Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (8 page)

I stood by the sofa, smelling Ma's breath like pink nail-varnish remover, on the table I saw the bottle of vodka and carton of pineapple juice.

Tony had 50p held between his forefinger and thumb, a magician about to do a trick. I stared at it shining in the light and thought it over. It might be a trick; to get me out of the room and away from Ma or it might just be a free ice cream. The best thing to do was to get an ice cream but make it fast. A free cone was a free cone after all.

Ma reached forward and took the coin from him, placing it in my hand.

‘Are yeh going tae say thank you, Janie?'

I started running for the door.

‘Ta.'

Before the door slammed I heard Ma shout, ‘Don't forget tae bring some change back.'

I was down the stairs and elbowing my way through the crowd of kids before Tony would have had time to pick up his drink again or Ma could apologise for me.

I got the biggest ice cream, a giant soft whorl with a flake, drenched with glossy raspberry sauce, and ran back up the stairs taking bites of it, licking drips of sticky sauce off my wrists and cramming the flake into my mouth sideways before it softened and burst in an explosion of chocolate crumbs.

I ran back into the living room and gave Ma back the 5p change.

‘Janie, yeh cheeky thing. That's a giant ice cream.'

Tony shrugged, sipped his drink. ‘Come on, Iris, it's a treat.'

Ma smiled at him and patted the sofa between them.

‘Sit here, just while yeh finish it, I'm not having yeh get raspberry juice on the remote again.'

Ma's words blurred at the edges and Tony had a dopey smile on his face; the bottle on the table was almost empty. I sat on the edge of the sofa between them, filling my mouth with ice cream as fast as I could.

‘Can I have a drink of yer pineapple juice?'

‘Course yeh can,' Tony replied, shaking the empty carton. ‘There's more in the fridge.' And he went through to the kitchen like he owned the place.

‘Janie, when he comes back put a bit of ice cream on his nose.' Ma's whisper was warm, ticklish in my ear.

‘What?' I looked at Ma grinning and open-faced, her eyes urging me.

‘Fer a laugh. Go on, it'll be a laugh.'

Tony came back with my chewed-up baby cup that I hadn't used since before he went away. He held it out, face full of pride.

‘Nice an' cold from the fridge an' all.'

I looked round to Ma grinning and nodding me on. I did it for Ma and the pizza. Tony turned to speak and I took one final lick of my ice cream and mashed it onto his nose so the cone pointed out like a snowman's carrot from his sunburned face.

‘Janie! I said a wee bit not the whole cone.'

Ma's smile was fixed but her eyes were wide as we watched the pink in Tony's face deepen, a drop of ice cream roll down his face. He lifted his hand and I grabbed a handful of Ma's T-shirt, but he just pulled the cone off his nose with a slurp and laughed, cleaning his face with the hem of his T-shirt.

‘Were you playing a trick on me? Yeh monkeys!'

Beside me Ma collapsed into the sofa. She bent double as though her mouth wasn't big enough to let out all the laughter contained inside her. In between breaths she kept saying, ‘Yeh should have seen yer face! Fuck's sake, Janie, I meant a wee bit not the whole fuckin' cone!'

While she laughed I watched Tony's flat, unsmiling eyes above his wide grin and my lovely ice cream melt into a sad pool around the almost empty vodka bottle. Once Ma had caught her breath she said, ‘Janie it's time fer yer bed.'

But she wasn't looking at me when she said it.

‘Are yeh going tae come up and see I've brushed my teeth?'

‘No, not tonight, yer a big girl, Janie. Now tae bed with yeh.'

‘Could I not stay up a bit later till Tony goes?'

‘Aw, Janie, I'm sure yeh'll see Tony in the morning. Now, bed.' As I left I heard her say to my back, ‘I love yeh, yeh wee beastie. Night-night.' And the gurgle of another drink being poured.

That night I tucked my duvet into my dark nook and kept my eyes open till they burned waiting for thuds and screams, but that was one night they didn't come.

*

‘Yer new da's hair's funny.'

‘He's not my da, he's not even an uncle. It's just stupid Tony.' Pop, pop, pop.

‘My da says he's a hard man about town an' if he gets married tae yer ma yeh'll have someone to look out fer yeh like me an' Davey.' Pop, pop.

‘They won't ever have a wedding. He was meant tae ages ago but he never did. He'll just stay for a while smashing stuff up an' then he'll go away again an' I'll help get Ma better.' I felt a sharp set of kneecaps in my tummy. ‘Leanne, shift yer legs they're digging intae me.'

There was a flurry of ‘pops' as Leanne adjusted herself. We were in an empty cardboard box that a neighbour's twin tub had come in. It was filled with bubble wrap and as soon as we saw it we turned it upside down and climbed in, filling the dark space with popping and giggles as we got comfy in our new den.

‘Besides, my Uncle Frankie, the one with the fancy car, can fix him any time. He told me.'

‘What's he smashed up?'

‘Just stuff. Ma says it's secret anyway.'

‘Does he hit yeh?'

‘It's a secret, Leanne, I crossed my heart an' hoped tae die.'

I picked up a hand of bubble wrap and squeezed it in my fist. It was hot but I crossed my legs tighter as I felt the usual heavy feeling in my tummy.

‘But we're best friends so yer allowed. Everyone knows that.'

‘Really?'

‘Aye, that means we tell each other.'

My heart beat so loud I thought the cardboard walls would shake but I lifted my hands up and cupped them around the hot skin of Leanne's ear anyway. She stopped popping, held her breath, leaned towards me and I said in a whisper, ‘He doesnae hit me but he hits Ma, he hits her an' she even bleeds.'

‘That tickles.' She shook me off and said in a normal voice, ‘Is that all? That's what das do. So Tony must be going tae be yer da then.'

I kicked the plastic off my sweaty legs, ‘How's that then? Your da doesnae hurt yer ma, does he? Not so she bleeds an' cries?'

I thought maybe Leanne had nodded in the darkness. Instead she said, ‘I'm roasting in here, let's get out.'

We pushed the cardboard box so it fell backwards then stretched out our legs to get the air on them and blinked some sunshine into our light-thirsty eyes.

‘Leanne, does your da hurt your ma?'

‘Just when there's no' enough booze. Or too much. That's what Ma says.'

I flapped my skirt to get some breeze up there and looked at my best friend.

‘But yeh stop him, don't yeh? From hitting yer ma?'

‘I would, I'd kick him in the balls when he hits her, but she told me the hits hurt more if there's someone watching. An' the bruises are bigger.'

She shrugged and started ripping off a piece of cardboard. It made sense; every time I ran to my room I was helping Ma to hurt less and making her bruises smaller so she wouldn't have to use up so much blusher. Leanne put back her head, put a scrap of cardboard on her pursed lips and blew it high into the air.

‘Does he hit you?'

‘Naw. Just Davey, but only sometimes, and Davey can run faster than him if it's the days when it's too much booze.'

‘Well, my Uncle Frankie can sort anything an' he'll come an' sort your da as well as Tony. I'll ask him.'

Leanne tore the pieces of cardboard into brown confetti. ‘Naw, don't bother. He doesnae mean it. Ma's always saying how much he loves her an' us.'

‘That's what my ma says about my da.'

‘That Tony?'

‘Naw, I've said, he no' my real one. My real da is American like a film star. Ma says he's a big house in England. She says she might take me to stay with him, like when I went tae Nell's house.'

‘Who's Nell?'

I shrugged and put a bit of cardboard on her upturned lips; she smelt sweet and dusty like a wine gum from the bottom of Grandma's bag. She blew and we watched the card fly.

‘Just someone nice. My real da is maybe going to look after me for a while Ma says, while Frankie's fixing things.'

She shrugged, poked a finger into her ear and had a gouge. ‘Do yeh want tae go?'

I shrugged back, pulled my knickers out of my sweaty bum crack. ‘Ma would come an' get me she said.'

‘Davey would cry. He cries when Ma locks the door fer a bath even.'

‘Where is Davey?'

She turned to me, a big grin on her grimy face. ‘Getting nit shampoo with Ma.'

‘Ugh! Davey's got nits?'

She stood up and started dancing around the box.

‘Aye, Davey's got nits but I havnae. Davey's got nits! Davey's got nits!'

I chased her doing my own stomping, Red Indian dance.

‘Nits! Nits! Nits!'

Our sandals slapped against the dirty paving slabs, our arms and hair flew wildly about us.

‘Let's wreck it!' Leanne said, aiming a kick with her pink jelly sandal at the side of the box.

‘Aye! Let's smash it up! Nits! Nits! Nits!'

And we jumped on our cardboard home and kicked and ripped it to shreds with our bare sweaty hands.

‘Nits! Nits! Nits!'

Pop. Pop. Pop.

*

It had only taken two weeks for him to start again. The coffee table had gone first, its smooth glass top broken cleanly into three pieces, then the grate on the front of the fire was kicked in, the dented wires touched the electric bars so we couldn't turn it on. ‘Well, it's summer now,' Ma said, looking at the floor. The top of the record player got smashed in and I wondered if the spider had been scared, it seemed deader. Next the frosted pane of glass in the living-room door was shattered by the silhouette of a wrangling man and woman. Ma gaffer-taped over the hole with a cornflakes packet. ‘There, good as new.'

Then it was Ma's wrist that was broken, from a boot brought down on it, and her nose, for the second time, by Tony's forehead.

Tony slammed the door as he left and Ma called for a taxi, repeating the words over and over until they understood her blood-slippery lips. The driver made Ma sit on a bin liner from the boot and looked straight ahead. He didn't ask if she wanted to go to the hospital even though Ma had blood all over the bottom of her face like a winter scarf pulled up high.

When we got to Frankie's flat, the first time I'd ever been, he locked the door behind us and called another taxi for Ma. After she went he took me for fish and chips and when we came back Jodie was sitting on the doorstep goosebumped and full of temper. She gave me a hard hug and I let myself be cradled in her soft curves that smelt like Charlie perfume and Silk Cut.

Ma got back after I'd fallen asleep and must have wrapped herself around me on the sofa because I woke to Ma's staring, bruised eyes and her taped-up nose.

That morning Jodie washed my hair in Frankie's big round bath but I could still hear the row in the next room.

‘You said, you said yeh could fix it. Before, when Janie came home an' . . . yeh know I can't go tae the pigs. They'll take her into care.'

‘Aye, but it's not the same now, sis,' Frankie was pleading, ‘I can't piss off my suppliers an' Tony's connected. He's the one got me into this.'

‘So it's about money then, is it? Over me an' Janie?'

‘No, it's . . . I mean . . . yeh know it's not just fer selling that I need a supply. Please.'

‘Oh, I understand alright, first Ma an' now you, it's like we've no flesh an' blood tae depend on.'

I looked up at Jodie.

‘Lie back now, Janie, get all the soap out.' Still Ma's anger moved through the water, a slow sea creature, reaching my ears in time.

In the days that followed Ma's mood could turn on you as quickly as a Scottish summer day, leaving you chilled, bewildered and running from a storm in your flimsy dress.

When Frankie took us back to Buchanan Terrace the telly had been kicked in and the sofa cushions slashed, but it was my bedroom that smelt like the payphone by the shops from the stale piss soaked into the mattress and made Frankie's face twist. ‘Fuckin' hell.'

Ma pulled my burning face to her flat belly. ‘Shut it, Frankie, just shut it right now. Alright, Janie, yeh've tae pack yer school uniform, jammies, an' two changes of playing-out clothes.'

‘What about my toys?' I asked, breathing through my mouth, my eyes on my rocking horse with its sticky sides and plastic hair.

Ma let an exasperated breath from between her lips. ‘Don't make this harder, Janie. One – fuck it, two toys but small ones.'

I chose my red umbrella and my Glow Worm, that had stopped glowing after the first week, stuffed my lunch box with anything else I could fit and then piled my arms with toys and got Frankie to carry my rocking horse to Leanne's. Ma stood by the car waiting for us smoking a roll-up.

Leanne and Davey were at school but their ma let us in with a shrug. Once we'd left the toys in a pile on a bed I went into the living room while Frankie waited outside.

‘Will yeh tell them it's just fer a wee while? I'm coming back but they can play with them until then?'

Leanne's ma put down her glass and gave me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Aye, Janie, I will. An' you tell yer ma from me she's well out of it. Well out. Are yeh off tae stay with family fer a while?

She looked tired and maybe worried about us so I gave a big smile. ‘Aye, don't worry, we're going tae stay with my da in London. He's from America!' But that just seemed to make her sagging face even sadder.

*

Frankie drove us to Grandma's and we said our goodbyes with the motor running.

‘Sorry, Ma, we've tae catch the overnight coach.' Ma looked at her feet. ‘Save on a night in a B&B, yeh know.'