Disappearing Home (10 page)

‘Who stinks then? Who's pooh-poohed then? Come on, stinky pants, in you come.' She holds her nose.

‘Jesus, I'll never get used to the smell.' She looks at the empty pram. ‘How did you do?'

Bernie takes the sock out of his pocket. ‘I haven't had a chance to count it. Not as many bags, though. Things are getting back to normal again.'

‘Never mind. At least you've got something.' She notices me. ‘Who's your friend?'

I realize they don't know my name. ‘Robyn. I live in the front square.'

‘The one by the church?'

‘Yes.'

‘I don't know a soul in that square.' She smiles, takes Johnny inside. ‘Nice to meet you, Robyn from the front square.'

Bernie counts out the pennies on the step and piles them up into stacks of ten. I remember Dad told me to stay in our square.

‘I'll have to go,' I say.

He picks up a penny. ‘Want one?'

I think about taking it, could leave it on the mantelpiece for Dad so he'll stay in the pub longer.

‘No thanks,' I say.

‘What number do you live in?'

‘33B.'

‘I'll knock up. Later.'

‘Later,' I say, and head off home, a thought hot inside my head. It makes me want to scream the words out loud so I can hear my own voice saying them.
I jumped over a real fire.

P
ackages are being delivered to our flat, huge packages and tiny packages in brown cardboard boxes. Record players, radios, watches and rings. None of the stuff is for us. No sooner has it been unwrapped than it's sold. People knocking all the time, searching through the glossy-paged catalogue, asking can you get me this or that. Mum has a list on the mantelpiece and money in her purse.

She tells me it's time I had some new clothes, hands me the Colomendy deposit in a white envelope. It's March now; Trisha Fisher paid her deposit last month, but loads of kids still haven't paid. I can't wait for Monday when Mr Thorpe gets the payment book out. I'll be one of the first to pay mine. We get a taxi to Great Homer Street Market. I have never been in a taxi before. I have never been to a market before. The seats in the taxi are ripped; it smells of cigarette smoke and sick. Mum winds her window all the way down.

When we get out, Mum pays the driver.

‘You need to get your smell sorted,' she says. ‘It fucking reeks back there. You're lucky I'm in a good mood.'

The driver says nothing.

I look away.

There's so much to see. Stall after stall, selling bags, shoes, thick leather coats to the floor, with flap pockets and flyaway collars. Men in white hats selling fish, bacon, eggs. Their stall smells of the river.

A lady pouring tea from a flask, cream cardigans all laid out on a table. Some have tiny balls all over them, as if they've caught a disease.

It's great. I've never seen so many people in the one place. I can't wait to go up and down the aisles, see what else people are selling.

We stop at a sweet stall. Bags of dolly mixtures, rhubarb and custards, black jacks, fruit salads, shoelaces, sherbet dabs, drumstick lollipops. My eyes stop at the fruit salads, they're my favourite.

‘Want some?' Mum says.

‘Silly question to ask a kid,' the man behind the counter jokes.

‘Just hand them over, smart arse.'

He laughs, takes her money.

We edge against walls to let prams pass. There's shouting:
Come on now, get your bananas, ten pence a bag.
There's a man selling burgers and hot dogs. People are buying them for breakfast. The smell of onions makes me hungry. It's not even ten o'clock and people are eating bags of chips from the chippy. On a Saturday, in Great Homer Street, rules don't seem to matter. You could stay here all day and still not see everything there is to see.

Two tiny monkeys sit on a skinny man's shoulders. They are tied to his wrist by a chain. They wear waistcoats and hats decorated with gold thread. The man is dressed the same. I watch as he lifts them onto people's shoulders and takes a photograph. He has a denim pinny tied around his waist to keep the money in.

‘Want a picture?' Mum asks.

I shake my head. I'm scared of their long nails digging into me.

‘Might as well, now we're here.' She calls the man over.

‘All right, love?' he says, pushing one of his shoulders towards her. The monkey on it opens its mouth and yawns in her face.

Mum pulls her head back. ‘Not me, you daft fucker, her.'

‘Which one do you want?'

I shrug.

‘No need to be scared. They don't bite. I've filed their teeth down.'

‘Get a move on. Which one?' Mum says.

‘Any,' I say.

I look into the monkey's eyes and they are sad. Like they want to cry but can't. If you don't laugh you'll cry, Nan says. But the monkeys don't laugh either. The man has dropped one onto my shoulder and I can feel its tail swishing from side to side down my back. It smells like my coat when it's wet.

Mum shakes her head at me. ‘Oh, for fuck's sake, straighten the face, will you?'

When it is over I take a quick glance at the picture before Mum puts it in her bag.

‘Like it?'

Look at me. Bushy hair, eyes all scrunched up, shoulders too near my ears. I want to feed the picture to a monkey or drop it down the grid and watch the look on Mum's face as it disappears.

‘Yes,' I lie.

She lights a cigarette. Takes in a breathful of smoke, shakes the match dead and throws it to the floor. She looks at the photograph again. ‘Ugly bastards, monkeys. Stink as well.'

Mum takes a good look around before she decides what to buy. I try on a cream pair of trousers with six buttons on the waistband. They have two enormous pockets at the side of the leg. ‘They're all the go, them,' she says. ‘Birmingham bags.'

Mum chooses a sky blue, capped-sleeve T-shirt to go with them. It has a picture of three mice on the front and underneath in curly letters it says:
Three Blind Mice.
She buys herself underwear and fluffy pink slippers with a heel on; a kitten heel, she says.

We meet a woman pushing twins in a pram. Two other kids hold onto the handles at each side. ‘All right, Margy?' Mum says.

Margy yawns; she has nice teeth. ‘Shattered, Babs, been up since six. You see much of Eileen?'

‘No, you?'

‘Heard she's got a new job, working in St Michael's Market.' Margy looks at me. ‘This your daughter?'

‘Yeah, this is Robyn.'

Mum looks at her pram. ‘It's chocca here today, don't know how you're getting through with that. Got your hands full there all right; you need to get yourself done.'

When we walk away Mum tells me she used to go to school with Margy, and Eileen. ‘But all the lads were after Margy. Me and Eileen used to be dead jealous.' She looks back, shakes her head. ‘Margy's fucking destroyed now.'

Margy doesn't look destroyed to me. She just looks worn out.

I don't want to go home. I love it here, especially the being outside bit; people eating from trays in the street. I suppose it would be different in bad weather. I can't wait to tell Nan about Greaty Market. Before we go I get to choose burger or chips. I order chips with fruity curry sauce on top. Mum gets the same. We finish them off in another taxi home.

At home, Dad sits in his chair.
HATE
fingers fast-tapping on the wooden arm. On my skin I feel something's going to happen, like Nan feels the rain coming in her bad leg.

He stands. ‘Where the fuck have you two been?'

Mum laughs. ‘Only to Greaty for a few bits. You were still asleep.'

He looks at the bags. ‘Spent up, have you?'

‘Like I said, I got a few bits, that's all. What's it to you?'

‘Been fed?'

‘Yes, we had chips.'

‘I've had fuck all.'

‘You should've got off your arse then and made something.'

He's at her throat, got her pinned up against the wall.
LOVE HATE
fingers close together like hot and cold taps.

The bags fall to the floor.

‘Don't speak to me like I'm some snot-nosed kid.'

Her legs kick out at him.

He squeezes her neck tighter.

I scream at him to stop.

Somebody next door bangs on the wall.

Mum can't speak. Her face gets redder and redder.

I run at him with both hands flat, push them into his back. He lets go. Mum falls to the floor, gasping for breath. He turns to me. Grabs my hair and twists it round his fingers. I cry out with the pain; he throws me towards the door.

‘Get to your room,' Mum whispers.

I don't shut my door. I can hear his raised voice shouting he's the boss around here and she'd better get used to it. And Mum, who always has something to say, says nothing.

The next morning, Mum stands in front of a slanty mirror to watch herself smoke. Over the sink, she lets the ash grow into a long grey finger and says, ‘Look at that,' like she's grown something new. When it falls, she whooshes it away with a blast from the tap. Mum usually opens the kitchen window, but somebody walking past slid a hand in and nicked our bleach off the sill. Mum ran
after them but they disappeared inside one of the flats. Dad has nailed the front window shut so nobody can get in or out.

‘Here, I bought you two balls,' she says, tightening the red scarf around her neck. Not wanting to show the marks on her skin that I have already seen. ‘He only gets a cob on when he's skint. He's all right, really,' she says. ‘I wish you could see him in the pub, Robyn. He's a real joker, gets me up to dance, we have a laugh. There's a different side to him you haven't seen. He's been here for us since you were little. I remember he used to take you to the park and everywhere with him. He got angry because he wanted to try and make the catalogue money last, that's all. You know what I'm like with money.'

I don't remember him taking me to the park, and I don't care about the stinking catalogue money, so I say nothing.

And then she smiles, but it is not a real smile, it's a drawn-on one. When I don't answer or smile back she says, ‘Play out for a bit, if you like.'

I play two balls on the wall opposite Carol's house. After a while I hear her calling me in a whisper from her landing. ‘Robyn, this is for you.' She throws something down and I walk over to pick it up. It is a comic with
Bunty
written on the front. ‘Take it,' she says. ‘I've read it.'

‘I've got a bike now.'

‘Oh.'

‘Coming out?'

‘Not allowed.'

‘Why?'

Carol shrugs. ‘Mum says.' A quick glance behind. ‘When she goes to work later I'll sneak out and tell you properly.'

When I get home Dad answers the door. He looks at my hand. ‘What's that?'

‘A comic; Carol gave me it.'

He holds out his hand. ‘Give it.'

I pass it to him and he flicks through the pages, tosses it to the floor.

‘Rubbish. Throw it down the chute.'

‘But …'

‘Don't back chat me. Chute. It'll be fucking books next.'

I pick it up and walk along the landing to the chute, glance behind me to make sure he's not looking. I fold it in half and slide it down my waistband. Back in my bedroom I stuff it inside the pillow case.

Monday, after school, Carol sneaks out. We play two balls against the wall until our fingers are numb.
A portion of chips, a portion of peas, and don't forget the vinegar please.
I have my own spot on the wall, a favourite brick to aim for. I slap the balls again and again against it, trying to chip bits away. The smoothness of the rubber in my palm smells sweet. I think of this tall, dark, beautiful wall as mine; that before I noticed it, nobody knew it was there.

Once you drop the ball you're out. I get out on purpose when I see Carol looking up at the sky, afraid she might make up an excuse to go in. Carol doesn't play on my spot. She takes a couple of steps to the left, finds a brand new place. She stays away from uneven bricks, chooses a couple of smoothed-out ones next to each other that she pounds the rubber against.

I sit on the floor, cross-legged, and stare at the wall. You can learn a lot from walls. Dogs pee up them, rain pelts them, winds blast them, birds bomb them. In warm weather, after a game of football, boys cool their backs on them, find gaps in the cement for fingers to dig into. Pretend they have climbed this wall or that
wall; show the gaps where their shoes have been to prove they're not lying.

At night, under the glow of an orange street lamp, I have seen boys press girls against walls by the lips. Women are kept against walls with fists or words. When it's all over in Tommy Whites, walls stand, the same as they always have, solid and strong. Carol drops the ball. I run and get it. I bounce it back to her.

‘Thanks.'

‘Why do you have to sneak out?' I ask.

‘Mum says I'm not allowed to play with you. She thinks you're a troublemaker.' My idea of being like everyone else folds itself away like Nan's headscarf.

‘I still want to. It's just, she can't know about it and you can't knock up at mine.'

After tea I sneak
Bunty
out under my jumper and play two balls on the wall for ages, but Carol doesn't come out. I run all the way down to Nan's flat. Two thousand, piddle, piddle, seven hundred, piddle, piddle, and fifty-five seconds. She's on her way out when I get there, off to buy a few bits. I tell her I'll wait in the flat and have a read. Nan says that's okay. ‘I've got my key. Don't answer the door to anyone, even if it's the devil himself.'

I take off my shoes, put my feet up on her two-seater couch and open the first page. ‘The Four Marys,' who all sleep in a school that looks like a castle. There's plenty of gosh, golly, splendid. In a blizzard, they make stilts out of planks of wood to rescue a group of stranded actors in an overturned bus. The story makes me laugh.