Now You See Me (18 page)

“You and Martha and Paul. What's going on?”

Dad stiffens, his shoulders going rigid. He turns back to stare out the windscreen. “What do you mean?”

A woman edges past our bumper with a trolley piled high with food in big canvas eco bags. She's manoeuvring carefully, avoiding scraping our car, though it would hardly matter if she did. It's old and grubby, the green paintwork beginning to flake off in places, worn patches appearing on the fabric of the seats.

“You know what I mean. You used to be such good friends before Mum…” I break off, feeling I don't really need to explain.

Dad doesn't speak. He's going to make me spell it out.

“And now you…I don't know,” I go on, my jaw tightening. “It's like you can hardly bear to be around each other.”

I watch Dad inhale slowly, his chest rising with the effort. Wait for him to say something.

He doesn't.

“Dad?”

He exhales loudly. “Hannah, I'm sorry.”

“What for?”

“I don't know. Everything. I haven't been much of a father, have I?”

“I wasn't saying that,” I blunder, flustered. “I wasn't saying it's your fault. I just want to know what it's all about.”

“I know I haven't been there for you. Not properly. Not since…” He stops. He doesn't need to say it.

“Okay. But that's not what I'm on about, Dad.”

We both stare at the woman with the trolley, now heaving the food into the boot of the adjacent car. One of those smart people carriers where the kids peer down at you as they overtake. I can see vegetables sticking out the bags, leeks and carrots, a couple of globe artichokes like huge green flower heads, and an enormous cauliflower, fat as a football. Stuff you actually have to wash and chop and cook.

“Martha and Paul have been good to me,” I continue, since Dad has clearly gone mute. “Good to
us.
They were your friends, Mum's friends. It's awkward, being stuck in the middle of whatever's gone bad between you. I think we should try and sort it.”

More silence. Part of my mind starts to worry about the tub of vanilla ice cream defrosting in the back. Isn't there something about not being able to refreeze it?

“Why now?” Dad asks. “Why bring this up now?”

I consider his question. “Danny,” I say. “I don't know…now he's home it feels like a second chance. I mean, to get things right.” I nearly say to get things back to how they used to be, though with Mum gone I know that can't happen.

Dad relapses into silence. A minute ticks by, then he lets out a long sigh. “Okay…” he begins. Pauses. “We just had something of a disagreement. That's all.”

“What about?”

“Nothing really. I can hardly remember.”

I feel the frustration start to build inside, hot and heavy. “You must be able to remember something.” Christ, this is like talking to Danny.

Dad clears his throat. “It was a long time ago, before your mum…” His hands grip the steering wheel. “Just before it all happened. I suppose we never really got over it.”

“So why don't you just talk to them? Sort it out? I mean that was nearly five years ago now. I'm sure they're—”

“Hannah,” Dad turns to me. There's a look on his face I'm not sure I've ever seen before. A kind of desperation. Like someone on the edge. “Please,” he says, his voice wavering. “Hannah, please can we just leave it?”

A heat behind my eyes that's almost painful.

“Sometimes friendships just run their course, that's all,” adds Dad. “It's not worth trying to go back and pick up all the pieces.”

I blink, thinking of Danny again. Maybe Dad's right. Maybe there is no way back and it's all best left alone.

“It's not just them, it's us.” The words fall out of my mouth before I'm aware I'll say them. Before I'm even aware I mean them. “Since Mum died. It's like…” The tears start to roll down my cheeks, unstoppable now. “I don't know…sometimes it feels like we're strangers. Like people just sharing a house.”

An image of Dad chasing me on Weston beach. Me running and giggling so hard I can hardly breathe, Dad catching me and swooping me up into the air, then spinning round and round, both of us laughing until we collapse onto the sand, panting and gasping.

“I don't understand what I've done wrong,” I say quietly, my voice sounding ridiculously small. I suddenly feel alone, abandoned. Like I lost both parents in that river five years ago.

“Oh god, Hannah.” Dad lowers his forehead against the steering wheel. He sits like that for a full minute while I try to pull myself together. Then he turns round in his seat, and puts his hand under my chin and makes me look at him. “I'm so sorry. Really I am.”

He leans forward and holds me in an awkward hug. “You're the most precious thing in the world to me, Hannah. I may not always be very good at showing that, I know. And I'm sorry.”

His arms linger for a few seconds, but I can tell he feels uncomfortable. I pull away. Make myself smile.

“Thanks,” I say, though I'm not exactly sure what I'm thanking him for. It's not like I'm any the wiser.

Dad sits back in his seat and turns the key in the ignition. Looks at me for another second or two with the engine idling.

“It won't always be this hard, Hannah,” he says, his voice soft yet serious. “I promise. Things will get easier.”

I hope so, I think, as he drives us home. I really bloody hope so.

“Geller!”

Mr Richards bangs the end of his marker pen down hard on the desk. Most of the class jump in alarm, eyes swivelling in unison to see how Danny has strayed into the line of fire.

Danny is leaning back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him, hands forming a headrest behind his head. He looks round from the football match he's watching out the window, and gives Mr Richards an indifferent stare. A long, lazy smile breaks across his face.

“Yes?”

“Sir!” Mr Richards snarls. “Yes,
sir
.” He pauses for emphasis. “Would it be asking too much, Geller, for you to pay a little bit of attention in my class? After all, it's you who's got to sit the exam. I'm only obliged to help you revise.”

Mr Richards' lips are always a barometer of his temper; right now they're stretched as thin as a pencil line, on the very threshold of quivering.

“Not at all…” Danny looks back at him with cool unconcern. “Sir.”

My stomach tightens. Mr Richards is not the kind of teacher you wind up – not unless you want to spend the rest of your life in detention. Or worse.

Danny's manner isn't lost on Mr Richards. He places the marker back on the desk and walks slowly towards him, glaring with an intensity that makes me fidget. While most of the teachers are clearly unnerved by the casual, almost cocky way Danny now treats them, they're also wary of confronting him – afraid he's still fragile, I guess, or that he might vanish again at any moment.

But Mr Richards is different. Mr Richards clearly isn't going to make any kind of allowances for Danny, even if he's only been back at school a few days.

Danny has plainly pushed him too far.

“In that case, Geller” – he leans forwards, both hands on the desk, and growls in Danny's face – “would you care to read out the sentences I've just written on the board and tell me exactly what they mean?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Danny glances at the board, reeling off each sentence in what sounds like a perfect French accent, then translating them fluently into English. Not a single error, as far as I can tell. Everyone gazes at him in amazement. No one in the class can speak like that – not even Robert Chasson, whose dad actually
is
French.

I'm open-mouthed with astonishment. The thing is, I never really spent much time in class with Danny before – I was in higher sets for everything except PE. But since he sat those tests to see how much he needed to catch up, Danny has appeared in most of my revision sessions. And he's sitting most of the exams, even though he's been absent since Year Eight.

Whatever Danny missed while he was gone, it clearly wasn't schoolwork.

“Will that do, sir?”

Mr Richards stands in front of Danny, considering his next move. Then snorts, turns round and walks back to the whiteboard.

“Sir?”

Mr Richards stops.

“Second sentence down, sir. There should be an extra ‘e' after the adjective, sir, because ‘
lapin
' is feminine, sir. And you've forgotten the grave accent in ‘
l'élève
'.
Sir
.”

Danny's final “sir” is so slow and deliberate that no one could miss its challenge. The whole class holds its breath.

Mr Richards walks up to the whiteboard and stands in front of it, colour rising slowly up the back of his neck, a creeping tide of red. Thirty pairs of eyes are fixed on him, waiting to see what he'll do next.

When he reaches round to pick up the marker pen, I almost flinch. Is he going to throw it at Danny? Or literally drag him out the classroom by the collar, like that time he caught Josh Crawford spitting at Liam Penfold?

An abrupt slump in his shoulders indicates Mr Richards has come to a decision. Without a word, he steps up to the board and makes the corrections.

I look back at Danny. Arms crossed in front of his chest, legs outstretched, he's gazing back out the window as if nothing has happened.

From then on, Mr Richards pretends not to notice.

Ten days after vanishing, Rudman reappears as suddenly as he left. When I get Martha's text and go round to Dial House, he's lying in his basket, looking like he's been in some kind of canine war zone. Alice is slumped on the floor beside him, cradling his head.

She looks up at me miserably. “Rudman hurt, Hannah. Hurt bad.”

I bend down to stroke him. His coat is all matted, and there are patches where it's missing altogether. He has a deep scratch on his nose, and one on his side, near his back leg.

I tickle him gently behind the ears, riffling my fingers through the silky fur in that way he loves. He doesn't even raise his head, just lifts his tail feebly a few times and lets it flop back to the floor.

“Rudman hurt,” Alice says again.

“She wants to come to the vet,” Martha whispers when Alice is finally persuaded to sit and have something to eat. “But I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not sure what's wrong with him and I don't want her there if it's bad news. If the vet says it's best to…”

She doesn't have to finish. I know what she means.

“You don't mind, do you? Looking after her till I get back?”

“Of course not,” I say. “How did you find him?”

“We didn't. He just came home. Paul heard a scratching in the night and there he was, sitting outside the back door.”

“God, poor Rudman.”

“Paul thinks he got himself trapped somewhere, that it's taken all this time to get himself free.”

“But he must have had some food,” I say, puzzled. “And water. He couldn't survive that long without water.”

At that moment, Danny strolls into the kitchen, wearing only an open dressing gown, exposing his chest and the jeans slouched low around his hips. Alice freezes, a piece of toast halfway into her mouth.

Danny glances at us both then walks over to Rudman, crouching down and patting his head. “Poor old thing.”

Rudman lowers his eyes and doesn't move. Danny looks at Alice, crooking his mouth into a smile, then turns to his mother. “Do you want some help? I can take Rudman to the vet if you like.”

“Don't worry, darling,” Martha says. “I can manage.”

“Or I could look after Alice,” he offers, getting to his feet.

Martha hesitates, her eyes darting towards Alice then back at her brother. “Thanks, but Hannah's already said she'll stay.” She presses her lips together. “In case you want to go out, I mean.”

“Whatever,” shrugs Danny, leaving us to it.

What's that all about? I wonder as I hear him retreat back upstairs. Why did Martha asked me to mind Alice, instead of Danny? I mean, would it kill him to stick around for an hour or so?

I glance over at Alice, her eyes fixed on the space Danny just vacated. Then she turns to Rudman, an expression I can't quite read on her face. It takes a moment to register what it is.

She looks terrified.

“It's all right, sweetheart.” Martha bends over to give her a hug. “He'll be okay.”

Alice bites her lips together. I think she's going to say something, but she just nods. More tears roll down her cheeks.

“I'd better go,” Martha says, picking up Rudman's basket. Normally he'd try to jump out, but today he lies still and lets her carry him towards the door.

“Thanks for taking care of Alice, Hanny. If I'm not back by six, could you run her a bath? Paul's working late.”

“No problem,” I say, as she closes the back door behind her.

Alice stares after her mother. I'm certain she's about to try and run after her, but she just sits there, looking shell-shocked.

“Come on.” I stroke her hair. “Let's go and play cards.”

“Can I join in?”

Alice and I both look up from our game of Snap to see Danny towering over us. He's got his cap on backwards and the bright overhead light of the living room casts shadows across the stubble edging his chin. I can't help thinking it makes him look a bit sinister.

“Sure.” I shift my chair to give Danny space, hoping he hasn't noticed my surprise.

What's this all about? He's never shown the slightest interest in playing with us since his return, though Danny and I often used to play cards together – Rummy and Go Fish and Strip-Jack-Naked. Danny won nearly every game, even when it was all down to luck. I sometimes wondered if he cheated, but I never caught him out.