by Susan Lewis
‘She starts back to school tomorrow,’ I hear Dad say. ‘She should be in her own bed, having a proper night’s sleep. Now, I’m going to get Gary, he can come in with us, and tomorrow they better be gone, do you hear me? If they’re not I’m taking the children up our Nancy’s and we’ll stop there until they do go.’
‘I’m lying here, sick in this bed, and you come in, shouting and swearing . . .’
‘I’m not shouting or swearing. I’m just telling you what’s going to happen. Susan has to have a good night’s sleep before school, and you’ve got her in here talking till all hours, while your brother is in there committing adultery with your own bloody niece. I don’t know what’s got into you Eddress, I really don’t.’
‘Oh just shut up! I’m sick of you carrying on.’
‘And I’m sick of them carrying on. They’re out tomorrow, or you’ll be living here with them, and we’ll be gone. Now, I’m going to get Gary, so move up and make some room for us both.’
Quick as a flash I dash into my bedroom and under the covers. Gary’s down the bottom end, fast asleep. I pretend to be too, as Dad comes in and picks him up.
‘It’s all right, sssh,’ Dad says as Gary starts to murmur.
I lie as still as I can, but I’m still shivering after standing out on the landing.
‘Are you all right, my love?’ Dad whispers.
‘Yes,’ I say. I think about telling him that I don’t want to leave Mum and go up Aunty Nance’s, but then he’ll know I was listening. Please God make Jack and Uncle Maurice go away.
Now I’m back at school and everyone’s in the classroom showing off their Christmas presents before Mrs Fields comes in to call the register. I forgot to bring anything, so I just watch as Lizzie shows us her posh pen and pencil set, and Ruth rolls up her sleeve to tell us the time on her new watch with a leather strap. Everyone else in the gang has got something too, and I’m starting to feel cross and silly that I haven’t. In the end I say, ‘I didn’t have anything for Christmas, because my mum’s ill and she couldn’t go out to get us anything.’
‘Oh, no, that’s really sad,’ Lizzie says. ‘Here, you can have a go with my pen and pencil if you like. You can be the first one to use it, except for me.’
‘You can have a wear of my watch too, up until playtime,’ Ruth offers. ‘Look, if you put it next to your ear, you can hear it tick.’
I think that’s really nice of them, and say thank you, but it’s all right, I don’t mind not having any presents.
‘Did you have any dinner on Christmas Day?’ Ruth asks.
‘Yes. I cooked it. My mum wasn’t well enough.’
‘She’s a liar,’ Kelvin Milton shouts out. ‘She didn’t have any dinner because her mum and dad are too poor to feed them. And that’s why she’s smelly, because they can’t afford any soap either.’
‘You’re a nasty, stinky, disgusting little bogey,’ I tell him.
‘You mean you are.’
‘Just shut up,’ Lizzie shouts at him. ‘You’re always picking on her.’
‘Because she’s a stupid one-eyed monster,’ he jeers and all his friends laugh.
‘I’ve got a secret to tell you,’ I whisper to Lizzie and Ruth.
Their eyes go round.
Kelvin Milton shouts, ‘Do you know why her mum and dad don’t buy her any presents? Because they can’t stand her. I know, because my Aunty Beryl told me. And who can blame them when she’s so ugly.’
‘Kelvin Milton, I heard that,’ Mrs Fields barks. ‘Go to the back of the room and put your hands on your head, and a fine way to start the new term, I must say. Good morning the rest of you.’
‘Good morning Mrs Fields,’ we chorus.
‘All right, sit down. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and we’re going to do lots of good work this term.’
‘Yes Mrs Fields,’ we say.
‘Diane Meadows, would you like to call the register today?’
After that’s done we take out our maths books and open them to page forty-three. It’s a bit mean to make us do maths on our first day back, but it’s better than PE.
At playtime we wrap up warm in our hats and coats and skip over to the girls’ toilets and round the other side. Everyone knows I’ve got a secret, so everyone wants to hear it and they all gather round.
I start by telling them how my gran threw out Jack and Uncle Maurice on Christmas Eve.
‘But why?’ someone asks.
‘Because she caught them doing it,’ I answer.
‘Doing what?’ someone near the back calls out.
‘It,’ someone else answers.
‘What’s it?’
They all look at me.
‘It’s two people being in bed with no clothes on,’ I tell them.
Everyone gasps and giggles and moves in closer to hear more.
‘Why didn’t they have any clothes on?’ someone asks.
‘Because they were doing it, stupid,’ Lizzie answers.
‘But it’s not allowed unless you’re married.’
‘I know,’ I say, ‘that’s why my gran was mad. But now, they’re in our house, sleeping in my brother’s bed, and my dad’s really angry with them. He says they’re committing a sin, and they have to leave, but my mum says they can stay.’
‘Are they doing it in your brother’s bed?’ Ruth wants to know.
I nod.
‘Is your brother in there too?’
‘No. He’s sleeping with me, or with Mum and Dad. I’m in the next room to them, so I can hear them when they’re doing it.’
They all gasp again.
‘What are they saying?’
‘Things like ooooh, and darling, and ooooh and . . .’ and we all collapse laughing.
‘How long are they staying with you?’ Lizzie asks.
‘Well, my dad says they have to leave today.’
‘Where will they go?’
‘To New Zealand I think.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Somewhere up near Scotland,’ Ruth answers.
‘No it’s not, it’s down by Australia. They’ll go there in my uncle’s plane, because he’s in the RAF. It’s parked over the BAC, where he left it when he came.’
‘Your uncle’s got a plane?’ Ruth gasps. ‘That’s really groovy.’
‘I know. And he’s got loads and loads of money, and his own servants and a great big house in New Zealand.’
‘If he’s so rich then why didn’t he buy you anything for Christmas?’ Kelvin Milton shouts out.
‘Because, if you must know, my gran kept all his money at her house, and she won’t let him have it.’
‘He should shoot her,’ one of the other boys pipes up. ‘If he’s in the RAF he’ll have a gun, so he should shoot her to get his money back.’
‘He can’t shoot his own mother,’ Lizzie argues.
‘She’s not his real mother,’ I tell her. ‘She’s his stepmother.’
‘Then he should definitely shoot her,’ Kelvin says, ‘because all stepmothers are wicked.’
‘My gran’s not, and you can just shut your mouth if you’re going to say horrible things about my gran.’
‘You can shut yours.’
‘Are you going to make me?’
‘Stop, stop, the teacher’s coming,’ Lizzie warns. ‘Come on Susan, you’re my best friend now,’ she adds, putting an arm round me.
‘No, she’s not, she’s mine,’ Ruth snaps.
‘I’ll be both your best friends,’ I tell them, and we go off to play some French skipping.
Mum’s upstairs in bed when I get home, so I go and sit next to her and wait for her to wake up. I’ve got something to show her that she’s really going to like. She’ll know I’m here in a minute, so I count the patterns on the wallpaper and make sure they all match up at the joins, then I look at her again and wish she’d wake up, because this is going to make her really pleased with me.
I decide to write my name in the dust on the dressing table. Af
ter I’ve done that I pick up the hand mirror and look at my face. I purse up my lips like a model, and suck in my cheeks, then I put the mirror down again. Mum’s handbag is there, so I open it up and take out a fag. I’m pretending to smoke, watching myself in the big mirror. It makes me look like a film star. I put the fag away again and look down at Mum’s face.
‘Wake up,’ I whisper. ‘Pleeease wake up.’
Her eyes come open.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ I tell her, and I open my exercise book so she can see. ‘I got a gold star for my geography.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely.’ She strokes my hair with her hand. ‘Well done, my old love.’
I close the book, then hang my head.
‘What’s the matter?’ she says.
‘Ruth and Lizzie were my best friends today, but now they’re not speaking to me any more.’
‘Why’s that then?’
‘They said I tell lies, but I don’t. I only said that Uncle Maurice has a plane, because he’s in the RAF, and it’s true, isn’t it? Because everyone in the RAF has a plane.’
‘Well, not really, my love. He flies in one, but he doesn’t fly it himself. Only the pilots do that.’
‘Isn’t he a pilot?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Are you coming downstairs?’
‘If I can find me dressing gown. Where is it?’
‘Here, on the floor,’ I say, picking it up.
It’s blue and yellow, with a twisty rope belt and a satin collar. After she puts it on she lights up a fag.
‘Are Jack and Uncle Maurice sleeping here tonight?’ I ask, as she pushes her feet in her fluffy yellow slippers.
‘Why do you want to know?’ she says, squinting down at me through the smoke.
I shrug. I can’t tell her I heard what Dad said last night, but I’m scared now that he might take us away and make us live up Aunty Nancy’s, while Jack and Uncle Maurice live here with Mum. I don’t mind Aunty Nancy’s, because she’s got a lot of ornaments from all the places she’s been, like Bournemouth and Barry and Blackpool, that are quite interesting to look at, but a lot of work to dust, so I don’t want her turning me into a slave.
‘Where’s that Gary?’ Mum says as we go down the stairs. She has to take it steady, because her headaches make her legs a bit weak.
‘Out the front playing football,’ I answer.
‘In this weather? Doesn’t that boy feel the cold? Come on, let’s get that gas fire going, and make a nice cup of tea.’
‘I don’t like tea.’
‘I didn’t mean you, I meant me. You can have some drinking chocolate.’
‘Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate. Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate,’ I chant like the advert. ‘Can we bake some cakes?’
‘No, not today. Bloody hell, it’s freezing in here. Where’s me matches, let’s get this place thawed out a bit.’
I watch what she’s doing as she puts her cigarette out in the corner of the grate, then uses the same match to light up another and then the fire. The gas makes the flames go poof! and whooshes a little curl of flame out towards us.
‘Blimey, nearly lost me bloody hair there,’ Mum laughs. ‘Now, you stay here and get warm, and I’ll go and boil the kettle.’
After she’s gone I put the telly on, but it takes even longer to warm up than the room so I start getting bored. I want to go out to play, but instead I follow Mum out to the kitchen. She’s standing against the pantry door, leaning her head back on it with her eyes closed.
‘All right?’ she says, when she sees me.
I nod.
‘So what do you want for your tea?’
‘Nothing. I want Dad to make it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’
She sighs. ‘Your father’s tired when he gets in from work, so he doesn’t want to be cooking your tea now, does he?’
‘He does it all the other times, when you’re in bed, or laid on the settee.’
‘That’s because I’ve got a headache. I haven’t got one tonight, so I’m making your tea.’
‘I want Dad to do it.’
‘Stop being silly. Now, snap out of that mood and get practising on that piano.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘I don’t care whether you want to, you’re going to. Now off you go.’
‘Why should I?’
Her eyes go all big. ‘Because I’m telling you to, and if you answer me back again you’ll get a good hiding.’
‘I don’t like you. I want you to go back and be in bed.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
I’m nearly crying now. ‘I don’t like you,’ I shout, ‘and I don’t care if you’re not very well, because you don’t like me anyway, and you’re only going to bed so you don’t have to see me.’
‘What? Where on earth did you get that nonsense?’
‘Kelvin Milton told me, his Aunty Beryl told him that you don’t like me, so you pretend to be ill. Well I don’t care, because Dad likes me, so there.’
‘Susan Lewis, if you weren’t so bloody daft . . .’
‘No, I’m not listening,’ I cry, putting my hands over my ears. ‘I’m fed up with it now. One day you’re in bed, and the next day you’re not, so I don’t know where you’re going to be, and I don’t care where you’re going to be. You’re just being mean to me, and I’m not going to put up with it any more.’
‘Susan,’ she says, trying to pull my hands down. ‘Susan, listen to me. Sometimes people don’t feel very well and . . . Listen to me! Susan, don’t run away when I’m trying to talk to you. Look, here’s your father coming down the path, do you want him to see you being naughty?’
‘I’m not being naughty.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘It’s not my fault if you don’t like me.’
‘Stop being ridiculous and come here.’
‘No.’
‘Brrr,’ Dad goes, as he comes in the door and starts wiping his feet.
‘Talk to this girl, will you?’ Mum says. ‘She won’t listen to me.’
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, taking off his cap and gloves and stuffing them in his pockets.
‘Dad! Dad! Come and play football,’ Gary shouts, bursting in the door behind him.
‘Come here, you little scoundrel,’ Dad laughs, and turns him upside down.
‘Help!’ Gary cries.
I hate them all so I charge up over the stairs and slam my bedroom door behind me. I put my new Beatles record on my new record player and get into bed to keep warm. I feel like crying, but I just think about all the nasty things I can do to Kelvin Milton to make him sorry for all the horrible things he says about me and my mum and my dad.
Someone knocks on my door, but I just ignore it. They knock again, then Gary comes in.
‘Who said you could come in?’ I demand.
‘Can I?’ he asks.
‘All right then.’
He comes to sit on the bed next to me. ‘Can I get in, it’s cold out here?’
I throw back the covers and let him snuggle up next to me. ‘You’re freezing,’ I tell him crossly.
‘Sorry.’
‘What are Mum and Dad doing?’
‘Having a row.’
‘What about?’
‘Mum said you’ve got a lot of nonsense in your head, and Dad says she should stop shouting at you all the time and listen for once.’
‘Are Jack and Uncle Maurice down there?’
‘No.’
‘Go and turn the record player off,’ I tell him. ‘And don’t scratch the record.’
He does as he’s told and comes back to bed.
‘You’re the best brother in all the world,’ I tell him.
‘So are you,’ he says.
We lie very quietly, listening to the raised voices downstairs, but we can’t make out what they’re saying. Then we hear Dad coming up the stairs, and I hold very tightly to Gary.
‘He might be coming
to take us away,’ I whisper.
‘Why?’
‘Ssh. Pretend you’re asleep.’
The door opens and Dad comes to stand next to the bed.
We go on pretending we’re asleep.
‘Fe, fi, fo, fum,’ Dad roars. ‘I smell the blood of an Englishman.’
We start to giggle.
‘Come on, time for tea,’ he says.
When we get downstairs Mum’s next to the stove, shaking the chips over the pan. ‘Go and lay the table,’ she tells us, ‘and ask your father if he wants beans or peas with his.’
‘Do you want beans or peas?’ Gary asks Dad.
‘Peas,’ Dad answers.
‘Peas,’ Gary tells Mum. ‘I want beans.’
‘You’ve got beans.’
‘Tell your mother to go and sit down and I’ll finish off out here,’ Dad says.
‘Tell your father to mind his own business.’
Gary’s taking knives and forks out of the top drawer. He’s not really tall enough so I go to help him. ‘One, two, three, four,’ he counts. ‘Mum, are Jack and Uncle Maurice coming? Shall we lay the table for them too?’
‘There’s just the four of us,’ Mum answers.
I look at Dad, but he’s washing his hands under the tap.
Gary takes the knives and forks into the room.
‘Susan, ask your mother if Jack and Uncle Maurice are staying here tonight?’ Dad says.
I look at Mum.
She just goes on as if she hasn’t heard.
‘Susan, tell your mother I’m waiting for an answer.’
I look at Mum again, but she still ignores him.
I’m getting really mad again now, because they’re just being silly.
‘Tell your father,’ she says, ‘that if I never see my brother again, it’ll be all his fault.’
‘Tell your mother to stop talking rubbish.’
‘Tell him I’ll give him rubbish, right round his bloody earhole in a minute.’
‘Stop it!’ I shout, stamping my foot. ‘Just stop it!’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mum snaps.
‘I said stop it. You’re always being mean and horrible to each other, and I want you to stop, because it’s really upsetting me.’
Mum looks at Dad. He wipes his hands then puts the towel down and goes to take the chip pan off her. Mum comes over to me and tilts my face up to look at her.
‘You’ve got a lot going on in that little head of yours, haven’t you?’ she says. ‘Too much, if you ask me. So now you just stop worrying about things that don’t matter, and give me a nice big hug.’
