The Museum of You Read online

  ‘What did you say, Clover?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You did, I heard you.’

  ‘Nil admirari.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She got this Latin book from Edna, but no one speaks Latin, do they? Shall I get you a French book?’

  ‘Mark’s fluent, you know. He can help with her French, when he gets back. That’ll be better than a book.’

  ‘It’s fine, I don’t need a book and I –’

  ‘So what does nil-mirary mean?’

  ‘To be surprised by nothing.’

  ‘Oh. Good plan,’ Kelly says, and carries on chatting to Dad.

  Clover whispers the words to herself, committing them to memory. She will write them on a piece of paper and colour them in; they’ll provide a nice contrast to her mural of surprised women.

  When Kelly pulls up outside the house Clover climbs through the gap between the front seats and out of the passenger door so as not to wake the boys.

  ‘I had a really good time,’ she tells Dad as Kelly turns her car around.

  ‘Me too,’ he says, and they wave Kelly down the road.

  While they watch the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who she colours some of the pictures from Mrs Mackerel’s books: Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and The Story of Mary. And, sneakily, when she is sure Dad isn’t looking, she colours the tiny hearts she has drawn on the sheet of paper that will head the LOVE board.

  ‘I knew you’d use those colouring books one day,’ Dad says, and she smiles and lets him enjoy being right.

  Early on Sunday morning they pop to the allotment to water. It’s cool and still windy, but at least it’s dry. They pick a big bag of raspberries, a selection of vegetables for Grandad, and some new potatoes for Mrs Mackerel, which Dad delivers on the way home.

  Mrs Mackerel comes to the door in her dressing gown, the crown of her hair sticking up like a label.

  ‘Oh dear, I didn’t get you up, did I?’ Dad asks.

  ‘OF COURSE NOT,’ she says, lips baggy without the scaffold of her teeth.

  Dad has this big idea for the raspberries. He gets baking trays out of a cupboard and arranges the berries on them. The trays go in the freezer. Once the fruit is frozen they will put it in bags and keep it for cooking. Next time her programme is on he wants her to watch it with a pen and paper at the ready in case there are any good recipes. Easy ones, mind. He acts like he’s asking a big favour, but she is dead happy to do it; just think of all the things they might make.

  They visit Uncle Jim in the afternoon. Dad is cross with him. She doesn’t know why, but she can tell because he explains how to get to the room and, instead of accompanying her, he stops in the corridor and coats his hands in antibacterial gel. He does it so thoroughly that you’d think he was a vet getting ready to shove his arm up a cow’s bum.

  ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Don’t wait for me.’

  Uncle Jim is sitting up in bed. He is attached to a machine and he looks very tired.

  ‘Am I glad to see you!’

  He extends his arms for a hug. She is careful. He looks like he might break.

  ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘I’m fine, it was just a stupid mix-up. Look at the jigsaws your dad bought.’

  She laughs when she sees the boxes sitting on the over-bed tray.

  ‘He was trying to annoy me.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure it was just a mix-up, too.’

  He waves a hand, dismissing her protest. ‘Thing is, they’re not as bad as you’d think. Push them over to me. That’s right. You can do this with them,’ he says, and he gets both puzzles out of their boxes and creates two mixed-up pictures, using alternating pieces. ‘You can go with every other piece, every other line, half and half diagonally, half and half horizontally – the possibilities are endless.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No. Endless is the wrong word, but I thought it sounded impressive.’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  He must be very bored to have tried so many different combinations of jigsaw pieces. ‘Is the telly broken?’

  ‘It’s different here. You have to pay. And it’s expensive.’

  ‘Is the food okay?’

  ‘My mouth hurts. I have to choose the soft things.’

  ‘You know what’s soft?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Vegetables.’

  ‘They make you choose some every day. I don’t eat them, though. They can’t force me. I’m seeing the dentist on Monday.’

  ‘That’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I expect they only let the best dentists work in hospitals.’

  ‘They’re all rubbish,’ he says. ‘That’s why they let them practise on people who can’t run away.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I just do.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he says. ‘Where’s your dad?’

  She walks to the door and pokes her head around it. Dad is standing at the nurses’ desk, chatting.

  ‘At the desk,’ she reports.

  ‘Ahh. The silent treatment.’

  ‘No, he’s talking to the nurses.’

  After twenty minutes Uncle Jim starts to flag. He asks about school, forgetting it’s the holidays, and he starts to tell her a story about a time when he had a pet rat, which is probably not true because he’s not very good at looking after himself, never mind an animal.

  Dad appears in the doorway. ‘Jim.’

  ‘Dazza.’

  That’s all they say to each other. They are cross. She glances at Dad, wondering whether he’s too cross to sort out the telly.

  ‘It’s very boring here,’ she says.

  ‘Not guilty. I haven’t complained, honest. Wouldn’t dream of being such a turd nugget.’

  Dad gets his debit card out of his jeans pocket. ‘Would you like him to watch telly?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’ll sort it for you, then,’ he says, tugging the telly’s movable arm.

  Uncle Jim snorts. Clover catches his eye and gives a small shake of her head. If he’s not careful, he’ll end up with nothing. She puts a finger to her lips as Dad messes about with the screen.

  When it’s done, Dad says, ‘Let’s go,’ and heads straight for the door, without saying goodbye, which means that she has to be extra nice to Uncle Jim on the way out in order to make up for it. She hugs him and says she hopes it all goes really well with the dentist. As she heads out of the room, she looks back and waves.

  ‘See you later, detonator,’ he calls.

  Dad always goes out for a drink with Colin on one of the nights of his long weekend off. He doesn’t want her waiting up for him by herself, so he sends her over to Mrs Mackerel’s with a DVD. Mrs Mackerel calls the cinema ‘THE PICTURES’. She hasn’t been to THE PICTURES since the Odeon on Lord Street closed in 1979. Her favourite films are usually about the past because it is WHOLESOME and GOOD CLEAN FUN, even when terrible things happen. Films she has especially enjoyed on Dad’s weekends off include Les Misérables, which she pronounces like it’s named after an unhappy man called Les – SUCH LOVELY SINGING – and The Great Gatsby – SUCH LOVELY COSTUMES. The fact that neither film has a happy ending doesn’t bother her at all.

  There is a rhythm to these evenings. Dad escorts Clover to the door and says exactly where he’s going, in case of an emergency. Mrs Mackerel makes him promise not to get drunk with THAT COLIN and then she says HE’S A QUEER ONE. Dad tells her that it’s called being gay now and she pretends to be shocked because she didn’t MEAN ANYTHING BY QUEER. When she has shut the door in Dad’s face she says, ‘Make yourself at home,’ and goes into the kitchen. She always comes back with Ribena or Lidl cola and a whole packet of Tunnock’s tea cakes arranged on a fancy silver tray. In the summer when it’s hot and it’s s
till light at night, you can sometimes see her fingerprints on the chocolate.

  Tonight she asks about Jim before she presses Play.

  ‘He’s very tired.’

  ‘God help him.’

  ‘And bored.’

  ‘God love him.’

  ‘And there’s a machine next to his bed. For his blood.’

  ‘He’ll be having a BLOOD TRANSMISSION.’

  ‘I think it’s cleaning his –’

  Mrs Mackerel presses Play. The conversation is over.

  Tonight’s film is Gravity. Clover picks the outer layer of chocolate off a tea cake while Mrs Mackerel shouts at the telly. She seems to think that if she shouts loud enough, the actors – whom she insists on addressing by their real names – might hear her and save themselves a lot of trouble.

  ‘WATCH OUT!’ she warns Sandra Bullock.

  Clover nibbles at the froth of the marshmallow. Underneath, there’s a blob of jam. She licks it off the biscuit base, which is always disappointingly soggy.

  ‘I wouldn’t do THAT if I were YOU,’ Mrs Mackerel advises George Clooney.

  It’s strange to think that Mrs Mackerel would have been around Dad’s age when the moon landings happened. It must have been very exciting.

  ‘Space is VERY BIG, isn’t it?’

  Clover agrees and slips off her shoes. Now she is allowed to put her feet on the sofa. Before she does, she helps herself to another tea cake.

  ‘MAKE AN EFFORT, GEORGE! If he’d just do a BIT OF FRONT CRAWL in the air I’m SURE he could SWIM BACK TO EARTH.’

  Mrs Mackerel pauses the film so she can SPEND A PENNY. This happens at least once during every film because she has a BLADDER LIKE A CHEESECLOTH. Clover has no idea what a cheesecloth is. She imagines it must be very small, with lots of holes in, like Swiss cheese in cartoons – a sort of miniature cheesy colander.

  ‘You’d better HAVE A GO, too,’ Mrs Mackerel says on her return. ‘I don’t want you INTERRUPTING THE SECOND HALF.’ She talks about the second half as if there’s a natural break in the film, a spot where the first half ends so old ladies can have a wee.

  Clover takes herself off upstairs. It’s easier than arguing about the capacity of her bladder. Mrs Mackerel’s bathroom suite is powder blue. So is the carpet. Dad says only optimists and ladies who live by themselves have carpet in their bathrooms. The bath is the corner kind, with special taps that look like shells, and the bowl of the sink is scalloped like a cockle. It was ALL THE RANGE when Mrs Mackerel had it done. Beside the toilet there’s a powder-blue bidet, which Mrs Mackerel calls a BJ. You can wash your feet in it, or your bottom, apparently. When Clover was small they’d go upstairs and wash their feet in it, for a treat. Afterwards they dried their feet and plastered them in peppermint foot cream. Then they’d sit on the sofa sucking humbugs, a clean, minty smell emanating from between their toes and teeth. ‘CLEAN AS A BRISTLE,’ Mrs Mackerel would say.

  Once she has squeezed out the smallest of wees, Clover takes her usual snoop around the bathroom. Mrs Mackerel’s things are different and therefore somewhat interesting. A pair of nail clippers that look like shears sit on the edge of the bath beside a bottle of Silver Shampoo and an Avon Timeless Cologne Spray. On the floor beside the toilet are some Tena Lady pads – ‘New Body-Shaped DryZone’ – and a packet of Lady Pants, which aren’t for periods, but cheesecloth bladders. Clover has seen the adverts: women laughing hysterically with not even the tiniest bit of wee running down their legs. On a shelf above the sink she finds a tub of peppermint foot cream, a white plastic container for dentures that looks like a teeny cool box, and a tube of Poligrip, which is the sticky stuff that’s advertised on telly by people who bite into apples and manage not to leave their teeth behind. Above the shelf there’s a mirror-fronted medicine cabinet. It’s locked. After she’s finished having a good snoop, Clover heads back downstairs to Gravity.

  Mrs Mackerel becomes increasingly animated in the SECOND HALF of the film. Despite the fact that she has lived by herself for a long time without a man and seems to have got along just fine, she doesn’t think SANDRA should be ALLOWED up there without a RELIABLE SPACEMAN to fix things.

  ‘HAVE ANOTHER TUNNOCK’S.’

  ‘I’m a bit full.’

  ‘They’ll only GO TO WASTE.’

  ‘All right.’ Clover takes a third tea cake. The waxy chocolate is beginning to edge away from the marshmallow all on its own.

  ‘SANDRA!’ Mrs Mackerel shouts as the film reaches its climax. ‘FIND THE EJACULATE BUTTON!’

  When Dad and Colin pick her up they are bleary round the edges and especially polite.

  ‘Good evening, ladies.’

  ‘Was the film to your liking?’

  ‘Oh YES. I was HANGING ON by the FINGERS OF MY NAILS.’

  Colin puts his arm around Mrs Mackerel and says she’s priceless. She pretends to be insulted, before asking him how much he’d charge to come and clean up her untidy neighbour’s garden.

  Colin laughs. He says he can’t imagine that any of her neighbours would dare to have an untidy garden, but if they did – and he looks meaningfully at Dad as he says this – he’d sort it out for free. Then he asks whether she’d like any other favours while he’s at it.

  She swats him on the arm and asks about THE LOVELY BOY who’s gone to NURSE THE SICK and FEED THE HUNGRY. Colin says Mark is doing a great job of saving the world and the Pope will probably make him a saint before long. He’s only joking, he’s dead proud of him really.

  Colin comes back to the house with them for a bit before Dad calls a taxi. Because it’s the holidays, she doesn’t have to go straight to bed. Colin says he’ll give her a game of Wii tennis and she thrashes him. He demands a rematch, this time with Just Dance. Of course, he wins hands down – hands down, legs up, and bum in the air, to be precise.

  Exhibit: ‘Becky Brookfield – the Untold Story’

  Catalogue

  Object: Comb.

  Description: A yellow plastic wide-tooth comb. There are some hairs in it, which means there is also DNA.

  Item Number: 21.

  Provenance: This comb belonged to Becky Brookfield (my mother). It’s the kind of comb people like us (with curly hair) use. We probably have lots more in common, too. Like looking after Uncle Jim, loving Dad, and other things, et cetera.

  Display: In a clear plastic bag with various hair bobbles and scrunchies that were in the second bedroom.

  Curator: Clover Quinn.

  Keeper: Darren Quinn.

  12

  After Colin leaves, Darren sends Clover to bed. She goes up without any fuss; she’s a good girl, and it’s late. He’s nicely pissed; his head feels ever-so-slightly too heavy for his neck, and his resting expression has slid to sloppy smile. He’s drowsy. Full of optimism. He’ll think of something fun for them to do tomorrow . . . sledding at the sand dunes, that’s what. And he’ll do a bit of tidying too, if he gets the chance. He reaches for the arm of the sofa and picks up the colouring Clover left behind last night. Our Lady of Fatima – Fatima Whitbread, remember her? Muscles like Colin. Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, The Story of Mary, and, under the three colouring books, a sheet of A4 paper, the word LOVE written across its middle. Behind LOVE there are hundreds of tiny hand-drawn hearts which have been coloured with red, pink and purple felt tips.

  So there is a boy. Shit.

  The picture is bursting with joy. He should be worried – he is worried, well, he will be, tomorrow, when he can be more certain of the appropriate volume of parental concern. In the meantime he sits on the sofa, loose-limbed, lazy, and hums the opening bars of ‘All You Need Is Love.’ Love, love, love.

  *

  It all began on the bus. He’d been driving for three weeks when someone presented him with a red handbag at the start of his shift.

  ‘Found this on the seat beside me.’

  He thanked them and hung it in the cab, behind him. That might have been all. He sometimes thinks about it when he’s on a late, and h
e checks his bus before the cleaners climb aboard, looking on and under the seats for abandoned bags, forsaken coats, disregarded umbrellas; he makes sure no one is left behind, dozing on the back seat – it’s happened to other drivers – and when he finds something, he wonders about the person to whom the item belongs and thinks about the way a lost hat or a forgotten coat can change an entire life. That might have been all, but while he was waiting at a timing stop, the red bag rang. He unzipped it and rummaged for the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘You’ve got my phone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And my bag?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can I have them back, please?’

  ‘Course! You left them on the bus. I’m the driver.’

  ‘Oh, thank God! How shall I –’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  She was in a phone box at the end of Lord Street. He wasn’t far away: he was driving the 43 back then – he was never far away. He told her where to wait.

  It was April. Freezing. No sign of spring. It felt like winter – had been winter, in fact, ever since Mum died in the November. There was a weather warning for northerly gales, and the temperature was dropping as low as zero overnight in some parts of the country. It was driving Dad potty. He was desperate for things to do in the evenings, but there was no point getting started in the greenhouse with the weather as it was.

  When Becky stepped on to the bus to claim her bag, the first thing Darren noticed was her hair, the way it whirled over her shoulders, right down past her elbows. There was snow that day. Not much. Just a few icy flakes, sailing about in the wind. They’d collected in her hair and made it sparkle.

  ‘You have my bag?’

  Her voice was low and soft, her hands clasped. He noticed her fancy nails, the ones with the transparent, shiny polish and the white tips. Dead pretty. No rings. She had a high, wide forehead, and almost invisible eyebrows, which levelled her expression, making her seem serene and unflappable.

  ‘I’m Darren.’

  She nodded and reached for the bag.