‘Who’s going to pull the wishbone with me?’ she said, hooking it out. ‘Come on then, Lily – pull.’
I pulled and the little bone snapped.
‘Oh, you’ve got the biggest piece. You get the wish,’ said Mum.
I clasped the greasy little bone in my hand, closed my eyes, and wished hard.
Please don’t let Mum go on holiday without us!
But after dinner she went to her room and started packing her case. Bliss and I lay on her bed, watching her. Baxter drove his fork-lift truck under her bed, crawling around in the dust. Pixie staggered about in Mum’s high heels, getting in the way.
‘I wish I had a decent bikini,’ said Mum. ‘Look, Lil, do you think my posh red bra and pants look a bit like a bikini?’
‘No, they look like a bra and pants.’
‘Oh well, I’ll just have to buy myself a bikini when I’m there. What should I wear for the flight? Should I dress up in the grey dress to look my best – or dress down in jeans and a T-shirt, making out it’s no big deal?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you wear your red bra and pants?’ I said.
‘Ooh! You’ve still got the hump, then. Little Miss Camel, that’s you,’ said Mum. Then she blinked at me earnestly. ‘Please don’t spoil everything, Lily. Just wait till you get a boyfriend. Then you’ll understand.’
‘I’m not ever ever ever getting a boyfriend,’ I said.
‘Well, you can be an old maid then and not have any fun at all,’ said Mum.
‘It’s not fun to go off and leave your kids,’ I mumbled.
‘I’m not leaving you, you nutcase. It’s just for a few days, I keep saying. And Mikey will be looking after you. Shall I ring him now? No, maybe I’ll leave it to the last second, just as I’m going – then he’ll have to come, no arguing.’
‘But, Mum—’
‘And no arguing from you either. I’ve just about had a bellyful. You shut up.’
So that’s what I did. I was so stupid. I should have argued like crazy. I should have begged and pleaded and cried. I should have frightened Bliss and made her cry too. I should have thrown my arms round Mum. I could have done so many different things to stop her all that Sunday, but I let her carry on packing and have another cup of tea and then do her make-up. She was ready to go, her denim jacket on, her newly washed hair brushed out, bobbing on her shoulders.
‘OK, now I’ll tackle Mikey,’ she said, dialling.
She listened, then frowned. ‘Oh dammit, it’s his voicemail. Mikey? Listen, Mikey, it’s me, Kate. Hey, you know you were saying you want to see the kids? Well, I’ve fixed it all up for you. You need to come over to my place as soon as you get this message. I’m going abroad for a few days with my new boyfriend – yeah, truly – so it’s your turn to play Daddy for a while. The kids are so excited you’ll be coming – aren’t you, Baxter, mate?’
Baxter gave a whoop.
‘Hear that? OK, Mikey, don’t let me down, will you? Them kids mean all the world to me. Cheers.’
She clicked her phone off and looked at us, nibbling her lip.
‘I want to talk to Dad,’ said Baxter.
‘No, love, I was just leaving him a message,’ said Mum. She looked at me. ‘So, can you be in charge of the kids just till Mikey gets here, Lil? Why does he have to have his phone switched off ? Typical! Anyway, you’ll be all right, won’t you, Lily? He’ll come round the minute he gets the message.’
‘Mum—’
‘You’ll be fine, I know you will. And I’ll phone you every day, I promise, just to check you’re OK. And I’ll bring you all a present when I come back. What would you like, Lily? I know, one of them Spanish dancer costumes. A red one, all over ruffles.’
‘I don’t want any present,’ I said – though I’d always loved spanish dancer costumes. I could see the red one with ruffles and I ached to own it.
‘I want a dancer costume – a pink one!’ said Pixie.
‘Can I have blue?’ said Bliss.
‘I don’t want a soppy costume,’ said Baxter, disgusted.
‘No, my little man, I’m going to get you a toy bull, a great big black bull, and you can be the bullfighter,’ said Mum.
‘Oh yes! A really fierce bull with horns, but I won’t be afraid of it, will I?’
‘You’re not afraid of anything, my Baxie. Now you be a good boy for Mikey, and don’t tease your sisters, you hear me? Bliss, you speak up for yourself if you want anything, and Mikey will do his best. Pixie, don’t be a little pickle, you be a very, very good girl.’ She kissed each of them and then threw her arms round me. ‘I’ll be back soon, Lily, I swear I will.’
Then she picked up her case and ran for it, out of the door. She didn’t even give me a proper kiss. She was just suddenly gone. We heard her heels tap-tapping along the balcony.
Baxter and Bliss and Pixie all looked at me. It was as if they’d only just realized what was happening.
‘Mum come back in a minute?’ said Pixie.
‘No, she’s gone for a week now, nearly,’ I said.
Pixie’s bottom lip quivered. ‘No, in a minute,’ she said.
‘Where’s Dad then?’ said Baxter, looking around as if he was hiding in a cupboard somewhere.
‘He’ll come when he gets Mum’s message,’ I said, my stomach churning.
‘He won’t bring his dog, will he?’ said Bliss.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Mum in a minute!’ Pixie shouted at the top of her voice, over and over, as if she could make it come true if she said it enough times.
‘Shut up, Pixie,’ I said, picking her up, but she went on bellowing right in my face.
‘Why isn’t Dad coming yet?’ Baxter asked, kicking the table leg.
‘Why did Mum go without us?’ Bliss said.
‘I don’t know!’ I shouted, startling them all. Even Pixie was shocked into silence.
They all looked near tears, even Baxter. For a moment I hated all three of them. I wanted to shout and question and cry. I felt like sinking to my knees and howling like a baby. But I couldn’t. I was the eldest. I had to look after them.
‘Come on, you sillies. Let’s – let’s all do drawing. I’ll give you each a page of my lovely new drawing pad, OK? Baxter, you can draw a big scary bull. Bliss, you can draw yourself dancing in a blue frilly dress with those clapper things in your hands – castanets. And Pixie, I’ll help you draw – you can use my best crayons, OK? And while we’re drawing we’ll all have a bit of chocolate, Mum’s got some in the cupboard.’
I got them all sitting up at the kitchen table drawing, great lumps of chocolate stoppering their mouths. Pixie drooled all down her chin as she scribbled.
I’d done it. I’d got them all happy and distracted for the third evening in a row. I tried to join in, drawing a whole troupe of Spanish dancers, but their legs wouldn’t go right, kicking out at odd angles, while the chocolate covered my teeth and tongue in brown slime.
I kept picturing Mum in my head, meeting up with this Gordon, going off with him on the train to the airport, waiting for her flight. If I was thinking of her, why wasn’t she thinking of me? Why didn’t she suddenly think, Oh my God, I can’t leave Lily and Baxter and Bliss and Pixie – I especially can’t leave them with Mikey. Then surely she’d say to Gordon, No, I’m sorry, I love you very much (though she’s only known him three days) but I love my kids more, I have to go back.
I made chicken sandwiches for our tea, then found the little piece of wishbone and held it in my fist, wishing all over again. I imagined Mum suddenly rushing to get the train back. I went through every stage of the journey with her. It was so real inside my head that I almost heard her heels tap-tapping back along the balcony.
But she didn’t come. And Mikey didn’t come either. Baxter got more and more restless. He pretended to be a bull himself, his hands curved at the top of his head as horns, and then he ran round after the little girls, butting them. He wasn’t really hurting them, but Bliss started cryin
g, and Pixie fell over and cried too.
‘You’re all stupid sissy girls, you’re no fun at all,’ Baxter bellowed. ‘You wait till my dad gets here. He’ll play with me – us boys together, we’ll sort you out.’
‘Well, he’s not here, is he, your precious dad? I’m glad, see, because we don’t need Mikey bossing us around, do we, girls?’ I said.
Bliss agreed. Pixie wasn’t so certain.
‘Growly bear Mikey,’ she said, and then she started up her maddening chant.
I shut them all up by going into the kitchen and fetching down a big tin of peaches from the cupboard.
‘But we’ve had our tea,’ said Bliss. ‘We had chicken sandwiches.’
‘Well, we can have another tea, if you’re all good,’ I said.
‘Can we have whirly cream too?’ asked Baxter.
‘We can have two squirts each,’ I said. ‘Though I’m doing the squirting, Baxter. And you all have to be sitting down properly at the table, quiet as mice.’
‘Squeak, squeak, squeak,’ said Baxter, being a very loud mouse.
We ate our peaches and cream. The kids were meant to savour them slowly as a special treat, but they swallowed them down in three or four gulps and then jumped up, on the rampage again. If I could only get them quietened down with food we’d have eaten everything in the cupboard by ten o’clock.
It was half-past eight now. I had to face it, Mum wasn’t coming back. She was on her plane, maybe flying over our heads right this minute. And where was Mikey?
At that exact moment the phone rang. I ran to it, praying that it was Mum after all, coming back from the airport. No. It was Mikey.
‘Lily? Look, hand me over to your mum. I’ve been trying to get her on her mobile but she’s got it switched off. What’s all this rubbish about a boyfriend?’
‘She’s gone on holiday with him.’
‘No, she’s not. You tell her to cancel all her daft plans, pronto. I can’t take a week off and look after all you kids. Who does she think I am, Mary blooming Poppins? It just so happens I’m on the coach up to Glasgow at the moment. I’m going to be helping a mate with a building job for a couple of weeks. So tell her to get her skinny butt back home to look after my kids, OK?’
‘But Mikey—’
‘What?’
All I had to say was ‘She’s already gone.’ That would have been enough. I couldn’t stand Mikey and he couldn’t stand me, but I knew he cared about Baxter and Bliss. He had a very soft spot for Pixie too. If I’d said we were all alone Mikey would doubtless curse and swear but he’d call his mate and get off the coach and come all the way back to look after us. But I didn’t want him to come. When he was in a bad mood he frightened us all, even Baxter. He could turn so quickly. One minute he’d be laughing and tossing the kids up in the air, then one of them would splutter something silly or kick him accidentally, and his face would darken and he’d shout and smack. He hadn’t smacked me for years because I was too quick and wary, but I caught him staring at me sometimes, his eyes darting this way and that as he looked me up and down. I knew he was waiting to get me. I didn’t want him here with no Mum around.
‘Nothing, Mikey,’ I said. ‘OK. I’ll tell Mum she can’t go.’
‘That’s right. Where is she? Let me talk to her.’
‘I can’t, she’s busy right now.’
‘Busy with this boyfriend? You tell her to keep her mind on my kids, that’s what she’s there for.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ I said, and then I pressed the off button on the phone. I could hear the dialling tone. I said into the mouthpiece, ‘I’ll tell her you’re a horrible pig and I hate you and I’m not having you come and look after us. You can’t even look after yourself, you drunken slob. You make me sick sick sick.’
Baxter was in the kitchen squirting Pixie with the cream, but Bliss was in the doorway. Her mouth was wide open, listening to me.
‘There, goodbye now,’ I said. I held the receiver over to Bliss. ‘Do you want to say anything to your dad?’
Bliss backed away, shaking her head.
‘OK then,’ I said, and put the phone down. Bliss was staring at me like I’d slain all the dragons, drowned the wicked witches and chopped off all the ogres’ heads in her fairy-tale book.
‘So Dad’s not coming?’ she whispered, breathing out.
‘Nope. We don’t want him, do we?’ I said.
‘Nope,’ said Bliss, copying me. Then she looked over her shoulder. ‘Baxter wants him.’
‘Oh, Baxter,’ I said airily. ‘I’ll take care of him.’
I went into the kitchen and grabbed the cream can, clonking it on Baxter’s head.
‘Stop it! Look at all that cream you’ve wasted! Poor Pixie!’
‘It’s not wasted, we can lick it off her,’ said Baxter, trying to grab hold of her.
‘Don’t be so disgusting! Pixie, I’m going to have to dunk you in the bath. Come on, you can all have a bath, and we’ll play it’s the seaside and we’ll put all the ducks and the fish in too. Oh, by the way, Baxter, your dad sends you a big hug and says he can’t come this week, he’s busy up in Glasgow, but he’ll come and see you soon, OK?’
Baxter halted in his tracks.
‘Dad’s not coming?’ he said, and he suddenly looked as little as Pixie.
‘Yeah, but it’s OK, I’m here. I’ll look after you. It’s going to be ever such fun, I promise. Come on, kids, it’s swimming time. Let me run that bath.’
I herded them into the bathroom, letting them select mad armfuls of stuff to take in the bath with them: a bouncy ball; a plastic doll; empty milk cartons; even a teapot. By the time all three kids were squeezed into the bath too it was literally standing room only. But that made it better. They shouted and splashed and squealed, forgetting all about Mikey. They really seemed happy to accept that I was in charge.
The bathroom got completely soaked and Baxter was so excited he threw all the towels in the water too, so I eventually had to mop them dry with old jumpers. It didn’t really matter, he seemed happy enough. When I tucked him up in bed he did murmur, ‘Is Dad coming tomorrow, then?’
‘No, he’s up in Glasgow, remember? I’ll be your dad, Baxter.’ I made my voice go really deep and growly. ‘Now then, son, settle down or I’ll give you what-for.’ I didn’t sound remotely like Mikey but it made Baxter laugh and then snuggle down to sleep. Pixie went out like a light, having stayed up way past her bedtime three nights in a row. Even Bliss seemed fast asleep when I crept in later to check on her.
I was the only one wide awake. I felt like reading so I went into Mum’s room so as not to waken the kids. This was a mistake. I looked around at all of Mum’s things – her jewellery hanging from her mirror, old scent bottles and powder puffs and make-up scattered messily over her dressing table, a little pile of tights and pants strewn in a corner. I held Mum’s big hairbrush and carefully unpicked strands of Mum’s blonde hair, then rubbed them together to make one soft little lock. I tucked it in my pyjama pocket and got into her bed to read. The sheets and pillows smelled of Mum’s scent. I buried my nose in them, breathing in deeply.
I had to sit up properly and start reading quick to stop myself crying. Bliss’s old fairy tales were strangely comforting. Mothers sent their children off into wild woods where there were wolves, they locked them up at the top of towers, they poisoned them with apples. No fairy-tale child would so much as raise an eyebrow at a mother going off on holiday for a week. Maybe it was no big deal at all. Maybe heaps of mothers did the same and nobody let on.
I decided I’d have to be very careful at school tomorrow. But what about Bliss and Baxter? I knew just how much it would worry Bliss. If you told her to keep a secret she’d clamp her lips together and do her very best, but if questioned she’d flush a raw red and she’d start trembling. Whereas Baxter could never keep anything quiet. If you specifically told him not to mention something he’d shout it out at the top of his voice. And what about Pixie? She’d started going to nursery
now, and every morning their nice soft teacher sat them in a circle and they had special Talking Time. Little girls and boys said that it was their birthday or Daddy’s car broke down or their brother’s hamster had died. Pixie would be bursting to tell her news: My mum’s gone on holiday with her new boyfriend and my stepdad can’t come to look after us so we’re all alone. I could just hear her blurting it all out.
I was ready for them the next morning. I’d fallen asleep in Mum’s bed and they all came tumbling in, Pixie just in her T-shirt.
‘She wet her bed,’ said Baxter sternly. ‘She’s dirty and smelly.’
‘No, I’m not. I didn’t wet my cot. Bliss climbed in and did it,’ said Pixie firmly.
‘I didn’t, I didn’t!’ said Bliss, appalled.
‘I know. Never mind, Pixie, we’ll change your sheets. Come in Mum’s bed and have a cuddle just now.’
‘But it’s late, Lily, we’re going to be late. It’s half-past eight,’ said Bliss. ‘We have to go to school quick.’
‘No, we don’t,’ I said taking her by the wrist and pulling her into bed with me. ‘We don’t have to go to school quick, we don’t have to go to school slow, because we’re not going to school at all.’
That made them stare.
‘Is it a holiday?’ said Baxter.
‘Yes, hurray, hurray!’ I said.
Bliss was frowning anxiously.
‘I don’t think it is a holiday,’ she said. ‘We’ve had half-term already.’
‘It’s our holiday. Mum’s on holiday so we’re on holiday too. We can do whatever we like today. No boring old school, yippee. So we can all snuggle up and have a lovely lie-in.’
‘Yuck, I’m not doing sissy snuggling,’ said Baxter. ‘So what are we going to do, then? Can we go to Chessington World of Adventures? That’s where all the boys in my class go on their holidays.’
‘Yeah, well, if you’ve got the money, Baxter, I’ll take you,’ I said.
‘If my dad was here he’d take us,’ said Baxter. ‘I want to go on that ride that goes swoop swoop and then turns you upside down.’
‘Oh, this ride,’ I said, grabbing him round the waist and tipping him up so he was dangling in mid-air.