enough room to write Sorry. As soon as I’d written it, I crossed it out again. Stupid word. That’s what you say when you want to get away with something. I kept the start of Sorry and turned it into Sorrow, but that wasn’t right, either. I scribbled My fault over the top. You could hardly read it, but it was still there. I was to blame.
I rolled up the letter till it was thin enough to slide into the bottle. I plugged it with a cork, picked up one of the stones from my collection on the windowsill, and tapped the cork till it was snug inside the neck.
The letter was rolled up with the writing on the outside. A stranger might have trouble reading it through the uneven surface of the glass, but Dad knew my handwriting. He’d taught it to me himself.
I climbed over the barnacle-pocked boulders to a pointed rock that jutted six or seven feet out into the sea. It was the rock I must ‘never-never-never—look at me when I’m talking to you—never ever jump off.’ Cross my heart and hope to die.
I kept as far from the water as I could so the waves couldn’t snatch at my feet. Even at the spot where the sea was calmer, I was too scared to go right to the edge. Gaping monster jaws lay waiting in the deep.
As far out as I dared, I took the bottle from my coat pocket, pressed a kiss to the green glass, and hurled it with all my might. It disappeared with a splash, but luckily it resurfaced and started bobbing lopsidedly along. Now it was up to the sea to pass my letter from wave to wave till it reached Dad. For a moment I was afraid it might smash to pieces against the rocks, but it didn’t, and it began to drift steadily away. I tried to keep track, to see where the waves were taking it, but I lost sight of it amid floating clumps of seaweed that were almost the same shade of green.
Then the waiting began.
12
‘Time for your bath!’ Mum shouted up to me.
‘In a minute!’ I shouted back.
‘Now,’ she answered.
‘I want to keep looking a bit longer.’
‘No.’
Through my binoculars, I was expecting to catch sight of Dad sitting with his back to me, arms around his knees. On a rock or at the place on the beach where he’d left his towel. I even scanned the gulls circling in the air.
‘Just another minute? Please?’
‘Now means now.’ Her words were jagged round the edges.
I sat my backside down on the cold metal of the empty bath and turned the tap on as far as it would go. The water thundered. It made my willy float like a buoy as it crept up to my belly button and my knees.
Suddenly the stream of water stopped. Something was stuck in the tap. Before I could stick my finger in to feel what it was, a tiny figure tumbled out. He was still wearing his swimming trunks.
‘Dad!’
He dived deep into the bathwater and surfaced next to the island my tummy made. I helped him up with my finger and kept the island as still as I could. He lay stretched out, panting. He could fit both feet inside my belly button.
‘You’ve gone all little,’ I said, once he had caught his breath. We laughed, and the shaking of my tummy almost sent him skidding back into the water.
‘Where have you been?’
He shrugged.
‘Did you get my letter?’
Pressing thumb and forefinger together, he pulled an invisible zip across his lips.
‘Can’t you talk anymore?’
He shook his head.
‘But you got my letter?’
He nodded.
‘Are you angry?’
He shook his head again.
‘Mum’s been looking for you. Me too. And the police, and Karl.’
He splashed water at me. It went in my eyes, but right now I didn’t mind. I wanted to call Mum, but then I decided he had to put on his good clothes first and have a shave. He wouldn’t be allowed to kiss her with cactus cheeks. As if he could read my thoughts, he said, ‘Don’t say anything just yet.’
‘So you can talk!’
He clamped a startled hand over his mouth. ‘No,’ he whispered so quietly I could barely hear, and shook his head. Then he zipped his lips again and pointed at me.
‘Am I not allowed to say anything?’
He gave me a stern look from beneath his dark eyebrows.
‘Not to Mum?’
He gave a curt nod.
‘I won’t say a thing. Least of all to Mum.’ I spat in the bathwater to seal the pledge. ‘I swear.’
Dad smiled. He stood up and took a stroll across my tummy. His feet tickled. When he flicked water at me again, I flicked him back. We slapped the water and I made waves with my hands and kicked my feet. It sloshed over the rim of the bath but that didn’t stop us.
Suddenly Mum opened the door. ‘What’s all this?’
Dad vanished instantly.
‘Look! The floor is soaking wet.’ She felt the bathwater. ‘You’ve been in here much too long.’
As inconspicuously as possible, I groped around behind my back to see if Dad might be hiding there. I couldn’t find him.
In a single motion, Mum reached in and pulled the plug.
‘Don’t!’ I pushed her away and accidentally hit her in the stomach.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she gasped.
The bathwater was clear and empty. Maybe he had slipped straight through the shiny plughole and had managed to wedge himself tight in the pipe. My little fingers could just fit into the little holes.
‘Behave yourself.’
‘Wait!’ I cried.
‘Don’t act the goat with me.’ She grabbed me roughly by the arm and yanked me to my feet. The plughole slurped and gurgled. Mum began to dry me off, even though I’d been drying myself off for ages now. The rough towel scoured my cheeks and folded my ears this way and that. The red bath mat beneath my feet was dark and cold from the water.
‘Look at the mess you’ve made.’
‘Dad started it.’
‘What did you say?’
I counted the black tiles on the floor so I wouldn’t have to look at her. When I was dry, she handed me the towel. ‘Use this to clean up.’ She’d forgotten to dry between my toes, so I did that myself.
