up the pathway, put her key in the door and walked inside.
Jackie stood in the kitchen. It was a large room, big enough for a dining table, which they never used. As Sadie stood in the door, her always-present satchel hanging around her neck, she blinked in astonishment. When she had left this morning, the sink had been brimming with dirty plates and pans, and Sadie fully expected to find it so when she returned. Jackie might have kicked the booze, but she was still a long way from being the perfect mum, and it was just a matter of course now for her to have to wash up whatever she needed when she made her sandwich for tea. But this afternoon, the kitchen was pristine. Even the large ashtray had been emptied, although Jackie still had a long, slim cigarette burning between her fingers.
‘Are they new trousers, Mum?’ Sadie asked, a bit disconsolately, as she had been telling her that she needed new school shoes for ages now.
‘Oxfam.’ Jackie smiled a little nervously, stubbed out the half-smoked ciggie and walked forward to embrace her daughter. She planted a kiss on Sadie’s cheek, and the girl turned to look at her mum in suspicious amusement. Mum never kissed her when she got home from school – it just wasn’t something she did.
‘What’s going on, Mum?’ she asked, removing the satchel from round her neck and plonking it in the middle of the floor.
Jackie took her daughter by the hand. ‘Come with me, love,’ she said, unable to hide the quiver in her voice. ‘I want you to meet someone.’
She led Sadie through the kitchen and into the sitting room. As she did so, Sadie felt a lurch in her stomach. Her childish instinct told her what was coming.
The man standing in their sitting room had very closely cropped hair. His face was slightly round and clean-shaven, and his sideburns were sharp and angular. There was a scar, about an inch long, above his right eye, and his lips were pale and pursed. He wore brown trousers, pleated below the waist in such a way that they gave the impression of hiding a bit of tummy, and a pale blue shirt that complimented his piercing eyes. It was his eyes that struck Sadie most of all. They were surrounded by black bags and stared straight at her with a flatness that seemed to contradict the thin smile that spread across his face.
And within seconds of seeing him, she realized that she had met him before. That very morning. He was the man who had sent the shopkeeper packing. The man who had stopped her copping it.
She stared at him awkwardly, her dark eyes narrowing a little and the inside of her mouth suddenly becoming dry. Then she heard her mum speaking.
‘Sadie,’ she said in an emphatically friendly voice, like a hostess introducing two people at a party, ‘I want you to meet Allen.’
She waited for Sadie to say something, but Sadie didn’t.
‘Say hello, Sadie, love. And remember your manners. Allen’s going to be your new dad.’
‘What do you mean?’
Sadie looked round at her mother incredulously. What was she saying? They were in this together, weren’t they? They were mourning her dad together.
Jackie seemed surprised by Sadie’s reaction. ‘Don’t be like that, love.’
Silence.
Allen spoke for the first time. His voice was deep, quiet and not unfriendly; Sadie could not place his faintly Mancunian accent, but to her it sounded almost musical. ‘Why don’t we have a nice brew, eh, Jackie?’ he suggested to Sadie’s mum.
Jackie responded a bit too quickly. ‘Cuppa, Sadie?’ she asked, even though she knew perfectly well that Sadie had never drunk tea in her life. When Sadie didn’t reply and just remained staring at Allen, she turned. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, almost to herself, as she walked back into the kitchen. But instead of making for the kettle she first picked up a packet of cigarettes on the side, took one out and lit it with a deep drag.
Sadie’s emotions were running riot, and a feeling of physical sickness arose in her gut. She spun round and walked back into the kitchen, wanting to ask her mum a million questions but somehow unable to find the words for even one. Allen followed her and stood in the doorway. The silence was filled by the clattering of her mum getting the tea things together.
When Sadie could bear it no longer she finally spoke. ‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ she whispered.
‘What’s that, Sadie?’ Allen replied, his voice loud enough to be heard by Jackie.
Sadie shot him a spiteful look as her mum turned round to listen. ‘We just met before, that’s all,’ she mumbled.
Allen raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘No, pet,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes, we have,’ she insisted.
‘Sadie,’ her mum reprimanded. ‘Don’t answer back to Allen.’ She turned to her new man. ‘I’m sorry,’ she told him.
‘It’s all right. She’s just getting confused, aren’t you, pet?’
‘I’m not getting confused, I …’ Her voice trailed away as she realized that Jackie was now suddenly too busy making the tea to listen.
Allen approached her, and Sadie became aware of his strong-smelling aftershave. He put his hand into his pocket pulled out a cuddly toy, pink and floppy-eared, and pressed it into Sadie’s unwilling hand. She looked at it briefly. It was not new – she could tell that instantly – and it was the sort of thing that might have been of interest to a child half her age.
‘Squeeze it,’ Allen said.
She did so, and the cuddly toy started to laugh. The laugh lasted for about thirty seconds, during which time the three of them were silent. When it stopped, Sadie looked from the toy back to Allen. He was obviously expecting a ‘thank you’, but she didn’t have the voice to give it to him, and his eyes tightened in momentary annoyance. He looked over her shoulder, across the kitchen and into the hallway. ‘Don’t you think you should pick up your school satchel, Sadie?’ he asked.
Sadie stared at him in astonishment, and then glanced at her mum for some sort of support.
‘Do what Allen asks, love,’ was all she said.
Sadie blinked. She handed the cuddly toy back to Allen, and then turned and walked to her satchel as calmly as her turmoil would allow. She picked it up and hung it on the creaky stair banister where she always kept it; then she ran up the stairs, her feet thumping the floorboards, and slammed her bedroom door behind her. She threw herself on to her bed, hugged her pillow and burst into tears.
After some time – Sadie was not sure how long – she heard the stairs creak as they always did when someone walked up them. There was a knock on the door and, without waiting to be asked, Jackie walked in. She was holding the cuddly toy. ‘Come on, love,’ she said, sitting on the bed beside Sadie and gently stroking her hair.
Sadie continued to whimper into her pillow.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Jackie continued. ‘To have a man in the house, I mean.’
