100 Stories for Pakistan

When I grew up I was going to marry my mum, but I hated her for going out and leaving us with Louise McNally, and I hated her as well. My head peek- a- booed out from behind the gap in Dad’s chair, ready to kick smarty-pants McNally really hard, right on the leg with my big boy’s shoes and make her go back to her own smelly house next door.

‘Mum! Mum! Mum!’ I could scream for Scotland.

She pinned my arms to the ground with her white Catholic knees and curtain haired indifference, settling her bum on my stomach and wiggling as if she was Baloo the bear, and did the typewriter on me.

My head threshed wildly from side to side, like a barbed fish bubbling and choking on snotty laughter.

‘I give in! I give in!’

Half -crescent moons appeared on my chubby red cheeks, my face dimpled against the linoleum floor, not looking until she slowed down and the exquisite agony of her stopping, praying on one knee and pulling herself up using the armrest of Dad’s chair.

I feigned looking over at the kitchen sink then darted a laughing look at her face.

‘I don’t give in.’

She grabbed at my plastic yellow sandal, the ones with holes in them to let the water run through, which we wore when we went away far-far-away for the day, and slowly reeled in my leg and body, smoothing me out like cold winter wrapping paper.

‘My little man.’

The tuck of her head as she pulled me up and close to her secret lipped smile unsettled me. I threshed about, my teeth gritted and lip curled, enraged that the world had caught and pinned me in its deception, as she playfully tippy-tapped on my chest.

‘I’m sorry.’

She reeled me into the cave of her body, rocking me backwards and forwards, dimming the river of my tears. I curled up in her damp skinned warmth, my nose nuzzled bare shoulder and perfume soaked blouse, but roaming free, picking out the choicest cuts for later. My baby’s breath settling down into a suck- thumbed sigh.

She caressed my face with a gap-toothed smile no metal brace could hold. I was heavy legged when she let me go, sprung so suddenly loose and shooed away from her, into the back room with the other kids.

‘You want toast?’ she whispered, like an ingénue.

‘I want toast.’

‘I want toast.’

‘I want toast.’

My brothers and sisters crowded around my Louise McNally as they had crowded around the radio and I thought she was gone from me forever.

‘Sssssh,’ she said and when it was quiet, bending over, her soft ruby lips grazing my cheek.

She hunkered down beside me, her soft green eyes looking into mine.

‘Yes,’ I lisped, my tongue suddenly catching in my teeth for the first time, turning away, all shy, for some reason I didn’t quite understand.