Dad stared at Mom as though she had turned into an alien, then he flushed deeply, all the way under his hair. Steven, the big bully, tears in his eyes and cheeks red, cried out, ‘It isn’t fair! I do not want to change my name, ever! I’ve got my own name, my Dad’s name, and you can’t make me do it!’
‘Well, you have your mother to thank for this turn of events, boy; don’t look at me like that, you ungrateful so-and-so!’ Dad snarled like a dog rearing back and ready to pounce, to tear us all to pieces.
‘Come now, my angels; I’m here. I’ll always be here. Everything will be okay, you’ll see.’ Mom chopped Dad to bits with her eyes, slice, slice, and slice—gone!
‘Change names?’ The words slid out of my mouth in astonishment. Mom explained that they were telling us (Simon and me) about ‘these things’ because it was the day before we were due to start at our new schools, and Dad was going to adopt the boys and give them our surname, so we’d have the same name from then on. I hadn’t known until now that the boys had another name. None of it really made any sense to me, but what did sink in was that we didn’t belong to each other. The thought made me so glad, because it meant that I didn't have to love them and they didn’t have to love me, after all.
Dad rose, tossing his chair under the table and leaving the rest of us sitting there, our cheese sandwich dinners untouched. He left the room like he didn’t belong to anyone and didn’t want to either, a storm refusing to make landfall. My heart contracted painfully for him, for the two of us—I had so many things blazing through my mind, questions only he could answer. I didn’t dare try to arrest his retreat while Mom was around, and I probably wouldn’t have dared to talk to him anyway, because he would have been so very disappointed in me for what I’d said.
Seemingly guessing my thoughts, Mom turned to me with: ‘Don't’ go getting any ideas now; he doesn’t give a damn about you. I’m the only one you have, and you should be bloody grateful I tolerate you the way I do. Any other mother would have packed you off to an asylum years ago.’
For once I didn’t care what she said, because even though I knew nothing about my mum, I felt keenly that she would never have said anything like that. ‘Mums care for their kids, like Mom cares for the boys,’ I reasoned with myself, ‘so it doesn't matter that she loves them and not me; she’s not my mother, she’s their mother.’
Mom opened a large black photo album with beautiful black and white photos of a wedding in it. I was amazed to see Mom not thin at all, but round and soft and smiley in a wedding dress, leaning into a tall man with hair cut short, a mustache over his lips, beaming into the camera. ‘Oh! Now, he was handsome, and wonderful! You boys take after him in every way. He never used a harsh word on me, not once; he adored me, everyone said so. He could have married anyone, boys, but he chose me. We were the best looking couple. People were so jealous of us, I could tell. We would have been very rich if your father was still alive. Malcolm was a true man, boys, and don’t you forget it. Ian isn’t a patch on him—such a wimp; just look at what he produced!’
Three pairs of eyes landed on me as if I were a virus. ‘Thank God: finally I can tell everyone that she’s not my sister! Stinky, rotten Scottish orphan; didn’t I tell you before that you’re not our sister, idiot? What’s the big surprise?’
He had told me before—often—about not being his sister, but I’d thought he was just being a mean bully. That’s how he always was, as mean as possible to me.
I didn’t get to know what my mum looked like; there were no photos of her, no mention even. I could hardly sleep at night for weeks after my Dad’s revelation, imagining my Mum, how she would have loved me, wondering how she’d died. I reckoned Mom had killed her; I convinced myself that she had. Having my very own mother—Mum, not Mom—was a wonderful anchor for my soul; I belonged to a person who would have loved me no matter what. Mine was a very secret happiness because Mom could never know how thrilled I was that she wasn’t related to me, nor how much I instantly loved my unknown dead mother. Mum became my special creation, the perfect mother. Having a dead mum was like owning a goldmine I could never enter—everything I could ever want was potentially mine, just not quite.
From then on, time spent sitting quietly, trying to be invisible, waiting for whatever was going to happen next was also time spent creating my perfect mum, living a perfect life with her, my real life.
Chapter Five
My new school was called ‘The Convent of St Helena the Pure’. Entering by the front gate, you were greeted by a statue of St Helena, white robed, her blue eyes shyly welcoming, palms lifted in greeting and flowers at her feet. My attraction to her was instantaneous. She had the loving eyes I longed to find in a real human and that I’d always longed to find in Mom. I noticed that as people entered the gates they made a sign at the statue. I tried to copy them, but Mom snatched my hands down with a hiss of, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She dropped me off at my classroom, telling the teacher loudly, in front of everyone, ‘Watch her, she’s trouble. Don't take any nonsense; she has long fingers, too, if you know what I mean.’ The teacher gave me a mean look and indicated a desk directly in front of her table. Flushing hot with shame, I was already sweaty in the new blue dress, with its high white collar choking me. I could feel eyes piercing my back as the other girls whispered to each other and giggled.
My teacher, Mrs Robsyn, wasn’t a nun after all. She looked a lot like Mom, tall and skinny and blond, and she wore bright red lipstick, red nails, and dresses that swished as she walked. Her eyes, icy green lasers, zap-zap-zapped their way around the room.
She called me to the front to introduce myself. I stood there trying to feel brave, trying to ward off the feeling that the girls were looking at me as though I had climbed out of the dustbin or something. Their curiosity, I could tell, was born from their being keen to laugh at me. I bristled and stiffened my arms by my side, reckoning I could make an impression and get back at Mom.
‘My name is Kate. I’m from Scotland, my mum is dead, and I’m glad that my mother is not my real mum.’ It had seemed like a good idea until the words were out, and no-one seemed impressed, some of the girls were actually gasping, giving each other shocked looks with their hands over their mouths.
‘It’s unnatural to be glad one’s mother is dead!’ said Mrs Robsyn. ‘And it’s highly inappropriate to speak so poorly of your mother. I have been warned about you, Kate MacKay, but I could not have dreamed of such horrors in the heart of any child in my classroom!’ She sent a look around the class that had them all anticipating my next answer, ‘By the way, where exactly were you born?’ The whole class burst out laughing, then, because I was born in Klerksdorp, which is not that far from Welkom.
I was a joke from the very beginning. It’s very hard for any child to make a good go of school from such a rubbish start, let alone someone like me.
I spent many nights standing on a toilet bowl on tippy-toes, asking the stars to give me a friend and to make Mrs Robsyn stop being such a meanie! I couldn’t stand the way she pressed down into my head with her long red fingernails when I didn’t do things the way she liked, and that was pretty much all the time. The bad start was the beginning of a to-be-expected snowball effect of shit—I was a shit magnet. Apart from my lack of social graces, I never had the right books or tools, and I was forever borrowing or making excuses, the kind of situation that drives teachers nuts!
I was simply too scared to ask Mom to buy anything for me, and she enjoyed the power she had to purposefully deprive me of things, knowing this would create problems for me at school. Mrs Robsyn acted as though she believed I was capable of being responsible for my own stationery and books. She seemed to enjoy her power over me, too; resting her long nails on my head, she’d ask, ‘Do you have that math book, Kate?’ and I’d whisper, ‘No,’ and she’d press