Lily Alone (5 page)

‘With Gordon,' said Pixie, sucking on a chip.

‘Is he going to be our new dad?' Bliss asked.

‘No, love!' said Mum, laughing.

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least she wasn't crazy enough to believe that.

We went home on the bus and Mum spent hours in the bathroom, soaking herself, slapping on a mud-pack facial, and tweaking her eyebrows. Baxter played out, driving his fork-lift truck along the balconies, while Bliss and Pixie dressed up in their new finery and played a game of grown-up ladies.

I sat at the kitchen table with my new drawing pad and felt tips and my magazine. I had peace, I had privacy, everything I always longed for, but somehow I couldn't use my precious time properly. I flicked through the magazine quickly, noting a velvet sofa here, a painted table there, but not really taking it all in. I started drawing an ideal living room on the first page of my pad, but I drew the sofa far too small, shrunk to the size of a shoe on my vast white carpet. I couldn't get the legs on my table right, so it lurched sideways, its bowl of oranges and apples about to spill.

I tore the page out, crumpled it up and threw it across the room.

‘Temper, temper!' said Mum, padding into the kitchen in bare feet.

She was wearing her old faded pink dressing gown but the rest of her was brightly coloured. She'd put a rinse in her hair to bring out the gold, she wore amazing make-up, and her finger- and toenails were blue.

‘What do you think?' said Mum, waving her fingers at me.

‘You look like you're going mouldy at the edges.'

‘Thanks a bunch! It's called Blue Moon. It's the new trendy colour. All the models are wearing it. Don't you like it really, Lily?'

‘It looks fine,' I said. She was looking at me so hopefully. ‘
You
look fine, Mum. Really lovely.'

‘How old do you think I look?'

‘Young.'

‘Yes, but how young?'

‘Fifteen?'

‘Are you taking the mickey? Actually, I look a lot better now than I did when I
was
fifteen, with my stomach stuck out to here and my face all over spots. God, I looked a sight then. I thought my life was over and I'd never have any fun ever again.'

‘Because of me?' I said in a very small voice.

‘But I was wrong, wasn't I?' said Mum, putting her arms round me. ‘You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Lily. You're not just like a daughter – you and me are best mates, right?'

‘Yeah, right,' I said, hugging her back. I rubbed my cheek against hers.

‘Careful, don't smudge my make-up! Listen, I've been thinking about tonight. I felt a bit bad leaving you last night. I think I'll get a proper babysitter. I thought of asking Jenny or Jan, but maybe they've got plans to go out themselves, seeing as it's Saturday night. How about if I ask Old Kath along the balcony to sit with you?'

‘Mum, I can't stick Old Kath! And she's barmy, anyway.' She was this old woman who used too much black hair dye and now her hair had mostly fallen out, so her scalp showed through her black wisps. She couldn't see to do her make-up properly any more, so she had blue smeared all over her eyes and her postbox-red lipstick crept into the creases of her face, giving her a clown's mouth. I might have felt sorry for her, but she was mean and shouted at us kids – and she said bad things about Mum behind her back.

‘Well, yeah, she is losing it a bit now. I saw her shuffling off to the shops in her dressing gown and slippers the other day. OK then, not Kath. I don't want to ask all them foreigners along the balcony, none of them can speak English. And not that Alice Doo-dah, she's definitely Care in the Community. So maybe I could call Mikey? He's way overdue to see the twins, isn't he?'

‘Mum. Please, please, please don't call Mikey.'

He was
much
worse than mean old Kath or any of our other neighbours. He was big, with bulging muscles and scary teeth, just like his dog, Rex. Baxter thought he was great and followed him everywhere, but Bliss was so scared of him she twitched whenever he came near her. He didn't hit her, he hadn't ever hit any of us properly, but I'd seen him hit Mum so I hated him. He didn't like me either. He called me Slyboots Lil and told me to quit staring at him.

‘Look, it's about time Mikey did his fair share. He is your dad.'

‘No, he isn't!'

‘Well, stepdad. He was all set to take you on too. I'm going to give him a ring, see if he can help me out.'

‘Oh, Mum,
please
don't,' I begged, but she wouldn't listen. She dialled him on her mobile.

‘Hey, is that you, Mikey? It's Kate here, babe. What? No, the twins are fine. But they're missing you, especially Baxter. Yeah, he really misses his dad. So I was wondering, could you come over tonight? Yeah, I know it's Saturday night. You're going out? Look, mate,
I
want to go out too. I bet you're just going down the King Edward with your mates, I know you. What? Look, I don't want you to come round some
other
saturday, I want you to come round
now
. I've got this real hot date up in town, this really gorgeous young guy—'

She was such a fool. As if Mikey would come now she'd told him that. But she couldn't stop showing off about Gordon. Then Mikey interrupted her.

‘
What?
' said Mum. Then she said something bad back to him and rang off.

‘The cheek of him,' she said, breathing hard. ‘Well, to hell with him.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Never you mind. I'll show him. He thinks that just because he walked out on me no one else could ever want me. How dare he! Oh, I wish he could see Gordon. He'd be totally gobsmacked, I tell you.'

‘I'm glad he's not coming. I can't stick Mikey. Look, we don't
need
a babysitter, Mum. We'll be fine.'

‘Yes, but I mightn't be back till late. Really late. Like, all night,' said Mum.

‘That's OK,' I said. ‘We were fine last night, weren't we?'

‘Yes, you were. You're a good little kid, Lily. I'm grateful to you, darling. You understand, don't you? It's not that I
want
to leave you on your own, but I haven't got any option, have I? And guys like Gordon don't often come along. You have to grab them when you can!'

Mum fixed our favourite tea, sausages and baked beans. She changed into her grey dress while we were eating and retouched her make-up. Then she came into the kitchen and gave us a twirl.

‘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?'