The Girl in the Red Coat

39

Gramps is excited. There’s a man wants to see me who he says is important.

‘We’ll meet the pastor in town. We’ll dress up and you need to be the best behaved you’ve ever been,’ says Gramps.

‘Can we come?’ asks Silver.

‘No, just me and Carmel.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Silver’s eyes go hard on me. She’s still not as friendly as Melody, even if we did swear to be sisters.

Today the sky is white and hot and Gramps takes me to a lovely hotel that looks like it’s from Hollywood with white pillars either side of the door and trees in pots. Gramps holds my hand tight and his is shaking. Inside it’s cool and the carpet looks like it’s made of red velvet.

Gramps goes up to the desk. ‘We’re here to see Pastor Munroe.’

‘Why yes, he’s waiting for you.’ The lady behind the desk is pretty and has tiny gold leaves hanging from her ears. ‘Hello sweetie. What a little doll she is.’

She leans over the desk to smile at me and I get a whiff of her delicious perfume that smells of fruit and cakes and I stuff as much of it up my nose as possible I’m so greedy for it.

‘Yes, yes. Thank you. We’ll see the pastor now. Where is he?’

She points to her left. ‘Through there, having coffee. Bye sweetie,’ she calls after me as Gramps leads me off. I look over my shoulder and see her getting smaller and smaller as I walk away.

‘Dennis.’

Gramps freezes. The voice has come from behind a plant.

‘Munroe? Are you there?’

A man’s head pops up above the plant.

‘Dennis. Over here, come sit down and bring the child.’

We go and sit with Munroe. His skin is very clean, even the pink flappy bit that goes from his chin to his white shirt collar. His teeth look too big for his head.

A lady dressed in black and white brings over a silver teapot. ‘Can I get something for you, child?’ she asks. She’s got a lovely slow voice.

Gramps says, ‘Milk, she’ll have milk.’

They pour the tea, but guess what? It’s not tea but coffee that comes pouring out — I can tell by the smell — and I’ve never seen coffee coming out of a pot before. All the time Munroe is looking at me and smiling.

‘So, this is Mercy.’

I’m about to say, no, actually this is Carmel, but Gramps butts in really quickly and says, ‘Yes that’s right. Praise the Lord.’ I press my nails into my palms until they hurt and stare at him hard, but he doesn’t take any notice.

‘Yes. Praise the Lord.’ Munroe almost shouts it out and I find it quite embarrassing because people turn their heads to look.

They talk together, their heads close and their voices dipping down low. I sit looking at my milk and not drinking it, watching the surface turning thick and creamy. I’m remembering — there was a calendar behind the lady’s head at the counter, one where the numbers fall down every day. Today, it said, was May 30. I start feeling sick.

‘Gramps,’ I say. I didn’t even know I was going to say it, it was so sudden. ‘Have I had my birthday?’

They look up and both their sets of eyes are shiny, like they’ve been drinking beer. ‘Your birthday?’ He looks confused.

‘It happens in March and I can’t remember it …’ We had Christmas and went to a church. It was a horrible day missing Mum and all the Christmas things we used to do. ‘My birthday always comes after Christmas.’

‘Birthdays …’ He bends his head down to Munroe again and they both chuckle old-men chuckles and shake their heads in a way that means: kids, eh? All they ever think about is presents and balloons and surprises.

A tiny fly — very black — circles round the glass and falls into the milk.

Their voices are low but once Gramps says in a louder voice, ‘No, not television.’ Munroe spreads out his hands to show him to calm down.

My hands and feet tingle with strangeness. Am I nine now? Have I gone and been nine and not known? Is that possible?

I know the fly’s struggling. It tries to swim across the glass, its legs keep poking up out of the white and look like nose hairs, but it’s drowning under the milk. I think, I should rescue it, I really should, take the spoon from Gramps’s coffee cup and spoon it out. But I don’t. I start getting that guilty feeling but I just watch and watch and I can feel some sweat above my top lip growing. Munroe stops talking to Gramps and looks over at me. When he smiles his teeth look plastic.

I wipe my top lip and water comes away on my fingers. I think of Munroe in the milk drowning with his arms and legs sticking out. I imagine they’re swapped around and he’s tiny and the fly is as big as him and sitting in the red velvet chair twitching its legs and sucking up coffee through its beak.

‘What are you doing, child?’ Gramps asks.

I’ve taken his silver spoon and I fish out the fly from the milk and dollop it onto the white saucer that my milk came on. It lies in a puddle twitching. It’s trying to shake the milk off its body so it can be free again.

Munroe says, ‘These things breed dirt and destruction.’ And before I can stop him he reaches over and squishes the fly in his paper napkin and all that’s left is black bits squished on the white.

*

Back in the truck. I’m on my bed and shoving my face hard into the crochet covers. The doors are open and Melody and Silver are playing outside even though it’s starting to rain.

‘Come out and play,’ calls Silver.

I don’t answer. I don’t want to talk.

‘What’s the matter with her now?’ I hear Dorothy’s voice saying. She’s further away than the twins so her voice is thinner.

‘It’s ’cos she didn’t get a present on her birthday.’

‘It’s not that. It’s not, it’s not.’ I thought I’d never speak again but now I’m shouting.

‘Oh Lord,’ says Dorothy, like I’ve added one more thing to her problems.

But Silver won’t stop. I wish she’d shut up, I really do.

‘She’s mad — she didn’t get a cake with candles. Or people coming to a fancy big party bringing gifts tied up with pink ribbons.’

I’m guessing that’s how Silver would like her party to be.

I hear Melody’s voice. ‘I’ll make you a cake, Carmel. I’ll get one of the patty tins and stir up some grass and we’ll use twigs for candles …’

Melody’s whispering voice is near. She’s probably right by the door and staring in. But I’m lying down again and burying myself in and wishing and wishing I wasn’t there. I don’t care about the cake. I don’t care about the presents. But how can you be nine and not know about it? How can that even be possible? Mum said nine was important because it was the last one before I went into double figures and come what may we’d do something really special.

‘Leave me alone,’ I shout into the bed cover. It goes hot and wet from my breath. ‘I was nine and no one bothered to tell me. Leave me alone all of you. I want my mum.’ The longing for her is hurting me it’s so bad.

I hear Dorothy again. Her voice floating over on the wind. ‘Leave her be, girls. Just leave her be and she’ll get over it.’

*

Later, Dorothy walks us to the gas station to get an ice-cream cone. We all have green except for Dorothy who has white. We sit on benches by the gas station to eat them, Dorothy and the twins on one bench and me on the other.

She’s got her arms round both of them and eats her ice cream with long slow licks. They lean against her, one either side, and sometimes she puts the underneath of her chin on top of their heads. I know when she does this she’s liking the feeling of their sun-hot hair and how much she loves them. Melody twists her head and smiles up at her and Dorothy kisses her right above her eyes.

‘For one, then always for the other,’ she says, and makes sure she kisses Silver in the exact same spot. ‘My beautiful peas,’ she calls them.

Then she starts talking to them in Spanish — laughing and hugging them tight.

I suck most of my ice cream up in one go.

‘Where are you going?’ asks Dorothy, as I get up.

I toss the rest of the cone in the bin. ‘To see if they’ve got a bathroom.’

The old man we bought the ice cream off watches me pass and his head looks like it’s floating behind the window. The toilet’s in a shed out the back with a string instead of a chain to flush. A fly’s licking something off the wall. When I’ve flushed I close the toilet and sit on the seat and listen to the fly. Each time it moves to another bit of the wall it buzzes and it just seems real happy to be there — like it doesn’t even know it’s trapped in a dark cold box where people come and do their business. I feel for the pen I keep now in my pocket and spend ages scratching on the wall — Carmel Was Here — and I draw a little heart underneath and when I’m done the fly does a walk around the C and for some reason that makes me happy, like we’re having a small celebration together.

Outside Melody’s there and I wait while she goes.

‘You been writing on the wall again, Carmel?’ she says when she comes out drying her hands on a paper towel.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Well, I hope Mom doesn’t need to go ’cos you’ll be getting it again.’

Dorothy went crazy when she found my name written in glitter glue on the truck number plate. I thought I’d done it too small for her to see but her eyes are sharp as anything. I flick a bug that’s landed on my arm. ‘I don’t care.’

We sit on the concrete by the two old gas pumps. The blue paint of them is starting to flake away and I stick my thumbnail under a peel and scratch some more off, wondering why it always feels good to do that.

‘I’m sorry Mom didn’t remember your birthday.’ Because it’s starting to be evening she’s got a jumper on over her dress that Dorothy knitted, but I don’t know where Dorothy got that colour wool from. It’s in between pink and orange and it’s so bright it makes your teeth hurt as much as pushing them into ice cream, but Melody seems to like it; she wears it a lot.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘It’s not your fault anyway.’

Behind the shop hut is a jungle of trees and there’s monster red flowers on some of them.

‘No, but it’s not fair.’

‘But …’ I don’t know how to say I don’t mind any more. I look over to where Dorothy’s still holding Silver on the bench.

‘Your mom looks a bit like Jesus’s mother, except she’s got twin girls instead of a boy.’

I’ve just realised that Gramps talks about Jesus a whole lot and God of course but Jesus’s mum never gets a mention.

‘I guess. They’ve both got long hair.’ She’s quiet for a bit. ‘Do you feel different knowing you’re nine?’

‘I think so.’ I lift my nose up and smell the petrol hanging about: I like it — the smell is like spirit. Or like a lady’s perfume, but dangerous. Here — with the blue paint, the red flowers and Melody’s tooth-hurting jumper and the smell of gas and the floating head and knowing I’m nine — I’ve grown up, not slowly, like you usually do, but in a rush. And I’m not even just nine; I’m nine and a bit — maybe even nearly up to a quarter. I press my hands flat on the hot blue metal of the gas pumps.

‘Gramps says there’s some mighty power in those hands,’ says Melody, her face all serious.

My hands look bigger than I ever remember them. Nine-year-old hands. ‘Yes. I can feel it now when I lay them — what they’re doing.’

‘What does it feel like?’

‘Like shocks. I can make it happen.’

‘D’you like it?’ She’s picking the paint off too now.

I shrug. ‘It makes me dizzy.’ I get a good peel of paint under my fingernail and pull off a whole strip.

I lean back and let the hot metal of the gas pump warm my back. Everywhere feels alive, even the air, and the feeling goes inside me and hurts but in a way that’s nice. I know now that Dorothy loves her twins, but not me, even though I’ve been trying to make her, and I realise that, maybe, it’s a relief because she’s not my mum. And if she tried to be, and we loved each other, that would be only one life, with her — she would become my mom for ever and I’d have to be the way she wanted me to be. The way it is, I’m not her daughter — so I can have any life. It could go any way.

*

In the end we do have a party. Dorothy buys a cake with pink icing and puts nine pink candles on it. She gives me a present wrapped up in birthday paper; it’s a white dress, with silver nylon lace round the neck, the front and the bottom, and some stickers of ladybirds and butterflies. I share those with the twins and we stick some on our faces. I put a butterfly in between my eyes.

‘You can wear the dress today,’ she says. ‘Because being nine’s so special Pastor Munroe is going to take you to his church. They’re all expecting you.’

At least I got red shoes to go with it. When we went shoe buying I tucked my legs under the chair and wouldn’t try anything else on. I thought, no more crappy patent leather for me because now I know I’m nine I can think like that. Dorothy just gave in. She probably remembered the coat.

Gramps says, ‘It’ll be a great day. Word is spreading.’

‘Alright,’ I say. Going to Pastor Munroe’s church doesn’t sound like the sort of thing you do on your birthday. I like going to mazes and things. Mum said for my ninth birthday she might even take me on a ferry somewhere. Don’t think about that, Carmel.

Dorothy says, ‘Take those off your face. And look at your hair, child. We need to fix that. You look like you’ve got a bird’s nest on your head.’

I put my hands up to feel the bird’s nest. My hair’s got all long again so the curls are more stretched out. She gets a brush and brushes it really hard. I still like it when she does things like this for me in spite of how mean she can be. She scrubs my face so the stickers come off.

My hair goes snap, crackle and pop from the brushing. ‘Look,’ I say to the twins, pointing at my head.

They both laugh a lot. ‘It looks like you’ve had an electric shock,’ says Silver, and I laugh too. She’s got a ladybird on her face that looks like it’s crawling up into her eye. She calls it a ladybug and I like that a lot. That’s what I’m going to say from now on.

Dorothy doesn’t think it’s funny. She gets a spray out of the truck and sprays water over my head.

‘Now stand still and get dry in the sun and don’t run about. Or eat any more cake. Or put any more of those stickers on your face. I’ve never seen a child who can turn as messy as you in five minutes flat.’

I stand and the twins run round and round me and this makes me laugh again.

Pastor Munroe turns up in a big car with lots of silver bits on it that shine. He stands outside the truck and Dorothy gives him a slice of pink-and-white birthday cake. He stands there with the plate in his hand looking like he doesn’t want it.

‘And how’s our miracle child today?’ He’s looking at me.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I say, very polite. I look down. I’ve got my birthday dress on and it comes nearly to my ankles. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to wear trousers.

Dorothy takes the plate off him — it’s obvious he doesn’t want it. He pats his tummy at the place where he’s wearing a brown leather belt in the trousers of his white suit. ‘Started the day with a big breakfast. No space left for cake.’

He’s looking into our truck. ‘How the heck d’you live in there, the five of you …’ Then he stops, like he’s said it without thinking.

I look at Gramps. I know he gets ashamed about things, about how we live, our clothes.

‘It’s fun,’ I say quickly and the three grown-ups turn round to look at me.

‘Fun?’ says Pastor Munroe.

‘Yes. It’s better than a house — you can go where you want.’ I hate it when Gramps has to look ashamed. It’s like when Dorothy goes on at him about the condo she wants. That mortgages are easy now and they’re giving them to anyone, even people like us.

‘Well, yes.’ Pastor Munroe rubs his hands together. ‘Shall we get going then? Time to meet the faithful.’

Before we go we all pray there and then with our eyes closed and with people walking up and down the path next to us on the way to the toilet block. It’s so hot I think we’re going to melt but then we get into Pastor Munroe’s car and it turns into a lovely cold fridge in about a second. I wave to Melody and Silver through the window, them and Dorothy aren’t coming with us. I think, they’re my very best friends now.

‘Gramps,’ I ask, ‘what was Mum like when she was nine?’

He thinks for a while then doesn’t turn round when he answers. I notice his best black suit has gone scraggy on the collar. ‘She was like you, Carmel. Just like you. A little angel.’

I’m not, I think, so I bet she wasn’t either. As we start driving I wonder if Nico is going to be at the church. I think that whenever we’re going somewhere new, even though it was ages ago I met him.

Gramps and Pastor Munroe are talking in the front. ‘I thought we could start with the blind beggar who was made to see,’ says Pastor Munroe.

‘Yes, and we could —’

Munroe interrupts. ‘It’s always good to get the feeling going. Maybe you should let me look after things this time.’

Gramps says OK and looks out of the window.

Thinking about Nico makes me go into the dream I have about him. I don’t see what’s outside the window because inside my head I’m arranging the house for me and Nico to live in together, just us. There’s orange curtains like at home and a big comfy sofa where we can cuddle up and watch TV. I make me and Nico cook spaghetti for dinner.

I have to stop when the car pulls up outside a church. It’s made of shining new stone and there’s the smoothest greenest grass I’ve ever seen. Stuck into the grass are two bright white crosses, one on each side of the path.

‘Here we are,’ says Pastor Munroe. He drives round the back to where there’s a car park.

‘You have a truly beautiful church here, my friend.’ Gramps is squeezing his neck around so he can look out the window. ‘Very impressive.’ Pastor Munroe makes a noise in his throat that means: ‘I know.’

Even though there’s a door at the back we walk around to the front. Gramps goes on one side of me and Pastor Munroe on the other.

‘Ready?’ Pastor Munroe asks. Gramps doesn’t say anything but he must have nodded as Pastor Munroe opens up the church door. Inside, there’s a red carpet up the middle. The seats are full of people and when the door gets opened they all turn round to stare at us. They stare for a moment then start shouting out. Some of them stand up.

I can tell from his voice Munroe is smiling. ‘Welcome,’ he says to us. This time he makes me and Gramps go first so he’s last in.