by Simon Mason
‘Though teamwork is important too,’ he added generously. ‘Even the greatest stars need back-up.’
He was not his usual upbeat self, however; his voice was un-Marcus-like, flatter, almost normal. He exchanged anxious glances with Laura and they both kept turning to look at Martha, who sat on the floor looking at the carpet.
Eventually the conversation died, and when Martha looked up she found Laura and Marcus watching her in silence.
Something about the silence made her eyes fill with tears.
‘How many hiding places were there?’ Laura asked quietly.
‘Six.’
‘And what did you find?’ Marcus asked.
Martha told him.
He shook his head sadly. ‘I can’t believe BestValue gin is any good at all,’ he said.
Laura asked what Martha had done with the drink and Martha told her.
‘I helped,’ Tug said. ‘It made noises.’
‘What did your dad say?’
‘He said he wasn’t a drunk.’
‘I’ve heard that one before.’
Martha sat on the floor feeling helpless. ‘I want to help him,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know how. I can’t even talk to him. He won’t listen. And he doesn’t tell me the truth.’
‘Team work,’ Marcus said. He was looking at her with his soft, puzzled face. ‘We’ll come up with a plan to help you.’
‘What plan?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
They all thought for a while.
‘What about sending him to a rehab clinic?’ Marcus said. ‘The Priory, for instance.’
‘What’s a rehab clinic?’
‘Where celebrities go for a rest,’ Laura said. ‘Very expensive.’
‘I’m only being practical,’ Marcus said. ‘I’m surprisingly practical. Ask Martha.’
‘You are. But I don’t think that would work for us, Marcus. We’re not celebrities.’
‘What about the doctor?’ Laura said.
‘Dad doesn’t like going to the doctor. He says the doctor doesn’t do anything.’
‘Not him. You. Ask the doctor’s advice. What’s he like?’
‘He’s nice. I don’t know. I’d be nervous.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Marcus said. ‘Keep you company. Smooth the way.’
‘And Tug can stay with me,’ Laura said. ‘We can do some camerawork, Tug.’
‘You have to watch out for him around equipment,’ Marcus said. ‘He’s very enthusiastic.’
‘He’s all right,’ Laura said. ‘You’re the one who’s bonkers.’
Martha thought. ‘Is that what you did for your dad, Laura? Go to the doctor?’
Laura looked away. ‘It didn’t matter what we did. He just carried on drinking. But my dad was an idiot.’
‘Perhaps my dad’s an idiot too.’
She thought some more. If Dad was an idiot he needed help, and if she couldn’t help him, perhaps Dr Woodley could. He would give her good advice. She was only worried about getting Dad into trouble. Above all, she worried about the Social Services. The thought that they might come and take her away, and take Tug away, filled her with terror. She had to make sure Dr Woodley didn’t tell them anything about Dad’s drinking.
Laura nodded towards Tug, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, finishing his sixth biscuit. ‘How’s your brother coping?’
Tug swallowed and said proudly, ‘I mustn’t worry. Martha says.’
‘That’s right, Tug.’
‘Must you worry, Martha?’
‘I don’t know, Tug. But I must do something.’
She put her hand to her forehead and sighed. ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll go and see Dr Woodley. I can’t think of anything else.’
21
After school on Monday, Martha met Marcus in the park, and they walked together to Dr Woodley’s surgery. At that time the park was quiet. The geese had come up out of the water and roamed bossily across the grass, pecking at each other and hissing at the occasional passer-by.
‘I don’t quite know what I’m going to say to him,’ Martha said. ‘I don’t want to get Dad into trouble. But I think he’s getting worse. Just like the book says. Shall I tell Dr Woodley the truth?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Marcus said. ‘The truth and I are generally strangers.’
They reached the surgery.
‘I know what I’ll do,’ she said.
In the doctor’s room Martha sat on a chair, and Marcus sat on the bed, and from his desk Dr Woodley peered at them both through his steel-rimmed spectacles, first at Martha, then at Marcus.
‘Hello, Martha. And you are?’
‘Marcus.’
‘Marcus Brown, of course. I don’t see you very often.’
‘I’m never ill.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. So is it you, Martha, who’s feeling unwell?’
Martha took a deep breath. ‘No. I’d like to ask your advice, please. About … a friend.’
‘By all means.’
‘This friend has a problem.’
‘Yes?’
Martha fidgeted. ‘I don’t know how to explain.’
‘He drinks,’ Marcus said.
Dr Woodley turned his gaze on Marcus. ‘I see.’
‘It’s not me, by the way,’ Marcus said as Dr Woodley continued to peer at him. ‘I wouldn’t drink the stuff he drinks,’ Marcus added.
Dr Woodley turned back to Martha. ‘Is the friend … an adult?’
Something in his expression made Martha think that, somehow, he already knew who it was, and at once she decided to tell the truth after all. ‘It’s my dad.’
Once she had said it she was scared, but Dr Woodley smiled at her in a kind and thoughtful way.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘And of course you’re worried about him.’
‘Yes.’
Dr Woodley removed his glasses and began to clean them with a small square cloth he took from his pocket. If he thought it was strange that Martha had come to tell him this he didn’t show it. ‘May I ask you some questions about your dad? It will help me to understand a little better.’
She nodded nervously.
‘Does he drink every day?’
‘I think so.’
‘And what does he drink?’
‘BestValue London Dry Gin Triple Distilled. Mainly.’
Marcus tutted quietly.
Dr Woodley said, ‘Do you see him drinking?’
‘No. He hides the bottles and drinks when I’m not looking. There are six bottles,’ she added.
‘How do you know he’s drinking? Is he behaving oddly?’
Martha described Dad’s strangeness.
‘Does he ever get angry?’
Martha thought of Dad shouting at Grandma and Grandpa, and the way his face had looked, pale and furious. ‘No,’ she said quickly.
Dr Woodley peered at her. ‘Is he ever violent, Martha?’
Martha shook her head.
‘Has he ever hit you?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘He would never harm me.’
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded.
Dr Woodley considered this. ‘Does he admit he’s drinking?’
‘No.’
‘So I can assume he doesn’t think he has a problem and wouldn’t ask for help.’
Martha nodded.
Dr Woodley sighed through his nose. ‘Well, that’s enough questions from me. Would you like to ask me any?’
Before she arrived, Martha had organized in her head a list of things to ask, but now she forgot them all. Instead, she said simply: ‘What must I do?’
‘Nothing.’
Dr Woodley turned to the computer on his desk and began to tap at the keyboard.
Martha frowned. ‘But I have to do something.’
Dr Woodley said, ‘You’re eleven, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how old is your brother?’
‘Five. Tug’s too young
. But I’m not.’
At once he turned back to her. ‘It’s very important you don’t do anything at all. Your father must do something. For that, he probably needs help. But not your help, Martha.’
He looked at her, and Martha looked back at him.
‘Is he … an alcoholic?’
He kept looking at her. ‘I think he might be, yes. Which means that he’ll be behaving in unpredictable ways, and even if he isn’t a danger to others he might well be a danger to himself. It makes trying to help him very difficult. So you mustn’t do it. That’s our job.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I doubt it will be me personally. There are other people better qualified.’
A jolt of panic went through her. ‘You mean the Social Services?’
Dr Woodley peered at her. ‘No. I think our Alcohol Counsellors are the right people. They’re part of the Health Service.’
‘They’re not Social Services?’
‘No, Martha. But, in any case, I won’t contact them just yet. First I’ll talk to your dad myself.’
Her heart beat fast. ‘What will you say? Will you tell him that I came to see you?’
He waited a moment, to let her calm down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell him the results of his blood test have arrived.’
He turned back to his computer, and began to fill in information on the screen.
In the silence she began to fret. She tried to remember exactly what Grandma and Grandpa had said about the Social Services.
‘We’re not neglected or endangered,’ she said suddenly.
Dr Woodley carried on typing.
‘Dr Woodley?’ she said.
‘Yes?’
He stopped typing and turned to her where she sat on the edge of her seat, and she pointed her nose at him fiercely.
‘Do you promise not to tell the Social Services?’
For a moment she thought he was going to laugh at her. But his face was serious.
‘I promise, Martha. For now, at any rate.’
He went back to typing. For several minutes the only sound in the quiet room was of his fingers tapping on the keyboard.
To fill the silence Marcus said conversationally, ‘Perhaps I can ask you a question, Doctor.’
‘Certainly.’
‘I was wondering about rehab clinics. What’s your opinion of them? The Priory, for instance.’
Dr Woodley chuckled. ‘You’ve been reading too many celebrity magazines, Marcus Brown. I don’t think we will need to call upon The Priory in this case.’
‘I was asking out of personal interest,’ Marcus said.
‘Aren’t you a little young to be interested in The Priory?’
‘Not for now, of course. I’m thinking ahead.’
‘Very practical,’ Dr Woodley said dryly. ‘Now, Martha.’
‘Yes?’
‘I have all the information I need, for the time being.’ He peered at her. ‘You’re a sensible girl, I knew that already. That’s why I’m taking everything you say very seriously. I want you to know that we’ll do all we can to give your dad the help he needs. But that will be between him and us. Not between you and him. If, at any time, you feel in any way threatened by his behaviour, you must get in touch with me at once. And don’t worry – for whatever reason – about the Social Services.’
He shook hands with them both.
‘I’ll have our receptionist phone in the next day or two to set up the appointment about the blood test,’ he added, as they went. ‘Tell your dad to expect her call. But, remember, you’re not to do anything else.’
22
It was hard not doing anything. The days went by, warm and bright, one after another, and no phone call came. One week slowly passed and another began. Every morning, before Martha went to school, she reminded Dad that the doctors’ surgery might phone, and every afternoon, when she came home, she asked him if they’d called.
But they never had.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. Why are you so interested?’
‘No reason.’
As she’d thought, Dad was getting worse – not larky, but listless and irritable. He no longer went swimming, but sat around the house, staring with a glazed look into mid-air, or hid himself away in the shed. In the evenings he nearly always slipped away for a couple of hours. His face was puffy and his eyes dull, and he was often in a bad temper.
Tug noticed. ‘Martha?’
‘Yes, Tug?’
‘I’m bored of Dad.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m bored of him being strange. I’m bored of not going on holiday. I’m bored of not having picnics. I’m bored of not living on a boat. And,’ he said, ‘there’s never pie.’
Martha promised to make him one. But she was feeling just as bad. She knew by now that Dad was no longer to be trusted, and as the days went by she became suspicious about the phone call that never came. Dad didn’t look as if he could be bothered to answer the phone. Some days he didn’t look capable of answering the phone. Eventually she decided to take some days off school, to make sure he didn’t miss the call.
Dad didn’t like that. ‘Keeping an eye on me?’ he said sourly.
‘No,’ she said. But she was.
If she couldn’t help him to stop drinking, at least she could help him be more like his old self. It was upsetting to see him so aimless. After she’d made breakfast for him, she would ask him what he was going to do, and if he was going to read the newspaper in the front room she sat with him, doing needlework, and if he sat in the shed, she did some gardening. Sometimes she suggested they go out for a walk.
‘You are keeping an eye on me,’ he said. He was very irritated.
‘It’s nice to spend time together.’
She made him short lists too, to keep him occupied:
Sweep the hallway.
Do the laundry.
Repair the broken kitchen cupboard.
He ignored them. Sometimes, he ignored her. And although she watched him as closely as she could, at some point in the day she would find him gone, with just a brief note left for her on the kitchen table:
Gone to town.
Or:
Back soon.
And once:
Dear Warden, Please stop spying on me.
In general he was touchy. When he received letters from Tumble Tots Entertainment and Church Property Management Ltd., telling him his job applications had been unsuccessful, he tore them up and threw the pieces across the kitchen. And he was morose when an interview with the Pooch Smooch Social Club and Boutique ended in failure.
‘It was going to bite me,’ he said. ‘Of course I had to give it a clip.’
Every day Martha went round the house checking his hiding places. She never found any bottles. And she never once saw him have a drink. But he looked dazed nearly all the time.
Still no phone call came. Every day when she came back from collecting Tug from school she asked him, ‘Did anyone call from the surgery while I was out?’
And he always shook his head.
Then, on the Thursday evening of the second week, the phone finally rang.
A woman’s voice asked for Dad. It was a quiet, professional sort of voice.
Martha said, ‘He’s not here at the moment, I’m afraid. Can I help?’
‘Are you Martha?’
‘Yes.’ Her heart began to beat fast.
‘I’m phoning to arrange an appointment with your father, Martha. I think he knows what it’s about.’
‘Yes he does!’ she said, and relief made her almost shout. ‘Thank you! I was starting to think something had gone wrong. It seemed like such a long time to wait.’
There was a pause. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ the woman said. ‘We were waiting for Mr Luna to phone us, in fact. He’s had our letter quite a while.’
Now Martha was confused. ‘Letter? I didn’t know you were going to write. Dr Woodley said you’d phone.�
��
‘Dr who?’
‘Dr Woodley. Aren’t you from his surgery?’
‘No.’
She didn’t know what to say. Flustered, she tried to remember what Dr Woodley had said to her. ‘Are you an Alcohol Counsellor then?’
‘No, I’m not.’
Then suddenly she was afraid, and she held the phone very tightly, and when she spoke it was in a whisper: ‘Who are you?’
There was a slight pause. ‘I’m from the Social Services,’ the woman said.
23
Tug found Martha on the floor near the kitchen door. She was sitting cross-legged with her arms folded, her head bent and shoulders hunched, and she was muttering to herself.
She looked square.
‘What’s the matter, Martha? Are you in a mood? Are you hungry?’
His voice was kind and puzzled, and Martha stopped muttering and squeezed her eyes shut. Tug didn’t know what was happening, and wouldn’t understand if she told him. He had never heard of the Social Services. He had no idea that anyone could take him away to live with a different family. Only she knew. And she had to keep it from him. She had to keep her head. More importantly, she had to do something before it was too late.
She got up. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t get into moods, you know that. I was thinking. I’ve decided I’m not going to do nothing any more. Dr Woodley was wrong.’
‘I like Dr Woodley. He doesn’t mind earth.’
‘I don’t like him at all. He broke his promise.’ She wiped her face briskly. ‘Never mind. You have to help me find something.’
‘All right. Why?’
‘It’s important.’
‘Is it a game?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Is it another bottle?’
‘No, it’s a letter.’
They emptied the kitchen bin and looked through the rubbish of peelings and tins and tea bags. They sorted through the balls of paper and glued shoelaces and crayoned-on cardboard in the waste-paper baskets in the front room and the back room, and delved into the pedal bin in the bathroom with its old tubes of toothpaste and toilet-roll innards. They searched in kitchen drawers, on the tops of cupboards and behind doors. Finally, they searched in Dad’s room. It was hard to search there because it was so untidy.
