Break The Child: Chapter Twenty ...2: Ping Went the Scanner

            We watched This Morning and Mum said that she fancies Phillip Schofield. I asked her if she fancied him more than Dad, and she said it was a close call. We had a right laugh. But when I went for a shower, I locked all the doors and took the keys with me. I wanted a bath, but I couldn’t. I was in charge. I was responsible for Mum and I couldn’t settle knowing that she might do something while I was upstairs. Now I know how Dad feels when he has to go to work and leave her. Most of the time he has someone to sit with her, the next-door neighbour comes in sometimes and so does Aunty Linda and Aunty Helen, so she’s not left on her own all day, but sometimes there are little gaps. It will be better after Friday when he’s at home all the time.

            Mum did my hair for me. She put it in French plaits. She may be loopy, but she hasn’t forgotten to put me through torture when she pulls the plaits really tight to my scalp. She doesn’t forget painful stuff like that.

            We had a great time. Aunty Linda treated us to lunch at Pizza Hut before we went shopping.  In Miss Selfridge I was looking at all the really cool bras, but Linda said that they were way too old for me. I heard her whispering to Mum that they were slutty. I told her that I do know what slutty means, you know. And she got smart and said, ‘Well you don’t want to look like one then, do you?’ I kind of did though. There was this dark purple one with underwires and black lace. It was sexy. But Aunty Linda had other ideas. She picked up a pack of six. They were just plain, three white and three black.

            ‘Here we go, these are perfect. Just right.’

            ‘They are not,’ said mum, they’re ugly. Would you wear them?’

            ‘Well, probably not, but they’re functional.’

            ‘Exactly.  I want Kate to have something pretty, something that makes her feel feminine. These are her first proper bras and I want her to love them—and love herself—and remember this, us, me. And anyway, there’s only six and we need seven, one for every day of the week in case I forget to do the washing. Put the dowdy bras back, Linda.’ Mum picked up a handful of other ones in all pretty colours. They weren’t slutty and they weren’t sexy, but they were nice, really pretty with little pink flowers on and stars. Mum passed them to me, and I put the humongous ones that mum picked up back and swapped them for others that were the right size. Mum said if they don’t fit or if they are uncomfortable, we can bring them back.  ‘You’ll have to take charge of the receipt Kate. There is nothing worse than an ill-fitting bra, is there Linda?’ she asked, but Aunty Linda didn’t answer.’

             I looked at Linda and she was standing close to the shelf. For a second, I thought she was trying to shoplift a bra and that was really shocking because my Aunty Linda would never steal anything in her life, she’s got tons of money. And in that second, I thought, oh God it runs in the family, they’re all going nuts; I’ll have to get two of them out of here somehow. But then I saw that she was crying and didn’t want us to see. She was trying to stop herself, but the tears were running down her cheeks. I put my arm around her, but she shrugged me off. ‘I’m okay. Just see to your Mum,’ she whispered.

            I turned back to Mum, but she was gone. We looked up and down the clothing aisles, but she wasn’t there. I panicked and Linda told me not to worry and said we’d find her but I could see that she was scared, too. We found her in the toy aisle. She’d picked up a big silk scarf on her way past the shelf and had it all wrapped round her neck, it was bright, in reds and gold and green, all swirly patterns and proper gaudy. But that wasn’t the worst thing of all. The worst thing of all was that she had this floppy purple hat on her head.  And I was so relived to see her that I burst out laughing and then Aunty Linda laughed too, and she was crying and laughing both at the same time. Mum had picked up a stuffed giraffe and was talking to it.

            ‘Hello, I’m Jeremiah the giraffe; would you like to play with me?’

And then she picked up a gorilla and put on another voice, ‘Yes, I’d like to play with you. What should we play? I know, Let’s play jungles.’ She was jiggling the toys about on the shelf. A woman with a pushchair stopped and stared at her.  ‘It’s okay,’ I said to the woman, ‘She’s just nuts, and you want to be careful standing next to her and staring like that, it’s catching.’ And then I gave her a proper dirty look, and put my hands in my armpits and pretended to be a monkey. I nearly died of shock when Aunty Linda did it too, she’s like dead ladylike. But the woman really peed me off. I guess she peed Linda off, too. The woman ran off, she couldn’t get away fast enough. Mum turned round and said, ‘What the hell are you two doing? You’re acting like five-year olds. Stop it, you’re making a scene.’ And Linda and me were hysterical and an assistant came to see what was going on, and Mum proper shouted at us and said that she’d never been so embarrassed in her life, and she still had the old lady scarf around her neck and the hat flopping about in front of her face. Linda gave me a big hug and said, ‘I’m proud of you kid.’

            After that Aunty Linda did go nuts. She went on a mad spending spree, she bought Jeremiah the Giraffe for the baby, seeing as Mum was so attached to it and the hideous scarf because Mum wouldn’t take it off, but we did persuade her to put the hat back. She got nasty though when Linda tried to take the scarf off her. She said that it was hers and that Linda was trying to steal it. And she was shouting and everybody looked. It was easier just to let her have it? Then Linda bought some stuff for herself and she bought me loads. I got matching knickers to go with the bras and a pair of jeans and two new tops, a hoodie, a denim skirt, some leggings and two pairs of opaque tights.

            We were in the queue for paying and Mum did this weird rocking thing. She stayed all in the same place, but she was moving her body from side and taking little steps. Aunty Linda asked her if she was all right and she said she was. And then she made this, noise and sounded like an owl. Then, right there standing in the queue, in front of everybody, she grabbed herself between the legs and said, ‘Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.’ She kept saying it and wouldn’t shut up.

 ‘Oh shit, Katie you stay here and keep our pace. I’ll be back in a minute.  Come on Annie.’

She had to hold mum’s hand and, on account of where the toilets are at the back of the shop, they had to excuse themselves and walk past all the people in the queue. All the time Mum was still oh, oh, oh, ing.

            It was the woman before me in the queue and she didn’t have a trolley, she only had half a basket of shopping. I’m panicking because it’s my turn next and I’ve got a trolley full of stuff and no money. And the woman puts her bag of frozen sweetcorn on the conveyor belt and puts the, Next Person, stick down by me. I say thank you, ‘that’s what you do. But I wish she hadn’t done that `cause now I have to unload our shopping and they still aren’t back.

And then it’s me. And the scanners going ping, ping, ping. And soon the stuff on the other side of the till is bigger than the stuff on my side. And, I have to start putting it back in the trolley. And I have no bags. And don’t know if I should get some. And I don’t know how many. And I still don’t have any money or a card or anything to pay. And I go bright red. And the woman says it’s okay. And she presses some buttons on her till. And she tells me to wait at the side. And then they come back. And I’m glad. And mum’s got wet trainers.

Dad went mad when he got home tonight. The school rang him at work because Mum didn’t let them know that I wasn’t going to be in, and they thought I was skiving. Apart from all the embarrassing bits, it was a brilliant day.