Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (21 page)

‘Aye. So?'

He nodded and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. Those sweat patches could have been seen from space. ‘So. So, let's just say that you'd be one of the first and probably the last.'

‘Aye, but I'm in the top set fer English an' I read all the time. If I get good marks I can go to college. What yer going to be hasn't anything to do with how much money yeh've got. Just cause I'm from the Barracks, why not?'

He stood and walked round to my side of the desk, put his hand on my shoulder and looked out of the window. ‘OK, well, let's say I'm Tom Cruise, why not, OK? And I go home to Nicole Kidman each night and have a nice Porsche sitting outside to drive to the pub. My job is guidance, Janie, and that means I've got to get students to be realistic as well.'

I thought wet was sinking into my shirt from his palm but I didn't shake it off, I was concentrating on not kicking him in the balls.

‘Take a look around you when you get home, have a think about it and ask yourself, “What's realistic for me? How will I make a living?” I'm sorry if it's –' he raised his arms so his fingers could make little marks in the air – ‘“harsh” but my job is managing expectations.'

I bit down on my tongue.

‘That'll have to do for now.' He opened the folder in front of him, ready for the next kid. ‘Have a think about what I've said and I'll see you before your exams for a follow-up. Just remember –'

‘Aye, I've got it thanks, I'll be realistic.' I turned and left the Portakabin. ‘Yeh fuckin' sweaty dick.'

*

I had a cider hangover, the kind that lies thick on your tongue and heavy in your guts. I knew I must've had chips the night before because of the crusty smudge of ketchup under my chin that stung when I scratched it off. There was something sticking into my arse as well,
The L-Shaped Room
, large print and hardback because it was all I could get from the library, but it was Ma shouting up the stairs that woke me. Got me to open my sticky eyelids like peeling the skin off a not ripe enough satsuma.

‘Janie, get down here! Janie!'

‘What is it?'

‘Just get down here.'

I put on a pair of trackies under my minidress and thumped down the stairs, putting a hand against the cold white wall to push away the spin in my head and sick feeling floating just behind my ribs.

Ma was at the living-room door, eyes bright. ‘Janie –'

‘Will yeh give me a minute? I'm dying for a pee.'

‘But –'

‘Hold on, Ma, I'm dying.'

She thudded down on the sofa. ‘Right, go then.'

There was a bit of sting to my piss, it smelt a bit like cider and that made my stomach turn again. I leaned over my thighs and let my hair flop down over my shins so the sound of the yellow hitting the bowl and water filled my ears.

‘I had a win.'

I looked up at the door, my chin digging into my knees. ‘Ma! I'm having a piss. Have yeh never heard of privacy?!'

‘Fine, I won't share it with yeh then, smart-arse.'

Back in the living room, I looked at her right forefinger, at the line of dark grey under the fingernail, and started to get a bit excited. ‘Tell me then.'

She was flushed, her arms itchy with a secret as she smoked her roll-up in tight little puffs, gave a happy shrug. ‘I thought you didn't want tae know.'

‘Ma, come on. I was bursting, sorry, just tell me. What was yer win?'

She stood up, walked back towards the kitchen.

‘Sure yeh don't want tae go for a shite an' all? You look a right state.'

‘Ma! Fuck's sake, just tell me.'

‘I only won 174 fucking quid on a scratchie!' She grabbed hold of my elbows and did clumsy celebration jumps made more sloppy by her big slip-on slippers like someone on an advert for scratchcards. Instead of a real ma in a real grotty kitchen with a hung-over teenage daughter. ‘A hunner and seventy-four, Janie!'

‘When did yeh find out? Have yeh got the money? Let me see the card.'

I couldn't stand it, the thought of her red cheeks and excited elbow-clutching being a mistake; besides, I was already counting up what my share might be. She wouldn't be rushed though.

‘I'd just dropped Tiny off at Doug's an' then got it from that wee Spar by his, the one with the miserable bitch of an assistant. An' yeh know I wouldn't shame myself in front of her sour mug usually but I just had a feeling, Janie.' She was filling the kettle, moving her quick, energy-filled hands towards the tea bags. ‘In my waters. I even sat on the seafront tae scratch it. Yeh know I'll usually wait till I'm home and do my scratchie with my cuppa and a rolly. Anyway, I checked an' checked again, I wouldnae give her the pleasure of refusing me, and then I marched back. Yeh should have seen the face on her. “Your lucky day,” she said with a face like a slapped arse!'

‘So you got the cash?'

‘Aye, crisp twenties. There's your share.'

She jerked her head to the four pound coins on the sink draining board and handed me the tea. I blew the steam away, my tongue itching to get the liquid in me.

‘Aye, very funny. What you going to get then?'

Ma put two slices of Mother's Pride under the grill. ‘Janie, yeh might be out all hours flashing yer belly button an' fuck knows what else, but I'm still yer ma an' know yeh back tae front. What you mean is what are
you
going tae get.'

I shrugged and laughed, then she did too, the orange light of the grill across her eyes like a mask. ‘Aye, alright, what am I going tae get? And don't go saying four measly quid.'

And even though it made me not want my toast I did a few clumsy jumps of my own across the sticky lino.

*

It was freezing but Ma said she wanted to sit by the sea. The salty wind licked at her hair and made the ends curly. It showed up the silver strands more and the side of her face crinkled as she dug between her back teeth with a ripped-off piece of her Rizla packet. Probably trying to gouge out the slivers of fatty bacon like I was with the tip of my tongue.

‘Isn't it funny, Ma?'

‘Hngh?'

She had two fingers inside her mouth, really having a good root, looking out to the beach from our little bench on the prom.

‘How we know each other. I knew you were going to rip off a little square of your Rizla packet after yer bacon bap.'

She made a sucking sound with her tongue on her teeth and I could practically feel the raw bit of gum free of the scrap of bacon, the way it would taste metallic at the tip of her tongue. I huddled into her, away from the cold.

‘Aye, we're peas in a pod alright Janie.' She gave me a look, put a nervous hand on my back; I couldn't feel it through my coat and two jumpers. ‘I wouldn't have done anything different, yeh know, having you. Even though I was just a kid really.'

‘But yeh say all the time when we row that yeh gave up everything for us.'

‘Yeh know I've a temper, Janie, but we're a good team, you an' me.'

I shrugged her off, squeezed a bit of bread roll into a doughy ball. I hated it when she tried to act like my mate, like it was fine for me to be out every night because that's what she was used to.

‘Do yeh want me to end up like that then? Like you?'

A chip wrapper tumbled over Ma's feet; she looked down and kicked it off, brushed crumbs from the front of her jumper, turned away to open the clasp of her bag and then closed it again.

‘Ma, I asked you something.'

She looked dead straight at me, her face too young to be as tired as it was, sadder than it might have been too. She took a strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ear, gave my earlobe a little tug and shook her head. ‘Aye an' no. I wouldn't know what to do without you an' Tiny. I just want the best for you two, Janie, I'm just never sure how tae give it.'

‘Then you wouldn't want me tae stay here then, would yeh? Be miserable an' lonely an' never travel or have a decent job?'

‘I went tae London, an' had good pals and nights out.'

‘Aye, but that was –'

She balled up the paper bag on her lap in a quick, angry movement, scrunching it tight. ‘Fine, Janie, fine. Just like yer da.'

‘How? How am I just like him?'

She whispered. Those words should have been lost in the noise of the seafront, but I didn't hear those noises any more, I'd heard them so often. ‘Full of yerself.'

Behind her head I saw the grey murk of the sea push towards Great Yarmouth and then draw back again, frothing at the effort of just doing that because it had no choice. I felt the soreness in my throat but it didn't come out in my voice that was too loud. ‘Ma, I –'

‘I'm sorry, Janie, forget that, I'm being daft. Now come on! Enough of this. We've had our feed, let's go spend some of this lovely cashola on my girls!'

And with a quick nudge in my ribs, Ma turned herself away from me to undo and redo the clasp on her bag again, pointlessly.

*

We bought Tiny a make-up set and four pairs of Tammy Girl leggings patterned the colours of tropical fish. In Boots, Ma let me smudge blue eyeshadow onto her brownish waxy eyelid with my finger and I let her spray some perfumes onto my wrists and rub them together. We went to Prism Records and she got me and Beth tickets to see Rocket from the Crypt at the Waterfront.

‘Ma, it's almost fifty quid, I'll just get a few tops from New Look.' I wanted the tickets, and to see Beth's face when I pulled them out on Monday, but I didn't want the rich feeling to go. Or Ma's cheerfulness, her new fast walk and purse flourishing. I really didn't want the sums on the backs of envelopes to come back or Ma's hard disappointed face when she had to say no to Tiny or me. But Ma wanted this day and she wouldn't have listened if I'd told her to slow down, to maybe save a bit. All the winnings were for me and Tiny and getting to treat us was worth more than money to her.

‘Janie, I'm getting yeh a treat an' that's that. When it's gone it's gone!'

That's what she said when we had chocolate biscuits too.

We only had one row that day. I saw her looking at a cream blouse with brown flowers, rubbing the silky cloth between her fingers and then turning the price tag, dropping the blouse limp again.

‘Ma, treat yourself, honest, it'll be nice tae see yeh in something new. I'll make yeh up, do yer hair.'

She looked embarrassed to be caught looking, shamed. ‘I don't need it.'

‘That's not the point. It's a treat, not needing it is the whole point.'

Her body was as limp as though her own hanger had been taken from inside, and her mouth drooped. ‘Naw it's fer you two this windfall.'

‘Why do yeh make everything so hard fer yourself? When it's gone it's gone, Ma, and –'

And there were the tears, a film of oil on the brown penny of her iris, ready to spill down cheeks. ‘This money's fer you two, fer a treat. It's rare enough I can give yeh both one. Just leave it, Janie.' Then quieter, stepping backwards from the blouse, ‘Leave it.'

We went and got Tiny, who danced around our bodies, arms reaching high, grabbing at the shiny, crackling Boots and Tammy Girl bags held over her head. Ma gave Doug a half of whisky and a peck on the cheek. Just like it was Christmas.

Tiny rode facing us, on the front of the trolley in Iceland, almost tipping the whole thing, as me and Ma piled it high with big bags of crisps, frozen pizzas and Viennettas in every flavour. Ma made zigzags on the shiny orange floor with the trolley and hummed, ‘We're in the money, we're in the money,' the three of us laughing, in our three different voices over the hum of the chest freezers, the waft of all the perfume Boots had on display that day chasing us as we went.

*

‘Ma, have I ever blamed you fer needing yer sleeps or not working full-time even when we were really skint?'

‘An' what's that supposed to have to do with anything?'

‘Because I'm telling yeh, I can't do another day at Caister High! Not with Beth gone. Yeh don't understand what it's like.'

‘I'm stuck in this house surrounded by inbreeds like her next door eating herself tae death. So don't you tell me I don't know what it's like! An' do yeh see me giving up? Just chucking it all in?'

We'd been having a nice night, sleepy from a big dinner, cosied up with cups of tea and old magazines with
Catchphrase
humming away in the background.

I'd thought it was a good time to tell her I wouldn't go back. So she could get used to it. Now we were face to face and I could tell that there was no edging back from a full-on slanging match. I didn't really want to edge back anyway.

Tiny turned from the carpet, where she had been watching the telly, an annoyed look on her face. Roy Walker was telling us to ‘Just say what you see. Say what you see.'

‘Aye, actually, Ma, that's exactly it. You're only in yer thirties an' you just sit around all day filling yer face with Findus pancakes and bags of frozen Iceland eclairs. You barely even notice what yer own kids are gettin' into because yeh've given up on yerself. And when yeh do notice yeh don't have the guts to stop it.'

I stood up and she did too. I was an inch, maybe two, taller than her, even barefoot, but she got right up into my face, pushing her head forward into the space between us so she was shouting into my mouth. ‘Do you know what I've done fer you two? What I've been through? Yeh've no idea! I sacrificed my whole life so you an' Tiny could have a good start. So don't call me a bad ma.'

She was screaming now, jabbing my chest to make her point, and I butted back into it knowing there'd be a bruise tomorrow to make her feel guilty.

Tiny stood up but she didn't speak. She still had the same empty look on her face she'd had while she was watching the squares reveal Mr Chips ‘making his bed and lying in it'.