“Some of us kids didn’t have a penny between us, so we’d jump on the back when the driver wasn’t looking.”
He looked at me, smiled. “I used to make up stories about having my own train, and who I’d take with me to the places I wanted to see: mountains and waterfalls and lakes, the glaciers in Iceland.”
In my mind’s eye I could see him leaning from a train window, the rattling, thumping beat of wheels against the tracks.
“All kids make up stories, about all sorts of things. I think it’s just because they wish things were different.”
He nudged me. “I wish things were different too.”
And for a minute I thought if Dad wished things were different that meant he’d talk about Mum and remember her, and make it feel like she was here. And I was ready to say, OK, Dad, can we get the photos out and talk about Christmases and birthdays and holidays together and get your guitar and try and sing Mum’s songs so it wasn’t like she’d never been here at all?
And then Dad said, “But we’ve got to forget the past and making up silly stories. It’s all part of growing up.”
He sounded like Mrs Brooks so I didn’t listen. Maybe she’d told him what to say. Instead I watched Luke fling his Frisbee, closer and closer to the girl in the tree who was hanging upside down by her knees.
Dad went on. “So first job is to paint your bedroom. What colour do you want?”
Now the girl was going round and round the branch; her long brown hair flicked after her. Luke leaned on the tree.
“Pink, I suppose,” Dad said. “Girls like pink, don’t they?”
I kicked a pile of rabbit poo on a hump of grass by the bench. When you haven’t been speaking for a little while, even though the colour of your bedroom is normally really important, it just doesn’t seem to matter. I shrugged. I know he just wanted me to say something. Not anything that was really important though, not anything he didn’t want to hear. Actually, I didn’t like pink any more. You sort of grow out of it. I tried to imagine my bedroom any other colour but pink and the boring old book-page colour it was.
I watched the girl sit up on the branch, Luke climb up beside her. She pulled her hair band down round her neck, straightened her hair and put it on again.
“Are you still not speaking to me? After everything I just said?” Dad said.
Dad leaned back; we both leaned with the bench as it sank further. Dad stood up and found a stone to put under the bench leg where the concrete had crumbled.
“Must be all the rain we’ve been having. Worn it away. I should talk to the Council about that,” he muttered, looking around as if somebody might be nearby and he could tell them to fix the problem.
He sighed and looked at me. “You know, sooner or later you’re going to have to speak. How else are you going to get what you want?”
19.
DAD AND LUKE WERE REARRANGING FURNITURE. We had a two-seater sofa and two armchairs. You couldn’t see the TV very well whichever way round they moved them. Or you couldn’t get from the kitchen area to the sitting-room part without climbing over the back of the sofa.
Dad muttered, “There’s not enough room to swing a cat.”
Luke said, “We haven’t got a cat.”
“It’s a figure of speech, Luke.”
“I’m not stupid, I know what it means.”
“We’ve got too much stuff so, cat or no cat, something’s got to go. We’ll have to do without one of the armchairs.”
“But that means there’ll only be three seats.”
“Well, there’s only three of us, Luke. Three seats, three people; do the maths.”
“But what if someone comes round?”
“Like who?”
Luke huffed and rolled his eyes. He said under his breath, “No wonder Cally doesn’t want to speak to you.”
“Well, I don’t know, do I?” Dad muttered.
Dad and Luke carried the armchair downstairs. They left it outside the front with a note saying ‘Free to Good Home’.
Dad packed up Mum’s old cooking equipment because we didn’t have enough cupboards for it to live in. He packed up the books and photo albums, and his guitar, mumbling it was broken; all the things that hadn’t been touched for over a year were put back in the boxes.
Dad looked at his watch, said he had to go and meet up with some people from work. “Find somewhere for those boxes, Luke. I won’t be long.”
But Luke didn’t. He was too busy on his computer, swerving racing cars round corners. So I took them, to make sure we kept everything, dragged the armchair through the passageway and tipped it sideways to get it through the back door, put everything in the shed. I took my drawing things and put them in there too.
All the walls were browny-orange in the shed and it smelled of new paint. It had been empty except for a big umbrella. I tucked my feet under, curled up in the armchair. It was like having my own house, big inside, and full of important things.
I drew a picture of Homeless with Mum in her raincoat and hat and left an empty bubble for her to say something. I looked at the picture and imagined telling Mum what colour I wanted my bedroom painted and she said, Just like the depths of the ocean, or the evening sky. I said, “How come you can’t see stars in the daytime?” And she said, I was never any good at science, but I do know that lights shine best in the dark. And I said, “That’s why we have fireworks at night,” and she laughed.
20.
“WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR breathing,” boomed Mr Crisp, at the end of Monday’s music lesson. “Especially those of you singing in the end-of-term concert.”
He was in charge of singing, plays and concerts and, I thought, general happiness. He had misty white hair and a belly full of laughter.
“Think of it like this: we’re full of air.”
“No, we’re not, sir. We’re mostly water!”
“Daniel Bird, this isn’t a science lesson, it’s music. Different rules apply.”
“But that’s what Miss Steadman said.”
Mr Crisp could make one eyebrow go up. “If you want to be totally scientific about it, we’re mostly made of space, and a space is where the sounds need to come out. Now, everyone, open your mouth wide. You should be able to fit two fingers in the gap. That’s two fingers, Daniel Bird, not your whole hand!”
He slapped his round belly. “Good! Now put your hands either side of your belly button, fill your lungs, feel your belly expand. Daniel, you can take your fingers out now.”
I opened my mouth when we were supposed
