Candyfloss (21 page)

We said goodbye to the kitchen and tried to count up how many chip butties Dad might have made, right from the opening day. It was as if thousands of phantom chip butties were whirling all round us like galaxies in outer space.

Then we said goodbye to the café itself. We sat at every single table and we toasted our very special customers in lemonade, our dear Billy the Chip and Old Ron and Miss Davis, but also people we’d remembered for years: the man with a red face who ordered ten chip butties and ate every single one,
gollop
gollop gollop; the couple who held hands and ordered a big mixed grill to share and then shyly confided that it was their wedding breakfast; the lady who came in with her labrador and ordered one chip butty for herself and one for the dog.

Then we went back upstairs and said goodbye to my bedroom, and Dad told me how he and Mum had taken me home from the hospital when I was born and tucked me up in a little Moses basket. They spent hours and hours trying to get me to go to sleep, and then when I finally nodded off they were so worried they woke me up again just to make sure I was still breathing.

‘Do you know, I still sometimes creep in when you’re asleep and check you’re breathing,’ said Dad.

We said goodbye to Dad’s bedroom and the bathroom and the loo, and then we said the saddest goodbye to the living room.

‘Let’s have one last cuddle on the sofa, Floss,’ said Dad.

We curled up together and traded memories as we stared at the blank television screen. It was as if films of our family life flickered there – long-ago happy Mum-and-Dad-and-Floss times.

We both sighed. Then Dad kissed the top of my head and said gently, ‘Let’s get on our way, little darling.’

Lucky was hiding in her duvet, sensing something was definitely up. She’d taken her time deciding she wanted to come and live in our house, and now we were expecting her to leave before she’d even settled in. She didn’t want to be lifted up, and I had to hang on hard to her, duvet and all. She mewed indignantly for me to put her down.

‘I’ve got to hang onto you this time, Lucky. We’re going to a new house now. You’ll like it just as much, you’ll see,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure that was very likely.

Dad drove us very slowly and carefully out of the town to Billy the Chip’s house. It was on a big mock-Tudor housing estate, row after row of identical semi-detached houses with black and white panels and crazy paving and clipped privet hedges. I was sure I was going to get muddled as every single street looked the same. I clutched Lucky tightly.

‘We’re here, pet,’ said Dad, drawing up outside number four Oak Crescent.

We peered out at the house. The privet hedge was wavering out of control and the crazy paving was sprouting weeds from every crack.

‘Poor old Billy. It’s obviously got a bit much for him,’ said Dad. ‘We’ll do our best to tidy it up for him, won’t we, Floss?’

‘Yes Dad,’ I said, in a small voice.

I felt like Lucky, who was still mewing piteously in her duvet. I didn’t want to start living in this shabby old house. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with me.

I thought of the airline ticket. Dad had taken it out of the kitchen drawer and given it to me to look after. I had smoothed it out carefully and tucked it inside the plastic case of the
Railway Children
video. I’d opened up the case twenty or thirty times over the last couple of days, just to check the ticket was still safe.

I wasn’t going to use it. I couldn’t leave Dad. I couldn’t leave Susan. I couldn’t leave Lucky – though I had asked Mrs Horsefield privately if you were allowed to take animals on aeroplanes.

Dad reached out and took hold of my hand. ‘OK, little Floss?’ he said.

I took a deep breath. ‘OK, big Dad,’ I said.

We got out of the van. I held on tightly to Lucky. She was so keen to be put down now we were out of the noisy scary van and on firm ground again that she scrabbled frantically with her paws and scratched my neck. I knew it was an accident but it hurt quite a lot, and it hurt my feelings too. I had to blink hard and clamp my lips together to stop myself crying. I knew Dad was peering at me anxiously. I tried hard to make my mouth smile. Dad’s own smile was pretty forced too.

We knocked on Billy’s door. The knocker was tarnished and the black paint blistered, but there was a lovely stained-glass window set into the door, a big round sun with long slanting rays – the sort I used to paint when I was in the infants.

The door opened and there was Billy squinting in the daylight, looking paler and frailer than ever, but he was proudly wearing a strange new nylon tracksuit and he had a moneybag strapped round his old saggy tummy.

‘I’m all set for my trip,’ he said, patting his purse and holding his nylon arms out for inspection. ‘What do you think of the new gear? I wanted to be comfy travelling.’

‘You look dead trendy, Billy. Those air hostesses will be buzzing round you like bees round a honeypot,’ said Dad.

‘Oh, very droll,’ said Billy, but he looked pleased. ‘Well, come in, then. Welcome to your new home. I’m afraid it’s a bit lacking in mod cons. I’m rather set in my ways.’ He opened the door wider and we stepped inside.

We stayed standing still, blinking in the gloom, staring all round us. It didn’t seem as if we’d stepped into someone’s home. It was as if we’d moved into a museum. The hall had a little table and an umbrella stand and one of those fat old-fashioned cream phones with a round dial. There
was
a crocheted mat underneath the telephone, yellow with age.

There were many more crochet mats in Billy the Chip’s living room. They were on the back of his shabby olive-green sofa and on each arm too. There was a matching set on both green armchairs. There were more mats on the nest of tables and yet more under the china vases on the mantelpiece over the tiled fireplace.

There was a big woollen semicircular mat in front of this fireplace. Two vastly fat tabby cats lay symmetrically either side, paws outstretched, heads raised, staring at us like sphinxes. Lucky gave an anxious mew in my arms. I held onto her protectively. Mr Chip’s cats were great tigers compared to tiny Lucky.

More mats were laid out like a card game on the big sideboard, each covered with a photograph. There were old wedding photos. I stared at a strange stiff couple, the man with a little moustache and a wing collar tickling his chin, the lady with her wedding veil right down over her forehead.

‘That’s Mother and that’s Father,’ said Billy the Chip, gesturing, as if they were real and standing six centimetres tall on his sideboard. He pointed to another wedding couple, a thin awkward young man and a plump woman with her hand tucked in
his
arm. ‘And that’s me and my Marian.’ He stroked the glass on the photo over Marian’s rounded cheeks.

There were baby photos too; a bare little boy lying on that same semicircular rug.

‘That’s my boy. He’s another Billy, like his dad and grandad, but he calls himself Will nowadays,’ said Billy, shaking his head.

‘Does he have a chip van in Australia, Mr Chip?’ I asked.

‘No, he swore he was never going into the fried chip business. Couldn’t persuade him. He did bartending, and now he’s got his own wine bar out in Sydney, though I dare say he serves up chips as a bar snack. French fries or potato wedges or whatever fancy name they call them now.’ Billy sniffed.

‘I wonder if Mum and Steve ever go there now?’ I said.

‘Sydney’s a very big city, Floss,’ Dad said gently. ‘Your Billy’s moved with the times, mate,’ he said to Billy ‘That makes him a smart guy. Much smarter than you and me.’

Time had certainly stood still in Billy’s house. He
did
have a television, but it was even older than our telly at the café. There was a wind-up gramophone beside it, with a pile of old black records in brown paper sleeves.

‘Good God, Billy, have you kept these from your courting days?’ said Dad, looking through them. ‘Hey, these are even before your time, surely?’

‘They were Mum and Dad’s,’ said Billy. He gestured with his trembly old fingers. ‘They moved in here right from their honeymoon. Spanking new, the house was, my mum’s dream home. It was considered dead modern in those days.’

It was hard trying to imagine this musty old house as
modern
. I tried picturing a couple dancing to the gramophone, a baby crowing on the rug, laughter and shouting and doors banging – but the house stayed still and silent.

‘I’ll show you to your rooms,’ said Billy.

He led the way up the threadbare carpet and then showed us each room along the landing. The bathroom had an old bath with rust stains under the big taps and black chips in the enamel.

‘It doesn’t look too grand, but I clean it regularly,’ Billy said, sounding embarrassed.

‘It’s fine, Billy, and obviously spotless,’ said Dad, patting Mr Chip’s nylon sleeve. ‘You’re much better at housekeeping than we are. He puts us to shame, doesn’t he, Floss?’

There was a main bedroom that had once been Billy’s mum and dad’s, and then Billy and Marian’s, and now it was just Billy’s. There was something
about
that sad big empty bed that reminded me of Dad’s bedroom back at the café.

Dad looked relieved when Billy suggested he sleep in the second bedroom, which had always been a spare room with a single bed. It had fraying pink ribbons on the net curtains, and the mats all over the dressing table were pale pink to match. There was a firescreen with an embroidered thatched cottage and a faded pink ruffly bedspread. It looked like a room for an old old lady. My dad looked too big and too fat and too rough for such a room, but he told Billy it was lovely and he was very grateful.

‘Now I thought we’d put little Flossie in young Billy’s room,’ said Old Billy.

It was the only room in the house that wasn’t stuck in a 1930s timewarp. It was a strange boy mixture. There were old footballer posters on the walls and rock music tapes piled up like building blocks, and an elderly Paddington Bear stood in a corner in his duffel coat and wellingtons. Oddly, right in the middle of the carpet, there was a doll’s house. It was a 1930s doll’s house –
two
houses: two semi-detached homes making one whole house with a sloping red-tiled roof, black and white panelling and two front doors.

I squatted down beside it, still hanging onto Lucky, but I was so distracted that she squeezed herself out of one end of the duvet and stood alert,
her
back arched, her tail outstretched, not sure where she was off to now she was free at last.

‘Look at the doll’s house, Dad!’ I said.

There was a hook at one end so I edged it open and the front of the house swung forward. It was fully furnished inside, with little carved wooden replicas of sofas and chairs, tables, baths and beds. One half house had small green cushions on the chairs and little crochet mats as small as a penny piece.

‘It’s
your
house, Mr Chip! Yours and the matching one next door!’ I exclaimed. ‘Where did you
get
it?’

‘I made it myself, love,’ said Billy. ‘It was rather a daft notion. I’d always whittled away at the potatoes in odd moments, carving out a face here, a monkey there, a clown – whatever took my fancy. I’d fry them for the customers just for a laugh, but then when our Billy was on the way I fancied making something more permanent. I took it into my head that he’d be a girl, so I started in on a doll’s house. Daft idea, really. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing modern kiddies want to play with anyway.’

‘
I
would, Mr Chip,’ I said.

‘Then you play with it all you want while you’re here, sweetheart,’ said Billy.

‘Are you sure, Billy? It’s a totally awesome work of art,’ said Dad, kneeling in front of it. ‘Floss is a
very
careful girl but I’m not sure she should be allowed to touch it.’

‘No, no, it’s
meant
to be played with. I’d always hoped for a little girl but we only had our Billy—Will. I wondered if
he’d
have a daughter, but Will’s not what you’d call the marrying kind, so if little Floss here would like it, then the house is hers.’

‘Oh Mr Chip! I couldn’t possibly keep it,’ I said – though I wanted it desperately.

‘Yes, you have it, darling. I promised you a birthday present and here it is. You can carry on furnishing it if you fancy doing so. I made a few bits and bobs and my Marian did the mats, but we felt a bit daft, like, when there was no one to play with them. It’s yours, Floss.’

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ I said, and I reached up and gave him a big hug round his wrinkled tortoise neck.

‘You’ve got to stop doing us all these favours, Billy,’ said Dad. ‘You’ve been so good to us.’

‘You’re the ones being good to me, watching over the house and cats while I gallivant off.’ Billy paused. ‘I’m not really sure I know what I’m doing, going all the way to Australia. Maybe my lad doesn’t want me visiting. We didn’t always see eye to eye when he lived here. We didn’t part on the best of terms.’

‘He’ll be thrilled to see you, Billy. Lads row with
their
dads and leave home to make their own way in life. It’s only human nature. But he’s a man now and he’ll be thrilled at this chance of seeing you.’

‘Do you really think so?’ said Billy, still sounding doubtful.

‘Mr Chip, if I hadn’t seen my dad for years and years I’d be jumping right over the moon,’ I said.

‘If you could jump that far you could propel yourself and save on the air fare,’ said Billy, ruffling my curls.

I don’t like it when people do that. It even annoys me when
Dad
does it. But I stood my ground and smiled politely. Mr Chip said I was a sweet kid and Dad was lucky to have me, and he went all watery eyed. Dad said he knew that, and he had to dab his own eyes with a hanky. I fidgeted from foot to foot, feeling foolish.

Billy insisted on cooking us Sunday dinner.

‘I’ve got a roast chicken in the oven, and roast potatoes. I’m not cooking you chips, because you’re the bee’s knees when it comes to chips and there’s no point competing,’ said Billy.

‘Chip Master of the Universe,’ said Dad, beating his plump tummy and flexing his muscles.