‘You’re leaving Willingdon?’
She puts down the cigarette and takes a sip of her milk.
‘Not if I can help it. But it’s going to be quite a fight.’
‘But you like it here. And your shop’s really popular.’
‘I don’t think the government will see running a fancy-dress shop as sufficiently important to keep an old woman living and working in England.’
‘It’s not fair,’ I say. ‘I want you to stay.’
‘Let’s not worry about tomorrow before it comes.’
Mrs Zas goes over to her oven, gets the saucepan out and, as she hums her usual song about time and turning and seasons, she pours me some more cinnamon milk and grates some nutmeg on top. She’s as particular about her milk as Rev Cootes is about his tea. I really should find a way to get them together. Maybe they could get married, then, perhaps Mrs Zas would be able to stay. But then I remember about Rosemary, Rev Cootes’s wife, being in the nursing home and feel really guilty for having had that thought.
‘So, Feather, are you going to tell me what was so urgent that you sat on a train platform for hours waiting for me?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Because it doesn’t, not next to what she’s going through.
‘Does it matter to you, Feather?’
I hesitate. ‘Yes, but it’s not important, not now.’
‘If it matters to you, it matters to me.’ She holds out her fingers and lifts my chin so that I’m looking right at her. ‘My visa problems have got enough attention for one day. Now, are you going to tell me what’s on your mind?’
I blink. ‘Mum told me why she stopped leaving the house.’
Mrs Zas leans back and lets out a long breath. ‘At last.’
‘She said it was my fault.’
Mrs Zas’s eyes go huge. ‘Your fault?’
‘She gave a testimony to the Slim Skills group and said that she got post-natal depression when she had me and that it made her want to stay inside and eat.’
Mrs Zas is quiet. Her eyes go far away like when she talks about her sister and her home back in the Ukraine.
I go on.
‘I thought you could help me understand. You said you were depressed when your sister died.’
She focuses her eyes back on me.
‘It’s. Not. Your. Fault. Feather.’ She pauses between each word. I’ve never heard her sound so stern.
‘But if I hadn’t been born—’
‘It would have been something else. Depression is sneaky. It hides, waiting for something to happen to knock you off your stride and then it pounces. And once it strikes, it swallows you whole.’ She gives a big gulp and claps her hands.
Mrs Zas makes depression sound like one of those horrible snakes from the nature documentaries Mum and I watch sometimes. One of those boa constrictors that wind themselves around your body and squeeze you so tight you suffocate. Yeah, depression sounds like a nasty snake.
‘So, what you’re saying is that Mum would have got depressed anyway?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not the point, Feather. Being depressed isn’t about anything in the outside world, it’s about what happens in here.’ She taps her head. ‘And in here.’ She presses her palm to her heart.
‘I still feel that if I hadn’t come along maybe Mum would be okay.’
‘A baby doesn’t choose to be born, does it, Feather?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘So, you see, it can’t be your fault.’
I feel tired of talking about me. Nothing seems to matter any more, not next to the thought of Mrs Zas leaving.
‘If they don’t give you a visa, when will you have to go home?’ I ask.
‘Feather – I told you…’
‘I have to know the truth now. I’ve spent all this time thinking you’ll be here running the shop and teaching ballroom dancing forever. I need to know if there are any other secrets you’re keeping from me.’
‘I don’t keep secrets from you.’
‘But you didn’t tell me.’
‘You didn’t ask. And, like I said, I don’t think it’s important. Today is what matters. And today, I’m here. And what’s more, I’m going to do all I can to stay.’ She smiles. ‘And I’m very stubborn.’
I’m not sure I agree with Mrs Zas’s distinction between lying versus not telling. And I’m not sure that being stubborn is going to help her convince the government to let her stay.
‘The government shouldn’t get to decide who lives here,’ I say.
‘There are lots of us coming over, Feather. I suppose someone has to do something. And many English people think that it is wrong for foreigners to use their doctors and hospitals and to earn money by taking jobs from English people.’
Mrs Zas talking about money makes me think about the wodge of cash I saw in the envelope addressed to the Ukraine.
‘You don’t make much money in the shop, though, do you?’
‘I make enough.’
‘Enough for what?’
She looks at me. Mrs Zas is one of those people who always works out the thoughts you’re having.
‘I need to support my sister’s family back in the Ukraine. They relied on her income as a professional dancer. Now, they don’t have anything.’
‘Your sister had a family?’
Mrs Zas nods. ‘A husband and a little girl.’
‘That’s an even bigger reason why the government should let you stay then. You should tell them that. If you’re willing to work hard and earn money to help people, it shouldn’t matter which country you do it in. And then you should get them to come over, too. Jake and me could look after Irinka’s little girl.’
Mrs Zas smiles. ‘If only you were running the country, Miss Feather.’
I shake my head. ‘I’d mess that up – like I mess everything else up.’
‘What have you messed up?’
‘Helping Mum. Not noticing that you’re struggling.’
‘You are helping your mum. And it wasn’t your job to work out anything about me.’
My eyes sting. ‘Please promise me you’ll stay.’
‘I’ll do my very best, Feather.’
Which isn’t a promise.
She gets up. ‘Why don’t you go home for a bit?’
‘Don’t you need help in the shop?’
‘I think your mother needs you more.’
I don’t want to go and see Mum. Not now. I want to stay here with Mrs Zas and to lose myself in all her costumes and to forget that there’s anything out there I need to deal with. But I know she’s right. Mum needs me.
I walk to the door of her flat.
‘Feather?’
I turn round.
‘Yes?’
‘You know what the best cure is for depression?’
I shake my head.
‘Love.’
‘I do love her.’
‘I know. But you need to show it to her. Every single day.’ She pauses. ‘Even when it’s hard.’
I think about how angry Mum’s made me lately and how I can’t get her words from yesterday out of my head, about how she got sick after she had me.
‘You must show your mother that you love her no matter what, Feather.’
I nod.
‘Promise me?’
‘I promise.’
As I walk out, a picture of Bewitched all boarded up with a FOR SALE sign outside flashes in front of my eyes and I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.
28
I stand outside the lounge and, through the door, I see Mum, her face red, her arms flapping.
Dad’s scrambling around on the floor, picking up the Max’s Marvellous Adventures books spread around her feet.
‘Are you sure it was here?’ Dad asks.
Mum’s got sticky patches on her sweatshirt, which can mean only one thing: pineapple syrup. And I can smell prawn cocktail crisps. There’s a cardboard box by her feet full of all the rubbish she used to eat. Dad must have sta
shed away a secret supply and given it to her.
‘Mum? Are you okay?’
One of the books she’s been holding falls out of her hands.
‘It’s gone,’ Mum says.
‘What’s gone?’ I ask.
Mum points to the shelf. ‘The first book.’
‘I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,’ Dad says.
‘I’m telling you, it’s missing.’ She prods the shelf. ‘It’s always in the same place.’
Clay brought the book back. And Mum placed it on the shelf. I looked through it once to see if the story would give me any clues about Mum and her past but it was just what I thought it was: a silly story about a boy going on boy adventures that girls weren’t allowed to be part of. Anyway, the book was definitely on the shelf. And then it comes back to me. Allen standing in the middle of the lounge.
‘Maybe you’ve misplaced it, Josie,’ Dad says.
Mum stares at Dad like he’s a moron.
I take a breath and put my hand under Mum’s elbow.
‘Come on, Mum, let’s get you back to your seat.’ I try to steer her back to the love seat.
Mum stamps her foot. The house shakes.
‘Stop treating me like a child,’ she says.
She bats away my hand, loses her balance, stumbles against the bookcase and falls to the floor – it’s like one of those cool slow-motion sequences in movies, only there’s nothing cool about Mum crashing to the floor.
I look at the table where we keep Mum’s meds and injections. It doesn’t look like she’s missed any today.
Mum rolls back to sitting.
I look out through the window and see Jake and Clay jogging back to the vicarage. Jogging is the only thing Clay leaves the house for these days and he’s taken to running at night when there’s no one else around.
He and Jake wave at Mrs Zas, who’s sitting on the front steps of her shop, having an electric cigarette, her eyes fixed on the vicarage.
The diggers that have been working on the Lido rumble out of The Green, their work finished for the day.
I see Rev Cootes open the front door and Steph comes out from behind him. I know she goes to his church services but I’ve never seen her visiting the vicarage before.
She kisses Jake and Rev Cootes waves his hand towards the door like he wants them all to go back inside.
I turn back to Mum.
‘You should have a rest,’ I tell her.
But Mum’s already already up and heading towards the front door. She yanks it open.
Dad follows after her, saying, ‘You’re in a state, Josie, please come back in and calm down. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it for you.’
Mum steps onto the ramp.
It’s the first time since January that she’s stepped outside. She shifts her cane to her other hand, grips the handrail and eases her way down the ramp.
‘Where are you going, Mum?’ I call after her.
But she doesn’t turn round. Or stop. She keeps walking, one heavy step after the next as she makes her way across The Green.
Mr Ding comes out of his takeaway van.
‘Is everything okay, Jo?’ I hear him say.
She ignores him and presses on to St Mary’s, trudging past the children’s graves and then past the normal, grown-up graves. She keeps going and going, like one of those oil tankers you see on TV: so big that it would take hours to turn it round.
Dad and I follow her.
When Mum gets to Rev Cootes’s front door, she puts her hands on her hips, bends forward and takes in some big jaggedy breaths.
I rub her back. ‘Come on Mum, let’s go home.’
She pushes me away.
‘Josephine…’ Rev Cootes says. ‘How wonderful to see you out and about.’
Mum looks from Rev Cootes to Steph.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ Mum says.
‘Boys, why don’t you go inside?’ Rev Cootes says to Clay and Jake.
They don’t move.
‘Talking about me, thinking I can’t see it,’ Mum says.
She’s totally paranoid.
‘Josie, let’s not do this here,’ Dad says.
‘Do what here?’ I ask him.
He acts like he doesn’t hear me.
‘If you hadn’t pushed me,’ Mum says to Steph. ‘Nag, nag, nag…’
‘Let’s go to mine,’ Jake says to Clay.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ Mum says. Then she points at Clay. ‘You came back for this, didn’t you? To dig things up. Was it your mother’s idea?’ She scans all of our faces. ‘Don’t you all get it? I don’t want to go outside. I don’t want to stop eating. And I don’t want to talk.’ She pauses. ‘I want to be left alone.’
‘Why don’t I help you home, Jo?’ Steph says.
And that makes Mum go mental. She moves right up close to Steph, so close I’m worried she’s going to flatten her.
‘This is all your fault!’ Mum yells.
People are beginning to come out of their houses around The Green. I’m worried Allen is hiding out somewhere, waiting to snap a photo of Mum.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Mum asks Steph.
Steph blinks.
‘I was doing fine. Feather and George and I were doing just fine. And then you stuck your nose in. Just like you stuck your nose in all those years ago.’ She turns to face Rev Cootes. ‘And you… I bet you’re the one who put Steph up to this, didn’t you?’
It’s my fault, I want to tell Mum. I let Allen into the house. He took the book. Maybe that would put an end to her weird accusations.
But I’m worried that’s going to make it worse. And that she’ll hate me for having let him in the house.
Then Mum totally loses it. She reaches out and grabs at Rev Cootes’s dog collar, pulling the white bit loose and waving it at him. ‘You think this gives you the right to have a say in people’s lives?’
I don’t get it, Rev Cootes hasn’t even talked to Mum in God knows how many years.
‘I don’t want either of you talking to Feather any more,’ she says, her voice steady now. Steady and cold.
‘Mum…’
Mum’s face is red and she’s sweating so hard her hair’s gone damp. She holds up a shaking finger to Steph and Rev Cootes.
‘Stay away from her, do you hear?’
I feel the air shift as she sways. It goes really quiet, like everyone’s holding their breath. And then Mum collapses to the ground with a dull thud.
29
Love her no matter what, that’s what Mrs Zas said. And I want to try, I really do. But how am I meant to love someone who’s just hurt my friends?
No one deserves to be treated like that. Especially the people who care about her.
It’s the day after the incident with Rev Cootes and Steph, and I skipped my swim training to be with Mum. She’s lying in bed asleep. Nurse Heidi gave her some calming-down pills. As I watch Mum’s sleeping face, I wonder whether you’re allowed a get-out clause when the person you’re supposed to love does something really bad. Because, right now, loving Mum is the last thing I want to do.
Mum was only unconscious for a few minutes last night. When she woke up, Dad went back to the garage to get her wheelchair and we pushed her back home across The Green. I could feel a thousand pairs of eyes staring at us. And I know that, for once, they weren’t thinking about her weight: they were thinking about how crazy she was. THE CRAZY, OBESE WOMAN FROM CUCKOO COTTAGE: that would make a good headline for Allen.
Dad had called Nurse Heidi and she stayed most of the night, checking Mum’s pulse and her temperature. She left an hour ago.
I glance out through the crack in the lounge curtains and see Rev Cootes watering the children’s graves. He keeps looking over at the house. I was going to talk to him about Mum, to see whether he had any more information about her past, but now Mum’s banned me from seeing him, and Steph, and he probably doesn’t want to talk to me anyway. Which just makes me want to see him more. He and S
teph must know something really bad for Mum to have reacted like that. Much worse than Mum being depressed because of me.
I’ve never seen Mum be violent before. Everything that’s happening at the moment, what she said yesterday, what she did just now, makes me realise that I was just kidding myself about her improving. Maybe Mum’s lost seven stone but she’s definitely not getting better.
As I look back to Mum, I notice an envelope pushed into her seat; it’s wedged in between her thigh and the armrest. I pull it out carefully and notice that there’s a Newton Town Council stamp across the front. I turn it over. It looks like it was ripped open in a hurry, the edges are all jaggedy. I pull out the letter and scan down:
We thank you for your letter outlining your concerns about the opening of the Lido…
A stone lodges in my throat. She wrote to the council to protest against the Lido? I don’t care how much Mum hates water: she knows how much the swim championships mean to me.
… we would like to ask you to reconsider… to think about the benefits of the new Lido to the community…
So Mum was the one who started the row in the village about the Lido. She’s the one who wrote to the council. She’s probably the one who wrote to the editor of the Newton News.
Mum opens her eyes and looks straight over at me, like she knew I was there.
‘My little Feather…’ she says.
You have to love her, no matter what… Why did Mrs Zas have to tell me that?
Mum stretches her hand towards me. I shove the letter into the back pocket of my jeans.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve helped Mum up. Years and years of looking after her – of loving her no matter what. And what good has it done? Only a few months ago, I loved Mum without even thinking about it: it felt as easy and good as floating on my back in the pool. Now, it’s like every time she does something to disappoint me, I have to will the love to come back.
I take a breath, go over, and sit on the edge of Mum’s bed and take her hand.
‘My little Feather…’ she says again.
I wonder whether fainting made her brain forget what happened last night.
Wishbones Page 20
