Stealing Stacey

“I wouldn’t wonder, if he’s phoned her to say he’s in trouble.”

It was Sunday, luckily. Gran told me to go and put the kettle on while she got dressed. She had her tea and then she called a minicab and we drove round to Greville Drive. I knew it was number six because Mum went there once just to look at the place. She’d have gone more times if I hadn’t stopped her. It was like she was addicted, just to seeing where he lived… sick! With Gran, I stayed in the cab. I didn’t want to see Dad, just Mum. I wanted to see her so badly, it was like there wasn’t anything else that mattered. I was sort of sniffing-crying, trying to hold it back. Gran marched up the path and rang the bell. She soon came marching back.

“No good. It’s some new people. He hasn’t been back there. They could be anywhere. I can’t believe your mum. What a prize little nitwit. After the way he treated her, he only has to crook his little finger and she goes running back! And to God knows what sort of a mess.” She slammed the car door and told the driver to take us home. It was like sitting in a minicab next to a volcano. I could almost see the steam coming out of her blue rinse.

* * *

So me and Gran turned into flatmates.

She cooked sometimes, but she liked it better when I did. She sat in the kitchen on a high stool, chewed her gum, and watched me. I tried out some of the stuff I’d seen on the TV cooking programmes. Mum’d never let me, she said I used too many pots and then left her to wash them up. (She had a point. I hate washing up. I’d almost rather have a dishwasher than a computer.) Gran thought I was brilliant. Every time I put in a couple of grinds of pepper or beat up some eggs, she acted as if I was Jamie Oliver. This was nice, but I was missing Mum like crazy. I got more and more upset that she didn’t phone. Love is really weird. When she was there, she drove me mad. Now I’d lie in our bed wishing she was snoring beside me, or puffing on a fag, though I always used to shout at her that she’d set the bed on fire.

“She’ll be back, dolly-face, and most likely with a flea in her ear,” Gran said. “Serve her right. Women shouldn’t be doormats. But we’ll have to give her loads of TLC.” (That’s Tender Loving Care, in case you don’t know.)

At last Mum phoned. She’d been gone three days and fifteen hours.

“Mum!” I screamed down the phone. “Where are you? Are you coming home?”

“No, Stace, I can’t. I’m just ringing to see that you’re all right.”

“Well I’m not! How could I be, without you?”

“You’re actually missing me?” she said, in a really surprised voice.

“Of course I am!” I yelled.

“Why? What do you miss?”

I felt furious and at the same time, lousy. She was as good as saying I’d never appreciated her, never let her know I loved her. “Everything,” I said. “Even your snoring. Please come home.”

There was a long silence and then she said, in a muffled sort of voice, “Stace, listen. Don’t tell Glendine this – she is still there?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. Well, don’t tell her, but Dad’s… he’s sort of on the run.”

“Mum! What’s he done?”

“I can’t tell you. But he’s hiding out and I have to stand by him and help him. He’s got no one else.”

“What about the slapper?”

“She’s gone.”

“Did you – did you know they went to Thailand?”

“Yes. That was where he… got into trouble. Where she got him into trouble. He managed to pinch his ticket back from her before she left him, and fly home, but the police there put the ones here on to him. Now, don’t think badly of him, Stace—”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that!” I said, really sarky. I was feeling sick and scared. What could he have done? It had to be something to do with drugs. I’d heard plenty about men luring women into carrying drugs for them, but never the other way round. I hated to feel Dad was weak, that she’d used him.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Mum almost shouted, in a very strong voice. “It was her, that’s who it was, and then when she’d landed him in it, she ran out on him when he needed her most, the rotten little tramp. I knew she was no good, those tarted-up middle-class ones with their snooty voices are the worst! Stacey, I just want to ask you, can you manage for a bit longer till I sort things out for Dad? I wouldn’t ask, but this is a real emergency.”

All my helpless, angry thoughts suddenly came together to form one word. One answer.

Australia. On the other side of the world. An escape from everything: this lousy little flat; school; the miserable weather we were having, all muggy or else dark and pissing down with rain all the time; Christmas on our own with no money; Dad in a mess, Mum stuck with him… No. None of it was my fault. I didn’t have to put up with it or face it. I could get away from all of it. Australia!

I knew I should tell her. I knew it. But I thought she’d say I couldn’t go.

“I’ll be all right, Mum,” I said. And I even heard myself add, “Give Dad my love.” But I didn’t mean it. Not really. I was ready to clobber him for taking Mum away from me.

I didn’t tell Gran about the call.

That same day, she asked, sort of carelessly, “When does school break up?”

“On the seventeenth.”

“Oh, right.”

When I came home from school on the last day of term, I found the flat in, like, chaos. I thought at first we’d been done over. Then I looked closer and saw the suitcases. Her sunflower ones, open. One of them was full of summer clothes. Not her size. Mine.

I picked up a green and purple bikini and dropped it again. “Gran! What’s going on?” I shouted.

She popped out of her (my) room. She sort of sang, “Glen-dine’s been shop-ping!”

“I can see! What’s it all for?”

“It’s all for you, cookie. I hope you like it. I’d have taken you to help choose, but we’re leaving tomorrow, there was no time.”

“Leaving? Where are we going?” But I knew. And suddenly it was real. She was kidnapping me, just as she’d promised!

“We’re flying to Perth, love,” she said. “Not Perth, Scotland. Perth, Australia.”

“What? But we can’t! Don’t I need a passport?”

“You’ve got one, ducky!” she said, triumphant. She held up a new red passport. I took it from her and looked at it. There was a picture of me that we’d had taken in a booth one day when I was out with her, she’d said she wanted it for a souvenir.

It struck me a lot later that she must’ve been planning this for a long time. She’d have needed Mum’s signature on the form, so she must’ve forged it. But I never thought of any of it. Not at the time. I was too upset about Mum and Dad, and now there was something really exciting going to happen to make up for it.

Chapter Three (#ulink_61e68f7c-185d-5243-87d6-52d8e33799da)

I had my doubts – give me that much. That night while Gran was having one of her endless baths – she’d imported a big bottle of bubble bath, which I could hear her frothing up with her hands till it must’ve looked like she was lying in a huge milkshake – I phoned Nan and told her I was going to Australia with my other grandmother.

Nan was already in a state about Mum bombing off. She’d been round a few times to see I was all right. She didn’t like Glendine, I could tell. She always turned her head away, as if Gran was too bright for her eyes. Now Nan said, in her pursed-up-lips voice, “I don’t think it’s right, her carrying you off like that without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“How can we ask Mum, when she’s gone off?”

“She’ll be back. Then what’s she going to say?”

“I’m leaving her a note. And you can explain. Besides, I’ll be back before school starts. Nan, I want to go!”