Indigo Blue (13 page)

‘I know, I know,’ Mum says. ‘Next time, I will. Promise.’

Ian laughs. ‘I know,’ he grins. ‘Heard it all before. I’m working the early shift on Saturday too.’

Misti and I go to Jane’s on Saturday, and Jane shows us how to make gingerbread. Misti makes gingerbread blobs and gingerbread lumps, and I use a small, sharp knife to cut out a wobbly gingerbread man specially for Mum. We bake them in Jane’s posh oven, watching through the smoked-glass door till they’re just the right shade of golden brown.

We watch cartoons on Jane’s TV while the cookies cool, then tear open the pack of coloured icing tubes she’s bought to decorate them. I use white icing to pipe collar, cuffs and buttons on my beautiful, wobbly gingerbread man. I use green for his eyes, red for his lips, blue for his belt and shoes. Misti ices her cookies with a frenzy of splotches and swirls, and has to be swabbed down with a warm flannel.

‘OK, girls,’ Jane announces after another dose of cartoons. ‘Time to go shopping. Time to meet Anna!’

The plan is to go get Jane’s shopping and see Mum in action at the checkout, then have lunch at the supermarket cafe.

We pack the cookies into a tin, strap Misti into the pushchair and set off.

Jane gets a different kind of shopping from us. She buys wine and profiteroles and ciabatta bread and lots of ready-cooked meals from the freezer cabinet. At 2.25 exactly, we line up at Mum’s checkout.

‘Terrible weather for June,’ Mum says as she packs groceries for the woman ahead of us. ‘Rain again. Isn’t it dreadful? Ooh, sweet potatoes – have you tried them before? How do you cook them?’

She winks at us, handing Jane a plastic sign that says
This Till is Now Closed
.

She swishes everything past the scanner neatly, so that the bar codes bleep and the prices flash up. Then she swipes Jane’s credit card through the till, waits for the signature and helps us pack up the shopping.

‘Meet you in the cafe, Anna,’ Jane says, steering us away. ‘I’ll just have a coffee, then I have to dash – Bob and I are shopping for a sofa this afternoon.’

‘Sure – won’t be five minutes,’ Mum says. ‘I’ll just cash up. I’ve got my shopping already, I just need to pick it up from the office.’

We order sausage, chips and beans, with strawberry tarts for pudding, and ice-cold milk in big paper cups. Jane pays for everything on her card while I grab cutlery, salt and pepper, tomato sauce.

‘Done,’ sighs Mum, slipping into the seat opposite Jane. She dumps three bags of groceries and a vast bag of nappies on to the floor. Not the cheap brand we usually get, I notice. The biggest and best.

Another bag is topped with a box of warm jam doughnuts. A third holds lemonade, garlic bread, bubble bath, a teen mag for me. Pay-day shopping.

‘Boy, did that shift go on forever,’ Mum says. ‘Thank you, Jane, for minding the girls. For everything. You’re the best friend ever.’

‘Hey, I thought that was
me,’
Ian Turner says, stopping beside our table, a laden tray balancing dangerously in the air. ‘Shove up, Indie.’

Jane raises her eyebrows and Mum goes slightly pink. ‘You know Ian, don’t you, Jane? I asked him to join us,’ she says.

‘Hi there,’ Jane says. ‘Heard lots about you.’

Ian pulls a terrified face and sits down between me and Misti. Straight away, he tries to nick her sausage. She squeals with delight, and lets Ian feed her forkfuls of banger. In return, she feeds him soggy, sauce-drenched chips.

‘Well, anyway, Anna, no hassles about this morning,’ Jane says. ‘Any time.’ She drains her coffee.

‘Gotta go now,’ she grins, grabbing her bag and car keys. ‘I have a date with a big, squashy sofa and a big, handsome man.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ Ian says.

‘Expensive,’ Jane corrects him. ‘We’re buying a new suite. Call me, Anna.’

‘I will,’ Mum promises, and we wave till Jane’s out of sight.

Ian and Mum tuck into fish ‘n’ chips, then big slabs of chocolate gateau.

‘I’ll never eat all this, Ian,’ Mum protests, but she does all the same. Ian orders two more cappuccinos.

‘We’re celebrating,’ he says. ‘Anna’s first pay packet at the supermarket. A brilliant start to the job, so I’ve been told.’

‘We’ve got doughnuts for tea,’ I say. ‘And lemonade.’

‘Have we?’

Ian looks so smiley, it seems mean not to ask him down to share it.

‘After all, you did tell me about the job,’ Mum says.

‘But
you
got it,’ he points out. ‘You’ve stuck with it.’ He raises his mug in the air.

‘To Anna,’ he toasts. ‘The cutest checkout girl ever to live at 33 Hartington Drive.’

‘The
only
checkout girl ever to live…’ Mum starts to correct him, but suddenly her voice trails away and her face is white, frozen, still.

‘Anna?’ Ian nudges her. ‘What’s up? You OK?’

But still she stares into the distance, her eyes wide, her coffee mug stranded halfway to her mouth.

‘Mum?’

She drops the mug suddenly, spilling a last trickle of cappuccino over the table top. Grabbing a handful of napkins, she mops at the spill, fingers trembling.

‘Sorry – oh, sorry, I just thought – but no, it can’t have been. It can’t. It’s OK, really. I’m sorry.’

I’m on my feet, looking into the distance too, but there’s nobody there. I know who I’m looking for, though. Max. He wouldn’t come here. Would he?

Ian pushes the loaded trolley while Mum steers the buggy.

‘Hang on,’ Ian tells us, just outside the office near the door. ‘Left my jacket.’

He reappears a minute later with the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen. Red roses, pink carnations, clouds of starry white flowers on spider-thin stems.

‘For my three favourite girls,’ he tells us, bowing low, but he hands the bouquet to Mum alone.

‘Ian, you shouldn’t have…’

‘They were reduced,’ he says. ‘Past their sell-by date.’

‘And I’m the queen of China,’ Mum says.

‘At your service, Your Majesty,’ Ian says. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

Mum doesn’t argue about the lift this time. She lets Ian load the bags of shopping into the boot of his red Fiat. He unlocks the doors and we pile inside, stretching out on the plush seats. I pull Misti on to my lap and wrap the seat belt round the two of us.

The car floods with music as we ride home through the Saturday streets. Ian says he’ll order in a pizza if we promise to bring up our box of doughnuts and the bottle of lemonade. He stops by the video shop and lets us choose a video each. Mum picks
Chocolat
and I pick
Oliver!
and Misti takes ages to decide between
Cinderella
and
The Lion King,
but Ian doesn’t get impatient.

‘We’ll have
The Lion King
next week,’ he promises.

Mum catches his eye and whispers, ‘Thank you,’ as he checks out the videos. It feels like a private moment. It feels like I shouldn’t be watching.

Only once, as we drive home laughing through the drizzly afternoon, do I think I see a blue van following behind, at a distance. But I know I’m just imagining things. I know I am.

After we unload the shopping, Mum and Ian decide they need more coffee, so Ian comes in and puts the kettle on. There’s no vase for the flowers, so we prop them up in a saucepan in the centre of the table. Ian pulls out two pink carnations and sticks one behind Misti’s ear, one behind mine.

‘So. Anything you don’t like on your pizza?’ Ian asks. ‘Pineapple? Salami? Extra onion?’

‘No, we like everything,’ Mum says happily. ‘Don’t we?’

‘Jam,’ says Misti, and wonders why we all start laughing.

‘Chocolate spread,’ I say. ‘Vanilla ice cream.’

‘Toothpaste,’ Mum suggests. ‘Pink carnations.’

‘You’ll be sorry you said that,’ Ian grins, but doesn’t look sorry, not a bit.

Ian says he’s off to tidy up the flat a bit, and tells us to come up any time, half four, five-ish, whenever we want. We can watch Misti’s video first and then order in the pizza.

He sticks his head back round the door. ‘Don’t forget the doughnuts!’

‘If they
last
till then,’ I shout.

The door slams shut. Mum starts putting away the shopping, stacking the tins neatly in the cupboard, the pasta high on the shelf. I remember the gingerbread cookies in their tin under the buggy. I fish them out, prise the lid off the tin.

‘Guess what we made at Jane’s?’ I say, just as the doorbell rings. I ditch the cookie tin and go to the door.

‘What’s he forgotten
now?’
Mum calls out.

I open the door wide.

‘Hi, Indie.’

It’s Max.

He stands on the doorstep, smiling, effortlessly handsome in clean jeans and a tight black T-shirt.

‘Hi,’ I say listlessly. ‘Hi, Max.’

Mum drifts over to the door, a hand over her mouth.

‘Max.’

‘Anna. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

Mum stands back and he strides in, looking around, wrinkling up his nose a bit at the damp smell that we’ve all got so good at ignoring.

‘Nice place,’ he says, not meaning it.

Max sits at the table and Mum makes yet more coffee.

I stand with my back against the kitchen cupboard, staying close to Mum, watching Max from a distance. Misti, wide-eyed and chewing at her pink bunny, clings to my leg.

‘So. Haven’t heard from you for a while, Anna. You stopped calling.’

‘I thought it was for the best,’ Mum says.

‘Did you?’ asks Max. ‘I wonder. Best for who?’

‘Best for everyone,’ Mum says, but her voice wobbles slightly. She slumps down into the chair opposite Max, staring at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a truck.

‘You’re doing well for yourself, I hear,’ Max says. ‘Job, flat, boyfriend.’

‘No boyfriend,’ Mum says quickly. ‘Who told you that? No boyfriend.’

‘No? I’m glad they were wrong about that, at least,’ Max says. ‘That way I can kid myself you’re still missing me, even just a bit. How about you, Indie? Misti? Have you missed me?’

He stretches out an arm and Mum nods at us to come forward. I have to drag Misti. Max pulls us into a quick bear hug, then releases us. It feels awkward, wrong.

‘That’s my girls,’ Max says. ‘The house is so quiet without you. I messed up, Anna. How long are you going to go on punishing me?’

‘I – I’m not,’ Mum says, startled.

‘It feels like it,’ Max tells her. ‘I got the message, and I’ve changed, really I have. I suppose I didn’t know what I was losing till it was too late. Is it too late? Anna?’

‘I don’t know.’

There’s a long silence. Max stares into his coffee mug, frowning.

‘Can you give me another chance? Can we at least talk about this? For the kids’ sake, even? Misti deserves to know who her dad is.’

Mum bites her lip. Misti crawls on to her lap, pulling at her hair, her face.

‘I
love
you,’ Max says. ‘I love you all.’

Mum nods.

‘Are you really going to throw all this away?’ Max demands. ‘Everything we had together? Without giving me a chance to make amends?’

A tear slides down Mum’s pale cheek.

I’m trembling, sick with anger and fear and disgust.

‘So,’ says Max, suddenly brisk again. ‘Who are the flowers from?’

‘What? Oh, the flowers,’ Mum says. ‘They’re – not mine. Not ours. Are they, Indie? They belong to the man upstairs. He gave us a lift home today, and he must have left the flowers by mistake…’

Mum’s babbling, and Max sits back looking amused.

‘So hadn’t you better give them back?’ Max asks. ‘Tell him they’re not wanted?’

‘Yes, yes, I will…’

Mum lifts up the flowers, letting them drip all over the table.

‘Indie, could you…?’ she pushes them into my arms and I breathe in the sweet, heady smell. It’s almost overwhelming.

Mum picks the carnation out from behind my ear and tries to hide it in her hand. Misti’s has already disappeared.

‘Tell Mr Turner thank you for the lift. Tell him we picked up his flowers by mistake…’

Behind Max’s back, I try to mime eating pizza. ‘What about the videos?’ I say in a silent whisper. ‘The pizza?’

‘Not tonight,’ Mum says, without making a sound. ‘Not tonight.’

I run outside and up the big steps to the front door. I lean on Ian’s doorbell till I hear his footsteps on the big, creaky stairs.

The door opens.

‘Right,’ says Ian. ‘You’re early. Got the doughnuts?’

Then he sees the flowers.

‘What’s up, Indie? What’s wrong?’

‘Max is here,’ I say. ‘Max is Mum’s boyfriend. Well, he
was
. He’s Misti’s dad.’

‘So?’

‘Well, he thinks you left the flowers at our house by mistake.’

I can’t bring myself to say that he thinks that because it’s what Mum told him.

‘Does he now?’

‘Mmmm. And Mum says we can’t come up for pizza tonight, or videos. She’s very, very sorry.’

‘Right,’ says Ian. ‘Well, so am I. But another night, hey? No harm done.’

‘No.’

He looks at me, disappointed but still smiling, a stripy apron tied round him, a duster in his hand.

He doesn’t know, he hasn’t got a clue.