My Mum Tracy Beaker Read online

The Chestnut was very light and airy, the walls painted different shades of white and grey, with a contrasting olive-green carpet. The tables were a very pale wood, each with a glass vase of real flowers. They didn’t have any television at all, and they just played very soft piano music.

  There was a proper menu in a leather case, plus a chalk board of today’s specials. All the meals sounded special. They had any number of roasts on offer because it was Sunday, and a list of thoroughly described alternatives. They told us about the fish of the day and waxed lyrical about its sauce, and all their chips were triple cooked. There were pies filled with birds – just like that old nursery rhyme ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’, only the birds in the pie were pheasant and partridge, not blackbirds. There were sausages too, but there were descriptions of the type of pig they came from, which put you off because you don’t want to think about the animals when you’re eating them.

  I was grateful for the children’s menu, with its macaroni cheese, although it turned out to be a bit weird. The pasta was twice the normal size, and the cheese sauce didn’t taste like the packet sort. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but I ate it anyway. Mum fancied fish so Sean Godfrey insisted she try the Dover sole, which was extraordinarily expensive. I thought she had finished, but then she turned it over and found there was another half underneath. Mum ate and ate and ate, and said it was delicious. Sean Godfrey had a twenty-one-day aged steak. I never knew steak came in ages.

  We had puddings too. I just asked for a vanilla ice cream because I felt quite full up. It came in three scoops, with violets on top. I didn’t know you could eat flowers. I wasn’t sure about the ice cream either. It had little black dots in it, which put me off. Sean Godfrey saw me peering at them and said they were little vanilla pods. I nodded as if I’d known that all along.

  Mum chose chocolate mousse, which came in three flavours – dark, milk and white, with cream and a little doll’s-size shortbread finger. Sean Godfrey had something called Eton Mess, and it looked a bit of a mess too, because the meringue part was all broken, but he said it was meant to look like that.

  ‘How did you get to know all this fancy stuff?’ Mum asked when he was choosing wine for her.

  ‘You pick it up, don’t you?’ said Sean Godfrey. ‘I was only nineteen when I started playing professionally, and my idea of a good meal was a few pints of beer and a curry down the Indian – but the other lads in the team soon took me in hand.’

  ‘So that’s what you’re doing with me, is it – taking me in hand?’ Mum asked.

  ‘It would be a foolish bloke who tried to take a girl like you in hand, Tracy Beaker,’ he said. He was right there. I suppose he has the advantage of knowing Mum from when she was a girl.

  When she spilled a little bit of cream down the front of her red dress, she rushed to the cloakroom to wipe it off.

  Sean Godfrey shook his head at me. ‘Do you know something, Jess?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ I said warily.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m sitting here with Tracy Beaker,’ he said. ‘And her daughter.’

  ‘Well, you’re not,’ I said. ‘Mum’s in the ladies’.’

  ‘You know what I mean. When I was a tough little toerag I had this mad crush on your mum. Mind you, she was tough then. I was a big lad, and a bit of a bully, but she wasn’t scared of me. In fact, I was secretly scared of her,’ he said, chuckling.

  ‘A lot of people are,’ I said.

  ‘Your mum says you’ve palled up with a big tough lad like I was.’

  I was outraged. I hated to think that Mum had been talking to Sean Godfrey about me, telling him all my secrets.

  ‘I don’t know who you mean,’ I said.

  ‘Tyrone,’ he said triumphantly.

  Tyrone wasn’t the slightest bit like Sean Godfrey. He wasn’t slick and rich and cocky. He wasn’t even particularly good at football. Sean Godfrey was talking rubbish. And if Mum had blabbed about Tyrone to him, what else had she been saying? Had she told him that I still took a cuddly toy to bed? Had she shared our special jokes? Had she told him that I sometimes had nightmares and had to climb into bed with her?

  I had a sudden horrible thought. I swallowed so hard my teeth clanked on my ice-cream spoon. I wouldn’t be able to climb into bed with Mum any more – not if there was a great big lump stuck under the duvet with her.

  ‘What’s up, kid?’ he asked. ‘Is the ice cream making your teeth hurt?’

  ‘A bit,’ I said, because it was simplest.

  ‘You scared of the dentist? When I was a kid I never went. Half my teeth went rotten and I didn’t like to smile. But I’ve got this fabulous dentist now. See my gnashers?’ He flashed his bright white teeth proudly. He looked like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.

  Oh, Sean Godfrey, how big your teeth are!

  All the better to EAT YOU UP!

  It was a huge relief when Mum came back with a damp spot on the front of her dress.

  ‘Did you fix it, babe?’ Sean Godfrey asked.

  ‘Don’t call me babe! No, it just won’t budge, and it’s such a lovely dress too,’ said Mum.

  ‘Never mind, I’ll buy you another one. Red again, because it really suits you.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll just take this one to the dry cleaner’s.’

  ‘You’re determined to be independent, aren’t you? Come on, Tracy, I’m desperate to buy you a whole wardrobe of dresses. And Jess too. What’s your favourite colour, Jess?’

  ‘Slime green,’ I said quickly.

  Sean Godfrey looked surprised, but nodded as if I really meant it. On top of everything else he was a bit thick. Whatever did Mum see in him?

  When he’d paid the astonishingly large lunch bill, he gave the waitress a huge great tip too. She went all wobbly like jelly, and thrust her notepad at him to autograph. And he let her have a selfie. Then more waitresses clamoured for one – and the blushing waiter too.

  Mum rolled her eyes. I did too. Sean Godfrey didn’t even play football any more. It wasn’t like he was a real celebrity – even though his photo was in Glossip.

  Afterwards he drove us to his house. It was like a real celebrity mansion, set in a private road, with an electronic gate, and then a long driveway, and there it was, very big and brash, with lots of steps leading up to the front door, and a glass extension with a turquoise swimming pool glinting inside.

  ‘Isn’t it fantastic, Jess?’ Mum murmured to me. ‘There are seven bedrooms!’

  ‘Have you been in them all?’ I asked fiercely.

  ‘No! Don’t be cheeky now. Wait till you see the kitchen! You could fit our entire flat in it, twice over. And the conservatory is just like Kew Gardens!’

  Mum insisted on showing me round. We even had a peep at his private study. I wasn’t really impressed. It was all so bright and showy it made my eyes ache. And it didn’t seem like a real home because it was so incredibly neat. My dad’s place is a mess of old newspapers and coffee cups and beer cans, and he leaves his clothes everywhere, even his smelly old trainers. Sean Godfrey’s house is immaculate. Mum showed me his walk-in wardrobe. All his shirts were on special hangers, and his jumpers were carefully folded and stacked, and his shoes were arranged in a long row as if they were about to start line dancing.

  ‘Incredible, isn’t it?’ said Mum. ‘He’s got someone who cleans, but Sean does all the tidying.’

  Sean Godfrey heard but he didn’t seem to mind. ‘I like everything to be in its place,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid, our house was a mess and my mum couldn’t be bothered to clean. It used to drive me nuts. It’s great to have my own place where I can keep it looking nice. I even dust and vacuum my study, even though Rosalie comes every day. It just gives me a kick to know that it’s all mine.’

  I thought Mum would scoff, but she went all soft again. ‘Oh, Sean! You’ve come a long way since we played house together, with our cardboard-box furniture,’ she said, and she gave his arm a squeeze.

  I went to the window and stared at the pool.