by Simon Mason
Martha went on, ‘Tug and I were just saying how wonderful he is.’
Mint Choc Chip slid off Tug’s spoon as he stared at her open-mouthed.
‘He’s just had a new haircut,’ she said. ‘And he goes swimming. And he’s about to get a new job. You see,’ she added, ‘he doesn’t neglect or endanger us. Does he, Tug?’ She kicked him under the table.
‘Ow, Martha.’
‘Now we have to go,’ she said, ‘or Dad will be very worried, because he worries about us. Thank you for the ice cream. Thank you for the spending money.’
And taking hold of Tug’s hand she walked quickly out of the café and into the park.
‘Martha,’ he said, in short gasps as he struggled to keep up, ‘you kicked me.’
She didn’t reply.
‘And I hadn’t finished your ice cream.’
But she just carried on going, pulling Tug behind her, and didn’t stop until they had reached the corner of their street.
She was panting. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘This is very important. We mustn’t tell Grandma and Grandpa anything bad about Dad.’
‘Not about the mug?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t explain, Tug. You’re too small. You have to trust me.’
‘All right, Martha,’ he said at last. ‘But you needn’t have kicked me.’
She hugged him tightly until he complained, and then they walked up the street together until they came to their house.
She began to search in her school bag for the key.
‘Martha?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you scared of Grandma and Grandpa?’
‘No,’ she said. It was true: she was cross with them, and anxious about what they might say to the Social Services, but she wasn’t scared of them.
‘I am,’ he said.
He thought for a while.
‘Martha?’
‘What?’
‘Are you scared of Dad?’
She hesitated. She remembered what Dad had looked like the last time she’d seen him with his surly face, furious voice and staggering-about movements – like a different man, not just strange, but The Stranger. But she turned to Tug and said: ‘Of course not. And you shouldn’t be either.’
‘I don’t want Dad to throw the mug,’ he said in a small voice. ‘It makes me unhappy.’
He looked very small and square.
‘I won’t let him throw the mug,’ Martha said as briskly as she could.
And at last she found the key, and they went into the house together.
26
They called for Dad, but there was no answer. Tug said he was glad.
‘He must be out,’ Martha said. ‘He’ll have left a note.’
But there was no note.
They went into the garden, to sit in the afternoon sun. Tug had a glass of orange squash and felt better. Martha went to look in the shed, just in case Dad was there, but he wasn’t. After half an hour or so they went back inside.
‘What’s that smell, Martha?’ Tug said.
‘Drains, I think. Dad keeps saying he’s going to fix them but he never gets round to it.’
Following the smell, they went down the hall to the front room, and there they found Dad.
He was sprawled face-down on the carpet in his dressing gown. There was sick on the dressing gown, and on the carpet and up one of the walls. His arms were round his head, his hair was wet and one of his hands was covered in blood. He was very still. As they stood there staring at him, he suddenly made a noise like a snore, and was quiet again.
Martha took Tug into the hall, sat him on the bottom step and held him until he calmed down.
‘You have to stay here, Tug, while I help Dad. And you have to try to be quiet, so I can think.’
When he was quiet, she went back into the front room, and stood there, with no idea what to do.
For a minute or more she stood there staring, her mind a blank. Then she started to feel dizzy. Suddenly she was falling, plummeting in darkness, falling so fast she couldn’t breathe, and the darkness was squeezing and squeezing her tummy. She put her hands out and leaned against the wall.
‘I won’t be sick,’ she said aloud in a fierce voice. ‘I won’t be sick. I won’t!’
Slowly the light came back into the room, and she found herself slumped at the foot of the wall. She hadn’t been sick, but she must have fainted.
Dad was still lying in his dressing gown on the carpet, and she got to her feet, trembling. From the hallway she heard Tug whimpering to himself. She took a deep breath.
I mustn’t be sick, and I mustn’t faint again, she thought, because now I really have to do something.
She made a list in her head:
Try to wake him up.
Check to see how badly he has hurt himself.
Get help.
When she touched it, Dad’s face was wet and sticky.
‘Dad?’ she said. ‘Dad?’
He didn’t move, but he made the snoring noise again.
She began to examine him. He had cut his right hand on broken glass, bits of which lay scattered about the carpet, and there was a bruise on his forehead as if he had fallen and hit it against something. His legs were twisted under him. Martha cleared pieces of glass from around his hand, moved his arms to his sides and untangled his legs, to make him more comfortable. His dressing gown was wet and it smelled of sick and something else, and when she tried to roll him onto his side she discovered that the carpet underneath him was wet too. Looking around, she found the jagged remains of a tumbler against the foot of the wall and an empty bottle of BestValue Triple Distilled under the easy chair.
She wondered if she should call an ambulance. But she didn’t know if ambulances came out to drunk people. She thought of phoning Dr Woodley, but she thought that he would tell the Social Services what had happened. She certainly couldn’t phone Grandma and Grandpa.
In the end she called Laura.
‘Unconscious?’ Laura asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Has he vomited?’
‘Yes. And …’
‘Wet himself?’
‘Yes. And he keeps making these funny snoring noises.’
Laura said, ‘He’s passed out.’
‘Did your dad ever do that?’
‘Lots.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Cleaned him up. Put him to bed. Waited for him to wake up and start drinking again. Do you want me to come over?’
But Martha didn’t want her to see Dad. ‘Laura?’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘I never asked you. What happened to your dad in the end? Did he stop drinking?’
There was a pause. ‘No,’ Laura said. ‘He died.’
Martha sat on the step next to Tug again. He was shivering, and she held him for a while to warm him up.
‘He’s all right, Tug. He’s asleep.’
‘Why?’
‘Do you remember what I said about drink?’
‘Drink makes Dad strange.’
‘Well, drink also makes him sleepy.’
‘Does drink make his hand bleed?’
‘No. He’s had a little accident. He’s cut it on some broken glass.’
‘We mustn’t worry, must we, Martha?’
‘No, we mustn’t.’
‘What must we do?’
‘First we have to wash him, and put him in some clean pyjamas.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s had another sort of accident as well. And he’s been sick. Tug?’
‘Yes, Martha?’
‘Although you’re small, you have to help me. Dad’s too heavy for me to roll on my own.’
‘All right.’
‘And you mustn’t scream again.’
‘All right.’
First they took off Dad’s dressing gown and pyjamas. He lay there naked and smeary on the wet carpet, not looking like Dad at all.
Tu
g whispered, ‘I don’t like the smell, Martha. But I’m not screaming.’
‘You’re a good boy, Tug.’
Then they started to work.
They filled the washing-up bowl with warm, soapy water and carried it into the front room; then they went upstairs to the airing cupboard and fetched as many towels as they could find and laid them out on a dry patch of carpet. Martha soaped Dad, and wiped him all over with a flannel, taking special care with his hand. When she had finished, they rolled him across the room to the towels, which took them a long time because he was so heavy and he kept disturbing them by making sudden snoring noises. Eventually they got him where they wanted him. With another bowl of soapy water Martha cleaned him a second time, including his hair, and they dried him in the towels, and slowly rolled him again – snoring from time to time – to yet another part of the front room. There they dressed him in clean pyjamas, and Martha brushed his hair and put a cushion under his head. Finally she put some sticking-plasters on his hand.
It had taken them an hour and twenty minutes, and they were tired.
They sat on the sofa and looked at Dad lying on the carpet. He was clean and tidy but he didn’t look peaceful. His face was swollen.
‘Now we have to clean the carpet, Tug.’
They filled the washing-up bowl with soapy water again, and scrubbed with a scrubbing brush until the bowl of water was filled with carpet fluff. They didn’t know how to dry the carpet so they left it wet, and sat down again.
‘Let’s open the windows, to let the smell out,’ Martha said, and they opened them, and sat down for the third time, and Tug began to cry very quietly, out of tiredness mainly.
‘We have to keep him warm, though,’ Martha said, and they went upstairs and fetched the duvet off Dad’s bed, and put it over him where he lay on the front room floor.
Tug was so tired now he couldn’t stop yawning.
‘In a minute I’ll make tea,’ Martha said. ‘First, let’s have a nap.’
They settled down, though for a long time Tug kept wriggling at his end of the sofa, and Martha lay there awake, trying to think.
But she couldn’t think. Instead, quite suddenly, she started to cry. It happened before she could stop it. She cried silently with her face in a cushion, stifling her sobs so Tug wouldn’t hear. She cried for Dad, lying unconscious on the floor next to her, and for Tug, who was frightened and confused, and for Mum, who would have known what to do but would never be able to tell her. She sobbed in silence, heaving, with her eyes squeezed tight shut into the cushion, hating the world. She cried because she thought Dad might be going to die, and she cried because she didn’t know what would happen to Tug and her if he did. And finally she cried for herself, for being eleven and not knowing anything.
She sobbed so hard and for so long that she was surprised Tug didn’t notice, but he said nothing and at last he stopped wriggling, and although Martha was exhausted by then she sat up to quickly check on him before she settled down to sleep herself.
He wasn’t there any more.
‘Tug?’
He had gone.
She got up off the sofa and went into the kitchen, but he wasn’t there.
‘Tug!’ she called.
Out in the garden she realized that she must have slept without knowing it because it was starting to get dark: the sky was deep grey, the shed was full of shadows, and a blackbird hidden in the darkness of a tree was singing a last song. She had another shock when she saw the kitchen clock. It was half past nine. She had been asleep for about five hours.
She stood in the hall and shouted, ‘Tug!’
After a moment she thought she heard something from upstairs, and she went up the dark stairwell, listening. The landing was quiet. She couldn’t hear Tug breathing in his sleep, as she usually could.
‘Tug?’ she whispered in the doorway of his bedroom. ‘Tug?’
‘Yes, Martha?’ His voice was oddly distant.
She turned on the light and saw that his bed was empty.
He came out of his wardrobe.
‘What are you doing, Tug?’
‘I couldn’t sleep downstairs.’
‘But why were you in the wardrobe?’
‘So I don’t hear the banging.’
‘What banging?’
‘In case there’s any banging, Martha. With mugs.’
Martha put her face in her hands. But she controlled herself, and said, ‘There isn’t going to be any banging tonight. Dad’s still asleep.’
Tug stayed where he was.
‘Do you want to come into my bed then?’
‘All right.’
But neither of them could sleep. They lay side by side, thinking of Dad downstairs.
After a while, Martha said, ‘Do you remember Mum, Tug?’
‘No.’
‘Not even what she looked like?’
He shook his head.
‘She was very pretty.’
He looked at her. ‘As pretty as you, Martha?’
‘Much prettier than me, Tug. She was beautiful. She had red hair and green eyes and pale skin, and when she laughed her teeth were very bright.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Tug said sadly.
They lay in silence for a while.
Then Martha said, ‘But the thing about her was that she always knew what to do.’
‘Do what?’
‘Anything. If you lost something, she knew where it was. If you were confused, she knew how to make things clear again. If you were upset, she knew what to say to make you happy.’
Tug thought about that.
‘The problem is, Tug, Dad’s not like that. He doesn’t always know what to do.’
Tug thought about that too. ‘I want to go back downstairs now,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘To be with Dad.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s sad without Mum.’
They went down, and Tug took the cushions off the sofa and put them under the duvet next to Dad, and got in beside him on the floor.
‘It’s nice and warm, Martha.’ He gravely lifted up the corner of the duvet and Martha crawled in and lay down on the carpet beside him.
‘It is warm,’ she said. She put her head on the cushions.
‘Can we sleep here?’ Tug asked.
‘Just for a little while then,’ Martha said. Tug held onto Dad’s waist, and Martha held onto Tug’s waist.
Dad snored once, and then there was silence.
27
She was woken by the early morning light and the hubbub of little birds in front gardens along the street. Dad and Tug were still sleeping. She got out from under the duvet and went into the kitchen to find something for breakfast. They were running low on food, but she found some bread to toast. Then she went back into the front room to tidy.
The room was dim and smelled sour. She drew back the curtains, took away the washing-up bowl and scrubbing brush, and the towels, and quietly went round the room straightening it, taking care not to disturb Dad and Tug. Getting a dustpan and brush, she swept up the last of the broken glass from around the easy chair, threw away the empty BestValue Triple Distilled and put old newspaper down on the wet patches of carpet because she had an idea it might help to dry it. All the time she worked she had a funny feeling that what she was doing was useless, but she carried on doing it anyway, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do until Dad woke up. Then, glancing across at him, she saw that he was awake already, watching her in silence, with horror in his eyes.
‘Martha!’ he said, and his voice was unrecognizable: quavery and cracked. ‘Martha!’
‘Yes, Dad?’
‘What have I done?’
‘You passed out.’
‘What have I done to you?’
She said nothing.
‘Can you forgive me?’
He put his hand up to his eyes, which were filling with tears, and flinched when he touched the bruises across his forehead. ‘What�
�s happened to me?’ he said, in the same broken voice. And then: ‘What’s going to happen?’
When he was back in his own bed, he fell asleep again straight away, and slept all day and all night, and didn’t wake up again until Sunday morning.
28
She made lists:
Hoover the carpet.
Clean the windows.
Throw away everything under the bed.
All the first day she cleaned and tidied his room while he lay in bed dozing or watching her. Occasionally he put out a hand for her to hold, and she squeezed it and carried on with what she was doing. Once he wept. Again and again he told her he loved her. ‘You and the little Tug,’ he said.
Take him tea and toast for breakfast.
Make soup for lunch, with plenty of vegetables.
For supper something light and easily digestible, like fish pie or salad and an omelette.
At first the food made him sick, and he mainly drank tea. Gradually, though, his stomach got stronger and he could manage small meals. The swelling in his face went down, the shadows went out of it, and the light came back into his eyes.
Stop him being an alcoholic.
Make him like he was before.
Make us a family again.
Make us happy.
Martha had no idea how to do these things yet, so she concentrated on cleaning and cooking.
There was just one more thing on her list:
Don’t tell anyone.
After thinking about it carefully, she had decided not to tell Dr Woodley – or anyone else – about what had happened. She didn’t want the Social Services, or Grandma and Grandpa, or anyone else, to find out more than they already knew. Instead, she was going to nurse Dad herself, in secret. She could do that. She had to.
After a couple of days Dad felt well enough to get up. He tottered round the house like an old man, went back to bed after twenty minutes and slept for three hours.
The next day he was strong enough to go out into the garden; and the day after that to the park. By the end of the week he was looking more like his old self: the bruising on his forehead had disappeared and the cuts on his hand were healed. But Martha noticed that sometimes his voice trembled when he talked, and he always held onto their hands very tightly when they walked together in the street.
