Megan 3 (12 page)

He glowered at Jack, who was standing up in the cot, shaking the bars and crying. ‘Is that child
ever
going to sleep?’ he asked furiously.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He’s teething or something.’

‘For Christ’s sake! Some of us have got to work in the morning!’

‘It’s not my fault,’ I said. ‘And he can’t help it. Didn’t your kids ever cry?’

George made a face – a sort of snarling face – at me, and then Mum called, ‘George! Come back here. You won’t do any good like that.’ And he just glowered and went out again.

The next morning I was so tired that I couldn’t get up. Jack was absolutely fast asleep by then too, so I got Mum to ring the taxi company to say I wouldn’t be going in that day. I wondered if that might give him – Mr Creep – something to worry about, although I doubted it. Even if I did complain about what he’d said who would believe me? He’d just deny it and say that I’d taken it the wrong way, that he’d just been trying to be friendly. Then they’d think I was making trouble and might even stop me having taxis.

Everyone went off to work or school and Jack and I slept until about eleven o’clock. About midday, while I was fiddling around in the kitchen wondering what we could have to eat, there was a knock on the door. I picked up Jack to stop him getting into trouble, and went to answer it. Witch’s Brew stood there with another woman – slim and smartly dressed, with short grey hair. The woman looked a bit taken-aback at the sight of Jack, then seemed to pull herself together.

Witch’s Brew smiled at me chummily. ‘This lady’s looking for a man who fits the description of the man in your flat,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ the grey-haired woman said to me. ‘I just really want to know if George Simpson lives here.’

I stared at her, recognising her voice from all the times she’d rung.

‘Does he?’ she asked again. ‘You’ve just got to say yes or no.’

‘Yes, he does,’ Witch’s Brew spoke up for me. ‘Short bald man. That’s your mum’s new friend, isn’t it?’

The woman tried to see past me. ‘Is he in there now?’

I shook my head, not knowing whether to grass him up or not.

‘He
does
live here, though? George Simpson?’

I nodded slightly.

The woman nodded. ‘Ria saw him coming into these flats.’

Witch’s Brew’s eyes gleamed. ‘I thought that was him. Neighbourhood Watch, see. You’ve got to keep an eye on your neighbours’ comings and goings.’

‘Are you George’s wife?’ I asked the woman.

‘Yes, I am,’ she said.

‘And… you… want him back, do you?’ I asked slowly.

‘Certainly not!’ she said, which took the wind out of my sails. ‘Look, I don’t want to involve you and your family, I just want a fair deal. I can’t manage the
mortgage on my own and George has taken the car and I’m finding it all very difficult.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know where he works, of course, but I’ve got some official papers to serve on him and I need his home address.’

‘39 Blenheim Court,’ Witch’s Brew said.

The woman nodded. ‘Thanks. And you can tell your mother from me that this isn’t the first time he’s strayed.’

Witch’s Brew stood by, hardly able to believe her luck, looking from me to the woman and back again.

‘That’s my lot with him, though. I’ve had enough now. You can also tell your mother that he’s tight with money, has got a filthy temper and that she’s welcome to him.’

‘Right,’ I said.

The woman turned and marched away and Witch’s Brew winked at me. ‘There!’ she said. ‘Well! All that glitters is not gold, eh? Tell your mum that.’

That afternoon, Jack was hot and bothered and very irritable, so I took him for a walk to buy the usual million and a half disposable nappies he used in a week – which took care of my allowance for the rest of the month. He seemed to be costing me more and
more: his clothes were bigger now and so more expensive, he ate more food, wore larger nappies, needed all sorts of equipment. Luckily I’d had a cheque from my dad to pay for some of his winter clothes, otherwise it could all have got a bit hairy. Thinking about when he was older still worried me – what would I do when he wanted a bike and a computer and the right name trainers and all that stuff? With luck, though, I’d have a job by then. I’d have passed my A levels and be working somewhere nice, have good mates to go out with in the evenings and lots of money to spend on Jack and myself.

Mind you, where Jack was going to be while I was working and going out to these clubs I didn’t know …

Soon, at least, we’d have more space, and that would be one problem solved. ‘You’re having your own room!’ I said to Jack as I pushed him along. ‘Jack’s own room. Won’t that be
lovely
!’

I pulled a funny face, trying to make him laugh, but Jack just looked up at me, bottom lip trembling. He wasn’t himself; I could see that. Maybe he had a cold coming.

I turned my mind to other things. What was I going to say to George about his wife coming round? Should I say anything at all? If I didn’t say anything,
would he even find out she’d been? What about the messages she’d sent to Mum?

In the end, I decided not to say a word to either of them. I got the shopping and when I got back Ellie was in from school. I told
her
about George’s wife of course, and she and I made a huge cauliflower cheese and giggled about what she’d said. When Mum and George came in from work we had the cauliflower with some fish fingers (George: ‘I’m not used to these bits of meals. I’m used to meat and two veg.’) and then they announced they had the keys to the new house and were going to have another look at it. Two days before, someone had put in an offer for our flat, so they were reasonably sure we
would
be moving.

‘Oh, can Megan and I come?’ Ellie asked straight away.

‘We
are
going to be living there!’ I said.

George shook his head impatiently. ‘We can’t all go. Five of us – it’d be like a bloody circus.’ He looked at Jack, who had definitely started a cold now and was watery-eyed, with a runny nose. ‘Can’t you wipe that child’s nose? He’s putting me off my supper.’

‘We can come and see the house, can’t we, Mum?’ I asked.

Mum looked at George. ‘It would be all right, wouldn’t it? The girls would love to see their rooms.’

He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘If you like. I suppose so.’

Quite excited, Ellie and I went to get ready. I changed Jack’s nappy and wiped his face. He was all bunged up and his nose looked sore already; I hoped I wasn’t going to have another bad night with him.

The house was empty. It was on the other side of town, about twenty years old, terraced, quite tall and on three floors. Downstairs there was a big kitchen and living room, you went up one set of stairs to two of the bedrooms and then up again for the other two. One of these rooms was tiny and had been done out by the previous owner as a study.

‘George and I thought you and Jack could be up on this floor,’ Mum said when we reached it, ‘and our bedroom and Ellie’s will be on the next floor down.’

‘That way, with a bit of luck, we won’t hear any noise from that child of yours,’ George put in.

I fumed but kept quiet, not wanting to start a row what with it being our first time in the house.

The three of them went downstairs to look at their
own rooms and I stayed in the room which was going to be Jack’s. There wasn’t enough space for a wardrobe and it was painted a horrible dark green,
but it was his very own
.

‘You in here. All on your own!’ I said to him. ‘I’m going to paint it buttercup yellow and you’re going to have a proper bed and everything and you’ll sleep all night.’ I took him over to the window and looked down to the garden, which was long and narrow, with a tall fence right round and two trees in the centre of it. ‘You can climb those trees,’ I said. ‘And you can have your duck down there with you to pull around, and ride one of those little bikes and play out there all the time.’

Jack rubbed his eyes and pushed his head into my neck, not interested. ‘Just wait,’ I said. ‘You’re going to love it.’ I walked into what would be my room. My own room. By myself, that I wouldn’t have to share with anyone. It was square and plain but it had a built-in wardrobe and enough space for a table. I could paint it what colours I liked and hang sari fabric at the window and it would be
brilliant
.

I could hear the others underneath, moving around, and then Ellie came running up the stairs, really excited. ‘Won’t it be fantastic!’ she said. ‘Have
you seen the garden?’ Before I replied she went on, ‘George says you and I can share this shower up here and they can have the one on the middle floor all to themselves. Come down and see my room – I’m going to paint it green and silver and the ceiling is going to be purple.’

‘Yuk,’ I said.

‘You won’t be painting it those colours, young lady,’ George said, appearing on the landing. ‘I’m not having any house of mine rendered unsaleable.’

I looked at Ellie and rolled my eyes.

‘And the ceilings will stay white, thank you very much.’

‘Well,’ Ellie faltered. ‘I’m going to take the carpet up and have stripped pine floors – like they did on that homes programme.’

‘That’s what you think,’ George said.

‘Can’t she do that?’ we heard Mum ask.

‘I don’t want to be an old misery,’ George said, as if he wasn’t, ‘but bare floorboards are blasted noisy. Get two people walking on them and it sounds like a herd of elephants.’

‘Never mind,’ I said in a low voice to Ellie. ‘At least we can be away from them. We can get our own telly, stay in our rooms and let them get on with it.’

*

Jack was really grotty by the time we got home. I’d run out of clean tissues by then and his nose was running horribly, so that George shuddered as he held the car door open for us.

‘Clean him up a bit, can’t you?’ he said, making a big thing about looking the other way.

‘I will soon as we get in,’ I said. ‘Anyway, he can’t help it.’ Didn’t your kids ever have colds? I wanted to ask.

When we went in there was a note on the mat from Mark. It said, ‘
What’s wrong with your phone? Where are you all
?’

‘Oooh!’ Ellie wailed. ‘We missed him.’

‘He’ll be back,’ I said.

I went into the bathroom to run a bath, telling Mum I was going to bath Jack at the same time.

George, settling himself in front of the TV, said, ‘Keep it to a few centimetres, will you? There’s a water shortage.’

‘What water shortage?’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen anything in the papers.’

‘Hot water costs money,’ he said, ‘and a bath takes a whole tank of hot water.’

I looked at Mum and raised my eyebrows. He was too much – and it was the second time that day he’d
had a go at me about money. I’d phoned Claire earlier to give her our new number and tell her about the house and George had been standing by the phone tapping his fingers impatiently the whole time I was on. As it happened, I was glad to get off because all Claire had wanted to talk about was the holiday next April that three of them, Josie, Tina and her, were going on together, what a laugh they were going to have, what boys they were going to meet and how fantastic it was all going to be. I certainly hadn’t wanted to hear
that
.

‘At least Megan’s bathing two for the price of one,’ Mum said now.

George didn’t answer. Mum went into the kitchen saying she was going to put the kettle on and I put Jack on the sitting-room floor with his duck.

Jack stopped grizzling for a moment and began to push the duck along,
quack-quack-quack
.

‘D’you have to give him that duck?’ George said. ‘I can’t hear myself think once that bloody thing starts.’

‘It’s only for a minute,’ I said. ‘It’s just to keep him quiet while I get the bath ready.’

‘And wipe his nose!’

‘I just did.’ I stared at George: it hadn’t taken him
long to show what he was really like. It was no wonder that his wife had been glad to get rid of him, I thought, remembering that I’d never told him she’d been round. I went out of the room and started collecting stuff for our baths: towels and clean flannel, vest and sleeping suit for Jack, dressing gown for me, bubble bath and baby lotion for both of us. I turned off the bath water about an inch under my usual full-to-the-brim and went back into the sitting room to collect Jack. We’d both have a nice bath and play in the bubbles, and perhaps it would tire Jack out so that he would sleep soundly.

As I crossed the hall to get him, though, I heard him start screaming. I ran in – and Mum ran in from the kitchen, too – to see him lying on his back on the floor, yelling the place down.

‘What happened?’ I asked, snatching up Jack.

George shrugged. ‘Nothing. He fell over, that’s all. Lost his balance.’

I pressed Jack against me and rocked him.

‘He’s not hurt, is he,’ George said. ‘Only winded a bit.’

Jack screamed on while Mum examined his face. ‘There are no cuts and bruises, Megan. He seems all right.’

I was too scared to look myself. ‘Is he? Are you sure?’

‘Not even a graze. You’re all right, poppet, aren’t you? Take him off, Megan. Give him his bath.’

I looked at George sitting there, one leg casually crossed over the other, reading the paper. His foot, balanced in the air, was just inches from where Jack had been sitting. It would only have taken him a moment to have kicked out and pushed Jack over. Maybe, if Jack had been grizzling continually, or making the duck quack too much … Maybe, if Jack had got on his nerves…

But maybe I was just being silly.

‘That’s fantastic!’ Mark said. ‘That’s what you really need – some space and a room of your own.’

Mark and I were sitting on the sofa with Jack between us. Jack was ‘reading’ a board book, trying to find the duck he knew was on one of the pages. It was a week or so later – a Friday afternoon – and everything seemed to be going well with buying the new house.

‘I bet Jack will sleep better on his own, too. Stands to reason – while you’re all sleeping in the same room you must disturb each other.’ Mark looked at me. ‘What’s this George like, then? I mean, not being funny but I can’t imagine what sort of man your mum would go for.’