Zelah Green (13 page)

The thought fills me with doubts. Do they really care about me? Am I just another set of bills to be paid? Will they slam the front door shut behind me when I leave and brush off their hands, saying, ‘Well, thank goodness she’s gone, but at least we’ve got money for the electric now’? Are we all just customers, like girls visiting a shoe shop except that instead of coming home with a pink box filled with tissue and leather we come home with our brains fixed?

Another more urgent thought breaks through.

‘So – who
has
been paying for my treatment, then, if you can’t afford the fees? . . .
Dad?
’

‘Not likely,’ she says. My heart lurches and flips. ‘He’s too wrapped up in himself to pay your fees.’

So she knows where he is too.

But before I focus on that too much I need to get to the bottom of this thing about the money.

‘Who paid the fees, then?’ I say.

‘Heather,’ says my stepmother, spitting the name out like a rancid cherry stone. ‘For some reason known only to herself, the woman’s fond of you. She told your father she’d pay your fees for the first month.’

I sit down at the table to allow all this information to compute in my head. My thoughts spin all over the place. So . . . Dad knows I’m in here. He hasn’t rung up or sent a
note or come to visit me. He’s had a whole month to find me. He’s been speaking to Heather AND my stepmother.

But where is he? What’s going on?

‘I want to see my father,’ I say. ‘Right away.’

My stepmother wraps her fur coat round her thin body and stands up.

‘Sorry, I can’t get hold of him and, anyway, I doubt he’ll want to see you,’ she says. ‘You remind him too much of his old life. Your Mum dying and Heather messing everything up. When I think I’d still be living with him if she hadn’t got in the way!’

I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.

Great flames of red anger start to burn before my eyes. I’m starring in one of Caro’s cartoons.

‘Heather helped Mum, and she’s helped me,’ I say. ‘How can you say that?’

She’s shaking her head now.

‘It’s all in the past now, darling,’ she says. ‘Anyway, get your bags packed. While your dad’s away I’m still responsible for you. You’re coming with me.’

My legs begin to tremble. Where
is
everybody? Why isn’t Lib coming to my rescue, or the Doc?

‘I’m not going home with you,’ I manage. ‘I’ve made friends here and they’ll look after me. I’m staying.’

My stepmother advances towards me and grips my arm with her black-gloved hand.

I let out a shriek of rage. Nobody,
nobody
, has been allowed to grab my arm for over two years. And now she’s got the nerve to just dive in and do it.

I shake my arm free and begin to shout for the Doc, but there’s loud music blasting out from upstairs. My stepmother holds up a warning hand in my direction.

‘Now look,’ she says. ‘Stop panicking. I’m not taking you home — I’ve told you I can’t cope with having you in the house. I’m taking you back to the hospital where you should have been in the first place.’

She’s invading my personal space and the smell of warm dead animal from her leather glove too near my mouth is starting to make me feel like becoming an emergency vegetarian.

‘Get away from me!’ I scream. ‘I’m not going to the hospital! It’ll finish me off!’

Of course. That’s what she wants. To finish me off properly so that my rituals get worse and she can commit me forever to a psychiatric unit and then she can wash her hands of me completely.

‘Hey look,’ I say. ‘I must be getting better. Because I can do – this!’

I push her aside with all my might and manage to fling open the kitchen door. I slap
down the tiled hallway in my flip-flops and heave open the front door, intending to run towards the motorway and flag down a passing truck or something, but I don’t reckon on Josh coming up the front drive holding a chest of drawers.

I see him, but it’s too late – I’m already smashing into the wood and there’s a dull pain across the front of my head.

‘I hope that wood’s clean,’ I say, clutching my head and looking behind in a panic.
Where’s my stepmother gone?

Josh is kind of looming towards me with a look of concern in his eyes.

‘Here, let me see your head, honey,’ he’s saying.

Then it all goes black.

M
y first thought when I open my eyes and see the hall light dangling over my face is this:

Oh, great. I spend all that effort trying to run away and now I’m still here
.

My first word is less clear.

‘Whaaappenned?’

I’m trying to look around me but my eyes are covered in some sort of blurry cling-film and the only thing I can see is a big white moon-faced thing looming up towards me with empty black eye-sockets.

I flap my hands at it in fear.

‘G’way, thing,’ I mumble.

The white moon face hovers for a moment and then slinks back to whatever dank dark coffin-studded vault it’s come from.

‘Jesus, OCD,’ says a cross voice. ‘Chill. Just trying to be loving and caring. OK – I admit it’s a long shot.’

Caro
.

I try and focus in the direction of the voice.

‘Why do you look like a vampire?’ I whisper.

There’s a short, rough snort of amusement.

‘You’re looking at my T-shirt,’ she says. ‘At least – I hope you are.’

The sinister features of Marilyn Manson swim back into view.

‘Oh, thank God,’ I say. ‘I thought I was in the Underworld.’

‘Welcome to my life,’ says Caro. She’s grinning at me now, a most unexpected phenomenon. Her teeth are tiny, white and vulnerable-looking.
I didn’t even know she had any.

‘You look pretty when you smile,’ I say. I must be concussed or something but I can’t stop. ‘Kind of – more girly and less grumpy.’

Caro stops grinning and reverts back to her old scowl.

I realise I’m lying on the cold black-and-white tiled floor of the hallway and try to sit up in a panic.
Major Dirt Alert
! All that mud off people’s boots sticking to my back and my bottom and my head can’t be good for me.

‘Whoa, take it easy,’ says Josh. ‘Don’t move, just in case. Erin’s ringing NHS Direct for advice.’

‘Huh?’ I mumble. ‘Whassafor?’

‘You ran into my new piece of Art Deco,’ says Josh. ‘Shame really. It’s dented now, beyond repair. Only kidding.’

I’m struggling to remember what happened.

‘Why was I running?’ I say.

‘Well, I met some uptight woman in the hall who said she was your stepmother,’ says Caro.

A great chill washes up from my feet to my head. All the blurriness vanishes and my head feels as clear as day.

‘Where – where is she?’ I whisper.

Caro goes into the kitchen and comes back with a glass of squash. I hold my hand out but she drinks it herself.

‘Disappeared,’ she says.

‘Eh?’ I say. Nothing is making sense.

I can feel tears pricking up at the edges of my eyes. My head aches and my eyes still feel a bit blurry.

‘My stepmother,’ I say, remembering. ‘She tried to get me to leave here and go to a mental hospital.’

Josh frowns.

‘That lovely woman?’ he says. ‘I let her in. I thought she was charming.’

I tell him what happened in the kitchen.

Josh crouches down next to my head, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Oh, Zelah,’ he says. ‘Why didn’t you call for help? I feel I’ve let you down. We’ve all been so busy keeping an eye on Lib that we haven’t given you much attention.’

‘’S OK,’ I manage.

The main thing is that my stepmother seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

The NHS Direct lady says I should stay in bed and be checked for mild concussion.

The Doc sends me straight to my room.

‘No hopping out to do rituals,’ she says. ‘If you really have to, call me in and you can sit up in bed with a basin.’

She switches on my bedside lamp and closes the door behind her.

I lie for three hours, all dried-up and hopeless,
in my white bed with a tray of Marmite sandwiches next to me and I try to think.

Where will I go when I’m better?

I can’t stay here any longer because of the money.

I can’t go home, and my stepmother seems to have disappeared anyway.

As I’m running through the list of bleak possibilities –
Orphanage? Workhouse? Factory? Cardboard box?
– the door to my bedroom creaks open and a familiar red head of streaky blonde highlights pops round it.

‘Sorry it took me so long to get here, kiddo,’ it says. ‘The traffic on that A road! I’ve got through a five-CD Madonna box set!’

I laugh, for the first time that evening. It hurts my head, but it feels good.

Heather perches on the edge of my bed and dispenses glossy magazines, Lucozade, expensive toiletries and classy bars of organic chocolate.

‘Should keep you going for a bit,’ she says. She casts a look of disgust at the Marmite sandwiches.

Her small act of kindness has set me off blubbing again, and when Heather sees my tragic soon-to-be-an-orphan expression, she starts off as well so that in the end we’re both snorting and sniffling and laughing and going puce in the face.

‘Oh boy, do we need chocolate,’ she says, snapping off half a bar and shoving it into her mouth. Then she shoves the other half into mine.

We stuff in chocolate until we feel ill. Then Heather plumps up my pillows and washes my face and hands with a cold wet flannel.

‘Thanks,’ I say. It feels brilliant, having my hands washed. There’s no chance of me doing any rituals while I’m under strict instructions from the Doc.

‘Need to look your best, might have a visitor,’ she says. She’s kind of fidgety and anxious and keeps looking at the door.

My heart leaps. Is Sol about to come in and act out a major romance at my bedside? Him all dark and swarthy and passionate, me all frail and pale and lost-looking against my white cotton sheets?

‘Earrings!’ I say. Heather understands. She unhooks the big gold hoops from her ears and washes them in the sink. Then she slots them into my ears. Even though they’re not my style, I feel better straight away.

‘OK, let him in,’ I say, adopting what I hope is a come-hither, winning smile.

Heather gives me a puzzled look.

‘How did you know?’ she says.

‘Know what?’ I say, but by then she’s already by the door, beckoning someone to come in.

A dark figure blocks out the light for a moment.

Sol must have grown about two feet taller and bulked up. Perhaps he’s been working out at the gym. Or maybe he has become a seventies dancer and has platform shoes on. A whole host of delirious post-concussion thoughts follow onto these ones.

The figure advances towards the bed and only then do I get a whiff of a familiar smell: Old Spice aftershave mingled with musty wood chippings, leather and just a hint of that peculiar sort of dry shampoo that smells like talcum powder.

I try to hold out my arms, but they’re pinned beneath the sheets because Heather is sitting on them so instead I just yell as loud as I can.

The Doc and Josh come running in, primed for emergency medical action, but I don’t care.

I scream and scream until my lungs ache.

‘Dad!’

D
ad leans over to plant a very slow, soft, deliberate kiss on my forehead.

I shake my head in panic. He remembers and stands up straight with a nervous cough. He’s wearing a red-checked shirt and jeans with Timberland boots, just like he always used to, but the skin underneath his eyes is all white and papery.

‘Dad,’ I say again. I can’t seem to say anything else.

My dad. Here in this very room.

‘Hello, Princess,’ he says. My eyes flood again and when I’ve finished crying I explain about
Lib and how she called me that too and how she’s been so sick.

Dad listens, patting the side of my bed and nodding.

‘I’m here now,’ he keeps saying, over and over.

Heather has faded into the background, but she’s grinning like mad and sticking her thumbs up in my direction in between scoffing the last chocolates.

‘How did you find Dad?’ I ask her.

My father and Heather exchange a glance.

‘Zelah, I’ve known where your father was all along,’ Heather says. ‘He sent me the money for your treatment.’

I look from her to him and back again. This isn’t making sense.

‘But where’ve you been, Dad? Didn’t you want to know what was happening to me? And how come you didn’t visit me?’

‘Because,’ says Dad, taking a deep shaky
breath, ‘because I was getting some treatment of my own.’

Heather has come over to the bed and put her arm round his shoulders.

‘What treatment?’ I say.

Dad has buried his face in his hands.

Heathers turns to face me.

‘Your dad got a bit too fond of the bottle,’ she says. ‘Because of your mum dying and your illness.’

Of course.

I remember the smell of stale beer on his breath and then a little film rewinds in my head: Dad unloading lots of wine bottles from the shopping bags and stuffing them into the sideboard and under the sink when he thought I wasn’t looking. Dad coming home late from the pub, my stepmother’s disapproving glare and the smell of cigarettes and whisky clashing with the smell of peach air freshener in the bathroom.

‘So where have you been for the past month?’ I say. My voice is cold and unfriendly, but I can’t help it.

Dad clears his throat.

‘I’ve been getting some help in a treatment centre,’ he says. ‘Trying to beat this so that I could be stronger for you.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘But – why didn’t you text me, then?’

‘No phones allowed in the place,’ says Dad. ‘We were only allowed to write letters.’

‘So why didn’t you write me any?’ I say. ‘All the time I was still living at home, you could have written me letters.’

Dad comes out from behind his hands.

‘I did,’ he says. ‘Loads of them. Your stepmother hid them in a drawer. God knows why. I only found them this evening when I was discharged from the hospital and went home.’