‘That’s really exciting news, Floss,’ he said. ‘Australia, eh? Well, sport, we’ll have to buy you one of them funny hats with corks on.’
‘Do you mind terribly, Dad? Are you cross with me?’
‘Of course I’m not cross with you, silly girl. I do mind, obviously. I’ll miss you dreadfully. Just you make sure you don’t forget your old dad.’
‘Oh Dad, as if!’ I said.
The bell went again. Someone knocked loudly with their knuckles on the café door.
‘Come on, sounds like your mum’s getting impatient,’ said Dad.
I clung to him like a baby monkey, unable to let him go. He staggered with me to the door and opened it with difficulty.
‘What are you playing at, Charlie? We’ve been ringing and knocking for ages,’ said Mum. She looked at me. ‘Oh Floss, you’ve got yourself in a silly state!’ Then she looked properly. ‘What on earth’s that pink thing you’re wearing? And whose silver shoes are those? They’re way too big for you!’
Dad gently put me down. I wobbled on my high heels.
‘They’re my birthday princess clothes,’ I sobbed. ‘I think they’re beautiful.’
‘Yes. Well. Get your things together then, we’ve got to be off. We’re going to Steve’s mum for tea.’ Mum caught Tiger’s fist. He was trying to pick peeling paint off the café door. ‘Don’t, pet! Dirty! Yes, we’re off to see Granny, aren’t we?’
‘She’s not my granny,’ I said. ‘I want to stay with Dad.’ I wound my arms as far as I could round Dad’s large waist and leaned my head against his chest. I could hear his heart going thump-thump-thump underneath his jersey.
‘Don’t start behaving like a baby, Floss. You’ll be able to see your dad again before . . . before . . .’
‘Before you all go to Australia,’ said Dad, patting me on the shoulder.
‘Yes, Australia!’ said Mum, looking Dad in the eyes for the first time. ‘So Flossie’s told you?’
‘Yes, she has. She’s a bit upset about it, as you can see,’ said Dad.
‘Well, you’ve obviously been stirring her up. She’s really thrilled to bits. It’s a fantastic opportunity,’ said Mum. ‘Steve’s done so well, getting this job.’
‘I’m not thrilled,’ I mumbled to Dad. ‘I wish she’d just shut up about Steve.’
‘What was that?’ said Mum.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ said Dad.
‘Well, we’re telling you now,’ said Mum. ‘Steve’s going to be in charge of this whole new Australian branch at double his current salary, and—’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Dad. He obviously wanted Mum to shut up about Steve too. ‘What I mean is, how is it going to affect Floss? And me, for that matter. It’s going to kill me not seeing my little girl.’
‘Sorry about that, pal,’ said Steve. He’s not Dad’s pal, not in a million years. ‘It wasn’t deliberate, you know. I didn’t even put in for the job in Sydney, they simply offered it to me.’ He shrugged and smirked to show us he couldn’t help being so brilliant and clever and in demand.
‘It’s all very well saying sorry,’ said Dad. He looked at Mum. ‘What about my right to see Floss? I’ve got joint custody, you know that.’
‘You can come and see her any time you want,’ Mum said calmly.
‘How am I going to get there? Walk?’ said Dad.
‘I can’t help it if you can’t afford it,’ said Mum. ‘We can’t miss this golden opportunity. There’s nothing you can do about it, Charlie.’
I felt Dad sag a little.
‘I don’t suppose there is,’ he said, so sadly. ‘Well, I hope it all works out for you. And don’t you worry, little Floss, we’ll write lots. You never know, I might win the lottery and then I’ll come flying over to see you straight away . . . or I’ll put on my Superman pants and soar all the way to Sydney under my own steam.’
He was trying to make me laugh but it just made me cry harder.
‘Come on, Flora, don’t be such a little drama queen,’ said Mum. ‘Change out of those silly shoes, take that frock off and let’s get going.’
I unhooked myself from Dad. I wiped my eyes and took a step backwards. I looked at him. He had tears in his eyes too, though his mouth was stretched into a clown smile-shape. Then I looked at Mum and Steve and Tiger. My two families.
I suddenly knew where I belonged.
‘I’m not going,’ I said.
Mum sighed. ‘Look, Granny Westwood’s expecting us, and Tiger’s getting restless. I want to give him his bottle in the car and settle him off to sleep.’
‘I’m not going at all,’ I said. I took a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to Australia. I’ve decided. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind. I’m staying with my dad.’
6
IT WAS AS if I’d thrown a bomb at Mum. She exploded. She told me I was being ridiculous. She insisted I had to go with her. I was part of her family.
‘I’m part of Dad’s family too,’ I said.
Dad gave me this great big hug – but then he held me at arm’s length and looked into my eyes. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re saying, Floss? I think maybe you’d be much better off in Australia with your mum. You don’t have to stay with your old dad, you know. I’ll miss you heaps and heaps but I’ll manage fine, I promise.’
‘I won’t manage, Dad,’ I said. ‘I want to stay with you.’
‘Well you can’t, so you can stop this silly act right now,’ Mum said. ‘You’re my daughter and you’re coming to live with me.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘Oh no I’m NOT.’
‘Hey hey hey, you two! You sound like a bad pantomime act,’ said Dad.
‘Don’t you tell me what to do,’ said Mum. ‘I’m sure this is all your fault. You put Floss up to this. I tell you, she was absolutely thrilled to be going to Australia, as anyone in their right mind would be.’
‘Well, she seems in her right mind now to me – and it’s clear what she wants to do,’ said Dad. ‘She wants to stay with me.’
‘She can’t! A daughter’s place is with her mother,’ Mum insisted. She turned to me. ‘Floss?’ Her voice cracked as if she was going to cry. ‘You do really want to be with me, don’t you, darling?’
She waited. Dad waited. I waited too.
I didn’t know what I really wanted.
Yes I did. I wanted Steve and Tiger to disappear in a puff of smoke. I wanted our family to be just Mum and Dad and me. It would be like it used to be long ago, when Dad called Mum his big princess and she laughed at all his silly jokes and we had breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings and cuddles all together on the big sofa in the living room.
I shut my eyes for a second and wished for what I wanted.
I knew my wish couldn’t possibly come true. I opened my eyes again. There was Mum, her forehead pinched with two sharp lines above her nose, her carefully outlined shiny lips pressed hard together in a straight line. There was Dad, gnawing at a piece of loose skin on his thumb, his hair sticking up sideways, his sweatshirt too tight over his tummy. I could wish and wish until I blew up like a giant balloon, but Mum and Dad weren’t ever going to get back together.
Tiger started grizzling because Mum was holding him too tightly. Steve reached over and took him, swinging him up onto his broad shoulders. Tiger chuckled with delight. He loved his dad.
I loved my dad. I loved him even more because he wasn’t tall and fit and handsome and clever like Steve. Mum had Steve and Tiger. Dad didn’t have anyone but me.
‘I really want to stay here with Dad,’ I said quietly to Mum. ‘Please please please let me.’
Mum’s face screwed up. Her glossy lips disappeared as her mouth contorted. Tears started rolling down her cheeks. ‘All right,’ she whispered. She clutched her stomach as if she’d just been punched.
Steve pulled her close, Tiger still perching on his should
ers.
Dad put his arms right round me. I could feel him shaking. I think he was crying too.
It would have been easier if we could have all split up there and then, but I stayed with Mum and Steve and Tiger until they went to Australia.
It was awful. Mum and I didn’t know how to act with each other. One day Mum would act all cold and distant, and whenever I looked up she’d be staring at me reproachfully. The next day she would be brisk and bossy, telling me she was damned if I was going to mess up all their plans and if I didn’t want to go to Australia it was my loss, not hers. But the day after that she suddenly burst into floods of tears and I did too. I sat on Mum’s lap and cuddled in close and she rocked me as if I was as tiny as Tiger.
‘I’m going to miss you so, my baby,’ said Mum.
‘I’m going to miss you too, Mum,’ I said.
‘Please come with us,’ she murmured into my curls.
I wanted to so much. Mum looked like she’d really really miss me, maybe even as much as Dad. I didn’t see how I could bear to be without my mum. I thought of all our cuddles, all our girly talk, all our shopping trips, all the secrets she told me about growing up and girls-and-boys.
As the days wore on I got so cast down that I even started to feel I was going to miss Tiger. Whenever I went near him he held out his chubby arms to be picked up. When I whirled him around or blew a raspberry on his fat little tummy he chuckled and snorted and kicked his bendy legs like a little frog. He was even starting to say my name, though he couldn’t quite manage the ‘l’ so I was his Fossie.
I suddenly got into the whole big sister thing. I sat him on my lap and read him all his boring little books about tractors and tank engines. I drew him pictures of dogs and cats and cows so that he could woof-woof and mew-mew and moo-moo for hours. I fed him his chopped-up chicken and carrots, pretending the spoon was an aeroplane flying through the air and docking in his drooly little mouth. I gave him his bath, making all his plastic ducks bob up and down and nibble his tummy with their orange beaks. I tucked him up at night with his dummy and his stripy teddy and my baby kangaroo.
‘You can have Baby Kangaroo if you like, Tiger,’ I whispered. ‘Seeing as you’ve taken such a shine to him.’
Tiger clasped Baby Kangaroo happily.
‘Maybe you’d better have Mother Kangaroo too,’ I said. ‘I don’t think they’d like being separated.’
I knew I wasn’t going to like being separated from my mum. I couldn’t help hoping that she’d suddenly change her mind and decide she couldn’t bear to go to Australia without me. Steve didn’t have to take this new job. We could all go on living in our house and I could go on staying with Dad at weekends and we could still be a kind of family even if Mum and Dad weren’t living together.
But Steve brought home lots of cardboard boxes and started packing everything up. Tiger played happily in this new cardboard city, plumping himself down on sheets of bubble wrap and squealing with laughter when they went pop.
Mum started packing her stuff too, selecting all her favourite clothes, consigning her fun fur coat and big boots to the boxes going into storage, as it wasn’t really cold in Australia even in their winter. She started going through all my things too, packing all the good stuff to be taken to Dad’s and putting all my old clothes and toys in a big bag for the hospice shop.
I stared at all my special dolls and cuddly teddies. I loved them so – but Rhiannon now said they were just for silly babies. I rounded up all my Barbie girls, twirled each one round on her tippy toes, and then made them jump one after the other into the plastic bag.
‘Are you sure about your dolls, Floss? Won’t you want to play with them at your dad’s?’
‘They’re just for babies,’ I said firmly.
‘Well, at least they look attractive. Why chuck them and keep all these moth-eaten old teddies?’
‘I’m not,’ I said, and I tumbled them all into the bag too, until it was bulging with soft yellow and fawn fur.
‘Good for you, Floss,’ said Mum. ‘But you’d better keep Kanga and Baby Kanga for yourself, as your best toys. They were actually very expensive. Tiger will just mess them up.’
‘No, I want him to have them, Mum. As a special present from his big sister.’
‘Well, that’s very sweet of you, dear. You’re right, you’re getting too grown up for cuddly toys.’
But then Mum suddenly seized hold of a droopy pink poodle with the embarrassing name of PP huddling at the bottom of my old toy box. (I’d simply shortened Pink Poodle to her initials, but I knew her name would make Margot and Judy chortle – and maybe Rhiannon.)
‘Chuck her, Mum,’ I said.
‘No, we have to keep PP,’ Mum said, stroking her.
‘Mum! PP’s ancient.’ She was more grey than pink nowadays, her fur was very matted and she only had one glass eye, which gave her face a baleful, lopsided expression.
‘You used to lug her around everywhere with you when you were little,’ said Mum. She looked at me. ‘You’re still little,’ she said, and she started crying.
I’d seen Mum cry lots of times before, but never like this. She sat back on her heels and sobbed, her mouth like a letter box because she was howling so hard. It was so scary that Tiger stopped crawling round her wardrobe playing with shoes, and huddled down into her pashmina pile, sobbing too.
I wanted to cry as well, but Steve was out playing a farewell round of golf with all his boring buddies so he wasn’t around to comfort Mum. I had to be the grown-up. I put my arms round Mum and I rocked her and she clutched me tight and wept against my chest until my T-shirt was sodden.
‘Please don’t cry so, Mum,’ I begged. ‘I’m not little, I’m big now. I’ll be fine with Dad while you’re away, and then when you come back from Australia we’ll go back to me living with you during the week and we’ll get back to normal again, you’ll see.’
‘Oh darling,’ Mum sobbed. ‘I think I’ve gone crazy. What am I doing? I can’t leave you behind, I simply can’t.’
7
I STARTED TO hope that she’d really changed her mind. She’d stay in this country after all and forget about Australia.
The next day she stopped all her frantic packing and consulted a solicitor. I wasn’t allowed to go into his office with her. I had to stay in the reception room minding Tiger. He wouldn’t stay on my lap. He prowled around on his hands and knees, his sticky hands scrabbling at all the leather-bound law books on the shelves. The receptionist tried cooing and clucking at him, but Tiger wasn’t in a mood to be charmed. He was yelling his head off when Mum came out of the solicitor’s office. She looked in a yelling mood too.
‘As if I’m going to hang around and let the courts sort it out!’ she exploded the moment we got outside. ‘We’ve got the tickets, we’re all set to go. We can’t hang around now! Steve has got to start working at the Sydney branch this month. I can’t let him go off on his own. He needs my support – and if I’m not careful some silly young thing will bat her eyes at him and turn his head. What am I going to do?’
Mum glared at me as if it was all my fault. ‘Why can’t you jump at this fantastic chance, Floss? I was mad to let you dictate to me. Look, you’re coming with us, whether you like it or not!’
‘What are you going to do, Mum? Kidnap me? I’m a bit big to bundle under your arm. Are you going to lock me in one of the suitcases?’
‘Stop being so cheeky!’ Mum said, giving me a shake.
‘Well, you stop bossing me about! Ouch, you’re hurting. I’ve told you and told you, I’m not coming, I’m staying with Dad.’
‘Why do you want to stay with him?’
‘I love him.’
‘More than you love me?’
‘I love you both,’ I said, crying. ‘Mum, he needs me.’
‘So you care more about his feelings than mine? All right then, stay with him. I won’t try and persuade you any more. Happy now?’ Mum snapped.
Of course I wasn’t happy – and neith
er was she. It was exhausting. It looked like we were going to be chopping and changing for ever, best friends one day and snarling enemies the next.
The day before Mum and Steve and Tiger flew off we were all at sixes and sevens – and eights and nines and tens. Mum and I were hugging one minute and shouting the next. But that night Mum left Steve alone in his big bed, edged her way round the last of the packing cases, and came and clambered into my single bed beside me. She held me tight and I nestled in to her. Neither of us slept much. Mum told me stories about when I was a very little girl. I told Mum stories about what I planned to do when I was a big girl. We held onto each other, Mum’s hands gripping my arms fiercely, as if she could never bear to let me go.
Dad came to collect me in his van, so that he could carry all my extra stuff. It’s a big white van and I’d always loved riding in it, feeling so special strapped up high beside my dad, but I saw the way Steve shook his head at the dents and scratches on the paintwork. Dad saw too, and must have minded, but he shook Steve’s hand nevertheless and wished him luck with his new job. He patted Tiger on the head. Then he gave Mum a great clumsy hug.
‘Let’s stay friends, Sal. I swear I’ll take the greatest care of our Floss. You enjoy Australia and your new life, but don’t forget to come back home, babe.’
Mum always twitched with irritation when Dad called her babe, but now she sniffled tearfully and give him a big hug back.
I held my breath as my parents embraced. Maybe now, at the very very last minute, they would realize that they really loved each other after all. Then Mum moved away and the moment was over.
It was our turn to hug, Mum and me. We hugged and hugged and hugged. It hurt so much. It seemed like I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
‘I want you to have this, Floss,’ said Mum, handing me an envelope. ‘It’s an open airline ticket to Sydney. You can use it any time in the next six months. It’ll be strange travelling such a long way on your own, but the stewardess will look after you. Or of course you can change your mind now and come with us after all.’
I wanted to cling to Mum and say Yes yes yes!