Shane’s doorbell plays ‘God Save the Queen’ all the way through before his mum answers it.
‘Just a minute, love.’ She calls back over her shoulder, ‘Three eggs, Shane! Only three!’
She turns back to me. ‘We’re making a cake! A Victoria sponge!’
It’s the first time I’ve been to Shane’s house. It’s the Easter holidays. Things are bad at our place. And it’s not Mum’s thing with Buggery this time. It’s more than that. She hasn’t moved from her place on the sofa for two days. There’s wet tissues all over the cushions, like strands of melting snow. Dad’s face has fallen into a grey heap. He tells me to get out of the house while he sorts her out.
A huge jet-black bun sits on top of Shane’s mum’s head like a dollop of chocolate. She’s wearing green plastic earrings. Her matching metallic eyeshadow has fallen into the creases around her eyes. Shane’s mum also has creases around her wide mouth, and all up her neck.
‘You’re Dan’s girl.’
‘I’m Joanna.’
‘Joanna!’ She opens the door wider, reaches out, touches my cheek with papery fingers. Then she stands and stares at me so hard that there’s nowhere to look but the ground.
‘Sorry, love! It’s just – it’s so good to see you! Come in, Joanna, come in!’
She pulls me inside and begins taking my coat off. ‘Let’s chuck that over there,’ she says, ‘you’ll be far too warm in that.’ Yanking my arm out of my sleeve, she drags me down the hall, talking all the time.
‘Shane will be so pleased to see you!’ She stops. Takes a handful of my cheek. Squeezes and releases several times. Then adds, ‘As am I, Joanna!’
While walking and talking, neither her chocolate-hair nor her earrings move an inch. ‘Dan has always been a good man. Your Dad, that is.’ She grips my arm. ‘Did he tell you he came to see us in the hospital, after the accident?’
He didn’t tell me that.
Shane’s house smells of pee. But there’s another, musty smell, which must be the oven, because when we get to the kitchen it’s much stronger. Steam runs down the windows, making the net curtains stick to the glass in patches. The kitchen cupboards are green, like Shane’s Mum’s earrings. Packets of cereal stand on the draining board. They’ve got everything. Sugar Puffs. Shreddies. Frosties. Ricicles. There’s a heap of dirty laundry between the bin and the back door. A washed-out flesh-coloured bra straddles the top of the pile.
Radio One plays softly. Shane’s sitting at the kitchen table. He sees me come in and he cracks an egg on the side of a glass bowl.
‘Shane! You’ve got a visitor, love!’
She gives me a little shove forward. ‘Don’t be shy! You can help us bake. We need all the help we can get, don’t we Shane?’
There’s a smudge of flour on Shane’s forehead. He’s holding his hands above the glass bowl, half an eggshell in each fist. A patch of red spreads up his throat.
‘It’s Joanna, Shane.’
A glaze comes over his eyes. He looks down into the bowl.
‘Dan Denton’s girl.’
Shane crunches the eggshells in his hands. Flakes fall and scatter over the table. Smiling up at me, his mum prizes the remaining shell from his fingers. ‘Sit down, love. You can grease the tins.’
Simon Bates announces ‘Our Tune’.
I sit opposite Shane and brush a few bits of eggshell from the plastic-coated tablecloth.
‘Hi,’ I say.
He puts his hands beneath the table.
‘Get it in all the corners,’ says Shane’s mum, plonking two cake tins and a piece of butter paper in front of me. ‘Don’t stint on the grease.’
I smear the butter on. Black flecks of toast stick all round the tins.
Shane’s mum stands behind him and strokes his hair. ‘Ooh!’ she says. “Hey Jude”.’ She reaches over, turns the radio up. Then she sings over Shane’s head.
‘The lah-lah you need is on your – lah-lah. Nah nah nah nah nah – I love “Our Tune”, don’t you, Joanna? So moving. I love anything like that. Real life stories.’ She sighs. ‘Me and Shane have got a few of our own, haven’t we, love?’ She kisses Shane’s curly hair.
‘You done with those? Right. What’s next. Oh yes. The eggs. Do you want to whip the eggs up, Shane, love? Or shall I do it?’
She leans over him and whips the eggs with a fork.
‘Baby Jane’ comes on.
‘Poor Rod. Not as good as he used to be.’ She swishes the volume down and continues to whip. Her mound of hair is completely still. But her tits shake inside her green blouse.
‘Tell Shane about school, Joanna.’
‘Not much to tell.’
‘There must be something.’ A drip of egg splashes over the side of the bowl. ‘Shane never tells me anything. Sometimes I wonder if he ever goes to that school. He’s in the same year as you, isn’t that right?’
‘He’s a year above,’ I say. ‘I’m a fourth year.’
‘You look older than that.’ She stops whipping and looks up. ‘But then, you’re like your mother, I expect.’
She begins to add the eggs to her bowl.
‘The secret is to do it slowly, then they don’t curdle. Hold out this sieve for me. Now give it a good bang as I put the flour in.’
Shane’s eyes follow my fingers. My rings clank against the side of the metal sieve.
‘I’ve heard Shane’s pretty popular in his class, Joanna. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
She winks. ‘He should be, don’t you think? Handsome fella like him. Takes after his father. I bet a lot of the girls have a crush on him.’
I think about laughing, but then I glance at Shane. The glaze has cleared from his eyes. His mum’s tits bounce against his
shoulders as she reaches over him to fold the flour into the eggs. ‘Oh yes,’ she sighs. ‘I bet a lot of the girls have a little
crush on Shane.’
Mrs Pearce insists I stay until the cake’s done, ‘then we can all have a big piece together. Shane loves cake, don’t you, Shane?’
But Shane has disappeared through the back door.
When I try to say that I have to get going, Mrs Pearce just waves her green-finger-nailed hand in front of my face. ‘Silly! I’ll let Dan know you’re here. Why don’t you go out in the garden with Shane?’ She points a fingernail towards the door.
I look around the garden. The lilac bush at the end of the path belches out blossom. There’s a sweet smell a million miles from Mum’s lilac bath cubes. I love those bath cubes. You open the gold paper wrapper and hold the cube of salt in your fist over the steamy water. Apply pressure and – bam! – it explodes into the bath and fizzes away like sherbet’s supposed to but never does. I always expect a milky-silky bath after that, like the woman in Carry on Cleo (Dad loves that one). But you get in the bath and all you feel are grains of salt scratching away at your arse. And the water’s fizz just turns to a layer of scum.
I stand there smelling sweet bits of breeze. Then I hear music: Madonna singing about being touched for the first time.
Nobody’s about. The windows of the house are all closed. The only place it could be coming from is the shed. It’s a tiny wooden shed, half hidden by the lilac bush. The window in front is framed by a pair of ruched net curtains. A frill like a fancy pair of knickers runs all along the bottom.
I walk towards the music, keeping time with my footsteps.
I stand outside the door and listen. My fingers are so deep in my jeans pockets, I can feel the top crease of my thighs.
I call his name and wait for him to come.