“I have a strong sense of justice,” he would explain to Sam and me. “You have to make your own justice, kids. The courts won’t do it for you. The system works only for those who have money and power. If you want fairness, you have to go out and get it.”
For a hot-headed man, he could also be surprisingly patient. “There’s no rush,” he told Sam, when one of the boys at school made fun of him. “Let things blow over. Let him think he’s won. If you bide your time, he won’t know what hit him.”
I knew what he meant by biding your time. He meant stalking. You followed your target around for a while. Found their Achilles heel, then boom, you hit them where it hurt, and they didn’t even suspect.
“Your average person has a memory like a goldfish,” Dad said, scornfully. “But we McBrides, we’re elephants. We remember it all.”
He exhaled deeply through his nose and smiled with deep satisfaction. “We stamp on our enemies and they don’t even hear us coming.”
16
Christmas crept up on me. In previous years, we ate mince pies and hung out our stockings on Christmas Eve, but now there was no Mum to make the pies - I didn’t know how, and the stockings had been burnt in the fire, along with our tree and all the decorations. Dad hadn’t replaced any of it, and I hardly expected him to. I thought we were going to give Christmas a miss. So, I was really surprised when he came home with a tree one night. It wasn’t a good one, it looked like a reject from one of those places that sold nice trees. But it was a tree, all the same. And it smelt like Christmas.
“It’s Alicia’s first Christmas,” was all Dad said. “Let’s try to make it special.”
It was hard to argue when he put it like that. Mum was gone, but we had Alicia now, and she brought a lot of joy to the family. So I took her to the table and we sat and made paper chains. Well, she mainly scribbled on them and threw them on the floor, but it was fun to pretend that we made them together, as I hoped we would when she was older.
Christmas morning, I was amazed to find presents under the tree.
“Santa came!” I shrieked. “He actually came!”
Sam gave me an odd look, but even he was excited to see the massive present with his name on it. The wrappings were crumpled, and the parcels were tied together with thick string, but I felt a warmth in my belly. I wasn’t sure if it was happiness, or hope.
“Well,” said Dad, when he came downstairs. “Ain’t you going to open them?”
“A mountain bike!” Sam squealed, uncovering his huge parcel.
“Wow!”
I tore the wrappings off my own huge present. It wasn’t the right shape to be a bike, but it had to be something pretty…
“A Hoover.”
I glanced at Dad, but he was grinning broadly.
I looked again at Sam’s bike. It was bright red and shiny, with eighteen gears like the ones we’d seen on TV. I wondered if Santa had got it from Mike’s Bikes on the High Street. I had noticed they were having a sale.
“Santa hates you!” Sam laughed, as he wheeled his bike out the door.
I watched from the window as he rode it up and down Cold Bath Lane, little children scattering from his path.
I looked down at Alicia, who was playing with her gift, still in its wrapping.
“Here, let me help,” I said.
But Alicia wouldn’t be parted with her present. “Mine!” she said, loudly.
“Suit yourself.”
I dug around in the box the Hoover had come in. I thought I’d spotted something else at the bottom of the box. I put my hand in, and felt a book. I smiled, as I remembered previous years. Santa always brought me something to read.
“It’s…it’s a manual!”
I thumbed through it and found instructions on how to use the Hoover. It had been translated into five different languages.
“She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” Dad said.
When Sam came back in, he gave Alicia a little wooden train he’d made in woodwork class at school. The train had a face on the front, bright eyes and a big smiley mouth. The details were very good, you could make out the shape of the little carriages. It had the words: ‘Cold Bath Lane Express’ painted on the front. It even had a little serial number carved into it. Alicia loved it.
Dad and Sam disappeared out after breakfast, not even bothering to ask if I wanted to come. They returned an hour or so later, while I was still clearing away the plates. Dad stood in the doorway, grinning broadly, and swinging a dead turkey by its legs.
“Cook us up a feast, Jody Bear.”
I took the huge turkey in my arms and examined it.
“It still has the bullet in its head!”
I wondered if he’d shot it himself.
“Cut it off,” Dad said.
Sam’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll do it! We have to scoop out its guts and pluck all the feathers.”
“Right.”
I had never cooked a turkey before, although I’d watched Mum do it.
The bird was heavy in my arms, not unlike a baby. I washed it gingerly under the tap, and then watched with revulsion as Sam cut into it, and pulled out the entrails. Yards and yards of them, there were. All thick and slimy.
“Ugh! Do you have to?”
“You do. Do you want a go?”
“No.”
I shook my head emphatically, as Alicia jumped up and down at my feet. I couldn’t look at those slimy giblets without thinking about Dad and the jellied eels. Once Sam had dealt with the insides, he handed the turkey back to me.
“Mine!” Alicia shrieked, trying to take it off me.
“Stop it,” I told her sternly. It was amazing how strong she was, for such a small child.
I began to pluck. The air was soon full of feathers, as if they were raining down from heaven.
Alicia squealed in glee and chased them around the room. Dad came in and out, helping himself to beers from the fridge, but he didn’t offer any words of advice. I stuffed the turkey with stuffing from the packet he’d bought. When I placed it in the oven, it was so big, the legs hung over the baking tray. I kept glancing at it as I peeled the potatoes but it smelt alright, so I left it to cook.
It took forever to cook. It was closer to tea time, than dinner by the time it was done and everyone was starving. Dad carried the carcass to the table for me. It smelt much like the ones Mum used to make.
“You done good,” he told me. “Sam, why don’t you slice the bird?”
Sam relished his role at the head of the table. He sharpened the knife, before he cut into the sweet flesh. There was way too much for the four of us. We would be eating turkey for the rest of the week. Not that I minded. It beat corned beef by miles.
It was as well Sam was the one with the knife, because Dad had already sunk his first bottle of wine and was on to the next one before I doled out the Brussels sprouts. He insisted we have them, even though nobody liked them. I had boiled the life out of them, hoping to shrink them down.
“Oy!” Sam objected, as I heaped a big spoonful onto his plate. I gave Dad lots too, but just one each for Alicia and me. I prayed that my extra thick gravy would camouflage the taste.
Alicia gurgled in her highchair as we pulled the crackers. She clapped her hands together with glee and babbled happily as she soaked up the merry atmosphere. The cloud that hung over us evaporated for a few hours, and we were allowed to enjoy our Christmas dinner. For once, my heart, which always ached for my mum, allowed me to remember her fondly, and not dwell too much on the sadness.
After dinner, Dad poured an entire bottle of brandy over the Christmas pudding and when he set light to it, the whole thing went up in a magnificent fiery crescendo. Sam and Alicia cheered and clapped their hands. I pulled Alicia out of her highchair and held her, kicking and squealing, from the safety of the doorway, until the last of the flames fizzled out.
Sam helped me do the dishes without being asked. That was the closest I came to a real Christmas present. We also blew bubbles with the Fairy L
iquid, as we used to. Alicia jumped up and down and tried to catch them. One popped right on her nose, making us all laugh.
“Mine!” she shouted, trying to find it. “Mine! Mine!”
We left the last of the pans stacked precariously on the draining board and went into the living room to watch telly. We jostled for the remote, despite the fact that we liked most of the same programmes. To my annoyance, Sam got it first, and he continued to cling to it while we watched the Christmas episode of Doctor Who. Dad slept quietly in his chair, his head, rolled to one side. He jerked awake at the sound of a loud bang.
“Fireworks!” Sam shouted.
“Fire!” Alicia echoed.
Sam jumped up and lifted her onto his shoulders.
“Careful,” I warned, as he raced outside with her, but really, I was happy to have a break. I grabbed the remote and switched on some music videos. They were playing Last Christmas. It had been one of Mum’s favourites. Dad leaned towards me.
“Dance with me,” he begged, his nose as red as Rudolph’s.
“I don’t really feel like dancing,” I said. “I’ve been on my feet all day.”
He frowned at me and held his hand out. “Lighten up, Mary Jane.”
I froze.
“It’s way past Alicia’s bedtime. I should go and get her.”
“You stay and have a dance.”
17
I didn’t want to dance with Dad. It felt weird and awkward. I was ten, for heaven’s sake. But Dad wouldn’t let up. Reluctantly, I let him whirl me around the floor. He was completely out of time with the music.
“I need to get Alicia to bed now, Dad,” I said, when the song ended.
“One more dance won’t hurt.”
I gritted my teeth and let him whirl me around once more, hating every minute of it.
He put his arms around my waist, and fixed my arms around his neck, the way I’d seen him do with Mum. I wondered if she had enjoyed it.
“I’m going to be up in the night with Alicia,” I reminded him, as the song ended. “I’ll be knackered.”
He took no notice of what I was saying, and I might have been there all night if Sam hadn’t come back in at that point.
“Alicia stinks,” he said, dumping her on me.
I took her gladly. “Come on, let’s go and get you changed. And then, into the bath.”
I felt Dad’s eyes follow me towards the stairs.
“Can I have a sherry, Dad?” Sam asked.
“Go on then. Pour me a little one while you’re at it.”
I wasn’t lying when I said I would be knackered. Alicia was up half the night. She never seemed to need much sleep. I tried giving her warm bottles of milk, rocking her gently, even singing to her as Mum used to sing to Sam and me. But she stared back at me with her wide-open eyes, as if she was afraid to miss anything.
Sometimes, Sam did the late-night shift, allowing me to slink off to bed for a few hours, but she was always awake again early in the morning, and there was no rousing Sam then. He and Dad slept like the living dead. It took two alarms to get him up for school these days, whereas just a year or so ago, he used to be the first up.
I would make Alicia a bottle of milk in the mornings and leave her with it in the cot, hoping that she would drift back to sleep, but she rarely did. Once the howling got too much for me, I’d lift her out and bring her into bed. She would jump up and down on the bed as if it were a trampoline, making funny noises. I was so tired, but it still felt good to be needed. I poured so much love into that girl.
As Alicia grew from a baby into a toddler, she became a real little person with her own thoughts and ideas. She fought me as I tried to change her nappies, pinching my skin and pulling my hair. I couldn’t get her into her high-chair anymore, either. She was too strong for me, so I had to feed her on my lap, while my own food went cold.
“She’s a born leader,” Uncle Richard would say.
But I knew that that was just grown-up for bossy and difficult.
Alicia wasn’t the only one who was growing up. My chest was no longer as flat as it had once been, and I was painfully embarrassed by the change. I remembered how Mum’s body had swelled with her pregnancy. People had stared at her in the street, as if it were impossible to look away. I didn’t want anyone looking at me like that, so I wore my baggiest t-shirts and jumpers, hoping to hide myself away. But much as I tried to hide it, my chest continued to grow.
I was in Asda one day, when a boy came up to me, and pointed at me.
“What’s wrong? Can’t your mum afford to buy you a bra?”
“My mum’s dead.”
I rammed him with the buggy, but even his squeal of pain didn’t make me feel any better.
He was right though, I needed a bra. The trouble was, bras cost money, and I would rather throw myself off the railway bridge than ask Dad for money for a bra. Instead, I skimmed off the housekeeping money until I had enough saved. I felt Mum’s absence keenly as I wheeled Alicia round the department store, and looked at the rows of neat white underwear. I had no idea what size I was, or which style to pick. The ladies at the counter could have helped me, but instead they gossiped behind my back.
“Do you think that’s her child?” I heard one of them ask.
“Surely not?”
“You never know these days. They’re getting younger and younger.”
In the end, I guessed at my size and took it to the cash register, along with a bright vermillion lipstick. It wasn’t really my colour but I wanted to show those ladies that I was as grown up as they were.
When I got home, I couldn’t wait to go up to my room and try on my new bra, but Alicia wanted to play with her train downstairs. I tried picking her up, but she squealed so loudly I set her down again.
“Right. You stay here then, I’ll be back in a mo.”
I stomped up the stairs, shutting the stairgate behind me and Alicia screamed for me to come back. She screamed and screamed the whole time I was up there. You’d think the house was falling down, the way she carried on.
Eventually, Dad came out of his room, his face purple with rage.
“What is going on?”
His nose was raw, and his belly hung over his pyjama bottoms, like a pumpkin in a barrel.
I plodded back down the stairs.
“She’s tired,” I said, giving up on trying on my bra.
I picked Alicia up in an attempt to soothe her, but she roared even louder, causing Dad to lean over the banister and hurl things at us. I neatly dodged his slipper.
“Will you shut the hell up? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“I wish I could sleep,” I said, plaintively.
Alicia always seemed to wind Dad up these days. She could be quiet as a mouse while he was out, but as soon as he was home, she would make as much racket as she could. She was hell-bent on clashing with him. They were like two locomotives, hurtling towards each other, neither of them willing to change course.
I finally got to try on my new bra when Alicia was in the bath that night. I pulled it out of the white tissue paper and enjoyed the silky smoothness of the material. It had straps and clasps and a little crossover bit that looked rather complicated. I had chosen it for the little bow on the front. I didn’t have many girly things but this was in a league of its own, deliciously delicate and luxurious. Decidedly womanly.
I wriggled into it. Probably, it would have been best to undo the clasp, but I wasn’t sure I could do it up again correctly, so I wormed my way in and adjusted the straps until it looked right. It was a little on the big side. There was definitely room to grow into it, but I liked the shape it gave me. A little bit pointy, and more poised. Instantly, I pulled my shoulders back and stood a bit straighter. Then I twisted and turned in front of the mirror, marvelling at how grown up I looked. I wished I had some of Mum’s clothes to dress up in. How I had loved to clomp about in her high heels, and wind her fluffy fake fur around my shoulders. My own clothes were terribly boring by compa
rison.
I put Alicia to bed and went back downstairs, enjoying the feeling of wearing my very first bra. I wished I had a mate to share this moment with, but the only female in my life was less than two years old and currently snoring like a hog.
Dad was sitting on the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table. He was chewing on some disgusting meat chews that smelt like dog food.
“Where’s Sam?” I asked.
“Out with his mates. What about you? You want to watch TV with your old Dad?”
“OK.”
I slipped into the armchair.
Dad flicked the channel and we watched an old war film we’d seen a hundred times before. Well, Dad watched it. I closed my eyes and slept until the credits came on. I opened my eyes to see Dad chug the last of his beer bottle. I didn’t know if it was the same bottle he had been drinking from earlier. Most likely not. Our outside bin was always piled high.
Dad switched off the TV and stumbled to his feet.
“Night,” I said, taking the remote. I thought I might watch some music videos before I went up. There was a new Michael Jackson one Sam had recorded.
Instead of going up, Dad stood in front of me, his bottom lip protruding. It was odd to see a grown man pout.
“Are you ever coming to bed, baby?” he whined.
“Dad, it’s me Jody.”
But he didn’t seem to hear me.
“Why don’t you change into something slinky?” he asked, running his hand up and down my thigh.
I shook him off.
“Dad, you’re rat-arsed. It’s me, Jody.”
He put his hand on my leg again. “Come on, Lovely. The kids are asleep. It’s our time now.”
He lumbered towards me and I shoved him away.
“Dad, I’m Jody!”
He blinked at me in confusion, as though he didn’t know what I was saying. His eyes were half closed, as if he was ready to fall asleep, so I left him down there on the sofa and went up to my room. The pudding I had eaten earlier rumbled around in my belly and I felt a bit sick.
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