by Gwyneth Rees
Abby suddenly started telling me about her mother almost as if she knew that I was trying to get up the courage to tell her something major about mine. ‘Last week she went into a special clinic to get some help to stop drinking. Susie says we musn’t get our hopes up because she’s done that before … but at least she’s trying again.’
‘That must be hard,’ I murmured. ‘Not to get your hopes up, I mean.’
She gave me a funny look, as if she didn’t know too many people who understood that. ‘Here!’ She put the lid back on the ketchup bottle. ‘Catch!’ She threw it to me across the table.
Unfortunately it was one of those old-fashioned glass ones and I’ve never been brilliant at catching things.
Just as the bottle missed my hand and landed with a smash on the tiled floor, Abby’s big sister walked in the back door, carrying a bag of shopping. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Sorry.’ I gulped.
Susie was glowering at the broken bottle, which was now leaking ketchup. She glared at Abby, who looked like she was trying not to giggle. ‘Are you just going to stand there, miss?’
Abby hurried to the sink to fetch a cloth just as Martha walked in from the living room.
‘Yikes!’ Susie nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘What is this? Nursery school?’
‘She’s my sister,’ I said quickly. ‘We were just leaving.’
‘No they weren’t,’ Abby said as she took a cloth over to clean up the mess. ‘They can stay for tea, can’t they, Susie?’
But Susie was heading towards her sister now, who was absent-mindedly swishing the cloth about the floor. ‘Watch you don’t cut yourself on that glass! I don’t want blood everywhere as well!’ She crouched down in order to deal with the broken bottle herself.
‘Come on, Martha. Let’s go,’ I whispered. I didn’t reckon I’d get a chance to talk to Abby about Mum now, anyway.
‘Was that Abby’s mum?’ Martha asked me when we were outside.
‘It’s her big sister.’
‘She acted like her mum,’ Martha said.
‘Well, she has to look after Abby. That’s why.’
‘Why does she have to look after Abby?’
‘Because Abby’s mum and dad aren’t around, OK?’ I grabbed hold of her hand as we approached the main road.
‘Would you have to look after me if our mum and dad weren’t around?’ Martha asked.
‘Stop asking so many questions, OK?’ I said crossly, because it was giving me butterflies in my tummy, the way her gaze was fixed on me so trustingly.
CHAPTER 11
Mum wasn’t back when we got home – not that I’d really expected her to be. She wasn’t even answering her mobile, though it was ringing. I rang Dad’s phone next but it went straight to voicemail. I couldn’t understand it. Usually even at night Dad keeps his phone right beside him and I’d expected him to pick up. I rang my aunt’s number but again there was no answer. When it was time for Martha to go to bed and Mum still hadn’t come home, I said, ‘She’ll be back when you wake up tomorrow morning. I’ll read you a story to send you to sleep.’ I read her this book she likes about a mermaid who finds out she’s a princess. It took ages to read all of it, but I didn’t want to stop because I didn’t want to have to go downstairs on my own to wait for Mum.
I also didn’t want to be on my own thinking about what Mum might be doing right now. What if she went and accused Kate of stealing her baby? And what if she demanded they be swapped back? Everyone would think Mum was mad, especially because she had been in a mental hospital before. But Mum couldn’t be mad, could she? Even if she had got it wrong about Martha, that didn’t make her mad. But then again, I still wasn’t sure exactly what she’d look like if she was mad. I told myself that she’d be talking to herself or maybe foaming at the mouth a bit and … I don’t know … going round trying to take bites out of cats or something. I reckoned it would be pretty scary and easy to spot, in any case.
I lay on the sofa watching TV until really late. I started to worry that Mum had been involved in an accident. I didn’t know how soon the police came and told you if your relative was in a car crash. My stomach was churning and every time I heard a car outside I jumped up to look out of the window. Our parents had never left us alone like this before.
Just after midnight Mum’s car finally pulled into our drive. I opened the front door as she tottered down the drive trailing her coat and carrying several shopping bags.
‘Mum, I’ve been so worried,’ I burst out, starting to cry, which was really stupid, but I was just so relieved that she was safe. She was wearing high heels. She hardly ever wears shoes with high heels.
‘Hi, baby.’ Her voice sounded funny. She came inside the house and dropped all her bags noisily on the wooden floor in the hall. She kicked off her shoes, which clattered against the wall, and slammed the front door shut behind her. She didn’t ask how I was or how Martha was or whether Dad had phoned. She didn’t explain or say sorry about leaving us for so long. ‘Sleepy,’ she said and started to laugh. She flopped down on the settee and closed her eyes.
I stared at her, feeling a whole mixture of things that I couldn’t put into words. I felt like screaming. Like running away. Like hitting her. Like holding her tight and never letting her go.
I walked across to the sofa. ‘Did you go to Kate’s house? What did she say?’
But she didn’t open her eyes. She grunted and turned over so that her face was squashed against the back of the sofa. I shook her to wake her up again but it didn’t work. She seemed to have fallen asleep.
I went upstairs and into Martha’s room. I didn’t feel like sleeping in my own bed tonight. I pulled back her duvet and climbed in beside her, chucking her teddy bear out of the way to make more room. Her bed was nice and warm but it still took me ages to fall asleep. I just couldn’t stop worrying about what was going to happen tomorrow.
I woke up really early the next morning – the clock said it was six o’clock – and when I went downstairs Mum was up and wide awake, trying on a dress she must have bought in London. The dress was a long shimmery one with pink sequins and it came with a pink feather boa. She’d bought loads of other clothes as well. They were all over the floor.
‘I thought you went to find Kate,’ I said, ‘not go shopping.’
‘She wasn’t in,’ Mum said. ‘This shop was open late. They wanted to close up, but I just kept buying things!’ She giggled.
‘So are you not going to bother about Kate now then?’ I asked hopefully.
‘I’m going back today.’
‘To London?’
She nodded as she struggled to do up the zip on her dress. She had a red bra underneath that was nearly all showing because the front of the dress was so low-cut. ‘Look! It’s the school colours!’ she giggled, pulling a pair of red, lacy knickers out of a carrier bag and twirling them round her finger.
‘Mum, you can’t go back to London!’ I barked at her. ‘And you can’t wear that. It’s disgusting and it doesn’t even do up!’
‘I don’t need it to do up,’ Mum laughed. ‘I need it to undo. In a striptease you undo!’
‘Striptease?’ I felt like I was going to be sick.
She picked up the feather boa and started whirling it round her head like she was about to throw it into an imaginary audience, along with the knickers.
‘Mum, that’s not funny!’ I protested.
She started talking nonsense – at least it seemed like nonsense to me. ‘… bring the house down … the school down … the world down …’ She was dancing round the room in the dress, swinging her hips and twirling her feather boa and humming music that sounded like the kind you might dance to if you were a stripper, instead of being somebody’s mother and headmistress of a school.
Mum was dancing her way into the kitchen, so I followed her. I stopped as I saw what she’d done in there. The cupboards were all open and cans and packets of food were lying around all over the work surfaces. Mum w
as heading for the back door. ‘Mum – no!’ I rushed over and pulled the key out of the lock. ‘Don’t go outside now, please.’
‘Please don’t go,’ Mum repeated after me. ‘Pleeeease don’t go.’ She sounded like she was thinking about breaking into song.
Martha suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway. All the noise must have woken her up. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back out into the living room. I didn’t want her to see Mum like this. ‘Go back to bed!’ I snapped. ‘It’s too early to get up yet!’
Martha glared at me. ‘I want to see Mummy!’
‘Listen, Martha, you’ve got to do what I say! I’m in charge until Dad gets back!’
‘No, you’re not!’ She screwed up her nose. ‘Mummy is!’
That’s when I really lost it. ‘Oh, sure she is!’ I bawled. ‘She’s really in charge of us, isn’t she? If she wants to throw you into the sea, along with all your goldfish, is that OK?’
Martha’s face crumpled and she burst into tears.
I felt really bad then. I went over to hug Martha. ‘I’m sorry. It’s OK. I’m sorry.’ I felt really guilty. I felt as if everything was going wrong just because I didn’t know what to do.
I got Martha to come upstairs with me by whispering that we were going to make a special secret phone call to Dad. On the way upstairs I lifted the front-door key off the key rack, made sure the door was double-locked so there was no way Mum could open it, and put the key in my pocket. I let Martha ring Dad’s number, but he still didn’t answer even though a whole day had passed since I’d last phoned and it was early evening in New Zealand now.
I tried not to let my sister see how worried I was.
I told her to get dressed and that I’d bring her breakfast upstairs to her, and then I went to get dressed myself.
When I got downstairs, Mum was sitting on the sofa still wearing her new pink outfit. She had found a pair of knitting needles and she was unravelling one of her jumpers into a long string of red wool.
‘Mum, what are you doing?’ I asked, staring at the half-unpicked jumper on her lap.
‘Knitting,’ she said. ‘Knitting backwards … Mum used to knit. Babies aren’t always good sleepers.’
I kept staring at her. I suddenly remembered something Dad had told me once when I’d asked what Mum had been like when she was mentally ill. As usual, he had refused to talk about it in very much detail, but he had said something about mentally ill people often not making any sense when you were speaking to them.
Mum wasn’t making any sense now. And all that stuff about Kate didn’t make any sense either.
Suddenly I knew that I was going to have to phone Dr White.
I couldn’t tell Mum what I was doing. I waited until eight o’clock, then I went to use the phone in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. Maybe Dr White would have started work by now. Dad used to be at work by eight when he was doing a surgery before we’d moved … I would tell Dr White that Mum wasn’t making sense, but I would also tell him that she wasn’t mad like some of his patients, because she knew who she was and she wasn’t hearing voices or anything, so surely she didn’t need to go back into hospital? I had to wait ages while the hospital switchboard put me through to the right department and, when they eventually did, Dr White’s secretary wasn’t in yet. Dr White wasn’t in yet either. The switchboard lady asked if I wanted them to page him. I said I did and I hung on for what seemed like forever until she came back to me. ‘I’m sorry, dear. He’s not responding. He might be on his way in to the hospital. Why don’t you try again in half an hour or so? Or there’s the duty doctor if it’s an emergency … Is it an emergency?’
I told her I would wait and try Dr White again a bit later and put down the phone. I didn’t want to speak about Mum to a doctor I didn’t know.
‘Mum!’ I called downstairs. She didn’t answer, so I went to find her. She wasn’t in the living room and when I went through to the kitchen she wasn’t there either, but the kitchen window was wide open. A chair was pulled up against it. I unlocked the door, rushed outside and saw that the side gate was open. I ran round to the front and found that the car was gone.
I felt sick. Had she gone to London again? Or, worse still, had she gone to school wearing that dress?
I was having trouble breathing properly and I couldn’t think what to do. I rushed back into the house and rang Mum’s phone. I held my breath as it started ringing out. I couldn’t hear it in the house, thank goodness, so I hoped she had it with her.
Suddenly there was a voice at the other end, crackly but audible. ‘Hello?’
‘Mum, is that you?’ I gasped.
‘It’s Martha.’
‘Martha!’ I was so confused, I couldn’t think for a few moments. Martha wasn’t with Mum. Martha was here with me. Martha was upstairs in her room. ‘Martha, where are you?’
‘In the car. Mummy’s taking me to London. I wanted you to come too, but she said –’
‘Put her on!’ I gasped. ‘Quickly!’
There was a brief crackle as if the phone was being handed over, and then the line went dead.
I quickly redialed her number, but now her phone went straight to voicemail. I was about to try a second time when our phone rang. I slammed it back against my ear. ‘Mum?’
‘It’s Dad.’
‘Dad!’ I couldn’t believe it.
‘Daniel, I somehow left my phone behind when we went to the hospital. I’ve only just got back to the house and found these missed calls from you. What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Mum,’ I blurted. ‘She stopped taking her medicine. She’s taking Martha to London. I’m scared what she’ll do. She thinks Martha isn’t really her baby. She thinks she was swapped in the hospital. Dad, it’s not true, is it? She couldn’t really have been swapped –’ I broke off because I was starting to cry.
Dad started asking questions rapidly, but I couldn’t answer any of them. All I knew was that if anything happened to Martha – or Mum – I couldn’t stand it. I started saying that to Dad, over and over, not listening to him.
‘DANIEL, SHUT UP!’ Dad finally barked, and I got such a jolt that I did shut up. ‘Now listen to me …’
He gave me a set of instructions. He was going to phone Dr White from New Zealand and while he was doing that, I was to ring the police and tell them my mum was mentally ill and had driven off in the car with my little sister.
‘But she’s not really ill,’ I protested. ‘And I know where she is. She’s gone to see that lady called Kate who we met who was in hospital with her, the one she thinks –’ I gulped. ‘Kate lives in London. Mum went to see her yesterday but she wasn’t in.’
‘Daniel, how has Mum been acting towards Martha recently?’ Dad sounded very tense now.
‘OK. A bit different but not too horrible or anything. Just staring at her sometimes –’
Dad interrupted again. ‘Do you have this woman’s address in London?’
‘No. Mum got it from the bed and breakfast place.’
‘What bed and breakfast place?’
‘Where Kate was staying when she was here. It was on Castle Road.’ I tried really hard to think of the name.
Dad said not to phone the police after all because he would do that. ‘But I do want you to contact a grown-up to come and be in the house with you. Phone Sally’s mother, OK?’
‘But –’
‘Daniel, just do it! I’ll phone you again when I’ve got hold of Mum’s doctor.’ He was about to hang up when I stopped him.
‘Dad, what about Grandma?’
‘She died a couple of hours ago. I’ve got to go now, Daniel …’ He put down the phone.
I felt really scared. Dad must think things were really serious to have decided to call the police. But even though Mum was upset and acting strangely, she would never do anything dangerous, would she? And surely she would never do anything bad to Martha?
The doorbell rang.
‘Don’t look pleased to see me or anything, will you?�
� Abby said, as I opened the front door and greeted her with an undisguised look of disappointment on my face. I’d thought for a second that she might be Mum.
‘Sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s just … something’s happened …’
‘What?’ Abby was frowning.
‘It’s … It’s …’ And I pulled her inside and blurted out everything.
Abby didn’t look shocked or like she was about to do a quick about-turn, which is how I reckon I’d feel if some kid I hardly knew suddenly poured out all that stuff to me the very first time I called in for him on my way to school. But then, I guess Abby was different from me. She’d already gone through a lot of scary stuff with her own mother. ‘Listen, try not to worry,’ she said quickly. ‘The police are bound to find her. But …’ She stopped there.
‘But what?’ I demanded.
‘Well, I was thinking … Maybe if we found out the address where she’s gone then we could give it to the police and they could find her quicker. Are you sure you can’t remember the name of that B & B?’
I shook my head. ‘All I can remember is that it was on Castle Road.’
‘Right.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Googling B & Bs on Castle Road.’ Her search turned up three and the next thing I knew she was phoning for a taxi. ‘Well you don’t just want to sit here doing nothing, do you?’ she said when I gave her a puzzled look.
‘But my dad said to stay put,’ I told her.
‘So? Your dad’s in New Zealand, isn’t he?’
I frowned. She was right, of course. Dad wasn’t in any position to stop me.
We got the taxi to take us to Castle Road, which was in the old, more touristy part of town. It was raining and I had to hold my hood up against the wind as I started to walk along the road looking for the first B & B on Abby’s list – number 30. We’d got about halfway up the street when a police car pulled up on the road, level with us. The siren wasn’t on, but the blue light was flashing. A policeman opened his door and stepped out, looking at me curiously. ‘You wouldn’t be Daniel MacKenzie, would you?’ he asked.