Read Me Like a Book (14 page)

“Um.” Crikey. When did Dad and I last actually
do
something or
go
somewhere together? I can’t even think.

We end up at McDonald’s, where our joint skills at avoiding talking about what’s really going on are instantly exposed, like a bright day showing up a dirty window. Sample conversation:

Dad: How’s school, love?

Me: Fine.

Dad: Done anything interesting this week?

Me: Not really.

Dad: You going to have a Big Mac or McChicken?

Me: McChicken, I reckon. Meal deal. What about you?

Dad: Think I’ll go for the Big Mac myself.

Elephant in the room, anyone?

As we finish up our food, I decide to try and talk about it.

“Dad . . .”

He looks at me, and for a second I wonder why his expression seems so familiar: dark eyes, pale skin, no hint that this is a face that ever knew how to smile. Then I realize where I’ve seen it before. On Mum.

“Is it . . . you know . . . are you —”

“Are we sure?” he breaks in, in a rare moment of actually understanding what I’m trying to say.

I nod. I feel ashamed even asking. And scared. Why ask a question when you don’t want to hear the answer?

Dad reaches across the napkins and half-empty boxes and takes my hand. “I know that we didn’t talk about all of this with you, and maybe that was our mistake,” he says. “But, believe me, we talked to each other.”

“Really?” I think back over the past weeks and months and, for the life of me, I just can’t recall them having a conversation that didn’t end in a screaming fight.

“Yes, really. We talked a lot. And you know something else?”

“What?”

“We went to see a counselor.”

I can’t help it — my jaw actually falls open.

“We went six times. We didn’t want to involve you in it all. It didn’t seem fair. We thought we might be able to work it out. But we can’t, love. It’s over.”

I nod and try my hardest to force away the boulder in my throat so I can reply. It’s not budging.

“Obviously, nothing in life is one hundred percent certain, but we’re as sure as we can be. We wouldn’t have even considered putting you through this if we weren’t.”

Dad squeezes my hand, and I squeeze his back. He looks so grateful for this one tiny offering that I feel as if I could melt into a pool of sadness and spill all over the floor.

Instead, I hear some grown-up-sounding words coming out of my mouth. “Dad, I understand. Thank you for talking about it.”

And then, because I can’t bear to see my dad looking like a broken man, and also because I realize that there’s really not a lot more to say, I get up. “Thanks for lunch,” I say.

As he stands up, I give him a hug. He grips me so hard it almost winds me. “I love you, sweetheart. We both do,” he says croakily.

“I know, Dad. I love you too,” I mumble.

“Come on. Let’s go and mooch round some of your favorite shops.”

We leave McDonald’s and walk slowly down the street. I link my arm in his and find myself wondering if maybe it’s all going to be OK. Not yet. But one day.

We wander through town for a bit. Dad buys me a couple of magazines in Smiths, and I help him pick a new tie in M&S, and then he walks me to the bus stop. He’d offered me a lift home, but I don’t think Mum’s ready to see his car roll up in the drive yet.

Just before the bus arrives, he opens his mouth to say something.

“What?” I ask.

“Well, I was going to tell you . . . I . . .” There’s this really long pause.

I glance up the road. “Dad, the bus . . .”

He shakes his head. “It’ll keep, love,” he says. “Maybe next week?”

“It’s Christmas next week!”

“I’ll make you some dinner. Just you and me.”

A mixture of panic and sadness grips me as I look at him: his tired, worn eyes and a couple of spots of gray in his hair. Have they sprung up in the past week, or have I just never noticed them before? “Yeah, OK,” I say gently.

From the back of the bus, I watch him standing on the pavement — not waving, just standing, alone and upright. “Bye, Dad,” I whisper. I turn back around, closing my eyes for a moment. Then I get my phone out and check out the latest
Cute Emergency
kitten video that Robyn’s sent me. Good timing. I could totally do with something to make me smile right now.

“Hello?”

“Cat, it’s me.” I hold my breath while I wait for her to reply. She doesn’t.

I have no idea how I’m going to fix this, but I know I’ve got to try. Ever since talking with Miss Murray, I’ve been seeing my argument with Cat a bit differently. I think she probably has every right to be pissed off with me. I’d gotten so caught up in my own problems, I stopped being a good friend to her.

“Cat, I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I say. My voice is croaky.

Cat sighs dramatically.

“Please, let’s make up. I was wrong and stupid and selfish and I’m sorry. Really.
Please
forgive me. I miss you. And you miss me too.”

“Who says I do?”

“Please, Cat! I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, God, what about this time? Don’t tell me: Dylan.”

“No, we’ve split up.”

“Oh. Right. Lover boy dumps you and you come running back to me, then?”

“Cat, I’m . . . I think I might be pregnant.” The words come out almost as a whisper, and I grip the phone while I wait for Cat to answer.

“Oh, bloody hell, Ash,” she says eventually. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

And she is. She turns up with a pregnancy testing kit, a hug, and a monster bar of Dairy Milk. “Well, I couldn’t eat all that on my own,” she says casually.

“I’m so sorry. I was a selfish, stupid idiot, and you were right to get fed up with me.” I squeeze her tightly. “I’ve missed you so much!”

Cat peels my arms off her. “Yeah, I know,” she says with a cheeky grin. “It must have been awful for you.”

I nudge her in the ribs and she laughs. “I’m sorry, too,” she says. “I was a stroppy cow. And yeah, OK, I’ve missed you as well.”

And just like that, we’re back to normal, and it’s as if we never fell out.

“Right. How late are you?” she asks.

“About a week.”

“A week? Bloody hell, Ash, I thought you were about two months gone by the way you sounded. A week’s no biggie. I’m
always
a week late!”

“I know. But I’m not.”

“OK. Have you done a pregnancy test yet?”

I shake my head. “Too scared. I can’t face it. What if I am actually, you know . . .” I can’t say the word again.

Cat hands me the pregnancy testing kit. “Look. Take the kit. And see if you can work up the courage to do it. If you still haven’t started your period in another week or so, promise me you’ll do it then?”

I nod. “I promise. Thank you.” I shove the kit in a drawer.

“Good. OK.” Cat lies back on my bed. “So, what’s new with you then, apart from this?”

I take a breath. Where to start? “Well, my dad . . .” I begin.

Cat is upright. “Yes?”

“He’s left home.”

Cat stares at me. “No! Have they moved in together?”

“Huh? Moved out, you mean.”

We lock eyes. Cat speaks slowly. “So, why has he gone?”

I shrug. “I guess they’ve just been making each other miserable for years. I think it was mutual. They’re both pretty cut up about it, but both seem to think it’s the right thing.”

Cat gives me a funny look.

“What?” I demand.

She lets out a sigh. “OK, I’ll tell you. But don’t shoot the messenger, OK?”

My insides leap. “Tell me what?”

Cat bites her lip — the part that isn’t covered in studs. “I think your dad might be having an affair,” she says.

“What?” I nearly laugh. “Dad? An affair? No way!”

Then I think about the way he was trying to tell me something as I was leaving last weekend. Was that what he wanted to say? No! Surely not.

I stop smiling. “What makes you say that?” I ask quietly.

“I saw them.”

“
Them
? Who? Where?”

Cat shrugs. “I don’t know who she was. I saw them coming out of the deli by my mum’s work at lunchtime a few weeks ago.”

“What did she look like?”

“Kind of small. Light brown hair. Not exactly the type you imagine men leaving their wives for.”

I wince.

“Sorry.”

I think about the description. “Hang on a sec. Has she got a little round face, pointy chin, looks a bit like a mouse?”

“I didn’t see them for long. But, yeah, I suppose so, probably.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “That’s just Elaine!”

“Elaine?”

“Dad’s accountant. She works with him.”

“They had their arms round each other.”

“Cat, seriously, it’s just Elaine. It’s fine. I’m positive, honestly. He’ll have just been saying good-bye to her or something. They’re good friends. They’ve worked together for years.”

Cat lets out a breath. “Jesus, Ash, I’ve been terrified of telling you this.” Then she laughs. “I have to admit, I never saw your dad as someone who’d do that. What a relief.”

“Yeah. Jeez,” I agree.

But then, out of nowhere, a memory comes into my mind. It was about two years ago. I’d gone to Dad’s work after school. He was running late, and Elaine chatted to me while I waited for him. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I can’t stop myself wondering — why was she there? It was way past the end of the day, and there was no one else around. Just her. And him. I mean, she was his accountant, and they did work together, so it made sense. But what if Cat was right? What if
that
is the real reason Dad and Mum are splitting up? What if everything else is just a cover? What if everything he’s said to me is a lie?

Suddenly, I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, and I’m back to square one with all the crappy things in my life. Worse. Square
minus
one.

I swallow hard and make a decision. I’m not going to obsess about this. I’m not going to drag Cat through it all with me. I’m not going to be selfish. I’m going to be a proper friend.

I force a smile onto my face. “So,” I say. “Tell me what’s been going on in the life of Cat for the last few weeks.”

Cat tells me about a guy she met at the skate park, and about her mum coming home drunk from her work event, and about the tattoo she’s having done next week. She decided on a dragonfly in the end.

I listen to it all. And I’m grateful to have her back. More grateful than I can ever put into words.

But underneath, another part of my mind is busy elsewhere. It’s picturing Mum the morning Dad left, sitting alone at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, hair unwashed and a cup of coffee in her hands.

Dad moving out so soon.

Did he leave to be with Elaine? Is that what he tried to tell me at the bus stop?

And the more I think about it, the more I talk myself into thinking the worst of my dad. Cat might be happy to be wrong, but I’m more and more convinced she was right. How could he do it?

I wish I hadn’t seen him last weekend, or I wish I’d known so I could have given him a piece of my mind.

If he thinks I’m ever going to forgive him, he can forget it.

I hated Christmas Day when I was younger. Mum was always stressed and wound up and I never knew if it was my fault. Dad would spend the morning unshaved and grumpy with a hangover from the next-door neighbors’ annual Christmas Eve party. Then Nan and Granddad would turn up, and we’d have the same conversations every year: How was I doing at school? Did I have a boyfriend? Wasn’t my hair shorter than when they last saw me? Was I putting moisturizer on my elbows?

I didn’t actually have anything against them; it was more the effect they had on the rest of us. Mum had never seen eye to eye with them. I think they’d wanted Dad to marry some dumpy little housewife. They couldn’t get their heads around the idea of a woman having a husband, a daughter,
and
a job. “Heaven forbid!” That’s what Nan always used to say. Suppose I told her I was thinking of doing something wild and crazy like getting my ears pierced —“Heaven forbid!”

One time, I was going out with this boy who played drums in a band. Phil Din, he called himself. He had a Mohawk, and piercings all over his face.

“Ash, your boyfriend’s here,” Mum called when he came to pick me up for an early escape.

“Heaven forbid!” Nan said, closing her eyes and clasping her hand over her chest. “If I saw him coming toward me in the street, I’d hold tight onto my handbag and cross the road immediately.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or get mad. Phil was the softest boy I’d ever met. He’s certainly the only one who’s ever stroked my hair gently while I puked vodka down someone’s toilet.

Mum’s parents both died when I was a baby. Then Nan and Granddad both died within a year of each other, and suddenly Christmas didn’t feel like a big deal anymore. There was no Granddad falling asleep in an armchair, no charades, no arguments over whether we watch the Queen’s Speech or not. No stressed Mum in the kitchen. Well, she’d be stressed, but it would just be her everyday stressed, not her Christmas Special stressed.

I never cried over my grandparents. At the time, I wondered if it made me heartless. When Dad told me Nan had died, I nearly laughed. I hated myself for that. What kind of a bitch did it make me? I didn’t find it funny; it was just a nervous reaction, but it’s still not what you want to do, is it? For ages after that, I was terrified of anyone telling me that someone had died. I used to go to this youth club, and one week Mum told me that Mandy Jacob’s dad had died and that I was to tell her I was very sorry to hear the news. I was nearly sick before I went that night. What if I got halfway through saying it and burst out laughing? She’d never speak to me again.