Infinite Sky (12 page)

‘Second chippy this week,’ Donna fake-whispered to my dad, putting her hand to her mouth theatrically.

A chubby mother nearby rolled her eyes.

‘Have you
seen
this?’ Donna pushed her belly out.

‘Have to get a crane round to get you out soon enough,’ Dad said.

Donna pretended to hit him. It was disgusting. Her hair was a big, black curly mass, and I could just make out the smell of her hairspray and perfume over the vinegar and grease of the
chips.

I turned back to the window, and caught Matty staring straight at me. I’d finished the bubble, and she was looking at me as if to say,
Get on with it then
. I imagined writing,
Your mum wants to have it off with my dad
, but
her
dad, Jacob, popped into my head.

He always brought us something nice when we were waiting for tea: a crab stick or apple slices or some crisps in a bowl. He would squeeze the backs of our heads while we were watching telly, and
tell us we’d end up boss-eyed.

I settled for:
Piss flaps
.

‘Coming to see us soon, ducky?’ Donna called over to me. I wiped the window quick. ‘Matty’s missing you.’

Her voice changed when she talked to me, like I was a different species or something. Mum always talked to us like we were adults. Ever since I could remember she had done that.

‘Suppose you’re busy these days, eh?’ Donna said, and she wriggled her eyebrows at me. I had no idea what she was talking about. Then I choked. Matty must have told her about
Trick. I’d forgotten she even knew.

‘What’s that?’ Dad asked, taking three forks from the box on the end of the counter.

Donna winked in my direction. I felt sick.

‘Think the girls’ve fallen out,’ she said, pouting slightly. ‘Can’t get anything out of Mats.’

Dad shrugged, and Donna changed the subject.

‘Hear you’ve been invaded anyway,’ she said, and for once I was relieved to hear Dad starting on about the travellers and the tool shed, and the uselessness of the police.

Poll joined in.

‘Oh it’ll be them all right,’ she said, plonking a battered fish on top of some chips.

Her hands worked fast, wrapping up paper, putting packages into a brown bag.

‘We had some near us. Moved on in the end, we got rid of them, but Jesus and the Holy Ghost. Dog shit
everywhere
. Nappies. They had a massive horse in the garden at one point.
Hundreds of dogs chained up in front. Kids were bloody terrified. Had to get professionals in to sort the mess after.’

Dad held out his money, and Poll took it but didn’t go to get change. She was thinking about her story. The queue was getting restless.

Dad took the package.

‘Put the change in the charity box, eh Poll?’ he said, looking grim.

I pushed through people to the door, keen to get out of there before Donna said anything else.

Outside, the air felt cold after the steaming chip shop, and I shivered, relief tingling down my spine. The bell dinged behind us, and my stomach settled, and we were almost inside the pick-up
when a car door slammed. Matty stepped out.

‘Shouldn’t dump your mates first time you get a boyfriend, you know, Iris,’ she called. ‘You’ll have no friends left when the gypsies move on.’

Dad stopped, his hand on the pick-up door handle. I squeezed the chips to me and the vinegar stung my nose.

Matty had her mouth fixed so her cheekbones were pushed upwards, her lips stretched in the worst kind of smile. I hated her.

The chip shop doorbell rang again, and Donna stepped out, brown paper package in her arms.

‘What’s all this?’ she said, taking in mine and Matty’s stand-off.

‘In,’ Dad barked, ignoring her.

Matty skipped off. From the car in front, she smirked back at me.

The journey home was silent. Dad didn’t look at me. His hands fed the steering wheel left to right, his knees lifted as he switched between accelerator, clutch and brake.
I felt sick.

It was cloudy for once, and getting dark outside, and Dad put his lights on. He always put them on early, not like Mum who only remembered when she saw someone else’s. I leaned back
against my seat, and thought about what I was going to say. That Matty had got it wrong? That Trick wasn’t my boyfriend? That I’d made it up to impress her? How much difference would
the all-important boyfriend distinction make to my dad?

We were on Ashbourne Road now, and the next right turn was ours. Soon it would be over, I told myself. But Dad’s mouth was firm, like a decision, and I knew this was different. This
wasn’t getting a letter sent home for wearing trainers to school or losing the form book for the third time.

He clipped the indicator as we approached our lane and cut the engine, letting the pick-up roll home, controlling it with the brakes. We lurched in and out of potholes, and I remembered how
carefully Dad used to drive when I was little and would sit on his knee, holding the wheel.

He swung onto the drive, yanking the handbrake and footbrake at the same time, and I glared at him because the seatbelt had cut into my neck, but he wouldn’t look at me.

I concentrated on the patch of heat coming from the bag of chips onto my lap and belly, watching as he stared out the window. His hands gripped the steering wheel as if the whole thing might
leap suddenly into the sky. The engine pinged and clicked as it cooled. Outside, a pigeon cooed.

‘Come on then,’ he said, and his voice was quiet. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘What?’ I said, and I sounded stupid. I knew
what
.

He turned to look at me, but it was my turn to stare out the windscreen now. A green lacewing had got splattered in the top left corner, and I noticed how the wipers kept missing it. One of its
wings was pressed against the glass, and I looked at the intricate turquoise webbing.

The end of the ladder loomed over the cabin we sat in. I could see it at the top of the windscreen, and I imagined sitting up there, feeling the warm air on my cheeks, the cold metal rungs
underneath me.

‘Well?’

My heartbeat filled the cabin.

I opened my mouth then closed it again.

I tried to think of something that wouldn’t make things worse.

‘Fine.’ He shouldered the door open. ‘Keep your dirty secrets. You won’t be seeing him again. That’s for sure.’

I was shocked, and I couldn’t think.

‘What you waiting for? Get out. I’ve got to
lock
the pick-up. Don’t know who you can flaming trust round here.’

He slammed his door and I jumped down, slamming my own. Dad locked up with his enormous set of keys, then jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked along the path.

The chips stank of vinegar and the dead fish that was wrapped inside, going soggy and grey. I wasn’t hungry. I watched the cracked paving stones pass beneath my feet. The walk down the
path took forever.

‘It’s not as if I had sex with him or anything,’ I muttered.

He spun round.

‘What? I didn’t,’ I said, louder now, because I wanted him to know he was overreacting, that nothing that bad had happened.

He moved towards me, his face screwed up, and I stepped back to get away from him. ‘If that thug
dared
touch you . . .’

‘He didn’t,’ I said, and it took all my courage to get the words out, quiet as they were. ‘And he isn’t a thug.’

He shook his head at me in wonder, and I pulled my shoulders back, trying to hold my head up.

‘Swaggering about the place with that black eye. Have you noticed
anything
that’s been going on round here?’

The chips were burning my chest, and I realised I was crushing them. I realised I was shaking my head.

‘Jesus, Iris. How
thick
can you be?’

‘Don’t call me thick! You don’t know anything about it, you’re the one that’s—’

‘What?’ he shouted, so sharply that I jumped. ‘I’m the one that’s
what
?’ His eyes flashed, daring me to finish.

I felt my chest thudding. I swallowed. I didn’t know where to start.

‘He didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘And you know that, do you?’

I nodded.

‘Because that’s what he’s told you?’

I wasn’t daft enough to nod again.

‘Know it all, don’t you? And not even fourteen!’

I stared at the floor, at the silverweed growing up through a crack in the pavement. I could feel him looking at me, could hear the dislike in his voice, and I wished I could shrink down to the
size of that tiny yellow flower.

‘I’ve not lost so much as a bag of nails in fifteen years down here. That rabble move in, and within weeks there’s a break-in. And you’re telling me that’s a
coincidence? They move in, ruin a place or rob it silly, then leave it for the next bugger to clean up. Well, not me. I’m not going to be made a fool of again. I’ve had it! And I
don’t know what your lad out there’s been filling your head with, but I wouldn’t believe it if I were you.’

‘What you going to do?’ I said, and I meant to sound mature, like it didn’t much matter to me, but it came out like a wail, and then the words came whining out of me again. I
couldn’t stop them.

‘
What are you going to
do
?
’

Dad put his hands out, pushing the air between us away. ‘
What am I going to do?
It’s not your
bleeding
business what I’m going to do. I’m going to do what
it’s my right to do. What I should have done a long time back.’

He rubbed his face, scraped his hair back from his forehead, and walked towards the kitchen.

At the door, he turned and faced me.

‘Tell you one thing they have got, your lot; something sadly missing from this family.
Loyalty
.’

The next morning, Dad made me go to work with him. He poached eggs and toasted crumpets, and we ate in silence. Sam was still in bed. I got into the pick-up without a fuss.
Austin assumed I was poorly, and let me choose the radio station. As soon as I settled on one, Dad turned it off.

They were finishing their job in the Peaks, getting rid of the last few dying elms. As soon as we arrived, I jumped from the lorry and said I was going for a walk.