We Are All Made of Stars (16 page)

I love you, Mummy. You are the best, most kind, most funny, most clever and most brave mummy ever. And you will always be my mummy, even afterwards. Don't be sad for ever, please. And don't be lonely.

Love you

Issy x

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There's what looks like a tub of ice cream on my doorstep. It's hard to tell in the orange light cast by the street light, but I think that's what it is. I stand at the end of the garden path and look at it, sitting there on the red brick tiles. I approach it with caution and pick it up; something shifts inside. And I notice that, trapped between the lid and base of the tub, there are some sheets of kitchen roll, printed around the edge with blue flowers. The tub once held vanilla ice cream, what's left of the label tells me.

Just as I am opening my front door, I hear the neighbour's door open, and I wait, caught in indecision. Running inside now would be extremely obvious, not to mention ridiculous looking. And yet talking to her, well, that would involve talking. To her. I don't know why the thought unsettles me, because talking to women is something I'm good at, except that normally I don't care what they think of me – what I say and the way I say it doesn't matter. And yet it seems to with her. I think it's because I can see she leads a ‘real' life – a life that isn't smooth and worry-free like mine. She tries hard, I can see that – not just at work or over the way she looks. She tries hard at life.

‘You found the cakes, then?' She appears above the low brick wall that separates our narrow front gardens. Wearing a massive sweatshirt, which looks like it was built for some huge male specimen and hangs down below her knees. The hat is gone, her long hair is ruffled and her smile is anxious.

‘Oh, you left them?' I say. ‘And they're cakes, that's … nice. Thank you.'

Before I can escape, she hops easily over the wall and almost skips on to my front step, and I instinctively back up, one step closer to my door. What on earth it is about a tiny, slight little woman in a massive jumper that intimidates me, I don't know, but suddenly I feel gawkish and dumb.

‘I was worried we'd got off to a bit of a bad start,' she says warmly. ‘And the last thing I need is to fall out with my neighbour. I mean, we've only just arrived here.'

‘It's fine, you apologised before, when you didn't have to,' I say. ‘Don't worry at all, please.'

She doesn't move, which means I can't move. Several cars swish through the puddles on the road before I realise she wants to ask me something else.

‘The thing is,' she says, weaving her fingers together anxiously, ‘my boss just called and he wants me to cover a shift in the city, like now, and it would only be four hours, so I'd be back by one, but obviously I can't leave Mikey on his own. But then again, if I don't say yes, I think I might lose my job. If I can't find someone to take care of him, I can't go to work.'

‘Um.' My key is in the front door.

‘And I haven't got any friends round here, not yet, and no time to make any. And my mum … well, we aren't talking. I'm really at a loss to know what to do, so …'

‘Mrs Catchpole over the road – she's got grandchildren. Maybe she might …'

‘But I don't know her and neither does Mikey. I know it's a lot to ask but, Hugh, please, would you come and sit in with Mikey? He won't be any bother, and I'll be as quick as I can.'

Hugh. She said my name out loud. Hugh. I must have heard it spoken recently. I must have heard it today, on the phone. Yesterday, perhaps, at work; in the last week, at least. And yet, to hear someone say it to my face, it's oddly affecting. Not quite enough to make me want to take on babysitting as a second career, though.

‘I don't really know how to look after children,' I tell her, finally taking my hand off the key and taking a step back onto the path to face her. Her eyes look huge in her small face.

‘You don't even have to look after him, just be in the house,' she says. ‘I'll be as quick as I can be, I promise. Just sit with him. He'll take himself to bed and you can watch TV, kip on the sofa for a bit. Honestly, he won't be any bother … and it's just we really need the cash.'

I think about offering her the cash not to go to work, but even I can see that would be exactly the wrong thing to do. She's working hard to keep her family going – some twat just waving money at her would be worse than insulting, it would be mocking her too. My dad would have said yes; my dad was a kind and gentle man, the sort of man that people instantly liked and trusted – with good reason. It's just that the idea of talking to a ten-year-old boy terrifies me.

‘It's just, I haven't eaten …'

‘Oh, right, well, um … You've got cakes now? And there's toast and beans at mine. You can help yourself.'

‘OK,' I say, finally, because my dad would have. And I take my key out of the door and clamber over the wall after her, which isn't quite as low as it seems – or I'm not as nimble as my neighbour – and I scrape my inner thigh on the way. ‘Just one thing: you still haven't told me your name.'

‘Oh shit. I'm Sarah, Sarah Raynard.'

‘Sarah. I'm Hugh.'

‘Yeah, I know …' She falters when she sees me extend my hand, but after a moment she takes it and shakes it, quite clearly having to try pretty hard not to giggle.

‘Now we've been properly introduced, let's get on with it.'

Inside Sarah's house I find a mirror image of my own house, and I realise that I have been in here before, although not for a long time. For a brief period in the late Nineties, a family lived here with a daughter who was in the same year as me in school, although we were eons apart in terms of sophistication. My dad and her parents kind of threw us together, in that way that parents have of assuming that friendships between young people of a similar age are automatic, and we spent a lot of one long summer holiday together. She was the first girl I kissed, the first girl I did a lot of things with, although she drew the line at sex because, although she liked me and said I was useful for gaining experience, she didn't actually find me attractive and thought her first time should be with a boy whom she at least fancied a bit. Funny how I remember her, sitting in this very room, delivering those very words, so clearly. I don't remember feeling upset or hurt by those remarks that I had forgotten for so many years. In fact, I think I thought, fair enough. Sadie Winters, that was her name. Pale ginger eyelashes and almost silver eyes. She smelt of biscuits.

‘Well, Hugh's here, Mikey.' Sarah has already got her coat on, the huge hat pulled down on her head, a scarf looped around her neck.

‘You'll be good, right?' she says, but Mikey does not reply, gazing steadfastly at the TV where he is obliterating what looks like an army of the undead with quite some gusto and aplomb.

‘He's annoyed with me,' Sarah says as I follow her to the front door. ‘Kids, they don't get what it takes to keep things going, do they?'

As she opens the front door, Jake slinks in and, seeing me, stops in his tracks. Then, realising that, as a cat, he is in no way obliged to suffer from social embarrassment, he walks past me as if we have never met.

‘Oh, hello, Ninja!' Sarah bends down, and Jake, keeping one watchful eye on me, butts the palms of her hand with his head – something he used to do with Melanie. ‘You come for your tea? I left it out for you.

‘I don't know who the poor little bugger belongs to,' she tells me as she grabs her bag. ‘But they can't love him enough; he comes round here all the time, begging for food, poor little kitty. I've started getting stuff in for him. Mikey loves him!'

‘Right,' I say, looking at Jake, who is weaving himself in and out of Sarah's legs as if he hasn't got a care in the world, which he hasn't.

‘Actually, there's a tin of cat food in the kitchen. Would you mind putting it out for him?'

‘Not at all,' I say, staring pointedly at Jake, who really isn't bothered that he's been caught cheating on me, red pawed.

‘Me, I understand,' I say to Jake as Sarah goes out. I watch her for a moment jogging up the street after a bus. ‘But that you are so willing to trample on the memory of Melanie. Well, I'm shocked, Jake. Frankly, I'm shocked.'

Jake looks like he's wondering why on earth I would be talking to a cat. I suppose he does have a point. Bracing myself, I go back into the room where Mikey is still murdering zombies.

‘She works hard, your mum,' I say, but Mikey doesn't respond.

‘You're a bit pissed off that I'm here, aren't you?' I say, and he glances up at me, perhaps intrigued by my daring use of bad language. Well, if that's what it takes to get his attention, I haven't played all my cards yet. I've still got shit and fuck to show that I'm down with the kids. But, oh shit and fuck, who am I trying to kid? I wasn't interested in hanging out with children when I was a kid myself. What really is the point of trying now?

‘I don't need an adult to look after me,' he says. ‘All the doors are locked, I won't set fire to anything, I've got telly. You can go, I won't tell her.'

‘How old are you?' I ask him. From what I've seen of him, he could be anywhere between seven and forty-six.

‘I told you, I'm ten. Why, you pervert? Too old for you?'

‘My mum died when I was ten,' I say.

‘So?' He sounds harsh, but he puts his controller down, adding, ‘That's crap, though, sorry.'

‘Where's your dad?' I ask, thinking of that huge sweatshirt his mum was wearing and what sort of a man it would take to fill it.

‘Not dead, worst luck,' he says. And then after another moment, ‘I don't know, I never met him. He was long gone before I was born. Mum says we don't need a dad to be a family.'

I stand there, he sits there – neither of us especially making eye contact or knowing what to say next. And I am the adult and he is the child, so I suppose it's up to me to make the effort.

‘Well, I said I'd feed this cat,' I said.

‘Ninja is back?' Mikey openly smiles for the first time since I've met him, and even looks like a ten-year-old for a moment. He scrambles to his feet, following me into the kitchen, which is clean and neat – much better ordered than mine. Jake is sitting on the table, waiting patiently. ‘I want to keep him, but Mum says that he belongs to someone, and it wouldn't be right to, but he comes every night, and he's such a soppy cat. He loves cuddles, don't you, hey, Ninja? I call him Ninja because he's jet black and you never hear him coming.'

‘Loves cuddles, does he?' I am not convinced, but sure enough, as Mikey sits at the table, Jake all but throws himself into his arms and wraps himself around the boy's neck, batting at his nose with his paw in a decidedly kittenish way. I squint a little, wondering for a second if this Ninja is actually another cat after all, but, no, it is definitely my black cat; there's that little, minuscule flash of white on his front left paw that makes him look like he's just brushed against some drying paint.

‘So he does,' I say.

I put the ice-cream tub on the worktop and look through a few cupboards, which, although not overfull, are stocked carefully with rice, pasta, some potatoes marked down, and three tins of cat food.

‘What did your mum die of?' Mikey asks me.

‘Oh, I don't know, really,' I say, because I am pretty sure that, despite all his front and bravado, he probably doesn't want to know the details.

‘How can you not know?' he says, and I think for a moment about how to answer.

‘Well, I was a kid. No one really talked to me much; I think they wanted to protect me. Mum was ill, which I never realised until much later, and then she died. And even though Dad loved to talk about her while he was alive, he didn't like to talk about how it all happened. It made him too sad.'

‘So you're an orphan now?' Mikey rocks Jake like a child, and his tough little face softens a little, revealing those baby edges that are just about still present.

‘Well, technically, but I'm heading towards forty, so … I'm not about to burst into “The sun will come out tomorrow”.'

‘What?' Mikey says, burying his face in Jake's soft tummy.

I'm not surprised that he hasn't heard of
Annie
, but I am surprised by how much his earlier statement has hit home, and the wave of sadness that wells up in my chest, taking me by surprise. I have to turn my back on him suddenly, sniffing as I search through drawers to find a can opener and blinking away a threatening tear as I spoon food into a bowl. This is stupid; this is not me. This is that stupid answerphone message and talking to kids about parents. I'm famously happy-go-lucky. I'm Mr Love Them and Leave Them if they get too keen. I don't weep in some stranger's kitchen. I take a breath and square my shoulders. Dad said a good cry never did anyone any harm – he'd cry at the drop of a hat, would Dad, the sentimental old bastard.