Danger by Association: The Riverhill Trilogy: Book 3

by Heather Burnside

  Adele felt bad. She shouldn’t have carried on so much at Peter. It was bound to annoy her father, especially on a Sunday. He was always in a mood on a Sunday. In fact, he was always in a mood any day, but Sundays were particularly bad.

  It was only lately, as she was growing up, that Adele realised why; it was because of the skinful he had had on a Saturday night. All he wanted to do on Sundays was sleep it off. Then he would sit and pore through the papers whilst their mother, Shirley, made a pretence of cleaning the house, and cooked the traditional Sunday dinner in an effort to please him.

  This was usually the first attempt at cleaning that Shirley had made all week. She spent most of her days gossiping with the neighbours, sleeping or watching TV. Her evenings were spent in a similar fashion, except for the few nights a week in which she tore herself away from the street to go and play bingo.

  After consoling herself, Adele lifted herself up off the bed and drifted towards the window. She avoided the sight of Peter, but looked out instead at the other houses, watching people go about their business. Allowing her mind to drift, she contemplated, for the umpteenth time, her miserable existence.

  Lately she was realising that although this way of life was commonplace within these four walls, there was a different world out there. Talking to her friends had made her understand that her circumstances weren’t the norm, and that other parents were different from her own. Other children went out with their families to the cinema or country parks. They had holidays at the seaside and expensive presents for their birthdays.

  The only advantage she had over other children was her freedom. Her father was hardly ever home, so that gave her and Peter a chance to roam the streets and do whatever they pleased as long as news of their mischief didn’t get back to him. Their mother was indifferent, and scarcely showed any interest in where they were going or what time they would be back.

  Sometimes Adele would wander to the local playground, which contained an assortment of battered apparatus on an unkempt patch of ground. There she would climb to the top of the climbing frame and escape from her world by pretending she was a princess standing inside a tall tower and surveying her land. The people there all worked for her, and it was their job to do as she ordered. She was the head of the kingdom and everybody had to bow to her and make her happy.

  She consoled herself by imagining that one day the dream could almost become a reality. When she was old enough she would get a good job and a rich husband, and she would escape from her domineering father and slovenly mother. She would have a beautiful home and children who would never want for anything. It was this dream that kept her going.

  Just then Adele was jolted back to reality by the sound of raised voices downstairs.

  “Don’t go Tommy, I was gonna do you a nice dinner later,” pleaded her mother.

  “Bugger off, I’m going for a pint. There’s nowt to stay in this bloody pigsty for. I’m sick of you, you lazy cow, and those two scruffy little gets!”

  This was followed by a loud slamming of the front door and Shirley muttering something to herself. Adele couldn’t quite hear her mother’s words, but she surmised that she wasn’t happy with her father’s exit.

  Adele had had enough of home for one day. She decided that she would go outside for a while, maybe call for one of her friends. Perhaps she would see if Peter wanted to go out, if he had calmed down by now. She was heading downstairs when she heard the sound of the door knocker. Fearing that her father was returning, she backtracked to the top of the stairs. It was only after her mother had answered the door that Adele realised it was her grandma, Betty.

  She entered loudly, and, appearing as bumptious as ever, commented, “I’ve just passed His Lordship in the street. He’s got a right face on him, as usual. It took him all his time to say hello. What the bleedin’ hell’s up with him this time?”

  Shirley said nothing, but shook her head from side to side as she led her mother into the living room. Adele would normally have fled down the stairs to greet her grandma, who she thought the world of. Although loud and opinionated, Betty had a kind heart and was full of good intentions. But the look of resignation on her mother’s face, and the tired way she dragged her feet, stopped Adele from following them.

  She had guessed that they were about to have one of their conversations. Overcome by curiosity, she crept down the stairs so she could overhear them.

  “Jesus, Shirley love, what the bloody hell’s happened to this place? It looks like a bomb’s hit it, and it smells bloody awful! It’s worse than last time. I thought you were going to try and keep on top of things!”

  “Oh don’t start, Mam. Don’t you think I’m sick of it? It’s not me that makes it a tip you know, and what’s the use of tidying it anyway when they only mess it up again?”

  “I’m worried about you, love. Every time I come you’ve let yourself go more. You’re just not happy, are you? Has he been at you again?”

  “Not really. It’s Peter he’s pissed off with, because he made a mess on the garden path, squashing some caterpillars or summat. I wish he’d leave him alone; he’s not a bad lad really.”

  “I don’t know, I worry about our Peter, always up to mischief and getting into fights. I’ve told you, he takes after his side of the family.”

  Their conversation then became much quieter, and Adele had to strain to hear them. Without getting too close, and risking being caught out, she managed to catch snippets of her grandma’s words.

  “Bad lot … told you before … bad blood … mad … great uncle … always fighting … ended up in an asylum.”

  A few moments of silence followed until Shirley said, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Mam. I’ve no idea what our Peter will turn out like. I’m just glad our Adele’s all right.”

  “Aye, she’s a good girl,” replied Betty whose voice had returned to its normal level. “Keep encouraging her to do well at school so she can bugger off to university or summat. She’ll be bloody better off out of it.”

  Betty’s voice then adopted a sympathetic tone. “I do worry about you, Shirley love. You don’t seem to care anymore. Did you go to the doctors like I told you to?”

  “Yeah, he’s given me these for the daytime on top of the ones I take at night.”

  “Let’s have a look,” said Betty who then tried to read the words on the bottle of pills. “Dia ... ze ... pam. What are they supposed to do?”

  Betty didn’t realise that Diazepam was the clinical name for Valium.

  “I don’t know,” said Shirley. “But I feel more knackered than ever. I’ve not got the energy I was born with, honestly Mam.”

  “Well, I don’t know what the bloody hell to make of it all. I wish to God you’d never married him in the first place. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t be told. I’d take you and the kids round to my house, but I’ve just not got the room.”

  “I know that, Mam. I’ve just got to put up with it, haven’t I? Besides, I love Tommy. I just wish he wasn’t so angry all the time.”

  Betty looked exasperated, but didn’t continue. It was a topic which she had already covered many times before, so she moved onto something else. When Adele had grown tired of hearing about what Betty’s neighbours were up to, she returned to her bedroom. There she mulled over the conversation in her young mind.

  She knew her grandmother had been referring to her father, Tommy, and his family. She was used to her grandma Betty calling them, but she had never heard her mention the word ‘mad’ before. Maybe it was just a figure of speech, meaning they had bad tempers. She wondered about the word asylum. It wasn’t one she was familiar with, but she decided to check it in her dictionary.

  Adele took her dictionary off the row of books on the shelf. She opened it up, and scanned the words under the letter ‘a’ to see if asylum was listed. She found two meanings; the first of them referred to a place of refuge but the second related to a mental institution. She wondered which of these her grandma could have been talki
ng about but she daren’t ask. Something in her subconscious linked the second definition to her grandma’s use of the word ‘mad’. But she wasn’t sure. It was all so confusing, and too much for a girl of eleven to interpret.

  She was curious about the tablets her mother was taking as well; something called Diazepam, her grandma had said. Adele flicked over the pages of her dictionary again, checking whether Diazepam was listed, but she couldn’t find anything.

  As she looked through the dictionary, her thoughts drifted away from the misery of her home situation. Adele began to play a game she had devised to entertain herself. It involved opening the dictionary at random, and pointing to a word with her eyes shut. When she opened her eyes, she had to guess what the word meant without reading the definition first. This was one of the many uses she found from her beloved dictionary, which she had chosen when she won a book prize at school.

  When she grew tired of looking through the dictionary, she selected an Enid Blyton book she had borrowed from the library, and immersed herself in the adventures of the Famous Five. It was her guilty pleasure. Adele’s teacher was trying to encourage her to read more challenging books because of her advanced reading age, but Adele enjoyed the escapism that the Famous Five books provided. Within minutes Enid Blyton had successfully diverted Adele’s attention from all the troubles of the day.

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