After school I let myself in round at the back door. Normally Mum comes home after tea, probably from Uncle Peter’s, although she always says she’s been to her evening class. Today
it’s a surprise and she’s home. The back door is wide open and I can hear her inside chatting. Mum likes to air the house, even when it’s cold, ‘to get rid of the food
smells’ she says. I like cooking smells and wish we could have a home that smells like other people’s, even if it is boiled cabbage. In the back garden there are small piles of freshly
pulled weeds, so I know Mum’ll be in a good mood – she likes to get busy when she’s happy. She does the gardening in bare feet so she can feel the earth’s vibrations, and
she hitches her skirt into a knot at the side. I’m glad she didn’t get round to doing the front garden this time.
Stone steps lead up to the back door. I go quietly into the kitchen where the table is laid for supper and there’s the smell of a cake in the oven. In the next room, Mum is humming and
beating the cushions. She walks into the kitchen and then runs to me, putting her arms round me and kissing my face. I’m too big, and if anyone could see us I wouldn’t let her do it,
but there’s no one else here so it’s OK.
‘Oh, my beautiful, fantastic princess,’ she says, stroking my hair, ‘let me get a proper look at you.’ She sits on a kitchen chair and pulls me onto her knee, then holds
me by the shoulders with her arms stretched out. I lean back to make a distance between us, and she studies my face and smiles. Then she pulls me to her again and squeezes. I wobble on her small
knee. ‘Oh, your bottom’s so bony,’ she says as she laughs. ‘When did you get so big?’ She jiggles my weight around to find a more comfortable position, and when she
stops I rest my body into her a fraction.
‘I thought we’d have an early supper,’ she says, ‘and then maybe go for a walk.’ I put my head on her shoulder. ‘The lane is looking so beautiful today. I
came down it on the bus this morning on my way back from the shops, and I thought, my little Rachel would love this. She’s always dreaming of far-off places but she doesn’t know what we
have here on our doorstep. After that we could come home and play a board game or something.’ She holds me away from her again and cups my face in one of her hands, looking into my eyes.
‘If you like?’
The Monopoly box is sealed with Sellotape and stuffed on to a shelf of the dresser. Last time we’d played it was at Christmas, when Uncle Ralph had been Mum’s friend. Most of the
pieces were missing so we’d made it up with thimbles and matchsticks instead of houses and hotels. It was fun. The new pieces were too big for the board and the game got muddled, and we
laughed so much that I spilled Mum’s drink over everything. Ralph poured her another anyway so it didn’t matter, apart from the board. I’m not sure if it was dry before we put it
away. It might be stuck and tear when we open it today.
Mum had a big party that New Year’s Eve, and it was the first time she met Uncle Peter. Ralph and Peter had a fight while Mum was giggling in the kitchen. She said Peter could be her Sugar
Daddy as he’s older than her, about ten years I think, but all grown-up men look like turtles to me. I mixed the drinks for Mum’s friends. Peter asked for whisky on the rocks. They all
thought it was funny when I had quite a few sips too. It made me cough but I liked the taste. Mum said she didn’t believe in any of that old codswallop telling you what you can and
can’t do with your kids. ‘A hundred years ago she’d have been married with her own children at this age,’ she said. Mum’s friend Jeanie had to put me to bed after I
fell over. I woke up the next day heavy from all the layers she’d put on the bed to keep me warm. She must have got the covers from the airing cupboard in my room as there were towels and all
sorts on top.
The kitchen clock reads half past four. I’m desperate for the toilet and I wriggle on Mum’s lap to get more comfortable but I don’t want to leave yet. I want to curl into her
shoulder and sleep.
‘What do you think then, Rachel? Good idea?’
I mumble into her shoulder. ‘Yes, Mum, I’d love to.’
She holds her arms round my middle and squeezes my bladder tight. I jump up and stand in front of her with my legs crossed.
‘Please don’t go, Mummy. I need the loo. I’ll be back as quick as I can.’
‘You silly thing, Rachel,’ she says, laughing and shaking her hair with big flicks of her head. ‘Where would I go?’
I speed to the bathroom and when I come back down she’s on the hallway phone. She’s taken it into the living room, and the phone’s spiral cord is jammed in the door frame so
the door won’t shut properly. The coil jiggles as she moves on the other side. I put my ear on the wooden panel and listen.
‘No, I’ve told you already,’ she says, ‘I’m not standing for it any more. I have a child to think of as well, if you hadn’t noticed.’ The curls of the
cable stretch and wiggle.
From the kitchen comes the smell of burning. I run to the oven and with a tea towel I pull out the hot baking tin. The cake is my favourite – pineapple upside-down. I love the way the
gooey syrup from the fruit soaks into the dough and oozes down the sides when it’s turned out of its tin. It’s even better a little burnt like this, as the edges of the cake go crispy
and chewy. I get a plate and try to turn the tin over, but the towel’s too thin and the cake and plate slide around. Some of the hot juice dribbles over my hand.
In the other room the receiver slams down, and through the walls I hear Mum say, ‘Well, we’re not going to let that man spoil our day now, are we, princess!’ She comes back
into the kitchen and I freeze with the plate in one hand and the tin in the other. The metal burns through the towel.
‘I’m really sorry, Mummy,’ I say. ‘I was trying to help but I think I got it wrong. Please don’t be cross.’
‘Oh, let’s not worry about that, shall we?’ she says, and takes the plate from me. ‘Old butterfingers Rachel never could do these things, could she? What a princess she
is!’
At the sink I wash my burn in cold water and wipe some tears on my sleeve, thinking about the eggs on toast I cook myself most evenings without making a mistake.
She laughs and sets the cake in the middle of the plate and wipes the messy bits from the edge of the china with a cloth. The juice is the best bit and I almost ask her to leave it but decide
it’s better we have a nice time.
‘Right then,’ Mum says, ‘let’s get on with our lovely day, shall we?’ She pats a chair for me to sit on and then sits herself down opposite. The side flaps of the
yellow table have been pulled up to make it big enough to fit everything on. Mum takes a tea towel from a plate of sandwiches, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, then she puts the cake
plate down next to it and does little hand claps in front of her face. There are egg, ham and fish-paste sandwiches, with slices of tomato and cucumber in a green and red pattern round the edge of
the plate. In the middle of the sandwiches is a sprinkle of cress. Her head dips to watch my face. ‘Well, go on then,’ she says, ‘help yourself.’
I tuck into the food – it’s really lovely – and for afters we have cups of tea and the cake, still warm and eggy from the oven. The slice crumbles in my hands so I make a ball
of the bits on my plate, sticking it together with little dabs, and I hold the plate up to my face to get the food in my mouth without spilling. I’ve seen Chinese people on TV eating bowls of
rice like this. Mum does the same and we giggle, our faces close across the table. When we’re finished we leave all the mess on the table apart from the leftover cake, which I don’t
want to go stale. I put it in the empty red biscuit tin. Mum puts on her shoes and brushes her hair in big sweeps in front of the mirror by the back door. Most weeks the hairdressers do her a
style: a puffy round bun with tassels of hair round her face. Today though she wears it down past her shoulders. I hadn’t realized it was so long. Her dark roots are beginning to show where
she hasn’t had it dyed recently, and a few really blonde strands float down and stick to her cardigan.
She grabs my hand and leads me outside. The back door is open and I pull away from her, getting the key from my pocket to lock it. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she says.
‘You can leave it wide open for all I care.’ She laughs with a big open mouth and her head turned up to the sun. ‘We’re perfectly safe. I’ve decided that today
we’re untouchable.’ I leave the door and catch up with her, taking her hand again, and she swings our two arms forward and back in the air.
We go left into the lane at the end of our road. This is the way the bus goes, past fields and to the next big town. The other direction is my school and our village. Mum says it’s the
perfect place to live and that we’re lucky to have the best of both worlds, ‘Countryside and community.’ It’s getting late and the sun makes golden spots on the trees. Tiny
buds dot the branches and there’s the smell of wet mud. I hold the air inside my lungs until I think I might burst.
A car passes at speed and we have to stand back quickly.
‘Silly old so-and-so,’ Mum says in a sing-song voice.
I breathe out. ‘Is Uncle Peter coming over tonight, Mummy?’
She steps into the road and pulls me after her. ‘You should call me Patty, like my friends do. After all, we’re always being mistaken for sisters.’
Mum’s name is Patricia. She shortened it after Dad left. We’re almost the same height now and I no longer have to bend my neck to look at her. Her skin shines and bounces in the
sunlight. Long lashes flap against her cheeks, like mascara butterflies, and when she smiles there are small creases at the edges of her eyes. I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful. We chat
about boys and school and what we could do in the summer. She says maybe I won’t have to go to Daddy’s and we could go bike riding instead and swim in the sea. I think she’s
forgotten that Daddy’s last letter said he was too busy this summer to have me anyway, but it’s fun making plans so I don’t say anything.
A few more cars pass and we pull back into the verge, getting tiny twigs and mud in our shoes. We empty them out and walk in our tights and socks. Mum smiles and waves at all of the cars with
big sweeps of her arm. Some of the drivers wave back. Some don’t. The last car that passes speeds up as it rounds to the other side of the road to avoid us. Mum holds her arm high in the air
and waves it to and fro, as if she’s calling a ship, but the driver keeps her eyes on the road. The red tail lights vanish round the darkening corner. ‘Yes, and you’re not so
perfect yourself, Mrs Pierce,’ she shouts at the car which has already disappeared. ‘Interfering old cow!’ Mum’s voice echoes against the steep banks of the lane.
‘You’re just jealous of other people having fun.’
Mum turns swiftly round, as if we’ve reached the end of the track, like at school when we race up and down the field, circling a traffic cone. ‘Come on then, spoilsport,’ she
says more quietly, but walking fast. ‘You should have brought your coat. I guess we’ll have to go back.’
My jumper is thin and my hands are cold, but I’m trying really hard not to shiver. ‘I don’t mind,’ I say, ‘let’s keep on going.’ I tug her arm back
towards the way we were walking even though she’s already built up speed in the direction of home. ‘We can always get the bus back from town.’ I grasp her hand with both of
mine.
‘Don’t be daft, old silly-pants.’ She pulls her hand out of my grip. ‘Mummy’s got things to do.’
On the way back, if a car passes, Mum looks to the side of the road, commenting on a tree and touching its leaves, and after the car has gone Mum rejoins the road with a fast walk. I try to talk
about the school holidays again but instead she asks what homework I have to do this evening.
As we turn the corner into our street, we see Uncle Peter’s car is parked in our driveway. He leans against the bonnet with straight legs crossed in front of him and his pipe hanging from
his mouth. In his arms is an enormous bunch of flowers. Mum strides ahead of me and past him, up the path to the front door. He runs after her and grabs her round the waist.
‘Pat, please, Patty, hear me out,’ he says.
She struggles away from him and reaches for the door handle. I walk round to the back, run up the stairs and peep from an upstairs window. Mum and Peter are standing in the front garden near the
door, and the tops of their heads are stuck together. Mum’s long hair mixes with his as Peter grasps it in his hands. I think about what their tongues are doing and whether it feels different
to the back of my hand. Across the road, there’s an eye-sized gap in Mrs Simpson’s net curtains.
I lie on my bed watching the light fade from blue to black. The pipes in the wall hiss when a tap is turned on and from downstairs there’s a chink of metal on glass. I guess Mum is filling
a vase. Peter’s smoke creeps up the stairs and curls round my door. I open the window to let out the smell and the room turns to ice.
Less than a week has passed since I came back from Will’s, and the stand-off between David and myself remains unbroken. The ash I threw over his toy collection was
cleaned up by the time I woke the next day, and nothing was said about the mess, as if it never happened, as if I’d gone mad and imagined everything. I showed David the receipt from the Grand
but he ripped it up without looking at the date. When we’re together now, David’s eyes follow my every move, and most of his phone calls are taken in private. He leaves small clues
around the house to remind me that he hasn’t forgotten, that his silence is merely a mask for intention. A jugged hare has been in the fridge for days, uncovered, so everything including the
milk has taken on the flavour of the gamey meat. I’ve had to throw all the food away.
Each day I wake before dawn to a quick pulse in my chest and a dream-replay of the man on the road, now a truncated version of the main events: wide eyes, thud, flip, blood, drag, dead. At times
it seems like this same vision has been the recurrent theme of my whole night’s sleep, and I’m more tired when I wake than when I go to sleep. The pain in my stomach grows daily, and I
choke down tablets the size of horse pills. I finally made it to my GP. She’s concerned I’ll get woozy with anything stronger, but the meds only knock off the edge. Sometimes I
experiment with an unsafe dose, or take nothing at all and let the sensation in my body remind me that I’m still alive. The doctor has sent my blood for tests and has requested an ultrasound
of my abdomen, but at the last appointment she prodded and pressed and said she could feel nothing alarming. ‘Have you been anxious at all lately?’ she asked when I said the pain
sometimes travels to my legs. I didn’t tell her about the times I go numb and feel like I’ve shrunk to the size of a pinhead inside my body.