The Illustrated Mum (18 page)

I expected Marigold to yell a whole load of abuse. But she didn't say a word. Her eyes looked dazed. She turned and picked her way toward the door in her bare feet.

“Look at those black soles! You'll make marks all over the carpet,” said Mrs. Luft.

Marigold didn't seem to be listening.

“
I
want my mum. She's the best mum in the whole world,” I said.

“What rubbish. I heard what you were saying, how she hits you. When the pair of you have been screaming I've had it in mind to phone the welfare people.”

“You mustn't! Please don't. There's nothing wrong. Marigold's never hit me, ever ever ever,” I said. “Don't tell anyone, please.”

Mrs. Luft folded her arms triumphantly.

“We'll have to see, won't we?” she said. “Look, it's for your own good.”

“Marigold! Tell her. Tell her you've never done anything to me. I made up some stuff but I didn't mean it.
Marigold!
”

Marigold was already halfway upstairs so I ran after her. I pulled at her arm.

“Marigold, we have to tell her everything's fine. We can't have her phoning any welfare people, can we?”

“Why not?” Marigold said, her voice sounding flat and far away.

“Because they might put me in a home!”

“Maybe you'd be better off,” said Marigold. “That old bat was right. I'm not a fit mother.”

“Yes you are!” I argued.

I tried to cuddle up close to her when we were back in the flat. I held her tight but I still couldn't get close enough. I pulled her arms round me but after a few seconds they flopped to her sides. I begged her to talk to me but the voice she replied in didn't seem to belong to her. Her eyes were dull and dark, barely green.

“Do you want to go back to bed?” I said. “You look ever so tired.”

She went to bed obediently and closed her eyes at once. I leant over her and kissed her on the forehead.

“I said some stupid stuff about you but it was just to make Star come back,” I whispered.

Marigold didn't reply but a tear trickled beneath one of her eyelids.

“I think I'll go to bed too,” I said.

I huddled up in my strange lonely room. I played games inside my head, pretending I had discovered a secret time machine. If I touched a special stud on my mattress I hurtled forward ten years and grew willowy and beautiful with long thick hair down to my waist.
Not fair like Star. Red like Marigold? No, as I got older my mousey hair would darken and I'd be raven black at twenty, with my own green eyes outlined with sooty lashes. I'd have clear white skin with just one exquisite secret tattoo on my shoulder, a little black witch. I'd have a nose stud too, an emerald to match my eyes, but I'd take it out at work and wear sleeves and tie my long black hair into a chic twirl on top. I'd wear black jeans and a black smock and have my own magical hair salon where I'd invent wonderful exotic styles for very special people. I'd adorn hair with flowers and little crystals and beadwork, I'd dye it fantasy shades of purple and turquoise and sky blue, I'd cut and color and crimp all day while models and rock stars and fashion editors fawned all over me and famous photographers recorded my creations.

I'd be taken out by a different dynamic man every single night of the week and I'd allow them to buy me food and flowers and fine wines, but then I'd go home to my beautiful stylish designer flat, silver and black with a mirror ball revolving in each ceiling so that sparkles of light glimmered in every room. Star and Marigold would be there, desperate to please me. If I wasn't too tired I'd maybe be persuaded to style their hair or paint a nail polish design on their fingertips. They'd be so grateful to me and they'd beg me to promise to stay with them forever and ever. …

I fell asleep dreaming this and then kept half waking
in the night, not sure whether I was still dreaming or not. I thought I heard Marigold in the kitchen, but when I stumbled in there myself to get a glass of water there was no sign of her. I drank a lot, the glass clinking against my teeth. My tummy rumbled and I remembered I hadn't had any tea. I wondered if I should try to eat something now but the smell of paint was making me feel sick. It seemed stronger than ever, harsh in my nostrils, making my eyes water.

I needed to go to the bathroom after gulping down all the water. I opened the door and saw a white ghost in the moonlight. A ghost. Really there. Glowing eerily white.

I screamed.

The ghost gasped too.

I knew that sound. I knew that smell.

I pulled the light cord and stared at the white figure before me.

“Marigold?”

I couldn't believe what I saw. She was white all over. Even part of her hair. Her neck, her arms, her bare body, her legs. She'd painted herself white with the gloss paint. There were frantic white splotches all over her body, covering each and every tattoo, although the larger darker ones showed through her new white skin like veins.

I put out my hand to touch her, to see if it was real.

“No. Don't. Not dry yet,” said Marigold. “Not dry. Wet. So I can't sit down. I can't lie down. I can't. But that's OK. It will dry and so will I. And then I'll be right. I'll be white. I'll be a good mother and a good girlfriend and Micky will bring Star back and we'll be together forever and ever, a family, my family, and it will be all right, it will, it will, I will it, it has to be better. It couldn't be worse, this is a curse. But it will be better better better, no more tattoos, Star hated them, she hated me, but now they're gone, until the laser, could I use a razor? No, too red, I want white, pure light, that's right. …”

She went on and on muttering weird half rhymes to herself. I stood shivering beside her. She had gone really mad now. Crazy. Bonkers. Bats.

I ran the bath with hot water but she wouldn't get in. I tried scrubbing at her with a washcloth but she started screaming. I hung on her ghostly arm and tried to pull her to bed but she stood rigidly, her white feet tensed on the cold linoleum tiles as if they'd taken root. I was scared to leave her by herself as I had no idea what she'd do next. I eventually emptied the bath, dried it with her towel and then curled up inside it with my head on my own towel. It was like being in an iron cradle and I didn't see how I could ever sleep, with my mad mother palely luminous in the dark. I dozed off when it was starting to get light and then woke with a start, banging my head against the tap. She was still there, swaying slightly, her eyes closed.

“Marigold?”

She opened her eyes. They looked glazed.

“Marigold, please.” I struggled out of the bath and took hold of her white shoulders. “Are you asleep?”

Her eyes blinked but she didn't focus on me.

“Let's get it all off you now,” I said.

It looked much worse in the daylight. Even her eyelashes were painted like snowy mascara and there were swirls of it inside the delicate skin of her ear.

“Oh, Marigold, what have you
done
? It's gone all over. What if it makes you go blind or deaf? It's dangerous. Oh please, let's get it off you quick.”

I was shaking, wondering how I could have been so stupid just to leave her like that half the night. It had been almost like a dream but now it was horribly real. I was so scared I had to use the loo right in front of her because my whole insides had turned to water. She didn't seem to notice.

As soon as I could I ran the bath again. She was still so stiff I couldn't make her step inside. I scrubbed at her where she stood but it was useless. I only got rid of a few flakes of paint.

I scrabbled desperately in the cupboard under the sink and found an old bottle of turpentine. I poured some on a cloth and started scrubbing at her foot. She flinched at each stroke. The white still wouldn't come off properly but where some of it was streaking her
own skin was burning scarlet. I didn't know if it was because of the turpentine. I could be hurting her even more.

“I don't know what to do,” I said. “Tell me what to do, Marigold. Please, please.”

Her lips moved as if she were whispering but no sound came out.

“Does it hurt? Look, I'll wash the turpentine off. I'm so scared it's burning you.” I washed her foot over and over again, until she was standing in a large puddle. The paint was still an ugly white smear, the skin very red underneath apart from a dark patch by her toe. I started, terrified it was something awful like gangrene but then I saw a tiny webbed hand and I remembered the little green frog tattooed between her big toe and her first toe.

She quivered when I touched it. Her lips moved again.

“What? I can't hear you. Can you try louder?”

I straightened up and stood on tiptoe, trying to get up to her level. I stared at her mouth but it didn't make any recognizable shapes of words. I looked at her eyes. I saw how frightened she was too.

“I'm going to get help,” I said. “You come and lie down in bed.”

She still wouldn't move so I wrapped her up in a towel. Then I kissed her poor crazy white face and ran out of the room. Out of the flat, down the stairs. Not
Mrs. Luft. No. Out the front door, down the road, to the corner and the shops. Any of the shopkeepers? No. All the way to school‘and Oliver? Maybe Mr. Harrison? No.

“What am I going to do? Oh Star, why aren't you here, you mean hateful pig? I need you so. I don't know what to
do
.”

I knew what to do. I knew it was the only thing to do. But I felt I was betraying Marigold as I stood in the phone box and dialed the three numbers.

“Emergency?”

“Yes. Yes, it is an emergency,” I said. “I think I need an ambulance.”

I was connected to someone else who started asking me questions.

“This person's covered in paint,” I said. “It won't come off. No, it's not my little brother or sister. It's my mum. No, she can't come in herself. She … she can't move. She's sort of stuck. And she won't speak to me anymore. I'm scared she maybe can't hear because the paint's in her ears and everywhere. We live at Flat B, 35 Beacon Road. Please. Will you come?”

I put the phone down and then raced back home. I pounded up the stairs and through the door. Marigold was in the bathroom, standing like a marble statue. I threw myself at her, nearly toppling us both onto the floor.

“Oh, Marigold. Quick, we have to get you dressed.
They're coming. I'm sorry, I know you'll be so mad at me, but the paint's all over you and it's got to be cleaned off. Look at your poor eyes, your poor ears. But once they've done that it'll be all over and you can come back and I'll look after you. We'll be OK, you and me, but you just have to go to get the paint off. Please don't be cross with me. I know you hate hospitals.”

As soon as I said the word she started quivering. She didn't say anything, she didn't push me away, she didn't try to get dressed. She just shook all over.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” I sobbed. I ran to get clothes for her but it was going to be too much of a struggle to get her arms and legs in and out of things so I ended up maneuvering her trembly arms into her dressing gown and tying it tight round her painted body. I knew she wouldn't be able to manage her own high heels so I got an old pair of sneakers of Star's. They were a size too small but I managed to wedge Marigold's smeared white feet into them.

Then, before I had time to make any kind of proper plan, there was a knock at the front door.

“I'll have to go to let them in. We don't want Mrs. Luft gawping,” I said. “Oh, Marigold. Don't shake. It will all be all right, I swear it will. They'll just get the paint off and then you can come back home.”

Marigold looked into my eyes. I felt as if I'd stabbed her through the heart.

“I
had
to,” I said, and then I ran to open the door. There were two ambulance people, a man and a woman.

“She's upstairs,” I whispered, but as they came into the hallway Mrs. Luft opened her door and peered out, curlers clamped to her head like little metal caterpillars. Her mouth opened when she saw the uniform.

“Oh my lord, what's that crazy woman done now?” she asked the air in front of her.

The ambulance people took no notice. As we went up our flight of stairs the woman patted me on the shoulder.

“Don't worry, poppet,” she said cheerily.

She didn't start when she saw my poor mad mother covered in paint.

“Right, dear. We'll soon get you cleaned up. You come with us. Would you like to walk? We can carry you in our chair if you'd sooner?”

Marigold's eyes swiveled but she said nothing. The woman put her hand gently on her elbow. She tried to urge Marigold forward. Nothing happened.

“Come on, now. We don't want to have to haul you about, my love, especially not in front of your little girl.” The ambulance lady looked at me. “What about you, chum? Is there anyone to look after you?”

I thought quickly. If I said no then she'd get in touch with the social services and I'd be put in a home.

“Oh yes,” I said. “Yes, there's someone to look after me.”

I didn't sound terribly convincing. The ambulance people exchanged glances.

“My dad,” I said.

They looked relieved.

“Where's Dad now?” the woman persisted.

“Oh, he's at work. On his shift. He'll be home any minute,” I said, the lying getting easier.

I looked at Marigold. I wasn't sure she was taking in what I was saying. She was still shaking badly. Her face twitched when I reached up to kiss her.

“I love you,” I whispered.

I wanted her to say it back. I wanted her to put her painted arms round me and hug me tight. I wanted her to step out of her sickness and tell them that I'd never so much as set eyes on my father. I wanted her to tell them that she couldn't leave me all on my own.

Her green eyes looked at me but she didn't say a word.

The ambulance people gave up trying to coax her and strapped her into the chair. Her dressing gown fell apart so that her white breasts shone in full view.

“Let's get you decent, dear,” said the ambulance lady, tucking the dressing gown over her and up round her chin. It was as if Marigold had shrunk into babyhood.

They carried her out of the room, down the stairs, along the hall. I followed them to the front door. Mrs. Luft was still lurking. When she saw the state of Marigold she hissed with excitement.