When they sat up again, she was weeping with relief. Her face was slick with tears and her hair was sticking to her damp cheeks. “God. I’m glad you’re happy. I was worried. I got this letter last week and I had nobody to tell. Haaah-ha.”
He picked at his cheekbone as his memories of James tinted with feelings of guilt. He had been a glutton with his three days. He had been selfish. “Wait just a minute, okay?” Before she could protest, he spun from the room. When he returned, he had a plate with a towering sandwich on it. There were eight layers of bleached white bread and between each layer he had smeared thick raspberry jam. Mungo had carved it into a rough cylindrical shape, then he sliced it into quarters. He crowned the cake with a blue birthday candle that was half-spent.
Jodie clapped her hands and counted the slices of flattened bread. “Huit-feuille. My compliments to the chef.”
“I dunno what you are banging on about, but if you close your eyes, I bet it tastes just like Victoria sponge.”
They sat cross-legged on the carpet and Mungo cheered as Jodie blew out the candle. She didn’t tell him what she had wished for. They tried to eat a slice each, but only Mungo made it further than one bite, scarlet jam gathering in the corners of his smile.
“Are you. Going to be. A doctor?” He couldn’t eat, talk, and breathe at the same time.
She picked at the sweet sandwich. “No, I want to learn about the ocean. I’m going to specialize in Marine Biology. S’pose that’s one thing to thank Fat Gillespie for. All that time on the Ayr coast and I realized I didn’t know anything about the sea.”
“Can’t ye just watch David Attenborough and learn about it lit that?” Mungo crammed more bread into his mouth. “‘Asides, I wonder. How long. The bus will take?”
“What? To the sea?”
“No. To university. You’ll have to change buses in town you know.”
Jodie slid her plate away from herself. “I won’t get the bus.”
“Well you can’t walk that far.” He was incredulous at her stupidity. Jodie was never stupid.
“No, you’re right.” She wiped the corners of her mouth. “I’ll need to move to the West End. Into the halls of residence with the other students.”
An image of James flashed across his mind. “But I can’t move.”
“I know.” She pushed his hair away from his face. “The halls have single beds. I need to go alone. You’ll need to stay here. Haaah-ha.”
“Oh.” Several expressions crossed his face. He slid from happiness to disbelief and finally tried to cover his own rejection and embarrassment with a stoic tightening of his lips and eyelids.
“Mungo, you’re bleeding everywhere!” Jodie shot to her feet. There was blood on the carpet and the cover of the Ellsworth Kelly book. Jodie hated anything to happen to a book. She mostly kept hers in the safety of her bedroom, safe from their double lives as tea coasters or dustpans to sweep cigarette ash on to. Jodie took his bleeding hand into her own. “You have a piece of metal stuck into your thumb.”
“I do?”
“Mungo, how could you not feel that?”
Jodie used her teeth to pull the shard of paint from the nail bed. Without a second thought, she put his whole thumb into her mouth and sucked the blood from it. Mungo could feel her quick tongue worry the edge of his nail. She drew it out and looked at it closely again. “Stupid bloody boy. How could you not know you had a piece of metal in your nail? You’re gonnae need a tetanus jab.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
She was squeezing the nail, inspecting it for more rust and then cleaning the blood that came forth.
“When do you leave anyhows?”
“What?” She had forgotten all her news in her concern for his thumb. The earlier joy that had flooded his face had now drained away. His cheekbone was already twitching as his eyes reddened with a hurt he was trying to hide from her.
Jodie sat in Mo-Maw’s comfy chair. She pulled Mungo towards her and at first he resisted. But Jodie held tight. “C’mon. You’re never too big for a cuddle.” She drew her brother on to her lap and held him close to her. He was much taller than her now. His gangly legs twisted upon themselves till they were both curled up, like two Siamese cats, cradled in the softness of the burst recliner. “You’re getting too heavy for this.” She took his bleeding thumb and inserted it into his mouth. He sucked on it for a while. He could taste her spittle, it tasted like sweet raspberry jam. “My little baby is growing up.”
“Cansh I come vishit?” He was lisping around his bleeding thumb.
“Anytime you want. I’ll even dandle you like this in front of strangers, if you like.”
He toyed with her cabled ponytail. “Well done, Jodie. You’re a credit to yourself. I didn’t mean to thspoil it.”
She pointed with her toe at the books on the floor. “I thought we could talk about some things that might inspire you.”
He took his thumb from his mouth to see if it was still bleeding. It wasn’t but he went on sucking it. He started to bite down on it, grinding, testing it, then clenching it between his back teeth.
“You like to draw, don’t you? Maybe you could do something with that when you leave school.”
Mungo gazed at the books. Then he dropped his head again and nuzzled into her shoulder. “Naw. I’m not smart like you.”
Jodie could hear his molars squeak against his thumb, it raised the hair on the back of her neck. “You’re smarter than you think. And perfectly capable.” She squeezed her brother. “Hey? Is this about Mo-Maw?” Mungo didn’t answer her. Jodie watched her brother as his eyes slid towards to the soundless television. Something dimmed in his gaze.