Becky Bananas (10 page)

But I expect it is only right that I should know about such things. I can understand my dad thinking they could not afford me as I am sure a baby is quite an expensive thing to run, what with nappies and prams and suchlike. It would have been nice, all the same, to have known him.

When you were seven years old, your brother
Danny was born.

I
was really jealous of Danny when he was born. I didn’t think it was fair that he should have a dad and I didn’t, especially as he’d sort of, in a way, Danny’s dad I mean, been my dad before Mum went and had Danny.

I’m sorry now that I was jealous. It wasn’t Danny’s fault. He couldn’t help it. And he’s never minded me sharing. Even after I was mean to him that time and told him he was only my half-brother, he still talked about “Daddy” as if he belonged to both of us. If he’d wanted to be mean back to me he could have started calling him
“My
daddy”. But Danny isn’t like that. He is a truly nice little boy. He’s ever so quiet and gentle. Not like some of them that run around shouting and fighting all the time.

I wish I’d played with him more! His most favourite game of all is having a teddy bears’ picnic with his soft toys. Danny has loads of soft toys. There’s Bruin the
Bear and Winnie the Wallaby and a dirty old pink rabbit called Clyde that he used to suck when he was a baby. Then there’s Roly Rat and Dolly the Donkey and Horace, the hand-knitted giraffe. And of course there’s Teddy, who used to be Mum’s and then was Uncle Eddy’s and then was mine and now belongs to Danny. Teddy’s been mended heaps of times. He’s really old and moth-eaten, but if ever you ask Danny which one he likes best he always says “Teddy!”

I should have played with him. He loves it when I join in. I give all the animals different voices, like high and s-q-u-e-a-k-y for Roly Rat and dark and DEEP for Bruin the Bear. And “Ee-aw ee-aw!” for Dolly the Donkey. And “Bloop bloop” for Winnie and “Woffle woffle” for Clyde. Danny gets all giggly and bunches his hands into little fists and stuffs them in his mouth. He’s so funny!

Mum took us to a special children’s show last Christmas and afterwards she asked us if we’d enjoyed it and which our favourite bits were. Danny said, “I liked the bit where the man fell over.” Mum said, “But that was an accident! The poor man caught his foot in something. It wasn’t meant to happen!” Danny said, “That was the
funniest
bit. I liked that bit.” And he chuckled away ever so happily. Mum shook her head and said, “I don’t know!” But he’s only four years old. Four is very young.

That’s why I wish I’d been nicer to him and made more time for him. I wonder if everyone looks back on their life and has regrets or if it’s only me?

When Danny comes on my programme I’ll make it up to him! I’ll give him an enormous great kiss and tell everyone that’s watching that he is my real,
whole
brother. I will, I promise!

Danny’s dad is called Alan Martin. He’s quite a nice person, really. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d stayed married to Mum. Mum brought him to our Open Day once and everyone went “Ooh” and “Aah” because they’d seen him acting with her on television.

He’s in America now, making movies. Maybe when I’m on
This is Your Life
they could do a satellite linkup so that he could say “Hi!” They do that, sometimes,
when people are living in another country and don’t want to make long journeys.

I don’t think he’d fly over specially. I shouldn’t think he would. Not just for me. He sends me a present at Christmas and on my birthday, the same as he does Danny, but we don’t ever see him. He’s married to an American lady and they have a baby of their own called Emerald.

I think it must be sad for Danny, knowing his dad has another baby that he loves more than he loves him. If he didn’t love her more, he’d come to England and visit us. He does speak sometimes on the phone, but it isn’t the same. Sometimes the line is crackly and once
we heard Emerald bawling in the background. And Danny is always tongue-tied and never knows what to say.

Maybe Mum will get married again. Actresses often do.

It was ever so posh, when she got married to Alan. “A really glitzy do” is what Uncle Eddy called it. Not like when Mum married my dad, when they didn’t have any money and just went up the road to the local registry office.

Mum and Alan also got married in a registry office, because of both of them having been married before and not being allowed to do it in church, but their registry office was a smart one, in Kensington. We all got dressed up in our best clothes. I had a special new dress made, orange and rose-pink, with a bunch of flowers to carry and confetti to throw. And loads of photographers came to take photographs for the papers because now that Mum was in
Ask Auntie
she was famous.

It was very strange at first, Mum being famous. It meant that everyone knew who she was and recognised her in the street so we couldn’t go anywhere without people coming up and asking her for her autograph.

Sometimes it was really funny, like when we were
shopping in Safeway and this woman came rushing across the store and peered up at Mum and shouted, “It’s her! It is!” and this other woman that had been waiting immediately came flying over and asked Mum if she’d mind her looking in our trolley. She said, “I like to know what the stars are buying.”

Mum and I giggled over that. For ages afterwards, whenever any of her friends came round, Mum used to act it out for them. She’d make me be her, pushing the trolley, and she’d be the two women. Everyone always went into shrieks of laughter.

But later on, when Mum and Alan decided they didn’t love each other any more, it was horrible. There were all these headlines in the papers.

And then underneath they went on about how Mum and Alan weren’t going to live together any more. They seemed to think it was amusing. Just because Mum played the part of an agony aunt on the telly.

I can see now why they call them agony aunts. When people write them letters all about their problems, I expect they probably are in agony. Especially if they are quite well known and everyone recognises them and they are being written about in the newspapers. It isn’t very nice having to go into school and knowing that everyone knows all about what is happening in your life.

Elinor Hodges was ever so nasty about it. She said she thought it was disgusting the way people in television kept getting married and divorced all the time. She said she thought they were immoral and that marriage should be for ever.

It made me really upset, Elinor Hodges saying my mum was immoral. Sarah told me not to take any notice of her. She said, “Her mum and dad are religious nuts.”

It is true that Elinor’s parents are rather peculiar. They won’t ever let her act in school plays and she always has to wear a scarf over her head, even though she is not a Muslim, but I think I sort of agree with her, just a little bit, about marriage being for ever.

I know people can’t help falling out of love, any more than they can help falling in love. At least, I suppose they can’t. It is difficult to be certain when I
have never actually been in love myself, though I cannot imagine Darcey, for instance, ever not being my favourite dancer or Sarah not being my best friend.

But just because love cannot last for ever, I don’t see that is any reason why people shouldn’t go on living together. Lots of people live together that aren’t in love. And then there wouldn’t be all this horribleness that happens, with stories in the newspapers and people like Elinor Hodges telling you your mum is immoral.

I don’t think Mum is immoral. I think that is a horrid thing to say. I think it is just that she is not very good at being married.

Elinor Hodges says lots of things are immoral. Music. Videos. Dancing. Kissing your boyfriend (if you have one). Sarah is right and I shouldn’t take any notice of her.

I am not going to think about people like Elinor Hodges. I am trying to remember about the past.

And, of course, plan for the future!

When your mum got married again, you left
Bethnal Green and moved to a different part
of London.