by Gwyneth Rees
‘Shut up, Holly!’ I snapped.
Holly gave Miss Murphy a look like they were two grown-ups together. ‘Esmie tried to fix her dad up on a blind date and it went a bit wrong,’ she added.
‘HOLLY – SHUT UP!’ I bawled, pushing her aside and racing out of the classroom.
In the girls’ toilets I burst into tears. How dare Holly tell Miss Murphy about Dad! I wished I’d never told her what had happened now. I might have known she’d go around telling everybody.
Someone was knocking very gently on the door of the toilet.
‘Esmie, are you in there?’ It was Miss Murphy.
I pushed open the door and my reflection glared back at me from the huge mirror on the opposite wall. I looked pretty deranged. My hair was a tangled mess, my eyes were red and teary and my face was all puffy and ugly.
‘Oh, Esmie!’ Miss Murphy gushed, pulling me out of the toilet cubicle and squeezing me against her huge bosom so that she nearly suffocated me. Holly said afterwards that it was a good thing we’d been practising how to hold our breath under the water in swimming, or I’d have been asphyxiated for sure.
‘Don’t you think it would help if Esmie talked about it, Miss?’ Holly chipped in, from the doorway. ‘My mum says you should always talk about things that are worrying you.’
‘Well, yes . . . I’m sure it would . . .’ Miss Murphy stammered, awkwardly letting go of me.
‘I told you, Esmie!’ Holly said, triumphantly. ‘You’ll feel much better if you tell it all to Miss Murphy! Won’t she, Miss?’
Miss Murphy didn’t say anything. She just stood there looking . . . well . . . at her watch, actually. Like I said before, normally I’m known as a bit of a chatterbox.
Miss Murphy took me into her office and sent Holly home – which Holly didn’t appreciate at all – and I ended up telling her just about everything. I didn’t tell her how much I loved Juliette and how I’d really wanted her and Dad to get together, but I told her all about our Lonely Hearts Plan and meeting Lizzie and how that had all gone wrong. And then I told her what had happened after Dad found out. And when I got to the bit about Dad saying all those horrible things to Juliette and the two of them arguing and Dad still being so angry that I was sure Juliette was going to leave if he didn’t calm down soon, I started to sob all over again.
‘All right, Esmie, let’s think about this for a minute,’ Miss Murphy said, swiftly handing me a box of tissues. ‘Now would it help, do you think, if we knew why your father is so angry?’
‘It’s because of what Juliette did, of course. And me – only he blames her more than me because she’s a grown-up.’
‘Yes, but is that the whole reason? It’s part of it, yes. But I wonder . . . It sounds as if your dad and this lady were getting on rather well.’ She had a twinkle in her eye. ‘I wonder if your dad wasn’t more upset about losing that opportunity than anything else!’
I stared at her. Dad had been getting on well with Lizzie, definitely. But if that was what he was most upset about – Lizzie walking out on him – then why was he taking it out on us? It didn’t make sense.
‘Now . . .’ Miss Murphy was looking at her watch. ‘We really should leave before the caretaker locks us in! And won’t they be wondering where you are at home?’
‘Probably,’ I said, shrugging like I didn’t care if they were.
‘Oh, Esmie,’ she sighed, as she led the way downstairs and out to the teachers’ car park. ‘Come on. I’ll give you a lift, and that should get you home a bit quicker.’
I expected her car to be all prim and proper just like her, but it was full of sweetie wrappers and other bits of rubbish. The back seat was piled high with books and papers and the sort of stuff you’d expect in a teacher’s car but there was also a baby seat. I stared at it. I’d always imagined Miss Murphy sitting at home every evening all alone with her glasses on her nose, reading some long complicated book in French. I looked around her car a bit more. There was a toy rabbit on the floor and a pair of kiddie’s shoes. On the back ledge there was a tub of baby wipes.
‘Have you got a baby, Miss?’ I asked, twisting round to look at her. Suddenly she didn’t seem nearly so familiar.
She nodded. ‘Danny – he’s two. I have to collect him from the childminder in five minutes but it’s in the same direction as your house so I should get there in time.’ She smiled at me.
I couldn’t believe it! No wonder she’d been looking at her watch.
‘Miss Murphy . . .’ I wanted to say thank you but I felt like maybe that would be breaking some sort of rule. Somehow teachers weren’t people you usually thanked for doing stuff for you.
‘It’s such a pity,’ Miss Murphy said, suddenly, ‘that someone couldn’t go and see this Lizzie and explain what happened. You never know, she might even be persuaded to give it another go.’
‘There’s no way she’d give it another go!’ I burst out. ‘She thinks Dad is Count Dracula or something!’
Miss Murphy laughed. ‘Still . . . people can surprise you.’
And as she stopped the car in front of my house I had to admit that she had certainly surprised me.
I got home that evening to find Juliette cooking a huge dinner. Juliette cooked everything using her mother’s recipes in what she called the proper French way. As far as I could tell, the proper French way just consisted of calling things fancy French names rather than English ones but I didn’t dare say that to Juliette. I was just really glad that she was still here. Instead of tomato soup we were having soupe à la tomate and instead of carrot salad we were having salade de carottes. There was some very red-looking meat and lots of different cheeses too.
‘Your father phoned to say he will be home late,’ she told me, when I asked where he was. ‘I thought we would have dinner without him – a nice dinner because it is my birthday today.’
‘Your birthday!’ I exclaimed, horrified because I hadn’t got her anything. Not that it was my fault! I mean, she hadn’t told me.
‘Yes, I am twenty-three today,’ she said, smiling. ‘And I need cheering up so I have been cooking all day!’
‘Why do you need cheering up?’ I asked her.
‘Because I am not in France with all my friends and family.’
I stared at her because it had never occurred to me that she missed her home. She hardly ever talked about it except when she was telling us how much better France was than England. ‘Don’t you like being here with us any more?’ I asked in a small voice.
She came over and hugged me. ‘I love being here with you, Esmie. I wish I could take you home with me! But the rest – it has been difficult, no?’
‘What about your boyfriend?’ I asked her. ‘I thought you really liked him.’
She frowned. ‘Peter has decided he does not want me for his girlfriend after all. He told me yesterday.’
‘Oh, no! I’m sorry, Juliette!’ And I really did feel sorry that she was unhappy. I was longing to cheer her up so I said, ‘I’m going to go out right now and buy you a birthday present!’
‘Don’t be silly. Help me set the table instead.’
I shook my head. ‘Matty can do that. I’m going to get you something for your birthday.’ And I rushed upstairs to find my purse.
I went down the road to the shops and bought her a bunch of flowers and a big bar of Belgian chocolate. I couldn’t find any French chocolate but I figured that at least I hadn’t bought English. When I got back Matthew still wasn’t home and Juliette said we may as well start without him. She was just serving up when the door slammed and my brother came in, looking very pleased with himself. I immediately saw why.
‘What do you think, then?’ he said, grinning.
‘Dad’s going to kill you!’ I said. At least he’d got the stud in his ear and not in his nose, but still. Dad had told Matthew ages ago that he wasn’t allowed to get any part of his body pierced until he left school.
Juliette rolled her eyes upwards. ‘I might have known there would be
no peace in this house even on my birthday,’ she sighed.
‘It’s your birthday?’ Matty exclaimed, and getting his ear pierced must have done something to his brain because he started singing ‘Happy Birthday To You’ in a daft mixture of French and English.
‘Matty, why?’ I whispered to him when he’d stopped horsing around. What I meant was why annoy Dad now after everything that had just happened? Why make things even worse?
‘Because I’m fed up with him throwing his weight around all the time!’ Matty said, crossly. ‘He needs to know that he’s not the boss in everything no matter how much he shouts at us.’
We were all in the kitchen doing the dishes when Dad arrived home. I immediately went quiet and Matty tensed up too. Only Juliette kept chattering normally. We told Dad it was her birthday and he was grudgingly wishing her many happy returns when he noticed Matthew’s ear and stopped talking.
‘Is that pierced?’ he asked, sharply.
‘Yeah,’ Matthew said.
‘And you didn’t think to discuss it with me first?’
‘So?’
‘So . . . you can take it out right now!’ Dad snapped. ‘Then you can ask me what I think. Then I’ll think about whether I’m going to let you put it back in or not.’
‘I can’t take it out. I’ve got to keep it in all the time at the beginning or else the hole will close over,’ Matty said, defiantly.
‘Tough. Go upstairs and take it out now, before I really lose my temper!’
‘No, Dad, I’m not going to, and you can’t make me!’ Matty looked really white-faced now but I could see he wasn’t anywhere near backing down. I felt scared. He’d never talked back to Dad like this before. What was going to happen?
‘Matthew . . .’ Dad was walking towards him with a look on his face like he was going to take the earring out himself.
But Juliette interrupted. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ she gasped, throwing down her dishtowel and making to leave the room.
Quick as lightning, Dad whirled round on her. ‘I suppose you think this is all right, do you? I suppose you think I should let my children do exactly what they like and not bother about it?’
‘I would not dream of contradicting you in front of the children,’ Juliette said, stiffly, walking out into the hall.
‘All right, then! Let’s hear what you’ve got to say without the children!’ Dad snarled, and he followed behind her, invited her to step into the living room with him, and slammed the door.
Matthew and I looked at each other in alarm. ‘Come on,’ Matty whispered.
We crept into the hall and put our ears against the closed living room door where their voices were just loud enough for us to hear.
‘I only mean that you should save your arguments for things that really matter,’ Juliette was saying. ‘I mean, if Matthew wants to experiment with things and if it’s not doing anyone any harm, then why not let him? You can’t say no to everything! If you do, then he won’t listen to you when it’s something really important.’
Dad’s voice was taut. ‘Juliette, I am sick of you interfering in my family. Ever since you got here you’ve done nothing but tell me how to bring up my children . . . and how many kids have you brought up, by the way?’
‘None,’ Juliette replied. She paused. ‘You know, it is probably just as well that you stay single. You could never let a woman be properly involved in your family. She would have her own ideas and you . . . you would find them too threatening. You would always tell her how you brought up your children all these years on your own, so you don’t need her help now, thank you! And it would be true! And so she would leave them alone, and they would think she didn’t care about them and you would have total control and you would not be a proper family at all.’
Matty and I gawped at each other. We’d never heard anyone say things like that to Dad before. And suddenly I had this crazy thought: if this was The Sound of Music, this is where Dad would admit that he was completely wrong and start singing to Juliette about how much he loved her.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he exploded. ‘You’re sacked, Juliette! Do you hear me? I want you out of my house by this time next week!’
‘He can’t do that!’ I cried out to Matthew. ‘He can’t!’
But Juliette seemed to half-expect it because she said nothing. She came out of the room as Matthew pulled me back hurriedly into the kitchen. We stood silently watching as she walked in her most dignified manner across the hall and up the stairs. And Dad didn’t follow her, or call her back, or tell her not to go, because this was real life and in any case, he wasn’t in love with her.
I started to tremble.
Matthew had tears in his eyes. ‘I wish I’d never got this stupid thing,’ he said, gritting his teeth as he yanked the earstud out of his ear and threw it on the floor.
‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘Something,’ he said. His face was all screwed up. ‘We’re not just gonna let this happen. Come on. Let’s go up to my room.’
And I knew then that Matthew must be feeling really terrible because he hasn’t invited me into his bedroom in years.
I hadn’t even realized that Matthew liked Juliette so much.
‘So what are we going to do?’ I asked again, sitting down next to him on his bed. He didn’t answer but just kept staring into space. I started to look round his room. He had a photograph of our mother on top of the table where he did his homework. Unlike the one in my room, it hadn’t been taken before he was born. He was with her in the photograph, being held on her hip while she grinned at the camera. ‘Matty, do you ever think that having Juliette is a bit like having a mum?’ I asked him. ‘More than the other au pairs, I mean . . . I mean, they used to pick us up from school and do the housework and play with us and stuff but I never really felt like they . . .’ I trailed off.
‘Juliette’s not old enough to be our mother,’ Matthew snapped.
‘I know, but it still feels different with her than with the others,’ I insisted.
‘They didn’t stand up to Dad the way Juliette does,’ Matthew said. ‘That’s the difference. They didn’t get so involved.’ He looked unusually thoughtful. ‘You know when Juliette came into my room that night, it was weird.’ For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to say anything else. Then he started talking again, very slowly. ‘There was this time when I was little . . . about four, maybe . . . I remember crying in my room. I was in trouble for something. Can’t remember what. Anyway, I was in my room crying and I remember her . . .’ He glanced at our mother’s photograph. ‘. . . coming in. She said, if you tell Daddy you’re sorry, everything will be better. I always remember her saying that to me.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess Juliette coming in that night felt like . . . Well . . . I guess it did remind me a bit of Mummy.’
I did a double take. I’d never heard him call our mother that before. I’d never even thought how he must have called her that before she died. In his mind, she was still the same as when he was little, whereas I didn’t have her in my mind at all. Not the real person. I only had my mother – the one I talk to – but she wasn’t here with me the way our mother had once been here with Matthew.
But Juliette was here. She was a real person. And I didn’t want Juliette to become a distant memory. I wanted her to stay in my life for ever. I loved her. Why couldn’t Dad see that? Why did he have to send her away?
‘I hate Dad!’ I said, bitterly. ‘I wish he was dead and not our mum!’
‘You shouldn’t say that,’ my brother said.
‘I don’t care,’ I said, stubbornly.
‘Well you should,’ Matthew said, frowning. ‘Because I used to wish you were the one who’d died and not my mother, and Dad always defended you.’
‘You wished I had died instead of her?’ I felt like he’d kicked me in the stomach.
‘I was only little,’ he said, looking at me steadily. ‘Dad explained to me that she’d ha
ve died anyway whether you were born safely or not. It wasn’t a case of the doctors having to choose to save you or her. And whenever I was nasty to you and blamed you for it, he never let me get away with it.’
I didn’t know what to say. My head felt muzzy.
‘Don’t worry,’ Matthew added, giving my shoulder a playful nudge. ‘I started to love you in the end. I didn’t have much choice. I got so many spankings for trying to smother you in your cot that I had to give up!’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, smiling a little.
‘Sorry for what?’
‘Sorry for saying that about Dad,’ I sniffed. ‘But Matty, we’ve got to stop Juliette from leaving! What are we going to do?’
And that’s when I remembered my conversation with Miss Murphy.
The next day Matty and I met up after school. Usually Matthew likes to pretend he doesn’t even know me in school, and today he wanted me to wait for him at the bus stop rather than directly outside the school gate. I suppose he was worried his friends might not think he was very cool if they saw him hanging out with his little sister.
We caught a bus to the bus station. Our plan was to find the shop where Lizzie worked and go and speak to her. As the bus turned into the road that led to the station we scanned the shops on each side looking for the chemist’s, as we went over again what we were going to say when we got there.
‘What if she yells at us?’ I said. ‘Or what if she won’t speak to us at all?’
‘Whatever happens, it’ll be over soon in any case,’ Matthew said, firmly. ‘Anyway, what have we got to lose?’
It was true. The only thing we had to lose was Juliette, who was going to leave in one week’s time if we didn’t do something fast.
We were just climbing off the bus when someone yelled out my brother’s name and we looked across to see two teenage boys hanging out by the station shop. Matthew waved to them.
‘Who are they?’ I asked.
‘A couple of the guys from McDonalds.’
‘Hey there, Matt! Who’s your girlfriend?’ one of them called out, and I immediately disliked him. He had ginger hair and he looked a couple of years older than my brother.