in my mouth. ‘Don’t take after your father,’ she smiled. ‘You can never count on a man like that.’ Before I could answer, the sewing machine had started rattling again.
The harder I bit down on my tongue, the more the ants prickled. Dusk made a mirror of the window. I knew it held my reflection, but I couldn’t bring myself to look. Mum went over to the bin, trod on the pedal, and let a few scraps of material fall from her hand.
‘Aren’t you going to eat anything?’
I gave a jerky shrug.
‘Nothing to say for yourself?’
‘I’ve had enough,’ I said.
‘Well, that wasn’t much.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t come crying like a baby that you want something else later.’ She tipped my soup back into the pot, placed my bowl next to hers by the sink, and left the pot and one bowl on the table for Dad. She caught me looking at them. ‘That father of yours can heat up his own soup.’ When she called him ‘that father of yours’, it meant he’d done something he needed to make up for. She rubbed dark-brown stripes across the table with a damp cloth.
‘He swam away.’ The words stumbled out of my mouth.
‘Hmm?’
‘Dad swam away.’
‘“Swam away”?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Dunno.’
She looked at me, puzzled. ‘Where to?’
I shrugged.
‘Didn’t he tell you?’
Again, I shrugged.
‘But you must know if he said something.’
‘I don’t think he said anything.’
She cupped her hands around her eyes and put her face to the window.
‘Did you two have a row?’
‘No.’
She tossed her head as if to shake loose a couple of strange thoughts.
‘That waster does whatever he likes.’ She turned the tap on full, put the plug in the sink, and squirted in some washing-up liquid. I heard the muffled clunk of plates and mugs, the scrape of knives, forks, and spoons. The boiler hummed away in the cupboard below.
At the slightest sound, Mum looked up and turned her head toward the front door, though they were only the noises the house makes. When she was finished, she draped a tea towel over the clean dishes on the draining board.
‘He was underwater.’
‘What?’
‘All of a sudden.’
‘What was all of a sudden?’
I shrugged.
‘Stop shrugging your shoulders every time I ask you a question.’
‘He wanted to climb out of the water after me.’
‘Did you two go swimming?’
‘No.’
‘You knew that wasn’t allowed.’
I shook my head.
‘What happened? Tell me.’
‘I looked round and all of a sudden Dad was swimming underwater.’
‘Underwater? Just like that?’
I tried my best not to shrug, but I couldn’t help myself.
‘He must have said something?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Well, where did he go?’
‘I don’t know that, either.’
‘Dunno, dunno, dunno… Where was he heading?’
‘I couldn’t see.’
‘But you just said he climbed out of the water after you.’
‘Didn’t.’
‘What do you mean, “didn’t”?’
‘I didn’t go for a swim.’
Her hand shot out and felt at my swimming trunks. ‘Are you telling me lies?’
My head wouldn’t stop shaking.
‘Where were you?’
‘On the sand.’
‘And that’s where he went swimming?’
I shook my head. ‘Over by the rocks.’
She looked deep into my eyes. Then she rushed into the hall, yanked open the dresser drawer, and took out a torch. She flashed it on and off three times and went outside. By the time the light on the outside wall flickered on, she had disappeared round the side of the house. Quick as I could, I pulled one of Dad’s jumpers from the drying rack and put it on. It was way too big for me. I wormed my feet into my boots and had to run to keep up with her.
2
The red light of a buoy appeared in the distant dusk. We scrambled down the path to the beach, curled like a half-moon around the cove. I kept trying to take hold of Mum’s hand, but she was walking too fast.
Dad’s sunglasses, his towel, and our flip-flops lay waiting on the sand, but not where we’d left them. I felt a surge of relief. Dad must have climbed out of the water and moved our things further from the breaking waves. Seconds later, my legs turned weak and wobbly again as I realized the tide had gone out.
Mum shoved the torch into my hands and turned over the things on the sand, as if he might be hiding under them. ‘Birk!’ she shouted across the water. ‘Where are you?’
When no answer came, she turned to me. I accidentally shone the light in her face.
‘Where did you see him last?’
I pointed the torch at the rocks.
‘There?’
I was close to tears.
‘Are you sure?’ She didn’t see me nod. She was staring out to sea again. ‘Birk!’ she shouted. ‘Birk!’
Unbroken silence. Not even the gulls were squawking.
As
