The Money, Stan, Big Lauren, and Me

by Joanna Nadin

  Mum isn’t keen on going to see Granny Grimshaw. This is because Granny Grimshaw didn’t like Mum when she married Dad and especially not when they got divorced. Plus now Mum has Dave’s baby inside her so she doubly doesn’t like her. Mum said maybe Dad will take me in the summer holidays when he comes to look after me and Stan when her and Dave go up to Dave’s sister’s in Wigan (we can’t go too because there is only one spare room and Mum says no Stan can’t sleep in a cupboard like Harry Potter). But I said that’s not soon enough it has to be next week, and Mum said, ‘Blimey, Billy, what’s got into you? It’s not like she’s going anywhere. She’s made of flaming iron, that woman. More’s the pity.’ So I said I just miss her. Which isn’t true because the last time I saw her, which is maybe two years ago, she told me off for wearing shoes on the carpet and for spilling some squash on the tablecloth. And for making the chess pieces play war, even though chess is all about battles according to Wing Nuts, which I said, but she said not with hand-carved ivory ones it isn’t. But maybe it will be like in that book Swallows and Amazons and she is grumpy Uncle Jim but all she needs is the love of a child, i.e. me. Then she will be all benevolent which means kind, and she will give me a parrot or a blue heart-shaped diamond necklace.

  And I said, ‘Please, please, please,’ about a million times because Big Lauren says it wears them down eventually and she was right because Mum said, ‘You win, Billy.’ So she rang Dad only his answerphone said he is in France for three weeks and to phone his mobile if it’s an emergency. I said it was, but Mum said it wasn’t. And I said, ‘Is,’ and Mum said, ‘I am not getting into an argument about it, Billy, you can’t go and that is that.’

  But then Dave said if it’s that important he can take me on Wednesday because he is off-shift that day and Dave 2 is doing Ultimate Frisbee in Derby so he has nothing else to do. So Mum said if Dave was that bored he could start clearing Stan’s room or get the car seat from Halfords for when the baby comes, because Stan broke our one by trying to slide down the stairs on it. But Dave said, ‘Come on, Jeanie, we’ve got weeks before the baby arrives and I’m trying to do the right thing here.’ So Mum said, ‘Jesus. Whatever.’ Which is 10p in the swear box, but no one said anything because she is pregnant and is allowed to say what she wants. This isn’t fair if you ask me, which I said once, and she said the day boys have to give birth is the day they can start saying being pregnant isn’t fair. I hope that day never happens.

  And then Stan said was he coming too and I said no because I thought Granny Grimshaw might not feel very remorseful if one of her long-lost grandsons is wearing a Michael Jackson outfit or lipstick for instance, which he did yesterday. But Mum said yes because Stan’s best friend Arthur Malik is in Disneyworld so it’s the Three Musketeers, i.e. me Dave and Stan or nothing. So I picked the Three Musketeers because like Nan says, beggars can’t be choosers.

  And even though I am not sat outside the train station with a dog on a string like the 10p man who says, ‘Give us ten pee,’ all day, and I am not in the slums with Fagin like the Artful Dodger, I am definitely a beggar.

  Stan won the hair dye. It came in the post this morning and is called Mahogany Shine and is the colour of West Ham’s kit but not the blue bit the purple bit. He has begged Mum to let him use it right now, but she said the baby was sitting on her kidneys and the grill was on the blink and the last thing she needed was purple hair dye all over the bathroom and a son who looked like an alien. Stan said he wouldn’t look like an alien he would look like Jessie J, but Mum didn’t want that either. I asked Mum if anything had come for me, e.g. the £10,000 or the supply of baby wipes or the romantic holiday for two, but she said no just a letter from the council saying she does not get her council tax discount for being a single mum any more because she is married to Dave, and a gas bill. So if I was about to do any complaining then I had better think again. So I did think again and I thought I would go round Nan’s.

  When I got to Nan’s, Mr Feinstein was there drinking tea. I told them both about the big shop at Discount Deals. She said, ‘Lawks a mussy,’ because she does not trust Discount Deals because it’s foreign. But Mr Feinstein, who is foreign and Nan didn’t trust him either at first and nor did I, but now we do, said he got his shopping from there and it all tastes exactly the same. And I said no it doesn’t. And he said he would prove it and he went home which is opposite Nan’s and got a packet of custard creams which didn’t even say custard creams on they said, Fondant Sandwich Biscuits and Nan got out her packet which said Peek Freans on even though she said it was a waste of time because everyone knows Peak Freans are better. And Mr Feinstein put three of his biscuits on a plate and three of Nan’s on another plate and said we had to test to see which tasted better. And I said but I could see that Nan’s taste better because they had the right pattern on them and Mr Feinstein’s were plain. So Mr Feinstein said it had to be a blind test, i.e. with a blindfold over our eyes which was one of Nan’s scarves. Nan said he had better not try to steal her worldly possessions while she was compromised and Mr Feinstein laughed even though Nan was serious.

  And Mr Feinstein was still laughing at the end of the test because I picked the Discount Deals biscuits and so did Nan and only Tammy chose Peak Freans even though he shouldn’t be eating biscuits at all.

  Mr Feinstein said flavour was all in our minds and it’s the same with football boots and that just because they are gold or have fancy words on them doesn’t mean I will play better or that they are better. But I thought try telling that to David Beckham.

  Or anyone at secondary school.

  Mum was off work today. Dave said, ‘Is this about Stacey?’ Because Stacey rang last night because she has got a new job at FlyBy which is another airline which isn’t shutting down, not yet anyway, and it has better uniforms and a badge that says, Fly Me, I’m Stacey. And Mum said, ‘I’m really pleased for you, love.’ But I could see she wasn’t because if it wasn’t for the baby inside her she could be wearing a Fly Me badge too. But Mum said she was just tired and the baby was giving her gyp. And Dave said if it’s that bad maybe she should stop work altogether, especially as she only has another few days left anyway. But she said it was just gyp not pre-bloody-eclampsia and besides they needed the money. And no one put any coins in the swearbox then either, not even Dave. He just got his bag and slammed the door and then I heard the Ford Fiesta Zetec start up and Mum went back to bed and me and Stan watched four episodes of Tracy Beaker on CBBC because it’s Tracy Beaker Day which means that is all there is until five o’clock.

  Stan said if Mum and Dave can’t cope with us because the baby is too much work then we could move to the Dumping Ground, i.e. the house where Tracy lives, which is actually called Elm Tree House. He said it would be excellent because we could go to an assault course and camping and also trick the care workers into walking under buckets full of water. I said I’d rather move to 17 Mornington Road, but Stan said it doesn’t have a common room or bunk beds so he’d rather be an orphan.

  And after that I didn’t want to watch any more Tracy Beaker so I went upstairs to ask if I could go round to Lauren’s but Mum was asleep and I thought if I woke her she would shout so I should just go. I did, only Lauren wasn’t in she was at the shops with Karen Connolly getting holiday clothes so instead I just carried on walking. I walked and walked, down Park Road past the post office and the registry office and Costcutter where Gran’s old cat Barry had died. I walked through the park where Preston Yates who is at secondary school was kicking a football at a bin. I walked across Bellamy Avenue where Sean Hawkes lives and left at the corner until I was there. Until I was standing right outside it.

  17 Mornington Road.

  I thought maybe I could knock on the door and the owners would let me in and say come and live here anyway, Billy, you can have the big bedroom at the back with the strip wallpaper and the ensuite and the view of Gaskell’s which some people say is an eyesore, but which is actually very interesting.

  Only they
didn’t. Because I didn’t even get the chance to knock on the door. I didn’t even walk up the block paving on the drive. Because when I got there something was wrong. Because on the gate there used to be a big sign that said,

  Enderby Estate Agents.

  Turning a House into a Home.

  FOR SALE.

  But this time someone had nailed another piece of wood across it. And this bit of wood didn’t say FOR SALE. It said SOLD. And my heart jumped inside my chest because I thought that Mum and Dave had bought it anyway. That they had won the lottery and not told us so it would be a surprise and that I would get home and Dave would say, ‘Guess what, Billy boy, we’re moving house tomorrow.’

  But that good feeling lasted only four seconds because then I felt someone push past me and say, ‘’Scuse us, sonny,’ and I looked and my heart fell back down again, not just to where it started but even further, deep inside me, where it was dark and cold and black.

  Because the voice came out of a man with a blue boiler suit and a bald head and he was carrying a chair only it wasn’t the green one with the ripped bit in the cushion that we have to turn upside down so you can see the zip, i.e. Dad’s old chair that Dave sits in now. It was brown and leather with a bit underneath that you can whizz up and make it into almost a bed and it was being moved into the house with another exactly matching chair and a matching sofa. And when I looked again there was a mum and a dad and two matching girls who were in matching purple dresses and matching bunches with matching Disney Princess Barbies. One of them said, ‘Are you our neighbour?’ And I wanted to say, ‘No.’ And ‘Because you’re in my house. That’s MY house.’ But when I opened my mouth just a funny noise came out like a gargle and the mum looked at me like I was Kyle Perry or the Artful Dodger so I shut it again before any more weirdness came out and I shook my head instead and walked back the way I came, with my heart cold and dark inside me and my legs full of anger.

  And all the way I said the words over and over, I said, ‘Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames . . .’ but the feeling didn’t go and I knew I needed to count the stars the minute I got in. Only something stopped me and that something was Stan.

  He was standing in the kitchen in just his Incredibles pants and a towel around his neck like a cape only the cape was covered in purple and so was his head and so was his neck and so was the floor. He had done the hair dye after all and now everything was Mahogany Shine.

  But he didn’t look happy. And he didn’t look like an alien or Jessie J either. He looked like Stan with a purple face except where the tears had run down which was face-coloured again. Because he was crying and so was Mum and what she was crying was, ‘How the hell am I going to cope with three of you when I can’t even get you two to behave for five minutes? One of you goes missing, and one of you dyes himself purple.’ And I said, ‘I wasn’t missing Mum. I was just out.’ But I said it quiet and I don’t think she heard because she just kept shouting, ‘It’s a bloody good job we’re not moving because who’s going to buy a house with a purple kitchen floor?’ And I thought maybe Big Lauren would because purple is her second favourite colour after leopard print but I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything. I just went up to my room and shut the door so I couldn’t hear and pulled the curtains and pulled the duvet over my head until all I could see was blackness and all I could feel was blackness.

  Because I know now what is going to happen.

  The baby is going to come and me or Stan are going to go. Because Mum can’t cope with three of us. And it won’t be like Tracy Beaker. There won’t be coloured walls or common rooms or cans of Coke whenever we want. It will be like Oliver Twist. With rats and gruel and shouting. And I will have to run away and find my fortune with Fagin.

  Or wait for my benefactor to find me.

  Unless I find her first.

  Dave took us to see Granny Grimshaw today. I wore my oldest trousers. The too-short ones with the rip in the knee, which Mum says aren’t even worth keeping for Stan and she is going to take them to the recycling bank when she remembers. But she hasn’t remembered, not yet, so it was those and a white school shirt and Grandpa Stokes’s flat cap from when we had to dress up as someone famous for World Book Day and I went as one of the Railway Children and Stan went as Maccapacca. Dave said what the blimmin’ heck did I think I looked like, the Artful Dodger? And I said, ‘No, duh.’ Because I was Oliver not the Dodger. But I felt warm spread inside me like a smile or a flower opening because as long as I looked poor and an orphan then the plan would work and I would be rich by teatime.

  Even Stan didn’t look too bad because most of the dye had washed out of his hair and face and he was in his brown corduroys which have a massive hole in the bottom from where Mum sewed a tail on so he could be a donkey in the Year 2 Nativity only Arthur Malik stood on it in ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ and it ripped right out.

  Big Lauren asked if she could come with us because otherwise she has to go swimming with her mum and her sister Jordan, and last time she went big girls called her ‘Fatso’, but I said no even though I felt bad because Lauren had sequinned Lelli Kelli shoes and lipgloss on, and Granny Grimshaw thinks make-up is common.

  Dave said he wasn’t going to stay because it would make Granny Grimshaw feel uncomfortable, and he would just pick us up at four. I was glad because he was wearing a Rovers top and Granny Grimshaw doesn’t like football not even City because she says that is common too. Even though this isn’t true because how can footballers be common if they are rich? But I wasn’t going to say that, not today, I was just going to say I liked tennis instead.

  I had it all planned. I was going to admire her four-bedroomed detached house with the through lounge and the conservatory and say how lonely she must be living there all alone and how it wasn’t lonely at our house. It was the opposite of lonely, but not in a good way because of the too-many people crammed into the not-enough rooms and maybe she would like someone to help her polish the zigzag wooden floor which is called parquet. I could read Reader’s Digest to her, which is a magazine for old people, and I could live in the turret like Rapunzel but not with long hair.

  Only when we got there, there wasn’t any turret and I thought maybe it had been knocked down. Or maybe I was remembering another house from a film, because there wasn’t a fountain in the garden or roses trailing round the door. There was something dead in a hanging basket and an upside down recycling bin.

  And then it got worse. Because the Granny Grimshaw who answered the door didn’t have white fluffy hair and a pink cardigan and pearls like in my head, she had long grey hair that was greasy and a dress with a stain like egg on the front. And she didn’t say, ‘Why, you look just like William, my long-lost grandson,’ she said, ‘Who are you? Is it bob-a-job?’which is when Scouts go round and do jobs for money, which used to be called a bob which is 5p, but which is called at least a pound now. And Dave put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Mrs Grimshaw. I called two days ago. It’s Billy and Stan, remember? I’m Dave, Jeanie’s husband.’ And the ‘Jeanie’ word must have poked at her brain like a stick, because then she did remember after all because she said, ‘Oh, yes. Come in.’ And so me and Stan did go in, but so did Dave. And when I said, ‘We’ll see you at four, thank you Dave,’ he didn’t say, ‘Oh, sorry. See you later, Billy boy.’ He said, ‘I think I’d better come in after all. Just to be on the safe side.’ And I thought, ‘What safe side?’ because she is my benefactor who is going to adopt me and let me sleep in a room on my own where none of the wallpaper has been picked off and she will teach me piano and even make me jam tarts.

  But now I think that Dave was right. Because the piano was gone. And there weren’t any jam tarts. There was a packet of plain biscuits that were soft and tasted of staleness like the wafer I found behind the radiator one time. And Granny Grimshaw wasn’t a bit like Mr Brownlow. She wasn’t even like Granny Grimshaw, not even the cross one who said, ‘How many times, William, no shoes in the house.’
She didn’t even notice our shoes, not even Dave’s, which had a hole in one toe and biro on. She just sat on the flowery chair and drank a cup of tea that Dave made and asked Stan four times if he liked school so that Stan said, ‘Like, duh. I already said that.’ And Dave elbowed him and Stan said he wished he was at Disneyworld with Arthur Malik or even at the dentist.

  And the house wasn’t clean and smelling of Glade plug-ins and there wasn’t Sky TV on. It was dusty and dark and smelt of bleach and old person and the only noise was a big clock that tocked and tocked counting all the seconds until it was time to go. And every tock was another bit of warmth evaporating and another petal on the flower closing until at four o’clock there was nothing but a dried-up stem and coldness.

  Dave says she needs to be in a care home. Like Grandpa Grimshaw who had to go away because he kept walking down to the river with just his pants on even in the snow and he didn’t know who anyone was any more not even himself. He told Mum to call my dad to get him to do something about it. Mum said they’ll have to sell the house to pay for it probably and Dad won’t be happy because that’ll be his inheritance gone. And Stan said what about HIS inheritance and Mum said he’d probably get a china dog and Stan was happy because he said Cheryl Cole collects china dogs and maybe he can sell it to her.

  And I could hear them saying all this stuff. I could see the words float past me in a long string. But in my head the only words that I was listening to were ‘care home’. And the only words I was thinking were, ‘That’s where you’re going too. As soon as the baby comes.’

  Nan says she’d rather die than go into a home. She says as soon as they’ve wheeled you through the door they steal your money and your marbles which means your brains and all you get to eat is mince and it’s no wonder everyone gives up bothering to live, e.g. Deirdre Morris who is Brenda Gilhooly’s sister went into one called Carnation Drive because she couldn’t get upstairs any more and she kept wetting the bed and she was dead within eight weeks and not even Brenda had predicted that. Mr Feinstein said he goes to see his friend Mr Brown in a home called Dorothy House and he has his own television and a menu for dinner with two choices of gravy, and a lady called Shaniqua does his feet for him once a fortnight. But Nan said she bets Shaniqua is up to no good and that there’s arsenic in the gravy. Arsenic is a deadly poison. And Mr Feinstein went home after that because he said sometimes there is no talking to Nan, and also because Nan wanted to go to the betting shop on Whitehawk Road and Mr Feinstein says gambling which means betting is a fool’s game and he is no fool. Nan says she’s no fool either which is why she only bets five pounds a week, which is less than he spends on seed for the sparrows who can eat stale bread in every other garden, so who is the fool now? But I know neither of them think each other are fools really, because when they watch Doctors, which is their favourite daytime soap opera, they are sitting almost touching legs on the sofa and no one else is allowed to sit that close to Nan except Tammy. And maybe me and Stan.