before. This was a long time ago but it was the exact same look. I knew what I had to do, except I didn’t want to. So I replay the memory a different way.
Truth No. 2
I place us in the kitchen, and because I don’t want to say anything that will make it worse, I swill out dirty mugs to make tea. Problems seem less if we have them with a cup of tea, that’s another thing Nanny Noo says.
I noticed the CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW HOME card Mrs Greening had made, still stuck to the fridge door, spotted in fat from all the frying we did. When she gave it to us I didn’t understand the feeling it gave me.
Now I did.
For my brother’s tenth birthday our mum arranged a huge party. It was in our local Beavers and Brownies Hut, decorated with balloons and banners. On a long table at the far end were bowls of Hula Hoops, biscuits, and sausages on sticks. There was pineapple and cheese on sticks too, except one of Simon’s friends got to them first and bit off all the pineapple chunks so they were just cheese.
Loads of people came because Simon was allowed friends from his school and I was even allowed some from mine.
Nanny Noo and Granddad were there, and Aunty Mel who came all the way from Manchester with Uncle Brian and our three cousins, and my other aunt, Jacqueline, who lives much closer, but who we didn’t often see because her and Mum don’t get on, and because she dresses all in black and talks too much about magic and spirits, and will never not smoke even at children’s parties.
We played a game where we had to put on a hat and a scarf and thick woollen mittens, then try to eat a bar of Dairy Milk with a knife and fork. But the most fun was at the end when we ran around the hall stamping on the balloons, making them pop.
Simon called it his best birthday ever.
I made him a card, and you have to remember I was still only little. What I’d done was draw a house with a smiling sunshine over the top, exactly like Mrs Greening had done, but what made it good was that I’d put diagonal lines coming off the house so that instead of being a flat square, it looked three-dimensional. Nobody had told me how either, I’d worked it out by myself.
It was just one of a hundred cards he was given, and for ages Mum let him keep them up around the living room, cluttering the mantelpiece and the coffee table. I didn’t know if he liked mine, or had even noticed it. Until the day Mum said they had to come down.
She was in a bad mood and had been telling me off for the mess my room was in, how I made her life a bloody uphill struggle, she couldn’t wait until the holidays were over and I was out from under her feet.
I was probably too sensitive because it’s normal for mums to lose their temper once in a while, especially during summer holidays with two boys causing havoc. It isn’t like she ever hit us or anything, so I know I was too sensitive. By the time her attention spilled to the cards and Simon got his turn, I was whimpering like a baby.
Simon marched straight up to the windowsill and took down my card. He scrunched his face and bit at his tongue in the way he did when he was concentrating. Then he told me that I should be a professional. Except he couldn’t say professional properly and had to try about six times to get the word out. He asked me to show him how I did it, and we spent the afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, drawing pictures together. I told him that he should be a professional too.
He shook his head and looked away.
The card I made him was the only one to make it into his stupid keepsake box, and when I found it there after he died, and when I think about it now, I’m happy and sad all at once.
Jacob was leaning against the counter. Perhaps he felt the same as me, for all his own reasons. But what came out of him was anger. I dropped teabags into the mugs and filled the kettle. He didn’t need me to say anything. He could be angry all by himself.
‘She wouldn’t even talk
Truth No. 2
I place us in the kitchen, and because I don’t want to say anything that will make it worse, I swill out dirty mugs to make tea. Problems seem less if we have them with a cup of tea, that’s another thing Nanny Noo says.
I noticed the CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW HOME card Mrs Greening had made, still stuck to the fridge door, spotted in fat from all the frying we did. When she gave it to us I didn’t understand the feeling it gave me.
Now I did.
For my brother’s tenth birthday our mum arranged a huge party. It was in our local Beavers and Brownies Hut, decorated with balloons and banners. On a long table at the far end were bowls of Hula Hoops, biscuits, and sausages on sticks. There was pineapple and cheese on sticks too, except one of Simon’s friends got to them first and bit off all the pineapple chunks so they were just cheese.
Loads of people came because Simon was allowed friends from his school and I was even allowed some from mine.
Nanny Noo and Granddad were there, and Aunty Mel who came all the way from Manchester with Uncle Brian and our three cousins, and my other aunt, Jacqueline, who lives much closer, but who we didn’t often see because her and Mum don’t get on, and because she dresses all in black and talks too much about magic and spirits, and will never not smoke even at children’s parties.
We played a game where we had to put on a hat and a scarf and thick woollen mittens, then try to eat a bar of Dairy Milk with a knife and fork. But the most fun was at the end when we ran around the hall stamping on the balloons, making them pop.
Simon called it his best birthday ever.
I made him a card, and you have to remember I was still only little. What I’d done was draw a house with a smiling sunshine over the top, exactly like Mrs Greening had done, but what made it good was that I’d put diagonal lines coming off the house so that instead of being a flat square, it looked three-dimensional. Nobody had told me how either, I’d worked it out by myself.
It was just one of a hundred cards he was given, and for ages Mum let him keep them up around the living room, cluttering the mantelpiece and the coffee table. I didn’t know if he liked mine, or had even noticed it. Until the day Mum said they had to come down.
She was in a bad mood and had been telling me off for the mess my room was in, how I made her life a bloody uphill struggle, she couldn’t wait until the holidays were over and I was out from under her feet.
I was probably too sensitive because it’s normal for mums to lose their temper once in a while, especially during summer holidays with two boys causing havoc. It isn’t like she ever hit us or anything, so I know I was too sensitive. By the time her attention spilled to the cards and Simon got his turn, I was whimpering like a baby.
Simon marched straight up to the windowsill and took down my card. He scrunched his face and bit at his tongue in the way he did when he was concentrating. Then he told me that I should be a professional. Except he couldn’t say professional properly and had to try about six times to get the word out. He asked me to show him how I did it, and we spent the afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, drawing pictures together. I told him that he should be a professional too.
He shook his head and looked away.
The card I made him was the only one to make it into his stupid keepsake box, and when I found it there after he died, and when I think about it now, I’m happy and sad all at once.
Jacob was leaning against the counter. Perhaps he felt the same as me, for all his own reasons. But what came out of him was anger. I dropped teabags into the mugs and filled the kettle. He didn’t need me to say anything. He could be angry all by himself.
‘She wouldn’t even talk
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