Longest Whale Song (17 page)

I shriek with laughter. ‘I'd love a photo of that!'

‘It's not funny! Now
I'm
going to have to change,' says Jack, buthe starts spluttering with laughter too.

When he's finally erected the cot, we can put Samson to bed. Butterscotch starts squeaking and I feed him in a matter of seconds. Guinea pigs are a
lot
easier to cope with than babies.

Samson starts a crying fit in the evening and won't settle, even after he's been changed and had another bottle. Jack and I take turns walking him up and down while he wails. We can't watch television properly, we can't even enjoy our own meal, though it's one of Liz's specials.

‘What's
up
with you, little man?' says Jack anxiously. ‘Here, Ella, hold him while I look it up on the internet.'

He finds a whole host of tips about crying babies, but none of them are much use. We've
already fed Samson and changed him and cuddled him. He doesn't seem to be in any pain, just very unhappy.

‘Lots of these so-called experts suggest putting the baby in his cot and leaving him to settle by himself,' says Jack. ‘Shall we try that?'

So we take him upstairs and tuck him up in his cot and kiss him goodnight. Samson cries. We switch off the light and leave the room. Samson cries harder. We sit tensely out on the landing. Samson cries and cries and cries.

‘Oh dear, this is awful,' Jack mutters. ‘He never cried like this in the hospital. If only he could talk and tell us what's up.'

‘I think he's missing Mum,' I say.

‘You're probably right, but there's nothing we can do about it. He's stuck with us right now.'

We sit there for half an hour. Samson cries steadily. It's as if he's crying inside me. My head aches and my tummy's tight and I can't get comfortable. Jack's twitching and sighing and fidgeting too.

‘I can't bear this,' he says. ‘We
can't
leave him in there, all lonely and frightened.'

He goes back into the bedroom and lifts Samson out of his cot. Samson gulps and cries, his voice heart-breakingly hoarse.

‘Poor little chap, he's all hot and damp,' says Jack, wrapping him in his blanket. ‘There now, little Sam, Daddy's here.'

Samson snuffles and snorts and carries on crying, but less frantically now. We take him downstairs again.

‘We're like the Grand Old Duke of York,' says Jack. He starts singing, ‘
The Grand Old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again. And when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down, and when they were only halfway up they were neither up nor down.
'

He goes up a few stairs while he sings ‘
when they were up
' and down a few stairs for ‘
when they were down
', and marches on the middle steps for the ‘
halfway-up
' part. Samson stops crying altogether, fascinated.

‘There you are, Jack! You've just got to run up and down stairs all night long – that'll keep him happy!'

‘I'm out of puff already!' Jack pants.

‘You'll lose your beer belly.'

‘I haven't
got
one, you cheeky girl! Oh Lord, I'm going to have to stop this lark in a minute.'

‘I'll take him.'

‘No, no, you might trip. You go and pop the kettle on, there's a good girl.'

We have a cup of tea. Samson cries some more so we give him another bottle. Jack feeds him this time, trying to make him slow down a little. Then he sings him more nursery rhymes – ‘Rock-a-bye Baby' and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. Samson closes his eyes and goes to s-l-e-e-p. We carry him upstairs very slowly and then slide him gently into his cot. His starfish hands go up and his eyes open and we hold our breath, waiting for the crying to start – but he closes his eyes again and goes fast asleep.

‘Phew!' Jack whispers as we tiptoe out of the room. ‘Ella, I'm totally knackered. I'm going to bed too. What about you?'

‘It's not my bed time yet!'

‘Why don't you get into bed and read your whale book?'

‘OK.'

‘Just put your light out when you start to feel sleepy.'

‘Mm.'

‘Shall I come in and tuck you up?'

‘No, it's OK,' I say quickly. But then I raise my hand and give him a funny little wave. ‘Night-night, Jack.'

‘Night-night, Ella.'

I sit up in bed with Harriet the hippo on one side of me, Baby Teddy on the other, and read about humpback whales. I like them most because they can sing. The book says it's only the males who sing, but I wonder if the females and the calves have their own songs too, but they just whisper them softly into the waves. I wonder what whale song sounds like. The book says the songs are complicated and melodious and are used in courtship. They sing for ten or twenty minutes at a time – but one male sang for
twenty-two hours
non stop.

I try singing ‘Rock-a-bye Baby' over and over again, but I just get bored after four or five verses. But that's a lullaby, not a real love song. I think of Mum. I would sing to her for twenty-two hours if it would only make her better.

I lie back on my pillow and whisper my love song for Mum over and over again until I fall asleep.

‘
GO AWAY! I'M
tired!' I mumble.

‘What do you think
I
am?' Jack says, pulling at my duvet. ‘I was up half the night with Sam. He didn't sleep for more than two consecutive hours. I'm absolutely exhausted. I've got a splitting
headache. In fact I ache all over. Entire-body ache, that's what I'm suffering from.'

‘So go back to bed and leave me alone,' I say, trying to burrow back under the covers.

Jack won't let me. ‘You've got to get up
now
, Ella. You've got to go to school today.'

‘I don't want to!'

‘
I
don't want to go to school, but I've got to go and teach or I'll lose my job.
You've
got to go to school or I'll get prosecuted. And Sam's got to go to Aunty Mavis because he needs someone to look after him. He's not too happy about it either – he's bawling his head off, can't you hear him? You go and use the bathroom while I fix his bottle and make us breakfast. We're running late.'

I peer at my old Tinkerbell alarm clock. I used to believe she flew around my bedroom every night, sprinkling stardust and waving her little wand. I wish she'd wave it now and make Jack disappear.

‘We are so
not
running late,' I say, shaking my alarm clock. ‘I never get up this early.'

‘Well, you'll have to get used to it. I've got to drop Sam off, drive you all the way to school, then drive back through the rush-hour traffic to be at Garton Road by quarter to nine. So
get cracking
!'

I slide slowly out of bed. I ache too from lumbering Sam around all day yesterday. It's not fair.
When Mum and I lived at our old house, I didn't get up till eight o'clock. And Mum never shouted at me. She often used to bring me breakfast in bed. Sometimes she'd get back into bed with me and we'd play silly games together. We'd pretend we were celebrities and make out we had extensions and great big boob jobs, and we'd plan shopping trips and talk about our new outfits. I
love
playing pretend games like that with Mum. I try sometimes with Sally, but she always gets the giggles and says I'm weird.

I think about Sally now. I feel a bit worried about seeing her at school. Sort of shy and scared. Now, that
is
weird, because Sally's been my best friend for years. I
think
she still is. She rang last night. Well, her mum rang first to ask Jack about my mum – and then she said Sally wanted to talk to me. I felt absolutely weak with relief.

We chatted for about ten minutes. We didn't discuss guinea pigs or rabbits. We didn't mention Dory and Martha. Sally told me all about her Saturday morning dancing class and how she's going to be a snowflake in the Christmas ballet, and then she talked about her favourites on
The X Factor
. I couldn't really say much because I don't go to ballet and we were too busy with Sam to watch much television. I
did
start to tell her about
my whale project, and she said I was daft because they'd finished food chains now. Then we had one of those uncomfortable pauses. I couldn't think of anything else to say and neither could she, so we just blurted out goodbye.

I wish I could ask Mum if she thinks this means Sally's still really my best friend. She wasn't horrible to me – she said again that she was really sorry about my mum – but she didn't muck around and joke and act in our old casual Sally-and-Ella-best-friends-for-ever way.

It's so awful not having Mum around. Everything's
wrong
. There's hardly any toothpaste left in the bathroom so I have to squeeze and squeeze the tube. My flannel smells disgusting because I left it rolled up in a soggy bundle. My hair is beyond terrible. I tried to wash it in the bath yesterday but I don't think I got all the shampoo out properly, and now it hangs lankly in my eyes. I try to scrape it back into a ponytail but it won't go high or bouncy enough, it just draggles in a surly clump past my shoulders. Jack's done the washing so I've got a clean school blouse, but he didn't hang it up straight away so it's creased all over – and now I find the hem of my school skirt is starting to come down. Before, I'd always just go, ‘M-u-m!' and she'd come and sigh, and teases me
for being a helpless baby, but she always put it
right
. Now poor Mum is the helpless baby, having to let the nurses wash her and feed her and change her, and she can't even cry or kick her legs like little Samson.

He's certainly crying now as Jack struggles to change him downstairs. Then it's suddenly quiet so he must be feeding. I put my whale project and borrowed book in my school bag and stomp downstairs.

‘There's a good girl,' Jack says. ‘Get yourself some cornflakes, eh?'

‘Why does it always have to be boring old cornflakes? I like Coco Pops,' I grumble.

‘Right. Reach into the cupboard, find the cocoa powder, and douse your bowl liberally,' says Jack.

I'm not sure if he's serious. ‘Will it taste good?' I ask.

‘There's only one way to find out.'

I decide not to risk it. I sit down and sourly spoon plain cornflakes into my mouth. Jack sits Samson up to burp him.

‘Oh, Ella, what a boring breakfast! Don't you fancy marmalade pops? Or what about
Marmite
pops?'

‘You think you're so funny,' I say.

‘Well, you've got to laugh – or you burst out
crying,' says Jack. ‘Now, young man, are you going to burp so you can finish your bottle? Come on – one, two, three—'

Samson opens his mouth and gives a comically loud burp. Jack laughs delightedly. I can't help giggling too.

‘There! One week old and he's doing exactly as he's told –
unlike
his big crosspatch sister. Ella, any chance of you making me a cup of tea while I finish feeding him?'

‘No chance at all,' I say, getting out my whale project and flipping through it, hoping it will really impress Miss Anderson. I wait for Jack to nag and get sarcastic and start shouting – but he just sits there, feeding Samson. ‘Oh, all
right
,' I say, and get up to boil the kettle.

I make myself a mug of tea too. Jack and I sip while Samson sucks. Jack holds his cup at arm's length and arches away from Samson every time he drinks so that he can't possibly spill any tea on him. I wonder if my dad was as thoughtful when he fed me when
I
was a baby. I start making up this little fantasy of lovely, handsome, beaming Dad holding me tenderly in his arms – and then I remember I've only just seen my dad. I think of his striped shirt and his silk tie and his smart suit. Perhaps he never ever fed me in case I made him
messy. Perhaps I was so slurpy and sicky that he decided to walk out on us. How could he have left Mum to cope all by herself? How could he have left me? I can't stick Jack, he's just my stepdad, but I know one thing: he'd never walk out on little Samson, not ever.

I try telling him about the Sally situation when we're in the car driving to Aunty Mavis's house.

‘Do you think she's still my best friend, Jack?'

‘Well, of course she is.'

‘But she wouldn't come round and she didn't sound right on the phone.'

‘She
did
phone you.'

‘I said she didn't
sound
right. You're not listening!'

‘I'm
trying
to concentrate on the traffic – but I am listening too. I don't know what you're going on about. Sally's your best friend, full stop.'

‘I think she likes Dory best now,' I say in a tiny voice.