and the illusion fades.

  ‘Wann some?’ he asks, looking up, grinning. ‘I got lots!’

  He has to be at least sixteen, but it’s like talking to a little kid. Those amazing blue eyes are clear and bright and sparkly, but there’s nothing behind them.

  ‘No thanks, it’s OK,’ I tell him. ‘You have it.’

  ‘Birds,’ he says, still grinning.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I say gently. ‘Birds.’

  He’s what the teachers call Special Needs, I can see that. Not like Jim at school, who is deaf, or Pete, who has ADHD, or even Cassi, who has some kind of syndrome and has to have a Learning Support teacher with her all the time. They all fit in, no hassle, but I can’t imagine this boy in a classroom.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask, but the boy has retreated into a world of his own, pulling the last crumbs from the hollowed-out loaf.

  My eyes flick up to the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. I must be crazy to think she could help look after Mum, bring her home safe, stop her from drinking. Still, old habits die hard.

  Please, please, please, I pray. Please let Mum come home safe. Don’t let her get really ill, like last time. Look after Gran and Gramps, help me pass my piano exam and … look after the Bird Boy.

  ‘See you, then,’ I call, but the boy doesn’t even look up. He’s whispering to the robin on his shoulder, a soft stream of nonsense falling from his lips. I can’t work out if he’s a miracle or a tragedy.

  All the way home, I tell myself that Mum will be there, safe and well, cuddled up on the settee with Toto, drinking coffee and watching The Wizard of Oz.

  When I turn into the street I see Grandad at the gate, scanning the street anxiously. ‘There you are,’ he says as I approach, taking my school bag and holding a palm against my forehead to check for fever. ‘What’s wrong, Jude? The school nurse said you were ill.’

  ‘Not really,’ I admit. ‘She thinks I’m sickening for something, but actually I’m just fed up and worried about Mum. She’s still not home, is she?’

  ‘No,’ Grandad admits. ‘I’ve called the hospital, and she’s not there. Sue hasn’t seen her, and there was nobody home at Giovanni’s. I suppose he’ll be working – doesn’t he wash dishes at that Italian restaurant in the winter?’

  ‘She won’t be with him, anyway,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t have time for Sue or Giovanni when she’s drinking. They worry too much, tell her things she doesn’t want to hear.’

  ‘Well,’ Grandad says, chewing his lip. ‘She’s got to be somewhere.’

  Gran looks up from her armchair, smiling over her knitting.

  ‘Do you know, I’d love an ice-cream cornet,’ she says. ‘With a chocolate flake and raspberry sauce.’

  ‘Molly, love, it’s February,’ Grandad says.

  ‘I know,’ Gran says. ‘Scorching hot weather too. Should I have nuts as well as raspberry sauce?’

  ‘I suppose I could get some ice cream from the corner shop,’ I’m saying, but just then an ice-cream van jingle fills the air. I give Gran a puzzled look, but she just grins back, smug.

  ‘Giovanni!’ Grandad exclaims. ‘That lad doesn’t give up!’

  We crowd together at the window. ‘Mum!’ I squeal. ‘She’s OK! Giovanni’s brought her home!’

  Giovanni and Mum walk down the garden path. Mum looks chirpy, happy, but Giovanni is serious. Grandad whips the door open before he can ring the bell.

  ‘Rose, love!’ he beams. ‘We’ve been so worried!’

  ‘It was all a misunderstanding,’ Mum says. ‘Ridiculous.’

  Giovanni shakes his head. I’ve never seen him look angry before, but he does today.

  ‘What happened?’ I want to know. ‘Where were you?’

  Mum just shrugs off her pink leather jacket, flinging it down on to a chair.

  ‘Come on,’ Giovanni says, coldly. ‘Tell her, Rosa. Tell your daughter where you spent the night.’

  ‘It was a load of rubbish!’ Mum bursts out. ‘I tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t listen. Idiots!’

  ‘Who?’ Grandad asks, but Mum just flops down on to the settee, picks up the remote control and clicks the TV on. Giovanni leans down, unsmiling, and takes the remote control away, switching the TV off. Mum unleashes a torrent of abuse, finally taking off a red stiletto to hurl at Giovanni. It misses and lands rakishly in Gran’s knitting bag.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she says, mildly.

  ‘She called me an hour ago because she didn’t want you to know,’ Giovanni says calmly. ‘She asked me to pick her up – from the police station. She spent the night in the cells!’

  Mum launches herself at Giovanni, swearing, screaming, punching, scratching. Giovanni just peels her off, like she’s a toddler with a tantrum. She sinks back on to the settee, crying.

  ‘It was a mistake, all right?’ she says between sobs. ‘I wasn’
t doing anything wrong! I was just tired, that’s all, and I sat down for a little rest …’

  ‘Students found her in the city centre,’ Giovanni tells us. ‘Collapsed in the gutter. They thought she was ill and called 999, but of course, she was only drunk. When the police tried to talk to her to find out where she lived, she screamed and swore at them. They took her in for a night in the cells. She was lucky not to be charged with Drunk and Disorderly.’

  I am frozen with shame and horror. A dark flush creeps over my cheeks, and I can’t think of a single thing to say.

  ‘Oh, Rose, no,’ Grandad whispers.

  ‘I didn’t mean it!’ she protests. ‘OΚ, I’d had a bit too much to drink, but that’s not a crime, is it? Is it? I was just tired!’

  I have sick visions of classmates, teachers, neighbours, all wandering past, frowning and asking themselves if the drunk in the gutter didn’t look just like Jude Reilly’s mum. I know I should feel concerned, anxious, upset, but all I can feel is embarrassed, angry.

  ‘Anything could have happened, Rose!’ Grandad says sadly. ‘Thank God those students found you. You could have frozen to death!’

  ‘As if you’d care!’ Mum snaps. ‘A night in the cells is no picnic, either, let me tell you! There were all kinds of nasty types in there. Imagine locking up a poor, defenceless woman …’ She wraps her arms around herself, like a little girl snuggling up in the cold, shutting out the world. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she says.

  ‘Of course not, love,’ Grandad soothes. He fusses around her, picking up a blue fleece blanket to tuck round her shoulders, like Gran used to do for me when I was little and feeling sad. ‘Don’t worry, Rose, pet. You’re home now, safe and sound. It’s all over.’

  I wish I could believe that. Mum says she’s tired and upset and needs to lie down. She slopes away up the stairs, while Grandad shakes Giovanni’s hand and tells him he’s a grand fellow.

  ‘You’ve always been there for Rose,’ he says. ‘We appreciate that. Stay for a nice cup of tea, now. We’ve got wafer biscuits, a new packet.’

  He bustles out to the kitchen, and Giovanni turns to me.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ he says, the minute Grandad is out of earshot. ‘I can’t stand by and watch her do this, you know?’

  ‘We don’t have much of a choice, do we?’ I say, and then I realize that Giovanni actually does. We’re family, but he’s not. Why should he hang around to be treated like dirt?

  ‘I can’t go on pretending it doesn’t matter,’ Giovanni says. ‘It does. Today, when I collected her from the station – it was horrible, Jude. I was ashamed.’

  I know, because I’m ashamed too.

  ‘Then, in the van, she told me she didn’t want to go back home – didn’t want to face you. Never mind that you’d all be out of your minds with worry. We’re driving along, me going on about detox clinics and Alcoholics Anonymous, and Rosa just smiles sweetly and asks me to take her to a bar. A bar, Jude! After all that! Can you believe it?’

  A tear leaks out from the corner of my eye and slides down my cheek, and my stomach feels cold, sour, empty.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ Giovanni declares. ‘Unless she can admit she has a problem, unless she can ask for some help to get herself well again … and she cannot. She will not. It is over for me, Jude. Over.’

  ‘Not really,’ I say, uncertainly. ‘I mean, you’ll be around, won’t you? When she gets better. It’s not really the end or anything, is it?’

  But Giovanni just looks at me, all sad brown eyes and slanting brows, and my heart sinks.

  ‘I can’t do it, Jude,’ he says. ‘I can’t just watch her drink herself to death.’

  Gran, Grandad and I don’t have that choice, of course.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Giovanni says.

  I’m sorry too. Giovanni has been a part of our lives for almost three years now. He is sweet and funny and kind, but Mum has always treated him badly, even when she’s not drinking. When she’s sober, she lets him take her on dates and days out, buy her flowers, chocolates. He’s not Mr Perfect, she says, but he’ll do for now.

  ‘He loves me, Jude,’ she told me, once. ‘That has to count for something, doesn’t it?’

  Apparently not. Giovanni tells me to explain to Grandad that he is heartbroken, that the tea would only choke him. He slips out of the front door, walks down the path, shoulders drooping.

  ‘Over,’ Gran echoes sadly, still cradling Mum’s scuffed red stiletto.

  I remember the ice-cream cornet then, and run down the path after Giovanni to ask him.

  ‘For Molly, anything,’ he says, smiling sadly. He hands me a huge cornet, complete with chocolate flake, raspberry sauce and nut sprinkles, and tells me to look after myself. I stand on the path and watch as the ice-cream van pulls away from the kerb, chugs along the road and disappears round the corner.

  Tears sting my eyes, but I sniff them back and walk inside, holding the ice-cream cornet.

  ‘There you are, Gran,’ I whisper, forcing a smile. ‘For you.’

  She looks at me as though I’m crazy. ‘Ice cream?’ she says. ‘Oh, no, Jude, not for me. I couldn’t – brrr! Don’t you know it’s only February?’

  ‘So,’ says Carter, slipping into the seat beside me. He’s finally joined Brendan Coyle’s street hockey team, and he has a spectacular black eye to show for it. ‘No Nuala today?’

  ‘Well spotted,’ I say.

  Nuala is at the orthodontist. It’s art, and I am looking forward to a quiet afternoon of still-life drawing. Instead I get Carter. Lucky me.

  Mr Latimer is telling us about chalk and charcoal, about looking for shape and pattern and tone and texture. I look at the heap of rusting bicycle wheels arranged on the table in front of me, but no matter how hard I try, they’re just a heap of rusting bicycle wheels.

  ‘Great viewpoint from here,’ Carter says. ‘You don’t mind if I sit in Nuala’s seat this lesson, do you?’

  ‘I’m overjoyed,’ I say, flatly.

  ‘Thought so!’

  Mr Latimer puts Radio One on and sits down with the newspaper crossword and a mug of coffee. He’s the kind of teacher who baffles you with long words and great expectations, then rolls his eyes because you don’t get it and blanks you for the rest of the lesson. Not that I care – not today anyhow. I pick up a piece of chalk and make a couple of half-hearted marks.

  ‘Anyway,’ Carter says, ‘I was hoping I’d get a chance to talk to you. I was wondering if you fancied coming to the skate park one night?’

  ‘I’d rather eat my own shoe,’ I reply.

  ‘Uh?’ Carter frowns at my footwear, looking for possible clues. ‘Does that mean … no?’

  ‘It means no.’

  Carter looks floored, as though this is one possibility he hasn’t considered. ‘OK, no. Maybe skating’s not your thing.’

  ‘Carter, skating’s not your thing, either,’ I point out. ‘You’re hopeless.’

  ‘I’m getting better!’

  ‘No, you’re not. Why don’t you just admit it and give up?’

  He grins at me from behind the floppy, straw-coloured hair. ‘I’m not the giving-up kind, Jude,’ he tells me. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve noticed.’

  ‘It’s called determination,’ Carter says.

  ‘It’s called stupidity,’ I correct him.

  ‘I love it when you’re mad at me,’ he says. ‘But you’re wrong. I’m not stupid.’

  I raise an eyebrow and shake my head.

  ‘It’s not stupid to hope, is it?’ Carter asks.

  Oh boy. Yes it is, seriously stupid, dangerously stupid. You hope and dream and nothing ever changes. People let you down, stuff goes pear-shaped. I know this from long experience. And I am never, ever going to go out with Kevin Carter. As if.

  Kristina Kowalski wiggles across the room, tottering on black stiletto boots that look like the toes have been finished off in Mr Latimer’s industrial pencil sharpener. She sees Carter beside me and f
rowns.

  ‘What you sitting with her for, Kevin?’ she wants to know. ‘Come and sit with me and Brendan!’

  ‘Nah, I’m OK, thanks.’ Carter shrugs.

  ‘What, is she doing your maths homework for you or something?’

  ‘Go away, Kristina,’ Carter says.

  ‘Touchy! I was only asking! I mean, she’s not exactly your type, is she?’ Kristina smirks. ‘Not anybody’s type, really!’

  Carter just stares her out, but I let my long hair slide forward, hide behind it, blushing. I hate Kristina Kowalski, I really do.

  ‘Maybe I’m wrong,’ she says, finally. ‘Maybe you’re a good match. Two losers. Hey, Brendan, guess what? Carter’s got the hots for Jude Reilly!’

  She tosses her long tawny hair over her shoulder, as if to show Carter what he’s missing, then flounces off to where Brendan and his cronies are sitting, laughing and wolf-whistling in our direction.

  Great.

  ‘She’s jealous,’ Carter tells me. ‘Obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Er, I don’t think so!’ But Carter just grins to himself, savouring the wolf whistles until they die down and Brendan goes back to his work. Luckily for us, art is his favourite subject.

  ‘Why did you join his stupid street hockey team, anyway?’ I ask, steering the conversation on to safer ground. ‘You’re useless, and you know it. Brendan only wants you in the team so he can beat you up with a clear conscience.’

  ‘It’s a tough game, but I can take it,’ Carter says, heroically.

  ‘I can see that,’ I reply. ‘I suppose that black eye didn’t hurt?’

  ‘It’s not really black, more purplish,’ Carter says. ‘With mottled green and yellow bits around the edges. Those hockey sticks can be lethal.’

  ‘Especially when you’re around. Face it, Carter, you’re just not coordinated.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ he protests, hoisting his grey combats up a few inches to reveal matching Simpsons socks. ‘See?’

  ‘Not that kind of coordinated! Seriously, Carter, pack it in before you wind up in hospital!’

  Mr Latimer is doing a lazy circuit of the room, sipping his coffee and peering at the work. I pick up the charcoal and make a few hasty circle shapes, then some random straight lines to represent the spokes.