The Illustrated Mum (22 page)

“Yep.”

“Right.”

He still dithered, peering at me through the window. Then he waved wildly, though the car wasn't moving. I waggled my fingers back at him, and Michael drove off.

“We'll go to the hospital first. Any idea where it is?” said Michael.

I was glad I had to direct him. It meant we didn't have to try to make conversation. I was also getting worried about the trip to the hospital.

“What's it like?” I said. “You know, the loony ward.”

“I don't know, but I don't think we should call it that.”

“Will everyone be in those white strappy things like corsets?”

“Straitjackets? No, I'm sure they won't be. It'll probably be like an ordinary hospital ward.”

“Only everyone will be mumbling and staring and doing stupid stuff.”

“I shouldn't think so. But if you're really worried you don't have to come in. You can stay in the car. Maybe children aren't allowed on the ward in any case.”

“No, I'd better come. I want to see Marigold,” I said, though I was sure she wasn't going to want to see me.

It took us ages to find the right ward and then when we got there at last, a nurse bustling past frowned at me.

“I'm not sure about the little girl,” she said. “We tend to stick to over-fourteens, unless there's a very special reason.”

“Oh, there
is
a special reason this time. Dolphin's mother was taken into hospital this morning and she's been very worried about her. She badly needs to see her,” said Michael.

“Ah. We're talking about Marigold, right? The lady with …” She gestured to her arms and legs as if inking instant tattoos in the air. Then she suddenly smiled at Michael. “Hey, you're not the Micky she keeps going on about?”

“I wish I was,” said Michael.

I stared at him. Maybe it had been hard for him being second best too.

“So who are you?” said the nurse.

“He's my dad,” I said.

The nurse told us Marigold was in a bed at the end of the ward.

“She's still feeling a bit groggy because they had to give her quite a going-over to get all the paint off. And she's still very high too.”

“High?” said Michael.

“She means drunk,” I said. “No, no. High, manic, deluded, agitated. But don't worry. She'll respond to the lithium we're giving her.”

“She won't want to take it,” I said.

“We know that all right! There's been a little battle,” said the nurse. “But if she keeps on her lithium she'll soon get used to the side effects and it'll be such a help. Many people with bipolar disorder lead perfectly normal lives.”

“My mum's never been normal in her life,” I said, and I set off to look for her.

Most of the beds were empty. I could see a big room off to the side where people were gathered together in a circle, someone talking, someone else crying. She wasn't there. She didn't seem to be in the ward. Then I thought about the drawn curtains at the end. I put my eye to the crack. I saw a flash of color.

“Marigold!” I stepped inside.

She was lying on the bed in a strange white nightie. She was no longer white herself. Her skin still had a raw pink scrubbed look in between her tattoos. One of her arms was nearly covered now, a full sleeve. She was inking in all the gaps with a ballpoint pen. It was the same tattoo over and over again, like a wall-paper design. A weird woman cowering, her mouth open wide in an awful scream.

“Marigold?” I whispered.

She didn't react.

“Marigold!” I said, louder.

She went on drawing. She finished one screamer and immediately started on another.

I wondered if the paint had done serious damage to her hearing.

“Look who's here,” I said.

She looked, her head swiveling round. It was obvious who she wanted it to be. When she saw the man behind me wasn't Micky she turned back straightaway and went on inking. She could hear all right. She just didn't want to hear me. Or Michael.

“Hello, Marigold. It's me, Michael. Well, you called me Micky. I'm … Dolphin's father?” He said it with a question in his voice.

Marigold wasn't prepared to give him an answer. She went on inking.

“You shouldn't do that. Your skin's sore from scrubbing the paint off. You'll hurt yourself,” I said.

Marigold stabbed at her skin with the pen point. It looked as if that was the whole idea. Maybe she wanted to hurt me too. I was the one who put her in the place she hated most.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “You had to go into hospital. I didn't know what else to do. Please don't be so cross with me.”

I felt a hand pressing my shoulder.

“It's not your fault, Dolphin,” said Michael. “It's not Marigold's either. She's very sick at the moment. But she'll get better. Do you hear that, Marigold? You'll get better and you'll be able to look after your girls, but until then I'll keep an eye on Dolphin, so you needn't worry about her.”

Marigold didn't look as if she were doing any worrying about me whatsoever. Michael gave my shoulder a final squeeze and then bent toward the figure on the bed.

“I wish you hadn't run away from me,” he said. “Especially when you know yourself how much it hurts. But I'm so glad you kept Dolphin. I know you've got your life and I've got mine but we are both her parents and I hope one day we can be friends.”

Marigold made an odd little sound. It could have been a snort or a sob.

“I'll bring Dolphin to see you soon,” he said. “She's missing you very much. Maybe you'll try to get better quickly for her?”

It didn't look to me as if Marigold could ever get better. I cried when we came out of the ward.

“You'll think I blub all the time and yet I hardly ever cry,” I sniffed.

“I know,” said Michael. “You've had a really tough day. Anyone would cry.”

His hands flapped toward me. I wanted a hug but he ended up giving my shoulders another fierce squeeze. I felt as if I were being pegged on a clothesline.

“Now. What are we going to do with you?” he said.

Guess what. I ended up in a foster home.

“It's just a temporary thing, until we get everything sorted out,” said Lizzie, the social worker.

“I'll come and see you as often as I can,” said Michael. “Don't look so frightened. And when I've talked things over with Meg and the girls you can come and visit, stay overnight, maybe stay awhile longer if that's what you'd like.”

“I want to stay now,” I mumbled.

“Dolphin, it's too soon. We're still total strangers. And both Meg and I are out all day. It's too far for you to travel backward and forward to your school and the hospital.”

“Michael's right, Dolphin. This is the only way to do things. I know your sister went off with her dad but
we badly need to get in touch with her too so we can keep an eye on things.”

“You won't be able to track her down,” I said.

There was a parcel from Star waiting at home for me. We went there so I could get my nightie and toothbrush and stuff.

I opened up the big cardboard box and saw the mobile phone. There was a note inside to say it had been charged and that I was to switch it on straightaway. I didn't see the point. She probably wouldn't believe me if I told her the absolute truth now. And I wanted her to feel bad and worry about why she couldn't ring me. It was all right for her, living her fairy-tale life with Micky. I was the one about to be locked up in a witch's dungeon and fed bread and water.

“What about a special toy?” said Lizzie. “Oh, how about this lovely dolphin!”

“I hate it,” I said, throwing it hard against the wall. I snatched up my silk scarf instead, hoping they'd think it was just a hankie.

“What about your jeans and sneakers? Leggings and T-shirts? Clean socks? A woolly cardi?” said Michael, looking round my bedroom sadly.

I pictured his girls, Grace and Alice, in their jeans from Gap and Nike sneakers, their flowery leggings and cute emblem T-shirts, their clean white socks, their cuddly cardigans knitted by their mum …

“I don't wear those sort of clothes. This is what I
wear,” I said, crossing my arms and hugging my black witch dress.

“Right. Yes. Well, it's very … attractive,” Michael said, trying hard. He obviously thought my dress hideous.

Maybe I did too. It didn't seem to have any witchly power left whatsoever.

“OK then. We'd better make a move,” said Lizzie. “We can pop back in a couple of days if there's anything else you need.”

She let me lock the flat up and keep the key.

“It's your home, Dolphin, not mine,” said Lizzie.

“I'm sure you'll be able to come back really soon,” said Michael. “Well. I'll come and see you tomorrow, OK? Lizzie's given me the address. Dolphin? You're not really scared about the foster home, are you?”

I didn't bother replying. We both knew just how scared I was.

“I'll say goodbye then,” said Michael, dithering. He looked at Lizzie as if he were asking her permission to clear off.

“Right. Don't worry. Off you go,” she said.

Michael stayed a further five minutes, fussing about this and that, checking phone numbers and addresses, asking me three more times if I was all right when I was all wrong wrong wrong.

Then he said one final goodbye, poking his head
through Lizzie's car window. He aimed clumsily at my cheek, giving it a dry kiss. I didn't make any attempt to kiss him back. After all, he was abandoning me. He didn't want me even though he was my dad.

He didn't feel like my dad one little bit.

“He seems such a nice man, your dad,” said Lizzie as we drove off.

I sniffed. “He's OK, I suppose.” I bit my hangnail. “I bet that's the last I see of him.”

“No, you're wrong there, Dolphin. Are you
really
called Dolphin or is it a nickname? No, your dad is serious about all this. That's why he wants to do it all by the book. He's obviously very keen to welcome you into his life but this has all happened so quickly. He needs to have time to adjust, and a chance to prepare his family.”

“What about my adjusting time?' I said. “It's happened quickly to me too.”

“Yes, I know. You're holding up very well.”

I didn't feel as if I were holding up at all. I cowered down in my seat and thought about the Foster Mother. I pictured her tall and thin with a frowny forehead and a tight mouth. She had hard hands for smacking and she smelt of disinfectant.

I thought about going to bed. I hadn't been 100 percent truthful with Oliver. I wondered about fashioning big holes in my plastic carrier bag and wearing it over
my knickers in bed, just in case. Although the other kids would see and tease. I pictured the other foster kids. They were like Ronnie Churley and Yvonne and Kayleigh but bigger and tougher and much much meaner. I pictured the foster home itself, big and bare and bleak, with a terrible black basement where persistently naughty children were tied up as a punishment.

“We're nearly there now,” Lizzie said brightly, offering me a Rollo packet. “Take two.”

The chocolate and toffee glued my teeth together. I started to feel carsick. I stared straight ahead, prickling with sweat.

I pictured the meeting with the Foster Mother.

“This is your foster mother, Dolphin. Shake hands nicely and say hello.”

I'd open my mouth and spray her skirt with chocolate vomit and get sluiced down and shoved in the basement in double-quick time.

“Here we are,” said Lizzie. “You've gone a bit green. Feeling sick?”

“Mmm.”

“You'll be fine when you get out of the car. Take a few deep breaths.”

I breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. I felt so wobbly when I got out of the car that I had to lean against the door. I stared blearily at the house.

“Is
that
it?”

It was a small terraced house with a postbox-red door and window frames, yellow curtains downstairs, blue upstairs. There was a green hedge and an untidy front garden with daisies and dandelions all over the long grass. It didn't look at all the sort of place the Foster Mother would live in. It looked like the sort of house I drew with my colored crayons.

Lizzie knocked at the scarlet front door. We heard cheery shouts and a wail or two and then the door opened and there was the Foster Mother. She was small and fat and old. She was also rather ugly, with gray hair cut in a schoolgirl clump and a very red face with a big nose that was almost purple. She had bright blue eyes, though, and a big smile. She smiled even more when she saw me.

“Who have we here? What's your name, sweetie?”

“Dolphin.”

“Dolphin? Ooh, I say, I've never met a Dolphin before. What a lovely name. I'm plain Jane. My mum took one look at me and decided anything fancy would be a waste. You can call me Aunty Jane.” She looked at Lizzie. “Hello there, Busy Lizzie. Dolphin here is rather a big baby, isn't she?”

“I'm not a baby,” I said.

“Precisely my point,” said Aunty Jane. “I foster babies and toddlers. The under-fives. And unless you're remarkably big for your age, Dolphin, you look quite a bit over five to me.”

“Go on, Jane, be a sport. Dolphin came to us at very short notice. All my old faithfuls have got full houses.”

“I'm your oldest old faithful and my house couldn't be fuller … but there's always room for one more. Particularly one more Dolphin. Come in, my dear, and meet the family. You can skedaddle now, Lizzie, she'll be fine with me.”

So Lizzie went and I stayed.

“Right, Dolphin, here's my little babe,” said Aunty Jane, showing me into her bright yellow kitchen. A rather yellowy baby with a very dribbly mouth was strapped into a baby chair. It plucked at a string of plastic rattles with its little primrose hands. Aunty Jane tickled its fat tummy and it gurgled delightedly, drooling all down its front.

“That's my little lovely,” said Aunty Jane. “Come and meet the rest of the family.”

They were in the living room. There was a big television showing a Teletubbies video. Two Teletubbies look-alikes were bumbling about in tiny T-shirts and dungarees. The bigger one said a true Teletubby “Haro” to me and waved her chubby hand. The small one sat down abruptly and blinked at me whilst it wondered whether to start crying or not.