Rocks in the Belly (11 page)

‘Why you stopping, Robert?' she says and he shrugs and looks at me, goes upstairs. Mum is mixing her love cake. I waggle my fingers to doom it so that it'll collapse in the oven or burn or choke Robert.

School time and we go out to the car but Mum has to take a picture of Robert first because he's wearing a proper uniform, not the shirt and trousers he's been having to go to school in. The uniform is one of his birthday presents from us so he won't get
picked on anymore. Mum says he'd be in an old people's home by the time Social Services came up with the money.

Then she gives me the camera and asks me to take a picture of her and Robert. They stand in front of Dad's hedges and put their arms round each other, Robert looking up at Mum like she's heaven.

I chop their heads off and they won't find out until the film's developed. Dad gets it done cheap cos one of the clients he juggles the books for is a film developing shop.

Now Mum asks Robert to take a picture of her and me and while he gets to grips with the camera she puts her arm round me and looks right into my face with her softest eyes and says ‘You'll be the death of me, Sonny Jim. But only cos I love you so much.' She turns to Robert. ‘Take the picture then, starey pants!'

Robert is putting Mum's camera in his school bag after but I don't say anything cos she's trying to catch Alfie to find out what's wrong and I'm holding my breath.

Robert gets in the front seat. He has his eye on me while he's doing it, and biting his lip. Mum walks up to me and says ‘Here, put this in your lunch box, special treat today.' Three chocolate biscuits wrapped up in plastic with a note in. ‘Eat them in the car if you want,' she says.

Three Lips Macavoy can't be bought.

In the car I'm looking out the window or playing with the robot and don't look at Robert up in the business end, except once when I can't help but peek and the back of his head is just over the seat. The seatbelt is quite high up near his neck which means he should really be sitting on the first aid kit. I don't say anything and don't look again, except one more time while I'm daydreaming about an accident where we crash and the seatbelt cuts his head off.

It's only a little accident but Robert has no head and his bad parents are crying at the funeral and it's all their fault. Serves them right.

We drive past a lost dog sign stuck to a wooden power pole. You never see found animal signs. I worry about all the lost animals. Our town has so many bits of paper stuck to lampposts and walls and they're all for bands playing and lost dogs and garage sales. And people just come along and put their car boot sale on top of other people's lost dogs. It's so sad. Sometimes I wonder if maybe right at the bottom of all that paper would be an advert for a lost dinosaur.

The snake is fat inside me all day at school then it's Dad who's come to collect me.

‘Why aren't you at work, Dad?'

‘You don't like your dad collecting you?' He's holding the first aid kit and the front door open like a chauffeur, especially cos he's in his work suit.

‘Doesn't Mum want to pick me up anymore?'

‘Don't be daft. Hop in.'

I run up to the door and hope everybody is seeing me with my dad and getting in the front seat.

When we get home Robert has a split lip and tissue paper sticking out his nose. Plus his brand new uniform is ripped at the shoulder and the pocket and Mum is looking like she has a storm cloud instead of hair.

Now the whole car is full of storm clouds because we're all on our way to the restaurant, Mum's perfume arguing with Dad's aftershave and Robert not sitting in the front cos he got into a fight.

Yesss!

‘Did you win the fight, Robert?'

‘Shoosh about that, thank you,' Dad says, then looks at Mum. She has her head on her hand and her face up close to the window, watching Snoresville go by.

‘Will Robert get in trouble with school, Dad?'

‘What you going to have for dinner do you think, kiddo?' he says, and it's prawn cocktail probably, then chicken kiev. Dad knows this.
He'll have steak but whitebait to start. Mum usually has a glass of wine while we eat first course, and then something for main course that's never really the same thing each time. She normally leaves a bit of food and Dad tucks in and I call him Alfie cos Alfie is a fat cat. Except he didn't eat his dinner today for the first time ever. Maybe cos we fed him sooner than usual.

It feels funny going out for dinner so early. This should be homework time. Plus everyone is all serious even though this is supposed to be a birthday. I like that Robert is in the kennel, it makes tonight almost as good as ice-skating. Right up until I spill my prawn cocktail and the sauce goes all over the plate. I eat some of it off and Mum isn't at me about my manners tonight. Robert would usually have eaten all his by now but he's barely nibbled. Maybe cos of his parents coming.

When the waitress takes my plate her thumb goes into my cocktail sauce and I am totally puked out that she's touched my leftovers. She might touch my next plate after her thumb's gone in someone else's leftovers. Which means we have other people's dribble and uneaten food on our dinners and plates and I've probably eaten everyone's leftover germs in my prawn cocktail, especially since I spilt it on the plate she held with her dirty thumb.

Maybe AIDS came from waitress thumbs. AIDS is the latest craze and sometimes I think I've got it even though Dad says it's just for queens.

I watch when the waitress picks up Dad's and she misses the grease and lemon juice on his plate, like it's luck what you get in your dinner.

I hope nobody in the restaurant has been eating broccoli.

Robert is sulking. Mum and Dad start off trying to cheer him up, then leave him be. There's a bag of his presents and cards in the back of the car and it looks bigger than a bag of presents should be for someone who isn't even their son.

I left my car door unlocked specially. Tonight would be the perfect night for our car to be stolen.

Dad lets me have a sip of beer then rubs his hands together when the filthy thumb on the waitress puts his bit of cow down with the blood running out of it cos when she asked how he likes his steak he said ‘I want it so that it's still mooing.'

She asks him if it's bloody enough and Dad is being all interested with her and chatty like she's from Baywatch. Meanwhile Mum is looking the waitress up and down as if she's from Mars.

When the waitress goes away for the rest of the food I ask Dad if she's from Sweden. Mum looks away and sips her wine. Dad says Sweden is where pretty was invented.

Kiev is in Russia. The best thing about chicken kiev is when it gets to me with all the garlic butter still in it. Sometimes it leaks out though and if it's at home Mum usually lets me swap with hers. Then you get to dig your knife into the kiev, really slowly, so that there's this splurt like you killed it and it has butter and herbs for blood.

When the waitress brings my kiev out Mum looks at me and my plate and says ‘Oh dear.'

This is the worst day of my life.

Robert hasn't hardly touched his lasagne and Mum isn't really eating her risotto. I bet Alfie wishes he was here. If Dad can't eat all the leftovers he'll probably ask for a doggy bag but we all know it's a kitty bag really. Although quite often we get home and it ends up being a Daddy bag.

After main course they bring out the cake Mum cooked for Robert, lots of candles lit and they dim the lights so everyone else at other tables stops eating. The cake isn't burnt at all and Mum and Dad and some of the other people, even the waitress, sing Happy Birthday. Robert looks down at his lap, smiling like he just did a good secret thing. I move my lips but don't sing.

I make a wish really hard just as Robert shuts his eyes and blows out the candles. If you wish hard enough you can steal a birthday wish off the birthday person. I make a wish that Robert dies.

‘What did you wish for, Robert?' I say.

‘If he tells you then it won't come true will it, silly,' Dad says.

Mum is looking at Robert with her head to the side, her face all lit up like candlelight.

Robert only gets boring books for his birthday. And a geometry set and pencil case. The books are about clouds and the sky, and Mum and Dad sort of cuddle closer together as they watch him open them, as if the gifts are for them. He doesn't rip the paper he unpicks the sticky tape!

‘Those are quite boring presents,' I say, but nobody notices.

Robert gets down and goes and kisses Dad on the cheek and then kisses Mum and gives her a long enormous hug and I don't know where to look so I take my balled up napkin from my lap and try to flatten it out. I always do that to napkins. It looks like a paper rock.

‘I suppose your real parents will give you presents,' I say.

Mum doesn't like me saying real parents but I just get a look cos we're in public and she doesn't want to put out the fireworks.

‘Hurry up and eat your cake, Robert McCloud,' Dad says. ‘Your parents will be here in a minute! Are you
excited
?'

Robert smiles a small smile and sticks his head down over his cake, gives it a nudge with his fork. Then he looks up at Mum but she's staring off into space. She's sad. Dad looks at her too then sits forward and starts cutting some more cake. ‘Your folks should have some of this birthday cake, Rob. Otherwise I'll end up eating it all and we can't have that now can we.'

We've finished eating and everyone's drinks are empty but we're still stuck here waiting. I'm bored but excited to see Robert's parents. They're late. Maybe cos they've been buying him presents.

The waitress is back and she asks Mum if she's Mary. I don't like
hearing Mum's real name. Mum is Mum. The waitress says there's a phone call for her and points over to the bar with a bar maid holding a phone and watching. Bra maid, Dad calls them.

Mum stands up and drops her uncreased napkin in her chair, then straightens her clothes out like she's off to make a speech. She gives Dad a look and Dad passes it on to Robert and Robert gives it to his half-eaten cake.

Meanwhile the waitress sticks her thumb in cream as she takes all our plates away. Robert doesn't know where to look, Mum is on the phone, and we're just sitting here like somebody important farted and we're waiting for the smell to go away.

Dad opens the book on clouds and turns it round to show us a big picture of lots of heavy angry clouds with some gaps in and God rays coming down. He turns it back and leans in close to the page. ‘Bloody hell. Guess what those lovely rays of light are called.' He closes the book but keeps his finger trapped on the page.

‘Crepuscular,' Robert says without looking up from the crumbs on his bit of tablecloth.

‘Spot on, kiddo.' Dad looks at the book again. ‘Would you get a load of that. Pretty rays and they call them something pus-ridden like crepuscular.'

Mum hangs up quite loudly and says something to the bra maid who takes down a glass and tugs the cork out of a wine bottle. Mum is coming over and her lips have gone gone gone. We all watch. Dad with his finger still trapped in the book.

She picks up her napkin and stays standing while she folds it and puts it on the table. She never screws hers up like I do. She sits down and the waitress brings over a big glass of white, the outside of it all moist like the mirror after a shower.

‘You're driving,' Mum says to Dad and he looks at his beer and sinks a bit, pushes it away. She stares at the top of Robert's head. ‘Your parents had to cancel, Robert. I'm sorry.'

He doesn't do anything for a bit then wipes his face with a napkin and there's blood on it.

‘Ooh, your nose has started bleeding again, Robert!' I say.

He gets up and Dad puts a hand on Mum to stop her going to him, Robert saying that he needs the toilet. His napkin up to his face, all neat and not scrunched.

He goes across the carpet really slowly, his spare arm not swinging. We just sit here, Mum halfway through her wine already and Dad looking at her like she might need an ambulance.

The car is very quiet on the way home and Dad drives slowly. The radio is on but down so low it might as well be off.

When I get to bed I can hear mumbles coming from Robert's room cos Mum's tucking him in. I slip out of bed and go listen and Robert says ‘You're my
best
friend' to her, and she's all ‘Oh, that's so lovely, Robert. But what about someone your own age? Who's your best friend of your own age?'

‘You when you were younger.'

I go back to bed really slowly like I'm walking on the bottom of the ocean.

I think Ralph is my best friend. Except Simon is Ralph's best friend and Ralph is Simon's best friend. And I don't know what the rules are, whether you're allowed to be best friends with somebody that's somebody else's best friend.

Plus it's one of those nights when the moon isn't out and maybe I'm sad because I start crying about Mum and Dad dying. I've been doing that a lot since Robert came and I haven't told anyone in case it makes it come true. I don't want Mum and Dad to die.

I'm on a stool, slumped against the bar as if the alcohol is weighing me down. I always sit at the bar if I'm alone. Which I usually am, initially.

The nurse was due to come this afternoon but I cancelled, considering the state of Mum. And me. I could do with some nursing now though.

I'm in one of these places that doesn't know what it is. Some sort of bijou restaurant slash wine bar slash I don't know. A place that hasn't the guts to be any one thing so it tries to be everything. Which is why I can tell exactly who the owner is and who the staff are, just by looking at the facial expressions and the serving style.

There's mirrors everywhere to make the room look bigger, so I can see the reverse of me in that alternate dimension, sitting at that other bar over there — scabs forming on his knuckles, a band-aid over a bite.