Red Ink (7 page)

I used to think Poppy was just some drip who came to sit in our kitchen and gossip, but here she is – she’s actually bothered to come and visit and see how I am. The house feels different now that Poppy is in it. The stuffy, cream sofa, that lampstand with the hat – they all look embarrassed. Everything about Poppy is wonky and carefree and everything about this house is up its own arse.

“Right,” says Poppy. She’s grinning like there’s trouble ahead. Fun trouble.

She goes to her bag, a massive leather job like a doctor might carry, and pulls out a folder.

“Right,” she says again, this time with less fun.

She’s fumbling through the folder, pulling a biro out of the scarf that’s holding up her bird’s nest hair. She bites off the pen lid.

Then I realise.

“I hope you don’t mind, Melon, me coming to do this initial assessment?”

Poppy is here because she’s a social worker. Mr and Mrs Lacey have fetched her in.

“I thought it would be good because we already know one another. It’s one hurdle out of the way, isn’t it?”

She is using her work voice now.

“I really should have sent someone else in my place, I know, someone more independent, someone from my team who doesn’t know you, but I just felt I had to do this for your mother. I hope you understand and that you’re happy with that. And anyway, this is just a short visit.”

My
mother
? Why doesn’t she just say ‘mum’ or ‘Maria’?

“Sorry, you don’t need to know this. What I mean is, we’ll assign someone independent to do all your follow-ups so there’s some clear, blue water between us and whoever you end up living with. But you can always call on me if, well, if that feels more comfortable for you. How does that sound?”

She makes no sense at all. I nod.

“So we’ll carry on, shall we?”

I can barely manage a shrug.

“So how are you holding up?”

“All right.”

“Good, good. What I’m here to do today is find out if you’ve got any ideas of what you would like to do now, where you would like to live. I want to find out what would make you happy.”

She is using the script in her head, the one she uses on all the other motherless kids.

“Mr and Mrs Lacey have been very generous and let you stay here for the last few days but I’m afraid that can’t go on much longer.”

“Cos of the haircut?”

“Yes. Well, no. Because of a number of reasons.”

It’s a teacher’s voice, a telephone voice.

“Now you have an aunt in Crete, isn’t that right? Antigone, isn’t it?”

“Aphrodite.”

“Aphrodite.” She writes it down. “Do you have a number for her?”

I nod.

“You let me have that and I’ll try to get in contact with her for you, to let her know what has happened. Okay?”

I imagine Auntie Aphrodite getting the phone call from Poppy. She’ll pretend she doesn’t speak English. She’ll huff and puff Poppy away.

“Your mother also mentioned an aunt in Kentish Town.”

“Eleni?”

“Yes.”

Mum and Eleni don’t speak. “She’s . . . dead.”

“Oh, Melon. I’m sorry about that.”

“S’okay. Happened ages ago.”

“Is there anyone else?”

Christos Drakakis
, I think to myself.
My dad is Christos Drakakis, and my name is Melon Drakaki. How do you do?

“No, there’s no one, really.”

“Okay. Now, are you aware of the provision that your mother made for you in her will?”

Your mother
. Is that what it says in her script? Poppy is talking like a robot.

I have no idea what’s in Mum’s will. I didn’t even realise she had one. But I can’t let Poppy know more about all this than me. That would make me look bad. That would make it seem like I didn’t even know my own mother. Maybe Mum wants me bags-packed and on the next plane to Crete. Who knows.

“So what do you think about that?” Poppy goes. “About going back to your mum’s house and having Paul care for you?”

I knew it.

I look at the TV squatting in the corner even though it has nothing to say for itself.

No, really, I knew it. I knew about the will, about Paul. I was watching television when Mum told me she’d put that in her will. I remember now. I wasn’t really paying attention when she told me. I didn’t think it was important. I didn’t think she would actually go and die one day. The whole idea was as far away as the other planets.

“What are you thinking, Melon?”

“Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,” I say. “Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.”

Poppy narrows her eyes at me, confused. “Lovely, what’s that, then?”

“The solar system, the planets.”

“Oh, right, yeah. Didn’t you forget Pluto?”

“No.”

“Yeah, you did, babe. Pluto’s a planet.”

“It’s a dwarf planet.”

“When I was at school it was a proper planet.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not now. Listen to me. It goes like this: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.”

“All right, babe.” Poppy bites her lip. “Things probably changed since I was at school, eh?”

She smiles. I look away.

“You like space and stuff, do you?” she asks.

“GCSE science.”

“Now, your GCSEs.” We’re back on safe ground for Poppy. “No one expects you to sit them, you know. What with everything that’s happened. You could take another year if you like. I’ve spoken to your teachers.”

As if I would want to be the kid at school who has to resit a whole extra year. As if I don’t get picked on enough already. Besides, I’ve never revised so much in my life. There’s been nothing else to do here while Chick and Mr and Mrs Lacey have their hug-ins in the kitchen, acting like some huge tragedy has happened to them and not someone else.

“No, I’m ready for the exams.”

“Well, that’s well impressive, babe, considering.”

Considering what? No one will say it out loud. It’s like saying ‘Macbeth’ in the theatre; it brings bad luck. Your mum died – jinx! – yours will die too now. Say it, say it out loud. The worst has already happened.

“Do you know about the big bang, then?” I say.

“Well, I . . .”

“Do you know about it or not?”

“Kind of, but I wouldn’t . . .”

“Well, they think that’s how the universe started, some big explosion, because they know all the other galaxies are racing away from us really fast.”

“That right?”

“What else would make them run away from us like that? It would have to be something big, wouldn’t it?”

Poppy searches the room, looking for something to say.

“Wouldn’t it?”

“I expect so.”

All this stuff is inside me, going round and round, going unsaid.

“I can see you’ve really been doing your homework,” Poppy goes.

“Yeah.”

“So, Paul . . . Your mum wanted Paul to look after you. Does that sound like a good idea?”

It sounds like an easy idea. The Laceys don’t want me, Paul does.

Paul.

Mum and Poppy talked about him loads when they were gossiping in our kitchen, especially back when he and Mum had just started going out. She carried on like some lovestruck, soppy cow.

One time, I came down the stairs and I heard Mum go, “And you know what it is they say about the black men’s cocks, don’t you?”

She said it all matter-of-fact, as if she was telling Poppy that frozen peas are on two-for-one.

“This, it is all true, I am telling you this.”

Poppy had squawked, really loud, acting like a virgin.

Then I walked in. “I heard that,” I went.

I took my time getting a biscuit and pouring myself a glass of juice, and the whole time Poppy tried really hard to be a grown-up and not to laugh.

Mum went, “Sorry, Poppy, my daughter is thinking I am big, bad, deviant racist.”

This was apparently hilarious because Poppy then gave up the adult act and laughed so hard I thought she would wet her pants.

The real joke is that, from the little bit I’ve seen of him, Paul is the dullest, straightest person to ever walk the earth. He’s no sex god. He is one million light years away from being that.

“So?” Poppy is giving me a hopeful face. “What do you think about living with Paul?”

All I can think about is what a black man’s cock might look like. I can’t help it.

“Do you think Paul is the right person to help you through all this?”

I’m lost. I have no other cocks to compare it with.

“After all, you’re going through the same thing. You’ve both lost someone you love and . . .”

Poppy’s voice wobbles. A fat tear spills down her face.

“Sorry, Melon, not very professional of me, is it? I really shouldn’t have come. Probably get into trouble for this, I do apologise.”

“S’okay.”

Poppy is trying to smile but the harder she tries, the more the tears come. She gives up speaking and just sits there sniffing and sighing, little girl sighs, willing herself happy. There is laughter going on in the kitchen. I don’t want to join in with the laughing or the crying.

“It could go two ways,” I say eventually. “The universe.”

“Oh, yeah?” Poppy wipes her eyes and tries to rustle up her business face.

“Either the other galaxies will keep running away from us forever and ever, into eternity. Or . . .”

Poppy blinks away more tears. “Or?”

“Or there will come this point when they can’t run away any further and they’ll have to start running back and then everything will contract in on itself.”

“What happens then?”

“My book calls it the big crunch.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t it?”

I wonder if this is enough to get me through an exam question on the creation of the universe. And a question about the end of it all.

“Have you managed to talk to someone about what’s happened, Melon?”

“No one is really into talking about it.”

“No, no. Paul may be good for that, but I think you need somebody independent.”

I’m trying to remember – did I, at any point, say ‘yes’ to living with Paul?

“I’m going to organise for you to go and see someone, Melon. Someone you can talk to about your feelings.”

“Another social worker?”

“No, a bereavement counsellor.”

“Oh.”

“Right, so, I’ll get things moving, shall I?”

The door to the living room opens a crack and Mr Lacey’s clown head appears. Our talk is over and we got nowhere. We followed a little oval dotted path, back to where we started.

“We’re going to serve up dinner in a few moments, so . . .”

So what? I think. Go away, dickhead.

“So, if you could wind things up.”

Dinner will be something in a tomato-y garlic sauce, that’s all Mrs Lacey ever cooks. Peel back all the fancy lettuce and nuts that she chucks on top and that’s all there is. Pasta in a tomato-y garlic sauce, chicken in a tomato-y garlic sauce, beef in a tomato-y garlic sauce. The same thing over and over. The smell of garlic is shouting at us from the hallway.

When Poppy goes home, I will have to sit at the kitchen table and we will all eat in silence. Either that or I’ll listen to Mr and Mrs Lacey do their happy family show, which is so fake it’s suffocating. Chick can’t keep up the pretence of it all, she just ‘yeps’ and ‘nopes’ in roughly the right places. She hardly eats, won’t look me in the eye. I can’t bear it.

“We’re just deciding whether Melon should return to her home, aren’t we, Melon?”

“Yes,” I say. “I want to go home.”

I do. It is my decision. I’m leaving because I want to, not because Mr and Mrs Lacey want me to.

“I don’t want to be here.” I spit out the word ‘here’ like bad milk. “I’d rather live with Paul.”

I make it sound as though Paul is a better man than him.

“That’s great,” says Mr Lacey, not hearing how angry I am. “That’s great that you know what you want.”

No, listen to me, I think. Listen to me. I’m saying,
fuck you
. I’m saying,
fuck you all
.

Mr Lacey smiles a winner’s smile.

Except I’m not saying it, am I? I’m not saying
fuck you
. Not out loud. Not for real. I’m as bad as them.

I’m trapped on my little, oval, dotted path back to my home.

M
ERCURY,
V
ENUS,
E
ARTH,
M
ARS,
J
UPITER,
S
ATURN,
U
RANUS,
N
EPTUNE . . .
P
AUL

Whatever I say, I will end up living with Paul. There is no one else left. I’m like the earth with its magnetic field that repels charged particles. The only charged particles that get through are called social workers. Everyone else is running away from me, as fast as they can.

I have bought a new, hardback notebook. I open it up on the dining room table. Its spine cracks. A big noise in a quiet house. A clean, lined page looks back at me. Usually I love that – the buzz of new stationery. Going back to school after the holidays is the worst thing ever, but having a chunky pad of fresh writing paper in your bag makes it all feel better. My favourite thing is a pristine, untouched school diary. By November it doesn’t feel special any more. The grimness of being at school takes over. But in September, at the beginning, that diary is the nicest thing.

This blank page is giving off no good vibes though. I check the clock on the wall – a pottery sunshine face with hands coming out of the nose. 5 p.m. I have an hour and a half to get writing before Paul comes home.

Paul went back to work at the end of last week. When you have a proper job, after two weeks of compassionate leave, you have to just get over yourself. School isn’t being so pushy with me.

On his first day back, Paul came home looking haggard. I never knew black skin could look pale and pasty. It can.

“Going back to work was very challenging,” he went to me. He stood there in the kitchen, looking down, nodding for a while. “Yes, very challenging,” he muttered.

He didn’t move, just stayed put, chewing his bottom lip, waiting, as if I was supposed to do something about it.

“What do you want?” I went, with a sort-of laugh. “A medal?”