Lola Rose (7 page)

I lurked in a far corner for ages and ages. I thought Mum and Kendall would never come. When they eventually came through they were hand in hand, and Kendall was bright pink in the face and beaming.

‘Lola Rose, where did you
get
to?' Mum said.

‘You were so
silly
, Jayni – sorry, Lola Rose. This man came and told me all about the sharks. There's this big big
big
one called George. He's the best. George can see ten times better than me and he smells heaps better too.'

‘Yeah, they can smell one drop of blood
miles
away when they're in the ocean,' said Mum, snapping her teeth in a shark imitation.

‘Shut up, Mum.'

‘You're not really scared, are you, you big softie? The sharks in these tanks don't eat people. They get fed like fish
paella
, octopus and squid and stuff. We'll have to come back and see them fed, won't we, Kendall?'

‘Yeah! I want to feed George.'

‘I don't think
you
can feed them, sweetheart. We'll have to watch the man. You should have stayed, Lola Rose, it was fascinating.' Mum stared at me and then came up close. ‘Jayni. What's all this twitching? What's up with you, you're always so sensible?'

‘I
am
sensible. Sensible people hate sharks because they look so ugly and they can rip you apart. You can take Kendall back if you like but I'm never setting foot in this place ever again,' I said. ‘Not for anything.'

I walked out of the shop and stood by myself on the embankment. I stared at the river. I knew perfectly well there were no sharks in the Thames but I kept expecting a deadly dorsal fin to streak through the water.

When Mum and Kendall came out at last Kendall was clutching a big fluffy turquoise toy shark. ‘Look, look, I've got my very own George!' he cried, racing up to me. ‘Attack!' he yelled, whirling George by the tail and then bashing me in the face with him.

It didn't hurt. I knew George was a fluffy toy and his teeth were made of felt – but I still screamed.

‘Oh, do stop it, Jayni, you're just acting soft to get attention,' Mum snapped.

I was so hurt I went into a sulk. I wouldn't talk to either of them as we crossed the bridge over the river and walked round Covent Garden. Then Mum stopped outside this immensely posh French cake and coffee shop. ‘Let's live dangerously,' she said, and went inside.

I had to talk to say which cake I wanted. It took me ages to choose because they were all so ultra-yummy and special. I eventually decided on a cream mousse gâteau with strawberries and a swirl of chocolate icing on top. Mum had an elegant almond croissant. Kendall chose a chestnut cream meringue, but he licked it half-heartedly and didn't finish it. So I did.
And
I had a hot chocolate to die for, all whippy with a big peak of cream.

Mum laughed at me. ‘You've cheered up now, haven't you, Lola Rose!'

‘You bet,' I said.

Then we got started on some serious shopping. We found this posh kids' shop and there was this perfect little black leather jacket that fitted Kendall perfectly. He looked so cute in it. Even the shop assistant clapped her hands and called him a pet. It cost a fortune. ‘But I've
got
a fortune,' said Mum, and she handed over a fistful of notes as if they were pennies.

We looked at the girls' jackets too. They had a denim jacket with fur and my heart started beating fast but when I tried it on it was much too small. I could hardly get my arms in and it wouldn't meet across my front.

‘I'm too fat,' I said, feeling awful.

‘Don't be so daft. You're just getting a big girl, too big for little kids' clothes. We'll find you a proper furry denim jacket, just you wait and see,'

We went into shop after shop after shop. Kendall stopped playing swim-through-the-air games with George and started whining. But then, in the
thirteenth
shop, my lucky number, we found a whole row of ladies' denim jackets lined with fake fur. Cream fur, blue fur,
pink
fur. I tried the pink furry one on, trembling. It fitted perfectly. Well, it was a little too long in the arms, but Mum rolled the sleeves up for me, saying it was the only cool way to wear such jackets anyway.

Mum bought it for me and I went out of the shop wearing it. It felt as if I was being cuddled by the softest teddy bear. I looked great in it, I really did. I kept peering at myself in shop windows. A new cool blue denim pink furry-collared Lola Rose stared back, smiling all over her face.

Mum was quite tempted by the denim jackets too, but then she spotted a white leather jacket, short and sexy. When she tried it on she looked so glamorous, just like a rock star, especially with her dark glasses.

We sashayed out the shop, Lola Rose in her furry blue denim, Victoria in her rock-star white leather, two absolute babes – with a baby, our Kendall, whining for England, dragging George shark by the tail.

We decided to buy him one of his favourite red lollies to shut him up. They'd proved very good dummies in the past. We could see any number of posh places selling Häagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's but there weren't any ordinary little corner shops with cheapo ice lollies.

‘Perhaps there's one down a side street,' said Mum.

We found a little newsagent eventually. He didn't stock Kendall's strawberry shockers but Mum bought him a fistful of other flavours – orange, mango, blackcurrant, milk.

‘There, kiddo, suck on that little lot and shut
up
,' said Mum.

She bought me a white Magnum. I was extra careful eating ice cream in my new denim jacket. I was concentrating so hard on licking cautiously that I almost walked straight past the special shop. It was a bookshop, but these were wonderful books – colouring books, cut-out books, sticker books, hundreds of them.

‘Boring!' said Kendall, ice lolly all round his mouth like lipstick. Then he saw a colouring book of fishes of the world. He started clamouring for it, even though he goes horribly over the lines when he uses his own wax crayons and he presses too hard and makes the points furry if I let him near my felt-tip pens.

‘OK OK, spoilt brat number two,' said Mum, opening up her magic handbag again. ‘What about you, spoilt brat number one? Would you like a fancy colouring book too?'

I found the book I wanted most of all right at the back of this fairyland shop. It was a fat book of reproduction Victorian scraps, all ready to peel off and stick in a scrapbook. There were hundreds of children in bright pinks and purples playing with cats and dogs, flowers, birds, seaside scenes, Father Christmas, babies, butterflies, angels . . .

‘Oh, Mum. Victoria. Please!' I whispered.

We spent that evening sitting up in the double bed together watching television. Mum click-flicked through channel after channel. Kendall cuddled up between us, making George swim across the bed and attack poor little Bob the bear again and again. I sat up cross-legged with my scrapbook balanced on both knees, sticking in my new scraps.

My absolute favourites were four enormous angels. They had long golden hair and flowing white robes and great grey wings springing from their shoulder blades. I stuck them in carefully, having to edge them in really close together to fit on the page. When I fell asleep I dreamt the angels were standing at each corner of our bed, wings spread out like feathery curtains protecting us.

‘Let's go on the razzle again,' said Mum, the minute I woke up.

She was already up and dressed. It didn't look as if she'd slept a lot – but she didn't act tired. We razzled till we dazzled. We bought new tops, new trousers, new night things and new shoes. Oh, those new shoes – wonderful, strappy sling-back stilettos for Mum and
my
first pair of proper grown-up heels too. They were only
little
heels but I still couldn't cross the room in them without twisting my ankles.

‘Who cares?' said Mum. ‘You'll be fine with a little bit of practice. All set to go dancing, eh?'

She bought a little CD player and a stack of her favourite CDs. We had our own private disco in the hotel bedroom during the day when the vacuums were roaring and it didn't matter how much noise we made. Mum especially liked ‘I Will Survive'. She danced to it, punching her arms in the air, and Kendall and I copied her.

The maid came in to clean our bedroom and saw us dancing. She roared with laughter and imitated us, punching her own arms. ‘That's it, you tell them, girl!' she said.

She was a very very
large
lady but she was surprisingly good at dancing, jiggling her hips and strutting her stuff.

‘Wasn't that lady
fat
!' Kendall whispered when she'd gone. ‘She went wibble wobble, wibble wobble.'

‘If you think she was fat you should see your Auntie Barbara,' said Mum.

‘Your sister?' I said. I poked Mum gently in her flat-as-a-pancake tummy. ‘But you're skinny!'

‘Yep,' said Mum. ‘We're complete opposites in every way. I always used to wonder if we had different dads. Our dad couldn't stick me right from the start.'

‘Did you ask him?'

‘No fear! He'd have given me a clump around the head for cheek,' said Mum. She bit her thumb again. ‘What is it about me, eh? Why do all the men in my life want to thump me? What am I doing wrong?'

‘You're not doing
anything
wrong, Mum! It's them, not you. But you're not you now anyway. You're Victoria and I'm Lola Rose and he's Kendall and we're the Luck Luck Lucky family.'

I put the music on again and whirled Mum round and round, while Kendal did his little jiggle-stomp with George. It was just as well he was so keen on George. Poor Bubble had died in the night. Kendall wanted to bury him properly in a shoebox but Mum said she wasn't mucking about with dead goldfish and tipped Bubble down the toilet.

We had to go back to that awful aquarium every day to keep Kendall happy, visiting the real George and his horrific fishy friends. I stayed outside on the embankment. People kept stopping to talk to me, asking if I was all right. I was scared they might fetch a policeman. And any time a tall guy with long hair and a leather jacket came loping along my heart would thump even though I could see they were all strangers.

‘Come in with us, you daft banana,' said Mum.

But I couldn't. I was far too scared of those sharks. I dreamt about those gaping jaws every night. I kept waking up, shaking. Mum was often sitting up smoking, curled in a chair in the dark. I'd squash up beside her and we'd cling together while Kendall snored softly, cuddled under the covers with George.

One night I woke with a start and reached for Mum. She wasn't in the bed, she wasn't in her chair. I found her kneeling in the bathroom, handbag in her lap, five-pound notes all round her in unsteady piles.

‘Show me the money!' I whispered, to try to make her laugh.

But she wasn't in a jokey mood. Her face was screwed up, a big vein standing out on her forehead. ‘Somebody's stolen some of it!' she said, sniffing furiously.

‘They can't have done. You carry it round everywhere with you,' I said.

Mum always clutched the handbag tightly in case someone made a snatch at her bag. She wouldn't even hide it in the hotel room when we went down to breakfast.

‘
How
can someone have stolen it?'

‘Don't ask me. I just know they bloody have. There's hundreds and hundreds gone missing!'

‘We've spent a lot,' I said, kneeling down beside Mum and starting to count the notes.

‘Not that much!'

I got a piece of paper and wrote down all the clothes we'd bought, all the meals and treats and rides, all the ordinary everyday stuff like ice creams and Mum's ciggies and bus fares.

It started to add up to hundreds and hundreds.

‘And we had the night out with Dad, and the taxi and the train fare to London and the first hotel—'

‘And we've still got to pay this one too,' said Mum. ‘Oh God.'

‘I don't think anyone's stolen any, Mum. We've just spent it.'

‘Right. OK. You've made your point. We've spent it.' Mum snapped, as if it was all my fault. ‘So, Miss Clever Clogs, what are we going to do when the money runs out altogether?'

I tried to think. My brain wouldn't work. I never knew what to do when Mum turned on me. ‘Maybe it won't run out for ages if we're careful,' I said. ‘We could move to a smaller hotel. And eat sandwiches. And not go to the aquarium.'

‘Yes, but
then
what? Are we going to sit in doorways and beg? What happens if the police catch us? They'll want you and Kenny back in school, won't they? They'll send you home to your dad . . .'