Diamond Girls (15 page)

‘Ah. Maybe that's why she's so cross with me. Anyway,
I
didn't come back here for her. Or your sisters. Or your mum.' He smiled at me, forgetting to hide his funny teeth. I smiled back.

‘It's because you're my dad's mate, isn't it, Uncle Bruce?'

‘I don't know about that. It's more this uncle lark. I'm getting to like the idea of you as my token niece, little Dixie.' Bruce sighed and stretched. ‘But I'm also here to help out, so I'd better get on.'

‘You mustn't muck up your back, Uncle Bruce.'

‘No, I can't do any lifting, darling. I thought I'd busy myself checking out the whole house, making sure your washing machine's plumbed in properly, testing the cooker – boring stuff like that.'

‘You are a total star, Uncle Bruce,' I said.

‘Twinkle, twinkle,' he said, waggling his eyebrows at me, his glasses sliding down his nose.

I giggled and then sat down beside the boxes, poking about amongst the china and cutlery. I didn't know where to start. I got out all our different cups and lined them up on the floor, as if they were standing in a queue. Then I found the teapot and turned it into an elephant. The cup children took turns riding on its back, rewarding it with a sugar lump down its spouty trunk.

Bruce decided he needed his tool box and stepped backwards. He crushed a child and very nearly killed the elephant too. We picked up the pieces together.

‘Maybe you'd better get the cupboards cleaned up, like your sister said. Then you can put all this china safely away,' Bruce said.

He stood me on a chair with a wet J-cloth and a tin of Vim. I scattered the white powder over the black grime and mouldy crumbs. I gave the shelf a little rub. Nothing
much
happened. It was like powdering a very dirty face.

‘You need to give it a bit of elbow grease,' said Bruce, showing me how to scrub vigorously.

I tried to copy him but I couldn't reach comfortably. It made my arm ache and I rattled around on the chair so much I nearly skidded right off.

‘Careful, Dixie! I don't think you're very safe wobbling about on that chair. Maybe you've done enough work now. I should go and have a little play in the garden.'

‘But what about the cupboard?'

‘I'll give it a going over for you when I'm done here,' said Bruce. ‘Don't worry, we'll get this house shipshape in no time.'

‘Shipshape?'

‘Everything running smoothly.'

I thought about it. Things had never run smoothly, not even in any of our old flats. If we were in a ship it was always an old leaky one, and we were tossing up and down in a storm. Still, as long as we were all clinging together, safe inside the ship, that was all that mattered.

10

I SKIPPED OFF
out of the door and into the jungle. Bluebell came fluttering out of my Vim-crusted cuff and swooped up and down in delight. She sang a wild Australian song (I cheeped ‘Waltzing Matilda') her wings spread wide.

‘Don't fly too far, Bluebell. We're going to go and see Mary.'

We trekked through the jungle together and then I hauled myself up onto the Great Wall of China. There was Mary on the swing, in a blue-check dress, white ribbons fluttering on her plaits, lacy white socks and navy patent button shoes. She was peering round. When she saw my head above the wall she smiled and jumped off the swing, running towards the gate.

I clambered over the wall and ran across the alley.

‘Hi, Mary!' I said.

‘Hello, Dixie. I've been looking and looking for you! Do you want to come in and have a swing?'

‘Yes please! But I don't want to get you into trouble.
You
said your mum won't let you have friends round to play.'

‘Mummy's out at church. Daddy's here, but he's still in bed. So you can come for a bit, but we have to be quiet.'

‘As a mouse!' I said. I twitched my nose and went ‘
Squeak-squeak
.'

Mary giggled. She seemed happy to see me, but her eyes were red and sore, and her voice was husky, as if she'd been crying again.

‘Are you all right, Mary?' I asked, wriggling onto the swing.

‘I'm fine,' she said, though she didn't look fine at all.

She was as pin-neat as ever, her plaits pulled so tightly back behind her ears she could barely blink. There was something the matter with her hands. She had them curled into tight fists.

‘Have you been crying?'

‘No,' said Mary nervously.

‘It's OK. I cry lots. We
all
cry in our family. My mum says it's a wonder we're not sloshing about ankle-deep in tears. Hey, Mary, guess what! Mum's had her baby. I've got my baby brother. He's so sweet. Maybe I can bring him round to see you soon. Do you like babies?'

Mary didn't look sure.

‘I've got a baby boy,' she said surprisingly.

‘No you haven't!'

‘I'll show you.'

She ran off, her feet stiff in her patent shoes. She went in her back door and came out a minute later pushing a baby buggy almost as big as a real one. There was a peachy-skinned plastic baby doll sitting up in it, a fixed grin on his face.

‘Oh wow! He's beautiful,' I said, though that grin looked a bit scary, and I didn't like the way his rigid pink fingers were reaching out, ready to grab at me.

Mary didn't seem too relaxed with him either. She pushed the buggy half-heartedly, and didn't touch the baby, even when he tipped over to one side.

‘What's his name?' I said.

‘Baby,' said Mary.

‘Baby what?'

‘Shall I call him Sundance too?'

‘You could call him Butch, then they could maybe be friends. Do you take Baby Butch to bed with you?'

‘Oh no. I'm not allowed. I might mess him up. I take my teddy to bed with me. I like my teddy best, even though he's old.'

‘Old toys are much nicer.'

‘Like Bluebell?'

‘
I'm not a toy, I'm a
bird,' Bluebell chirruped. ‘
I like your garden, Mary. I think I might make a little holiday nest here
.'

I flew Bluebell round and round, looking for twigs. There were none on the velvet-green grass, so I had to snap some off the hedge. Mary looked tense. She didn't help me. Her fingers were still curled inside her palms.

I tried to bundle my little twigs together but they kept collapsing. ‘I think birds must have secret gluepots,' I said. ‘Oh, blow this for a game of soldiers. Hey, look, we could turn all the twigs into little soldiers and play armies.'

‘I don't know how to play armies.'

‘We'll just make it up.'

‘I don't know
how
,' said Mary, sounding upset.

‘OK, OK. Let's play families. Mother twig, father twig, lots of little kiddie twigs, yeah?'

‘Yeah,' said Mary, but she kept her hands in little clenched fists, not taking hold of any of the twigs.

‘Just watch me then,' I said. I took hold of a twig. ‘Hello, hello, hello, I'm little Tilly Twig and I'm going to dance a jig,' I said, making her dance in front of Mary's face.

Mary smiled.

‘You make little Tommy Twig dance with her,' I said.

‘No, you do him too,' said Mary.

So I made Tilly and Tommy twirl for a minute.

‘Find new little baby Titchy Twiglet and make him dance.'

‘Babies can't dance,' said Mary.

‘OK, he wants to crawl. Yeah, he can be crawling around and Tilly and Tommy keep falling over him.'

‘You make him crawl, Dixie,' said Mary.

‘You'll have to help. I haven't got three hands. There!' I snapped a tiny piece off a twig. ‘Look, here he is, tiny Titchy. Isn't he sweet? Oh, he's crawling away from me. Catch him, Mary!'

I threw the little piece of twig. Mary obediently cupped her hands to catch him. The tips of her fingers were bright pink and sore, each small nail cut right back to the quick.

‘Mary! Your nails!'

She dropped the little twig and curved her hands into fists again.

‘Whatever did you
do
to them? Did you try and cut them yourself?'

‘Yes,' Mary whispered, head bent.

‘But it must have hurt awfully. Why did you
do
it? Why didn't you get your mum to cut your nails?'

Mary said nothing.

‘Mary? Did your mum cut your nails?'

Mary said nothing. Her chin was on her chest, her white parting painfully obvious, raked into her head. I put my arms round her.

‘She did, didn't she?' I said.

Mary started crying. ‘They were dirty nails and Mummy said I'm a bad, dirty girl and I can't have nails like a little animal even though I act like one. So she cut them off,' Mary sobbed in a rush.

‘Why didn't you run away?'

‘She had me tight between her legs so I couldn't.'

‘But it must be so so so sore.'

‘I couldn't stop crying and that made Mummy cross.'

‘Did she smack you?'

‘You always get a hard smack if you cry.'

‘My mum doesn't ever smack me.'

‘My mummy smacks me lots. I deserve it because I'm bad,' said Mary.

‘That's rubbish. You're not a
bit
bad. I don't know how your mum would cope with Rochelle. Or Jude. Or Martine. What about your dad – does he smack you too?'

‘No, he gives me cuddles. But he says I've got to try not to be so naughty because it upsets Mummy.'

‘But you're
not
naughty.'

‘I am. I do really dirty things,' Mary said hoarsely.

‘Like what?'

‘I pick my nose. I scratch myself. And sometimes I don't get to the toilet in time.'

‘You and everyone else in the entire world!'

‘I get my clothes dirty.'

‘You're the cleanest little girl I've ever seen. You always look like you've just jumped out of your bath. Heaps and heaps and heaps cleaner than me.'

‘Mummy says I'm still dirty. Sometimes the dirt doesn't show but she can see it. Or the dirt's inside me and I have to take medicine to get it out.'

I stared at her. ‘Your mum's nuts,' I said.

Mary looked startled. ‘No she's not!'

‘She's worse than nuts. She's cruel,' I said, gently picking up one of Mary's tiny hands. I blew softly on her poor pink fingers. ‘I'm blowing fairy dust on them. That'll make them get better quickly.'

‘They're better already,' Mary fibbed politely.

‘I'm going to tell my mum what your mum did,' I said.

‘No! No, you mustn't! Please please please don't tell, Dixie,' Mary begged. She seized hold of me, even though it must have really hurt her fingers. ‘Promise you won't tell. I told a girl in my class at school and her mum said something to my mummy. She said it was all a mistake and I was just telling stories. But then when I got home she got the scissors out of her sewing basket and said she'd cut off my tongue if I ever told tales again.'

‘She wouldn't
really
cut off your tongue, Mary,' I said. But what sort of mother could cut her little girl's nails right back so savagely? How could I be sure?

‘Will you promise you won't tell? If you don't keep your promise I'll drop down dead and die!'

‘I promise! But you won't drop down dead and die, Mary. Don't say that, it's horrible. Your mum's horrible.'

‘No, she's not. She's the loveliest nicest kindest mummy in the whole world,' said Mary.

She'd used these exact words before. She'd obviously been taught to say it.

I didn't know what to do when I went back to my own house. I wanted to cry when I thought of Mary being hurt. I knew I should tell someone, but I'd promised. I knew it was silly, but I could see myself telling Mum and then Mary keeling over and dying right in front of me.

‘You look a bit doleful, Dixie,' said Uncle Bruce, when I went into the kitchen. ‘What's up? You can tell your Uncle Bruce, can't you?'

‘No, I can't,' I said, sighing.

I heard someone moving around in the living room. ‘That's Mum!'I said.

I went running in to see her. Mum was hanging onto a pile of cardboard boxes, her face grey. Sundance was clutched tight in her other arm.

‘Mum?'

‘I'm OK, Dixie,' she mumbled.

‘You're not. I think you'd better lie down again.'

‘No, no. Look, I've got to go upstairs to the bathroom, sort myself out. Will you help me, lovie?'

‘OK, Mum. Here, lean on me. Why don't you let me take Sundance?'

‘No, I've got him,' said Mum.

He was awake now, his eyes wide open. They were a beautiful clear blue, though the lashes were black, like his soft tufty hair. He had lovely little arched eyebrows too, each tiny hair perfect. It seemed astonishing that he'd been forming in Mum's tummy all this time, all the delicate differences – soft skin, shiny eyes, downy hair.