the floor with my ear against the carpet, listening to the echo of Terry doing the six o’clock news between the floorboards. I could always imagine Donald and Barbara very clearly. Having a great time and completely forgetting about me.
It was still Boxing Day and I imagined them again. Barbara was going to stand up at the end of the film and brush imaginary crumbs from the front of her skirt.
‘Well, that’s that for another year,’ she’d say, and turn the lights on the Christmas tree off. Donald would nod absently.
‘You did us proud, love.’
And they’d laugh as if that was the remains of a hilarious joke the pair of them started years and years ago, before I was born and when they were still young.
I lay there, something fluttering in my stomach, and wondered about how long they were married before I was born. Fourteen years, which is ages. And I thought about how old they were when they had me. Old. They didn’t go to work anymore. They didn’t look too much like old people, they could still walk and everything, but when it came to getting picked up and parents’ evenings and things like that, it was humiliating.
Didn’t they really want to have children? Didn’t they worry about me turning out funny, like Wilson? Didn’t they realise I’d get hammered for it at school? In my bed I tried to muster up the energy to hate them again but Wilson was in my head, those hands tucking the ends of the scarf into his jacket, and my throat got so tight I felt like I was going to suffocate.
Chapter 7
It was New Year’s Eve and I should have been at Chloe’s house, not at home with too many boxes of Ritz crackers. Barbara had bought them cheap because the boxes had fallen off the display and had to be patched up with brown tape.
Chloe had said there was going to be a party, with cousins and friends of the family. There would be a room set aside just for us, with films up to certificate fifteen, and a limited amount of booze. Her mother had said she could invite one friend, and it was a toss-up between me and Emma right up until the last minute. But on the last day of school, Chloe had hugged me and said she was going to lend me her pointy shoes. I’d bought some white tights to match. The tights were still in the packet and Chloe hadn’t called me since Boxing Day.
I could have telephoned her. We both had our mobile phones – heavy, brickish objects we flashed about at school. We had no one to send messages to but each other because hardly anyone else had them. They were secrets from our parents. Donald would have been suspicious about radio waves that near to your head, and Barbara liked to listen on the upstairs extension. People at school knew, of course. We’d let them beep and then refuse to let anyone else have a go. Other girls were jealous, or hated us. Not even Emma had one. I loved that phone. It was what made me special.
I never forgot, because Chloe never wanted me to forget, that we only had them because Carl worked in Currys. He liked to keep tabs on her, and it wasn’t as if he could ring her at home. She gave her first one to me and told Carl she’d lost it so he’d get her another. Now and again, she’d promise to get Emma one. Emma would shrug and pretend she didn’t care, but when she thought I wasn’t looking she stared at Chloe’s phone like it was a lump of chocolate.
I didn’t ring Chloe. I remembered her saying ‘bring you out’ and I was angry. It was her turn to phone me, and she hadn’t. By tea-time on New Year’s Eve I was in a full-blown sulk, loitering sullenly around the kitchen and thinking about Emma’s lumpy feet in Chloe’s pointy shoes, wearing her glitter eye-shadow and drinking my share of the limited amount of alcohol. I wasn’t going to ring and invite myself. Wasn’t going to act desperate. Barbara had her own plans for the three of us, and was standing at the draining board hacking tomatoes into garnishes.
‘Will you take that look off your
It was still Boxing Day and I imagined them again. Barbara was going to stand up at the end of the film and brush imaginary crumbs from the front of her skirt.
‘Well, that’s that for another year,’ she’d say, and turn the lights on the Christmas tree off. Donald would nod absently.
‘You did us proud, love.’
And they’d laugh as if that was the remains of a hilarious joke the pair of them started years and years ago, before I was born and when they were still young.
I lay there, something fluttering in my stomach, and wondered about how long they were married before I was born. Fourteen years, which is ages. And I thought about how old they were when they had me. Old. They didn’t go to work anymore. They didn’t look too much like old people, they could still walk and everything, but when it came to getting picked up and parents’ evenings and things like that, it was humiliating.
Didn’t they really want to have children? Didn’t they worry about me turning out funny, like Wilson? Didn’t they realise I’d get hammered for it at school? In my bed I tried to muster up the energy to hate them again but Wilson was in my head, those hands tucking the ends of the scarf into his jacket, and my throat got so tight I felt like I was going to suffocate.
Chapter 7
It was New Year’s Eve and I should have been at Chloe’s house, not at home with too many boxes of Ritz crackers. Barbara had bought them cheap because the boxes had fallen off the display and had to be patched up with brown tape.
Chloe had said there was going to be a party, with cousins and friends of the family. There would be a room set aside just for us, with films up to certificate fifteen, and a limited amount of booze. Her mother had said she could invite one friend, and it was a toss-up between me and Emma right up until the last minute. But on the last day of school, Chloe had hugged me and said she was going to lend me her pointy shoes. I’d bought some white tights to match. The tights were still in the packet and Chloe hadn’t called me since Boxing Day.
I could have telephoned her. We both had our mobile phones – heavy, brickish objects we flashed about at school. We had no one to send messages to but each other because hardly anyone else had them. They were secrets from our parents. Donald would have been suspicious about radio waves that near to your head, and Barbara liked to listen on the upstairs extension. People at school knew, of course. We’d let them beep and then refuse to let anyone else have a go. Other girls were jealous, or hated us. Not even Emma had one. I loved that phone. It was what made me special.
I never forgot, because Chloe never wanted me to forget, that we only had them because Carl worked in Currys. He liked to keep tabs on her, and it wasn’t as if he could ring her at home. She gave her first one to me and told Carl she’d lost it so he’d get her another. Now and again, she’d promise to get Emma one. Emma would shrug and pretend she didn’t care, but when she thought I wasn’t looking she stared at Chloe’s phone like it was a lump of chocolate.
I didn’t ring Chloe. I remembered her saying ‘bring you out’ and I was angry. It was her turn to phone me, and she hadn’t. By tea-time on New Year’s Eve I was in a full-blown sulk, loitering sullenly around the kitchen and thinking about Emma’s lumpy feet in Chloe’s pointy shoes, wearing her glitter eye-shadow and drinking my share of the limited amount of alcohol. I wasn’t going to ring and invite myself. Wasn’t going to act desperate. Barbara had her own plans for the three of us, and was standing at the draining board hacking tomatoes into garnishes.
‘Will you take that look off your
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