The Tip of My Tongue Read online

  Can’t we have them both? I ask, and in that second he drags me away.

  Just like your mother, he says, Offer the moon and you want the friggin’ stars.

  Back home, everything is in chaos. My mother lives her life in a state of Heightened Sensitivity, so it was bound to happen now the Erbins are coming. She has ironed the curtains and put them back up and now she’s moving all the furniture round and putting the chairs in front of the curtains so that the Erbins can’t see how much littler they’ve gone. That would be okay, except that the chairs were put where they were in the first place to hide the holes in the lino, so she’s having to move the rug as well to hide the holes again. It’s now at a squinty angle with the sofa, which I know will Unbalance her YingYang.

  I can’t see her for a minute because she’s on the floor behind the sideboard with a tape measure, saying numbers out loud.

  Forty-eight and a HALF! she goes, By EIGHTEEN!

  On the bus home, my dad went into what he calls a Brown Dudgeon, which is a very dark and gloomy place inside his head. When it comes over him he has to go and lie down in the bedroom with the portable telly, a cup of tea and some rollies. Sometimes he can be in a Brown Dudgeon for days and stays upstairs with the curtains shut. Then the doctor has to come round and give him some pills. I’m worried that I’ve made it happen by being so ungrateful about the dishrag puppy, but at the same time I’m glad we didn’t get it because my mother is building up to one of her moments.

  My dad takes one look at the state of the place and goes straight upstairs. All the food is on the kitchen table still in the bags. I could make myself useful by unpacking everything and putting it away but there are three reasons in my head for not doing that:

  My mother will want to see what he’s bought, especially if the Erbins are going to be eating it,

  I’d need to get her to bring the stepladder out so that I can reach the high shelves in the pantry, and she’d just go, Chuh, might as well do it myself, and,

  I get a wormy feeling in my stomach when they’re both like this, like they’ve forgotten who I am or that I am even alive.

  I get down in front of the sideboard and lay my cheek on the floor so that I can see her better. Under­neath, right near my nose, there is dust, a penny, loads of beads, a hairbrush, and the sparkly bangle that came in my copy of Twinkle last summer. That’s not even all of it. When I push myself under a bit more I can see bits of paper, a sock, some buttons, and two lipsticks, one with the top off. My mother’s forehead is resting on the floor next to the skirting. She’s stopped shouting out numbers and is breathing funny, so that the rolls of dust look as though they’re running away from her mouth. She hasn’t even noticed me under here: this really is like spying.

  Why am I doing this? she says, Why? What’s the point?

  Then she turns her head and stares at me and her eye looks like a bright blue marble.

  My daughter, she says, really quiet, Do you know how hard this is?

  *

  It’s really great having the furniture in new places; you can play Sharks with added excitement on account of not being familiar with the layout. I’m playing Sharks now, but quietly, because my mother has gone to join my dad for a lie down. The Starting Line used to be the end of the kitchen mat so all I had to do was jump up on the arm of the sofa because it was right next to the kitchen door, and then I could Leap over objects in a Single Bound! Now it’s in the middle of the room I have to use all my skills and go from the mat in one jump to the coffee table, then on to the chairs in front of the curtains, then do the sideways crab along the windowsill before dropping onto the sofa. I could even use the right-hand edge of the sideboard now that my mother has cleaned it up and put all her poems in the drawer. It could even become a new island.

  Except she’s also polished it, so it might be too risky unless I take my socks off. Sometimes when Jackie comes to play we do Shark time-trials. I think about how brilliant it would be if Sharks could be an Olympic sport, and after I’ve practised my route a few times I take off my socks and Increase the Level of Difficulty by doing a lap with my eyes shut.

  Only, when I jump from the mat onto the coffee table, I forget about the ashtray in the middle and stub my little toe on it really hard. It’s made of Onyx, which is like sharp concrete. I don’t say anything but later on my mother goes,

  What’s all this blood on this table? and I tell her I had a nosebleed. It’s never easier to lie but sometimes it’s necessary for an International Spy, especially as she keeps telling us her Karma’s out of Kilter.

  Well, I hope you won’t be having them when the Erbins are here, she says, We don’t want them to think you’re a health hazard,

  which makes my dad laugh his head off. This is a good sign so I just try to forget about my toe and the noise it’s making underneath my sock, which is a hot noise like boom, boom, boom.

  In bed I lift up the blanket and have a look at my toe but I do it quick because looking at it makes it hurt more. It’s black and red and the top is split so it looks like the lid on a trapdoor. I can’t sleep for thinking about all the people in the brown dungeon trying to escape through the trapdoor. I can feel them banging on the lid, and at half-past something on my clock I hear one of them say, She’s asleep, c’mon, let’s do it while it’s dark!

  Three

  My mother has made them all sit on the sofa, which is now in front of the curtains. She’s also moved the rug again so that it’s in Perfect Alignment with the edge of the sideboard, our new yucca plant is next to the fireplace, and she has covered the biggest hole in the lino with a massive cardboard box that she’s filled with most of my toys and annuals.

  My little toe was stuck to the sheet when I woke up this morning and looked as big as my big toe, nearly. I talked to it for a while to try to make it go down but then it felt like a thing I used to do before I became seven, when I thought everything could hear me even though it didn’t have ears or a brain. I couldn’t put my foot down when I got out of bed because after I tried it the first time I got an electric shock going up my leg and it’s not something you want to happen twice. Now I know why the pigeons on the Hayes walk like that.

  My mother was downstairs in the kitchen writing on a bit of paper and when she saw me limping she said, What’s with the limp, honey? and I said, I’m being Tiny Tim, and she said, Well, Tiny Tim yourself back upstairs and get washed, they’ll be here in an hour.

  Then my dad came in through the back door with a huge plant in his hand.

  Right, where d’you want me to put this, love? he said, taking the plant into the living room, and my mother disappeared and I could hear them discussing the plant, or actually, my father going, Are you mad? Who has a yucca in the middle of the friggin’ room? They’ll think we’re mental.

  Which is how my mother came up with the brilliant idea of the War on Want charity box.

  *

  Aunty Celia is not wearing a hat, but she won’t look at anybody so I can’t tell if her squinty eye is the left or right one. When she’s asked a question, like, Do you take milk and sugar, she turns her head to one side as if there’s a bad smell coming her way and speaks to the window. I think she must be very hot in her blouse and matching scarf, and her face make-up is so shiny she looks like she’s melting. I’m also thinking they must’ve left their dog in the car out the front and she’s worrying about it, but I can’t ask her because, firstly, I’m to be seen and not heard, and secondly, I’m very worried that the boy Geraint is much too interested in the War on Want box with all my things inside it.

  My mother says it’s only a prop, but every time I see Sindy with her head poking out the flap and my annuals not in the right order I get a shiver going through me. I’m not allowed to touch them, but if the boy touches them there will definitely be War.

  Just act nonchalant, my mother said, when she brought the box down this morning. She put it right over the hole in the lino, lit some joss sticks on the mantelpiece and straightened
the ashtray for the millionth time. Then she went out through the back door and I had to let her in again through the front door and she stood in the middle of the room and looked all round and got the Glade out again.

  You can have them back when the Erbins have gone, only don’t go messing with them until then. Right? It’s like we’re setting the stage, Enid. We’re going to be actors for a day. Remember the time that social worker came, and we played Little House on the Prairie? Well, it’s just like that.

  Are the Erbins going to take me away? I said.

  My mother put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. She always does that when she wants to treat me like an adult.

  No one’s going to take you away, she said, getting cross so the words came out very slow and hard, They are just visiting. We owe them nothing and we want nothing from them. But I want the place to look nice. Okay? Okay?

  That’s not what my dad says. He says the Erbins are well-off and we aren’t, and if we make the right impression they might give me one of their ponies. That’s what he said. When I said I’d really like a dog, but a big one, and showed him the picture of Woody David Marc Bracchi in my World of Dogs book, he laughed and said,

  Looks like a pony to me, girl.

  That was before we went to Gordon’s pet stall, and he hasn’t mentioned it since.

  The boy Geraint is much taller than I expected and his hair is shiny black and stuck to his head and when he’s not banging his knees together like he’s wafting a secret fart, he’s pretending not to pick his nose. If his finger goes anywhere near that cushion next to him he’ll get a slap from my mother. My dad smiles a lot with his lips shut so they won’t see the gap in his teeth and he says to Geraint, How’s school? and Geraint goes: It’s fine, thank you, sir. Then my dad says, Are you in the rugby team? and Uncle Horace says, He’s more of a cricket man. He nearly made the Blundell’s first eleven, didn’t you, Gerry?

  And then Geraint makes a little speech like this: I prefer Fives, actually, sir. I competed in the under-sixteen National Fives and next term I shall compete in the Winchester Fives doubles tournament with Sam Cately.

  None of it makes any sense to me, partly because his voice is going up and down and also because while he’s saying it his eyes keep flitting over at my Dr Who annual. In the end even my mother notices and says,

  Have a little look at that, Geraint, if you want. We’re collecting for the starving babies, Celia. Boxes everywhere!

  And she does a little fake laugh like it’s a bit of a nuisance but no trouble really. Then she sees my face and she says, very rushed, Now, Enid, darling, why don’t you go and show Aunty Celia the garden?

  After I show her the garden – here are some flowers, this is where the vegetables can be – we both sit on next-door’s wall in the shady bit. I don’t show her the Beast, which is hidden under Tar Pauline which my father borrowed off Mrs Mickey’s motor scooter last night, but if she asks I’m to say that it belongs to Mrs Mickey who has had to emigrate to Australia for a while and we’re looking after it. I can’t resist telling Aunty Celia about Mrs Mickey going away even though I’m not supposed to mention it, so I point to the Beast and say,

  That’s Tar Pauline, it belongs to Mrs Mickey next door. She’s borrowed us her Yucca as well.

  How nice, she says, It’s very warm, isn’t it, Enid? and she unwraps the scarf from round her neck. It’s pink with silvery flowers on it.

  That’s better, she says, and has a sigh.

  Are they fleur de lys? I ask, and she smiles all sunny and looks at me and I can see she hasn’t got a squinty eye, it’s just the left one’s out a bit to one side.

  Aren’t you clever? Fancy you knowing that! Yes, they are. Look,

  and she passes me the scarf and it feels like air going through my hands. She pats down the collar on her blouse and it’s then I see she’s got a hole in her neck, right in the middle. Even though I know it’s rude to stare, I can’t help it. It’s like an ant hole, and then I’m thinking about the ants getting in and maybe we shouldn’t stay in the garden too long because ants can move very quickly when they’ve set their minds on going somewhere.

  What’s that? I say, even before I think about not saying it.

  It’s a scar. I had to have an operation to help me breathe.

  Can you breathe now? I ask, and she smiles again all sunny like before and says, Yes, thank you. I’m much better. What have you done to your leg?

  I lift both my legs out in front of me and look at them. Clean knees. Check. Clean socks. Check.

  Nothing.

  I’m wearing my Scholls and new pink socks with the daisies on but my little toe has made the corner all black and red.

  What’s happened here? she goes, leaning over and pointing at the black bit on my sock, and when I try to hide it with my other foot she crouches down in front of me so that the hole in her neck is quite near to my eyes. It’s not a hole close up, it’s a black scab with pink all round it. She’s trying to take my sock off really slowly and then she stops and says, It’s stuck. Will it hurt if I pull it? but too late, because now I’ve seen what she’s up to I yank my foot away and the sock stays in her hand and my toe starts bleeding again.

  Has your mammy seen that? she says, in the voice adults use when they’re trying to be calm. I don’t know whether to say yes, of course, or no, she hasn’t, because both of them sound like my mother doesn’t care that my toe is falling off, so I don’t say anything.

  Aunty Celia takes a look around the garden for a minute and then she says, Just wait here, and she goes inside and when she comes out again she’s got the Bottle of Danger in one hand and a cloth in the other and my mother right behind her. My mother’s carrying her Tupperware bowl and her face is horrible, like it is sometimes when she’s had one of her nights, all screwed up but with her eyes really staring.

  My Enid, what have you done? she says, and falls on the ground in front of me so that the bottom of her dress is a ring of roses all around her. Aunty Celia kneels down next to her so it’s like I’m the Princess and they are my Handmaidens. They both look at my toe for a minute and then my mother puts her finger underneath it and pulls it away from the other ones and looks at it a bit more. There’s a wasp also very interested as it keeps whizzing between me and Aunty Celia and she wafts it with the cloth.

  Kids, eh? says Aunty Celia, Never a dull moment.

  Not with this little lady, goes my mother, sploshing the Dangerous liquid into the bowl and then dipping the cloth in, It’s a non-stop carnival. This is going to sting, Enid.

  I can bear it for a second because I don’t feel it stinging at all, just cool, but then it starts to burn and keeps burning like it’s burning a hole in my skin, like Aunty Celia’s hole in her neck, and it’s like she’s reading my thoughts, because she puts her hand on my head and says,

  Count to ten, Sweetheart, and it’ll be better.

  They both look at it again now it’s been washed but I’m not looking, no way. I think the lid must be right off because the feeling is like fresh air getting in where it doesn’t belong, like right inside you, and I’m feeling a bit hot all over and the skin on my arms is bumpy like when you touch Crimplene.

  You’ll need a little bandage on that, says Aunty Celia, Where d’you keep your first aid box, Maria?

  My mother looks up at her and squints and says,

  First aid box? First aid box?

  I know when she asks a question twice like that it means she’s going to start, but she doesn’t start, she just says,

  Are you allowed a drink with your tablets, Celia? I could murder a cider.

  Four

  Geraint says that ants are like an army of soldiers and that in some countries they can kill you and that down in Devon an ant bit him on the arm when he was on the beach and when he went in the sea to cool it off he nearly drowned on account of the rip tide. Without me even asking he’s telling me: A rip tide is a channel of water flowing seaward from the shore.


  It sounds just like a poem, so I join in and do She sells seashells on the sea shore, but he bends his mouth down on the corners like I’m a baby to say that one, so I do Shut the shutters and sit in the shop, which isn’t one of my mother’s poems, it’s one my dad learned me.

  Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker, I say, which is another one of my dad’s, but the boy’s already back on the ants, going on and on with his voice high and low, all about ant farms and scent trails and swarms and queens. I’m beginning to think he’s going to be the World’s Top Ant Expert one day and he’ll be on the telly like Magnus Pyke.

  My mother and Aunty Celia are sitting on the companion seat in the shade. My mother has a glass of cider and Aunty Celia has a Splott Pimms, which is like a cider but stronger, and they are talking quite quiet sometimes and then suddenly my mother will laugh. It’s a nice sound, like the playtime bell at school. I have to pretend to listen to Geraint talking while spying on them at the same time.

  Broke it in two places, says Aunty Celia, nodding over at us, And we didn’t even take him to hospital! Thought he just wanted to get out of school.

  Geraint has found my ice-lolly stick from the other day and is poking at the crack in the paving. He tells me to watch and in a minute I’ll see something Quite Extraordinary. He is twice as tall as me but when he crouches down he is exactly the same size, only a bit shorter, so I can see where his parting is on his head and how greasy his hair is. His voice keeps going up and down and he coughs when it happens and starts again with whatever he is saying, which is mostly still about ants.

  His fingernails are really long and absolutely filthy. When I ask him if he likes to play the guitar he gives me a funny look and carries on with his experiment. My dad grew his nails long when he was in the Easy Drifters, but only on the one hand so he could pull the strings louder. I’m going to explain this fact to Geraint when he says, Here we go!