Easy Peasy (14 page)

‘Like what?'

‘Look, you're knocking earth from the top on to the sand.'

‘Sorry.'

‘You're breaking up the edge with your shoe. Move.'

‘There's not room over that side for me.'

‘Careful, you'll ruin it.'

I stood back and watched them. There were grains of sand under my nails. I stood there for a few moments waiting for Daddy to say something else. Dog-belly kept looking up, grinning his yellow grin, but Daddy kept his head down.

‘That's right,' he said to Dog-belly, his voice a hundred times more gentle than when he spoke to me. I went into the kitchen to wash the sand off my hands. Mummy was sitting at the table picking bits off the joint to chew and reading the newspaper while Huw took all the pots and pans out of the cupboard under the sink.

‘What's up?' she said.

‘Why does Daddy like Vassily better than me?' I asked.

‘You dope.' She laughed. ‘Course he doesn't.'

‘He acts like he does.'

‘Well …' She shrugged. ‘Daddy is … complicated. I don't know. He's not harming you, is he Grizzle? And he's happy.'

‘Happy?'

‘Well …'

Huw started crashing saucepan lids together and I went back out to the tree-house and shut myself in.

When Daddy finally took Dog-belly home, he didn't come back for ages. We'd had our Sunday night baths and washed our hair and were sitting by the fire while it dried and still he wasn't back.

‘Where
is
Daddy?' Hazel asked.

‘Gone for a walk, I expect,' Mummy said, ‘bending over that blasted pond all day, he'll need to stretch his legs.'

Dog-belly had left his cardigan at our house. On Monday evening Mummy sent me round to Wanda's with it.

‘Oh
Mum
…' I objected.

‘Or you could take it round in the morning, walk to school with him.'

‘I'll do it now.'

Wanda seemed delighted to see me. ‘Come on in and have a drink,' she said. ‘Daft little spook, he'll forget his head next.'

She led me into the sitting-room. The curtains were drawn, the lamps were lit, the television was on with no sound and a record was playing. ‘Pink Floyd,' she said. ‘Like it?'

Vassily, wearing a dressing-gown, was curled up in the arm-chair with the cat, watching a film and sipping Coca-Cola. The television, unlike ours, was colour. An incense stick stuck in a plant pot had left a worm of ash on the table. There were magazines strewn everywhere, recipes, knitting patterns, beauty tips. Wanda was dressed in a long red crushed-velvet dressing-gown, tatty but luxurious looking. Her eyes were smoky and huge.

‘Having a night off,' she said. ‘Do join us.'

‘Off what?' I asked but she didn't hear.

I hadn't meant to stay or even step inside. But it was very cosy in the room and Vassily had hardly even looked at me. He was engrossed in some Carry On film. Without the sound on, it was as if the characters were under water, a tank full of bright silly fish opening and closing their silent mouths to the rather odd music.

‘Bacardi and coke?' Wanda waved the bottle at me. I was flattered. The only alcohol I'd had before was a thimbleful of ginger wine at Christmas. That was something I liked about Wanda – she didn't treat me like a child. I was disappointed with the drink, it tasted just like ordinary coke. But still, coke was a treat in itself. Mummy wouldn't buy it, but Wanda actually got it from the milkman on Saturdays along with her milk.

‘How's your love life?' she asked, curling up on the sofa with her feet tucked underneath her. The sofa made puffy, squelchy sounds as she snuggled her body down.

I laughed. ‘How's yours?' I replied, very cheeky. Where her dressing-gown fell open I could see the skin on the inside of her knee, very white skin, a little rough. She made a funny face and I laughed again. I took another gulp of my drink. I was surprised at the way laughs kept fizzing up inside me like the Coca-Cola bubbles in my glass. She had a silver ring on every finger. She saw me looking and took one off. It was a puzzle ring. She undid it so that it was just a loose jumble of uneven loops and fidgeted it back together. She had quite thick fingers and chewed nails. ‘Can I have a go?' I asked. She handed it to me and topped up our drinks. I looked over at Vassily who was still absorbed by the television, a full glass clasped between his hands. I hoped there was no Bacardi in his coke.

‘TV addict,' Wanda said quite proudly, following my glance. ‘Though that's a wonder he makes anything of it.' She pulled the lobe of her ear. I could smell her patchouli oil and the clashing muskiness from the joss-stick. My teeth felt dry and tacky from the drink.

‘German measles,' Wanda said.

‘What?'

‘Got it when I was carrying …' she nodded at Vassily.

‘Oh … and did that make him …?' I fiddled with the ring, but I couldn't make the pieces fit together.

‘Could have been worse, that sometimes make them blind and all.' I tried to imagine being deaf and blind. There was a film about Helen Keller I'd seen on the television. I couldn't think how, if you couldn't see or hear, you could do anything. How you would even know that you were there. I took another swig of my drink. The idea made me dizzy.

‘Vassily gets on very well, considering,' I said.

‘Well he's doing speech therapy and that,' she said. ‘Poor little spook.' She sighed. I thought the name suited him – Spook – little spindly ghosty boy. ‘He's no oil painting, is he?' she continued. ‘But you should of seen his dad.' She rolled her eyes and held her breath while I imagined a hero. ‘At least I assume that was his dad.' She laughed again. ‘Your dad now he's a …'

‘A what?'

‘He's a nice dad. He's nice to my Vass.'

‘Yes.'

She took the ring and showed me how to do the puzzle. ‘And your mum, she's nice too. A nice family.' There was something a little grudging in her tone. I could see the deep and downy crease between her breasts. I knew what the word sexy meant. I burped and blushed.

She laughed. ‘Better out than in.'

‘I ought to go and do my homework.'

‘What a good girl.' Wanda's voice was wistful now. I finished my drink. The record ended, the arm of the record-player swept across and clicked. The room suddenly seemed very quiet.

‘Let's have another go first.' I took the ring back and shook it apart. This time I did it.

‘Keep it,' she said.

‘Really?'

‘If that fits you.' It was too loose even for my middle finger but I didn't say. I wanted to keep it.

‘You're quite pretty,' Wanda said, pulling her head back and surveying me critically.

‘I'm
not
.

‘Give you a few years.'

‘It's Hazel who's pretty,' I said, willing her to disagree.

‘Horses for courses,' she said. ‘Got ten minutes?'

‘S'pose so.'

‘Come here then.' She took me through into her bedroom. It was extremely untidy, the bed all rumpled and strewn with more magazines, clothes all over the floor, and soft toys. A black furry gorilla lolled on her pillows.

‘There's a lot of toys in this house,' I said. Standing up I felt most peculiar, very squat as if there wasn't much space between my great big head and feet.

‘We like toys, me and Vass,' she said. ‘We go up town Saturdays, shopping. That's our treat. Look …' She picked up a wind-up monkey, swept a litter of envelopes, tissues and lipsticks off her dressing-table, wound the key and set the toy down. It loped along for a few steps, then suddenly turned a somersault on its fists, landed back on its feet and walked right off the edge of the dressing-table on to the floor where it buzzed helplessly, its legs scissoring in the air. She shrieked with laughter and flopped on to the bed. ‘Int that a scream?' I smiled and sat down beside her wondering what on earth it must be like to have such a childish mother.

‘Right then,' she said. She narrowed her eyes at me and picked up a hairbrush and a comb. She crawled behind me on the bed and knelt so that I could see our two faces in the mirror. She lifted strands of my hair up and started to comb them backwards from the tips to the scalp. ‘Back-combing,' she explained. My hair swelled as she worked through it into a voluminous brown fuzz. I spent many hours a week trying to calm my hair down into something as biddable as Hazel's, ironing it, even sleeping in a Balaclava helmet, and here was Wanda trying to make it worse. Under the bare backs of my thighs I could feel crumbs on the nylon sheet. The green nightie was a bright puff on the floor. ‘There … what do you think?'

I turned my head from side to side. ‘Not sure,' I said.

‘You want to get a bit of henna on that,' she said. ‘You'd look fantastic. Now eyes.' She crawled off the bed and rummaged through a dressing-table drawer. ‘Kohl,' she said. She sucked a little brush into a moist point and dabbed it on a block of black stuff. ‘Keep still.' Her face was very close to mine. She had black marks from the brush on her lips. The rough tip of her tongue was nipped between her teeth as she painted tickly lines above my eyelashes and then on the lower rim of my eye. I felt the brush slip and slide on my eyeball. ‘Oops! All right?' I nodded. My nostrils were full of the scent of her breath and her skin. ‘I'd of loved a girl,' she sighed, as she finished. ‘Not that I don't love Vass, of course. But I
would've
liked a daughter.'

I felt almost jealous of the daughter she didn't have.

‘There, what do you reckon?'

My eyes looked smoky and mysterious. Like something out of a Turkish delight advertisement. ‘Fabulous,' I said. Although I wasn't sure.

‘Told you you were pretty, didn't I?' She looked proud. ‘Getting tits too.' She touched my chest where small lumpy swellings were starting under my nipples. I jerked away from her hand. I hadn't realised they showed. I was terrified of getting breasts at all, and particularly of getting them before Hazel who would never forgive me.

‘Better go,' I said. My chest smarted from the sudden casual touch of her hand. I hurried home, clumsy and nauseous from the drink.

‘Good God,' Hazel said when she saw me. She was weighing out butter and flour for tomorrow's domestic science lesson.

‘Wanda did it,' I said. ‘What do you think?' I put my hand up to the warm fuzz of my hair. I could see my white face reflected in the dark glass of the kitchen window.

She pulled a face.

‘And she gave me this,' I said, twisting the ring round my finger. She pretended she was too busy watching the needle flicker on the scales to look.

Mummy came in. ‘Oh there you are. I was about to send out a search party.'

I touched my hair again. ‘Like it?'

‘Well, it's certainly different.'

‘It's back-combed with kohl on my eyes.'

‘Coal?' Hazel said.

‘Kohl.'

‘Anyway, it's bedtime. Are you all right? You look a bit flushed.'

‘Fine,' I said. But when I went upstairs I was sick.

Next morning Dog-belly was waiting for me outside. I had what I suppose was a hangover and was too dopey to dodge him. I didn't want to walk with him. Just because I liked his mother didn't mean I had to like him. His hair looked clean for once. He had had it cut and his hearing-aids seemed to stick out further than ever on either side of his narrow yellow face.

‘Hello,' he said, careful and loud.

‘Hi.' I went to walk past him.

‘Griselda!' By some bad luck my mother had happened to step outside at that moment with the milk bottles. When she called I thought I must have forgotten something.

‘What?'

‘Walk with Vassily, won't you?' There was a slight warning inflection in her voice.

‘OK.' I walked along in silence. He said one or two things, even touched my arm in a friendly way to try and spell something to me, but I didn't look. I felt as if a balloon was inside me wanting to burst, my dislike for him was so strong: dislike, resentment and I don't know what else. I wished I need never see him again. Hazel's words came back to me once more, her cool precise voice, the way she'd said it as if it was obvious what I had to do. Hurt him. OK. Hurt him. But how?

13

‘Your bath's ready.' Foxy comes in, her glasses steamy. ‘Oh Zelda, you've let your coffee get cold now!'

‘Been dozing.'

‘Well, that's good, but come on, up.'

‘Bossy cow.'

She smiles, stretches out her hands and pulls me from the warmth.

The bath is deep and almost too hot and she has poured some of my lime bath soak into it. I twist and pin up my hair and slide down into the water. Less than twelve hours ago I lay in this bath, ignorant, innocent, of my father's death. The morning sun streams dazzlingly through the bathroom window, curdling in the steam. Foxy perches on the edge of the bath.

‘More coffee?'

I shake my head. The water is tight, hot, comforting. Somehow I goose-pimple for a moment against the heat of it; minuscule bubbles, fine as dust, rising from the down on my arms and belly.

‘I've been looking though your father's papers.'

‘Oh?' I close my eyes.

‘Do you mind?'

I don't answer. Of course she would look at them. I left them on the kitchen table where she could not fail to see. And being Foxy, it would be impossible for her not to read them. So I can't, I shouldn't, mind. But still, I find that I do.

‘Course not.'

‘Sure?'

I smile up at her. ‘There's not much you can make out, is there?'

She considers. ‘Enough.'

‘Enough for what?'

‘Well…' she touches my shoulder with her cool index finger. She looks incongruously smart, here in the bathroom, hair done, lipstick on. She's taken off her fogged-up glasses. From this angle, below her, I can see the signs of age in her face. The skin is not so tight as it used to be, the pores lax. As she looks down there is a suggestion – just a suggestion – of looseness about her jaw-line and cheeks, a puckering on her throat.