Alice By Accident. Lynne Banks Reid

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      There. That’s Peony in her odd legs and crazy hat and that silky blouse down to her knees. It’s good.

      I don’t want to write about when I was very small because I did babyish things, maybe I will later. So I’ll write about something interesting that I still think about and that’s Pierre-Luc.

      He was Mum’s boyfriend and he was French. He was very nice and I liked him and Mum liked him. He came around alot and he used to take us for meals to Pinocchio’s which was my favourite restaurant and it still is. We don’t eat out much in London. Now Mum’s working she’s often too tired to go out or cook and besides she is still saving money so we eat mainly beans on toast and salads and sometimes we phone a number and they bring you pizzas to the door. But they’re never as good as the ones we used to get in Pinocchio’s. My favourites are margeritas. That’s tomato and cheese. I’m not allowed to eat red meat because you can get mad cow disease. Every time I do something a bit silly Mum thinks I’ve got mad cow disease!! We’re practically vegetarians exept for chicken (sometimes) and fish but I hate fish. (Exept tuna.)

      Once when Pierre-Luc started coming around I asked Mum if he was my dad. She said NO and don’t say that to him. That was the first time I remember asking her why my dad didn’t live with us. She said “because he doesn’t love me.” I said why not, I love you, and she said you can’t order love. He just didn’t and he couldn’t help it. I said so why is he my dad, and she said, “You’ll understand better when you’re older.

      I was only about six then. I don’t know if I understand better now. Gene said people shouldn’t have babies if they aren’t a couple. If they don’t love each other and want to be together. When I told Mum that Gene said that, she didn’t say anything but I could tell she was furious. When I asked her why she was upset she said, “That means she thinks I shouldn’t of had you.” Next time I saw Gene I asked her if that was true, and she wouldn’t say so I nagged her to answer and she finally said I love you so I can’t unwish you, but still it’s not a good way to have a baby, you ought to be married first or at least have a partner.”

      I think about that alot. Especially since the Big Row. It’s part of why I’m on Mum’s side and against Gene. How can you like a person who thinks you shouldn’t of been born (even if she is your grandma, I mean especially?)

      Anyway back to Pierre-Luc. They used to kiss alot but they used to fratch alot too. Fratch is Mum’s and my word for small quarrelling. I liked Pierre-Luc but I loved Mum much more so I was always on her side but I could see she was making him annoyed. I said don’t pick on Pierre-Luc or he won’t come around any more or do grown-up cuddling with you. Him being in the flat made me feel very safe.

      Because once when he wasn’t there we had a prowler. Mum went to draw the curtains on our french windows into the back garden and she saw him out there in the dark. He’d climed over the wall from the side street and he was just standing there looking in. Mum was so scared she screamed really loud and I got a bad fright and started to cry and ran and hid in my hammock. He jumped over the wall and ran away and Mum called the police but they never caught him and I didn’t feel safe after that unless Pierre-Luc was staying the night. I always made Mum close the curtains even in the daytime in case the prowler came to watch us, and we just put on the lights. When Gene visited she always put on a funny deep voice and said “Ah! Stijian gloom!” Or “Darkness at noon.” (I never found out what stijian means, Gene said she didn’t know either but it sounds really gloomy.) Then she used to pull back the curtains which Mum thought was cheeky because it wasn’t her flat, but I wasn’t scared when Gene was there. After I was about eight I stopped being so scared but by then it was a habit with Mum and we only had the curtains open when Gene came so we had stijian gloom all day.

      By that time Pierre-Luc had left for good. He never said goodbye. They had one last fratch and he said “You are always creeteesize me! Eef you feel like zat I weel leave and not come back.” When he did leave and didn’t come back I was angry with Mum and told her off. I said he was nice and he took us out and you made him go away. She said men have to respect me and I said he did respect you and she said no he didn’t, not enough. I said why not and she said that’s just how men are.

      I suppose my dad didn’t respect her enough as well as not love her. I have fights with my mum but I don’t understand how anyone could not love and respect her.

      I’ll write a list of why she should be respected.

      First she’s a woman and women are better than men. They aren’t so vilent and by far the most criminles are men. Women live longer and they have babies which you need to be strong for and it’s nearly always the man who runs off when they’ve had them and the women stay.

      Second she’s done everything she’s done by herself. She hasn’t got a family to help her. My other grandma married a man who

      No, I’m going to tell that part properly, like a story.

      My mum grew up in Liverpool. She had a big sister called Dawn and a big brother called Robert and a younger sister Carla. She’s the aunt I met, the one with baby James (he hasn’t got a dad either). Mum’s father was OK to the others but he used to pick on Mum and hit her all the time. I just can’t imagine what my mum would do if some man tried to hit me, I think she’d kill him. She nearly killed a babysitter we had once who slapped me. But her mother just sat there. She let Big Pig get away with it and sometimes she even joined in. (Big Pig’s what Mum calls him.)

      Then one day when my mum was sixteen she was out shopping and she saw a man. He was walking down the street towards her. She looked at him and she couldn’t believe it because he looked like her. He looked so like her she suddenly knew something. She knew the man who had picked on her and hit her all her life and that she thought was her dad wasn’t her dad at all. The man in the street was her dad. Only by the time she knew this he’d gone past into the crowds.

      She ran home as fast as lightning and burst in and there was her mum and she shouted at her, “Your Big Pig husband isn’t my dad and why did you let me think he was?” and her mum was shattered. She said “How do you know?” and Mum said because I’ve just seen my real dad. And her mum burst out crying and locked herself in her bedroom.

      Then the Big Pig came home and Mum had a good look. She saw him with new eyes. She’d sometimes wondered why she looked so different from him, when her brother and sisters were like him. (AND she was cleverer than all of them. She didn’t tell me that but I know it’s true because of what she did later.)

      So anyway B.P. started shouting and swaring at her and putting her down and she said you can’t talk to me like that any more because you’re not my father.” And he went mad and said I’ve always looked after СКАЧАТЬ