by Simon Mason
Like a stain, she thought sadly. Like something someone’s spilled and has to clean up.
She felt the beginnings of a headache. But she gave herself a shake. ‘I won’t be sick,’ she said to herself. ‘Because I have to look after Tug. And I won’t mope because Mum always told me that moping gets nothing done.’ She sighed. ‘But what shall I do?’
Standing in front of the mirror on her wardrobe door, she pointed her small nose at herself. ‘What would Mum do?’ she asked her reflection.
Her reflection didn’t say. It gave her a narrow look, then turned on itself and disappeared.
Barefoot and dressed only in her pyjamas, Martha went down the stairs in the silence and darkness, through the kitchen and out of the back door, into the garden.
On the patio she hesitated. She was going to do something. She just didn’t quite know what. She looked down the garden towards the shed, where Dad was. It was dark in the garden; the bushes down the edge were flat and black, and everything seemed nearer than it did in the daytime. Nothing stirred, and the silence was as thick as the darkness. Fear of the dark crept over her, she felt it tickling her skin like the spiders’ webs that grew across the bushes, but she took a deep breath, stepped into the shadow and let it cover her completely. Feeling her way across the broken patio, she tiptoed quietly down the overgrown lawn, the grass cold on her feet.
Dad was sitting on a chair inside the shed, she could see the shape of him through the doorway, and when she was nearly there she whispered, ‘Dad?’
There was a bang, and something fell and smashed.
‘Dad?’
‘Martha?’ he said thickly. He sounded as if he had just woken up. ‘Martha?’
He made a scrabbling noise as if he were hurriedly looking for something, or tidying something away, then suddenly fell silent as she went in.
There was a smell of something, like paint.
Hunched on the broken chair, surrounded by a mess of tools and boxes and shopping bags, he lifted his face and gave her a sullen look. He was so dishevelled, with dirt in his hair and a wet streak across his chin, that for a second she couldn’t speak for shock, and there was silence.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said at last, and it sounded odd hearing herself speak to him in the darkness of the shed. It was an odd thing to say too, she realized at once, the sort of question she often asked Tug, and which Mum had asked her when she was small. Even her voice sounded strange, reminding her of Mum’s, sympathetic but practical.
She didn’t feel practical though. Her mouth was dry, and her skin crawled again.
Dad didn’t reply.
‘What are you doing out here?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Thinking.’
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Nothing.’
With his head bowed and his arms round his knees, he looked almost square. She didn’t like him looking like that. She wanted him to get up and put his arms round her, and tell her that everything was OK. But he stayed where he was, square and sulky, like a big Tug.
‘Are you angry with us?’ she asked timidly.
‘No!’ he said. ‘Not with you,’ he added.
‘Are you angry with Grandma and Grandpa?’
He didn’t say anything to that, but muttered to himself, and suddenly she felt so sorry for him that although she was nervous and confused she went forward and hugged him.
‘I’m sorry they upset you.’
At last she felt him relax.
‘We had an argument,’ he said gruffly.
‘I know. I heard a bit of it.’
He stiffened again. ‘Did you hear what they said? About me not looking after you properly?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hate them dragging you into it. They’ve never liked me. They never thought I was good enough for her.’
He began to talk fast and his voice was oddly stretchy.
‘Don’t, Dad,’ she said, stroking his hair, ‘Please, don’t,’ but he went on talking, so fast and stretchy that sometimes he got his words muddled up and it was hard to understand him.
‘They blamed me,’ he said suddenly, ‘when she died.’
There was a moment’s silence, then he was talking again. ‘Dragging you into it,’ he said. ‘Upsetting you. They’ve no right. They’re getting old,’ he said. ‘They get these strange ideas into their heads.’
Eventually he fell silent.
‘I still don’t understand,’ Martha said.
Dad ignored her. He gave her a funny look. ‘Did you hear anything else they said?’
‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Except.’
‘What?’
‘Something else I don’t understand. What are the Social Services?’
His face hardened. ‘Social Services are a part of welfare,’ he said. ‘If they think children are being neglected or endangered, they take them away from their parents to live elsewhere.’
Now Martha stopped stroking, and caught her breath. ‘Are the Social Services going to come and take us away?’
‘No, Martha.’
‘But might they?’
‘No. Grandma only mentioned them to scare me. You mustn’t worry.’
She had a picture of someone putting her in a car and driving her away, and taking her to a place full of strangers, and she felt her heart beating fast.
‘What about Tug? Will someone take Tug too?’
Dad got to his feet – nearly falling sideways in the cramped and darkened shed – and took hold of her.
‘What will happen to Tug?’ she cried.
Then he was comforting her. ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘Hush. I love you. I love the little Tug. No one’s going to take either of you away from me. No one. I won’t let them.’ He rocked her. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Remember? I love you more than dads love Marthas.’
They stood together for some time, and at last she calmed down.
He cleared his throat. ‘Martha?’
He sounded nervous again.
‘Yes?’
‘Was that all you heard Grandma and Grandpa say?’
She hesitated. There was something else. But she said, ‘Yes, that was all,’ and he let out a sigh.
Then, stepping back from her, he stared at her in amazement.
‘You’re not wearing anything but your pyjamas!’
She began to explain.
‘Quick, get back to bed. You’ll catch cold.’
‘Are you coming too?’
‘In a minute. I’ll just tidy this mess up.’
In the doorway of the shed she turned back. ‘Dad?’
‘What?’
She couldn’t think exactly how to say it, and she frowned.
‘What?’ Dad said again.
‘Are we going to be all right?’
A strange look passed across his face.
‘Of course we are. We’re going to be better than all right.’
‘Are we really?’
He put on a funny voice. ‘Sweetheart, we’re going to be tremendous!’
She looked doubtfully at him standing there in his old T-shirt, ripped at the neck, and dusty jeans, with his hair sticking up and his wet chin, and his dirty hands hanging heavily at his sides.
‘I’ll help,’ she said.
He touched her face. ‘I know you will. You’re a good girl. Go to bed now. Things will be better in the morning. Things are always better in the morning.’
In the garden the darkness didn’t seem so dark any more. She was used to it. Halfway across the shaggy grass she paused to gaze up at the stars flickering faintly through a veil of cloud. Somewhere up there was the moon too, floating across the sky like a lost balloon. But she was too sleepy to look for it. Overwhelmed with tiredness, she went on across the patio, and, going through the back door, the last thing she heard was a clink of glass from the shed in the dimness behind her.
14
She made a list:
Get up for breakfast.
Swim (twic
e a week).
Apply for jobs.
Haircut.
New shirt.
Remember tea!
Dad looked startled when she gave it to him.
‘It’s a list for you,’ she said. ‘I told you I would help.’
He gazed at it, and sighed.
For several days afterwards he seemed to take his tasks seriously. Three mornings running he managed to get up early enough to give Martha and Tug breakfast before they went to school, and twice he went (unsupervised) to the swimming baths, reporting that each time he had swum twenty full lengths without stopping. Olivia had been there, he said, and had told him she was looking forward to coming round.
That was interesting. Perhaps, Martha thought, Olivia will get to like Dad again, and she can be his girlfriend after all.
She liked helping Dad. She liked being busy and getting things done, even if they were hard.
The hardest thing was helping Dad apply for jobs. He didn’t seem to want to be helped (‘I’m not really out of work, I’m having a sabbatical’). But she was determined. She used the computer at school to collect a lot of advertisements for him to consider. Many of them were for jobs in the television industry, which she thought he would like.
He gave them back to her. ‘I want a complete change,’ he said.
‘What sort of change?’
He looked sly. ‘I don’t really know.’
She collected more advertisements.
‘Aren’t you being just a bit bossy?’ he said, when she gave them to him.
‘Aren’t you being just a bit lazy?’ she replied. She said other things too, like, ‘You’ll feel better if you have a job’, and ‘You can’t keep on lounging in the house all day’. Now that she was helping him, she was almost enjoying herself.
Eventually he gave in. On Wednesday evening he took all the advertisements into the front room, and in a little under an hour completed five separate applications: to be a Steeplejack, a Children’s Entertainer, a Lifestyle Assistant, a Groomer in a pet salon, and a Psychotherapist.
‘There,’ he said.
‘It’s a lot of different sorts of jobs,’ Martha said, perplexed.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘And you like them all?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And do you feel better now that you’ve applied for them?’
‘Ecstatic.’
It was strange that he forgot to post the applications – despite Martha reminding him – but in the end Martha took them to the post office herself.
On the whole she was pleased with him. He was working his way – slowly – through her list. He was generally well-behaved. There were no midnight picnics, or unorthodox dives in swimming pools, or falling off roofs. There were no more arguments with Grandma and Grandpa, or sulking in the shed. For over a week the house had been calm.
But now that she was keeping a closer eye on him Martha noticed little things that puzzled her. Little fits of restlessness propelled him round the house, taking him from room to room with no apparent purpose. Martha would find him unexpectedly looking for something he never seemed to find under the sink, or rearranging the sheets and towels in the airing cupboard. He seemed strangely fond of the airing cupboard. He was secretive too. Several times he suddenly left the house to go on an errand, or out to the shops, reappearing hours later with no shopping and only a sketchy explanation of what he had been doing.
One night as she was lying in bed almost asleep, he came tiptoeing into her room, kissed her very gently on the cheek, and tiptoed away again; and she heard him go quietly down the stairs and out of the front door, start the car and drive away.
She kept remembering the argument at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. She hadn’t told Dad the truth when he asked her if there was anything else she had overheard. She had heard Grandma say: ‘Anyone can see it, just looking at you.’ What Grandma had meant, she didn’t know. But when Martha looked at Dad she seemed to see something too.
She just didn’t know what it was.
*
Towards the end of the week, Dad became preoccupied with Olivia’s visit at the weekend. He had his hair cut and bought a new shirt to wear with his summer linen suit. Several times a day Martha found him in front of the mirror.
‘Do you think I need another haircut, Martha?’
‘You’ve just had one, Dad.’
‘What about a new shirt?’
‘That’s a new shirt you’re wearing.’
‘Do these socks go with my jacket?’
‘Dad?’
‘What?’
‘Are you nervous about Olivia coming?’
He always denied it. But as the week wore on he developed nervous little habits, like talking to himself. Once Martha found him standing in front of the mirror, saying to himself over and over, ‘I will be good, I will be good. And everything will be OK.’
Perhaps it will, Martha thought.
15
At last the weekend arrived. On Saturday morning Martha and Tug went to the library as usual, where Tug renewed The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Martha got out The Little Princess. In the afternoon they went shopping with Dad.
At seven o’clock in the evening Martha was sitting in the kitchen sewing lapels onto a 1940s trench coat she was making for Marcus to wear in their new speed film. Tug was in the front room gluing. He had begun by gluing matches together to make a raft so that his JCB could float in the bath, but he had discovered that gluing newspaper made it interestingly thicker, and now he was experimenting with shoelaces. Martha could hear him singing to himself. Dad was in the garden shed. If she looked out of the window she could see him through the doorway, sitting on the broken chair reading a magazine.
It was a peaceful evening, and as she sewed Martha listened to sounds from the gardens, the leafy rustling of small birds and their sudden fluting cries. A bluebottle buzzed against the windowpane, and late sunlight came in and lay around her in a warm glow. For the first time in weeks she felt happy. She thought about Olivia coming, and what she was going to cook. Lasagne, she decided. And chocolate mousse. She had good recipes for both.
The doorbell rang, and she heard Tug go to answer it. A few moments later he came running into the kitchen.
‘Martha, she’s here. That lady.’
Martha dropped her needle. ‘Olivia? But it’s the wrong day! We told her Sunday.’
‘She said she hates to be late.’
‘She’s not late. She’s a day early. We don’t have anything to give her. And I haven’t had time to get Dad ready.’
‘She wants to see Dad now. She called him her heart-throb.’
Martha stared at him. ‘Really?’
Tug nodded solemnly. ‘What’s heart-throb, Martha?’
The thought came to her – wildly – that Dad and Olivia must have become much more friendly at the swimming baths.
But it was still the wrong day.
‘Wait here,’ she said to Tug. ‘I’d better go and explain.’ She put her sewing on the table, and went anxiously down the hall.
At the front door was a woman wearing a short black dress with a red leather handbag. She had lots of blonde hair and a heavily made-up face, very big, and an enormous smile. Martha had never seen her before.
As soon as she saw Martha the woman began to talk, very fast.
‘Here she is, the little lady. Stop, wait there, darling. Yes, just where you are. Let me look at you. What a beauty. Yes, you’ve got his eyes, haven’t you? You’ve got his nose too, I can see it now. Yes, and his darling little smile. May I? Are you sure? Thank you.’ She came a little way down the hall, and went on again. ‘Yes, I’d made up my mind to be cross with you, you naughty girl, keeping him all to yourself. I had, really. But how could I be cross with someone so pretty? Tell me that, darling. You can’t. Neither can I. I don’t feel cross at all, not a bit. Is he ready?’
Her voice was loud and harsh, and her laugh was harsh too.
Martha was be
wildered. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’
When the woman stopped smiling her whole face settled into a different shape altogether, big and stiff.
‘Didn’t he say? Lulu. As in Lulu. Is he in here?’ She went into the front room and peered round. ‘Shall I wait? You don’t mind? Tell him Lulu’s here, darling, and raring to go. I hate to be late.’ And she sat on the sofa and crossed her legs.
Martha retreated to the kitchen and stood there, dazed.
‘What’s heart-throb?’ Tug asked again.
‘Don’t ask me, Tug. I don’t even know who this woman is, or why she’s here. It’s not the lady from the swimming pool. It’s the wrong lady. Perhaps she’s got the wrong house.’
‘What shall we do, Martha?’
She turned to him. ‘I want you to go into the front room and talk to her for a minute.’
He wasn’t sure about that. ‘She makes me feel unhappy,’ he whispered.
‘It’s important,’ Martha said firmly. ‘I’ll go and talk to Dad.’
As Tug sidled towards the front room, she ran out of the back door and down the garden. Dad saw her coming and came out of the shed to meet her.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Lulu.’
‘What?’
‘Someone called Lulu.’
‘Someone called Lulu?’
‘A lady with blonde hair.’
Dad looked blank.
‘And a very big face.’
‘Oh no!’ Dad said. ‘Lulu! Not here?’
Martha nodded. ‘In the front room. Who is she? Do you know her?’
Dad looked awkward. ‘Well. I don’t really know her. I just sort of met her.’
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘I’m trying to remember. I think it was in The Crooked Pot.’
‘The Crooked Pot?’
‘It’s a bar. She’s come here? I don’t remember giving her my address.’
Martha was bewildered. ‘You met this lady in a bar?’
Things were more confused than before. She tried to concentrate. ‘What are you going to do? You’ll have to go and talk to her.’
But Dad just stood there. ‘I can’t,’ he said at last.
‘Dad! I don’t understand. What did you arrange with her?’
Dad said nothing.
