the world, I can speak three languages, I’ve had nannies, and minders, and stayed in hotels on my own, but I’ve never met anyone like your parents – or you, for that matter.”
“Really?”
“You go swimming in that crummy old bathing suit, and you don’t mind; you wear turquoise eyeshadow; you bring an enormous ancient rucksack on a school trip; you’ve got sensible socks, sensible shoes, sensible trousers. You actually read books! It’s great that you’re so unbothered.”
The blush starts somewhere near the bottom of my spine though I make a mental note
never
to wearmakeup again. Sophia might be completely wrong about how unbothered I am but I still want to hug her, though I don’t think I know her quite well enough yet.
Somewhere not very far away, a dog barks.
“How did Pinhead and your mum meet?” I ask, whispering this time, like I might set the dog off.
“When she started singing, he was her manager.”
I imagine Sophia’s mum as a slender blonde, crooning into a microphone.
“So they fell in love?”
Sophia goes silent for a long time, so long that I think she might have fallen asleep, and I finally slip down so that my hair lies on the sand.
“I don’t think she fell in love with him.”
“Did he fall in love with her?”
There’s a long pause while the things outside eat each other.
“I think he realised he could control her – and she liked having someone to organise everything for her. I think I was the problem from the start, but it was all different then, because Mum and I lived on our own in a little flat in Maida Vale, over the tube station, where the trains shook the bookcases and the rats ran around at night.”
“Nice,” I say, changing my vision to one where Sophia’s mum, still slender and blonde, is standing at the top of the stairs batting away the rats with a frying pan.
“We had cockroaches, too, but I used to keep them as friends under the bed in a box; my cockroaches never ran away with all the others, they stayed.”
“Really?”
“I loved it there,” she says. “Just me and Mum, and I went to a local school and had lots of friends, and wore a red-and-white checked dress. And then he turned up, and the two of us started to live separate lives – me at boarding school and her performing around the world. She’s sung at the Paris Opera House, you know, and in Sydney.” Sophia sighs loudly.
“I thought he wanted her money?”
“Mum never had any money then but she’s earned squillions since. He’s in charge of it, and he must have spent loads on my education.”
Something crunches really close by, and I sit absolutely still for a moment. It’s probably a giant lobster eating a giant crab. Unless it’s a giant cockroach.
“So what does he say when you tell him you wantto see your mum?”
“That she’s ill or in Australia or something. Or taking a health cure.”
“Aren’t there any friends you could ask about her –
her
friends, I mean?”
“She doesn’t have any anymore – all her old friends have fallen away. I’ve tried but they don’t know anything. Not the ones I can find, anyway.”
“What about the internet – can’t you find anything out about her?”
“Oh – I’ve tried looking for her on the web. I can’t find her, but he says she’s changed her name.”
“Oh,” I say. I thought you could find anything out on the internet, even people with changed names, but then, I don’t really know anything about it – I’ve only ever used it at school, to look stuff up for history projects. Sophia’s bound to be right.
“He
made
her change her name. He’s like that.”
Something’s bugging me. “Actually – I thought you said he kept you away from the internet, so that you couldn’t contact her?”
“Oh, he does, but I’ve found out about her through other people, people who have been able to use computers. You know, teachers and people…”
We sit in the relative silence of sea things crackling
“Really?”
“You go swimming in that crummy old bathing suit, and you don’t mind; you wear turquoise eyeshadow; you bring an enormous ancient rucksack on a school trip; you’ve got sensible socks, sensible shoes, sensible trousers. You actually read books! It’s great that you’re so unbothered.”
The blush starts somewhere near the bottom of my spine though I make a mental note
never
to wearmakeup again. Sophia might be completely wrong about how unbothered I am but I still want to hug her, though I don’t think I know her quite well enough yet.
Somewhere not very far away, a dog barks.
“How did Pinhead and your mum meet?” I ask, whispering this time, like I might set the dog off.
“When she started singing, he was her manager.”
I imagine Sophia’s mum as a slender blonde, crooning into a microphone.
“So they fell in love?”
Sophia goes silent for a long time, so long that I think she might have fallen asleep, and I finally slip down so that my hair lies on the sand.
“I don’t think she fell in love with him.”
“Did he fall in love with her?”
There’s a long pause while the things outside eat each other.
“I think he realised he could control her – and she liked having someone to organise everything for her. I think I was the problem from the start, but it was all different then, because Mum and I lived on our own in a little flat in Maida Vale, over the tube station, where the trains shook the bookcases and the rats ran around at night.”
“Nice,” I say, changing my vision to one where Sophia’s mum, still slender and blonde, is standing at the top of the stairs batting away the rats with a frying pan.
“We had cockroaches, too, but I used to keep them as friends under the bed in a box; my cockroaches never ran away with all the others, they stayed.”
“Really?”
“I loved it there,” she says. “Just me and Mum, and I went to a local school and had lots of friends, and wore a red-and-white checked dress. And then he turned up, and the two of us started to live separate lives – me at boarding school and her performing around the world. She’s sung at the Paris Opera House, you know, and in Sydney.” Sophia sighs loudly.
“I thought he wanted her money?”
“Mum never had any money then but she’s earned squillions since. He’s in charge of it, and he must have spent loads on my education.”
Something crunches really close by, and I sit absolutely still for a moment. It’s probably a giant lobster eating a giant crab. Unless it’s a giant cockroach.
“So what does he say when you tell him you wantto see your mum?”
“That she’s ill or in Australia or something. Or taking a health cure.”
“Aren’t there any friends you could ask about her –
her
friends, I mean?”
“She doesn’t have any anymore – all her old friends have fallen away. I’ve tried but they don’t know anything. Not the ones I can find, anyway.”
“What about the internet – can’t you find anything out about her?”
“Oh – I’ve tried looking for her on the web. I can’t find her, but he says she’s changed her name.”
“Oh,” I say. I thought you could find anything out on the internet, even people with changed names, but then, I don’t really know anything about it – I’ve only ever used it at school, to look stuff up for history projects. Sophia’s bound to be right.
“He
made
her change her name. He’s like that.”
Something’s bugging me. “Actually – I thought you said he kept you away from the internet, so that you couldn’t contact her?”
“Oh, he does, but I’ve found out about her through other people, people who have been able to use computers. You know, teachers and people…”
We sit in the relative silence of sea things crackling
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