Indigo Blue (11 page)

Miss McDougall gives me a star for my project homework, and tells everybody that researching original material is an excellent way to find out about the Victorians.

‘Swot,’ Jo says.

And even though I get 7/20 for my maths test without even trying, she won’t forgive me.

At lunchtime, we sit at the side of the playground in silence, Jo and Aisha and me. Jo paints her own nails ‘Sizzling Sunset’, then puts the bottle away pointedly.

‘How was swimming club on Saturday?’ I ask, desperate for something to say that won’t spark off World War III. ‘Did you… do any good strokes?’

Jo looks at me like I’m insane. She may not be too far off the mark.

‘Erm, it was OK,’ Aisha says brightly. ‘I did mainly front crawl. But I’m in a different group from Jo –’

‘You two are so – boring!’ Jo bursts out. ‘You just run around sucking up to Miss McDougall, showing off about the play, telling everyone how great you are. Well, you are
way
off the mark. You can’t sing, you can’t act, and Shane Taggart definitely doesn’t fancy you. So
there
!’

She storms off, flicking back her hair and wiggling her bum in case Shane’s watching.

Aisha and I look at each other, speechless. I’m horrified.

Aisha’s mouth opens, then closes again. It twitches at the corners. If I smiled, or raised my eyebrows, or let my eyes sparkle at Aisha, she’d be laughing, I know. She’d nudge me and we’d double up together, giggling and spluttering at the cheek of it, the unfairness of it. But…

I want Jo back, my best, best mate.

I want her back the way she used to be, confident, careless, fun. I want her back the way she was before Aisha, before Shane, before the move.

Jo tries a hundred different tactics to pay me back.

She’s mad at me because of Shane and because of Miss McDougall and the part of Oliver. She’s punishing me.

I wish I could tell her how bad things are at home, how lost I’m feeling, how scared. I wish she could see how I feel. I wish she could see
me
.

She isn’t even looking.

On Tuesday, she sits by Carrie Naughton all day. At breaktime I hear her swearing – Jo Ashton, the girl who still says ‘Gosh’ and ‘Goodness’ and ‘Rats’ when things go wrong. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like Jo.

On Wednesday, she sits by Aisha. Aisha shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head at me when Jo’s not looking, by way of apology. But it’s not her fault. It’s not her fault my best mate has dumped me.

On Thursday, she asks Shane Taggart out. He doesn’t really fancy her, Buzz tells Aisha. But it’s hard to say no to Jo Ashton, a fact I learned way back in Reception. It takes a stronger man than Shane.

Carrie Naughton tells everyone that Jo and Shane went behind the school kitchens and snogged till the bell went for afternoon class.

‘Do you mind?’ Aisha asks me.

‘No! I don’t even like him, I keep trying to tell you. And Jo really does, so maybe this will make her feel better. I hope so.’

I do hope so, but even though I can’t tell Aisha, there’s still a tiny part of me that feels betrayed. By Jo, because she’s doing this to hurt me, to show me, to prove a point. And by Shane, because I know he likes me and I know he doesn’t like Jo, not the same way.

So what’s he doing snogging her behind the kitchens?

‘Boys,’ Aisha says gloomily. ‘They’re all the same.’

I’m feeling pretty punished now. I wish Jo would stop. She doesn’t.

On Friday, she pulls the rabbit out of the hat.

She tells everyone who will listen that Mum’s left Max, that we’re living in a dank, dark cellar with fungus on the walls. She says she feels sorry for me, because it’s tough when your mum can’t stick with one bloke. It’s tough when you don’t even know who your father is.

My heart hits the concrete playground, splat. I can’t see it, because hearts aren’t like that, but I can feel it all right.

Did she mean me to hear?

Her eyes catch mine and I know that she did.

Aisha sees me standing still, frozen in time. The colour drains from my face, my heart turns to ice, my body feels stiff and cold and heavy, like a drowned person.

She puts an arm round me and steers me away, out of the playground, down across the grass to the far corner of the playing fields.

‘If you want to cry, it’s OK,’ Aisha says. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

But I can’t cry. If I let the tears fall now, they’ll never stop. Tears of anger, tears of self-pity. Tears for Jo, for Mum, for Max.

I can’t.

‘I’m OK,’ I tell her. ‘I’m just – shocked. She was my
friend.’

Was.

‘She didn’t mean it,’ Aisha says helplessly.

‘She
did.’

We sit for ages in the long grass, backs against the boundary fence.

I remember a day back in Year Three, when Miss Appleton was away and we had a supply teacher: a stern, speccy lady with a crew cut and a flowery blouse. It was the summer Danny left us and went to live back in Wales. I was sad that summer, but I knew Danny loved me even if he didn’t love Mum. I knew we’d be OK.

The supply teacher asked us to make Father’s Day cards, though, and I said I didn’t want to.

‘He’s still your dad,’ Jo had said. ‘Even if he’s gone, he’s still your dad. Nothing can change that.’

‘He’s not,’ I said in a small voice. ‘Not really.’

‘He is so,’ Jo said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He really isn’t.’

So I told Jo about Danny, how he met Mum when I was two years old, how we lived together, the three of us, in a tiny cottage on the Welsh coast, all rainbow stripes and tie-dyed bedsheets and music festivals in the summer. When we moved up to the north of England, it was a caravan at first, then a council flat. Danny cut his hair and got a Job as a carpenter, but he wasn’t happy, not really. He moved back to Wales and left us alone.

‘He’s not my dad,’ I said to Jo again.

‘Sorry. I didn’t know,’ she said. She was silent for a long time, colouring in.

‘Who is, then?’ she asked eventually. ‘Who is your dad?’

I’d wanted to tell her something sad, something tragic, something glamorous, heroic, brave. I couldn’t think of anything.

‘I don’t know,’ I’d said.

Now, I lean back against the fence and hug my knees. When you look closely, the long grass is full of litter.

‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ I say heavily.

‘I know,’ says Aisha, with feeling.

I know now that my dad was called Blue, that he and Mum met up at Glastonbury Festival and fell in love. Trouble is, it was a two-day kind of love, a nice-while-it-lasted romance. They didn’t swap addresses. It wouldn’t have mattered, except for me, the baby who appeared nine months later, growing up, asking awkward questions.

I know his name was Blue, but that’s all.

‘I
don’t
know who my dad is,’ I say.

Aisha shrugs. ‘I don’t know
where
mine is,’ she says.

I frown. ‘Isn’t he at home? Or at work, you know?’

‘No. He left us, six months ago. Mum thinks he’s gone back to India. That’s why we came here, so Mum could be near her parents. It’s weird, though. She won’t talk about it. It’s like she’s ashamed or something. And if anyone asks about Dad, everyone says he’s away on business, even though he’s not. Why can’t people just tell the truth?’

‘I dunno,’ I say. ‘Sorry, Aisha, about your dad. I never realized.’

‘What difference does it make?’

I shrug. ‘None, I s’pose.’

‘See? It’s you that matters in the end,’ she says. ‘Doesn’t matter who your dad was. Doesn’t matter about your mum and her ex. Doesn’t matter if your flat’s got fungus in the bathroom.’

‘It
hasn’t,’
I protest.

‘Well then,’ says Aisha. ‘There you go. Could be worse.’

The bell goes for lessons and we leg it back up the playing field, but everyone’s inside and sitting down by the time we hurtle into the classroom, red-faced and out of breath.

‘Sorry, Miss McDougall,’ says Aisha.

‘Humphhh,’ says Miss McDougall. ‘Don’t let it happen again.’

Jo’s sitting by Aisha’s desk, beaming out a sparkly smile. ‘I got your stuff out,’ she whispers to Aisha.

‘Thanks.’

I slump down into my chair and wonder when the hurt will go away, but then Aisha dumps her bag on Jo’s old desk and flops down next to me, grinning. Miss McDougall shoots a withering glance at Jo, Aisha and me in turn.

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she booms. ‘But this musical chairs business stops – today. Understood?’

‘Yes, Miss McDougall,’ Aisha and I chorus.

‘Sorry, Miss,’ Aisha adds for good measure.

Jo’s silent, glowering, but I’m past feeling sorry for her now.

She’s not worth it.

And I have Aisha sitting next to me, who doesn’t fuss and flounce and play silly payback games. It feels OK.

Mum is ill for a week, maybe two. It may not be flu, but she’s ill all the same, and it’s scary. She sleeps a lot and she cries a lot, and often, when I get home from school, she looks like she’s just got out of bed.

Some days Misti is bathed and clean, and dressed in her spotty tights and her turquoise pinafore and her flowery top. She plays with her crayons and her collage stuff and her play dough, and she seems OK. Other days, I get home from school and she’s grubby and tear-stained, her face smeared with jam or Marmite.

Sometimes she’s still in her pyjamas, and sometimes she’s wet or dirty because Mum forgot to change her nappy. Those nights, I make beans on toast or cheese on toast for tea, then dump Misti in the bath with all her dolls and treat her to a squoosh of my peachy bubble bath and let her borrow my dolphin facecloth.

Jane comes every other night, sometimes with chips, sometimes with pizza, once with a Chinese takeaway that nobody liked. She makes sure there’s always cash in the emergency blue purse. She makes sure there’s always at least one spare powercard. She makes sure Mum gets dressed and the two of them talk and talk, and Mum promises not to ring Max again.

I don’t tell Jane about the nights that Mum sneaks out of the flat when she thinks I’m asleep. She’s never gone for long, maybe ten, twenty minutes, just long enough to walk down to the phone box. I lie awake, watching the minutes tick by, until I hear the door click shut and I know she’s home again, safe and sound.

Jane remembers to pay the rent before Mrs Green gets in a tizz, and then at last Mum’s money comes through and she seems a bit better. We do a big shop in the supermarket, bulk-buying nappies and pasta and peanut butter and jam.

We’re loading up the pushchair with carrier bags when we see Ian Turner, smart and smiley in his blue business suit, marching along behind the tills.

‘Hello, Mr Turner,’ I say, and he stops, grinning.

‘Ian,’ he corrects, pointing to a little red badge on his lapel.

Ian, Customer Services,
it says.

‘I didn’t know you worked here,’ I say.

‘You do now! It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,’ he jokes. He looks at Mum. You can tell he likes her, just from the way he looks.

‘Well, at least that flu’s gone,’ he says. ‘You’re looking great.’

Mum goes pink. She does look OK, though. Her hair is clean and shiny, drifting loose across the shoulders of her blue velvet top. Her old jeans, patched and faded, are tucked into the tops of her blue suede boots.

‘Can I give you a lift home with the shopping at all?’ Ian asks. ‘I can drop it off later, no hassles. Then this little lady won’t have to balance a bag of nappies on her knee…’

He produces a wrapped fudge from his pocket and pretends to magic it from Misti’s ear, making her giggle.

‘Bet you’re too old for tricks like that,’ he says to me. He fiddles about by my ear for a moment. ‘Yup, thought so. Nothing there.’

Why do people always think eleven is too old for magic?

‘We’ll be fine, Mr Turner –
Ian,’
Mum is saying. ‘You’ve done so much for us already, I really can’t thank you enough. But we’ll walk home today – we’ll enjoy it, won’t we, girls?’

I nod, hooking Misti by the hand. She beams at him, her mouth already brown and sticky with fudge.

‘OK, then, see you around, Anna,’ he says.