The Year of the Rat (8 page)

I look at Molly, her kind, pleading face, and I realize how much I miss her.

‘Well . . .’ I say. Maybe I could. Maybe I should give Ravi a chance. He might not be so bad.

‘Oh, go on,’ Ravi says. ‘Otherwise we won’t be able to get together till Molly and I get back from Spain.’

I stare at him. ‘What?’

‘Oh yes. I was going to tell you,’ Molly says awkwardly. ‘But I haven’t had a chance.’

I know she’s right; she hasn’t had a chance to tell me. We’ve only seen each other in the exam hall. I still haven’t got a mobile and I never pick up the phone at home. I
haven’t looked at my laptop in weeks. But it doesn’t stop me feeling that she’s kept it a secret from me.

‘You’re going to Spain? Together?’

‘Ravi’s parents have an apartment there. They go for a month every summer and they asked if me and Ravi wanted to go too.’ She looks at me, anxious.

I remember suddenly all the things we’d planned to do the summer after our GCSEs. We’d been thinking about it since last summer. Festivals. Maybe a bit of travelling. InterRailing
round Europe if Molly could earn enough money and could get out of looking after her brothers. Dad had been worried.
Lighten up,
Mum had told him.
She’s a big girl now. Let her
have a few adventures.

‘But you always have to look after the boys over the summer holidays.’ My voice comes out a bit choked.

‘Mum’s doing a lot of late shifts at the moment so she’ll be around during the day. The little ones are going to the childminder the rest of the time. Dad says I’m being
selfish and we can’t afford to pay someone when I could be doing it for free.’ She looks upset. ‘Mum says it’s OK. Yet another thing for them to argue about.’

‘Don’t feel guilty,’ Ravi says, putting his arm round her. ‘You look after your brothers all the time. You can’t let your parents take you for granted.’ I
used to tell Molly this all the time. Now it’s Ravi telling her. I stare at his stupid gelled quiff and his stupid designer glasses and I hate him.

We stand there awkwardly for a moment, people filing past us, some shouting and slapping each other on the back, others still comparing notes about the exam. Then I realize Ravi’s probably
waiting for me to back him up, to reassure Molly.

‘I really can’t stay,’ I say instead. ‘I’ve got to go.’

I turn and walk off towards the Heath before Molly can even give me a hug.

‘Pearl!’ she calls after me. ‘Will you phone me later? I don’t like calling you at home in case I’m interrupting . . . or something. I wish you’d get a new
mobile.’

But I won’t.

When I look back, she and Ravi are walking off down the hill, hand in hand, laughing together.

When I get home, the front door won’t open properly. It crashes into something big standing behind it in the hallway. I push it as far as it will go and squeeze in
through the gap. Standing in the hall is a massive pram, so big you could fit triplets into it. It’s one of those posh, old-fashioned ones, but it’s brand-new, all navy blue and shiny
silver with bright white wheels. Julianne had shown us one like it in the shop.
‘If money is no object, you
could think about something like this . .
.
’ It
looks totally out of place in our dilapidated hallway. I stare at it, hating it. Why couldn’t Dad just have bought a normal buggy like everyone else? Nothing but the best for his little girl
obviously.

I walk through to the kitchen, closing the door behind me so I can’t see the pram. Even though it’s bright daylight outside, the kitchen is gloomy, full of shadows. On the table
there’s a note.

Scrawled at the bottom as an afterthought is:

Underneath I write:

I sit and look at it for a while, then scrunch it up and throw it in the bin. I put the takeaway menus back in the drawer and slip the money into my pocket. Then I pour myself a
glass of water and sit at the kitchen table, ignoring my growling stomach, watching the dappled shadows of the trees dance on the kitchen floor.

‘Well,’ Mum’s voice comes from the shadows behind me. ‘You certainly know how to celebrate.’

‘Bloody hell,’ I say, trying to disguise how relieved I am to see her. ‘Don’t sneak up on me like that.’

‘Well, it’s lovely to see you too, my darling daughter.’ She gives me a dazzling smile. ‘But tell me, why are you sitting alone in the gloom? Wasn’t it your last
exam today? Shouldn’t you be out celebrating in some debauched way I don’t want to know about?’

‘I’m tired,’ I say.

‘But I thought you’d be out somewhere with Molly.’

‘No. She’s off with her new boyfriend.
Ravi
.’ I say it with as much contempt as I can manage.

‘Call me Sherlock Holmes,’ Mum says, ‘but do I detect a certain lack of enthusiasm for the love of Molly’s life?’

‘You know what she’s like,’ I say. ‘Her boyfriends are always a total disaster.’

‘Oh dear, poor Molls,’ Mum sighs. ‘She’s a smart girl. Why does she always go out with boys who treat her badly?’

‘Oh no,’ I say quickly, thinking of Molly’s last boyfriend, Jay, who turned out to have several other girlfriends and a pregnant fiancée, and the one before that, Ozzy,
who worked on the market and stored pirate DVDs at her flat. She’d had no idea till the police turned up. ‘He’s not like that at all.’

‘What’s wrong with this one then?’

I think for a minute and don’t really come up with an answer. ‘It’s hard to explain,’ I say finally.

She pulls up a chair and sits down next to me. ‘Is he arrogant?’

I think about it. ‘No.’

‘Creepy?’

‘No.’

‘What then? Grotesque? Shifty? Domineering? Unhygienic?’

‘No. No. Nothing like that. It’s just . . .’

‘What?’

I get up and pour myself some more water, trying to pinpoint what it is I don’t like about him. ‘You know what Molly’s like. She sees the best in everyone. She could go on a
date with a mass-murdering bigamist and she’d find something good to say about him. He had a nice smile or something. He had an unhappy childhood.’

‘But you still haven’t explained what the problem with this particular one is. I assume he’s not actually a mass-murdering bigamist?’

‘No.’

‘So what’s wrong with him?’

The annoying thing is that I can’t really think of anything. ‘He goes to that posh school up the hill.’

‘So?’

‘He shook my hand when I met him,’ I add lamely. ‘And . . . he’s too tall.’

Mum laughs. ‘Well, if that’s the worst you can say about him, Molly should count herself very lucky. And you should be pleased for her, given her track record of attracting losers
and reprobates.’

‘He laughed at all my jokes even though they weren’t very funny,’ I say, still trying to put my finger on what’s so annoying about him.

‘Oh well.
Now
I understand. He’s clearly mad.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘Do you not think he might just have been a bit nervous? Boys are terrified of their girlfriends’ best friends. And rightly so. They know if they do anything they shouldn’t,
it’s the Best Friend who’ll turn up on the doorstep ready to relieve them of a testicle or two.’ She laughs. ‘Do you remember when you and Molly bumped into her horrible ex
at the market and you told him exactly what you thought of him in front of everybody?’ That was Ozzy. I smile. Yes I do remember. ‘Got a round of applause, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ It had been a good moment. Molly had been so embarrassed and upset when we saw him, and he’d been so obnoxious, smiling and winking at me, doing the whole cheeky
chappie bit and completely blanking Molly. I’d just lost it: told him exactly what I thought of him.

Afterwards, Molly had been so grateful.
I’m so lucky to have a friend like you.
It brings me up sharp to remember it. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like, that bond.

‘But this Ravi,’ Mum muses, ‘he sounds rather sweet. To be honest I really don’t see what the problem is.’

I sigh. ‘I just think she could do better.’

Mum smiles. ‘Do you remember when you were going out with that awful what’s-his-name . . . Baz?’

‘Taz. And I wasn’t really going out with him.’

‘And I could see he was a complete – well, I won’t say what.’ She smiles a saintly smile. ‘But I didn’t say anything – I
wouldn’t
say
anything – because I didn’t want to interfere.’

I choke on the water I’m drinking. Mum comes over and thumps me on the back. ‘I’m afraid, Pearl, that when we love people we have to be supportive of their choices even when we
don’t agree with them. I knew I had to let you make your own mistakes so I kept my opinions to myself.’

‘No you didn’t! When have you ever kept your opinions to yourself?’

Mum looks surprised. ‘Well, I certainly meant to.’

‘You called him a – let me get it right – a “self-obsessed pillock”.’

‘Did I?’ Mum says vaguely.

‘Yes. While he was
still in the room.
’

‘Oh. Well.’ She walks over to the fridge and opens it so that I can’t see her. ‘That was different. I’m your mother. And anyway—’ She sticks her head
round the door. ‘I was right, wasn’t I?’

She disappears from view again and there’s some clattering from the fridge, followed by tutting and muffled swearing.

‘You’re still interfering even now,’ I mutter.

She sticks her head round the fridge door again. ‘What?’

‘What are you
doing
?’

‘Why is there no food in the fridge except this . . .’ she holds up a rather flaccid-looking cucumber in one hand, ‘and this?’ With the other hand she bashes a lump of
ancient cheese against the wall and it makes the sound of stone hitting stone. A bit of it splinters off and clatters on to the tiled floor.

I shrug. ‘Dad hasn’t been able to get to the supermarket. He’s at the hospital pretty much every night.’

Mum is still suddenly.

‘At the hospital.’ She says it quietly, to herself. ‘With Rose.’ For a moment it’s as if she’s forgotten I’m there. Then she looks up at me. ‘Is
that where he is now?’

‘Yes.’

She’s watching me closely. ‘And you’re not?’

‘No.’

Mum’s eyes search my face. ‘Do you ever go and see her?’

I feel myself tense. I can’t let her know the truth. She’d never forgive me, I know she wouldn’t. She always was infamous for her ability to bear a grudge.

‘I’ve been really busy,’ I say, not meeting her gaze. ‘Revision and everything.’

‘But she’s OK?’

‘Yes.’ I pause. ‘She’ll be out of hospital soon.’

She puts her hand to her mouth and turns away from me. It’s a while before she can speak. When she turns round to me, her eyes are wet.

‘Oh, Pearl,’ she says. ‘That’s wonderful. That’s just wonderful, isn’t it?’

I hesitate. ‘Yes.’

‘You don’t sound very pleased.’

‘I’m just tired.’

‘And Dad? He’s OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘You never talk about them.’ There’s an edge to her voice. ‘Why is that, I wonder?’

She takes out her silver lighter from her pocket and sparks a flame into life. It glows in the gloom and she holds it out towards me so it lights up my face.

‘You know I’m actually really tired,’ I say turning away. ‘I might just go and have a bath.’

I think she’s going to try and stop me, that she’s guessed I’m just avoiding talking about Dad and The Rat. But instead she snaps the lighter shut and leans over to give me a
kiss.

‘You’ve earned a rest. Goodnight, love.’

I look back at her as I leave the room. ‘Night, Mum.’

She smiles at me through the shadows.

But as I squeeze past the stupid pram and make my way up the stairs I can feel the panic rising. I can’t just walk off and leave her. I hurry back to the kitchen. ‘You will come back
soon, won’t you?’

But I’m talking to the shadows. Mum’s gone.

As I make my way downstairs after my bath, just to check Mum hasn’t come back while I was away, Dad arrives home, crashing the front door into the pram again.

‘You got a pram then,’ I say to him. ‘You sure it’s big enough?’

‘Ah,’ he says uncomfortably. ‘Yes, it arrived this morning. It is quite big, isn’t it? We might need to rearrange the hall a bit.’

‘Quite big? We could practically move into it. Why didn’t you just get a normal buggy like everyone else has?’

‘Actually, I didn’t buy it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was . . . a gift.’

‘A gift? From who?’

He hesitates. ‘From Granny.’

‘Granny?’

‘Yes.’

I stare at him, imagining Mum’s reaction. ‘Well, you’ll have to send it back.’

‘Of course I’m not going to send it back. We need a pram.’

‘But Mum wouldn’t want
her
to buy us a pram.’

‘Rose is her granddaughter, Pearl. I know Mum and Granny had their differences, but Granny cares about us. She knows things are hard for us and she wants to help, that’s all. Mum
would appreciate that, I’m sure.’

‘No she wouldn’t. She’d think it was a betrayal. She wouldn’t want you to have anything to do with her.’

He shakes his head. ‘She’s my mother, Pearl.’

‘Yes. And she hated mine.’

‘That’s not true. I know they didn’t see eye to eye, but Granny didn’t hate Mum at all.’

‘Yes she did,’ I shout. ‘You needn’t bother trying to cover it up. Mum told me all about it. Granny thought Mum wasn’t good enough for you and she was always
putting Mum down. She hoped that you’d split up. That’s why they fell out all those years ago.’

‘That’s not quite how it was.’

‘Oh really? Are you saying Mum was a liar now?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Of course not.’

‘Well, that’s what it sounds like to me.’

‘Look, you’re upset. Can we talk about this later?’

‘Why?’ I turn away from him and stamp up the stairs. ‘There’s nothing more to say.’