The Illustrated Mum Read online

  ‘She’s that Star’s little sister. She hangs around outside our school half the time.’

  ‘Right! And Star’s the one with all the hair?’ She nodded towards Star and Mark who were up at the counter.

  ‘I don’t know what Mark sees in her,’ said Janice. ‘She makes me sick the way she simpers at him all the time. Why does he want to hang out with a kid like that?’

  The friend whispered in her ear and they both giggled.

  I stuck my tongue out at them again, wagged it madly.

  ‘They’ll cart you off to a loony bin if you don’t watch out,’ said Janice.

  She put her arm round her friend and they walked off together. I shut my tongue away. The words ‘loony bin’ banged in my brain. I bit my tongue hard to distract myself.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Star hissed. She hooked me into McDonald’s and sat me down at a table in the corner. She put her ice cream sundae in front of me.

  ‘It’s yours,’ she said. ‘I’m over there with Mark, right?’

  She ran back and snuggled up close to him. She didn’t have anything to eat for herself. I stared down at the sundae. She’d ordered a butterscotch one too.

  I licked it with my sore tongue, savouring every spoonful. I knew Star must be as hungry as me. Every now and then Mark offered her a chip, but he made her beg for them like a little dog. She did it very cutely, head on one side, little pants, hands curled in the air like paws but it still made my skin crawl.

  It was worse afterwards. Mark and Star went off down the alleyway at the back of Boots. I had to hang around staring at shampoos and specs for ages. I was still hungry and my tongue was throbbing. It was so tiring standing still I eventually slid down the glass and sat on the stone pavement though the cold came straight through my jeans. It was like sitting on a vast tub of ice cream.

  I was shivering when Star came back at last.

  ‘Get up, Dol. You’ll get a chill sitting on the pavement.’

  ‘Where’s Mark?’

  ‘He’s gone off to meet up with some more of his mates. What do you think of him, eh? Isn’t he fantastic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes he is! He’s the most gorgeous-looking boy in the whole town. Everyone wants to go out with him. Janice Taylor is hopping mad.’

  ‘What did you do with him?’

  ‘What do you think?’ said Star. She saw my face. ‘It’s OK, Dol. Honest. We just snog.’

  I hated that word. It sounded slimy and piglike. Mark and Star grew snouts and pink piggy flesh and horrible curly tails. I pictured them rootling around each other and felt sick.

  ‘Dol?’ Star put her arm round me.

  ‘Get off.’

  ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘I don’t like the way you are with that Mark.’

  ‘You’re just jealous.’

  ‘I am not! And it’s not just with Mark, it’s all of that lot. You seem so different.’

  ‘It just because I’m older now.’

  ‘You’re still not old enough to have that Mark slobbering all over you. I’ll tell Marigold.’

  Star laughed. ‘So what’s she going to do about it? I’m sure she got up to much more when she was my age.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll come back tonight? She did promise.’

  ‘She promises all the time.’

  It looked like that night was another broken promise. We got home before ten. We ate our chicken salads. Then we got ready for bed. I liked Star much more when she’d scrubbed all her make-up off and was wearing her old teddy bear nightie. She was in such a good mood she made all the teddies talk to me in different growly voices.

  ‘Remember I had a teddy once? A big yellow one with a tartan jacket,’ I said, rubbing my silk scarf over my nose. ‘I wish I still had him.’

  ‘I’ll get you another one for Christmas.’

  ‘No, I don’t really want another one. I wish I still had Teddy Jock. And all the other stuff. The old picture books and my Barbie doll with all the special outfits.’

  ‘Oh, I loved my Barbie. But you cut all their hair. I was ultranarked but then I kind of liked mine being a skinhead and I made her little black bovver boots out of plasticine, remember?’

  ‘Yes, but we haven’t got them. I want them all now. I want . . .’ I gestured round our room helplessly.

  It was the best room we’d ever had and I loved it. We didn’t have any proper curtains or a carpet but Marigold had bought a giant pot of deep blue emulsion and we’d painted the walls and the ceiling and then Marigold had turned the walls into an ocean and painted whales and sharks and a coral reef with mermaids and a whole school of dolphins diving up and down. The ceiling was the sky and Marigold had clung to a stepladder all one day and half the night painting the stars of the Milky Way, Sirius and the Pleiades and the Great Bear and the Little Bear and the big bright Pole Star but biggest and brightest of all she’d painted the five points of the star symbol on her chest above her heart.

  It was the most beautiful room any two girls could have. I didn’t really want it cluttered up with moth-eaten old toys. I just wished we’d been able to keep more of our stuff. Sometimes the new expensive things were reclaimed. Sometimes they got stolen. Sometimes we had to do a moonlight flit and travel light.

  I thought of all the old toys scattered over half London and beyond and felt sad.

  ‘I wonder what’s happened to them all?’ I said.

  I imagined them scooped up in a rubbish cart and spewed out on some awful rubbish dump with smelly takeaway cartons leaking all over them and seagulls pecking at Jock’s glass eyes and rats chewing the last of Barbie’s hair.

  Star let me come into her bed when we heard midnight strike and Marigold still wasn’t home. I fell asleep nuzzling into the bears on her back and dreamt we were on a rubbish cart, Star and me, and the dustman combed Star’s hair with their dirty fingers and licked her face clean and stuck her up on the front of the cart as their lucky mascot. But they chucked me out on the rubbish heap and I was stuck in the muck screaming for Marigold but she wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t come for me no matter how many times I cried her name—

  ‘Marigold!’

  ‘Here I am, Dol. It’s OK, I’m here. It’s all right, darling. Oh God, it’s righter than right! Wake up properly. Star, sweetheart, wake up!’

  Marigold had put the light on. It was so bright I could see nothing at first. I clung to her, my eyes little cracks in my face. I could smell the drink on her breath but she still seemed fine, though she was trembling. I held her tight but she wasn’t concentrating on me.

  ‘Star! Star, sit up, my sweet. There!’ Marigold leant across me and brushed Star’s hair out of her eyes. ‘Star, I’d like you to meet someone.’ Marigold’s voice was so shaky with excitement she could hardly get the words out. ‘It’s Micky, Star, your father!’

  We sat bolt upright, blinking. We stared at him. It was as if Princess Diana herself had whizzed down from heaven to see us. Marigold had been telling us about Micky all our lives but we’d never quite believed in him.

  ‘You’re really Micky?’ Star said, staring at this stranger.

  Though he didn’t really seem strange. He was tall and thin like Star, with long fair hair that tangled around his shoulders. He had cornflower blue eyes and a straight nose and a crinkly smile and a dimple in just one of his cheeks. He was wearing a black T-shirt and a black leather jacket and black jeans and black boots. He wore a thin silver cuff on one wrist and an ornate silver ring on either hand.

  ‘Like . . . my dad?’ Star whispered.

  He didn’t look like anyone’s dad. He looked like a rock star.

  Micky glanced at Marigold. She nodded.

  ‘Like . . . your dad, Star,’ he said.

  ‘Wow,’ said Star. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I can’t either,’ said Micky. ‘I didn’t even realize I was a dad. This is so amazing. First I meet up with you, Marigold. And now I’ve got a daughter!’ He looked at me for a mo