Читать книгу A MILLION ANGELS - Kate Maryon, Kate Maryon - Страница 9

After breakfast, Mum starts getting ready for the car boot sale.

“You go with Milo,” I say, “and leave me here with Granny. I hate hanging out with Jess.”

Mum gives me her beady eye that means, ‘Please do as you’re told, Jemima, because I am not so full of patience.’ But I ignore it. I do not want to do as I’m told. I do not want to go to the car boot sale!

“Don’t start, Mima,” she says. “Not today.”

I have a beady eye too, but I wait until her back is turned before I give it to her.

Milo clings on to my leg.

“Please come, Mima,” he says. “Please come! Please come! Please come!”

He hangs off me like I’m a tree and twists the skin on my leg.

“Mima! Mima! Mima!” he chants like I’m a football match that needs cheering on.

“Ouch, Milo,” I say. “You’re hurting me!”

“I said, don’t start, Mima!” says Mum. “Today is hard enough for us all without you making things worse.”

When she turns her back I poke out my tongue. I wish I could stand up and say, YOU’RE THE ONE WHO IS UNHINGED, MUM. But I don’t. The things I really want to say always get choked up in my throat until I’m forced to swallow them down. It’s the same with Jess. She says worrying stuff that frightens me, she gossips with her mum and tells me stuff my ears don’t want to hear. So many times I want to say, SHUT UP, JESS! But as hard as I try I just can’t.

I hope one day my voice will unblock itself like a drain and I’ll be able to speak up so clearly, like LALALALAALLLAAAA! Then everyone will hear everything that’s all blocked up inside.

It’s heaving at the car boot sale. Everyone shoves and pushes in search of pathetic old treasures and silly magical gems. Milo has a pound burning in his fist. He rummages through buckets and baskets of wrecked toy cars looking for trucks and tanks.

“Look, Mima,” he says, holding up a rusty old tank. “Isn’t it great? D’you think Dad drives one like this?”

Jess bounces around like a spaniel looking for strokes. She tries to act cool and flirts her fringe when we pass a stall with boys selling a few broken old skateboards. Jess is as pathetic as the car boot sale. I wish we could put her on a stall and sell her, but I’d feel sorry for the poor family who ended up buying her. They’d be really disappointed, even if they only paid fifty pence for her.

I wouldn’t buy her for a penny. I wouldn’t even want Jess for free, even if she was going to be my slave.

I look at my watch. I wish I was at home. Thinking.

“Calm down, Jess,” says Georgie. “Oooh… Mima, what do you think of Jess’s new jacket? We got it yesterday. Isn’t it just so pink!”

“Erm…” I say, bending down to tie the lace on one of my big black boots. “Yes, Georgie, it’s definitely pink.”

“I think it’s gorgeous,” says Mum. “You should try something like this, Mima. You know… a bit pretty. Get yourself out of those boots for a change. Look,” she says, shoving a ten-pound note in each of our hands, “why don’t you girls go off together and see what you can find?”

I glare at Mum. I don’t want to be left with Jess. And she knows that! I’d rather look after Milo. I’d rather wander around alone.

I flash my eyes at Mum, trying to say, DON’T LEAVE ME WITH JESS. But she ignores me and shoos us both away. I bet her and Georgie want to talk about our dads. In private!

Jess slides over to the skateboard boys.

“Hi,” she says, twiddling with her fringe. She picks up a cruddy old board. “How much for this?”

“A fiver,” says one of the boys.

Jess flashes her eyes at them.

“That’s a rip-off,” she says, pulling me away. “We had a huge sigh of relief this morning when my dad finally left,” she smiles. She opens her arms wide and takes a deep breath. “It’s going to be bliss. I can’t actually believe we have six whole months without him shouting and bossing us around.”

She rummages through a pile of old clothes. She pulls out her purse and pays for a pair of shiny black high heels that are two sizes too big. She holds up a pink dress covered in gold sequins.

“What d’you think?”

“Mmmm,” I say. “It would match your jacket but…”

“I don’t even know why I bother asking your opinion,” she huffs, holding it up for size. “It’s not as if you’re Miss Fashionista, is it, Jemima? That enormous Minnie Mouse bow in your hair and those big black boots aren’t exactly a major fashion statement, you know! And as for the rainbow nail varnish! Whatever crazy thing are you going to buy today? A granny jacket? Another big bow?”

“I’m looking for something,” I say, “but I’m not sure what. I’ll know when I see it.”

She throws the dress down and we drift on to the next stall.

“Don’t you miss your dad at all when he’s away?” I ask.

“Not At All!” she says. “It’s our little secret, but Mum and me prefer it when he’s away. We get up to mischief. Last time we went on this amazing spa day pamper thing and we had a massage and our nails done and we lounged around in the Jacuzzi for hours. Then we went for dinner at this gorgeous restaurant. My dad hates restaurants and mealtimes are horrible when he’s around. He makes me sit up straight and hold my knife properly and boring stuff like that. I love it when it’s just Mum and me and I get all her attention. This time we’re planning a mini-break to a really lovely hotel in Paris so we can shop, shop, shop. My dad’s not Mr Perfect like your dad, is he? My dad’s always really moody and bossy and he shouts all the time. I feel sorry for the soldiers he’s in charge of. Rather them than me.”

“I can’t stop thinking about mine,” I say. “It’s like I have this little bubble of worry following me around. I worked out exactly how long they’re going to be away for. Six months equals twenty-six weeks. That means one hundred and eighty-two days, or four thousand, three hundred and eighty hours, or two hundred and sixty-two thousand, eight hundred minutes, or fifteen million, seventy-seven hundred and thirty-eight thousand and four hundred seconds. That’s ages. It’s too long.”

“Not long enough for me,” she says. “I can’t believe you bothered to work all that out. Even worse, you bothered to remember it. You’re nuts, Jemima. You need to learn to switch off and think about nice things. Like me and Mum do.” She giggles. “Plan something special.”

“How can you think of nice things,” I say, “when you know your dad might get killed?”

“Well, soldiers do get killed,” she says, “like I said last night, it’s a fact. But worrying won’t help. It’s not as if there’s anything you can do to stop it. Anyway,” she says with a smug little smile, “nothing’ll kill my dad. Mum and I think he’s so stubborn he’d even survive a nuclear war!”

“You can’t say that,” I snap. “You can’t be that sure. And he definitely wouldn’t survive a nuclear attack, Jess, that’s just stupid. No one would survive that.”

Something sparkly catches her eye and she skips along to a stall full of junk. While I wait for her to coo at dusty old ornaments of leaping dolphins and sad-looking bears my eye fixes on a stall. It has green camouflage and combat gear all piled up high. And there’s a helmet snuggled like a baby on the top.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” I say. I push through the crowd. I can see something hanging from a railing, swinging in the rain.

“Wait for me,” Jess calls. “Hang on.”

The stall is amazing. It’s piled to the sky with all things war. There are jackets and bags and flasks and green camp beds. There are big metal boxes and old radio equipment and belts and buckles and caps and hats and shiny medals in boxes and posters and books and…

“This,” I say, pulling it off the railing. “How much for this?”

“I’ll throw in the original box,” says the beardy man, “this little brown suitcase and a few of these old wartime posters and you can have the lot for a tenner.”

“Done!” I smile.

“What d’you want those for?” asks Jess, catching me up.

“I like them.”

Jess frowns. She shows me her new collection of plastic dolphins. They have sparkling sprays of glitter running down their silky grey backs.

“I’m going to collect them,” she smiles.

“I’m going to collect these,” I glare.

On the way home Milo takes his tanks into battle up and down the car seat and Jess swoops her dolphins through the air so they look like they’re swimming and leaping in the sea. My mum is fuming. I think she wishes the dolphins were mine. But I think she’s unfair. You can’t really give someone money and then get cross about how they spend it. A gift is a gift, after all.

“I just don’t understand why you’d want to buy anything so ridiculous, Mima,” she says when we get back home. “I give you ten pounds to spend on something nice to cheer you up, something pretty… and you waste it on stuff like this. Why didn’t you buy lovely dolphins like Jess. Or something cute to wear?”

She swings my gas mask from her finger.

“Well, I happen to like my things,” I say, snatching it back. “And I don’t think they’re a waste of money. Dad would understand. Anyway, they’re for my end of term presentation. They’re for school. You should be pleased.”

I run upstairs and cradle the gas mask in my hands. I stroke its big glass fly eyes. War is a mystery to me, another of the great mysteries of the world. I hang the gas mask on the end of my bed, pull down my Hello Kitty posters and replace them with the army ones. I run along the hall to the airing cupboard and dig around in the pile, looking for Dad’s old camouflage duvet cover that he had in Iraq. If I’m going to do my presentation on Granny’s old Blitz box, I need to get myself into the mood.

At one o’clock it’s time to go over to the mess for the monthly Sunday lunch. It’s different here without my dad. I didn’t want to come. I wish my mum would understand me and leave me alone.

Milo charges along the road with a stick in his hand, holding it like a gun.

“Piiiiiooowwww! Piiiiioooooow!” he goes. “I’m gonna kill all the baddies, Mum,” he says. “I’m gonna beat the world and win the war. I’m gonna chop all the nasties’ heads off, then Dad can come back home.”

That sets Milo off thinking about Dad. He stands still. His bottom lip trembles. He opens his mouth wide.

“I waaaaannnttt my dad!” he yells. “I waaaaannnttt my daaaaaaddd!”

Mum huffs. She pulls him into her arms.

“It’s OK, Milo,” she says. “Dad will come home soon, I promise.”

Milo snuffles and snots in her hair. He loops his arms round her neck.

“Chin up!” says Granny, and she starts twittering away like a mad old bird. “Chin up and put your best foot forward. Settle down for a nice cup of tea. That’s what we used to say in the war.” Then she wanders into the mess like she’s in a dream, like she’s not even on the same planet as us any more.

Milo follows Granny with his big blue eyes. Then he looks at Mum.

“Carry?” he whispers.

“I can’t manage you, darling,” she says. “Not in this state. I’m so sorry.”

“But my legs won’t work,” he cries. “I need a caaaarrrrryyy!”

Mum sighs. She rubs her enormous belly and looks at me.

“Can you manage him for me, Mima, sweetheart? He’s so upset. I can’t do it and Granny clearly can’t. I don’t know what’s got into her today. It’s like she’s been transported to another world. I hope she’s not going to go all Alzheimer-ish on us. That’s all I need!”

I know what’s wrong with Granny and it’s not Alzheimer’s, it’s Derekheimer’s, and no one knows but me that she’s hiding the photo of him in her bra. I don’t say anything about it to Mum. It’s Granny’s secret. And mine. I pull Milo into my arms, heave him up on my hip and whisper into his ear.

“I’m thinking hard, Milo,” I say. “I’m planning a Bring Dad Home mission and I promise you he’ll be home soon!”

“Come on,” says Mum. “Let’s get some lunch, shall we? We’re all just hungry and tired and overwrought.”

She rests her hand on my back and rubs soft warm circles.

“I know it’s hard, Mima,” she whispers. “I don’t really feel like being here either, but we have to go. We have to keep up appearances. For Dad. And sometimes the support of everyone helps, you know, because we’re all going through the same thing.”

She tucks a curl behind my ear.

“Like Granny says, chin up!” she laughs, guiding us in. “Chin up, and remember to be polite.”

While Mum greets everyone with her fake smile and chats about when the Bean’s due and how bad her backache is and how hard it is for her to sleep, Milo and I are forced to stand next to her and smile. Red puckered kisses land on our cheeks like planes. Perfume chokes us like fire. I wish I were brave enough to stand on a chair and make an announcement. THEY ALL MIGHT DIE! I want to say. THEY SHOULD BE HOME HERE, WITH US, EATING ROAST BEEF! HAVEN’T YOU NOTICED THAT THEY’VE GONE?

My dad and the other soldiers have barely even said goodbye and it feels like everyone but me has already bleached them away. Everyone is chattering and laughing like normal. The gaps at the tables where they should be sitting are filled with bright fake laughter that’s shrieking through the air and shattering it like glass. I wish I were young like Milo. I wish I could stand up and have a tantrum and say, I WAAAANNNTTTT MY DAAAAADDD! I’d love to see the look on everyone’s faces if I did and if I were brave enough, I would. I promise you. I’d open my mouth and let the words tumble right out.

I try. I open my mouth wide.

Hoping.

But the sounds just jumble and crash in my throat.

My dad is probably still on his plane and I wonder what he’s having for his lunch. He’s up there somewhere in the storm clouds. On his way to Afghanistan. I know he’ll be waiting until it’s dark. Until it’s time to put his helmet and body armour on and for the lights to black out so the plane can dive towards the ground, unseen. Until the heavy desert smells and heat rise and swallow him up for six whole months.

I’ve seen it happen in some of Dad’s films. I shouldn’t really, but I sneak them from the shelf sometimes and watch them on my laptop, under my covers, at night. In one of them all the soldiers rushed off the plane with their guns poking out from under their arms. Their heads twitched around, looking for danger and then piiiaaaooooww, like Milo does, the guns started shooting and bodies were everywhere, flying through the air.

I can’t believe that all this might be happening to my dad while we’re here waiting for lunch. It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t seem right.

I pick at my lunch. I’m not really hungry. Mum and Georgie huddle together and talk in whispers. Granny is lost in her dream. I have to chop up Milo’s meat and play trains with his veg. Jess is opposite me. She scoffs her food like usual with her big fat stupid grin.

“I’ve got big plans for my presentation,” she says, whooshing her dolphins through the air, dunking their snouts in her gravy. “Have you decided what you’re doing yours on yet?”

I glare at her.

“I’ve got more important things on my mind, Jess,” I say. “More important things like my dad.”

“You’re boring, Mima,” she says. “Get over yourself. He’ll either come back alive or he’ll come back dead!” She slurps a piece of floppy beef into her mouth. “Nothing much we can do about it. But he’ll be back one way or another. Shame my dad has to come back at all.”

I cover Milo’s ears.

“Please don’t say the D.E.A.D. word in front of Milo,” I whisper. “You’ll set him off crying again.”

“I’ll say what I want,” Jess glowers. “You’re not the boss of me, Jemima Taylor-Jones.”

Then she storms off to get pudding.

After lunch, Milo charges about with some little ones playing war. He uses his fingers to make a gun.

“Piiiiooooowww! Piiiioooowwwww! Piiiiooooowww!”

The noise saws into my brain. I wish they would just stop and sit down and do some colouring or something peaceful like that. A red chubby-cheeked baby on another table starts crying and crying and crying and his mum ignores him and keeps chatting on and on and on. Everyone’s voices are screeching and battling with each other and I wish I could scream out loud and say, STOP!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!! BE QUIET!!!!!

I slide closer to Mum.

“Can we go soon, Mum? Please!” I whisper. “I’m so bored.”

“I’m not ready to leave yet, Mima,” she shouts above the din, drowning me with custard breath. “I’m having fun.”

“But how can you have fun,” I say, “when Dad’s only just gone away? And you didn’t even want to come yourself. You said!”

“Because what else am I supposed to do, Jemima?” she hisses. “I have to be here, and if I let myself go I’ll end up in a puddle of tears and I won’t be able to stop for the next six months. And what good would that do? So I’m trying to get on and have fun. I’m well aware that Dad’s gone and I don’t need you to keep reminding me of that fact every five minutes. I’m just trying to put a brave face on it – we all are…”

She cradles her fat belly in her hands and her voice cracks open.

“I know you’re hurting too, Jemima, and I’m sorry that it’s so hard for you when he goes, but going on about it isn’t going to help.” She digs around in her bag and pulls out my iPod. “If you’re that bored listen to this, or go and talk to Jess, because we’re not leaving yet.”

I fire invisible bullets at her. I’d rather be facing possible death in Afghanistan with my dad than be stuck here with her and Milo and the fat greedy baby in her tummy.

I slide over to Granny.

“I’m bored, Granny,” I say. “I want to go home.”

Granny smiles at me, but she’s not really here. She’s lost in her memories of Derek and Bognor Regis and the Blitz.

She pats my arm.

“Listen to your music for a bit, pet,” she smiles. “Like Mum said.”

I get another helping of apple crumble and custard and plug myself into Kiss Twist and as soon as they start singing ‘A Million Angels’ I know I’ve discovered the first part of my Bring Dad Home mission.

I dig around in Mum’s bag, find a biro and a felt-tip pen and set to work on my skin. I draw a million angels up and down my arms and blow them to my dad. I watch them flutter from my skin and fade from biro blue to a radiant flash of brilliant white wings that swoop and soar through the sky. I watch a million angels settle around him so they can guard him and keep him safe until I can find a way to bring him back home.

I just finish linking the angels together with a string of tiny red felt-tip pen hearts when a little girl sits next to me and holds out her arm.

“Want some angels too?” I ask. “For your dad?”

“For my mum,” she whispers, her eyes twinkle with tears. “She went away this morning, before I was awake.”

“Same as my dad,” I say.

I draw a million inky angels up and down her little arms and string them together with hearts.

“You have to blow them through the sky to your mum. Look,” I say, blowing the first one for her. “Watch them fly.”

And one by one the angels flutter from her arms and soar towards the sky. The little girl swallows and opens her eyes wide.

“They’re really going to find her?” she says.

“Really,” I say. “I promise. And they’re going to look after her too. They’re going to keep her safe. They’re going to bring her home.”

I begin working my way around the dining room. I draw a million inky angels and felt-tip pen hearts up and down all the kids’ arms. Everyone wants some, except Jess. She glares at me. She swoops her plastic glittery dolphins through the air. But I won’t let her stop me. I keep going and going and other kids start drawing too until we’re a frenzied army of blue biros. A battalion of red felt-tipped pens.

“You’re all crazy,” says Jess, “if you really think pathetic biro angels are going to help. It’s not a game our dads are playing, Jemima, they’re fighting a war!”

“But maybe if we draw enough of them,” I say, “and we all keep blowing them every day, it might help. Just imagine how many of them are flying through the sky right now. There must be a trillion at least. My dad told me about this thing called collective thought. It’s a powerful thing, Jess. It’s when lots of people are thinking hard about the same thing to try to make something happen. Maybe it’s a bit like when people pray for peace and stuff and for everyone to be saved. And you don’t know, it might just work because miracles do happen, you know.”

Jess raises her eyebrows and laughs.

“But they’re not flying, are they?” she says, staring at our arms. “They’re just pictures, Mima. Useless biro pictures.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, ignore her horrid words and turn back to the other kids.

“Don’t listen to Jess, listen to me. You have to keep blowing them,” I say. “Every single day and I promise all our dads and mums will come home safe. Everyone will come home alive.”

A shadow falls over my face.

“Jemima!” my mum shrieks, towering over me. “What on earth are you doing?”

The shrill and tinkling laughter clatters and smashes to the ground. Everyone’s sharp eyes and dazzling lips land on me.

“Look at them all,” she says, pointing to the inky octopus of arms. “It’ll take for ever to wash all that off, Jemima, and everyone has school in the morning.”

“I was only trying to help,” I say. “I thought it was a lovely idea.”

“It might be a lovely idea, sweetheart,” she sighs, “but it isn’t really helping, is it? Helping is being good and getting on with things.”

Later, when I’m alone in bed, the wind howls around the house. Hisses through the window frames, roars through the trees. Thunder growls in the distance again. Rumbling this way.

I creep out of bed and along the hall to Granny’s room. She’s propped up on a tower of pillows. She snores in her dreams. I slide under her cover, find a warm spot and snuggle down. I trace the angels on my arm with my finger and think about my mum. I wish she’d understand me more, like my dad does. He’d understand that I am trying to help. He’d understand that my angels are my way of getting on with things.