Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (6 page)

I needed to make Ma coffee to go with her cold toast. She always said, ‘Janie, don't say a word until I've had my cuppa.' I couldn't touch the kettle though, because once I pulled the cable, trying to see the steam, and Ma pulled down my tights there and then and gave me a smack. But I knew coffee had to be hot, so I climbed onto the stool again and sprinkled the Mellow Bird's powder into the toaster's holes. After just half a jar, I added, just like I'd seen Ma do, a drop of milk. When Ma went to Grandma's she'd say, ‘Just a dot o' milk in mine, Ma.' I pushed the lever and climbed down.

I ran through to the bedroom and threw myself on the lump under the sheet. Ma had been sleeping a long time.

‘Ma! I made yeh a breakfast.'

I heard a sound under the covers like a kicked dog swearing then her face poked out and I was so close I could smell her sweaty hair and her smoky and savoury breath. Her face was already wet.

‘What? What did yeh make? I'm warning yeh, if you've touched the hob or the kettle I'll –'

‘No, Ma, I didnae! I made yeh some toast but not hot cause I had tae heat up yer coffee in the toaster.'

In the kitchen there was a loud popping sound. Ma sat straight up, jumped out of bed in her vest and pants, and shoved a pair of Tony's old boots on her bare feet.

‘Fer fuck's sake! Stay here.'

When she came back into the room she looked at me through her little, naked eyes like I'd done something to hurt her. She looked at my face for a long time like she was trying to recognise me and I looked at her thin legs sticking out of the big black boots and tried to muffle a snort of laughter.

‘Ma, was it not good? Breakfast tae cheer yeh up?'

Her face was sharp and I felt a seeping black feeling that maybe I hadn't done something I should have. Did she want jam? A fag lit to have with it?

She bent down so we were nose to nose, her smoky breath covering my face.

‘You, Janie Ryan –' I quaked at the use of my surname – ‘are a naughty wee beastie an' an awful chef!'

Then she threw me on the bed and tickled me with expert Ma tickly fingers. I wriggled, my arms flailed, but while I screamed for her to stop I was really begging her for more.

Buchanan Terrace was part of a big concrete estate. You could walk ten minutes in any direction and it would look like someone had been at work with grey blocks of Lego, a someone who liked clean lines and order and who probably didn't care too much about the families who'd have less space than battery hens.

They weren't tower blocks though; each building was U-shaped, with four levels of ten flats. We even had an upstairs and a downstairs and Ma said that made it a proper home. Buchanan Terrace was squeezed between two grim blocks. Ours was the red door on the fourth floor.

We didn't take much from Monarch Avenue, Uncle Frankie couldn't fit much into the boot of his tiny, fancy black car.

The estate was ugly but there wasn't the same threat in the air. Instead of broken bottles and petrol cans there were ice-pole wrappers and shitty nappies spilling out of ripped bin liners.

‘This is a place fer families, Janie.'

There were gangs of kids who ran the streets, the youngest ones with heavy, sodden nappies under their short T-shirts, and when the ice-cream man came, chiming out ‘Teddy Bears' Picnic', they would run after it, banging their grubby fists against the side of the van whether they had a shiny coin clenched inside or not.

Frankie said that business was good. He bought me a My Little Pony duvet and a grey rocking horse with stiff, shiny hair. Ma got a Breville toastie maker and a record player with a dead spider in the radio tuning strip. The best gift, for both of us, was a big colour telly with a remote control. Its colour and sound fell across the room in the evening and pushed away all the dark spaces like a rainbow.

Even Grandma brought something for us.

‘Yeh wouldnae believe the journey on that bus. I hope yeh appreciate this. Of course, if yeh'd not got involved with a thug I wouldnae have tae be bringing yeh my neighbour's cast-offs.' She'd brought thick orange curtains that I wrapped myself up in, swanning through the house like a princess. Later Ma found me asleep at the foot of my bed, my limbs tangled in the tangerine velvet.

Ma decided to ‘Get Organised' and each Monday we joined the long, impatient queue at the post office to cash the benefits books before going to Safeway and getting out the List.

‘Then we'll last on whatever cash is left for the rest of the week and at least we'll have food in the larder.'

For the first few days we had tinned spaghetti, fish fingers and pink wafers, but by Sunday the cupboards were bare and we ate a lot of toast and porridge and talked about what we'd buy the next day in the shining aisles at Safeway. Over toast with a scrape of marge Ma explained she was just getting used to it and she'd find a way to ‘make the grub last'.

On Mondays, after I'd helped her carry the bags of shopping and packed away the things in the freezer, Ma gave me a soft pound note; my pocket money.

‘Run right there an' back an' don't let anyone take it from yeh, Janie.'

I ran with the note tightly rolled in my sweaty mitt all the way to the shop where I bought a comic and a Cornetto or sometimes a plastic cone of raspberry-swirled ice cream with a cold, crumbling gumball at the bottom.

‘Do yeh not want tae save some for the week, so yeh can go tae the ice-cream van?' she asked while I was astride my rocking horse, a drip of ice cream idling down its grey flank.

‘Nope.'

No, I'd watched the kids from the landing that ran outside our door, chasing the red-and-white van, a pack of animals hunting, and I definitely didn't want to go down there with my precious pocket money.

*

My scalp was tender and my hair fluffy from brushing that I had started at six thirty and had finished after eight. I was dressed in my red dungarees, blue T-shirt and orange plimsolls.

‘So they'll recognise me, Ma.'

She stared, shrugged, pushed my vitamin dropper to me and continued buttering toast. ‘Put yer vitamins in yer milk.'

I squeezed the dropper, watching the oily yellow drops drift over the white surface. My hands were jerky, my head fizzing; today was the day.

‘An' will there be Connect 4? For me tae play with the kids?'

Ma shrugged, her face pinched, she never wore make-up any more or went anywhere except for Mondays. I thought that ‘Getting Organised' must have made her tired. She had bitten her nails to swollen, scabby stubs and I worried my pound-note pocket money was making us very poor.

I sat and watched
Sesame Street
and tried to swallow down the toast that stuck in my throat while Ma was getting dressed. She came back in a pair of stained jeans, a big black T-shirt with a panther on it that used to be Tony's, and a pair of white high heels. Her tight curls had become flat on top and frizzy at the ends. I looked at her smoking a roll-up.

‘You look nice, Ma. You're beautiful.' She grabbed my arm and pulled my face close to hers, her brown eyes hard. ‘Don't bullshit, Janie, do yeh hear me? Never to please anyone. Even yer pathetic ma.'

Her voice was level but there was no hint of a smile. She dropped my arm and gave my forehead a quick kiss. ‘OK?'

‘OK, Ma . . . I think yer hair is a wee bit messy. Will I get my brush?'

‘Aye, Janie, but be quick, we can't be late.'

I got my brush and followed the path of the bristles through Ma's hair with my chubby fingers while she had another roll-up and sat still for me.

When I finished and she stood, her face was wet from tears and her hair was double the size, soft and full of air as candyfloss. She put her hands to her head and gave a short laugh.

‘Well, this feels like an improvement alright, Janie.'

She took my hand and we left for my first day at nursery.

*

It was a low building with barbed wire on the roof and wind-scorched, flaking cartoon characters on the walls. I told myself that it didn't matter that it was a different place.

Ma gave me a winding, rib-crushing cuddle before pushing me into the legs of a barrel-chested old woman wearing round pink-framed glasses.

‘Be good and I'll be back later.'

She left quickly with her head down and didn't turn to look again.

‘Janie, I'm Mrs Walker. Are you excited about your first day?'

I didn't answer the woman. I was too shocked by Ma's quick exit; she couldn't wait to get away.

She took my hand and led me through to a room scattered with toys and pictures, all fighting for eye space. The only colours and shapes that weren't crowding my vision were the ones I wanted. My eyes didn't rest on Nell's shining skin or clicking green beads. The collection of upturned noses, freckles and shin bruises on the red carpet did not belong to any of the kids I knew and I couldn't see a Connect 4 box anywhere.

I bit into my top lip with my bottom teeth. Ma had said so, she'd promised. I felt the prickle behind my eyes, the swelling inside my chest. I tugged Mrs Walker's sleeve.

‘Do you have Connect 4 for me tae play with?' I asked in a low whisper.

Kids froze with fingers up noses, they pulled their hands from inside their shorts, a sea of squirming limbs on the carpet stilled; these kids knew the build-up to a tantrum when they saw one. At the front of the carpet a boy with dark shadows under his eyes breathed noisily though his mouth.

‘Oh, well, I'm not sure. Connect 4 you say?' She rolled the name around her tongue. She'd never even heard of it. ‘Anyway, we play together here, Janie, in a nice big group.'

I began to match the boy's noisy breaths with my own until the tight pain in my chest exploded and I started to howl. The kids watched me as my mouth gaped with strings of saliva and rivulets of snot pooled above my upper lip. They watched, wide-eyed, as I turned pinker and pinker and I threw myself down into a ball on the floor. Mrs Walker clucked around me, first trying to calm me and then eventually trying to pull me away from my audience, some of whom were threatening their own tears. As she lifted me I shouted: ‘Get off me, yeh . . . yeh fuckin' fat old bitch.'

The whole carpet gasped. The boy with the dark circles under his eyes started to cry.

‘Don't hit her!' I never knew if he was worried about me or Mrs Walker because she was pulling me across the room, my plimsolls squeaking against the yellow lino.

I spent the rest of the day in ‘the quiet room', taking out my temper on innocent crayons. I scratched scribbles onto sugar paper and made sure that every crayon in the box was snapped and crushed. If I saw a bit of crayon on the floor, I stamped my heel on it to make bright waxy streaks.

By the time Ma arrived there was a firework explosion of colour on the floor and I was sleeping on a stuffed monkey. She bent down and shook me gently.

‘Janie?'

From her crouched position she looked up at Mrs Walker and then down at the crayon hate on the floor.

‘Did she have a nice time? I mean, was she good?'

Mrs Walker pursed her lips and sighed through her flat nose. ‘Well, to be honest we've had smoother starts, but I'm sure things will be better tomorrow.'

But Ma was already hoisting me up distractedly and I breathed in her roll-ups and coffee smell. ‘Aye, well, see yeh tomorrow then.'

Mrs Walker reached out her hand and touched Ma's arm. ‘A few other things; children pick up all sorts of things these days. Will you have a word to Janie about swearing? Maybe explain why we don't swear, especially at nursery?'

Ma looked at me and then Mrs Walker with a squint expression.

‘And does Janie have the game Connect 4 at home? Is she particularly fond of it?'

Ma's squint deepened, her expression vague. ‘Connect wha'? No, Mrs Walker, not that I can think of. I've never heard her talk about it even, but I'll ask her the night. I've just got tae get home right now though.'

We left the nursery in silence, Ma smoking a roll-up, looking like she hadn't slept for a week or maybe like she had slept for a whole week. When the nursery was just a grubby finger smudge behind us Ma looked down at me and said, in her poshed-up telephone voice: ‘Will you speak to Janie about swearing? Fuckin' busybody.'

I laughed and swung our linked hands. ‘Aye, fuckin' busybody!'

Peals of laughter escaped us and spiralled up into the hot, blue Scottish sky. We laughed all the way home and that night Ma didn't speak to me about swearing, but she didn't ask me about Connect 4 either.

*

The rest of summer the kids at nursery watched me carefully. I could take their toy or steal half their chocolate biscuit but when we had to walk with partners I would always be left with Davey, the boy with dark circles under his eyes and hands thick with flaky eczema. With no one else to walk with I happily chattered away as he looked wide-eyed and interested and said nothing; though I pulled my jumper sleeve over my hand before I held his.

Davey lived on the next terrace along from us. Above those dark shadows he had milky-blue eyes that made him look like he was waiting for a beating. His sister, Leanne, was six and went to proper school already. She had a skinny body and straight dark hair framing her hard face, narrow brown eyes and dusty skin that looked like it needed some rough treatment from a wet flannel.

I attached myself to them and held on tightly as though I expected to be thrown off. Leanne was my best friend at home and we left Davey to trail silently behind, scratching his hands and taking the parts we didn't want in our games.

Leanne was brave and loud; she shouted a lot and broke rules. She also shat herself. We would be playing shopping or hairdressers and Leanne's face would become serious as the smell washed over us. She never said a word, just carefully stood up and ran, bow-legged, back to her house. I still had my own shameful days of waking to sticky legs and an acrid smell and I never said a word either.

Davey and Leanne's parents liked a drink. That's what Ma said when I asked her why they sometimes couldn't walk. It was true; whether I called for Leanne morning or night there would be a sweating can of lager and a plastic bottle of cider on the table and her ma and da would be lounging on the sofa watching the one channel they could get with the help of a bent coat hanger.

Ma called them Jack Sprat and wife because Leanne's da was so skinny you could see his bones and her ma's big arse spilled right over the sofa's edge. They both had blurry sea-green tattoos up their arms and if you stared long enough you could make out the dragons and lions and words crawling up their skin and under their T-shirt sleeves. The only thing I ever heard Leanne's da say was, ‘Leanne love, fix us a snakebite.'

Us kids could do what we wanted, which normally meant taking our clothes off and chasing each other through the reeking dirty clothes and greasy plates in the bedrooms and jumping on the beds until something underneath snapped. I often stayed for tea at theirs though Ma didn't like it. ‘They've enough on their plate, Janie, without another mouth tae feed.'

But Leanne's ma was organised too and on Mondays we would often bump into her in the booze aisle at Safeway with four big sacks of frozen chips thawing in her trolley. There was always a mouth-watering, fatty smell in the air at Leanne's and at the beginning of the week there would be red sauce too.

After enough visits to fetch me home for dinner or bed Ma gave in and said yes to ‘A cider and a plate of chips, Iris?' After that she started joining them with her bottle of cider in front of the telly, on an armchair cleared of their crushed beer cans.

When Ma wouldn't let me stop for tea Leanne and Davey came over to mine and listened wide-eyed while I described the Fray Bentos pie and peas or Findus Crispy Pancakes I'd just eaten. I'd tell them I'd ask Ma if they could come to tea soon but I never did for fear of missing my plate of chips at theirs.

One night we heard the grown-ups laughing so loud that we ran downstairs. Leanne's ma was holding an empty chip bag.

‘Call the police!' Ma slurred. ‘No, the newspapers! Mary Dunne is out of chips.'