Swallowing Grandma (25 page)

‘Bloody hell, what now, Woman of Mystery?’

I started to giggle. ‘I’m gay.’

I watched him break out into a slow smile. ‘Get away.’

‘No, I am. I’m gay.’

‘You’re not, you know.’

‘How come?’

The grin was very sure. ‘Because.’

My heart felt like there was a live bat inside it, fluttering and swooping. He was right there next to me, his smell through the smoke, the stubble on his chin. So I kissed him.

He didn’t resist. So I kissed him again, and this time he kissed back. All the blood in my body rushed upwards into my head; I thought I was going to faint. Then he pulled away, and put his palms against my shoulders to keep me back.

‘No,’ he said. ‘This isn’t going to work.’

‘Sorry, sorry. I know, I’m too fat. I don’t know what I was thinking—’

Callum stared at me as if I was insane. ‘What are you on about?’

I started to talk in a rush, tried to stop tears of embarrassment forming; ‘I’m too big for you to fancy. Everyone thinks fat people have no feelings but they do, it’s not just thin beautiful people who have souls, is it—’

‘Stop it.’ Callum pulled me against him for a moment and I wondered if he was going to kiss me again. But he moved away again and put his hand up to show I should keep quiet. ‘Kat, Kat, it’s nothing to do with your shape. I think you’re great. I think you’re really fanciable. I—’

‘What?’

‘I can’t fancy you, I mean, I do, but I mustn’t. Shit.’ He hit his forehead hard with his hand. ‘Why did I get myself into this?’

I gazed at him in bewilderment.

‘I’m so sorry. I should have told you from the first, but then you wouldn’t have had anything to do with me.’

‘Told me what?’

‘Don’t hate me, Kat.’ He closed his eyes in pain. ‘I’m your brother.’

*

I learned to live in that library. I was there outside the doors when it opened, and always the last one to be ushered out at closing time. They didn’t mind because I was quiet and clean. Mostly I took out children’s fantasy, Susan Cooper, C. S. Lewis, Andre Norton. But once a week I reread
Pride and Prejudice
. I wanted to climb inside that book and never come out. Wednesdays were bad because the library was closed all day, and Sundays.

It was a Sunday when I phoned Vince. I’d run out of books and it was dark outside. There were some drunks shouting outside the takeaway on the corner.

I was sitting on the sofa, holding a cushion on my lap, when I realized I was patting its back and rocking. That’s mad, I thought, and put the cushion down. But my arms felt empty without it. I carried it round the flat for a while, shushing it, then I decided to call him. Just to hear a voice.

He was a long time picking up, and when he did he sounded weary. But he tried to make his voice more cheerful when he knew it was me.

‘How’re you gettin’ on, love?’

I said I was fine. I’d got my giro, and some tablets from the doctor. I said I’d decided I was going to go to apply for college and learn how to be a librarian. He sounded happy when I told him. Neither of us mentioned Katherine.

Then I heard a baby crying in the background.

‘Howd on a minute,’ he muttered, but I don’t know who he was talking to, because there was a woman there. I heard her say, ‘I think he might be teething, see his cheeks.’ It wasn’t Poll.

So I put the phone down, then I called Directory Enquiries. ‘Where’s this the code for?’ I asked them.

‘Sheffield,’ they said.

I couldn’t find my own nail clippers, my violin ones; Vince took them away. But I lighted on a pencil sharpener in one of the kitchen drawers, and managed to unscrew the blade with a coin-edge. So that did the job.

‘Half-brother,’ he’d said as he bundled me into a taxi and thrust a couple of notes at the driver. ‘Only half-brother.’ As if that made it less dreadful.

He’d steered me out of the room, ‘where we could talk properly’, and we’d become the rowing couple on the stairs.

‘I don’t get it,’ I kept saying. ‘You’re my cousin.’

‘I lied,’ he said. ‘Your dad was my dad. Different mums.’

I had to think about that for a few seconds, it was all cock-eyed. Then I rounded on him. ‘That’s crap. My dad was only eighteen when he died, how could he have had time?’

‘He just did.’ Callum was pulling at his necklace. ‘He met my mum at uni, he met yours at school. Christ, I’m sorry—’

All right being sorry now.

‘But someone would have told me – Poll, Cissie, someone in the village. You are so making this up. It’s
total
bollocks.’

Callum winced, but went on. ‘My mum says she went to Poll, but Poll refused to believe her, threw her out of the house. Actually tried to kill her.’

‘Don’t talk wet. Poll’s moody but she’s not a bloody murderer. For God’s sake. I reckon your mum’s got a mental condition. Does she know you’re here, did she send you, to make trouble?’

‘No.’ He hung his head. ‘She’s got no idea. I lied to her too.’

‘So the only reason you hung around me was to find out about your – ’ I could barely get the word out – ‘dad.’

‘No.’ He jerked his head up. ‘No. It was at first, I admit, but I didn’t know how things were going to turn out. I didn’t know I was going to like you as much as I do . . . ’

‘But – eugh – that’s disgusting. Think, think what you’re saying. It’s incest, isn’t it? You can go to
prison
for that.’

Callum grabbed my arms and held them, looked into my face. ‘I could run, now. I could run away from you and this God-awful mess, and never see you again. But you have to hear this. We’ve got a link, we’re connected. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? Haven’t you?’ He gave me a little shake but I didn’t reply. ‘Admit it, you can talk to me like no one else. Or you wouldn’t have told me all those secrets. And the clouds, nobody else has been interested in my cloud photos except you. You’re my sister, my only sibling, it’s natural I should feel in tune with you—’

I wrenched myself free and clattered down the stairs to the entrance. Callum came after me.

‘Get away from me, or I’ll scream,’ I called as we landed on the street. One of the bouncers put his head round the doorway, watching.

‘Will you just listen? Will you let me finish?’ His top, which he’d tied round his waist, was starting to slide down his hips. He looked sweaty and dirty. I wanted to get away from him, fast.

‘No. I’m going home.’

‘How?’

My heart whirled round in a panic. ‘With Mitch,’ I said faintly.

Callum shook his head. ‘At least let me hail you a taxi. I need to get you back safe, Christ, it’s the least I can do.’

I let him follow me to the taxi rank, and sort things out with the cabbie. It made it worse, somehow, him paying the fare, but I had no choice.

I cried all the way home and, do you know, the driver never said a word to me. I suppose they get it all the time.

When I walked in, the house was quiet and the downstairs lights all off. I put my keys and purse in the fruit bowl and went upstairs to wash my face. As I passed Poll’s room, I heard her call out.

I pretended I hadn’t heard and went into the bathroom, locking the door. I wiped the make-up off as best I could, brushed out the hairspray viciously, then tied my hair back into a tight plait. The clothes I left in a heap under the sink. I’d deal with them in the morning; burn them, probably. When I came out, Poll was still shouting for me.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. I went into my bedroom, rooted out my big smocked nightdress and pulled it over my head. It was so comfortable after the basque. I didn’t look in the mirror as I passed it.

Poll was sitting up in bed, waiting, with only the bedside lamp on. She wouldn’t have been able to see a damn thing. Winston breathed somewhere in the gloom.

‘Thank God you’re safe,’ she said in a quavering voice. ‘I’ve been imagining all sorts.’

I bet you haven’t imagined an incestuous entanglement, though, I thought.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Back in one piece. What time did Dickie go?’

‘About ten. What time is it now?’

‘Getting on for one.’ I wondered if Callum had caught his train, or if Mitch had turned up again. Callum. I must never think of him again.

‘I were frittened.’ Something gleamed on her cheeks. ‘Winston started barking at nowt, an’ he wouldn’t be calmed. They’ve had a break-in at Spar, Maggie were tellin’ me. There’s gangs roaming about.’

‘Well, I’m back now.’

‘It’s dangerous out there.’

‘Yes, it is. But I’m here now.’

*

Who else could I go to but Cissie.

It was a buzz of activity when I got there. Freddie the manager was in reception, up a stepladder, fastening bunting to the steel beams, while the women at the desk were blowing up balloons. As I signed in, Ally trotted past wearing a fox fur round her neck. ‘Hiya,’ she sang, and waggled the head-end of the fox at me. Its little dead paws rolled on her huge bosoms.

‘What in God’s name’s going on?’ I asked Cissie when I found her in the lounge writing numbers on lolly sticks.

‘It’s our fete tomorrow, don’t say as you’ve forgotten. I thought you and Poll were coming?’

‘We are, we are,’ I said hastily. Poll would be well cheesed off when I broke the news.

‘Well, bring your pennies. There’ll be a cake stall and second-hand books, and I’m in charge o’ t’ treasure hunt, you’ll have t’ have a go at that.’

‘Smashing.’ I hate fairs, actually. When we had one at Bank Top Primary once, somebody stuck a label on my back saying I was the bouncy castle. I wore it all afternoon, till Mrs Kirtlan spotted it and pulled it off.

‘And a dialect poetry recitation with a hamper for t’ best performance. Only open to residents. Mr Poole’s going to do an Edwin Waugh medley. I s’ll have t’ have my hanky out for “Willy’s Grave”.’

‘I can’t wait,’ I said. ‘What’s Ally’s fox fur in aid of?’

‘No idea, unless it’s come in a bag of jumble. She’s a card, she really is. Now, where was I up to with these?’

I helped her finish her lolly sticks and then we went back to her room. While she was shifting Beanies off the armchair, I hung the Do Not Disturb tag on the door, and shut it.

‘I’ve got something to ask you,’ I blurted out, the minute she was settled.

She saw by my face it was serious. ‘Ahh, love, is it Donny?’

Donny? I was thrown for a moment. ‘Oh, no. It’s Dad.’

That made her sit up. ‘What about him, love?’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Know what?’

‘About his other woman. The one he had on the go when he died.’

Her wrinkly lips pressed together and she sank back against the chair.

‘And his other baby,’ I went on. ‘So it’s no use trying to pretend it never happened. Too late for that. But I want to hear your side of it.’

‘Dammit,’ she said. ‘I knew this would happen, one day. How have you heard? Who’s been talking? ’Cause you’ve not to believe everything you hear, you know; there’s some wicked folk out there who only want to mek mischief.’

‘That’s why I came to talk to you.’ I leaned towards her. ‘I know I can trust you to tell me the truth.’

‘Oh aye, the truth. It’s a slippery beggar, truth. My truth, your truth,’ she gave a great sigh, ‘it all blurs. Have you got this off Poll?’

‘No. She’s no idea I know anything.’

‘So, who?’

‘Look, tell me your version of events, then I’ll tell you how I came to hear.’ Callum’s face flashed up before my eyes and I felt a twisting sensation in my chest. Not to think of him.

Cissie sagged. ‘I suppose you had to know sometime. You’re, what, eighteen now. But it wouldn’t have done any good before, telling you your father’s failings. He’s been everything to you, your dad, whatever his faults were. How could anyone have tekken that away from you? I never rated him so much, but I wasn’t going to say owt as’d upset you.’

‘But I need to hear about him.’

Her face was working, as though she was fighting back words. ‘As long as you aren’t angry with me. Don’t go shooting the messenger, as they say. I’ve always tried to protect you, as much as I could, stuck in here. You’ve been like a daughter.’ She reached out her hand and I got up and went over, to kneel by her chair. She took my fingers and held them tightly. ‘You’re very dear to me.’

‘It’s OK. Tell me what you know.’

Her voice sunk to a near whisper. ‘Poll told me, a month or so after Vince had walked out. She was at her wits’ end, looking after you – and you weren’t an easy baby, bless you – and still overwhelmed by her son’s death. Then her husband deserting her. And, you might as well know it all; it was your mother that Vince ran off with. Can you imagine? Not that we broadcast the fact. I tell you, the moment Elizabeth Castle walked into this family, she started to poison it. Evil.

‘Anyway, Poll came to see me, I was still at home then, and we opened a bottle of sherry. We talked about the past, when her younger sister Mary died of polio, she was only seven, and Poll had done everything for her with Florence being ill so often. Dressed her, made her meals. They’d been very close, so it was a terrible blow for Poll when little Mary died. Jean wasn’t so cut up; she was always the odd one out. I wasn’t surprised when she emigrated.

‘And we remembered her dad dying so suddenly of peritonitis, he was only fifty. Everyone else was celebrating the Coronation, it seemed very hard at the time. Poll thought the world of her father. Then she lost her mother in ’79. It was one blow after another.

‘We were putting this sherry away and she got pretty drunk. She said to me, “Cissie, I shall never care about anybody again. All that happens is, you get hurt.” Because she’d worshipped Roger, absolutely worshipped him. And she thought, after his death, that things couldn’t get any worse, but then this madam turns up out of the blue, with a baby girl, claiming it’s his and that he got her pregnant during Freshers’ Week, whatever that is.’

‘Baby
girl
?’

‘Oh aye, that’s why Poll was so hostile. It might have been different if the baby had been a boy. She pined for a grandson. Not keen on women, in’t Poll.’

Now I was really confused. God, was there
another
baby out there that was my dad’s?