AllFreeNovel
Share Us
SIX
Matty started coming over all the time after that, pitching up in his black Mini Cooper, waving at the picture window where I’d be watching out for him. He’d stick out his tongue, flap his hands on either side of his face, or else put on a silly dance right out there on the sidewalk for the whole world to see.
My mother called him a show-off. To me he was magical.
‘Your car looks like a big ant from up here,’ I said, letting him in one time.
‘And you look like a princess.’
He picked me up, swung me upside down. Made me squeal– inaudible over his fake roars and ‘Hey Jude’ playing on the turntable.
As McCartney started telling Jude not to be afraid, Matty made to drop me.
‘Oh, you want me to put you down?’
‘Nooo!’
Next thing, I was on the floor, a victim in what we called the Prisoner Game– Matty pinning me down, me struggling to get away. We had a ‘safe word’, smelly feet, but it was a point of pride not to use it, a point Matty was only too conscious of.
You’re admitting defeat? You’re sure? Well, okay, but you realise that makes me the overlord?
My mother appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a tea towel. Her hair was loose the way Matty liked it, her Bambi eyes bright.
‘You guys are making me feel left out.’
Matty released me, went to kiss her (‘Hey, you’) started dancing her around the room. I grabbed at his legs wanting him to capture me again, ready to run away screaming if he did. Can’t get me. . .
I was making a gnat of myself, deliberately so. I’m here, I was saying. Pick me.
He was my mother’s boyfriend, but I loved him too. More than anyone apart from her. And some days more.
‘So, what have my two favourite ladies been up to today?’
Matty was putting ADT stickers on our windows. We didn’t have a security alarm but he said the labels would make anyone think twice before breaking in. He was big on personal safety, always telling my mother she needed to be more careful. A woman on your own, you’re easy prey.
‘We played hide and go seek on Parliament Hill,’ I told him.
‘You didn’t close your eyes, did you Ams?’
‘Kind of spoil the game if I looked, don’t you think?’ my mother replied.
‘It’s not safe. You never know who might be lurking in the bushes.’
She raised her eyes to the ceiling, shook her head.
‘Overreact much? It was fine. There were plenty of people about.’
‘Crimes don’t just happen in secluded alleys.’
‘Good to know.’ She nodded at the carrier bag he’d left on the kitchen counter, changed the subject. ‘So what’s in there?’
‘Steak. Thought you might need a bit of cheering up, like.’
John Lennon had been killed a few days ago. My mother was grieving, along with thousands of other women who’d never met him.
Shot in the back. What kind of coward shoots a man in the back?
‘I got us a Rioja too,’ Matty said. ‘A reserve. Should be good.’
