arm, “my Rosie.”
I thought of Peter, downstairs. Her clumsy, stupid other chick, who only came to see her when Dad made him. “Go say goodnight to your mum.” Not like me, who couldn’t stay away and was always getting told off by Dad for disturbing her.
I thought of Dad, working downstairs in the shop, and how he foraged like the blackbird each meal time while Mum was in her nest.
“I wish,” she said, and I held my breath, not having known her to wish for anything, so knowing it was important. “I wish I could look in that nest.” She surprised me. “Climb up, into the Elaeagnus – no, fly up there like a bird and peer in to see how many chicks, how many preciously thin, hollowed-boned babies are waiting, mouths wide for food.”
She wasn’t talking to me. It was to herself, to the air. To the birds outside that she envied. “I wish I could make them strong and healthy and able one day to leave. To fly away”
She started to cry, like always, and I didn’t know how to comfort her. How to stop her open mouth, which was crying out for something that I couldn’t give her, because I didn’t know what it was she needed, to make her strong. I had no comparison, to know what was wrong.
When I arrived home after school I would be tired and hungry but I would have to sit in the shop until closing time, my head resting on crossed arms as my eyes blinked away sleep. The regulars got to know me, and would joke about me being the youngest shop assistant in Lowestoft. My favourite place in the whole shop was on a wooden stool beneath the row of glass jars full of sweets: pink peppermint rock, square yellow pineapple chunks that made your mouth sore, shiny brown cola bottles you could spend ages sucking the sugar off, sherbet lemons the colour of mum’s hair and – my favourite – those sticky toffee bon bons covered in icing sugar which dusted your fingers.
The shelf was too high for me to reach, even from the stool, so they tempted me every day. Peter could reach, and he would get a sticky toffee, taunting me. “Not getting any for you. You’re fat enough already!”
“Please, Peter.”
“Get stuffed.”
He’d chew his toffee loudly, with an open mouth, wide open, showing me the sticky mess inside, until I wanted to slap him but if I did he’d go crying to Dad and I’d get told off, since Peter was a bit ‘special’, meaning he was retarded. He was in a learningsupport class in school and the books he brought home I’d read at infant school.
The only thing Peter and me had in common was that we both loved penny sweets. We called them that because each Saturday Dad would give us ten pence to spend, and we would buy a bag, one penny for each sweet we chose. I spent hours planning how I was going to spend it.
Peter would eat his sweets immediately, but I would squirrel mine away in an empty ice cream tub. Through the week I’d allow myself one or two, a bon bon or liquorice bootlace, but most would be hoarded, and soon my secret stash grew quite large. Each week, his bag empty, Peter would steal handfuls from my box. I learnt to offer him some for favours: to have him reach me things, to borrow his personal stereo.
I took such pleasure in my horde that I would often tip them from the box, just to look. My mother had coloured sweets too, in little glass bottles with tops that didn’t ever come off when I tried to open them. She kept them in her bedside cupboard and would eat them when she was ill. I sometimes offered her one of mine, but she would always refuse.
That summer, when school finished and I was nearing my 11th birthday, the days in the shop seemed to drag on and on forever. I willed Mum to get better so we could go out somewhere, but she had been ill for ages and hardly left her bedroom. At least we had the blackbirds to watch, and she let me go to her each evening once the shop was closed. Together we saw the yellow ball of the sun change to red and die. The moon replaced it,
I thought of Peter, downstairs. Her clumsy, stupid other chick, who only came to see her when Dad made him. “Go say goodnight to your mum.” Not like me, who couldn’t stay away and was always getting told off by Dad for disturbing her.
I thought of Dad, working downstairs in the shop, and how he foraged like the blackbird each meal time while Mum was in her nest.
“I wish,” she said, and I held my breath, not having known her to wish for anything, so knowing it was important. “I wish I could look in that nest.” She surprised me. “Climb up, into the Elaeagnus – no, fly up there like a bird and peer in to see how many chicks, how many preciously thin, hollowed-boned babies are waiting, mouths wide for food.”
She wasn’t talking to me. It was to herself, to the air. To the birds outside that she envied. “I wish I could make them strong and healthy and able one day to leave. To fly away”
She started to cry, like always, and I didn’t know how to comfort her. How to stop her open mouth, which was crying out for something that I couldn’t give her, because I didn’t know what it was she needed, to make her strong. I had no comparison, to know what was wrong.
When I arrived home after school I would be tired and hungry but I would have to sit in the shop until closing time, my head resting on crossed arms as my eyes blinked away sleep. The regulars got to know me, and would joke about me being the youngest shop assistant in Lowestoft. My favourite place in the whole shop was on a wooden stool beneath the row of glass jars full of sweets: pink peppermint rock, square yellow pineapple chunks that made your mouth sore, shiny brown cola bottles you could spend ages sucking the sugar off, sherbet lemons the colour of mum’s hair and – my favourite – those sticky toffee bon bons covered in icing sugar which dusted your fingers.
The shelf was too high for me to reach, even from the stool, so they tempted me every day. Peter could reach, and he would get a sticky toffee, taunting me. “Not getting any for you. You’re fat enough already!”
“Please, Peter.”
“Get stuffed.”
He’d chew his toffee loudly, with an open mouth, wide open, showing me the sticky mess inside, until I wanted to slap him but if I did he’d go crying to Dad and I’d get told off, since Peter was a bit ‘special’, meaning he was retarded. He was in a learningsupport class in school and the books he brought home I’d read at infant school.
The only thing Peter and me had in common was that we both loved penny sweets. We called them that because each Saturday Dad would give us ten pence to spend, and we would buy a bag, one penny for each sweet we chose. I spent hours planning how I was going to spend it.
Peter would eat his sweets immediately, but I would squirrel mine away in an empty ice cream tub. Through the week I’d allow myself one or two, a bon bon or liquorice bootlace, but most would be hoarded, and soon my secret stash grew quite large. Each week, his bag empty, Peter would steal handfuls from my box. I learnt to offer him some for favours: to have him reach me things, to borrow his personal stereo.
I took such pleasure in my horde that I would often tip them from the box, just to look. My mother had coloured sweets too, in little glass bottles with tops that didn’t ever come off when I tried to open them. She kept them in her bedside cupboard and would eat them when she was ill. I sometimes offered her one of mine, but she would always refuse.
That summer, when school finished and I was nearing my 11th birthday, the days in the shop seemed to drag on and on forever. I willed Mum to get better so we could go out somewhere, but she had been ill for ages and hardly left her bedroom. At least we had the blackbirds to watch, and she let me go to her each evening once the shop was closed. Together we saw the yellow ball of the sun change to red and die. The moon replaced it,
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