Disappearing Home (11 page)

When Nan gets back she makes something to eat. I watch her rub Stork all over a roasting dish then sprinkle it with sugar. She cracks three eggs in a white bowl with a thick blue stripe around it, shows me how to beat them with a wooden spoon. She butters
half a loaf of bread and cuts each slice in half, arranging them on top of one another in the dish. She pours over the eggs and sprinkles two handfuls of sultanas across the top, puts it all in the oven to bake.

She asks me about the comic and I tell her about the Four Marys and their adventures.

‘Would you say it was easy to learn how to read?' she asks.

‘Dead easy. Why?'

‘Nothing,' she says.

‘Tell me.'

‘You'll laugh.'

‘I won't laugh.'

‘Promise?'

‘Promise.'

‘I've decided to learn. I've got a teacher coming this afternoon. Lily got her from the community centre.'

‘Good for you, Nan.'

‘You don't think it's stupid?'

‘No. I think it's great.'

The smell from her kitchen makes me feel hungry. Nan brings in the piping hot pudding on two plates, and puts them on the table. She smiles. ‘Dig in. Tell me what you think.'

I don't need to say a word. In a few minutes, the plate is scraped clean. After the dishes are washed, Nan has her visitor. The teacher is a lady. She sits up at the table, a black case by her side. She tells Nan her name is Mrs Womack. ‘This is my granddaughter, Robyn,' Nan says.

Mrs Womack nods at me, pushes her cat glasses up high so her eyebrows disappear.

I walk over to the table and see a pile of Janet and John books. Mrs Womack tells Nan to sit next to her and opens a book at the
first page. She shows Nan how to sound out the words. ‘C-a-t, cat. Point to the word and say it after me: c-a-t, cat.'

Nan looks over to where I'm sitting, sends me away with her eyes. I pick up my
Bunty
and go to her room. After what seems like ages, I hear raised voices then the front door slams. Nan comes into her bedroom.

‘She'll never get in here again. I won't be called stupid in my own home. All I could see was
c,
a half-sucked Polo mint,
a,
a head with hair flicked out at the neck, and
t,
an upside-down walking stick. I'm too old for all this.'

‘Do you want me to teach you, Nan?'

‘No thanks, love. I've been put off the idea altogether. From now on, I'll listen to you read stories.'

Nan goes into her kitchen to make a cup of tea. I can't see her face, but I can hear her banging doors and rattling drawers. ‘I never liked teacher-types,' she says. ‘Sticking their noses in where they don't belong. They get angry too easy, wanting you to get it right first time.' She's back in the living room.

‘Can't you give her another chance, Nan? Or ask for somebody else?'

‘You only get one chance to insult me, then that's your lot. Saying I was making mistakes. The only mistake I made was letting her in. And the stuff she brought me, some skinny cow called Janet. I can't see Janet and John having a barney over what time he got in from the pub, or what she threw at him as he came through the door. She couldn't throw a dirty look without her eyeballs rolling out. If that's what they're getting kids to read in school, you can keep it. When I was a kid, education took place in your own back yard. Knowing how to wash, cook, clean, have children and die.'

Back in the kitchen, she bangs stuff around. Finally she comes into the living room carrying her tea, and sits down. ‘If I had my
time over again, I'd do what Molly Tobin did. If you lived your life ten times over, you'd never find a kinder woman than Molly Tobin. She had sense enough to start a new life, across the water in the Isle of Man.'

She points her stick at me. ‘That's what you'll do if you've got any sense. There's nothing here for a young girl. As long as you keep away from men, you'll have choices. Don't make the mistake your mother made.'

On the other side of her front door I breathe out, look back in through the letterbox. She's swearing now. Nan never swears. She won't learn how to read now and all because Mrs Womack was nasty. I shouldn't have said it was easy to learn to read. It's only easy if you get a good teacher.

T
he talk in school is all about Colomendy. Gavin Rossiter said his big brother went last year and it's haunted. Angela says if she's put on the bottom bunk under Trisha Fisher, she'll die, because Trisha Fisher pees the bed.

Before home time, we have an assembly to say thank you to God for our day. The whole school sits in silence, waiting for the squeak, squeak of Mr Merryville's shoes. Today, he's wearing a brown suit that shines when he walks in the light. He wears a brown tie, a yellow shirt and brown shoes. The spit that coats his lips has spread until it covers almost his entire mouth. I can't look. I rest my eyes on the statue of Our Lady Immaculate.

Mr Thorpe and the other teachers are positioned at the side of us, there to police any foolish fidgets.

We put our hands together and make the sign of the cross:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is a commotion at the back of the hall and everybody turns around. A man is standing there, swaying backwards and
forwards, eyes half-shut. I kneel up to get a better look and see that it is my dad. I hear somebody say,
That's Robyn Mason's dad.
I sit back down, wanting to flatten my body inside the grain on the polished floor.

Dad shouts across the hall to Mr Merryville.

‘Eh, fucking Merrylegs, get over here.'

Everybody falls about laughing.

My hands start to shake.

I turn around and catch Dad grinning at his audience. He has a dark patch in the centre of his faded Levi's.

Mr Merryville and the teachers stare, mouths open.

Dad tries again. ‘Eh, Merrylegs.'

Everyone laughs.

‘You fuckin' deaf or what?'

Mr Merryville marches to the back of the hall and frogmarches my dad into his office. All the kids fall about laughing.

Mr Thorpe takes over the prayers; they end fast, with everyone being ushered safely back to class.

In my classroom, I sink low into the chair, eyes in line with the desk. Angela whispers to Kevin,
Ugly mug's dad's an alky who pisses his kecks.

I don't look up until the bell rings. Mr Merryville comes into the room and speaks to Mr Thorpe.

‘Right, time to get your coats.'

I stand.

Mr Thorpe says, ‘Robyn, a word.'

I wait by his desk until the room is empty.

‘Was that man your father?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I'm sorry, Robyn, you won't be coming to Colomendy after all. Your father just took the deposit back off Mr Merryville.'

The way he looks at me makes me feel small, like a part of me has fallen away and been scattered around the whole school. Now Mr Thorpe knows I'm different to the other kids and so does everybody else.

I get home and Mum says she didn't know anything about him going up to the school to get the money back. ‘He's probably pissing it up the wall in the Stanley.'

Dad gets home late. He's too drunk to stand up. He falls over the couch and bangs his head on the fireplace. Mum tells me to leave him there. We close the door and go to bed.

I was pleased when I told her about him coming to the school and she made her eyes small. She was on my side and I didn't want that to change. He'd embarrassed me in school and I wanted her to punish him so he'd never do that again.

Next morning when I get up, I find Dad asleep on the living-room floor. I knock at Mum's bedroom door. No answer. I open the door, but she's not there. I open her wardrobe and her clothes are gone. I don't go to school; instead I leg it down to my nan's.

She has her coat and scarf on when I get there, ready to go out. ‘No school?'

‘No,' I lie. ‘We're off today.'

Nan is going to the shops. She tells me I can come with her if I want. Nan orders loads of stuff. Eggs, bread, milk, cheese, ginger biscuits, sugar. She puts a two pence coin on the counter. The man behind the counter says, ‘
Not e-nuff, not e-nuff.'

‘Robbing sods, these Pakistans,' Nan says. ‘This decimal business means they can charge whatever they like.'

A long queue forms behind Nan.

I try to figure out what to do next. If I tell Nan about Mum she'll worry. If I don't tell Nan, I'll worry. If I go home and she's
not back I'll be stuck with Dad. The safest bet is to stay here and say nothing.

Nan throws more coins on the counter.

Somebody shouts from behind. ‘Let the woman off, you robbing Paki bastard. She's a fucking pensioner.'

Then somebody else shouts, ‘Yeah, isn't it enough that you've taken our jobs?'

The man behind the counter says nothing.

Nan turns around. ‘I'm no charity case. I can pay for my own messages, thanks very much.' She bags her shopping and storms out of the shop.

When we get back, I can hear the kids in the playground behind her back wall. I miss school. The lining up, the milk, the dinners, running around on the windy playground. It's the only place I know what's going to happen next. Dad coming in messed that up. But there's no more money in school. No reason that I can think of for him to come up again.

At twelve o'clock Nan gets changed into her best cream blouse. She pins a cameo brooch to her collar, brushes her hair, puts on her camel coat. ‘I'm going to the club for a bit of dinner.'

‘The club?'

‘The League of Welldoers around the corner.'

‘I didn't know you had a club.'

‘Twelve until two. I've made you a jam sandwich, it's in the kitchen.'

I follow her into the hall.

‘Lock this after me. Don't let anyone in, even if it's the devil himself. I'll shout through the letterbox so you'll know it's me.'

I lean over the kitchen sink and eat my sandwich waiting for Nan. The flat seems creepy without her and I can hear all sorts of
strange noises. A delivery van pulls up opposite, at St Sylvester's Club. Two men get out wearing brown leathery aprons. They sit down on the kerb and have a smoke and a chat. After a few minutes, the rumble and clink of crates and barrels carted and rolled into the cellar. When they've finished, the back doors of the van are locked and they drive off.

I spot him as he turns the corner. He's wearing the same faded blue jeans and black polo neck that he wore this morning. He's smoking a cigarette. I run from the kitchen and close all of the doors. I sit on the settee, pull my knees up under my chin. The block door bangs.

He uses the knocker first.

Polite little tap, tap, taps.

Silence.

Then his fist.

The letterbox squeaks. ‘Open the door, Babs. I know you're in there.'

Fists again.

The block door slams.

I stay where I am in case he's looking in through the kitchen window. I remember: he can't look through the back window. Lily upstairs has the key.

Much later, I hear a gentle knock. Nan's voice through the letterbox. ‘Robyn, it's me love. Open the door.'

I race to the door. Nan steps in and I slam it shut behind her. Fasten the chain, lock, bolt.

Nan looks shocked. ‘Now then, what's all this? That teacher hasn't been trying to get back in, has she?'

I tell her everything. About Dad coming to the school for the money, about him coming in drunk and about Mum gone, but I don't tell her about him hitting Mum.

‘He had no right to go up to the school and take that money. No right at all, that conniving lazy good-for-nothing.' She picks up her purse. ‘How much was the deposit?'

‘No. Nan, I don't want to go, honest.'

‘You sure? That's no problem. I'll give it. I won a bit on the horses.'

‘I'm sure. I was dreading it, to be honest.'

‘Don't you worry about your mother, she'll be back.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Mark my words; she'll be back all right. You want to stay here tonight?'

‘Dunno. What if Mum's back? She won't know where I am.'

‘Go to Tommy Whites and see. If she's not in, you're welcome to stay here tonight.'

‘Thanks, Nan. I will.'

‘If I don't see you later, I'll know she's home.'

‘But how has he found out where you live?'

‘I'm not bothered about that. There's only one way he'll get in here, over my dead body.'

When I get to my wall, a group of kids kneel down facing it. I walk over to take a look. They poke at something with a long thin stick, toss it up in the air, it lands in the gutter. It is a mouse. A stiff, brown, long-tailed mouse; it has pretty ears, round and curvy. So small, I think it's a girl mouse. It moves like a stone when they poke it, flies play leap frog on it. Bits of fur are missing and it's all scabbed up. The kids take turns to flick it against the wall, to see who can get it the highest.

When I get in Mr Wainwright is sitting on our settee. At first I think he's told my dad I haven't been to school. There is no sign of my mum. Dad sits in his chair, reading the paper. Sleeves rolled up past his elbows.

Mr Wainwright nods at me then leans in towards Dad. His mouth is open, but he doesn't say anything for a while. Dad acts like Mr Wainwright isn't there, newspaper up over his face.

Finally Mr Wainwright says in a low voice, ‘Can I talk with Robyn, please?'

Dad rattles the paper. ‘There she is,' he answers, without looking up.

Mr Wainwright pulls away; the back of his head touches the wall. ‘Yes, of course, exactly, there she is.'

Then silence again. Mr Wainwright looks at the floor, rubs a thumb knuckle across his bottom teeth.

Dad turns the page, gives him a bad look, shakes his head.