Alice in Time (21 page)

I really need to make sure she doesn’t find out. I can’t think of a single way to do this, because I don’t know how she’s going to find out.

OK, let’s be logical. She’s not suspicious about him not coming home last night, and if he does it again she won’t catch on because she’ll assume that he’s ‘making himself scarce’. Maybe she finds some incriminating evidence, like a receipt in his trouser pocket for a huge bunch of flowers that she never got. Isn’t that what usually happens in films and books? Right, so all I have to do is go through his pockets myself and remove anything that could give him away. What if she sees them together? If I make sure I’m with her when she goes out I can keep my eyes open and distract her if I see them. What if someone else sees them and rings up and tells Mum? I’ll have to make sure that I screen all the calls myself. This seems like a plan to me. And if all else fails and she does find out, I’ll beg her not to throw him out. I’ll paint a very bleak picture of what our life will be like if we have to leave this house and she has to be a single mother.

Having decided that one of these is bound to work, I feel a lot calmer. I fall asleep under the weight of Sooty, who’s purring so loudly on my chest it feels like I’m purring myself.

It’s dark when I wake up. I’m lying on top of the bed, still fully dressed and Sooty has gone.

I can hear voices. Loud, angry voices. My heart sinks. They’re arguing. I want nothing more than to block out the noise, turn over and go back to sleep, but I know that I can’t. Maybe they’re just arguing about money or where Dad’s been. I suppose I’d better find out.

I creep on to the landing and peer through the banisters. They’re in the sitting room and I can hear Dad.

‘It’s that bloody interfering mother of yours, isn’t it? I’ve a good mind to ring her up and give her a piece of my mind.’

I can see him standing by the coffee table. He’s holding the leaflets I got from the hospital and waving them at Mum, who I can’t see.

‘I’m sure she thought she was being helpful,’ I hear Mum say.

‘Helpful! She’s just bloody stirring it! How many times do I have to tell you? I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM! So I like to go for a drink with the lads, and I might like to put the odd bet on a horse, but that does not make me an alcoholic with a gambling problem. I’m just a normal bloke doing normal blokey things, for God’s sake!’

‘Yes, I know love, I know that. Just put them in the bin and forget about them.’ She’s using the same voice that she uses on Rory when he’s seven and having a tantrum. I hope it has the same calming effect on Dad as it usually has on Rory.

My hopes are in vain. Dad is obviously spoiling for a fight. He rips the leaflets up and throws them in her direction. They scatter all over the coffee table and on to the carpet around it. He’s really angry, and it’s all my fault.

I should go down and tell him that I put them there – not Gran – and that I’m sorry and I realise he hasn’t got a problem. Now that I know it’s not the drinking or the gambling that makes Mum throw him out, I can see that maybe he’s not an alcoholic or a serious gambler. Although I’m not sure about the gambling, considering the wedding reception held next door to the bookies.

I’m thinking that that’s the end of it and I might be able to go back to bed. But Dad hasn’t finished.

‘All I’m asking is that I go out now and again. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’

‘No,’ says Mum in her best pacifying voice, ‘that’s fine. I don’t mind if you go out now and again.’

I can tell that Dad is getting frustrated. He wants an argument and Mum’s not giving him one. At least he’s stopped
shouting. Perhaps that’s the end of it. I stand up carefully so I don’t make any of the floorboards creak, and I’m about to creep back into bed when I hear Dad saying, ‘The thing is, Susan, I think we got married too young.’

This doesn’t sound good. I creep down the stairs. Dad has his back to the door so he doesn’t see me position myself beside the sitting-room door.

‘I never had the chance to enjoy my youth. I was stuck with a family and a mortgage too soon.’

What’s he going on about? I do a quick calculation. They got married when mum was twenty-five and Dad was twenty-seven and they had me the year after. It’s not like they were teenage sweethearts, for heaven’s sake! Sounds like he’s making excuses.

Then I realise where this might be leading.

If he’s about to say what I think he is, then I need to be on hand so I can dash in and stop him. Please don’t tell her, please don’t tell her – I’m thinking it so hard I wonder for a second if I’ve said it out loud.

‘The thing is Susan, I’ve met someone else. I’m in love with someone else.’

This is where I’m supposed to dash in and . . . and what? It doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m rooted to the spot like a statue. What I really want to do is collapse on to the floor and curl up into a tiny ball, but my legs won’t bend. It seems like the only part of me that is still alive is my heart, and that’s beating so hard I think it’s going to burst. Even though I knew about the affair, hearing him say it is making it too real. I can’t imagine what Mum’s feeling.

‘What do you mean?’ says Mum.

‘I mean,’ says Dad slowly, ‘that I am in love with another woman.’

There’s a massive silence and I’m steeling myself for Mum to go ballistic, but she doesn’t.

‘What other woman? Who is it?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Of course it matters! I wonder who the hell it is.

‘I’d still like to know,’ says Mum. Well, that makes two of us.

‘She’s called Trish. You don’t know her.’

Trish! It can’t be! That’s not right. He didn’t fall in love with her until after he’d left. This is all wrong.

‘OK.’ Mum sounds shaky, but in control. ‘I understand this is a difficult time for all of us – with the pregnancy and the baby and everything – but if you agree not to see her again then I’m prepared to forget it ever happened.’

Suddenly I don’t want Mum to be all forgiving. Dad has lied to me. All these years he’s let me think that Mum threw him out, when the truth is he up and left us! I can feel tears running down my face. Now I want to throw him out and I’m willing Mum to do the same, but she’s still strangely calm.

‘It’s all right, Gary. Let’s just put it behind us.’

‘No, Susan, you don’t understand. I don’t want to put it behind me. I want to be with Trish. I’m leaving you.’

‘You can’t leave us! Gary, I love you.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m going now. I’ll come back at some point and get my things.’

Before I know it he’s out in the hall heading for the door.
I’m just standing pressed against the wall with my mouth open. He sees me as he’s pulling on his jacket.

‘I’m just popping out. Look after your mum.’ And he’s gone. He didn’t even say goodbye.

I walk slowly into the sitting room. Mum’s on the sofa. She’s got Rory in her arms. She must have been feeding him, but he’s fast asleep now, blissfully unaware that he is now fatherless.

I’m so angry I can’t speak. What sort of person would do that? Apart from a selfish, conniving, evil bastard.

I go and sit next to Mum. I think she’s probably in shock. She’s trembling and I wonder if I ought to get her some brandy or something. I get up and go to the cabinet, where there are a few bottles, but all I can find is some whisky. I put a large amount into a glass and take it to her.

‘Thanks, love,’ she says on automatic pilot. I help her raise it to her lips and she takes a sip and makes a face then downs the lot.

‘It’s all right. He’ll come back. I know he’ll come back.’ I know that she really thinks he will and I want to scream at her that he’s gone and he won’t be coming back, ever. I wish she’d put up more of a fight, but sitting next to her, feeling her tremble, I realise she has no fight left in her. In the morning I’ll ring Gran and I think I might ring that nice midwife as well.

I take the throw off the back of the sofa and cover her up, then crawl in beside her. We stay snuggled up for a long time. Nobody says anything. There’s nothing to say.

I drift off to sleep, but I’m having a nightmare. I’m doing
my GCSEs and I’m in the hall at school and I know that I’ve been given the wrong exam paper, but I can’t do anything about it because we’re not supposed to speak during the exam. It’s supposed to be English, my best subject, but all the questions are in Spanish and I don’t even take Spanish. Then suddenly I’m standing in the middle of a vast moor and we’re on a school trip and we’re supposed to be orienteering, but I’ve been given the wrong map. I know it’s the wrong map because I can see the other children have got the right map but they won’t let me look at it.

‘You have to use your own map,’ they tell me and walk off, leaving me alone on the vast moor.

I wake up covered in sweat with my heart beating fast. Mum and Rory have gone and I’m lying under the throw with my head on a cushion. I sit up in a panic. Maybe they’ve left me too! I press my hand to my chest as if that will somehow stop my heart from beating so hard, then try and breathe steadily. Of course Mum hasn’t left. She’s gone upstairs to bed and, not wanting to wake me, has tucked me up on the sofa.

My nightmare still feels very real. But instead of being stranded on the moor, I’m stranded in this previous life and I can’t find a way out. Dad gave me the wrong map.

All those years he made out that it was Mum who had thrown him out when all the time it was a big fat lie. He just didn’t want me to know what a bastard he was. And Mum never spoke about it so I carried on thinking it was her fault and I took it out on her.

Now I’ve failed. Dad’s gone and he isn’t coming back. We’ll have to move and Mum’s ill. I feel cheated. What’s the point
of me being here if I can’t stop it all from happening?

What if I had known the truth? What could I have done to stop it, short of actually killing Trish? I suppose I could have found her and told her what a bastard Dad is. Yes! That’s it.

I creep out into the hall and put my shoes on. It’s just getting light outside. I can be at the park in about half an hour if I hurry. I’m going to get back on the roundabout and see if I can go back to the beginning. Maybe, I think wildly, I can go further back and stop mum from having another baby. I could slip her the pill or something. Now I’m being silly – I need to calm down. All I have to do is start again, and this time I’ll find Trish and make sure she doesn’t fall in love with Dad. I’ll tell her about the horrible wedding and how Dad’s going to leave her too. Whatever, I’m going to do it all over again, only this time I’ll get it right. One way or another, I’ll stop Dad from leaving. Now I know the truth, I’ll stand a better chance. I’ll keep going back until I get it right. I’ll do it ten times if I have to.

‘It has to work, it has to work, it has to work,’ I chant as I run through the empty streets.

It’s not until I get to the park and I’m actually sitting on the roundabout that I start to have doubts. Why does it have to work? I’m so angry with Dad that I’m not sure I want him to stay with us.

I think back to all the times, after the divorce, when we were supposed to see him for the weekend and he’d ring up and cancel. He always said it because he had to work. But what if it wasn’t? Now I know what he’s really like, I suspect it was because he couldn’t be bothered. We probably cramped his
style. He’d rather have been down the pub with his mates or loved up with Trish.

Can I really face going back and having to go through all that again?

The problem is, even though I hate him and would be happy if I never saw him again, Mum still loves him and wants him back. What’s going to happen when she realises that he’s not coming back? I have to try for her sake. And if it doesn’t work and nothing happens when I push the roundabout then I’ll just have to make the best of it. I’ll have to help Mum until she gets better, and at least I’ll have some more time with Gran.

Here goes. I push the roundabout round as fast as my seven-year-old legs will allow. I just hope it’s enough. I jump on and think about going back in time. I think about the first time it happened and how I woke up in the park in my seven-year-old body. I focus on that with all my might because I’m scared that I’ll go back too far. I couldn’t cope with returning to being two or three years old!

It’s when the roundabout stops and the rest of the world is spinning at lightning speed around me that I panic. Wasn’t I going the other way before? I’m sure I was spinning anticlockwise the first time. I think about jumping off – I don’t care if I hurt myself. Then the world stops spinning and the roundabout jerks into motion and I’m thrown clear into the unknown.

This time when I hit the ground, I’m fully conscious. Perhaps it hasn’t worked, I think – panic rising in me. I lie still for a while, hardly even daring to think. Then I realise that the half light isn’t because it’s dawn – it’s dusk – and absolutely freezing. That’s not right if I’m still seven.

I sit up and investigate further. Oh no! Boobs! Nice and snug in my bra. I don’t bother looking any further. I’m not about to start looking in my knickers in the middle of the park.

I’ve gone forward instead of backwards! I’m fourteen again!

I’ll have to try again – only this time I’ll push the roundabout the other way. Then again, perhaps this is the way it happens. I mean, you can’t go back to being seven if you’re already seven, so now I’m fourteen I should be able to get back to being seven if I try again. Still, I’ll push it the other way just to be on the safe side. I don’t want to fall off and find that I’m twenty-one!

It’s easier to push now I’m bigger, and I get up a good speed before jumping back on. I wait for the roundabout to stop and the world to start spinning. It’s not until the roundabout has slowed down to a complete standstill that I admit to myself that it hasn’t worked. I can’t believe it! Why isn’t it working? It’s got to work – I need to get back. I try again and this time I push so hard I can hardly keep up with the roundabout and nearly land flat on my face. But I jump on and screw my eyes shut, willing it to work. The roundabout slows down and squeaks to a standstill.