religion and all her weird Eastern practices. She couldn’t, of course. He was too far gone for that. But she tried her best.
‘Like I said – don’t underestimate your mother. I think she’s great, the way she pulled through. And she didn’t do too bad a job of raising you, you know. I think she knows what she’s doing. I bet she knew exactly what she let herself into with your Nan, and she’ll get through it.’
‘With my help,’ I reminded him.
‘Yes. But you always knew that, didn’t you?’
‘I just wish I wasn’t such a beast. To Gran. I wish I could get along with her, stand her presence, at least. I always wanted a Gran.’
‘Give yourself time. It’ll come.’
‘The old sourpuss.’
He said nothing. I played around with my noodles, winding them around my fork. I’d already picked out all the shrimps, saving the best for last. I looked up and said:
‘I just feel so mean and nasty.’
‘You’re not mean and nasty. You’re human. And at least you’ve got a working conscience, if you feel nasty when you are nasty!’
I made a face at him, and he made one back at me.
‘Time,’ he repeated. He reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘And patience.’
‘She’s not exactly paving the way for me.’
‘Maybe you should pave the way for her . I’ll help you, if you like.’
‘Can you come round sometime this week? Some evening?’
‘’Fraid it’ll have to be Sunday. I’ve got night shifts all week, and Saturday I’m in Brighton with my parents.’
Sal had taken on a summer job, something in a hospital. My job was waitressing in Croydon. That trip I’d planned to the Far East: I couldn’t afford it. I mean it was my money, to do what I wanted, but I couldn’t leave Gran with Mum. It wasn’t just the money. It was everything. We couldn’t afford any extras under normal circumstances, and now we had Gran. From the financial standpoint, I had to wonder what Mum was thinking. But I knew. She thought we’d struggle through it. Somehow. By the seat of her pants, she always said. It was her watchword.
----
S al had aroused my curiosity . When I went home I mentioned the stamp to Mum.
‘Gran says it’s worth millions,’ I said. ‘Could it be true?’
‘I remember that stamp,’ Mum said. ‘It was Daddy’s most precious possession. There’s one just like it, in America I think, that’s apparently the rarest stamp in the world, so maybe she’s right.’
‘But if it is, Mum, we could sell it, and then …’
‘For millions I suppose? It’s obscene, anyone paying that much for a stamp – for anything, in fact. Think of all the starving children you could feed with those millions! Obscene!’
‘But, Mum…’
‘Inky, just stop it; right now! It’s not your stamp, it’s not mine. It’s just a scrap of paper. Worth nothing except the value some people attach to it. It’s all in the mind. So shut up about it, OK?’
And she wouldn’t speak one word more about it.
Chapter Three
Inky: The Noughties
T hat first week passed quicker than I’d believed possible, but only due to Marion’s presence. Marion did all the cooking and all the cleaning, reducing the ever-growing pile of un-ironed laundry in Mum’s room to neat little stacks of folded clothes. The kitchen glowed; all the cupboards tidied and the counters clear and gleaming. The house had never shone so brightly; life had never been so easy.
And of course, Marion was there as a buffer between us and Gran. She was there in the morning when we left the house, getting Gran up and bathed and dressed. She fed Gran during the day, kept Gran and her bickering at bay when we both came home from work, exhausted and drained of energy, and cooked up a storm each evening, for Gran’s benefit and my delectation. That was the best part of having Marion around: the food. Mum had practically starved me all my life.
I had hoped to find out more about the mystery between Mum and Gran, but the more the week careened towards