Queenie (5 page)

‘Tim! No, he’s history. He had very funny little habits that weren’t
my
cup of tea,’ said Mum.

I’d only met Uncle Tim twice, and I didn’t like him either time. His hair was all sticky with Brilliantine, and his hands were sticky too when he picked me up for a kiss, as if I were a little baby. I was glad he was history.

‘No one else on the horizon?’ said Nan.

‘Fat chance,’ said Mum. ‘And how am I going to meet anyone likely now? I’m up the creek without a paddle, aren’t I? I’m going to lose my engagement up north if I’m stuck down here any longer.’

I looked at Nan and she looked at me.

‘Well, Nan will get better soon, and then she can come home and you won’t be stuck then,’ I said quickly.

‘I’ll do my best to be home with you as soon as possible, my little lamb,’ said Nan, not looking me in the eye. She started coughing again and had to reach for her little enamel pot. I made to pick it up for her.

‘Don’t touch it, don’t touch it – watch the germs!’ Mum screamed.

My hand halted in mid-air while I imagined little maggoty germ creatures swarming out of the pot, wriggling up my cardigan sleeve and nestling in my armpit. I shrank back. Nan’s eyes looked so sad and ashamed as she clutched the pot herself and did her
very
best to heave herself round in the bed. She turned her back on us as she spat into the pot.

‘I’m sorry, Nan. I’m so sorry,’ I said.

‘No, dear, no. Your mum’s right. Better you don’t get near it. I don’t know how infectious I am yet. I’d kill myself if I gave it to you, Elsie,’ Nan gasped. She put the pot down and lay back weakly on her pillows.

‘Charming,’ said Mum. ‘What about me? We’d all be in Queer Street if
I
caught it. Lucky I stay clean and healthy.’

‘You’ve got to get yourself checked out, though, Sheila – and our Elsie too. The doctor was most insistent. You’ve both got to be tested. Anyone living at the same house, that’s what he said. You must go and tell Miss Godden and that Irish couple on the first floor.’

‘Do you think I’m daft?’ said Mum. ‘They’ll go blabbing to the landlord and we’ll all be out on our ears. They won’t have got it – they never come down to the basement, do they? And I’m hardly ever at the house, so I’m all right, thank God.’

‘But Elsie—’ Nan said urgently.

‘Look at her – she’s right as rain, aren’t you, Elsie?’ said Mum, giving me a nudge. ‘She’s always been a bit on the skinny side, it’s just natural – and she hasn’t got a cough, has she?’

‘No, she hasn’t,’ said Nan. ‘But promise you’ll take her for this test.’

‘Yes, yes, don’t fuss about it.’ Mum looked at her watch. ‘We’d better get going soon.’

‘No, Mum, we’ve only just got here!’ I protested. ‘I want to stay with Nan all afternoon.’

‘That old bag at reception said we’re only allowed ten minutes on this ward – and you’re not supposed to be here at all, Elsie. They’re just turning a blind eye as we’ve come all this way,’ said Mum.

‘All right, then. Best get going,’ said Nan. ‘But you’ll come back next Saturday, won’t you?’ She looked anxiously at Mum.

‘We’ll do our best, though those Green Line buses are only one an hour from town and they go all round the moon, and then the nearest stop is a good mile away from this dump.’ Mum peered at her shoes, frowning. ‘I’ve worn down my heels at the back, look! We need to kit ourselves out with hiking boots to get here.’

‘But we’d come even if we had five miles to walk, Nan. No, fifty miles. We’d come if we had to walk through mud up to our ankles – up to our knees – up to our
chins
,’ I said.

‘Button it, Elsie. You’re just being silly now,’ said Mum, standing up. ‘Right, we’ll bring you some more sweeties next time, Mum. We can all make pigs of
ourselves
now rationing’s over! I’d offer to do your laundry, but you’d better let the hospital boil it up, because of the germs. You take care now.’

Nan’s mouth drooped, though I could see she was struggling to control it. I wanted to throw my arms round her, but I knew it wasn’t allowed now. She looked so little and lonely in her strange neat bed.

‘Here, Nan,’ I said, bending down and then pretending to pick up a furry handful. ‘You have Snow White and Sooty and Marmalade all week. They’ll bounce about on your bed and keep you amused.’

‘You what?’ said Mum – but Nan smiled, though her eyes were watering again.

‘
Thank
you, darling,’ she said, stroking thin air. ‘I’ll look after them ever so carefully. Whoops! Watch it, Marmalade – don’t fall off the bed.’

‘You two are a right pair of loonies,’ said Mum. ‘OK, we’re off then. Ta-ta, Mum.’

‘Bye, Nan. Oh, I’ll miss you so. Bye-bye,’ I said.

I blew kisses to Nan – and then I had to kiss Snow White and Sooty and Marmalade. It made Nan laugh but it made Mum sigh heavily.

‘Come on, Elsie, quit acting daft,’ she said, tugging at me.

It felt terrible walking out of the ward. I kept peering round to wave to Nan. She started to cough, but she kept her mouth clamped shut, her eyes popping,
so
she wouldn’t have to spit again while we were watching.

I kept seeing her face all the way home. I started to cry a little – just quietly, no noise at all.

‘Stop that snivelling now,’ said Mum.

‘But I’m so sad for Nan,’ I moaned.

‘Crying in the street and making a public spectacle of yourself isn’t going to help her, is it? Now pull yourself together.’

We just missed our Green Line bus home, even though we ran for it. We had to wait a whole hour for the next. I kept trying not to cry, but I couldn’t help the odd sniff and snort.

‘Oh dear, what’s up with you, tuppence-ha’penny?’ asked a fat woman waiting with us. ‘Have you been naughty? Have you had a telling off?’

‘My nanny’s ill,’ I wailed, though Mum’s fingers dug into my shoulder.

‘Oh dear, I hope it’s nothing serious,’ said the woman. ‘You been to visit her then?’

I nodded, though Mum’s fingers pressed harder.

The fat woman paused, her beady eyes darting from me to Mum and back again. ‘She’s not in the sanatorium, is she?’ she said, nodding in that direction.

‘No, she’s not,’ said Mum forcefully.

‘That’s a relief,’ said the fat woman. ‘It’s a disgrace
they
built it there, right in a residential area. They say it’s not catching, but you can’t fool me. It’s a wonder we haven’t gone down with it. We all breathe the same air, don’t we? Mind you, I don’t want to sound uncharitable. I feel sorry for the poor souls stuck in there. They go in – but you never see them coming out. They say you can cure TB now, but I think they all fade away.’

I gave a little gasp.

‘Do you mind? You’re upsetting my little girl,’ said Mum, and she steered us several paces up the pavement.

I shook with suppressed sobs while Mum dabbed at my face with her hankie.

‘Don’t take any notice of that nosy old biddy,’ she muttered.

‘But she said—’

‘Yes, and
I
say she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s just making mischief. Don’t take any notice.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. You take note of what I say. I’m your mother, aren’t I?’

I knew she was my mother whether I wanted her to be or not. I snuffled against her and she patted me, the two of us together, united against the fat woman. Mum even started up a game of I Spy to pass the
time.
We had M is for Mum and T is for tree and N is for nylons and BS for bus stop and NV for nail varnish, and then I spied something beginning with VFL and Mum was stumped. I whispered, ‘Very fat lady,’ and we both got the giggles.

We were getting on famously, but then I spoiled it all on the long bus journey home. The driver kept stopping and starting, jolting us backwards and forwards.

‘Mum, I feel sick,’ I whispered.

‘Don’t you dare!’ said Mum, but I couldn’t help it, and we didn’t have a carrier bag with us either.

I MISSED MY
kittens badly on Sunday. I had their picture on the chocolate box but they wouldn’t come alive for me. Of course, I knew they weren’t real, but they’d been real in my head, and they left a big gap. Still, I was happy they were playing with Nan now. They’d be romping all over her bed with their little paddy paws, and then diving under the covers whenever a nurse came near. They’d curl up on Nan, one round her neck, one tucked into her armpit and one on her tummy, and then they’d all three go to sleep.
Nan
could stroke their soft fur – oh, they’d be better than furry mittens.

I was glad I’d given them to Nan, but my own little couch felt cold and empty without them – and I had no one to play with all day. Mum slept late and I had to creep about the flat so I wouldn’t disturb her. I made myself some bread and jam and didn’t put the kettle on because it had a noisy whistle. I tried to make a pot of tea using hot water from the tap but it didn’t work properly, and I had to pour it all away.

I read my old
Girl
comic, though I’d read it from cover to cover already. I liked ‘Belle of the Ballet’ best. I tried tying my hair back like Belle’s and pretending it was blonde instead of brown. I wished I had real ballet shoes. Laura Totteridge went to ballet classes. She changed into her special ballet outfit in the girls’ toilets before she went off to her after-school class. She wore a black tunic, with matching black satin knickers, and an angora bolero – pink to match her ballet shoes.

I
wished
I could be Laura. Well, I wanted to keep my own nan, but apart from that I wanted to swap. Laura had a big brother who watched out for her and gave her piggybacks, and she had a little sister who hung on her hand and giggled at everything she said. She had a kind soft mother who came to meet her from school every day, and I’m sure she had a gentle big father who told her she was his pretty princess.

I’d told Nan all about Laura.

‘Why don’t you make friends with her, Elsie? She sounds such a nice girl,’ she suggested.

I loved Nan more than anyone else ever, but sometimes she made me sigh and roll my eyes. As if a girl like Laura would ever be friendly with a girl like me.

‘Go on,
try
to make friends with her,’ Nan urged.

‘I don’t know how,’ I said pathetically.

‘Give her that lovely smile.’

I had tried flashing my teeth at Laura when we were in the toilets together – but she stepped back nervously as if she thought I was going to bite her.

The next day Nanny gave me a tuppenny bar of chocolate for playtime. ‘Share it with Laura,’ she said.

It was hard work tracking her down this time. I eventually spotted her over by the bicycle sheds with Melanie and Pat and Joan, all of them practising handstands. You can’t give someone a piece of chocolate when they’re upside down. I lurked nearby, wanting to get Laura on her own. I was so anxious I nibbled the chocolate for comfort, and then realized I only had one piece left to offer her. I wrapped it up quickly and hung onto it. I waited until the bell went, and Laura and the other girls righted themselves and untucked their skirts from their knickers. Then I went charging up to Laura.

‘This is for you,’ I said, thrusting the piece of
chocolate
into her hand. I’d been clutching it so hard I think it might have melted. It was certainly unpleasantly warm.

She looked at it as if I’d slipped a slug into her hand. ‘What’s this?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘It’s a present,’ I said.

‘Well . . . thank you,’ she said, because she was really a very nice girl, but when we went into the classroom I saw her throwing it in the wastepaper basket.

I lied to Nan and said Laura had eaten up all her share of the chocolate and said ‘Yum yum,’ and then shared her own banana sandwich with me. Nan usually knew when I was lying. Perhaps she believed me simply because she wanted it to be true so badly. I kept up the pretence for weeks, inventing all sorts of best-friend scenarios for Laura and me. I even had us swapping desks so we could sit together in class. We exchanged books and comics, we told each other secrets, we went around arm in arm together at playtime. I invented so many telling details I almost started to believe it myself. Then Nan unnerved me utterly by suggesting I invite Laura home for tea.

‘No! No, I don’t want her to come!’ I said, panicking.

‘But she’s your friend. I’m sure you’d both have a lovely time together. I’ll do you a slap-up tea, darling. We can have tinned peaches and evappy milk.’ This
was
our favourite tea-time treat, which we usually only had on Sundays.

‘I still don’t want her to come, Nan,’ I said.

Nan looked at me carefully, her eyes squinting. ‘You’re not ashamed of us, are you, Elsie?’ she asked.

I
was
a little ashamed, because we lived in a rented basement flat that smelled funny, whereas Laura lived in Elmtree Road, where all the big black and white houses had neat little hedges and geranium, alyssum and lobelia in their front gardens in a patriotic red, white and blue floral display.

I was ashamed because I was Weird Elsie, the girl with a home-made tunic and boy’s shoes, the girl who muttered to herself when she played games, the girl who didn’t have a dad.