Saving Silence

by Gina Blaxill

  ‘No. If there’s anything you’re going to explain, he needs to hear it too.’

  Benno glanced between the three of us, as though he didn’t know whose side to be on. Dad slowly closed the door and leaned against it. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the tick of the clock. Then, sounding defeated, Mum held up her hands.

  ‘It’s your call, Andrew.’

  Dad placed a hand to his forehead. In a flat voice he said, ‘I’d like to talk to Immy alone, if you don’t mind, Benno. I have some explaining to do.’

  SAM

  TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER

  The afternoon passed aimlessly. Dad calmed down and apologized if he’d embarrassed me at the hearing.

  ‘I’m just so mad, Sam,’ he said. ‘I believe in people getting their just desserts. I’m furious you’ve got to go through this. Being a teenager can be hell enough without this crap.’

  ‘You’re not upset I’ve landed you in this?’

  ‘You have to ask again?’ Dad smiled tightly. ‘Of course not, Sam. I’m your dad. Look, let’s do something to take our minds of this. Would you like a sneak peek of some of the TV scripts we’re developing at work?’

  Normally I’d be up for this kind of thing, but I just wasn’t in the mood. Dad looked a little crestfallen when I said no. I tried to pass the time by getting some homework done, but my mind wasn’t on it. At about six I gave up and opened the fridge. Perhaps I’d make something fiddly like lasagne. It always took ages, what with the different layers, and by the time it was made, eaten and cleared up it might be late enough to crawl into bed.

  Jessie whined. With a start I realized that I’d totally forgotten her afternoon walk.

  ‘Sorry, girl,’ I muttered, patting her head and opening the back door to let her out. ‘I’ll give you a long one tomorrow to make up for it. Today’s been a bit of a write-off.’

  Jessie bounded out into the darkness and I left the door ajar and returned to the kitchen. Perhaps my MasterChef cookbook would give me a bit of guidance – it was on the counter from yesterday. Sure enough, I found a decent-looking recipe. I’d got out all the ingredients and had onion and garlic frying before I realized that Jessie hadn’t come back in.

  ‘Jessie?’ I called. There was no response. A shiver of anxiety crept over me as I turned off the hob and put the pan to one side.

  Jessie wasn’t a disobedient dog. When I called her, she usually came running. She also wasn’t a dog that lingered outside for long in wintertime. She wasn’t a fan of the cold and the wet.

  What if it was the McAllisters . . . I forced myself to stop following that train of thought and to try to be rational. Why would they come here, now, straight off the back of getting off? I called Jessie again. Then whistled.

  Nothing.

  This time I couldn’t stop the anxious thoughts flying through my head. They knew I loved my dog. They’d threatened to cut her up before . . . What if they’d actually done it?

  I burst out of the back door and raced down the steps into the garden, squinting into the night as I left the warmth of the kitchen behind me.

  I tried calling for a third time.

  Silence.

  The last thing I wanted was to search the pitch-dark garden. Surely if they’d hurt her I’d have heard something, I told myself. A howl or a yelp. She’s probably found a hole in the fence and is having a whale of a time in next door’s garden.

  A soft crunching noise from the darkness ahead startled me, like two pairs of feet trying to move silently over gravel. Suddenly terrified that the twins were going to jump out at me, I stumbled back into the house and locked the door. As I pulled the blinds shut, there was a heavy crash right outside the window.

  I jumped back and ducked down behind the central kitchen counter. Go away, go away, go away, I thought, scrunching my eyes shut. What I ought to be doing was calling the police, said the rational part of my brain. But I couldn’t make myself move. I was frozen, a useless bundle of nerves.

  Any second now I was convinced I’d hear the shattering of glass and Josh and Dale would be in the kitchen with me, Jessie a bloody heap on the steps outside. But the next noise I heard wasn’t a smash. It was a bark.

  I managed to get it together enough to peer around the edge of the counter.

  Through cracks in the blinds I could make out Jessie’s silhouette. Swearing at my own stupidity, I pulled myself together and lurched over to let her in – my legs shaking so badly I could barely walk. Peering out of the back door I realized that one of the big flowerpots on the steps was on its side, in pieces. Jessie must’ve knocked it over. So much for the McAllisters breaking in!

  Even though I knew it was just my mind playing tricks on me, it took me a long time to feel steady enough to get back to cooking dinner. Maybe it would be for the best if Dad did take that US transfer. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle living like this.

  IMOGEN

  TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER

  Dad and I sat facing each other in my room, me cross-legged on the bed, him on the chair by my desk. Awkward did not begin to describe the atmosphere.

  I knew he’d step around what he had to say for ages unless I was blunt. ‘So, what really happened in Kent, Dad?’

  ‘What do you remember?’ he asked softly.

  Trying to sound like I didn’t care, I said, ‘Only that things were normal until the police came round wanting to speak to you and Mum. It was about something to do with the place you both worked. That charity, run by that friend of Mum’s.’ I paused. ‘Mum shoved me and Benno off to Laura’s. We spent a lot of time there the next few days. No one said why. When we were at home, you weren’t there. Just Mum.’ I carried on, stumbling a little. I’d blocked ten-year-old me out so efficiently it was hard to go back and even harder to put into words. ‘No one told me what was going on, Dad. No explanation, no nothing. Mum was acting like things were normal. Cooking dinner, getting us to school, that kind of thing. On autopilot. I was scared. And angry. Like it wasn’t important what I felt! I’d never had anything but, well, love from you two before. Then suddenly I didn’t matter any more.’

  ‘You mattered more than anything—’

  ‘Not enough for either of you to take the time to explain what the hell was going on!’ I shook my head. ‘It was OK for Benno. He was too young to know how wrong everything felt. He noticed you’d vanished though. Mum said you needed to go away. Brilliant lie! Three months, Dad. That’s, like, years to a kid! I was starting to forget stuff, like the sound of your voice and what you looked like. You didn’t even contact us. It was like you were dead. But then I realized there was only one place you could possibly have gone . . . prison.’

  ‘You thought I was in prison?’ Dad’s eyes widened.

  ‘It’s not such a strange conclusion, is it?’ I snapped. ‘When you came back it was like you’d had a personality transplant, and then we moved, like we were on the run. Mum was clearly in on it too.’

  ‘Your mother had nothing to do with this. Let me make that very clear.’

  ‘All I know is, I had friends, a nice home and I liked my school. In a few months that was all gone with no explanation. It’s not easy to start again. People say it’s fine for kids. Bullshit. It’s not like I was even a kid any more. What happened made me grow up quickly. No one was on my side any more. Not you. Not Mum. No one. I had to be my side myself.’ I gave him a sarcastic smile. I knew I was making him feel bad on purpose, but right now I didn’t care.

  Dad swore under his breath. I folded my arms.

  ‘Over to you. Tell me how wrong I’ve got everything.’

  Dad looked at me. ‘You can stop pretending you don’t care. I know that’s your trick when you’re feeling vulnerable, but we’re having an honest talk here. I can do without the sarcasm.’

  I didn’t think Dad paid me enough attention to have noticed my ‘trick’ as he called it. I let him take a moment to figure out how to start. ‘I never wanted to tell you all this,’ he said. ‘I
didn’t want you to think less of me. But it’s clear you have a pretty poor opinion of me already.’

  ‘Do you blame me?’

  Dad ignored me. ‘Back in Kent I got in a rut. I didn’t enjoy working for the charity, and everything felt static. I was bored. I needed something.’

  A horrible idea popped into my mind. ‘You didn’t have an affair, did you?’

  ‘God, no. Nothing like that.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Online gambling, that was my vice. A little bit of fun, I told myself. The problem is, it didn’t stay just a little bit of fun.’

  ‘Dad! What were you thinking? Gambling never pays. Everyone knows that!’

  ‘You say it like it’s obvious, but when you’re doing it you don’t think like that. You get hooked, Immy. Especially when you win. It’s like a drug. You tell yourself it’s OK.’

  ‘It’s not OK! You hid it from Mum, didn’t you?’

  ‘I hid it from everyone. Then I had a losing streak. I lost a lot – and I mean a lot. I panicked.’

  ‘What did you do, Dad? Tell me you didn’t start nicking stuff or something stupid like that . . .’

  ‘Unfortunately I did.’ His face looked grey, like he might be sick. ‘I started using money that wasn’t mine. From work. I convinced myself I could win back what I’d lost. Then I’d stop.’

  ‘You stole from a charity!’

  Dad gave a helpless gesture. ‘I was always planning to return the money, but as you can guess . . . I got found out. I thought I’d be safe, but the charity was in the middle of a merger and auditors came in. It didn’t take long to trace the missing money back to me.’

  I could barely bring myself to look at him. I couldn’t bear how matter-of-fact he was being about something so wrong. ‘How much did you take?’

  ‘Enough to be a big deal.’

  ‘How much, Dad?’

  A long silence. ‘Fifty thousand pounds.’

  More than I had possibly imagined. I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.

  ‘I paid it back,’ Dad said, sounding as though he was in pain. ‘We sold our house to raise the money. The trustees of the charity decided not to press charges in the end. They didn’t want the negative publicity.’

  I thought of our nice house, with the pretty garden, on the well-to-do street. I compared it to where we were living now, with its draughts and creaking floorboards. ‘Fifty thousand pounds!’ I repeated.

  ‘Your mother gave me hell and I deserved it. Of course I got defensive and blamed her, and . . . well, we needed space, to think about whether to stick together or go our separate ways. That was why I went away, Immy.’ I felt his hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘And no one told me and Benno because you didn’t want to frighten us.’

  ‘There was no need for you to worry about us splitting up unless it happened. In the end we decided to ride it out and start again somewhere new.’

  Somewhere new being much cheaper Walthamstow.

  I thought of all the things I’d wanted and been told we couldn’t afford. All of that, and Dad was directly responsible for it. I felt rather than saw his shrug. ‘Do you have any questions?’

  ‘Unsurprisingly, yeah.’ I looked at him, narrowing my eyes. ‘Why didn’t you even try to explain? You must have realized I’d notice the police coming round.’

  ‘If you were me, would you have told your ten-year-old daughter that her dad was a thief? I don’t think so.’

  I wasn’t going to admit he had a point. ‘Didn’t you realize how hard it would be for me? I needed you, Dad.’

  ‘It was a difficult time for all of us, Immy. Your mother and I thought you acting tough and shutting off emotionally was just you mimicking the Walthamstow kids because that’s how it’s done round here.’

  I snorted. ‘You’re terrible parents. What did me and Benno do to get stuck with you?’

  I’d said it without thinking.

  Dad seemed to wilt in front of me. All he said was, ‘I know.’

  What else was there to say? I wasn’t going to tell Dad it was OK and I forgave him. I didn’t. However much he knew he’d got it wrong, it was me and Benno who’d paid the price. Mum too, I suppose. When he left, I flopped down on my bed and wondered how different things would be if his stupid online-gambling addiction hadn’t got out of hand. After a few minutes I gave up. I was who I was – nothing could change that now. At least the truth had made everything clearer. I understood why Dad had become the ‘nothing’ man. I understood why Mum seemed funny with him sometimes. I understood why my family was more of an illusion of a perfect family than an actual loving home.

  But what I didn’t understand was why Dad had felt his life was so empty he needed online gambling to spice it up. Weren’t his kids enough to make him think twice?

  I rolled over. I could see my bedside table. On it was my alarm clock, a novel that had been there ages and a photograph of me holding the volleyball cup my team had won earlier in the year. I’d been feeling proud and happy. One day, I thought, I’ll feel proud and happy again. I am not going to be one of those people who gets dragged down. Not by what Dad did. Not by the McAllisters. Not by anyone.

  SAM

  WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER

  The next day was almost disturbingly normal. Tamsin dropped me off at sixth form, I ate lunch with Imogen and Nadina, came home, walked Jessie and spent the evening watching a film with Dad and Tamsin from the Alfred Hitchcock box set we’d started making our way through. There was not even the tiniest hint of danger. I was so embarrassed about being such an idiot in the kitchen last night that I’d decided not to mention it to anyone.

  Imogen had told me about the precautions her family had decided on. These got me thinking about my own routine. The best time for Josh and Dale to get me would be on my walks with Jessie, when I was by myself. Perhaps I had better stop going to the nature reserve – it would be a brilliant place to spring an attack, as it was usually empty so no one would hear me if I yelled for help.

  ‘If you’re coming out with things like that, maybe we shouldn’t be watching these creepy Hitchcock movies,’ Tamsin said when I told her.

  ‘It’s OK. They’re old. Everything seems a bit less real when everyone’s wearing fifties gear.’

  She laughed. Dad wasn’t in tonight – apparently he was meeting ‘people who could help us’. So far the big noise he’d made to the press and his solicitor hadn’t got us anywhere. Last night as I’d been brushing my teeth I’d overheard him talking to Tamsin. He’d mentioned the American transfer again. Deciding now was a good time, I asked her what it meant.

  ‘It’s work. What else?’ Tamsin was usually very tolerant of Dad being a workaholic – so it was a surprise to hear her sounding irritated. ‘They’ve offered him a contract that would mean moving to Illinois for five years. It’s an amazing opportunity – more money, house provided, all that – but it’s a big step, and you know how attached your Dad is to this area, having grown up here.’

  ‘Is he going to take it?’

  ‘I don’t want him to. I don’t fancy moving to another country, away from my friends and parents, and, heavens, I can’t see my career taking off stateside – Illinois is hardly LA. It’s hard enough getting any work here! There’s the baby to think of too. But now that things are as they are, it might be a good idea.’

  So we might leave Walthamstow? I was shocked to find that the thought disturbed me. Things had changed. I had friends. I was beginning to feel for the first time in a long time that my life was going somewhere.

  If we went to America I was scared I’d fade back into old Sam who couldn’t cope with change. How was I ever going to make a life for myself if everything I had kept being taken away?

  I decided to try not to think about it. There were lots of reasons for Dad not to take the US transfer. I’d just have to wait and see what happened.

  The rest of the week passed smoothly.

  ‘Perhaps they’re waiting until we let our guard do
wn.’ I said to Imogen as we left school together on Friday.

  ‘Not sure I credit them with that much brainpower,’ Imogen said. ‘We’re not talking criminal masterminds. They’re two thugs. If they come for us, we’ll know about it.’

  She zipped up her coat in a purposeful manner. It was bitingly cold; I was beginning to forget what it was like to go outside without a billion layers. I thought Imogen seemed distracted. We hadn’t had a proper chance to speak at lunch.

  ‘You OK?’ I asked. ‘Apart from the obvious, I mean.’ She hesitated. ‘I was thinking of talking to Ollie.’ Inwardly I groaned. Imogen spoke about Ollie very rarely. Without knowing any details, I gathered that she’d heard his side of the story; perhaps that had changed things. Or perhaps I was still being unfair because this was Ollie, who I still couldn’t help being jealous of, despite the awful things he had done. They weren’t together any more; from the way Imogen spoke it was clear it was over. Good, I thought. She deserves someone better.

  Still, I couldn’t help wondering if the possibility of seeing him was why Imogen was wearing her hair loose today. I’d never seen it any way other than pulled back and it was longer than I’d realized, a little way past her shoulders. I found myself staring. It just looked so different – really pretty. She also had a new pair of glasses. They were bigger with black frames, cool in a geeky kind of way – and they really suited her. With her fluffy bobble hat and long hair, she almost looked cute. Not that I would ever say that to her – I didn’t want her to kill me.

  Curiosity got the better of me. ‘You don’t seem as mad at him as I thought you would be,’ I said. ‘He really dropped us in it.’

  She shrugged. ‘I am mad at him. But I’d like to understand why he did it before I really let rip. I’ve been thinking of speaking to him for a while actually, but I wanted to wait until I was calm.’

  ‘Do you still have feelings for him?’ When I realized it had slipped out, I was so horrified that I almost clamped my hands over my mouth. To my relief, she just shrugged.