by Judi Curtin
When their father finally came home, Anne wouldn’t go near him. She hid behind Granny’s dress, sucking her thumb and watching him as he shuffled slowly around, pushing his walker in front of him.
He looked at Luke as if he hardly knew him. ‘Well,’ he said, in a voice that didn’t sound familiar. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Fine,’ said Luke, but his father had turned his head sharply towards the window, and was staring out. His hair was too long, and he was thin, and he had a black and grey beard.
‘Look,’ his father said, in a soft voice. ‘Look, the …’ He frowned, trying to think of the word. His thin finger pointed shakily at a small, brown chirping bird on the hedge. ‘Look, there.’
And Luke looked out the window, and he knew that everything had changed.
His father never went back to work at the bank. A few of the people he’d worked with came to see him, soon after he came home, and sat with him in the living room, sipping tea loudly and talking about the weather, and how lucky Luke’s father was not to have to head out in it.
When Luke was sent in by his mother to see if they wanted more tea, they kept him talking for ages, asking him about school, and wanting to know what soccer team he followed.
His father played with a loose button on his jacket sleeve, and didn’t join in the talking. He slept in the dining room now, not upstairs any more.
As they were leaving, one of the people from the bank gave Luke’s mother an envelope that she pushed quickly into her pocket.
And now, nearly three years later, Luke’s mother still wasn’t talking to Luke’s father. She looked after him, because she was his wife, and because he couldn’t. She fed him and she helped him to bed, she cut his nails and his hair, she shaved off his beard and she washed him, but she never talked to him.
He’d drunk two glasses of wine at the birthday party, when he went to pick up Luke. In the car he hadn’t told Luke to put on his seat belt. And a quarter of an hour later he’d driven through a red light, straight into the path of a jeep.
Two days after he came home from hospital, Anne started wetting the bed. It still happened at least three times a week, even though she was seven now.
As soon as Mam left for her overtime, after tea every Tuesday and Thursday, Helen went out with her friends instead of doing her homework. And Granny, who never went back to live in her own house, and who was supposed to be in charge when their mother was out, said nothing, because she didn’t want to make things any worse than they were.
Luke looked at the letter in front of him, written on a ragged-edged copy page – at least he’d used a proper notebook for his letter. He wondered if this Elma had asked him for a photo of the horses because she suspected he was lying about them.
Not that he cared. It was only a stupid penfriend, not anyone he was ever going to meet. And even if he did meet her, he still wouldn’t care.
Trust him to get a girl, who sounded like a right dork, with a cat called Snowball, and her dorky sister – and how could someone only ten months old have long hair? Luke thought babies that age would still be practically bald. So this Elma was probably lying to him too, which would be the only interesting thing about her.
And what did she mean, she was too grown up to add on the months of her age, ‘like some people’? Was she getting at him? What was wrong with being exact about how old you were? Stupid girl.
His stamp this time had a picture of a man with a little moustache and round glasses. Under his head Luke read James Joyce 1882 – 1941. James Joyce looked a lot more interesting standing on his head.
Luke sighed and pulled his notebook towards him. Better get it over with.
Dear Penfriend,
Adding on the months of my age only goes to show that I like being accurate – it has nothing to do with how grown up I am, OK? Being accurate is very important if you’re a top brain surgeon, which is what I’m planning to be. Imagine if you drilled a hole in someone’s head three millimetres to the left of the spot you were supposed to drill. You wouldn’t last very long (and neither would your patient, ha ha).
I’m wondering how come a ten-month-old baby could have long blonde hair, like you say your sister has. I didn’t think hair grew that quickly on babies. It just sounds a bit funny to me, that’s all.
Sorry I can’t send you a photo of the horses – the only ones we have are framed, and hanging on the wall in the sitting room. When Rocket won his race last year we took a load of photos, of course, but unfortunately the house was robbed soon after the race, and all the photos were stolen. I’ll tell the horses you said hello, though.
If you don’t mind my saying so, I think Snowball is a bit of a dorky name for a cat. If I had a white cat (I’m guessing yours is white) I’d probably call it something like Popcorn or Milky Bar Kid. Or I might go for something totally different, like Midnight or Coal.
So you play the violin. I once thought about learning to play the tin whistle, but then I didn’t bother.
Anyway, not much news from here. Our mid-term break is coming up in a couple of weeks, and my dad and I are taking a trip to Spain, to climb in the Pyrenees.
Gotta go,
Luke
ELMA
Mrs Lawrence was all excited when the next letters arrived – like letters from stupid, lying penfriends were such a big deal. She handed them out with a big ceremony, as though she was handing out maps to a treasure island or vouchers for trips to Disneyland or something.
‘Here’s your letter, Tara, and what nice neat writing your penfriend has.’
‘And yours, Ellen. Look, your friend has decorated the whole envelope with tiny flowers.’
‘Hmm, Elma Davey, looks like your penfriend doesn’t know up from down. Look at the stamp. Poor James Joyce is standing on his head.’
Elma took her letter, and said nothing. OK, so Luke Mitchell was a big stupid boy, but she didn’t want the teacher and the whole class mocking him. That was her job.
She opened the letter and read it quickly. Then she read it again, a bit more slowly. She smiled to herself. Maybe Luke Mitchell wasn’t as stupid as she’d first thought. Still, if he was going to be a brain surgeon, he’d better learn how to tell the truth. She could just imagine him – Mr Smith, now I know why you’re getting headaches: you’ve actually got three brains, and one of them appears to belong to an anteater.
Still, that was a clever answer about the racehorses. She knew that Luke had made them up, though, and she wasn’t letting him away that lightly.
And he was right about the non-existent baby’s long hair. What could she have been thinking of? No baby would have long blonde hair. Still, she couldn’t change what she’d written.
Elma laughed out loud when she got to the bit about Snowball. Luke thought he was so clever, mocking her pet’s name. Whatever would he think if he knew Snowball was a huge fierce Alsatian with a growl that could frighten children two streets away, and breath that could make an oak tree wilt?
Suddenly Elma felt a bit sad. Christening Snowball was one of the last things Dad had done, back when he had a sense of humour. That was before the accident. Back when everything was different.
It was another horrid day. Evil Josh spent the whole afternoon whispering in her ear and calling her his favourite mean name – Lumpy Gravy Davey. It wasn’t fair. After all, it wasn’t her fault that the gravy on school dinners was always lumpy. OK, so Elma’s mother was the dinner lady, but that was hardly Elma’s fault, was it? Elma was sure that having your mother as dinner lady in your school must be the worst thing ever. It was bad enough when all she had to do was heat up the Turkey Twizzlers. Now, though, when dinner ladies were expected to cook ‘real food’, it made things doubly bad for Elma, because her mother was probably the worst cook in the world.
First there was the teasing she got from the other children (and with Evil Josh around, there was always plenty of that). The second bad thing was that her mother always gave her huge portions of everything, so she ha
d to eat more lumpy gravy than anyone else. It was cruelty to children, and there should be a law about that kind of thing.
Dad was still in bed when she got home, so once again Elma had to tidy the house and cook the tea. It was after half past seven when Mum got in. She threw herself into a chair, and said, ‘I’m so tired, and my feet are killing me. Make me cup of tea, Elma, there’s a love.’
Elma felt like saying that she was tired too, and that her feet were killing her after doing all the housework and taking Snowball on his walk, and that she still hadn’t started her homework. But she didn’t say any of that. Complaining never changed anything.
Even since Dad’s accident, Mum had been doing three jobs. She left the house early in the morning to do her first cleaning job. Then she did the dinner-lady thing, and after that she had another cleaning job. Sometimes Elma thought that having all those jobs wasn’t just about the money. Sometimes she thought Mum worked so much because she couldn’t bear to be around Dad during the day. But how could Elma say that? It would only lead to another big fight, and in the end nothing would change – it never did.
So Elma made her mother a cup of tea, and then made her way upstairs to start her homework.
Zac was already asleep in bed. He looked cute, sucking his thumb and cuddling his teddy. She would have liked to write to Luke about him, but it was a bit late for that. How could she suddenly invent a six-year-old brother? As far as Luke was concerned, her only sibling was the unusually long-haired Jessica.
Dear Luke Mitchell,
Thank you for your letter. It was very interesting. I don’t think I’d like to be a brain surgeon – sounds a bit messy to me – all that blood and gooey stuff. How would you eat your dinner after that? When I grow up I think I’ll just be a pop star or something.
Don’t Irish babies have long hair? What about your famous model sister? Was she a bald baby? Trust me, Jessica’s hair is really beautiful. This morning I put it in two plaits, and tied them up with pink ribbons. She looked soooo sweet.
That’s very sad about all your pictures of Rocket being stolen. He must have been in the newspaper, though, after winning such a big prize. Why don’t you send me the date so I can look it up on the Internet?
Anyway, Mrs Lawrence (my teacher) said we have to tell our penfriends more about our lives, so here goes.
My mum is a chef in a very famous restaurant. Every day hundreds of people eat the food she cooks. Some people eat there every single day of the week – they even have their own special tables. She’s especially famous for her gravy – it’s the talk of the town where I live.
Our mid-term isn’t too far away either. I’m not sure what we are going to do. Jessica’s a bit young for mountain climbing, so we might just go to Disneyland or somewhere like that. I’m a bit fed up of Disneyland (after all, I’ve been there six times), but it will be nice for Jessica.
Must go now and practise my violin.
Bye for now,
Elma
LUKE
Helen was missing.
The first Luke knew that something was wrong was on his way downstairs for breakfast. His mother was on the phone in the hall, her free hand pulling at her hair, and this is what Luke heard as he came down the stairs:
‘Look, she’s bloody sixteen years old, that’s a child in my … well, you should be. Look, for God’s sake, she’s been out all … I know, you already told me that, but there’s got to be something … well that’s just not good enough–’
She looked at Luke as he walked past her, but kept on talking angrily into the phone.
His grandmother and Anne were sitting at the kitchen table. Granny turned quickly as the door opened, then sagged a bit as Luke walked in.
He closed the door behind him. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Helen never came home last night.’ Her face was twisted with worry. ‘She wasn’t home when I was going to bed, but I thought she’d be in any minute … and your mother just assumed she was there when she got in …’
There was a piece of unbuttered toast on her plate. It looked as if it had been there for a while.
‘Her bed hasn’t been slept in,’ Anne told Luke, and then ate a spoonful of Weetabix.
‘Wow.’ Luke thought of his sister, out all night in the dark. He tried to think of something to say that might take the lines out of his grandmother’s forehead. ‘Maybe she went to a friend’s house, and just forgot to say.’
‘Maybe.’ His grandmother nodded slowly, still frowning. ‘She might have done that, I suppose.’
‘Who’s Mum on the phone to?’
Before his grandmother had a chance to answer, Luke’s mother burst into the kitchen and crossed quickly to the worktop by the sink and leant up against it, folding her arms. ‘They’re useless, bloody useless.’ Her shoulders were hunched.
‘What did they say?’ Luke’s grandmother started to stand up, and then changed her mind and sat down again.
‘They can’t do anything until she’s been missing for twenty-four hours, can you believe it?’ His mum unfolded her arms and began to pace quickly around the kitchen, biting at one of her nails.
Then she stopped suddenly and glared at Luke’s granny. ‘Why did you let her go out? She’s barely sixteen, Mam – what were you thinking of?’
Granny bit her lip, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, Breda, I–’
But Luke’s mother wasn’t listening. She turned to Luke. ‘Do you know any of her friends?’
He shook his head. Helen had been a mystery to him for a long time now. Since their father had come home from hospital, Luke had felt Helen pulling herself away from the family, little by little. Coming home later from school, disappearing after tea on the nights Mam worked late, and at the weekends. Spending the rest of the time in her room.
Luke had no idea what kind of life his older sister was leading. She barely spoke to him, to any of them. ‘She’s probably in a friend’s house,’ he said to his mother, but she wasn’t listening to him any more either. Her head was bent over the phone book.
Luke wondered if he and Anne would have to go to school, with his sister missing. But when Mr Farrell’s car horn sounded outside, a few minutes later, nobody said, ‘Of course you can’t possibly go to school today’, so he took the two lunchboxes from the fridge and picked up his bag and walked out into the hall with Anne. He wished he’d had something for breakfast – now he’d have to wait till half twelve to eat the tomato sandwich that was always gone soggy by lunchtime.
The curtains were still pulled in their father’s downstairs bedroom. Their father had taken sleeping tablets every night since the accident, and he never got up now till around noon. On bad days he was still in bed when the children got home from school.
‘Don’t tell about Helen,’ Luke said to Anne as they walked towards Mr Farrell’s car.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s none of their business.’ No need to give anyone another reason to talk about the poor Mitchells. ‘She’ll be back soon anyway.’
Every so often during the day, Luke remembered that Helen was missing. He wondered what the others in his class would say if he told them. Would it get into the newspapers? Would Helen’s photo be on ‘Crimecall’?
What if she was dead? He couldn’t eat his lunch, thinking about that. He watched a few of his friends playing soccer in a corner of the yard. He hoped Helen would be found quickly, if she was dead. He didn’t like to think of her lying in a field somewhere, with rain falling on her.
In the afternoon, Mrs Hutchinson asked them how they were getting on with their penfriends. A few girls said ‘brilliant’, and Luke guessed that they were writing to boys. None of the boys in the class said brilliant.
‘Well, they’re delighted with you, according to their teacher,’ Mrs Hutchinson told them. ‘Keep up the good work.’
Helen came home that evening. She walked into the kitchen as her mother was giving a description of her to a policewoman.
From t
he sitting room, Luke cocked his head and listened to the shouting. As soon as he made out Helen’s voice, he turned up the volume on the TV. His father, sitting in another armchair, kept his eyes on the screen, but began rocking uneasily as soon as the shouting began.
‘Helen came home,’ Luke told him. His father darted a look at him, and then stared back at the screen, still rocking.
‘It’s OK,’ Luke said. ‘She’s home now. Everything’s OK.’ When ‘The Simpsons’ was over, he watched the credits as they rolled up the screen. ‘Will I switch to the News?’
‘Yeah, the News,’ said his father, brightening up. ‘Yeah, the News.’
In the hall, Luke stood listening for a minute. There was no shouting coming from the kitchen. The police car was gone from the driveway. He could smell the sausages they always had on Wednesdays, and his mouth watered. He remembered he’d had nothing to eat all day.
Helen didn’t come down for tea. Luke’s grandmother put sausages and pudding and grilled tomato on a plate and brought it upstairs. His mother looked as if she’d been crying.
Afterwards, Luke helped with the dishes while his mother put his father to bed.
‘Where was Helen?’ he asked his grandmother, but she just shook her head.
‘She won’t say. She wouldn’t even tell the guard.’ She finished scrubbing the frying pan and put it on the draining board.
In his room later, Luke reread his penfriend’s last letter. She still sounded so dumb. ‘I think I’ll be a pop star’ indeed. As if you could just decide to be something like a pop star, and that would be it. As if a pop star was better than a brain surgeon. Not that Luke had any notion of being a brain surgeon, of course.
And how on earth was he going to get out of the whole horse business? Why hadn’t he thought more about what stories to make up? His penfriend was being so persistent – it was obvious she didn’t believe he had any horses. Well, no way was he going to admit that. He’d just have to think of something.