Candyfloss Read online

  There was a main bedroom that had once been Billy’s mum and dad’s, and then Billy and Marian’s, and now it was just Billy’s. There was something about that sad big empty bed that reminded me of Dad’s bedroom back at the café.

  Dad looked relieved when Billy suggested he sleep in the second bedroom, which had always been a spare room with a single bed. It had fraying pink ribbons on the net curtains, and the mats all over the dressing table were pale pink to match. There was a firescreen with an embroidered thatched cottage and a faded pink ruffly bedspread. It looked like a room for an old old lady. My dad looked too big and too fat and too rough for such a room, but he told Billy it was lovely and he was very grateful.

  ‘Now I thought we’d put little Flossie in young Billy’s room,’ said Old Billy.

  It was the only room in the house that wasn’t stuck in a 1930s timewarp. It was a strange boy mixture. There were old footballer posters on the walls and rock music tapes piled up like building blocks, and an elderly Paddington Bear stood in a corner in his duffel coat and wellingtons. Oddly, right in the middle of the carpet, there was a doll’s house. It was a 1930s doll’s house – two houses: two semi-detached homes making one whole house with a sloping red-tiled roof, black and white panelling and two front doors.

  I squatted down beside it, still hanging onto Lucky, but I was so distracted that she squeezed herself out of one end of the duvet and stood alert, her back arched, her tail outstretched, not sure where she was off to now she was free at last.

  ‘Look at the doll’s house, Dad!’ I said.

  There was a hook at one end so I edged it open and the front of the house swung forward. It was fully furnished inside, with little carved wooden replicas of sofas and chairs, tables, baths and beds. One half house had small green cushions on the chairs and little crochet mats as small as a penny piece.

  ‘It’s your house, Mr Chip! Yours and the matching one next door!’ I exclaimed. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘I made it myself, love,’ said Billy. ‘It was rather a daft notion. I’d always whittled away at the potatoes in odd moments, carving out a face here, a monkey there, a clown – whatever took my fancy. I’d fry them for the customers just for a laugh, but then when our Billy was on the way I fancied making something more permanent. I took it into my head that he’d be a girl, so I started in on a doll’s house. Daft idea, really. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing modern kiddies want to play with anyway.’

  ‘I would, Mr Chip,’ I said.

  ‘Then you play with it all you want while you’re here, sweetheart,’ said Billy.

  ‘Are you sure, Billy? It’s a totally awesome work of art,’ said Dad, kneeling in front of it. ‘Floss is a very careful girl but I’m not sure she should be allowed to touch it.’

  ‘No, no, it’s meant to be played with. I’d always hoped for a little girl but we only had our Billy—Will. I wondered if he’d have a daughter, but Will’s not what you’d call the marrying kind, so if little Floss here would like it, then the house is hers.’

  ‘Oh Mr Chip! I couldn’t possibly keep it,’ I said – though I wanted it desperately.

  ‘Yes, you have it, darling. I promised you a birthday present and here it is. You can carry on furnishing it if you fancy doing so. I made a few bits and bobs and my Marian did the mats, but we felt a bit daft, like, when there was no one to play with them. It’s yours, Floss.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ I said, and I reached up and gave him a big hug round his wrinkled tortoise neck.

  ‘You’ve got to stop doing us all these favours, Billy,’ said Dad. ‘You’ve been so good to us.’

  ‘You’re the ones being good to me, watching over the house and cats while I gallivant off.’ Billy paused. ‘I’m not really sure I know what I’m doing, going all the way to Australia. Maybe my lad doesn’t want me visiting. We didn’t always see eye to eye when he lived here. We didn’t part on the best of terms.’

  ‘He’ll be thrilled to see you, Billy. Lads row with their dads and leave home to make their own way in life. It’s only human nature. But he’s a man now and he’ll be thrilled at this chance of seeing you.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ said Billy, still sounding doubtful.

  ‘Mr Chip, if I hadn’t seen my dad for years and years I’d be jumping right over the moon,’ I said.

  ‘If you could jump that far you could propel yourself and save on the air fare,’ said Billy, ruffling my curls.

  I don’t like it when people do that. It even annoys me when Dad does it. But I stood my ground and smiled politely. Mr Chip said I was a sweet kid and Dad was lucky to have me, and he went all watery eyed. Dad said he knew that, and he had to dab his own eyes with a hanky. I fidgeted from foot to foot, feeling foolish.

  Billy insisted on cooking us Sunday dinner.

  ‘I’ve got a roast chicken in the oven, and roast potatoes. I’m not cooking you chips, because you’re the bee’s knees when it comes to chips and there’s no point competing,’ said Billy.

  ‘Chip Master of the Universe,’ said Dad, beating his plump tummy and flexing his muscles.

  Mr Chip’s cats had their own lunch out in the kitchen. I got Lucky’s special bowl and sprinkled a few dried biscuit balls in it. Whisky and Soda looked up from their own mashed fish bits and eyed Lucky’s bowl. Whisky ambled over to it. Soda followed. They licked their lips and mewed greedily.

  Lucky barely came up to their furry shoulders. It looked as if one swot of a Whisky or Soda paw would send her flying.

  I needn’t have worried. Lucky had lived on the streets. She knew how to defend her territory. She gave a ferocious ‘Mew!’, darted forward, wriggling right under their noses, and buried her head in her bowl. She flicked her delicate tail in Whisky and Soda’s surprised faces. They slunk back to their own bowls, trying to look nonchalant.

  When they’d all nibbled lunch, first Whisky, then Soda squeezed out of the cat flap for a saunter round the garden. Lucky experimented, poking her little head after them curiously. She gathered courage, nudged hard and then hurtled out into the garden.

  I ran to the window and watched her peer around in astonishment, like Alice newly arrived in Wonderland. She circled the centre flowerbed, trying to stalk a sparrow, but it flew away mockingly whenever she made a move.

  ‘Is Lucky settling in, Floss?’ said Dad, coming over to the window.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What about you, darling?’

  ‘I think I am too, Dad,’ I said, though I wasn’t really sure.

  I didn’t want to live in Billy’s house, although it was mean even to think it as he was being so generous and hospitable. It was so strange and old-fashioned and it smelled musty, like the clothes in charity shops. I hoped I wouldn’t smell musty as well as chippy. Rhiannon and Margot and Judy went round holding their noses whenever they stood near me as it was.

  It seemed so weird that only a month ago I’d taken it for granted that I just had an ordinary washing powder/clean clothes/shampoo smell just like everyone else. I had a mum and my own special bedroom in our pretty house. Even Rhiannon had remarked on my cherry-patterned duvet and my matching curtains. Now I didn’t have anything ultra-clean or pretty or matching.

  I knew I was being dreadful feeling sorry for myself when Dad was trying so hard and Mr Chip had been so kind giving me the beautiful doll’s house – but I still couldn’t stop two tears spurting down my face.

  I bent my head quickly but I think Dad saw. He squeezed my shoulders tightly.

  ‘We’ll be fine, little Floss.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This is just a temporary measure, sweetheart. We’ll find somewhere lovely just for us soon, you’ll see. You never know your luck. Something will bob up out of the blue.’

  I tried to imagine a beautiful home emerging out of nowhere: a coral palace out of the blue sea; a cloud castle out of the blue sky; a Swiss chalet out of a big blue mountain. I blinked and swallowed hard to stop the rest of my tears.

&n