Brilliant (4 page)

There was a space at the end of the table, between Uncle
Ben's boots and their granny's slippers. Raymond only needed a second. Gloria didn't have to wait—she was right behind him. He slid in between the feet and sat up, under the table, and crossed his legs in tight. He did all this in what looked like one slick movement. And so did Gloria. Just like a seal—Gloria thought—sliding onto a rock in the zoo.

They sat there now, under the kitchen table, and waited.

CHAPTER 2

W
e've a bit of news for you,” said
Gloria's mam.

Gloria should have known. They'd just had ice cream—in the middle of the week. It had been a trap. She knew that now. She looked at Raymond, and he knew it too.

The ice cream was gone. They couldn't taste it anymore. “We've a bit of news for you.” It was going to be bad. News was nearly always bad. There was the time their mam had told them their granddad had died. There was the time their dad had told them that their cat, Cecil, had gone away and wouldn't be coming back. And here they were, full of chicken and chocolate chip ice cream, about to be given more bad news, again.

Gloria glared at her mam.

“What?” said her mam.

“What?” said her granny.

“Mam,” said Gloria. “I hate surprises. You know that.”

“Even nice ones?” said her mam.

Gloria didn't answer. She wasn't going to play their game. Her mam and dad would just have to tell them the news. Gloria wasn't going to help them.

“So anyway,” said their mam. “Do you want to tell them?” she asked their dad.

Raymond and Gloria knew it now, for sure. The news was going to be terrible.

“Okay,” said their dad. “Well—”

He stopped. He scratched his chin.

“Your Uncle Ben is coming to stay for a while.”

They didn't really hear him. They were so ready for something bad, they didn't actually hear the words or understand them properly.

“What?” said Gloria, just before her granny said it.

“Your Uncle Ben is coming to stay,” said their dad. “For a while.”

It still took a few seconds for it to mean anything. It was like Gloria and Raymond could see each of their dad's words, like a stream of little clouds across the kitchen, just beneath the ceiling. They had to examine each word again, one by one, until they got to
stay
.

Then they understood.

And they went mad. Gloria charged for the back door—she had to scream her happiness. Then she changed her mind—she had to hug her parents. Then she screamed anyway—because she couldn't not scream.

“Oh, Mother of God!” her granny screamed back.

“She hears when she wants to,” said Gloria's dad, to her mam.

“Ah, come on,” said her mam. “Dead people in Russia could hear that scream.”

“What?” said their granny.

Gloria hugged her granny.

“I'm not really deaf,” her granny whispered. “It's just more interesting when I am. Shhhhh.”

The “Shhhhh” went straight into Gloria's ear and made her laugh even more. It was hot in the kitchen by the time they all calmed down.

Gloria sat on her dad's lap.

This had happened more than two months before Saint Patrick's Day, just after they'd gone back to school after Christmas.

“When's he coming?” Raymond asked.

“The weekend,” said his dad. “Probably. It'll be for a while, just.”

Their Uncle Ben didn't live far away, in another country or anything—like their Uncle Derek, who lived in Australia. Raymond and Gloria had only ever met their Uncle Derek once. But Ben only lived about ten minutes away.

“Yes,” said their mam. “Just a little while. Till he sorts things out.”

There was a silence then—one of those short, important silences. Gloria couldn't see her dad's face, but she could see her mam looking at her dad, and she knew that her dad was looking back at her mam. Gloria thought her mam had probably said
something she hadn't meant to, but Gloria didn't know what it was. She was in the silly, secret world of adults and she didn't want to be. So she looked at her mam and asked her.

“What does that mean?”

“What does what—” her mam started, then stopped. She smiled, and started again: “You mean, what did I mean when I said, ‘Till he sorts things out'?”

“Yeah.”

Gloria knew about divorce and stuff. But Uncle Ben wasn't married and Gloria didn't think he had a girlfriend. She always checked whenever she was in Ben's house. She looked for women's magazines or clothes, or extra stuff in the fridge.

“Well,” said her mam. “Ben's business is struggling a bit.”

“The recession,” said Raymond.

“That's right,” said their mam, and she smiled.

Parents loved it when their kids used important words.

“So,” said their dad. “He can't really afford his house.”

“But it's his,” said Gloria.

“Yes, but.”

Gloria could feel her dad sitting up.

“This house,” he said. “It's ours. We own it. Me and Una.”

Una was their mam. Their dad's name was Pat.

“What about us?” said Gloria. “We own it as well, don't we?”

“Well, yes,” said their dad, and he kissed the top of her head. “But, no.”

They laughed—her mam, her dad, her deaf granny. But Gloria and Raymond didn't.

“Strictly speaking,” said their dad, “legally speaking—the law, like—myself and your mam own it. It's in our names, as they say.”

“Who's they?”

“The banks and the lawyers and that,” said her dad. “But so, anyway. We got a loan from the bank—it's called a mortgage—to buy the house. Because you could never save enough to do it. It's not like buying something in J. C. Penney's.”

Raymond groaned.

“What's wrong?”

“I'm not stupid,” said Raymond.

“Neither am I,” Gloria told Raymond.

“I'm just explaining,” said their dad.

“Okay.”

“Anyway,” said their dad. “We have to pay back the loan, the mortgage, like, a bit every month.”

“Is it much?”

“We can manage,” said their dad.

“We're grand,” said their mam.

“I've my job and Una has hers, so we're fine,” said their dad. “Even though Una isn't working as much as she used to.”

“It's grand,” said their mam.

She worked in a supermarket near where they lived. There'd been a meeting about a month before, and the manager had told the staff that business was down—although they'd known that already. They'd all decided to work fewer hours instead of some of them losing their jobs. Their mam had said they'd all been crying, even the manager. But the funny
thing was, it had been the best meeting she'd ever been at, even though she'd be earning less money and the shop might still have to close down.

“It was just, we're all friends,” she'd said. “And it was nice to know what that means.”

“So,” said their dad now. “We pay money to the bank every month.”

Gloria was getting worried. The adults talked about money like they talked about sickness.

“Anyway,” said their mam. “Ben.”

“Yeah,” said their dad. “Ben. Ben's mortgage has become too steep—too expensive, like. And the bank isn't being very nice about it. So.”

“He's coming to live with us.”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“But,” said Raymond. “Can he not live in his own house anymore?”

“No,” said their dad. “He can't. That's the thing.”

“It's very unfair,” said their mam.

“It's rough,” said their dad.

“The poor lad,” said their granny.

“But it's his house,” said Gloria.

“Yes, it is,” said her dad. “But—”

He kind of slumped. He was resting his chin on Gloria's head. It was nice.

He sighed.

“It's happening to loads of people,” he said.

“But anyway,” said their mam. “He's coming to stay here and that's nice, isn't it?”

“Yeah!”

“And,” said their mam.

It was one of her big announcement “And”s.

“He'll have to have a room of his own,” she said. “Won't he?”

Raymond and Gloria said nothing. They were working it out. There were three bedrooms in the house. Their parents had the biggest one. And their granny lived in her granny-flat. It had its own front door and it used to be the garage, before their granny came to live with them—before Gloria could remember. So that left one of their bedrooms. Raymond's. Or Gloria's.

“Gloria.”

“Why not Raymond?”

“I haven't finished yet,” said her mam. “So don't be rude, please.”

“Sorry.”

“That's okay, love,” said her mam. “It's going to be a bit of a squash. And your room is smaller than Raymond's. So you'll be moving in with him.”

Raymond and Gloria looked at each other. They didn't like this, but they quickly remembered the better news: Uncle Ben was coming to stay.

“Okay,” said Raymond.

“Okay,” said Gloria.

“It'll be nice,” said their mam.

“Yeah,” said Gloria, and she meant it.

Uncle Ben arrived the next Saturday with his stuff in his van. They all helped him bring it into the house and they brought some of it up to Gloria's room. His suitcase and a cardboard box.

Gloria looked in the box when she was putting it on the bed. There were a couple of books and loads of CDs, and a bottle of stuff called Old Spice, and a lamp for beside the bed. The bedclothes had been changed. Her pink cover and pillowcase were over in Raymond's room, and the covers were blue now. It made Gloria a bit sad, even a tiny bit annoyed. But then she heard Uncle Ben and her dad laughing downstairs, and she ran down to see what had happened.

Her dad was standing in the hall with another cardboard box. But the bottom of it had split open, so he was holding an empty box and the things that had been in it were all around him on the ground and on top of his feet.

“You're an eejit,” said Uncle Ben.

“I know,” said her dad.

He bent down and started picking up Uncle Ben's stuff. Gloria helped him. There were old football medals, loads of them. The ribbons were all tangled, so they looked like some sort of mad doll's head, with braids with coins in them.

“I'll untangle them for you, Uncle Ben,” she said.

“Thanks, Gloria,” said Uncle Ben. “It'll take you all day.”

“Bet it won't,” said Gloria.

But it did. She spent most of the rest of the day untangling the ribbons. She made sure she didn't pull any, so the knots wouldn't get tighter. It was dark when she loosened the last knot. The ribbon must have been really old because the medal with it—“Community Games Runner-Up”—had “1989” on it. So her Uncle Ben had won it twenty-four years ago.

“What does ‘runner-up' mean?” she asked.

“Loser,” said her dad.

Uncle Ben laughed. “It means second,” he told Gloria. “Give us a look.”

She gave him the medal.

“I remember this one,” he said. “We got beaten, three–two.”

“Told you,” said her dad. “Loser.”

He didn't usually say things—nearly cruel things—like that. But Gloria knew he was joking with Uncle Ben, teasing him. Uncle Ben teased her dad too. They were always doing it to each other.

“Come here, Gloria,” said her Uncle Ben.

He held the ribbon so that it became a big triangle, and he put it around Gloria's neck. She felt the weight of the medal on her chest before she looked down and saw it there.

“It's yours now,” he said.

“Ah, thanks,” said Gloria.

“And Ray,” said Uncle Ben. “You too.”

Gloria had put all the medals—there were seventeen of them—in a
row, with all the ribbons in a straight line, side by side. Uncle Ben picked one of them. It was another of the runner-up medals. And he did the same thing—he put it around Raymond's neck. He shook Raymond's hand.