Secrets (11 page)

I waited. I was shivering too. Nan held me tight but she didn't speak. When I looked up there were tears glistening on the end of her eyelashes.

‘Oh Nan!'

‘Now it's OK, Treasure. I'm getting in a silly tizz over nothing. Don't take any notice of silly old Nan.'

‘You promise promise promise I can still stay with you?'

‘I promise promise promise,' she said – but she didn't look me in the eyes.

I caught her by the cheeks and tilted her head.

‘Nan! Look, I'm not a little kid.'

‘You're the littlest kid ever,' said Nan. ‘Barely bigger than Britney.' Tears were spilling down her cheeks now.

‘Did Terry say he'd get
you
, Nan?'

‘It's not that, pet. I'd like to see him try. No, it's just something he said about you living here with my Pete. . .'

I didn't understand. ‘But he's . . . not here,' I said delicately.

‘Yes, I know, pet, but he's only got another six months to go if he gets his good behaviour taken into consideration, and Pete's no fool, he's sweet as pie to everyone so he can get right back to his family as soon as possible. That's what that wicked Terry is on about. He says these social worker busybodies won't let you stay with me, not with a guy who's got a lot of previous, and a five stretch for manslaughter. He was even saying they'll think about taking Patsy into care, but that's ludicrous, he's her
father
.'

‘Well, he's my grandfather.'

‘Not really, Treasure. Not by blood.'

I suddenly feel like I've been left one side of a mountain range and Nan and Pete and Loretta and baby Britney and Willie and Patsy are all on the other side. There's no way I can leap over to be with them. I'm stuck all by myself . . . and Terry's climbing up after me, my side of the mountain.

‘We'll tell on him. We'll show my scar,' I said.

‘Yes, we can try, my love, but remember what we said up the hospital, that you got hurt after a game with your brother and sister? It would be hard to go back on that in court.'

‘So do you think they'll really take us to court, Nan?'

‘No, darling, I'm sure Terry's just trying to scare us,' said Nan. ‘All this solicitor talk! I bet they're bluffing.'

‘So are they still coming tomorrow or is that a bluff too?' I asked, trying to stop my voice going squeaky.

‘I'm not sure, sweetheart,' said Nan. ‘But never you mind. You don't even have to be here. I'm not having you traumatized by that pig all over again. Yes, that's it, my pet, you can have a day out. Maybe up to town, eh? You leave it to Nan. Don't look so tragic. You're not to worry.'

I can't help it. It feels like I've swallowed a whole hive of bees and they're all buzzing inside my stomach.

I can't sleep.

I'm scared of sleeping, because every time I start dreaming Terry jumps out at me and he's whirling that belt, going
crack crack crack
with it like a whip. I wake with such a start and each time I tell myself it's OK, it's just a bad dream, but then I remember Terry isn't a dream, he's real, and he's coming to get me. He's acting all soft and sweet like he really loves me and wants me back but I know just what will happen once he gets me behind closed doors.

Ten

India

DEAR KITTY

I woke up early this morning and sat cross-legged on my bed writing my diary. Every time I wrote my friend's name, Treasure, I spread it out in very careful twirly, fancy lettering and highlighted it in gold until page after page glowed. Then I realized I was starving so I padded downstairs to fix myself some breakfast.

I'd just made myself a most interesting jumbo sandwich – a layer of banana, cream cheese and honey and then another contrasting layer of chocolate spread and peach slices – when Mum came bursting into the kitchen, startling me so that I dropped a bottle of milk all over the floor.

‘For goodness sake, India, do you have to be so
clumsy?'
she said, leaping about with paper towels and kitchen cloths. ‘And what exactly are you eating?'

‘Just a sandwich.'

‘It looks more like an entire loaf of bread to me,' said Mum, mopping. ‘You don't seem to be taking your diet very seriously, India.'

She pointedly put two lemons into the blender.
Mum's
breakfast.

She always goes on and on and on about my diet as if my size is the only significant thing about me. The blender rattled away. Mum looked at me. Maybe she was wondering if she could stuff me in along with the lemons and squeeze me right down to the pulp. I doubt I'd fit into a Moya Upton outfit even then.

I took a large defiant bite of my sandwich, smacking my lips. Mum sighed and switched off the blender. She poured her juice and drank it up. Her cheeks sucked in a little at the sourness but she'd rather die than add a little sugar.

‘I think you're anorexic, Mum,' I said.

‘Don't be ridiculous. I just care about my body. It's time you took a little care of yourself too, India, now you're growing up.'

She said the words
growing up
with extreme emphasis, as if I was shooting straight up to the ceiling and spreading till I could touch all the walls at once. Roll up, roll up, to see the Incredible Growing Girl, twenty metres high, 1000 kilos and rapidly increasing. It's pretty humiliating when your own mother treats you like a circus freak.

‘You'll turn
me
anorexic if you carry on nagging me about my weight,' I said, bolting the last of my sandwich.

Mum gave this horrible false tinkly laugh. ‘That'll be the day!'

She said it spitefully, as sour as her lemon juice. I turned my back on her, opening the fridge up, pretending to be searching for more food. I didn't want her to see the tears in my eyes.

‘India?'

‘
What?
' I said, as rudely as I dared, my head still in the fridge. I wondered if my tears would turn into tiny stalactites if I stayed there long enough.

‘I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,' she said softly. Well, as soft as she gets.

She didn't mean to hurt my feelings? She expects it to feel like fun when your own mother implies you are GROSS?

I felt like I was growing a frosty mask inside the fridge. She was sorry for me now. Well, I
could
tell her straight, ‘Don't feel sorry for me, Mum, feel sorry for yourself. Everyone hates you. Even Dad prefers Wanda to you.'

I wouldn't say it. But thinking it made me feel better. I straightened up and smiled calmly at my mother.

‘I'm fine, Mum, really.'

‘What are your plans for today, darling?' she said, sitting on a kitchen stool and crossing one long, elegant, tanned hairless leg over the other. She wears
matching
silk nighties and negligées in subtle strange colours, inky-blue with pink lace, forest green with turquoise lace, coffee with tangerine lace. I used to love her nighties. I liked sneaking into Mum's bedroom and dressing up in their silky softness, playing at being a princess.

I couldn't stick wearing anything of Mum's now. Well. They wouldn't fit anyway.

Mum always wants me to have
plans
. She can't ever let me drift through the day doing just what I feel like. She has the engagement diary approach to life. She'd like every half hour of my day filled in.

I shrugged and mumbled something about homework.

‘Oh darling, you and your homework!' she said, as if it's my personal eccentricity.

She is the only mother in my class who really doesn't care about her daughter's marks. She seems to find it vaguely embarrassing when I come top.

‘And I'm going to read this new book about Anne Frank.'

‘I know Anne Frank's story is very moving, India, but don't you think it's a little morbid being
so
obsessed by her?'

‘No, I think it's perfectly normal. She's my hero, my inspiration.'

Mum gave a little snort. She was laughing at me. I tried to think of the frost in the fridge but I couldn't stop my face turning beetroot red.

‘Well, I'm going to get into my running things,' said
Mum,
swallowing the last of her lemon. She put her head on one side. ‘I don't suppose you'd care to join me?'

I bared my teeth in a grin to make it plain I knew she was joking.

‘Maybe we can go shopping together when I get back?' said Mum.

I think she must have read some article about high-powered career mums spending ‘quality time' with their daughters. But I hate, hate, hate shopping with Mum. I like
shopping
, so long as it's
my
way. Wanda and I go to Woolworths or Wilkinsons, where everything is bright and cheap, and we play this game seeing how many things we can buy for a fiver. I like choosing girly notebooks with pink checks and puppies and gel pens and peachy sweet scent and little floppy toy animals and lots and lots and lots of pick'n'mix sweets. Then we go to McDonald's and I have a McFlurry and if it goes down too quickly I'll have another. And maybe even another if Wanda is in a truly good mood. Sadly she hasn't been in a good mood for ages.

I wonder if I should try talking to her? Try to comfort her, maybe – because this thing with Dad seems to be making her so unhappy.

It makes
me
feel unhappy thinking about her and Dad. If I didn't love him I think maybe I'd hate him – the way I hate Mum.

I don't really hate her.

Yes I do.

I
certainly
hate her when we go shopping together. We nearly always have to go to the places that stock Moya Upton clothes. She has a sneaky check on the stock. The salesgirls generally twig who she is and go into a twitter. There's often a rich mother with some horrible, pretty, skinny daughter trying on the latest little Moya Upton number and they go all squeaky when they're introduced to Mum. Sometimes they get her to do the dumbest stuff like sign her own label. All the time they're admiring Mum their eyes keep swivelling round to me as if they can't believe that I can possibly be her
daughter
.

I sometimes long to be an orphan.

Mum came back into the kitchen in her tiny grey jogging suit. She waggled her manicured nails at me and then darted off out the back door. She looked like a sleek slim rat, whiskers well shaved, eyes bright and beady. This does not sound flattering, I know. But if
I
were squeezed into her grey jogging suit another obvious animal springs – no,
lumbers
– into my mind's eye. It is gross to compare your mother to a rodent. It is even grosser to know that she thinks of you as an elephant. Not just your mother. Lots and lots and lots of people make pachyderm remarks when I'm around.

Maybe it's not so bad. Elephants are intelligent animals. They are meant to have superb memories. It sounds like boasting, but my own memory is phenomenal. I can quote long passages of Anne's diary by heart now.

I shall lend it to Treasure because I just know she'll
love
it too. I re-read a few favourite parts while I ate another little breakfast. (I'd discovered Wanda's pop-tarts tucked at the back of the larder. She seems to have lost her appetite recently but mine is ever-present.) Then I wrote more of my own diary. Wanda was up by this time, yawning and sighing.

‘What's
up
, Wanda?'

She looked at me, shrugged and flicked her long wet hair out of her face, making a tiny rainstorm over her shoulders.

‘Is it Dad?'

She jumped as if I'd shot at her. ‘No! What do you mean? Are those
my
pop-tarts you're eating? Stop it, you greedy girl! Your dad! Why should I be upset about your dad?'

It's
definitely
my dad.

She drifted off, saying she was going to dry her hair. I heard her going
mutter-mutter
upstairs with Dad.

Then five minutes later Dad bounded into the kitchen, all wired up. Clicking his fingers and tutting his tongue against his teeth. He came out with all this guff about poor Wanda being homesick. Do they think I'm mad? I know what's going on. I think
they're
mad. Dad liked Wanda's friend Suzi a lot more than Wanda herself. Everyone could see that at the New Year's Eve party – even Wanda. And what is she doing getting mixed up with my dad? He's old enough to be
her
dad too.

I don't understand love affairs. I'm not ever going to make a fool of myself that way. I'm
sooooo
glad
Treasure
hasn't got a boyfriend. I don't want one either.

I hope we'll stay friends until we're grown up and then we could maybe share a flat together. I wonder what Treasure wants to be when she grows up? I want to be a writer, of course, just like Anne. It would be great if my books became big, big hits so that I don't have to use a penny of Mum and Dad's money. Yes, I shall earn all my own money – heaps of it – and then even if Treasure doesn't have a well-paid job it won't matter a bit because I could take care of the rent.