You Against Me

Twenty-one

When Mikey walked into the lounge, his mum switched off the vacuum cleaner to admire him. Holly and Karyn looked up from their game of Snakes and Ladders and wolf-whistled simultaneously.

He laughed. He had on his new T-shirt and favourite jeans. He’d shaved, showered and even used mouthwash. He knew he looked good and gave a male-model strut across the carpet to prove it.

‘Look at my son,’ Mum said. ‘Look at my gorgeous boy.’

‘Who’s it today, then?’ Karyn asked as she shook the dice and threw them on the table. ‘’Cos that’s more effort than most of them get.’

She gave him that cheeky half-smile he’d forgotten about and he felt a bit bad then. But there was no way he could tell her about Ellie, not until he’d got all the information he needed. She wouldn’t understand.

Holly reached for his hand, tucked her own into it. ‘Where will you take her?’

‘Don’t know yet. Out and about.’

He sat at the table and watched them play. Karyn was going down ladders as well as snakes to let Holly win. She winked at him when she clocked he’d noticed.

Mum switched the vacuum back on and they pulled their knees up so she could get to the spaces under their feet. It made Mikey feel like a kid.

‘I’m going to buy some new cushions,’ Mum yelled over the noise. ‘They’ve got some nice ones in the market with embroidery on. New cushions would look lovely in here, don’t you think? And maybe a rug.’

Mikey nodded in agreement, then checked the clock. Twenty minutes to go. He tapped his pocket for the car keys. He felt crap lying to Jacko, but there was no way he’d have lent him the car and agreed to postponing the golf-club recce a second time if he hadn’t.

‘There are things they look for,’ Mum said as she switched off the vacuum and coiled the lead up. ‘They look for dirt, but they also look for smells. I’ve had the windows open all morning and I got one of those plug-in air fresheners.’

She stood, hands on hips, pleased with herself.

‘It’s been like zero degrees with those windows open and she wouldn’t let me shut them,’ Karyn said, her eyes amused.

Mum smiled across at her. ‘You’re cold because you don’t eat enough, and that’s what’s happening next – toast.’

Karyn packed the game away and got Holly some paper and pens instead. Mum made four cups of tea and buttered some toast, even spread it with jam and cut it into squares. She placed Karyn’s plate gently on the table in front of her.

‘It’s ages since I saw you eat anything,’ she said.

Karyn sighed with pleasure and picked up a square of toast. Easy as that.

She looked happier than Mikey had seen her for days. He knew why. She thought every day was going to be as cheery as this from now on. She thought Mum would save her.

It was easy to believe as they sat there together, sipping their tea and eating toast. Things had been better since Gillian’s visit on Monday. Mum had sobered up and collected Holly, then phoned the social worker to apologize. Monday night, she’d sat down with the three of them and promised never to disappear like that again. ‘Everything’s going to be different from now on,’ she said.

Over the last four days she’d spring-cleaned the hallway, the lounge and the kitchen. The whole flat was beginning to look bigger and brighter. Over the weekend she planned to work her way upstairs. Mikey knew what would happen then. She’d fill dustbin bags with old toys and clothes. She’d get ridiculous with it, start throwing things away that people still wanted. Mikey remembered his denim jacket going that way last year, and Holly weeping for hours over her football card collection. Next week, if Mum still hadn’t run out of energy, she might get the local paper and look for jobs. She’d circle them, maybe cut them out and put them in a pile somewhere. And then she’d start saying stuff about how they all took her for granted, how nothing good ever happened to her. And then she’d give herself a little reward – maybe a cheap bottle of red from Ajay’s over the road. ‘Just the one,’ she’d say.

And round and round they’d go again. It was so predictable.

‘OK, Mum,’ he said, ‘a little test before I go. Monday morning. Ding-dong, there’s the social worker again, all smiles, wanting to help. You’ve been cleaning for days and in she comes, very impressed. First question: Why has Holly been off school?’

‘She won’t ask me that.’

‘She might. What will you say?’

‘I’ll say she was sick.’

‘What was wrong with her?’

‘She had a headache.’

‘Kids don’t get headaches.’

Mum moved the ashtray a centimetre to the left, matched the lighter with the edge of the table, making patterns. ‘It’s all right, I can handle it. I told you, it’s going to be different now.’

‘Tell them a fever and a cough, or that she kept throwing up. Not a headache. And don’t smoke in front of her.’

He knew how important his mum’s fags were, how they kept her calm. He knew he was being unkind.

‘Stop worrying,’ she said. ‘It’s only a support visit, nothing else. I’ll sit by the window. I’ll tell her I never do it with Holly around.’

‘Show her the smoke alarm,’ Holly said, pointing up at the ceiling with the end of her felt-tip pen.

Mikey followed her gaze. Sober for days, and a tidy flat was one thing, but a fully-installed and working smoke alarm was definitely something new.

Mum grinned at him. ‘You’re impressed.’

He couldn’t help smiling back.

She glanced at the clock. ‘Go and have fun, Mikey. Go on, you’ve done enough.’

He checked his mobile. No new messages, but that was OK. It was all agreed. Two-thirty at Ellie’s house. He’d leave in a few minutes.

‘Like my drawing?’ Holly said.

She held it up for them all to see. It was Karyn, outside with her hair streaming behind her in the wind. She was holding a piece of string with a dragon on the end and a flaming sword.

‘Nice picture,’ Karyn said.

Holly smiled, carefully tore the page from her book and laid it on the table. ‘I’m going to draw you at school next.’

‘Let me keep the dragon,’ Karyn laughed. ‘I’ll need it if you’re sending me back there.’

Mikey took the plates to the kitchen, had a quick look in the fridge while he was there. It was stuffed – juice and yoghurts, cheese and milk, all sorts. Mum had even bought a pack of bacon and some sausages.

By the time he’d washed up the plates, all three of them were huddled together on the sofa watching a re-run of TopGear - some mountain climber was talking about how he got frostbite and later, after surgery, he had a very hot bath and his toe came off and he left it on the side of the sink for his wife to find. They cackled like witches at it. Mikey smiled, wanted to leave them with something. He went over and put ten quid on the table.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘get yourselves a DVD and some sweets.’

You’d think he’d given them a fortune, the way they passed it between them.

He almost didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t that long ago when this would have been his idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon and he’d happily have squeezed in with them on the sofa.

‘I’ll be off then.’

Mum raised her cup of tea. ‘Have a lovely time.’