Dad tells us he met mum at a Bad Manners concert.
“What’s that?” asks Chrissy.
“It’s a concert where people are rude to each other,” he says and laughs, though Chrissy and I look puzzled. They were a band, he explains. From the nineteen eighties.
“As soon as Bad Manners came on, all these skinheads moved to the front of the stage and everyone else moved back. It was quite scary.”
“What’s a skinhead?” Chrissy asks.
“It’s someone who shaves off all their hair and likes to fight.”
She makes a face like there are Brussels sprouts on her plate and dad kisses her head. He and mum started talking while Buster Bloodvessel was leaping across the stage. That was the name of the singer. We both laugh when he tells us.
“Is that his real name?” I ask, feeling silly when dad shakes his head with a chuckle. It’s the sort of question I should have left for Chrissy.
“They had a song called Lip Up Fatty,” dad says. He starts to sing and it sounds like the worst tune in the world. He grabs Chrissy’s hands and the two of them jump about the room.
“That was the song they were playing when I kissed your mum for the first time.”
“Was that your special song?” Chrissy asks as they stop dancing.
“I don’t know, darling. I suppose so,” he mutters with a sad smile and I guess he still misses mum as much as me and Chrissy.
* * * * *
He would sing to mum all the time. I’d hear then laughing from the other side of the bathroom door. Standing perfectly still, my foot pressing down on a creaky floorboard that would betray me if I moved, I hardly dared breathe, even though they wouldn’t hear me.
Water splashed against the side of the bath, probably spilling on to the wooden floor and I guessed he was washing her with the strawberry-coloured sponge. It was mum’s sponge and I knew not to use it, just as there were towels I wasn’t supposed to touch. I couldn’t help it sometimes. They were thick and soft, like being wrapped in a ball of candy floss.
“Your mum needs them,” dad told us. “The other towels hurt her.”
I wouldn’t touch the sponge, though. I was scared that the traces of sickness it wiped off mum would cling to me instead.
He bathed her every night, after we had dinner and been forced to sit through the news on TV. I would sneak up behind him, sitting on the stairs as he carried her into the bathroom, singing to her or covering her face with kisses. She always tried to smile for him, though the effort just made her look even more exhausted. Sometimes she puckered her lips and he rested his on them, always murmuring “Mmm…” as if it was the best taste in the world.
I couldn’t help staring even though I could see mum’s naked legs peeking out from under the towel. Her bones were pushing at the skin, desperate to break through and her eyes were sunk deep into her skull like they were trying to hide from the light. He closed the door over with his foot and I would wait until I heard the water splash before I took up my vigil outside.
When they finished, he’d carry her back into the bedroom while I crept downstairs and fought with Chrissy over the remote control until dad’s voice boomed from the top of the stairs telling us to behave.
Sometimes we all sat in bed with mum. There was a TV in their room. Dad wanted to get it connected to the Sky box but mum wouldn’t let him.
“It’s just a lot of rubbish on it anyway,” she’d say and he shrugged. He wouldn’t argue with her even though I knew he wished he could watch the sports channels when she fell asleep.
Chrissy always snuggled in beside mum. I wanted to take her place, even just the once, but she was the baby and I was scared of hurting mum if I leant in too heavily. She asked about school. I’d just say it was fine but Chrissy chattered on for ages, telling her everything she could think of. Often, mum would peer over Chrissy’s shoulder, raise her eyebrows at me and smile, and I’d treasure it like it was a twenty-pound note.
When it was time for bed, we’d get changed into our pyjamas and brush our teeth, then kiss mum goodnight. Her kisses tasted funny, like cold garlic bread, but I never said anything. Most nights I couldn’t get to sleep for ages. There were too many noises in my head. The drone of the TV through the wall. Whispers that floated under the door. Mum coughing and dad singing to her until she closed her eyes.
* * * * *
I can’t get the song out of my head. Lip Up Fatty. It sounds daft whenever I think of the title but it makes me smile. I wonder whether mum thought of their first kiss whenever she heard it. Maybe dad sang it her. I don’t remember but I’m sure he must have.
I need grandda to help me get the record. He orders it from the Internet, and I give him the money for it. Three pounds. We don’t have a machine to play it on, but grandda says it will look better framed. Gran wraps it for me, and I’m sure a couple of tears escape down her cheeks when I tell her why I’m giving it to dad.
“It’ll be the best Christmas present ever, Michael” she says.
“I hope so,” I say with a smile which gran always says reminds her of mum.
