Ice Lolly

I am thinking back to when my gran died. I was only three, so I don’t really remember very much, except that Mum was sad and that we lived in a flat somewhere near Oxford and that Dad was still with us. And then later on Mum got sad all over again, only this time she was sad because Dad had started shouting a lot and growing angry. So next thing I remember is Dad going off and not coming back and me and Mum being on our own and moving to London and living next door to Stevie. I was six years old by then. I had to start at a new school, which frightened me, as I had only just got used to my other one. Mum said she was so, so sorry, but begged me to be brave. She said that life was full of changes.

“It’s a bit like books, all divided up into different chapters.”

She said that if Oxford had been Chapter 1, then London was Chapter 2. And then she hugged me and said, “Oh, but Lol, there will be so many more to come!” Like she thought that was a good thing. But I never wanted any more; I just wanted Chapter 2 to go on for ever. Only nothing ever does. You don’t realise that when you’re just six years old.

Mrs Miah has been standing up and talking about Mum. I feel guilty that I haven’t been listening, but maybe she would understand. Now she has gone back to her seat, and I think perhaps things are almost over. Nobody else has got up to speak, and somewhere off stage they are playing Mum’s song that I chose.

Though the final curtain’s fallen

And we two have had to part

My love still marches onward

To the drumbeat of my heart.

I can feel Auntie Ellen exchanging glances over my head with Uncle Mark. They don’t approve. Auntie Ellen doesn’t think the song is appropriate. She tried really hard to get me to change my mind.

“I’m not saying it has to be a hymn, necessarily, but at least something a bit more – well! Classical, maybe. Isn’t there anything classical that your mum liked?”

Mum liked all sorts of music, but this was the song that she would have wanted. It was one of her big favourites. She used to say it was her inheritance track that she’d inherited from her mum.

“Your gran used to play it all the time after she lost your grandad.”

I know that this is a really sad song, but it was special to Mum, and that makes it special to me. In any case, it was up to me to choose, not Auntie Ellen.

Now everybody is standing up. Uncle Mark stands up, so I do too.

“All right?” He looks down at me, and I nod. We file out, into the cold sunshine. I hold my head very high.

The women from Mum’s office kiss me again before going off to their car. The man who did the talking tells me that it was “a privilege to have known your mother. She was a very special lady”. I look at him stony-faced. Uncle Mark puts his arm round my shoulders and in slightly reproving tones says, “That is something we must always remember.” He thinks I am being ungracious. He doesn’t realise I am in my ice house, frozen like a fish finger.

Stevie comes over. She says, “Well, then!” She won’t kiss me; she never does. I suppose, really, she is quite a gruff kind of person. But I am glad. I don’t want to be kissed or made a fuss of.

Stevie scratches her head, under her plastic rain hat. She has probably got a flea from one of her cats.

“I’ll be going now,” she says.

She turns and stomps off, down the path. Uncle Mark calls after her. “Are you sure you don’t want a lift?” But Stevie just waves a hand and goes clumping on. Uncle Mark shakes his head. He says it’s a long walk for an old woman. “It must be a good mile.”

I tell him that Stevie walks everywhere. “She doesn’t approve of cars.”

“Tough as old boots,” says Auntie Ellen. She’s sneering again. I don’t think she has any right to sneer, after all that Stevie did for me and Mum.

I say goodbye to Temeeka’s mum, who kisses me and says, “Chin up, luvvie!” I say goodbye to Mr and Mrs Miah. Mrs Miah also kisses me, but Mr Miah takes my hand.

“We shall miss you,” he says.

Auntie Ellen is growing impatient. She wants us to get a move on. She says we have a long journey ahead of us and the traffic will be horrendous at this time of day.

I hurry after her to the car. I can see that Mr Miah has something more he would like to say, and I don’t want to seem rude, but I am worried about Mr Pooter. I cram myself into the back seat and pull his carrying box on to my lap. It is an old cardboard one of Stevie’s, a bit crushed and battered. I waggle my finger through one of the air holes and hear a chirrup. I relax. If he’s chirruping, it means he’s happy.

There’s not much room on the back seat as it is piled with boxes. The whole car is crowded out with boxes. We got them from Mr Miah, and me and Stevie spent all yesterday filling them. Auntie Ellen had already warned me that there wouldn’t be room for everything.

“We don’t have much cupboard space, so try to be a bit selective. Just bring what’s most important. Clothes, obviously.”

But clothes are the least important. What’s most important, apart from Mr Pooter, is books. Mum loved her books! I have packed all of them. Every single one. I told Stevie she could have everything that was left over for the local Animal Samaritans. I know that’s what Mum would have wanted.

Auntie Ellen turned a bit pale when she saw how many boxes there were. She said, “Laurel, I told you to be selective!”

I said that I had been. “Most of it’s books.”

“Books?” She almost shrieked it. I wanted to giggle, cos it was like I’d said I’d packed up a load of tarantulas, or something. Imagine being scared of books! She looked across at Uncle Mark and said, “Now what do we do? We don’t have room for all this lot!”

Uncle Mark said that we didn’t have time to start unpacking. “We’ll just have to sort it out the other end.”

Auntie Ellen wanted me to leave some of the boxes behind, but I wouldn’t. So here they all are, and here are me and Mr Pooter, squashed up against them. I wish we could have gone to live with Stevie. I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded Mum’s books, not even if they did have to be kept in heaps on the floor. Stevie isn’t houseproud like Auntie Ellen. But of course they wouldn’t let me. They said it wasn’t a suitable placement, meaning there are cats roaming everywhere and it isn’t hygienic. People are a great deal too bothered about hygiene, if you ask me. Stevie seems to have lived quite happily all these years without being troubled by it. They’d probably have said me and Mum weren’t hygienic, either. We didn’t go in very much for housework. We had more important things to worry about than dust, or cobwebs, or whether there was a rim round the bath – which I now realise there was, since Auntie Ellen remarked on it only this morning, shuddering as she did so. People care about the weirdest things.

I stare out of the window, wondering where we are.

Auntie Ellen says, “I told you the traffic would be bad.” Uncle Mark says it’s no problem. Once we hit the motorway we’ll be all right.

“Assuming there aren’t any hold-ups,” says Auntie Ellen.

I think to myself that Auntie Ellen is one of those people who enjoy looking on the black side. Uncle Mark catches my eye in the driving mirror.

“OK back there?”

I nod, without speaking, and bury my nose in Mr Pooter’s fur. I’ve opened his box so that we can have a cuddle.

“Home in time for tea,” says Uncle Mark.

I force my lips into a smile. He is trying so hard to make me feel wanted, though I am sure I can’t really be. I know Auntie Ellen doesn’t want me. And I don’t suppose Holly does, either. They are only taking me because they feel it’s their duty. I know I ought to be grateful, and I am doing my best, but it is not easy. I would so much rather have gone to live with Stevie!

Mr Pooter sits up and rubs his head against mine. I rub back. Auntie Ellen says, “You make sure that cat doesn’t start jumping about.”

I tell her that Mr Pooter is too old to jump about. Mum had him before she was married. “He’s almost sixteen.”

Auntie Ellen says she doesn’t care. “It’s not safe, having a cat loose in the car.”

I close up one side of the box, so that it looks like he’s shut away. I keep my hand in there, to reassure him. Mr Pooter purrs and dribbles.

“Motorway coming up,” says Uncle Mark. “Home before you know it!”

Up until last week, home was the cottage that I shared with Mum. Old, and crumbly, and tiny as a dolls’ house, with a narrow strip of garden going down to the railway. Now I shall be living on an estate, with hundreds of houses all the same, and everything bright and new. Our cottage was cosy, even if we did have a rim round the bath and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. Uncle Mark’s house is not cosy. It is too tidy. And too clean.

Uncle Mark looks at me again, in the mirror. “It’s been a while,” he says, “hasn’t it?”

I don’t understand what he means.