I didn’t like seeing Dad naked but I was getting used to it because he was always parading round the place with no clothes on and even wiggling his privates in my face for a joke. Once he tried to make me believe his ding-a-ling was alive, like some sort of pet. ‘Go on, give it a little stroke,’ he urged.
I ran away and hid but I could hear him and Mummy laughing about it. She seemed to think it was all quite funny. She obviously didn’t see anything odd in what he was doing.
‘She probably thought it was a baby mouse,’ Mummy joked.
‘Watch it!’ Dad said.
‘Watch it? I can hardly fucking see it?’ chuckled Mummy.
So if she thought it was OK, I supposed it must be. Maybe Nanny and Jenny were just too old-fashioned. That must be it.
One morning soon after Mummy started work, I woke up feeling sick. It was as if my stomach was full of butterflies desperate for a way out. I knew I wasn’t ill in the true sense; it was just that the thought of having to go to school and sit opposite a girl called Susan Jackson was playing havoc with my insides. She had been moved into our class mid-term because she had been bullying a boy called William, who had a stutter. Finally his mother had marched into the head-mistress’s office and demanded action so she’d been shifted from William’s class into ours.
I had once seen Susan in the playground surrounded by a cackling gang of supporters, pressing her mean face into William’s and making him cry. Her nastiness reminded me of Dad so I ran as quickly as I could and told the playground assistant what was happening.
Susan saw me pointing her out, so it was of little surprise that when she joined our class she swiftly targeted me as her new victim. Within a very short space of time she managed to convince my small circle of friends not to play with me any more because I was ‘smelly’ and a ‘dirty tramp’ and if they liked me, then they must be one, too. I wasn’t frightened of Susan physically. Compared to the slaps, kicks and punches that were a way of life at home, her sly pinches and pokes barely made me flinch. Far worse, though, was her relentless teasing. I knew for a fact that sometimes names could hurt just as much as sticks and stones. I told our teacher about it but she rolled her eyes and said ‘Just ignore her, Lisa.’
The day before, Susan had told everyone on our table that her mum didn’t want her anywhere near the ‘stinky one’ in case she got nits. Everyone screamed in mock horror and screeched their chairs across the floor to get as far away from me as possible. Even Claire Sullivan, who only a few weeks before had linked pinkies with me and sworn we’d be best friends forever, was sucked into the vendetta.
Lying in my damp, urine-soaked bed, I imagined swinging Susan around by her long ginger plait, but I knew I would never do it in reality, no matter how much I wanted to.
My mind was made up. I didn’t care if I had to take my chances at home with Dad, but there was no way I was going to school today. Mummy had been talking about having to go out on a special cleaning job and Dad had been suffering from a hangover all week after bingeing on ouzo, so I knew she would prefer not to leave me alone with him in case I got on his nerves. A plan began to form in my mind. I hadn’t been able to see Nanny for some time because she had sent Mummy a letter begging her to ‘see sense and kick that man out for everyone’s sake’. Mummy had ripped it to shreds after Dad had demanded she read it aloud, and ceremoniously burnt it in the kitchen sink as he looked on approvingly.
‘If that old bitch thinks she’s seeing the kid again, she’ll have a long fucking wait!’ Dad declared, nodding over towards me where I was sucking my thumb in the corner. And his word was Law.
I hoped that today, Mummy would realise she had no option other than to send me over the road, where I could cuddle Nanny and eat cakes and sweets all day. I began to groan and pretend to be a lot sicker than I felt.
I heard Mummy take a cup of tea into Dad, who was still in bed with a bad headache and a sick bucket by his side. She was mumbling, then I heard his voice, gravelly from sleep, shouting ‘I said no!’
Mummy emerged from the bedroom looking daggers at me. ‘Trust you to be ill today. I’ll have to take you to work with me now.’
It might not be Nanny’s, I thought, but at least it was better than going to school.
Mummy went to quite a bit of trouble that day to find me something to wear that wasn’t too badly crumpled or dirty. She also made me chew a fluffy junior aspirin she’d found at the back of the medicine cabinet. I was feeling much better now that I was no longer worrying about Susan Jackson, but I chewed the bittersweet pill in order to keep up the pretence I was ill.
Then Mummy stood behind me and attempted to sort out my rats’ tails. She dragged the brush through my knotty hair, making me squeal in pain, and yanked it back into a ponytail so tight that I developed a genuine headache and was pleased she’d given me the aspirin.
She told me to put my anorak on and took a step back to look me up and down.
‘No, you’ll have to wear the tartan,’ she said, delving into the back of the wardrobe to retrieve a coat that had already been a bit too small when she brought it back from a jumble sale the year before. I was seven now and the label inside said it was for a five-year-old. I had to take off my jumper in order to squeeze into it. Even then it was too tight and made my arms stick out stiffly to the side. It smelled funny too.
‘Why do I have to wear this, Mummy?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t I wear my anorak?’
‘Because we’re going somewhere posh and I don’t want you showing me up,’ she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘Now get a move on or we’ll miss the bus.’
We had to change buses a couple of times before we arrived in Chelsea. The street was a short walk from the King’s Road and all the houses along it were massive, set back from the road with smart cars outside.
Mummy pointed to a large white house on the corner opposite. ‘That’s it,’ she said, taking a last puff on her cigarette before grinding it into the pavement with her heel. ‘If you think you’re going to be sick, make sure it’s not on the rugs. They’re worth a fortune.’
A black limousine was parked outside with a liveried chauffeur reading a paper at the wheel. Just as we were about to open the ornate wrought-iron gate, four men emerged. Mummy pulled back and stepped to one side, slightly bowing and nodding her head as she did so. The men were dressed in long white robes and wore what looked like red-checked tea towels on their heads, just as Alan Slaven had when he’d played Joseph in our school nativity play. I guessed they must be from Jerusalem or somewhere like that. The chauffeur threw his paper aside and sprang out of the car to open the door for them, then they all got in and drove off.
Another man, this one wearing a normal suit and tie, stood inside the front door. He had a posh voice and I noticed he was wearing heavy gold cufflinks. He led us up a curved flight of marble steps to the first floor, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it over his nose and mouth. We walked down a long hallway towards a set of double doors and as we got closer I noticed a terrible smell. The man mumbled something behind his hankie, which sounded like ‘Sorry about the mess’ and then disappeared off down the corridor again.
‘Cor blimey. Something stinks,’ said Mummy, reaching for the ornate door handle.
As she opened the door, a huge room came into view. There was hardly any furniture, just a few chairs round the edges of the room.
‘What the bleedin’ hell’s all this?’ Mummy exclaimed.
The floor was covered with lots of beautiful rugs, but every square inch of them was strewn with food–mainly sticky grains of rice, but there were also chunks of meat and bones. Silver platters sat in the middle, some still piled high with food, which had rotted and was fit