by Lisa Blower
‘You not like the football?’ Mo says. He pretends to score a goal and punches the air.
Uncle Chalky drops his eyebrows and says to Mam, ‘You sure he’s got papers?’
Mam says, ‘You want to be careful you don’t get in the papers. If anyone sees you here.’
My sister butts in. ‘You haven’t said what you think of her?’ and she gives me the baby.
I hold her like melting ice cream. ‘Bit scrawny,’ I say. ‘Why are her nails black?’
Mo goes, ‘Clawing.’ He burrows with his hands into the bed sheets. ‘Like her Dada had to do when he ran for his life.’
Uncle Chalky rolls his eyes. ‘Ran into the right bloody life, didn’t yer, mate?’ he says. Mam gives him the look.
‘Chalky,’ she says. ‘Don’t start.’
And he goes, ‘What have I said now? Free bloody country. He knows that.’ He points at Mo.
Rae holds out her arms and I see she’s only room for Mo and her baby now. There’s not any room for me any more. ‘She’s hungry,’ she says. ‘You can give her back now.’
I watch Mo give Mam a kiss. ‘Grandma,’ he says, and Mam says no. ‘Sitto,’ she says. ‘I’d like her to call me Sitto.’
As Mo bursts into tears, Uncle Chalky spits on his shoes and walks out.
Wednesday
Mam asks Mo if his family have been caught up in the latest fighting. Mo says he doesn’t know. He’s not spoken to his family in a long time and can’t afford the phone calls because the lines have been diverted to government taps they must bribe for personal calls.
‘I am scared for them,’ he says. ‘They’re brotherhood people.’
Mam says the only brotherhood she’s ever known is the Brotherhood of Man. Save all your kisses for me, she sings. Mo goes, ‘We’re not men like that, Sitto,’ and walks out the room.
Rae’s key-worker Lizzie says she should be off the list in six weeks’ time if she can tick all the boxes. Rae said, ‘Fucking boxes. Fucking hoops. It’s no wonder I need a drink.’
The baby’s eyes are wide open today. I wonder what she thinks of us all.
Saturday
Rae’s had to move to a house for single new mams that’s just around the corner. Rae’s not agreed to live there but Mam says she has to because it’s got round-the-clock staff and Lizzie will sweep her room three times a day: if there’s drink, it’ll be found and poured down the loo. Rae calls it prison and wants to come home. Mam said, ‘Grow up, Rae.’
Mo was at the door of Rae’s new place struggling with the new pram. It was a present from Social Services. Uncle Chalky went, ‘Present from us soft-headed taxpayers more like’—and that’s why he won’t buy them a gift.
Uncle Chalky was a soldier but won’t do it any more because of what’s he seen, so now he’s got all these things wrong with him. He shows me the pains but I can’t see them because they’re all in his mind and under his skin. I said, ‘Tell me about the Gulf.’ He said there’s a gulf so wide between rich and poor, north and south that he’s feels revolting even if he isn’t. Mam said, ‘You’re too bloody idle to fill the kettle. I fought harder for a fag on the school field.’
I see that Mo’s crying. ‘They’re tears of rage,’ he says. ‘My brotherhood die every day.’ And he pats his cheeks with a baby wipe. ‘I should be there, fighting. But I am here, living.’
I said, ‘How many brothers do you have?’
He said, ‘We’re all brothers in terrorism. We all bleed red’—and he shows me his scars again. Those that were made with a knife before he left Egypt without asking. They don’t look as cool as he thinks so I said, ‘I’m going up to see Rae.’ But as I get to the door I hear Lizzie telling Rae that if she finds vodka again she’ll have that baby off her like a shot.
Monday
Uncle Chalky and Mo have been wetting the baby’s head and celebrating Mo’s birthday. He is twenty-seven. Mo was so drunk Mam let him sleep in the bath. Uncle Chalky said he was telling Mo not to go home to fight. ‘I don’t trust him, Jean,’ he said. ‘He’s one of them. I know it.’
Mam dropped tears into the cups of coffee she kept making. ’You just don’t like being a grown up,’ she said. ‘Did anyone see you together?’
Mam’s had another letter from Housing telling her that the bungalow we were getting got given to someone who didn’t need three bedrooms and that maybe she should think about finding somewhere just for herself.
Wednesday
Rae and Mo have named the baby Isis Jean which means Queen Jean if you’re Egyptian. Mam cried when they told her. Jean’s been in the family donkeys. Uncle Chalky called it slap-in-the face defiance.
‘We’re no longer a single currency, Jean,’ he shouted at Mam. ‘You’ve let us be spiked.’
Mam said, ‘Don’t think I won’t make a phone call, Chalky. You might be my brother but I’m not afraid of doing what’s right,’ then ordered him out of her sight.
Isis weighs 9lb 1oz and is on the 50th centile which means things are very normal but it doesn’t feel that way at all.
Thursday
Uncle Chalky’s in his room ‘occupying’. If I ask him what else he’s doing, he goes, ‘Wiring.’ But he might be saying, ‘Worrying.’ I’m not sure.
I helped bath Isis today. Rae says that if they lived in Egypt Isis would be bathed in the Dead Sea.
I said, ‘No she wouldn’t. Egypt has taps.’
That made Mo laugh so much he cried.
Friday
Josie from Housing came over to show Mam some photographs of bungalows on her computer that she has to bid for. Apparently we have to plead our case and make it sound good. Mam put her head in her hands and asked Josie how she slept at night.
‘A stiff drink or two,’ she said and then apologised. ‘Sorry, Jean, I didn’t think.’
Then she asked me why I wasn’t in college again. ‘Babysitting,’ I said.
Josie said that Mam would have more luck with one-bedroom places and to remember that I was nineteen.
Mam said, ‘I’ve already lost one daughter to another world I don’t understand so whether she’s nineteen or ninety-three, she stays with me.’
Josie put away her computer and said she’d do her best.
Monday
Uncle Chalky hasn’t been out of his room since Thursday. Mam hammered on the door and said, ‘I hope you’re not pissing on my carpets.’ But Uncle Chalky never replied.
I knocked on the door and said, ‘Uncle Chalky, talk to me.’
He said, ‘I’m wiring/worrying’—and something about soldiering.
‘He wants back in the army,’ I told Mam.
She rolled her eyes and said, ‘You’ve got to leave to want back in.’
Josie phoned Mam to tell her that another bungalow had come up. It’s ten miles from where we live but has a bit of garden.
Josie said, ‘This is a one-chance saloon, Jean. Think of how you’re deteriorating.’
Mam said she’d discuss it with the family but she hasn’t mentioned it to any of us yet.
Wednesday
Rae asked Mam to babysit so she and Mo could have a date. Mam said, ‘Already? You’re breastfeeding,’ and Rae went, ‘Give us a break, Mam. I’m knackered.’ And so Mam relented as long as Rae promised all-night lemonades and then asked me to go get Isis’s things.
When I got there, Mo was in Rae’s room talking Urdu on his mobile. I don’t understand Urdu. I still don’t understand what he was doing in Rae’s room without Rae and how he got in there. He cupped the phone against his ear and said, ‘Rae in bath.’
I said, ‘No she’s not. She’s round at Mam’s. What you doing here?’
He put the phone away and said it was rude to eavesdrop on other people’s lives, especially when you don’t understand why they have to live like they do. If I ever ask Mo about his Egyptian life he says it’s an obligation he’s turned his back on. ‘I am guilty,’ he says, and turns off the telly in case he sees someone he knows being shot. If I ever
ask Mam about what she knows about Mo’s Egyptian life she just says, ‘They don’t want to be ruled by our God,’ but she doesn’t really know about foreign governments. She just listens to Jeremy Vine.
Mo was still cupping his phone. I said, ‘Aren’t you and Rae going out tonight?’
He looked confused and said, ‘Yes.’
I have given him the benefit of doubt because new parents can’t even remember putting the kettle on they’re that tired.
Thursday
Isis cried all night for Rae. Mam rang her mobile fifty-three times until Isis fell asleep then Uncle Chalky crept out of his room and stared at the baby for a very long time. Then he woke up Mam.
‘I said you’d end up her mother if she had her,’ he seethed, and he was poking a long stretch of smouldering wire near her eyes. ‘There’ll be other daughters, Jean. Egyptian mummies in every room. Do you really want to see all that?’
Mam called him a racialist and to remember Iraq.
Uncle Chalky said he didn’t want to remember Iraq and that’s why he was going to stick the soldering wire in his eyes. ‘Won’t want me back if I can’t see shit,’ and then he screamed so loud I thought my ears would burst.
It’s funny because Isis has blue eyes and both Rae and Mo have brown.
Friday
Mam and Rae had an almighty bust-up about Rae and Mo stopping out all night. ‘That was a heartbroken baby thinking it’d been abandoned,’ Mam yelled. ‘She’s three weeks old, Rae, and this is motherhood.’
Later, I asked Mam if motherhood and Mo’s brotherhood were fighting for the same sort of thing—‘You know, like how to bring up babies properly’—but she just asked the Lord to give her some strength and a nice new kidney.
Mo turned up later with a bunch of chrysanthemums from the Costcutter. Mam made him a coffee and said she’d seen a couple of jobs in the paper. They’re looking for trainee bus drivers, the route is their estate.
‘You need to look on the website.’ She points to the computer.
‘I will look another day,’ he says.
Mam held onto his arm. ‘You’re a father now,’ she said. ‘That’s your obligation. Rae and the baby, that’s your responsibility. Your life is here now, and I need to live somewhere without stairs. My kidneys are packing in.’
Mo told Mam that the important things in his life are being taken care of very well.
‘I’d murder for my family, Sitto,’ he says.
Uncle Chalky is still in his room wiring/worrying/soldering/soldiering. I change his eye bandage three times a day and give him a pill for the pain.
Saturday
Rae came over this morning in a flap. Isis had a rash, was really hot, and we could smell the drink on Rae’s breath. Mam laid her fingers across Isis’s forehead.
‘She isn’t hot,’ she said. ‘She’s wearing too many clothes.’
As Mam undressed Isis, Isis kicked Mam in her Colclough’s chin. ‘I know,’ Mam told Isis. ‘This is a horrible world for you.’ Then she shouted at Rae, ‘Why did you put her in so many clothes?’
Rae says she didn’t. Then she slurred, ‘I dressed her, I asked Mo to dress her, maybe I dressed her again’—but Isis was wriggling about in her nappy, happy as Larry. Rae says, ‘Would you mind her while I’ll go tell Mo she’s fine?’
Mam says, ‘No, Rae’—because we both knew where Rae really wanted to go and the taxi was here for Mam’s dialysis.
Egypt is a war zone now. People are being killed left right and centre and yet people are still going there on holiday. Apparently, the diving is brilliant.
Wednesday
Lizzie told Rae that her and Mo can’t go on the real housing list until she turns eighteen. Until then she must prove she can stay off the booze and do all the things the social workers want her to do for Isis. She’s also got to retake her GCSEs and that means two days in college. Mam said, ‘More hoops,’ and called up Josie to say that she’d go and look at the bungalow with that nice bit of garden. Josie said it’d gone last week.
‘I’ve been bidding all this time for no reason?’ and Mam was so mad she put on her coat and told us all to get down the Town Hall and rally like they were doing in Egypt, fighting for work, for freer places to live, to not be ruled by the rich and corrupt and have their kids grow up as snipers or living off bins in the street. ‘My kidneys are giving up but I’m not,’ she shouted, and she kicked Uncle Chalky’s leg because he’s got an eye-patch now and doesn’t know what’s going on to his left. ‘Come with me, Chalky. Help.’ And she even used the word ‘brotherhood’. But none of us could be arsed to get the bus down there, and anyway, it’d started to rain.
Monday
Mo’s been working in London since Friday. Rae told us a friend of his has found him work and if he stays until next Friday he might get a permanent contract and come home at weekends.
‘He’s got to prove himself,’ Rae said, but she was very vague about proving himself in what.
Wednesday
Rae asked me if I was still keeping my diary. ‘Sometimes,’ I said.
‘Do you talk about me in it?’ she asked.
I told her, ‘Not really.’
‘Then what’s it about? Because you don’t do anything. You never leave the house.’
I reminded her that I went to the shop on Monday.
She said, ‘Come on, Lo. Let’s go out properly. Me and you. We could go into town. Go to a club. I’ll ask Mam to babysit.’
I glared at her. ‘No,’ I said.
‘It’s not going to happen again,’ she said. ‘I’ve hardly had a drink since Isis.’ She stared down at the baby who was asleep on the rug by the telly. I don’t tell Rae that I like to put that rug on my bed at night because it helps me to sleep. I like the smell Isis leaves on it. I sleep with it under my nose.
‘Maybe,’ I said.
Rae looked really happy about that because she said, ‘Right. I’ll ask Mam. Me and you will have a last blowout tonight.’ Then she asked me if I had any money. I nodded. ‘Of course you have,’ she said. ‘How much have you saved now?’
‘£638,’ I told her proudly.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s more than before.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I want a new computer.’
She scooped up Isis. ‘Hold her while I nip to the loo?’
I like holding Isis. When I do I don’t feel a single thing. I’d hold her all day if I could. But then Rae was back and said she was going home to get some clothes.
‘My glad rags,’ she said, and then she kissed me on the cheek. She’s never done that before. ‘I’ll see you in a bit,’ she said. She held Isis in her arms and got me to cover her with a blanket to keep her warm. But Rae never came back and nor did Isis, so we never went out.
Friday
It’s been two days since we last saw Rae. Lizzie came round to ask if we knew where she was. ‘She’s not at home,’ she told Mam. ‘And her mobile’s dead.’ She asks Mam if Rae has a passport.
Mam shook her head and said, ‘But I spoke to her last night,’ and she looked panicked.
Lizzie asked her to tell her about their conversation. ‘How did she sound?’
‘Fine,’ Mam said. ‘She was fine.’
‘You know I’ll have to call the police, Jean,’ Lizzie said. She cocked her head towards Uncle Chalky’s room. ‘You might want to tell him before I do.’
Mam said we couldn’t call the police because they’ll come round the house and see Uncle Chalky even if he can’t see them.
I said, ‘No they won’t. He locks his door.’
‘They’ll have a warrant,’ she said. ‘And they’ll take your computer.’
I gripped onto it. ‘Why would they want my computer?’ I said. ‘It’s mine.’
‘Nothing belongs to you any more,’ she said. ‘Not even this country.’
I’m sure Uncle Chalky shouted ‘Hallelujah’ from his room.
‘They’re not having my computer,’ I said again, and I unplu
gged it from the wall and stuffed it in a pillowcase under my bed.
Before Lizzie went, Mam gripped onto her hand dead tight. ‘Find her before she gets there,’ she said. ‘Because you’re all to fucking blame.’
I’ve never heard Mam swear like that before. She’s normally so ladylike.
Later, Mam told me that they’ll take my computer because of the Internet. She said, ‘That’s the real terrorist,’ and looked really pleased with herself as she said it.
Saturday
The police ransacked the house. They even found my computer under the floorboards. Mam was proper cross about that. ‘What the hell are you doing putting it under there?’ she yelled at me.
‘Because you said they’d take it!’ I shouted back.
‘Well of course they’ll bloody take it if you hide it under the floorboards!’ and she looked like she really hated me. Then she hugged me. Really, really tight.
‘Where is she, Lo?’ she said. ‘Where the hell has he taken her?’
I pulled away from her. ‘Probably to the pub,’ I said.
She slapped my face.
I have still not told her that Rae has taken my £638 that was under my bed.
Monday
Mo, Rae and Isis have now been missing for over a fortnight. The days feel longer than they should though the batteries in the kitchen clock have stopped. Mam has also stopped eating and drinking which is doing her kidneys no good. She says she doesn’t care. Until Rae gets home she’s on a hunger strike. That way Mo will know how serious she is.
