Chapter 10
I was five years old the last day my mum kissed me goodbye at the school gates. It was overcast, I remember. The sun was fighting to peek through the clouds, the wind was blowing lightly, carrying with it the smell of fresh-cut grass past.
She rubbed her lipstick from my brow, then knelt in front of me, holding me at arm’s length.
She considered me, from my head to my toes, and made the kind of face that should be a smile but I thought it looked like a sad face, just upside down.
If I’d known then, I would’ve taken in just how beautiful she was, her big, hazel-green eyes, her soft, flowing, brown hair.
Her painted red lips and the dimples that formed beside them when she spoke.
‘Go on, you don’t want to be late,’ she said.
She watched me as I ran with my bag to meet my friends.
She was still watching when Mrs Tindale put her hand on my shoulder, encouraging me into school.
When I waved at her, she blew me a kiss and mimed I love you , pointing to her eye, then her heart and, just before I walked through the door, at me.
It wasn’t very often that my dad was able to pick me up from school with his shifts at hospital so I was bouncing with delight when I saw him waiting to collect me at four o’clock. He smiled but didn’t seem happy to be there. I wondered what I’d done wrong and if I was in trouble.
I walked across the playground to meet him, replaying everything I’d done in the last day.
I’d eaten all my dinner. I’d bathed when I was told.
I’d cleaned my teeth. I was a little late getting dressed for school that morning because I wanted to watch the end of my cartoon and my mum did seem more vexed than usual.
She’d tugged my hair into a tight ponytail and yanked the toggles on my coat to fasten them, but surely, she didn’t tell my dad on me.
When I reached him at the school gates, he took my hand and said, ‘ Hello,’ but he didn’t speak whilst we walked to his car and he didn’t speak for the entire journey home.
I knew I must be in big trouble. When I got home, I realised why.
My mum had packed up most of her wardrobe and gone away.
She really was cross with me. Stupid, stupid cartoons, why did I watch them?
It was the start of the weekend and my dad spent the next day at home even though he sometimes had to operate at the weekend if there were emergencies.
I spent most of the day in my nursery playing.
My dad did everything he needed to do for me.
Everything my mum would normally do, like make my toast, comb my hair, help me get dressed.
But he barely uttered a word to me as he did.
I decided he must have been very cross with me for making my mum go away.
He had different women visiting the house all day.
He made them tea in a pot and talked to them about me in the lounge.
Sometimes, I popped my head out of the nursery to listen but if Dad caught me, I closed the door and ran back to my toys.
One of the women, younger than the others, was called Sandy.
I remember thinking she wore a pretty dress, that I liked how her bangles jingled, and she had sparkly, colourful eyelids.
My dad brought her into my nursery to meet me.
She had the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and bright, white teeth shone between big lips.
‘Hello, Scarlett, I’m Sandy,’ she said.
‘Hello. I’m Scarlett and I like your bracelets,’ I said, turning a finger around one gold ring.
‘Well thank you. I like your hair and your pretty bow clips.’
‘How old are you?’ I asked.
Dad suddenly had a tickle in his throat. He cleared it and said, ‘Scarlett, you shouldn’t ask a lady her age.’
‘That’s okay, Doctor Heath,’ Sandy said. ‘I’m nineteen, twenty next week.’
I smiled and offered her one of my dolls. She knew exactly what to do with my toys and played with me on the floor. I liked her a lot and I told my dad so that night. I asked if Sandy would be able to come to see me again. Dad said she might come to live with us. I was delighted.
After a day or so, my dad went back to work at the hospital and I started to wonder when my mum would come back.
Dad didn’t seem to want to talk about it so I asked Sandy.
Sandy said my mum had gone away and it might be a while before I saw her again.
I didn’t understand why she’d gone away just because I took a long time to get dressed.
I’d taken as long to get dressed other days and she’d never gone away.
I was so confused, I started to cry. Sandy hugged me and said I could stay home from school, ‘Just for one day’. We made pancakes and ate them with crispy bacon and Sandy’s special syrup. It was the best day off school I’d ever had. In fact, it was the only day off school I’d ever had.
That night, when my dad came home from work, he tucked me into bed and read me a book.
He read my favourite: A Witch Got On At Paddington Station.
I was resting my eyes when he finished. He kissed my forehead and turned off my lamp then told me repeatedly, ‘It isn’t your fault.
’ I didn’t understand what he was talking about but he sounded upset so I decided not to ask.