Passion Flower

by Jean Ure

  After the slot machines we walked on, along the pier, past rows of little shops selling souvenirs. I bought a stick of Brighton rock to send to Vix, and the Afterthought clamoured for a cuddly toy from a Hurlaball stall, so Dad said he’d have a shot and hurled three balls and won a white rabbit for her. We would both have liked to have tattoos done – “Semi-permanent. Guaranteed six weeks!” – but unfortunately the stall was closed. However, as Dad pointed out, we could always come back another day. We were there for the whole summer!

  On our way to the end of the pier we passed a stall that was making doughnuts, and all stopped to have one. Dad said, “It’s a hungry business, having fun!” While we were eating our doughnuts a most extraordinary bird came walking past. It was the size of a chicken, with huge webbed feet that plopped and plapped. I threw it a piece of doughnut, and the Afterthought cried, “Dad! Look! A goose!”

  Dad said, “That’s not a goose, you goose! It’s a seagull.”

  I couldn’t really say anything, since I had thought it was a goose, as well. I had no idea that seagulls were so huge!

  “Eat up,” said Dad. “There’s more delights waiting for us.”

  We hurried on, through another casino – even more crowded and even noisier than the first one. Mum would have hated it! – and finally came out at the far end of the pier. This was where all the rides were. There were so many of them, all crammed into this one small space, that we hardly knew which to try first. The Afterthought wanted to go on the Crazy Mouse and the Waltzer. I fancied the Turbo Coaster, Dad fancied the Dodgems. There was also something called the Sizzler Twist, which was awesome!

  “Oh, and look, look!” cried the Afterthought. “Dad, look! Bumper Boats! Oh, look! Helter Skelter!”

  “Belter Skelter,” I said, but the Afterthought was well hyped and didn’t even hear me.

  In the end we tried all of them, one after another. Dad shrieked with everybody else on the Sizzler Twist! The Afterthought then caught sight of a Funny Foto booth, where you stuck your face into a hole and had your photo taken as either a fat lady in a skimpy bathing costume or a skinny man in voluminous trunks. She dragged Dad over there, while I stood and watched. I didn’t think I wanted my photo taken as a fat lady!

  While I was waiting, a couple of girls came strolling past. They looked at Dad and the Afterthought’s faces peering through the holes and sniggered. I don’t think they realised that they belonged to my dad and my sister. Dad then appeared from behind the skinny man figure, and I could see these two girls sort of… giving him the once-over. It was quite strange, watching girls not much older than me eyeing my dad! As they went on their way one of them said, “Cool!” and I couldn’t help giggling.

  “What was that all about?” said Dad.

  By now I was giggling so much I could hardly speak. I said, “D-Daddy drool!”

  “Daddy drool?”

  I had to explain it to him. Dad did laugh!

  He said, “Where did you get that ridiculous expression from?”

  “From this magazine,” I said. “One that Mum won’t let me read any more.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Dad.

  “She won’t let us do anything any more,” said the Afterthought. “She won’t let me have my kitten!”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Don’t start,” I said.

  We were having such a great time! I didn’t want the Afterthought going and ruining it by being mean about Mum.

  Fortunately, Dad was already leading us back through the second lot of slot machines, where the music was so loud you could hardly hear yourself speak. Definitely not Mum’s scene!

  We retraced our steps, past the rock shop and the doughnuts and the semi-permanent tattoos, with the Afterthought clutching her rabbit and me clutching my stick of rock.

  “Hang about!” said Dad. “This isn’t fair… I must get something for Steph! What shall I get you? What would you like? How about a bit of Flower Power?”

  Flower Power was a stall where you had to fire rubber suction darts at a big dartboard, which instead of being covered in numbers was covered in pictures. Top prize was a vanity case full of make-up. Wouldn’t I have loved that! But I don’t think darts was Dad’s game as all he won was a flower. It was a very pretty flower, made of silk, with red petals and beautiful blue frondy bits, so I was quite pleased with it. I think I would have been pleased with anything that Dad had won! The man who owned the stall said it was a passion flower. Dad fixed it in my hair, and gave me a big kiss.

  “That’s what you are,” he said. “My passion flower!”

  I blushed like crazy, but I thought that I would keep my flower for ever. I said, “Thanks, Dad! It’s gorgeous!”

  Needless to say, the Afterthought wanted to be a flower, too, so Dad had another go, but this time all he won was a common or garden tulip, a vulgar yellow thing, all stiff and starchy. You can’t very well wear a tulip in your hair! And you can’t say to someone that they are your tulip. Not without it sounding totally ridiculous. I was so glad that I was a passion flower!

  By now it was quite late and Dad decided we should go and eat. We left the pier and walked along the front, and it was so exciting because the lights were all twinkling, and everywhere you looked there were people enjoying themselves, and all around was the sound of music being played. Loudly, in some cases! I thought that Brighton was promising to be every bit as wild and wicked as I had hoped it would be.

  We went into a restaurant and Dad asked us what we wanted to eat. The Afterthought immediately said, “Fish and chips!”

  “Sam.” I looked at her, reproachfully. “You know we don’t eat animals any more!”

  “Fish aren’t animals,” said the Afterthought.

  “They are!” I said. “We had all this out with Mum!” We’d discussed it in great detail, only a few weeks ago. Mum had said that now she didn’t have Dad to cater for, she was going to follow her conscience and become a veggie. She said that she wouldn’t dictate to me and the Afterthought, we would have to follow our consciences, but she said she would like us to go away and think about it. So we both thought about it, and for once we’d been in total agreement with Mum. Eating animals was cruel. We had agreed that in future we weren’t going to do it. And now here was the Afterthought prepared to go back on her word at the very first opportunity!

  “Fish are fish,” said the Afterthought.

  “Yes, and they suffocate!” I said. “When they’re taken out of the water they can’t breathe. They flop, and gasp, and —”

  “Just shut up!” screeched the Afterthought.

  “But you agreed,” I said. “You agreed that it was cruel!”

  The Afterthought stuck out her lower lip, which is this thing she does when she’s sulking. I turned to Dad.

  “We talked about it,” I said. “We had this long discussion! We said we were going to be veggies.”

  “Oh, stuff that!” said Dad. “Another of your Mum’s crazy ideas.”

  “Dad,” I said, “it’s not crazy! Fish can feel. They suffocate.”

  “Everyone’s looking at us,” said the Afterthought.

  “Not surprised,” said Dad. “This does happen to be a seafood restaurant!”

  I felt my cheeks grow red. I hate being the centre of attention! Unless, of course, it’s for a good reason. I mean a nice reason. But this wasn’t.

  “Oh, now, come on, Passion Flower!” Dad blew me a kiss across the table. “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart can’t grieve over. Your mum won’t know.”

  Yes, I thought; but that would be disloyal. I mean, we’d agreed!

  “I’m going to have cod,” said Dad. “What about you, Face Ache?”

  The Afterthought giggled, and said that she would have cod, too.

  “Passion Flower?”

  I sighed. There really wasn’t anything else on the menu. The only dish that wasn’t fish was garlic mushrooms, which I can’t stand. I suppose I could just have had chips and bread and butter. I though
t afterwards that that was what I should have done, but instead I weakly gave in and ate fish, which I regret to say I greatly enjoyed, though I paid the price later, when we got home and I found a worried message from Mum on my moby. I had not only eaten poor suffocated fish, I had also forgotten to ring her, so now I had two things to feel guilty about. I called her back at once and said that I was sorry.

  “There’s just been so much going on!”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” said Mum.

  “I’m sorry, Mum! Really! Do you want to speak to Dad?”

  “Only if I must,” said Mum.

  I looked across at Dad. “Do you want to speak to Mum?”

  “Do I have to?” said Dad.

  Honestly! It’s a real puzzle, sometimes, knowing what to do about parents. They can just make life so difficult!

  ON SUNDAY WE went down to the beach. Brighton beach is full of pebbles, so that you can’t walk on it in bare feet but can only hobble and hop, going Ow! Ouch! Ooch! as you do so. Dad said that we had better buy some flip flops for ourselves. He said, “I’ll pay for them. I’m quite flush at the moment.” And then he winked and patted his pocket and said, “Money! What’s it for, eh? If not for spending?” My feelings exactly! Dad and I do agree about quite a lot of things.

  The Afterthought and I both had our swimming cozzies on under our clothes, but the water was too cold for swimming so in the end we just paddled. Quite childish, really! But Dad paddled with us, and when we’d had enough paddling he taught us how to skim stones across the surface of the waves. I discovered that I was quite good at it. Dad cried, “Way to go! That’s my girl!” and I felt myself glowing. The Afterthought scowled, and threw as hard as she could, but all her stones just sank.

  While we were there, the tide started going out, leaving a beach that looked quite grey and dismal. I looked hopefully for rock pools, but there didn’t seem to be any; just endless pebbles and damp sand. I remembered once when we’d gone on holiday to Cornwall and found lots of baby crabs, the size of 5p pieces, and tiny little transparent prawns, all squiggling and squirming.

  “Do you remember?” I said to the Afterthought. “We wanted to take some back for Mum to cook.”

  “They wouldn’t have made much of a meal!” chuckled Dad.

  “Anyway, it would have been a horrid thing to do,” I said.

  “No, it wouldn’t!” yelled the Afterthought. “We could have had prawn cocktails!”

  She had cheered up now that I wasn’t beating her at stone skimming. She’d found some seaweed to pop, which seemed to amuse her, and had started making a collection of interesting shells which she said she was going to “do things with”

  After a bit it clouded over. Dad said it looked like rain and we’d better decamp, so we put our shoes on and scrabbled back up the beach and sat snugly in a café on the front and watched as the rain lashed down. The Afterthought clamoured to go on the pier again, but Dad said we could do that tomorrow. He said he’d got a better idea for the afternoon.

  “I thought we might go to Hastings and look at Battle Abbey.”

  Me and the Afterthought must have registered total moronic blankness, because Dad had to explain. “1066? Battle of Hastings? William the Conqueror?”

  “Oh!” I said. “King Harold!” Importantly, to the Afterthought, I added, “He was the one that got an arrow through his eye.”

  Even the Afterthought had heard of King Harold. At least, I suppose she had. I had certainly heard of him when I was her age but I don’t know what they’re teaching ten year olds these days.

  “Are we agreed?” said Dad. “Go to Hastings?”

  “How do we get there?” I asked, as we squelched our way home through the rain.

  “Drive! It’s only just along the coast.”

  “You’ve got a car?” I said. He’d left our one for Mum to use. Mum had said – a bit sniffily, I’d thought – that from now on he would have to learn to rely on his legs. If he still knew how to put one foot in front of the other. “Which I doubt.”

  Dad was famous for going everywhere by car! Even just over the road to post a letter.

  “There she is.” Dad pointed, proudly, as we turned into his road. “Vintage motor, that is!”

  I looked at it, dubiously. It was what I would have called an old banger, only I didn’t say so as Dad was obviously pleased with it. But I didn’t think Mum would be too happy at the thought of him taking us anywhere in it. It had great rust patches all over, and holes, and one of the bumpers was half-hanging off.

  “Old Rover,” said Dad. He patted it affectionately. “They don’t make ’em like that any more!”

  “Dad, it’s beautiful,” crooned the Afterthought. Honestly! There were times when she could be such a creep.

  As we were going down the basement steps, a woman came out of the front door above us. At first all I could see were a pair of red strappy sandals which made me positively ooze with envy. They were the sort of sandals that I’d always desperately wanted to buy and which Mum would never let me.

  “All that money for a few strips of leather? Totally impractical! Wouldn’t last five minutes.”

  Above the sandals were legs that seemed to go on for ever – and ever – and ever. Like really long! They finally disappeared into a mini skirt. Well, more of a micro skirt, really. Mum would have had a fit if I’d gone out in a skirt like that! The woman who was wearing it was actually too old, I would have said, to be showing all her legs (not to mention half her bum). I mean, she was about Mum’s age, but just quite incredibly cool, with this long honey blonde hair and gorgeous golden tan. Dead cool!

  She called out to Dad, “Hi, Daniel!” Even her voice was sexy. Very low and husky, like her throat was full of gravel. Or maybe she just smoked. Dad said, “Hi, Shell! Girls, this is my landlady, Shelley Devine. Shell, these are my two girls… this is Passion Flower, this is my little Afterthought.”

  I said hallo and shook hands, in a proper grown-up manner, but the Afterthought turned shy and hid behind Dad. She is so weird! Ms Devine got into a little red sports car that was parked next to Dad’s old banger. As she drove off, Dad thumped on the roof and Ms Levine stuck her hand out of the window and gave a wave.

  “That’s quite a woman!” said Dad.

  “I bet if she walked past the window we’d be able to see her knickers,” said the Afterthought. “If she wears any,” she added.

  Honestly! I was shocked. I mean, this child was ten years old. I would never have dreamt of saying a thing like that at ten years old! I think Dad was a bit shocked, too; or at any rate, somewhat taken aback. He said, “All right, Face Ache! That will be quite enough of that.”

  “Some people don’t, you know,” hissed the Afterthought, as Dad opened the front door. “Wear any knickers, I mean.”

  “Look, just button it!” I said. Mum wouldn’t have let her talk like that, and I didn’t think I should, either. “Don’t be so disgusting!”

  “I’m not being,” said the Afterthought. “I just —”

  “Well, don’t! Shut up, or I’ll tell Dad.”

  She pulled a face at that, but at least it kept her quiet.

  After we’d changed our clothes and dried ourselves off we piled into the banger. I let the Afterthought sit in front with Dad, as it meant so much to her, but then I got worried because there wasn’t any seat belt. Mum would never forgive me if we had a crash and the Afterthought went through the windscreen. I said, “Dad, it’s against the law!”

  “Not in this car,” said Dad, cheerfully. “This car was built in the days before seat belts.”

  It didn’t stop me worrying. The Afterthought could still go through the windscreen.

  Fortunately she didn’t. We got there unscathed! Dad didn’t even have to swear at anyone, which is what Mum complained he usually did.

  Battle Abbey was really quite interesting, as old monuments go. I am not really an old monument sort of person, I am more into modern stuff, but I thought it would be a good thing to tell
our history teacher about when I went back to school. She hadn’t been best pleased with me last term. She had told me that I obviously had “no feel for the historical perspective” whatever that was supposed to be. It’s possible she was referring to the fact that my last three pieces of homework had come back marked C-, but that was because it was all boring stuff about wars and politics. I am not into wars and politics. I am into people. Like I once read somewhere that James I used to go to the toilet just anywhere he felt like going. Behind pillars, behind curtains, in the middle of the floor if no one was watching. Truly gross! But that is the kind of thing I find interesting.

  I suppose poor old Harold being shot in the eye is quite interesting, although somewhat bloody.

  After we’d done the Abbey, and I’d bought some more postcards, we got back into the banger and banged our way back to Brighton. We didn’t eat out that night but bought pizzas and took them home with us. I chose a Margherita. Cheese and tomato: no meat. Dad and the Afterthought both had ones covered all over with bits of dead flesh. Ham and salami and pepperoni. I was cross with the Afterthought, because this time there wasn’t any excuse, and I lectured her about it all the time we were eating. The Afterthought said I was a nag. She said, “Dad! Tell her to stop. I can eat whatever I like!”