Disappearing Home (2 page)

I hate going to the chute. It stinks. I hold my nose and close my eyes. Sometimes I open my eyes and find half the rubbish on the landing floor, like now. Only I've missed it completely. I leave the mess there. Close the front door before anybody spots me. Nan answers the door when Mrs Naylor knocks to tell. Her bottom lip drops when she speaks, revealing too much gum. She has thick lines either side of the crotch part on her cream trousers; they match the lines under her eyes. There are red stains down the front of her blouse. She catches me looking at them, tuts, tries to rub them away.

‘You want to watch that granddaughter of yours, got the divil in her.'

I have to kneel down and pick it all up with her on the step as she tuts and shakes her head. She always sticks her head in and out of her doorway waiting for the thud of the chute door, she'll spy the shadow of a body passing her window. Mrs Frost comes out with her daughter, Anne, each carrying a bag full of rubbish. Mrs Naylor pats Anne's head. ‘There are nice kids that live on our block.' She points a twiggy finger at me. ‘See what I caught this little divil doing? I was after her like a bullet. No respect.' She looks down at me with eyes the colour of smoke. ‘And don't be giving me them black looks, cheeky cow. It wasn't me that created this mess.'

We should wear special chute clothes, like beekeepers, with long gloves, a mask and everything. That way she'll never find out who drops what. Pile it all on her step until it blocks up the doorway and she'll never get out. Let her feed off the scraps, grope with two thin fingers through her letterbox, scratch away at the stinking heap, until she shuffles something through the gap and it drops onto the floor, and she'll squeal because she believes she has hit the jackpot.

When I've finished, I sit on the settee. Nan opens the living-room door. She is holding a cup in one hand, a pinny in the other. Her legs are half-past five on a clock. You notice it most when she stands up straight, against her stick. She blames the doctors.

‘All done?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are they still in bed?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'll make a quick cuppa. Wash this pinny through in the sink while I'm at it. Want anything to eat?'

‘Not yet.' She closes the kitchen door.

Nan washes every day in the sink.

Mum does a weekly wash in the bath. She puts the clothes in first, fills up the bath with hot water, adds a little cold then sprinkles
OMO
washing powder all over the top for a
Bright Fresh Cleanness.
The bathroom smells chalky sweet. Kneeling down, she swooshes the water to make the suds bubble up. She's brisk. She pushes one item at a time up and down in the water, rubs away stains until she's satisfied it's as clean as it's going to be. Then she rinses it in cold water. She wrings it out with her hands, squeezing out every last drop of water, until it sits, like a fat twisted snake, on the side of the bath.

After the clothes are rinsed, her hands are red and wrinkled. The mangle is used to wring the clothes out even more. No matter how much she rinses in the cold water, the mangle still squeezes out a line of white soapy bubbles. The twisted snakes come out of the rollers like the skin on the top of Nan's bad leg. I hear my dad's shirt buttons crack as they roll through. Then it's time to peg out. That's my job, now I'm taller.

The washing line is an adult's arm's length away, over the landing. I can't quite reach, so I have to lean forward on my tiptoes, belly on the landing wall, reaching outwards for the rope, my middle finger pointing to the sky.

In my nightmares, I see Mrs Naylor creep up behind me. She bellows down my ear, ‘
Boo!
' I'm falling over the landing in a panic, yelling for help, trying to grip onto the washing line, Mrs Naylor's grey curly mop visible above the line; I fall down, pick up speed as I go, hurtling towards the ground.

Now, as I reach for the washing line, the pile of wet washing slung over my shoulder drags me nearer to the ground than I want to go.

My finger hooks the line. I pull it towards me and begin my task. I can hang five items on the line using just six pegs, leave the knickers till last. Tell Mum there's no room left.

Most of the pegs are clipped onto my clothes with one clamped firmly between my teeth to start me off. I don't want to lose the line and have to lean out again. I overlap corners to share one peg. Towels and jeans are the worst; the fabric is too thick to overlap. Pegs give up under the strain and catapult down into front yards to join the casserole of ash and spit.

Sometimes, if I lose concentration, our clothes end up there too, and I have to leg it down the stairs and get them. Rub snot and ash off Dad's faded Levi's. Then hang them out, like it never
happened. Nan says you should check pockets for holes in case pennies fall out and are lost. If you push your hands inside wet pockets the fabric is thin and crumpled like it's not meant to last. It's hard to get your hand back out of wet pockets.

Now I follow Nan out onto the landing and sit while she pegs out her pinny. We have a small front step that is cool to sit on in the summer. It has brown square tiles, with an eight-inch concrete border on the edge, painted black by my dad. Nan mops it every day with pine bleach. I watch the light patches spread across the dark patches as it dries. Mrs Naylor walks along the landing. She's changed her clothes. She looks down at me.

‘Taking in lodgers now, May?' she says. ‘Council know?'

Nan does not turn from the washing line.

I spit on the tip of my finger and dab two dark eyes and a smiley mouth in the middle of a tile. The spit runs out before I finish. Mrs Naylor turns her eyes towards me. I dip my finger onto my tongue for more spit and shudder at the sour taste. She smirks, satisfied; then walks away, the back of her skirt sucked too far up her chocolate brown tights. Before she goes inside her flat she looks back at me like I remind her of something.

Once our front door is open, you step straight into the lobby. It takes two cartwheels from here to get to the living room. It takes half a cartwheel to get from one side of the kitchen to the other. You have to finish the cartwheel with the soles of your feet facing the ceiling, then bring them straight back down to the position they started in, so it's not really even half a cartwheel. It's probably more like a handstand. The cooker is the only thing in the kitchen that's not cupboards or a sink. It has four grey electric rings that swirl round like licked liquorice.

The living room is big enough to fit a dining table and sideboard. The dining table is pushed right up against the wall so that only
three sides are used. It is covered with a white tablecloth that has holes in the weave. Once the table is set, the sugar bowl, salt, vinegar and plates cover the holes up.

Beside the table is Nan's dresser. It annoys her that she can't see into the mirror to comb her hair, or open the drawers, because our settee is pushed up tight against it. My dad moves the settee for himself, looks in the mirror for ages, glides the comb backwards across his black hair until he gets the quiff sitting just right.

‘All done.' Nan smiles, drying her hands on the hem of her skirt. She rubs her bad leg. ‘It's going to rain,' she says. Nan can feel how the weather's going to be in her bones. She spoons sugar into her tea, dips the warm spoon back into the bowl. I pick it up and suck the sugar clumps off the spoon to take away the sour taste on my tongue.

She takes her sweet, milky tea back into the bedroom. I wait a few minutes then knock. ‘Come in.' Her room is my favourite. Her bed is new, a divan, with a gold, quilted headboard. Her radio is on a small table next to her bed. She turns it on for the news, nothing else. A small dressing table without a mirror has a photograph of a boy wearing a flat cap, a knee-length tweed coat and long grey socks that stretch all the way up to his short trousers. He is looking away from the camera, leaning against a low wall. There are tall trees in the distance.

‘Is that the little boy who lives down the lane?' I ask.

Nan laughs. ‘No, he belonged to a couple … I used to clean for them. Paul, I think his name was.'

‘Can I go with you next time?'

‘That place is long gone.' She picks up the photograph. ‘He died in the war, just a lad, terrible, so young. He was ready to go even before he was called up, wanting to be like everybody else.'

She places it back on the dresser. ‘Does no good thinking too much about it. No good at all.' She drinks her tea then puts on her cream camel coat.

‘Are you going out?'

‘On a message to the housing.'

‘What for?'

‘To hurry them up with a place of my own now Christmas is out of the way. Three weeks your mother said you'd be here. It's been four months. It pays to pester sometimes. You've seen how bad I am trying to climb the stairs on this block. Last time I was at the housing they said they had a flat for me, Scotland Road, ground floor.'

‘Not the ground floor, with a front yard?'

‘No. Inside a block with lots of other people, with one back yard for us all. They're brand new.'

‘Where's Scotland Road?'

Her light blue eyes look into mine and she smiles.

‘Not far. You could gallop there with your strong legs if you wanted to visit.'

‘I want to,' I say.

‘Then as soon as I've got the keys you can come and see it.'

‘Can't I live with you?'

‘It only has one bedroom.' She tilts her head towards their room. ‘Besides,
they
won't let you.'

‘But if you don't tell them where you live, how will they find me?'

‘They can go to the council and get my new address.'

She pats the space beside her on the bed and I sit down. Her arms wrap around me for a few minutes before she speaks.

‘Don't for one minute think you're like them, you're not. You're cut from a different piece of cloth altogether. Don't forget that, promise?'

‘I promise.'

She picks up her brown scarf from the dresser and folds it into a triangle, lowering it over her head. She ties both ends into a knot under her chin. Only her white fringe is visible. She holds the scarf in place, pushes her fringe over to the side.

‘Can't I go with you?'

‘You can't. I'll meet you back here later. Tell you all about it. Okay?'

I nod.

She cups my face between her hands.

‘We all have to grow up some time, Robyn. You're going to have to do it sooner than others. I know it's tough. Better times will come. You'll see.'

She picks up her bag, drops in the keys, then leaves. When Nan goes out, the air feels different on my skin, like shoes on the wrong feet. I pick up the photograph and cover myself with her warm blankets, the smell of Nan right up under my chin. The lazy tick of her clock fills the room. And I think about what she said about me being different, but all I want is to be like everybody else. I look down at the photograph of the boy, who wanted to be like everybody else. He is staring into the distance, with no expression on his face. I'd like to whisper a thought into his ear. Somehow make it possible for him not to go to the war. But if he can do that, then I shouldn't be scared of going to the chute and pegging out washing.

I
n school, it's not the same between me and Angela. She tells Anthony Greenbank, who sits next to me, that I ran off with my mum and never gave her mum a thank you or nothing for my tea, or for letting me come over. Angela says, ‘That's cheeky, that. Isn't that cheeky, Anthony?'

Anthony nods.

She speaks across me but doesn't look. ‘My mum said manners don't cost a penny. She won't get invited again. Lesley never leaves mine without saying thanks.'

She's always been friends with Lesley. For a while, that day I played at her house, I thought it might become the three of us.

Before play, Angela drops her pencil. ‘Where's that pencil gone?' She says this to Anthony. As I hold it up she turns away as if it's my fault. I feel the turn of her body like a pin prick. Anthony watches with sideways glances, like he's used to it. He takes the pencil and places it on Angela's desk. Sits back down, all smiles, and waits.

At playtime, while we play
catch the girls, kiss the girls,
Angela and Lesley kneel on their coats, faces towards the wall, playing
with the vanity case. The bottom of Angela's braids curl up either side of her neck, like a pair of brackets.

Lesley wears a red Alice band in her black hair, a red that perfectly matches the vanity case. They catch me watching, then look away. And I think how kneeling like that must hurt your knees after a while. If I had my pillow with me they'd let me play. I'd push it against the wall so we could all kneel on it. I watch them putting on lipstick in the hand mirror, then braiding and unbraiding each other's hair.

My hair is too thick and too short to braid. I tried it once, using the wide elastic bands my parents wrap around their Embassy coupons. The braids felt heavy and stiff and wrong.

I carry on looking. I don't mind being ignored. I mind that I can't ask her why. Being ignored has no words, nothing. Once words are involved there's no going back. That's why I don't ask her why. Instead, I use my own distractions like the itch in my scalp, or the false turn of a heel that makes me fall. I can hear them laugh.

‘Ugly mug fell over,' Angela shouts. Then I remember the game. That's how I get caught.

Gavin Rossiter plants his soggy lips directly onto mine. ‘I've got one,' he shouts to the other boys, who ignore him, still zigzagging across the playground after a random pair of lips. Nobody else has been caught.

‘Eee!' Angela squeals. ‘Gavin kissed ugly mug.'

By the time Gavin turns back round I am on my feet. Hands balled into fists. I lunge at him, pounding into his chest until he crashes backwards against the toilet wall. He starts to wail, one hand on his chest, the other on his back, holding himself up. I run across the playground and lock myself in the girls' toilet until I hear the bell.