Kirsty hardly believed I could be so cool. In my heart though, I just never believed that once Liam got to Oz we’d be able to stay together. All the same, I cried buckets. It was hard, very hard. I guess Liam took it pretty well – which I was thankful for, but it hurt too. Kirsty had already been through it – splitting up with Harrison – and when I found myself going through the same thing, I felt guilty for not totally understanding how bad it must have been for her. Although I did think it was a bit different for me and Liam. Kirsty and I, we’re as close as you can get, but I don’t think I ever really told her just how special Liam was. He wasn’t like Harrison, and I’d been sure he wanted me for myself. It had felt so right. All of it.
At the beginning, when Liam and his mum flew to Oz for a short visit – wanting to make sure living with her sister would work out – it was kind of exciting. Liam called twice, putting on an Aussie accent. It didn’t feel real, not like they’d make up their minds to live there permanently. As it turned out, they fell in love with Australia, and decided to make the move. (I reckon leaving his dad locked up on this side of the world had a lot to do with it.) When they flew back to London for a week, I talked to Liam on the phone but we didn’t see each other. Then they were gone for good.
Though I’m glad for him – really glad – that his life has turned round, it doesn’t stop me missing him. Ever since I saw a programme on TV, one fact has been at the back of my mind: that one in three British families looking for a new life in Australia comes back.
Toffee’s pleased with himself. He’s found a stick. He lollops towards me and drops it at my feet. Bending to pick it up, I breathe in the salty smell of wet seaweed. Then I move to where, very soon, the sea will slide in and wash away the oversized capitals I’m scratching in the sand.
LIAM.
Chapter Five
Saturday, and we’ve got to think of getting in some proper dog food.
Mum’s had tea and cereal. She’s still in bed and I’m down here, listening to Radio 1. Funny how something in the background helps you concentrate.
I’ve seen the dried stuff Toffee needs. Beef and vegetables. In two sizes. More economical to buy the big one. In itself it’s not too expensive. The problem is it’ll be every week. A dog’s not just for Christmas, etc.
I stare into space, waiting for the DJ to play something different.
With a high-pitched twang, the intro to a new song starts. The solution hits me.
Lisa…
…Who can’t hold down a job for five minutes. Who you can bet right now is scrounging some sort of benefit. What does she ever contribute? Nothing. She’d argue she doesn’t live here any more, so she doesn’t owe anything. Wrong. She owes Mum – who gave her everything. When Dad walked out, though I don’t remember what that hard time was actually like, Mum held the family together. Although she was already getting sick, she made sure we had balanced meals and clean clothes. She kept the house looking nice even though we never had anything new. She came to parent-teacher evenings and carol services. She did all those things.
And then – with Mum worse, despite what she lets the Social think – Lisa falls for that pig-headed Darren and announces she’s leaving. No apologies for not pulling her weight. Just the opposite: she said she was doing us a favour – one less mouth to feed and more space. Perhaps she meant it.
The day she left, a while ago now, Mum was too shocked and weak even to walk to the door and see her off.
I’d caught up with her at the end of the terrace. “Lisa? When will you come back and see us?” She wanted to shake me off, but I stood my ground. “Mum will want to know.”
She looked past me, like I was holding her up. “Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Look, I don’t know, okay?”
“Lisa, can’t you think of Mum for two seconds?”
“One – two – three – four.” She paused. “How’s that?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
I tried to keep calm. “Acting like you don’t care.”
She gave me a stare. “Give me a break, Amy.” She paused. “I’m just not cut out for all this heavy stuff.”
“I’m not talking heavy stuff, I’m talking our mum.”
“What if you are?” She stuck out her chin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. If you did, you’d realize.”
I wondered what she was talking about, what it was I’d realize.
She looked at the ground. “Whatever you might think, I do care.”
“Saying you care isn’t enough. You have to show it. You know, do things for her. Stick around.”
“For God’s sake, Amy. Get a life.”
I stayed calm. “I’d get more of a life,” I said, “if you helped more.” I looked at her silly bleached hair. “Even someone with half a brain cell can wash up and make their own bed.”
“I’ve had enough of it,” she said. “If you must know, I can’t stand her being ill all the time.” She nearly smiled when she said, “I thought you’d be glad to have the room to yourself.”
“It won’t make up for me having to do everything on my own.”
She took a step towards me. “Look, I’ll come back. Now and again.”
I said, “What’s your new address?”
She huffed. “Got a pen?”
“No.”
Eventually, scrabbling about in the bottom of her pink fluffy handbag, she dug out a pencil and wrote on the back of one of our old shopping lists. “There you go.”
I read her childish writing: 24a Ladder Lane.
She said, “You can get a bus. The 213.” Then she added quickly, “This doesn’t mean you can keep coming round. I’ve got my own life to lead.”
She spun around and began to walk away. I raised my voice: “Have you ever thought about my life?”
“You’re the one does the thinking, Amy.”
It was obvious I was wasting my time. Folding the piece of paper, I watched her totter away on her scuffed heels.
This morning, sitting beside Mum on her bed, helping her get dressed, I tell her I’m getting the bus to Lisa’s. It’ll be my first visit to her new place and Mum doesn’t quite hide her hope that this might be a new beginning for Lisa and me. She leaves it a few moments before she asks if there’s a particular reason why I’m going today.
“Bits and bobs. Let her know the Social’s been. That we’re okay for a bit.” I pause. “Anyway, it seems ages since we were in touch.”
She says, “Oh, right…” and leaves the sort of pause that signals there’s more to come. “Amy, love, our Lisa’s not a bad girl.”
“Course not.”
“She’s just a bit thoughtless. A bit headstrong.” She puts out a hand to me. “To tell you the truth, I think deep down she feels she can’t cope.”
“Yeah? Well… Did you want your striped top?”
“No – the blue one’ll do another day.” I reach for the blouse and she says, “It’s probably my fault she’s like she is.”
I don’t like the sound of this. “Don’t be daft, Mum.”
“I’m serious. I’m not sure I dealt with her the right way. You know, when she was little. Even as a toddler she was a rebellious kid. I suppose I wasn’t expecting it to be like that. I’d imagined this dear little girl who’d go along with what me and your dad wanted—”
I pause. She never mentions Dad.
She says quickly, “She was a dear little girl, of course, it’s just she had a mind of her own.”
I fasten some buttons she can’t manage. “You’d have been worried if she didn’t think for herself.” I fiddle with the top button. “And Dad?”
“Well, you know, some men aren’t that fussed about kids…unless they stop them getting their eight hours.”
With Dad more or less a no-go area, I’m wary about quizzing her. “So what did he do, that his sleep was so vital?”
“Most of the time he worked nights. A noisy kid
didn’t go down well.” She plucks at her jeans. “Lisa was a nightmare – screamed the place down if she didn’t get what she wanted. I think…” She falters. “…that’s where I’m to blame. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do. Your dad said she needed a good smack, but I could never do that.” She looks up at me. “You were different. You were so easy.” She manages a little laugh. “You were almost too good to be true.”
When I reach for her socks – one’s just under the bed – she puts a hand on my shoulder. “D’you think you and Lisa might do something together today? Go out and have a bit of fun?”
Fun – me and Lisa? I put my hand inside a sock, ease it onto her foot. “Like what?”
“There must be something.”
It’s hopeless, but I say brightly, “I could tell her about Toffee. See if she’d like to come for walks.”
Mum’s face lights up. She never stops believing some miracle might happen, like Lisa turning into an unselfish, caring human being.
She says, “You’ll give her my love, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
Ladder Lane isn’t on the bus route, and the driver doesn’t have a clue about the nearest stop. A girl with a runny-nosed baby tells me when she thinks we’re near. I ring the bell and get off. But I take a wrong turning, and it’s not until I notice The Ladder Discount Store (with a window full of cheap batteries and black bin liners) that I spot Ladder Lane. I trail down the dreary-looking street of terraced houses, which might have been quite nice once, with patterned tiles on their garden paths.
I check which side of the street is even-numbered, but I’m confused until I realize a 6 is actually a 9 swung upside down because of a missing screw. I cross the road and start looking for 24. I stand outside what I think must be Lisa’s. The house is next door to 26, so I reckon I’m looking at the right one. Though the bell for 24a works, it’s a little while before I hear footsteps clip-clopping unevenly down the stairs. Lisa opens the door.
It takes a lot to shock me, but even I think she looks wrecked. Her peroxide hair’s spiked up stiffer than ever. Her face is swollen from crying. There’s mascara under her eyes – like a spider’s stood in black ink before sliding down her cheeks. She stares at me. “Oh, it’s you.”
It doesn’t hide much, the matted pink dressing gown with a grubby bunny on the pocket. I take a quick look over my shoulder. Wouldn’t she rather passers-by didn’t see her like this? I say, “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
She stands back and I step into the hallway. When she shuts the door it’s almost pitch-black – until a door opens on the right-hand side of the narrow passage. A deeply wrinkled old woman comes out, pulling a wheeled basket. She eyes Lisa.
“What was that all about last night?” she says. “I need my beauty sleep, you know.”
I open the front door for her, and she winks at me.
After the woman has bumped her basket over the front step, I close the door behind her.
Lisa’s already climbing the stairs. “You’d best come up.”
I follow her. Someone’s painted 24a, badly, on the door to the flat, which is really only a bedsit with an unmade bed taking up most of the room. The greasy-looking green velvet headboard is disgusting, rubbed bald in two patches – I suppose by the different pairs of heads over the years. Behind the bed, just on that one wall, there’s peeling wallpaper picturing exotic birds perched on twisted branches. In a corner of the room, half-hidden by a sagging orange and brown curtain, there’s a teetering pile of old pizza boxes, ready to slide off the mini draining board. Do they call that the kitchen?
I need the loo, though I only went just before I left home. “Where’s your toilet?”
She says, “You passed it on the half-landing.”
“Won’t be a minute.”
The door has BATHROOM written on it. Inside, the bolt doesn’t work properly. If you sat on the loo, next to the bath, you’d be too far away to stick your foot out and stop someone coming in. I’ll be hovering, not sitting. There’s a notice over the bath: CLEAN THE BATH AFTER USE. How many people use this bath? However many there are, there’s no sign of anyone cleaning it. I pull the old-fashioned lavatory chain, holding it high above the handle everyone else probably uses. After a quick glance at the wash basin, I reckon there’s less risk of catching anything if I don’t wash my hands.
Back in the room, I tell Lisa she’s practically out of bog roll. Then I ask, “What did the old woman mean?”
“What?”
“About last night,” I say. “What were you up to?”
She slumps onto the bed. “Just a fight. No big deal.”
“You and Darren?”
Her lips narrow to a thin line. “That low life is yesterday’s news. I don’t ever want to hear his name again.”
When she gets up and starts rummaging in her make-up bag on the window sill, I spot four pound coins on a bedside table. She finds a cleansing pad and sits on the bed again. Pulling at the skin round her eyes, she attacks the leftover mascara. I tell her she’ll dig an eye out if she’s not careful.
She looks at me like she’s a little girl, and I’m the big sister. “I’m thinking of coming home,” she says, and screws up her left eye. “Mum won’t mind, will she?”
I don’t let on this’ll make Mum deliriously happy. I don’t let on this’ll make me happy. “You’ll have to pay your way. Mum’s not too good, there’s extras she needs.”
“Like what?”
I look at the coins. “Food and stuff.”
She falls back onto the rumpled sheets, snorting a false laugh. “Yeah, well, we’ve all got to eat.” This is so typical – her never taking anything seriously – that I want to retaliate: tell her the real extra that Mum would benefit from would be seeing Lisa do her fair share of chores round the house. Without moaning all the time. But I hold back because my eye is on those coins.
So all I say is, “Food’s expensive, you know.”
“Whatever,” she says, and I can see she’s so pleased at the thought of getting out of the bedsit, she doesn’t care what her money would be used for.
“Well,” I say, “as long as you understand you’ll have to contribute.”
“No worries,” she says, “I’ll get a little notebook and we’ll—” At this point it rings – the mobile I didn’t know she had.
She flicks it open, glances at the screen, slaps it against her ear. She turns her back on me, but I can hear the low crackle of a man’s voice. She butts in: “Change the bloody record, Darren.” She pauses for a second. “Anyway, Amy’s here and I’m going home. Mum needs me.” Whatever it is he says now makes her stiffen: “That is not what you said last night.” She moves nearer the window, gives the skirting board a kick. “It didn’t sound like that to me.” While he rabbits on, I watch her shoulders relax. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, and gives her hips a little wiggle. “Okay, but look – if you ever—” She breaks off, listening to him intently. She licks her finger, runs it along an eyebrow. “All right, but this is the last time.” She swings round, a silly grin on her face. A moment later she turns away again, the phone still stuck to her ear, and hurries to look out of the smeary window – like Darren could already be outside. I scoop up the coins and put them in my pocket.
Clearly, he’s not here yet but when she says, “Okay, sweetheart – as soon as?” I gather he’ll turn up any minute. I look round the manky room. Once out of here, why would anyone want to come back? She signals to me, sliding her eyes towards the door.
But I’m not leaving, not until I get her mobile number.
After a big slurping goodbye kiss into the phone, she raises her eyebrows at me. “What’re you hanging around for? You’ll have guessed what that was about.”
“I’m very happy for you,” I say. “Just one thing, Lisa – can I have your mobile number?”
When I realize she’s thinking up an excuse for not telling me, I say, “If I can call you, I won’t have to keep coming round.”
Sighing hard, she finds a scrap of paper and writes it down. I make sure I can read it, then put it in my purse.
When I get back in – stagger, more like – with a large bag of dog food, Mum’s watching a talent show. “Listen to this lad,” she says, “he’s got a gorgeous voice.”
Though my arms are aching under the economy-size Adult Beef & Vegetables, I stand watching the TV. Slowly the bag slides from my arms, then thuds to the floor. It startles Mum. “What sort of hole did that make in the housekeeping?” I tell her it was on offer, and that we’ll have to guess Toffee’s weight so we can judge how much he’ll need each day. We study silhouettes of dogs on the bag, and decide he’s bigger than a fox terrier-type, but a bit smaller than a German shepherd.
I fetch the scissors and cut the bag open. Toffee goes crazy at the smell. I take the kitchen scales from the cupboard under the sink, and weigh out the approximate number of grams. Then I pour the helping into a soup bowl that’ll be his from now on, and put it on the floor. He clearly loves this crunchy stuff – much nicer than the scraps we’ve been feeding him. It seems to be the right amount, because once he’s finished he sits quietly beside Mum.
She’s been working up to the question: “You saw our Lisa all right?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“She sends her love.”
“Is Darren still hanging around?”
“Seems like it.” All the way to the supermarket I’d been telling myself the four pounds was his, not Lisa’s.
For apparently no reason she says – and it’s not quite a question – “I suppose you’ve not heard from Liam lately.”
I nearly tell her about his birthday, but something stops me. “No,” I say – and then, like I don’t care, “There’d be no point.”
“That lad singing,” she says, “put me in mind of him.” Wincing, she eases her shoulders. “I hope he’s happier now.”
Chapter Six
Sunday. Mum’s voice, amused, breaks into my thoughts. “Are you going to sit reading all morning?”
She can’t have noticed that I’ve barely turned a page. I’ve been dreaming the dreams I usually save for when I’m staring out to sea – where only the sand reads my thoughts about Liam. Millions of billions of trillions of grains of sand, all washed away in one powerful frothy suck. I know one day there’ll be someone else. There has to be. This can’t be it. I’m sixteen.
Writing in the Sand Page 3
