Fallout Read Free Page B

for Nina’s future. Paris with Marianne – the woman had no morals, no talent, no money. Nina put the receiver down and waited, her narrow shoulders eloquent.
    ‘How was your mother?’ asked Aunt Mat, levelly.
    Nina turned; thickly kholled eyes, spiky triumph and guilt –
    ‘I thought I’d go to Paris next week,’ she said airily; the febrile shadow of Marianne, without the steel, without the acid.
    ‘I see. How will you get there?’ said Aunt Mat tightly.
    ‘On the train, I should think.’
    ‘What on earth for?’ burst out Aunt Mat, uncharacteristic, and Nina blazed, ‘ Because my mother wants me! ’ so violently, so ringing with righteous, operatic gratitude, that Aunt Mat crumpled. She wanted to cry. Nina thrust out her face and widened her eyes in silent demand – the whites so bright against the massed lashes and dark pupils the effect would have thrown them back against their seats in the circle.
    ‘Save the theatrics, dear. If Marianne wants to take you to Paris there’s nothing I can do about it. You’ll always have a home here, if it goes to the bad.’
    ‘ Lucky me! ’ Nina turned away with a hair-flick, ruining her exit by stepping over the telephone cord in an awkward sideways knee-lift, like a stork on the mudflats.
    One hand on the newel post, jumping the first three stairs, she ran to her room and slammed the door so that the overhead light shook down a drift of plaster-dust. These were the sounds of Aunt Mat’s guardianship: the running feet, the door slam, the record player starting up. Be my, be my baby – be my – be my little baby, be my baby now-ow-ow . . . And Aunt Mat, loving her, whispered along – be my, be my baby – and pulled the ugly cat onto her lap where he settled, resentful and content.
     
    Nina was amazed how simple it was to leave home. She packed a case, and said goodbye and walked to the tube station. Aunt Mat, who avoided scenes, barely acknowledged their parting. It hurt but did not surprise Nina. She had not recognised Aunt Mat’s care as love. For Nina, love was longing. She thought Aunt Mat must not love her at all, and did not know that she cried when Nina left.
    The few tube stops from Fulham Broadway felt like an ocean voyage, then her mother’s street lay before her, curving away from the Cromwell Road to end in a square of sooty laurels held in by railings. The houses were tall and flaking white with electrical wires stapled loosely down the fronts and different sets of curtains at each of the windows. Nina walked quickly, checking the numbers, then stood on the top step with her case. Perhaps her mother had bought them a cake to celebrate. Aunt Mat often bought Victoria sponges, gritty with sugar, for tea. Her finger hovering over the bell. Jacobs . Not Hollings, her unknown father’s name. Jacobs. She pressed it, firmly.
     
    Marianne’s flat was up five flights. Marvellously good for the figure but they really must do something about the common parts. The stairs had shredding carpets and smelled of budgie cages despite more than one sign stating pets were strictly not allowed. I don’t know who they could be, these poor souls with their pets, best not to dwell. The top-floor flats were cramped and asymmetrical, corners filled out with boxed-in pipes seeping welcome heat.
    Nina put her toothbrush by the basin in the bedroom and unpacked into the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. She put her shampoo and hairbrush in the clothes drawer too. Marianne had found three wire hangers and Nina hung her blouses and skirts on top of one another while her mother watched, smoking.
    ‘It turns out we aren’t going to Paris after all,’ she said.
    ‘Oh!’ Nina turned. She was holding her pyjamas and the smell of home rose up from them. ‘Why not?’
    Her mother glanced around the room, restlessly.
    ‘I’ve got a part. Isn’t it marvellous?’
    ‘Marvellous! What in?’
    ‘Oh, it’s nothing much. I’m doing the director a favour, really.’
    Marianne