Page 46 - WTP Vol.IX #3

Chestnut (continued from page 12)
holding me high calling me her poppet and telling me she didn’t want any more bloody kids ever.
Then speeding along the chutey thing—me pushed fast by my dad in the buggy in the park cos he was living with us again.
And then the bit when the marble goes into the hamster cage, cos he was gone again, disappeared, and mum crying, and she went too, so, as the marble slowly rolls along a little ramp, that’s me on my own, yeah, god knows where Mum was but there was a lady in uniform banging on the door breaking in, and the marble comes out and Mum’s back, hugging me, and neighbours coming in, passing me round like a parcel.
Aged four... nursery—I didn’t want to go.
Five... school—I didn’t want to go.
Then the dominoes falling over, that’s me at school. I’d met Kirsty of course, she is the special double-six domino, but everyone else was crap except Kirsty and Mrs Chestnut who was like a safety net—simile—al- ways trying to catch me. Next the marble goes down a fast bit; that’s me running away.
Eight... the Brio bit: we went on a train—in Wales— no idea why we went there. Dad wasn’t there.
Nine... in the park, down the six connected bits of the marble run, that’s the slide in the playground, and
me, a kid who smelled, looking out and seeing my dad watching—from outside the park. He was standing at the railings with a tag on his ankle.
And ten, the marble comes out at the end onto the sofa. Cos that’s where I was on SATS day—on the sofa, waiting.
I played it time and time again, refining it so that it worked perfectly. Then I balanced the marble at the top, right high up at the beginning, waiting for Mum to come home. I was still jangled inside because she hadn’t come home last night. It was like my intestines had become angular and I could feel them pinching the inside of my body. But it was going to be OK, I thought, ‘She’s gonna love it.’
Three in the afternoon. I saw the Yaris pull up out- side.
Kiss,
laughter,
car door opened,
mum walked up the path,
key in the lock,
door.
Whoosh, a hot feeling. I was bricking it cos I’d skived off school, but when she asked me how SATS went, I’d say,
‘Such A Tricky Situation... I just couldn’t do it mum; couldn’t do it.’
And then I’d cry and cry and weep buckets (meta- phor) and she’d put out her arms and I’d run to her and she’d hold me tight then I’d show her the marble run and we’d play and laugh all the way till bedtime.
‘Hello, Suzie,’ she said, looking surprised, ‘You’re home early.’
She checked her neck in the hallway mirror; she had a necklace of bruises made by the sucking of his mouth. She smiled, liking it. Every mark was proof that he loved her.
She went upstairs. Took a shower.
I sat downstairs. The marble waited in anticipation at the top of the run.
She Always Trashes Situations.
Her sad plan was to scrub up and be there waiting when I came home from school—pretend it was a normal day. Not like a day when they’d both called in to work with sickies and spent the day... you can fin- ish that sentence yourself.
She never asked about the SATS. Scheming And Traitorous Slimebag.
She shouted down: ‘Chippy tea tonight! Pop out and get chips, curry sauce and a jumbo sausage—and whatever you want, Suzie!’
‘Elaine.’
I went for the chips.
She never even looked at it. My beautiful, knotted, mangled contraption filling the room. It was an en- gineering miracle, a suspended creation of hope and geometry that would have sent Mrs Chestnut rushing for her sheet of gold stars. She would have stuck so many on my school jumper that I’d be like the milky way.
Mum spent the night on the phone to Dennis while I dismantled it all and put the bits back where they came from—the length of gutter in the shed, domi- nos in the going-to-the-caravan drawer that we hadn’t opened since I was five, lubricant box back in the bathroom bin.
When I went back to school, the day after the SATS that never were, news in the playground was that fat, stressed-out Mrs Chestnut was leaving.
OMG!
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