Cathy Kelly - What She Wants

‘I’d love a place of my own,’ she said suddenly. ‘My own flat where I could come and go as I liked and didn’t need to be there for anyone, total freedom.’

‘Wayhay!’ roared the groom. ‘I’ve got my own place and we could go back there now, I’ve got drink and everything…’

‘That’s not what I meant, you toe rag,’ Nicole said, calmly emptying the remains of her beer all over him. She’d had enough to drink.

He squealed with horror and Nicole daintily leaped up from the seat beside him, blew him a kiss and then tapped Sharon on the arm. ‘I’m outta here,’ she said, ignoring the furiously mouthing groom.

Dickie Vernon came out of the men’s room, looking much more together, much more like a successful manager of incredible talent. Thank God they still sold those mini toothbrush and toothpaste combos in toilet dispensers. Slicking back his dark hair, he made his way over to the stag party and looked around for the young, dark girl. But she was gone.

Nicole locked the front door and pulled over the curtain that kept the draught from blowing straight up the stairs. 12a Belton Gardens was a great place for draughts. Sometimes, the winter wind whistled from the front door right through the flat and out the back door again, making the kitchen and the narrow hall no-go areas. Nicole had tried draught excluder but it kept falling off so she’d bought a big curtain for over the front door instead. If only her mother would remember to draw it.

She walked into the small cosy sitting room where her mother was sitting on the old flowery couch wrapped up in a tartan blanket and watching a late night film. A mug of tea sat in front of her and she had a bowl of popcorn on her lap.

‘Hello love,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the screen.

‘Hi Mum,’ Nicole said, sitting on the faded pink armchair beside the fire. Her mother’s collection of china pigs glared down at her from the mantelpiece, alongside several scented candles which Nicole was always in mortal terror would set the place alight.

Her mother kept chewing popcorn. Nicole picked up the TV guide to see what was on. It was a 1970s Goldie Hawn film. Her mother loved Goldie Hawn. With her baby-soft blonde hair and sweet, faded smile, she liked to think she looked like Goldie too. Only in Sandra’s case, the kookiness wasn’t an act. Sandra Turner was kind, terribly naive and possessed of a vague dizziness that made her utterly unsuited to dealing with normal life. She felt helpless around domestic problems or money matters, hated confrontation of any kind and was addicted to the herbal tablets she took for her nerves. Men, especially, adored her helpless female act, until they discovered it wasn’t an act.

If Nicole didn’t do the grocery shopping and make sure that the bills were paid on time, the small Turner family would never have survived. Not that Nicole ever complained. Fiercely protective of her lovely, dizzy mother, she wouldn’t let anyone say a word against her. There may have been just the three of them but they were still a family and Nicole dared anyone to say otherwise. She knew that it had been hard for her mother to rear her on her own and that many men over the years had steered clear of dating a single mother. Sandra’s one chance at happiness had been with Pammy’s father. He’d been a nice man, Nicole remembered. But it had somehow gone wrong and the Turner girls were on their own again.

The film cut to a commercial break and Sandra Turner came to life.

‘Have a nice evening, love?’ she asked, turning to her daughter.

‘Lovely, Mum. How about you? Did you win?’

Her mother’s face scrunched up into an irresistible grin: ‘£100, love!’ she said jubilantly. ‘I’m going to get my hair permed and buy new shoes. They’ve got lovely ones down the market, just like Versace but they’re not the real thing.’

‘Good for you, Mum,’ Nicole cheered, mentally chocking up some more overtime. They were late paying the electricity bill.

She watched a bit of Goldie and then decided to go to bed.

‘I’m knackered, Mum,’ she said, leaning over to give her mother a kiss. ‘I suppose Gran’s asleep in my bed?’

Her mother bit her lip, like a small child asking forgiveness. ‘I was a bit late and you know she hates getting a cab home after eleven. You can sleep with me,’ she added eagerly.

Nicole checked the kitchen to make sure everything was switched off then climbed the stairs. She passed her own tiny bedroom and went into Pammy’s. Barbie predominated. There wasn’t any bit of Barbie equipment that Nicole hadn’t bought her little half-sister. Quiet as a mouse, she peered down at her fondly. In sleep, Pammy looked even more angelic than she did awake. Her tousled white-blonde hair stuck up at all angles and her soft, babyish cheeks were plump and innocent. She was only five and Nicole completely adored her. She thought guiltily back to what she’d said to the drunken groom in the pub: yes, she’d love a place of her own, somewhere she could be utterly on her own and not responsible for any other human being. But she’d miss little Pammy so much. And her mum. No matter what her gran said about Sandra being a few sandwiches short of a picnic, she was a good mum and she did her best. She was Nicole’s responsibility and that was that.

Pammy woke Nicole up at half six by climbing into the small double bed and bouncing up and down. Sandra moved just enough to pull the duvet closer around her neck.

‘Nicole, wake up!’ sang Pammy before she started trying to tickle her big sister under the arms.

‘C’mere, brat,’ she growled in her best tiger voice and pulled Pammy’s small, squirming body under the covers where she began to tickle her, much more successfully.

‘Lemme go! Lemme go!’ squealed Pammy delightedly as she tried to wriggle away.

‘No, the tiger has got you!’ growled Nicole. ‘Grrr, grrrr, I love yummy little girls in the morning…I’m hungry, grrrr…’

After a bit more growling, she let Pammy go and then swung her legs out of the bed, shivering in the coolness of the bedroom. She pulled on her mother’s dressing gown and went downstairs with Pammy to get her breakfast.

By seven forty-five, they were both fed, dressed and ready to leave the house. Nicole took a speedy cup of tea up to her grandmother.

‘Thanks love,’ said Reenie Turner, sitting up in Nicole’s bed. ‘You’re a good girl.’

‘Sorry I didn’t see you last night, Gran,’ Nicole said. ‘But I’ll see you on Sunday. Don’t forget to wake Mum before you go. She’s due at work by ten today.’

She ignored her grandmother’s snort of disapproval. Despite being mother and daughter Sandra and Reenie Turner were like chalk and cheese. Keeping the peace between them was a full time job. Reenie disapproved of Sandra’s part-time job as a manicurist and the way that Nicole took care of Pammy as though she were her mother. And Sandra hated Reenie’s comments about her occasional men friends.

‘Once in a blue moon I meet a nice man for a drink, once in a blue moon, that’s all. Just because I’ve got kids doesn’t mean I have to live like a nun, you know,’ she’d snap.

‘Fat chance of that,’ Reenie would sniff unfairly.

Nicole hated her grandmother criticizing Sandra. For all that her mother was dizzy, she’d worked hard to bring her and Pammy up and hadn’t so much as dated a man when Nicole was a kid. It was only when Nicole was a bit of a teenage tearaway that Sandra had met Pammy’s father.

Pammy danced along the wet footpath with Nicole, singing tunelessly to herself. She’d settled incredibly well at St Matthews, for which Nicole was grateful. Apart from the first day when her lower lip had wobbled when Nicole finally left her in the capable hands of Miss Vishnu, she’d run happily into school ever since. Miss Vishnu was very young and sweet and the children appeared to love her.