(Sick.)
‘… and that I had saved him.’
(BLEUUUUGH.)
‘OK, I’m going to stop you there,’ Anna interrupted quickly before she actually heaved up her breakfast porridge all over both of them. ‘You need to know a couple of things. First of all, Julius’s arrested emotional development is pretty much that of a fourteen-year-old. How old are you?’
‘I’m twenty-six actually.’
‘Yes, so that is too young even for you. Believe me. “Joojoo” is a particularly alarming case of chronic juvenility, but the rule of thumb with men is usually to gauge them at about a third of their actual human age. Just a tip for future transgressions. Or simply for the future. Secondly, I have to tell you that you’re not the only one. I’m sorry if that doesn’t help to make you feel special, but he’s been a very busy chap for a long time, although he promised me it would stop. He says he hates himself for it. Clearly, he’s prepared to loathe himself by now, so FYI, if I were you, I’d get myself checked for any kind of STD since, as we all know, he doesn’t “like” to put a hat on it. I have regular checks, ever since I lost the trust, and the reason I do that is because, contrary to the stonking lies he’s told you, we do, of course, have sex. Fairly regularly actually, although admittedly it’s less lovemaking and more habit recently, but … because of that fairly frequent practice, I am currently pregnant.’
‘Anna, darling!’ Julius blurted out. ‘Pregnant?’
‘Not your darling. Your wife.’ Anna speedily rebutted the untimely hug he was approaching to give her; she stood up sharpish and started towards the door.
Then she turned back to the Dane. ‘I’m sorry for you that you’re mixed up in all this. For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you as much – he’s a skilled manipulator. He’s a politician, after all. Did he tell you that I don’t “understand” him …?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Hmm. Disappointing.’
With that, Anna swept out of the room. She resolved that the future would be different after this.
Minnie’s 1st Birthday: Hope
Minnie burst out laughing when Hope carried in the caterpillar birthday cake with the single candle on the top. Hope knew it wasn’t the cake that set her off, or the candle, it was the bad singing and clapping. There was nothing little Minnie liked more than music and dancing. And clapping. Hope pretty much always had some kind of music on in their little garden flat. The radio went on when they woke up and went off when Hope went to bed. She even had an old cassette player of her dad’s to put at the bottom of Minnie’s cot to lull her to sleep. All the cassettes she used were her dad’s old Bob Marley and UB40 and the Specials and Jimmy Cliff ones. Minnie would call out for Hope to come in and turn the tape over to the B side if she hadn’t fallen asleep by the end of the A side. Recently, she was even attempting to do it herself although, with her chubby little one-year-old fingers, she wasn’t quite dextrous enough just yet. If a whole side of any cassette had played and Minnie didn’t cry out for more, Hope knew for sure she’d nodded off.
During the day, Minnie would haul herself up against any chair or table to stand up and wobble about precariously like a Weeble at the first bar of any music. She was already a definite person in her own right; she was longing to be independent, even if her little legs weren’t willing as yet; she was a determined little mite. She behaved as if it were a nuisance that she should have to learn anything – she wanted to already know it. She wanted to be in the growing-up fast lane. Sometimes she was impatient and tetchy with it, but Hope was one of life’s supreme soothers. She knew the value of it; she’d done it for herself and her sister forever, so it was second nature to be a calmer, and she knew exactly how to placate a grumpy Minnie. No problem. A privilege, in fact.
Minnie’s lovely open face had become even lovelier. She had flawless skin and huge dark eyes and a comical row of four front teeth emerging from her lower gum. There were none on the top thus far, which made her ready smiles hilarious: she looked like an old hillbilly hick from the sticks. She didn’t fully know why, but people would laugh when she smiled, so she smiled a lot. And they would laugh more. And on it went. Big laughs from silly little things.
There were a dozen or so folk crammed into Hope and Minnie’s small flat to celebrate this important day. Her sister Glory was there with her partner Ky and their brand-new baby girl they’d decided to call Princess, all wrapped up and held tightly like the very precious princessy thing she was. Hope remembered when she’d likewise held Minnie so tightly and carefully when she was as new. The need to protect and cherish was very strong in both sisters. They were instinctively motherly.
A couple of uncles and their partners and kids were there too. They had all been fantastic supports for Hope when she arrived back in Bristol with Minnie a year before. They felt sorry for Hope that her supposed ‘boyfriend’ had hightailed it back to Africa, leaving her to raise their daughter alone. He didn’t seem to care at all: he ran off, sent no money and made no contact, and they would berate him in support of Hope, calling him a ‘dyam hidiot’ and a ‘wase o’ space’. Hope had to let this be. They didn’t know the truth and they
