Lily Alone Read online

  ‘Do I look OK?’ she asked.

  ‘You bet,’ I said.

  ‘You look lovely, Mum,’ said Bliss.

  ‘Lovely, lovely, lovely,’ Pixie said, clapping her hands.

  Baxter tried to give Mum a wolf whistle, but he couldn’t whistle properly because he’d lost his front teeth, so it came out as a funny hissing sound that made us all laugh.

  Mum gave us all a kiss goodbye, and she was off.

  To tell you the truth, I thought she’d be back early. I was pretty sure this Gordon wouldn’t turn up. I thought Mum would wait up in town a while, maybe have a drink to cheer herself up, and then come back home once she knew the kids would be in bed. I’d make her a cup of tea and give her a cuddle, and if she cried I’d wipe her eyes and tell her he wasn’t worth it. I’d act all grown up, like I really was Mum’s mate. I was almost looking forward to it.

  But Mum didn’t come back. We watched telly and then we played a long, boring game of snap. It got especially tedious because Baxter wanted to change the rules and shout a rude word beginning with S whenever two cards were the same – and then Pixie kept shouting it too, and we couldn’t shut her up. It was hard work getting them calmed down and into bed. Pixie was still sleepily mumbling the rude word when I tucked her up in her cot.

  I had to chase Baxter all round the flat before I caught him and hurled him on top of the mattress, and then I had to lie on top of him to keep him there before he calmed down at last and went to sleep clutching his new fork-lift truck. Bliss went to bed without making a fuss, but when I looked into our bedroom half an hour later she was still wide awake. I let her get up again and come in the living room with me.

  ‘Come and cuddle up on the sofa, Bliss. I’ll tell you a story if you like,’ I said.

  She nuzzled up to me obediently, tucking her head neatly under my shoulder. She was always lovely to sit with. Baxter was a nightmare, wrestling and kicking all over the place, and Pixie had become a hopeless fidget too, unable to sit still for two seconds.

  ‘You are my absolute favourite, Bliss,’ I said, putting my arm round her. ‘OK, shall I read a story from our book? Cinderella? For the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time.’

  ‘Could you tell me a story out of your head?’ Bliss coaxed. ‘A fairy story, but without any witches or giants or dragons.’

  ‘OK then, I’ll tell you a story about . . .’

  ‘About a little girl called Bliss?’

  ‘And a big girl called Lily,’ I said.

  ‘And Baxter? And Pixie?’ said Bliss.

  ‘Well, they’re in our story, but they’re fast asleep in an enchanted forest.’

  ‘There won’t be any witches, will there?’

  ‘No, absolutely no warty old witches. We’re fairies anyway, you and me, Bliss, and our magic is much stronger than any old witches.’

  ‘Are Baxter and Pixie fairies too?’

  ‘Of course they are. Baxter wears a special pink sequin fairy dress with matching sparkly pink wings.’

  Bliss snorted with laughter, as if I’d told the funniest joke ever.

  ‘And Pixie wears a little white fairy frock, with weeny white wings, only she’s hopeless, she’s forever crawling around the grass and trying to climb trees in the enchanted forest, so she’s always all over grime and grass stains. She’s only a baby fairy so she can’t fly properly yet. And Baxter doesn’t fly properly – he swoops round and round the tree trunks, throwing acorns at squirrels and trying to catch all the birds. But we fly wonderfully, Bliss.’

  ‘What colour dresses have we got?’

  ‘Well, you have a blue fairy frock.’

  ‘Blue’s my favourite colour,’ said Bliss happily.

  ‘Yes, it’s a very pretty sky-blue colour, and you have the most beautiful rainbow wings. You’re the prettiest fairy I’ve ever seen.’

  Bliss pulled the thin wisps of her hair.

  ‘Do I have long golden curls?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely, way down to your waist, and I brush them every morning and tie rainbow-coloured ribbons in your hair to match your wings.’

  ‘What about you, Lily? Do you have a blue dress too?’

  I nibble a little piece of skin on my lip, deliberating.

  ‘I don’t mind you having blue, Lily. Tell you what, you could wear blue because we’re twins, see, you and me,’ Bliss suggested.

  ‘No, no, I’m the big sister fairy. I have to keep you in order.’

  ‘But I’m always good.’

  ‘You’re good here, but you might be a very naughty little fairy in the enchanted forest. You might pull the heads off all the flowers and chase the rabbits and eat all the wild strawberries instead of sharing them with us.’

  ‘So I’ll be like Baxter?’

  ‘Worse than Baxter. And when you do something really outrageous, like tearing your blue dress and running around in your fairy knickers singing rude songs at the top of your voice, I shall have to catch you and spank you with my fairy wand.’

  Bliss was rolling around on the sofa, giggling.

  ‘So what colour is your fairy dress?’ she spluttered.

  ‘I think it’s purple. Yeah, purple like those pansy flowers. I’ll have a very fine soft purply bodice and then a sticking-out paler purple skirt, lots and lots of layers, so it swooshes around me as I fly. My wings are pale purple too but they shade to dark at their feathery tips, and I have tiny, tiny purple pansies in my hair.

  ‘Oh, how lovely! Can I have purple too, please, please?’

  ‘No, your blue is much prettier, and purple wouldn’t go with your rainbow wings. You have to be co-ordinated, Bliss.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘All your colours have to go together. Baxter is a beautifully co-ordinated fairy – he’s got little dark pink underpants that go with his fairy frock and he wears shiny pink lipstick to match.’

  Bliss was snorting with laughter now, her own face bright pink too.

  ‘You’re so funny, Lily!’ she said. ‘You will always be my sister, won’t you? I mean, really. You won’t go off anywhere?’

  ‘I’ll always be your big sister, Bliss, and I’ll always look after you, I promise,’ I said.

  ‘Mum is coming back, isn’t she?’ said Bliss.

  ‘Of course she is. You snuggle down and go to sleep with me on the sofa, and when you wake up again I bet Mum will be here and she’ll be telling us off because we’re not in bed.’

  Bliss snuggled down obediently and went to sleep. We woke with a start at dawn, as Mum crept through the front door. She found us on the sofa and kissed us both.

  ‘What are you funny girls doing in here on the sofa? Have you been watching telly half the night? You’re very naughty girls.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, Lily said you’d tell us off and you are!’ Bliss said delightedly.

  ‘What? You want to be told off, you daft ha’p’orth?’ said Mum, tickling her.

  ‘No tickles, no tickles!’ Bliss begged.

  ‘Well, you go and get into bed with Baxter and have another little snooze, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘I’m not a good girl, I’m a bad fairy,’ Bliss said, but she trotted off to the living-room door. Then she turned back. ‘Aren’t you coming too, Lily?’

  ‘Lily and I are going to have a special big girls’ chat together,’ said Mum. ‘Off you go now – or I’ll tickle you till you squeal.’

  ‘I’m going, I’m going,’ said Bliss, disappearing.

  ‘Ah!’ Mum said, yawning and stretching. ‘She’s a funny little thing, isn’t she? Here, Lily, go and make us a cup of tea. You and me need to talk.’

  I went to put the kettle on. Gordon had obviously turned up after all. Mum was in such a good mood. She looked good too, even though her make-up was all gone and her hair tucked back behind her ears. She looked like a girl again, not a mum of four. I felt so happy for her. Well, most of me did. Another deep-down, meaner part of me was jealous. Why couldn’t I ever make her happy like that? Why weren’t the
four of us enough to make her happy?

  I poured the tea and took two mugs into the living room. Mum was wandering around, doing little dance steps and fluffing out her hair.

  ‘Here you are, Mum,’ I said putting the mugs down.

  ‘You’re a pal.’ Mum came and sat beside me.

  ‘Well? Is he still the man of your dreams?’

  ‘You bet he is,’ said Mum. ‘Oh, Lily, I can’t believe it! He’s so wonderful. I’m just so lucky.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you haven’t been very lucky in the past, have you? Are you sure gordon’s truly OK?’

  ‘One hundred per cent perfect, I tell you. Well, as far as I can tell, at this stage. Obviously, I need to spend more time with him, to make certain sure. That’s what I want to talk to you about.’ Mum took a sip of her tea. ‘Lily, he’s asked me to go to Spain with him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t look like that! Just a little holiday, love. He’s flying back tonight and he’s asked me to go with him. Isn’t that fantastic?’

  ‘But – but what about school?’ I said stupidly. ‘And we’ll have to get passports – and how will we afford the aeroplane tickets?’

  ‘Hey, hey, it’s not all of us. Don’t be daft, Lily, he’s not going to fork out for four kids, now is he? It’s just me – and I’ve got a passport from the time I went on that trip to Magaluf, when the twins were tiny. Mikey looked after them then – and he can look after them now.’

  ‘Not Mikey!’

  ‘Look, I know you don’t like him, but you can keep out of his way. He’s a good dad to the twins – and he’s wanting to see them, he said so – he just wouldn’t give up his Saturday night with the lads.’

  ‘Mum, please don’t leave us with Mikey.’

  ‘Now stop it. There isn’t anybody else. It’ll just be for a few days.’

  ‘Don’t go!’

  ‘Hey, hey. I can’t mess Gordon about, love. He’s booked my ticket online, it’s all done and dusted. I’m going tonight! It’s so romantic, just like those films where they whisk you away to Paris for the weekend.’

  ‘Can’t you just go for the weekend?’

  ‘Well, this is the weekend, silly. I’m not going for long, only a few days. I’ll tell Mikey I’ll be back before Saturday, just to keep him sweet.’

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘Look, don’t sit there giving me that look. I really need a little holiday. I haven’t been away anywhere for years and years, and it’s really doing my head in, stuck here in this dump. You’ve no idea what it’s been like for me, Lily. I don’t see why I can’t have a little holiday like anyone else. I’ve given up nearly everything to keep you kids happy – and now just this once I’m going to put myself first. That’s not so bad, is it!’

  ‘Couldn’t we all go somewhere, Mum?’

  ‘Look, Gordon doesn’t have a clue about you lot. I don’t want to put him off. He’s a young carefree lad. I’ll tell him eventually, of course I will. He’ll come round to the idea, and you’re all lovely kids – but it’s a bit too soon to start playing happy families.’

  ‘But we are a family, Mum.’

  ‘Look, just shut it, will you? Here’s me on cloud nine, and there’s you, trying to spoil everything.’ Mum thumped her tea mug down on the table. ‘Now, I’m going to get a bit of shut-eye for a couple of hours before the little ones start making a racket. Do you want to come and cuddle up too? Or are you going to sit there in a sulk?’

  ‘I’ll sit, thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Right. See if I care,’ said Mum, and she walked off out of the room, swaying her hips in her new dress.

  I sat huddled up, my head on my knees. I decided that I hated Mum. No, of course I didn’t really. I hated this Gordon for wanting to take her away, but it was hard hating someone I didn’t even know. Well, I knew Mikey and I certainly hated him. I thought of him crashing around our flat, yelling at all of us, and shivered. Even when he was in a good mood he could never get it right. He wrestled with Baxter but he was always a bit too rough, forgetting that Baxter was only a little boy. Baxter would go bright red in the face trying not to cry, and if his tears spilled over, Mikey would jeer at him and call him a wuss. He’d try playing with Bliss, silly card games, but she’d get so nervous and twitchy she’d lose again and again, hanging her head in shame. Mikey was better with Pixie, even though she was much smaller and not his own daughter. She’d fetch her teddy bears and he’d pretend to feed them, and then he’d turn into a big bear himself and growl at Pixie. She’d scream with delight and beg him to growl even louder – but more than once she’d got so excited she’d wet herself.

  I certainly didn’t play any silly games with Mikey. He didn’t try to play them with me. He never had, even when I was little. Once I heard him say to Mum, ‘That kid gives me the creeps the way she looks at me.’ He gives me the creeps.

  I cried for a bit and then wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and went to find Mum. She was curled up in her bed. I got in beside her and tried to cuddle up.

  ‘I thought you were sulking,’ she murmured, but she put her arms round me. ‘Here, babe. Don’t put those cold feet on me though, they’re like little blocks of ice.’

  ‘Mum, I’ve been thinking. We truly don’t need to get Mikey to come. I can look after the kids, easy-peasy.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Lily.’

  ‘I can. I did last night and the night before.’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t leave you kids on your own for a whole week.’

  ‘It’s not a week, you said just a few days.’

  ‘Well, I’m not quite sure. We got this cheap one-way ticket. Probably I’ll get a flight back Friday. Or Saturday. But whenever, I can’t leave you all that time. If anyone found out, I’d get thrown into jail for child neglect. It’s against the law, babes. So you’ll just have to put up with Mikey. Now, let’s get to sleep, eh?’

  Mum went to sleep in a few seconds. I lay beside her, clinging onto her with both hands. I just had to hope that she’d change her mind when she woke up. But there was no chance. When Baxter and Bliss and Pixie all came tumbling into the room Mum woke up and told them straight away that Mikey was coming to look after them. Bliss went very quiet but Baxter cheered, and Pixie clapped her hands and said, ‘Mikey growly bear, Mikey growly bear,’ over and over again. They didn’t even seem to be taking it in that Mum was going off on holiday without us.

  I couldn’t take it in either. She wasn’t really going to go, was she? Mum often made things up. She once told us she’d got a job as a singer in a nightclub. She went on and on about it, even saying this man had offered her a contract to make an album. I truly believed her, but it turned out she’d just gone to a karaoke bar and sang a few songs there. Another time I heard her telling some of the mums at school that this photographer had stopped her in the street and had been desperate to take glamour photos of her, and she was going to be a Page-Three girl. I’d been there in the street with her and it wasn’t a proper photographer at all, it was just a silly lad mucking about with his mobile phone.

  Perhaps Gordon had said something casual about his job in Spain, saying Mum should come and see him there some time – and now she was making it up that he’d definitely invited her and she’d booked a ticket. I felt a lot better thinking that, especially as Mum made no attempt to phone Mikey and fix up for him to come over. Maybe she was simply playing pretend games, the way I sometimes went up to the top balcony of our flats and stood on tiptoe and pretended I could stretch out my arms and step into space. I felt that if I could only will it hard enough, wings would sprout from my shoulder blades, open up like umbrellas, and carry me over the rooftops. I would soar up above our tower block, away from everyone, in peace – just Lily alone.

  Mum messed around all morning, doing the dusting and vacuuming, letting Bliss faff around with a duster and Pixie ride on the hoover. She put Baxter in charge of sorting the rubbish but he just put a black plastic bag over his head and ran around pretending to be a monst
er.

  ‘Stop it, Baxter! It’s ever so dangerous putting plastic bags on your head. You could suffocate,’ I said, trying to snatch it off him.

  ‘Leave him be, Lil, he’s just having a bit of fun,’ said Mum, aiming at my feet with the hoover.

  ‘But it is dangerous. What if Pixie copied him?’

  ‘What if Pixie copied him?’ Mum repeated, mimicking me, making me sound horribly prim and silly.

  ‘Pixie copy, Pixie copy, Pixie copy!’ Pixie shrieked.

  ‘See!’ I said.

  ‘I see a right old grumpy-guts,’ said Mum, sticking her tongue out at me.

  ‘Grumpy-guts, grumpy-guts, grumpy-guts,’ said Pixie, and Baxter ran at me in the black plastic bag, making moaning monster noises at me.

  I stomped off by myself. I lay on the mattress to draw my dream house in my new pad but the lines kept going wonky. I flipped through my magazine instead but the pictures blurred. I put my head in the grubby darkness of my pillow and curled up small, my arms round my knees.

  I decided to stay like that all day, but Mum had put a chicken in the oven for Sunday dinner. She didn’t usually bother to cook much, but every so often she roasted a chicken for a special treat. I didn’t think I was the slightest bit hungry until I smelled it cooking. By the time Mum dished up the chicken with roast potatoes and peas and carrots I was ravenous. She only had to call me once and I came running.

  ‘There you are! Were you having a little nap, babe? Maybe you won’t be so grouchy now. Come on, sit yourself down and get tucked in.’

  We all sat round the kitchen table, eating. Pixie never usually sat still. She’d grab a handful of food off her plate and run round the room with it, but now she sat up straight on the bench, scarcely wriggling. She stuck a roast potato on her fork and licked at it as if it was an ice lolly, making little murmurs of appreciation. Baxter stuffed his food down, chewing with his mouth open. Bliss ate daintily, careful not to let her chicken touch her potatoes, keeping her peas and carrots separate too, eating one tiny mouthful of each in turn. Mum didn’t eat much herself, she just nibbled at a little bit of chicken.