Zelah Green (14 page)

I gesture towards the bottle of Lucozade.
My lips are drier than toast.

Heather pours me out a glassful and passes it to me with a clean tissue wrapped round the rim.

I sink my face into the mass of soft orangey bubbles.

‘So why did you marry her, then?’ I say. ‘What was the point of that?’

Dad sighs and looks out of my window at the streetlights.

‘I was a bit of a mess after your mother died,’ he says. ‘I suppose I just got swayed by a pretty face. Your stepmother can be very charming.’

‘Huh,’ I say. I’ve not seen much evidence of it, myself.

‘So why did you leave her?’ I persist. I need to make sense of all this.

My dad exchanges another look with Heather.

‘I didn’t leave,’ he says. ‘Your stepmother got fed up of my drinking and booted me out.
If it hadn’t been for Heather’s help, I’d have gone to pieces.’

A big clonk sounds in my head as a giant piece of puzzle falls into place.

‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘You and Heather. You’re an item, aren’t you?’

I don’t want to ask him how long he’s loved her for, but Dad reads my mind in that spooky parent way.

‘It started after your mum died, not before,’ he says. ‘And I think and hope that your mum would have approved,’ he continues. ‘She was very fond of Heather.’

That’s true enough. I’m fond of her too. I’m fast running out of reasons to be cross with him now so I give them both a cautious smile.

‘She’s a bit young for you, though, Dad,’ I say.

‘And I am NOT going to be your surrogate mother, kiddo,’ says Heather.

We laugh together in a nervous kind of way.

I
leave Forest Hill House two weeks later. The Doc’s referred me to a local unit nearer home where I can attend as a day patient.

She comes to see me off, along with Josh, Sol, Caro and Lib. Alice has been allowed to return home to her parents for good so she’s not around, but she rang me up on my mobile and in her shy, quiet voice wished me lots of luck.

Sol steps forward and gives me a hug, which doesn’t actually involve touching. Although I rather wish it did.

‘I’ll write you a letter,’ he says.

Then he reaches out and holds my hand for a second. And I let him.

The Doc and Josh stare in disbelief both at the unfamiliar sound of Sol’s voice and the sight of me gripping flesh with no tissue for protection.

I see them give each other a quick smile.

I go all pink and tears well up in my eyes.

Caro makes vomiting noises and grins. She’s got softer over the last week, like all her sharp edges have turned into curved ones. She gives me one of her less shocking cartoons as a parting gift. It shows a red-cheeked girl with frizzy black hair and long dangly earrings holding out a long sword towards a giant toilet. The bowl has eyes and fangs. The picture is entitled
Zelah Battles the Toilet of Doom
.

‘Good luck, OCD,’ she says.

Lib is hanging back, awkward, staring down at her trainers.

‘Virtual hug, Princess?’ She puts her arms round me in a big circle without touching me.

Tears spring up in my eyes at the comforting whiff of green parka, cigarette smoke and hair gel.

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ I manage to croak.

Lib grins. It’s not quite her old grin but it’s the best I’ve seen in ages. Maybe she will get better.

The Doc knows better than to try and hug me, but she gazes down at me with her kind, bright eyes.

‘You’ll get there, Zelah,’ she says.

Josh gives me a little bow, yawning, and a sleepy wink.

‘Take care of yourself, honey,’ he says.

The five of them stand outside the tall white house on the top step as I get into the back of Heather’s red Porsche. Dad and Heather are sitting in the front. There’s not
really any back seat so I’m sitting in the boot, but I don’t mind.

I watch the Doc, Josh, Lib, Caro and Sol out of the back window until they are just five tiny, waving little specks of black.

I can’t believe that this big important part of my life appears to be over.

A lump comes up in my throat.

I miss them already.

Dad’s thrown my stepmother out of the house. He’s invited Heather to move in, but she wants to ‘keep her independence’ for a while longer so they’re going to stay living next door to one another.

On the night we get home I unpack all my clothes. I hang them with spaces in between but I manage not to use the ruler to measure four centimetres.

‘There,’ I say, surveying my handiwork.

I skip downstairs and do only ten jumps on the top stair and another ten at the bottom.

Dad’s outside trying to light the coals in the barbecue even though it’s spitting with rain.

‘Hello, Princess,’ he says. My heart flips over with pain and love.

‘Dad,’ I say. ‘I wish you’d told me about the drinking. I could have helped.’

Dad puts down his wide selection of gas lighters, petrol cans, fish slices and tongs and turns round.

A small wisp of black smoke wends its way towards my head.
Dirt Alert
. I duck.

‘How could I?’ he says. ‘You had enough on your plate. And, anyway, I was too ashamed to admit I had a problem. I’m supposed to be the strong one, remember?’

‘I think you’re strong,’ I say. I saw Dad tip all his bottles of wine and beer down the sink when we got home from the hospital. It took about
three hours, but he had a grim, determined look in his eye.

It’s pouring now so Dad abandons the barbecue idea and we go inside. He cooks semi-frozen chicken fillets in batter and burns the oven chips and we drink a toast with fizzy lemonade.

‘Mum would laugh at you,’ I say. ‘She always said that you could burn air.’

‘Your mother said a lot of things,’ said Dad. ‘Some of them were true. Others were complete fabrication. She was a lunatic, but I miss her.’

We’re standing in the lounge in front of that long mirror with the black frame and the gold swirls.

‘I’m chucking it out tomorrow,’ says Dad, reading my mind.

I look at our reflections. I see a pretty teenager in a long red tiered skirt, very long red dangly earrings and with cool dark swishy hair.
Behind her stands a big-built, bear-like man with floppy brown hair wearing a red-checked shirt.

Dad’s almost touching me, but not quite.

There’s a great big smear bang in the centre of the mirror.

Uh-oh.
Dirt Alert
.

He’s watching me watching the smear.

‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I say. ‘I can control my OCD better now. I’ll leave it alone.’

He goes off to get an overcooked apple pie and I start to follow.

Then I stop.

I make a mental note of where the smudge is, for later.

Just in case.

Many thanks to my agent, Peter Buckman, for his infectious enthusiasm on this project, and to Leah Thaxton and the team at Egmont for making work seem like pleasure. Also love and thanks to Sarah Stovell and Sue Fox.