Lily Alone (13 page)

Baxter was generally pretty mean to his sister, bossing her around and giving her a thump whenever he felt like it, but she acted like she'd lost an arm and a leg whenever they were apart. Maybe it was a twin thing and she simply couldn't help it. Pixie didn't seem to be missing Baxter at all.

‘Lily,' Bliss whispered, as we dressed the Barbies. ‘Lily, do you think Baxter's all right?'

‘No, Baxter's all wrong, we all know that,' I joked. ‘OK, OK, I'll go and fetch him back. He'll be hiding in the den. You shouldn't worry so, Bliss.'

I went to get my coat and tied Mum's leopard-print scarf over my head.

‘Can we come too?'

‘No, you stay here, Bliss, with Pixie. There's no point all of us getting soaked. Now, be good girls, won't you, and don't answer the door to anyone.'

I went out, along the balcony, creeping past Old Kath's and down the stairs. I wondered if Baxter might simply be hiding there on the stairwell, but there was no sign of him. I sighed, and trudged across the yard towards the playground.

The rain pelted down. In a few seconds Mum's headscarf was flattened against my head and my coat was drenched.

‘You idiot, Baxter,' I muttered, squinting through the solid sheet of rain.

I went stomping and splashing to the slide and hauled myself up the steps.

‘Baxter, for goodness'
sake
,' I said.

I expected him to leap out at me, but nothing happened. I got to the den at the top and scrambled inside. I peered around in the dark. I even felt the sodden logs. Baxter wasn't there.

I stood up in a panic, banging my head.

‘Baxter!'

I poked my head out again and looked all round the playground. There were the swings, swaying slightly as the rain beat down on them. There was the muddy little roundabout. There was the pole with the rubber tyre dangling. No Baxter. No Baxter anywhere.

I'd been so certain he'd come here. So where
had
he gone? Surely he hadn't really tried to go to the park all by himself ?

I didn't know what to do. My chest was so tight I couldn't breathe properly. How was I ever going to find him? I thought of that vast park stretching for miles. And now it would be a sea of mud. I pictured Baxter up to his knees, struggling, screaming for me.

‘I'm coming, Baxter!' I said, and I started running through the estate. I tried desperately hard to remember which way to go – and if I couldn't remember, how could Baxter? And what was I going to do about Bliss and Pixie? I couldn't leave them for hours while I trailed round the whole park. Bliss would get in a panic, convincing herself I wasn't coming back.

I stood still, dithering, sucking my lips into my face to stop myself crying.

A woman from another block trudged past, shopping bags dangling from her arms as she struggled to keep her umbrella over her head.

‘Nice weather for ducks, eh?' she said. ‘Well, don't just stand there, you're getting soaked. Go and take shelter!'

I suddenly wondered. Where could you keep dry on the estate? On the balconies, the stairs, down in the rubbish shed . . .

I nodded at the woman and ran back to our block of flats, right round the corner. I pushed open the wooden door to the bin area – and there was Baxter, sitting on the filthy floor amid a load of rubbish, flipping through the grubby pages of someone's girlie magazine.

‘
Baxter!
'

He jumped when I yelled at him and then grinned.

‘Hey, come and look at this funny magazine – it shows all their rude bits!'

‘Put it
down
. Come here, you bad, bad boy. Don't you
dare
go off like that again!'

‘You told me to go! You said you didn't care,' said Baxter.

‘Well, I was bad too. Of course I care. Oh, Baxter, I was so worried about you.'

I grabbed him and hugged his bony little body hard. For just a second he hugged me back, but when I tried to rub my cheek against his bristly head he wriggled and squirmed.

‘Ew! Don't kiss me!'

‘I'm
not
kissing you. No fear. Come on, let's go home. Bliss will be worrying so.'

‘Bliss always worries,' said Baxter. ‘Especially about me.'

‘Yes, so you should be kinder to your sister.
All
your sisters,' I said.

We walked back towards the stairs.

‘You don't half look funny with that headscarf on,' said Baxter.

‘Thanks a bunch,' I said, whipping it off and stuffing it in my pocket.

‘And what have you got your coat on for, it's summer?'

‘I'm trying to keep
dry
because my mad brother went out in the pouring rain and I had to go looking for him,' I said, giving him a shove.

He shoved me back, but he was grinning. We ran up the stairs and knocked at the door. We waited. Nothing happened.

‘Come on, Bliss,' I muttered, and knocked again.

The door stayed shut. I opened the letter box and peered in. I couldn't see anyone. The flat was silent.

‘Maybe they went out looking for me too?' said Baxter.

‘Bliss wouldn't do that,' I said, but my chest was tight again. What if she'd got so worried she'd taken Pixie and they'd run out after me? Where were they now? And how were any of us going to get back safe indoors without a front door key?

‘
Bliss!
' I yelled through the letter box.

No one came – but I thought I heard whispers.

‘Bliss, are you in there? Come and open the door!'

I listened. More whispering, out of sight. Then I heard Pixie squealing.

‘Pixie? Pixie,
you
come and answer the door!'

Pixie came running into view, bobbing along the hall. Bliss came rushing after her, trying to pull her back.

‘For heaven's sake, will one of you silly girls answer the door, we're soaked to the skin!' I said.

Bliss crept fearfully along the hall towards me.

‘That's it. Come on,
open
it!'

Pixie jumped up before Bliss and managed to wiggle the latch all by herself. She got the door open and Baxter and I shot inside.

‘
Thank
you! Bliss, what are you
playing
at?'

Bliss burst into tears.

‘You told me not to answer the door. You did, you did, when you went out. And then you were gone so long, and I didn't know what to do, and then you came back and knocked and I was scared because I thought you might be a robber or someone bad so I told Pixie we mustn't mustn't mustn't open it.'

‘But I called out to you!'

‘Yes, and it sounded like you, but it could have been a robber
pretending
to be you, speaking in a girl voice,' Bliss sobbed.

‘Bliss is being silly, isn't she?' said Pixie.

‘Bliss is always silly,' said Baxter.

‘Oh, Baxter, I thought you'd run away to the park without me,' said Bliss.

‘I'm not daft, it's too wet,' said Baxter.

‘Exactly!' I said. ‘Come here, let's get a towel to dry you a bit.'

I rubbed at him fiercely while he wriggled.

‘This towel smells!' he said.

He was right, all the towels were smelling a bit now. We'd badly needed clean ones even when Mum was here. We were running out of clean T-shirts and pants and socks too. We had a washing machine but it didn't work any more. Mum had been meaning to go down the Social and beg for a new one but she hated going there so she'd never quite got round to it. She went to the launderette instead, pushing great bags of washing in Pixie's buggy. I could do that, I knew exactly how to do a wash and then a dry. I'd done it heaps of times with Mum – but we didn't have any money.

‘I know what we'll do this morning. We'll do all the washing at home,' I said.

I made them collect up all the piles of dirty clothes while I ran the hot tap into the kitchen sink and chucked in lots of washing powder. When the kids saw the bubbles they wanted to do the washing with me, which slowed things down considerably. Pixie insisted on getting
in
the sink and jumped up and down on the clothes.

‘I'm stamping the dirt out!' she shouted.

I don't know about the stamping – she was certainly splashing. The kitchen floor was getting a good wash as well as the clothes. They all lost interest when it came to rinsing and then wringing out the soaking clothes. I had to struggle on by myself, water running up my sleeves right to my armpits.

I didn't know what to do with the clothes when I'd finished at last. I could hang the light things up on the line in the bathroom that Mum used for her tights and undies but the big drippy towels would break it. In the end I switched on the electric fire, arranged the chairs around it, and hung the towels from their backs.

‘This is very, very, very dangerous,' I said. ‘You mustn't go anywhere near or you'll start a fire.'

I managed to impress this on Baxter and Pixie enough for them to play at the other end of the room. Poor Bliss hid in the bedroom, calling out to us to be careful every two minutes. I turned the towels round every now and then, baking them on each side – and in an hour they were bone-dry.

‘There!' I said triumphantly, burying my face in the towels. ‘They smell lovely now, all fresh and flowery.'

‘Let's play bullfighters with them,' said Baxter, grabbing a towel and flapping it wildly. ‘Come on, Bliss, you be the bull, and I'll shove all my sticks in you.'

‘
Stop it!
not with the fire on!' I said, switching it off quickly. ‘And not with the fire off either. Stop jabbing at poor Bliss.'

‘She's not Bliss, she's the bull. Bellow a bit, Bliss, and put your hands up to look like horns,' Baxter encouraged her.

‘Maybe I should have left you out in the rain, Baxter,' I said.

I gave us lunch early, just for something to do – fish fingers and oven chips. I'd hoped it might stop raining by the afternoon, but it poured even harder. We watched television. Well, Bliss, Pixie and I watched television. Baxter acted out everything on the screen, pretending to be an antique expert and a quiz show host and a comedian and Tracy Beaker, repeating everything they said until we were all driven demented.

It actually stopped raining about five o'clock and all three kids clamoured to go out. I was desperate to go too, but I couldn't help wondering if Mum just might phone again. It would be terrible to miss her twice – and maybe she'd worry if we weren't around for a second time. So I said we couldn't go out and Baxter yelled at me and Pixie threw herself on the ground and kicked. Even Bliss pouted and acted fed up with me.

Mum didn't call, though I sat hunched up beside the phone, willing it to ring. I went from longing to hear from her to hating her for not even bothering to try to talk to us again. I hated Baxter and Bliss and Pixie too, crying and moaning and complaining all the time.

I barricaded myself in Mum's bedroom with my drawing book and invented a pure white, utterly sound-proof bedroom for myself. It had white walls and white carpet so soft it was like fur. I had white satin sheets and a white silk nightie with white lace. I sat on a white velvet stool in front of the glittering Venetian glass mirror of my dressing table and brushed my hair with an ivory-backed brush, and then I lay down in my soft bed in utter silence. I lived all alone. I had no mother, no brother, no sisters.

I muttered to myself as I drew, even though I could hear Baxter bashing and Bliss begging and Pixie yelling her head off. But then Bliss started crying too, high-pitched and panicking, and I couldn't blot them out any more.

‘What
is
it?' I said, stamping to the door and flinging it open.

Bliss covered her face and made frantic gulping sounds, trying to stop crying. I looked at Baxter, who was red in the face.

‘What have you done to her?' I demanded.

‘I haven't done anything!'

‘Yes, you jolly well have!'

‘I haven't even touched her,' said Baxter, widening his eyes and jutting his chin, acting innocence.

‘Bliss, what did he say?' I asked.

Bliss shook her head. She'd never ever tell tales on Baxter, no matter what he did. Luckily Pixie blabbed like anything. She stopped her own howling to gasp, ‘He said you'd run away!' and then carried on yelling.

‘Stop that silly noise! You're giving us all a headache. What's this rubbish about, Baxter? Of course I haven't run away, silly. It was
you
who did that, not me.'

‘Yeah, but I said you
could
run away and not come back, like Mum. I said you were maybe running away right that minute because we couldn't get in the bedroom door and you were ever so quiet and wouldn't answer us. I said you might have done a runner out the window.'

‘Baxter, we're on the first floor! If I jumped out the window I'd fall to my death!'

‘
I
know that, but I can't help it if Bliss is silly enough to believe it,' said Baxter.

‘Oh, you're so horrible to poor Bliss. Come here, darling!' I cradled Bliss in my arms. Her eyes were screwed shut but tears still seeped down her cheeks and her nose was running too. ‘Look at the state of you! Baxter, don't you feel sorry?'

‘No, she's silly,' said Baxter.

‘
I'm
not silly,' said Pixie, bouncing up, suddenly bored with crying.

They chased each other all round the flat, squealing, while I sat Bliss on the edge of Mum's bed and rocked her in my arms until she stopped gasping and heaving.