The Year of the Rat (10 page)

‘Right.’

‘And we can’t afford any childcare.’

‘So who’s going to look after her?’ I nod to The Rat.

‘Well, that’s the thing.’ He pauses and shifts uncomfortably and suddenly I realize what he’s going to say. But no, surely he wouldn’t? He takes a deep breath.
‘Until I can sort out something more permanent, I’m going to need your help, Pearl. I’m going to need you to keep an eye on your sister.’

‘
Me?
’

‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, Pearl.’

‘But I can’t.’

‘I know it seems daunting. But you’ll be fine. You’ve done babysitting before, haven’t you? And this will be easier really because you know Rose and she knows you and
you’ll be in your own home.’ He doesn’t even sound totally convinced himself.

It’s true, I have done babysitting a few times, but only ever as a favour to Molly when she was supposed to be looking after her brothers and only if she promised me the kids would be in
bed before I got there. Then I just sat there with the TV on really quiet, hoping they wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t have a clue what I’d do if they did.

‘You’ll be able to phone me any time. I’ve talked to work about it and they’re very understanding.’

God, he’s got it all worked out. How long has he been planning this?

‘And that’s supposed to make it all OK? What if I’ve got other plans?’

‘Like what?’

He’s got a point. I’ve hardly got a packed social diary.

‘It won’t be for long,’ he says. ‘You could see if Molly could come round and help. She’d be company for you and she’s good with children, isn’t
she?’

‘Meaning I’m not?’

‘No, of course not,’ he says uncertainly. ‘I just meant – well, she’s got younger brothers, hasn’t she? She’s used to looking after them.’

‘Well, she’s in Spain with her posh boyfriend and his family,’ I snap.
Getting an amazing tan and eating way too
much tapas!!!
according to the postcard which
arrived yesterday.
Really missing u though!
‘So she can’t.’

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Well, never mind. Dulcie next door has said she’ll keep an ear open and you can go round to her if there’s any problem.’

I actually laugh out loud. ‘Dulcie from next door? Are you kidding me? She’s ancient. She must be a hundred at least. I expect she’s deaf as a post. Probably senile
too.’

‘That’s uncalled for, Pearl. Really. You’re being very unreasonable.’

‘
I’m
being unreasonable?’

‘Yes!’ He yells it. The Rat’s face crumples and she starts to cry. ‘Yes you are. You’re being unreasonable and selfish and I just don’t understand why.
I’m going out of my mind with worry, just trying to keep everything together, and I thought I could rely on you to help.’ He’s so angry he’s shaking. ‘I feel like I
don’t know you any more, Pearl. I feel let down. And so would Mum.’

I’m so shocked I can’t speak. Dad never shouts at me. I honestly can’t remember a single time, except for once when I was about five and I ran out into the road after a
football and a car almost hit me. I can still hear the screech of the brakes. He’d yelled then all right.

He stands up abruptly and turns away from me so he’s face to face with the hideous 1970s orange and brown zigzag wallpaper that adorns the sitting-room walls, which I can’t help
thinking isn’t going to cheer him up much. He rocks The Rat to try and calm her down, but it’s like she knows he’s upset and her roars just get louder.

I stare at his back, trying to work out what to do.

‘All right,’ I manage to say eventually. ‘Keep your hair on.’

When he turns round, there are tear tracks on his cheeks. My insides squirm.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says at last over The Rat’s cries. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’

But the truth is I know he’s right. Mum would never forgive me if she could hear this conversation. And suddenly the nagging doubt is in my head again: what if she can? What if she’s
listening in without me knowing? I’ve been getting it a lot, the sense that she could be sneaking around after me; that she might know more than she was letting on. I haven’t seen her
since The Rat came home. What if it’s because she knows how I feel? What if she’s angry with me and never comes back?

‘Look,’ Dad says, struggling to make his voice calm, cradling The Rat and swaying to and fro till at last she stops crying and sucks her tiny thumb instead. ‘I know it’s
a lot to ask. But now your exams have finished it would make things so much easier if you could keep an eye on her during the day. Just for a week or two until—’ He stops himself.

‘Until what?’ I’m convinced suddenly that there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.

‘Well.’ He looks uncomfortable. ‘Until I can sort something else out.’

‘Like what?’

‘Let’s not worry about that now,’ he says. ‘What I need to know is, are you prepared to do it?’

I imagine Mum out in the hall with a glass to the wall. I wouldn’t put it past her.

‘Doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice, does it?’ I say ungraciously.

His face is so full of relief that I think he’s going to cry again.

‘Thanks, love,’ he says as The Rat’s eyelids droop and then close.

‘I’m not changing any nappies though,’ I say quickly. ‘No way.’

‘So,’ Dad says for the billionth time, ‘these are all the phone numbers here. If you have to call me at work and they say I’m in a meeting, just tell
them it’s you and that it’s urgent.’

He’s pacing up and down the kitchen, waving lists and schedules at me in a slightly unhinged way, while I sit at the table, pretending to read a magazine.

‘That’s the number for the GP’s surgery. Call them if you think she’s got a temperature or if anything doesn’t seem quite right. And obviously if it’s an
emergency—’

‘Call 999,’ I say, not looking up from my magazine. ‘Yes, I know, Dad. I’m not a total idiot.’

‘And Dulcie says you can go round any time.’

‘Great.’ Dad’s too busy imagining scenes of doom and disaster to notice my sarcasm.

‘So, like I said, Rose’s routine is on this piece of paper here,’ he picks one out of the sheaf and puts it next to me on the table, ‘so you know roughly when she might
want a feed or a nap. But we’ve been through all of that already anyway, haven’t we?’

‘Yes, two minutes ago. And two minutes before that.’

‘And each of the bottles is on the side labelled with the time to give it to her with the powder already measured out. And—’

Christ. ‘Dad, just go, will you?’

‘OK, OK.’ He pulls on his jacket. ‘But remember about checking the milk’s not too hot before you give it to her in case she scalds her mouth. And don’t let her get
hold of anything small in case she puts it in her mouth and chokes. I’ve put all these things on another piece of paper here, just in case.’

The piece of paper is headed
Miscellaneous Dangers.

I roll my eyes. ‘Dad. You’re doing my head in.’ All his fussing is just making me more jittery; not that I’m going to let him see I’m nervous.

‘Right. Sorry.’ But he hovers, not wanting to leave. ‘You remember what I said about making sure Rose is on her back when she has a nap. And making sure she’s not too
hot. That’s really important.’

‘
Dad.
Honestly. Loads of sixteen-year-olds have babies of their own to look after.’ I’m telling myself as well as him. ‘Why are you so convinced I won’t be
able to manage? I mean, how hard can it be?’

I look down to where The Rat is sitting in her bouncy chair, dribbling. Dad looks at her too and I can tell he’s still imagining every possible disaster and probably some impossible ones
too.

‘She doesn’t even
do
anything yet,’ I add.

Everything I say just seems to make him more worried.

‘Perhaps this is a bad idea,’ he says to himself, absently twisting his wedding ring round and round.

‘It’s a very bad idea,’ I say, flicking through the pages of the magazine without really seeing them. ‘I could still be in bed instead of listening to you blithering on
about nap times and feeds. But it’s better than being homeless.’

He sighs. ‘You know I wouldn’t ask unless I had to.’

‘So you keep saying.’

‘And you might even find you enjoy it. Might be a chance to – well, you know. Bond.’

And, you never know, hell might freeze over. It could happen.

‘Anyway, it won’t be for long. Just this week and maybe next. I might even be able to swing working from home for a couple of days.’

‘And you’ve definitely sorted out something else after that? A nursery place or something?’

‘I’ll talk to you about it later,’ he says. ‘Got to dash now or I’ll miss my train.’ He kisses the top of my head and I pretend not to notice. ‘Are you
sure you’ll be OK?’

‘I’ll have to be, won’t I?’ I say.

He crouches down to say goodbye to The Rat. I can see how much he doesn’t want to leave her.

‘Your train,’ I say.

He dashes out, still calling back over his shoulder. ‘Any problem, just call me straight away. And remember what I said about not putting her chair near anything she can pull down on top
of her—’

And then the door slams.

I stare at The Rat and The Rat stares back at me and a cold, heavy feeling settles in my stomach. The room seems to shrink around her somehow. The Rat seems bigger than she did when Dad was
here.

Can babies smell fear, like they say dogs can? Still she stares at me with big solemn eyes.

‘You needn’t look at me like that,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to be stuck here with you either.’

It’s a strange, claustrophobic feeling, knowing there’s just the two of us in the house. I wonder for a moment if Mum will come and help me out; but the weird thing is I realize I
don’t want her to. She’d know, if she saw me with The Rat, I know she would. She’d know how I feel about her, however hard I tried to disguise it. I’ve got enough to worry
about without her giving me a hard time too.

I put the radio on, which helps. It makes me less lonely and The Rat seems to like the music. After a while, I realize that perhaps if there are voices talking The Rat will be quite happy to be
left in a room on her own. I twiddle the dial and leave her listening to a discussion about sex and relationships after the menopause while I go and have a shower.

When I come back downstairs, I check Dad’s minute-by-minute schedule, which tells me I need to feed her. I find I can give her a bottle without even getting her out of her chair. I
don’t even have to look at her while I’m doing it.

The phone rings from the hall. I check the handset and see it’s Dad’s work number so I answer because I know otherwise he’ll probably call the police.or something. Probably the
fire brigade and the bomb squad too.

‘You’ve only been gone an hour,’ I say. Although to be fair it feels like a very long hour. ‘Are you even at the office yet?’

The Rat listens to the radio for quite a long time while I try to pretend she’s not there. She gets restless after while, but I turn her chair round so she can see out of the window and
put some music on instead and she calms down.

Dad calls again on his mobile after a couple of hours. The Rat is on her play mat now.

‘Yes, Dad,’ I sigh. ‘Everything’s fine. Apart from the earthquake. And the herd of stampeding elephants.’

‘
What?
’

‘I’m kidding. Everything’s fine.’

‘Pearl, honestly. This is no time for jokes.’ He actually sounds relieved, as though he’d genuinely been imagining a herd of elephants stampeding through south London on a
Monday morning. ‘Have you done her feed?’

‘Yep.’

‘Has she gone down for her nap yet?’

‘Sorry, Dad, you’re breaking up,’ I lie. ‘Better go.’

The Rat is watching me, wide-eyed. She doesn’t look like she has any intention of sleeping, but she seems happy enough. Well, not happy exactly. Her face is solemn and watchful, like it
always is, as if she’s a very old person trapped in the body of a baby. But she’s not crying and I want it to stay that way. I’m not going to risk putting her in her cot.
Dad’s left a whole page on how to get her to go to sleep with the subheadings
Rocking
,
Music Box
,
Nightlight
and
Reassuring Hand on Back
. What’s the
point? So I just leave her where she is.

After a while, she starts to fuss. I can see she’s working herself up into a frenzy so I try putting her back in her chair in the sitting room and finding a cartoon channel on the TV. This
works brilliantly. The Rat is totally transfixed. I smile, thinking about Dad fussing around with all his advice books and routines and instructions. Why do people make such a big deal about
looking after babies? It’s easy.

I’m in the kitchen making a coffee when I hear her start to cry. It starts as a snuffle, then a sort of bleat. By the time I get into the sitting room, she’s yelling.

At first I think I’ll just leave her. She’ll probably stop or fall asleep. I go back into the kitchen. But I can still hear her, even when I’ve put the radio on really loud. I
go back into the sitting room. She’s bright red and angry now, and her screams go right through my head. What can I do to make her stop? I get another bottle and try to give it to her even
though Dad’s instructions say she mustn’t have it for another couple of hours. She gulps half of it down, but then she won’t have any more and, as soon as she stops drinking, she
starts screaming again. I start to panic. What if she goes on like this for the rest of the day? I’ll go mad.

After ten more minutes, I
am
going mad. It’s like torture. I know I ought to pick her up, cuddle her, try to calm her down. I don’t even want to touch her, but it’s
not long before I’m desperate enough to give anything a go. I lift her awkwardly and hold her to my shoulder, trying to remember what Dad does, shushing her, rocking to and fro. But her
little body is tense with anger and the crying just gets louder. I wonder suddenly if she knows how I feel about her. Perhaps the feeling’s mutual.

That’s it. That’s why she’s doing this. She hates me.