Trio - [56]

She looked again at her revision plan, gazed back out of the window, where Dad was putting the new rotary washing line up for Mum. Event of the year. How exciting. Tears pricked her eyes at the bloody awful boredom of it all. She needed a ciggie. There were two in her secret bag in her wardrobe but she knew for a fact that Dad had a packet of ten Benson and Hedges in his coat. He only smoked five or six a day and now and then she would help herself to one if the packet was more than half full. He didn't keep count.

If she did another half-hour then he’d be settled in the lounge and she could take the dog out.

The dog’s the best person in this family, she thought, then giggled at the notion. Causes of the First World War. As You Like It. Alluvial Plains. She let her eyes wander over the headings and the blocks of time she’d allocated. What was the point? She didn’t want to stay on at school a minute longer than was absolutely necessary. She wanted to get out, out of this house, away from this family, far away from this dump of a city.

She caught sight of her brother. Oh, brilliant. Now Stephen’s helping too. Perfect Stephen. Expected to do so-o-o-o well in his A levels. University material. Not like his sister. She was a cuckoo. She didn’t belong here with this lot, rotting in the suburbs. She felt permanently scratchy as though someone had supplied her with prickles instead of pores. There was this big myth that redheads had bad tempers and she did but it wasn’t just a temper like losing it every so often it was like the steam was always building up and when she shouted or flew off the handle it was only a relief for a short while and then she was feeling cross all over again.

Stephen, O perfect one, brains and good looks, he wasn’t ever mean to her no matter what she said. And she said some awful things. He never tried to get her into trouble. A blooming saint. That made it worse. Anatomy of The Earthworm. Respiration. Electromagnetism. Why couldn’t she just have done GCEs?

Now the rotary dryer was fully erected and her mother was smiling like an idiot and Nina loathed how happy they were. They ought to get the priest to come and bless the damn thing. She ripped her plan in half. Began to draw pictures on the back, eyes and teardrops, shadowy people. Like an LP cover. She drew a sea of question marks and in the middle like it was floating she drew ‘Nina’ in bubble writing.

Maybe her real mother was scratchy too. Maybe that’s where she got it from. If she found her at least she’d know whether it was in her blood. She scribbled out her name and turned the question marks into keyholes. Nina has artistic flair, a good eye, strong technique, and applies herself diligently. Best part of her report. For art. As low in the scheme of things as cookery, which she was rubbish at, and woodwork, which might have been good but most of the class were boys and they just messed about.

What could you do with art? Be an artist and starve? She liked it but she couldn’t see it going anywhere. Be cool to do album covers or posters, like for films and stuff, but how did you do that? They never had those sort of vacancies in the paper. You’d probably have to go to art school, and for that you had to stay on and do A levels and there was no way she was staying on.

She was dying for a fag.

She listened and worked out that Mum and Dad were in the lounge. Stephen wherever.

She went down and poked her head round the lounge door. Dad reading, Mum watching Upstairs Downstairs.

‘I’ll take Joey out.’

They grunted.

She went to the small shelf by the front door, where Dad left his keys and loose change and cigarettes. Five left. Do-able. She took one and got her Zippo from her schoolbag. She whistled for Joey and attached his lead.

Once they’d reached the banks of the river she let him off to mooch about a bit while she sat on a bench and smoked. The river was ugly, steep-sided banks shaped in stiff angular lines. Something to do with flood control. The river a grey-brown sludge between the towering banks, the banks covered in rough grass and clods of earth. Nothing like the rivers in stories. The rivers you imagined when you said the word river. A real river would have shallow banks, clear, burbling water; you could see the pebbles and the shadows of the fish. There would be stepping stones draped in moss and willow trees overhanging the edges, maybe a stretch of waterfalls making the water silver as it tumbled down.

She took a deep drag, held it and blew out.

This river went all the way to the sea. Somewhere near Liverpool. The Mersey. ‘Ferry Cross The Mersey’. Good song, they’d re-released it. Bit sad but she liked that. Sad things were more… real… they meant more. Like Chloe, her best friend, cut-throat Chloe they nicknamed her because she was so down and talked about killing herself and how pointless everything was. Her loony way of looking at things meant she knew exactly what Nina was on about when she talked about being a cuckoo and her dumb, happy family and all that.