The Illustrated Mum (4 page)

I tried. Star sighed and put her arm round me. “She'll probably be back right after we've left for school.”

“We'd better leave her a note.”

“What?” Star glared at me.

“In case she wonders if we're OK.”

“Oh yes. Like she wondered if we were OK last night,” said Star.

“She can't help the way she is.”

“Yes she can,” said Star, and she marched us both out of the flat.

I made out I needed to go to the toilet when we were down on the main landing, so Star gave me the key. I charged back up the stairs and in at our door and then I tore out a page from my project book and scribbled:

Then I ran back downstairs again. Mrs. Luft came to the door in her dressing gown, her hair pinned into little silver snails all over her head.

“I've told you girls enough times! Stop charging up and down the stairs like that. My whole flat shakes. And the stairs won't stand it. There's the dry rot. I've spoken to the trust a dozen times but they don't do anything. You'll put your foot right through if you don't watch out.”

I stood still, staring down at the old wooden stairs. I imagined them crumbling beneath me, my foot falling through, all of me tumbling down into the dark rotting world below. I edged downward on tiptoe, holding my breath.

“Come on, Dol, we'll be late,” said Star. When I got nearer she whispered, “
She's
the one that's talking rot.”

I sniggered. Mrs. Luft sniffed disapprovingly, folding her arms over her droopy old-lady chest.

“How's that mother of yours, then?” she asked.

I stood still again. “She's fine,” said Star.

“No more funny turns?” said Mrs. Luft unpleasantly.

“I don't know what you mean,” said Star, and grabbed me. “Come
on
, Dol.”

“Dol. Star,” Mrs. Luft muttered mockingly, shaking her head.

“Old cow,” Star said as we went out the house.

“Yes. Old cow,” I said, imagining Mrs. Luft with horns springing out of her curlers and udders bunching up the front of her brushed nylon nightie.

Star went into the paper shop and bought us both a Mars bar. I sunk my teeth into the firm stickiness, taking big bites so that my mouth was overwhelmed with the taste of chocolate.

“I just love Mars bars,” I said indistinctly.

“Me too,” says Star. “Good idea, eh? Right, you come and wait for me outside school this afternoon, OK?”

“OK,” I said. I did my best to smile. As if I didn't have a care in the world.

“You can have the rest of my Mars if you like,” said Star, thrusting the last little piece of hers into my hand.

She ran off to join up with a whole gaggle of high school girls getting off the bus. I trudged on toward Holybrook Primary. Nearly everyone got taken by their mothers, even the kids in Year Six. Marigold hardly ever took me to school. Mostly she stayed in bed in the morning. I didn't mind. It was easier that way. I didn't like to think about the times when she
had
come to the school, when she'd gone right in and talked to the teachers.

I ran to stop myself thinking, and touched the school gate seven times for luck.

It didn't work. We had to divide up into partners for letterwriting and no one wanted to be my partner. I ended up with Ronnie Churley. He said, “Rats,” and sat at the furthest edge of the seat, not looking at me. So I wrote a long letter to myself instead of doing the
exercise properly and Miss Hill said I should learn to listen to instructions and gave me nought out of ten.

Ronnie Churley was furious with me because he got nought too. He said it wasn't fair, it was all my fault. He whispered he and his mates were going to get me at lunchtime.

I said, “Like I'm supposed to be
scared
?” in a very fierce bold Star voice.

Only I
was
scared of Ronnie Churley, and he had a lot of mates. I hid at lunchtime, lurking in the cloakrooms. I stood on a bench and looked out of the window at the playground. Ronnie Churley and his gang were picking on Owly Morris instead of me. I felt a bit mean about poor Owly but I couldn't help it. I wandered round the cloakroom looking at everybody's boring jackets and coats and working out how Marigold would make them look pretty‘a velvet trim here, a purple satin lining, little studs in a Celtic design, an embroidered green dragon breathing crimson fire‘when Mrs. Dunstan, the deputy head, walked past with some little kid who'd fallen over in the playground. I dropped the sleeve of someone's coat like it was red hot.

Mrs. Dunstan asked what I was doing and didn't I know children weren't allowed in the cloakrooms at playtimes? I got pink in the face because I hate being told off. Mrs. Dunstan frowned at me.

“Why were you touching that coat, hmm?”

My pink became peony.

“You weren't going through the pockets, were you?”

I stood rooted to the spot, staring at her.

“I'm not a thief!” I said.

“I didn't say you were,” said Mrs. Dunstan. “Well, run along now, and don't let me catch you here again.”

I nearly ran right out of the school and all the way home. But it would be even worse there by myself. I had to wait to meet Star that afternoon.

I remembered my promise. I put my head up high, stretched my lips and sauntered off as if I didn't have a care in the world. I could feel Mrs. Dunstan's gaze scorching my back.

I got to the playground thirty seconds before the bell. Thirty seconds can seem a lifetime when Ronnie Churley and his mates are punching you in the stomach and giving you Chinese burns on each wrist.

I couldn't think straight during the afternoon. I just kept thinking about the flat and whether Marigold was in it. I inked a careful picture of her marigold tattoo with its full head and pointed leaves and swirly stem, chewing hard on the tip of my pen. I drew another Marigold and another. I bent my head and whispered her name over and over again. I started to convince myself it was the only way to make her safe.

“Who's she talking to?”

“Talking to herself!”

“She's a nutter.”

“Just like her mum.”

I turned round to Kayleigh Richards and Yvonne Mason and spat at them. The spit landed on Kayleigh's math book. My mouth was inky so it made a little blue pool on the page.

She screamed.

“Yuck! She spat on my book! It nearly landed on me. I could catch a terrible disease off of her. She's
disgusting
.”

Miss Hill told Kayleigh to calm down and stop being so melodramatic. She mopped up the spit herself with blotting paper and then stood over me.

“What is the
matter
with you today?”

I clenched my fists and put my chin up and smiled as if I didn't have a care in the world.

I was sent to stand outside the classroom for insolence. Then when the bell went Miss Hill gave me this long lecture, going on and on, and I had to get right over to the high school to meet Star. If I wasn't there when she got out she'd maybe think I'd gone home already. Then
she'd
go off without me.

“You're not even listening to me!” said Miss Hill. She looked at me closely. “You look so worried. What is it?”

“I'm worried about being late home, Miss Hill.”

She paused, her tongue feeling round her mouth like a goldfish swimming in a bowl.

“Is everything all right at home?” she asked.

“Oh yes. Fine.”

“Your mother … ?”

“She's
fine
,” I said, my voice loud and cheery, practically bursting into song.

Miss Hill didn't seem convinced. But she made a little shooing gesture of her hand to show I was dismissed. I made a run for it before she could change her mind.

I heard the high school bell go just as I got there. Star was one of the first, without all her friends. She looked at me.

“You've told someone.”

“No, I haven't, I swear.”

Star nodded. “OK. Sorry. I knew you wouldn't really tell.”

We walked home barely talking. When we turned into our road I grabbed Star's hand. She didn't pull away. Her own palm was as sweaty as mine.

She was back. I smelt her as soon as we opened the front door. Marigold's sweet strong musky scent. Even if she were wandering round the flat stark naked she'd still spray herself from head to toe with perfume. There was another smell too. The strangest homely mouth-watering smell was coming from the kitchen.

I ran. Marigold was standing at the table, smiling all over her face, kneading dough. I was so happy to see her it didn't even strike me as weird.

“Oh, Marigold,” I said, and I flew at her.

“Darling,” she said, and she hugged me back, her thin arms strong, though she kept her hands stuck out away from me. They were wearing half the dough like gloves.

“Oh, Marigold,” I said again, and I laid my head on her bare shoulder.

The delicate marigold tattoo peeped out from the strap of her vest top, elegantly outlined in black.

“Hey, you're watering my flower!” said Marigold. “Come here, baby.”

She took the tea towel between two doughy fingers and dabbed at my face.

“Don't cry, little Dol. What's the matter, eh?”

“What do you think is the matter with her?” said Star, standing in the kitchen door. “She was scared silly because you stayed out all night.”

“Still, Marigold's back now,” I said quickly, silently begging Star not to spoil it.

Star was staring at Marigold, eyes narrowed.

“Where did all that cooking stuff come from?” she said, pointing at the baking trays and mixing bowls and rolling pins. The whole kitchen was covered with bags of flour and icing sugar and lots of little glinting bottles, ruby red coloring, silver balls, rainbow sprinkles, chocolate dots, like some magical cake factory.

“I just wanted to make you girls cookies,” said Marigold, kneading again. “There, I think that's absolutely right now. The first lot went lumpy so I chucked them out. And the second batch were a teeny bit burnt. They've got to be perfect. N-o-w, here comes the best bit.”

“Are you making chocolate chip cookies, Marigold?” I asked hopefully.

“Better better better. I'm making you both angel cookies,” said Marigold, rolling out the dough and sculpting it into shape. Her fingers were long and deft, working so quickly it was as if she were conjuring the angel out of thin air.

“Angel cookies,” I said happily. “Two. Is that their wings? Can mine have long hair?”

“Sure she can,” said Marigold. “And if chocolate chip's your favorite your angel can have little chocolate moles all over her!”

We both giggled. Marigold looked up at Star, still hovering in the doorway.

“How would you like your angel to look, Star?”

“I'm not a little kid. How can you
do
this? You go off, you stay out all night, you don't even make it home for breakfast, you crucify Dol all day long at school, and then you bob up again without even an apology, let alone a word of explanation. And you act like you're Mega-Mother of the Year making lousy cookies. Well, count me out. You can have my cookie. And I hope it chokes you.”

Star stomped off to our bedroom and slammed the door. The kitchen was suddenly silent. I knew Star was right. I knew I should go after her. I knew by the gleam in Marigold's eye and the frenzy of her fingers and the
kitchen clutter that Marigold wasn't really all right at all. This was the start of one of her phases‘but I couldn't spoil it.

“Star wants a cookie really,” I said.

“Of course she does,” said Marigold. “We'll make her a lovely angel, just like yours. And seeing as she's so mad at me we'll make
my
cookie a
fallen
angel. A little devil. With horns and a tail. Do you think that'll make her laugh?”

“You bet.”

“You weren't really worried, were you, Dol? Maybe I should have phoned. Why didn't I phone?”

“You couldn't phone. It's been cut off because we didn't pay the bill, remember?” I said, nibbling raw cookie dough.

“Right! So I
couldn't
have phoned, could I?” said Marigold.

“Where were you?” I whispered, so softly that she could pretend she hadn't heard if she wanted.

“Well, I popped out‘and then I thought I'd meet up with some of the gang‘and then there was a party.” Marigold giggled. “You know how I like a party.” She was doing the fallen angel now, her fingers skilled even though they were shaking. “And then it got so late and I didn't come back to my girls and I was very bad,” said Marigold, and she pointed one finger and smacked the dough devil hard. “Very very bad.”

I giggled too but Marigold picked up on my uncertainty.

“Do you think I'm bad, Dol?” she asked, staring at me with her big emerald eyes.

“I think you're the most magic mother in the whole world,” I said, dodging the question.

The cookies went into the oven as real works of art‘but when we took them out they had sprawled all over the baking tray, their elaborate hairstyles matting, their long-limbed bodies coarsening, their feathery wings fat fans of dough.

“Oh!”
said Marigold, outraged. “Look what that stupid oven's done to my angels!”

“But they still taste delicious,” I said, biting mine quickly and burning my tongue.

“We'll try another batch,” said Marigold.

“No, don't. These are fine, really.”

“OK, we'll start the cakes now.”

“Cakes?”

“Yes, I want to make all sort of cakes. Angel cake and devil cake. And cheesecake and Éclairs and carrot cake and doughnuts and every other cake you can think of.”

“But’

“You like cakes, don't you?”

“Yes, I
love
cakes, it's just’

“We'll make cakes,” said Marigold, and she got a new mixing bowl and started.

I helped her for a while and then took the bowl into the bedroom. Star was sitting on the end of her bed doing homework.

“Do you want to lick out the bowl? I've had heaps already,” I said, offering it.

“I thought she'd baked cookies.”

“This is cake. The cookies went a bit funny.”