Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles (12 page)

When we reached the boathouse we threw our bikes on the ground and ran down the ramp to the sludgy beach below. ‘What are you smiling about?’ William asked.

‘Nothing.’ I picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the grey water. ‘I’ve made up with Julie.’

William was trying to hit a buoy several metres into the river. ‘What was all that about, then?

‘I don’t know. But it’s all right now.’

‘Funny girl.’

‘Who? Me or her?’

‘Julie.’

‘She is not.’

‘She is. Likes things her own way.’

‘At least she’s not spoilt like Delilah.’

‘Delilah’s not spoilt, she’s messed up.’ His last stone hit the buoy. ‘There’s a difference.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Did you hear what she did last night?’

‘Who? Julie?’

‘No. Delilah.’

‘Did I
hear
about it? I
saw it
. Or
them
, I should say.’

‘Oh.’ The impact of William seeing Delilah topless was momentarily swept away by the realization that
everyone
I knew had been at Dan Curtis’s the night before. ‘You were there too, then?’

‘Yup. Poor little cow.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I didn’t see much. There were too many people around her. By the time I reached her, she had put her top back on. She was out of her head. I don’t know how I got her home.’

‘You took her home? That was nice.’

He looked a bit grim. ‘Someone had to.’

‘Julie was there too.’

‘I know I saw her walking off with some bloke at the end.’

We had sat down on the end of the ramp. The sun was getting low and I pulled my mohair cardy round me and rested my chin on my knees. ‘He’s called Ade. He’s asked her out,’ I said, looking out at the river. I watched a couple of swans glide past a large piece of driftwood. ‘They’ve gone to the cinema.’

One of the swans was floating away from the other, towards the bank, where the water gleamed like petrol. William was saying something.

‘Sorry?’

‘I
said
, “Do you fancy going to the cinema some time?’”

‘What?’

‘The cinema.’

‘What about it?’

‘Do you want to go some time?’

The swan had drifted back towards its mate. It was feeling cooler now.I didn’t have much time. How was I going to stop Mother going out with Bert tonight? Could I ring him and say Mother was ill? How could I do that without being found out? ‘Not really,’ I said absent-mindedly.

William cycled back with me to my house, but didn’t come in. Delilah must have been watching from her window, though, because she was in his face before he had a chance to cycle off. She was wearing her black Juicy tracksuit, sparkly flip-flops and big pink lipstick.

‘Will, Will, Will,’ she said. ‘I made such an idiot of myself last night. I was just, like, wasted. How can I ever, ever thank you for being such an angel?’

‘Hi, Delilah,’ I said.

‘Sorry. Hello, Connie.’

William – or should I call him ‘Will’? – muttered, ‘S’all right.’

I said, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t get cold, that’s all. I mean, it’s only March.’

She laughed and I felt mean.

William got on to his bike, muttering about homework, and Delilah drifted back into her house. I went in, still trying to cook up a plan. My family was watching 101
Dalmatians
, for about the hundred and first time. Marie looked up when she saw me in the doorway and said, ‘Daddy’s not coming because Mum’s not going out, after all.’ I looked at Mother, who was in the armchair next to the fridge mending Cyril’s school jumper. She said, ‘Bert rang. Something came up.’

I stared at her, my mind racing. So I didn’t need to think of a way to cancel Jack. Julie must have got to Uncle Bert first. What on earth could she have said to him? (I’ve just tried to ring her, but she’s still not back from the cinema.)

Then Cyril said, ‘I’m sad because I wanted to see Dad,’ which gave me a momentary pang. That’s the problem with war. There are always innocent casualties.

After Cyril and Marie had gone to bed, Mother and I looked at the photo albums like we used to. There are pictures of her, a young girl in Paris, on the back of someone’s Vespa. (So romantic.) There are pictures of a small smart couple, arms round each other, outside a church. Her parents. But she closed the book then and put it back. We watched the news – more soldiers, more politicians – and then we watched my father’s video. She didn’t look sad. In fact, even as I write I can hear her singing the jingle in the bathroom. ‘Cari, Cari, Carrrrib-vod.’ And if a tiny jolt of loneliness crossed her face when I said I was going up to bed, it has only hardened my resolve.

Monday 3 March

My bedroom, 6 p.m.

Julie wasn’t inschool today, so I still don’t know what she cooked up yesterday. V frustrating. Carmen and I rang her from Carmen’s mobile at break. We could hardly hear what she said, her throat was so bad. Tonsillitis, she thinks. She managed to whisper, ‘How’s the project?’ to me before her mother made her hang up.

Yikes. I thought I was off the hook. I suppose one cancelled date does not a relationship break. I’d better get to it. Bad-mouthing, I think. Bad-mouthing I can manage.

Back from a trip downstairs, 7 p.m.

Mother was making tea for Mr Spence, who was in the sitting room leaning against the shipwrecked fridge, wriggling his shoulders and rubbing his back in a ‘phew, I’ve been busy with the old manual work today’ sort of way (I’m sure it’s time he was getting home.)

I went to the bookshelf and said in a casual way, as if it was something that had been idly bothering me for a while, ‘How old would you say Bert is?’

Mother was holding the teabag and dipping it in and out of the hot water. ‘I couldn’t say,’ she said.

‘Well, what do you think? Thirty-eight? Forty? I know he acts like a teenager, but he can’t be much younger than Julie’s mum and she’s at least forty-five.’

‘Connie!’ She gave me a steely look and then smiled at Mr Spence as she handed him his mug. ‘I don’t know. It’s rude to comment like that.’

Marie, bless her little cotton socks, piped up from the plate of spaghetti hoops she was eating at the table, ‘I think he’s ugly’

‘Marie!’ Mother threw Mr Spence another smile.

‘And he smells.’

Mother said, ‘Really!’ and frowned, but I did a thumbs up to Marie. Completely unrehearsed! Marie may well be an untapped resource.

Rang Julie to tell her. Her mother says she’s too ill to come to the phone.

Tuesday 4 March

Bedroom, 8 p.m.

Today I started
on Granny Enid.

She had just settled Marie and Cyril in front of the television and was standing in the kitchen doorway, giving Mr Spence a pursed look. (She clearly doesn’t think much of the way you can see his hairy legs through the holes in his tracksuit bottoms either.) Mother was late in, so I had time to say, ‘Have you heard about this man Mother’s giving French lessons to?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, isn’t it good, dear?’

‘No, it’s not.’ I was whispering because of Mr S. ‘He’s not very nice.’

‘Constance!’

‘He just isn’t. He’s…’ I lowered my voice even further. ‘He’s seeing other women.’

Enid took a sharp intake of breath. I’d got her on a raw spot. (She’s never recovered from Jack’s treatment of Mother.) ‘Poor lamb. Widowed at such an early age and then
shackled
to such a disaster of a man…’

This distracted me. I always feel I need to stand up for Jack when even his mother’s horrible about him. I said brightly, ‘The fish thing doesn’t seem to be going too badly,’ but she just sniffed, as if she could smell it from there. I said, ‘Anyway, can you have a word with her about this bloke Bert?’

She shook her head. ‘I really don’t think it’s my place. Sssssh.’ Mr Spence had materialized at my shoulder.

He said, ‘Sorry to disturb your little confabulation, but if it is all right with you two lovely ladies, I need to move, to redeploy, my ladder.’ Now he’s more relaxed around our house – he should be, he bloody well lives in the place – he keeps putting on silly voices like this.

I raised my eyes to the ceiling and moved out of the way, and after that I didn’t have a chance to say any more, because Granny E. realized the time and left, but at least I’ve planted a seed.

Wednesday 5 March

Sitting room, 5.30 p.m.

I’ve progressed to
wanton destruction. Desperate measures. I was late in from school and came straight up to my room to avoid having to talk to Mr Spence.

I ran down when I heard the phone go, but he got there first. I heard him say, ‘Wandsworth Borough Lunatic Asylum. Only joking, how can I help? No, she’s not here. I’ll take a message, shall I?’

When I came down again later, Mother was home and Mr S. had changed into his smart clothes. If you ask me, he definitely hangs around each night to see her.

‘Bernadette,’ he said (no messing around with surnames any more, I’ve noticed). ‘Could I have a little word about the… the roof tiles? In the garden. If that’s all right?’

‘John, of course,’ she said, and followed him out.

I watched them. He was talking, looking up at the roof. She was listening hard. At one point, she put her hand on his arm. I shuddered, looked away, and that was when I saw the piece of paper on the counter. It was a Sainsbury’s receipt. And on the back of it Mr Spence had written, ‘5.05 p.m.: Bert rang. He’ll be in tonight. Please could you ring him back.’

I inhaled sharply. So, he’d called. He hadn’t been completely put off by Julie. Yet. I wavered for a moment and then I picked up the receipt, scrumpled it and stuffed it into my pocket. Outside in the garden, I heard Mother say, ‘All I care about, John, is that it doesn’t happen again.’ I paused, suddenly guilt-struck. Her with a leaky kitchen roof and a flaky boyfriend. I took the receipt out of my pocket, smoothed it and put it back on the table. But now it looked suspicious. Who would write a note on a crumpled receipt? It was too late. I picked it up, ran back up here, tore it into pieces and ran down again.

They were coming in from the garden. Mother was laughing in a flirtatious way, stroking Marie’s head at the same time. She was still wearing her coat and holding a bag from work. A carrier bag with Pritchard & Benning on the outside. Suddenly, she turned and handed it to me. ‘I had to guess the size,’ she said.

I opened it without thinking. Inside, wrapped in rustling layers of pink tissue paper, was a pale-blue cotton bra with daisies along the cups and a matching pair of pants. I didn’t know what to do. I stood there with them in my hands, feeling my face flush. When I looked up, everyone was looking at me, including Mr Spence. I avoided Cyril (the little sneak – he must have told her about me trying on hers) and said thank you to Mother. ‘But… how –’ I began.

She laughed and sort of sang, ‘Ah. The man with the set, with the credit note! Remember!’

‘But, Mother.

‘No. Not another word. Try them.’

I began to get out of it, but she was so excited and pleased with herself that I didn’t have the heart. Sheepishly, I went up to the bathroom and put them on. I told her through the door that the pants were fine, which they were – like thin shorts really – but she insisted on coming in to check the bra. She fiddled with the straps, raising them up a bit, and tightened the back. Finally she looked me over, with a proud expression on her face. ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘You see? How much better your profile? And a good fit, no?’

I nodded, a thought about the man with the set idly playing in my head.

When we went downstairs later, Mr Spence was still there. He was just sitting there with the cat on his knee as if he owned the place. (On reflection, I suppose he does own the place.) He said, ‘Lovely jubbly,’ at me like he thought he was Jamie Oliver, and I was almost sick.

7 p.m

Just back from dropping in on Delilah. William had, apparently, dropped in already.

He was sitting on her chair, blue and silver to match her computer desk, kicking off against the floor and swivelling back and forth. Delilah was reclining up on her platform bed; her head at the step end, her dark curls fanning out like Medusa’s locks. She had taken off her socks and was trying to touch the stars on the ceiling with her bare toes.

‘It’s a party!’ she said when I came in.

‘Your life’s one long party,’ I told her. Then I smelt the incense – Delilah likes to create an atmosphere – and started coughing.

‘You OK?’ William stopped swivelling when he saw me. I may have imagined it, but I think his eyes flicked momentarily to my new bust.

I crossed my arms. ‘Bit of a chest, that’s all.’

William raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Just so long as it’s not glandular fever like Julie,’ he said.

‘Is that what she’s got?’ I said, surprised. ‘I thought it was tonsillitis.’

‘Glandular fever’s the story going around school.’

‘Too much kissing,’ said Delilah.

William and I looked at each other and then looked at her. We both laughed.

‘What?’

I pushed the keyboard out of the way and sat on the edge of her desk, ‘I suppose we’re still thinking about your antics last weekend. Have you recovered yet?’

She got up and threw a pillow at me. ‘Oh, don’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had all that again from Will.’

I ducked the pillow, which tumbled on the desk, knocking over William’s tea. He hauled up the pink towel on the floor by his feet and started mopping it. She squealed something about her new Oasis dressing gown and plunged down the platform’s steps to pull it out of his hands. There was some jostling and some giggling. I think Delilah may have slapped him round the chest. He dropped the dressing gown and grabbed her wrists.

‘Children. Children,’ I said. Delilah, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, picked her dressing gown up off the floor. ‘Hands off my intimates,’ she said, eyeing William flirtatiously with those big blue eyes of hers. You’d think she was a lady of the night the way she carries on, not some virginal Year Nine from an all-girls’ high school.

‘Right, I’m off,’ I said. I uncrossed my arms and stuck my chest out. I’d had enough of this. There were more important things going on in the world. Like war, for one thing. ‘Coming?’ I said to William.

‘Owh,’ said Delilah. ‘I’ll have to do my prep if you go.’

‘Prep?’ William had got up off the chair.

‘Posh girls’ homework,’ I said.

‘I’m not posh!’

‘All right. Keep your top on!’ He grinned at her.

‘Right,’ I said, and started leaving. Gratifyingly, William followed me down. ‘See you, then,’ Delilah called after us, at her door.

Delilah’s parents hadn’t let William take his bike in – they’ve got a new oak floor they didn’t want scratched – and when we came out, someone had nicked a wheel.

‘That’ll teach you,’ I said, and even now I don’t know really what I meant.

In bed, 9 p.m.

Was happily writing the above when I was disturbed by something AWFUL. The smell of rose and geranium…

Mother was getting out of the bath, ‘Going out?’ I said.

‘No. No,’ she said airily. ‘Bert’s coming round for his lesson.’

‘BERT!’ I yelled. I wasn’t expecting to hear his name again. EVER. I thought I was on the case. I thought this was something being dealt with. ‘Here? We still haven’t got our kitchen back.’

‘Ah, well, maybe we’ll have a takeaway, chérie.’

‘Is he paying?’ I said.

She looked defensive. ‘Well, it is my house,’ she said.

‘It’s ridiculous. We can’t afford it!’ The bra straps were digging into my shoulders.

She tutted. ‘It is not a good time for merchandise,’ she said. ‘What with –’

‘I know, what with the war,’

I stomped downstairs ahead of her to the sitting room. Cyril and Marie were lying on the floor in their pyjamas, next to the fridge, wrapped in Mother’s duvet.

I hissed, ‘Ugly Bert is coming round, so you’d better tidy up,’ I was thinking fast. What could I do to impede this visit?

Marie, who is very impressionable, said, ‘Ugly Bert. I think he’s yuk,’

‘Unless we can stop him,’ I said.

Cyril studied me with a curious expression on his face. Marie was drawing a Barbie princess’s horse and carriage and didn’t seem to notice.

It was six o’clock. I had two hours to put my plan into place. The first thing I did was go upstairs and get into my pyjamas and dressing gown (phew: the relief of taking off that bra). Then I came down again and lounged on the sofa bed. Mother was tidying up around the children, putting her clothes into piles, the milk back in the fridge, their scabby toast plates into the sink. ‘Aghhh’ I said after a while. The television was on quite loud and no one noticed. ‘Aghh’ I said again.

Mother looked at me in surprise. I’m very rarely ill. ‘
Chérie!
’ she said. She felt my forehead. ‘Are you unwell?’

‘I don’t know. I feel funny’ I said.

This piqued Marie’s curiosity She was over like a shot. ‘Are you going to be sick?’ she said.

‘I don’t know. Aghh.’

‘If so, can I watch?’

‘Marie!’ Mother’s scold contained a note of alarm. ‘No. No. I can’t have you being sick too.’

Then I remembered something. About six months ago, Cyril got some bug and spent a whole night puking. About four in the morning, Marie joined in and Mother assumed she’d caught it too. Suspicions were only raised at breakfast when Marie mysteriously tucked into her cornflakes without a care in the world. I didn’t say anything, but I was sure she’d been a victim of sympathy-puke. Some people are more susceptible than others. Marie, whose tastes are finely tuned at the best of times, is very susceptible.

‘Yes. I do feel sick,’ I said. ‘I think it’s the smell of the fridge.’

‘The fridge!’ Marie turned to stare at it, still looming over the television.

Mother tutted. ‘No. No. Not the fridge.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The fridge.’ Then I gave another bone-vibrating groan.

Mother flapped about, getting me a hot-water bottle. Marie went back to her princess, but kept shooting me, and the fridge, interested glances. Occasionally I would make a gagging motion with my throat and she would quickly look away. I could see her own throat jerk.

‘Go to bed if you’re not feeling well.’ Mother got more on edge as 8 p.m. approached. When the doorbell went, she said, ‘Come on. Up,’ switched off the TV and pulled the duvet off Marie and Cyril. Crossly, they both got to their feet just as she let Uncle Bert in. He looked slightly less confident than usual, almost diffident. He made some reference to the builders and the state of the house, and just stood there, a bottle of wine in his hand. Mother was in the doorway saying, ‘Come on, children. Cyril! Marie!’ They began to follow her. I began to panic. But just at that moment, Bert came to my rescue. He was unwrapping the wine from its paper – Californian, I noticed – and touching the side of the bottle with a disgruntled expression on his face. With one pace he crossed to the fridge and, bottle held out, swung it open. I saw my chance, made a lurch with my torso, and let out as loud a gulp as I could muster. Marie spun round. She sniffed. She looked at me. She swallowed. Her eyes glazed. She swallowed again. Her whole body went into spasm and then she was violently, satisfying, sick all over Bert’s feet. Untapped resource, as I said.