Moth Girls

by Anne Cassidy

  After school her dad insisted that she went with him to the supermarket for a big shop. She sat in the front of the cab and stared out of the passenger window. Since the previous Sunday she’d not said much to him. She’d had her meals in her room and gone out to school and spent time with Tina. When she came face to face with him in the flat she was brief and polite, as if he were a teacher she was speaking to. He had been busy working late every day and had gone to bed almost as soon as he got home. He’d not mentioned Zofia and neither had she. She was still hurting though. There were bruises on her arm and they would fade, but the memories wouldn’t. Now Zofia would be going home to Poland.

  Earlier that week Petra had sent a card. It had a picture of red roses on it. She’d kept it inside her school diary all day and finally decided on the right words to write.

  Please don’t go back to Poland. I would miss you so much. Petra XXXXXXX

  She’d bought a stamp and posted it. It was the first thing she’d ever posted to anyone. She’d wondered for days whether Zofia had received it.

  The supermarket was busy. At the checkouts there were queues. Petra stood a bit away from her dad and stared down at the screen of her phone as though she’d been sent dozens of texts that she had to read. She thought about the week’s holiday that she had ahead of her. She was looking forward to it. Mandy had been talking about a Halloween party that her mum and dad were going to have the following weekend, saying that Petra and Tina could stay over. This had pleased Petra because the sleepover at Mandy’s house had been good. It might be possible, in the long run, to get used to Mandy.

  They packed up their shopping and put it in the back of the car. On the way home Petra decided to text Tina. She felt in her pocket for her phone but it wasn’t there. Then she felt around the seat and used her feet to poke about in the foot well. She tried to think what she’d done with it.

  ‘I think I’ve lost my phone,’ she said, her words sounding loud in the car.

  Her dad pulled over to the side of the road. They both got out and searched through the food bags. It wasn’t there. Her dad was exasperated but he turned the car round and they went back to the supermarket. They looked along the cars near to where they’d parked. Petra retraced her route from there to the checkout. Then they went into the store and after a long wait at customer services they were told that no one had handed in a phone. Petra filled in some forms and the assistant said they would let them know if a phone was found.

  On the way home it sunk in. She had no phone. They had no landline in the flat. There had been no need as she and her dad both had mobiles. She instantly felt out of touch. Tina seemed miles away suddenly, unreachable. She pictured the streets that led from her house to Tina’s and judged it a long way, a fifteen-minute walk at least. Then she thought of Zofia. She’d texted her several times since the previous Sunday. They had all been short and light-hearted, as if the fight with her dad had never happened. That’s why she’d sent the card. So that she could say something meaningful. Now she wouldn’t be able to text her. When they got near home she heard her dad say, ‘I might be owed a bit of cash at the weekend; I’ll buy you a new phone.’

  She mumbled her thanks and helped to carry the shopping up to the flat.

  At home she made herself a toasted cheese sandwich and then had some ice cream straight from the tub. After watching some television she went to bed. She woke up at 2.09 a.m. The light was on in the hallway. She guessed her dad was still up. She turned over and pulled the duvet up over her eyes. She tried to go back to sleep but in the back of her head she could hear the sound of whispering voices. Two voices. She sat up.

  She went over to her door and opened it as quietly as she could, moving her ear to the gap. It was a male voice. It sounded like Nathan Ball. She huffed. She didn’t like that man. She was about to go back to bed when the level of whispering rose and the words became more concerted, like pistons. She strained to listen. Her dad was hardly speaking, it was all Nathan Ball.

  ‘You’re just not getting it done! You said you would and it’s not happening.’

  ‘I need more time!’ Her dad’s voice sounded tired, weary.

  ‘I introduced you to Mr Constantine because of your connection to Merchant. You got the chauffeur work because I wanted him to meet you, to trust you. It’s been weeks now and Mr Constantine expects you to deliver. He’s been patient but twenty thousand pounds is a lot of money. It’s owed to him.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You said you could get it from Merchant.’

  ‘I said I could try to find out where he keeps his money.’

  ‘Mr Constantine has told you. There’s a loose panel in the wall behind an old red velvet chair. Merchant is a simple bloke. Not much imagination. That’s where he’s always kept the money that he didn’t want the authorities to know about.’

  ‘I can’t go pulling bits of his wall apart. The room’s been changed around. He’s disabled. Whenever I go in there I have a look. I’ll find it soon but I can’t rush it or it’ll look suspicious.’

  ‘Mr Constantine is going back to Greece next Friday. He wants the money back by then. He says if you can’t find it without alerting the old man then you need to persuade him to tell you where it is. Don’t forget there’s money in this for you. Plenty of money!’

  ‘I will find it.’

  ‘If you don’t get it by Thursday I’m going round there and I’ll sort it out. And it won’t be nice for the old boy.’

  ‘I’ll get it!’

  ‘I’m off. Make sure you keep in touch with me.’

  Light from the living room spilt into the hall and Petra stepped back into her bedroom and shut the door. She heard Nathan Ball’s footsteps and then the bang of the front door closing. The sound of the television came on and she went back to bed and lay there for a long time, unable to sleep. She stared into the darkness, thinking over the things she’d just heard. There was money in Mr Merchant’s house. Money that was owed to Mr Constantine, the man her dad had been driving around. Her dad was supposed to get it in some way. She folded her arms across her chest, feeling let down. Her dad had pretended to be a Good Samaritan, bringing treats for Mr Merchant. He visited him regularly and had told her stories about the old house and the ghostly goings-on. He’d described Mr Merchant as a ‘lonely old geezer’ and a ‘sad old bloke with no family’. But he didn’t think those things at all. He’d just gone there because someone else had asked him to find some money for them. He was following orders for Nathan Ball and Mr Constantine, whoever he was.

  She remembered what he’d said to her earlier: I might be owed a bit of cash at the weekend. I’ll buy you a new phone. It would be bought with cash that came from Mr Merchant’s house; money that had been taken from the loose panel of wood behind the red velvet chair. Now, in her mind, her lost phone was somehow linked to the old man in the house that she had once felt mesmerised by. The house with the ghosts who rattled around on the upper floor where no one lived. In reality it was a lonely place where Mr Merchant sat in one room, day after day, with only carers coming in. Her dad dropped by, of course, bringing cigarettes, and looking out for hidden money.

  After Sunday she hadn’t thought her dad could let her down any more.

  But this was a new low. Why was he like this?

  When her gran had been alive it hadn’t mattered. Her dad had been a little distant in those days. He’d lived in gran’s house with her but he’d always been out at work or with friends or sleeping. He’d often go out on a Friday and not come back until Monday morning and her gran would roll her eyes and say, ‘Your dad’s on a bender!’

  There were other times when he was away for weeks or even longer and her gran said that he’d gone to work on the oil rigs. It had been a lie though, because her dad was in prison. When he came home he seemed delighted to see her and took her out to McDonald’s, but soon it went back to normal. Her dad and her gran arguing, her dad giving Petra alcohol-fuelled kisses and hugs. Her dad was her dad
but they didn’t spend much time together. It didn’t matter though because she had Gran. Gran doted on Petra. She had a sewing machine and would make any clothes that Petra asked for. Petra had asked for Disney characters, not just for her but for Tina as well, and Gran had sat herself down, a bunch of pins in the side of her mouth, and got on with it.

  Gran made Dad’s meals and washed his clothes. She argued with him and sometimes her dad got angry and shouted at her and punched the wall. Then Gran took his money, saying she needed it for food and rent. ‘I’ll be skint,’ her dad always said.

  ‘Spend a bit less time in the pub,’ her gran replied, standing her ground, staring up at him.

  She was only fifty-two when she died.

  It was an aneurism: a bulging blood vessel in her brain. It happened one evening. She went into the living room to watch Emmerdale as Petra was making herself some toast. A while later, when Petra had brushed the crumbs away and rinsed the plate and the butter knife, she’d gone into the living room and found her slumped across the sofa.

  It was the worst moment of her life. Petra instantly knew she was dead. The theme tune from Emmerdale was playing quietly and the room was absolutely still. She sensed that her gran’s life had slipped away from her: her voice, her smile, her laughter; all gone, all finished. She stepped forward and touched Gran’s shoulder, a choking sob stuck in her throat.

  Then it was just her and her dad.

  They moved out of her gran’s house to a flat and her dad got a regular job with a cab firm. Petra’s life carried on, even though sometimes it felt there was a part of her that was missing: a tiny hole pierced through her chest that no one else could see. Her dad had visits from social workers. There was talk of Petra going into foster care but her dad wouldn’t hear of it. She’d looked at him in awe then. It was the first time in a long time that she felt a surge of love for him. He promised to care for her, to make sure she got to school and did her homework. The social workers kept talking about his ‘haphazard lifestyle’ but he brushed it away and said he’d change. They had meetings and would turn up at odd times but she and her dad kept on living together in the flat. It was all going well. Until the weekend when her dad went out and didn’t come back for two days.

  Petra sat up in bed, her knees making a tent of the duvet. She stared into the darkness of her room. She could hear the low volume of the television. Maybe her dad would fall asleep on the sofa and then in the morning he would wake up with a crick in his neck.

  The weekend when her dad fell apart was three months after her gran died. It was when Petra had still been at primary school. She’d come in on the Friday afternoon and found a note to say that he’d got an airport job and might be late. He often left her little notes and she usually watched television and waited for him. As it was Friday they would have a takeaway: a pizza or some fried chicken. But her dad didn’t come home that night. She slept on the sofa. The next morning she went round to see Tina but she didn’t tell her anything about her dad. It was a normal Saturday and in her head she thought he would come in sometime saying he’d got drunk and stayed at a friend’s. When she got home and he wasn’t there she was worried. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t call their social worker because then her dad would get in trouble for leaving her. She might end up in foster care. For a while she wondered if he might have been ill or had an accident. She’d seen him come into her gran’s once on a crutch, his foot bandaged where he’d fallen down some stairs.

  She decided to wait. She bought chips and put the telly on and for a second night she slept on the sofa.

  The next day, in the afternoon, he came home. He slumped into the hallway, leaning against one of the walls. She could smell the alcohol from him. Every time he moved it seemed to waft out of him. He mumbled something and made his way to his bedroom and lay face down on the bed, in his clothes. He seemed to go to sleep immediately. Later, during the evening, he came out of his room and looked at her sheepishly. She didn’t say anything to him, she just kept her eyes on the television programme. He sat down in the armchair, his elbows on his knees. He looked fidgety, his legs moving up and down.

  ‘Sorry, Petra,’ he said.

  All of a sudden she couldn’t speak. She was filled up with emotion. The worry of the last two days clamped around her throat. She couldn’t even look at him. Somewhere among everything else there was anger. He left her alone! What if something had happened to her? What would he say then?

  ‘All right, Petra?’

  She kept her face turned away from him. Her only movement was the blink of her eye. She stared at the screen, her eyes blurring.

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said and stood up.

  That was it. That was the extent of his apology. She swivelled round and watched him go. From the kitchen she heard him opening and closing cupboard doors. He was looking for a bottle of vodka that she’d seen on the shelf that morning. He wouldn’t find it because she’d poured it away and taken the bottle down to the recycling bin. She walked out to the kitchen and watched him.

  ‘I don’t think you should drink any more,’ she said, her voice trembling.

  He was still wearing the clothes he’d gone out in on Friday. His jacket and trousers were wrinkled. He spun round to her.

  ‘I got rid of the vodka,’ she said.

  He looked at her in disbelief.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to drink it.’

  ‘Who do you think you are? Just a kid! You don’t tell me what to do.’

  ‘Gran said that you drank too much …’

  He stepped across to her. She closed her lips tight as if she might stop herself saying anything else. He seemed to loom over her. She could smell him. The fumes of the drinks he’d swallowed in the last two days and nights hit her. She felt nauseous.

  ‘Where is it, miss?’ he said, his voice cracking.

  ‘It’s gone. It’s down the sink.’

  ‘You stupid … You stupid …’

  ‘You left me on my own,’ she said, her voice rising, querulous.

  He turned away, mumbling to himself. He had the heels of his hands on his forehead and was shaking his head as if trying to get rid of some thought that was inside it.

  ‘If Gran knew you’d left me …’ she said weakly.

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Gran would never …’

  ‘SHUT UP!’

  He grabbed her by the top of her arm and thrust her out of the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t touch my drink,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever touch my drink ever again.’

  His fingers were digging into her skin as he manhandled her up the hallway. With one foot he kicked open her bedroom door and propelled her into the room. She lost her footing and hit the side of the wardrobe with a thud, her forehead knocking onto the corner of the wood. She saw stars and staggered back. Then it went black, as if the light had been snatched away. When she opened her eyes again she was on the floor and her dad was looking down at her with fear on his face. She tried to raise her head but it felt heavy like a beanbag.

  He took her to A & E.

  She’d passed out for a few moments so she had to see a doctor, he said. She could tell them that she’d tripped and fallen over, he said, because in a way that was what had happened. He was only taking her to her room after all, he hadn’t meant for her to actually hurt herself. He called one of his mates to come and pick them up and then soon after they were sitting in A & E. She felt like she had a big headache, but worst of all was the feel of his fingers at the top of her arm. She glanced down and saw the marks. It had hurt. It still hurt.

  The doctors sent for the social worker and she was kept in hospital for two nights. When she was allowed home the flat had been cleaned and her dad and two social workers were there. Her dad hadn’t been well, they said, and he’d agreed to go and see a counsellor. He would not be drinking and he would certainly never lay a finger on her again. They would call in twice a week and she was to contact them at any tim
e. They bustled out of the flat, leaving cards with phone numbers on, and when they’d gone her dad had stood up and asked her if she wanted sausages for tea. And crinkle-cut chips.