Lola Rose Read online

  Auntie Barbara had given her to me when I was born. Maybe Auntie Barbara looked like a giant Pinkie without her clothes.

  I clutched Pinkie tight.

  Auntie Barbara!

  I couldn’t remember her properly. I last saw her at Grandma’s funeral when I was younger than Kendall. Mum talked about her size so much she seemed like a character in a cartoon. It was weird remembering she was real.

  Would she help us? I knew Grandad would have nothing to do with us. But maybe Auntie Barbara was softer? She must like us a little bit if she sent us special teddies. She used to send books too, before we moved to the flats. I remembered a big book about an elephant and one about a little bear and a funny one about jelly with a hole in the pages. I’d loved those picture books but Kendall tore them all when he was a toddler. Auntie Barbara hadn’t sent us any presents for years. But maybe she simply didn’t have our address.

  I didn’t have her address. I couldn’t ask Mum. She’d go mad if she thought I was going begging to the sister she couldn’t stand. I wondered why Mum didn’t like her. Maybe Auntie Barbara had been really mean to her. But she wasn’t just Mum’s sister, she was my auntie. Aunties were meant to help you, weren’t they?

  Harpreet had heaps of aunties. They made a big fuss of her and invited her to tea and bought her special sweets and hair slides and bangles. Maybe my Auntie Barbara wouldn’t mind if I asked her to send a few fivers to tide us over until Mum could work. She must have quite a lot of money if she lived in Grandad’s pub.

  I couldn’t remember the name. It was some sort of fish. The Cod? No, that sounded stupid. The Salmon? That wasn’t right either. The Trout, that was it! And I knew the town, even if I didn’t know the street.

  I sat up in bed and rang Directory Enquiries on Mum’s mobile. I wrote the number down and then dialled it quickly before I could change my mind. The phone rang and rang. I hoped Grandad wouldn’t come to the phone. I was about to give up – but then someone answered. A woman.

  ‘The Trout. Can I help you? Though it’s after closing time—’

  ‘I’m sorry. I forgot it was so late. Can I speak to – to Barbara, please?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Oh! Well, you don’t really know me but – but I think you’re my auntie.’

  ‘Oh, good lord! Is that Jayni?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh Jayni, how lovely that you phoned!’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not! I’ve been hoping and hoping you would all get in touch. What’s happened, Jayni? Are you all right?’

  ‘Well. Sort of. It’s just . . .’ I didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Let me have a word with your mum,’ said Auntie Barbara.

  ‘Well, that’s just it. She’s not here.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In hospital.’

  ‘Oh God. Did your dad catch her then?’

  I sat up in bed, startled. How did Auntie Barbara know we’d run away?

  ‘No, she’s had to go to hospital to have a lump taken out. She said she’d come straight back but she didn’t. So we went to see her and she’s all sleepy but I think she’s all right. We’re back home now, Kenny and me, but we haven’t got any money left. I don’t know what we’re going to do for food. We’ve got some muesli but I don’t think Kenny will eat it. The bread’s gone mouldy so I was wondering if you could send us some money, Auntie Barbara, just for a few days. We’ll pay you back the minute Mum gets work. She doesn’t know I’m phoning and I’d be ever so grateful if you don’t tell Grandad because I know he doesn’t like us but I thought you might just be kind enough to—’

  ‘Jayni! Let me get a word in edgeways, sweetheart! Now calm down. I’m going to help, don’t worry. Hang on while I get a pen and paper. Then you can give me your address.’

  ‘Oh Auntie Barbara!’ I said, and I burst into tears. She sounded so nice.

  I cried so hard I could barely stammer out the address. Auntie Barbara repeated it back to me to make sure she’d got it right.

  ‘There now, Jayni, don’t cry, pet. It’s going to be all right. You can count on me. Now, have you got the door locked, you and Kenny? Then I should try to go to sleep now. Don’t worry any more. I’ll get everything sorted out, you’ll see.’

  So I went to sleep, clutching Pinkie to my chest, Kendall breathing softly by my side.

  Then Kendall woke me up, shaking my shoulder and tugging my hair.

  ‘Leave off, Kendall.’

  ‘There’s someone knocking at the door, Lola Rose! It’s the middle of the night!’

  ‘What? It’ll be someone for Steve and Andy. One of their mates will have been at a party.

  ‘They’re calling out for Jayni and Kenny.’ Kendall paused. ‘Is that still us?’

  ‘Oh help!’

  I flew to the window, thinking it was Dad. I saw a very large woman peering up at me in the moonlight, clutching great carrier bags. ‘Auntie Barbara!’

  I ran down the stairs, tripping and nearly falling in my eagerness. Miss Parker poked her head round her door. She had a hairnet pulled right down to her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m telling the housing people on you,’ she said. ‘Waking a body at all hours! It’s disgraceful.’

  ‘I’m sorry, really sorry, but it’s my auntie,’ I said, hurrying towards the front door.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s little green men from Mars, they shouldn’t come knocking in the middle of the night!’ said Miss Parker.

  I took no notice, fiddling with the bolts on the door. ‘Don’t go, Auntie Barbara, I’m coming!’ I called.

  I got the door open at last. Auntie Barbara dropped the bags and held out her arms to me. I fell against her.

  Whenever I hugged Mum hard she always teetered on her heels and said, ‘Careful, you’ll knock me over.’

  No one could knock Auntie Barbara over. She didn’t budge an inch. She stayed still, like a well-upholstered sofa, while I leant against her and cried on the big soft cushion of her chest.

  A small fist pummelled at my bottom.

  ‘Do we know her?’ Kendall asked.

  I stopped snivelling and stepped back, reaching for Kendall. ‘Of course we do! This is our auntie. Auntie Barbara, this is Kenny.’

  ‘I’m Kendall,’ he said.

  Auntie Barbara stooped, arms open. Kendall backed rapidly.

  ‘I don’t hug strange ladies,’ he said.

  ‘Kendall!’ I hissed.

  Auntie Barbara laughed. ‘Quite right, Kendall. And they don’t come any stranger than me.’

  She did look strange. She had long blonde hair, thick and soft, like Mum’s, but Auntie Barbara’s was really long. She wore it caught up and coiled and twisted into a bun at the top of her head, though little tendrils escaped and hung down like earrings. She had a very pretty face with Mum’s big blue eyes. She didn’t wear any make-up. Her skin was very pink as if she spent a lot of time scrubbing it. If you chopped Auntie Barbara off at the neck like one of those old hairstyling doll heads she’d win any beauty contest. But things started to go weird past her shoulders. There was just so much of her. She was the BIGGEST LADY I’d ever seen. She wasn’t just fat, she was vast, so massive she seemed a different species altogether.

  She wasn’t wibbly-wobbly like the lovely maid at the hotel. She looked like she was made of pink marble, a great monument. She was wearing a vast silk top in a wonderful deep purple, with a matching wrap-around skirt. It could have wrapped round Kendall and me a dozen times. Her toenails were painted purple too, shining in her silver sandals. I wondered at first how she could stretch down over her huge stomach to reach her toes, but she proved amazingly agile for such a large lady. She bounded up the stairs to our flat, swinging the great bags.

  Miss Parker watched, open-mouthed. ‘Who’s she when she’s at home – the Queen of Sheba?’

  Auntie Barbara laughed and gave her a regal wave. She had a great silver ring on either hand and a huge chunk of amber hung on a thic