Clean Break (14 page)

‘It's Dad, it's Dad!' I said.

‘
Dad!
' Vita screamed, as if he could hear her.

Maxie didn't say anything. He turned his back to the television. He'd stopped talking about Dad the last few weeks. He just looked blank when Vita and I said his name.

‘Maybe he's forgotten him,' said Vita, when we were getting ready for bed. Gran was in the bathroom with Maxie, washing his hair. He'd poured concentrated Ribena over his head because he said he wanted to dye his hair purple.

‘Don't be silly, Vita, he can't possibly have forgotten Dad already.'

‘Well, he's such a baby. And totally weird,' said Vita.

‘I know, but it's only three months since we saw Dad.'

‘Three months two weeks and four days,' said Vita.

I stared at her. Vita could barely add two and two.

‘How do you know so exactly?'

‘Because I've been marking it off on my calendar,' said Vita.

‘What calendar?'

‘I made it at school just before Christmas. We had to stick it on an old card and do glitter and I got bored and did a red-glitter bikini on Jesus' mummy and my teacher got cross with me and said I'd spoiled my calendar and couldn't send it to anyone. So I put it in my desk and now I mark off the days,' said Vita.

‘You could have given the calendar to Mum or Dad. Dad would have found it ever so funny,' I said.

‘Well, I could give it to him when he comes back. I could do red-glitter hearts all round the edge of the dates,' said Vita.

I thought of her own little red heart thumping with love for Dad underneath the fluffy kitten jumper Gran had knitted for her. I didn't always
like
Vita but I loved her a lot. I wanted to give her a big hug but I knew she'd wriggle and fuss and say I was squashing her. I put Dancer on instead and she gently hugged Vita's little stalk neck and blew breathy kisses into her ear.

‘Make Dancer kiss
me
,' Maxie said, running into our room stark naked. His newly washed hair stuck up in black spikes.

‘Dancer doesn't want to kiss silly little bare baby boys,' said Vita primly. ‘Put something on, Maxie.
We don't want to see your woggly bits. I'm so so glad I'm a girl, aren't you, Em? Dad always said I was his favourite little girl.'

‘He said I was his favourite grown-up girl,' I said.

I wondered if he said that to Sarah now.

Maxie didn't join in. He gathered up all his bears, a great tatty furry bundle. ‘We're all bears,' he shouted. ‘I'm bare and they're bear! We're all bears.' He shrieked with laughter and yelled it over and over again, in case we hadn't got it the first time. We did our best to ignore him, so he started nudging us with his teddies. He got wilder, bludgeoning us with bear limbs. One paw went right in my eye and hurt a lot. I
frequently
didn't like Maxie and recently it was very hard to remember that I loved him.

He'd always been silly but now he acted positively demented, running around all over the place, yelling his head off, throwing baby tantrums in the supermarket and the street. Mum worried he might have some serious problem and thought she should take him to the doctor.

‘That child doesn't need a doctor, he needs an old-fashioned smacked bottom,' said Gran. ‘Plus a daily dose of syrup of figs to keep him regular. He spends hours in that toilet! Still, I'm not surprised – all his finicky ways with his food: won't eat this,
won't eat that, and fuss fuss fuss if his beans touch his egg or his chips aren't in straight lines, for pity's sake. I'd never have let you play me up like that, Julie.'

‘Maxie's traumatized, Mum,' our mum protested.

‘Nonsense, he's simply spoiled rotten. I've always thought you were an idiot pandering to him the way you do, giving in to every little fear and fancy. You've got to help him toughen up. After all, Maxie's going to have to be the man of the family now.'

Vita and I collapsed into helpless laughter at the idea of Maxie the Man protecting us in any way whatsoever. Mum was near tears but she started snorting with laughter. Even Gran couldn't help smiling. Maxie himself ran amok, laughing like a hyena though he didn't understand the joke.

We called him Maxie the Man after that. For a couple of days he strutted around, growling in as deep a voice as he could manage, calling Vita and me his ‘little girlies'. He did his best to boss us about. We put up with it for a while because it was quite funny at times. Mum and Gran joined in, letting Maxie order them around. He took to calling Mum ‘Woman!' and it always made her laugh.

‘Don't you go calling
me
Woman, you saucebox,' said Gran, shaking her finger at Maxie.

‘Gran's
Old
Woman!' I whispered to Vita.

‘I heard that!' Gran said sharply. ‘I don't think we should encourage Maxie. He'll carry on in the same manner when he's back at school, trying to tell all the teachers what to do.'

Gran had a point. I tried to get this across to Maxie but he just stood shaking his head at me, hands on his funny little hips.

‘Don't take that tone of voice with me, Little Girlie,' he said, coming out with one of Gran's favourite phrases. ‘Kindly remember, I'm the Man of the House.'

‘No, you're not, you silly little squirt,' said Vita irritably. ‘
Dad's
the Man of the House.'

Maxie didn't react.

‘Maxie, you do remember Dad, don't you?' I asked.

Maxie shrugged. He tried to tell us off again, his hands clutching his sides so tightly that his shorts rose comically up each leg.

‘You look so stupid,' said Vita. ‘No wonder they call you names at school.'

‘What names do they call him?' I asked. They called
me
names and it was horrible. I couldn't stand it if little Maxie was being teased like that too.

‘They call him
heaps
of different names,' said Vita.

‘No they don't!' said Maxie.

‘Yes they do. All the Infants call him stuff.'

‘Like
what
?'

‘Maxie wee-wee, Maxie pee-pee, Maxie widdle—Oooh!'

Maxie leaped up at Vita and yanked her wispy hair so hard he pulled out a whole hank. Vita shoved Maxie violently. He toppled and banged his head, hard. Vita jumped on top of him and banged his head again, harder.

Mum and Gran came rushing. They had to prise them apart, both scarlet and screaming.

‘For pity's sake, what's the matter with you both? Are you trying to kill each other?' said Gran, shaking them.

‘Yes!' they both roared.

‘Come on, I'm not having children behaving like little devils in my house. Up to bed this minute, both of you.' Gran seized hold of them by the wrists and started hauling them upstairs.

‘Mum, stop it, they're
upset
,' said our mum. ‘Leave them be. Come on, Maxie, Vita, stop crying. Come and I'll read you both a story.'

Gran shook her head. ‘That's plain silly, rewarding them for temper tantrums.' She glared at me. ‘Why are you standing there so gormlessly, Em? Can't you keep your little brother and sister out of mischief for two minutes?'

This was so horribly unfair I couldn't bear it.

‘Why should I always have to sort them out just
because I'm the eldest? I'm not their mother!' I said.

‘Now stop that! You should be glad to help out. Your own mum is doing her best but she can't cope.'

‘I
can
cope! You mind your own business, Mum!' our mum shouted. ‘I know you mean well but I'm sick of you bossing the kids around and being so strict with them all the time. They're not being deliberately naughty. They're
unhappy
. We're all bloody miserable.'

‘For pity's sake, I'm only trying to help,' said Gran. ‘It's time you got a grip. It's been months since that idiot walked out. Can't you get over him?'

‘No I can't,' said Mum. ‘Come on, kids. We'll go upstairs and leave Gran in peace.'

‘Are we still being sent to bed?' said Vita, as we went upstairs.

‘Well, how about if we all come and cuddle up in my bed?' said Mum.

‘Just Vita and Maxie?' I said.

‘No, no, you too, Em darling. All of us. We'll read stories and play games and I've got some chocolate tucked away somewhere.'

We all got into our night things and crammed in Mum's bed, though it wasn't as much of a squash now. Vita stroked Dad's pillow.

‘Is it lonely not having Dad to cuddle up with?' she said.

‘Of course it's lonely, Vita,' I said. I still often heard Mum crying if I had to get up in the night to go to the loo.

‘Yes, it's very lonely,' Mum said. ‘I sometimes take Dad's pillow and tuck it in beside me and then in the middle of the night when I'm asleep it's as if he's there.'

‘You can borrow Dancer sometimes if you like,' said Vita, making Dancer stroke Mum with her velvety paw.

‘You can have one of my teddies,' said Maxie, patting Mum too.

Mum started talking more about Dad, telling us all the things she really missed, the way he hummed under his breath, the way he always invented some new sweet pet-name for her, the way he hugged her, the feel of his lovely long dark plait . . .

Vita and I started crying, remembering too. Maxie stayed dry-eyed, his pats changing to sharp little slaps.

‘Shut up, Mum,' he said. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.'

‘Now then, Maxie, you know you're not supposed to say shut up. And I don't
want
to shut up. I want to talk about Dad and how sad I am. I want you three to talk about him too. It might help us feel a bit better if we talk about him.'

‘Maxie's forgotten Dad,' Vita snuffled.

‘Don't be silly, sweetheart, of course he hasn't,' said Mum.

‘He
has
. Maxie, who's Dad?' said Vita.

‘Don't know, don't know, shut up, shut up,' said Maxie, struggling out from under the covers.

‘Ssh now, Maxie. Snuggle back in, darling,' said Mum. ‘Oh dear, I know you don't want to talk about Dad and yet I think we should.'

‘He's coming back soon, Mum, we know he is,' said Vita.

‘Well, we
wish
he'd come back,' said Mum.

‘Em wished it. It will come true,' said Vita. ‘We just mustn't ever give up. That's right, isn't it, Em? Dancer says so.'

I took Dancer and made her nod her head.

‘I'm magic, my dears. I've lived with Santa and he's taught me all his little tricks. He frequently confided in me. I was his right-hand reindeer.' I made Dancer wave her right paw in the air, showing off.

They all laughed. I did too. It was so weird. I was working Dancer, making it all up as I went along, and yet it was almost as if she was a real separate person saying things I'd never think of.

She told us a long story about a child who asked for her dad to come back as her Christmas present. Santa had to search for this dad all the way across the world to Australia. It was stiflingly hot and
sunny so Santa went as red as his robes and the furry reindeer were all exhausted, so they cooled off on Bondi beach. Santa paddled with his robes tucked up round his waist, showing his baggy longjohn pants. Dancer and all the other reindeers swam in the surf, seaweed swinging from their antlers. Then they all renewed their search and found the dad shearing sheep. It turned out he was on such a remote farm there wasn't a postbox, so he didn't know how much his daughter was missing him. As soon as he realized he jumped onto the sleigh with Santa, and Dancer and the team of reindeers galloped all the way across the world. The dad jumped off the sleigh at dawn and went running into the house. He woke up his little daughter—

‘And she cried,
Daddy, oh my daddy
,' said Vita. She frowned. ‘But if Santa was dashing off to Australia and back how could he deliver all the children's presents too?'

‘I don't know,' I said, irritated. ‘He can manage anything. He's magic, like I said.'

‘I think your story was magic, Em,' said Mum. ‘You're so good at making up stories. You obviously take after Dad. He could always make up wonderful things.'

‘She can't take after Dad,' said Vita. ‘He's not Em's real dad. He's
my
dad.'

‘He's been a lovely dad to Em too,' said Mum.
‘I think he's helped her make up super stories. You should write them down, Em. I'd love to keep them.'

‘To show Dad when he comes back?'

Mum sighed. ‘Darling, we've got to start thinking he's not coming back.'

‘He is coming back, Mum. He is, he is, he is,' I said.

‘Oh, Em. Do you really think if we say it enough times it will come true?' said Mum.

‘It will,' I said.

‘Definitely,' said Vita. ‘Yes yes yes.'

‘Yep,' Maxie mumbled, but he was half asleep.

The next day Mum sidled up to me when she came home from work.

‘Here, Em, I've got you a little present. Don't let on to Vita and Maxie or they'll feel hard done by.' She handed me a paper bag. There was a familiar rectangular shape inside.

‘Oh Mum, is it the new Jenna Williams book?'

‘You and that Jenna Williams! No, take a look.'

I took a shiny red book out of the bag. I tried not to feel disappointed. I opened it up and saw blank pages.

‘It's for your Dancer stories.'

‘Oh.' I wasn't sure this was such a good idea. It was so much easier just
telling
them. If I wrote them down I'd have to plan it all out and remember all
the boring stuff about punctuation and paragraphs. And never beginning a sentence with ‘And'.

Mum was looking at me anxiously.

‘Great,' I said, sounding false. ‘Thank you very much.'

‘You don't
have
to write the stories,' said Mum. ‘I just thought it might take your mind off things. But it's not meant to be hard work, it's meant to be fun.'