clicketing against her rings, which she still wore to keep the pests off and, grasping its spangly shoulder, she waltzed to the wardrobe and arched her neck and pointed her chin. Mumsie, inside her own black shadow with her hair up in a French twist — Mumsie, with her legs slickly mysterious now they were sheathed in Aristoc dernier 15 seamless mesh “Undergrads”. — Daylight-fucking-robbery, she’d said, and Jeanie remembers this because that’s what it had been: Mumsie, looking at all three of them standing in the cottage door — she laughed her naughty laugh, the one that came with a light slap or a gentle pinch, and she said, Well, well, well — if it ain’t Bill, Ben and Little-fucking-Weed, then she ground out her Embassy with her patent toe and got into the Gazelle. The engine hacked into life, the exhaust blew out dirty smoke, and the car stole ’er away in broad daylight — over the canal and up the lane to the main road. Jeanie and Hughie ran after it — but all they saw from the humpback bridge were the brake lights winking once, then she was gone. They couldn’t believe the Gazelle had done it — stolen Mumsie away in broad daylight. It was their cuddly car, Mumsie said its cloth seats were like inside a Kanga’s pouch, when she put them in there and drove them bumping over the woodland tracks to Little Gaddesden. Mumsie said the woods were full of real live kangas when the Rothschilds kept the estate to themselves. — The twirling bark crumb caught on an invisible thread. . The lengthening shadows and the softer sunbeams. . The bitter taste of sap on their tongues and its stickiness on their hands. . All that evening they played in the copse, following its secret paths wherever they double-backed through bracken, brambles and nettles. Debbie said, This can be our London — that bush is Selfridges, that one’s the Lyons’ Corner House in Trafalgar Square, and that one, with its spooky hawthorn arch, is Euston Station. — There was a hut in the dead centre of London surrounded by rusty old bins with a rustier padlock on its door. This, Debbie said, is Mumsie’s club, it’s where she meets her special friends. Jeanie asked her what these friends were like, were they like the Deacon and Silly Sybil and Jeffers and Kins, who came by the cottage to have drinky-poohs? But Debbie said no, these were much specialer friends — pop stars and film stars and lords and ladies. Inside the club, Debbie said, there was a big mirror ball that spun faster and faster, making everything flash and sparkle — but Jeanie couldn’t see it through the dirty little window. It didn’t matter, she was enough of a mong then to be comforted, to believe they were all really in London, with Mumsie. — That night, when she hadn’t come home after God Save the Queen, and she still hadn’t come home ages after that and a big owl was woo-woo-wooing, first Hughie began to cry, then Jeanie. They all ended up together in Mumsie’s bed — which was where she found them the next morning when she slammed through the front door, banged up the steep stairs and came reeling in, her tights laddered to buggery and a bloodied hanky tied round one hand. Seeing the three tousled heads on her pillows, she’d cried out, Who the fuck’re you? then groaned, Oh, you’re my children, aren’t you, my flesh-and-bleedin’-blood. She tore off the covers and they flew apart every which way — but Mumsie didn’t lash out, she only moaned as she pulled the dress over her head — moaned, a finger puppet . . tottering on stockinged feet, and went on moaning. . ’til she fell. — They left her there. Debbie made jam sandwiches and Jeanie filled a VAT 69 bottle with water. They went back to London for the day, where the girls took turns being the Shrimp while Danny leapt out of the bushes with a shandy-tin camera and pretended to take snaps of them. When they got home, Mumsie’s black dress, her bra and her Silhouette “X” girdle were all hanging on the line. — The woman in the cottage was a jittery waxwork of Mumsie who didn’t shout, only asked Debbie to go get her fags from the nooky shop. When Debbie returned, the little old woman peeled the flimsy strip and pushed the cellophane halfway off and burnt a little hole in this with the tip of her fag. She blew smoke inside and squeezed the cellophane so tiny rings came piddling outta the ’ole, and said, See that, Ovaltineys, it’s the singin’ ringin’ smokin’ tree — make yer wishes, I’ll not refuse you. — Jeanie wanted to ask for the real Mumsie to come back, but she didn’t dare, and the waxwork one went on squeezing smoke rings from the cellophane. Then she said, That there’s your poor fucking Mumsie, that is — nothing to ’er but smoke an’ the holes made by burnt pricks. — That was two summers ago, and Jeanie would go back to the cottage right now if she thought the waxwork Mumsie would be there and not the very real one who’d dragged her from her own bed where she lay floatin’ inna spaceman suit onna asteroid. — Miss Hoity-Toity was off at Guides. Geddup! Mumsie had screamed, Gedd-the-fuck-up! — Bump-bump-bump, down the stairs gets dragged Dumbo, her head stuffed with useless shit-for-brains . . to find Hughie already there, standing shivering on the kitchen flags and naked as usual, but his skin was Cyberman-silvery and his face streaked with tears. Mumsie was so very angry she spun as she snatched up plates and slung them in the sink, picked up the tea pot and dumped out the leaves — she spun and she steamed . . she was so full of anger it. . ’ad to come out some’ow . . Finally she said with a robot-voice, Get that nightie off, Dumbo — and when Jeanie was stood naked next to Hughie, Mumsie kicked her feet apart, telling her to reach up tall-as-a-tree. She tweezered apart Jeanie’s puppy fat with chipped red nails — under the arms, behind the knees, between her bums — whistling fag smoke while she worked. Jeanie held her breath and her heart bashed at her ribs againannagainannagain. — Finally she breathed out. — Sssscabies, Gordon Bennett, bloody ssscabies, I ain’t seen ’em this bad since ’46 when the Yid kids’d come over from the Russian sector. . Lissen, pet. . Mumsie went on in her specially nice voice, the one she’d last used when they were in the haberdasher’s together and she picked out the lovely material with the nasturtium pattern. . why didn’t you say anything, pet, what on earth did you imagine this was? Gently she turned Jeanie’s knee so they could both see the livid, lumpy triangle of broken skin on the back of her calf. Jeanie stuttered, I–I dunno, M-Mumsie, I fought it was a rash or sumfing I got in the big field. . The truth was she knew perfectly well it was much worse than that — but she didn’t want to bother her mother, who was always tray-tray fatty-gay, dahling, Mumsie’s tray-tray fatty-gay — so go fetch Mumsie some Noilly, you little prat . . It was better to go through the laundry basket if you didn’t have a clean pair of socks and wash them in the bathroom sink, and Swiss roll ’em in a towel, and hang them out the bedroom window overnight so’s to be sure to have something to pull right up to the knee and hide this proof — as if any were needed — that you were a. . dirty, stupid, hateful girl. — Ssscabies, Mumsie hissed again, then: I sees just the one pink ’un on this ’un so straightways I drive into Berko, gets the lotion, comes back and paints ’im up proper. Then I thinks to myself — her grip on Jeanie’s knee tightens — which one of my loathsome-bloody-spawn goes up to that fucking farm and plays doctors-and-nurses with that dirty pikey kid. That’s not fair! Jeanie screamed inside — she wanted to shout out loud, You done all sorts wiv that lot! ’iding stuff in our shed for ’em — buying them triangle pills offa them. You got medicine from them two old witchy biddies what lives in their chicken ’ouse — black muck inna jam jar. You knocked it back saying, The old ways is the best ways, then you threw it right back up again when we was driving in the car! — Jeanie wanted to shout all this, but she also wanted her leg to survive — to get better, not end up