One More Little Problem (11 page)

‘It’s OK,’ says Sol, but it isn’t really.

We stand there like two awkward strangers at a bus stop, shifting from one foot to another and raising our eyebrows and saying ‘Well,’ and ‘Hmm . . .’ and ‘So!’ a few times until I think I’m going to expire with embarrassment and then Fran’s there again with a big handful of rustling bags and Sol is grinning at her and making some feeble joke about saving the environment and then the next thing I’m back on the tube with Fran and she’s gazing at me with big concerned eyes.

We only speak about two words all the way home even though she’s bought me the silver flip-flops with the big flowers on which is really sweet.

I want to get home and lie on the bed and cry for England.

I want my OCD to go away.

A
ll over the rest of the weekend I check my email about a zillion times but there’s nothing from Sol although there are some nice texts from Fran asking if I’m OK.

Somehow I didn’t really think that there would be.

I’m too screwed-up for him now. He’s sorted out his life and got on top of his non-talking problem.

And I’m still scrubbing at my cheeks with a nail brush loaded up with harsh white soap and I’m still jumping until my feet get sore and I’ve even developed a new symptom which
involves tapping ten times on the end of the banister before I do my jumps or else I’ve convinced myself that Heather will die in Slovenia and never come home to rescue me from this horrible school holiday.

I probably looked like a hopeless case to Sol.

Wouldn’t blame him if he never got in touch again.

Monday.

Caro gets up late but then goes out, refusing to tell me where she’s going.

She comes back from wherever she’s been at the same time Dad arrives home from school.

She’s got a look on her face that I recognise.

It’s kind of smirking and self-important and superior and mysterious all at the same time.

It’s the same look she used to get just
before she teased Alice or Lib at Forest Hill House with some devastating insult that would have Alice in floods of tears or Lib speechless with anger.

‘What?’ I snap. I am not in the mood for Caro’s nastiness.

And now Dad’s come home looking a little red around the eyes. Again. He’s bought us a Chinese takeaway as a treat but I can’t help looking at his eyes and wishing that Heather would come back and stop him visiting the pub after work.

Dad’s missing Heather a lot. He won’t admit it, but I’ve caught him gazing at her photograph all moony-eyed and pathetic when he thinks I’ve gone to bed.

He’s pining and lovesick.

Maybe that’s why he has a drink every day after work.

I decide to try and be more understanding.

‘Do any of the other teachers go to the pub with you?’ I say.

Dad is tipping a bag of prawn crackers into a big glass bowl. He stops mid-pour at that but then carries on, his back to me.

Caro sniggers.

Just a tiny sound, but it’s enough to wind me up.

‘Could you just manage to stay out of the conversation for once, please?’ I say.

She makes a mock-scared face at me and dives into a carton of noodles before anybody else has a chance to sit down, sucking them up with her eyes crossed and bits of chopped chicken dripping down her chin.

‘Gross,’ I say. ‘Anyway, Dad. You were saying?’

Dad comes to join us at the table.

He snaps open a can of lager, even though he’s just been to the pub.

Caro catches my eye and gives me that odd, knowing little smile again.

I am going to ignore the can of lager.

‘Yes, one or two other teachers go,’ says Dad. ‘Prawn balls, anyone?’

Caro leans over and helps herself to more than half the container.

I reach over to her plate and take some back.

It’s about time that Caro learned some manners, I reckon.

‘Ooh, OCD’s got a cob on!’ says Caro. ‘She’d be even crosser if she knew what I know!’

I ignore her. I dip my clean spoon into one of the containers and then a different clean spoon into each box. That way I avoid the risk of major
Germ Alert
.

Caro’s not going to let it drop.

‘I said, you’d be really angry if you knew what I know,’ she says, louder this time.

Dad’s got his head down and is wolfing
down food very fast without looking up.

I swear I see him kick Caro’s leg underneath the table. Hard.

I decide I’ll pretend I haven’t seen the kick or heard what Caro is trying to tell me.

‘Why are prawn crackers so moreish, do you think?’ I say. My voice is high and a bit hysterical.

Caro gives her evil little laugh again.

‘Dunno,’ she says. ‘Why is
lager
so moreish, do you reckon? What makes people drink so much of it?’

Dad gets up, having eaten his meal in record time, and fills up the kettle.

There’s a very odd feeling in the air. Like summer has finished early and autumn is about to lower one hell of a frost over the house and garden.

‘Well?’ says Caro. ‘Isn’t anybody going to answer my question?’

I’ve had enough of this and I’m in a foul mood anyway because of the whole dating disaster with Sol.

‘Caro,’ I say. ‘Dad’s bought us a really nice dinner. You’re being rude. I don’t know why you’re being rude but then again I never do. Can’t you just button it for one short evening?’

Caro gets up and shoves back her chair. Her smile has gone. She grabs a carton of rice and makes for the kitchen door.

‘Don’t you dare have a go at me,’ she spits. ‘It’s not me you need to be angry with. Maybe you need to ask your precious father here what he’s doing every day when you think he’s being a schoolteacher.’

I feel the colour drain from my face.

Dad slinks out of the room and goes up to his study.

‘What do you mean?’ I say. My legs have
gone all shaky and I have a strong urge to run upstairs and scrub my hands until they are red raw.

‘I saw him!’ says Caro. Her voice is loaded with satisfaction. ‘Your precious dad. I saw him in the pub this afternoon at two o’clock. And I bet you that’s where he’s been every day this week.’

She slams out of the room so hard that the clock falls off the wall and smashes into shards of black and white at my feet.

I stand there for ages like a pale zombie.

My feet are rooted to the floor.

I can’t move because I’m frozen with fear.

Caro’s many things, but she’s not a liar.

And Dad?

He’s been lying to me all along.

D
ad doesn’t stay upstairs for long.

He comes downstairs dragging Caro by the wrist.

For once she’s lost that smug look. Her eyes are full of fear.

‘Sit down,’ he says. He pushes her into a chair.

I’m still standing frozen in the middle of the room.

‘You too, Zelah,’ he says.

I manage to get myself to a chair. I can’t look Dad in the eye.

‘Before you start on me,’ he says, ‘yes, it’s
true. I haven’t been going to my new job. I’ve been sitting in the pub all day. I can’t deny it.’

I’m speechless with disappointment. All that time trying to keep Dad’s spirits lifted, the trip to buy new clothes, the phone calls to Heather and how proud she was of Dad getting a new teaching job.

‘Zelah,’ he says. ‘Say something. Anything. But don’t sit there in silence. I feel terrible enough about this as it is.’

Caro’s never silent for long, though.

‘God, how pathetic,’ she says. ‘Pretending to your own daughter that you’re going to work when all the time you’re holed up in the local boozer being a sad old lush.’

Dad turns his head towards Caro.

For the first time in years I see real anger in his eyes.

‘I opened up my home to you,’ he says. ‘I’ve taken you in and let you live here rent-free
and how have you paid me in return?’

I don’t think Dad actually expects an answer to this question but Caro being Caro is going to give him one anyway.

‘Been a charming and fun lodger, not like your own miserable screwed-up daughter?’ she says.

I glare at her.

‘Zelah’s worth a hundred of you,’ says Dad.

‘Zelah’s a freak,’ continues Caro, not to be outdone. ‘Come on, man. We both know it.’

My father stands up and looms over her, a tower of red rage in his checked shirt and with his watery pink-rimmed eyes.

‘Enough,’ he says. His voice is like reinforced steel.

‘I’d like you to leave our house, as of now,’ he continues.

Caro’s expression of superiority begins to fade away.

‘What? I can’t . . . you know I can’t,’ she stutters. ‘Where will I go?’

Dad flaps his hands at her as if he is dismissing her from his life forever. Which he probably is.

‘You should have thought of that,’ he says. ‘You’ll go back to the decent foster parents who, for some reason unknown to mankind, have taken it upon themselves to give you a good home.’

Caro opens up her black-lipsticked mouth and lets out a scream of rage.

I’ve heard that scream a few times before but it never fails to make all the hairs on my body stand to attention. It’s the sort of scream I would make if somebody sliced open my soft white abdomen with a carving knife that hadn’t been disinfected.

Dad looks taken aback for a moment but continues to stand over Caro with a
threatening expression.

‘Go and pack,’ he says. ‘I’m ringing your foster parents. They can come and get you or you can hitch back the way you came. I’m past caring.’

Caro’s gone purple with rage now. She looks around the kitchen with a wild expression on her face.

Her gaze settles on the back garden and I know in a split second what she’s going do and I shout out ‘NO, CARO!’ but it’s too late and like a black flash of spite she’s off out of the kitchen door and down the end of the garden and heading straight for the spade that Dad leaves stuck in the flower bed at the end of a long day’s gardening.

Dad and I follow but it’s too late.

With shrieks of rage and grunts of effort Caro attacks all the lines of neat vegetables with the spade, sending a flurry of green leaves
flying up into the air. Then with her hands she rips down the beautiful cane pyramids which prop up the red bean flowers until they are bent and snapped and all tangled up with the earthy roots lying on the grass.

‘STOP IT!’ I scream as I rush towards her. ‘CARO! STOP!’

Yes. It’s way too late now.

Caro raises the handle of the heavy spade in the direction of Dad’s beloved greenhouse with its neat rows of grapes and new tomatoes hanging in little jewel-like clusters and with one scream of effort she’s smashed all the glass into tiny crystals and swiped all the plastic seed trays and their contents on to the floor.

I run into the greenhouse and try to wrestle the spade out of her surprisingly strong grip. For a small thin person Caro seems to possess supernatural powers. Earth and bits of dried wood and weed fall all over me but I’m too
stressed to register the
Dirt Alert
.

I pull and tug at the spade but Caro’s stronger than I am.

Then another pair of hands reaches in and grabs it.

Dad.

I think he’s going to put the spade out of Caro’s reach but what he does next catches all of us unawares.

He looms over Caro with the spade still in his grasp.

And lets out an enormous roar.

T
here’s a horrid sickening moment of slow motion where I see Caro cowering in fright and my father looming over her like a whale of wrath and now I’m moving towards Dad to try and stop him.

‘You little cow!’ Dad is shouting. ‘You vile, evil child!’ I snap out of slow motion and get myself positioned between Caro and the spade.

‘No, Dad!’ I say. ‘You can’t hit her!’

I never told my dad much about Caro’s past. About the father who used to hit and abuse her up in her bedroom when she was
just a tiny child. About how her self-harming is all because of the fear she used to feel as a little girl.

My dad is ashen with shock when he hears my voice.

He drops the spade and stands there, a broken man with tears pouring down his face.

Caro’s also crying. It’s a quiet whimper of fear, like an animal that’s just been kicked.

When Dad drops the spade she dodges his bulk and darts out of the greenhouse and back towards the house.

The garden looks like a wilderness.

All Dad’s orderly lines of vegetables have gone.

The neat grass is strewn with lumps of soil and the leaves of ripped-up plants.

The wooden bean-frames lie drunkenly on their sides or sticking up towards the sky like the crushed limbs of giant stick insects.

Dad drops to his knees and buries his face in his hands.

Great big sobs come from his shaking body.

It’s at that moment that I stop seeing Dad as a weak, unemployed, lovesick drinking man.

He’s a human being. In pain. Lots of.

I crouch down next to him and I’m kneeling in piles of compost and earth and manure and other shit but I don’t care.

For the first time in over three years I reach out and touch my dad.

I put my arms around him and he gives a little jolt of surprise but I hang on for grim death even though my whole body is screaming
DIRT ALERT!
and
GERM ALERT!
at me in the loudest voice you’ve ever heard.

I hold on for ages and then another
thought enters my head.

Caro. Where’s she gone?

I leg it back towards the house at top speed.

S
he’s not in her room.

I look around upstairs, shouting out her name, but there’s no reply.

Her clothes are all still in the wardrobe but there’s no sign of the girl.

‘CARO!’ I yell as I run back downstairs to check the lounge and kitchen.

She’s not there.

I take a moment to breathe deep and slow, just like the Doc showed me.

‘Phoo, phoo,’ I go, leaning against the kitchen door.

Then I see it.

The hook where we keep the key and the spare key to Heather’s house.