Presents!’ Eliza shrieked. Petra noted that even Joanna now had an expectant twinkle in her eye.
‘Let the poor woman in, you lot!’ It was Mary. Petra’s father’s wife. From the start, Petra had somehow seemed old enough, self-contained enough and simply didn’t visit often enough for her to appear remotely in need of a stepmother. So Mary and Petra’s relationship bypassed that aspect. To Petra, Mary was her father’s wife. To Mary, Petra was John’s daughter. They both referred to him as John. They liked each other well enough.
They kissed. ‘John is out – he should be back soon. I’m just doing an online supermarket order. Kids – show Petra in.’
‘She’s brung us stuff,’ Bruce said cheerily, poking Petra’s bag as Eliza dragged her through to the sitting room.
Mary paused and Petra could see her assessing the subtlest way to do her familiar disappearing act. ‘Petra, do you mind holding court – then I can just finish off on the computer?’ And Mary wafted off muttering that she couldn’t believe she didn’t have time to go to a real supermarket these days.
An hour later, she reappeared. ‘Where on earth is John?’ she said. ‘I’ll phone him. Back in a sec.’ But soon enough, Petra could see her in the back garden, pruning half-heartedly before sitting down to sip from a mug.
Half an hour later, John arrived back.
‘Daddy!’ clamoured his two youngest children, rushing forward. Joanna glanced up momentarily from her teen magazine.
‘Hi, Dad,’ said Petra, with an awkward half-wave, hanging back. She was always surprised at how grey her father’s hair was; in between visits it automatically restored itself in her mind’s eye to the darker thatch she remembered best. It had definitely thinned more too, even since her last visit before Christmas. Today he also appeared smaller around the shoulders yet more slumpy around the waist.
‘Hullo, Petra,’ he said, craning forward to kiss her cheek while Bruce and Eliza clambered around him like chimps on a trunk. ‘Sorry I’m late – you know how these things drag on.’ But Petra didn’t know, because she didn’t know where he’d been or what the things were that he usually did on a Saturday in early April. ‘You look well, darling. How long can you stay?’
Petra looked at her watch. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘about another hour, really. Rob’s taking me to the theatre tonight.’
‘Rob?’
‘My boyfriend.’
‘The investment chappy?’
‘Yes. Him.’
‘You must bring him along next time you visit,’ John said.
‘OK,’ said Petra, wondering just now if she’d bother to visit before Christmas and wondering, very quietly, if she’d still be with Rob then anyway.
‘How’s work?’
‘Great, thanks.’
‘And everything else?’
‘Yes, everything’s fine, Dad, thanks.’
‘Where’s Mum?’ John asked and it was instinctively on the tip of Petra’s tongue to say, Still down in Kent actually I’m visiting her tomorrow – before she realized that he was asking the question of his other children.
‘Online,’ Joanna said, with a roll of her eyes.
‘Mummy,’ Eliza called.
‘She’s in the garden,’ Petra told him. And off he went, followed at intervals of a minute or two by his children. Petra brought up the rear.
‘Isn’t it lovely to see Petra, everyone,’ John announced. ‘Shame you have to go so soon. Next time, come for longer.’
‘And bring your boyfriend,’ Jo said.
‘OK,’ said Petra, ‘I will do.’ And it dawned on her that though she could stay until she physically needed to leave to catch a train, her visit had probably run its course already. ‘I suppose I’d better make tracks, now.’
‘Well, it’s lovely to see you,’ Mary said.
‘Don’t be a stranger,’ John added. ‘Come on, I’ll run you to the station.’
‘It’s not necessary,’ Petra told him. And John then said, ‘Well, OK then, if you’re sure,’ at the same time as Petra said, ‘But a lift would be great, thanks,’ and there was a momentary stalemate during which they laughed awkwardly and wondered how to backtrack.
‘Come on, the least I can do is run you to the station,’ John said.
‘Don’t dilly-dally,’ Mary warned him. ‘I’ve been run off my feet all day.’
John spread his palm to signify five minutes.
‘Bye, everyone,’ Petra said and the smaller children hugged her and bemoaned her leaving while Jo said, ‘See you,’ with the nonchalance characteristic of her age.
‘Great to see you,’ John said as he pulled up outside the station. ‘You look very well, darling.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Petra.
‘Are you OK for money?’ he asked, twisting to locate his wallet in his back pocket.
‘I’m fine, Dad,’ said Petra. ‘Thanks.’
‘Well, here,’ he said, passing over a twenty-pound note. ‘It’s not much these days – but you can buy your chappy an ice cream in the interval at the theatre tonight.’
Petra felt almost euphoric as the train pulled away.
He remembered that Rob is taking me to the theatre tonight!
But the feeling soon disintegrated into the familiar sense of deflation. She rested her forehead so that it banged lightly against the window.
I am never an unwelcome guest in my father’s house, but I am always an uninvited one. She felt close to tears and resolved not to arrange another visit until Christmas-time.
Petra’s mother now collected chickens with much the same passion as she’d collected shoes when Petra started at Dame Alexandra Johnson School for Girls. When the letter arrived announcing that Petra had a place and a bursary too, Melinda Flint had taken her daughter into town in a taxi and told her to choose anything within reason at John Lewis. Petra had chosen a thick pad of cartridge paper, bound beautifully, and a Rotring draughtsman pen. Her mother had then spent ages in the shoe department, finally deciding on a pair of slingbacks in vivid scarlet suede. ‘Don’t tell your father,’ Melinda had said, swooping down on a packet of cotton handkerchiefs monogrammed with a delicately embroidered P. Petra wondered how on earth her father could take offence to cotton handkerchiefs with her initial on them. Until she realized that her mother was referring to the shoes.
The only time John passed comment on her mother’s shoes was in the heat of an argument.
