how are things with your dad?’ Miss Dawson asked. Today she’d brought sweets and I sucked on a sticky Drumstick, softening it up before I bit into it, while I thought about what to say. Graham wasn’t the only person I’d lost in the summer.
‘He doesn’t play Mastermind with me any more,’ I said.
‘Oh? Is that something you used to do a lot?’
‘Yep. He stopped reading with me as well.’ I thought about the books we used to read together at bedtime. The way he did the silly voices.
‘Have you tried to speak to him? Properly?’ Miss Dawson’s voice was gentle.
‘He’s never home. He’s away on lecture tours. It’s “very important” for his “career”.’ I mimicked the way Dad said it.
The truth was, Mum and I hardly saw Dad these days. He worked long hours and started going away on lecture tours a lot of the time.
‘Why won’t he speak to me?’ I said, a sob catching in my throat. ‘I’m still here. It’s like he thinks I’m dead, too.’
‘He must be at home sometimes?’
‘He locks himself in his study.’
‘Working?’
‘Huh.’ Usually he was writing papers and books and whatever else historians did, but sometimes—and I knew this because I’d peeped around the door—Dad just sat with his head in his hands. ‘He’s really busy with work,’ I said. ‘He’s really famous. He’s in the papers, magazines and everything. Once he was on the radio. And the telly.’
‘Wonderful. You must be proud of him. What does he do?’
I knew she knew. ‘He’s a historian. He writes papers. And books, and he’s made TV shows and everything. He’s just finished a series of books for children. He’s been on TV.’
People talked about how my dad managed to make history ‘come alive’ for children. Mum’s friends stopped mentioning Graham when they came to the house; they stopped asking how we were. All they wanted to do was meet Dad; you could see it in the way they looked past me and Mum. Everyone talked about the way Dad could ‘connect’ with his students. I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded nice. I wished he could ‘connect’ with me.
‘I just want him to notice me again,’ I said. ‘I want it to be how it was before.’
‘Oh, Evie. It will get better. Everyone deals with tragedies differently. Your dad lost his son. It’ll take time.’
‘But I’m still here,’ I said. ‘Can’t he see that? I’m still here.’
It wasn’t easy getting the bike down from the attic but, somehow, I managed. I was keen to do it before Mum got back and, somehow, after a struggle that broke two of my nails, gouged out a small section of wallpaper and left a smear of oil on the paint of the attic door, both the bike and I were on the landing. I bumped it down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I examined it more thoroughly, remembering the do-it-yourself tutorials Dad had given Graham and me in this very room; the reluctant (on my part) Sunday afternoons spent learning how to oil our chains, flip off the tyres and change the inner tubes. The bike needed a bit of a service, a good re-grease and a couple of new tyres, but, aside from that, it was in good shape. I lay newspaper over the kitchen floor, dug out the toolkit and the oilcan from under the stairs and, cranking up the radio, got to work.
I didn’t hear Mum come in, not until she snapped off the radio, causing me to jerk up from where I was slowly dripping oil into the chain. I was starting to wonder if I’d actually have to take the bike for a professional service; the chain was more dilapidated than I’d originally thought, and the brake blocks definitely needed changing.
Mum was breathing heavily, her basket of shopping dropped at her feet, Richard hovering behind her. ‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was quiet, but a red spot high on each cheek belied her calmness.
‘Oh hi!’ I said, realising at once that I’d underestimated her. Woefully underestimated her. Of course she would remember Dad’s bike. I looked at the floor, my cheeks burning in shame. I could have handled it so much better. How could I have been so stupid to think she wouldn’t recognise the bike?
‘WHAT. IS. THAT?’
‘Umm …’
‘Is it your father’s?’
I nodded feeling like an eight-year-old. I could feel my lip curling like I was going to cry. I made a mistake! I wanted to say. Go away and I’ll put it back and we’ll pretend it never happened! ‘It was in the attic,’ I said.
‘And what are you doing to it?’ Mum’s words were clipped.
‘I was just taking a look at it …’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason. Just … I wondered what you wanted to do with it.’
‘Well, mark my words, young lady. You will not be riding that bike. You hear me?’
‘What?’
‘I said, you are not riding that bike.’
‘But …’
‘But nothing. Now you’ve got it down, you may as well put it outside for the bin men. But mark my words, if I catch you …’ Mum let out a stifled scream and steamed out of the room, fury stuck to her like a swarm of bees.
‘It was twenty years ago!’ I shouted after her, suddenly furious myself. ‘When are you going to face up to it? He’s dead! They are both dead!’ I dropped the oilcan and collapsed onto my knees on the kitchen floor.
Richard looked sadly at me and shook his head. ‘To be fair, Evie, that was a bit much.’
‘To be fair, Richard,’ I snapped, ‘it’s none of your business.’
I waited for him to leave the room, then stood up, rubbing out the ache in the small of my back. I wheeled the bike out into the garden and around the side of the house, where I propped it up by the bins. I’d decide what to do with it later.
‘Evie, what happened?’ Miss Dawson asked. ‘The school called. I came as quickly as I could. What happened?’
I liked that Miss Dawson didn’t ask if I was all right. Even my teacher had spotted that I wasn’t all right. When I hadn’t been able to stop crying in class, she’d led me to the nurse’s room and asked her to phone my mum.
‘No!
