Charlie
I’m waiting outside Kentish Town tube station at 10am on Saturday morning. It’s going to be a long day.
I hear them before I see them.
“To the right! Stand to the bloody right woman!” Callie bellows.
I can hear Mum tutting. “If they want to pass me, they can ask.”
Their two heads appear at the top of the escalator, my mam’s rollered to within an inch of its life, and Callie’s now crimson ( is that food colouring?) crop. Callie grins when she sees me, but Mum looks tight-lipped, and I groan silently as I clock the bum bag fastened tightly around her midriff, one hand clasping it with an unyielding grip for fear of dirty Londoners stealing her loose change.
At the barriers, Mum makes a great scene of stepping aside to face the wall while she opens her bum bag to get her ticket. With a look of triumph, the ticket is produced and placed in the ticket slot in slow motion.
I watch as she places the ticket in the wrong gate’s slot.
The barriers to her right bang open, waiting for someone to walk through them. Mum frowns down at the barriers she is at and tries to push them open.
“These ones aren’t working.”
“Go round the other one,” I beckon furiously at the open gate, waiting for someone to come through while Callie sniggers behind me. “The other one. That’s the one you opened with your ticket. The one that’s open. The OTHER one.”
I point at the barriers she has put her ticket into like I’m doing a ridiculous mime show. “You are supposed to walk through THAT one.”
She tuts but finally moves to the correct ticket barrier.
“Well, that’s annoying. Why don’t they all open when you put your ticket in? Then you could go through any.”
“What?” I look at her in exasperation. Half of me wishes I’ve never explained how to get out the barriers so they would be stuck in there.
“You should have seen her trying to open the toilet door on the train,” Callie sighs. “And then the screams when the train started moving!”
Mum is out of touch with modern transport. She only started to visit London when Tristan moved here, and he usually sends a driver for her. This time she decided to go rogue and slum it.
After the barrier ordeal, Mum announces she wants to go back to mine for a cup of tea before sightseeing. I knew what she was up to. She was mad with nosiness and wanted a poke around our flat to see how clean it was.
We trudge back through Kentish Town to the flat.
“Hello,” I shout tentatively through the flat door. No reply, great! “Cat is in bed, so you will have to be quiet.”
“At this hour?” Her lips purse into a thin line. “and I was looking for a tour of the bedrooms.”
“Why don’t you sit down, and I will make a nice cup of tea?” I bundle them into the living area where they can do minimal damage and give it a once-over for signs of drug abuse or sexual activities. Thankfully I had already remembered to hide Julie’s ‘101 Amazing Sex Games’ book. Mum glares at our sofa in disgust and hovers above it.
I come back with 3 cups of tea and, proudly, a saucer for milk.
She gives it a quick sniff before reluctantly accepting.
“I’ve got your post for you.” She rummages through her bag, hankies, and tissues flying out everywhere and hands me a lump of opened letters crumbled.
I’ve still got letters going to Mum’s house as Julie is doing a council tax dodge.
“These are all open?” I glare at her.
“‘Yes,” she shrugs as if she hasn’t even committed any crime. “You owe an awful lot on that credit card!”
“You shouldn’t be opening my mail!” I snap.
“Someone needs to keep an eye on your finances since you are obviously not doing it.” Argh. She has been in the house for five minutes, and my blood is bubbling.
“Callie, what are you doing?” I look at her exasperated. She wriggles on the sofa like it has fleas.
“Your sofa is uncomfortable,” she complains, reaching her hand under the cushion.
“Wait, I have found something….” Her right arm reappears with two objects in them.
“What are these?”
My heart falls into my bladder and crushes it as she waves the chlamydia test that the chemist forced on Julie when she came in to get the morning-after pill. I am going to kill Cat for her stupid hiding place. I told her to hide any items that would bring my reputation into dispute.
Worse still in Callie’s other hand was the postcard that Cat had bought in Amsterdam with two willies going into a mouth, one black, one white with the slogan ‘no racism.’
Callie’s mouth drops open. Before she can wave them in Mum’s face, I snatch them off her.
Luckily, Mum is too engrossed in the pizza marks on the carpet to notice.
She looks up, never missing a trick. “What are those?”
“It’s just Suze’s weight loss device” I try to walk as casually as possible to Cat’s room and fling them both in. I hear a muffled ‘hey’ then slam the door. What else is lurking in this living room to trip me up?
“What’s up with you, Callie?” I attempt to change the subject yet again.
She shrugs her shoulders. Mum’s face turns white.
“I’ll tell you what’s up with this young pup; she has been suspended from St Mary’s.”
“Suspended?” Now here is a bit of news. I look at Callie, who breezily flicks through a magazine she has found on the coffee table. She was in her final year and only had six months to behave.
“She has brought the family into repute this young missy has.”. Mum covers her mouth and looks around in case any of my neighbours have glasses to the walls.
“She tried to summon the dark side.” It comes out as no more than a whisper.
“What?” I ask, confused.
Callie looks up from the magazine, bored, and sighs. “The Ouija board. I got caught doing the
Ouija board.”
Mum shakes her head. “The nuns are in uproar. They are holding a special mass to cleanse the school, to undo the damage that Callie has caused!”
“Why did you do that, Callie?” I turn to her. “Do you even believe in the Ouija Board?”
She laughs. “As if. But stupid Bernice O Hagan does, so we wanted to prove to her that it’s all shite. Then Sister Tessa came in and saw us and started foaming at the mouth in shock.” “It’s my last year anyway.” She shrugs.