Earth to Daniel

by Gwyneth Rees

  There were a few funny looks being exchanged in the assembly hall by people who didn’t see how they went together, but Mum was unfazed. ‘Instead of having stalls with books on them here in the school hall, we’re going to convert the hall into one of those cafe bookshops where you can sample a book while drinking a delicious hot or cold beverage. I’m going to bring in my sofas from home and anyone else who wants to lend sofas or armchairs is most welcome to do so. I’ve put an advert in the local paper this year as well, so that more people know about it.’

  Somebody in my class whispered, ‘How are we supposed to bring in sofas?’ (Which is what I was thinking too.)

  Nobody asked me anything about it, thank goodness. The unexpected thing was that lots of people at school seemed to keep forgetting that our headmistress was also my mother. I mean, they all knew, and I’d got lots of comments about it at the beginning, but now they often talked to me as if they’d temporarily forgotten the connection.

  The only person who didn’t forget was Mrs Lyle. We had English straight after assembly and the first thing she said when we’d all settled down was, ‘So, everybody … who’s planning on bringing the odd sofa with them when they come to our book sale then?’

  Everyone laughed, even Abby, and Mrs Lyle added, ‘It looks like you’ll be the only one, Daniel.’

  I went bright red and everyone immediately remembered that I was Daniel MacKenzie, the head teacher’s son, who was only masquerading as an ordinary member of the class. I tried in vain to think of something to say in reply. Mrs Lyle obviously resented my mother just barging in and taking over the organisation of the book sale and I can’t say I blamed her. After all, from the way Mum was carrying on, you’d think Mrs Lyle was incapable of making it a successful event herself. I looked Mrs Lyle in the eyes (which was easy because I was still sitting right at the front of the class) and said, ‘Sorry, Miss.’ Because I really did feel sorry about what Mum was doing and I felt sort of responsible too in a funny sort of way.

  To my utter surprise Mrs Lyle went bright red herself then and didn’t say anything about being a ‘Mrs’. She immediately started having a go at somebody else for not doing their homework, and when I accidently banged into the desk behind while I was swinging on my chair a bit later on, she didn’t even tell me off.

  At break time I’d meant to ask Abby if she wanted to hang out with me, but she left the room so quickly that I didn’t have time to. So I did my usual thing of heading for the boys’ toilets first to kill a bit of time before going to the tuck-shop where, by then, there would always be a longish queue. I could then join the end of it and stand there for most of break without looking awkward because I was on my own. I hated looking like I had nothing to do.

  I headed for the stairs, making for the furthest-away toilets because that way the whole trip took up more time. I had to remind myself to walk on the right, which was the rule at my new school to stop everyone bumping into each other. At my last school we had to walk on the left, which is far more sensible, if you ask me, considering that everybody drives on the left.

  I wasn’t really looking where I was going because I was thinking about something that had happened yesterday. Martha had been drawing a picture of the seaside – a yellow rectangle of beach with a blue strip of sky above it and lots of white ‘V’ shapes on the sky which were the seagulls. Mum had come along and dripped white blobs of Tipp-Ex all over it and written ‘Seagull Poo by Martha MacKenzie’ in big letters along the bottom. It would have been funny except that Martha was really upset because she was meant to hand it in the next day as homework.

  I jumped as someone put out their arm and stopped me in my tracks. ‘DANIEL!’

  It was Mum.

  ‘Go away,’ I hissed, quickly scanning the area to see if anyone from my class was around.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Mum said, ruffling my hair before I could squirm out of her reach. ‘Can’t stop. I’m on my way to do my social bit in the staffroom. See you later. By the way, I thought we could go to the beach after school. It’s silly to live by the seaside and never go to the beach, isn’t it?’ She said the last bit really loudly.

  The kids who were within earshot all turned to stare at me and right then I just wanted to die. Or at least hire a contract killer to assassinate Mum.

  ‘It’s not fair!’ I burst out, sounding like a five-year-old and not even caring. ‘You just go out of your way to embarrass me at school. You do it on purpose!’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Mum said, handing me an ice cream even though I’d just told her I didn’t want one. ‘Why be embarrassed?’

  ‘It’s normal to be embarrassed when you’ve got a mother who makes you look really stupid in front of everyone at school!’ I snapped.

  We were standing at an ice-cream booth on the seafront. Right now, it was high tide, so there wasn’t any sand to play on. We were learning that you had to come to the beach when the tide was out if you wanted to use your buckets and spades. Martha was excited anyway because she’d just got an ice cream that was half vanilla and half strawberry. She frowned as Mum handed me my ice cream, as if she was worried about something. ‘Daniel, you’re not going to throw that on the ground, are you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Martha!’ Mum said, getting out her purse and paying for them.

  ‘But that’s what he did when –’ Martha started to say, but Mum had stopped listening.

  ‘Kate!’ she shrieked, and before we could stop her she had rushed over to the other side of the road, without even looking to see if there were any cars coming. A blonde woman was standing on the opposite pavement.

  I grabbed Martha’s hand in case she had any ideas about running across the road after Mum. By the time she and I had carefully crossed the road, Mum was deep in conversation with the blonde woman who I didn’t recognise even close up.

  ‘This is Kate,’ Mum told us when we caught up with her.

  ‘Wow – is this Martha?’ Kate gasped, staring at my sister. ‘Sophie’s just over there, Isobel. See!’ She pointed at a little girl about the same age as Martha, who was buying a pink stick of rock from a souvenir stall. The little girl came running over to us with the rock. She had long dark hair and plump rosy cheeks. Her mother smiled at her and said, ‘You won’t remember this, Sophie, but you and Martha knew each other when you were babies.’

  Mum was looking intensely at Sophie, who was staring curiously at Martha. My little sister was having trouble with her ice cream, which was melting so fast it was dripping on to her hand.

  ‘You must be Martha’s big brother,’ Kate said to me while Mum kept staring at the girls.

  I paused in eating my own ice cream, which I’d already licked neatly down to the cone. ‘Yeah …’ I mumbled.

  ‘You look like your mum,’ she added, smiling.

  I nodded. People were always saying that.

  ‘You know … Sophie doesn’t look anything like you,’ Mum told Kate suddenly.

  Kate looked like she thought that was an odd thing for Mum to say – or maybe it was just the way Mum said it, as if it was something Kate ought to be worried about.

  ‘Oh, well … everyone says she takes after her dad but I think –’

  ‘Does Sophie know about the mix-up?’ Mum interrupted.

  ‘The mix-up?’ Kate looked puzzled.

  ‘With the babies. That day.’

  ‘You mean when …’ Kate trailed off, shaking her head. Even I could tell she didn’t want to talk about whatever it was, but Mum didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘That Mother and Baby Unit should have been closed down after that happened,’ Mum snapped.

  I was listening intently now. What was Mum talking about?

  ‘Those were scary days,’ Kate agreed hoarsely. She swallowed. ‘I’ve been well since though. What about you?’

  ‘Never been better!’ Mum said, a bit too emphatically.

  ‘Well, I’d better go. We’re meant to be meeting Martin in a minute.’ Kate held out her hand for
her daughter. ‘Come on, Sophie!’ She was looking at Mum again. ‘Good to see you again, Isobel. Take care!’ She waved goodbye to Martha, holding Sophie’s hand tightly as they headed off together.

  Mum had a funny look on her face as she kept staring after them.

  ‘Mum, who was that?’ I asked.

  Martha started tugging at Mum’s hand, whining, ‘Mummy, my ice cream’s all melting!’

  Mum shook her off abruptly, which is just what I would have done since Martha’s ice cream had gone everywhere and she was basically a pink and white sticky mess. But Mum wouldn’t normally do that. Normally she’d be paying Martha’s hands and face lots of attention, using up half a packet of wet wipes on them.

  ‘Mum, who was that?’ I said again, hearing my voice go up a pitch. I don’t know why I felt so nervous all of a sudden.

  ‘Kate was in the next bed to me in the Mother and Baby Unit. We were friends there. Her baby had fair hair and mine had dark.’

  ‘You mean the other way round, don’t you?’ I glanced at Martha, whose blonde hair was blowing into her ice cream.

  ‘No,’ Mum replied, looking wistful. ‘My baby had dark hair. A whole thatch of it. Hers was blonde, like her.’

  ‘But, Mum –’ I stopped. She had reached into her bag for a pen and she was writing something on the back of her hand. I’d never seen Mum write on her hand before. Normally she tells me off if I do it and makes me go and fetch a bit of paper. ‘What are you writing?’

  ‘Kate’s address while she’s staying here. It’s a B & B on Castle Road. Mariner’s Cottage.’

  ‘Are you going to see her again then?’ I asked, surprised. From the way Kate had whizzed away just now, it hadn’t looked to me like she was planning on that.

  Mum didn’t reply. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You bring Martha. We have to get home.’

  On the way back I asked, ‘Mum, what’s a Mother and Baby Unit? Is it where people go when they’ve just had a baby?’

  Mum looked at me. ‘The one I’m talking about was in the psychiatric hospital. It’s better for babies to stay with their mothers rather than be separated from them, even if their mothers have a mental illness. So some psychiatric hospitals have these special units where the babies can be looked after too.’

  ‘But why should your one have been closed down? What was wrong with it?’

  ‘Something bad happened there. Your dad didn’t think it was safe any more, so he took Martha home. Don’t you remember that?’

  I shook my head. My memories of that time are really hazy. ‘What happened? Why didn’t Dad think it was safe?’

  But she wouldn’t tell me any more.

  Mum and I both raced to the phone when it rang later that evening after Martha had gone to bed.

  ‘Dad!’ I gasped, getting there first.

  ‘G’day, mate!’ Dad was always putting on a fake Australian accent when he phoned us, which I thought was silly since he was in New Zealand.

  ‘Dad, is Grandma –’ I just stopped myself from blurting out, ‘Is Grandma dead yet?’ Last time he’d phoned he’d told us that she had taken a turn for the worse and been admitted to hospital.

  ‘They gave her a blood transfusion. She’s back home again now.’

  ‘Right.’ I tried to sound cool about it. I knew that if Grandma died sooner than we’d expected, Dad would be able to come home sooner than we’d expected, that was all. It wasn’t that I was wishing Grandma would hurry up and die. Not really.

  ‘Malcolm?’ Mum grabbed the phone off me in her excitement to speak to him, but not before I’d pressed the speaker button.

  Mum asked about Grandma, and Dad told her that the doctor thought she had a few weeks left to live at the most. Dad wanted to stay with her until then. ‘But, Izzy, are you OK? I hate being away from you like this.’

  ‘I’m fine, Malcolm.’

  ‘And the kids? Is Daniel behaving himself?’

  I nearly called out indignantly that of course I was, but Mum swiftly replied on my behalf. ‘I told you before, Malcolm. He’s being very good. A big help, in fact.’ I wondered if she was going to tell him about me going to the hospital with her. Or if she’d already mentioned that when he’d phoned before.

  ‘That’s great. I thought he might be giving you a hard time about school.’ Suddenly he asked, ‘And you’re still taking the same dose of lithium?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mum sounded a bit impatient.

  I was shocked by how convincing her lie sounded. I almost had the courage to butt in and tell Dad the truth but then, Mum was right about Dad worrying if he knew – and anyway, she hadn’t become ill like he’d said she would if she ever stopped taking it. Besides, Mum was the parent who was here with me right now, whereas Dad was thousands of miles away. And I wasn’t sure how angry Mum would be with me if I told.

  ‘Are you managing OK with work and everything? You sound very … perky …’

  ‘I’m fine, Malcolm. I’m just happy to hear your voice! I’m having the time of my life up at that school, bossing everyone about! I love being head.’

  He laughed. ‘Are you sleeping better?’

  ‘Yes. I told you. I’m fine. Now, what about you?’

  Dad started to talk about what was happening at his end and how he was feeling about it all. I felt a bit guilty listening in. He clearly didn’t know he was on speaker and thought he was having a private conversation with Mum. But just as I was about to leave the room, Mum interrupted him to say, ‘You’ll never guess who I met today!’

  ‘Who?’ Dad had been in the middle of telling Mum about the pain-killing injections his mother was getting and how he had offered to give them himself so the nurse didn’t have to visit so often. He sounded a bit surprised when Mum changed the subject so abruptly.

  ‘Kate! Remember her? She was in the bed next to me on the Mother and Baby Unit. We kept in touch for a while afterwards. Anyway, she’s here with her family, taking a late summer holiday – after her daughter’s school’s gone back, and you know what I think about that … Anyway, the little girl was with her. She’s Martha’s age now, of course. And Malcolm, she has dark hair. Dark hair.’ She paused. ‘Kate had a blonde baby, remember?’

  ‘I can’t say I remember Kate very well – or her baby.’

  ‘Well, I do, and it’s made me think about it.’

  ‘Think about what?’ Dad sounded puzzled.

  ‘You know what!’

  ‘No I don’t! Izzy, what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything!’ Mum snapped, suddenly defensive. ‘It was just a shock seeing them, that’s all. It brought it all back!’

  ‘Izzy …’ He sounded concerned. ‘Izzy you know how sorry I am about …’ There were other voices in the background and Dad’s name was being called. ‘Izzy, listen, the nurse is here to see my mother. I have to go, but we’ll talk properly later. Izzy, I’m sorry you’re upset … You are OK, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course I am. I’m just really missing you, that’s all. And then seeing Kate again …’

  ‘I know. I’m missing you too, love.’

  I was having difficulty making sense of what I’d just heard. I had only been five when Martha was born and I can’t remember much about it. I know Mum was in hospital for a long while – weeks, maybe even months. I can vaguely remember Dad bringing Martha home from the hospital. I know he took several months off work to look after us. I can’t recall much else, apart from Uncle Robert being around a lot. And the only colour I can ever remember Martha’s hair being is the colour it is now.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mum didn’t say anything else about the woman called Kate for the rest of the week, and I thought it was best not to ask. She had organised for a local removal firm to take our two sofas up to the school in time for the book sale on Saturday morning. That was enough to worry about for one week, I reckoned. I’d tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t listen. She said that as head teacher she had a duty to set an example to the rest of the school
by donating our furniture.

  When we got to the school ourselves on Saturday, our sofas were the only ones there. They looked really silly sitting on their own in the middle of the assembly hall. Martha immediately ran over and curled up on one of them and a parent who was helping out gushed, ‘Oh, isn’t she a cutie? You’d better watch someone doesn’t try and buy her today! Look at that lovely blonde hair! Where does she get that from?’

  Mum looked at Martha. ‘Not from anybody in our family,’ she said, and walked away abruptly.

  I thought that was a really weird thing to say.

  Mrs Lyle was busy setting up the book stalls when we arrived. As soon as she saw Mum, she came over and explained that since we only had the two sofas she’d thought we should have stalls after all. But she was also going to set up a sort of cosy corner with our sofas, so that people could relax there when they wanted to have a break from book-hunting. There was a plant stall, I noticed, although there weren’t very many plants on it. Mum spotted that too. ‘I’m going home to fetch some more things,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘What things?’ I asked, but she didn’t reply.

  She came back half an hour later carrying Dad’s massive cheese plant.

  ‘But, Mum, Dad loves that plant!’ I gasped. ‘He’s had it since he was a medical student!’

  ‘Yes, and if I don’t get rid of it, he’ll have it until he’s an old-age pensioner,’ Mum replied.

  ‘But, Mum, he won’t want you to get rid of it.’

  Mum just ignored me. She’s not very good with plants. She says the big ones take up too much room and block out the light and the little ones make her feel like a failure because they’re always going brown and dying on her. She’d already thrown one in the bin the day after Dad left. (It still had one green leaf, which Dad had insisted was a good enough reason to keep it.) I could understand Mum wanting to throw out that one, but I still couldn’t believe she was going to sell his precious cheese plant without telling him.