As I walked home, there was something good at the back of my mind. I flicked through. It was you.
For the first time in a week, Ma was on the sofa watching TV when I got back in. ‘The sofa,’ I said. ‘Going up in the world.’ I went over and kissed her head.
‘Thought I’d pull out all the stops,’ she said.
She kept her eyes fixed on the screen. The break in her skin was right on the angle of her cheekbone; she couldn’t get it to seal. She hated me looking at her when she had cuts on her face.
‘You’ll never guess,’ I said, as I pulled off my shoes. ‘Apparently your boyfriend was doing the rounds in Ramsgate.’
‘Kole?’ she said. She sat up.
‘No, the politician you like. The one with the hair. Meyer.’
‘Oh, him,’ she said. ‘Swoon.’
‘Swoon? Wait, sorry, let me just go back in time…’
‘Have you seen his hair, though? They’ve been ugly for years till him.’
‘Ugly is as ugly does.’
‘Well, precisely.’
‘You don’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Before I forget, guess what? The Beef and Anchor’s back open. Big day around here.’
‘Ha,’ she said, and she shut her eyes like she’d gone off on a little daydream. ‘I always liked the Beef and Anchor. That was where I met Liam.’
She had a drink in her hand. When she sipped, she pulled it through her teeth. It sounded almost tidal. She turned the TV up. Some man had come over a few weeks before with a new wire and set of adapters. He’d put some new extender thingy up on the roof, and it was working okay now.
All the English channels we could get played the same thing. Repeats from ages ago, whole series back to back in a row. Four seasons in a day. The Simpsons, Friends, A Place in the Sun, a lot of shows about baking. She even seemed to like the adverts, though none of them were for shops we had. She took another sip of her drink.
‘Such a waste of space,’ I said.
‘Love you too.’
Blue was in our room, eyes shut, on his kid bed, the little plastic bed he was getting too big for. I did what I always do. I checked he’d wake up.
I found him once like that, out cold. I put my whole body weight on him and still his eyes wouldn’t budge. I found my mum and screamed at her. ‘He’ll fucking die.’ I’d shouted it right in her face. ‘See how small he is? Tiny heart. Tiny lungs.’ She promised she’d only given him a flake of it, she promised she’d never do it again, but—
That day though, it was okay. It looks different when someone’s sleeping because their own body wants them to. His pupils pushed around under his lids. Left, right, up, down, like he was looking for something under there. I always liked that. Like he was getting on with it without us.
He was two years old, plus a couple of months, when I met you. The little cushions around his ankles had gone. But he was still a baby really. Fat wrists, thin hair. When I spoke to him with my mouth not too far from his head, the strands would move with my breath.
Above his bed was the only thing we had on any of the walls that had come from me and Ma rather than Kole. It was a photograph of a door slightly open, and light coming through it, and everything slightly pink because of the time of day. A photo my dad had taken.
I watched Blue sleep. I used to do that a lot. Then his mouth chuppa-chupped. He started to wake up.
‘Go back to sleep, bubbahead,’ I said.
His tiny hand landed on my arm and I could tell from the way he pushed his fingers that he wanted me to lie down too. He liked best to sleep with someone, even better if it was me. Like if he was alone he was missing out on something.
‘Cub too,’ he said. ‘Cub you cub.’
‘I’m coming too. I’m right here.’