Anna Read online

  Anna got the gist. ‘B...’ she said aloud. ‘Bananas.’ Also in the fruit bowl.

  ‘That’s it!’ She gave her daughter a less than convincing wink that all was well and left Anna at the table.

  C... cup. Anna used her index finger to draw shapes in the fine dusting of flour that now coated the shiny work surface. D... dishes. E... eggs. G... G... No, wait a minute, it’s not G next... I’ll skip to I...

  It was impossible not to hear the loud shouts being exchanged only feet from where she sat, even though she tried hard not to listen. She tried to sing in her head, tried to concentrate on the image of the fabulous blue squid she’d painted and that Mrs Jackson had picked as the best in the class, but it was no good. Anna was forced to listen to the angry words being hurled back and forth like sharp things between the two people she loved most in the whole wide world. It made her heart beat quickly and her face felt warm.

  I think I might write a letter to Fifi and Fox. I can do it in my rough book and rip the page out. I’ll do my best writing...

  ‘Only weed?’ her mum was saying sarcastically. ‘Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? You are fifteen! Fifteen! Christ, when I was your age—’

  ‘Oh God, here we go... When you were my age you were practically a nun, studying and being perfect, living a perfect life and being the perfect child. Well, I’m not you, Mum!’

  ‘No, you’re not, because I would never have spoken to my mum like that, and for the record, I don’t expect you to be me and, actually, my life was far from perfect.’

  Anna heard Joe snort. She drew jagged lines in the flour with her fingertip.

  L... leg. N... nits. What comes next – is it P? I think it might be. Petals...

  ‘I am so worried about you, Joe. And to make me worry like this is just not fair! You are only fifteen and I am responsible for you. I hate how you care so little what you put me through. Believe it or not, there are some things in life that I know more about than you do – and don’t roll your eyes when I am talking to you!’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, I didn’t!’

  ‘And don’t swear!’ Her mum was screaming now and it sent a jolt of anxiety through her six-year-old veins.

  ‘I can’t do anything right!’ her brother yelled.

  ‘You can. You can do lots right, and one of the things you can do right is to stop smoking that noxious stuff with your friends.’

  ‘It’s not noxious – it’s less harmful than a cigarette. They’ve done loads of research.’

  ‘Christ, Joe! Do you think I know nothing about the world? Give me some credit. You think you’re inventing smoking dope and drinking with your mates, but you’re not! You’re just doing what every other fifteen-year-old who is going off the rails has done for ever.’

  ‘I am not going off the rails!’

  ‘You are missing school, Joe! I know you are. I never see you study or do your homework, and smoking drugs is only a small part of it for me. All of these activities are wrapped in dishonesty, which is not how you were raised. It’s the crowd you hang around with and your lack of direction, this is what bothers me.’

  ‘Oh not this again! You’ve never liked my mates!’

  Anna heard Joe stomp across the floor, then the sound of his bedsprings flexing.

  There was a moment of quiet. Anna heard a new tone to her mum’s voice now and it helped her tummy unknot a little.

  ‘I love you so much, Joe. I can only keep telling you that I love you because it’s the truth, but I am scared for your future. I fear that smoking weed or whatever you want to call it is a stepping stone towards other drugs, other habits, and that scares me more than I can say.’

  ‘I’m not stupid!’

  ‘I know, but I have seen intelligent people fall into the grip of drugs and it destroys lives, it takes away all the things that you have every right to expect – a job, family life, a future.’

  ‘You are talking about my dad, right?’ Joe asked, quieter now.

  Her mum evaded a direct response. ‘You are not stupid, Joe. You are smart and brilliant and that’s why it would be such a terrible, terrible shame to see all of your wonderful potential go to waste.’

  Anna didn’t hear what Joe said next as his words were reduced to a whisper.

  Her mum came back into the kitchen and reached for the padded oven glove in the shape of a crocodile’s head. It usually made her laugh, especially when her mum snapped it at her, but she didn’t feel like laughing right now. Anna watched as her mum opened the oven door and removed the two slightly overcooked sponges, laying them on the cooling rack that sat on the plastic tray with red and orange flowers hand-painted on one side.

  ‘Is... Is Joe all right?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, he’ll be fine.’ Her mum braced her arms against the sink and stared out of the window at the brick wall of the neighbouring property. Their eyes were, as ever, drawn to the green streak of moss that glistened against the orangey bricks and the leaky old pipe above it. ‘God, I hate this room. It’s so dark. I dream about having a kitchen with a big wide window overlooking a garden, and I’d have it open all of the time, with a lovely breeze coming in and the scent of flowers filling the place. Wouldn’t that be lovely, Anna?’

  Anna got the impression she wasn’t expected to reply to that. ‘I did it, Mum. I got as far as S for salt.’

  Her mum nodded, still avoiding her gaze. Her shoulders straightened a little. When she eventually spoke, she sounded weary.

  ‘It’s a good distraction, Anna, my alphabet game. You should remember it. When your thoughts are too loud, or you feel afraid or you just want to pass the time, you can go through the alphabet and find things to match the letters. By the time you get to Z, things have usually calmed a little, or you will at least have taken the time to breathe.’

  Anna stared at her mum’s slightly bowed back and then at the rust-coloured sponge cakes that she no longer felt like decorating. She knew there was not going to be a wedding today after all. Reaching her hand up her back, she yanked at the pillowcase, pulling it from her head and letting it fall onto the chair.

  Her tummy rumbled, but she knew this was not the time to ask about the sausage and chips she had been promised for her tea. Instead, she ran to her bedroom, returning with her rough book and a fistful of felt-tipped pens, some with the nibs pushed up inside the casing, though this fact was only revealed when it came to using them.

  Anna sat herself in the big chair and laid her pens in a faded rainbow on the table, then opened her book. It was chockfull of doodles, pictures, words and lists. Her mum smiled at her over her shoulder before busying herself at the sink. Anna stuck out her tongue and began:

  deer fifi fox

  my nam is anna cole I six I yam yor mummy

  not yor mummy now but in lots of time

  my techr is missrs jacksun she is very nis but smels like ham

  i did a blu skwid

  my brother is nam joe and he bigr than me

  my mummy is karen she is reelly reelly good singr

  she sings al the time.

  I wil rite you letas and you read them when you ar big.

  anna cole

  2

  Anna never did get to have her wedding breakfast with Joe. By the time she’d turned seven he’d left home and it was just Anna and her mum in their little flat in Honor Oak Park. Without his presence, the place lost some of its sparkle, but was also a calmer place, quieter. She missed him of course, but what she didn’t she miss was the screaming rows or hearing her mum sobbing into her mug late at night in the kitchen. Sometimes he would turn up unexpectedly – at school, in the park, at home when her mum was out shopping – and those were the best of days. He’d invent mad games for the two of them to play, or he’d take her to the cinema. They went to see Herbie Rides Again and he bought her popcorn and sweets and chocolate. It was more than she could carry, let alone eat. They had stuffed their faces and laughed, as they stared up at the big screen.

  There
was a small part of her that loved having her mum all to herself at home. Birthdays were especially good. When she was eight they had planned on going for a picnic up on One Tree Hill where there were lovely views over the city. Rain and an icy cold wind put paid to that, so instead they made a tent in the lounge and ate sandwiches and cake sitting under a sheet with nothing more than a torch providing an eerie light. They lay on their tums and spoke in whispers. Despite her initial sadness at missing out on a day at the park, it turned out to be one of the best birthdays she had ever had. And on the day she turned nine, they made it up to One Tree Hill with a Tupperware box full of ham sandwiches, two bottles of orange Panda Pop and a packet of Fondant Fancies. They spread a blanket on the grass, but instead of admiring the view, they looked at each other, reminiscing about their tent in the lounge adventure the year before.

  It was now a few weeks after her ninth birthday and for the first time Anna had been allowed to take her brand-new Snoopy rucksack into school with her. Other than that, it was an ordinary day and she was sitting through an all too ordinary history lesson.

  She softly kicked her school shoes against the desk leg and watched the trillions of dust particles swirl and settle in the sunlight that filtered through the high window. It bothered her, this reminder of the dust soup she was forced to inhale. If she thought about it too much it made her feel quite sick, the idea that these teeny tiny specs were bits of everyone and everything around her. Joe had told her this when she’d met him in the library and had pointed out the dust patterns, although the idea of breathing in bits of all those books hadn’t been quite as disgusting. It had been a lovely afternoon – he’d made the books come alive! It hadn’t seemed to worry him that people stared at them as he boomed character voices and acted out scenes. She loved him more than ever at moments like that, giggling in the reading corner, lost in The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.

  She sighed now and looked around the classroom. Try as she might, she couldn’t block the thought from her mind. Her eyes journeyed from the less than fragrant Paul Brown, who, as if on cue, scratched his greasy, toffee-brown cow’s lick, to the bored-looking stick insects in the sparse tank. She tried to hold her breath, not wanting to let any of their dusty stuff get inside her, but her chest fluttered and her head felt a little fuzzy, so she had to give up.

  Miss Hillyard was reading aloud from the textbook on her desk. Its spine was worn and its pages flattened – just like all the other books she used in their class. It was as if each one of her study aids knew exactly what was expected of them. Her round glasses sat on top of her nose and were attached to a gilded chain that looped across her pudgy pink cheeks. All her clothes had flower patterns on them, as if she was trying to make her chubby self look more feminine, and her blouses and scarves came in a range of garish shades.

  Miss Hillyard’s lessons always struck Anna as a little pointless. All twenty-eight members of her class had the same textbook open in front of them and they were perfectly able to read the words for themselves, even if some were slower than others – again she looked at Paul Brown, who was now ferreting about inside his nose, no doubt for a snack. She shuddered, turning her attention back to Miss Hillyard.

  Being slowly dictated to always constituted the majority of Miss Hillyard’s lessons, as if she was a baby and not a sharp-minded nine-year-old. She followed the words on the page from beneath eyelids heavy with boredom. It was a struggle to keep her thoughts anchored on the topic. If only her teacher could adopt Joe’s method of reading, they would all be much more engaged. Miss Hillyard’s drone was like a fuse to any other thought, sending ideas and images into her brain that exploded like fireworks.

  What might they be having for tea?

  Had her potted lemon tree, sitting proudly on the windowsill in the sitting room, sprouted anything of interest?

  And she hoped her mum had remembered to return her library book! The idea of it being late or, worse, getting a fine, made her heart skip a beat. Though if her mum had forgotten and Danny, the Champion of the World was still on her bedside table when she got home, she would probably, no definitely, read it all over again before bedtime.

  She tried to focus. Sitting up straight now, she pushed the points of her dark, chin-length bob behind her ears. What Anna craved was to hear the details behind the facts in the textbook. Did Miss Hillyard agree that women were brave to fight for the vote, to actually die for something they believed in? What did the husbands and children left at home think when the women they loved were frogmarched off to prison? Who got their tea then? But, as ever, her perfectly formed questions faded on her tongue like snowflakes, disappearing before she got up the nerve to ask them.

  She had always been this way – ‘quiet with a busy head’, as her mum put it. Sometimes she didn’t speak for hours at a time and it was only the croak to her voice and the stutter in her throat that made her realise that the lively conversations she’d been having had all happened inside her head. Chitchat and laughter were the preserve of the popular girls, girls like Natasha Collins and Tracy Fitchett, the ones with a gaggle of friends who moved as a gang and laughed to order. Yes, that’s why I’m quiet! The thought resonated. It’s because I don’t have anyone to talk to. There is no one listening...

  Even though it was only a little after 10.30, Anna felt a wave of sleepiness wash over her. The red laminate door of the classroom creaked open. Glad of the distraction, every child in the room lifted their head and swivelled their eyes towards the school secretary. Miss Williams’s nose twitched nervously as she knocked on the doorframe, even though she was already standing with one foot in the classroom, as if testing the water.

  ‘Yes?’ Miss Hillyard boomed in her direction.

  Miss Williams blinked quickly.

  These types of interruptions were rare but not unheard of. They usually ended with the secretary handing a slip of paper to the teacher – a last-minute reminder about a dental appointment or a surprise fire drill, or, occasionally, something far, far more important.

  None of them would ever forget the day a year ago when a flustered, arm-flapping Miss Williams had banged on several classroom doors to inform them that a man had turned up in the playground and was giving out flyers for a circus that would be performing in Dulwich Park for the next ten days.

  Anna, like many of her classmates, knew there was little chance of actually going to the circus, but that didn’t matter because there was something remarkable about the man in the red velvet coat with shiny buttons and gold braiding on the epaulettes. He had a small monkey sitting on his arm! An actual monkey! In the playground of their school in Honor Oak Park! A tiny monkey! And it was dressed in a little red coat just like his.

  Naturally, a crowd swarmed around the little fella. The staff were seemingly at a loss, unsure whether to order them all back inside or encourage this rare encounter with wildlife. This was Greater London, 1977 after all – how often did they get to see a wild animal like this in the neighbourhood, and not just any wild animal, but one wearing a natty red coat? The bolder pupils called out all kinds of questions to the man with the dapper moustache.

  ‘Can I hold him?’

  ‘Does he bite?’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Where did you get him?’

  But Anna wasn’t one of them. As was her manner, she stood quietly at the back and gazed at the small, bony head of the little animal, no bigger than a golf ball. She watched his pale brown eyes dart knowingly around and his nimble fingers peel the husk from a peanut shell before popping the kernel into his narrow mouth. While everyone else whooped, cheered and yelled, the monkey looked up above the hubbub and caught her eye. For a second they looked at each other, really looked at each other, and there was a flicker of recognition between the two of them. Anna immediately recognised in the monkey a fellow creature who had a lot on his mind. In the monkey’s gaze she saw the same sort of sadness and frustration that she saw every time she looked in the mirror and wished sh
e were the type of girl who travelled in a gaggle with the likes of Natasha Collins. She related to his unhappiness. She knew she would likely never tell another soul about this exchange – she would be disbelieved as well as ridiculed – but she would never forget it. The encounter had ended with the little monkey briefly raising his eyebrows, and this too she’d understood.

  My life’s not perfect, but it could be much, much worse...

  She smiled now, watching Miss Williams creep forward with silly theatricality, as if she were invisible, recalling suddenly that the little monkey had been called Porthos, named after one of three musketeers. Joe had told her this too. He knew all of their names, including the fact that most people mistakenly believed d’Artagnan to be one of the trio, which he wasn’t. He was the fourth musketeer, hanging around on the edges, trying to prove himself, desperate for an in. This had been their conversation as they’d strolled along Margate seafront at sunset. Joe had jumped onto the prom wall and mock-challenged Anna to a duel. She had stood poised, en garde, her knees bent, holding her candyfloss stick out like a sword, while Joe raced nimbly around her, flourishing an imaginary dagger before admitting defeat, leaping off the wall and falling to the ground in an exaggerated death scene.

  Anna grinned now at the memory and her gaze strayed across to Natasha Collins and Tracy Fitchett as she wondered if they knew about the fourth musketeer. It was only then that she realised Miss Williams and Miss Hillyard had stopped whispering and were both looking in her direction. Her classmates appeared to be following their lead and were looking at her too.

  Anna’s cheeks burned with embarrassment and her stomach dropped with the beginnings of fear. There was something in the softened smile of Miss Hillyard and the nervous swallowing in the school secretary’s throat, which told her that whatever this interruption was about, it was nothing good, nothing as frivolous as a monkey in the playground but something far, far more important.