second drawer jammed and I had to rattle and shake it to pull it right out. It was full of black and grey tops and a couple of pairs of shorts which looked like Eliza’s cast-offs. At the back of this drawer were two sandwiches which were as hard and dry as cardboard, the edges bending up like brittle autumn leaves. I took one out and held it in my palm studying it, trying to work out why it was there. Like frantic moths, answers flew into my mind but could not settle.
I placed the stale food on the window-sill and tugged out the remaining drawers, pulling jumpers and tops aside frantically, desperately, like a hungry dog trying to dig up a buried bone. Nothing.
Smiling at my own stupidity, I dropped the stale food into the bin liner and grabbed the radio from the hallway. I switched it on and allowed the rhythmic thump of some old rock music to smother any remaining illogical fears.
Almost cheerily, I pushed the bed away from the wall and picked up Jo’s school bag which had been lying underneath. As I moved it, some books and a lunch box slapped down onto the floor. The lunch box was unexpectedly heavy and I peered through the plastic lid at its contents. There was no mistaking it. I peeled off the top to reveal the spaghetti bolognese I had served up days earlier. I stood still and stared at it for what seemed like hours. Then my brain jolted into action again and I tried to apply some logic.
Of course Jo had already unexpectedly declared herself a vegetarian so why hadn’t she told me instead of stuffing the meat into a plastic box and hiding it under her bed? I supposed she must have thought I would be disapproving or critical. Would I have been? Possibly. I had always cracked jokes about vegetarians being wind-powered and likened tofu to small pieces of mattress. I cringed when I thought of all those stupid remarks I had made about deep-fried Brussels sprouts and plastic sandals. Perhaps the answer was to become a vegetarian myself and declare the house a meat-free zone, but then I thought about bacon. I could almost smell it. Still, surely I just had to reassure Jo that she didn’t have to eat meat, and she simply had to reassure me that she would get her nutrition in other ways.
Yet I knew that such easy communication had broken down between us. Something told me that this wasn’t going to be at all straightforward. If Eliza hadn’t bounced into the room at that moment, I do believe I would have slumped down onto the bed and cried.
‘What’s wrong, Mum?’
‘Nothing sweetie, it’s just…Jo’s become a…’
‘Lesbian?’
‘No.’
‘Drug pusher?’
‘No.’
‘Prostitute?’
‘Of course not. Jo’s become a vegetarian.’
‘Oh, is that all? How boring, everyone’s a vegetarian.’
‘Actually, Eliza, I don’t think she’s eating properly.’
‘No one eats properly, Mum.’
‘But Jo’s so thin.’
‘Then make sure she eats more.’
It didn’t seem right to be confiding in a ten-year-old. Yet sometimes it takes a young soul to see everything in its simplest terms.
‘How an earth can I get her to eat?’
‘Use your imagination.’
Yes, I was good at that. Wasn’t I?
I WANTED to go to Dad’s in August. Not because it ‘made a pleasant change’ as Mum said, but because he always left me alone to get on with it. To get on with what? Thinking, working it all out, making lists. He never went in for talking much. Talking can interfere with thinking. He’d moved to the country. It was only just under an hour’s drive from us, but as you got nearer it got greener. Fields full of cows. That sort of thing. Decent cottage, I suppose. Bit small. In a kind of village full of commuters and ladies making jam and divorced fathers. There was a town nearby—market town, they call it. Never seen a market there, though. You could walk into town in twenty minutes. The bus was quicker, but always full of ladies with baskets, wearing brown macs and staring.
Mum and Eliza stayed for lunch. That was when I found out I couldn’t eat in front of Mum. Eating is a bodily function and like all bodily functions it should be done in private. When Dad lived at home they would shout at each other. They would say what they thought. Everything would be on the surface, on view, like portraits in a gallery. Now they sit and smile and clip their words so they do not fly off in the wrong direction. It is the gaps between the sentences you have to listen out for. I preferred the arguing, the obvious tension.
Tension makes the air thick and difficult to breathe in. It makes voices high-pitched and annoying. It was like sitting in glue that lunchtime. Mum and Dad were trying to do and say the right thing. I knew how hard that was. I wanted to tell them not to bother, that it wasn’t worth the effort. But effort made them feel noble and righteous, or something.
When Mum and Eliza left, the air cleared like the morning fog lifting and the sun coming through. We cleared the plates and talked of this and that. I asked about Alice.
‘It’s a pity Alice isn’t here this week,’ I said.
‘She had to go and look after her mother.’
I wanted to ask whose idea it had been. I hesitated.
‘Did Mum make her go?’
‘Of course not, it’s just how it worked out.’
I wished I hadn’t asked. I invited the lie and then was disappointed when it came. Let down. Kind of.
‘I’m playing darts tonight. Come along if you want, but I told Keith and Bev next door you might babysit—thought you could do with the money—but it’s up to you, your choice.’
‘Yeah, I’ll babysit.’
The next morning I woke up and my period had started. It was about ten days early, dragged forward by a vicious moon. I hadn’t come prepared. I padded my knickers out with toilet roll and went downstairs.
‘No breakfast for me yet, I’m just going to the shop.’
The best thing about Dad—you didn’t always have to explain yourself.
‘I’ll come too. We need some more milk.’
‘I’ll get the milk.’
‘OK.’
The next best thing about Dad was he didn’t feel the need to shadow me. And he was practical.
‘Great. That gives me some more time. We’re playing in a tournament at Brampton. Got to rush.’ Dad coached an under-sixteens football team.
The worst thing about Dad? He never changed his arrangements because of me. Maybe that was good, I could never work it out.
I walked to the
