Chapter 3.
When it became obvious that Mum wasn’t coming back anytime soon, Dad decided he had better work from home so he could keep an eye on us when we came home from school. At least, that’s what he told us. Maybe he was hoping Mum would come back to the house, I don’t know. We said we were perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. Eddie said he could go and play with friends after school until Dad came home from work.
‘I go to soccer practise on Wednesday afternoons and I suppose I could learn judo or go to gymnastics or something on the other days.’
Dad frowned and looked unconvinced.
‘I can go to Becky’s house,’ I suggested.
‘I’m sure Becky’s parents don’t want you there every day,’ Dad muttered.
‘Oh well, in that case I can go down and hang around the mall,’ I said brightly. ‘Heaps of kids do that. Eddie could come with me.’ I could see that Dad didn’t think this was a great idea either, as he started looking even more harassed.
‘What about asking Grandma to come and stay,’ Eddie suggested.
‘No way,’ Dad shook his head. ‘You know her legs are bad with arthritis and she can’t walk too well these days. Anyway,’ he added in a mumble, ‘she’ll be far too busy with those other old witches she hangs around with.’
I thought that Mum would definitely not have been pleased to hear Grandma’s bridge partners talked about like that, but knew better than to argue.
‘Maybe we could go and stay with Grandma,’ Eddie suggested uncertainly.
‘No,’ Dad snapped. ‘That is not satisfactory at all. I’m going to work from home and that’s my last word on the subject.’
I suspect that Grandma would have agreed with Dad on this, at least. She lives in a tiny unit in a group of other units where all the people are really old and they have nurses who keep an eye on them and help them do stuff. The only times we ever visit, we have to be quiet and not make any mess or even play any games. And, as Dad had pointed out, Grandma had trouble walking and so staying with her really wasn’t an option.
Dad moved all his files from his work into the living room, and dragged in the computer desk from the little alcove in the end of the hallway. He brought his laptop home from work but said he needed to use both computers, which we thought was totally unfair. Actually it didn’t bother me too much but Eddie was really annoyed. He loves playing all those mindless games where you shoot aliens and blow up planets and stuff like that. The disadvantage of Dad working in the living room was that he shouted at us if we wanted to watch TV. Then he’d feel guilty for shouting and go all quiet and kind so it got that we didn’t know where we were with him.
The laundry situation was pretty dire. I’d never really though about washing clothes before. I mean, we tossed stuff in the laundry basket when we remembered or else Mum picked it up and washed it for us. And of course Eddie and I had helped by pegging out or taking in the washing from time to time but we’d never done the whole thing. When I ran out of knickers one morning I had to stay home from school and wash them. It was terrible. There were piles of clothes in the laundry, all falling out of the tub and over the floor. Eddie’s room was a nightmare and Dad’s room wasn’t much better.
‘We have to get someone in to do the washing, Dad,’ I complained. Dad could see the sense in that. He was furious that his white shirts were all a delicate shade of pink because I had washed them with one of Eddie’s red t-shirts. And my best sweater had shrunk when I tossed it into the drier one afternoon.
‘We need someone to change the sheets as well,’ Eddie said sadly. ‘Mine have got crumbs all over them and it makes it really scratchy to sleep on.’
‘Can’t you change your own beds?’ Dad asked.
‘We can, but we don’t really have time, what with washing everything else and trying to do meals as well,’ I said pitifully.
The meals were horrible. They were okay for the first couple of days because Dad bought takeaways or frozen pizzas. But after that he decided we were being totally unhealthy and tried to cook us proper stuff and it was dreadful. He couldn’t even manage to heat up those packet meals you get from the supermarket. He burnt things until they were dark brown and nasty, or else they were partly frozen and raw in the middle. He forgot to get milk quite a lot of the time and one morning we had blackcurrant cordial on our cereal, which was surprisingly nice. But it was all a bit peculiar and we longed for Mum’s food. I’d thought that I’d eat carrot salad for a month without complaining if only she’d come back.
Dad always made a huge mess in the kitchen and we would have to clean it up.
‘Do the dishes please, Poppy’ he would mutter as he disappeared back to the living room. I would look around in horror. There would be about six times as much stuff as Mum ever used and it looked as if Dad picked up a new spoon or saucepan every five minutes.
‘It’s not fair. I feel like a slave,’ I spluttered.
‘I’ll help,’ Eddie offered without enthusiasm.
‘Good. You can load the dishwasher while I tidy away the rest of the mess.’
Naturally the dishwasher decided it was going on strike at all the work it had to do. We begged Dad to get Mr Collins to come and fix it but he refused.
‘I think he’s too embarrassed to have him come here, after practically accusing him of having run off with Mum,’ I told Eddie furiously. He shrugged and started to fill the sink so we could wash the dishes by hand. That didn’t improve either of our tempers and we bickered all evening after that.
I was sure Mum had gone off with someone else. After all, that is what had happened to lots of kids at school. Their parents had split up and their Mum or Dad had a new partner. It had always seemed to be something exciting that happened to other people and we discovered that it wasn’t nearly as exciting when it was us. Eddie still stuck to his ‘vanishing’ story and that led to all sorts of fuss and botheration. We did a lot of listening at doors and discovered that the police thought that something bad had happened to Mum. They thought Eddie must have seen it happen and his mind had blanked it out by making him forget it and making up the vanishing story. So poor Eddie was interviewed by a psychologist who made him answer all sorts of dumb questions. At least, Eddie said they were dumb. Then they made him go to counseling. I had to go too, much to my indignation. I felt they should all be out looking for Mum to see where she went but instead we had to go to Mrs Witherspoon. She was quite an old lady and she kept trying to be friends with us and to make us do creative art stuff and play with dolls. I am far too old to play with dolls, particularly when someone else is watching.
‘Now why don’t we have a pretend birthday party,’ twittered Mrs Witherspoon, handing me a blonde doll in a bright pink dress. ‘What do you think Dolly would like?’
I was going to wind her up by suggesting dissecting her with a sharp knife or throttling her with a noose but decided it might end up with even more counseling, so I kept my mouth firmly shut.
I sneaked a look at our files one day when Mrs Witherspoon went off to the toilet and it said that I was ‘repressing my emotions’ and that Eddie was ‘withdrawn and obviously traumatised.’ Duh! Anyone would be traumatised if their mother walked out of their life with no warning.
After a while the fuss died down and we stopped going to counseling, thank goodness. About that time Dad got really ratty. He was angry about having to work from home and he had convinced himself that Mum had left him for someone else. So he bellowed at us because we were there and she wasn’t.
‘Your mother might as well be dead,’ he complained one day.
‘Maybe she is,’ I sniffed. ‘Maybe she’s dead and never coming back. I hate you.’
I slammed the door and stormed to my room.
After that, Dad was stiff and polite to me and never mentioned Mum’s name again. I couldn’t bear the thought that she had preferred living with someone else to being with us so I decided to think of her as dead. That might sound callous, but it was ea
sier really. If friends asked where our mother was I’d say, ‘she’s dead.’ They’d gulp and change the subject, which was such a relief.
Eddie didn’t say she was dead. He didn’t say anything. He still thought she’d vanished and that maybe some day she’d come back again. I gave up trying to change his mind after a while. Eddie started sitting on the swinging seat and staring vacantly into the air, which was a bit freaky. It seemed harmless enough, though, so Dad and I left him to it.
About the time Dad got really angry, he decided he’d better do something about the food situation. We were trying our best. Eddie could fry eggs and bacon and I could make a chocolate pudding in the microwave, but we were all too mixed up and cross to enjoy eating like that for long. So Dad advertised for a housekeeper and Mrs Jennings arrived to look after us. She was big and motherly and Eddie and I hated her. She’d pick up all our stuff and keep our rooms tidy and we’d drop clothes on the floor straight away on purpose. She’d cook boring nutritional meals that Dad ate in an absent-minded way. He’d gone all vague and uncaring once the anger wore off. But the worst was that Mrs Jennings felt sorry for us.
‘Poor little boy,’ she’d say pitying, as Eddie walked past her pretending she didn’t exist.
‘So sad,’ she’d quaver at me, when I shrieked at her to leave me alone.
I came home early one afternoon from school. We’d been having a really boring sports exchange and our team had been wiped out early on, so the teacher took pity on us and said we could leave earlier than usual. I arrived home to hear laughter coming from the dining room. I knew it couldn’t be Dad, as he never laughed at anything any more. I didn’t think it was Mrs Jennings, unless she was a lunatic and laughed to herself. Come to think of it, that might even have been possible. But then I heard talking, so I sort of slunk past the corner of the house and listened outside the window. I risked a quick look inside to see Mrs Jennings with two other women, who I guess were her friends. She was telling them all about our family and how Dad was ‘the strong and silent type and obviously in need of a good woman.’ Then, while I was gasping at the sheer brass nerve of her, she went on to say that I was a problem child who needed taking in hand. That’s what was making them laugh, thinking of ways of sorting me out.
‘And that poor little Eddie, it’s such a shame. He’s touched of course, not right in the head,’ Mrs Jennings remarked. Her friends nodded and murmured agreement. I was so furious I started shaking. I stamped in through the door and stood there glaring at them.
‘Oh Poppy, you’re home early,’ said Mrs Jennings nervously.
‘Get out,’ I howled. ‘You’re sitting in my mother’s seat and that’s her favourite coffee cup.’ The women all leapt to their feet and Mrs Jennings nearly spilt her coffee. ‘Go away, we don’t want you here,’ I screamed at Mrs Jennings. She stood there with her mouth hanging open, looking at me.
‘I won’t be spoken to like that,’ she bristled.
The next minute the door swung back with a crash as Dad stormed in.
‘I can’t work with all this noise,’ he thundered.
There was a moment of silence then suddenly we all began talking at the same time. Mrs Jennings was complaining about my manners, her friends were apologising for being a nuisance and I was bellowing to Dad that he had to get rid of Mrs Jennings because she wanted to marry him and I didn’t want her for a mother.
‘Enough!’ Dad roared.
We all went quiet and one of the ladies went pale and started trembling.
‘Mrs Jennings, kindly leave this house and take your friends with you,’ Dad went on icily.
Mrs Jennings looked affronted but did as she was bid, while I burst into tears of relief.
‘I don’t like her,’ I sobbed. ‘She’s not part of our family.’
Dad looked stricken and bolted for the living room. He hates it when I cry.
So it was burnt toast and baked beans for the next few nights while we all settled down again. The only good thing that happened at that time as far as I could tell was that Tyler had finally been spotted taunting Eddie and had been told off. So Eddie at least wasn’t having a hard time but he didn’t seem to care. He was nearly as vague and apathetic as Dad was.