The Tip of My Tongue Read online

  He’s made the ants so mad they’ve started running out of the hole and all over the path. He picks one up with his disgusting fingernails and carries it over to the bushes and says, Watch this, and throws it on the ground where it races round in circles on account of it probably having its leg squashed.

  I didn’t know it was going to happen otherwise I wouldn’t have looked, but this spider dashed out from a web in the bush and jumped on it and then ran back like lightning. It made me feel a bit funny, seeing how quick it was, and I looked at Geraint’s face to see if he was happy about it. My mother has taught me to try to be good to all God’s creatures and even though I don’t like ants, this looked like murder to me. But his face didn’t seem to be enjoying anything.

  That’s cruel, I say, and walk away from him so that he can’t say anything back, but when I get to the ants going mad over the path, I can’t stop putting my Scholls on top of them all the same because I hate it when they try to run up your leg.

  End of April, I hear my mother say, and for a minute I get rid of Geraint’s voice in my ear and spy really hard, because April was when my mother went into the hospital. When she came back she went to bed for ages, maybe more than a week, and her arms were so thin she couldn’t even open a tin of peaches. My dad would get me up in the morning before he went to work and then take me to Mrs Millar across the road, because his shift started at seven and school doesn’t open until nine o’clock. Mrs Millar is fat and cuddly and she gave me sugar sandwiches for breakfast and coffee with hot milk which I’m not normally allowed. She’s got a cat called Windy, and when I said, Is he Windy Millar? she laughed like a jelly and said, Dead right, girl! No flies on you.

  I go and sit on the arm of the seat next to my mother so she doesn’t keep talking about April and she starts doing that thing she does with my hair when she’s having a chat with another adult, dragging it up from my neck and twizzling it round in a pile. She carries on talking to Aunty Celia about April but in a different way that she thinks I won’t understand.

  So, you know, we’ve discussed it and it seems for the best, given the circs with Carlo’s depression and all.

  And this would be when? asks Aunty Celia, with her eyes on me.

  They’ll let me know, says my mother and she leans over and pushes her nose in my ear and whispers to me, What are you up to, nosey?

  And then to Aunty Celia she goes, But soon.

  They’re both quiet for a minute and then Aunty Celia takes a deep breath and says, Whenever, whenever you want, Maria. It’ll be our pleasure.

  Her eyes do a little flick at me as she says it, but it’s a bigger flick than normal because of her left eye going out a bit. Before my mother can say anything else, Uncle Horace and my dad come out the back door and my dad says,

  We’re going to take the Rover for a spin round the block. Wanna come?

  I’m first in line down the path because I want to hold his lead. Uncle Horace and my dad stand looking at the car for ages, walking round it and kneeling down in front and when my dad kicks the wheel, Uncle Horace says, Don’t do that, old chap.

  There’s no dog inside. It’s the car that’s called Rover and it’s a girl anyway. I’m getting that feeling like you get sometimes at Christmas when you wake up really early and open your presents and have all day left with nothing to look forward to until Easter.

  Uncle Horace unlocks the doors and we all get in, Aunty Celia in the front and my mother and father and Geraint in the back, and my mother says to me, Come and sit on my lap, lovely, and my dad says, Squash up!

  It’s really hot in here already and there’s a smell which makes me feel a bit hungry and a little bit sick. We go round the block twice and wave to the neighbours and then Uncle Horace says,

  Shall we take her on the motorway and open her up?

  And it makes me think about the lid of my toe and the ant in the spider’s mouth and last April time with my mother with the bandages round her middle and my hair starts to sweat and before I know what’s going to happen, it happens.

  Oh God, Enid! Aw, Horace, pull over, mate! shouts my dad.

  He’s pushing me off my mother’s lap and onto the pavement where I’m sick again. It’s coming out red even though I’ve only had salad and boiled potatoes and bread and butter and orange squash and ice cream with a flake. My mother gets out of the car and says, I’ll walk her back, you lot go on, but then my dad and Geraint pile out together. My dad is holding his t-shirt out away from his belly. It’s got a bright pink splodge on it and Geraint is looking a bit white. He checks all over his shirt as well to make sure that he hasn’t got any on him. Then Aunty Celia gets out of the front and says,

  Let’s just leave the boys to it, shall we?

  My mother looks at my dad’s t-shirt.

  It’s only a bit of beetroot, she goes, I’ll get something to clean it off with later. You go on.

  My dad jumps in the front seat but Geraint doesn’t get back in, he walks away from us picking at the hedges as he goes past them. My mother tells me to go and catch him up. I’ve got beetroot sick down my dress and on my sock and my foot is going hot-hotter, hot-hotter every time it hits the pavement.

  I don’t want Mr Fish to come out and say, Oi! You! Leave my bloody hedge alone! so I’ll have to move quick but it still takes ages to catch up with Geraint because he’s got such lanky legs.

  Are they for the ants? I say, pointing at his leaf collection.

  What? he says, and looks at his handful and then just throws them on the floor like he didn’t know what he was doing holding them.

  Will you be going to Bramden? he says, Because you know, Blundell’s only takes boys.

  What’s Bramdead? I ask.

  It’s a school, stupid.

  Why would I go to Bramdead?

  Bramden.

  Okay. Why would I go?

  He shrugs and starts ripping at the hedges again.

  Because you won’t be able to stay at home all day with mummy. You’ll have to go somewhere.

  Why can’t I go to St Saviour’s like I always do?

  Because – well, I don’t know, do I? he says, and rips a bit more hedge off from the next garden along.

  I don’t expect your father can afford it anyway, he says, He hasn’t even got a car.

  Yes he has.

  What kind is it then? he says, and turns to look at me straight on so I can see he’s got a touch of his mother’s eye trouble.

  It’s a... it’s a Gelert! I say.

  That gets him thinking, because he’s quiet for a minute and then he says, Where is it then?

  It’s in Australia. On a cruise.

  He looks at me and starts to laugh in a funny way, like if a horse could laugh, then he shakes his head and laughs some more and it’s beginning to get me a bit crazed.

  Yah, right, he says, With his speedboat and his private jet. Your father’s a gyppo. His teeth! My God!

  The way he says My God is like this: Myyy Gord!

  He’s having a gold one made, I say, With diamonds in it by the queen’s doctor. Ask him if you don’t believe me!

  You’re not very good at lying, little girl, he says, and waggles a bit of hedge leaf under my nose so I get really, really crazed and before I know what to say I’m swinging my arm up and belting him under the chin. Next thing, he’s got blood coming from his mouth and he’s turning round going, Look what she did to me! Little savage!

  My mother runs up quick and gets hold of my fists and wraps them in her hands while Aunty Celia takes her hanky out and inspects Geraint’s mouth. He’s only bit his lip.

  She’s quite a firebrand, says Aunty Celia, pulling him ahead of us, You’ll have to learn to be nicer, Geraint, if you two are going to live together.

  Over my dead body, he says, but with a lisp this time, Thstinking Peathant!

  I’m ready to have another go but my mother’s got me in the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.

  Hold that temper, my girl, she says out loud, but then she leans i
n close to my ear and whispers, Save it for when he least expects it, Enid. Then use your Special Power.

  Which one? I say, because I have a few, and she looks at Aunty Celia and Geraint ahead of us and smiles sweetly at them. Then she looks down at me and points her finger to the tip of her tongue, and she says,

  The most potent weapon in your armoury.

  Five

  Har nar brarn car. Reined and reined the rugged rork...

  What are you doing? says my dad. He’s standing in my bedroom doorway with his donkey jacket on and his hand holding his face up. I look at him in the dressing-table mirror using just my eyes. I can’t turn round because Hans Christian Andersen will fall off my head and hit the floor and wake my mother up again.

  I’m prarctising, pater, I say, For Brarmdead. They’ll warnt me to talk porsh like them.

  I’ve told you, Enid, you’re going nowhere. Now put the book down and get your shoes on.

  Are we going into town? I say, forgetting about the book, which goes whump on the lino.

  Enid, will you shut that racket! my mother shouts, and my dad disappears from my bedroom and into their bedroom and closes the door.

  I don’t put my shoes on. I tiptoe across the landing and have a spy. It’s necessary to be really quiet because even though my mother likes it when I Do a Recce, I’m not allowed to do it on her.

  ...and get her some new vests on your way back, she says, She knows which ones.

  She’s not going, Maria. That’s an end to it.

  We’re not having all this again.

  Jesus Christ! he says, louder, so I have to rush back into my room, and a second later he’s saying, Enid, get a bloody move on will you? I’m in agony.

  We don’t go into town straight away because my dad has an emergency appointment with the dentist on account of his teeth giving him Pain Like no Man can Fathom. My mother has been poorly all week too. They can’t eat anything, so I’ve had cheese and piccalilli sandwiches every night for tea and Frosties every morning which is my favourite breakfast. I have to suck and not crunch them because my father says the noise makes his face ache.

  Our dentist is called Mr Hassan and his teeth are white as snow. My mother says he’s a good advert for his business but my dad says he’s not really because looking at his perfect gnashers makes him feel like a failure. We have to sit in the waiting room for a long time and my dad keeps saying Oh Oh like that, and sometimes you can hear someone else in another room going Ah. Ah. Ah! When that happens everyone in the waiting room goes very quiet and makes snake eyes at each other.

  Will I have gas again? I ask my dad, because I had it last time I was there when I was six.

  For the millionth time, Enid, no! he says, and the lady opposite smiles and goes,

  At least she’s not afraid. You’ve taught her well.

  He hasn’t taught me well because he’s also terrified of Mr Hassan. That’s why he’s wearing his donkey jacket when it’s boiling outside, because he’s worried people will see him shaking. His knees are going even now, up and down millions of times a second.

  Mr Hassan comes out and smiles his perfect teeth and puts his hand on my head which makes me want to crawl under my dad’s coat.

  Hello, shy one, he says, and crouches down so I can see his teeth really close up. I’ve gone as far in to my dad’s legs as I can without causing an upset like I did last time when I got under his chair.

  It’s me, says my dad, pointing a finger at his face. Mr Hassan doesn’t move for a second so my dad does it again, an even bigger point, and the side of his face is all blown out like Popeye when he’s eating his spinach.

  Oh, yes, dear me, says Mr Hassan, This way, please.

  Stay there, Enid, says my dad, pointing again but at the chair, and I’m fine to be left alone because now I can practise in peace. They’ve got a pile of old comics on the table and I find all the Buntys and look at the Four Marys. Raddy is always my favourite but I have to see how Simpy gets on now that I am going to win a scholarship like she did and go to Bramdead.

  I’m picturing Bramdead like St Elmo’s with secret passages and great larks in the dorm at night scoffing tuck when I get a funny feeling that I’ve forgotten something really important. I’ve got my bus ticket in my skirt pocket so it’s not that. I’m looking around me at what it might be, but secretly. Once I went to school and it was only at playtime I found out I hadn’t put my knickers on that morning. It didn’t matter that no one else could tell, I was scared in case they made us do gym or if I was naughty and had to stand on the table like Robert Crumb is always being made to.

  But this is another kind of funny feeling and then I know: it’s because in my head Bramdead is round the corner where St Saviour’s is, and every day I get to go home like normal and see my mother Slaving in the Kitchen or out the back lying in the deckchair to Catch the Rays. But if Bramdead is in Devon then I won’t be able to do that because Devon’s a thousand hundred miles away.

  And Raddy is just a girl in a story, and even if she was real, she wouldn’t be my friend, she’d probably be like Lord Snooty who is Geraint in my mind. I’d be sick in the Rover every day so Uncle Horace would be going, Don’t do that, old girl, all the time. Then Geraint would say, She’s just a peathant, pater, thimply ignore her. They would probably make me be a slave like in Who is Sad Sally? and get me to clean the fires at the crack of dawn and fetch the water from the well before I’m allowed any breakfast.

  I’m feeling very sorry for myself and trying not to cry when the lady opposite says, Don’t worry, petal, he’ll be fine.

  Who? I say, thinking she must’ve heard my thoughts about Geraint.

  Your daddy, she goes, and nods at the door, He’s in safe hands there, love. So don’t you worry.

  I want to say, Okay, but he’s not an abandoned orphan with a locket round her neck with her dead mother’s face inside it, is he?

  And that’s what I’d forgotten all along, and now it comes back it goes up all over my skin like getting into the bath when it’s too hot: my mother lying poorly at home in bed, which is why I’m going to be sent to Bramdead. She’s poorly for real and it’s not even a story.

  *

  My dad has had two fillings and an extraction, which means Mr Hassan has pulled his tooth out. He’s got it in a piece of tissue in his pocket even though Mr Hassan didn’t want to give it to him because of Hygiene. He’s going to have it made on a chain round his neck like the Merican Indians. Also, he’s had anaesthetic which is like gas but comes in a huge needle which Mr Hassan hides behind his back until the last second.

  That’s all he’ll tell me because he’s finding it difficult to talk proper and anyway he’s far too busy singing and blowing kisses at all the ladies that get on the bus. I think he must be so happy because he isn’t suffering Pain Like no Man can Fathom any more. When his buddy Errol gets on outside the Salvation Army stop, he says,

  What’s this Carlo-boy, drinking at lunchtime again, is it?

  My dad shakes his head and says,

  Wo, mae, I bee to the den-hith, av’n I?

  He shows Errol the bloody tissue in his pocket with the most disgusting thing I have ever seen inside it. My dad’s tooth is brown and black and about a foot long. It’s like the dinosaur tooth they showed us on a film at school. I can’t believe he’s had that in his mouth. No wonder he’s been in agony and holding his face up all the time.

  Christ! says Errol, who must feel the same as me about it, That’s one hell of a gnasher.

  My dad nods at him and his eyes go huge in his head.

  Too’ im thew hourth, he goes, holding up two fingers, Thed I go’ Methi-herranean heeth!

  Errol gives me a little smile and shakes his head, and I shake mine back at him but only a tiny bit in case my dad sees and takes offence. He doesn’t notice anyway because he’s started singing again,

  I wan’ you-hoo-hoo, to thow me the way-yay,

  at the top of his voice so the bus driver twists his head round and
says,

  Mate, if you don’t shut up I’ll show you the way and no mistake. Out on that street, alright?

  Errol helps me get my dad back in the house and my mother comes down in her Negligee. It is white see-through and beautiful and makes her look like a ghost, nearly. When I think about her being a ghost it makes my heart go stiff so I say,

  Dad’s had a tooth out and it’s massive!

  But she says,

  Not now, lovely. Sorry Errol – waving at her Negligee – I’m not very well today. What’s happened?

  Maria, Maria, I juth meth a girl name Maria!

  That’s my dad on a new song.

  He’s been to the dentist, says Errol, Three sheets to the wind n’all by the looks of him. Anyway, how are you, Maria? he says, sliding his arm up the doorframe right next to her, What’s cooking in your kitchen?

  My mother is very Curt with him. She is quite often Curt with people she thinks are Causing Offence, like the lady in the Post Office who Couldn’t mind her own Business if she was Sitting on it.

  My mother gives him one of her looks up and down and sees the state of his shirt and says,

  So Jeanette’s not forgiven you yet, then?

  And Errol just smiles and says, I’ll be making tracks, Maria, look after yourself, love, and she says, You too, and slams the door behind him.

  Don’t you let him in if he comes back, Enid, she goes, pointing her finger at me like it’s all my fault, then she crosses to where my dad is sitting in the armchair and she kneels on the floor in front of him and tries to get his mouth open. She’s saying, Let me see, Let me see, but he’s batting at her with his hand all floppy and she gets in a rage and starts batting him back, only harder, and they look like the dishrag puppies in Gordon’s pet stall. Any minute now they’ll be biting each other’s heads and rolling about.

  Enid, go and get a glass of water for your father, she says, and while I’m out of the room I hear her say, Carlo, have you been drinking? Have you? Have you? You know what I said last time.