by Aoife Walsh
It wasn’t very long before they heard the light downstairs snap off and their mother coming quietly up. They waited for her to find them.
‘Well. You’re meant to be in bed, Selena.’
Sel bounced, once.
‘So. That was your father. It’s thrown me a bit. You know we haven’t spoken in a while. But there’s no bad news or anything like that, don’t worry.’
‘What then?’ Minny asked, still counting emperors. Ash was lying face down.
‘Listen, do you mind if we talk about it in the morning? I know, I know. But I promise, it’s not anything bad – it’s not that much of a big deal really, it’s just that Raymond will wake up if we all stay here, and I’m suddenly very tired. Can we leave it till tomorrow? Good,’ she continued without pausing. ‘Into bed then now, all of you.’
‘Mu-um,’ Selena protested, pouting.
‘Now’s the time to practise some of that Christian patience you were talking about, remember, Sel? Let me get to things in my own time? Come on, to bed.’
Ash rolled over and turned off her light before they’d even left her room. Minny went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth until Nita backed out of her bedroom after re-tucking Selena in.
‘What is it, Minny?’ she asked in a rocky voice.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. You need to go to bed. I said we’ll talk in the morning.’
Minny went into her room, changed into her pyjamas and got into bed. Her pillow felt gritty. It was rubbish being fourteen, and half being the eldest only not really. When they felt like it, and needed you to do something for them, people might tell you what was going on, but the moment they didn’t, you were back to being a child.
TWO
Of course what they’d all forgotten, except possibly their mother, was that she wasn’t there on Saturday mornings. She taught a drama class, which started at nine, so she was gone by eight. Minny woke up early and listened to her moving around downstairs with the baby. She could have woken Selena up and they could have gone down and ambushed her; Ash would have been awake for hours in her room. But she didn’t. Which of course meant that when Selena did wake up, suddenly and with a jump like always, she was furious. Once she’d figured out what the time was. She had trouble with clocks and she wouldn’t have a digital one.
‘Shut up,’ Minny said in the end, getting out of bed to go and see where Raymond was. ‘She’ll be back before lunch. You can hear all about it then.’
Saturday mornings were normally relaxed. On weekdays, it was like being in the army; they all had to sit down together to breakfast, even though it meant their mother had to be up in the middle of the night to make their lunches and have a shower. But on Saturdays she was out, and Babi always went straight back to bed when Minny got up to watch the baby; then as soon as she reappeared she was off down the road to hang out at the greengrocer’s, or possibly the café next to it so that Gil could leave his long-suffering assistant in charge and slope off to meet her. The girls sat around in their pyjamas with scruffy hair and cold feet, eating their cereal wedged into corners of the settee so they could fend off the marauding baby.
Afterwards, they might have a game or two on the Wii. The baby loved it, watching was his best thing. He screamed when they finished, and sometimes, if no one turned it off, Minny would come back into the room twenty minutes later and find him still sitting patiently, hopefully, staring at the screen. They’d used to play it a lot more. But Ash got too dependent on the same games at the same time every day, even after she’d stopped enjoying them – so when Minny started refusing she threw a few tantrums but was relieved in the end. Also, it turned Selena into a raving nutbag because she hated losing so much; so now it was only on Saturdays that they could all reliably be found in front of it. It was an easy thing for them to do together.
That day they probably shouldn’t even have tried, Selena was in such a mood. She always cried like a fountain unless she won pretty much all the mini-games, and when she wasn’t crying she was stamping and shouting. You could hear her all over the house – they tried to ignore her, but all that meant was the same thing over and over again. ‘But I did it quicker, it’s not fair. I did it quicker, it’s not fair.’ Then there was a pause and she varied it: ‘It’s not fair, I did it quicker.’ Today she wasn’t even paying attention, just buzzing about doing headstands on the sofa right by where Minny was sitting with Raymond on her lap, then skipping round and round and round the room, counting. She didn’t even try, just shouted, ‘Oh, dang it,’ whenever she lost and then skip, skip, skip. ‘What do you think it’s about?’ she kept saying.
‘I don’t KNOW.’
And then two minutes later, ‘What could he be calling about?’
‘Guess what. I still DON’T KNOW.’
‘Maybe he wants us to visit him.’
‘Fat chance.’
‘Do you mean of him wanting us to, or of us going? Maybe he’s coming back.’
‘Maybe he’s dying,’ Minny snapped. ‘Maybe he wants a kidney. Maybe he’s going to prison for life for murder.’
‘Who did he murder?’ Ash asked.
‘I don’t know. A corrupt cop.’
‘Why would he murder a corrupt cop?’
‘Maybe he wants to say sorry to us all,’ Selena said, with her sanctimonious forgiving face on.
‘Maybe he’s just a big fat nothing who’s done exactly what he wanted for himself his whole life and screw everyone else and I don’t care about anything he does. And neither should you. He doesn’t know anything about you, Sel. You think he’s sitting on a sofa somewhere wondering about you now and trying to figure out what you’re up to? You weren’t even five when he left.’
‘I know that, Minny. I remember.’
‘No, you don’t, because you were four.’ She picked Raymond up from where she’d dumped him on the floor so she could turn around and shout at Selena. He was entranced by Wario and Waluigi.
‘He’s sorry about it,’ Sel said.
‘Who cares? How do you know?’
She was sitting on the football and bouncing. ‘I emailed him.’
‘What are you talking about, you can’t even type.’
‘I can!’
‘That must have been an interestingly spelled email,’ Minny said, beginning to get worked up again. ‘When?’ She’d known her mother heard from him sometimes, but she’d never wanted to have a conversation about it. Still, she hadn’t thought other people were having conversations without her.
‘On my birthday. He sent me my camera. Well, it isn’t right not to talk to someone if they’re sorry and they want to talk to you, and they give you something great as well.’ She fell backwards off the ball and looked at Minny. ‘Is it?’
Minny picked Raymond up and took him upstairs, without waiting for the scores, though Ash protested and clapped her hands. She couldn’t stand Selena and her tolerant smile any more. Her finding God was one of the worst things that had ever happened. Minny wished she would lose Him again.
Being alone with Raymond was soothing. She couldn’t be angry at him, he was too little. She got him dressed without him yelping too much, because she gave him their mother’s alarm clock to play with. She always put his light blue silvery T-shirt on him when it was clean, because it made him even more vivid – he had goldy tufty hair and bright blue eyes and pink cheeks. He was like a little golden bull.
Her phone went before she’d brought him downstairs, so she wedged him in a corner with all Selena’s stuffed toys where he couldn’t do much damage. It was Penny, wailing about Jorge and the row they’d had last night. Minny supposed she should count herself lucky she hadn’t got called up at midnight with all this; Penny didn’t half rabbit on about Jorge. It was partly that obsessiveness that everyone seemed to get when they were going out with someone – and Penny had always been obsessive anyway – but it was also partly showing off. Minny didn’t want a bo
yfriend. Not a particular one or a general one. But every day she continued not to have one, nor to have had one, ever, she felt as if she was giving Penny a present.
‘Can I meet you?’ Penny asked finally, blowing her nose into the phone by the sound of it.
‘Er – you mean come round?’
‘No, I can’t stop crying. How about the park?’
Minny looked outside. It was warm and windless; the rose bushes, overgrown almost to her window, weren’t even rippling. ‘We could go swimming.’
‘No!’ Penny was horrified. ‘If Jorge gets knocked out of his tennis early, he’ll probably go to the pool. Anyway, I hate it there.’ She sounded a bit more like herself – bossy. ‘You’re so weird, Minny. I think you’re a closet exhibitionist. You just want to hang out in a swimsuit – yeuchh – and have everyone else in swimsuits too …’
On sunny weekends the open-air pool was always full with people from school, and from all the other schools around too, showing off in bikinis and the boys bombing each other, like a wildlife programme. It was pretty horrible, but Minny didn’t see why it was so strange to want to actually swim. In summer.
She agreed to the park in the end, and they arranged to meet after lunch. Minny would agree to most things to avoid Penny coming round to the house; Penny was her oldest friend, but it was still embarrassing when Babi stood on the front doorstep smoking her menthol cigarettes, and there were Aisling’s squeaks and groans and monologues, and Selena being a brat with her Twelve Tribes in the bedroom, and her mother playing the guitar and singing. Nita would probably stop doing that if Minny asked her, but she would find it so screamingly funny. Their house was like a lunatic asylum when you looked at it through someone else’s eyes. Also the food was so weird: fizzy drinks weren’t allowed in the door because Nita had a thing about the soft-drink industry, and then most evenings Babi was catering. Their grandmother was a wonderful cook, but it was all strange meaty or fishy things poor Penny was afraid of.
And of course the house was a bit shambolic. Many of her friends whose homes she’d visited lived in big houses with fridges that dispensed ice. Not all of them, but her own house was coming down with baby toys and hand marks on the walls; the bathmat was older than Minny and the bathroom floor was flecked with splodges of Babi’s hair dye; though their mother occasionally had a cleaning fit and attacked the bedroom ceilings with bleach, mould grew black in patches around the place.
After she’d brushed her teeth she took the baby downstairs, just as her mother plunged back in through the front door, all out of breath with her huge square flat bag that always had crazy things like mop handles and shiny gold tubes sticking out of it. ‘Everything all right? Where’s Babi?’
‘Three guesses,’ Minny said, juggling the baby, who was trying to get to his mother.
‘She hasn’t. What time did she go?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘Oh, good grief.’ Babi always said she’d stay and then just went. ‘One day the damned house will just blow up and then she’ll learn.’
‘Oh good, I’ll look forward to it. Selena’s been doing nothing but witter on about Dad.’
‘Right. Of course.’ She dumped the bag on the floor and took the baby. ‘Well, let’s get some lunch and then I’ll tell you all about it.’ At least she seemed more cheerful this morning. While Minny got a beef sandwich she wondered if her father had actually rung up to say that he was on his deathbed. She wouldn’t have minded being left a stack of guilt-money.
‘Right,’ Nita started when they were all sitting down. By that time Minny had nearly finished, since her mother had made sandwiches for the baby, Ash and Selena as well as her own, and put a Loretta Lynn album on just loud enough to make them all feel strong. ‘As you know, your dad rang last night.’
‘Where’s the ketchup?’ Ash asked.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Selena shouted, then looked mortified and put her hands over her face. Their mother got up to get the ketchup from the kitchen. Ash needed it for most meals.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Nita went on, as Aisling did a huge splurt of sauce onto her plate. She gave Raymond another quarter of sandwich. ‘It’s actually good news. I know you’ve all got a lot of different feelings going on for your dad, and this might feel strange at first, but do try to think of it as good news. Stop muttering, Minny. The thing is, he’s back.’ She coughed and took a sip of tea. ‘He’s back in the country. In London, actually.’
‘How long for? Do we get to see him?’ Selena was so like their mother when she got excited. Her hair wisped up around her face. They all had the same hair; Raymond’s curls were getting a bit darker now, but still Babi and Minny were the only people in the house who weren’t blonde. Nita’s father was South African, but his family came from Norway originally.
‘Well. He’s back to live. In London,’ she added quickly. ‘Not right here of course. I’m not sure where they’ll settle – they’re staying with friends at the moment. But of course anywhere in London is reachable for us.’ Raymond choked on his sandwich and threw it on the floor while he coughed.
They hadn’t seen their father in going on three years. He had always gone to America quite a lot, for his job, and one time, just after Minny started secondary school, he went and didn’t come back. Ever. The last time she’d heard his voice had been the big phone call, the one weeks after he should have been home and the same day their mother had finally told them he wasn’t coming back. There had been times after that when she’d tried to make Minny take the phone, but Minny never would. Even Selena had stopped asking, much, if he’d ever return to England. Minny never talked about him, so she didn’t know how much the others did, and now it turned out Sel had been emailing him. She wondered if Ash had too, and if she was the only one not prepared to shout, ‘Daddy, my daddy,’ like Bobbie in The Railway Children. ‘Did you know about this?’ she asked Aisling.
‘Of course she didn’t, Minny.’ Nita sounded tired.
‘Yes, I did,’ Ash said.
‘What?’
‘I told you, he rang on Thursday,’ she said to Minny.
‘Was that the only time you’ve spoken to him? Since he left, I mean.’
‘Yes.’
Then of course Aisling had to tell Nita what they were talking about, which left her looking troubled, and Selena practically choking on all her questions.
‘Why is he back?’ Minny got one in before Sel could start.
‘He wants to be near us – I mean, you girls,’ her mother said, very fast.
‘Why doesn’t he come here then?’ Selena squeaked, bouncing.
‘He hasn’t wanted to see us for three years,’ Minny snarled.
‘That’s not true, Minny,’ Nita said, with her ‘try not to take your angst out on your little sister’s hopes and dreams’ look. ‘You know I think he did … not the right thing, leaving and going so far away, but he had things going on which help explain it a bit. We’ve talked about his depression. Yes, you’ve got every right to be angry with him …’
‘I know.’
‘But he wants to try to make amends. Some amends. He wants to get to know you—’
‘No!’
‘– and when you’re ready, when you’ve got used to the idea – look, Minny, I just think if you don’t even think about it, if you were to close yourself off completely, you might be missing out on what could, one day, be a valuable—’
‘No.’
‘That’s not very forgiving, Minny,’ Selena said.
‘No, it isn’t,’ Minny agreed.
‘Mmm – ffn,’ Ash said suddenly, and pushed her chair back from the table. Then she put her hands over her mouth.
‘Do you want to speak, Ash?’ Nita asked. Aisling shook her head. Nita sighed, and rubbed her face. ‘It sounds like it’s going to be permanent, you know. He’s going to be around. His job’s here now—’
‘Oh, well, that explains it.’
‘– and I’d better tell you this now: he h
as a, erm, a girlfriend. A … partner, who’s coming with him.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. A lady he met in New York.’ Their mother never referred to anyone as a ‘lady’. She thought it was anti-feminist. She also didn’t usually talk to Sel as if she was a baby.
‘He’s bringing her from New York? Why would she want to come here?’
‘She’s English,’ their mother admitted.
‘Oh,’ Minny said. ‘Now I see.’
‘Don’t be so smart, Minny.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Her name is Harriet.’ It certainly conjured up an image. Basically it came down to this – her father was back in England sleeping with someone from an Enid Blyton book and she was supposed to be pleased. ‘I told him he’d have to give us time to get used to the idea. You lot, I mean.’
‘How old is she?’ These were unusually interesting questions for Ash to be asking – actually of course they were the same questions she asked about everyone new. Next would be Harriet’s birthday and whether or not she had any brothers or sisters.
‘I believe she’s about twenty-six,’ Nita said, pretending not to be reluctant.
‘You mean you asked him how old she was and he said “about twenty-six”?’
‘Minny, just calm down. I’ve known about her for a little while. It’s not just Harriet, and it’s not really about his job either – he wants to be where he can see you again, and be part of your lives.’ She looked at Aisling, who was sitting looking tragic with her finger in a puddle of ketchup. ‘Anyway. Listen, I’ve got his number – when you want to call him. Any of you. I know it’s been a long time since you spoke to him, and in a lot of ways it might be like talking to a stranger at first.’
‘A stranger who abandoned you when you were eleven. How can you be all right with this?’ Minny demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ Nita admitted. ‘It’s complicated. I spent a long time being furious with him, probably more than you realised. I’ve even hated him for some of it. But I’m not in love with him any more, which helps in not hating him. And I suppose I feel very sorry for him.’