What They Do in the Dark Read Free Page B

perfumed.
    But that day, even on the bus the atmosphere is different. Mum’s dressed up and nervous, and she’s put orange make-up on her face which stops at her neck. On the way to the salon, she keeps accusing me of holding her up.
    ‘Gemma, leave that alone – you’re holding me up,’ she says, when I try to retrieve something interesting, possibly a badge, dropped by the bus stop.
    ‘Gemma, I’m not telling you again,’ when I have to stop and pull my socks back up to my knees. It’s no good just doing one, as I try to tell her, but she yanks me along without listening.
    I can see that her blouse is making her sweat, and the sweat is seeping darkly into the nylon beneath her arms. When we do reach the salon, it turns out that we’re not going to stay. Mum is there to meet someone from her work, a man called Ian, and we are going straight out again. I mourn the loss of the
Woman’s Own
s and their medical secrets. This is not going to be the day when I finally find out what a rupture is.
    ‘How about the Copper Kettle?’ suggests Ian, and I brighten at the prospect of pancakes. Mum explains that Ian does the accounts for her work, and that they need to sort out something important. I know accounts involve sums, but I’m not really listening because I’m trying to decide between the pancake with banana and the pancake with butterscotch sauce, both equally delicious. Ian suggests a combination of the two, and I enjoy the best of both worlds as he and Mum look at boring sheets of paper which they scribble on with biros.
    Ian does more talking than Mum. He’s quite old and fat withfroggish eyes, and his breath smells of mints. I’ve taken to him immediately because of his pancake suggestion to the waitress. Mum is still on edge, although the patches under her arms have stopped spreading. She has a frothy coffee, although she never drinks coffee at home. As Ian talks she slides her fingers down her biro to the end, then upends it and starts again, over and over. Her nails are always long and painted. Today they’re a shiny brownish-pink.
    ‘Don’t do that, chick,’ she says when I slurp the end of my glass of limeade through the straw.
    ‘That’s the best bit, isn’t it?’ says Ian, winking. He’s having two toasted teacakes with his frothy coffee.
    ‘She’s old enough to know better,’ says Mum, pushing my fringe out of my eyes. She observes me professionally. ‘Time for a haircut.’
    Ian wants to order me a second limeade, but there isn’t time, because we have to be back for Dad’s tea.
    ‘Everything seems to be in order,’ says Ian, shuffling the papers into a pile. ‘We can do the rest next time.’
    ‘I’ll make sure about this one,’ says Mum, cocking her head over at me, as though I’m deaf, even though I’m sitting next to her. I know she’d rather have got a babysitter for me.
    Mum wants to get the bus home but Ian insists on taking us back in his car, which is big and also smells of mints. When he drops us off, Mum turns to me and demands, ‘What do you say for the pancakes?’ I say thank you, and Ian asks for a kiss, which I give him on his fat, minty cheek. I go to follow Mum out of the car, but the toe of my sandal catches against the door sill and I stumble to the pavement. Although I manage not to fall badly, an exclamation trips from me.
    ‘What did you say?’ Mum swivels on me, eyes locking into mine as she pulls me up.
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘What did you say?’
    I whisper it. ‘Jam rags.’
    She pulls me to the house, gripping my arm hard, and slams the door as Ian drives away. My legs are smacked. According to Mum, at length to my dad over his tea, she’s never been so embarrassed in her life. What’s worse, she claims that Ian, who she suddenly calls Mr Haskell, was ‘disgusted’.
    I say sorry, keep saying it, but it makes no difference. She doesn’t look at me for the rest of the evening, and even when I go to kiss her goodnight, her own lips don’t