The Museum of You Page 9

  ‘What is wrong?’

  Clover steps out on to the drive and disappears around the back of the enormous bin to fetch her bike. ‘He’s not himself,’ she says, wheeling the bike past Dagmar and the parked cars and on to the pavement.

  ‘But what is wrong?’

  ‘He’s . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s just . . . not himself.’

  Dagmar seems about to press her further, but then she shrugs. ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘Home,’ she says. And, fed up of being shadowed, she adds, ‘I’m not allowed anyone in the house while my dad’s not there.’

  ‘Your dad is scaring you?’

  ‘He’s a bus driver.’

  ‘And he is scaring you?’

  If she says Dad isn’t scary, Dagmar might insist on coming back to the house with her. ‘Well, maybe a bit,’ she fudges.

  No one from school ever comes to the house. When she was small enough to have birthday parties, Dad booked them at KidzKlimbz in town. For as long as she can remember she has been aware that other people don’t have as much stuff as she and Dad do. When she was at nursery school she was invited to have tea with a couple of girls. Their houses seemed empty, cavernous.

  ‘My dad is scaring me,’ Dagmar says.

  Clover listens, not wanting to interrupt the interesting words that will surely follow. Their feet smack the hot pavement. The bike’s wheels tick, tick, tick and the bucket sways gently from its handlebars. Dagmar’s trolley drags and the dry puff of her breath makes her very existence seem a matter of great effort.

  ‘My dad,’ Dagmar says eventually, pausing before continuing, as if she is already thinking better of it, ‘is not himself, also.’

  Clover has an hour in the second bedroom, tops. Last time she was here she spotted a wire sticking out of a pile of stuff near the headboard and, breaking her self-imposed rule about working methodically, tugged it gently until a portable CD player and headphones on a thin metal band emerged. She found some batteries and listened to the old songs on the CD it contained: ‘Born to Make You Happy’, ‘Spinning Around’, ‘Beautiful Day’ – cheerful, summery songs, from ages ago; she already knows some of them from Dad’s nineties CDs. They are the perfect accompaniment to her work, and she clips the CD player to the waistband of her shorts, arranges the headphones and presses play before lifting another pile of paper off the bed. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. When she realises there are even more holiday brochures, she goes back through the bin bag and retrieves the others. Then she sorts them into piles: winter sports, canal boats and sailing, beaches, cruises, and adventure. The beach pile is the biggest, closely followed by winter sports. She keeps those two piles on the floor and slips the other brochures back into the bin bag.

  Downstairs, in the dining room, she roots through a pile of MDF offcuts. You can make all sorts of things with MDF: photo frames, magazine racks, Christmas decorations – she and Dad haven’t made any of these things yet, but they might, one day. Grandad’s cuckoo clocks are here, in among the other stuff: plugs, owner’s manuals for various electronic devices, an old-fashioned overhead projector and a sizeable collection of empty sweet tins that Dad likes to save, just in case. She flicks the lids of a couple of clock boxes and sees roofs topped by ridge tiles, some flat, others corrugated, each carved out of a different coloured wood. But there’s no time to look properly now. She selects a slice of MDF that’s poster-sized, grabs a pair of scissors and a glue stick, and negotiates the stairs – careful!

  She cuts out the best beach pictures, the ones with palm trees, white sand and turquoise water, so different from their beach with its dark sand and churning grey-brown sea. Then she cuts out the best of the winter pictures: tiny skiers gliding down jagged mountains against sapphire skies; grinning families drinking hot chocolate in log cabins. She glues the beach scenes to one side of the board and the snowy scenes to the other. Of course, she has no idea which of these places her mother has visited. They interested her, though, that much is clear. She must have requested the brochures and she must have spent time thinking about what it would be like to lie under a palm tree or speed down a mountain. In a sense, these are personal items – they came in envelopes, addressed to Becky Brookfield. The lady at the museum said you get a feeling about things as you hold them. Clover closes her eyes and skims the tips of her fingers over the collage; first one side of the board, and then the other. The feeling she gets is this: a day at Blackpool is a bit rubbish. The pictures are like a message from her mother, who seems to be saying: there’s more to life than candyfloss, donkey rides and Pleasure Beach. Clover wonders about going on a proper holiday. Perhaps to one of the places in the pictures. It might even be that while visiting one of her mother’s favourite places – because that’s surely what these places are – Dad would be unable to prevent himself from talking about her. That’d be epic! She opens her eyes and leans the board against the foot of the bed. Not long until Dad gets home. She’ll update her notebook and then she’ll plant herself in the recliner with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

  When it’s time for bowling, Kelly comes to the door by herself. The boys wait in the car, licking the windows like monkeys. They are called Tyler and Dylan but they are mostly known as the boys: ‘Come on, boys,’ ‘Don’t do that, boys’ and ‘Sit down, boys.’

  ‘Oh God, don’t look at them. My mum let them overdose on e-numbers this afternoon. They’re high as kites.’

  Dad laughs.

  ‘You encourage them, Darren, and I’ll kill you.’ She kisses Clover on the cheek and leaves a sticky print behind. ‘You’re looking lovely, so grown up. Oh, sorry.’ She licks her index finger and rubs. ‘There. Let’s go.’ Her heels click-clack as she hurries down the path back to her car, and her hair, which is silvery blonde today, swishes.

  Although Kelly is Colin’s younger sister, she doesn’t look anything like him. Colin’s got a shaved head and massive muscles. When Clover was small he used to lift her above his head with one arm and, if she was wearing trousers, he’d turn her upside down and boost her so high that her feet could actually walk on the ceiling. He doesn’t do that any more. She’s too grown up. Instead, he says things like, ‘Anyone messes with you, Clo, and I’ll sort them,’ which sounds scary, but he’s a big softy, really – last time she was at his house, she saw a little home-made chart, counting down the number of days until Mark gets back, every X like a kiss.

  Kelly is long and straight, like her hair. She talks fast, walks fast, smokes fast and always seems a little bit nervous. She wears heels all the time, even with jeans, and she always has dead nice nails because her friend is a beautician and they give each other freebies. Clover could have freebies too, if she wanted. And she might, one day, when she has grown into the new bits of herself. In the meantime, she’d just as soon not.

  The boys mash their faces against the glass, tongues out, noses flattened. Kelly knocks on the window. ‘Stop it, you monsters.’

  Clover sits between the monsters. They go to her old primary school and like to tell her about things that have happened since she left. She is planning to ask about school when Dylan shouts, ‘Let’s have some music!’

  Kelly slides a CD into the player. ‘Sing quietly,’ she warns as she drives out of The Grove. But they don’t.

  It doesn’t matter that there’s a queue at Premier Bowl, because your hour only starts when you bowl the first ball. They take off their shoes as they wait. Kelly holds Dad’s shoulder for balance, and the boys climb him like a piece of playground equipment.

  ‘Can you lift us both at the same time, Darren?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Not like that – get me in one arm and Tyler in the other. Like two rolls of carpet! Uncle Colin can do it.’

  Dad pats and chucks them like puppies. They stand on his feet and tug his arms, rubbing at the tattoo of Clover’s name. She is too big for all that. The top of her head is level with his shoulder. Too tall to scale him, too big to be turne
d upside down – she is the wrong size for those dad things; she’ll get used to it before long. As she watches him playing with the boys, she thinks up a new question to add to the growing list in her notebook: did Dad and her mother plan to have other children?

  The wait stretches. The boys get fed up with grappling with Dad. They go a bit bananas in their socks, running between the arcade machines, flinging themselves on the motorbikes and the racing cars: brum-brum, brum-brum! The queue inches forward and Clover feels Kelly’s hand on her hair.

  ‘I could do a lovely wrap-around braid.’

  She tries to catch Dad’s eye – look, she’s playing with my hair again – but he is watching the boys. And it’s not so bad, really. Clover has been doing her own hair for a while now, but she remembers the feel of Dad’s big, painstaking hands as they made a plait. Kelly’s fingers are gentle and quick as they section and smooth, and weave and tuck, and Clover discovers that she is exactly the right size for this; this . . . tending, by a mother.

  Eventually, they reach the counter and a girl hands out the bowling shoes. Clover’s are still hot. She dips her feet into them and tries not to mind. In and out again. In, out. In, out.

  ‘Come on,’ Dad says, and she just has to get on with it, even though the shoes are steaming.

  Up to six people can share a lane, and when their five names flash up on the screen Clover can’t help thinking of Uncle Jim, who is literally all over the place at the moment and might have liked some company. They should have invited him to come with them. If not him, then Colin, who has been a bit lonely since Mark went to Chad. She’s about to mention it to Dad when Kelly gets up.

  ‘Tyler, take my go for me. I’m just popping outside for a cheeky ciggie.’

  ‘Aw, come on, I thought you were giving up. Would you like some cheeky heart disease or a cheeky stroke?’

  ‘Are you going to give Mum a cheeky stroke, Darren?’

  ‘I am giving up,’ Kelly says, the SMOKING KILLS warning peeping out of her clasped fist. ‘I’m only on two a day. I’m mostly vaping. And there’s not going to be any cheeky stroking, boys. All right?’

  Dylan climbs on Clover’s knee while Tyler takes Kelly’s go.

  ‘Do you know what happened at school before the holidays, Clover? There was this writer who wrote a joke book. And guess what? He came to do an assembly. He talked about bogies and he made up some funny things to say to people you don’t like.’

  ‘This isn’t going to be rude, is it?’ Dad asks.

  Dylan shakes his head. ‘The funny things to say to people were: “Whatever, McDonald’s toilet cleaner” and “Whatever, Tesco shelf-stacker.” ’

  Tyler, back from scoring a seven, tuts at his younger brother. ‘You missed out the actions. Watch me.’ He makes a big W shape with his thumbs and index fingers: “Whatever, McDonald’s toilet cleaner.” That’s how you have to do it.’

  ‘Mum said it wasn’t funny,’ Dylan continues as he climbs off Clover’s knee and slithers along the bench seat, eventually draping himself over Dad’s legs like a blanket. ‘Because Alfie Ashcroft’s dad works in Tesco on the night shift – this is my upside-down voice, can you hear it? – and teaching kids to laugh at their parents for working hard is a –’

  ‘Fucking disgrace,’ Tyler finishes for him.

  Dad coughs. ‘I’m sure your mum didn’t say that.’

  Dylan slides on to the floor and he lies on his back with his eyes closed. ‘She did!’

  ‘Well, not to the teacher.’

  ‘She went in to school,’ he says, climbing back on to Dad’s lap, ‘and gave Mrs Carpenter a piece of her mind.’

  ‘A great big slice of it,’ Tyler adds, ‘with cream and cherries on top.’

  Dad grins, as if it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. They sit there, like a trio of hyenas, and Kelly hurries back, her walk strangely muted in the flat bowling shoes; past the arcade games and the pool tables, past the rollercoaster simulator and the bar, while Dad and the boys watch her as if she is the bees’ knees. Literally.

  Three happy things today are, firstly, bowling. Dad won, he always does because his throws are the hardest, but she came second, with 102, her highest score yet. Secondly, the thought of going on holiday. Dad nods when she says this; he’s looking forward to their day in Blackpool, too.

  ‘Could we go on a proper holiday, though?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Away, somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Somewhere else. Somewhere hot or cold. A different country.’

  He frowns and she feels she has done something wrong, but she isn’t sure what.

  ‘You don’t have to go somewhere foreign to be happy; you can just as easily be happy at home.’

  ‘I know, but –’

  ‘And who’d look after the allotment?’

  ‘Kelly and the boys? Or Colin and Mark?’

  Dad snorts.

  ‘But we wouldn’t have to go in the summer, we could . . .’ she tails off because the last happy thing is tricky enough without making a big deal about imaginary holidays. ‘And thirdly,’ she says, ‘I’m happy about Uncle Jim coming for tea tomorrow.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘It’s not a good idea at the moment.’

  She could mention going to Uncle Jim’s earlier; describe the open door and his school assembly sitting – it might help her cause, but it would also annoy Dad. Instead, she gives him a long, hard stare.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he says, and then he hugs her tight, like he used to when she was little, filling her ear with the human noise of his heart. And it’s actually her top happy moment of the day.

  Exhibit: ‘Becky Brookfield – the Untold Story’

  Catalogue

  Object: Letter.

  Description: A note from Jim Brookfield (my uncle) to Becky Brookfield (my mother). It says: ‘I tried to be sorry but I’m not. And I’m not sorry for not being sorry. Shall we run away? Tomorrow? I’ve got a bag of white mice and my torch. Write back.’

  Item Number: 4.

  Provenance: There are lots of notes from Uncle Jim. I’m not sure about the order because he hasn’t written the date on any of them. I think he must have read a lot of adventure stories.

  Display: Put the funniest, most imaginative notes in an order and display them together.

  Curator: Clover Quinn.

  Keeper: Darren Quinn.

  6

  Darren waits at the foot of the bridge for Colin’s transit van. It’s easy to spot, bright yellow with ‘The Handyman Can’ in curly letters down each side. Colin originally wanted to go with ‘Mr Handi-Job, big or small, I’ll do it!’ And while it was a somewhat accurate description of his role as handyman and jobbing labourer, it was, of course, utterly tasteless and completely unsuitable, which is probably why he liked it so much in the first place. Years ago, the two of them spent a boozy evening racking their brains, Clover fast asleep, upstairs. It’d been a right laugh. They’d even come up with a handyman version of ‘The Candy Man’ song, which was subsequently fixed to each of the van’s back doors in vinyl letters.

  Who can take a house move

  Handle it with care

  Cover it in bubblewrap

  And float it down your stairs?

  The Handyman Can!

  * * *

  Who can take a bare wall

  Skim it smooth as glass

  Paper it or paint it, leave

  your whole house looking class?

  The Handyman Can!

  There he is. Darren waves as Colin indicates and pulls over. The passenger door is sticky; Darren gives it a tug and jumps aboard. That song is playing on the radio, ‘Happy’ – he really needs to sit down with his ukulele and work out the chords, Clover will love it.

  Colin holds a hand up to his mouth and sneezes, once, twice, three times; his eyes are red and the skin around his nostrils is cracked and peeling. He pulls into
the traffic and immediately slows as the lights at the top of the bridge switch to amber. Driving one-handed, he rummages in the glove compartment and the side-door pocket for a tissue. The lights turn green again and someone behind them beeps. Colin sighs, wipes his nose on the back of his hand and rubs it on his shorts.

  ‘What’s up? You look like shit.’

  ‘I feel like shit. I didn’t even go to the gym this morning,’ Colin says, voice scuffing the back of his throat.

  ‘God, you must be ill.’

  ‘It’s crap having a cold in this weather. Didn’t want to get out of bed. Then I remembered the cure.’

  ‘For colds? What’s that?’

  ‘Self-employment.’

  ‘Ha!’

  Today’s is a simple job: a house move, no packing, the boxes should be ready, they just have to pick them up, move a few bits of furniture and drive it all to the other side of town. Three or four trips should do it. Colin doesn’t do many of these nowadays, just the odd favour for someone who is moving at short notice and can’t find anyone else or, like today, a friend of a friend who wants it done on the cheap. It’s an interesting job. Once, they arrived to find that the bloke they were moving hadn’t even started packing. He’d not been able to make himself get on with it and was half hiding behind his open front door, face stiff with shame. Colin lied and said it happened all the time. Then they rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. Today’s family, a mother, father and two little girls, is prepared. The girls race around the almost empty lounge. They lie on the floor, perform consecutive roly-polys and attempt handstands. Darren has seen it before; there’s something about kids and empty houses, they turn into little dogs, try to mark every last bit of territory before they leave. The father is bearded and bespectacled, built like a garden cane. He’s wearing fashionably faded jeans and a T-shirt that reads: ‘Greed is the knife and the cuts run deep’. He addresses his wife and children, interchangeably, as darling – ‘Darling, could you just . . .’ ‘Don’t do that, darling’ – and he’s got one of those bracelets, the ones that tell you if you had a good night’s sleep and how many times you’ve farted. He’s probably in IT. The mother looks horsey, it’s in the thighs: sturdy and firm.