“Yes, they can,” I said.
Penny blinked and smiled, a flash of her eyes and a flash of her teeth for each one of us round the table, one after the other. My mother managed a bit of a smile back. My brother dropped his eyes. I kept up my hard look.
“In a roundabout way, right enough,” I said. “But they caused me quite a lot of harm once, didn’t they Mum?”
“They can’t have,” Penny said, patiently. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, Jessie likes nothing better than to spoil nice things,” my mother said. “She’ll never learn, no matter what lessons are sent to her. Take no notice, Penny. It’s not worth worrying about.”
“True,” I said. “Not worth a worry. Not like dropping from a great height and going splat and crunching all your bones to rubble.”
I got sent away from the table. Twenty-two I was, and I got sent to my room. I could hear my mother saying sorry and assuring Penny that she wouldn’t have to put up with me again. That poor Allan was too kind for his own good, but I just spoiled everything, been the same since I was a child. “Takes after my late husband,” my mother said. She always called him that. Late. Maybe she even believed it herself by now.
“Jessie?”
I looked down. Dillon was standing in the porch doorway, one foot on top of the other so that only one of his socks would get wet. “Done a poo,” he said. “A big one.”
“Good!” I said. “Let’s see if it’s big enough to win a prize!”
He giggled and held up his hands for me to lift him. I took a deep breath and held it, but it wasn’t so bad. Just kind of warm smelling, really.
“I don’t even know where your changing box is,” I told him, carrying him inside. “Or if there’s a special bucket.” I stopped. Dillon was winding his fist into my hair, tugging it. “In fact, the bins must need emptied something chronic, eh?” I said. “Here’s the deal, Dill. I’ll change your bum and then you help me empty the buckets out to the wheelie, eh?”
“Can I help too?” Ruby was standing in her bedroom doorway with her hairbrush in her hand. “If you do my bobbles?”
“Deal, squeal, spit, and seal,” I said.
“Squeal, squeal, squeal,” said Dillon, wriggling and releasing quite a lot more smell.
“Dill’s got a wet sock, by the way,” Ruby said. “I’ll get some dry ones.”
Turned out there were nappies in bags all over the house. It must have been a pretty powerful deodorant on them, not to mention airtight twist-ties, but still I was ashamed to think that I hadn’t gone round and cleared them before now, that they’d been piling up since Tuesday. In the basket in Ruby’s bedroom, in the tin bin in the living room, in the kitchen flip-top, in the white plastic bucket in the bathroom. Everywhere except Gus’s bedroom, in fact, and since the baby’s cot was in there it took me a while to believe it. I searched down the sides of the furniture and even in the bottom of the wardrobe (which was nuts), then I carted them out one by one and tipped them into the wheelie.
“What day do the men come, Ruby?” I asked. “Do you know? Don’t want to miss them.”
Ruby shook her head and held out her hairbrush and bobbles. “Wash your hands and do my bunches,” she said.
“What’s the magic word?” It popped out automatically like I was a slot machine.
“Now,” said Ruby. Then her small eyes filled up with tears. “You’re supposed to laugh. It’s a joke. It’s funny.”
“Is that your joke with Mummy?” I asked. She nodded. Tears were falling down her cheeks, one after the other, faster and faster, and when I went and put my hand on the back of her head, she pressed her face against me and howled. Which started Dillon off too.
“I’m sorry, hunny-bunny,” I said. I opened my mouth to say more, but what was there to say? She didn’t know me, and even I didn’t know what I was doing here. I didn’t understand how asking about a post-mortem and organising a funeral could take Gus all day, even if he had to buy a suit to wear to it. But his face that morning when I had questioned him? I didn’t want to see that again. I stood holding them against me as they wept, looking down at the whorls of their hair, identical patterns on their little heads.
“We need some chocolate,” I said. Not from being some kind of stupid Bridget Jones bimbo, but from remembering what totally mental, off-the-scale shit sweeties could sort for you when you were five. Me? I was well past the age when chocolate could help, but being the big one with the money who could buy it for the wee ones? That was pretty great too.
The M &Ms were finished and the best the fridge had to offer was Babybel cheese. I checked inside the big pans, the butter bit in the fridge, the backs of the high cupboards-everywhere I’d have stashed it if it was me-and only found cream of tartar and mace, tins of Carnation milk and Devon custard, tangerine segments and packets of lemon jelly. I could make a sell-by-date trifle, I thought, sure that some of this stuff had to have been here since Granddad Dave was on the go. Why would Becky not have cleaned out the cupboards? She grew her own veg but didn’t chuck out the old stuff in the larder?
Dillon’s coat was a solid wodge of padded nylon, and once he was trussed, I had no worries about him. Ruby’s was trimmed with fur and shiny pink and only reached the top of her thighs.
“Have you got a pair of waterproof trousers?” I asked her. “I think it’s going to bucket.”
“Wellies!” said Dillon.
“You betcha,” I said. “You too, Ruby. And hats on, hoods up. No discussion.” That had worked when Gus had said it.
The rain started when we were just about as far from the cottage as we were from the shop, no point turning back, since if we were going to get drenched we might as well get drenched for treats. Dillon was walking at forty-five degrees into the wind with his fringe plastered back over the outside of his anorak hood and his eyes watering. Ruby put her head down like a little bull and barrelled forward. I checked ahead of her for obstacles, but the beach was clear; she’d be okay. I took Dillon’s hand, cold and pink, and tried to tuck my hair inside my hood to stop it whipping across my face.
“Hot baths when we get back,” I said. “Hot chocolate, jammies on, telly on, fire lit, cosy socks.”
The children said nothing, just kept fighting their way into the wind towards the sweeties. I felt an enormous rush of what felt a lot like love for them both. Little kids doing what little kids do. No one telling them they were devils for wanting to do it. That wasn’t what she had said, not exactly. “Something devilish about you, Jessica,” is how she had put it. “From your father.”
“What does that make you then?” I’d said. “You slept with him, not me.”
And then she’d go on and on about how I was a test-my mother was big on tests and lessons; nothing just happened-and that she embraced God’s plan no matter what he sent her.
“Look!” said Dillon. He had pulled back and was pointing at something on the ground. I turned my back on the wind-relief!-and crouched down. I thought it was a rat, drowned, or maybe a mouse. But then I saw the beak and the claws and knew. A starling. Black and sodden. Not scary when it was wet, no chance of anything floating towards me.
“It’s a dead bird,” said Ruby. “Dirty.” She started to kick sand over it and then stopped. “It’s dead,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but I could see her thoughts turning and I knew what was coming next.
“Ditty!” said Dillon.
“Mummy’s dead,” said Ruby. Still not a question. Her cross wee face was tied up tight. “Dead like that?” She kicked the bird, and it shifted a bit into the slush that the rain had built up behind it. I winced. “Not gone to heaven?” said Ruby. She kicked the bird harder. “Dead like that?”
“Poor buddy,” said Dillon. “Dop it, Ruby. No kicking!” It was the most I’d ever heard him say. Wee darling, feeling sorry for a dead bird even if he had to be brave and stand up to his sister.