your mother hits you with a stick.’
‘But she must love me. She’s a mother. Mothers love their daughters.’
Sally said, ‘You don’t love me.’
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘You have to accept that when an eight year old loses her real mother, she’ll look for a surrogate one. And you happened to be the one permanent female presence in my young life. When I had my first period, you told me I was dying. When I needed my first bra, you helped me buy it – not that you knew how to fasten it.’
‘Those things are death traps. You can tell a man invented them.’
‘Bras were invented by a woman.’
‘Who says?’
‘She knotted two hankies together then showed it to all her mates who were most impressed.’
‘Were they used hankies?’
‘Why would anyone want to wear used hankies?’ Sally said.
‘Why would they want to wear any sort of hankies? If you’re sat in a restaurant on a date and, halfway through the evening, he declares that he makes his trolleys from knotted hankies, you’re not going to be accepting any invitations into his home.’
‘The point is that with you around ALL THE TIME you were bound to imprint on me. It’s like ducklings that think a pair of wellies is their mother because it was the first thing they ever saw.’
‘I don’t believe this.’
‘Believe what?’
‘I bought you a bra, now you want me to buy you wellies.’
‘I don’t want you to buy me wellies. I want you to love me.’
‘If you ever again sit in the pub on a Friday night, telling the men I’m trying to pull that I’m your mother …’
‘But that’s how I see you.’
‘I’m only four years older than you.’
‘Twelve.’
‘Eleven and three quarters.’
‘Twelve.’ Holding the bucket steady between her feet, Sally dipped her brush in it, stirred it, then spread more paste on the wall. ‘Is your mother still sending you death threats?’
‘Yeah,’
‘I’d go to the police if I were you; remember I’ve met your mother.’
‘Yeah that’s right,’ Cthulha complained.
‘What is?’
‘If you worship a giant space octopus, people always want to think the worst of you.’
‘Well it’s hardly normal is it?’
‘Loads of people must do it. They just don’t admit it. Anyway, I’m sure she doesn’t mean it. It’s probably her idea of a joke.’
‘Yeah. Right.’ Sally hung the last foam rubber square and pressed it in place. She turned to face Cthulha.
Cthulha Gochllagochgoch, thirty one, gangled on Sally’s settee, in an undertakers hat, little round sunglasses, black tuxedo, black jeans and black trainers. Beneath the open tuxedo, she wore a purple bikini top, with a rub-on transfer, IF I’M JUICY SQUEEZE ME, on her left breast. One lace-gloved palm held Mr Bushy while the other stroked him. Sat there she reminded Sally of the reptile aliens in V, the ones who could almost pass for human, till you caught them eating your pets.
Mr Bushy squeaked. Now sat up, Cthulha held him before her and chuckled. ‘Look at this.’
‘Look at what?’
‘If you squeeze this it squeaks like one of those dogs’ toys.’ And she squeezed away, producing a string of random squeaks.
‘Cthulha!’
‘What?’
Sally snatched him from her and stroked him to calm his nerves. ‘Dynamite Pete asked me – if anything ever happened to him – to look after his squirrel. It shouldn’t take a genius to know that treating it as a rubber toy wasn’t what he had in mind.’
‘And as Dynamite Pete’s intended profession involved swallowing a pint of nitro-glycerine then running round a stage till he exploded, it shouldn’t have taken a genius to figure something was bound to happen to him.’
‘I tried to warn him,’ she insisted.
‘Don’t you always?’ Cthulha settled back into the settee and took a drag on her cigarette.
Sally placed Mr Bushy back on the TV, with his paint brush, and continued stroking him. Dynamite Pete’s demise; some experiences were best not remembered – especially when they were your fault.
Mr Bushy started nibbling his paint brush, which she took as a good sign, so she turned to face Cthulha. ‘Do you actually have a reason to be here?’
‘Uncle Al wants money.’ Uncle Al was not Cthulha’s uncle. Uncle Al was not the uncle of most people who called him Uncle.
‘He always wants money.’
‘Now he wants more money.’
‘What’s he want it for this time?’
‘Fifty-six rolls of foil. Personally I think it’s an excuse to get me out of the way. Though why anyone’d want a girl like me out of the way, I don’t know.’
‘Cthulha?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What kind of cooking needs fifty-six rolls of foil?’
She lowered her dark glasses to the tip of her nose and peered over them at Sally, eyebrows hoisted knowingly. ‘Aloysius Bracewell doesn’t do his own cooking – any more than he does his own eating. You know he has servants for that.’
‘So what’s he want tin foil for?’
She prodded her glasses back into place. ‘To add to the roll he’s just wrapped round his head.’
Sally squinted at her, baffled.
Cthulha said, ‘Half an hour ago, some Texan turned up on satellite news. Seems he’s broken the world record for wrapping his head in foil – except they called it “aloominum”. The previous record holder was British. The moment Uncle Al hears that, he grabs a roll and starts wrapping it round his head, declaring his determination to reclaim the record for some place called “Blighty”. He says someone has to restore the dignity it lost when it gave away some empire or other.’
‘By wrapping his head in foil?’
‘And Uncle Al won’t be using “aloominum”.’
‘Then what’ll he be using?’
‘Lead.’
‘Lead?’
‘He says you can get lead foil from nuclear power plants, if you bribe the right women and sleep with the right men. That’ll be my job. He will of course make sure the national media knows all about his sterling act of patriotism and that he owns a chain of caravan parks – prices reasonable. I told him, “Uncle Al, you’re a pillock. Lead foil must weigh a ton. You’ll squash your head.” He said that’d make his achievement all the greater – though guess who’ll get to do all the wrapping? Still you’ve got to hand it to him; fifty-six rolls – no man’s ever wrapped his head in so much lead.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Yeah, babe?’
‘Where did you get that