by Susan Lewis
‘Then he can just sod off, can’t he?’ I say, lighting up. ‘Want one?’
‘I’ve given up.’
Annoyed, I turn to look at him. ‘What for?’
‘I thought it might help you to.’
‘I don’t need any help. I can give up any time I like, thank you very much,’ and taking a drag, I pull out the little drawer ashtray. ‘So what else did he say?’ I prompt, a few minutes later. I don’t really want to know, but I suppose I have to ask. I mean they don’t cut off someone’s bosom then have nothing to say about it, do they?
Eddie carries on looking at the road, but I can see his hands on the wheel and they’re clutching it a bit too tight. I wonder how he’s feeling about me only having one now. Is he dreading seeing it? Well, he’s not the only one, and anyway, he doesn’t bloody have to, because no-one’s going to force him.
‘You have to go back for a check-up next week,’ he tells me. ‘They’ll provide transport.’
I know exactly what that means, and I’m having none of it. ‘If they think I’m getting in that bleeding cripple wagon then they can bloody think again. I’ll get the bus. Our mam’ll come with me.’
He goes on driving, not saying anything, which makes me even madder, because he always does that, goes quiet on me when I need to have a bloody good row. I suppose he thinks I’m scared, or something, but it’s not that. I just don’t want all the neighbours seeing me being carted off in an ambulance that comes round every week to take the old codgers in for their check-ups. I’m thirty-one, for God’s sake. I don’t want to be lumped in with the gerries. I just want to stay at home and have everything the way it was before.
‘How’re the kids?’ I ask, looking out the window. We’re going through Old Market now, so we’re quite close to where all the blackies live in St Pauls. You can’t go there any more, it’s too dangerous, but we’ve got no reason to anyway. They live in their part, we live in ours, and that’s how we all like it. Don’t want them coming moving in on us, lowering the tone of the place. Ha! You should try saying something like that to Eddie. Goes berserk he does, because wouldn’t you just know it, being Eddie he likes the wogs, even goes out of his way to try and get to know ’em. Got no time for ’em meself, all those drugs and killing each other, but I have to admit the nurse who did nights while I was in hospital was all right. Bloody great fat thing she was, but talk about cheerful. Nothing could get her down, and let me tell you, some of those miserable old gits had a bloody good go. The things they said to her, called her every bloody name you could think of, but she just kept right on smiling. Had to admire her really, because if it was me I’d have turned off their bloody life-support and let ’em croak.
Where was I? Oh yeah, I want to know how the kids are. (And I don’t mind blacks really, always put some money in the collections for Africa.) ‘Did you tell them I was coming home today?’ I ask Eddie.
‘Gary knows. Betty’s got him next door. I didn’t tell Susan just in case . . .’
‘In case of what?’ I want to know. ‘In case I didn’t come out? Is that what you were going to say?’
‘I didn’t want her to be disappointed.’
‘Well, she won’t be, will she? But I suppose you are. Thought you got rid of me, didn’t you? Thought I’d go in that hospital and never come out again.’
‘Don’t be daft. I knew you’d come out, but when I rang up last night they still weren’t sure if they were going to let you go today. I only knew after Susan had already gone to school this morning. She’s auditioning for the choir today.’
‘Oh God.’ Disaster’s looming. ‘She’ll never get in and it’ll be tears all over again.’
‘She likes to try.’
‘What about her piano and ballet practice? You’ve made her keep it up, I hope.’
He nods.
I finish me fag, grind it out in the ashtray and have a bit of a struggle to stop meself lighting another. It’ll only upset him, and I’m doing a good enough job of that already. I steal a quick look over, and now I’ve got a bloody great lump in me throat instead of in me right bosom. I turn and glare out the window. Bloody sodding hell. Why did it have to happen to me? What have I ever done to anyone to deserve getting cut up like this?
I remember that the doctor gave Eddie something in a bag, just before we left, so I ask what it was.
‘Clean dressings for the nurse when she comes,’ he says. ‘She’ll be in every day.’
‘Well it better not be that Cissy bleeding Weiner, is all I can say, because if it is, she can just bugger off.’
‘She means well.’
Just like him to be nice about everyone, and I’m right in the mood to argue some more, but I’m afraid my temper might burst the stitches, so I just stare down at my hands, where they’re resting on the top of my handbag, and wish I could stop meself wanting another fag and being so horrible to Eddie.
We don’t talk again until we’re almost home, which is when he chooses to tell me that I might have to have some radium treatment.
My heart turns over in me chest. ‘What does that mean?’ I say.
‘The doctor explained it the other day. Don’t you remember?’
I do, but I don’t want to. ‘I’m not having all that messing about,’ I tell him.
‘They have to be sure they got it all.’
‘They got a whole bloody bosom and half my sodding armpit,’ I remind him stroppily. ‘How much more do they want?’ I take out another cigarette and light it. ‘I wonder how many nosy old cows are staring out from behind their curtains,’ I snap as we drive into our street.
‘They’ve all been really good with the kids,’ he says, and I want to punch him. Can’t he say anything bad about anyone for once in his life? ‘They’re concerned about you.’
It’s on the tip of me tongue to tell him where to stick their concern, but I manage to rein it in. I wouldn’t mind asking why it couldn’t have been one of them, instead of me who had to go through this, but you can’t say things like that out loud, or people’ll think you mean them, which I do, if the truth be told.
We pull up outside our gate, and Eddie’s hardly opened the door when my boy comes bounding across next door’s lawn, yelling, ‘Mummy! Mummy!’
His lovely freckled face is all flushed with joy, and I think I’m going to cry again, because I love him so much. But I manage to laugh instead, as he whizzes straight past his father to come round to my side of the car. Eddie’s right behind him, sweeping him off his feet, before he tears open the door and dives in on me.
I get carefully out of the car. ‘How’s my best boy?’ I say, pinching his cheek. ‘Have you been good while I’ve been gone?’
He looks at Eddie, who nods.
‘What’s that?’ Gary asks, pointing at my sling.
‘I hurt my arm,’ I say. ‘But it’ll get better.’
Eddie puts him down at the gate and he reaches for my hand to walk up the path. ‘I made a Lego garage,’ he tells me. ‘We put all my cars in there, didn’t we Dad? And Aunty Phil gave me a fire engine.’
He continues chattering away as we go round to the back door, which is at the side of the house, and into the kitchen. It’s my pride and joy, this kitchen, with our big gas stove that has auto-light burners and a compartment for warming plates next to the oven. There’s sliding cabinet doors under the sink that Eddie put in where I keep me white tin bucket and bowl, along with all the cleaning stuff, shoe polish and washboard, and our lovely big pantry with stone shelves to make sure everything stays nice and fresh. We were the first in the street to have venetian blinds at our kitchen window, and we’ve got a fridge too, that’s taken the place of the Flatley, over in the corner between the living room and passage doors. We were also the first to have a fully fitted carpet going all the way down the passage and up over the stairs to the bathroom door. Dark green with black and white swirls. Proud as Punch of it I am.
I have to be honest, I’m not feeling all that proud at the moment. I k
now Eddie’s done his best, but he just doesn’t have the knack of keeping the place spick and span the way I like it. There’s a dishcloth still on the draining board, a tea towel hanging out of a drawer, breadcrumbs on one of the worktops and the floor could do with a damned good scrub. I wonder if he’s been able to keep on top of the washing. He’s promised me a new washing machine, because now me arm’s like this I won’t be able to manage all that scrubbing on the washboard, never mind turning the mangle.
‘So how’s about a nice cup of tea?’ Eddie says, sticking the kettle under the tap.
‘Can I have a jam tart?’ Gary asks him.
‘You know where they are.’
I watch my boy go into the pantry and feel strange that I haven’t been consulted. It’s always me the kids ask when they want something. Seems it hasn’t taken them long to get used to asking their father.
Eddie’s lighting the gas under the kettle. ‘You’re not looking bad,’ he tells me.
‘My hair needs a wash. I’ll have to get our mam down here to give me a hand.’
‘I can do it.’
I don’t meet his eyes. ‘We’ll see,’ I mumble. ‘Now Gary Lewis, I hope your toys aren’t all over the floor in the dining room. If they are, you’ve got until I come back down again to put them all away.’
‘Will you count?’ he cries. ‘See how long it takes me?’
‘All right,’ I laugh. ‘Off you go. One. Two. Three . . .’
As I go upstairs I get this funny feeling that our Susan’s not very happy with me. It’s strange that, innit, with mothers and daughters? You seem to know what the other’s thinking, even when they’re not there.
Susan
I’ve just walked round the corner and there’s Daddy’s car parked outside our house. At first I feel excited, because I always like it when he comes home early, but now I’m not very sure. My friends Janet and Sarah, who live opposite, are with me. We’re talking about French skipping, and whether or not it’s one of the games in the Olympics, because if it is, we could stand a chance of being world champions. We’d have to use knicker elastic though, because the rubber bands we tie together always pinch our legs. I’m good at ordinary skipping too. I can even do a hundred doubles straight off.
‘Will your mum let you come out when you get home?’ Janet asks me.
‘My mum’s not there,’ I remind her. ‘My dad’s home though, and he always lets me come out.’
‘See you in a minute then,’ they say, and linking arms they skip across the road to their own houses.
I want to run down the street to ours, but I just walk. Granny should be there, I remember. I try to spot her face at the window, but there’s no sign of her. I wonder if Daddy’s round the back, digging the garden. He should be at work. I wish he was, because it’s not right for him to be home.
A horrible thought is in my head, that Mummy might have other children somewhere who she’s gone to live with. I think she’s only pretending to go to the hospital, and when we’re not looking she goes to be with another family. It would make Daddy really sad if she went and I don’t want Daddy to be sad. I want her to come home and be with us. All of a sudden I start running. I didn’t really think about it, I just started. I go down the street, in through the gate, across the lawn – which isn’t allowed in case we run a groove in it – and round to the back door. If Daddy’s sad I have to make him feel better.
‘Dad! Dad!’ I shout, bursting into the kitchen.
‘In here,’ he shouts back.
I run to the living-room door, panting and scared. Then I stop dead, because I don’t really understand. Mummy’s there, and she’s smiling.
‘Look who it is,’ she says. ‘How’s my girl?’
I just stare at her.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ she teases.
She’s got bandages over her arm and her face is all white. I wonder if the bandages are just pretend.
‘How was school?’ she asks.
I go to lean against the arm of Daddy’s chair and feel his hand on my head as I hook one leg up behind me and begin twisting from side to side. I feel funny, because I’m glad Mummy’s here, but not glad too. We’d been managing all right without her and now I want to shout at her for going away and leaving us alone. It’s not fair, she shouldn’t do things like that.
‘Still peering out over the top of those glasses I see,’ she says.
‘I can’t see otherwise,’ I reply crossly. ‘Anyway I hate them and I don’t want to wear them any more.’
‘She’s got an appointment at the optician’s next week,’ Daddy tells her. ‘A card came.’
‘And they’re saying Gary might have to have an operation on his lazy eye,’ Mummy adds. ‘So maybe one of these days we’ll all be seeing straight in this house.’
I don’t really want to laugh, so I duck my head to hide it.
‘How did you get on with the choir?’ Daddy asks.
My lips start to wobble as I remember. ‘They won’t let me in,’ I whisper.
‘Come here, you daft old thing,’ Mummy says and holds out one arm for me to go to her.
I’m about to, but then Daddy sits forward. ‘Are you sure, Ed?’ he says.
‘Course I am. I need to have a cuddle with my big girl, don’t I?’
I look at her bandages, and feel scared. What if she’s really hurt and I make it worse? ‘I’ve got to go and see to Mandy,’ I tell them, and spinning round I run out of the room.
On my way down the passage I get a thump from Gary for knocking over his bricks, so I thump him back, really hard so he cries, and run up the stairs to my bedroom. Mandy’s where she always is, lying on the bed with Teddy and Bonnie. She’s got her pyjamas on because she’s still not very well. I grab her and throw her across the room.
‘You’re just pretending,’ I rage. ‘You’re not really ill.’
I plonk down on the edge of the bed, and start banging my heels against it. I never want to sing again. Who cares about the stupid choir anyway? They’re all just dumb and horrible and Lucy West is a much worse singer than anyone else in the whole wide world, so I’m not going to cry just because of them.
Someone’s knocking on my door.
‘Can I come in?’ Mummy says, putting her head round.
I shrug. I’m not really looking, but I can tell she’s not walking the way she normally does and it makes me angry with her. I don’t say anything though, because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, or do anything to make her go away again.
‘What’s Mandy doing over here?’ she says, going to pick her up from the corner.
‘She was naughty. She tells lies.’
She sits down on the bed next to me and puts Mandy on her lap. She doesn’t say anything, but I think she’s going to tell me off for hitting Gary. We can hear the children next door out playing on their swings and see-saw. I wish I was out there with them, except if I stay here Mummy might stay too. It sounds like Daddy’s mowing the back lawn now, which means we can roll around in the pile of cut grass after.
I look up at Mummy.
She looks down at me.
I can see by her eyes that she isn’t cross about Gary, so I duck my head and bury my face in her.
‘That’s better,’ she murmurs, putting her arm around me. ‘It’s all going to be all right, don’t you worry.’
She smells of medicine things and cigarettes, instead of Parma violets and cigarettes, the way she usually does, but I don’t really care how she smells, I just want her to stay here now and never go away to her other family again.
‘Sssh, ssh,’ she whispers, stroking my hair as I cry. ‘We’ll get that choir sorted out. We’ll show them what a good singer you are.’
I look up at her face, which is round and freckled. She’s got big brown eyes and a big red mouth – except today it’s not very red. She kisses me on the forehead, and says, ‘Shall we sing the walls? Just you and me?’
I nod and sniff. We always used to do that when I was a baby, but
I don’t mind doing it again now, so we lie down, side by side on my bed, and sing the nursery rhymes on the wallpaper. ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’; ‘Mary Mary Quite Contrary’; ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’; ‘Three Blind Mice’.
We’re quiet for a while after, just lying there, until Daddy comes in.
‘Was that two angels I heard singing just now?’ he says.
I giggle.
‘He’s cheeky, isn’t he?’ Mummy jokes.
‘You’ve got a couple of friends at the door,’ Daddy tells me. ‘They want to know if you’re going out to play.’
‘Can I?’ I ask Mummy.
She nods.
‘I’ve cleared the stage out the back,’ Daddy informs me as I get up, ‘so you can use it again now.’
I’m immediately excited, because the stage is where we rehearse our pop band, the Orange Crystals. ‘Is it Janet and Sarah at the door?’ I ask. They’re the other two Crystals.
‘It is.’
‘You see,’ Mummy says, ‘you’re going to be a famous pop singer, so who cares about the silly school choir?’
‘Not me! They sing all dumb songs anyway.’
I get all the way down to the kitchen before I remember my tambourine, so I dash back up again, taking some of the stairs two at a time. Mummy’s still lying down when I go back in my bedroom, and now Daddy’s lying down with her. Her face is turned into his shoulder so I can’t see her, but I think she’s crying.
‘Ssh,’ Daddy whispers, ‘we’re listening for the fairies.’
I roll my eyes, because I know there’s no such thing as fairies, except when you leave a tooth under the pillow and they take it in exchange for a sixpence.
‘Do you know where my tambourine is?’ I say, pulling open a drawer, and starting to feel a bit cross again.
As I find it Mummy says, ‘Can I come and watch?’
‘Yes,’ I squeal, jumping up and down. I can hardly wait to show her how good we are now.
I charge down the stairs ahead of her, wanting to make sure everyone’s ready when she gets there. We’ve got a really good song. I wrote the words, and we all made up the tune. It goes like this:
