Diamond Girls Read online

  It seemed a very long way to the Planet Estate. Mum started to get as bored as us girls.

  ‘I’m starving,’ she said.

  ‘Have a barley sugar,’ said Bruce, offering her the packet.

  ‘I’m eating for two, mate. I need more than a blooming barley sugar. Come on, let’s stop for a snack. We could have an early lunch, give us a bit of energy for all the unpacking.’

  She made Bruce stop at the next service station. We wandered round and round the food court in a daze. There was so much to choose from, not just the same old stuff you get down the chippy or the Chinese.

  Martine said first of all that she was too miserable to eat. Then she said she’d just have a salad. And maybe a piece of cold chicken. And a packet of crisps. And some fruit. And maybe a KitKat and a coffee.

  Jude had a large plateful of spaghetti bolognese.

  Rochelle had a Cornetto and a cream doughnut and a Mars bar.

  I had prawn sandwiches. I didn’t like the sandwich part but I enjoyed picking out the little pink prawns and making them swim across my plate. Then I had a bowl of strawberries and whipped cream. I spent ages spooning on the cream so that each red strawberry mountain had its own cap of creamy snow.

  Mum had macaroni cheese for the baby’s benefit and a big bowl of chips for herself. She tried to get Bruce to have chips too and a big mixed grill. ‘I like to see a man eat a proper plateful,’ she said. Bruce said he could only stomach tea and toast mid morning. He paid for it hurriedly, counting it out in coins.

  Mum nudged up close with her tray, calling for us all to come over quick. It looked like she was hoping Bruce might pay for our lunch too. Bruce looked terrified and made for a table so quickly he bumped his tray and spilled half his tea over his buttered toast. Mum had to pay. The bill came to £36.99.

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Mum. She said a worse word, actually.

  The lady at the till blinked at her. ‘Language!’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, well, the Queen herself would start effing and blinding at this sort of rip-off,’ said Mum. ‘You add that up again. You must have added at least a tenner.’

  ‘Mum!’ Martine hissed. ‘You’re showing us up!’

  ‘We could put some stuff back,’ I suggested, though I’d already winkled a couple of prawns out of my sandwich and eaten the biggest strawberry.

  ‘I’ve only got a snack – unlike some people,’ said Rochelle, nudging Jude.

  ‘I bet my spag bol cost less than all your rubbish,’ said Jude, nudging her back.

  ‘Shut up, girls. No, you’re not putting anything back. OK OK, we’ll pay for our food, but let’s hope you’ve got gold knives and forks to eat it with,’ said Mum, fishing two twenties out of her purse.

  She didn’t have much money left, yet she still had to pay Bruce for driving us. I hoped the Planet Estate would have a good chippy because that’s what we’d be eating all week.

  Bruce hunched up small when we all sat down with him, holding his plate of soggy toast as if we were about to snatch it away from him. Mum tried to chat to him to show she had no hard feelings over him not forking out for our meal, but he kept shrugging and shaking his head. He kept peering round to see if people were looking at us. Maybe he was embarrassed to be seen out with us in case people thought he was our dad.

  ‘How’s your toast, Uncle Bruce?’ I asked, squeezing up beside him.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s just toast. I’m not your uncle, I said.’

  ‘Do you know any of my real uncles? Or aunties? Or maybe my gran and grandad?’ I asked, leaning up so close I could whisper in his ear. I didn’t want Mum to hear me. She always said we didn’t need any other family. She said we were a fine family all by ourselves, the Diamond girls.

  So how come she was so desperate for this baby boy?

  ‘I don’t know your dad’s folks, Trixie. I don’t even know your dad that well. We’re just work mates, really. I deliver the wreaths.’

  ‘So you’ve never been to his house?’

  ‘Well, a couple of times. Socializing. He’s always having people round, your dad.’

  ‘He’s never had me round,’ I said. ‘Tell me what his place is like, Uncle Bruce, please!’

  ‘Well, it’s just … just a house. It’s modern, quite comfy. Maybe a bit too full of satin cushions and ruffled curtains, but then I’m a bloke, so I wouldn’t really go for anything too frilly and feminine.’

  ‘Why does my dad want frilly stuff then?’

  ‘It’s Stella’s taste, dear.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know. His wife,’ said Bruce, buttering his second slice of toast. ‘She’s very girly, like. And his girls are all fluffy curls and lipstick too. Even the baby’s a curlyknob, all dainty and dimples.’

  I felt as if he’d stabbed me straight in the ribs with his knife. I put my prawn sandwich down. I tore at the crusts, turning them into breadcrumbs. I remembered the fairy story of Hansel and Gretel and how they were abandoned in a forest because their mum and dad didn’t want them. They left a trail of breadcrumbs so they could find their way back. I didn’t get that. Why would they want to go back to such horrible parents? I decided I’d stay in the forest. I wouldn’t go near that gingerbread cottage and get caught by the wicked witch. I wouldn’t even have a lick of her candy-cane door knocker. I’d clear off and make my own cottage. Bluebell would live with me. I’d have a trapeze in my garden and she’d have her perch and we’d swing in unison and turn somersaults just like a circus act.

  ‘Dixie! Stop daydreaming. You look so gormless with your mouth hanging open. Do you have to mangle your food like that? Especially when that sandwich cost me a fortune! Pull yourself together! Bruce is talking to you.’

  I knew Bruce was talking. I’d been trying to get him to tell me stuff about my dad all morning but now he’d started I didn’t want to hear. I knew my dad had a wife and two other daughters but I didn’t want to think about them. I hadn’t known he had a new baby. I didn’t want to think about her. It was the one thing I’d always counted on. I was his baby.

  I’d been a dreadful baby. Mum and Martine and Jude and Rochelle had told me often enough. I’d been premature, like a little skinned rabbit, all purple and shrieking my head off. I went on shrieking for months and months, wanting to be fed every three hours, night and day.

  ‘Tiny little thing, but you had the lungs of a bull-moose,’ said Mum. ‘God, you didn’t half bellow! And then you were forever ill – jaundice and eczema and croup. I’d walk you up and down, up and down, and you’d yell and wheeze and scratch and scream until I very nearly chucked you out the window.’

  It was no wonder my dad never wanted to see much of me.

  I muttered something about going to the toilet and mooched off while Bruce was in mid-sentence. I was sick of hearing about babies.

  I sat in the toilets a long time, reading all the rude rhymes on the door. I stroked Bluebell on my lap and pretended she was flying up above every cubicle, peeking at everyone peeing. I heard Mum and the girls come in, calling for me. I kept quiet and clutched Bluebell by the beak.

  I waited until Mum’s voice got high and panicky and then I pulled the chain and sauntered out. I tried to look surprised when Mum rushed at me.

  ‘There you are! Oh dear lord, we’ve been calling till we’re hoarse. I was about to phone the police. I thought someone must have whipped you away with them.’ Mum hugged me hard. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling, Dixie?’

  ‘Course she heard. She was just winding us all up,’ said Rochelle, tossing her hair.

  ‘I didn’t hear,’ I said. Well, I’d tried hard not to.

  ‘So what were you doing all this time?’

  ‘I had a funny tummy,’ I said. This wasn’t exactly a lie. My tummy had screwed itself up into a knot the moment Bruce mentioned my dad’s baby.

  ‘There! I bet it was that prawn sandwich,’ said Mum.

  ‘It wouldn’t affect her immediately,’ said Martine, putting blusher on her pale cheeks. ‘God