We’ve lived in loads of places. But Gran’s was the best. Gran had a fireplace with a statue of the Virgin Mary with a little bowl of holy water on the mantelpiece, and when Gran and Ma would fight, Gran would dip her fingers in the bowl and say, ‘Lord bless us and save us.’
Her house smelled of toast and soap and burning coal. I remember sitting beside Gran on the couch in our slippers, watching TV and eating eggs and rashers. And sometimes Gran would put rollers in her hair to curl it and she’d do mine too. But we’d take them out before we went to bed. And I wouldn’t care what time Ma came home or how drunk she got, cos if I fell asleep in front of the fire, I’d wake up in bed with a load of blankets on me and it would be just as warm.
I had a plastic pink lunchbox with a handle, like a suitcase only much smaller. And Gran would put ham sandwiches in it for me and maybe an apple. Every school day she’d help me put on my navy school coat with the red symbol on the chest pocket. She’d say, ‘Ready for work?’ and then she’d hand me my lunchbox and we’d walk to school.
The school had a concrete yard as big as the Silo roof. In one corner was a garden with a pond. There were these tiny bubbles in the pond water that grew and grew till they became like marbles, except they weren’t made of glass, they were made of jelly. And one day the bubbles were gone and instead there were hundreds and hundreds of black tadpoles swimming around in the pond, and that’s when I learned that spawn becomes tadpoles and then they become frogs. And I thought that was deadly.
There was a girl called Claire and she liked the frog pond too. The teacher made us the Pond Monitors, which meant every day we had to stay back after school to check that no plastic had blown into it. We were the only ones allowed to sprinkle food for the fishes. They’d nibble the flakes and Claire would put her finger in the water, and the fishes thought her finger was food and nibbled it too. I did it as well but I couldn’t stay still cos it tickled and made me laugh, and all the fishes got scared and hid.
Gran would meet me and Claire at the gates of the school and walk us home. If it was hot she’d buy ice cream. One for Claire too, even though she wasn’t her gran. If it was winter we’d all share a bag of chips or something.
We passed Claire’s house first. Gran and her ma would always end up drinking tea and talking for ages, so we’d go play with her toys. Claire had a room all to herself with a box filled with dolls and she’d let me play with them. Except if they were her favourites. I wasn’t allowed to touch those.
At Easter she got a mountain of chocolate eggs. She wouldn’t eat them, though. She just left them stacked there. She didn’t even open them.
I got two. One from Gran and one from Ma. But they were really both from Gran cos I’d seen them in a bag under her bed when I went snooping in her room. I’d eaten them both by lunchtime on Easter Sunday but Claire still had all hers when school finished for summer.
I don’t know if she ever ate them cos Ma and Gran had a massive fight after that and we left.
It was just after the first night of the summer holidays. Me and Gran were sitting out on the porch with curlers in our hair, doing a jigsaw puzzle of the ocean.
I was trying to finish a dolphin when Ma came out the front door with her bag and coat. She kissed my forehead.
‘Where are ye going, all dolled up?’ Gran said. It was weird cos I thought Ma looked great, but Gran said it like it was a bad thing.
‘Out,’ Ma said, and opened the little front gate that didn’t close properly.
Gran said something about Ma winning a prize.
I looked up then. ‘What did you win, Ma?’
I’d won first prize for drawing in school. The teacher gave me a brand new paint set.
But Ma said, ‘Me? Nothing. Gran’s winning the Best Mother prize these days, aren’t you, Gran?’
Ma let go of the gate and came back. She found the next piece of the dolphin and put it in the right place. Then she said, ‘Funny, don’t remember doing a lot of jigsaws meself when I was a kid.’
‘Don’t start with that,’ Gran said.
‘Don’t remember doing a lot of anything,’ Ma said. ‘There’s some stuff I remember only too well, though.’
I thought that maybe Ma was upset cos she didn’t have a jigsaw. ‘You can have this one, Ma. There are three pieces missing. But it still works.’
Ma smiled then, and leaned down till her forehead was touching mine. ‘I’ll be back later, love,’ she whispered.
Then she started walking away. But when she got to the path she shouted over her shoulder, ‘Have fun, girls. Remember, it’s never too late to make up for lost time. Ha, Gran?’ And she said Gran like it was a joke name or something. I looked at Gran to see if she was laughing. She wasn’t. She was watching Ma walk down the street.
‘We cooked yet?’ I said.
Gran turned to me with a funny look. Her face could change real quick, just like Ma’s. Sometimes it was as sharp as a witch’s. It didn’t scare me, though.
‘What are you talking about?’ she asked.
I pointed to the curlers in my hair.
Gran laughed then and her face went all soft and wrinkly, like an old mushroom. ‘Nearly. Finish the jigsaw first.’
That night when Gran put me to bed, Ma wasn’t home. But in the morning when I woke, she was already up and packing a bag.
‘Get up,’ Ma said. ‘We’re going on holidays.’
‘Ah, Ma,’ I said. I didn’t want to. I’d gone on holidays with Ma before. It usually meant staying in some poxy flat with one of her mates.
But Ma had packed a rucksack and she was going. And once Ma’s going, no one can stop her. Not even Gran.
She tried anyway, though. She stood in Ma’s way when she was dragging me out the door. But Ma just shoved her aside.
Gran was shouting. She said, ‘For God’s sake, act like a mother!’
But Ma already had me out the front door. ‘Coming from you of all people?’ she said. ‘That’s bleeding rich!’
‘Ah, Jaysus, how many times can I say sorry?’ Gran said.
‘Not enough,’ Ma said. ‘Not enough.’
Ma tried to slam the gate shut but it wouldn’t close.
‘At least tell me where yis are going,’ Gran said.
‘To the beach!’ Ma said. She kicked the gate and started storming up the road.
I kept looking back at Gran as Ma dragged me away. She was standing there in the doorway. I’d seen Ma and Gran fight before. But this was different. Cos Gran didn’t look witchy this time. She looked like she’d been walking all day and just realized she was back where she’d started.
That’s when things started to go bad.