Indigo Blue (3 page)

‘Yeah, right. Look, Indie, if you don’t want to be my friend, just say so…’

Great. How did we get to this, on top of everything else? Just because I can’t go to hers for tea.

We mooch up to the counter for dishes of apple pie and lumpy custard. I slump back into my seat.

‘I am your friend. Honest. And I’d love to come to tea, really I would, only I just can’t, not tonight.’

‘Why not?’

I push my dish away and let out a long, raggedy sigh. I can see this conversation going round and round in circles for hours, days, weeks even. Jo is not going to let go.

Across the table, Aisha Patel is giving me a long, sad-eyed look too, which is the last thing I need.

I can just imagine their faces if I tell them what’s really going on. Even the edited highlights don’t bear thinking about. On the other hand, it’s not the sort of thing you can hide for long…

‘I think we’re moving house,’ I say.

There’s a silence. Aisha’s eyes go all huge and anxious. Jo, by contrast, is frowning.

‘Moving?’ she says. ‘You can’t be. You’ve only been there a couple of years. Hasn’t Max just put in a new kitchen? It’s dead nice, your house. Anyway, you can’t be moving, not today. You never even mentioned it before.’

‘It was sort of a last-minute decision.’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘Honest, Jo. I have to wait for Mum after school. She said. So I can’t come over to yours, not tonight.’

‘Fine,’ says Jo. ‘Suit yourself.’

More silence.

Aisha makes an attempt to lighten the mood. ‘Where are you moving to?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ chips in Jo. ‘Where are you moving to?’

How d’you answer that one?

‘I don’t know,’ I admit at last.

The last bell goes on possibly my worst ever day at school since the time in Year Two I was sick all over myself at the dinner table and had to lie down in the office, wearing a nylon stripy T-shirt and an enormous pair of grey flannel boys’ shorts from around about the time of Noah’s Ark.

No, seriously, this is worse.

On the day I need her to be fun and easy and no questions asked, Jo has been anxious, pitying, paranoid, sulky and downright nosey. And now she thinks I’m telling her lies and she’s walking home with Aisha Patel.

I sit on the wall and watch the kids scatter, mums and snotty baby brothers and sisters in tow. The playground’s quiet now, except for some Year Three lads from down the road kicking a ball around in the corner.

I look at my watch. Mum’s only ten minutes late, so I don’t have to worry or anything. She’s probably been dead busy. She’ll be here pretty soon and it’ll all get sorted – she’ll explain about this morning, make everything OK.

Maybe I got it wrong, the moving stuff. Maybe she and Max have made it up, and he’ll trundle up in his flash blue builder’s van and we’ll all head off to get a big chip supper and maybe go watch a film, the way we used to before Misti was born.

We were happy then.

And it’s not like things are awful or anything now, not all the time anyway. Like Jo said, Max is always fixing up the house. He put in this new kitchen before Christmas, and last year he made a patio and bought a barbecue for the back garden. Mum planted a whole load of flowers and it looked so cool, like something off one of those garden programmes.

Moving is definitely a bad idea. In some ways.

If it stops the rows, though, that has to be good. Did they row right back at the start, before Misti was born? I can’t remember for sure, but I know that things have been worse this last year or two. It’s Mum’s fault, a lot of it – that’s what she says, anyhow.

I know she’s forgetful, because she sometimes forgets to put sugar in Max’s tea or makes lentil soup when she knows Max needs a proper dinner after a hard day’s work. Sometimes, she even forgets to keep the dinner hot when he comes home late, or worse, she lets it burn.

That makes Max mad, like when Misti has left her toys strewn about in the living room, or when she’s been messing with the stuff in the bathroom and tearing up loo roll or making bubbles to wash her doll in the sink. It’s Mum’s fault that Max gets angry, because sometimes she forgets to check that everything is OK.

Mum’s clumsy too – maybe it goes with being forgetful. She walked into a door once, she said, and she’s slipped over on the ice a couple of times and got bruised pretty badly. She trips over Misti sometimes, or forgets about the dodgy door on the high kitchen cupboard and grazes her face.

‘Oh, Indie,’ she says, whenever that happens. ‘What am I like? I could fall off my own two feet! I must be the clumsiest person ever. Hopeless!’ And she laughs and bites her lip and takes the concealer out of her bag to hide the bruise on her cheek, the black eye, the cut lip.

Mum should be more careful. She should remember to keep the house tidy, keep Misti quiet, make the kind of food Max likes. If she did all that, and took care not to be clumsy too, then maybe the rows would ease up.

Sometimes, though, when Mum and Max argue and shout and scream, I wonder if it’s anything to do with being forgetful and clumsy. I wonder if maybe, sometimes, it might just be about Max.

‘Everything OK, Indigo?’

Everything is far from OK when Miss McDougall is creeping up behind me, looking at me all worried and faintly disapproving.

‘Fine, Miss,’ I say brightly.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’

‘My mum, Miss.’

Miss McDougall frowns at her watch. ‘She seems rather late. Would you like me to call home for you?’

‘No, Miss. Thank you, Miss, but she’s not at home. She said she might be late. Everything’s fine, Miss, really.’

‘Very well, Indigo, but if there’s a problem… look, I’ll just give you some money for the phone. Or for bus fare, just in case.’

‘Thanks, Miss.’

I put the coins in my pocket ready to give back to her tomorrow morning. We don’t take handouts, Mum’s always made that clear, but Miss McDougall is only trying to be kind.

I watch her big tweedy figure trail across the playground into the staff car-parking area. She gives me a wave as she vrooms away.

Miss McDougall is strict, but she means well. It’s just that she’s not the kind of teacher you can really talk to.

Jo’s magazines are always advising you to talk things through with a trusted adult. The problem is, I don’t trust that many adults. Maybe Gran, but she’s miles away, in Wales.

And maybe Mrs Keenan, who was my teacher in Reception. She was so kind and patient and smiley, and she seemed to like everybody for what they were, no matter what. Sometimes, when I got to hold her hand walking up and down to the gym hall or the lunch room or the music hut, she’d kind of squeeze my fingers gently in hers and make me feel all warm and safe and good. I thought it was a secret sign between the two of us, something special. It was years before I realized she did the same thing to everyone.

Mrs Keenan still smiles at me if we pass in the corridor or the playground, but she’s squeezed the hands of hundreds of Reception kids since me. She probably wouldn’t even remember my name.

The playground is empty now. The Year Three kids must have headed off while I was dreaming. It’s cold, but at least it’s not raining. And Mum is very late.

Maybe I got it all wrong this morning, about waiting at the school. Maybe I should just go home like I do every other day.

I won’t, though, I know.

I take out my maths book and doodle my way through a page of homework. It’s probably mostly wrong, but then hey, what’s new about that?

I’m starving. I fish around in my school bag and find Billy’s Mars bar from this morning. I scoff it in three bites, making each mouthful last for the count of a hundred.

Then I take some time picturing our new house. It’s a tiny cottage with roses round the door, I decide, just big enough for the three of us. Or a cool flat with loads of chrome and leather and soft sheepskin rugs on pale, sanded floorboards. Why not?

I’m all out of daydreams by the time Mum arrives. I’m cold, hungry and scared, but Mum looks so tired and sad that I’m not about to complain. Misti’s asleep in the pushchair, her face stained with dirt and tears, and I know that if my day’s been bad, theirs has been way beyond.

‘Come on, Indie,’ Mum says.

I stand up, dragging my rucksack on, pulling the blue fleece hat down over my ears. We trail along in silence, because there isn’t a lot to say – it’s happened, it’s awful, and words won’t change any of it.

Besides, Mum’s biting her lip in an awful, trembly kind of way that makes me think she’s going to cry if I say anything, anything at all.

We are not heading for home. We walk along Calder’s Lane and down behind the factory and then we cut across a big, sprawling estate where some of the houses have boarded-up windows and graffiti on the walls.

I daren’t ask how far it is, but it’s getting dark now, and I haven’t a clue where we are. Miles and miles from school, anyway. Miles and miles from Max.

We pass a row of shops, mostly shut except for a bright, noisy chippy that smells so good my stomach aches with hunger.

Mum pauses on the corner, looking back towards the lights, the smell of hot fat and sharp vinegar. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asks, frowning. ‘Will we get some chips for tea?’

So I go inside and queue for ages and come out with two steaming packages of fish ‘n’ chips. We stash them in the tray under Misti’s buggy and on we go again, drawing deep breaths of the hot, chippy aroma.

‘So,’ Mum says as we turn at last into a wide, gloomy street, ‘I hope you’re going to like it. The house is quite big and the rent was very reasonable… the landlady lives on the ground floor and the rest of the house is divided into flats and rented out. It needs some work, but we can fix it up, can’t we?’

‘Sure.’

My heart sinks as we walk along Hartington Drive. The houses are big and they must have been posh once, like about a million years ago. Not now.

Number 33 looks like something out of
The Addams Family
. It’s tall and crumbly and ancient, with peeling paint on the window frames and dead shrubs in the flower beds. A red Fiat is parked on the drive in front, two mountain bikes are rusting quietly against the wall and the wheelie bins have fallen over by the gate, spilling rubbish on to the pavement.

‘This is it, then,’ Mum says.

A yellowed curtain twitches and the front door creaks open slowly. A tall, skinny, ancient woman appears on the step and looks down at us like we’re something you’d wipe off your shoe.

‘Everything settled?’ she asks in a tight, disapproving voice. ‘I noticed you moving your things earlier. I must say I didn’t think you’d be in quite so quickly. Do you have everything you need?’

‘Oh, yes, Mrs Green. We’ll soon get everything nice and cosy, don’t worry. This is just the place we were looking for.’

Mrs Green looks sceptical. Her eyes skim over Mum’s face, lingering on the vivid bruises that even a heavy layer of make-up can’t disguise. She purses her lips.

Mum’s beautiful blonde hair is all scraped back hastily into a wispy plait, her blue cord coat has frayed wrists and the hem dips slightly over her navy tie-dyed skirt. Her blue suede boots have a nasty greyish stain all down one side that may or may not have something to do with Misti. Mrs Green is clearly unimpressed.

Misti wakes up and starts to squirm.

‘That child needs a bath, a hot meal and an early night,’ Mrs Green says curtly. ‘You’re paid up till the end of the month, but the rent is due again on the first. Don’t forget, now.’

‘We won’t, Mrs Green.’

She shuts the door firmly, leaving us stranded on the gravel, Misti snivelling now, me open-mouthed.

‘What a cow!’ I breathe. ‘What a horrible, nasty, mean-minded old bat!’

‘That’s our landlady,’ Mum says mildly. ‘We’ll have to get used to her.’

I’m freezing.

Misti has stolen most of the duvet and bundled the rest of it over my head. I’m all stuffy and muffled but my bum, legs and toes feel like they’re made out of ice. I wriggle and squirm and tug the duvet down, and it’s much warmer. Kind of warm and damp.

There’s a huge, soggy puddle of sheet all round Misti’s curled-up body. Warm, wet and niffy. Mum must have forgotten to change her nappy last night, because she’s leaked all over the bed.