Lemonade Sky (10 page)

I had a bit of a panic when I woke up next morning, thinking that Cal might not still be there. Suppose his itchy feet had made him suddenly take off?

I went tiptoeing out in my nightie. The door of Mum’s room was ajar. I could tell the bed had been slept in, but there was no sign of Cal. And then I heard the sound of the fridge being opened and went rushing into the kitchen to find Cal peering in dismay at the empty shelves.

“You really are out of everything, aren’t you?” he said.

Anxiously, cos I didn’t want him thinking I’d let Tizz and Sammy starve, I pointed out that we did still have a few tins left.

“Yeah, I saw. Baked beans!” He pulled a face. “Don’t fancy them for breakfast. I’d better go up the road and get something. That little shop still there on the corner?”

I said, “Yes, but shall I go?”

“No, no, you stay here,” said Cal. “I’m already up and dressed.” He started for the door, then stopped and looked at me. “Is there a problem?”

My face must have given me away.

“You will come back?” I quavered.

“Oh, baby, of course I will! Trust me.” He tilted my chin with the tip of a finger. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Well, then! Go and get the others up and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Hope he doesn’t bump into Her Upstairs,” said Tizz, when I told her that Cal was out buying stuff for breakfast. “Would have been better,” she said, “if you’d gone.”

“I did offer,” I said.

“Her Upstairs is enough to put anyone off. He might decide not to come back.” Tizz’s lower lip trembled slightly. “You should have gone with him!”

I knew she wasn’t really accusing me. She was just frightened that Cal would disappear, like Mum, and we’d be on our own again.

“Let’s go and lay the table,” I said, “and make it all nice.”

In one of the kitchen drawers we found a tablecloth we’d completely forgotten about, and some old paper napkins that had been there forever. We set them out on the table, with knives and spoons, and plates and bowls and mugs.

“That looks really good,” said Tizz.

“Now we just need to clean the kitchen up,” I said.

I used the dustpan and brush for the floor, while Tizz scrubbed at the sink till it was bright and sparkling. It had never occurred to us to do any housework-type stuff and I’d suddenly become aware that the whole place was a bit disgusting. Plus it stopped us thinking too much about what would happen if Cal didn’t come back. I was sure he would; but suppose he didn’t?

Oh, but he did! Tizz and I went catapulting into the hall to greet him.

“What’s all this?” he said. “I’ve only been gone twenty minutes!”

“Has he bringed food?” Sammy had already taken her seat at the table. She seemed to have accepted that Cal was now in charge and would provide us with all our needs. I told her not to be so rude and greedy, but Cal just laughed.

“She certainly has her priorities right. Here you go! Unpack this lot.”

“Eggs!” Sammy squeaked, excitedly. “We can have bald eggs!”

“Boiled,” I said.

“Bald,” said Sammy. “And fingers!”

It was the first proper breakfast we’d had since I couldn’t hardly remember. Boiled eggs, toast and butter, toast and marmalade, cereal, milk… Tizz said it was like a banquet.

After we’d finished, Cal said we had to talk. He sent Sammy off to watch television, while him and me and Tizz sat round the table to sort out, as Cal said, what we were going to do. I didn’t see why we had to do anything.

“Can’t we just stay here?” I said. “Wait till Mum gets back?”

Gravely, Cal shook his head. He said, “I’m afraid that’s not really an option.”

“Why not?” Tizz sat up, very straight and aggressive. “So long as you stay here with us!”

“You know I can’t do that,” said Cal. He said it very gently, like he really regretted it, but I just had this feeling there wasn’t going to be anything we could do to persuade him.

Tizz’s face had gone all puckered. “Why can’t you stay with us?”

“Cos I’m not your dad. Not even your adopted one.”

“What does that matter?”

“It matters,” said Cal.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” said Tizz. She was blinking, rather furiously. Cal stretched out a hand and squeezed one of hers.

“Listen, baby, I’m not going to desert you! But we need to find somewhere safe for you. Just till your mum gets back.”

That was when alarm bells started ringing. “We’re not going into care,” I said. “Cal, please! Please! You can’t do that to us!”

“Sooner run away,” said Tizz, knuckling at her eyes.

Cal sat for a while in silence, a frown creasing his forehead.

“This Nikki,” he said. “Do you have a number for her?”

I shook my head. “Mum’s probably got it on her phone.”

“I take it you have tried calling your mum?”

“She’s switched her phone off,” said Tizz. “Either that or it needs recharging.”

“Or it’s run out of money.”

“So how about an address?”

“For Nikki? We haven’t got one.”

“Not even sure where she lives,” said Tizz.

“And anyway,” I said, “we couldn’t go and live with her. She’s an idiot!”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Cal. “I just thought she might have some idea where your mum could have gone. What about the place they used to work? Chicken ’n’ Chips, or whatever it was?”

“It closed,” said Tizz.

“Hm.” Cal drummed his fingers on the table. “In that case, I wonder…”

Me and Tizz sat waiting. What was Cal going to say?

“I wonder if there’s any way we could get in touch with your nan?”

Our nan? We stared at him. We didn’t even know we had a nan!

“You never hear from her?” said Cal.

Silently, we shook our heads.

“Your mum never mentions her?”

A faint memory came back to me. “I think she might have done,” I said, “one time when I was little and I was, like, refusing to eat my sprouts, or something.”

“You still do,” said Tizz.

“I know, I hate them!”

“And Mum always lets you off.”

“Yes, cos she says she doesn’t believe in forcing a person to eat stuff they really don’t like, but
her
mum used to make her sit there until she’d cleaned her plate. That’s what she told me.”

“Sounds about right,” said Cal. “I always gathered she was a bit of a martinet.”

I looked at him, doubtfully. I didn’t know what a martinet was, but it didn’t sound like it was anything good. Tizz, boldly, said, “I never heard Mum say that, and what’s a mart’net?”

“Someone who’s very strict,” said Cal. And then, catching sight of my face, he quickly added that it could just have been Mum’s interpretation. “She’d have been a handful, you can bet.”

Tizz, in her aggressive manner, immediately demanded to know how. “
How
would Mum have been a handful?”

“Playing up?” said Cal. “Acting out? Never doing what she was told.”

I thought privately that it sounded a bit like Tizz, but I didn’t say so. I wanted to hear more about this unknown nan. Already I was starting to not like the sound of her.

“I just met her the once,” said Cal. “Remember when you lived in Portsmouth? Some dreadful dump down near the Docks. D’you remember?”

I did, vaguely, though we had lived in lots of places since.

“I don’t,” said Tizz.

“You were too young. And Sammy wasn’t even born. Anyway, this woman suddenly turned up when your mum was out, saying she was Deb’s mum, so I let her in and said she was welcome to wait, and I remember she sat there looking like she’d stepped into a pig sty and got pig muck on her.
Ugh
!”

Cal gave a little high-pitched shriek and a ladylike shudder and crossed his legs. Both Tizz and me giggled.

“Mind you,” he said, “I can’t honestly blame her. Your mum was going through one of her bad patches. The place really was a bit like a pig sty. I was pretty glad to get out of it. I guess I should have stuck around, but—”

“You had itchy feet,” I said. I didn’t want Cal feeling guilty.

“Is that what your mum says? I’ve got itchy feet? Well, I guess she’s right. But I should have stayed on. I was really worried about you kids, how your mum was going to cope. I kind of assumed, now your nan had turned up, that she’d take care of things. See, I’d really just dropped by to say hallo, and – then I was off. I didn’t stay around long enough to check how things worked out. It was only later, like months later, I found out what had happened. Seems your mum and your gran had a big bust up. A real set-to. You know what your mum’s like when she loses it. She said your nan was an interfering old – well, I won’t say what she called her, but apparently your mum told her to get out of her life and stay out, and as far as I’m aware that’s exactly what she did. You say she’s never been in touch?”

“No, and if she had,” said Tizz, “I wouldn’t want to speak to her! Not if she upset Mum.”

I loved Tizz for being so loyal, but I knew that when Mum was going through one of her bad patches it could make her a bit unreasonable.

“I reckon what it was,” said Cal, “she thought your nan was having a go at her. Which she probably was. And that’s one thing your mum can’t stand. I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the reasons she moved. So your nan wouldn’t be able to trace you.”

“Did
we
ever meet her?” I said. “Cos I don’t remember.”

Cal said no, we’d both been at school.

“How old were we?” I said.

“Well… when did you move to Southampton? Some years ago. You must have been about… five?”

And now I was twelve. “If she hasn’t bothered to get in touch after all this time,” I said, “she obviously doesn’t want to know.”

“That doesn’t necessarily have to be true,” said Cal. “If she didn’t have your new address, what was she supposed to do?”

“She could have hired a private detective,” said Tizz. “If she’d really wanted to find us, that’s what she’d have done.”

“Well, yeah, OK, maybe. But if your mum gave her a load of mouth—”

“If Mum was rude to her,” said Tizz, “she must have deserved it!”

“But she is still your nan. We’re going to have to try and find her.”

My heart sank. “Do we really have to?” I said. “Can’t we just wait for Mum to come back? I know you have itchy feet, but it’d only be for a few days and then you could go off again.”

“Baby, I’m not going anywhere,” said Cal. “But I don’t think we can take it for granted that your mum’s just going to turn up on the doorstep. She might, she might! I’m not saying she won’t. But remember I asked you what you’d have done if I’d been the police? It might be time that we actually went to them.”

“The
police
?”

“We might have to. Your mum’s missing. We need to find her.”

Angrily Tizz said, “She’s not missing! She’s just doing her own thing, like she did last time.”

“If she’s not been taking her meds,” said Cal, gently, “she probably doesn’t know
what
she’s doing.”

I knew, deep down, that Cal was right. “But if we go to the police,” I wailed, “they’ll say Mum’s neglecting us and they’ll take us into care!”

“That’s why we have to find your gran. Now, let’s get our thinking caps on!
My
thinking cap. I’m trying to remember anything your mum might have told me about her.” Cal stood up and began pacing the room. “One thing I remember, she was fraffly fraffly.”

“What’s fraffly fraffly?”

“Fraffly posh, dontcha know? A bit like the Queen… except she barked a lot.”

“Like a royal corgi,” I said.

“Yeah! Good one.” Cal laughed. “Like a royal corgi. Oh, and yeah, it’s coming back to me… she
was
like the Queen. She was horsey! Ran a riding stables. Somewhere in the New Forest. Place called…” He tapped a finger against his teeth. “Began with a B… Black – Brack – Brock – Brockenhurst! That was it. Your mum once told me how she was brought up there. They moved there after your granddad died. Let’s Google it! Riding stables in Brockenhurst. Where’s your computer?”

“It doesn’t work,” I said. It hadn’t worked for months. Probably because it had been second hand and already worn out when we got it.

Cal clicked his tongue, impatiently. “OK! Let’s try the telephone book.”

“Haven’t got one,” said Tizz.

“We have,” I said. “We’ve got a yellow one.”

“Yellow pages,” said Cal. “That’ll do.”

I scampered off to get it, pleased that I had remembered and Tizz hadn’t.

“I bet it’s out of date,” said Tizz.

She obviously wanted it to be. She was just
so-o-o
jealous! But Cal said it didn’t matter if it was a few years old.

“We know your nan was round six, seven years ago, so at least, with any luck, it’ll give us a number.”

“But she mightn’t still be there!”

“In that case there’ll be new people running the place and the chances are they’ll be able to tell us where she’s gone.”

“If they know,” muttered Tizz.

“We can but try.”

Tizz went, “Huh!” It occurred to me that she didn’t actually want Cal to find this unknown nan. I wasn’t sure that I did, either. But I meekly handed over the directory, all tattered and torn and scribbled over, and watched anxiously as Cal leafed through the pages.

“There’s three that seem likely. Number one,
New Forest Riding School.
Let’s give it a go
…
OK, it’s ringing… Hallo, good morning, I wonder if you can help me. I’m looking for a Mrs Tindall?”

I held my breath. I think Tizz must have been holding hers, as well, cos she let it out in a great
whoosh!
as Cal shook his head.

“Right. One down, two to go… let’s try the next one.
Premier Stables and Livery
… Yes, hallo! I’d like to speak with a Mrs Tindall?”

There was a pause. I could hear a voice speaking at the other end, but I couldn’t hear what it was saying. Then Cal said, “Thank you very much, that’s fine. I’ll do that. OK!” He turned to us, triumphant. “Call back in about half an hour. She should be there.”

I couldn’t think what to say. It was Tizz who burst out with, “Why is her name the same as Mum’s?”

“Tindall? Well—” Cal seemed puzzled by the question. “Your mum’s her daughter.”

“But
Mum
is Mrs Tindall.”

She meant that Tindall was Mum’s married name. The name of the man that had been my dad. It had to be. I knew it wasn’t the name of Tizz’s dad, cos that was Pike. Andy Pike. And Sammy’s dad had been O’Leary. So it had to be mine!

But Cal was shaking his head. “Your mum always kept her maiden name,” he said.

Tizz wrinkled her forehead. “Why would she do that? ’Stead of a married one?”

Oh, please! I rolled my eyes. Tizz saw me, and grew red.

“You mean, she never got married?”

“People don’t always,” said Cal. “Lots of people don’t. Not just your mum.”

I wondered, in that case, what
my
dad’s name had been. I’d never thought to ask. I’d just automatically assumed it was Tindall.

Tizz said, “Her Upstairs always calls Mum Mrs. She says –”
Tizz folded her arms – “
Mrs
Tindall, I have cause to ask you
yet again
not to put your rubbish bin where mine is supposed to go.”

I had to giggle, cos she really did sound like Her Upstairs. Even Cal couldn’t help grinning.

“Let’s just hope we don’t bump into her before I take you down to your nan’s!”

“Do you really think she’ll want us?” I said.

“I’m hoping so.”

“Suppose she doesn’t?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Cal.

“S’ppose
we
don’t want to?” Tizz put the question, fiercely. “S’ppose we’d rather just stay here and wait for Mum? You don’t have to stay with us if you don’t want to. You didn’t before, and we managed all right. You could just lend us some money and we could look after ourselves, same as we’ve been doing. We’re not useless!”

“You’re not,” agreed Cal. “Ruby’s done a splendid job, holding things together, but it’s not fair expecting her to go on doing it.”

“She doesn’t mind! She likes bossing us around. Don’t you?” Tizz jabbed at me, daring me to say that I didn’t. “Tell him! You enjoy it.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to go and live with this strange horsey barking person any more than Tizz, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on fighting battles, trying to get her and Sammy to do what they were told, always having to worry about whether there was going to be enough food, or whether someone was going to discover about Mum.

“Oh, you are such a wimp!” cried Tizz. She sounded thoroughly disgusted.

“Let’s not get too worked up,” said Cal. “We’ll see what happens when I speak to your nan. Why don’t you two go and keep Sammy company?”

“Why?” said Tizz, immediately suspicious. “What are you going to do?”

“I have one or two things I have to take care of.”

“You’re not going to call the police?”

There was a shrill note of alarm in Tizz’s voice. Soothingly, Cal said that he wasn’t. “Not before I’ve had a word with your nan. I wouldn’t do it without telling you, I promise.”

“He shouldn’t do it at all,” grumbled Tizz, as we wandered in to the other room to sit with Sammy. “It’s not up to him! She’s our mum.”

I didn’t say, “But he’s a grown up,” cos I don’t think grown-ups can always be relied on to make the right decisions, simply because they are grown up. They’re just the ones with the power. But a bit of me did reluctantly feel that Cal might be right. We had no idea where Mum was or what kind of trouble she might be in. Going to the police was a bit scary, but after all they are supposed to be there to
help
people. Not just to arrest them.