Swallowing Grandma (21 page)

‘I did not. I never use cotton buds.’

‘Well, you’ve shifted ’em, then. You know how important it is for me t’ have my toiletries in one place. Otherwise it could be disastrous.’

It was Maggie who’d once stopped Poll at the last minute from rinsing her hair with Toilet Duck.

‘Yeah, but how am I supposed to clean when there’s clutter everywhere?’ I threw two bars of Galaxy in the basket, and a multi-pack of Milky Ways. ‘You can’t stick a pin between the bottles on that bathroom ledge. Sometimes I have to move your bits and pieces because they’re thick with dust. There’s all dead flies and moths behind them on the windowsill.
Don’t
put that packet of baby food in.’

‘It’s rice, it says; see.’ Poll shook the yellow box aggressively in my face.

‘
Baby
rice. Not proper rice, Put it back.’

She did, and knocked a load of rusks onto the floor. ‘Now see what you’ve done,’ she said.

‘God.’ I scrabbled the rusks up and shoved them back where they’d come from. ‘Can we get a move on? Because I’m really beginning to get fed up.’

Poll turned to me, her mouth small and pious. ‘You’re fed up? You are? You should try going blind. It’s a ruddy picnic.’

She pulled away from me and tottered off down towards the checkout, only she went off at a tangent and crashed into a revolving stand of cards. I saw her keel over, and birthday greetings spill across the tiled floor. Several customers ran to help.

‘Can you stand, love? Are you feeling dizzy? Did it knock your shoulder? Daft place to put a carousel, in’t it? You could sue.’

I let them rush in, do their St John’s Ambulance routine, while I leant against the chilled desserts and tried to take some of the weight off the wire handles that were digging into my arm. Watching her being pulled onto her skinny legs, her headscarf askew, I thought how harmless and pathetic she must look to an outsider. The manager came out from the back and offered her a wet wipe.

She mopped her brow bravely and made to hand them back.

‘No, no, keep them,’ he said, staking a £1.59 packet of moist tissues against a call from the Accident Helpline. I knew, by the glee on her face as she stowed them in her bag, that she was perfectly all right.

‘Eeh, I think I could walk if I had a sip o’ Bailey’s,’ she said hopefully.

Once outside she dropped the dying duck routine and laid into me.

‘Them people in there, they care more about what happens to me than you do. Standing there like you’re simple while your own flesh and blood writhes in agony on t’ floor. It’s not on. And you can stop pulling faces. Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I can’t see.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ I gripped the carrier bags tightly and the Bailey’s chinked against a jar of pickled onions.

‘If you brek that bottle—’

‘Oh, give it a rest.’

‘Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice, lady.’ She wagged her stick at me.

‘It’s not like you’re my mother,’ I said, and waited for the thunderclap.

We were passing the church where the pavement’s really narrow. Poll stopped dead in her tracks, so I ran into her. ‘Oof! Your mother?’ She steadied herself against the wall and glared into my face, breathing hard. ‘I should damn well think I’m not. I’m sane, for a start. I haven’t run off and left a helpless infant to fend for itself. I haven’t wrecked a marriage. I haven’t – ’ pause while she pulled out a hanky from up her sleeve – ‘I haven’t tekken anyone’s son away from them.’ Blowing of the nose, dabbing of the eyes. ‘So, no, I’m not your mother, and you should be bloody grateful for it. God only knows what sort of a mess you’d be if she’d had owt to do with your upbringing.’

I’d heard this speech before over the years so it didn’t have the force it should have had. I gave her a little dig in the small of her back to start her moving again and pushed in front of her, desperate to get home. We were still in the public High Street and, yes, there was Mrs Threlfall across the road, waving. Too late to pretend I hadn’t seen her.

‘Maud’s out of hospital,’ she shouted to Poll, in between traffic. Poll swung her head round to locate the speaker. ‘Maud Eckersley. She’s to wait on some test results.’

‘Did you hear that?’ I grumbled, half-turning.

Poll ignored me. ‘Tell her Get Well Soon from me,’ she yelled in Mrs Threlfall’s general direction. Much nodding and waving, but we managed to carry on moving down the village.

Where the footpath widened, by the Indian, I slowed so I was level with her. We walked in silence for thirty seconds while I tried to get the words sorted out in my head. ‘Yeah, well, you say all that about my mother—’

‘Because it’s true.’

‘But you’ve always told me what to think, you’ve never let me decide for myself.’

‘Decide what? What’s to decide? The woman killed your father, oh, hell fire.’ She got out the hanky again and stood still while she wiped under her eyes. Now we were almost outside Porter’s Newsagents and I just knew someone was going to come out the door and march straight into the melodrama. I touched her arm with the intention of pulling her along, but she jerked it away irritably. I’m not going to let this conversation drop, I told her silently; doesn’t matter what sort of feeble pose you strike.

‘It’s not that simple, though, is it?’ I went on. ‘Up till now, I’ve always swallowed your version of events. No one’s ever told me the story except you, so I’ve only ever had your side. But I’ve been thinking recently, and some things don’t add up. Like, if my mother really was a murderer, an actual murderer, how come the police didn’t arrest her straight away? How come she isn’t mouldering in prison somewhere?’ I suddenly remembered a book I’d read as a child where that had been the twist. ‘Oh my God, she’s not, is she?’

Poll spat against Porter’s wall, all tears gone, and wiped her lips on her cuff. ‘Don’t be soft. Of course she’s not.’

‘So is she on the run? Did she have to change her identity to escape the law?’

‘Escape? That’s the right word for it. No, she feigned madness so they let her be. She should have been put away, anyroad. I’d have had her strung up, a life for a life.’

I stared down at the top of Poll’s headscarf, at the little interlinking horseshoe pattern round the border. ‘Look at me, Poll. Look at me, this is important.’ She raised her chin very slightly so I could see her sour mouth, but not her eyes. ‘I thought you said she
was
mad. Are you telling me now she was putting it on?’

‘Hello, ladies,’ said a cheerful voice. Oh bloody hell, now it was Mr Ashcroft from the Over Seventies, stepping out of the newsagent’s with a
Chronicle
and twenty Player’s. ‘Nice to see a bit of sun out.’

‘Aye, it is,’ said Poll without enthusiasm.

‘We were due some.’ He checked me up and down and shook his head slightly, but I’m used to this treatment. I gawped back rudely and he turned to Poll. ‘Where’s your little dog today? He’s not poorly, is he?’

‘He’s resting at home. He gets tired.’

‘Don’t we all?’ Mr Ashcroft chuckled. ‘I say, don’t we all?’ He stopped laughing when I scowled at him. ‘I’ll let you get on, then; I bet them bags of Katherine’s are heavy, aren’t they? Just as well you’re a big strong lass.’

He may have sensed some violence in me because he shuffled off pretty quick, considering he’s got emphysema, and Poll and I plodded on.

‘So are you saying my mum wasn’t really mad?’

Poll shrugged. ‘Do I look like a doctor? All I know is, she went mental when it suited her, that’s all. She recovered fast enough, after.’

This was good news, because I’d always worried she might have passed insanity on to me.

‘I don’t know why you’re smiling,’ said Poll. ‘It means she was sound of mind when she decided she didn’t want you any more.’

Poll’s the sort of woman who enjoys dropping salt on slugs. I wish you were a slug, I thought; I’d season you to death. As we hovered to cross the road, the temptation to guide her into the path of a speeding van was enormous; to sing out, ‘All clear,’ and watch her get splatted against the tarmac. Her bloodstained headscarf left flapping in the gutter. Then the van and the moment passed and the road was empty except for Mr Boardman’s electric bicycle, and no good pushing her out in front of that. I made sure she walked through some dirty great puddles on the way to the other side, though.

‘I still want to know more about her,’ I persisted as we turned down the Brow. ‘Whatever she did to me. I want to know,
things
, like, where she went to school, what sort of music she liked, her favourite film. I’ve never even seen a photo.’ (Fingers crossed behind my back.) ‘It’s crazy, she’s my mum.’

Poll stumped on with her head down. ‘She doesn’t matter, I’ve told you. You’re better off without her, you always have been. Forget her.’

‘But that’s for me to decide. Isn’t it? My right? I’m her daughter.’

A car horn blaring feet away made us both jump: Maggie’s Dawn sweeping past in her silver Jeep, waving like a lunatic.

‘Godfathers.’ Poll clapped her hand to her chest. ‘Who were it?’

‘No one. A dog ran out. It’s all right, though. It’s gone in Aspull’s garden.’

‘That’s a relief. Listen.’ Poll stopped again and drew herself up straight, facing me. ‘Let me ask you summat. Think back. Who was it sat up with you all night for weeks when you had croup and couldn’t breathe? Filling bowls of boiling water for the steam and putting them all round? Who was it went trailing up to school that time they took you over t’ fence and rolled you in a cowpat and you needed a change of clothes? Who was it gave that headmaster a good hiding, and convinced the education officer to leave you alone for a year? Who’s shelled out for your fancy uniform all these years, blazers sixty pound a time, and we can’t get second-hand because there’s no one in your size?’

Yes, and I’ve paid you back for it, every penny, haven’t I? Waiting on you hand and foot, your unpaid servant. I just gritted my teeth and said, ‘I know. But I still wish I knew where she was.’

‘Well,’ said Poll, flashing me an angry glance, ‘I’ll tell you what I think. The sort of creature she was, she’s almost certainly at the bottom of a canal somewhere, or tekken an overdose or thrown herself off summat high. You go rooting about, you’re going to find stuff you wish you’d never known. Sometimes it’s better to live in ignorance.’

‘Oh, well, this is the place for it, then. This whole damn village is founded on ignorance. I’m getting sick of ignorance!’ I erupted. ‘I’m sick of your take on the world, this hide-under-the-table attitude. I’m eighteen now, for God’s sake. I could be married, all right, stop sniggering, I could be moving out and living in a place of my own with a job and everything.’

‘You? You’d never cope, not on your own. It’s dangerous out there, I’ve told you often enough.’ We’d reached the house. ‘Life’s all about tragedy; you don’t believe me now, but you’ll know about it when you get to my age.’

Like age means you’re wise. You are so full of shit, Poll Millar.

I badly needed something sweet so I hauled the shopping through to the kitchen and located the Milky Ways. I unwrapped two to be eating while I threw the duller items in cupboards, so my mouth was crammed with chocolate when I heard the cistern flush upstairs.

‘Poll?’

‘What?’ she snapped, and her voice was too close.

I put my head round the kitchen doorway and she was sitting on the sofa trying to lever a shoe off.

‘Hang on.’ I gulped the chocolate down. ‘There’s someone upstairs, using our toilet.’

‘Oh, aye, that’ll be Dickie. He said he was coming round.’

‘Did you leave the door open?’

‘No need,’ grinned Dogman as he walked into the room, cool as you please.

‘Dickie has his own key now,’ said Poll, in a kind of Go on, I dare you to say something tone.

‘I have,’ said Dogman, holding up an enormous bunch of keys and rattling them smugly. ‘Well, your grandma thought it made sense. I’m always round here.’

You can say that again, I thought. Fucking hell. ‘How come you’ve got so many keys?’

But Dogman just laughed.

‘Are you puttin’ t’ kettle on, or what?’ said Poll.

When I came back, Dogman was jiggling a cardboard box in his arms and looking pleased with himself. ‘There you go,’ he said to me, holding the box out. ‘One man’s shit is another man’s gold.’

I peered in. A load of old tat, how kind, you shouldn’t have. ‘What is it?’

‘Women’s things. Poll’s had a root through earlier, but there’s nowt she fancies. Here, tek it.’

Out of curiosity I did, dropping the remaining Milky Ways in too. When I got upstairs I tipped the box out on the floor and knelt beside it. A bunch of used cosmetics fell out; it looked for all the world as if Dogman had gone into someone’s house and just cleared their dressing table while they were out. Even the brush had hairs wrapped round it; that went straight in the bin. The lipsticks were worn to chisel tips and the eye shadows starting to spill from their containers. But, bless the smelly old bastard, he’d scooped me a hot tong thing that looked like it might, at a pinch, go some way to taming my hair. It was dirty round the handle and the barrel was covered in a layer of sticky brown, which I assumed was baked hairspray. I plugged it in and a red light came on to show the thermostat was working. While it heated up, I sat cross-legged in front of the wardrobe mirror and tried some of the new lipsticks.

In the end, I didn’t make too bad a fist of things. There were a couple of dodgy moments when the burning barrel caught my scalp, but the final effect was worth it. For the first time in my life, my hair hung down rather than frizzed out. I shaped a curl at the ends, and twisted the sides in like I’d seen them do at school. I remembered what the make-up counter girl had said, and wondered about cutting myself a wispy fringe. Betty-the-Mobile usually trims my hair for me while Poll’s perm is cooking; she’s all right, but she only knows how to do pensioner styles. See, if I had a job and money, I could go to a swanky hairdresser’s and have a consultation, investigate having the kinks relaxed, maybe have some layers razored in, or highlights. Except they were very scary, those salons, and the assistants all wore tiny skirts and looked like models, and they’d probably burst out laughing when I lumbered in. I wondered where you could have your eyebrows professionally tweezered.