Being Me

by Pete Kalu

  I let the yell slide. But when we start scoring goals, Mum starts doing some disco moves. I dash over before I die of embarrassment.

  ‘No more disco, OK?’

  Mum nods and folds her arms again. ‘We’re cool,’ she says.

  She spends the rest of the match standing on one spot, arms folded, nodding. Perfect.

  We win. I mark Mum’s Report Card. Very good. Keep It Up.

  Four Things That Turn Brown

  CHEESE ON TOAST – AT THE TOP AND EDGES

  TONSILS WHEN YOU EAT CHOCOLATE

  MY SKIN AFTER FOUR WEEKS IN THE SUN

  MY MUM’S HAIR WHEN SHE DYES IT

  CHAPTER 24

  DEALING WITH STUFF*

  Yes, she is curled up in a sad ball.

  Yes, she’s got so many lines on her face you could write the lyrics to Beyoncé’s entire back catalogue on them.

  Yes, it is going to give her a shock.

  No, I feel no pity.

  I press the button. A death metal wail comes screeching out at 160 watts per channel, zooming out of my iPod into Mum’s bedroom’s surround sound speakers.

  Mum pushes the quilt back, rubs her eyes, sticks her tongue out to taste the air, focuses. Then shouts at me. Adele, I’ll kill you! Turn that off!’ She throws a slipper at me.

  Mission accomplished. She is out of bed and it is not even 9am.

  ‘What’s this?’ she groans as she pulls on her dressing gown

  I have done a trail of leaves on her floor. ‘Follow them, Mum,’ I say.

  Rubbing her eyes, she places foot after foot and the leaves take her into the shower. ‘You now have five minutes to take your shower,’ I tell her.

  ‘May I take my nightie off first?’

  ‘You may. I’ll have breakfast waiting for us downstairs.’

  After breakfast, we get changed into our jogging gear for a jog along the riverside trail. At least that was the plan. At the last minute, Mum worries the neighbours will see her without make-up.

  I tell her they’d need high powered binoculars and it’s just excuses. We do a deal: we will start with walking and then move into jogging.

  As we walk, Mum stops to listen to the birds. Then to the rustle of leaves in the willow trees. Then to see dogs chasing down to the river’s edge barking at ducks. We do two minutes of jogging but Mum starts panting and goes all giddy, so we do a warm down walk home. We finish with a sprint to the front door which I win easily.

  While Mum tries to drink the tap dry, I get us two Vitamin Waters from the fridge. She drinks one off then goes to answer the call of nature.

  ‘Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!’

  Mum’s run back the kitchen, dry heaving.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask her.

  ‘The toilet’s blocked. Disgusting. Call your dad.’

  ‘We can unblock it ourselves.’

  ‘I’m as feminist as the next woman,’ Mum says, while trying to breathe only through her mouth so she doesn’t smell anything, ‘but if men want to show off their muscles by unblocking toilets we should leave them to it.’

  ‘How does Dad do it?’

  ‘He gets a stick with this rubbery pink cup thing on the end of it, then shoves it in and pulls.’

  ‘OK. Let’s find that rubbery pink stick thing. It’ll be in the garage.’

  ‘A plunger.’

  ‘Rubbery pink stick thing sounds more fun.’

  Before you know it, we’re both peering into the toilet bowl at you-know-what. It’s full to the brim. ‘Whose is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Anthony’s of course.’

  I think, yeh, that sounds right, he’s full of it. I have the plunger in my hand. ‘What part of this needs a man on the end of it?’

  ‘You do it then,’ Mum says. She’s backing away.

  For a nanosecond I wonder how she ever managed to wipe my bum as a baby if she backs away this much from stuff. ‘We’ll do it together. You put a hand on it, then me.’

  Craftily, Mum places her hand on the top part of the stick so my hand has to go lower and nearer the stuff*. We plunge. There is a lot of rubbery wobble wibble sounds then a throaty gurgle sound and stuff bubbles away in the toilet bowl. It looks like it’s all going down but suddenly it comes back up and explodes on us. We’re covered in stuff.

  Mum’s too stunned to scream. I look at her then avoid looking in the bathroom mirror in case I look like Mum. I look down. The toilet has partly cleared. Mum hits the toilet flush button. Water disappears in a torrent the way it should, taking the rest of the brown stuff with it.

  ‘We did it,’ Mum declares, holding my dirty, plunging hand up. ‘We dealt with stuff!’ Then she starts gagging again at the sight of the stuff on me and dives for the shower room.

  *FOR PUBLISHING REASONS, THE WORD ‘STUFF’ HAS BEEN USED THROUGHOUT THIS CHAPTER WHEN ANOTHER WORD MIGHT COME INTO YOUR MIND. YES. THAT. APPARENTLY, OCCASIONAL USE OF THE WORD ‘STUFF’ IS PERMISSIBLE WITH A CHAPTER, BUT TOO MUCH ‘STUFF’ IN ONE CHAPTER IS NOT.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE BIG WHEEL

  Once we’re both showered and changed, we go into town to tick off item one on her bucket list. Deansgate Central is the swankiest part of town, though it wouldn’t matter to me if we were strolling through the fish market. We are arm in arm; she’s wearing her Versace dress that she last wore three years ago at one of Dad’s work’s parties, I’m wearing a plain black A-line dress and Mum’s pearls because she let me. Oh, and my Nike trainers. I look at people as we stroll. If money brings happiness, the people here should be rolling on the pavement laughing all day. Instead, they look nervously around or stare intensely into shop windows. I like the warmth of Mum’s arm in mine, how we can match strides. We get some admiring glances from men. Mum’s astonished when some of them actually look me over as well as her and she asks how long has that been going on. I say it’s even worse when I’m in uniform, believe it or not. She holds onto me tighter and asks how is Marcus my boyfriend and whether that was who I was texting in the car and why am I so secretive about him, she doesn’t mind if I have a boyfriend so long as we don’t do anything (meaning have sex) as I’m too young for that. I say Marcus was telling me he’s about to play a match and should he change studs because the grass is wet? Mum’s not listening to me now though, she’s spotted something. She drags me to a window and gazes at diamond bracelets.

  She has no money. She did have a credit card of Dad’s but couldn’t remember the PIN number for it and the cash machine snaffled it.

  ‘Your father knows I’ve got no money. How he expects me to...’ She bites her tongue.

  In the end she goes next door to buy a hat. I say I can’t stand hats and I’ll meet her outside. Little does she know, I have one of Dad’s credit cards. I nip back into the jewellers.

  When Mum comes out, she’s wearing what looks like a plain hat to me but she says it’s modelled on the Queen’s. We go to the Slow River restaurant to celebrate, Mum walking all the way there as royally as possible.

  As we’re sat at the restaurant, through the plate glass window I notice the Big Wheel. It’s all lit up and the glass gondolas go round and round taking you high into the sky. ‘Mum, let’s do the Wheel, me and you, please!’ I say.

  Mum does a royal frown. ‘We don’t like heights.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll give you all my Kingdom, all my jewels and every pear on my pear tree if you go on it with me.’

  Mum softens. ‘We shall consider it,’ she says. ‘Let us process that way.’

  Five minutes later, we’re at the entrance.

  ‘In you get!’ the Big Wheel loading guy says.

  Mum hesitates. She hasn’t realised the gondola floor itself is glass as well as the sides.

  ‘It’s rock solid,’ the guy assures her. He’s wearing a smart black T shirt with a Big Wheel logo on it, and he swishes his pony tail like fairground Wurlitzer guys do.

  Mum backs away.

  I get in. ‘Look, it’s perfectly safe,’ I say. I start wiggling around,
then do a pogo dance to show her the floor is solid. I end up by doing a complete dance routine. The Big Wheel guy’s eyes bulge. I smooth my dress down.

  ‘See there, safe as houses,’ he says to Mum.

  Reluctantly, Mum steps forward. ‘Shoes off,’ he says to her.

  ‘Why?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Stilettos. Like pick axes. Can shatter the glass.’

  ‘I thought you said it was rock solid?’

  ‘It is. A pick axe can break rock. But don’t worry love, I’ll catch you in my arms if you fall.’ He leers at her.

  ‘We are not amused,’ Mum says. She sheds her shoes and steps in. He closes the gondola door.

  ‘The things I do for you,’ Mum says to me. The gondola lurches forwards and up.

  ‘That’s why I love you and you’re the best mum in the world ever,’ I say quickly, so she doesn’t notice the lurching. I hold onto her tight.

  As we start rising higher and higher, Mum looks at me intently. She definitely does not look anywhere else.

  ‘Come on, Mum, look out, that’s where all the fun is.’

  ‘Stop moving around, Adele, you’re making me dizzy.’

  ‘I’m not moving, Mum.’

  We’re almost at full height. She’s closed her eyes. I look around. ‘I’ll describe it for you since you don’t want to look yourself. We’re above all the department stores. You can still see all the silver jewellery twinkling. There’s a gym on the top floor of the building close to us and lots of sweaty people on exercise bikes looking bored. The tops of the buildings all have big metal tubes zigzagging across them. Over there’s where Marcus lives.’

  ‘Where?’

  The Wheel has stopped and we’re at the top. Finally she’s looking. I point out the zone where Marcus lives. She scowls. ‘That’s a council estate.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s very pretty. From up here. Now can you please ask him to get us down, I’m feeling unwell.’

  The Wheel jerks to life, goes a little lower but stops five seconds later.

  Mum curses. ‘What is wrong with this thing? Why has he stopped it? Is it broken?’ She’s peering at the tiny control box at ground level.

  ‘Mum well done, you just looked down.’

  ‘Did I? Yes, I did.’ She sits back, chuffed with herself. ‘Once is enough though. Tell him to take us down, right now.’

  She seems to think I have a hotline to Mr Gondola-PonyTail-Wurtlitzer. I get out my phone and pretend to be texting him. Then I say, ‘Smile, Mum!’ She lashes out at me to try stop me but I take her pic. It’s great. I show it to her. ‘Budge over,’ I say. We take a selfie together. This all distracts her from the height. There are seven more lurches of the Wheel as they let people out of the gondolas before us, before our own gondola door slides open. Mum staggers out and pulls her shoes on. ‘Never again,’ she says. She clings to me as we walk away from the Wheel.

  When we get home I give her the bracelet she liked.

  ‘Did you...?’ she asks, ready to be angry.

  ‘No I did not rob it. I used one of Dad’s credit cards. I wanted to surprise you.’ I hand her the card and tell her the PIN number.

  ‘Oh, you gorgeous thing,’ says Mum, looking from the bracelet to the credit card, but mostly at the credit card.

  In the evening, we talk films. Mum says she thought she had a significant role in Dad’s life but it turned out she only had a walk-on part; still, she’s ready for the spotlight again.

  CHAPTER 26

  FEVER, BOLEROS & CEILINGS

  Half term just gets better and better. Mum booked tickets for Saturday Night Fever the Musical using the credit card. When MTB found out, he wanted her to change the tickets to the Rocky Horror Show but Mum refused. ‘Sorry. Girls Night Out!’ she told him. Ha. Ha.

  We’re in Mum’s bedroom and she’s getting glammed up. She’s dug out a pair of platform shoes and a white suit. She’s going as the Saturday Night Fever hero himself, Tony Moreno. She sings “Dancing Queeeeen!” in the shower. She comes out and says, ‘You lookin at me? You lookin at me?’

  I tell her she’s got her films mixed up and that “You lookin at me?” is from Taxi Driver, but Mum doesn’t care. We get our make-up on and then we’re rolling to a Fever soundtrack all the way to the Palace.

  I’ve never been in the Palace before but something there makes you feel like you’re part of a Hollywood Oscars Night – it’s got lush red carpet everywhere, gold statues, fancy staircases, chandeliers and opera style balconies. Everything looks like it was commissioned by royalty. The ushers are in Penguin waistcoats and treat you like a million dollars (‘Can I take Madam’s coat?’) People come in their best frocks as well as wild party costumes. We allow our coats to be whisked off to the cloakroom, then head to the Ladies for a quick mirror check. Mum does her ‘You lookin at me?’ line into the mirror again and two women in lipstick red bolero dresses start laughing at her. Then all three do a double-take. ‘Is that Zowie?’ one of the bolero women gasps.

  ‘Baby doll?’ Mum replies. ‘Ooh baby baby... Marlene?’

  They all squeal with excitement and start jumping about. It’s one of Mum’s old friends from when she had her flower shop. Before you know it, they’re in the foyer doing selfies, Mum sandwiched between the three boleros, posing to the max. Mum squeezes me into the photos.

  The PA system announces the show will start in five minutes. We rush to our seats. I’ve just enough time to text Marcus.

  At Musical w Mum. Bit bored. But mum lovin evry mo. Watcha doin

  He replies with

  Homework

  The music starts. We’ve got front row seats so we can see the sweat bubbling under the pancake make-up of Tony Moreno. He has film star looks, a growly hero voice and when he stands at the front of the stage, he speaks like he’s addressing us the audience as much as the other members of the cast, which is fun. I look along my row. Eighteen females and one male. There are a few excited screams from the ladies when Tony Moreno does a hip wiggle, which makes others giggle and still others start shushing everybody. Then the mayhem starts. The first hit song comes on.

  Instantly half the audience, including Mum, are on their feet. They flood into the aisles. A forearm rolling, fringe tickling, crotch jerking, finger-waving madness breaks out. The actors love it and do a synchronised dance along the edge of the stage with the audience in the aisle only two metres away. The whole building vibrates: the balconies, the ceiling with its roses and plaster babies and carefully draped Virgins in chariots, everything shakes to the music. As I’m dancing, I look up and notice a crack in the plaster ceiling appears to be getting wider. I look back down, thinking it’s a trick of the lights. The floor is bouncing to the stomp of the ladies. Me and Mum swag it out. Everybody’s singing at the top of their voices. Then Tony Moreno announces, ‘It’s night. It’s fever. It’s Night Fever!’ I get my phone out and record Mum in the mayhem, then send it to Marcus.

  Beats homework?

  Lol is all he manages to reply. I file it under useless boyfriend.

  In the interval Mum manages to arrange a seat swap so in the second half we join the Bolero Girls a few rows back and get our funk on, big style. I’m glad no one from school is here as the moves are so uncool, even though I love doing them.

  At the bar afterwards, Mum gets lemonades. She hands me one and I swap mine with hers to check Mum’s has no added vodka. Her friends are telling her their life stories. They’ve not met in fifteen years and they invite Mum to their Disco Revival exercise group and tell her they do singing and dancing for old folk’s homes and cabarets for charity. Mum’s amazed and everyone swaps phone numbers. Then Tony Moreno appears at the bar. There’s a scream, followed by a mad scramble. Mum wants a signature and a kiss but she’s also checking her watch. It’s nearly midnight.

  ‘Mum, you’re not Cinderella,’ I tell her, ‘Your car won’t turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes twelve.’

  ‘But what about school?’

  �
��Duh. It’s half term, remember?’

  ‘But Anthony’s alone!’

  ‘He’ll live. Unfortunately.’

  Mum still dithers.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘you’re allowed to have fun. Go to Mr Moreno.’

  She kisses me then dives into the melee. I check my phone.

  Tune! from Marcus. I think he’s being sarcastic. I text him back.

  Mum had a good time, that’s what matters.

  Tru. Wen I c u agen?

  He didn’t add even one kiss to the end of his last message so I don’t reply.

  Mum returns all flushed in a bit of a stampede of others. She’s waving her signed Fever programme. ‘He kissed me,’ she says. ‘Tony Moreno kissed me!’

  ‘Amazing, Mum.’

  ‘Then he did some moves with me and everyone cheered. Oh and a piece of plaster fell off the ceiling and everyone has to leave. We brought the house down! Me and Tony Moreno have brought the house down! Come on, we have to go.’

  We drive home to her now personal friend, Tony Moreno’s Fever sound track. Even when she’s wandering in and out of her bedroom, she’s still doing the moves, singing and la-la- la-ing where she can’t remember the words. When I check on her again, she’s snoring, face up on the bed in a frozen star jump. She’s still dressed in her Tony Moreno outfit.

  CHAPTER 27

  A MAN CALLED GERALD

  It’s been ages and I’ve got credit, so next morning I phone Mikaela. It rings and rings and rings but eventually she picks up.

  ‘How’s you?’

  ‘I’m good,’ Mikaela replies.

  ‘Why didn’t you play the match?’

  ‘Wasn’t in the mood.’

  ‘Fam?’

  ‘I thought if I left the house, I’d be returning to a crime scene.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘It’s World War One. Except I’m the one trapped in no-man’s land.’

  ‘But they’re in the house together?’

  ‘Dad spends all day under his car, Mum out in the garden cutting dead flowers off bushes. They don’t speak. Mum asked me what I think about moving out with her. I don’t want to move out. Where to?’