The Illustrated Mum (14 page)

“Of course,” said Marigold, cuddling her close. “He's your father. And he's wonderful, like I've always
told you. You mustn't feel bad, my Starry girl, you must feel good. I expect Micky simply needed to have you all to himself this weekend. He needs this Sîan to act like a chaperone, right? I understand. Don't worry so. Dol and I had a lovely time together, didn't we, darling?”

“Yes. Yes we did. A lovely time,” I repeated.

Star interrogated me privately when we went to bed.

“Shut up about it. A lot you care. If I'd told you on the phone she was chopping me up with a meat cleaver you still wouldn't have come back,” I whispered bitterly.

“That's such a stupid thing to say! I was so worried. It kind of spoilt the whole weekend if you must know. I just kept phoning and phoning and wondering if you were all right.”

“But you didn't come back early to see, did you?”

“Look, it's not like I'm your
mother
. It's not fair. Why should I always have to look after you?”

“Well, you don't. I can look after myself. I looked after Marigold too. She got all stroppy and weird but I handled it. I knew just what to do to get her sorted out.”

“What do you mean, stroppy? What did she do?”

“Nothing. Because I stopped her.”

“You're coming with me next Saturday.”

“No I'm not.”

“You are. You have to. You've got to get to know Micky.”

“Why? He's not my father.”

“I know he's not. But he's still going to look after you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dol. You have to keep this deadly secret. Do you swear?”

“Yes, OK. What is all this then?”

Star got out of her own bed and crept across to mine. She leant forward so that her breath tickled my face.

“I may be going to live with Micky,” she whispered right in my ear.

“Live with him?”

“Shhh! Yes. And he says you can come too. We've discussed it all, him and me. And Sîan too. They don't always live together, she's got her own flat, but Micky's thinking of getting a bigger place for the four of us.”

“And Marigold?”

“Don't be silly.”

I thought about it, my head spinning. It was like one of the fairy tales. No, you don't have to stay locked up with the wicked witch. This handsome prince has come along and he's turned the two little beggar girls into princesses, even the scraggy ugly one, and they can all live in a new fairy castle together. Only Marigold wasn't a wicked witch. She was our mum.

“We can't leave her.”

“We can still see her whenever we want. But Micky
says she should go into hospital for a bit. He says he knows this great place where they do all this therapy.”

“She'd never go.”

“If she'd just take this medicine’

“But she wouldn't.”

“Then that's not our fault. She's supposed to look after us. We're children. We're not supposed to look after her. The way I've always done. Well, I'm not doing it anymore. I've got two parents now. I want to be with my dad.”

“I think you're horribly mean and selfish.”

“What!” Star took hold of my shoulders and shook me hard. “How dare you! Look, I could have stayed with Micky today, that's what he wanted, it's what I wanted too, but I had to come back to get you all sorted out. I needn't have given you another thought, Dol, I could have just stayed with my dad, simple, perfect. But we kept thinking about you and how you maybe couldn't manage the way I have’

“I
can
manage.”

“And he's perfectly willing for you to come and live with us too. Don't you realize what a big thing that is? I mean, you're not his daughter and yet he's prepared to look after you, bring you up like he was your dad.”

“I don't want him to be my dad. He doesn't care about me. He only cares about you.”

“I'm his daughter.”

“So you keep saying, over and over, until I'm sick of it.”

“I'm sick of
you
, Dol. I thought you'd be thrilled.”

“Well, I'm not. I don't want to live with him. I want to live with Marigold.”

“OK then. If that's what you want,” said Star. She got off my bed and climbed into her own.

We both lay still in the dark. I rubbed my scarf against my nose. I kept sniffing and swallowing. I hoped Star might think I was crying. I wanted her to feel mean. I wanted her to tell me she wouldn't go off to live with Micky without me. I wanted her to
stay
. I wanted to be the three of us, Marigold, Star and me, the way we'd always been.

Marigold was on her very best behavior all week. She didn't drink at all. She didn't shout or swear at anyone, she didn't go on a wild spending spree, she didn't stay in bed till lunchtime and stay up all night. She wore her mumsie jeans-and-T-shirt outfit and she made sure we had a proper tea every afternoon, baked beans on toast, sausage and chips, fish fingers, macaroni cheese.

“I think she heard you,” I said to Star. “She's trying to make you want to stay.”

“No. She's being all nicey-nicey because she wants to get round me. She wants me to tell her where Micky lives.”

“Well, why
can't
she know?”

“He doesn't want to see her. He's got Sîan, I keep saying. He only stayed the other night because of me,” said Star, tossing her head so that her hair fanned out. I wanted to grab two silky strands and tug hard.

“You think you're so special,” I said bitterly.

“Micky thinks I'm special,” said Star. “My dad. It's just magic between us.”

“Yuck.”

“You're just jealous.”

“No, I'm not,” I said, though I was so jealous I could hardly stand to speak to her.

“And Marigold is too. She keeps staring at me in this funny way, have you noticed?” said Star. “You know what makes me really mad? She can stop herself going crazy. She's been as sweet as sugar all week. She could control herself all the time if she really wanted and act like a normal mum.”

“You always said she couldn't help it when she went funny.”

“I know. I've always made excuses for her. I've done everything. When you were little and she went weird or got drunk I did everything for you. There's stuff she did that even you don't know about, Dol. I tried to look after you properly. I tried to look after
her
. And yet do you know something? It's never quite worked. It's never been enough. It's like she's this little
girl at a party and you keep giving her presents but it's always the wrong ones.”

“She liked her green clasp. She keeps wearing it.”

“I don't mean literally. Oh, you're too young to understand.”

I
felt
too young to understand. I wasn't sure if Star really meant all she was saying. She couldn't really seriously intend to leave forever next weekend. What about her precious school?

“I can go to any old school in Brighton,” she said airily. “In fact Micky might even send me to a private school, he says I'd probably do even better then.”

“What about all your friends?”

“I can make more friends.”

“What about Mark?”

“Him!” said Star scornfully.

She meant it too. Micky must have given her lots of money because she took me to McDonald's one evening and bought me a cheeseburger and French fries, a strawberry milk shake and
two
ice cream sundaes with butterscotch sauce. Some of the boys hung round our table trying to talk to Star but she showed no interest in them whatsoever. I thought she was simply saving herself for Mark. He was larking about outside with his mates. Janice Taylor was there too.

“She's welcome to him,” Star said to me.

When we went outside Mark called to her.

“Hey, Twinkle!”

She didn't even turn round.

“Twinkle little Star! Hey!”

He bounded in front of her.“Where are you off to, then?”

“Home,” said Star, pulling me along too.

“Come for a little walk first, eh?”

“No.”

Mark stopped, obviously taken aback.

“What? Leave your little sister. Come on.”

“No, I said. Are you deaf?” said Star.

“What's up with you?”

“I've just realized I don't have to hang around with guys like
you
,” said Star.

She marched off so briskly I had to run to keep up. Mark missed a beat and then started yelling stuff after her. His mates joined in. They called Star awful names. I felt myself going red all over but Star stayed cool.

“You watch it, you pathetic creep. If my dad hears you calling me stuff like that he'll knock your yellow teeth right down your throat,” she said.

“You're not going to be able to go back to McDonald's now,” I said.

“I don't want to. Not with that crowd.”

“I thought Mark was your boyfriend.”

“No. Anyway, Micky doesn't think I'm anywhere near old enough for boyfriends,” said Star, as if that settled it.

She didn't seem to care that
I
wouldn't be able to go back to McDonald's either.

“Don't you want a boyfriend now?”I asked.

“Not him. Hey, what about
your
boyfriend?”

“Who?”

“The owly one.”

“Oliver.”

“Ooh, Oliver, eh? Tell me all about him then.”

“He's OK,” I said, shrugging.

Oliver was more than OK. He'd had an unsettling weekend too. He was supposed to be going to Legoland with his dad and his dad's lady friend but his mum had had a migraine so he didn't go.

“I really badly wanted to go too, because it's meant to be pretty fantastic and I've always been nuts on Lego since I was a little kid. I designed my own Lego robots once and they had a war using these Lego laser guns and they kept zapping each other and collapsing and I'd be the robot repairman doing all this dramatic double-quick surgery to get them fit for battle again.”

Some kid at the other end of the library sniggered. Oliver blinked behind his glasses.

“Of course that was when I was a very little kid,” he said quickly.

“I play games like that sometimes, pretendy ones,” I said. “So, will you get to go to Legoland next week?”

“I don't know. My dad was pretty narked with me. He said my mum was just putting it on and I should take no notice.”

“
Was
she putting it on?”

Oliver fidgeted, twitching his nose so his glasses shot up and down.

“She does get lots of these migraines. She had to have a lie down on the couch. I have to keep the television turned right down so as not to disturb her.”

“Well, at least you've got a television. Ours got taken away.”

“She went to sleep. I could easily have gone to Legoland. Dolphin, does your mum get these migraines?”

“Not really. Well. She has a splitting headache if she's drunk too much the night before.”

“Does your mum
drink
?” said Owly, his glasses going up and down like crazy. “What, lager and beer and stuff?”

“It's mostly vodka. It's only when she's … She gets these weird spells, see.” I felt bad as soon as I'd said it. I put my hand to my mouth as if the words were blistering my lips. “Don't tell, Owly, will you?”

“
Oliver
. No, of course I won't.” Oliver sighed. “Your mum sounds ever so exciting. Can I come to tea s
oon
?”

“Well.” I thought about it. Marigold was being so careful. But next week, if Star really went … I shook my head, trying to stop myself thinking about next week. It was far too scary.

Oliver mistook my head-shaking.

“Sorry. It's rude to keep on asking you.”

“No, OK. Come tomorrow if you like. After school.”

“Oh wow! Great! And I'll be able to see all her tattoos?”

“Not
all
of them, unless you creep up on her in her bath.”

“Don't be silly,” Oliver giggled, going pink. “And will she be drunk and fall over?”

“No! And she doesn't fall over anyway. Not even in her high heels.”

“She wears wonderful clothes, your mum. It's like she's a rock star.”

“You should see Star's dad then. He
really
looks like a rock star.”

“I thought you didn't
have
a dad?”

“He's not mine. He's Star's. He and Marigold bumped into each other at an Emerald City concert.”

“Go on!” Owly listened with his mouth open, as if I were telling him the latest plot in his favorite soap.

“Star thinks he's wonderful. She goes on and on about him. But I don't like him much. She keeps saying I'm jealous but I'm not. I don't want a dad.”

“I don't want a dad either, not when he gets all huffy and cross,” said Oliver. “But I did want to go to Legoland. It was my all-time second favorite destination.”

“So OK, what's your first favorite?”

“Tea at your house, of course!”

I nudged him, making sure not to dig him too hard with my pointy elbow. He nudged me back, and then he got out his pencil case and unzipped his secret supply of mini white-chocolate bars.

“One for me and one for you,” he said.

We slurped chocolate companionably.

“Hey hey hey, this is a library, not a canteen,” said Mr. Harrison, bustling past. “At least have the decency to offer me a chunk, Arion and Dolphin, I have a secret passion for white chocolate.”

“My name's Oliver, not Arion,” said Oliver, giving Mr. Harrison his own bar.

“Golly gosh, a whole bar for me! You generous lad. I know perfectly well you're called Oliver. I was just making a posh literary allusion to amuse myself. There's this old legend where a guy called Arion plays sweet music on his harp and attracts this dolphin. Are you musical, Oliver?”

“I can nearly play “We All Live in a Yellow Submarine' on the recorder.”

“Hmm. Well, that's a start,” said Mr. Harrison. He licked his lips. “Oh, yummy yummy. Please keep coming to my library, you two.”

We didn't need any further encouragement. I was starting to look forward to my library lunchtimes with Oliver. The rest of the time at school still sucked, of course
course. I did try to swap seats in class so I could be next to Oliver. I talked this boy Brian into taking my place. Well, I had to bribe him a little, inking a Death by Harley skull and bike tattoo on his forearm. It's the tiredest tattoo in the book‘millions of guys all over the world flash identical biceps‘but Brian thought it dead original and seriously cool. Some of the other kids started clamoring for me to tattoo them too. I had quite a cluster round me when Miss Hill came into the classroom. I sat in Brian's seat and he ambled over to my old place next to Ronnie Churley. Everything seemed sorted. Ha. Miss Hill wasn't having it. She took roll call and then gave a double take.