Cartoon elephant with name balloons on a thigh

I'm writing this on the back of a bus timetable because the kettle has just boiled and I can't face the good notepaper. It's gone half eleven and the rain has turned Crosby Road into a dropped tin tray. Mr Okafor's van has been parked under the lamp again, playing that hissing cassette of hymns so loud I could hum every note of it without trying.

You'll remember the elephant that hung in the window of Dolan's rag shop? I bought it off him the week you left for Manchester, two pounds and a promise I'd bring back the cardboard box. It's grey and pink and wearing a face like it's just been told a secret. Nine balloons float off its trunk, each one lettered in a child's name, the nine little ones I minded that summer when their mothers worked the late shifts at the cannery. I kept the names exactly as they were written on the back of the nursery register, because I thought that was the honest way to do it.

Tonight I took it down from the dresser and sat with it while the radiator knocked. The little music notes beside its feet are the tune Eddie used to whistle when he came round for his tea, badly, always the wrong key. He's twenty now and drives a forklift in Bootle. I rang him last week to say I had something of his, and he said keep it, Nan's got one too.

So I'm going to tie the last balloon on tomorrow, the empty one at the top, and leave the name blank. The new baby at number six arrives in March, and I've already decided what her mother will say when she sees it. Put the kettle on, love. I'll post this in the morning before the rain gets into the ink.