by Gwyneth Rees
I waited at the bus stop after the bus drove away, pretending to tie up my shoelace. Lizzie had set off up the road and I wanted to give her a head start. I remembered how my detective book said you should always count to thirty before you started following your suspect.
It wasn’t long before Lizzie turned into another street and I had to hurry so as not to lose her. When I turned into that street myself, I saw her disappearing into someone’s driveway a short distance along. By the time I got there, Lizzie had walked up to the front door of the house and was waiting inside the porch. The house was a big, old-looking one with large windows and, as I hid behind the hedge to watch, I saw the front door being opened by a slim, tall man about the same age as my dad. He had short, dark hair and he smiled at Lizzie as he let her inside. The door closed behind them quickly, but a minute or two later I saw Lizzie again through the window, in the room to the left of the front door. I decided to sneak up closer to the house to see better.
I positioned myself in a flower bed, standing just to one side of the window, worrying fleetingly that I was leaving suspicious footprints like the ones my detective book says criminals are always leaving in flower beds. But since I wasn’t a criminal, I decided it probably didn’t matter.
The room Lizzie was in had a leather sofa and a big leather armchair, and there was a desk in the corner with a pile of papers on it. Andrew hadn’t come into the room yet. Lizzie was sitting down with her back resting against one arm of the sofa, looking like she was about to put her feet up, just like you’d do if you knew the person you were visiting really well. And then she did the thing that made me totally unable to hold it together any longer.
She kicked off her shoes!
My vision seemed to go blurry and my heart started racing and suddenly I had this horrible image inside my head of Andrew coming into the room, sitting down next to her on the sofa, kicking off his own shoes, putting his arms round her and kissing her.
I wanted to shout out in protest, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice and before I knew what I was doing I was banging really hard on the window.
Lizzie nearly jumped out of her skin. She leapt up, tripping over her shoes as she called out loudly, ‘Andrew! There’s somebody outside!’
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that she didn’t recognize me.
By the time Andrew opened the front door – with Lizzie standing right behind him in the hall – I had pulled off the wig and the woolly hat and taken off the sunglasses.
‘Esmie!’ Lizzie gasped. She pushed past Andrew, stepping out of the front door towards me, but she couldn’t get very far on the gravel drive because she wasn’t wearing her shoes.
I pointed to her feet. My hand was trembling. ‘Does Dad know you . . . you . . . go around taking off your shoes in other men’s houses?’ I spluttered.
And before she had time to reply, I had turned and fled.
By the time I got home I was all fired up and ready to tell Dad everything.
Dad was in the kitchen making himself a mug of coffee and I went to join him immediately. But before I could open my mouth, the doorbell rang and there was the sound of a key in the lock. I knew it was Lizzie because she’s the only one who rings our bell as well as letting herself in with the key Dad has had cut for her. I looked out of the window and saw a taxi pulling away and guessed that she must have called one from Andrew’s to try and get back before I did.
‘Lizzie’s having an affair, Dad,’ I blurted out before she could get through the door.
Dad nearly choked on a mouthful of coffee. By the time he’d finished coughing, Lizzie had come into the kitchen.
I turned on her immediately. ‘I saw you in that man’s house!’ I yelled. ‘I saw you taking off your shoes!’
‘Esmie, listen . . .’ Lizzie started to say, but I wouldn’t let her talk.
‘You lied about where you were going! You said you were going to the doctor’s when you were going to his house!’
‘Esmie, what are you talking about?’ Dad was staring at me as if he thought I’d gone mad. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected him to take me seriously straight away. After all, he hadn’t seen what I’d seen, had he?
I was about to describe exactly what I’d seen, when we heard a noise in the hall.
We turned around.
‘Matty!’ I gasped. Matthew was standing in the kitchen doorway and the first thing I thought was that I’d forgotten he had a broken arm. He looked a bit scruffier than usual, but apart from that he was just the same. I reminded myself that he’d only been gone a few days – it just felt like longer.
‘Hi,’ he grunted.
I ran over and hugged him – even though he didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t help it.
When I stepped back, I saw that my brother was looking warily at Dad, who had seemed to freeze when Matty appeared.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ Matthew said nervously.
Dad was nodding slowly. ‘So you should be.’
Then Dad stepped forward and the next minute he had his arms round my brother and was holding him really tightly.
My head felt a bit swimmy. I was pleased that my brother was home again, but I still felt terrible about Lizzie.
It seemed to take Dad and Matthew several minutes before they felt ready to let go of each other, but when they did, Dad immediately switched into stern parent mode. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
But Lizzie spoke before Matthew could answer. ‘Esmie and I need to talk, John, and so do you and Matthew. Why don’t you go through to the living room, and Esmie and I can stay in here?’
Dad glanced at us as if he was just starting to recollect – but only vaguely – what had been taking place before my brother’s arrival. ‘Fine,’ he muttered. He put one hand on my brother’s shoulder. ‘Come on.’
‘Jennifer’s waiting outside,’ my brother mumbled.
‘Well, we’d better invite her in so that she can phone her father and put him out of his misery too, hadn’t we?’ Dad said.
So Matty went off with Dad to fetch Jennifer, and I stayed in the kitchen with Lizzie.
Lizzie sat down at one side of the table and pointed to the seat opposite her. I stayed standing. If she thought she could talk her way out of this, she was wrong.
Lizzie sighed. ‘Esmie, the man you saw me with today . . . Andrew . . . it’s not what you think . . . You see . . . he’s my psychotherapist.’ She paused. ‘Do you know what that is?’
I gaped at her. For a moment I thought she was lying to me. Then I knew that she couldn’t be, because no one would ever make up something as crazy as that. ‘Psychotherapist?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You mean he’s not your . . . ?’ I trailed off, finding it hard to take this in.
‘Of course not! I’ve been seeing Andrew for an hour every week for a couple of months now. I didn’t tell you I had an appointment with him today because . . . well . . . I felt like it was something I wanted to keep private.’ She looked at me. ‘Somehow you seem to have got completely the wrong idea.’
‘I thought . . .’ I suddenly found my voice drying up and my eyes filling with tears.
Lizzie got up and came to put her arm round me. ‘I’m sorry I scared you, Esmie. I had no idea.’
‘B-but you took off your shoes in his house,’ I stammered dumbly.
‘In order to lie down on his couch! It’s a therapy couch, Esmie. Actually, I think it’s a bit unnecessary myself, but since that’s the way he likes to do it . . .’
I sniffed. I knew all about therapy couches. I had seen a film once where this weirdo therapist got his patients to lie on his couch and then he hypnotized them into going off and murdering all the people he didn’t like.
I sniffed some more and Lizzie got me to sit down while she fetched me a glass of water. Other thoughts were starting to stir in my mind. Lizzie wasn’t having an affair, but she was seeing a psychotherapist.
‘Does he hypnotize you?’ I blurted out as
she handed me the water.
‘Pardon?’
‘Andrew . . . does he hypnotize you?’
Lizzie looked slightly amused. ‘No – he just listens to me talking. It’s a bit like going to see a counsellor.’
‘Like Holly’s mum?’
‘Like Holly’s mum . . . only he digs a bit deeper . . . goes more into your past . . . what happened when you were younger and stuff . . . to try and help you understand why you’re feeling the way you are now. It’s kind of complicated, Esmie. It probably doesn’t make much sense to you, does it?’
I shook my head. What made the least sense was what worries Lizzie could have that were so bad that she had to go and be therapized – though thankfully not hypnotized – about them.
‘Lizzie, you’re not dying or anything, are you?’ Goodness knows why I said that. It was the worst possible worry I could think of anyone having, I suppose.
‘No, of course not! And I’m not ill either. Like I said, Andrew is a type of doctor – but he’s the type who helps you with problems that are . . . well, that are stopping you from getting on with your life. Andrew helped me a few years ago when I got depressed after my father died. So when I started not knowing what to do about . . .’ She swallowed. ‘Well, when there was something else I needed help with in my life, I decided to go back to him.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Dad you were going to see him?’ I asked.
‘Why do you think?’
I thought about Dad’s views on therapy and thought that, if I were Lizzie, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to tell him either.
Lizzie gave a wry smile as she added, ‘I was sure John would freak out if he thought I was talking about him . . . I mean, talking about things . . . to a complete stranger. But I’ll tell him now and he’s just going to have to accept it, isn’t he?’
I nodded. But it still didn’t seem right somehow, her having to go behind Dad’s back like that in the first place instead of being able to talk to him. ‘Lizzie, what is it that you don’t know what to do about?’
She shook her head. ‘Enough questions, Esmie.’
‘Are you worried Dad doesn’t give you enough juicy compliments and stuff ?’ It was the only thing I could think of. ‘Cos that’s not because he doesn’t like you – it’s because he’s from Mars. I read all about it in this book called Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. It’s meant to be for grown-ups, but Holly and I sneaked a look at it. It tells you how men and women act like they’re from different planets.’
Lizzie gave a short laugh, though I didn’t really see what there was to laugh about. ‘Listen, Esmie . . . my problems aren’t something for you to worry about. So just you leave this for me and your dad to sort out, OK?’
‘So it is to do with Dad then?’ I said swiftly.
Before she could answer, we heard Dad’s voice raised in the other room. I wondered, fleetingly, what was happening to Matthew and Jennifer. Not that I felt too worried about my brother. As far as I was concerned, whatever punishment he got, he fully deserved. If he was grounded for a year then I reckoned it’d serve him right.
Just as I was thinking that, Dad opened the living-room door. ‘Esmie, we need you in here for a minute, please.’
Lizzie quickly said she had to go to the bathroom and dodged out of the kitchen, no doubt to escape any further interrogation from me.
I followed Dad into the living room.
I had almost forgotten that the skeleton-in-the-allotments saga was what had made Jennifer run away with Matthew in the first place, so when Dad said, ‘Esmie, I think you’ve got something to say to Jennifer, haven’t you?’ I didn’t immediately know what he meant, plus my mind was still on my conversation with Lizzie.
‘It’s OK,’ Jennifer said quickly. ‘After all, it was possible that it could have been my mum. She doesn’t have to apologize.’
‘I think she does,’ Dad said, looking at me sternly.
That’s when I twigged what they were on about. ‘Sorry,’ I said quickly, thinking that I’d already apologized once about that skeleton mix-up over the phone. But maybe Jennifer hadn’t told Dad about that phone call – or about the real reason they’d come back.
‘If you’d stayed and asked me about it, Jennifer, I could have told you the whole thing was nonsense,’ Dad said.
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ Jennifer mumbled, avoiding looking at him. ‘Matty told me Esmie gets really silly ideas into her head sometimes . . .’ She trailed off as she noticed me glaring at her.
I shifted my glare to my brother.
‘Well, you do, Ez!’ Matthew said defensively. ‘What about when we went to see The Sound of Music and you thought that Dad and Juliette were going to fall in love and get married, just because it happened to the father and the nanny in the film? You’re always making huge dramas out of stuff. Every time you get a headache you reckon you’ve got meningitis and you start telling us who you want to be invited to your funeral—’
‘That’s not true!’ I snarled. (Though I do have a funeral ‘A’ list and a list of reserves.)
‘OK, that’s enough!’ Dad snapped at both of us. ‘If this is a competition for drama queens, Matthew, then running away from home has got to be the winner.’ The doorbell rang and Matty jumped up to answer it (and escape from Dad, I reckon), but Dad wasn’t in a mood to be escaped from. He told my brother to keep his backside parked right where it was if he knew what was good for him – and it.
The second Dad left the room to go to the door, Jennifer started bombarding me with questions and I felt like telling her to shut-up. I certainly didn’t feel like telling her anything about her aunt or like handing over that phone number – not until I got a bit of respect from the two of them. I was about to tell them that when a gruff voice made us all jump.
‘Jennifer!’ Mr Mitchell was standing in the doorway.
‘Dad!’ Jennifer just stared at him.
Neither of them seemed to know what to say to each other after that. Mr Mitchell certainly didn’t try to hug Jennifer like Dad had hugged Matty, which was probably just as well because Jennifer looked like she was ready to back away from him if he came any closer.
Dad quickly invited Mr Mitchell to sit down and join us and I half-expected to be ejected from the room at that point, but for some reason – maybe Dad forgot – I wasn’t. Lizzie was still keeping completely out of the way, I noticed.
Thankfully, nobody mentioned anything about the skeleton-in-the-allotments. Maybe Jennifer was going to tell her dad what I’d accused him of later or maybe she wasn’t, but for the moment she just launched into accusing him of stuff herself. She told him that the reason she’d run away from home was because he’d forbidden her to try and find her mother and forbidden her to see my brother, and that she’d got fed up with being forbidden to do everything. ‘I’m not your property, Dad!’ she spat out angrily. ‘This isn’t the Middle Ages!’
‘I was only thinking of what was best for you—’
‘No you weren’t! You were thinking what was best for you! Anyway, I’m not coming home! I told you that on the phone!’
‘Of course you’re coming home! Where else are you going to go?’
And that’s when Jennifer looked at Matthew – and my heart missed a beat.
So did Matthew’s, judging by the look on his face, even though this was something they’d clearly discussed before coming back. ‘Dad . . .’ he began, turning to look at our father, whose face had become very wary all of a sudden. ‘Jen doesn’t want to go home so I said . . . I said she could stay here with us.’ He swallowed hard and waited, like he really wanted Dad to say something. When Dad didn’t, he continued in a rush, ‘But if that’s not cool with you, it’s OK. I’ll give up school and find a job, and so will she, and we’ll rent somewhere to live together.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Mr Mitchell snapped.
Dad was staring at my brother. ‘Give up school?’
‘Dad, try and understand . . .’ Matthew’s voice
had gone shaky. ‘It’s just . . .’ He didn’t seem able to finish.
‘Just what?’ Dad glared at him. ‘An ultimatum?’
Matthew looked terrible, like he wanted to disappear. Pink blotches were starting to appear on his cheeks.
Jennifer jumped up and pulled my brother with her. ‘Come on, Matthew. We don’t have to stay here.’
‘Jennifer, sit down!’ Mr Mitchell barked.
‘I’m not a dog, Dad!’ Jennifer snapped back as she started towards the door. Matthew followed her, glancing at Dad, who suddenly seemed to spring into action.
‘OK,’ Dad said. ‘You can both stay here.’
Matthew paused but Jennifer didn’t.
‘Wait, Jen,’ my brother said.
‘I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted, Matthew,’ Jennifer told him, and it was obvious that she was fighting back tears as she continued to head for the front door.
Dad stood up then. ‘But I want you to stay, Jennifer! Matthew’s right. I’d much rather have you both here than out on the streets.’
But Jennifer was shaking her head. ‘Matthew, you stay here if you want,’ she gasped, starting to open our front door. ‘It’s OK. Really.’ Tears were starting to run down her face.
‘Of course I’m not staying if you’re not!’ Matthew burst out, following her. And I thought how this really was just like a scene from Romeo and Juliet.
‘Wait a minute, Matthew,’ Dad called out after him. ‘Do you have any money?’
Mr Mitchell practically exploded. ‘You want to give them money to run away with?’
Dad ignored him. He kept looking at Matthew, who had stopped now and was shaking his head. Dad looked like he was thinking very rapidly. ‘I think the best place for you to stay until we sort this out is the youth hostel in town. I can phone them now and book you a room each on my credit card. OK?’
Matthew nodded, looking surprised. ‘OK . . . Thanks, Dad . . .’