See If I Care (8 page)

They went back out to the shop and Jenny went through the form with him. When they’d finished, she said, ‘Right then – how does this afternoon suit?’

Luke looked at her. ‘For what?’ Was there something else he had to do?

Jenny smiled. ‘To deliver the washing machine, of course. You do want it, don’t you?’

‘Today?’ Luke couldn’t believe it. ‘I thought we wouldn’t get it until I paid the full amount.’

Jenny shook her head. ‘Sorry, Luke – I thought you knew that. As soon as you sign up and pay the
deposit – which you’ve already done – you get the goods. Will there be someone at home this afternoon to take it in?’

And so, just after half past four, a white van pulled up outside the house. When Luke answered the door, a man in blue overalls stood there with the new washing machine on a trolley. And by the time everything was explained to Granny, and after the man had installed the new machine and was wheeling out the old one, Mam arrived home from work.

She got out of the car and walked over to the van, frowning. ‘Oh no, don’t tell me it’s packed up.’

The man looked from Mam to Luke. ‘Will you tell her, or will I?’

Luke suddenly felt shy. He wished the man wasn’t there. He said, ‘I got you a new one. It’s inside.’ This wasn’t how he’d planned it.

Mam’s hand flew to her mouth. For a minute she just stood there, saying nothing. The man finished loading up the old machine and grinned at Mam’s face as he opened the driver’s door. ‘Maybe you should go in and have a look, Missus. All the best now, Happy New Year.’ He climbed in, slammed the door and drove off.

Luke and Mam were left standing in the driveway. At last, Mam took down her hand. ‘A new washing
machine?’ she asked. Her voice sounded odd.

Luke couldn’t figure out if she was happy or annoyed. ‘Come in and see it.’

In the kitchen, Mam crouched down in front of the new machine and examined all the knobs and buttons very carefully. Luke stood beside Granny and watched, afraid to say anything.

Then Mam stood up slowly and turned around, and her face still had that strange expression on it. ‘How much did it cost?’ She spoke softly.

‘I got it in the sale,’ Luke said. ‘It wasn’t too dear.’ Was she angry with him?

‘How did you get the money?’

‘I saved it up.’ No way was he telling her what happened in the park.

Then Mam went over and put her arms around Luke, and he could feel her crying, and she whispered, ‘Oh my God, what are you like? What did I do to deserve you?’ And he knew she wasn’t angry with him.

For the next few days, the new washing machine was the centre of attention in the house – Dad even came into the kitchen especially to see it. And then, gradually, everyone forgot about it, and stopped talking about Luke’s big surprise, and Mam yelled at Helen for giving her cheek, and Granny tried to keep
the peace, and Dad put his head in his hands and rocked himself, and moaned quietly.

Luke didn’t tell anyone about the bad thing in the park. Jenny in the shop was the only person who knew. What could anyone do about it, if he told them? It would only worry them, and there was enough to worry about in the house.

He didn’t think there was any hope of the police finding the boy and getting the money back, since Luke hadn’t even seen his face properly. All he could remember was the boy’s grey hoodie and black scarf, and the thin leather band he wore around his wrist. There must be hundreds of boys wearing exactly the same stuff.

But the longer he kept the bad thing inside him, the harder it got not to tell someone. It was like a kind of balloon, getting bigger and bigger, waiting to burst apart some day unless he let the air out.

And then, two weeks after the washing machine arrived, just a few days after he went back to school, he got a letter from his penfriend. And as he was reading about her too-good-to-be-true family, and the perfect Christmas she’d had, he suddenly thought:
I could tell her. I could tell her what happened in the park
. She wouldn’t be able to tell anyone in his family. And this time, it was all perfectly true.

But maybe he’d dress it up a bit, just to make him sound less pathetic.

He thought it was a bit rude of her not to mention the New Year card he’d sent. But maybe she was ashamed, because her card was homemade, and not half as nice as his.

He wrote the address on the envelope and stuck his stamp on upside down again. He didn’t really care any more, but she seemed to like it. He sucked the end of his biro for a few minutes, and then he picked up his notebook.

The first time Mrs Clifford called, Zac opened the front door. Probably not a good idea, as at the time he was wearing only his underpants and a t-shirt with a trail of baked beans dripping down the front. Elma ran into the hall, to see who was at the door. Mrs Clifford was talking to Zac, but it was difficult to hear what she was saying, as Dad had turned the TV up to its full volume.

Elma felt at once that the arrival of the smartly dressed stranger could only mean trouble. She ran to her dad and hissed in his ear. ‘Turn down the TV, quick. There’s a woman at the door.’

Dad grunted. ‘Get rid of her.’

Elma crossed the room and switched off the TV. ‘I
don’t think I can. Just tidy yourself up a bit. Quick.’

She went back into the hall, and smiled nervously at the stranger. The stranger smiled back. ‘My name is Mrs Clifford. I’m from Social Services. Can I speak to your mother or your father, please?’

By now Dylan had appeared in the hallway. He was standing next to his brother, with a tear-stained face. They’d had another of their mega-rows over whose turn it was to heat up the baked beans for tea.

Elma smiled again, as if a smile would distract Mrs Clifford from the state of her brothers. ‘My mum isn’t here. Dad is, though.’

Mrs Clifford smiled. ‘Can I come in to speak to him?’

Elma wondered if she could say no, but then her dad called from the TV room. ‘Bring the woman in, Elma, there’s a love.’

Elma beckoned Mrs Clifford into the hall and closed the door behind her. Then she hesitated. The TV room was filthy, but the kitchen was totally impossible, as the baked beans that weren’t dripping down Zac’s t-shirt were spattered all over the table and the floor.

Reluctantly she opened the TV room door, and ushered Mrs Clifford towards her unshaven, grubby-looking father. Then she closed the door, and
went back to begin tidying the kitchen.

Before long, Mrs Clifford appeared in the kitchen.

‘May I sit down?’ she asked.

Elma shrugged, so Mrs Clifford sat down on top of a small pile of beans that had slid from the table onto the chair.

She took out a notebook. ‘You must be Elma, Dylan and Zac.’

Zac grinned at her. ‘How did you know?’ he asked. Elma glared at him, and he put his head down and looked at the floor.

Mrs Clifford spoke softly. ‘It’s my job to know that kind of thing. Now, why don’t we all have a nice chat?’

Zac smiled again, until he saw his sister’s angry face. Mrs Clifford cleared her throat. ‘Who minds you after school?’

Dylan spoke quickly, sure he knew the right answer. ‘Elma does. She’s very good at minding us. She brings us home from school. She gets our tea, and helps us with our homework. She’s great. She–’

Elma knew for sure that this was the wrong answer. She knew that kids weren’t meant to be minding other kids. She put her hand on Dylan’s arm to make him stop talking. ‘Thanks, Dyl,’ she said. ‘I just help out a bit. But we all know that it’s Dad who really minds us, don’t we?’

Dylan looked at her for a moment. He knew she did all the work, and it wasn’t fair to let their dad get all the credit. He jumped up. ‘No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything. He just lies on the couch and does a big fat nothing all day long.’

Mrs Clifford wrote something down in her notebook, and then she turned to Elma. ‘It sounds like you’re a very good girl. But what happens when you go out with your friends? Or when you do after-school activities? Who looks after the boys then?’

Out with her friends?
What friends? Elma thought angrily. There was only Tara, and she was getting fed up of Elma always saying ‘no’ to stuff.

And what
after-school activities
? She hadn’t done anything for years. For Elma, after-school activities were only a distant memory. Nowadays her only after-school activity was doing the washing-up.

But she couldn’t tell the truth. The truth would get everyone into trouble. So she just smiled and said, ‘I like being with the boys. We have such fun. And Dad’s always here if we need him. Everything here is just fine. You really don’t have to worry about us.’

Mrs Clifford didn’t reply. She closed her notebook, and stood up. ‘When would be a good time to speak to your mother?’

Zac blurted out, ‘She works every day. She–’

Elma interrupted him. ‘She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Tell her I’ll be here at four thirty,’ said Mrs Clifford, and then she headed for the front door. Zac and Dylan began to giggle when they saw the clump of baked beans sticking to the back of Mrs Clifford’s coat. Elma hushed them. There was nothing at all funny about any of this.

Next afternoon, Mum cancelled her cleaning job and walked home from school with Elma and the boys. Evil Josh hissed at Elma as they passed by, ‘Gravy Davey. Lumpy Gravy Davey.’

Mum was puzzled. ‘Why is that nasty boy calling you that?’

Elma spoke quickly, before Zac or Dylan could tell the truth. ‘Oh, don’t mind him, Mum. It’s just Josh. He’s crazy.’

When they got home, everyone scurried around trying to clean up and make the house look a bit normal. Dad even helped by chaining Snowball up in the shed, and then turning the TV down to normal volume levels. One of the other dinner ladies had told Mum that a house always seemed nice and safe if there was a smell of bread baking. Of course Mum was in so much of a rush that she just shoved a
sliced loaf into the oven, and turned the heat up high. As Elma suspected, it wasn’t a good idea to leave the wrapping on the bread, and by the time Mrs Clifford arrived, instead of a cosy baked-bread smell, the house smelled badly of burning paper.

Mrs Clifford spent ages talking to Mum. For most of the time Elma had her ear pressed to the kitchen door, so she knew what was going on. Basically, Mrs Clifford said that Dad wasn’t competent to mind the children, and Elma was too young, and that if things didn’t change very quickly, there would have to be further investigations about the welfare of the children.

After Mrs Clifford left, Elma went to where her mum was sitting in the kitchen.

‘Can we get a babysitter, Mum?’ she asked. Already she could imagine a real cool teenager, who’d do great things with her. She could teach her about hairstyles, and make-up and music and stuff.

Mum didn’t even wonder how Elma knew what was going on. She shook her head sadly. ‘No, love. That wouldn’t work. Babysitters are very expensive. And beside, Social Services are already on our case. I don’t want to give them any excuse to find fault with us. There’s only one thing for it.’

Elma whispered. ‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll have to give up my cleaning jobs. I’ll have to spend the afternoons here with you.’

She gave a sudden tired smile. ‘Let’s look on the bright side. At least I’ll be able to make your tea every evening.’

Elma tried to smile back. ‘Sounds great, Mum.’ Inside she was crying. Baked beans were a bit boring, but at least they weren’t likely to poison you.

Her mum patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry, love. I’ve probably been asking you to do too much anyway. Maybe this is all for the best.’

Elma closed her eyes and tried to tell herself that things would be better from now on. She made a list of nice stuff in her head:

1. She’d be able to visit Tara’s house after school
   
2. She could join some after-school clubs
   
3. She wouldn’t have to do so much cooking and cleaning
   
4. She wouldn’t have to mind the boys all the time.
   

But the nice list kept evaporating as the one big bad thing galloped around her brain – Mum was going to be home more, so there would be more time for her and Dad to fight.

Elma didn’t have to wait long. The first big row
began as soon as the boys went to bed that night. As her parents screamed at each other, Elma took out Luke’s last letter and read it. She was glad the stamp was upside down again.

She addressed her envelope, stuck the stamp upside down, and began to write. At first she wrote the usual lies, but as she signed the letter and folded it, there was a loud slam of a door, and then the TV began blaring out something about a hill-tribe in Thailand.

Elma began to cry. Life was just going to turn into a big long series of fights. Dad
had
to get his act together. He had to shake himself up and get a life again, before he ruined everyone else’s. But how could Elma make that happen? She had no good ideas, and there was no one she could talk to. There was no one with whom she could share the awful truth.

Elma made a sudden decision. Luke Mitchell was a stranger. It wouldn’t matter if she told him a small bit of the truth. And maybe he’d have an idea of how she could help her dad. She unfolded the letter, picked up her pen, and wrote a long PS.

Then, before she could change her mind, she folded the letter again, put it into its envelope, and sealed it.