Season of Secrets (9 page)

 

 

 

 

Friday night. Dad's supposed to be picking us up, but
he's late. Hannah and I are packed and ready and
sitting in the living room. Hannah's kicking her heels
against the sofa.
Dud-
de
-dud-
de
-dud-
de
-dud.

“Is he
here
yet?”

“He's coming,” says Grandma. “Don't
fuss
. Why
don't you put the telly on or something?”

Hannah flicks through the channels, but doesn't
settle on anything. She starts turning the TV on and
off, on and off, so the
Neighbours
characters appear and
disappear, here, gone, here, gone, here—

“Stop it,” says Grandma. “Hannah!” but Hannah
jumps up and runs to the window.

“Is he here?”

He isn't.

I hold my book up over my face, so close that the
writing blurs and separates, words merging into each
other until nothing makes sense. I know I ought to
feel glad about going back to Dad, but I don't.

I don't feel anything.

 

When he does come, Dad's awkward. He ducks his
ugly head and looks at us sideways.

“Hey there,” he says. “You ready?”

I nod and Hannah says, “We've been ready for
hours
,” not at all like she's pleased to see him.

We're quiet in the car too. Dad says, “I hear you've
been causing trouble,” and gives his snorty, nervous
laugh.

Hannah says, “
No
,” which is totally ridiculous, as
Grandma's already told Dad exactly what happened.

I say, “
I
haven't done anything. Hannah broke half
of Grandpa's kitchen, and we had to have sausages out
of breakfast bowls.”

“Grandma hit me,” says Hannah.

“It sounds like you deserved it,” says Dad.

“She
hit
me,” says Hannah.

“It was more like a slap,” I say.

I know what Hannah's thinking. I can see it in her
face. She's thinking: Mum would be furious about this.
Mum's good at being furious, in a way that Dad isn't.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he says.
He gives his nervous laugh again. “You live with
Grandma now. If you're going to break her
possessions, she's got every right to punish you.”

“She hasn't got the right to
hit
me,” says Hannah.
“
And
she's making me pay for everything. You're our
dad! Can't you stop her?”

Dad's eyes are on the tractor in front of him. “No,”
he says wearily. “It's none of my business any more.”

Hannah and I are speechless. I want to hit
him
.

“If it's none of your business,” says Hannah, at
last, “why are you having us home for the weekend?”

For the longest time, I think Dad isn't going to
answer. Then he says, without looking at us, “Because
your grandma asked me to.”

 

Our house doesn't look like home any more.

There's a stale smell that I don't remember. Like
old socks, or bedrooms without air in them. There are
mouldy mugs and things on the table and, on the
floor by the sofa, old plates with the ends of pizzas
and baked-bean juice still stuck to them. There's a
pile of letters and papers and bits of stuff on the
hall table. The kitchen bin is full so high that when
you press the lid, it doesn't open. Dad's obviously
given up on opening it, but he hasn't emptied the bin.
There's a plastic bag hanging from one of the
cupboards, with rubbish in it.

“What's happened to the house?” says Hannah.

Dad doesn't answer.

My room is a mess too, but that's how I left it.
Someone – Auntie Rose maybe – has washed all the
dirty clothes, but the rest of my stuff they've just
piled on my desk. Already it feels like someone else's
room. I take Humphrey out of my bag and put him
on the bed, not for comfort, but just to have
something that feels like it still belongs to me. It's
not until I go over to the bookcase, that I feel like this
place is mine. My books!
Tracy Beaker
and my big old
Winnie the Pooh
! I want to take them all out and read
them again. I wonder how many Dad will let me take
back to Grandma's.

I don't think we're going to move back here any
more.

“Molly.
Molly!
”

Hannah's leaning against the door frame.

“What?”

“He didn't even tidy up for us. There's all stuff in
the fridge growing mould and things.”

Probably, we ought to clean it up for him. Probably,
that's part of the whole looking-after-your-parents thing
those kids off
Blue Peter
do. Probably, we have to tidy
everything up for Dad if we ever want to come back.

“Do you want to tidy up?” I say.

Hannah makes a snorting noise in the back of her
throat.

“I want tea,” she says. “Come on.”

Dad's sitting in front of the television. He doesn't
seem to notice the mess. He's watching the cricket.

“Dad. Dad.
Dad!
”

“What?”

“Is there any food?”

Dad rubs his eyes.

“We could have chips, I suppose. Or there's eggs, I
think
. . .
”

We trail after him into the kitchen. No way would
my dad let the house get like this normally. Normally,
he's way tidier than my mum; he's the one who tells
her off for leaving books lying around with their
spines open, or stamping muddy footprints up the
stairs, or bringing home pebbles and shells from the
beach then dumping them on a pile on the hall table
and forgetting about them.

“Do we really need any
more
clutter?” he'd say,
holding up the mess of seaweed.

And Mum would say, “Oh, the girls were going to
make a picture!” Or, “We got that bit of rock on that
walk in Dorset – do you remember? You can't throw
that away!”

And Dad would pretend to be cross and say, “How
am I supposed to remember? It's exactly the same as all
the other bits of rock! If we go on like this we'll end
up living in a beach hut!”

And Mum and I would say, “Let's!” at exactly the
same time.

There are shells and ammonites and bits of sea-smoothed
glass still sitting on the kitchen windowsill,
but a spider has made a web across them. Dad opens
the fridge door and stares into it like it's got a roast
dinner hiding in the back. (It hasn't.) There are things
decaying at the bottom of the salad drawer and a
pepper all covered in mould. It smells awful too.

“Why don't you throw things out?” says Hannah.

“I'm sorry?”

“Like that. That horrible pepper with stuff
growing on it. Why's it still there?”

“Oh
. . .
” Dad picks up the pepper and pushes at
the bin lid. The flappy bit doesn't flap. He looks at the
pepper for a moment, then puts it back in the fridge
again.

“How about pizza?” he says.

I don't say anything.

 

Hannah's all excited about pizza. She bobs up and
down, wanting garlic bread and chicken wings and
Coke, and can she ring the pizza place?

“And strawberry Häagan-Dazs,” she says to the
man on the phone. Dad opens his mouth to argue,
then shuts it again. He looks too tired to complain.

“I ordered ice cream,” says Hannah. “Did you hear
me?”

“I heard you,” says Dad. “Did they say how long it's
going to be?”

In
What Katy Did
, Katy runs a whole house on her
own. She'd at least tidy. I wander back into the kitchen
and pick up the pizza crusts off the plate. I try and
squeeze them into the plastic bag hanging off the
cupboard. The bag falls off, spilling bits of food on to
the floor.

Dad appears in the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. The bin fell off the cupboard.”

Dad rubs his face.

“I thought you were doing a Hannah on me,” he says.
“Come on, love, leave it alone. Pizza'll be here soon.”

I trail after him. I bet Katy never had this problem.

In the living room, Hannah's watching
The Simpsons
with her feet up on the table. I sit on the edge of my
chair. If Mum was here, we wouldn't be waiting for
pizza and watching telly. We'd be doing proper family
things.

“Dad,” I say.

He doesn't look up.

“
Dad
. Can we play Monopoly?”

Hannah sits up.

“Yeah!” she says. “Can we? Can I be the banker?
Can I be the dog?”

“No,” says Dad. He doesn't stop looking at the
television. He doesn't even
like The Simpsons
.

“Awww,” says Hannah. “Why not?”

“Because the pizza will be here soon.”

“Can we play Cheat?” I say.

“No.”

“After tea?”

“No.”

I stick my fingers in the hole in the chair. I know it's
the wrong thing to say, but everything's wrong.

“Mum would've let us.”

Hannah gasps. Dad doesn't move. He carries on
staring at the telly like he hasn't heard me.

“Mum would've played Monopoly. And she would've
cooked us a proper tea. You don't even have anything for
breakfast! Mum wouldn't just have
sat
there—”

“Your mum's dead,” says Dad.

“I
know
she's dead! Do you think I don't know that?
But she would at least have been
nice
to us! She would
at least have
looked
at us! She wouldn't have just
sat
there!” I'm crying now, messy, gulpy tears. “I wish
you
were dead,” I say. “And Mum was alive. Mum would
never have
left
us.”

Dad stands up, so abruptly that I think he's going
to hit me, my lovely dad is going to hit me.

“This is ridiculous,” he says.

I stop mid-gulp.

“I don't know what your grandma thinks she's
doing,” he says. “I don't know what you think you're
doing. Pretending you can come back and live here.”

Hannah tenses.

“Aren't we going to?” I say.

“No.”

Time stops.

“I'm sorry I'm not dead,” says my dad. “If I was,
maybe this whole mess would sort itself out.”

This is too scary to cry about. Dad isn't crying
either, but his face is moving under his skin.

“I'm phoning your grandma,” he says, and he
strides out of the room, pushing past me like Hannah
does.

The doorbell rings.

Hannah's glaring at me.

“Thanks a lot,” she says. “For ruining everything!”
and she runs out of the room after Dad.

The doorbell rings again.

It's the pizza man.

“You ordered pizza?” he says.

I don't answer. I'm crying too hard.

“Can you go and get your mum or dad for me?” he
says. “Only someone needs to pay.”

 

Dad is on the computer upstairs. His eyes are open
and he's staring at the screen, but his hands aren't
moving.

“Dad,” I say. “Dad. We need money for the pizza.”

He doesn't move. I can see the bulge in his pocket
where his wallet is, but I don't dare go and get it.

“Dad,” I say. “The pizza's here.
Dad
.”

I come a little closer and I see that he's crying.

 

On Saturday morning, Grandpa plays fourteen games
of Cheat in a row with us.

It doesn't help.

 

 

 

 

If you only have one parent, like Hannah and I do,
because our mum is dead, then you're an orphan. I
always thought it was if both your parents were dead,
but it's one or more.

It sounds very grand to be an orphan, like Harry
Potter or Mary in
The Secret Garden
. Hannah and I
ought to be living in a children's home like Tracy
Beaker does, or on a street corner, with boots with
holes in them and nothing to eat. But being orphaned
isn't like that at all.

Being orphaned sounds very dramatic, but it isn't
really. You get used to it. You get used to anything. You
get used to living in someone else's house and not
having any of your own stuff or your own friends or
your dad and going to a weird tiny school where no
one talks to you and Josh and Matthew laugh at you
all the time. You get used to Hannah and Grandma
always fighting, and Dad always going away, and not
knowing whether you're going to live here for ever, or
if you're going home tomorrow.

You can even get used to having a hole in your life
where someone used to live. A hole where you thought
they'd live for always, except that one day they just step
sideways, without looking back or saying goodbye,
and vanish for ever.