The Museum of You Page 5

  She doesn’t need to record any of these things in her notebook. Instead, she pops downstairs – mind the motorbike helmets, and the newspapers, and the Dulux Black Satin paint – for a bin bag. As she heads down the hall the letterbox snaps. Yikes! But it’s not Dad, inexplicably back from work early. It’s just the postman. Her breath escapes in a relieved puff.

  Dad has never said she isn’t allowed in the room, he just says:

  ‘Oh, it’s such a mess.’

  ‘Don’t go in there, you’ll break your neck.’

  ‘I’ll sort it out one day.’

  On the few occasions when they’ve stepped inside together he has allowed her to have a brief look; opened a few of the boxes, lifted the odd thing off the bed and stroked it while she watched, mouth closed tight, because to speak would break the spell and return them to the other side of the door.

  Back in the room, she chucks the junk mail in the bin bag and, having slid her hands into the blue plastic gloves again, lifts another pile of papers off the bed. Just as she begins to flick through the pile, the telephone rings and she dashes down the stairs – careful – to answer, in case it’s Dad.

  ‘IS THAT YOU, CLOVER?’

  Mrs Mackerel is a bit deaf. When she talks she cups her mouth and, if you didn’t know better, you’d think she was about to whisper. Then her voice explodes out of her, literally. She has two settings: loud, for normal words; and extra loud, for the words she wants to be certain have been heard.

  ‘I’ve got some SWEETS. Will you COME AND GET THEM?’

  ‘You mean now?’

  ‘No, I mean next week – OF COURSE I MEAN NOW.’

  Clover trudges up the stairs. She places the gloves on the bed and picks up her red trainers before stepping out on to the landing and closing the door. Mrs Mackerel doesn’t usually buy her sweets, she’s just checking up on her. Still, there’s plenty of time. Weeks and weeks of it.

  Mrs Mackerel’s bell plays a selection of tunes on a loop. Today it does ‘Jingle Bells’.

  Mrs Mackerel opens the door. ‘NOT TODAY, THANK YOU,’ she says, and then she closes it in Clover’s face.

  Clover waits. The door opens.

  ‘It was a JOKE! Now, COME IN.’

  She follows Mrs Mackerel down the hall, past poor bleeding Jesus on a cross as long as her arm, and into the lounge, which is a mirror image of hers and Dad’s and almost as crowded.

  ‘You’d better SIT DOWN, then.’

  Clover sits on the edge of the two-seater sofa.

  ‘NOT THERE.’

  She flits to the three-seater instead.

  ‘THAT’LL DO.’

  Mrs Mackerel’s lounge is full of chairs. It’s as if she went to the furniture shop, found a fabric she liked – turquoise with a spattering of fat pink roses – and ordered everything they had in it: a three-seater, a two-seater, an armchair and a matching footstool. She picked the same material for her curtains, the swoopy kind that look like they should be in front of a stage. Everything is so big, it’s a wonder it was able to fit through the door. Clover wouldn’t be surprised if the furnishings started out tiny like those dehydrated flannels she used to like when she was a little girl, and Mrs Mackerel watered them until they swelled into three flowery sofas and a fancy pair of curtains.

  There’s not much room for any furniture besides the chairs. Instead, Mrs Mackerel has filled the remaining space with cottage ornaments. Every surface – windowsill, television stand, a small display cabinet and the mantelpiece – is decorated with them, all slightly different but essentially the same: whitewashed walls and thatched roofs with tiny flower-filled gardens wrapped by hedges. The houses have names like Rose Cottage, Thistle Cottage and Midnight Cottage. Clover used to line them up on the carpet when she was younger, deciding which she liked best, which she would live in if she were a centimetre tall. Although she knows several collectors – Grandad (clocks), Uncle Jim (jigsaws), Dad (well, everything) – and could, if pushed, suggest reasons why Grandad and Uncle Jim and Dad keep the things they gather, this particular collection mystifies Clover. Mrs Mackerel has lived in The Grove since she got married, nearly fifty years ago. Her house, like Clover’s, is made of red brick; the windows are encased in white plastic and its roof is protected by thin slices of slate. She doesn’t have an allotment, and many years ago she paid workmen to bury her back garden and driveway under paving slabs. She would hate living in the countryside – if anything from outdoors ever sneaks inside she takes off her slipper and fights it to the death.

  ‘And what have YOU got to SAY FOR YOURSELF today?’

  The question makes the visit seem like her idea, and she doesn’t have anything to say for herself. She only came for the sweets.

  ‘CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE? Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to then, shall I? Now, I’m telling you this IN CONFIDENCE . . .’

  Mrs Mackerel says a lot of things in confidence, but because she says them so loudly, she pretty much ends up saying them with confidence, instead. Dad’s always telling her to go and see the doctor. ‘Hearing aids don’t cost anything, they’re free, Edna,’ he says. But Mrs Mackerel won’t put any old rubbish in her ears. What she wants is some of them proper digital hearing aids from the telly, not a pair of NHS whistlers. She goes on and on, until Dad gets all huffy and says, ‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.’ Then she looks pleased, as if the whole point of the conversation was to get a rise out of Dad.

  ‘. . . and so I told Mrs Knight, God forgive me, IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO BRING YOUR BIN IN AGAIN, YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING . . .’

  Mrs Knight is a nice old lady from round the back. Mrs Mackerel keeps an eye on her and they seem like best friends – they shop together every Wednesday and Saturday, they have lunch in the café at BHS, and they do little favours for each other, like lending Catherine Cookson books and telling each other which supermarkets have gin on special offer – but Mrs Mackerel keeps a mental count of every good deed and Mrs Knight is in arrears. Sometimes it seems Mrs Mackerel is Mrs Knight’s best friend and her greatest enemy, all at once. On Tuesday afternoons Mrs Knight comes round to Mrs Mackerel’s and they drink gin and orange squash. Just one or two, they say. And then it’s three, and four, and five. Last summer, Clover endured trips to the café at BHS and stagnant afternoons in Mrs Mackerel’s conservatory, but she looked forward to Tuesdays. Once, Mrs Mackerel even said a rude word. Mrs Knight started it, by trying to rest her glass on her tummy, which rolled out like a little hill when she sat down. Some of the gin splashed on to her trousers.

  ‘GET YOUR AUNTY PEARL A CLOTH,’ Mrs Mackerel said.

  Clover did as she was told, even though she doesn’t have any aunties.

  Mrs Knight dabbed at the mound of her waist. ‘Oh dear, it’s my belly, it’s –’

  ‘Your chest’s ON YOUR BELLY and your belly’ll be ON YOUR KNEES before you’re finished, Pearl.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘You need a PANTY GIRDLE.’

  ‘Really? I –’

  ‘SEVEN POUNDS AT BONMARCHÉ.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what I’d . . . I’ve never – would you wear knickers with one, Edna?’

  ‘OF COURSE. I always wear knickers with mine. In fact, in the WINTER, when I’ve got my KNICKERS, my GIRDLE and my TIGHTS on, I’m always LOVELY AND WARM! I can’t be doing with a cold B.T.M.’

  ‘A cold what?’

  ‘BEE – TEE – EM.’

  Mrs Knight rubbed at her damp patch and shrugged.

  ‘A cold ARSE, Pearl.’

  And then – funniest of all – Mrs Mackerel did a burp. Not a loud one, just a little pop that she tried, and failed, to swallow.

  Clover smiles as she remembers.

  ‘. . . I won’t have her HOLDING ME HOSTILE with her power washer. And I don’t know what’s SO FUNNY about that,’ Mrs Mackerel is saying. ‘I SUPPOSE YOU’LL BE WANTING YOUR SWEETS.’

  Her nylon trousers crackle when she gets up from the armchair. She is wearing a sort
of jacket like the ones the school dinner ladies wear. She calls it a housecoat; she has several in different pastels – there must be a catalogue or a special shop – and she wears them over her clothes, only taking them off when she goes out or has important visitors. Mrs Mackerel likes to keep things for best: blouses, trousers, glasses, biscuits – even the turquoise, rose-spattered sofas have white napkin-ish flaps dangling over their arms and tops, just where your arms and head rest. While she is gone, Clover peers at the silver-framed wedding photograph that sits among the cottage ornaments on the mantelpiece. You can tell it’s Mrs Mackerel, it’s exactly how she would look if you excavated her face: remove the wrinkly topsoil, dig under the eye-bag mounds, flatten the badlands of her neck, and there she is, young and skin-tight, looking wonderfully glamorous in a sparkly crown and a white lace dress with sleeves like bells, her hands covered by little white gloves that stop at the wrist, fingers clasping a small bouquet – lilies, gardenia, iris? It’s hard to tell because the photograph is black and white. Mr Mackerel is smart in a dark suit and a striped tie. He is tall and slim, his hair so short and shiny-slick that it could pass for plastic, like Barbie’s Ken.

  ‘CUP OF TEA?’ Mrs Mackerel calls from the kitchen.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘DON’T ANSWER, THEN. Why do I bother?’ She bursts back into the lounge, holding a bag of Jelly Babies. She usually buys mints: soft mints, humbugs, mint imperials, Murray mints, Tic Tacs, Polo mints and Werther’s butter mints. She must have stood in the sweet aisle of the shop, imagining what Clover might like; the thought makes Clover happy.

  ‘HERE.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘ROT YOUR TEETH.’

  Clover nods.

  ‘FULL OF SUGAR.’

  She nods again, clasping the yellow packet in case Mrs Mackerel changes her mind and takes it back.

  ‘DON’T EAT THEM ALL AT ONCE.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘AND I FOUND THESE.’ She delves in her knitting bag for something that is clearly not knitting, because it rustles when she touches it. ‘THERE. We were cleaning out the cupboard at CHURCH and LO and BEHOLD.’

  Clover opens her hand to receive a small stack of colouring books – Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, The Story of Mary – and a booklet, browned and curling at the corners, called Latin Words and Phrases for Beginners.

  ‘Oh. Thank you.’

  ‘YOU’RE WELCOME. What are you UP to? Aren’t you BORED on your OWN all day?’

  ‘It’s not all day, and I’ve got jobs. I’m doing the watering –’

  ‘And you’ll be KNITTING THE SCARF FOR YOUR DAD, won’t you? Bring it with you NEXT TIME and I’ll HAVE A LOOK. What does HE THINK about you being at home ON YOUR OWN ALL DAY?

  ‘Well, I’m not, it’s not all day, but he’s –’

  ‘HE’S A GOOD MAN – God help him. He wears his HEART on his SHOULDER.’

  Clover makes an agreeing noise.

  ‘Well, you’ve got JOBS to do. You’d better BE OFF.’

  As Clover leaves, Mrs Mackerel presses a £2 coin into her hand. ‘THERE,’ she says. ‘You could BUY YOURSELF some of those LOON BANDS.’

  ‘Loom bands?’

  ‘That’s right. Someone made a DRESS out of them and got a MILLION POUNDS for it. YOU COULD DO THAT – God love you.’

  Clover hurries to the door, conscious of Mrs Mackerel’s partiality for what Dad calls the tablecloth trick.

  ‘And Clover?’

  Here she goes, everything’s lovely, now she’ll whip the cloth out from under it.

  ‘Tell your dad he’d better SORT YOUR BACK GARDEN OUT. He’s been PROMISING to do it for TIME AND MEMORIAL.’

  Clover sits on a stack of empty milk crates in the back garden, the Latin booklet and Jelly Babies resting on her lap. The colouring books top a pile of papers in the kitchen destined for the recycling bin. She rearranges the press of her bottom on the criss-cross of the crates – Colin borrowed them from somewhere when he was having a go at being a milkman; one day Dad will line them with plastic and use them as planters.

  Mrs Mackerel is right, the garden could do with a tidy. The shed is bursting with tools, buckets and spades, canes for the allotment, collapsed lilos, a stack of six plastic garden chairs and a matching table, jars of screws and nails, half-emptied seed envelopes, two sleds, and a dressmaker’s dummy Dad thought she might like in her room – she didn’t like it; it terrified her, that’s why it’s out here. Other stuff rests against the shed’s outer walls or lounges on the lawn, waiting to be put somewhere. All the bikes she has ever owned lean up against it like a sculpture of her growth to date, in metal and rubber. A boat engine Dad bought on eBay is beached on the grass beside her. At least Dad keeps the grass quite short; Mrs Mackerel can’t complain about that. When it’s time to cut it he gets Clover to lift everything – the plastic slide she played on as a toddler, the slimy-bottomed paddling pool, the balls and water pistols – while he trails behind her, not mowing neatly, in stripes, but backwards and forwards, in a vacuuming sort of pattern.

  A car alarm whistles and every dog in the neighbourhood answers. She flicks the Latin booklet open and scans the words: collector, curator, idea, museum – she recognises lots of them. The sayings are trickier. Acta non verba – deeds, not words. She likes that, it makes her think of her notebook, upstairs, waiting.

  Knock, knock.

  Shielding her eyes, she stares up, past the cusp of the garden fence, at the square window of Mrs Mackerel’s second bedroom, where she is standing, draped in the net curtain, jabbing the pane with her index finger, pointing, pointing, pointing . . . at the bag of Jelly Babies. Her lips are moving. NOT ALL AT ONCE, she’ll be saying. And possibly, YOU DON’T WANT TO END UP LIKE YOUR MOTHER. Clover puts the bag down on the crate and waves.

  Mrs Mackerel knew her mother. That’s what everyone calls her – your mother. It’s not friendly like mum, ma or mam, but she quite likes it because it sounds special and a bit posh, and she is used to it now; she couldn’t call her anything else if she tried. It’s the same with Mrs Mackerel: by the time she said, ‘Call me Edna,’ when Clover was about eight, it was far too late. She would like to put Mrs Mackerel in a juicer and squeeze the story of her mother out all at once, but Mrs Mackerel trickles her comments and sometimes says mean stuff on purpose.

  ‘She could have done with losing a few pounds, God love her.’

  ‘She wasn’t much of a mother, God forgive me.’

  Mrs Mackerel always mentions God after she has been mean. Sometimes she is not a very nice person – God help her! Dad says she’s had a hard life, so allowances must be made. When she is especially mean he calls her ‘Evil Edna’, who was a witch of extreme wickedness, from a cartoon he used to watch when he was a little boy, and sometimes, when she’s going off on one, he says rude things under his breath, very quietly. Dad has had a hard life, too. But he isn’t mean.

  Clover was a surprise. Dad has always been clear about it. When she was small he delivered the story while pantomiming a surprised face. ‘One day your mother had tummy ache and then, suddenly, you arrived! She had to go to the hospital in an ambulance. When it was time for my break, someone met me on Lord Street and told me to go to the hospital. I jumped on the 44, and when I got there I couldn’t believe it. What a surprise!’

  She had always imagined that she was the good kind of surprise, like when it’s a party and everyone jumps out and shouts, ‘Happy birthday!’ But the way Mrs Mackerel told the story of her birth made her wonder whether she had in fact been the kind of surprise someone might get if, after the party, they got home and discovered their house had been burgled.

  ‘I suppose you know the FACTS OF LIFE, now?’ she began, one afternoon last summer.

  Clover did – does, in fact, know a lot of disgusting facts, even more than she knew last summer. She shifts slightly on the milk crate; her knickers are climbing into her bum, they’re a bit too small, and since Dad told her his version of t
he facts there has been a growing carefulness between them when it comes to things like snogging on the telly and romantic songs, and she has been putting off saying I need some new ones. The carefulness intensified last autumn when Dad announced that he thought it would be a good idea if they went to Marks and Spencer to buy some new underwear. She knew he had to be talking about bras, because they usually grabbed knickers and vests in packs of fives or sevens from the supermarket, chucking them in the trolley with the fish fingers and ice lollies. She wondered how he knew about Marks and Spencer and who had told him about the measuring service. Girls at school joked about it, said the ladies who worked there volunteered specially so they could cop a feel. It was probably Kelly, she thought. Which also meant that Kelly might have said, ‘Clover’s getting boobs,’ or words to that effect. Clover couldn’t decide if it was worse for your dad or a family friend to notice your boobs first. ‘Would you like Kelly to come with us?’ Dad asked. Clover absolutely DID NOT want Kelly to go on a boob-measuring trip with them. Kelly would want to make it into a special occasion. There would be a cosy chat afterwards: How does it feel to have your first bra? So she went with Dad. He accompanied her through the forest of underwear, right up to the fitting room, where he mumbled something about measurements to one of the women. The woman was friendly and brisk. ‘You’ll want at least three,’ she said, and she helped Clover choose. Dad retreated to the border of Lingerie, occupying the no man’s land between it and Menswear. He kept a lookout and joined them at the till once the measuring and choosing was over. Afterwards, they went to the café for the first time. It was full of old people. Dad bought hot chocolate and shortbread squares. She held the bag of bras tight on her lap, half scared that, given the opportunity, they would slide out and expose themselves. Dad said she was growing up fast and cleared his throat. Then they talked about burning the rubbish at the allotment before winter, and Mrs Mackerel, who had recently described herself as a DEAD-IN-THE-WOOL TORY. ‘We live in hope,’ Dad said, and they sniggered. It was a sort of celebration, but without any fuss. Later, he did a clearly rehearsed speech and presented her with a precautionary packet of sanitary towels. ‘Nothing to be embarrassed about,’ he said, as his face and neck turned red. ‘I bought these at Lidl. In broad daylight. And I wasn’t bothered at all.’