Disappearing Home Read Online Free Page A

won’t believe me because I don’t believe myself.
    Once I am home I check Nan’s room. She’s not in. Up on her bed, the case in my lap, I lay each item out side by side. The white bristles on the brush look glossy and soft. I trace my fingers around its edges. Let the tip of one finger sail across the top, only half-touching, like a whisper. Slide slowly deeper and deeper inside the bristles, easing them back towards the handle, feel them slip forwards. In circular movements on my palm, round and round they swirl. I close my eyes, sink inside Nan’s covers.
    From the tip of my scalp I brush, in long strokes, to the ends of my hair, over and over. Shoulders drop, legs stretch. Lips smile. I purr like a cat. Let slide-away thoughts melt to nothing.
    The light from the hand mirror is a dragon’s tongue licking the ceiling, the walls. It finds tiny tears in the candyfloss wallpaper.
    A sticky patch on the lipstick twisted away in the sheet. Gazing in the hand mirror, I run the cold, pink hardness across my lips, expecting something to happen. Nothing does. The sound of a knock on the front door makes me drop the mirror. When I pick it up it has a small crack at the top.
    My mum opens the door.
    Angela stands on our step with her mother.
    â€˜Robyn, Angela would like her case back.’ She looks at me, lips pulled tightly together.
    I hand the case to Angela.
    â€˜You shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you. That’s stealing,’ Angela’s mum shouts.
    Mrs Naylor walks past going the wrong way.
    I shout back. ‘Angela shouldn’t say things …’
    â€˜What things?’
    â€˜She said I could play with it.’
    â€˜Did you say that?’
    Angela shakes her head.
    â€˜Liar, you did, when I was at yours. Anyway, I was only minding it till tomorrow.’
    Mum nods. ‘Course she was. Making a big deal out of nothing,’ she says, pushing her face towards them, ‘aren’t you?’
    They turn to leave. Mum bolts down the stairs shouting after them. ‘Thinks she’s too good for everyone, that Pamela Jennings; stuck-up cow.’
    Mrs Naylor walks back along the landing. She points at me and Mum. ‘It’s the likes of you lot that gets this area a bad name.’
    â€˜Fuck off. Mind your own business.’ Mum slams the door in Mrs Naylor’s face.
    The creak from the letterbox makes us both jump.
    â€˜For your information, it is my business. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Just you wait,’ she shouts through the letterbox.
    Mum grabs my arm and closes the living-room door. She catches her breath. ‘
She
doesn’t know who the fuck
she’s
dealing with.’ She grabs my arms tighter. ‘You keep away from that lot. You hear?’
    I nod, head into the kitchen to help set the table.

4
    T hey take me into town on the number 17C bus. The seats are comfy and I get to sit by the window. My mum takes out a box of Players No.6 and lights one. When it’s lit, she puts another one in her mouth and lights it from the already burning tip, sucking like a baby with a dummy. She hands one to my dad. He has LOVE tattooed on the knuckles of his left hand and HATE tattooed on the knuckles of his right. He takes the cigarette with his love hand. Mum crumples up the empty box, throws it on the floor. Dad blows smoke into Mum’s short brown curls. ‘That’s the last of our fags. We’ll be gasping later.’
    We stop at St George’s church. Mum glares over my shoulder, out of the window. There’s a group of people standing outside the church, hair lifted by the wind. Some have orange sashes draped from their shoulders. Women pushing prams; one licking her thumb and stooping to rub away at a mucky face, purse falling from her pocket. Coins roll across the pavement, bounce off a huge drum balanced against the church wall. Children squeal, scoop them all up in a race and