Red Ink (12 page)

People joke about wearing clean underwear just in case you get knocked over. Not funny. I picture that plastic bag of clothes quite a lot – I can’t help it – her things soaked with blood. I imagine it like that see-through sack of guts they give you when you buy a Christmas turkey from the butcher.

Why does everyone who passes the tanned girl in the song say ‘
ahhh
’? Why does she make everyone feel so sad? It makes no sense.

Paul has thankfully stopped shimmying. He’s taking more clothes out of the wardrobe, folding them on the bed. Mum and Paul must have done it on this bed. I never heard them. Thank God. But they must have. They could have been as loud as they liked. I always stayed over at Chick’s house when Paul spent the night. Or rather Mum only invited him when she knew I wouldn’t be here. I never even saw them kiss. I think Mum knew I didn’t approve, or maybe she thought I needed protecting from the truth.

Now the tanned girl is ignoring all the people who are smiling at her. What is the tanned girl’s problem, for God’s sake?

Mum said in her will that all her stuff was to go to charity – except for anything that Paul or I wanted. Nothing much fits me, not even her shoes, so it’s all going into the bin bags. Off to charity. Only the burgundy dress will stay, because it’s still in the wash basket in my room.

It suddenly occurs to me that loads of the clothes in charity shops belong to dead people. Creepy. Those vintagey dresses that Elaine Wilkie and her lot are always wearing, they probably came from some dead granny’s wardrobe. That’s what the smell of charity shops is – the smell of death. Mum’s clothes still have the fir cone pong of moth killer but maybe they’ll start to take on a new smell away from the house.

I’ve done all the pants and don’t know what to do with them. The bag for the bin? I watched a documentary once about how you could take absolutely anything to the charity shop, even pants. They send it all to a big central warehouse and find a use for everything. Bras are valuable, apparently. They’re expensive to make – all that wire and foam. They send them to Africa and sell them to market traders. The pants get shredded up and turned into cushion and pillow stuffing. I’m not sure what’s worse: wearing someone’s second-hand pants or knowing that you’re resting your face on a pillow full of shredded gussets. I shove all of Mum’s pants into the bag for the bin. Paul watches me out of the corner of his eye, but says nothing.

A saxophone is jazzing over the top of the slurring woman.

Paul’s finished with the wardrobe and is going through Mum’s jewellery box. Nothing of any value in there. When I was little, I asked to see Yia-Yia’s old necklaces and rings from Crete, but Mum said she didn’t have anything. I thought this was strange. What did she do with all of Yia-Yia’s jewellery after she died. Sell it?

I’ll put the bras in the charity bag. Mum would have liked the idea of them going on a long-haul holiday to Africa. She has hundreds of bras – lacy, padded, push-up. I hope African ladies like that sort of thing. Underneath the bras I find a small, square, yellow photo album with a 1970s print of a flower on the cover. It’s big enough to hold a picture per page slipped into plastic sleeves. I’ve never seen this album before. Mum was never really into taking photos. There is one other photo album in the house. It’s on the bookshelf in the living room. The first picture in the book is of my first day at school. Then there are odd pictures of me from each year after that. There are no pictures of me any younger than four. I’ve never seen a picture of me as a baby. This used to make me think I was adopted, but no one would ever have given a baby to my mum when she was only sixteen years old. Maybe I’m stolen.

I open the photo album from the underwear drawer. I’m expecting Mum to walk in any minute and tell me off for poking around. Although I actually think Mum would have liked me to have been more of a snooper – you know, pinch her earrings, borrow her lipstick, that kind of thing. I did it when I was a little kid. I used to wobble about in her shoes, drown myself in her dresses. But once I was grown up I was never interested in her stuff.

The first picture in the yellow photo album is of Granbabas. He looks younger than I’ve ever known him, although his hair is still silver. He’s sitting in a wicker chair, smiling. I never saw him that happy in real life. On the next page there is a picture of Mum. I’m sure it’s her, although she must be only seven or eight. She looks the same as she did as an adult – same long hair – but her top front teeth are all gappy. She’s standing in a dusty yard. She’s pulling a face at the camera. Standing in the background is a serious woman who looks similar to Mum. My
yia-yia
? I don’t know. I only have a picture of her in my head based on The Story. The real Yia-Yia doesn’t match up with my imaginary photograph. The real one looks harder, more cross.

The next picture jumps in time. Mum looks about fourteen or fifteen in this one. She’s in the middle of the shot and has one arm around the shoulder of a skinny boy who looks the same age as her. My heart bobs into my throat. Christos Drakakis?

My dad is Christos Drakakis, and my name is Melon Drakaki – how do you do?

I look into his eyes and try to feel some sort of connection, a piece of thread. Nothing. Mum’s other arm is reaching around the shoulder of an older, taller boy. Although it’s an awkward position, it also looks like a really comfortable thing for Mum to be doing. Her body is relaxed, slouching towards him, confident. The older boy is sneering with his smile, almost snarling. He is familiar. I am trying to work out what it is that makes me think that I know him. Then, I realise. He looks like me.

The slurring woman is singing a new song now, double-fast, about a girl called Maria whose Papa is telling her to go to bed but she goes out hugging and kissing instead.

“What you got there?”

“Nothing.” I snap the album shut. I don’t want Paul to see it. It’s nothing to do with him.

“Photos?”

“Yeah, me and Mum. I’m going to keep this.” I hold it hard against my chest.

“Fine, fine, that’s fine.”

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

Paul ignores me. He’s already cooking up the next thing he wants to say,
umming
and
ahhing
his way into it. He always does that when he has an announcement that he thinks is important. He likes building up his part.

“I’m, errrr . . .” Paul is toying with a small piece of jewellery in his fingers. “I’m going to take this back.” He points the thing at me quickly, then pulls it away again, like he didn’t really want me to see it. It catches the light, then disappears into his fist. He opens his hand, looks down at the thing, closes his hand, opens it. Pink palms. On the back of his hand the skin is dark, smooth, airbrushed. He wants me to see what he’s holding. He wants me to say something. This feels like a trap.

“What is it?”

“The ring. It was my grandmother’s, so I think . . .”

Bingo. He’s crying. His mouth stretches into a strange grimace. His shoulders shake.

“Why did Mum have your grandmother’s ring?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, it sounds like the most stupid question in the world. It’s the diamond ring Mum is wearing in that laughing photo in the dining room. There would be only one reason for Mum having that ring. Paul looks up at me, his eyes red and wet. He looks as stunned as I am.

“Your mum never said that we were going to . . .”

“No.”

“Melon, that’s not . . . I’m sure she had a reason for not . . .”

The slurring woman is all out of tune now, demanding we give her a call.

“Who cares,” I say. I head for the door. I’ve had enough. “I don’t want to do this any more.”

“Melon.”

“What?”

“Ahhhmmm . . .” Paul is brewing up another speech. I don’t want to hear it, but he’s so upset I feel I have to listen.

“Ummm, do you want to know how it happened?”

“No!” I squeak. I don’t want to hear about him taking her on the London Eye or to Primrose Hill or wherever and getting down on one knee. He could have abseiled down the Eiffel Tower with a box of chocolates for all I care.

“I mean, how Maria . . . how your mum died.”

Oh.

“I know how she died,” I say. “A bus.”

“Details, I mean. It’s just occurred to me, just now, that no one has been telling you much, the whole story.”

“I don’t need details.”

I try to leave again.

“I thought it might help,” Paul calls after me. “It might stop you from being so angry.”

I spin round in the doorway and glare at him. “Who’s angry?”

“You seem very angry, with your mum.”

“No.”

“She didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know that.”

“It was an accident. The people who saw it happen said she was looking for something in her bag. Cigarettes probably. Or something. She stepped out and . . .”

“I said I didn’t want details.”

I reach for the back of my head and remember that the ponytail has gone. Just tight coils of hair. Paul won’t shut up.

“She was in a rush, as usual. She was late to meet me and . . . She wasn’t paying attention to the road.”

“I said I didn’t want to know.”

“She thought the world of you, Melon.”

I spit air. I can’t believe that Paul is spouting this rubbish.

“Everything was for you.” He’s pushing me to say something nice about Mum.

“Nothing was for me,” I mutter.

“She wanted to be your best friend.”

“I didn’t need another best friend.”

“What did you need?”

The words come out my mouth without me thinking them first. “A mum.”

It takes all I’ve got not to cry. Not sad tears, angry ones. But I don’t want Paul to see even those.

“Yes, a mum.” He is nodding, all knowing.

“I said I don’t want to do this any more.”

“Okay.” Paul places a palm on his forehead. He’s run out of speeches. “Is there anything you want to keep?” He gestures round the room.

“No.” I tap the yellow album in my hand. “Just this.”

The slurring woman is demanding that we call her again, that we trust her.

I go to my room.

I’m nine and a half years old and I’m sitting on a bus.

“Where are we going?” I ask Mum.

There is plenty of room on the bottom deck, but Mum insists we sit upstairs.

“Auntie Eleni’s washateria.”

“Who’s Auntie Eleni?”

“Your auntie. My auntie. You know this.”

I do know this. I’m just trying to get Mum to stop being silent.

“What’s a washateria?”

“A shop that is full of washing machines.”

“Are we going to buy a washing machine?”

“No.”

The lady in front turns around to smile at me. Maybe she remembers what it’s like to have your mum get snappy with you.

Mum hasn’t been herself lately, not since she came back from Crete. She talks about Granbabas all the time, even though it’s two months now since he died. She says he had a good life and he’s lucky his heart held out this long and it is the fate of everyone in the Fourakis family to die young, so we shouldn’t be sad. Still the same stuff over and over. Mum moans about how English people go on about the weather all the time instead of saying something interesting. She’s just as bad.

I still don’t know what Mum is really sad about, if it’s not Granbabas. I’m pretty sure she’s sad about something.

“We are here.” Mum elbows me in the ribs. I’ve wiped a hole in the misted-up window so I can try and work out where ‘here’ is. Mum presses the buzzer that tells the driver to stop and starts walking while the bus is still moving, which means I have to follow. I bump into people’s shoulders and nearly fall down the stairs. Mum doesn’t do any bumping, she stays steady, grabbing one pole then the next, like a monkey swinging through the trees. Mum likes buses. When she’s on one, she ignores it, if you know what I mean, pretends it’s no bother. I find buses scary. You have to watch what’s going on all the time – the other passengers, the traffic outside, getting off at the right stop. I like tubes best.

When we get onto the pavement, the doors shut behind us and the bus does that loud
psss-shuh
noise that always makes me jump even though I know it’s coming. The bus chugs away. Mum starts scrabbling around in her bag for a cigarette. She hasn’t even turned around to check if I got off okay. I could be still on the bus and halfway to another bit of London by now. That’s another thing I don’t like about buses, you could end up anywhere.

“Where are we, Mum?”

Her hands are really shivery when she lights the cigarette even though it’s not that cold. The sun’s out.

“Kentish Town.”

“From The Story?”

“No. Yes, yes.”

She takes my hand and yanks me along the pavement. She still hasn’t looked to check I’m there. She could be pulling along a complete stranger and she would have no clue.

Mum is sucking hard on her cigarettes today. Her cheeks go in all the way. Her lips scrunch right up so that they look like Kojak’s bum. We walk fast past newsagents and cafés and charity shops. No one else is rushing like us. We stand out. Twice we almost crash into people standing on the street. We stop outside a big glass window with a door in the middle – a shop full of washing machines. The Papadakis Washateria. From The Story.

Through the window I can see a fat woman folding sheets at the back of the shop. I’m ready to go inside and say hello nicely, like you should when you meet a new person. Mum is stood like a statue on the pavement. She’s staring at the fat woman the same way we stare at the headmaster, Mr Carling, if he ever comes into our classroom. We’re terrified that one of us is in trouble, but we’re also secretly hoping for good news.

Mum turns to me and actually looks at me for the first time all day. She takes one big, last suck on her cigarette, drops it and screws it into the floor with her toe. She is wearing proper lady shoes, with heels. She’s got on the smart dress she wears when she goes to court with one of the teenagers from her work. Today is Saturday. No work today. No court.

Mum licks her fingers and starts pressing down my hair even though it wasn’t wonky in the first place. She really pushes down, trying to straighten the curls. When she’s done, she stops to admire her work, but looks disappointed. She sighs. She takes a big breath, she turns and opens the door to the washateria.