It's A Good Day So Far: Chapter Twenty, Giraffes and ridiculous hats

Chapter Twenty
Mum’s been okay the last few days. When I say okay, I mean that she hasn’t done anything off the wall, nuts. She zones out and then zones back in again. One minute she’s my mum and the next she’s a scared and confused little girl and I feel like the mum. It’s like Freaky Friday here every day. The doctors have put her on some pills that she can take with the baby, but they make her sleepy. She sleeps a lot now. Things are happening fast and the docs are doing everything they can to slow it down, but without the right meds it’s pretty ruthless.
I had a dream. I watched her walking down a long, long road. It was straight, like one of the roads you only get in the country where you have wheat fields or crops on both sides and you feel as though you can walk down the same piece of road for ever. I can see her walking away from me. I call but she doesn’t turn around. I can see maybe a mile ahead of me, but I don’t really know how long a mile is. I know it’s enough to nearly kill me on cross country, so it’s a long way. She gets smaller and smaller but I can still see her. I’m shouting her to come back but she doesn’t know what I’m saying. And I woke up crying, but I don’t know why. It wasn’t a bad dream or anything. Nobody was chasing her and it was really pretty on that road. It looked really peaceful.
You can so tell that she’s preggers now. This morning she put on this skirt and a really tight jumper and her bump was there. It was as if it had suddenly grown overnight. She forgets that she’s pregnant all the time and gets upset because she thinks she’s getting fat. And we remind her about the baby and then she gets scared and we have to calm her down. She’s wearing really odd combinations of clothes too. It’s like dementia is a disease of really bad taste. She puts all these bright colours on and likes wearing clothes that are for night’s out, sparkly tops and stuff, just to doss around the house. Mostly she doesn’t wear make-up and I’ve hidden it now because when she does put it on, she uses too much and like her clothes it’s all bright colours that look mad on her.
Baby’s kicking now. Mum’ll go, ‘Oh,’ in surprise and grab her stomach. Me and dad have both felt him. I talk to him all the time when I’m having a cuddle on the sofa with Mum and I tell her what he’s going to be like, just to remind her that he’s there, waiting for her. Dad says he wakes her up at night. He said that last night she sat up and stroked her tummy and said, ‘Hello baby, I’m your mummy,’ so sometimes she remembers.
The other day dad asked her if she’d thought of any names yet, everybody asks her that, but she never has. Dad likes the name Bradley, but I don’t. Mum thought about it for a minute and then she said,’ Katie’s a nice name. If it’s a girl we’ll call her Katie.’
Dad said, ‘You can’t call her Katie, love, we’ve already got one of those.’
And mum said,’ Have we? Oh.’ Dad tried to make it little. He went on to tell her that it was a boy and came up with some boy’s names. I could see that he was saying any name that came into his head just to try and brush what Mum had said about me away. I left and went to my room for a cry. Dad shouted me at the door and winked. I smiled to show him that it was okay, but it really wasn’t. He knew that it wasn’t.
She keeps calling me Linda now. She thinks she’s a kid again and I’m her sister. It’s weird.
When we first found out about the baby I’d asked her for some proper bras. She said that I didn’t need them yet, and not to be in a rush to grow up. And then with the baby and then the dementia it got forgotten and it seemed such a little thing that I didn’t want to bother them. But my boobs have grown again. It’s getting really embarrassing. There’s only me and Holly Staples in our class, who still wear training bras.
This morning Mum was good. Sometimes when she has a bad day with the sickness, it seems to help with the dementia, as though she’s too busy puking to remember to be crazy. Most people stop being sick but Mum is still ill most days. And it’s not always in the morning either, it can happen anytime. Dad says the meds she’s on, mixed with the baby, make her nauseous. It must be horrible for her. She knew who I was this morning, and she made breakfast and she only burned the toast and put the milk on the cup shelf. Trust me, that’s pretty good. Dad cooks a lot now and I’d rather have Mum cooking mental than Dad cooking at all. We were talking about school and stuff and I grabbed my chance.
‘Mum?’
‘Hmm?’
‘I really need a bra.’
She looked at me and it was really embarrassing. I felt myself going red. ‘Oh my goodness, you do, don’t you? And then suddenly it couldn’t wait until Saturday when I’m off school. She got all manic about it, but not crazy, that’s the difference. She was kind of normal, almost, but it was all a big hurry. I think she wanted to get me sorted out before she went off again. She said that I couldn’t go to school. She was really beating herself up for not thinking about it sooner. It was a pretty big deal to me, but it wasn’t a national state of emergency. Mr Hunter said that the other day, when Lisa Brown got upset because she’d forgotten her homework. She was nearly in tears and Sir said, ‘Okay, don’t worry, it’s not a national state of emergency, just bring it in tomorrow. And he looked really guilty for shouting at her and nearly making her cry. He’s fit when he goes all soft.
Mum said that she’d ring Aunty Linda to come with us.
‘Can’t it just be the two of us? It’s a bit embarrassing having the whole world knowing that I’m buying underwear.’
‘It’s not the whole world, just aunty Linda.’
‘I’d rather it was just us. You know some time to—’ I tailed off.
Mum looked sad. ‘I know love. I know you would, me too. But you see, I don’t feel safe anymore. I don’t want to do anything to—embarrass you—while we’re out. I think it’s best if Aunty Linda comes, too. She made me ring her right then. But she wasn’t in. So then I had to ring her at work. I told Mum that it was okay, there was no rush, but she was on one by then. When I was waiting for Aunty Linda to answer her mobile, I could hear mum saying Kate’s bra, over and over again so that she wouldn’t forget what she wanted to say. I put the phone on loud speaker; we have to do that now when Mum’s talking in case she wants to know what’s been said when she forgets.
‘Hello Annie, what’s up? Are you okay?’
‘Can you come?’
‘Oh God, what’s the matter? What’s happened?’
‘I need you to come. Now. It’s urgent.’
‘Is Steve there? Who’s with you?’
‘No he doesn’t finish work until Friday. I’m fine. Kate’s here with me and then I think somebody else is coming to be with me in a bit.’
‘Put Katie on, Annie,’
‘No, shut up. I have to say this. Let me talk,’ she was getting a bit rattie. She gets frustrated a lot. ‘You need to come shopping with us. Kate needs some bras. It’s urgent.’
I heard Linda give this big sigh of relief. ‘Sweetheart. I’m at work. I can’t get out right now and Kate needs to go to school. We’ll go on Saturday, okay?’
‘No, it’s not okay. Kate’s not going to school. She’s got these—’ she paused, ‘—breasts, I can’t believe that I haven’t seen them before and she needs a bra, now. If you won’t come I’ll have to go by myself.
‘Mu-um,’ I said, and I knew I was as red as a beetroot.
‘Annie, Annie, whoa, slow down, it’s okay. We’ll get Katie sorted. You’ve told me now, so it’s okay. You can let it go and I’ll remember for you. I’ll see if I can finish at twelve and we’ll go then. I’ll pick you up.’ I got on the phone to Aunty Linda and promised her that I wouldn’t let Mum go anywhere and that she’d be fine until she arrived. I said that I’d tell Helen that we don’t need her today. I was embarrassed again when Aunty Linda said that she’d bring a tape measure with her.
We watched This Morning and Mum said that she fancies Phillip Schofield. I asked her if she fancied him more than Dad, and she said it was a close call. We had a right laugh. But when I went for a shower I locked all the doors and took the keys with me. I wanted a bath, but I couldn’t. I was in charge. I was responsible for Mum and I couldn’t settle knowing that she might do something while I was upstairs. Now I know how Dad feels when he has to go to work and leave her. Most of the time he has someone to sit with her, the next door neighbour comes in sometimes and so does Aunty Linda and Aunty Helen, so she’s not left on her own all day, but sometimes there are little gaps. It will be better after Friday when he’s at home all the time.
Mum did my hair for me. She put it in French plaits. She may be loopy but she hasn’t forgotten to put me through torture when she pulls the plaits really tight to my scalp. She doesn’t forget painful stuff like that.
We had a great time. Aunty Linda treated us to lunch at Pizza Hut before we went shopping. In Miss Selfridge I was looking at all the really cool bras but Linda said that they were way too old for me. I heard her whispering to Mum that they were slutty. I told her that I do know what slutty means, you know. And she got smart and said, ‘Well you don’t want to look like one then, do you?’ I kind of did though. There was this dark purple one with underwires and black lace. It was sexy. But Aunty Linda had other ideas. She picked up a pack of six. They were just plain, three white and three black.
‘Here we go, these are perfect. Just right.’
‘They are not,’ said mum, they’re ugly. Would you wear them?’
‘Well, probably not, but they’re functional’ admitted Linda.
‘Exactly. I want Kate to have something pretty, something that makes her feel feminine. These are her first proper bras and I want her to love them—and love herself. And anyway, there’s only six and we need seven, one for every day of the week in case I forget to do the washing. Put the dowdy bras back, Linda.’ Mum picked up a handful of other ones in all pretty colours. They weren’t slutty and they weren’t sexy but they were nice, really pretty with little pink flowers on and stars. Mum passed them to me and I put the humongous ones back and swapped them for others that were all the right size. Mum said that if they don’t fit or if they are uncomfortable we can bring them back. ‘You’ll have to take charge of the receipt Kate. There is nothing worse than an ill-fitting bra, is there Linda?’ she asked, but Aunty Linda didn’t answer.’
I looked at Linda and she was standing really close to the shelf. For a second I thought she was trying to shoplift a bra and that was really shocking because my Aunty Linda would never steal anything in her life, she’s got tons of money. And in that second I thought, oh God it runs in the family, they’re all going nuts; I’ll have to get two of them out of here somehow. But then I saw that she was crying and didn’t want us to see. She was trying to stop herself but the tears were running down her cheeks. I put my arm around her but she shrugged me off. ‘I’m okay. Just see to your Mum,’ she whispered.
I turned back to Mum but she was gone. We looked up and down the clothing aisles but she wasn’t there. I panicked and Linda told me not to worry, and said that we’d find her but I could see that she was scared, too. We found her in the toy aisle. She’d picked up a big silk scarf on her way past the shelf and had it all wrapped round her neck, it was bright, in reds and gold and green, all swirly patters, proper gaudy. But that wasn’t the worst thing of all, she had this floppy purple hat on her head. And I was so relived to see her that I burst out laughing and then Aunty Linda laughed too, and she was crying and laughing both at the same time. Mum had picked up a stuffed giraffe and was talking to it.
‘Hello, I’m Jeremiah the giraffe; would you like to play with me?’
And then she picked up a gorilla and put on another voice, ‘Yes, I’d like to play with you. What should we play? I know, Let’s play jungles.’ She was jiggling the toys about on the shelf. A woman with a pushchair stopped and stared at her. ‘It’s okay,’ I said to the woman, ‘She’s nuts, and you want to be careful standing next to her and staring like that, it’s catching.’ And then I gave her a proper dirty look, and put my hands in my armpits and pretended to be a monkey. I nearly died of shock when Aunty Linda did it too, she’s like dead ladylike. But the woman really peed me off. I guess she peed Linda off, too. The woman almost ran off, she couldn’t get away fast enough. Mum turned round and said, ‘What the hell are you two doing, you’re acting like five year olds. Stop it, you’re making a scene.’ And Linda and me were hysterical and an assistant came to see what was going on, and Mum proper shouted at us and said that she’d never been so embarrassed in her life, and she still had the old lady scarf around her neck and the hat flopping about in front of her face. Linda gave me a big hug and said, ‘I’m proud of you kid.’
After that Aunty Linda did go nuts. She went on a mad spending spree, she bought Jeremiah the Giraffe for the baby, seeing as Mum seemed so attached to it and the hideous scarf because Mum wouldn’t take it off, but we did persuade her to put the hat back. She got nasty though when Linda tried to take the scarf off her. She said that it was hers and that Linda was trying to steal it. And she was shouting and every body looked. It was easier just to let her have it? Then Linda bought some stuff for herself and she bought me loads. I got matching knickers to go with the bras and a pair of jeans and two new tops, a hoodie, a denim skirt, some leggings and two pairs of opaque tights.Dad went mad tonight because the school rang him at work. Mum hadn’t let them know that I wasn’t going to be in and they thought that I was skiving.
It was a brilliant day.