2

She’ll be home tonight

ROY WOKE FUZZILY, clawing his way out of a bad dream. He couldn’t remember properly what the dream was about, but it was something to do with running; running in fear, and screaming. By the time he was fully awake he had forgotten even that much, and was just glad to be out of the horrible dream which wasn’t true after all.

Then he felt it; the all-too-familiar coldness and clamminess, where the seat of his pyjamas stuck to him. With a sick heart, but hoping against hope, he put his hand down to feel the sheet – but this was no dream, there was no escaping this one. He had done it again.

Hot with shame, and quickly to get it over, he stumbled into his sister’s room. ‘I wet the bed,’ he told her, miserably.

Nicky stirred, and muttered into the pillow, and humped herself over. ‘What? What did you say?’

‘You heard.’ He had a habit of twisting his fingers, weaving them together like basketry. ‘I can’t help it. It comes when I’m asleep; I can’t help it.’

Nicky sat up and glared. ‘You’re a nuisance, Roy Mitchell, that’s what you are! Now you give me all the trouble to wash your sheets! You don’t think of that, do you? What you want to wet the bed for, when Mum’s away and I got to do everything?’

‘She didn’t ought to go away,’ said Roy. ‘It’s not fair.’

‘Don’t be so selfish. She’s got to have some fun.’

Roy knew he was selfish because Nicky was always telling him about it. But when you didn’t have very much you had to hold on to things really tight. If you gave things away, or shared them, there wouldn’t be enough left.

‘Why couldn’t she take me as well, then? I bet there’s room in that caravan. Why couldn’t they take me?’

‘You’re too young to understand,’ said Nicky.

‘I’m ten. Almost.’

‘Well people would mostly think you’re eight, to look at you. And if they know what you do,’ she added cruelly, ‘if they know what you do sometimes, they’d think you were one. . . . Anyway, you are going to the seaside, aren’t you? You’re going to Easthaven with the school, aren’t you, we’re all going. Don’t be so greedy, to want to go to the seaside twice!’

Nicky pegged out the sheets and pyjamas on the line, watched through the garden fence by the disapproving eyes of old Mrs Williams. ‘Washing on a Sunday!’ said Mrs Williams, sniffing through her long thin nose. Her voice was harsh, and cracked, and not very pleasant.

‘Don’t you start,’ said Nicky. ‘We get enough of criticizing from over the other side.’

‘I was talking to myself,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘You weren’t supposed to be listening.’

‘Am I supposed to be deaf then?’ said Nicky.

‘You’re a very rude little girl,’ said Mrs Williams.

‘Good!’ said Nicky. She hoisted the line and went indoors. ‘Roy! Where are you? What you doing sneaking off to watch telly when you haven’t finished the potatoes yet? All right, all right, I’ll do them. You can go and get ready for Sunday School now, you know how long it takes you to do everything!’

‘Oh, not Sunday School. Do we have to?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not fair. I don’t like Sunday School.’

‘Bad luck,’ said Nicky. She knew very well why Roy didn’t like Sunday School, or ordinary school for that matter, but she pretended not to. ‘Go on, go upstairs and put on your better clothes. It’s nearly time to go.’

She opened the refrigerator, and took out the small joint of meat she had bought herself from Safeway, yesterday. They always had roast dinner on Sundays, it was the one good meal of the week. Sometimes they had it late in the day, because Mum wanted a lie-in, but they never missed it out. Mum had left twenty pounds, before she went off, for Saturday meals and Sunday roast, and something called ‘emergencies’. It seemed an enormous amount of money at the time; but, amazingly, nearly ten pounds had disappeared already, so Nicky thought the other ten had better be kept for ‘emergencies’, whatever they were.

Nicky was delighted to have the chance of cooking roast dinner all by herself. Mum needn’t think she was the only one who could do it properly. She put the meat in a roasting pan, arranged the peeled potatoes round it, and drenched the lot in oil, just as she’d seen Mum do. Easy peasy, nothing to it! She lit the oven, and set the meal to cook.

‘And don’t forget,’ Nicky said to Roy, ‘don’t forget when we’re in Sunday School, you haven’t got to say one word that our mum is away! You haven’t got to let anybody guess, else she’s going to get in trouble.’

‘I know, I know!’ said Roy.

Outside the door they saw that Mrs Williams had moved from the back of her house to the front. Her thin bent figure was in its favourite position, leaning over the gate; her sharp eyes darted up and down the street, anxious not to miss anything.

‘Bye, Mum!’ called Nicky loudly. ‘See you when we get back!’

‘I’ll bet she’s not out of bed yet, even!’ Mrs Williams muttered at her hedge.

‘I heard that,’ said Nicky.

Mrs Williams gave the hedge a malicious little smile.

‘If you must know,’ said Nicky, ‘if you must know, our mum is cooking the dinner for us. She is busy cooking it now. Do you know what we’re going to have for dinner? We’re going to have roast beef, see? Roast beef, got it? Make sure you have it right because I’m sure it must be very interesting to you what we have to eat. We call you Polly Pry in our house, you know.’

‘You’re going to cut yourself with that tongue one of these days,’ said Mrs Williams, going so red you could even see the flush on her scalp, through the skimpy fluffed-out hair.

Nicky shrieked with fiendish laughter.

Walking ahead of Nicky and Roy, going to Sunday School because their mother sent them, were Sonia and Eric Morris. Sonia was thirteen, and good all the time, and colourless. Eric was eleven, and overfed, and good when being watched by the grown-ups. He dropped back gleefully when he saw who was behind him. ‘Who wet the bed last night, then?’ he taunted.

Roy squirmed, and turned his head. ‘Nobody,’ said Nicky.

‘Yes they did, I see the sheets on the line.’

‘It was my sheets,’ said Nicky. ‘I spilled a cup of tea.’

‘Don’t lie. I see the pyjamas as well.’

‘Leave it, Eric,’ said Sonia.

‘Roy Mitchell wets the bed, Roy Mitchell wets the bed!’ jeered Eric.

‘If you say that again,’ said Nicky coolly, ‘I’ll punch your head in.’

‘Not on the way to Sunday School!’ said Sonia, shocked.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ said Nicky.

In Sunday school they sang ‘Jesus wants me for a sunbeam’, which was Nicky’s favourite. She sang with gusto, oblivious of the fact that her strident voice was putting everyone’s teeth on edge. ‘A sunbeam, a sunbeam, I’ll be a sunbeam for him,’ sang Nicky. And there were several real sunbeams that morning, slanting through the tall windows; and Nicky thought it would indeed be lovely to be a sunbeam, all bright and free, and nothing to do but dance on the world for ever.

On the way home, Eric started again. ‘Roy Mitchell wets the bed! Roy Mitchell wets the bed!’

‘Have you forgot what I said?’ Nicky warned him.

‘Why can’t he fight for himself anyway?’

‘Roy can fight as good as anybody if he wants to,’ said Nicky. ‘Anybody says Roy can’t fight is going to get their head punched in. Roy is a very good fighter, actually.’

Humiliated by the total lack of truth in this claim, Roy hung back, twisting his fingers and scraping the edge of the pavement with his foot. He scraped and scraped, and he would have liked it to be Eric’s pudgy face he was scraping, instead of only the kerbstone.

‘I can smell the lovely dinner our mum’s cooking for us,’ said Nicky. She sniffed the air ecstatically, wrinkling her nose and sucking through her teeth. ‘Who can smell our roast then?’

The Sunday visitors were beginning to arrive. ‘Oh look!’ said Sonia. ‘There’s Uncle Bill and Aunty Mavis!’ No uncles or grandmas ever visited the Mitchells’ house. ‘Who wants relations?’ Mum said. Relations were more trouble than they were worth. ‘Better off it’s just the three of us,’ Mum said. And they had fun sometimes, the three of them . . . games, and Mum telling funny stories so they rolled about on the floor with laughing.

A pity she had to spoil it just lately, with boyfriends, Nicky thought. Never mind, though, they still had fun sometimes.

‘We’re back!’ Nicky called through the letter box. ‘It’s all right, Mum, you don’t have to let us in. We got our key.’

In the dark little hall, Nicky turned on Roy. ‘Ball up your fist,’ she told him.

‘What?’

‘You heard, hit me!’ She held up her hand. ‘Hit my hand! Harder! Go on, that’s right, harder! Ow!’ Nicky doubled up, blowing on her stinging hand. ‘You see? You see? You can do it!’

From somewhere in the region of Roy’s stomach a small glow spread – up, up to the round baby-face where it appeared briefly as a bright little smile. Nicky said he could do it. All right then, he would do it! Next time. Next time he would show them. He would fight them. He would fight Eric. . . . And then the smile and the glow died away, because he knew he would do no such thing really.

Nicky made gravy in the roasting pan. ‘It’s a bit lumpy,’ she said, ‘but it don’t matter. Lumps are good for you.’

‘The meat is too hard to chew,’ said Roy, disappointed. Roy loved his food. It was one of the very few things he enjoyed.

‘Don’t grumble. It’s a very good dinner, actually. Mm-m – delicious . . . chewing is good for you. Plenty starving children would be very glad to have a good dinner like this. . . . All right, if you’re so critical I’ll let you cook it next time. You ought to be able to. You’re not much younger than me, you know.’

‘Mum says I wasn’t meant to be born, really. She says I was a mistake.’

‘She didn’t ought to say that,’ said Nicky, frowning. ‘Nobody’s a mistake, actually. Everybody’s meant to be here.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Don’t argue, I just know. . . . Anyway, you have to excuse Mum sometimes, she has a hard life.’

‘I wish she would come back.’

‘She will come back. She will come back tonight, she said. Don’t be so impatient. We have all the afternoon first, and some very good things to do. I have, anyway.’

‘I know what you’re going to do,’ said Roy, slyly.

‘No you don’t.’

‘Yes I do then. You’re going up in Mum’s bedroom, and you’re going to try on all her clothes.’

‘No I’m not. I never thought of such a thing. What a peculiar idea!’

Nicky was flustered and embarrassed that Roy had caught her out wanting to make herself look nice. That was a very private pleasure, and one she had only recently discovered.

‘You always try on Mum’s clothes when she’s not here, I know what you do. And you put on her lipstick as well, I seen you.’

‘You sneak!’ said Nicky, furiously. ‘You creepy crawly spy!’ She was so self-conscious now, she nearly didn’t go after all. ‘Creep!’ she called, over her shoulder.

There were clothes everywhere, in Mum’s bedroom; on the bed, over the chair, trailing on the floor. The wardrobe was crammed to bursting point. Nicky’s eyes roamed happily over this tantalizing array, trying to decide. She picked up Mum’s newest dress and held it in front of her. The dress was of emerald crêpe, and had a pattern of little glass beads all over the bodice. Nicky slipped the green dress over her head, and peered eagerly into the mirror.

The dress looked awful. On Mum it looked lovely, but on Nicky it was a disaster. The slinky material drooped and sagged over the thin body, only just beginning to develop, and the colour was too hard for the pale skin. It doesn’t look quite right, she admitted to herself. I suppose that’s because I’m not very pretty.

One day, Nicky would be beautiful. Her bones were all the right shape and one day the sharp, pinched little face would fill out and soften. The gingery frizz would be tamed by a good hairdresser, and the brilliant blue eyes would compel attention everywhere. Nicky would never be pretty, like her mother, but she would be beautiful. And she had no idea in the world that any of this was going to happen.

Tiring presently of the clothes and the make-up and the handbags, Nicky went down to the Back Room, where the television was, and the dining table; and the carpet with the stains and the worn patches; and the sofa with the broken springs. Roy covered something hastily, with his elbow.

‘What you doing? Let me see!’

‘No. It’s mine.’

‘Let me see.’

Reluctantly, Roy moved his arm. He had found some scissors, and some old copies of Woman. Using the coloured pages he was cutting out large letters, and spreading them over the table. So far he had made WELCUM. ‘That’s not how to spell “welcome”,’ said Nicky.

‘How do you spell it then?’

‘Give me the scissors, I’ll do it.’

‘It’s mine, though.’

‘I can do it better. Let me.’

Roy slouched over to the sofa and sat, slumped into a heap.

‘Well come on, you can still help.’

‘It’s not mine any more,’ said Roy.

‘We can both do it.’

‘But it’s not mine.’

‘Mum will like it better if we spell the words right. Like this, look – WELCOME HOME. . . . There, now we want something to stick the letters on.’

‘I wanted it to be mine.’

‘Don’t be so selfish. . . . All right, I’ll tell Mum it was your idea. . . . There! Satisfied?’

He twisted his fingers without answering. ‘I wish she never went.’

‘She’ll be back soon.’

‘What time, do you think?’

‘I dunno. Eight, nine. Tony got to drive his car back from Southbourne, don’t forget. It’s a long way.’

‘I don’t like Tony,’ said Roy.

‘Neither do I, he’s a creep! Don’t worry, though, it won’t last. She’ll have a row with him soon, you’ll see. Like she done with the others.’

‘Remember when our dad was here?’

‘Yes, but I rather forget.’

‘I didn’t like our dad.’

‘Nor I didn’t like our dad neither. And I’m glad he never comes to see us, aren’t you? Aren’t you glad about that, Roy? And I hope we never see him again.’

‘Where shall we put the WELCOME HOME up?’

‘Over the kitchen door, then she’ll see it the minute she gets in. . . . And I’ll tell her it was your idea.’

‘You done it better than me though.’

‘Only because I can spell.’

‘Sometimes I think I can’t do anything good,’ said Roy.

‘Stop saying bad things about yourself,’ said Nicky.

After tea, Nicky brought the sheets and the pyjamas in from the line. They tried to watch the television, but it was only boring programmes. ‘Let’s go in the Front Room,’ said Nicky. ‘Let’s watch out the window to see Mum when she comes.’

They knelt side by side on the red velvet sofa which stood across the bay window; the Front Room was where the best furniture was. They watched all the cars, because they didn’t remember what Tony’s car looked like, and really it was more exciting that way. Any car could be the one that would have Mum in it. Once a car did pull up, outside next door, but it was only the Morrises’ Uncle Bill, bringing the grown-ups of the family back from church.

Restlessly, Nicky went back to the television. There was a James Bond film on now – that was better! ‘Come and watch,’ she called to Roy. But Roy would rather stay in the Front Room, watching for Mum.

He came in presently, twisting his fingers. ‘What time is it?’

‘Nine o’clock.’

‘She’s late.’

‘Not really. You should go to bed, though. You’re getting to look too tired.’

‘I want to see Mum’s face when she sees our WELCOME HOME. And you tell her it was me thought of it.’

‘Just a bit longer then.’

Roy went back to the Front Room, and Nicky watched the end of the film. After that the programmes were boring again. Nicky fiddled with the buttons on the television, picked up a book, fiddled with the television once more. She looked at the clock. Half past ten, Mum was late. Nicky yawned. Roy was quiet – she went to see what he was doing.

Worn out with watching, Roy had fallen asleep. He was still kneeling on the sofa, his arms over its back, his head fallen on to his arms, and he was snoring softly. Nicky put an arm round his neck. ‘Come on, wake up.’

‘Is she here? Is she here?’

‘Not yet, but we have to go to bed. Because of school tomorrow.’

‘But Mum hasn’t come! Where is she? She’s late.’

‘No she isn’t,’ said Nicky sharply. ‘It’s only half past ten, that’s not late for grown-ups but it’s late for us. Come on, Roy, we have to go to bed.’

‘I want to wait for Mum.’

‘Don’t argue.’

They lay in their beds, but sleep would not come. A door banged, ‘There she is!’ Roy jumped out of bed and ran to the landing.

‘It’s only Uncle Bill and Aunty Mavis going home,’ called Nicky. ‘Why don’t you go to sleep?’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘How can I with you yelling at me? And running about all over the house?’

‘Nicky . . .?’

‘What?’

‘Suppose she doesn’t come tonight?’

‘She will.’

She was nearly asleep when she found herself thinking it was lucky Mum always put her and Roy’s dinner money in an envelope on Friday, so she wouldn’t spend it by mistake over the weekend. Now why, Nicky thought, why did she have to think it was lucky they had their dinner money for next week? She must be getting as silly as Roy!

‘But supposing—’

‘Don’t argue. Go to sleep. Now!’

He did presently, because he was tired out, but Nicky lay awake a long time, stifling unease, as she listened to the silence.