Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles Read online

  In the noisy, buzzy bits of the journey, when Julie wasn’t talking, Sue told me she did corporate entertaining – that’s how she met Bert. ‘I meet a lot of men in my line of work,’ she said. She lives in Stockwell and grew up in south Wales. She doesn’t normally go to this sort of gig with Bert but, because it was Valentine’s Day, she had made an exception. Also she was going to Australia for three weeks for her sister’s wedding, so she wasn’t going to see him for a bit. She said I asked a lot of questions and could she ask me one herself? ‘How come you and Julie are friends?’ she said, scrutinizing me. ‘You seem so…’

  ‘Grown-up,’ I finished for her. ‘Yes, a lot of people say that.’

  When we got to the venue, Bert had to go off and do something, and he told us a good place to wait for him, which was to one side of the stage. It was dark, and smelt of stale spilt beer and sweat. When Sue went to get us some Cokes, Julie filled me in on everything that had happened when I was in the bathroom, including the whole ‘’uston’ photograph thing. When Sue came back, I noticed they were both in combats. Julie’s were army and baggy, down by her naval, while Sue’s were satiny and tight. Julie lit up a cigarette then, which was interesting. She wouldn’t do it in front of her uncle, but she did in front of Sue as if to let her know it didn’t count. Oh, and then it got busier and busier and Bert appeared, also, I now realized, in combats (the whole place was in combats), and steered us to the middle, and the noise level began to rise and everyone was shouting and the Electric B’stards started playing and I felt squeezed on every side.

  I wish I could say I loved the Electric B’stards. It would be nice to shepherd in the rebellious teenage years of Connie Pickles. Julie’s face was raised and her eyes were sparkling with excitement – it got so hot, her hair was sticking to her face – but I… I just kept feeling these irresistible yawns beginning at my jaw. Isn’t that awful? And, after a while, I slipped to the back where it was cooler and where the crowd was much looser and found a seat that no one was sitting on and took out the book that I’d smuggled into the pocket of my cagoule. I’m still reading The Blessing. I’ve got to the part where Sigi, the only child of Grace and Charles-Edouard, has managed to split up his parents. I’ve just realized he does the opposite to me – he’s an anti-matchmaker, I’m a matchmaker.

  Afterwards we went for fish and chips on the Fulham Palace Road. Uncle Bert seemed more relaxed once the gig was over. He has a handsome face and longish blond hair which he tosses a lot, but a rather scraggy neck. He gave us T-shirts with ‘Electric B’stards’ written across the back, and we put them on over what we were wearing. Sue seemed jolly too, though I did feel sorry for her sitting in a fish and chip shop with two teenage girls on Valentine’s Night. Uncle Bert didn’t do the thing with her waistband. No candlelight either. In fact, the glaring neon bouncing off the Formica table made her look tired. She was next to me and there was a yellowy dried powder over her face and spots of mascara like tiny, trapped flies in the corner of her eyes. She didn’t look so pretty after all, which made me feel guiltier about what we were doing to her. Particularly as Julie was ignoring her. I kept having to remind myself of Mother, who didn’t meet a lot of men in her line of work.

  I wasn’t eating because when Bert asked if I was hungry, I’d been too polite to say yes and then it would have been too embarrassing to change my mind. I watched Julie’s mouth crunching on delicious crispy batter. She asked me several more pointed questions about Mother and I tried to answer truthfully, but without slipping from The Plan. We had already discussed how important it was to bring out Uncle Bert’s protective instinct to make up for the fact that Mother was saddled with three children. I told them about the leaking tap in the bathroom and the water that comes in through the flat roof on wet nights and Mother’s long hours at work. Julie had been insistent that Uncle Bert discover the nature of Mother’s employment. She said she thought all men were tickled by the idea of fancy underwear. And actually it did seem to stir his interest. He’d just been jogging his knees and doing pretend-drum rolls on the table before then. ‘Belgravia?’ he said. ‘Very exclusive. And does she model what she sells?’ Sue said, ‘Oh, I should pop in one day. I’ve always wanted to be measured,’ and Julie gave her a withering look. It’s true that Sue (like me) is quite flat up top. Then Julie froze her face into a small, bored smile and looked away. I know she was dissing her for Mother’s sake, but I wonder whether she wasn’t also doing it a bit for her own sake too.

  Uncle Bert wanted to give Julie’s mum a call to say we were leaving, but when he felt in his jacket, he couldn’t find his phone! ‘Oh my God, I must have dropped it!’ he said.

  Julie, her eyes as wide as saucers, said she was sure she’d felt it jabbing into her when they were squashed up at the gig.

  ‘It must have fallen out of my pocket, or been nicked,’ he said. He looked at his watch (one of those enormous diving watches). ‘The Palais’ll be closed now. I’ll have to go back tomorrow. Bugger it.’ He frowned, his good mood wiped away.

  When we got in the car Julie squeezed my leg. ‘“Find” it tomorrow,’ she whispered.

  So, here I am now, surrounded by the pure, wiped-clean souls that make up my family. Cyril is busy with his Flags of the World jigsaw. Marie is preening her Barbie Head. Mother is in the garden, in a fetching white T-shirt and cut-off jeans, tackling weeds. Even the cat, skittish because of the wind, is charging in and out of the house as if he didn’t have a care in the world. An innocent chemist is baffling over his valentine card. And I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, up to my neck in sin.

  In front of me is Uncle Bert’s Nokia. And a Fly that thinks it’s a Spider is buzzing through the south London streets towards our web.

  The kitchen counter, five minutes later

  Well, now I feel a total idiot.

  He came. He saw. He took his mobile phone. He left.

  I’ve just rung Julie on her mobile phone. She was shopping in New Look.

  ‘’uston,’ I said. ‘We’ave a problem.’

  ‘Hang on. Let me get out to the pavement. What do you mean?’

  ‘He didn’t stay,’ I told her.

  ‘What do you mean, he didn’t stay?’

  ‘He left the engine running.’

  ‘Where was Bernadette?’

  ‘In the garden.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have called her?’

  ‘Julie. He was blocking the road. He left the car door open.’

  She sighed very heavily. Julie takes disappointment hard. ‘After all that,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  She sighed again. ‘Well, listen. Uncle Bert’s coming round later. Sue’s left for Australia, so he’s on his own. He always comes round to our house for his meals when he’s on his own. He’s probably on his way now. Leave it with me. I’ll think of something. I’m bored stiff today. I’ll ring you later. OK? Don’t do anything. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t move.’

  ‘There’s still The Chemist,’ I said weakly. But she’d hung up.

  So much for all that sin. Turns out we didn’t achieve anything to be ashamed of at all. How shaming is that?

  I think I’ll take Marie and Cyril to the park to absolve intention to sin, and rudeness to William, and all the other things that are weighing on my soul. I might even, as we’re passing, see if there’s anything new in Cancer Research.

  Still Saturday

  5 p.m.

  There was. A dark-blue silk jacket from Agnès b – thread-bare but French! – and a pair of pink OshKosh dungarees that are perfect for Marie. (She only really wears pink.) Cyril set his heart on a light in the shape of the globe, but it wasn’t working and cost the earth.

  At the swings Cyril saw some boys from school and I tried to make him go up and play football with them, but he said he wanted to stay with us. Marie held my hand, and we sat on the bench together and had one of those impromptu bonding conversations about burial versus cremation. She said, ‘Jesus was buried, but when
they rolled back the stone, he had got up again, hadn’t he? Did he get cremated then?’

  Cyril said, ‘No, silly. He lived forever and ever. For eternity’

  Marie looked at us both. ‘Whoa,’ she said simply.

  On the way home we went by the chemist’s. I thought I’d buy some Neutrogena T/Gel Anti-Dandruff Shampoo as we were passing. As a hint. On the way in, I saw again the ad for a vacancy. It read: ‘VACANCY. Reliable Assistant, Saturdays Only. Enquire within.’ A Saturday girl! Money. Proximity to our prey. It was like a light bulb going on above my head. I’d failed with Bert, but here was my chance to redeem myself with Julie.

  John Leakey was at the till. The shop was empty. I didn’t really know I was going to say it until I did.

  I said, ‘Some Neutrogena T/Gel Anti-Dandruff Shampoo for my mother, please. And, um… are you looking for someone for Saturdays?’

  He looked up from his paper. ‘Hello. You’re the worm girl.’

  ‘I saw the ad. I just wondered.’

  Marie was spinning round the display of hairgrips. Cyril was standing by my side.

  ‘Hmmm,’ The Chemist said. ‘We are actually. Are you interested?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re sixteen?’

  I hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you have any retail experience?’

  ‘No. But I’m eager to learn.’

  He considered me for a moment. ‘And will you be willing to share with the customers your experience of night itching?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘If that’s what’s needed.’

  He gave a shout of a laugh. And when we walked out five minutes later, he’d given me a try-out for next week. I made us all run down the street. He is offering five pounds an hour. Eight hours a day. Eight times five equals forty. Forty pounds a week! What we could all do with that! I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Mother. And ring Julie.

  I forgot all about it when I reached the house. Jack’s van was parked outside, and inside I could hear banging in the bathroom. He must be trying to mend the leaking tap. Delilah had dropped in to tell me all about the youth club’s Valentine’s Night and hadn’t yet found her way home, and… next to each other on the sofa, facing Mother and Delilah, were Julie and Uncle Bert.

  I stood there in the doorway, The Chemist forgotten. Uncle Bert was looking serious and Julie – Julie’s face bore the signs of recent tumultuous tears, which is to say streaked blue mascara and swollen lips.

  Mother leapt to her feet when she saw me. ‘Constance!’ she shrieked. ‘Your poor friend… How could you be so t’oughtless?’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What?’

  Julie sniffed. ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled into her sleeve.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I said.

  Uncle Bert stood up, rearranging his jeans. ‘It’s cool,’ he said. ‘No worries. You’re here now. Safe and sound. All right, chickacheet?’ he said to Julie.

  She nodded, looking down at the floor.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I said again. But I knew it was a scam now. Julie never looks at the floor in case she misses anything.

  Everyone glared at me as if I were the Devil Incarnate. Typical. When I had begun to think my sins were absolved. I even heard Delilah tut. (But then she doesn’t like Julie, so that could have meant anything.)

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  This is her story She said she’d been due to meet me in the King’s Road at 2 p.m. When I didn’t show up she was stuck because the night before she’d given me her purse to look after and I hadn’t given it back. She only had enough money to get there, not enough to go home. She kept ringing me, but our phone was engaged, so finally she’d rung her mum, and Uncle Bert, who was in her kitchen having lunch, agreed to come and pick her up. She’d been so worried about her purse and her dear missing friend Constance that he said he’d bring her round to my house to see me for herself. And then I wasn’t in (Julie took her eyes off the floor to glare at me), but my kind, kind, beautiful mother had made them some tea.

  My kind, kind, beautiful mother said, ‘Constance. I am appalled at you.’

  ‘I forgot,’ I said.

  It was a shame Delilah was there because when Julie came upstairs ‘to get her purse’, she trotted up too and we couldn’t really talk. I made a ridiculous kerfuffle about stuffing nothing in Julie’s back pocket and promising never to be so t’oughtless again. I told them both about the try-out at the chemist’s – Julie said ‘good girl’ – and then the two of them exchanged spiky sort of competitive words about who had had the nicest Friday night. I don’t know why they don’t like each other; I suppose they’re so different. Julie said the Electric B’stards were mind-blowing. Delilah said pitch and putt had been ‘like, a total riot’, that she had been ‘like, totally wasted’.

  I asked if William had gone. She said, laughing privately to herself, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. The boys were all just, like, totally mad and put the girls’ balls down their trousers.’

  ‘Très amusant,’ said I.

  Delilah went to the loo and Julie and I managed to have a quick confab. I felt a bit cross about being in trouble with everyone, but I had to admire her ingenuity. In the car over, she’d told Bert that Mother was very fussy about men.

  ‘Fussy?’ I said.

  ‘You know, thrill of the chase and all that,’ she replied.

  When we got downstairs again Mother and Uncle Bert were sitting quite close to each other, but they were only talking about the congestion charge. Jack, who’s a big man with a lot of hair, was standing in the doorway, looking fat, proprietorial and fishy – literally and metaphorically. Marie and Cyril were bouncing around trying to get Jack’s attention, but it was the other conversation Jack was trying to get in on. ‘Yep,’ he kept saying, on a sniff ‘Yep. It’s small businesses like mine you have to worry about.’

  Something about the presence of Jack seemed to make Uncle Bert particularly charming. He was looking at Mother in a funny way His eyes seemed to be focused on her hair. They got on to the French language. He’d always meant to learn. He’d love to live in Paris one day (sharp intake of breath from me). That lovely French food. He asked if she’d tried Chez Pierre in the high street. ‘Once,’ she said. ‘But it would be so, so, so nice to go again.’

  Beyond them in the garden, I could see that the fork she had dug into the earth when she’d been gardening earlier had fallen backwards. Prongs up, it looked lethal, like a trap.

  Julie and Uncle Bert had to get back. I did lots of apologizing at the door – to Julie and to Uncle Bert for putting him out – so we were still standing there when Mr Spence jogged up. God, that man gets everywhere. Mother smiled vaguely at him, her hand half raised as if to say ‘just a minute’. She seemed to beam all the more shinily at Uncle Bert, telling him he was ‘a ver’, ver’, ver’ kind man’. Uncle Bert got all brisk and just said, ‘Any time.’

  As they drove off, Julie put her face to the passenger window and waved. There was some new ingredient in the smile she gave me. Oh, I know, pure wickedness.

  Sunday 16 February

  1 p.m.

  Back from church and the phone’s just rung. Mother’s taken it into the garden, which is suspicious. I can hear her giggling. Very Interesting.

  1.10 p.m.

  ‘Who was that?’ I just asked her.

  ‘No one,’ she said. ‘No one important.’

  1.45 p.m.

  William’s been round. He still hasn’t found his hamster. He said his dad’s probably drunk it.

  ‘How was the pitch and putt?’ I asked. ‘I hear you stuffed your balls down the girls’ trousers?’ Apparently, I’d got it wrong. They’d been stuffing the girls’ balls down their own trousers. ‘I see,’ I said. ‘An altogether more sophisticated soirée.’

  ‘You,’ he said, tweaking up his hair in the mirror above my bed, ‘can bugger right off I could smell something floral, like he’s started using gel.

  I’ve just rung Julie. She said
Uncle Bert asked her questions about Mother all the way home.

  2 p.m.

  Mother has moved the chair into the middle of the sitting room, so she can see her reflection in the mirror. She’s trying on clothes.

  She’s run herself a bath. It’s not even three o’clock in the afternoon.

  6.30 p.m.

  Jack’s come round to babysit. ‘I didn’t know Mother was going out?’ I said.

  ‘Nor did I,’ he answered.

  The house smells of rose and geranium.

  7 p.m

  Mother has vacated the building. She says she’s meeting her friend Carol. I don’t believe her. I said, ‘Mother. I need to know where you are going. For security reasons.’

  She laughed. ‘I won’t be late,’ she said. ‘It’s not far.’

  ‘Where isn’t?’ I said.

  ‘Chez Pierre,’ she said. ‘In the high street.’

  11.30 p.m.

  I fell asleep. I meant to stay awake to see who dropped her home. The house is dark and silent. I’ll tiptoe down to see if I can find any evidence.

  11.33 p.m.

  I’m back. Mother’s asleep – alone – on the sofa bed. There are no coffee mugs, no long blond hairs. But her jacket’s on the banisters and you couldn’t miss it. The sweet, unmistakable smell of cKone.

  Friday 21 February

  The bathroom

  Julie and I, the cleverest fourteen-year-olds on the planet, have pulled off the matchmake of the century. In one week. Her uncle – the interestingly scented Bert – is going out with my mother. Sorted. Dealt with. Done.

  They say it’s just French lessons. Yeah, right.

  So why am I not happy? Why aren’t I cracking open the champagne bottles and dusting down my passport?

  I can’t put my finger on it. It’s less than a week since Mother and Uncle Bert went to Chez Pierre, so it’s early days. It’s not like they’re getting married tomorrow or anything. I just feel guilty. This evening when she was getting ready Mother seemed so excited – she’d bought a new jumper specially – and I felt rather sheepish, as if I’d been cheating in an exam.