by Julia Green
‘You take him, then, if you’re so concerned. I’ve had enough.’ She thrust the baby at Dad, pushed past Vicky, ran upstairs and shut the bedroom door. She lay on the bed, heart thumping.
They left her for a while. Low voices drifted up from outside the window. Dad was still going on and on. Fragments of sentences reached her. Enough… That’s it… mother will have to… Vicky’s tones were soothing, calming him down, reasoning.
Footsteps came up the stairs and there was a light knock at the door. Vicky opened it.
‘Mia? Can I come in?’
She came in anyway.
‘Kai’s with your dad. He’s fine.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve made things worse. I just called to check how Kai was this morning, and spoke to your dad, so I had to explain what had happened, I’m afraid, and then of course he got in a panic when he couldn’t find you. He phoned Becky and some of your other friends, and no one knew anything, so then he phoned me back and I thought of Colleen, so I offered to go and see her, since she’s not on the phone… You can see how complicated it got. We even phoned the hospital.’
Mia groaned.
‘I know. We probably overreacted. Still, it shows we all care about you very much. And Kai.’ Vicky spoke gently but insistently. ‘So what happened? Where were you?’
‘Out.’
‘Mia, please cooperate. There is an issue here. I’m trying to help.’
‘I got up early, and I didn’t want to be here with Dad’s girlfriend, and so I went down to the beach. OK? And I looked after Kai really carefully. I’ve made sure he’s not got too hot. So you can’t get me on that.’
‘I’m not trying to get you. Don’t be ridiculous. Look. You’re obviously tired. Have a rest and I’ll talk to you and your dad at a better time. Monday morning, yes? I’ll come to you first thing before my other visits.’
‘OK.’
She listened to Vicky’s car driving away, and then there were more voices, and the sound of another car, and she knew Julie had gone, too. So that left Dad and Kai. Waiting for her to come downstairs.
Let them wait.
They talked over supper. Dad had cooked a chicken. He’d even bought strawberries for pudding, expecting Julie to be there. Mia and he ate the meal instead, watched by Kai from his bouncy chair.
‘It’s been a horrible day,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sorry I lost it with you. I’ve been trying really hard, you know, recently, to make allowances. But this was one step too far. You realize Julie left, don’t you, because of you? That’s not fair, is it? I know you don’t approve, but I’m entitled to my life, and it’s going to include her, one way or another.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’d like to live together sometime. In the autumn maybe, when she’s sold her place. Or she might rent it out for a while, till we’re sure. It’s early days; we’ve only just started talking about it. But I don’t want your behaviour spoiling my chance of happiness.’
His chance of happiness. What about hers? Who was thinking about that? No one. Not even her.
‘We have to make some plans, Mia. We can’t go on like this.’
‘No.’
‘Well? I know you hate talking about the future, but we have to.’
She felt her face harden, a mask.
‘So?’
‘What?’
‘What had you thought? Any idea, beyond staying here and looking after Kai and seeing your friends?’
‘You make it sound like none of that’s important.’
‘No, I’m trying to be realistic. I know babies are a full-time job. But they also have to be supported financially. And a sixteen-year-old girl needs something more, too. Isn’t that right? I wondered about your mother –’
‘No.’ Mia flushed. ‘No way.’
‘You haven’t heard me out yet. If you lived with her you could go to that school for teenage mums. They look after the babies while you study. Get some exams under your belt. And you can claim benefits if you’re in full-time education, and it would give me a bit of a breathing space.’
‘She doesn’t want me, Dad. It wouldn’t work out, you know that. She’s got Bryan and now you’ve got Julie and nobody cares for me at all.’ Her voice finished on a high-pitched whine.
She knew she sounded pathetic.
‘What do you suggest, then?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not ready. It’s still too soon. Kai’s only six weeks old. I’m sorry about today, but please, Dad, give me a bit of space. I’ll think about it, I will, I promise.’
He didn’t believe her, she could tell. He noisily cleared the plates away and went out into the garden, started pulling up weeds savagely.
Kai watched Mia anxiously as she moved about the kitchen, putting things away, wiping the surfaces. His eyes were like bright buttons.
‘It’s all right, Birdy,’ she told him. ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we?’
She took Kai to bed with her early. Dad was on the phone when she came out of the bathroom, talking softly so she couldn’t hear.
She lay awake in the too-light bedroom. Kai nestled beside her in the bed, sucking contentedly. He was all right. As long as he was near her. That’s all he needed, really. It was perfectly simple.
Nothing else was, though. What a day! She still couldn’t decide what to think about Will. She’d have to talk to someone about it. Becky. No, Colleen. If she phoned. Or maybe she could go round to her place in Ashton on Monday, after Vicky had been. Vicky might even give her a lift. And she must think about what Dad was saying. Come up with some sort of a plan. Something to get him off her back. But not now, she was much too tired. Couldn’t think about anything.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘So what did Vicky say, then?’ Colleen asked.
‘Well, she talked a bit about my dad – she must have had a long talk with him earlier, because she seemed to know everything about him and Julie – and then she gave me these leaflets about benefits, and she tried to talk about college courses, and she asked me questions about what I wanted to do. Again.’
Colleen stopped patting Zak’s hands together, pat-a-cake, to ask, ‘And what do you want to do, Mia?’
‘I dunno!’ they chorused together, laughing. It felt so much better, laughing.
Colleen swung Isaac above her head and then back to her face, kissing his nose. He smiled and chirruped back at her.
‘Perhaps you should run away to the fair with me!’
‘What? You’re not going? Not you, too?’
‘Too?’
Mia blushed.
‘Come on, Mia, who else is leaving?’
‘No one really. Only Will’s got a holiday job up at Mill Cove. And Becky’s going on holiday with her family for three weeks to France, and Dad’s probably going away with Julie.’
‘Is that where you were? On Saturday? With Will?’
Mia gave Colleen the edited highlights. She played down the argument and the silent journey back to Whitecross.
Colleen sighed. ‘I don’t know, Mia.’
‘What?’
‘You put too much on to him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s not going to be the answer, Mia.’
‘You haven’t even met him!’ Mia was indignant.
‘But he’s not ready, is he?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s just not ready for you and Kai. He’s still a boy, really.’
‘He’s the same age as me!’
‘Yes, and you know what it’s like, with a baby and everything. Can you really see him helping?’
Mia pictured him making the fire on the beach, whittling the sticks with the penknife he kept in his pocket; Will climbing the rocks at Mill Cove, oblivious to time, and her, and Kai, caught up in his own world. She sighed.
‘I know it sounds hopeless from what I told you, but if you met him, you’d think differently.’
‘Maybe. Oh, Mia, don’t be mis
erable.’
‘I am miserable. It feels like no one’s on my side, not even you. And now you’re talking about leaving,’ Mia said. ‘I didn’t think it would be so soon. You can’t! I need you here!’
‘I’ve had the all clear from the hospital. I’m better. So I can join Mum. The fair’s stopping for the summer somewhere on the coast. Hang on and I’ll find her letter.’
Colleen rummaged through papers and books stacked on the floor in small piles.
‘What are all those books for?’ Mia asked. ‘The Tree Book?’
‘I joined the library. There’s something about that tree in your garden – the ash. It has healing properties. And the sap makes babies strong. Honest!’
Mia smiled. ‘Oh, yeah?’
She looked around the room while Colleen sorted through the piles of stuff. It was dark, with cheap second-hand furniture and a brown carpet. But Colleen had done her best to liven it up with a bright red rug and tall candles in blue glass bottles. She’d put flowers in a jug on the table and over the couch had draped a green Indian bedspread with sequins and beads and tiny pieces of glass sewn into the fabric which caught and magnified the light from the window.
On the bed lay a black case with beautiful silver clasps. It was the most expensive-looking object in the entire room.
‘What’s this?’ Mia went over and stroked the case. ‘Can I open it?’
Colleen glanced up from her pile of letters. ‘What? Oh, yes. It’s my fiddle case.’
The violin was a rich russet wood, smooth and cool to touch. Mia lightly ran her finger over the strings and they gave a little shiver.
‘Is it yours? Do you play, then?’
Will, on the beach at Whitecross: We need a fiddle player. Do you know anyone?
‘Here it is! They’ll be there week after next. Mum’s sending me some money for the train. “Change at Bristol,” she says here. It’s by the sea, a sandy beach.’ She waved the letter at Mia.
The spidery handwriting on lined paper made Mia feel even more miserable. Up till now, Colleen’s mother had been a vague figure with no substance, even though Colleen talked about her so lovingly. The writing made her real. And so different, suddenly, from Mia’s own mother, with her typed letters and her efficient e-mails. How different they were, really, she and Colleen.
‘Why don’t you come, too?’ Colleen said.
‘There wouldn’t be room. Would there? In any case, Dad wouldn’t let me.’ Do us all a favour, when she’d first told him about her new friend. ‘I wish you’d stay,’ Mia said.
‘We might be back in Ashton for the bank holiday. Late August. That’s what usually happens with the fair. And you can visit us, can’t you? Stay over for a little while at least.’
Mia didn’t reply. She watched Colleen lay Isaac back on the rug, take the block of resin out of the case, rub it over the strings of the bow. She picked up the violin and tucked it under her chin.
‘So you can play.’
Colleen smiled, twisted her long hair back over her shoulder, turned slightly towards the window and ran the bow over the strings.
Mia felt her spine shiver and uncurl. The first notes dropped into the room like tears. Isaac watched his mother intently while she played. Kai lay still on the rug on the floor where Mia had left him, his head turned to one side, listening. The sound changed; no longer sad, the tune danced and spun the notes, faster and faster.
Abruptly Colleen stopped, turned, grinned. ‘Enough of that.’
‘Don’t stop! You’re amazing.’ Mia’s voice was quiet. ‘Why didn’t you say before that you could play like that?’
Colleen just laughed again.
‘You should do something with a talent like that,’ Mia said. ‘You could make money. Busking on the streets, you know, like those blokes with guitars who are always down the precinct. Only you’re about a thousand times better.’
‘I don’t want to do it for money,’ Colleen said. ‘I keep it for me, my playing.’
This would be the moment, Mia thought, to tell her about Will’s band needing a player. But she didn’t. She thought of how Colleen might look through Will’s eyes and it stopped her.
That would be the last straw, to find him fancying Colleen. She felt mean about it afterwards. Maybe it would have made Colleen want to stay. That, and the garden at Whitecross, and her and Kai.
‘What shall we do today?’ Colleen asked her, when she’d closed the clasps on the violin case.
‘I don’t know. I’m so tired.’
‘I can’t stay in here much longer,’ Colleen said. ‘Got to get some air.’
‘The park, then? Or the river?’
It was hard to keep thinking of things to do which didn’t involve spending money.
‘What about that walk along the canal? The towpath?’
‘OK. Get your stuff together.’
They pushed the babies into town along the main Ashton road. The pavement was too narrow for them to walk side by side, so they walked separately, without talking. It seemed so dreary, this part of town. It made her almost glad she lived in Whitecross. Kai, in his buggy, seemed so close to the car fumes that pumped out incessantly from the slow-moving traffic. No wonder so many babies got asthma, breathing this muck in every day into their tiny, newly formed lungs.
They stopped in the precinct to sit a while on a bench. Colleen’s feet ached. Her new flip-flops had rubbed her toes raw.
‘I’ll take them off for a bit. Go barefoot.’
She was wearing a thin red cotton skirt today and had tied her hair back with a purple scarf. Even with her bare feet and the wonky old pram she looked striking. Mia studied their reflection in the big shop windows as they walked past: her own spiky short hair, new jeans, belt: Colleen’s wild hair, bright colours. Together, the two of them with their babies made people turn, stare. They pretended not to notice.
There were the usual boats moored along the canal bank. These were the boats that stayed all year, not holiday people cruising the canals for fun. Thin dogs dozed on the towpath, soaking up the sun; they lifted their heads as Mia and Colleen walked past. A swan and four grey cygnets with huge webbed feet preened themselves on the grassy bank.
‘Look at that! A tree on a boat!’ Colleen laughed, pointing out the tree in its huge pot weighing down the bow of a dilapidated narrowboat. ‘It’s even got a bird feeder on it!’
‘You laugh at everything,’ Mia said.
‘Because I’m happy. I’m seeing my mum in just ten days.’ She danced along the path for a bit, wiggling the pram.
‘Won’t it be all cramped up in a caravan, though?’
‘Yes, but we can be outside most of the time. Everyone hangs out together in the field, like I told you. You’d love it, Mia.’
Mia thought of the travellers she’d seen once, camped up on the grass verge next to the dual carriageway. It did look fun, on a sunny day, anyway: families hanging out together, and the dogs, and the children, and the fires. But not in some crummy old litter-strewn field next to the funfair, with the constant hum of the electric generators and traffic all night. Perhaps Colleen had her own fantasy of what things would be like, just as Mia did.
‘Your mum will be working, won’t she?’ Mia said.
‘Yes. And I can help, and she can help me. She won’t believe how much Zak’s changed since she saw him. He’ll look huge!’
Hardly, Mia thought, although she didn’t say so to Colleen. Kai was so much bigger than Isaac now. And stronger, too. Zak’s head was still floppy, while Kai could support his already.
They walked further along the towpath. Quite quickly it felt as though they had left the town behind. A line of trees on either side of the canal screened off the backs of houses, the railway line, the busy main road. Wild comfrey and meadowsweet grew among the rushes at the edge of the canal. Colleen identified the flowers for Mia.
‘And the tall pink ones like spears are rosebay willowherb. I love that name!’
On the opposite bank a b
reak in the trees revealed a square of rough field where two large piebald horses grazed. They lifted their heads and whinnied and then ran the length of their field.
‘Look!’ Colleen said. ‘Proper Roma horses. See their big feet?’
‘Can you ride?’ Mia asked.
‘No. Well, we never had horses. Not many travellers do these days. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’
They watched them for a while. The horses ran for the sheer joy of it, manes and tails streaming out, free. Every so often they stopped, touched noses, whinnied, then off they ran again.
Mia’s eyes filled with tears.
‘What’s the matter, Mia?’
‘I’m just fed up with everything. I’m tired out. And yet everyone talks as if I ought to be doing more. No one seems to understand that it’s more than enough for me, just looking after Kai properly. Why does everyone go on and on about what I’m going to do, as if I’m not already doing anything? It’s as if looking after Kai doesn’t count.’
‘They’ve forgotten what it’s like.’
‘If they ever knew. Dad was at work all day when I was a baby. He didn’t see what it was like. And Vicky’s this super-capable person who can do millions of things at the same time, like work and have a child and study for exams. But I’m not like that.’
‘What about your mum, though?’
‘She’s just blotted the whole thing out, I reckon, it was so awful. And she’s scared about me, I think.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. Like, what’s going to happen to me? If I don’t have exams and a good job and all that.’
‘She wouldn’t think much of my mum, then. She’s never passed an exam in her life. Nor me.’
Colleen parked up her pram by a wooden bench. ‘But we still have a good life! We can have a laugh and a good time. We don’t have much money, that’s all.’
‘But you’ve got each other. You really love your mum.’
‘Yes, and you’ve got your dad, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but it’s not the same. It’s like he’s had enough of being my dad. And he loves Kai to bits, but he’s too busy working to help much. And he wants Julie now.’
