I’m thinking that that’s the end of it and I might be able to go back to bed. But Dad hasn’t finished.
‘All I’m asking is that I go out now and again. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’
‘No,’ says Mum in her best pacifying voice, ‘that’s fine. I don’t mind if you go out now and again.’
I can tell that Dad is getting frustrated. He wants an argument and Mum’s not giving him one. At least he’s stopped shouting. Perhaps that’s the end of it. I stand up carefully so I don’t make any of the floorboards creak, and I’m about to creep back into bed when I hear Dad saying, ‘The thing is, Susan, I think we got married too young.’
This doesn’t sound good. I creep down the stairs. Dad has his back to the door so he doesn’t see me position myself beside the sitting-room door.
‘I never had the chance to enjoy my youth. I was stuck with a family and a mortgage too soon.’
What’s he going on about? I do a quick calculation. They got married when mum was twenty-five and Dad was twenty-seven and they had me the year after. It’s not like they were teenage sweethearts, for heaven’s sake! Sounds like he’s making excuses.
Then I realise where this might be leading.
If he’s about to say what I think he is, then I need to be on hand so I can dash in and stop him. Please don’t tell her, please don’t tell her – I’m thinking it so hard I wonder for a second if I’ve said it out loud.
‘The thing is Susan, I’ve met someone else. I’m in love with someone else.’
This is where I’m supposed to dash in and . . . and what? It doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m rooted to the spot like a statue. What I really want to do is collapse on to the floor and curl up into a tiny ball, but my legs won’t bend. It seems like the only part of me that is still alive is my heart, and that’s beating so hard I think it’s going to burst. Even though I knew about the affair, hearing him say it is making it too real. I can’t imagine what Mum’s feeling.
‘What do you mean?’ says Mum.
‘I mean,’ says Dad slowly, ‘that I am in love with another woman.’
There’s a massive silence and I’m steeling myself for Mum to go ballistic, but she doesn’t.
‘What other woman? Who is it?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Of course it matters! I wonder who the hell it is.
‘I’d still like to know,’ says Mum. Well, that makes two of us.
‘She’s called Trish. You don’t know her.’
Trish! It can’t be! That’s not right. He didn’t fall in love with her until after he’d left. This is all wrong.
‘OK.’ Mum sounds shaky, but in control. ‘I understand this is a difficult time for all of us – with the pregnancy and the baby and everything – but if you agree not to see her again then I’m prepared to forget it ever happened.’
Suddenly I don’t want Mum to be all forgiving. Dad has lied to me. All these years he’s let me think that Mum threw him out, when the truth is he up and left us! I can feel tears running down my face. Now I want to throw him out and I’m willing Mum to do the same, but she’s still strangely calm.
‘It’s all right, Gary. Let’s just put it behind us.’
‘No, Susan, you don’t understand. I don’t want to put it behind me. I want to be with Trish. I’m leaving you.’
‘You can’t leave us! Gary, I love you.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m going now. I’ll come back at some point and get my things.’
Before I know it he’s out in the hall heading for the door. I’m just standing pressed against the wall with my mouth open. He sees me as he’s pulling on his jacket.
‘I’m just popping out. Look after your mum.’ And he’s gone. He didn’t even say goodbye.
I walk slowly into the sitting room. Mum’s on the sofa. She’s got Rory in her arms. She must have been feeding him, but he’s fast asleep now, blissfully unaware that he is now fatherless.
I’m so angry I can’t speak. What sort of person would do that? Apart from a selfish, conniving, evil bastard.
I go and sit next to Mum. I think she’s probably in shock. She’s trembling and I wonder if I ought to get her some brandy or something. I get up and go to the cabinet, where there are a few bottles, but all I can find is some whisky. I put a large amount into a glass and take it to her.
‘Thanks, love,’ she says on automatic pilot. I help her raise it to her lips and she takes a sip and makes a face then downs the lot.
‘It’s all right. He’ll come back. I know he’ll come back.’ I know that she really thinks he will and I want to scream at her that he’s gone and he won’t be coming back, ever. I wish she’d put up more of a fight, but sitting next to her, feeling her tremble, I realise she has no fight left in her. In the morning I’ll ring Gran and I think I might ring that nice midwife as well.
I take the throw off the back of the sofa and cover her up, then crawl in beside her. We stay snuggled up for a long time. Nobody says anything. There’s nothing to say.
I drift off to sleep, but I’m having a nightmare. I’m doing my GCSEs and I’m in the hall at school and I know that I’ve been given the wrong exam paper, but I can’t do anything about it because we’re not supposed to speak during the exam. It’s supposed to be English, my best subject, but all the questions are in Spanish and I don’t even take Spanish. Then suddenly I’m standing in the middle of a vast moor and we’re on a school trip and we’re supposed to be orienteering, but I’ve been given the wrong map. I know it’s the wrong map because I can see the other children have got the right map but they won’t let me look at it.
‘You have to use your own map,’ they tell me and walk off, leaving me alone on the vast moor.
I wake up covered in sweat with my heart beating fast. Mum and Rory have gone and I’m lying under the throw with my head on a cushion. I sit up in a panic. Maybe they’ve left me too! I press my hand to my chest as if that will somehow stop my heart from beating so hard, then try and breathe steadily. Of course Mum hasn’t left. She’s gone upstairs to bed and, not wanting to wake me, has tucked me up on the sofa.
My nightmare still feels very real. But instead of being stranded on the moor, I’m stranded in this previous life and I can’t find a way out. Dad gave me the wrong map.
All those years he made out that it was Mum who had thrown him out when all the time it was a big fat lie. He just didn’t want me to know what a bastard he was. And Mum never spoke about it so I carried on thinking it was her fault and I took it out on her.
Now I’ve failed. Dad’s gone and he isn’t coming back. We’ll have to move and Mum’s ill. I feel cheated. What’s the point of me being here if I can’t stop it all from happening?
What if I had known the truth? What could I have done to stop it, short of actually killing Trish? I suppose I could have found her and told her what a bastard Dad is. Yes! That’s it.
I creep out into the hall and put my shoes on. It’s just getting light outside. I can be at the park in about half an hour if I hurry. I’m going to get back on the roundabout and see if I can go back to the beginning. Maybe, I think wildly, I can go further back and stop mum from having another baby. I could slip her the pill or something. Now I’m being silly – I need to calm down. All I have to do is start again, and this time I’ll find Trish and make sure she doesn’t fall in love with Dad. I’ll tell her about the horrible wedding and how Dad’s going to leave her too. Whatever, I’m going to do it all over again, only this time I’ll get it right. One way or another, I’ll stop Dad from leaving. Now I know the truth, I’ll stand a better chance. I’ll keep going back until I get it right. I’ll do it ten times if I have to.
‘It has to work, it has to work, it has to work,’ I chant as I run through the empty streets.
It’s not until I get to the park and I’m actually sitting on the roundabout that I start to have doubts. Why does it have to work? I’m so angry with Dad that I’m not sure I want him to stay
with us.
I think back to all the times, after the divorce, when we were supposed to see him for the weekend and he’d ring up and cancel. He always said it because he had to work. But what if it wasn’t? Now I know what he’s really like, I suspect it was because he couldn’t be bothered. We probably cramped his style. He’d rather have been down the pub with his mates or loved up with Trish.
Can I really face going back and having to go through all that again?
The problem is, even though I hate him and would be happy if I never saw him again, Mum still loves him and wants him back. What’s going to happen when she realises that he’s not coming back? I have to try for her sake. And if it doesn’t work and nothing happens when I push the roundabout then I’ll just have to make the best of it. I’ll have to help Mum until she gets better, and at least I’ll have some more time with Gran.
Here goes. I push the roundabout round as fast as my seven-year-old legs will allow. I just hope it’s enough. I jump on and think about going back in time. I think about the first time it happened and how I woke up in the park in my seven-year-old body. I focus on that with all my might because I’m scared that I’ll go back too far. I couldn’t cope with returning to being two or three years old!
It’s when the roundabout stops and the rest of the world is spinning at lightning speed around me that I panic. Wasn’t I going the other way before? I’m sure I was spinning anticlockwise the first time. I think about jumping off – I don’t care if I hurt myself. Then the world stops spinning and the roundabout jerks into motion and I’m thrown clear into the unknown.
PART 3
Chapter One
This time when I hit the ground, I’m fully conscious. Perhaps it hasn’t worked, I think – panic rising in me. I lie still for a while, hardly even daring to think. Then I realise that the half light isn’t because it’s dawn – it’s dusk – and absolutely freezing. That’s not right if I’m still seven.
I sit up and investigate further. Oh no! Boobs! Nice and snug in my bra. I don’t bother looking any further. I’m not about to start looking in my knickers in the middle of the park.
I’ve gone forward instead of backwards! I’m fourteen again!
I’ll have to try again – only this time I’ll push the roundabout the other way. Then again, perhaps this is the way it happens. I mean, you can’t go back to being seven if you’re already seven, so now I’m fourteen I should be able to get back to being seven if I try again. Still, I’ll push it the other way just to be on the safe side. I don’t want to fall off and find that I’m twenty-one!
It’s easier to push now I’m bigger, and I get up a good speed before jumping back on. I wait for the roundabout to stop and the world to start spinning. It’s not until the roundabout has slowed down to a complete standstill that I admit to myself that it hasn’t worked. I can’t believe it! Why isn’t it working? It’s got to work – I need to get back. I try again and this time I push so hard I can hardly keep up with the roundabout and nearly land flat on my face. But I jump on and screw my eyes shut, willing it to work. The roundabout slows down and squeaks to a standstill.
I try three more times before I finally admit defeat.
I get off and try to think myself back to where I was before all this happened. If I remember rightly, I was in a desperate situation. I couldn’t go home where I’d rowed with Imogen and Mum and I couldn’t go to Dad’s because he wasn’t there. I had nowhere to go and was considering staying the night in the park. Great. Here I am again. It obviously wasn’t will power that made me go back in time, and it can’t have been sheer desperation or it would have worked again just now.
I consider my options. If I’m stuck here and fourteen again, what am I going to do? I remember how awful it was sitting here in the park and the row and Trisha being scary and Dad not being there for me. The old Alice felt like it was the end of the world and would never have considered going home and apologising to Mum. This time, though, it doesn’t seem like quite such a catastrophe. I don’t have a problem with apologising to Mum, especially if it means I can have a nice hot bath and go to bed. I’m seriously freezing out here. Also, I’m looking forward to seeing her again. It’s seven years since I last saw her, if you see what I mean. I feel guilty that I messed up and didn’t get to fix her and Dad after all. I feel cheated. I mean, what was the point in all that? Why go through the bother of being seven again if nothing’s changed?
If I’m totally honest with myself, I’m quite relieved that I’m not seven any more. I’ve escaped the aftermath of Dad walking out on us. I know I should be worried about getting back and fixing Mum and Dad’s marriage, but deep down I’m glad that I don’t have to face it again. I did my best, and even though I failed it’s hardly my fault. I mean, I would have stood a better chance if I hadn’t been lied to (by Dad) in the first place. All that crap about Mum throwing him out! He doesn’t deserve us.
I feel a bit disorientated. Here I am, back in my old life, but I’m not the same person any more. In fact – I’m a bit ashamed of the old Alice. She was such a brat. She behaved more like a seven-year-old sometimes than a fourteen-year-old. I think of all those fights she had with Mum. She wasn’t a very nice person. In fact, I wonder if by being seven again, I’ve actually grown up a bit. How perverse is that?
I pick myself up off the ground and brush myself down. It’s then that I get a funny feeling that everything is not quite as it should be. Although it seems like a lifetime ago, I know exactly what I was wearing when this whole thing started. I had some black jeans that I got at the charity shop with Imogen and a tie-dyed Joe Bloggs top. Also, I wasn’t wearing a jacket, whereas now I am.
I won’t deny that I feel a bit scared. Not because I’m on my own in the park – in the dark – but because I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
The rails on the roundabout gleam in the moonlight. I think about trying it one more time, but deep down I know it’s not going to work. I’m stuck here, so I’d better get on with it. The first thing to do is get back home.
As I make my way through the bent railings and back towards George Street, my mind is still on what just happened. I think of Mum wrapped up on the sofa cuddling Rory, abandoned by Dad. I’m so furious with him. Should I have explained to Mum that he wasn’t coming back?
It’s no good thinking about that, because it all happened seven years ago, not an hour ago. I need to think about what’s happening now. I turn into George Street and slow down to give myself time to adjust.
Last time I was here I had rowed with Mum and Imogen and then run off. I’m halfway down the street and I can see that there are no police cars outside our house, so I assume there isn’t a full-scale search going on for me. What am I going to find at home? Will Imogen still be there? Will Mum still be mad at me?
When I get to number twelve I nearly walk right past it. I stop and check the number on the gate. It’s definitely the right house, but it’s not like it was when I left. The hedge has been cut right down and there’s a new gate. The front garden has things planted in it, which I assume are flowers, although as it’s February they’re not in bloom. Looking more closely, I can see that the window frames are no longer rotting. In fact, all the windows have been replaced with new ones. The whole house looks more inviting and it’s only when I’m halfway up the path that I suddenly realise that it’s probably because we don’t live here! Oh my God! That would explain the different clothes. I haven’t come back to the life that I left. I’ve come back to a different one, and I don’t even know where I live!
Chapter Two
I go hot and then cold. I creep up to the front door and peer through the letterbox. The hall light is on and I can see that the floor has been sanded and varnished and there are nice rugs down the hallway. The walls are no longer green; they’ve been painted a nice creamy colour. I’m wondering what to do when the sitting-room door opens and a woman comes out into the hall. I look desperately to see if it’s Mum, but it most certainly
isn’t, not unless she’s put on about six stone in weight.
Before I can stand up and get myself down the path and away, she’s steamed down the hallway and opened the front door. She lets out a little scream when she sees me kneeling on the doormat and puts her hand over her heart. God! I hope she isn’t going to have a heart attack. Then I realise that I know her. It’s Mrs Archer from down the road. What’s she doing here?
‘Is everything all right?’ There’s another woman coming out of the sitting room. It’s Mum! I could cry with relief!
‘Alice, what are you doing home?’
They’re both looking at me. I bend down and pretend to pick something up.
‘I . . . um . . . dropped my key. I’m sorry if I startled you, Mrs Archer.’ I move out of the way so that she can go.
‘Bye, thanks again,’ says Mum as Mrs Archer lets herself out of the gate.
I walk into the house and follow Mum down the hallway.
‘Mrs Archer came round to keep an eye on Rory. I had to go to the nursing home in a hurry.’ Some things haven’t changed, then, I think as I follow Mum into the sitting room.
It’s much nicer in here too. All the heavy furniture has gone and the horrid, dark wallpaper. I’m just taking it all in when Mum comes up and gives me a hug. For a moment I think I’m seven again and glance down at myself to check. No. I’m fourteen and I hug Mum back tightly. I’m so glad to see her. I do wonder what happened to Imogen, though. She obviously isn’t here.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Mum is saying, ‘I had to go to the nursing home because Miss Maybrooke took a turn for the worse and she was asking for me. I only just got there in time. I’m afraid she passed away.’
Alice in Time Page 17
