When Jane turned up, Rose was doing her ironing again. She told her that Peter had surpassed himself. There was nothing, no tantrums or doldrums, to report. He had gone to bed when Nanna said, eaten all his tea, played nicely and spent most of the evening talking with his new uncle Ethan, who was soon to be his new granda. That was the sweetest time of all last night, Rose thought. Ethan and Peter had talked about animals. Ethan knew all the animals and he promised to teach Peter how to talk to them. Peter’s eyes lit up.
‘I’m like Dr Doolittle!’ Ethan had cried. ‘Aren’t I?’ he asked Rose, who came in with bowls of her home-made broth.
‘Oh, aye!’ She smiled. ‘Dr Does-bloody-nowt.’ All night she was waiting on the pair of them hand and foot. But she was proud. It always made her feel good to be surrounded by men. She had always wanted five sons. That was her dream. And she got just Jane.
‘Honest,’ Rose said, elbow-deep in ironing, pulling it out of her basket. ‘I can’t see how you can complain. He’s got the nicest nature I’ve ever seen in a bairn.’
Jane’s headache was seeping back. ‘When he’s with me and it’s just the two of us, he can be a right little shit sometimes.’ But then, turning to see what he was doing, her heart went out to him, and she felt bad for what she was saying. Peter was crayoning at the kitchen table, looking angelic. Jane imagined heaven must smell like this, of Radion and Comfort. ‘Fetch your things, pet,’ she told him. ‘He’s good for you because you spoil him,’ she told her mother.
‘What else are grandmothers for?’ Rose grinned. ‘It’s parents who get the rotten part. When you’re a grandparent you have all the best jobs.’ Rose gave her daughter an appraising look. ‘So how was your night out?’
‘All right, I suppose.’
Peter came over to get his hair ruffled by Rose, Turtle rucksack slung carelessly over one shoulder. ‘Aah, lamb!’ She smiled. As she kissed his face, her nose felt cold to him. ‘Any luck with finding him a new dad last night?’
Jane tutted. ‘Don’t be daft. Come on, son.’
‘That’s what he needs. That’s how he’ll calm down. A bit of stability.’
‘See you, Mam.’
Rose stared over the sheets as she folded them, flapping her hefty arms like wings. ‘He’ll have a granda soon. That’ll do him good. He took to Ethan right well last night.’
‘For Christ’s sake —’
‘We’ve set a date. November the thirtieth.’
Jane pushed Peter out into the garden. Once he was out of hearing range she hissed at her mother, ‘How can you look for stability from some old bloke with one leg?’
Rose just laughed in her face.
Jane took a long, slow walk around the streets, Peter docile at her side. As they passed the park he watched the skiving kids clambering on a huge metal spider crouched on the asphalt. She asked, ‘Nothing to say?’ He shook his head, looking down, then gave her a shy smile.
‘We’ll go into the town centre, round the shops,’ she told him. ‘All the lights in the shops are off and it looks magical. It’ll be like one of those adventures when you go back in time to the olden days. You like all that, don’t you? Adventures?’ But the wind had dropped in time for the dinnertime rush. Town was noisy again and the electricity was back on. Peter looked at his mother as if to say she was a liar. We haven’t travelled back in time at all, he was saying. We’re still in the same rotten place.
Inside Woollies was bright and dirty again. She took him to the toys and bought him a Real Ghostbusters toy, one of those she’d meant to save till Christmas. It was only the price of another shared taxi fare. In the queue her heart raced because she remembered her pockets were full of stolen sweets.
Like a heron in a cobalt-blue trouser suit Liz strode across the filthy school field. She wished she had taken the time to walk the long way round. But she had dressed and done herself up in record time. She was worried. When she arrived home from Cliff’s flat this morning, there had been a note from Penny on the breakfast bar.
What are you playing at? I’ve been worried sick.
That daft Jane told me what happened.
Why didn’t you phone?
Why now all of a sudden?
The mud was sucking at her silk slippers. She almost lost them. What am I doing, dressed like the mother of the bride, wading in mud? She looked up and cursed. The school seemed so far off. Oh, I wasn’t made for nature, Liz thought. But she was determined.
The teachers and pupils outside the main entrance stopped to watch this elegantly dressed, if slightly muddy and distraught stranger slip past them and into Reception. She seemed to sail straight to where she was going. Once inside she rapped on the typing-pool window and commanded the secretary to find out where Penny would be now, and to take her there.
What worried Liz about the note from her daughter was its curtness. The absence of the following words, which beat a tattoo in her head as she followed
