I tried to stop him by the power of thought. I was good at that. I could sit beside the road, for instance, with my eyes closed and will the next car to be red. When I opened my eyes, it was. I could do this with Smarties too – which colour would rattle out next. I willed Dad with my eyes open, otherwise he might ask me what was the matter.
The best thing was to keep out of his way. Alone, I could will myself not to think about what was happening. If I did I would start to work it out and that was the last thing I wanted to do.
The best place was the big field behind us. They’d planted sweet corn in it this year and by now the plants had grown as tall as me, if I stayed bent. I’d park Teddy under the apple tree, where I could hear him if he cried. Then I’d creep into my forest . . . Not too far, but out of sight. When I sat down I was hidden. I was podgy, yes, but I could fit myself into a small space. I’d sit there amongst the stalks; when the wind blew, the leaves rustled. There were the tiniest tassels in there, already; they were silky to stroke. I stayed there a long time. I told myself I was an explorer and this was New Guinea, because it made me feel better if I called it a game.
I slept in my Dad’s bed the next night, and the next. You see, Teddy cried if I wasn’t there. That was part of the reason. But there was another part, which is more difficult to explain. My room didn’t seem mine, as much as it used to; not since Dad had made a habit of going in there. Nowadays I was always having to open the window, he worked up such a fug. And since Mum had gone I was frightened at night. If I slept in my own bed I might wake up and find everybody gone. There might be strange people in the lounge, rearranging the furniture. There might be no furniture at all.
But the main reason was that I wanted to please Dad. I wanted to stop him feeling sad. So the night after the one I’ve described I tucked myself up in my own bed, but when Teddy started yelling I got up. This time I put on my knickers, underneath my nightie, and my dressing gown on top. I didn’t want to leave Kanga. She didn’t have Roo any more, because he’d got lost. I haven’t told you about this, because I don’t know exactly how it happened. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. I’d spent a week searching but I couldn’t find him, and by now my tears were all dried up. I asked everyone, but Dad didn’t know, and Teddy and Kanga just gazed at me.
So I took Kanga in with me, for both our sakes. Dad was carrying Teddy into the bathroom. I was glad to see that Dad was wearing his proper pyjamas tonight. We knelt down on the floor together and pinned Teddy’s nappy. Then Dad carried Teddy back to his cot; but when Teddy started yelling, as I knew he would, Dad put him into the big bed.
‘You’ll be wanting your sis, then?’ he asked. ‘Your big sis?’
So I took off my dressing gown and laid it neatly on the counterpane, and put my slippers side by side on the floor. Dad yawned; in his pyjamas he looked more reassuring. It would be ordinary tonight; I needn’t worry myself. Nothing was going to make him cry.
I snuggled down and made a fuss of Teddy, ticking him off for being such a cry-baby, and arranging his frilly collar. Dad kissed me, swiftly, and I lifted up Kanga.
‘Look, Dad. Kanga didn’t want to be left out.’
I smoothed my nightie over my legs and yawned loudly. Dad stroked me, just once. When his hand reached my bottom it stopped; it must have felt my knicker elastic through the nylon. I yawned again, and turned to face the window. Soon I heard his breathing lengthen, raspingly, and he was asleep.
Something happened in the middle of the night, but I pretended so hard to be snoring that I convinced myself, next morning, that we’d both been asleep. I can almost convince myself now.
When Teddy and I woke up, Dad was still slumbering; he’d always been a late riser. Mum used to complain about it. He wandered in when I was feeding Teddy in the kitchen, and telling him he was a naughty boy because I’d found a stain on the front of my nightie. I’d only washed it yesterday.
‘Who’s my bad boy?’ I crooned. ‘Bad, bad boy.’
‘What’s that?’ said Dad.
I turned to show him, pointing at myself. ‘Look what that naughty baby did.’
Dad stopped, and barked, ‘I’ll take it.’
I stared. He started fiddling with the lid of the Nescafe jar. It was probably jammed. He paused and said, in a more conversational tone, ‘Just off to the launderette, see.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Just off, after me breakfast. Time for a wash. Give it me and I’ll take it.’
I gawped. He’d never done this before; he’d left it to Mum. Then, sinkingly, I realized that perhaps, from now on, neither of us would be able to leave the washing to Mum.
You’re never changed when you expect to be. It’s not that neat, is it? At some point during those days I realized that what was happening was wrong. I didn’t put it into words; it was just a prickling, shedding feeling. It was like looking around, one day, and realizing that all the leaves have fallen and the branches are bare. I wasn’t old enough to have the words for this. If there’s just two people – Teddy didn’t count – then, if neither of you says anything, and you don’t want to, then you can hold it off indefinitely. To admit it to yourself, you’d have to recognize it happening; and both of us, during the day and the night, pretended it wasn’t.
I realized it on day number three. This was when, for the first time, I talked to someone outside our home. Until then I’d been around the yard – I remember wondering, for a moment, what those little dents were in the earth, over there beside our bungalow. Then I remembered that I’d dug them. I sat in the forest, and looked after Teddy, and hung up the tea cloths outside, like a housewife. I wanted Dad to be pleased with me – I always did – but I didn’t want him to be too grateful. I probably looked quite normal, but one thing was different: I was aware, for the first time in my life, of exactly where my Dad was – in the sheds, in the house, in the field. Ask me, any moment of the day, and I could have told you.
He’d, gone off a few times, on errands, or to change the bins down at the Skyscape Hotel, but I hadn’t gone with him. I told him it was easier for Teddy and me to stay. Besides, what would happen if Mum came back and tried to collect more of her clothes?
Three days was the longest she’d ever stayed away. I was dreading the next morning because then I was sure that, clothes or no clothes, it was going to last for ever. Dad was out; he was driving our weaners to Slough. I’d watched them leave, squabbling and squealing, their pink skin pressed against the slats of the truck. Mentally I told them goodbye. When he’d gone I pushed the pram down to the main road. Mum would be at work now but I still watched all the cars, just in case. That morning I didn’t feel like talking to Teddy.
On the left was the petrol station. The Indian man sat in his booth, as usual. I felt I hadn’t seen him for weeks. I bumped the pram along the verge, in the other direction. Every few yards I looked back, to make sure nobody was turning into our drive.
I reached the lay-by. Today my friend was there.
‘Look who’s here,’ she said, bending over the pram. ‘And how’s little Spotted Dick?’
‘They’re gone,’ I said. ‘I rubbed on some cream. It was just heat lumps.’
‘Koochy-koo,’ she said. Teddy grasped her finger. ‘Who’s a lucky boy then?’
‘Lucky?’ I felt like a foreigner, just learning the language.
‘Needn’t be coy with me, dear. Can’t hide it from me.’
‘Hide what?’ I stared at her.
She just winked. ‘Can she?’ She picked up Teddy. ‘Can she, pudding?’ He gazed at her, unblinking. Suddenly I pictured him opening his mouth and telling her. Just speaking it out . . . How I’d been lying in Dad’s bed, of my own free will . . .
How Dad had cried real tears.
It was then that I realized how wrong it was, what I’d been doing. I felt the heat rising up.
‘She’s blushing!’ She was speaking to Teddy. ‘She’s going to pretend she never raises a finger . . . Ah, but I’ve bee
n watching.’
‘What have you seen?’ I blurted.
‘I’ve been watching . . . and you know what your sister is?’
‘What?’ I said, urgently.
She pinched my cheek. ‘Know what you are? You’re a good deed in a naughty world.’
I didn’t know what she meant; I couldn’t work it out. She said, ‘And you tell that to your Mummy and Daddy.’
I nodded.
‘Tell them I said so. That this little pudding’s lucky to have a big sister like you . . . So you tell your Mummy, when you get home. Promise?’
I nodded again, blushing hotter with my untruthfulness.
‘Go on, give her these from me.’
To my alarm she was lifting some carnations out of their bucket.
‘Oh no!’ I cried.
‘Oh yes.’
‘Please don’t!’
‘Don’t worry.’ She winked. ‘Himself up there . . .’ she jerked her head back, ‘his lordship . . . No skin off his nose.’
She wrapped them in paper and laid them in the pram. ‘Tell her they’re from a mum too – a mum who’s always wanted a nice little girl like you. Had to bring up my two all on my ownsome, didn’t I . . . What I’ve been through . . .’
Thank goodness she started talking about her boys then, and her flat where the council never came to mend the damp, even though they’d done the flat downstairs, and how her boys were always too busy . . . stories I’d heard before and which at that moment I longed to hear again. Something waited, at the back of my mind; I could feel it lodged there but I needn’t think of it yet.
On the way back, though, I had to put it into words. I pushed the pram, watching the pink blooms jolting . . .
Mum knew what was happening. I could will things, with my eyes shut. Why couldn’t she do it too? She’d willed herself to be there, in her own bedroom. She’d opened her eyes and seen me in her bed. She’d seen how terribly wrong it was . . . That’s why she was staying away. She was disgusted with me.
It was all my fault. I’d always known this, but never so clearly as now, with Teddy calmly looking up at me, next to his shivering carnations. It was up to me to get her back, if I possibly could, if she would ever consider returning. It was up to me because I had caused it. It was me who must plead with her and make it all right. If she came home, and I did everything I could to make her forgive me, then we might be a proper family again, like we’d been after Teddy was born; we’d almost been like Gwen’s family then.
I knew she worked at Terminal Two. That afternoon, when Teddy and Dad were having their naps, I set out. Neither of them would wake for hours. The airport entrance wasn’t far down the road but I’d never walked there. As I said, nobody did; I’m sure you haven’t. Everybody travels there in buses and cars; that’s how I’d been there before, in the van . . . Down the slip road, where the motorway joined, round the roundabout and through the tunnel with its huge letters, WELCOME TO HEATHROW.
I crossed at the lights, beyond our petrol station, and hurried along the other side of the road. Cars and lorries swooshed by. Alongside me was the high wire fence of the airport. Fir trees had been planted along it; they were grey and dusty, they jerked beside me as I ran. Words I could use rolled round and round my head. Would she believe me? Through the fence I saw the main airport city: the control tower, the terminal buildings, the big blocks with slits round them, like narrowed eyes watching, that must be the multi-storey car parks. She was in there, somewhere.
It seemed so far away. I paused at the first big junction. I had to keep my wits, because cars were speeding towards me from all directions. Signs loomed above me, saying ‘Maintenance Area 3’ and ‘Cargo Depot’ and ‘M4 Motorway London and the West’. I ran along the slip road, down towards the entrance roundabout where the motorway traffic came in. In the truck there was no time to notice this road, we’d sped along, but it took ages on foot. I passed all the litter they’d thrown from the cars. Some of the cars slowed down, to look at me.
At last I reached the roundabout; there was the tunnel mouth . . . I was dreading going in; it would be dark and blowy, the traffic scraping past me belching fumes. Somebody was sure to report me to the authorities.
But when I reached the tunnel mouth I found a smaller entrance marked ‘Pedestrians’. In there it was suddenly quiet; just the rumble of traffic through the wall. I couldn’t see the end of the tunnel, it curved away ahead of me . . . A concrete tunnel, dimly lit. It was empty, though there were some crisp packets lying around so other people must have once been here. It was chilly; my footsteps echoed. I hurried. Somewhere, round that corner, I’d get to my Mum. I didn’t dare look back in case somebody was following me. I didn’t run because that would make me feel frightened. My sandal buckle had worked loose; it rubbed my foot but I didn’t stop to adjust it.
Now I was running along towards the square of daylight. My feet slapped on the concrete. I tried not to think of returning this way, back along the tunnel. With any luck I’d have my Mum with me, so I could hold her hand.
I ran up, into the daylight. It was suddenly noisy, with traffic lights and airline coaches streaming past. I climbed over a barrier and edged round a flower bed; taxis brushed past me. I dashed across another road and climbed another fence. There were no pavements here. Horns hooted at me. The huge ‘Terminal’ signs pointed in all directions, up ramps, across the traffic.
Terminal Two. I got there, at last. Now I was amongst people and parked cars, and nobody was looking at me any more. Electric doors slid open.
Inside was a big hall; it was bright and hot and loud, with people pushing to and fro and calling out to their children . . . Like bird-calls, echoing.
‘Heather!’
I swung round. No . . . Deborah.
A sign pointed up some escalators to Arrivals, so I went up. I usually ran up escalators but today I stood still. A loudspeaker was booming out about passengers for flight something to Frankfurt proceed to the Departure Lounge. I slid uphill, rigid with nerves. My face must be brick-red, from the running. Now I was here, the words had all jumbled up inside my head: I couldn’t trust what would come out. I wanted to go into a ladies’ to see that I looked neat. But then that might be the ladies’ where my Mum worked.
I stood still instead, trying to decide where to start. A man and a lady flung themselves into each other’s arms. Three children hared across the hall shouting ‘Daddy!’ People put down their suitcases to greet their families. My Mum must be used to all this; she saw it every day on her way to work. I felt dizzy with the happenings and the noise.
I looked for the ladies’. I didn’t know which one she worked in, because Dad and I had only dropped her outside with the taxis. I found a door, with a skirted sign above it.
I didn’t dare go in. Now I was here I felt sick. I stood holding the handle.
‘Heavy, is it?’
A lady smiled down at me.
‘Let me give you a hand.’
She pushed open the door and waited for me to go in, so I did.
It wasn’t Mum in there, it was an Indian lady. She wore overalls and she was swooshing water round one of the basins.
When I was breathing normally again I looked at the row of white basins and, beyond them, the doors of the WCs, some open, some closed. This is what she does, I realized, all day. Now Mum wasn’t here and I could pause, I thought: she wants these basins more than us.
I didn’t dare speak to the Indian lady, in case she didn’t understand English, so I went to the toilet instead. I needed to, being so tense. I sat there working out words. We miss you so much. Teddy cries for you each night. Don’t be angry with me . . . I’ll die if you don’t want to come home . . .
Outside the ladies’ I hesitated. I couldn’t ask anyone, because they’d direct me back here; they’d think I was mad, asking for another ladies’ convenience. So I hurried across the hall. Teddy or Dad, or both of them, would soon be waking up. Teddy was safe, in his cot, but I must get back bef
ore Dad found out I’d gone.
I found another ladies’ and went in, my heart knocking. Looking around, I couldn’t see anyone. Then I saw the little room, with its window. Inside was a glimpse of overall. Someone was in there, sitting on a chair.
I walked up and peeped round the door. The person turned round.
‘Something the matter?’
She had red curls, and her eyebrows raised.
I couldn’t get the words out.
‘What is it, dear?’
‘Is there another toilets here?’ I asked, in a rush.
She paused, her eyes merry. ‘This one not good enough for you?’
I stared, trying to sort out my words. ‘I’m looking for my . . . for a lady. She’s called Mrs Mercer.’ I paused. ‘She works here.’
‘Here?’
‘At Terminal Two. I know she does.’
‘In the washrooms?’
I nodded. She thought for a moment.
‘Mercer . . . Ah, you must mean Coral.’
‘Yes!’
‘’Fraid you can’t get to her.’
‘Why? Where’s she gone?’
‘She’s not gone, dear. She’s here.’ She paused. ‘She is here and she isn’t, so to speak.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s in the toilets, right.’ She was still smiling. ‘But the toilets in the Departure Lounge.’
‘How do I get there?’
‘Can’t. Not unless you’ve got a ticket.’
‘Ticket? Where can I get one?’
‘A plane ticket, my love. And you’ll be needing a passport too.’ She looked at me. When she saw my expression her voice changed, and she explained to me what she meant.
Mum did come home that day. It was long after I’d got back. Dad and I were eating pork pies. I’ve never seen anyone eat them like he did; he’d nibble off the top first so you saw the grey bumpy insides, like brains. Then he’d spread mustard and pickle on the top and say, ‘Fit for a king.’
Rinty barked, but less wildly than for a stranger, and there she was, giving the door a shove, where it was stuck, like she always did.