by Linda Green
‘Don’t be daft. You don’t need to pay me.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t let you do it otherwise. I’d be employing you. And I’d much rather pay you than the holiday club he hates. Would it fit in with your hours at the garden centre? ’
‘Yeah. I only work Thursday to Sunday so I could do Monday to Wednesday fine.’
‘But that would mean you wouldn’t have any days off.’
‘I don’t need days off. Days off don’t pay rent. Anyway, I can’t think of owt I’d rather do than be with Finn, to be honest. It would certainly beat making teas and washing up all day.’
Finn is on his way back to us with Barry, a small rose bush tucked under his arm.
‘Tell him,’ I say. ‘You’ll put a smile on his face and right now you both need that.’
‘Look,’ says Finn, holding out the rose bush. ‘Barry said I can have this one for free as long as I look after it for him.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Martin says to Barry.
‘He’s very welcome. Lovely to see a young lad taking an interest in gardening. He knows a fair thing or two about roses, too.’
Barry winks at Finn and goes back to his hanging basket display. I gesture to Martin to spill the good news.
‘Finn,’ Martin says, ‘Kaz tells me you’d like to do a gardening club at home.’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a four-week plan from Alan Titchmarsh on how to do it and we’d have exactly four weeks taking away the one when we’re on holiday.’
Finn looks from Martin’s smiling face to mine and back to Martin.
‘Can we do it?’ he asks. ‘Can Kaz look after me and can we do the gardening club together?’
Martin nods.
‘We’d need to buy some plants and things,’ continues Finn, talking so fast I can barely make out what he’s saying, ‘but Alan tells you how to do it on a budget and you can use lots of things you’ve already got. And I’ve got this one to start with,’ he says, holding his rose bush aloft.
‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out already,’ says Martin.
‘And I don’t have to go back to the holiday club?’ asks Finn.
‘No.’
Finn throws himself at Martin, who appears so taken aback he doesn’t know what to do for a moment. But then he wraps his arms round Finn and holds him, looks across at me and mouths the words, ‘thank you’.
BEFORE 7
7
Finn
By the third day of the SATs breakfast club, when I catch Lottie wiping a bit of strawberry jam from the corner of her mouth as I sit down next to her, I am starting to feel she might not be hating it any longer, but doesn’t want to let on in case it makes me feel bad.
‘Hi Finn,’ she says. We’re more than halfway through the week but I don’t think she’s given the petition in yet, probably because my name is the only one on it.
‘What did you revise this morning?’ I ask.
‘Spelling, punctuation and grammar but I couldn’t remember what a fronted adverbial is. Are you really not going to do the SATs?’
I have only told Lottie so far, because I know if I tell the others they will ask loads of questions and go on about it all the time and it will be another thing to have a go at me about.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘Mum’s told Mrs Ratcliffe I’m not doing them, but Dad is still mad about it.’
I scuff the toes of my shoes on the floor under the desk. What I really want is for this whole thing to go away and not to feel like I’m caught in a massive tug-of-war. I have never seen a tug-of-war where the rope snaps, but I am starting to feel that’s what might happen here.
Tyler Johnson kicks the back of my chair.
‘You’re late, fanny face,’ he says and a few of the other boys start laughing. Mrs Kerrigan looks up and smiles, clearly not having heard what was said, before starting to do the register. When she says my name, the boys all pull faces and hold their noses. She never sees it because she is looking down. One day I’m going to come to school with a secret spy camera and film all the stuff the teachers don’t see.
‘Finn, will you take the register down to Mrs Ravani, please.’
I wish she had asked anyone but me. I stand up and go to the front of the class to get it from her. I can hear sniggering from behind my back. I head back up the aisle with the register and am nearly at the door when Tyler sticks his foot out and trips me up. I put my hand on Grace Miller’s desk to stop me falling and I accidentally knock her unicorn pencil case onto the floor and all the pens and pencils come out.
‘Goodness Finn, you’re all fingers and thumbs this morning,’ says Mrs Kerrigan, looking up from her desk. I kneel to start picking everything up. I can see Lottie with her hand up and I know that she is going to tell Miss about Tyler, so I give her a look and shake my head and Lottie puts her hand down. I will only get called a grass and get more hassle, so it’s best to forget it.
I give the pencil case back to Grace.
‘Sorry,’ I say. She pulls a face at me.
I step out of the classroom into the corridor. As soon as I am there, I think about carrying on walking out of the school and never coming back. That’s what I would like to do. I don’t though. I knock on Mrs Ravani’s door and give her the register and she thanks me and asks how I am and I say, ‘Fine, thank you,’ because that is what you’re supposed to say, and go back to our classroom.
Mrs Kerrigan has given out a grammar worksheet. I look at it but all I can think of is that I wish I was outside in our garden. Because what I really want to be doing right now is planting out some of our summer bedding lobelias and begonias.
Someone kicks me under the desk. I look up. Lottie is making a face at me. I am suddenly aware that the other kids are staring at me and laughing.
‘You were doing the buzzing noise again,’ she whispers.
*
As soon as I get to Mum outside the gate, I can see that she has been crying. Her eyes are puffy and a bit red. She has tried to put eyeshadow over the red bits, but it only makes me notice it more, because she doesn’t usually wear eyeshadow.
I don’t know what to say so I just give her a little smile. She does a little smile too and asks how my day has been and I say ‘OK’ and we go home without saying anything about her having been crying.
It is only when we get to the kitchen and I put my book bag on the table and see the letter there that I think I might know why she has been crying. The letter is from Dad’s solicitor. I know this because I recognise the name and logo on the top of the piece of paper and the scribbly signature at the bottom of the page. I think the solicitor has been writing letters to make her angry again, only this time she is more upset than angry. I am very glad I want to be a gardener when I grow up, not a solicitor. Gardeners make beautiful gardens that make people happy. They do not write letters that make people cry. Dad is a solicitor, but he is not the type of solicitor who sends out letters like that. He is the type who helps people when they need to sell their houses, but his solicitor’s letter has made Mum cry and that’s nearly as bad.
‘Are you divorced now?’ I ask. The ‘getting divorced’ thing has been going on a while and I don’t know how long it takes but I can’t help thinking it must be nearly finished and that might be why she’s been crying.
Mum sits down at the table and reaches out for my hand.
‘No, love,’ she says. ‘Not yet. We’re still sorting out the arrangements.’
‘So why are you upset?’
Mum looks up at the ceiling and shuts her eyes for a second before answering. ‘The letter says that if I don’t let you sit the SATs, Dad will ask the court for an order that would mean you would live with him all of the time after we get divorced.’
‘But I thought you were going to share me?’
‘So did I. But the solicit
or says that because I acted without Dad’s permission and pulled you out of the SATs, they will be claiming I’m an unfit mother.’
‘But that’s not fair. You don’t like going to the gym and someone has to look after me when Dad goes for his bike rides. ’
Mum does a little smile.
‘It doesn’t mean that sort of unfit,’ she says. ‘It means not good enough to look after you.’
I frown at her. ‘Of course you’re good enough to look after me. Why would Dad let you look after me all the time if you weren’t good enough?’
‘I wish it were that simple, Finn.’
‘I’ll tell Dad to tear up the letter and say he’s sorry when he gets home.’
‘No, love. I don’t want you taking sides. It’s not right.’
‘But it’s not right to send letters that make people cry.’
Mum looks down and sighs before pulling me closer to her.
‘You,’ she says, ‘are wise way beyond your years.’
I know she is trying to say something nice, but I don’t understand that saying because the way I see it, people get less wise as they get older. I mean, children don’t start wars or kill people or get divorced, do they?
‘So have I got to do the SATs now?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Mum, her voice trembling. ‘I don’t know what to do for the best. Maybe your father’s right. Maybe I am being unreasonable.’
She starts crying. Big proper-tears crying that grown-ups aren’t supposed to do. It makes me start crying too and I stand up and go and give her a big hug.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, holding my face close to hers. ‘I hate what this is doing to you. It’s not your fault, I want you to understand that. He’s mad at me because I didn’t ask his permission before I told school you weren’t doing the SATs.’
‘But if you’d have asked him, he’d have said I had to do them, wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘So even if you had asked, there would still have been a big argument.’
Mum nods and looks down. She doesn’t seem to be saying much and I am doing all the talking. It’s like I’m her parent and she’s just a big kid who doesn’t know the answers. Which means I should probably come up with them.
‘What about if I did the maths SATs to make Dad happy and didn’t do the English SATs to make you happy?’
Mum bursts into a fresh round of tears. I don’t think that was the right answer. I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should make a cup of tea. That’s what the adults seem to do on television when something bad happens.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I ask. Mum looks up and gives me a watery smile.
‘Thank you, Finn. You deserve so much better than this,’ she says.
‘Do I?’
‘It wasn’t ever supposed to turn out this way, you know. We were so happy once.’
‘I remember,’ I say.
‘Do you?’
‘I remember you laughing and singing all the time and me snuggling in bed with you and Dad and you both tickling me to make me giggle and us tickling Dad to make him giggle. You used to have happy voices then.’
She strokes my hair and screws her eyes up tightly.
‘I wish that you could get them back,’ I say.
‘So do I,’ she whispers.
*
When I’ve made Mum the cup of tea, I go to my bedroom and start googling ‘Alan Titchmarsh gardening books’ (I had to change the search to ‘gardening books’ because he has written love stories too and they do not look like the sort of books I would want to read). I am collecting the Alan Titchmarsh How to Garden series. There are twenty-three of them and I have six, but I have just found out there is a container-gardening one, so I am saving up my pocket money for that because I will need that if we only have a patio container. I would like to get all twenty-three of them one day, although I am not that bothered about Pests and Problems because I don’t want to kill anything.
When I hear Dad coming up the garden path, I know I should probably stay in my room because there will be a big row and it might go very high on the Richter Scale, but instead, for some reason I don’t really understand, I go out and sit on the landing with my head pressed against the wooden bars.
The first thing I hear Dad say as he comes in is, ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ but Mum cuts in and says what she was going to say anyway, only she says it in such a high-pitched voice and speaking so quickly and with so much crying in between that I have trouble picking out any words apart from, ‘not what we agreed’, ‘acting like it’s a war’ and ‘how could you do this to him, when you know it’s not what he wants?’
Dad’s voice goes very low and he speaks slowly. ‘You forced me into this. I did not want to do it, but your behaviour gave me no option.’
‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,’ screams Mum. ‘I did not force you to do anything. We’d agreed to share custody because it’s the best thing for Finn and it still is, you know that.’
‘Well, if you want me to stop treating you like a child, perhaps you should start acting responsibly like a parent.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You never want to take the tough decisions, do you? If it was up to you, Finn wouldn’t even go to school. At some point, Hannah, you have got to stop being so fucking idealistic and start living in the real world.’
I have to clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself gasping out loud because Dad has used the f-word.
‘That is bang out of order and you know it,’ says Mum. Her voice is small and hurt, not shouty any more. I find myself scrambling to my feet.
‘It’s the truth, Hannah. And sometimes it has to be spoken.’
My feet are on the first step of the stairs and I don’t seem to have any control over them.
‘You’re prepared to take Finn away from me to teach me some kind of lesson, is that it? Christ, how can you do that to him?’ Mum starts to cry.
My feet are on the fifth step now and they are running. They run so fast that I seem to explode off the bottom step and into the hallway before Mum and Dad even realise I am there.
‘Stop it,’ I shout at Dad. ‘Stop making Mum cry.’
‘Finn, love. It’s OK, go back upstairs,’ says Mum.
‘No. He’s being mean to you and he’s got to stop it.’ I turn to face Dad, who looks a bit like I do when I’ve been told off.
‘I’m sorry, Finn. I didn’t know—’ he starts, but I do not let him finish.
‘Stop sending horrible letters to Mum and stop saying you’re going to make me live with you because I don’t want to and I’m not going to and stop arguing with her every time you come home because I can hear it and I hate it and I just want it to go back to how it used to be.’
I’m not sure if he hears the last bit because I am crying as I say it and I turn to run back upstairs, slamming my bedroom door behind me.
I listen hard but it is silent downstairs. I listen for a long time and the silence gets louder and louder. I start making the buzzing sound again. It is OK to do it in my bedroom because there is no one to hear it and I wonder if that is what bees are doing all the time – trying to hide the silence.
BEFORE 8
8
Kaz
It feels like Terry’s first day at school all over again. I have made him a packed lunch – although this time I did find one slice of ham left in the fridge to put in his sandwiches. I’m pretty sure back then it was nothing but Marmite. Mam never did have anything in the fridge – apart from cans of Strongbow, that is.
I’ve washed and ironed his clothes too. He may only be a toilet attendant (glorified bog cleaner to you and me), but I’m not having people think he’s scruffy.
And he’s standing here in front of me now looking scared and completely unready
for this and what I want more than anything else in the world is to give him a hug and tell him not to worry, it will all be fine. But I can’t do that because it won’t. He knows that and I know that. I may as well be sending him off to war. The chances of him surviving intact feel about as optimistic.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘I’ll come on bus with you. Make sure you get there OK.’
‘You don’t need to,’ says Terry.
‘I know, but I want to.’
He shrugs and pulls on his cagoule and pops in his earphones. He looks tired. He barely slept again last night. I saw the torchlight flickering under my door more times than I care to remember. Even when he was in his room, I suspect he wouldn’t have been sleeping. The voices keep him awake sometimes. I know that. He told me last night that Matthew is very worried about the rats.
‘MI5 will be watching me,’ he says. ‘There are security cameras there. They have all my details on file now.’
‘All you have to do,’ I say, as I open the door and step outside, ‘is keep your head down and do as you’re told. Other people might not understand what you’re saying, so best not to talk to them.’
‘I can talk to Matthew, though,’ he says. ‘Matthew always understands.’
I nod and we walk silently to the bus stop. When the bus arrives, it is, at least, too early for it to be busy and the few people who are onboard have their heads down looking at their phones.
Terry sits fiddling with the wires of his earphones. He hasn’t said he’s worried. He doesn’t have to. I wish I could go to work with him, stand watch over him. Maybe I could ask Denise if there are any other jobs going there. I’d be happy to clean up other people’s shit if it meant I could keep an eye on him.
We get off at the bus station and start to walk towards the shopping centre. It’s a nice day again but I don’t care about the weather. All I can think about is the assessor who passed Terry as being fit for work. This is his fault. Only he won’t be around to help when it all goes tits-over-arse.
The loos are on the ground floor of the shopping centre. Tucked away on the left just past Poundland. There is a little office at the side.