‘Daddy,’ I say, not a whisper this time. My mind is scrambling. This is my chance to speak to him, to say good-bye. What should I say? What is the most profound thing to say? I love you, it should be. But I cannot quite … ‘Daddy…’
He is gone. The chill is gone, the sense of a presence, the tenseness in the air, gone. ‘Dad!’ I call. But I know that that is it. I will not see him again.
And I said nothing.
I get up and go to where he was standing. I sniff the air but even the smell of him has not lingered. It feels as if life had stopped, was suspended for an instant and has restarted. Everything is ordinary.
The television seems louder. The soldiers are whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’. I can’t hear that without the rude words coming into my head. Hitler had only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall. His mother, the dirty bugger, cut it o – off, when he – e was small. When I used to sing it I didn’t know what it meant. Ball? Or who Hitler was even. I thought it was to do with cricket. Elaine’s mother smacked her for singing it.
Daddy has gone. The wave rises and I clutch thin air. A hot tear rolls down my cheek. I haven’t started on the crying yet, the crying that surely there must be. I stand where Daddy stood, one hand on top of the books. My tongue catches the tear and draws it into my mouth. Hot salt. It is the only one. My hand is just where I think his hand was, on a book too big to go on the shelf vertically, that lies horizontally on top. And then I understand. His hand was resting on the Atlas where I left the envelope last time I looked at it. I had been looking at the buff and green page that was South-East Asia, a sprawling land-mass surrounded by grey ocean and pale lacy island trails.
The door opens suddenly and I cry out with fright and drop the Atlas. But it is only Foxy. She is tying the belt of her dressing-gown.
‘You all right?’ She comes to me. ‘I thought I heard you shout.’
‘You must have been dreaming.’
‘No …’ She looks at me curiously. ‘What are you watching? Oh …’ She recognises the film and pulls a face. Jack Hawkins limps along on a bloody foot, nubile young Burmese women fluttering around.
‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry.’ I pick up the Atlas and return it to the shelf, the fat envelope is tucked down the side of the bookcase. She puts her arms around me. She is all warm and silky, I rub my face in her hair.
‘I shouldn’t have gone to sleep and left you.’ She squeezes my waist.
‘It’s all right, Fox, honestly.’
She yawns. ‘Shall I make some coffee or something? Want to talk?’
‘What I want is for you to get your beauty sleep. You need it.’
‘Cow!’ She pinches my waist and laughs. ‘Sure you’re all right alone?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Is that my marching orders then?’
We kiss. One side of her face is all creased from the crumpled pillow, there are smudges of mascara under her eyes. She eyes the bottle on the table.
‘Only a couple of glasses,’ I say.
‘You don’t want to be hung over.’
‘No.’
‘Later then.’ She closes the door behind her. Part of me yearns to join her in her sleepiness; to get lost in her soft skin and the fragrance of her hair. But that simply cannot be. And I cannot talk to her now. I will tell her about the envelope, everything. But now I have to be alone. To think about Daddy. But thinking about Daddy always makes me think about Puddle-duck. I should not call him that. Vassily. A man now. He may be at the funeral. No. Could he be? The funeral. I had not even thought. That must be arranged. Suicide. What happens when someone commits suicide? Is there a normal funeral? Daddy … why? No, no, NO. I cannot think of that.
7
Puddle-duck came to play on Saturday, as planned. He wore his school uniform. I could hardly believe it. On a Saturday! I was wearing jeans with flowery triangular inserts to make them look like bell-bottoms. Hazel had Bridget round. I could have killed her. I told Mummy not to let her come but she said ‘The more the merrier – invite Elaine too if you like. You could have a tea-party.’ ‘She’s at her Nan’s,’ I said, grumpily reflecting that Mummy had simply no idea. Tea-party! With Bridget and Puddle-duck!
‘Bridget’ll tell everyone we had Puddle-duck here,’ I hissed to Hazel.
‘Who had Puddle-duck here? Not me.’ She tossed her head. Hazel had the sort of hair that always falls in the right place, fair, smooth and shiny, so when she smugly tossed her head, her hair went smugly back into place. Hazel’s hair was just like Mummy’s, only shorter, and Mummy cut it for her with a long fringe and the rest hanging beautifully just below her ears. ‘It’s a dream to cut,’ she’d say, pausing between snips with the silver scissors splayed, and Hazel would smile at me with narrowed eyes. Hazel wasn’t pretty, I’d rather have died than said that, but she had blue eyes and what Mummy called regular features, all of them neat and small. My hair was wiry and brown, not exactly curly but not straight either so that when she cut it Mummy was always tutting and frowning at me with her head on one side.
‘I feel like the Ugly Duckling,’ I said once, meaning for Mummy to deny it and call me pretty.
But, ‘Never mind,’ she said, giving me an annoying hug. ‘You know what ugly ducklings have a habit of doing when they grow up.’
Hazel who wasn’t supposed to hear, had heard, and on the way to school for weeks she would sing. ‘There once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all tattered and torn’, and Bridget would sing it too in a stupid American whine.
When Puddle-duck arrived, Hazel and Bridget were already up in the tree-house. Mummy had decided to bake some cakes and Puddle-duck stood in the kitchen gazing at her as she weighed flour. ‘Grizzle, take Vassily out to play,’ she said. I knew what would happen and I was right. The moment we were outside there were giggles from the tree-house, the creak of movement, Hazel playing ‘The Ugly Duckling’ on her recorder and then wolf-whistles.
Puddle-duck, who had taken his hearing-aids off and left them on the kitchen table, heard none of this, of course, and he stood looking round the garden with an expression of stupid wonder on his face. Every so often he’d catch my eye and smile expectantly as if I was suddenly supposed to produce fun.
I went back into the kitchen. Mummy didn’t look up, she had the tip of her tongue caught anxiously between her teeth as she rolled up a strawberry jam Swiss roll. Daddy had just returned from a game of golf and was foraging in the fridge.
‘I don’t know what to do with him,’ I complained. ‘And Hazel and Bridget are being foul up in the tree-house. Teasing us. Teasing him.’ I thought that would bother her, but I didn’t expect Daddy to react. Usually he took no notice of us and our squabbles. But now he pushed past me into the garden. I followed him. There was a sudden silence from the tree-house.
‘Hazel,’ Daddy’s voice was stern.
‘What?’
‘Could you come down and let Griselda and her pal up there.’
There was a stifled guffaw from Bridget, ‘Pal!’ Hazel shushed her.
‘Would you like to?’ Daddy smiled at Puddle-duck and pointed up at the tree-house, a question in his face.
‘Yes,’ Puddle-duck answered in his loud spongy voice, ‘please.’
‘It’s my turn today. We’re all set up,’ came Hazel’s voice. ‘Isn’t it, Grizzle? My turn.’
Daddy looked at me. I shrugged. There was no such arrangement, I only knew that if Hazel had Bridget round the tree-house was automatically hers and I wasn’t allowed in. I should have backed her up but I was too interested in seeing what Daddy would do.
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Griselda’s visitor would like to look round.’
‘My visitor is looking round,’ Hazel said. I held my breath. How dare she cheek Daddy like that? She was only showing off in front of Bridget.
‘I have said come down.’ Daddy’s voice wasn’t loud but it was very dangerous. This had never happened before because Daddy never got involved.
‘I’d leave them to
it, Ralph,’ said Mummy from the kitchen doorway.
‘Down!’ Daddy repeated. I suddenly wanted to laugh. He was looking up at the tree-house as if at a massive and disobedient dog. ‘Down!’ Puddle-duck’s head was swivelling backwards and forwards between Daddy and the tree.
After a moment, the hatch opened and the rope ladder flopped and swung to the ground. Bridget came down first, blowing a rude gum-bubble at me, and then Hazel. She had red marks on the backs of her thighs where she’d been sitting on the crumpled rug. Hazel didn’t look at me or Daddy but stalked past towards the kitchen door.
‘Upstairs,’ Daddy said.
‘But …’
‘Bridget can go home now.’
Hazel tossed her head as she went in but I could see the brilliant red of the backs of her ears.
Mummy, in the doorway, let Hazel past and then stood frowning at Daddy. She had flour in her hair that made her seem old. The happy smell of fresh cakes floated out and I felt sorry for Hazel. I could see that Mummy wanted to object: she would never have sent Bridget home, but she didn’t let herself. She pursed her lips at me, then went back into the kitchen and shut the door.
‘Up you go then, Vassily.’ Daddy held the ladder still for him. I watched. Daddy never did this, took any notice of our friends, took any part in our activities. I’d hardly ever seen him so much as looking at Huw, even though he was so utterly sweet, and yet here he was helping Puddle-duck up the ladder, pulling it taut so it didn’t swing about too much while the skinny yellowish legs in their long grey shorts climbed up. When Puddle-duck had disappeared through the trap-door, Daddy nodded to me to go up. He didn’t hold the ladder still for me. But it didn’t matter, I was used to it.
‘Your mother will send up some cake,’ he said. From the window I watched him go back into the kitchen. He would go up the stairs to our bedroom where Hazel would be waiting, her head held very high. She would not be crying, even if her face was very pink, she was much better at not crying than me. I looked at the bedroom window and thought I saw the oval of her face between the curtains, then it was gone. I could not imagine what Daddy would do or say to her. I liked television programmes, especially American programmes, where the mother says to her naughty children ‘Just wait till your father gets home.’ I thought there was something thrilling about that. Not that I wanted to have it said to me. Daddy was not like one of those television fathers. His anger was too deep and unknown.
Puddle-duck was hauling up the rope ladder, the way Hazel and I did. We’d haul it right up and put a sheet of wood over the trap-door so that we were unassailable. I was annoyed at the way he did it: the eager familiarity, as if he had been just waiting to do it. How does he know what to do? I thought. But looking out of the other window I knew. It was because he watched us, spied on us.
‘Spy.’ I accused, pointing to the window. He nodded vigorously. I don’t know what he thought I’d said. When he’d settled the piece of wood over the trap-door, he sat down on the branch and gave me an expectant smile. What was I supposed to do with him? In the enclosed space I could smell Wanda’s horrible clinging perfume.
I had an idea. I might as well get something out of this. ‘The alphabet,’ I said, stretching my mouth enormously round the separate syllables. ‘A.B.C.’
He had such a narrow face that his grin was somehow shocking. But I also saw in it an impishness, the sort of thing that might be likeable, even lovable – if you were his mother.
With one index finger he pressed the ball of his other thumb. ‘A,’ he said in his tuneless way. He made finger and thumb circles and pressed them together to look like a pair of glasses. ‘B,’ he said. He made a cusp of his thumb and forefinger and held it up to me. ‘C.’ It was logical and absorbing. For a few minutes I forgot that I hated him. If I could learn to speak in deaf language I might teach it to Elaine and then we could talk in front of Hazel without her understanding. It would drive her mad. That reminded me of Hazel and I looked out to see that the bedroom curtains had been drawn.
The back door opened and Huwie crawled out followed by Mummy with a plate. She walked down the garden to the foot of the tree.
‘Grizzle, Vassily, provisions,’ she called, ‘you’ll have to come down Griz.’
I moved the wood and swung down the ladder. ‘It’s no good calling Vassily like that, he’s stone deaf,’ I said, taking the plate of cakes.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but it seems only polite.’
‘Is Hazel having any?’
‘Later.’
‘What’s Daddy doing to her?’
‘Really! Nothing.’ She pretended to laugh, ‘Just having a word.’ She looked away and I knew that she had no more idea than I had. We both watched Huwie who had pulled himself to his feet and stood wobbling, looking at the ground as if daring himself to take a step. Then he plumped down on to his nappied bottom and sucked his big toe instead. I laughed.
‘He’ll be walking soon,’ Mummy said, ‘then just wait!’ She spoke with a sort of proud exasperation. She picked Huwie up. ‘Come in when you want a drink.’ She closed the back door behind her.
I climbed up the ladder one-handed, balancing the plate on my other hand. There were four slices of strawberry jam Swiss roll and two butterfly cakes with little jelly lemons stuck in the buttercream. I didn’t bother to pull the ladder back up.
Puddle-duck took a butterfly cake. He pulled off the lemon and ate that first, then the crumbly sponge butterfly wings, then he scooped the buttercream out and sucked it noisily off his finger. I ate mine properly to show him how. But he was looking past me at my formicary.
‘Ants,’ I said, and wiggled my fingers about. ‘Want to look?’
I knelt down and lifted the lid from the tank. There weren’t many ants out and you couldn’t see much. I prodded the nest with my finger and at once it was crawling with them. The longer you looked, the more you saw. ‘Watch,’ I said. I dropped a jammy corner of Swiss roll on to the ramp. At first nothing happened and Puddle-duck started to fidget; then news spread and first one or two and then many ants scurried towards the cake, swarming over it until it made your eyes go funny. Puddle-duck gave a loud excited laugh.
I looked out of the window to see if Hazel was out yet, but could see nothing. The bedroom curtains were still closed and Mummy had shut the door to keep Huwie in.
‘Look!’ Puddle-duck shouted.
The ants had started dismantling the cake, lugging ragged boulders of crumbs down to the nest. Puddle-duck was jumping around so excitedly I thought he’d knock the tank over. He shrieked and a warm bit of his spit landed on my cheek, I scrubbed it off with my fist. It was only spit but it felt like acid. I put the lid back on the formicary.
‘Down,’ I said. I climbed down first and waited at the bottom for Puddle-duck who clung weedily to the rungs of the swaying ladder, cake crumbs stuck in the corners of his mouth.
We went into the kitchen. Mummy was washing up and Huwie was sitting in his high-chair cramming fistfuls of cake into his mouth. He looked like a little chick with his fluffy hair standing on end. His cheeks were rough and scarlet from teething. Puddle-duck went to stand by Huwie, gently stroking his hair.
‘What’s his name?’ he asked, pointing at Huwie and brushing his forehead.
‘Huw,’ Mummy wiped her hands on a tea-towel and put her face close to Puddle-duck’s. ‘Huw,’ she said closing her lips around the word as if she was going to kiss him.
‘Who,’ Puddle-duck tried.
Mummy smiled and shook her head. She said it again, this time emphasising the two sounds, ‘He-oo,’ and this time Puddle-duck got it right and Huwie crowed and waggled his cakey fingers.
‘Would you like to hold him?’ Mummy asked, gesturing first to Huw and then to Puddle-duck. Puddle-duck did his face-splitting grin and sat down in readiness. Mummy pulled Huw out of his high-chair and put him on Puddle-duck’s lap. He held Huwie very stiffly round the middle as if he was a parcel. Huwie looked so much brighter than Puddle-duck a
nd his head seemed almost as big with its fat red cheeks. Mummy poured two mugs of milk. I took another piece of the Swiss roll. It was filled with home-made strawberry jam that looked disgusting, brown and lumpy and nothing like shop jam – but tasted good. I didn’t want to look at Huwie on Puddle-duck’s lap. It made me go all squirmy inside. I’d had more than enough of Puddle-duck for one day – or for ever. I wanted him to go home now. I’d been nice to him and now I wanted to be alone to read, or to do anything. I wanted to go back into the tree-house by myself and pull up the ladder and read my comic or watch the ants.
Daddy came into the kitchen then. ‘Tea?’ he said.
‘Kettle’s there,’ Mummy said, keeping her eyes averted. This is how they argued, not in shouts but by hardly speaking, by not looking at each other, by the grate of frost in every interaction.
‘What happened?’ I asked Hazel later. Puddle-duck had finally gone home and we were watching ‘Doctor Who’. She was lying full length on the leather sofa and I didn’t dare ask her to move up which left me with the scratchy armchair or the floor. I’d chosen the floor.
‘About what?’ she said.
‘You know, Daddy.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Something must have.’
‘He just told me off.’
‘Is that all.’
She glared at me. I saw that she was flushed and her eyes looked puffy, as if she’d been crying. Although she drove me so mad with her smug friends and her smug hair I didn’t like to think that she’d been crying. But Daddy never told us off. He never got involved.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I said.
‘Don’t have Puddle-duck round again.’
‘It wasn’t me. It was Mummy. She asked him, not me.’
‘Don’t have him round here again.’
‘Who says?’
‘Just don’t.’ Hazel could make her voice go very quiet and cold like pebbles dropping down a well.
‘How can I stop him?’
Hazel frowned at the television. ‘Make him not want to come,’ she said.
‘Oh yes. How am I supposed to do that?’
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