by Gwyneth Rees
‘I’m practising. Not that you’d care.’ I mumbled the last bit but she heard me.
She shut the door and took off her coat, laying it carefully over the edge of my bed. ‘Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not putting up with the spoilt-kid routine. OK?’
I stuck out my lower lip and refused to look at her.
‘OK, so tell me what’s wrong.’ She went a little pink. She knew that I knew that she knew full well what was wrong. ‘Is it Hamish?’
‘It’s not Hamish, it’s you. You’re not the same. You don’t even look the same. I hate that coat. I wish you’d never bought it. You look horrible in it. And that perfume stinks!’ I bent down and lifted the wooden swords she had made for me. ‘And it’s no fun practising this on my own. You were the one who wanted me to do it in the first place. Ouch!’ I winced as a sharp pain shot through my finger.
‘What have you done?’ She stepped towards me anxiously.
‘It’s a splinter. It’s these stupid swords.’ Seething, I started to suck at my finger with a ferocity Dracula would’ve been proud of.
‘Let me see.’ She dragged my finger out of my mouth, ordering me to stand still. ‘You should be asleep in bed. If Cheryl can’t make sure you’re in bed at the right time then I’m just going to have to look for another babysitter.’
‘No!’ I screeched, tearing my hand away from her. ‘I like Cheryl!’
‘Of course you like her! She lets you stay up all night! Maybe if she was the one having to prise you out of bed in the morning—’
‘Well, she’d probably do that too if you paid her,’ I yelled.
I knew from the look on her face that I’d gone too far. I jumped into bed and pulled my quilt up to my chin. ‘I’m sorry’ I shrieked, but only because I was scared by how angry she looked, not because I meant it.
The only other time I could remember her looking like this was when we’d had a row about how I always spent a ridiculously long time on the phone to Dad (in Australia) and I’d ended up yelling at her that I’d go and live with Dad if she wanted and then she wouldn’t have to worry about the phone bill. That time she’d looked angry enough to throttle somebody, though weirdly enough, her fury had passed almost immediately and she was the one who had ended up shrieking out an apology.
‘I’m sorry’ she had burst out. ‘Of course you must ring him! You must ring him whenever you want to! Here! Ring him again now if you like!’
I hadn’t wanted to ring him back, because I’d been on the phone for so long already that I hadn’t got anything left to say to him, but Mum was already punching in his number. ‘It’s OK, Mum. Really. I don’t want to.’
‘No. No. He’s your father. You miss him. Of course you must speak to him. Where are you going? Come back.’
I slipped out the front door just as she got through to Dad. I ran across the road to Janice’s. Maybe while Mum and Dad were talking on the phone they’d discover they still loved each other. Maybe Dad would leave the new job he’d moved to Australia for in the first place and the new wife he’d met once he was out there and the new baby daughter they’d recently had together, and he’d come back to live with us instead. (What really happened, I discovered afterwards, was that Mum demanded to know why Dad didn’t phone me more often and they’d ended up having a row fit to burn out all the telephone wires between here and Melbourne.)
I almost wished Mum had screamed at me tonight instead of just quietly leaving the room without saying another word. At least if she’d yelled she’d probably have ended up hugging me afterwards, which would’ve been a lot better than leaving things like this. She hadn’t even kissed me goodnight.
I lay in bed in the dark, struggling with the way I felt about Mum. I was so angry with her but at the same time I loved her so badly. I never wanted to grow up and leave her. I never wanted the two of us to have to separate.
Hamish’s deep laugh sounded from downstairs and I felt angrier still. He had no right to be sitting downstairs with my mother, laughing, while I lay up here all alone with my morbid thoughts and my throbbing finger. Everybody seemed to have forgotten about my finger. I poked at the splinter and made it hurt more. It might get infected overnight. I might get gangrene and die. What would they do then? Would Hamish laugh even louder? I imagined him at my funeral, pretending to be sad when really he was overjoyed because it meant he could have Mum all to himself. I imagined my mother standing at my graveside, dressed in black, her arms filled with flowers, leaning on Hamish for support. I imagined my father flying in from Australia, seeing my mother looking completely tragic and beautiful and realizing he still loved her. I saw him punching Hamish so that he fell into the hole they’d dug for my coffin, and then while he was lying on top of my coffin Hamish would hear a tapping sound and everyone would realize that I wasn’t really dead after all, only unconscious, and they’d open up the lid and Mum and Dad would pull me out and the three of us would live happily ever after.
I suddenly realized that the tapping sound was real and that it was coming from the other side of my door. Sleepily I sat up in bed. ‘Who is it?’
‘Hamish. Can I come in?’
I froze. I’d only ever spoken to Hamish before when Mum was there, giving polite answers to his carefully-designed-not-to-give-offence questions. I’d never spent any time with him on my own and I’d certainly never allowed him inside my room.
I switched on my bedside light. ‘Why?’
‘I hear you’ve got a splinter in your finger. Difficult to get to sleep with a splinter in your finger. Want me to have a go at removing it?’
‘Why?’ What I meant was, why you and not Mum?
He was opening my bedroom door tentatively. ‘I work in a casualty department. I’m always removing things from people’s fingers or feet or eyes. I’m pretty good at it. You haven’t got anything in your eye as well, have you? I could get that out at the same time.’
I couldn’t help smiling, which he took as an OK to come right into my room. I had to struggle to change the smile to a frown. ‘It’s not a joke, you know. People can die from infected fingers. My friend Janice told me and she learned that at Guides.’
‘She’s absolutely right. An infected finger can be a very serious thing indeed. That’s why I thought I’d better take a look. Do you mind?’
I glanced down at my finger. It didn’t exactly look like it was about to turn into pus and fall off, but the splinter was still there and it was a bit pink. ‘Wait a minute.’ I got out of bed and put on my dressing gown.
We went into the bathroom and he ran my fingertip under the tap, then he sat down on the edge of the bath and peered at it.
‘I know it’s not that big,’ I said defensively.
‘It’s not necessarily the size of these things that matters,’ he replied solemnly, poking at it with one of my mother’s sewing needles.
‘Did you sterilize that?’ I demanded.
His mouth twitched slightly. ‘Believe me, Laura, I would never dare to approach you with anything less than a very sterilized needle.’
‘Ouch!’
‘Got it!’ He let go of my hand and laid the needle down on the edge of the bath. We looked at each other. I suddenly felt really embarrassed.
‘You’d better not leave that there. It might get knocked off and somebody might get it stuck in their foot.’
I regretted saying that as soon as I’d said it. It sounded really childish and ungrateful, which was exactly how I felt, but I didn’t want Hamish to know that.
Hamish was looking at me as though he thought it would serve me right if he stuck that splinter right back in my finger. ‘Oh, that’s no problem. Taking a needle out of somebody’s foot is even easier than removing a splinter. A needle is much bigger, you see. Much easier to grab hold of with tweezers.’
‘How are you two getting on?’ Mum arrived in the bathroom doorway, a glass of wine in each hand.
‘Fine,’ Hamish said, smiling at her as he took one of the glasses.
> ‘My finger is getting on fine,’ I added, to clarify things. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now. I’ve got to get up for school in the morning.’ I walked with dignity towards my bedroom. Before I closed my door I turned round and said carefully, ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time.’ He grinned.
Lying in bed, I thought with great satisfaction about how reasonable I was being. I imagined my mother saying to Hamish, ‘She’s behaving so reasonably about this, isn’t she? I was so worried at first.’ Worried at first but not any more – was that the way I wanted it or not? I loved Mum and I wanted her to be happy, not worried, but at the same time, if being happy meant being with Hamish instead of with me . . .
Janice was good at getting splinters out. I should have waited until tomorrow and asked her. She wasn’t at all squeamish about digging her fingernails into your skin and squeezing. I wondered if it was something you learned how to do at Guides along with learning how to put someone’s arm in a sling and how to bandage up a sprained ankle. Janice was always practising that sort of stuff.
That night I had a really weird dream. I was dancing the Highland Fling in front of a huge audience and I couldn’t understand why everyone was pointing and laughing at me until I realized I was the only one on stage wearing a kilt. Everyone else was wearing a Girl Guide uniform. Then I realized I wasn’t meant to be doing the Highland Fling at all. I was meant to be standing to attention while my patrol leader inspected my fingernails. Desperately I scanned the hall for my mother and found her sitting next to Hamish (who was also wearing a kilt) in the front row. Her hand was resting on one of his horrible hairy knees. ‘Mum, I’m in the wrong place!’ I cried out desperately. But she was far too busy flirting with Hamish to hear me.
Chapter Four
It started to bug me that Mum was hardly ever in.
Cheryl kept telling me not to be jealous, which bugged me even more. It was OK for Cheryl. She was probably going to be able to retire soon on all the money she was making from babysitting me.
I decided it was time to let Mum know how I felt.
Mum always says that she never wants me to keep her in the dark about the way I’m feeling. Now, I’m not stupid. I know what she means is that I’m supposed to tell her how I’m feeling. The thing was, I didn’t want to tell her. If I told her I was jealous of Hamish she wouldn’t get rid of him. She’d probably suggest that the three of us sit down together and all talk about how we felt or something yucky like that. I didn’t want to know how they felt. I just wanted them to know how I felt.
I tried phoning Dad and asking him, very loudly when Mum was in earshot, how easy it would be for me to go and live with him in Australia if I wanted to. Mum went into the kitchen and fixed herself a very large gin and tonic, but she didn’t say anything.
Then I told Mum that I was thinking of dropping out of the debating club at school. (Mum really likes the fact that I’m in the debating club, because she says if she’d got used to speaking in public when she was my age she’s sure she wouldn’t have been so shy as a teenager. Difficult to imagine Mum ever being shy, but still . . .) Mum looked solemn when I told her, and said that that would be a shame, but she didn’t go on about it.
I was feeling pretty fed up with her infuriatingly calm reactions to everything I threw at her, when something happened without any help from me at all that made her go absolutely crazy.
I bounced into the kitchen one morning still in my pyjamas even though I was meant to be getting dressed ready for school. ‘Guess what?’
She didn’t turn round. I don’t think she even heard me. She was standing stirring something on the stove, still in her dressing gown, her brand-new dressing gown that looked like it didn’t care if you froze to death so long as you froze to death looking sexy. Rory (‘Rory Rorison!’ Hamish had picked up immediately, much to Mum’s delight) was rubbing his body against Mum’s ankles and mewing pitifully. I saw by his empty bowl that she hadn’t fed him yet. Normally she feeds him before doing anything else.
‘What are you doing?’ And more to the point, where was my breakfast? Where was the mug of tea that had always cooled to just the right temperature by the time I got downstairs to drink it? Where was the peanut butter on toast I always got hurled at me with an exasperated warning that I had two minutes to eat it if I didn’t want to be late for school?
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at me vaguely. ‘Oh . . . Laura. It’s you.’ She looked like she was in a very happy trance.
‘What’s that?’ I pulled a face as I peered into the pan.
‘Porridge. Do you want some?’
‘Porridge?’ I decided Mum must have been wrong when she told me that madness wasn’t catching. She had obviously caught it from one of her patients. There was no other explanation.
‘It’s for Hamish. This is what his mother used to make for him every morning on school days.’
I got a feeling inside me that I didn’t like very much. ‘My mother used to make me peanut butter on toast on school days!’
Mum hates sarcasm and she won’t usually let me get away with it. This morning she merely smiled and started humming.
I felt like screaming. I hadn’t even realized Hamish had stayed the night. He’d stayed until five o’clock in the morning before, I knew that, because one night I woke up thirsty and when I went down to the kitchen to get a drink, Hamish was there, making cheese on toast. Staying the whole night was something else though. You stayed the whole night in a house when you lived there. Hamish wasn’t going to start living with us, was he? Mum would discuss it with me first, wouldn’t she? Since Dad left she’d discussed everything with me, from what colour I thought her new bedroom curtains should be to whether I thought our postman fancied her when he started ringing the bell to give her letters that could quite easily have fitted through our letter box.
‘Go and get dressed, Laura, there’s a good girl.’
I glowered at her. How dare she treat me like a five-year-old? It wasn’t fair – just because she had Hamish now.
I left for school without bothering to tell her my news. I knew she wouldn’t be listening properly anyway. She was too busy having a candlelit breakfast with Hamish in the kitchen.
By morning break I was starving and I was more than grateful for a half share in Janice’s packet of crisps. I usually have an apple to eat at playtime – Mum is always going on about the sugar in sweets rotting your teeth and the fat in crisps blocking up your arteries – but this morning I’d forgotten to take one from the fruit bowl. I’d also forgotten to ask Mum for my dinner money. Janice offered to lend me some of hers, but I decided that as from lunchtime I would go on a hunger strike. I’d seen a film once where two children went on a hunger strike to stop the mother of one of them marrying the father of the other. The trouble was, I hadn’t seen the end of the film to see whether or not it worked.
‘It won’t work,’ Janice kept saying all morning. ‘And anyway, if you starve yourself to death and they do split up then you won’t be around to enjoy it, will you?’
That was true. ‘Maybe I should just pretend to go on a hunger strike, not eat at home but make sure I eat when Mum’s not around.’ I thought longingly of the school canteen’s apple crumble.
‘Nah! Your mum’s a psychiatrist. She’ll be able to tell you’re faking it.’
‘Psychiatrists only know what their patients tell them – they can’t read minds,’ I said, which is what Mum always says whenever someone she knows starts treating her like she owns a crystal ball.
Janice still looked sceptical. ‘She’ll be able to tell anyway, because you won’t be getting any thinner. You’ve either got to do it for real or not at all and if you do it for real you won’t be able to have any of Mum’s chocolate cake this afternoon.’
That clinched it. I wasn’t going to miss out on apple crumble and chocolate cake both on the same day just because of Hamish. I’d have to think of another way to make my point. Maybe I should just tell Mum how I felt. Maybe
I should tell her that for one thing I didn’t approve of Hamish staying the night and for another I was absolutely furious that she’d made his porridge a priority over my peanut butter on toast.
After school I went home with Janice as usual, to wait until Mum got back from work. In the beginning Mum had tried to offer Mrs Bishop money for looking after me and they had nearly ended up fighting over it. It was really embarrassing, especially when Mum exclaimed, ‘I couldn’t possibly
expect you to do it for nothing!’ I mean, is looking after me that big an ordeal, or what?
Nowadays though, Mum just accepts Mrs Bishop’s help (even though I can tell it still bothers her). And I’m really glad she does because (like I keep telling Mum) I really like Mrs Bishop and I’d hate it if I couldn’t keep going to her house every day after school.
Just as Janice had promised, her mum had made a chocolate cake while we were at school. I had two pieces (and didn’t get sick or fat, which are Mum’s two excuses for never letting me have more than one piece of cake at home). Mrs Bishop offered to give me the recipe so that Mum could make it for me, but I said that I doubted she would have time. ‘Not unless chocolate cake is another thing Hamish’s mother used to make for him when he was a wee boy,’ I added sombrely.
Mrs Bishop looked like she was struggling not to smile. ‘I’ll give it to you anyway, shall I? Just in case.’
I like Janice’s mum. She is calm and easy-going and she always has plenty of time to do things with you, like organizing a game or getting out her sewing machine to help with the aprons Janice and I both really hate making in design and technology at school. She’s a good cook too. Whenever I think of Mrs Bishop I think of her standing over her stove, tasting things. She always spends lots of time tasting things. Janice and I reckon she must eat the equivalent of a whole dinner in spoonfuls every night before she even serves it up – and another whole dinner afterwards because she can’t bear to throw away the leftovers.