'About bloody time,' whispers
Pollux.
About time
for
what
I wonder.
We spend the evening
drinking good red wine, singing and toasting up nibbles on the
fire. They stay until after the New Year. They're fun and it's nice
to have a full house. Looking after Nelly is a whole lot easier
with people around, she adores all the extra attention.
God is noticeable by his
absence. I try calling him up to see how he is and wish him a happy
New Year but there's no body home. Even the slugs don't know where
he is.
I haven't seen Tat for a while
either. He'll be sitting cross-legged in his shack thinking lofty
thoughts. It's like he chooses to suffer so much that he feels
guilty if he's enjoying himself, like it's a sin to be happy. He
really should let his hair down occasionally. I'll invite him
around, Nelly adores him and he can spar with Enzo.
'Am I spoiling Nelly?' I ask
Castor. 'I'm always fussing over her.'
'Give her all the love
and kisses and cuddles you can. That's not going to spoil her. Kids
get spoilt by a lack of love and attention, not too much. Number 2
will be along soon and you won't have as much time for Nel anymore.
Make the most of it while it's easy.'
Easy!
What am I letting myself in for? I'll
keep giving Nel lots of kisses and cuddles. They're coming her way,
like it or not!
16
Me, Nelly and Tat are sitting
in the middle of the paddock trying to make friends with the sheep.
Tat doesn't eat red meat but I love it. The sheep don't have names
like Minty, Gravy, Sizzle and Chops for nothing, they don't trust
me an inch. We have been here all morning, Zenning out.
'Patience Grasshopper,' says
Tat. 'They'll come to us.'
They haven't moved an inch yet.
They're standing in the farthest corner jingling their bells as
they fidget nervously.
'Look out!' shouts Pollux
suddenly.
Slimeballs appear all around
us. They gobble up some sheep then circle around, toying with us
like a cat moving in on its prey.
We try to run but the
slimeballs block our way and start moving in towards us for the
kill.
'Relax,' says Tat, calmly.
Relax!
We're about to be
massacred!
The slimeballs move closer,
squinting at us with their mean slanty eyes, slime drooling down
from their fangs.
I take a deep breath and
relax.
Bam!
I'm in my fighter. We swivel to
the left then back to the right firing torpedoes and lasers. The
slimeballs explode, sending flaming slime flying in all directions.
I click my fingers to teleport Tat and Nelly back to the safety of
my house then go supersonic around Camillo mopping up the remaining
slimeballs.
'Thanks Em,' says Pollux. 'I've
got to get a new moon.'
Once Castor has appeared, I
land the fighter on my front lawn and go inside to make a cup of
tea, a strong cup of tea, with sugar and a just a little nudge of
something stronger.
Castor's kids, Hither and
Thither arrive. It's wonderful to see them again. They're filling
in while Pollux is waiting for his new moon. He's still with us,
but now he's lost confidence in his moon, it's barely operational.
There's not even enough oxygen in the cockpit for me to visit.
'We're doing this as a favour
to Dad, they were going to send Renard,' says Hither.
'No, not Renard,' I say.
'Yes Renard, but Dad wouldn't
let them. We're standing in to help out, but we're not ready for
the solitary life in a sentry moon yet, that's why we're in
fighters.'
'What would you rather to be
doing?'
'Partying,' says Hither. 'We're
still got some wild-oats to sow.'
It's hard to imagine a couple
of hermaphrodite slugs sowing their wild oats. The mind boggles. Do
they splash down in the primeval swamps on the prehistoric asteroid
and hang out with Neanderthal slug?
'Where do you sow them?' I
ask.
'Never you mind.'
'Will you show me your yellow
bits if I show you mine,' I ask cheekily, loosening my bra
strap.
'Ummmm, no,' answers
Hither.
I nearly got him!
'Thank you so much for
coming,' I say, and climbing onto their fighters, give each of them
a big kiss.
'Have you still got that black
hole?' asks Thither.
'I do,' I say, pulling Enzo out
of my pocket. He's going to have to stay in his cage for a while,
the less people that know about him the better.
'Have you been practicing with
your white rings? asks Hither.
'White rings?' I ask.
'Remember, we gave you some
white rings to practice with.'
I can't for the life of me
remember. Motherhood has frazzled my brain.
'They're in the drawer by your
bed, right at the back under that secret bar of Caramello,' says
Castor.
When I get home I look. The
white rings have slipped my mind again, but I haven't forgotten
about the secret bar of Caramello. It was so secret that I'd
completely forgot about it; now I'm craving it. There's a rustling
of wrappers and soon all that's left is a few crumbs. Number 2
kicks appreciatively, obviously a girl after my own heart.
What will I call her? Emma-Lou
and Sarah-Jane are my favourites at the moment, but I'm bound to
change my mind. She can be Cara, as in Caramello, for the
moment.
Spring arrives
and so does Cara. By the time she has fought her way out and found
her way to my breast she's called Lillian Tsul Taylor. Zula's dad,
Saleem, called me Tsul in the desert. It means
lively one,
which is fitting for the new arrival, she's full of
beans.
Janice moves into Azziz's
river boulder house, which sits on a hillock behind his cafe. She
has her baby, River Star, but as I'm struggling to cope with two
kids while recovering from a difficult birth, I haven't had the
time, or been in the mood to visit. I hope she's doing okay. I
wonder what her baby looks like. Does it have a crown of spikes or
is it an angelic demigod?
17
Castor calls me up to his moon
in the middle of the night.
'Wha, wa, wa, what's
happening?' I ask, trying to gather my wits.
'It's Annie, she's committed
suicide.'
'Oh no. Can we save her?'
Castor is silent for a little
while.
'Okay,' he says. 'She's
here.'
'Where?'
'Here,
on Camillo. Give her some time to
adjust; she's been through a lot.'
I'm in no state to go looking
for her, so I get back to not coping, and wait.
There's a faint knock on my
door three days later.
Annie collapses over the piece
of driftwood into my arms. She's skinny, soaked to the bone and
covered with cuts and bruises. Her eyes are milky and distant and
she is cold to touch, like she's dead.
She needs help, I click my
fingers and Freud and Dr Florence appear in my living room.
Once Florence has got over the
surprise, she says, 'Emily, how are you? Are the stitches holding?
I'm sorry but I'm not a surgeon.'
'I'm fine,' I say, lying. 'Me
and the Lilly are alive thanks to you.'
I make her and Freud a cup of
tea and putting a hand on Annie, who's huddling in the corner of
the sofa, say, 'This is my friend Annie, she needs help.'
They help Annie to the bathroom
and put her in a tepid bath.
Freud comes out and says,
'We'll warm her up slowly. What happened to her?'
'I don't know. She committed
suicide. Can you help?'
'I'll try. If I know what she
has been through it will make it easier.'
I click my fingers to send him
up to visit Castor in his moon.
He comes back half an hour
later.
'Castor says you need
help.'
'I do, but she needs it
more.'
Tat arrives a few minutes
later and without saying anything, sets himself up in the kitchen
and starts cooking up a big pot of soup. Jesus arrives a few
minutes later, puffing and panting. He gives me a big
hug.
'Sorry I haven't been along.
Azziz has gone on a bender on Zwingly, so I've been helping Janice.
Can I help you?'
'Please,' I say, giving him a
kiss on the cheek.
He picks up Nelly, who's
been sulking in the corner, pooing her pants. He cleans her up and
before long I hear her deep belly laugh coming from the bedroom.
Just hearing it makes me smile.
Freud and Dr Florence
stay for two weeks. I might be at a bit of a low, baby blues or
whatever you call it, but Annie is in a mess. She's quiet and
unresponsive, not like her former bubbly self at all. Freud says
that she ran away from home and fell in with the wrong crowd. They
got her hooked on drugs then forced her into prostitution. She
killed herself in front of a train after being attacked by a
client. Once she arrived on Camillo she found her way to the bluff,
sat there for a day, then jumped. Thither managed to fire a torpedo
into the water as she fell but it was touch and go. She has
shrapnel wounds and was knocked unconscious by the explosion. The
cold water bought her round again and she swam around to my
cottage, the waves bashing her against the rocks on the way. No
wonder she's in a mess.
Freud decides she needs further
help and sends her off to the Betty Ford clinic on Zwingly.
It's almost
summer by the time I'm feeling on top of things again. Lilly has
started smiling at me; such a little thing, but it makes all the
pain, suffering, stitches and sleepless nights seem worthwhile.
She's a little cutey. She has the same dark skin and hair as Nelly
but big dark brown eyes that trap you at a glance. Oh, she
is
going to break some hearts! Nelly has taken a while to
adjust to having a little sister. All the toilet training went out
the door and I nearly went back to putting a nappy on her. Tat and
Jesus have been a big help, giving her lots of love and attention
and getting her happy again. Now she's fascinated by Lilly and
tries to look after her, covering her up and giving her toys. Nel
has taken to the doll that Janice gave her for Christmas and
carries it everywhere, twiddling with its ribbon to get to
sleep.
My body has recovered; I'm even
starting to feel horny again. I'm ready to let my hair down and I'm
sure Annie is too. She's coming out, like it or not. I'm off to
Zwingly.
Castor has a word with me about
contraception and puts a little coil thing inside my womb that he
says will stop any unwanted babies.
'I'll be good,' I promise him.
'I'll try to stay out of trouble.'
He laughs, 'Like hell you
will!'
Janice comes too. She
wants to show off her baby and is ready for a bit of action after
Zenning it out on Camillo for a few months. We stay in her house on
the beach. It's wonderful to be sitting under a palm tree listening
to the swoosh of waves, with snatches of reggae wafting in on the
breeze. She's hired two nannies and we express bottles and bottles
of milk, just in case we don't make it home.
Annie is looking great. She's
beautiful anyway with her Indian complexion and long black hair but
has been working out and her body is toned and positively
glowing.
She gives me a big hug and
says, 'Sorry, sorry, sorry.'
'You have nothing to be sorry
about. It's wonderful to see you looking so good.'
'I'm dead!' she says, positive
beaming. 'We can be together forever.'
I give her another hug.
'Are there any tattooists on
Zwingly?' I ask.
'There's a couple in Port Royal
and there's this new guy, a Rasta who turned up a few weeks back.
He's from somewhere weird, Timbuktu I think. He lives just down the
beach.'
'Timbuktu, cool!'
An hour later we're poring
through the Rasta's scrapbook of designs while he smokes his sweet
cigarettes on the terrace. I'm dead keen on a two headed dragon but
Nelly keeps turning the page back to a little swallow, so the
decision is made: a swallow on my right arm and a yinny-yangy thing
between my shoulder blades.
I try to talk Annie out of
getting one, it seems a shame to mess up such beautiful skin, but
she insists, choosing an Indian script armlet on her left forearm.
I've got no idea what it means but the flowing writing will look
really classy on her brown skin.
'What does it say?' I ask.
'Not telling.'
The Rasta says that things
aren't the same in Timbuktu. There's a lot of bad men, a lot of
death. He was shot for not being a Muslim.
'Cool,' he says. 'Now I'm in
heaven.'
I worry about Zula; I hope he's
okay.
The first couple of nights we
stay in and chat and get the babies settled and used to the
nannies, then we go partying. We have such fun. I've never really
been bad before and I might not get another chance, I might grow up
or something. One morning I wake up with these two gorgeous Italian
guys, they're like love gods. Yes!
I have breakfast with the
girls.
'Aren't your boobs killing
you?' asks Janice. 'Mine are.'
'They're just fine,' I say, and
tell them why the Italian boys haven't joined us for breakfast. We
laugh so loud that we get thrown out of the restaurant.