Lying Together (8 page)

Then as I turned to go past the till, I saw something propped up there. It was a small parcel, wrapped in yesterday's newspaper. Written on the front was ‘For the Waitress with the Cocoa'. I couldn't think who else it could be from, but I hardly dared to hope. I unwrapped it carefully. It was a man's spotted scarf. Fine silk, the sort Miss Jennings used to say could be pulled through a wedding ring. There was something else, too – a note on a piece of hotel paper. Neat, dark writing:
I owe you for a charming evening and I always like to pay my debts. This scarf is a bit grand for life down on the farm. Have it please, with my regards, Jack Thompson. P.S. I'm sorry, but I don't know your name.

MOUTH

S
he's always mouthing off at me. I call her The Mouth. In my mind, that is. I call her The Mouth in my mind. To her face I say Yes. Thank you. Mother.

When I was little she'd yank my hair back in a rubber band. Give me a ponytail so high it seemed to grow out of the top of my head. So tight it would never come undone.
Go and Play
, she'd say.
And don't get dirty
. I'd go off in my white socks and hand-knitted cardigan to stand by the fence and watch the others.

Who did you play with?
she'd say when I came back.
What did you play? Were those Bates boys out there? They didn't give you any of that bubblegum, did they? Let me see your hands.
I'd have the gum in my knickers, just inside the elastic. I'd chew it in bed after I'd said my prayers. ‘God bless Mummy … God bless Daddy …' I'd slip my hand down to the side of the wooden bed and pull it off, hard and cold and shiny, but still sweet.

I don't know why you don't play with Sandra Smith.
My mother liked Sandra. My mother liked me to go to tea with Sandra. They had proper tea with serviettes. Mr Smith had an office job and a typewriter in the bay window where he did Invoices. Sometimes Sandra and I played at Invoices. Otherwise Sandra's house was boring.

When it rained I'd stay in and read. Enid Blyton, The Famous Five. Sometimes I'd go through the bookcase in the front room. Dreary titles:
Silas Marner
;
Bleak House
;
Kenilworth
. I tried
A Christmas Carol
. It started: ‘Marley was dead.' I didn't read any more. My mother would look over my shoulder to make sure I wasn't reading comics
. I want you reading proper books. What about
Black Beauty
?

I didn't like horses.

I used to hear her talking.
Geraldine has a lot of Potential.
I hated the name Geraldine. The Bates boys called me Gerry. My dad never called me anything, except ‘chicken'. When he spoke. Which wasn't that often.

Geraldine is a natural dancer,
she'd say. She took me for private lessons with Miss Standish in a big house three bus stops away.
Now, mind you hold your head up! Don't look at your feet! I want to be proud of you.

Elocution, too. Mr Moon with a moustache and an old mother, making me recite ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade'. He'd put his sweaty hand on my shoulder and breathe into my ear. Warm breath, smelling of sherry. My mother paid him two pounds for half an hour.
Geraldine has a lovely speaking voice.

She wanted me to be a model, a TV announcer, an air hostess. My hair was long and shiny and she waved it with tongs. When I was twelve, I cut it all off with Brenda Morris's kitchen scissors and I thought she'd have a heart attack. When I inked a tattoo into my knuckles (D. A. V. E.), she slapped me across the mouth so hard my lips started to bleed. Called me a little trollop. How could I be an air hostess with hands like that?
You realize you're disfigured for life?
She took me to the doctor. Asked about plastic surgery. Slammed out in a temper, dragging me by the arm.

The next day I dyed my hair orange.

Do something about your daughter!
She held up my spikes of hair by the roots. Dad cleared his throat. He usually went into the garden when The Mouth was at full blast, but she was barring the way. So he just shook his head and went upstairs, leaving his imprint in the armchair cushion. He wouldn't look at me.

It's that school. You used to be a lovely girl in the Juniors. Nice friends. Now it's people like Brenda Morris and this Dave, whoever he is. It's not good enough.
She brushed my stubbled hair until my scalp turned red. She pulled up my socks and straightened my cardigan.
Now I don't want you messing about after school. Come straight home. I'll be waiting.

At break time I took off the cardigan and hid it behind the rubbish bins. I never wore a cardigan again. I borrowed a baggy sweater from Brenda. She said I could keep it. She always had plenty of clothes. I never let my mother see it; stuffed it in my schoolbag on the way home. She went on a lot the first day
. Where's your cardigan? How can you have lost it? Do you know how much these things cost?
Then she noticed my nails. She didn't like purple.
Do they let you go to school with nails like that?

‘Can't stop us,' I said. ‘Everyone does it.'

The Mouth exploded. On and on. A load of crap about me and my friends. On and on.

‘Mum, you're doing me head in!'

What kind of expression is that? That's not a nice expression!

‘I don't want to be nice!' Not her nice; not what she thought was nice. I fought her, mouthing back. But her voice cut through my brain. I felt she was inside me, bursting through my skull. ‘
You're doing my head in!
' I looked round at Dad. ‘Tell her, will you?'

He just cleared his throat.

I worked out what to do, what would keep her quiet. Lies. It was easy. I'd say: ‘I'm going round Sandra's' or ‘I'm staying behind at school to help with the netball' or ‘I'm going shopping for Mr Moon's mother.' Then I'd go out with Dave and Griff and smoke in the bus shelter by the Rec. We'd have a laugh. Griff used to pick at his wrists with a razor blade. He said it didn't hurt. I did it too. It hurt, but I didn't say. I pulled my sleeves down to hide the cuts.

Have you been smoking?
She'd smell the fags on me when I came home and she'd come across the room to pull the hair out of my eyes.

‘It's the bus. I had to go upstairs.'

How's Sandra?

‘Fine. Her mother asked after you.'

I wish you'd wear something nice when you go round there. Where did you get that terrible old jumper?

‘Sandra said I could have it.'

Does she think you can't buy your own? That we're poor? I'll get you a nice new one.

She did. But it wasn't what I wanted. It was from Marks & Spencer's, all neat and fitted into the waist. And the wrong colour.

Why do you want black all the time? Black, black, black. Like a funeral! And it doesn't suit you. Makes you look washed-out. This bottle green's much more cheerful. Isn't it, Dad?

‘Much more.'

‘Yes, Mum. It's lovely. Thank you.'

I should think so. I spoil you. You don't deserve it. Not the way you carry on.

She never liked the way I looked. Even when I tried to tone it down. Even when I wore a skirt to please her.
Look at the length of that! You look just like a tart! A little trollop! You'll get yourself into trouble one of these days.

Whenever I went out, I could hear her voice still in my head. It made me tense. Brian said I was tense. Frigid, he said, when he tried to make it with me behind the toilets at the Rec: ‘What's the matter with you? Afraid what Mummy might say?'

So I let him do it.

After that we used an empty flat he said belonged to his brother. Cold and gloomy with a black vinyl suite and a broken gas fire. Brian would open me a couple of lagers and I'd sit astride him in the armchair, give him the works; anything he wanted. I'd grind away into his body, keeping at it, wanting it to hurt. We didn't even stop if Dave or Griff came in. Then I'd have another lager, sitting on the chair arm with the wet running down my legs. Then I'd do it with them too.

In the bathroom, I'd pick my wrists a little bit deeper. Make the blood flow. Feel the pain. Brian said I was a nutcase.

* * *

What's the matter with your wrists? Show me your wrists!
She pulled me out of bed, gripping my arms by the elbows, shaking them till my fingers nearly flew off.
What stupid idea is this? What's the matter with you? I've had just about enough! You're going to have to see someone!

She dragged me down to the doctor's again. He said the cuts weren't deep. He said something about girls of my age and gave me a prescription. The Mouth was going all the way to the chemist's. Why, she wanted to know, why? Hadn't she given me everything? Didn't I know what I was doing to her? And to Dad?

‘Sorry, Mum. I won't do it again.'

The thing was, I didn't know what it was doing to Dad. He sometimes opened his mouth as if he was going to say something to me, then closed it again, like a goldfish, silent. The morning he heard me heaving in the bathroom he just said, ‘All right are you, chicken?'

‘Just something I've eaten.'

‘Right you are, then. If you're sure.' I heard his footsteps creaking off down the landing.

The pills were quite pretty. Cheerful two-tone, red and yellow. I took twenty-five. Then I lay on the bed, closed my eyes, hoping it would be quick. Next thing I was spewing all over the bed, sick streaming up my nose, choking me. I lay my cheek in the mess, not caring, hard clots in my throat, desperate to sleep. Then, suddenly, ambulance men were carting me out on a stretcher round the bend of the stairs saying I was lucky. I could hear her screaming
Lucky!!
somewhere behind my head. I lay in the ambulance, feeling her voice between my ears, going on and on.

She turned up in the morning. Powdered, in her best coat. Without Dad. She pulled up a stool, hissed in my ear, told me what a lot of worry I'd caused. How she'd never be able to trust me again
. You're very selfish. I hope you realize, now, what a worry you are. This is what happens when you go your own way. You just don't listen.

She didn't listen either. I tried to tell her, but I was too tired. The doctor did it in his little glass office, looking at me when he spoke. I could see her face, the Mouth suspended for a second, blank. Then on the go again, silent to him, then loud right up against my face.
Who was it? Geraldine, answer me! It's that Dave, isn't it? Isn't it? Does he know you're only fifteen? Does he? Does he know what he could get for this in court?

I said it wasn't Dave. It wasn't anyone important. ‘Anyway, it doesn't matter, I'm not having it.'

She pointed her finger at me.
Oh yes you are! I'm not having my grandchild done away with, whatever you think.

She was always asking,
Who's the father?
And I'd keep saying I didn't know. I didn't. I'd done it with Brian and Griff and Dave, and loads of others. And Brian's brother once, though he was supposed to be engaged; he said it was the least I could do for letting us use his flat. They never came near me now, any of them. I was a problem. A nutcase.

She started knitting jackets.
Have you thought about a name? Nigel's nice. For a boy. Or Jonathon.
She seemed to have calmed down. She got Dad to redecorate the spare room. She chose the wallpaper. Primrose. She let me sit in front of the telly all day. She brought me cups of tea and sandwiches. She was very smarmy to Mrs Davies, the home teacher. Asked her if I could still become an air hostess.

Nigel was six weeks old when I ran away. She'd left him alone with me for once, gone to get mushrooms for tea. I put on my old black skirt and sweater and wrapped him up in a blanket. I thought about the empty flat, the gas fire, the vinyl settee. I reckoned Brian's brother wouldn't make a fuss if I made myself useful. But a woman opened the door. The fiancée. She stood in my way in a cotton dressing gown and too much scent saying I had some bloody cheek, and trying to close the door. In the end, she said she knew someone who might help. Someone with a room to spare for services rendered.

‘A housekeeper?'

‘Kind of.' She smiled.

Wayne was used to having his own way. He told me I had to smarten myself up. And learn to cook. And relax in bed. Or else I'd be out. ‘There are plenty of sluts in this world. I can take my pick. I don't have to have you.'

‘Yes, Wayne,' I said.

I used to dream about her breaking in on us, yelling, screaming. One night, it happened, blue lights flashing on the ceiling, walkie-talkies blaring, The Mouth shrieking through it all. Wayne jumped out of bed, got out the bathroom window quicker than greased lightening. The one thing that he didn't want was the cops sticking their noses in his business.

She stood in the doorway pointing me out with her finger, like I was in an identity parade:
That's her!
Then she rushed to the cot to get Nigel, walked round with him against her shoulder, saying
There, there!
though he wasn't crying. She told the cops she wanted them to make me come back home.
That's where she belongs! A decent place, not this hell-hole.

She started poking round, looking in the ashtrays, counting the empties in the corner. She opened the cupboards, my dressing table, Wayne's wardrobe.
Where are the child's clothes? Sold them for drink I suppose? Or drugs?
She grabbed my bag and pulled out my tranx.
What are these? LSD?

‘Leave my effing stuff alone!'

Don't tell me what to do! You're only a child!

‘I'm sixteen. I can do what I like.'

She'd brought a bloke from Social Services. He started to talk about co-operation. The Mouth started yelling. Didn't they realize what sort of life I was living? They'd be sorry if that baby was found starved to death.
Look at him! Just look at this filthy nappy! The girl's not capable!

In the end, she took Nigel home with her. Better than a Court Order, said the man. And I wasn't really up to caring for him just at the minute, was I? I could see that, couldn't I? He could stay with my mother for the time being. That was a safe place. They'd come round and see me in a day or two. Try and sort out the future.

Wayne came back later, thought it was a good idea, handing Nigel over. ‘I've had enough of all this. I'm telling you, it's doing my fucking head in as well. Let her have the fucking kid. It'll get her off your back. You can forget about her, then. Start being a bit fucking normal, you know?' He grabbed my wrist, jabbing at the scars. ‘Stop this bloody nonsense, too.'