by Linda Green
‘Police have been in touch. You know, about what happened. They’re not going to take you to court. Doctor Khalil told them it were because of your schizophrenia and they understand that. They’re not going to press charges.’
Terry puts his head down. I can see his shoulders shaking. I stand up and go over to him. Pull his head towards me like I used to do when he was a kid.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, holding him as he sobs. ‘It’s over now.’
‘But I scared that girl, Kaz. I feel right bad about that.’
‘You weren’t thinking straight. That’s what Doctor Khalil told them.’
‘I did hear rats.’
‘I know you did.’
‘And Matthew told me it were rats that were scaring her. I didn’t know it were me.’
‘I tried to tell you at time, but you thought I were lying to you. You always think that when you’re poorly.’
‘Is she OK, that girl?’
‘The policeman at station told me she’d be all right. Her mam were looking after her.’
Terry takes a deep breath, wipes the snot from his nose.
‘I want to write to her mam, tell her how sorry I am.’
‘That’d be nice, love. Maybe police could pass letter on for you.’
‘Not now. When I’m properly better. When I can think and feel a bit more clearly.’
‘OK.’
Terry goes quiet for a moment and then looks up at me.
‘You don’t hate me do you, Kaz?’
I look at him and shake my head. ‘I could never hate you, Terry. Anyway, it’s not you that does it. It’s your illness. That’s what you’ve got to keep telling yoursen. I don’t want you to worry about all that now. All you’ve got to concentrate on is getting better.’
*
I don’t even realise I’m humming as I walk through the garden centre next morning on my way to the café until a voice calls out.
‘Someone’s in a good mood this morning.’ I turn round and see Barry grinning at me from behind a display of fuchsias.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Didn’t realise you were there.’
‘Don’t apologise for being happy,’ he says. ‘We could do with a bit more of it in world. Have you won lottery or owt, because if you have, I’d like a share.’
‘’Fraid not,’ I say, smiling at him. ‘But me brother’s turned a bit of a corner. He might be coming home from hospital soon.’
‘That is good news,’ he says, stepping out and coming over to me. ‘What’s he been in for?’
I hesitate before replying but Barry has kind eyes and I feel I can tell him.
‘He’s in psychiatric unit. He’s got schizophrenia. He’s OK most of the time when he’s at home with me, like, but they made him go out to work when he wasn’t up to it and he ended up in a bit of a state.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ he says. ‘Has he not got anyone else to look after him?’
‘No, it’s just me.’
‘Bloody hard, isn’t it?’ says Barry. ‘I cared for my wife for nine years before she died. Toughest job in the world.’
‘It is,’ I reply. ‘And I’m sorry to hear that about your wife.’
‘She had early-onset dementia. Went from being life and soul of party to someone I didn’t recognise in a few short years. Bloody horrible it were.’
I nod, knowing exactly what he means. ‘You feel so helpless, don’t you?’
‘Yep. Devoted my life to her, I did, but still never felt I were doing enough.’
His eyes are glistening. I reach out my hand and put it on his shoulder.
‘I’m sure you did,’ I reply. ‘I’m sure you were a huge help to her.’
‘I hope so,’ he says. ‘Anyway, there’s me making us both sad when you were in such a good mood.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘It’s good to find someone who understands what it’s like.’
‘And how’s your young friend getting on with his garden makeover?’ Barry asks.
‘He’s doing right well with it, in his element, he is.’
‘Good, well hang on a sec and I’ll get you some more plants. I’ve been saving some out the back for him.’
When I arrive at the café with Barry, both of us carrying a boxful of plants, Marje looks up from behind the tea urn.
‘What are you two up to?’ she asks. ‘Clearing out half our stock?’
‘Barry’s donating them to my little friend Finn. I’m helping him with a garden makeover.’
‘There you go, Kaz,’ he says, putting the heaviest box down and rubbing his back as he stands up. ‘I’ll have some more for you next week. Just let me know when you need them.’
‘Thanks Barry, you’re a star,’ I reply. He smiles at me.
‘Delighted to be of service,’ he says, before walking off, whistling. I catch Marje looking at me with a huge grin on her face.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I think our Barry’s got a soft spot for you.’
‘Don’t be daft. He’s just helping Finn out.’
‘It’s not Finn who’s put that sparkle in his eye, though. I can see it now, you and him driving off into the sunset in his old Ford Cortina with a “Baz and Kaz” sticker across windscreen.’
‘Behave, you daft bat,’ I say, shaking my head at her. But later, when I’m cleaning the tables, I can’t help thinking about the tears in those kind eyes of his. And how good it is to have someone I can talk to who knows what it’s like to care for a loved one.
*
I go to the library on my way home from work. It’s a new library, spread over three floors. More books than you could ever imagine. And computers too. Which is where I’m heading now. The librarian who helped me set up the email address told me you could look for flats on the internet, because that’s how everybody does it nowadays.
It’s a different lady to the one I saw last time, but she stands next to me and makes sure I’ve logged in properly before typing in ‘Rightmove’ on the screen, and a different site comes up.
‘So if you type in Halifax and click here,’ she says, showing me, ‘you can say how many bedrooms you want and how much rent you can afford, then it will search for you on a map, or just list them from the cheapest to the most expensive. And the phone numbers to call are all listed for you.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘That’s a lot bloody easier than it used to be.’
‘I know. Just as long as you don’t get distracted looking at one-million-pound homes the way everyone else does.’
‘Believe me, there’s no chance of that,’ I tell her.
I click to search for the lowest prices. The first one that comes up is seventy pounds a week. It would be a stretch, but I reckon I might be able to manage that. The one three places underneath it is walking distance from the hospital and the garden centre. It’s a house, too. A tiny two-bedroom one that you couldn’t swing a cat in but an actual house. I’ve never lived in a house before. I read what it says underneath and gasp out loud when I see the ‘zero deposit required’ line. I scribble down the phone number and am about to go outside to make a call when I remember the other reason I came in here.
I get the piece of paper out of my purse and log in to my email. It says there are four new messages. All of them from Finn. I click on the first one. There is a photo attached of him standing, looking rather glum, outside the World of Beatrix Potter. Underneath it he has written, ‘wish you were here’.
BEFORE 9
9
Finn
When I come out of my bedroom on Friday morning, I see that Mum has left the spare room door open by mistake. I know she has been sleeping in the spare room for a while because I hear her crying in there sometimes, like she did last night. But she has been trying to hide it by not taking any of her things in there and keeping the door shut
.
I put my head round the door. It smells of Mum, even though she has opened the window. It’s a nice smell, the Mum smell. It’s warm and fuzzy and fun, even though she doesn’t seem like that any more. I wonder if her smell will change soon, if it will stop being her, just like she has. I wonder what sad smells like.
Mum has made the bed, so the room looks like it does when Grandma and Grandad come to stay, although she usually puts some flowers in the room for them and she hasn’t put any there for herself. I don’t understand why it’s Mum who has moved out of their bedroom, not Dad, because he is the one whose solicitor sent her a letter that made her cry. Maybe Dad cried about her pulling me out of the SATs, but I didn’t see him. I have never seen him cry about anything.
I go to the toilet and think about what Mum said about Dad wanting me to live just with him now. It still doesn’t seem right because Mum is the one who has always looked after me. Dad only does some looking-after bits in the evenings and at weekends when he comes back from his bike rides. And even then, Mum is usually still around and helps when he doesn’t know where things are or if he’s not understanding something that’s bothering me. I don’t know if Dad is any good at the important bits, like finding clean school uniform for me and remembering to sign the forms for visits and knowing what I like if I need a packed lunch.
And he wouldn’t be able to come to celebration assemblies because he never has done and even if I get the bus to my new secondary school, like he says I’ll have to, he still wouldn’t be back from work when I got home so I’d have to be home alone like that kid in the old film I watched on TV last Christmas, the one Dad told me was funny but was actually really scary and kept me awake at nights worrying about burglars. I don’t think I’d be very good at making traps if there were burglars. I’d probably just play my ukulele in the hope it would make them go away because all the kids at school say no one normal likes ukulele music.
And I don’t know when I’d get to see Mum, apart from at celebration assemblies, and I don’t think Dad knows the recipe for apricot, orange and bran muffins and I don’t think Dad would know what to make instead for bake sales and he would probably get mini-doughnuts from Tesco like Lottie’s mum sometimes does and you are not really supposed to do that, even though everyone likes them a lot more than my muffins.
I wash my hands and start to go downstairs but I stop before the creaky step because I can hear Mum talking in the kitchen. It’s not to Dad because he has already gone to work, so she must be on the phone. I sit down on the stairs, so I can listen.
‘I’m scared I’m going to lose him, Rachel,’ she says, her voice shaking. She is on the phone to Lottie’s mum. I wonder if Lottie is listening to the other end of the conversation, because if she is, I can ask her what her mum said and we’ll be able to piece all of it together, like a big jigsaw.
There is a gap and I hear Mum sniff and then she says: ‘It doesn’t matter what I’ve done for Finn, though. Martin’s a solicitor. He’ll know how to do this. He’ll get them to twist it, make it sound like I haven’t got his best interests at heart. He’s already emailed school and told them he wants Finn to sit the SATs and asked for a meeting on Monday. He’s building a case against me.’
I sit and fiddle with my fingers during the next gap. I don’t think Dad has ever emailed my school before. Mrs Ratcliffe must have wondered who he was. I shift position on the stairs. Mum starts talking again.
‘It’s not a case of picking my battles, though. Our whole relationship has become a battleground ever since Finn was born. Since before he was born, for that matter. I didn’t even get the home birth I wanted, because Martin insisted that a hospital birth would be safer.’
I didn’t know that, and I wonder why Dad thought a hospital birth would be safer. Maybe we didn’t have enough towels and soft things for me to land on at home.
Rachel is saying something on the other end. If I had a phone I could text Lottie now and ask her what it was.
‘The thing is,’ Mum continues, ‘if I back down over the SATs, the next thing will be just round the corner. Look how he got his own way with the private school too. At some point I have to stand up to him or the Finn I love will disappear and I couldn’t bear that either.’
There is another sniff. I wonder exactly how I would disappear and whether an invisibility cloak could be part of it. I would sit here and listen to more, but I am worried I am going to be late for school. And if I am late, Lottie will be even later than usual. I stand up and go downstairs, making extra-loud footsteps, so Mum will hear me coming and it will not look like I have been listening.
‘Anyway,’ she says, wiping her nose as I come through the hall, ‘I’ve got to go. Thanks for listening, I’ll catch you later.’ She puts the phone down and does a little smile at me, even though there is nothing else about her face that is smiley at all.
‘Morning, love,’ she says. ‘Sit yourself down and I’ll get your breakfast.’
She walks to the other side of the kitchen and puts the radio on. The floaty lady with long red hair is singing the song about the dark days being over. I have heard it before, but I don’t know her name because I am not very good at pop singers. Mum likes her though, I know that. She usually sings along to it and dances around the kitchen, but she doesn’t this morning. She just brings me over my bowl of Millet Bran and goes to get the milk out of the fridge, only she drops it and it spills all over the floor and she bursts into tears.
I don’t know whether to go to Mum first or pick up the milk bottle, so I sort of hover in the middle. There is a saying about not crying over spilt milk, but I decide not to say it in case it makes her cry more instead of laugh. In the end, because my shoe is in the middle of the milk and I do not want to make milky footprints, I take my foot out of it and hop over to put my arm round Mum.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mum says.
‘What for? You said never to cry over spilt milk.’
Mum reaches out, squeezes my hand and gives me a watery smile.
‘None of this is your fault, Finn. Always remember that.’ I nod and go and get some kitchen roll to mop up the milk. Afterwards I have apple juice on my Millet Bran because there is no milk left and it is pretty disgusting, but I don’t say anything.
*
Lottie is later than usual. She only just makes it in time for us to go down for the celebration assembly.
‘I know why you’re late,’ I whisper, as we walk down the corridor. ‘My mum was talking to your mum on the phone. She was crying and saying I might disappear.’
‘Why?’
I haven’t told Lottie about the solicitor’s letter yet, partly because if I do, it will make it seem real and I don’t want it to be real. But I think I’ll have to tell her now, otherwise none of it will make sense.
‘My dad is going to ask the court to let me live with him instead of sharing me with Mum.’
‘That’s horrible,’ says Lottie. ‘Grown-ups always tell us to share things, then they won’t share us.’
‘He’s mad at Mum because of the SATs thing.’
‘That’s such a stupid reason. What did my mum tell your mum to do?’
‘I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me that.’
‘I was upstairs reading a book about a boy whose mum has got cancer and who has nightmares about monsters but then the monster, which is really a tree, comes to life and tries to help him.’
‘Oh. That’s not much help then.’
‘It was a big help to the boy, actually.’
‘I meant to me. I want to know what my mum’s going to do to try to stop it.’
‘Does your mum do kick-boxing or anything like that? Because if she does, she could use that on your dad.’
‘She does yoga. But that’s all peaceful and gentle and sometimes she falls asleep during the relaxation bit.’
‘That won’t work then,’
says Lottie. ‘Maybe I could start a petition for you?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, knowing already that she would only get one signature. ‘Maybe.’
The celebration assembly is bearable because my name is not mentioned, and I do not have to go out to the front. Tyler Johnson gets the ‘star of the week’ award for our class and even though this is not right because he has been so mean to me and he lifted Caitlin’s skirt up in the playground so everyone could see her knickers, I do a pretend clap when everyone else does.
Mum sits at the back and tries to pretend everything is OK. She gives me a little wave before she goes. I wonder if she is going to go home and cry some more or if she has got some appointments and is going to try to help people feel better. I’m not sure she will be very good at that right now and I am a bit worried she might start crying in front of them and make them feel a whole lot worse.
As we go back to our classroom, Lewis R elbows me hard in the ribs and says, ‘Out of my way, Little Red Riding Hood.’ They call me this sometimes; I think it is something to do with me having red hair and looking like a girl, but I don’t really get it. I look around to see if Mrs Kerrigan has seen what he did, but it looks like she was too busy trying to stop Lewis B and Kian having a fight.
Lottie saw it though.
‘Tell Miss what he just did,’ she says.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not worth it.’
‘Well, I’ll tell her then,’ she says and marches off to Mrs Kerrigan before I can stop her. She comes back a few moments later looking cross.
‘What did she say?’ I ask.
‘That she was busy, and I shouldn’t tell tales.’
I nod. That is what they always say.
*
When we get back to the classroom, Mrs Kerrigan gives out another SATs practice paper. I look up at her and whisper, ‘Have I got to do it too, Miss?’ and she nods and says, ‘Yes, just in case.’ I wonder if Mrs Ratcliffe has shown her the email from Dad. Maybe they think there will be a tug-of-war with me in the playground and Dad will win. Maybe they’re right.
I try to concentrate on the English paper, but I keep thinking about Mum crying and about what’s going to happen on Monday morning, and I start getting even more worried about it all than I was before. When Mrs Kerrigan collects the papers at the end, she can see that I haven’t written very much, and she looks down at me and says, ‘I do hope you’re trying your best, Finn. This classwork is important, even if you aren’t going to do the tests.’ And I know that she thinks I have done badly on purpose and I want to tell her I haven’t, but I can also feel the tears coming and I don’t want to cry in front of everyone, so I put my head down and don’t say anything.