Candyfloss

  ‘You’re such a brainybox, Susan,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t!’ said Susan, as if I’d insulted her.

  ‘I’m paying you a compliment! You’re heaps and heaps brainier than me.’

  ‘It’s not that great a deal being brainy,’ said Susan. She sat down on the sofa, sighing.

  I went to sit beside her. The sofa sagged badly and the corduroy was shiny with age. There were several big dark stains where Dad had spilt his coffee or his can of beer. We were leaving the sofa too. I wished we could somehow take it with us. It wasn’t just because it was where Dad and I cuddled up and watched the telly. When I was little it had been a fairytale castle and a wagon train across the prairie and a bridge over the man-eating crocodiles crawling across the carpet.

  ‘I wonder if we could just take one of the sofa cushions?’ I said, tugging at it.

  ‘It’s a bit . . . tired looking,’ Susan said, as tactfully as she could. ‘And it would take up a whole cardboard box all by itself.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ I said, stroking the sofa as if it was my giant pet.

  ‘Shall we go and see how your dad’s getting on with his packing?’ Susan said, going for diversionary tactics.

  Dad was having similar problems. He was slumped on the edge of his bed, his clothes scattered all over the duvet, so it looked as if there were twenty Dads sprawled beside him. There were Mum things too, clothes I’d completely forgotten about – an old pink towelling dressing gown, a sparkly evening frock with one strap drooping, a worn woollen jacket with a furry collar, even some old Chinese slippers, embroidered satin, with one of the butterflies unravelling.

  ‘Dad?’ I said, and I went and sat beside him while Susan hovered tactfully in the doorway. ‘Where did all Mum’s stuff come from?’ I picked up one of the slippers, rubbing my finger across the satin. I remembered sitting watching television long ago, leaning back against Mum’s legs, stroking her satin slippers, feeling the little ridges of embroidery with my fingertip.

  ‘Your mum left them in her half of the wardrobe when she went off with Steve. She didn’t want them. I was supposed to get rid of them but I couldn’t.’ Dad sighed, shaking his head at himself. ‘Daft, aren’t I, Floss?’

  ‘You’re not daft, Dad.’

  ‘I suppose it’s time to deal with them now.’

  ‘You can still keep them. We can pack them all up in a cardboard box.’

  ‘No, no. It’s time to chuck them out. Time to chuck half of my stuff too.’ Dad picked up the jeans that had got torn at the fair and flapped the tattered legs at us.

  ‘I thought you were going to keep them as decorating trousers.’

  ‘Who am I kidding? When was the last time I did any decorating, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘You painted my chest of drawers silver.’

  ‘And left it half finished.’

  ‘I still love it. Can I take it to Mr Chip’s house, Dad? It won’t take up much room.’

  ‘OK OK. Definitely, little darling. So how are you two girls getting on with packing up your bedroom, Floss?’

  ‘We’re finished, Dad. Susan’s absolutely ace at getting everything sorted.’

  ‘Well, aren’t we lucky! Thank you so much, Susan, you’re a sweetheart. I wish I had a smashing friend to sort me out,’ said Dad.

  ‘I’d like to be your friend too, Mr Barnes,’ said Susan. ‘We can start sorting your clothes for you, if you like.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Miss Potts,’ said Dad. ‘And I could sort out a tasty snack, seeing as you’ve both worked so hard. Now let me see . . . would you like chip butties – or chip butties – or indeed, chip butties?’

  We both put our heads on one side, pretending to consider, and then yelled simultaneously, ‘Chip butties!’

  It was a joy to see Susan eating her very first chip butty. Dad served it to her on our best blue china willow-pattern plate, garnished with tomato and lettuce and cucumber. Susan ignored the plate and the little salad. She didn’t use the knife and fork Dad had set out beside the plate. She picked up the chip butty in both hands, staring in awe at the big soft roll split in half and crammed with hot golden chips. She opened her mouth as wide as possible and took a big bite. She shut her eyes as she chewed. Then she swallowed and smiled.

  ‘Oh thank you, Mr Barnes! It’s even better than I hoped it would be. You make the most wonderful chip butties in the whole world!’

  After we’d eaten every mouthful of our chip butties we sorted Dad’s clothes into GOOD, NOT TOO BAD and CHUCK. Susan counted and I made a list.

  Dad’s clothes:

  GOOD – 12 items of clothing, including one tie and socks and shoes and underwear.

  NOT TOO BAD – 20 items of clothing

  CHUCK – 52 ½ items (the half was an ancient pair of pyjama bottoms – we couldn’t find the top).

  Dad laughed ruefully and started obediently chucking his stuff into a big plastic bag. He took Mum’s old clothes, hesitated, and then started chucking them too.

  ‘Maybe we don’t have to chuck all of them, Mr Barnes,’ said Susan. ‘We couldn’t have them, could we?’

  ‘Do we want to dress up in them?’ I asked a little doubtfully.

  ‘No, we want to make them into clothes for Ellarina and Dimble,’ said Susan.

  We borrowed Dad’s sharp kitchen scissors and some greaseproof paper to make patterns. It took a lot longer than I’d realized, but after two extremely hard-working hours Ellarina had a sparkly strapless dance dress, Dimble had a fur coat and they both had pink dressing gowns, and tiny embroidered slippers tied to each of their four paws with sewing thread.

  ‘We’ll cut the legs right off your dad’s ripped jeans and make them little denim jackets and Ellarina can have a skirt and Dimble can have dungarees – he’d look so cute!’

  ‘And caps?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I could give it a go. Just so long as you don’t ever ever ever wear yours,’ said Susan. She waggled her fingers. ‘They ache now.’

  ‘Mine too. Yet I wanted to work on our friendship bracelets.’

  ‘We can do them another time,’ said Susan. ‘We’re going to have lots and lots of times. You will come to my house, won’t you, Floss?’

  ‘And I’m sure Billy the Chip won’t mind you coming to his place. And then . . .’ My voice tailed away. I didn’t have any idea where we’d be after that. It was so scary not knowing. ‘Let’s go and have a swing,’ I said quickly. ‘It goes a bit wonky but you can still swing quite high if you really kick your legs.’

  We went out to the back yard. Lucky came with us and circled the wheelie bins. I always worried whenever she slipped out of sight, but she bobbed back each time.

  I let Susan have first go on the swing, but she wasn’t really any good at it, so I stood on the seat behind her and pulled on the ropes and bent my knees and got the swing going. We didn’t really go that high, but we pretended we were swooping right up in the air, over the treetops, flying far over the tallest tower, up and up and up.

  ‘Wheee! We’re right over the sea now,’ I shouted. ‘And there’s land again! See all those skyscrapers? We’re over America!’

  ‘I think it’s more likely France,’ Susan said breathlessly.

  ‘No, no, look, more sea, we’re swooping r-o-u-n-d and d-o-w-n and here’s Australia! See all the kangaroos? Whoops, there’s a boomerang. Who’s that waving? It’s my mum! Hey there, it’s me, Floss. Meet my best friend Susan.’

  We both let go of the swing with one hand and waved wildly into thin air.

  18

  ON SUNDAY MORNING Dad and I loaded all the neatly labelled cardboard boxes into the van. Then Dad struggled with my silver chest of drawers and my swing. He crammed in his old CD player and all our pots and pans and crockery and a box of vital tools I’d never seen him actually use.

  He dithered for a long time out in the yard, shifting all the bits of motorbike under the tarpaulins. He laid them all out on the concrete, as if they were parts of a jigsaw pu
zzle and if he could only sort them all out systematically he’d be able to construct a splendid Harley Davidson there and then. He actually moved pieces around as if he was looking for a piece of sky or a flat edge. Then he sighed.

  ‘What am I going to do with it all, Floss?’ he said. ‘I’ve been collecting all this stuff for years and years, right from when I was in my teens.’

  ‘Take it with us, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, but what am I going to do with it?’

  ‘Make your own custom-built motorbike, Dad. How cool would that be?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, if I were still twenty years old – but I’m pushing forty, Floss. I’m a tubby old dad. I doubt I’ve got the bottle for roaring round the roads on a bike, even if I had one. No, I might as well leave the lot here. Maybe someone else will find all the spare parts useful, eh?’

  ‘But you like them so, Dad. They’re part of you.’

  ‘You’re the only part of me I want to keep for ever, Flossie. It’s time to move on. It’s goodbye to Charlie’s Café.’

  ‘Let’s go round and say goodbye to every room, Dad. Would that be totally nuts?’

  ‘OK, darling, let’s go on a little tour of the premises.’

  We said goodbye to the kitchen and tried to count up how many chip butties Dad might have made, right from the opening day. It was as if thousands of phantom chip butties were whirling all round us like galaxies in outer space.

  Then we said goodbye to the café itself. We sat at every single table and we toasted our very special customers in lemonade, our dear Billy the Chip and Old Ron and Miss Davis, but also people we’d remembered for years: the man with a red face who ordered ten chip butties and ate every single one, gollop gollop gollop; the couple who held hands and ordered a big mixed grill to share and then shyly confided that it was their wedding breakfast; the lady who came in with her labrador and ordered one chip butty for herself and one for the dog.

  Then we went back upstairs and said goodbye to my bedroom, and Dad told me how he and Mum had taken me home from the hospital when I was born and tucked me up in a little Moses basket. They spent hours and hours trying to get me to go to sleep, and then when I finally nodded off they were so worried they woke me up again just to make sure I was still breathing.

  ‘Do you know, I still sometimes creep in when you’re asleep and check you’re breathing,’ said Dad.

  We said goodbye to Dad’s bedroom and the bathroom and the loo, and then we said the saddest goodbye to the living room.

  ‘Let’s have one last cuddle on the sofa, Floss,’ said Dad.

  We curled up together and traded memories as we stared at the blank television screen. It was as if films of our family life flickered there – long-ago happy Mum-and-Dad-and-Floss times.

  We both sighed. Then Dad kissed the top of my head and said gently, ‘Let’s get on our way, little darling.’

  Lucky was hiding in her duvet, sensing something was definitely up. She’d taken her time deciding she wanted to come and live in our house, and now we were expecting her to leave before she’d even settled in. She didn’t want to be lifted up, and I had to hang on hard to her, duvet and all. She mewed indignantly for me to put her down.

  ‘I’ve got to hang onto you this time, Lucky. We’re going to a new house now. You’ll like it just as much, you’ll see,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure that was very likely.

  Dad drove us very slowly and carefully out of the town to Billy the Chip’s house. It was on a big mock-Tudor housing estate, row after row of identical semi-detached houses with black and white panels and crazy paving and clipped privet hedges. I was sure I was going to get muddled as every single street looked the same. I clutched Lucky tightly.

  ‘We’re here, pet,’ said Dad, drawing up outside number four Oak Crescent.

  We peered out at the house. The privet hedge was wavering out of control and the crazy paving was sprouting weeds from every crack.

  ‘Poor old Billy. It’s obviously got a bit much for him,’ said Dad. ‘We’ll do our best to tidy it up for him, won’t we, Floss?’

  ‘Yes Dad,’ I said, in a small voice.

  I felt like Lucky, who was still mewing piteously in her duvet. I didn’t want to start living in this shabby old house. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with me.

  I thought of the airline ticket. Dad had taken it out of the kitchen drawer and given it to me to look after. I had smoothed it out carefully and tucked it inside the plastic case of the Railway Children video. I’d opened up the case twenty or thirty times over the last couple of days, just to check the ticket was still safe.

  I wasn’t going to use it. I couldn’t leave Dad. I couldn’t leave Susan. I couldn’t leave Lucky – though I had asked Mrs Horsefield privately if you were allowed to take animals on aeroplanes.

  Dad reached out and took hold of my hand. ‘OK, little Floss?’ he said.

  I took a deep breath. ‘OK, big Dad,’ I said.

  We got out of the van. I held on tightly to Lucky. She was so keen to be put down now we were out of the noisy scary van and on firm ground again that she scrabbled frantically with her paws and scratched my neck. I knew it was an accident but it hurt quite a lot, and it hurt my feelings too. I had to blink hard and clamp my lips together to stop myself crying. I knew Dad was peering at me anxiously. I tried hard to make my mouth smile. Dad’s own smile was pretty forced too.

  We knocked on Billy’s door. The knocker was tarnished and the black paint blistered, but there was a lovely stained-glass window set into the door, a big round sun with long slanting rays – the sort I used to paint when I was in the infants.

  The door opened and there was Billy squinting in the daylight, looking paler and frailer than ever, but he was proudly wearing a strange new nylon tracksuit and he had a moneybag strapped round his old saggy tummy.

  ‘I’m all set for my trip,’ he said, patting his purse and holding his nylon arms out for inspection. ‘What do you think of the new gear? I wanted to be comfy travelling.’

  ‘You look dead trendy, Billy. Those air hostesses will be buzzing round you like bees round a honeypot,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh, very droll,’ said Billy, but he looked pleased. ‘Well, come in, then. Welcome to your new home. I’m afraid it’s a bit lacking in mod cons. I’m rather set in my ways.’ He opened the door wider and we stepped inside.

  We stayed standing still, blinking in the gloom, staring all round us. It didn’t seem as if we’d stepped into someone’s home. It was as if we’d moved into a museum. The hall had a little table and an umbrella stand and one of those fat old-fashioned cream phones with a round dial. There was a crocheted mat underneath the telephone, yellow with age.

  There were many more crochet mats in Billy the Chip’s living room. They were on the back of his shabby olive-green sofa and on each arm too. There was a matching set on both green armchairs. There were more mats on the nest of tables and yet more under the china vases on the mantelpiece over the tiled fireplace.

  There was a big woollen semicircular mat in front of this fireplace. Two vastly fat tabby cats lay symmetrically either side, paws outstretched, heads raised, staring at us like sphinxes. Lucky gave an anxious mew in my arms. I held onto her protectively. Mr Chip’s cats were great tigers compared to tiny Lucky.

  More mats were laid out like a card game on the big sideboard, each covered with a photograph. There were old wedding photos. I stared at a strange stiff couple, the man with a little moustache and a wing collar tickling his chin, the lady with her wedding veil right down over her forehead.

  ‘That’s Mother and that’s Father,’ said Billy the Chip, gesturing, as if they were real and standing six centimetres tall on his sideboard. He pointed to another wedding couple, a thin awkward young man and a plump woman with her hand tucked in his arm. ‘And that’s me and my Marian.’ He stroked the glass on the photo over Marian’s rounded cheeks.

  There were baby photos too; a bare little boy lying on that same semicircular rug.
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  ‘That’s my boy. He’s another Billy, like his dad and grandad, but he calls himself Will nowadays,’ said Billy, shaking his head.

  ‘Does he have a chip van in Australia, Mr Chip?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he swore he was never going into the fried chip business. Couldn’t persuade him. He did bartending, and now he’s got his own wine bar out in Sydney, though I dare say he serves up chips as a bar snack. French fries or potato wedges or whatever fancy name they call them now.’ Billy sniffed.

  ‘I wonder if Mum and Steve ever go there now?’ I said.

  ‘Sydney’s a very big city, Floss,’ Dad said gently. ‘Your Billy’s moved with the times, mate,’ he said to Billy ‘That makes him a smart guy. Much smarter than you and me.’

  Time had certainly stood still in Billy’s house. He did have a television, but it was even older than our telly at the café. There was a wind-up gramophone beside it, with a pile of old black records in brown paper sleeves.

  ‘Good God, Billy, have you kept these from your courting days?’ said Dad, looking through them. ‘Hey, these are even before your time, surely?’

  ‘They were Mum and Dad’s,’ said Billy. He gestured with his trembly old fingers. ‘They moved in here right from their honeymoon. Spanking new, the house was, my mum’s dream home. It was considered dead modern in those days.’

  It was hard trying to imagine this musty old house as modern. I tried picturing a couple dancing to the gramophone, a baby crowing on the rug, laughter and shouting and doors banging – but the house stayed still and silent.

  ‘I’ll show you to your rooms,’ said Billy.

  He led the way up the threadbare carpet and then showed us each room along the landing. The bathroom had an old bath with rust stains under the big taps and black chips in the enamel.

  ‘It doesn’t look too grand, but I clean it regularly,’ Billy said, sounding embarrassed.

  ‘It’s fine, Billy, and obviously spotless,’ said Dad, patting Mr Chip’s nylon sleeve. ‘You’re much better at housekeeping than we are. He puts us to shame, doesn’t he, Floss?’