by Gwyneth Rees
‘It’s Grandma’s china doll!’ Martha exclaimed, as she opened her present and pulled out the doll from its layers of protective packaging.
‘I meant to bring that back with me,’ Dad said, staring at the doll. ‘In all the rush, I forgot.’
My present looked more boring. I unwrapped it and found some books inside. There was a note too: I wanted you to have these for when you get a bit older. I was very impressed with your cocktail-making skills last year. Love from Grandma. I showed it to Mum and Dad. It felt weird getting a note from a dead person. I looked at the books. There were three of them and they looked old. They were all cocktail recipe books.
‘How lovely that she wanted you to have those, Daniel,’ Mum said, smiling at me. I nodded, though I didn’t think the books were all that lovely. Still, at least Grandma had thought about me before she died, which was kind of nice.
‘What’s she trying to do? Turn him into an under-age drinker?’ Dad grunted. ‘I think we’ll have to keep these for you until you’re old enough to use them, Daniel.’
‘This one is a book of non-alcoholic cocktails,’ Mum said, handing it to me to have a look. Sure enough, it was full of recipes for the sort of drinks I’d been making when we all went to New Zealand together last year.
‘I could show Abby how to make one of these fruit ones for her mum,’ I said. ‘She’s still in the clinic and she hasn’t had any alcohol since she went in.’
‘That’s good,’ Dad said softly. ‘Let’s hope she keeps it up.’
‘Do you think she will, Dad?’ I asked him.
He looked at me. ‘Like I said, Daniel. I hope so.’ And I realized it was another one of those times when Dad was giving me the real answer without saying the words. The real answer was that he didn’t know. Nobody did. And I was just going to have to accept that.
And even though it was unfair, so was Abby.
Dad was opening his envelope now. Inside were some black-and-white photographs. His eyes started to well up as he looked at them. ‘I’ve never seen these before. Pictures of my mother when she was a child.’ His voice sounded weak like he’d got a frog in his throat (as Grandma liked to say if someone’s voice went hoarse). ‘You’d think she would have shown them to me, wouldn’t you? But she never did.’ And then he was crying like I’d never seen him cry before, with big tears trickling down his face.
I stared at him, horrified. In amongst all the other things that had been happening, I’d totally forgotten that Dad had just lost one of the most important people in his life – his mother. Just like I had nearly lost mine.
Mum quickly took over. She sent Martha and me to make him a cup of tea and by the time we brought it back to him, Dad had stopped crying, though his eyes still looked watery and red. Mum was sitting close to him, holding his hand.
Dad looked at us more fondly than he normally did when all we had done was walk into a room. ‘Thanks, kids,’ he said softly as he took the tea from us.
‘Is it too milky?’ I asked, frowning. ‘I let Martha put the milk in and she poured in half the bottle.’
‘I did not!’ Martha protested, glaring at me.
Dad laughed and held up his hand like he was calling for a truce. ‘It’s perfect.’
It was just then that Mum caught sight of one of the photographs of Grandma as a child, which Dad had let fall on to the floor. ‘Goodness,’ Mum said, picking it up. ‘She looks like Martha.’
‘Let’s see.’ Martha and I leaned over her shoulder to have a look. The little girl in the picture had fair hair, just like my sister
I looked at Mum. ‘Now we know,’ I said.
Mum nodded. ‘Not that it really matters.’
‘What doesn’t matter?’ asked Martha, lifting up her new doll and tipping it upside down to see if it was wearing any knickers.
‘That you look like your grandma,’ Mum said, putting her arm round my sister. ‘What are you going to call her then?’
Martha thought for a moment. Then she beamed at us, as if she had just thought of something very clever. ‘Elizabeth!’ she announced. ‘Because that’s the ward that made Mummy better!’
I stared at her. My sister comes out with some funny things sometimes, she really does.
17
That’s just about it, as far as this story goes, except to say that I did go to that children’s group up at the hospital. The group lasted eight weeks, but a few of us stayed in touch afterwards and it set some of us off writing to each other. They told us in the group that writing stuff down can help you to work through your feelings about things. Sometimes we had to write things down between sessions, like ten reasons why we were angry with our parent who’d been ill or ten reasons why we still loved them. (I only did the homework if it wasn’t too slushy.) Anyway, after the group finished, I found I wanted to write down some more stuff, so I decided I’d write this.
All of us in the group had a different story to tell. All of our parents got ill differently, so the things we experienced were different too. Some kids had far scarier stories to tell than mine. And some of us got our parents back again at the end of it whereas some kids didn’t.
Mostly I reckoned I was one of the lucky ones.
I talked quite a lot in the group about the thing I was dreading the most – Mum starting back at school. Most people at school had been OK to me since I’d started back myself and I’d begun to make some other friends there as well as Abby. But what would they all say when I started being not just me, but the head-teacher’s kid again? Correction – the mad head-teacher’s kid.
Talking about my fears helped a bit, but nothing could prepare me for the moment when Calum approached me in the playground at morning break on Mum’s first day back. I’d known this was going to happen sooner or later. Abby had gone to buy something from the tuck shop, so I was on my own, which was obviously the reason why he’d picked this time to do it.
‘Is it true your mum’s back?’ he asked. ‘Because my dad says he’s not sure if he wants me to keep going to a school where the head is a mental case!’
His mates, who were standing right behind him as usual, all laughed.
I tried to think of a smart reply, but this time I couldn’t. I was too worried myself about what it was going to be like now that Mum had started back at school again. I could feel my lip beginning to tremble. I knew I mustn’t cry. Whatever else happened, I mustn’t let Calum see me cry. I turned away quickly.
In the group they’d taught us that it’s what you tell yourself that really helps you in difficult situations, and I reckon that’s true. Because right then I told myself that maybe some of Calum’s mates – the nicer ones – wouldn’t be laughing at me if they really knew how I felt inside, or if they were less scared of being picked on themselves if they didn’t side with Calum. That helped a bit.
I also reminded myself of something that Dad is always saying – that in some situations you just have to be brave. Which reminded me of something else I’d heard about in the group – ignore muscles. I’d thought our group leader was daft when she’d first mentioned them. I’d laughed and said that there was no such thing. But then one of the other kids had pointed out that you had to be pretty strong to ignore some of the things that other kids said to you, and everyone had agreed. So we’d all said we’d have a go at ignoring people when they were horrible to us to see if that made our ignore muscles any stronger.
I decided to try mine out now. I walked away from Calum and all his jeering mates with my head held high, pretending I was Superman, who didn’t have any time to waste listening to stupid bullies like them. That helped a bit more.
That’s when I spotted Mum. She was crossing the playground on her way back from the teachers’ car park, carrying a bundle of papers which I guess she’d just been to fetch from her car. She’d had her hair cut yesterday and it really suited her. Her tummy still stuck out, but I didn’t care. Suddenly I knew that there was something else I could do to show Calum that I wasn’t going to let
him push me around.
‘HI, MUM!’ I called out loudly.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Calum’s jaw dropping open like he was totally gobsmacked. And that helped a lot.
