Page 21 of Little Wing
At least I didn’t have to hide throwing up – they’d just think it was the gin. But she roasted Joan too. She told Joan she’d be telling her mother. And I loved Joan for sharing the blame and the punishment with me. But before we went to school George passed us in the hallway as we were putting our shoes on and he smiled at us and said gin?! On a school night?! and I really loved my stepfather just then. Because if it had been just about gin on a school night, he had our backs. But none of them knew it was all about You.
The gin bath didn’t work.
Joan was so upset.
I, though, was relieved.
She could tell.
You have to stop this, she told me. You have to think of your future! Or think of the poor little baby – it’s no life.
She is wrong. You are my future. I had felt you flutter by then.
I stay late for art club on Thursdays. Obviously, it’s the only thing I like at school. I’m doing something really groovy – a psychedelic painting, huge, based on music. I love Jimi Hendrix most of all and, as I thought of his music and his passion and his brilliance, I chose the colours. I let his music define the shapes and create the energy and the result was swirls and pulsing blobs. Sounds disgusting but it’s really worked.
That Thursday night it was very strange because nothing had changed on the outside of our house – but as soon as I opened the door, something was very different inside. Everything looked the same. But something had happened and it wasn’t the same. Nothing was how I knew it.
Joan.
My mother.
George.
All in our sitting room.
My mother. White as a sheet with disbelief and disgust.
Joan. Red with shame and fear.
George. Softly grey with concern and kindness.
I didn’t hate Joan. Or even my mother. Certainly not George. Because I try not to hate – and anyway, I’m so full of love.
But when my mother told Joan to leave, I felt a terror I could never have imagined.
Not what they have in store for me – but what they might have planned for You.
Nell
Nell didn’t really know where to put the china. She didn’t have shelves. She didn’t need them. When she rented the flat, the landlord told her it was a blank canvas and said she was welcome to put up whatever she wanted and if she needed shelves, he’d supply them. She told him she wouldn’t need them. She didn’t need shelves because Nell didn’t tend to buy things that had no practical use, nor did she keep things that might impinge on space, not even books. She liked things to be clear. She liked to be able to see. Books she read and enjoyed she passed on to Debbie, the rest she’d take to Oxfam. She liked candles because they had a purpose and also a lifespan and took up little room but their presence was felt; she also had two houseplants years old that were still going strong. When her mother had left the house for the care home, all Nell took was the old pine trunk that had been at the foot of her childhood bed. Photo albums, her rag doll Holly, a bunch of mix tapes and, strangely, her English exercise books which had been stored in there for years. They were out of sight and therefore there they could remain. Now, in her flat, the trunk was an excellent base for the television, the phone and answering machine. Often, Nell found herself just sitting in a daze, not watching the TV, tracing instead the shape of the trunk’s iron hinges with her eyes, remembering her childhood home, the crowded chaos of it all.
In her bedroom, she had four framed Ansel Adams prints of Yosemite, which were from a calendar. In the sitting room, a poster of Picasso’s dove and another of Matisse’s snail, both in clip frames. In the kitchen, she had a corkboard bursting with photos from over the years, which she never changed, only added to. She often lost herself in these when she made herself a coffee or ate beans straight from the tin.
Frank wanted to know all about the cup, but Nell didn’t want to relate what had happened. She walked around his sitting room, picking things up and asking him to tell her about them.
‘My mum loved all her bits and bobs,’ she said. ‘Some were quite lovely. Mostly, though, they were fairly hideous. She’d spend money we didn’t really have. Said she washelpless in the face of gorgeousness. Really, she just loved buying stuff.’
‘And do you think she misses her things?’ Frank asked. ‘Or just misses shopping?’
Nell thought about it. ‘I don’t honestly know. It’s hard to tell what’s forgotten. I don’t know what she misses.’
Frank put his hand through Nell’s arm.
‘I think you miss the mum who loved the bits and the bobs,’ he said. And he noticed Nell’s almost imperceptible flinch from kindness.
It was early evening after a long shift at the café when Nell went to see her mother. She found her downstairs with a group of other residents, playing card games and drinking coffee out of the dull green cups called Beryl. Effervescent and present, her mother was trouncing everyone, her eyes sparkling and her smile lively. For a while, Nell just watched unseen. Rummy and whist. They were playing for matchsticks. Her mother’s pile was impressive. Nell watched her shuffling the cards exuberantly, fanning them and tapping them and throwing them from hand to hand. It struck Nell that her mother was happy, happy in the here and right now. And Nell thought she’s probably far happier than me – and the notion made her laugh. The party looked up and saw her and no one seemed to know who she was.
‘Hello.’ Nell gave a little wave.
