‘I doubt we’d get in to see it,’ I say. ‘We don’t look old enough.’
It occurs to me that whether we look old enough or not, we cannot get into the pictures without money. I go upstairs and poke my head around my mother’s bedroom door. She is sitting at her dressing table, patting caramel-coloured powder all over her face, grinning at her own reflection. How can somebody so pretty be so unkind? I linger in the doorway watching her, waiting for her to ask me what I want, hoping she’ll be able to read my mind so that I won’t have to ask her outright for cash.
‘Go and play with Eddie,’ she says to my reflection.
Before my mother leaves the house, she hands Eddie and me a fifty-pence coin each. ‘Remember to eat,’ she says. ‘I left gari and stockfish in the oven for you two. And see a movie that’s suitable for children, OK?’
I cannot find the food my mother says she’s left for us.
Rifling through her cupboards, I find nothing that looks even vaguely appetising.
‘Are you hungry, Eddie?’ I call from the kitchen, thinking – hoping – that he’s got some pound notes in his pocket. ‘There’s a Kentucky around the corner. We could go and get some to take away. If you want.’
Eddie’s too cool to say yes or no but he says ‘maybe’ and slips his denim jacket back on.
At the Kentucky Fried Chicken, I grin greedily as we ask for five pieces of chicken each.
‘Legs only,’ Eddie says. ‘No breast.’
The girl dishing up our chicken has dark freckles forming a thick pattern over the top of her face, like a mask. I can’t stop looking at it. She slaps a red and white Kentucky Fried Chicken paper bag on top of the counter and I feel ravenously hungry at the sight of the chicken grease that’s oozing through the bottom of the bag, turning it translucent. Eddie reaches into his stripy trousers, pulls out the fifty pence my mother gave him and looks at it thoughtfully and he reaches up, grabs the bag from the counter, grabs my hand with his other hand and pulls me through the door. We run down the street, our boxes of chicken bouncing inside the paper bag.
‘Did you pay the lady?’ I ask breathlessly.
‘No.’
We eat our contraband at my mother’s house.
‘Isn’t it wrong to steal?’ I say.
Eddie shrugs.
Eddie puts his arm around me and tells me he’s missed me.
‘Did you go out with anyone else when I wasn’t around?’ I ask.
‘Of course not,’ he says immediately.
We talk more about New York and about the black kids Eddie met there who drove their own cars. I tell him about Nigeria and about looking into the eyes of the travelling musicians and how it has left me restless and feeling uprooted and almost ready to run away from home and unsure even of where or with whom my home is these days.
I realise that this is the first time I have given voice to these feelings. I really do feel like a leaf being swept along by the wind. I’ve no idea what my future holds; where I might end up, whether I’ll eventually live in Nigeria or not. What will happen to me if Nanny, who is in her late sixties, should die? What if my mother has new children after she gets married? Will I count? Will I still matter? Why do Aunty Wendy and Uncle Mick need a baby of their own when they already have me? I talk and talk about all of these things until Eddie suddenly yawns. He looks deeply bored. I shut up. Neither of us says anything.
The clock ticking over my mother’s marble mantelpiece says eight o’clock. My mother said she’d be back late. Late means after midnight. I know what a boy like Eddie must be thinking right now: that I’m not cool or interesting enough to be worthy of his time. What if he stills see the dull me; the drab, timid little girl who used to call herself coloured? It may be only a matter of minutes, before Eddie decides that I’m nothing special.
Silence.
I search my mind for something that might hold Eddie’s interest. I find it.
‘Umm. Would you like me to do something?’
‘Go on, then.’
I kneel on the porridge-coloured carpet and feel my knees sink into its softness. Pushing aside the empty fried chicken cartons, I crawl closer to Eddie, open my mouth into a wide O and clamp it on the mound where his thighs meet, feeling movement beneath the heavy cotton of his trousers. I am secretly hoping my mother will walk in and see me and be utterly repulsed and humiliated by what’s become of her daughter. I want her to know.
I wait. Mouth open, jaw starting to ache.
Eddie smirks and gently strokes my face.
‘You’ve got to take my thing out of my trousers first, ain’t it?’ he says, stepping back a little and unzipping his flies.
Two weeks later, a letter filled with long words arrives for me from the Gateway building society. I show it to Nanny at the breakfast table. ‘That cheque your mother wrote you has bounced,’ says Nanny with a flicker of a smirk. ‘Either that or she put a stop on it.’
Upside Down
LIFE TURNS EASY AND weeks and months melt happily into one another.
I write a poem about a cat that can read people’s minds. I send it into a comic, they publish it and pay me two pounds.
As Aunty Wendy’s belly swells, she and Uncle Mick buy me more sweets, more stickers, more Sindy doll’s clothes than ever. ‘I don’t want you feeling left out or nothing,’ Uncle Mick says.
My mother doesn’t ring or write or turn up, and I don’t care since I still hate her.
Then, one afternoon, I emerge from school, laden with library books, and find there’s nobody there to meet me. I wait and wait. I walk down the steep little hill to Parkfield Road. No Nanny. No Aunty Wendy. Not even Agnes. I stare wanly at the passing cars, my satchel weighing heavily on my shoulder.
‘Wotcha!’ A rough male voice. ‘Where you off to then?’
Across the road, leaning against someone’s garden fence, one skinny leg crossed in front of the other, is Uncle Mick. He is rolling a Rizla between his thumb and forefinger. Uncle Mick’s hair billows out in the wind, forming a halo around his thin face. He dips his head and lights his fag.
‘What are you doing here?’
I dread hearing the answer to my own question. Uncle Mick should be at work. Him being here means something is seriously wrong. Nanny and Aunty Wendy may be dead. My mother might have killed them.
‘Shouldn’t you be at work Uncle Mick?’
‘Keep your hair on, mate. Got the afternoon off, didn’t I?’
‘How come?’
‘Do you ever stop asking bleeding questions? Like being interrogated being around you. Hurry up then, nipper.’
I try to keep up with Uncle Mick’s loping strides.
‘Where’s Aunty Wendy then?’
‘She’s up St Richard’s hospital, isn’t she.’
I stop mid-stride.
‘Is she . . . still alive?’
‘Of course she’s bloody alive! She’s having a check-up.’
‘Is her baby coming out, Uncle Mick?’
‘I should bloody well hope not,’ says Uncle Mick, laughing nervously. ‘It’s not due yet, is it?’
‘Where’s Nanny?’
‘With Wendy. Drove her to the hospital. You gonna stand here talkin’ then, or are you coming home?’
We walk through Hunter Close, where some of the poshest kids at my school live. We cross New Road taking the shortcut to Woodview – a narrow path that’s sandwiched between the fire station and an explosion of blackberry bushes whose branches tear at your hair as you pass.
‘I’ve been told to tell you your mother’s rung for you earlier. You know, you never told me what that Africa was like. Secretive little bugger, ain’t you?’
‘It was quite a good laugh being there,’ I say, smiling up at him. ‘Until, you know, I got ill. My cousins and aunties were really nice.’
‘So you liked it then? I don’t blame you.’
As we walk, I casually search the blackberry bushes for ripe fruit but every blackberry I see is either green and t
oo unripe to eat or brown and all shrivelled up. Somehow Uncle Mick finds one that is deep purple, fat and bursting with sugary juice. He pops the blackberry into my eager mouth and I swallow it without chewing, as if I was a snake.
‘That one had a worm inside it, didn’t it?’ he says laughing.
After we’ve had our tea and watched Top of the Pops, Uncle Mick lets me flick through his record collection.
‘I’m teaching myself to become a DJ, aren’t I?’ he says
‘Why?’
‘So I can make a bit of money, DJin’ at people’s parties and weddings and that.’
‘Uncle Mick? who’s your favourite singer?’
His smile is radiant. ‘Who do you think? The Stones! I’d give anything to meet that bloody Mick Jagger.’
We delve into Uncle Mick’s stack of records, which is at least twice the size of my mother’s record collection. A Diana Ross single called ‘Upside Down’ falls out of the stack and slides onto the floor of the loft. On the cover of the single is a photo of Diana wearing skin-tight jeans. Her hair’s long and wavy and her brown eyes are glossy and enormous. This is how I’d like to look when I’m grown up. Apart from her lips, which are plump and slightly parted; they look wet. Her mouth looks disgusting, I think.
‘Nice isn’t she? That Diana Ross.’
Not exactly nice, I think. She reminds me of my mother, which means she is scary and beautiful at the same time.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ says Uncle Mick.
I shrug.
‘Haven’t changed, have you?’ he says.
‘Since when?’
‘Since your mother first brought you. Lovely little kid then you were and you still are, aren’t you? But you’ll go back one day, won’t ya Neety Williams?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ll go back one day. You’ll forget all about us lot one day. Won’t you? We love you, but you’re not ours.’
It is half term. I’m gulping lemonade straight from the can and watching raindrops bounce off a wide white London pavement. Uncle Mick is standing next to me, holding my hand and singing:
‘Where are we going? I said: “where are we going?” ’
‘To the zoo!’ I shout.
‘We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo,’ he sings. ‘How about you, you, you. You can come too, too, too. We’re going to the zoo. If we can bloody find it.’
Aunty Wendy looks up from the map she is reading. ‘Watch your language, Mick.’
Uncle Mick smirks and sucks on his roll-up cigarette.
When we finally arrive at London Zoo, Uncle Mick looks around, unimpressed.
‘They got a lot of these animals where you’re from, Neeta. Ha ha ha. They’re used to seeing kids that look like you,’ he says. ‘Ha ha ha, look at that! It’ll show us its arse in a minute.’
An apathetic-looking monkey is doing a wee on the ground near the edge of its cage and the animal stink mingles with the smell of clean rainfall and fills the air. We walk away quickly, to the next cage, before the monkey can show us its arse.
‘Aren’t you gonna say hello to the elephants, Nin?’ says Uncle Mick.
Feeling like a moron, I wave at one of the elephants. I look up into the elephant’s small, knowing eyes set deep into its huge wrinkly old head. The elephant looks down at me as though I am not even as important as a fly. I imagine its huge crusty foot crushing me into the damp ground and no one even noticing.
Looking at Aunty Wendy’s huge belly, I wonder if my life will change once her little baby’s born. How can I be one hundred per cent sure I won’t get forgotten? Sent back to where I came from? Or worse, because Mummy Elizabeth doesn’t seem to really want me, I’ll be sent to the children’s home in Cocking, where – I’ve heard – they feed you rank food that makes you puke and then they make you eat your own sick.
The caged animals seem sulky and they are nowhere near as exciting to me as Uncle Mick is as he drifts around the zoo, poking his fingers through dangerous animals’ cages and throwing his frizzy head back, laughing.
‘Mick, that thing could take your hand clean off,’ says Aunty Wendy.
Uncle Mick says, ‘And why do you think I’d give a toss if it did?’
I clutch Uncle Mick’s hand. I don’t want this day, this moment, to ever end.
It’s Aunty Wendy who has the idea of phoning up my mother – since we’re already in London – and inviting ourselves round for a cup of tea.
‘Why would she want to associate with the likes of us?’ Uncle Mick says, laughing.
Aunty Wendy ignores him. She squeezes her big belly into a phone box that smells of wee, and picks up the receiver.
‘What’s her new phone number, Neet?’ Aunty Wendy says, leaning out the door of the phone box.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What’s her new address then, love?’
‘It’s number nineteen.’
‘Number nineteen what, love? What’s the name of the road?’
I’m ashamed to not know my mother’s address.
‘I forgot,’ I whisper.
‘Lot of bloody good you are,’ says Uncle Mick. ‘Bright as everyone says you are and everything.’
The names of the different avenues, streets, roads and ways my mother’s lived on over the years swirl around inside my head and I can’t put my finger on a single one of them.
‘Let’s just forget it then,’ says Uncle Mick.
On the train back to Haslemere, I try to stop staring at Aunty Wendy’s huge belly – Nan’s told me it’s rude to stare at anyone, ever. I focus instead on the scene through the train window; the trees’ spiky silhouettes.
A question bubbles up.
‘Why didn’t my mum want to keep me for herself when I was born?’
‘I’ve no idea, love,’ says Aunty Wendy.
‘What about my dad?’ I say and my own voice surprises me; it comes out almost as a scream.
‘Your dad’s sittin’ right here,’ says Uncle Mick, pointing at his own chest.
But his words only remind me that I’ve got a real dad out there, probably still alive, who doesn’t care enough to come and find me. And Uncle Mick’s got a little girl or little boy of his own on the way.
We’ve managed to miss the last train from Haslemere back to Fernmere and because Nanny’s the only one in the family who can drive, we must beg her to come and fetch us. I hear Nanny’s annoyed voice filling the phone box.
‘I’ll be there in three quarters of an hour,’ she snaps.
‘How on earth can it take you that long? It’s only eight miles,’ says Aunty Wendy.
‘I’m not ready, am I? It’s not like I sit around just waiting for your phone calls, Wendy. I have to go and put my face on.’
Nanny turns up an hour later, with her lips painted as red as a clown’s. She revs the car and speeds ahead even before Uncle Mick’s closed the car door.
‘You all right, Mum?’ says Aunty Wendy. ‘You’re driving like the blazes.’
‘No, I am not all right,’ says Nanny. ‘I have been accused of murdering Gramps.’
‘You what, Mum?’ Aunty Wendy’s neck grows pink and inflamed.
Uncle Mick, sitting next to me in the back seat, elbows me in the side, chuckles to himself and twirls his finger against the side of his forehead, showing me he thinks Nanny is mental.
Uncle Mick has said Nanny’s got a disease called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder which is why she washes her hands about a hundred times a day. ‘She wants fucking locking up, the old girl,’ he whispers in my ear now.
He wouldn’t dare say that to Nanny’s face. Nanny might be slightly mental but I reckon Uncle Mick’s slightly scared of her all the same. He never even swears in front of her.
‘If you want to know what I’m talking about,’ says Nanny, almost crossing a red light. ‘Ask Agnes.’
But before any of us has a chance to ask Agnes, Agnes packs her suitcase and runs away from home.
How To Levitate
/> IT’S A GLOOMY, STARLESS night and there are hardly any street lights where we are, which is just across the border from Fernmere, in a hamlet called Hop’s Corner.
‘There she is, Nanny!’ I say. ‘Over there!’
A few yards ahead of us is Agnes, carrying a small suitcase, wearing my rabbit fur jacket and marching fiercely along the dirt road in the dark like a little female soldier.
‘Let’s get her, the little bitchie!’ says Nanny, slowing the car down and stalking Agnes, the way Tom stalks Jerry. ‘Unlock the car door, Nin. We’ll make her get in the back with you.’
‘Get her, Nanny! Get her!’
It doesn’t occur to me that I’m betraying Agnes. I’m so charged up on adrenalin and outrage that she’s daring to leave that I do not think at all.
Agnes turns her head and her scared eyes are illuminated by Nanny’s headlights. We swerve after her as she turns off the dirt road and along a winding driveway. Nanny lowers her car window and chants, ‘Get in, Aggy! Get in!’
At the end of the driveway, there’s a large house in front of which Nanny screeches to a halt. Approaching our car are a girl from my year at school called Sasha, Sasha’s parents and Agnes’s really-quite-weird friend Christine, who is Sasha’s big sister. Four pairs of eyes peer at us through Nanny’s car window, making me feel like a guppy in a tank.
‘What do you want?’ asks Christine in her slow-motion giggly voice. Agnes stands next to Christine who squeezes Agnes’s arm and giggles. We all stare at Christine. She covers her mouth with her hand and looks down at the gravel.
‘Can I help you, Mrs Taylor?’ says Sasha’s dad, reaching out to take Agnes’s suitcase.
‘I’ve come to get Agnes and stop this nonsense,’ says Nanny.
‘We’re not making her get in the car with you,’ says Sasha’s dad.
‘Then I’ll call the damned police,’ says Nanny.
‘Feel free to,’ he says. ‘You’re not Agnes’s legal guardian, and she’s over eighteen. She’s welcome to stay here with us for as long as she likes.’
We watch Agnes disappear through the door of her new home, followed by Christine, Sasha’s parents and Sasha – who waves at me and grins. When the door slams shut, there’s nothing for us to do but drive away.
Precious Page 12
