I stared at the floor and scrunched my fingers into the folds of my shirt.
‘Died months ago, leaving me, just like that.’
‘How’d he die?’
She exhaled and said nothing.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, ma? Why didn’t you write me?’ I gestured back into the hallway. ‘All my postcards and letters are just lying there. Ma?’
‘What?’
‘Why didn’t you read them? Why didn’t you tell me about da?’
She waved her hand through the smoke and said, ‘No time for that. I’ve been working so hard, day in day out, while everyone just leaves me.’
I stared at her, clenching my fists.
‘Where’s David?’
‘Where’s David, where’s David?’
‘Where is he, ma?’
‘No one’s seen David. Here I am on my own, everyone just leaves and I’ve got to run this house alone.’
‘He’ll come back.’
‘He better. What use is it otherwise?’
‘I’m here, ma.’
‘What use is it?’
‘I’ll help out.’
‘What use is it, huh? Just me alone.’
She cried with the cigarette in her mouth, tears and snot and saliva slithering over her lips and down her chin.
I found Corporal Pig in the hallway, fast asleep, making huffy noises. I looked down at all my postcards and letters piled behind the door. I got down on my knees and searched for something from Angel – it was a postcard with a picture of a beach and she’d drawn me, her, and CP basking in the sun. I turned it over and read her words aloud: ‘My handsome Goblin, I miss you. I didn’t eat for two days but Ann and Bill were worried and made me. Your pretend parents told everyone your ma and da had wanted you back so you’d gone. The Idiot was being a shit and saying things about you at school so I punched his face. He’s got a broken nose and I was kept in for two weeks but I didn’t care becos I don’t go out anymore anyway. Write and tell me London stories, your Angel forever xxxx.’
I sat for a few minutes reading it over and over again, looking at where the ink was smudged by her hand, before turning it over and staring at the drawing of us on the beach. I put it in my pocket. I shooed the chickens out into the back garden so they could eat insects and have dust baths. I dragged my bag and a half-asleep CP up the stairs into mine and David’s room, and there was Groo curled up asleep on my bed. Without even realising, I was crying. I was smiling and laughing and crying and I called her name and she meowed at me, little plaintive confused sounds I’d never heard her make before. I gathered her up, hugging her and staining her with tears. She struggled and I let her go, dropping her back on the bed. She meowed and meowed and meowed.
‘I missed you, you strange wee terror,’ I said, hiccupping through the tears. ‘There’s no Devil-dog to groom, you skinny wee thing. No Devil dogs at all.’
I hoisted CP onto my bed and Groo looked startled, backing away, her fur standing on end.
‘It’s just CP, Groo. Just good old CP, trusty weary walker. We’re a fine scrawny bunch,’ I said, petting her and feeling her ribs. ‘You two wait here and I’ll get you some food. Don’t you touch CP, mind.’
When I returned, CP was snoring and Groo was keeping her distance, sat on my pillow, pressed up against the wall.
‘You’ll make friends soon enough.’
I gave her food and she was so excited about it she got most of it on her face and my bed. I looked around the room. Some of the Dietrich pictures had fallen off, so I pressed them back onto the wall. The note I’d left for David was still on his desk. I traced my finger across it: ‘I’m going on an adventure. Love, Goblin.’
It felt like so long ago I’d written it. And he hadn’t read it. He hadn’t read any of my postcards or letters. I scrunched up my note and threw it on the floor. I crushed it under my foot. I crawled into David’s bed, pressing my face into the pillow. I could still smell him. Monsta climbed from my bag and lay on my shoulder, tentacle-worms stroking my head. Groo hopped up and sniffed at Monsta, sneezed, then licked my hair.
‘I sure missed you,’ I said, falling asleep to the sound of her rough tongue on my hair and skin.
I slept through the week, only getting out of bed to feed Groo, Corporal Pig and the chickens. I’d let CP out to rummage for insects in the garden, then I’d climb right back into bed and disappear into darkness, ignoring the air raids.
When I emerged at the end of the week I bathed myself and bathed CP and I ate a feast and was almost sick. I played David’s records and I tidied our room, scooping out the shits CP had done on my bed and the floor, scrubbing everything clean.
‘CP, I’ll need to make you a home outside. You’ll be happier in the garden and I won’t have to smell your stink anymore.’
I sent a postcard to Angel – it was a picture of Trafalgar Square and I’d drawn CP, Angel and I swimming in one of the fountains.
‘My beautiful Angel,’ I wrote, ‘I made it home, CP and I all skinny from weary walking. We have a cat called Groo, and chickens – Billy Bones and Dr Kemp. They were our neighbour’s family, but he’s been bombed out so I took them in. How are things? I hope you’re happy and the Idiot isn’t being a shit. I’m glad you broke his nose. I miss you and I miss swimming in the sea. Love forever, your Goblin xxxx.’
I didn’t bother telling Angel about da being dead, and David being missing and ma being ma. I only wanted to write about happy things so she wouldn’t worry about me. And mostly things were happy anyway, especially when ma wasn’t around and she hardly ever was – she worked at the factory and went out at night, drinking. She’d come home and sob and fall asleep on the floor. I’d wake her up with tea and a cigarette and she’d sit up, her make-up all run down her cheeks, snot all crusted on her lips, and she’d drink her tea and smoke her cigarettes and I’d watch her wash off all the grime and put a new face on.
‘Ma,’ I said, ‘Where’s David?’
‘I told you. He’s gone.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s your da’s fault.’
‘Da? Did he make him go to war?’
She shook her head. ‘He pushed David too hard and now he’s gone.’
‘Gone where, ma?’
‘Just gone.’
I went through some family photos and found one of David, taken almost three years before when ma and da took us to get proper photographs of us all. There was one of the family together, one of me and David and photos of each of us on our own. I took out the one of me and David and put it on our bedroom wall. I shoved the one of him in my pocket. Everywhere I went I brought it out, ‘Have you seen this boy? I think he went to the sea, but maybe he’s still here. Have you seen him? He’ll be older now, older than this, but he’ll look much the same. Have you seen this boy?’
I got a reply from Angel saying she was glad I had a family of animals and even though she’s sad I left she’s glad for the family I’m looking after. She said she’s doing fine, that Ann and Bill are good new parents and they took her to the beach for a picnic at the weekend which was nice but she felt a bit sad because she missed me.
I wrote back and said maybe her and Bill and Ann could come to London for a holiday one day and she wrote that Bill and Ann said they’d come visit after the war so I prayed like mad to the lizards below that the war would end that very day but it didn’t.
I settled into a routine at home. Ma didn’t bother me. I was free to do as I pleased and she didn’t even notice CP snuffling in the garden, she didn’t even notice the brand new palace I made him out of scraps of wood I’d found. She didn’t notice anything. Until one day she did, and I came home from scootering around the city with Monsta and found her slitting Corporal Pig’s throat, but the knife was blunt and she was drunk and CP was too strong. She only managed a few small cuts, but from then on I made sure CP was with me when I knew she’d be home. I would stay in and keep an eye on them both, or I’d put a lead on him and keep him close, growling at anyone who came near.