I was so astonished I couldn’t think of anything to say. He went away again and I looked at the place where he’d stood. Then I took up the loose floorboard and got out my journal. I wrote:
SCHOOL STARTED. THE factory opened. When I came down to breakfast on the first Monday back to school, Father was frying sausages.
“Sausages!” I said.
He said: “I’m celebrating the return to the shed.”
I laid two places at the table. A little watery sun came through the kitchen window and fell on our hands. Father ate three sausages and I ate two.
IN THE CLASSROOM, Mrs. Pierce was putting snowdrops in a vase. She said: “Judith! How are you?”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Pierce,” I said.
She said: “You look better!”
“I am,” I said. “Did you have a nice holiday?”
“Lovely. And the strike is over! Your father must be so relieved. I think everyone is; the town was quite a different place while it lasted.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute, and we could hear the drips in the bucket. Mrs. Pierce laughed. “Now if we could just sort out this roof!”
That was when I said: “Do you know if Neil is coming back?”
“He is,” said Mrs. Pierce. “He’s a lot better.”
“Oh, good,” I said.
A little while later, everyone came into class. My stomach dipped when I saw Neil. He was on crutches. He looked very pale, even paler than usual, and he was watching where he was putting his feet so I couldn’t see his face. And then I did. And a scar ran from his eye in a long line.
He saw me looking, but his face was different from how it was before. It was blank; not sad; empty. I couldn’t even tell if he recognized me. It was as if he looked through me.
Mrs. Pierce said: “Class eight, I have some news for you. Mr. Davies has written to us to check we are all behaving ourselves. His daughter has just had a baby and he is helping to look after her.”
Gemma said: “Is he coming back?” and Mrs. Pierce said: “No, he’s decided to take early retirement.” And I was very happy because it meant Mrs. Pierce would stay for good.
WHEN I CAME home that evening, I spread a tablecloth and put a bottle in the middle of the table. Then I went out to the garden. It was black and dripping and the air was raw. Through the empty branches of the cherry tree, I could see the mountain and the last bit of light glowing like embers. I picked snowdrops like Mrs. Pierce had done, then went back inside and put them in the bottle in the middle of the table.
The light didn’t want to go that evening. I could hear the little kids playing on their bikes in the back lane as if it was spring already. When Father came in, he was white, but he smiled, and it was a proper smile. I asked him how work was and he said everything had gone smoothly. He said he was glad he never had to get on that bus again.
While we were having tea, I said: “Was Doug Lewis there?”
Father said: “No, he wasn’t. I don’t know where he is.”
We didn’t say anything for a minute. Then I said: “How are the potatoes?”
“Perfect,” Father said.
AFTER TEA, FATHER said: “Come here.” He took a leaflet out of his pocket. It was red and white and blue and had a picture of a hot-air balloon on it and said:
“Yes!”
“Right,” he said. “That’s that.”
He lit the fire in the front room, and I sat by his feet while he sipped his beer and the flames played over everything. I thought things hadn’t been this good for a long time—Father had never offered to take me on a hot- air-balloon ride and if he could just start going back to the meetings, things would be just about perfect.
Things went on being good: The next night I cooked macaroni and cheese. Father liked it, even though it was from a packet, and afterward he lit the front-room fire again. The day after that it was sunny. When Gemma and Rhian and Keri were skipping rope in the playground, Neil came up, and Gemma pretended she didn’t see him, but they let me skip a bit with the rope.
And that evening, Father and I walked around the garden and Father said it would look better soon, the cherry tree would grow back and the golden cane and the Christmas roses. He said that in fact the fire had been good for the soil.
On Thursday I made myself go and speak to Neil, though my heart slowed so much I thought it was going to stop. (But I needn’t have worried because, after I had finished speaking, it went twice as fast). I went to his table and stood there until he looked up, then I said: “I’m glad you’re OK,” and though it wasn’t a great thing to say, I couldn’t think of a better one.
Anyway I don’t think he even heard me. He looked through me, then went back to his book. I stood there for a minute, then walked to my seat.
That evening Father did something he’d been putting off too: He began taking the fence apart. He did it with a crowbar, bending the bar backward and forward, and Mike helped him. The wood screamed and splintered, and the garden was soon full of glass and concrete and broken planks. Father saved the brass knob and put it on the mantelpiece, where it glinted gloomily. It seemed to know it wouldn’t be needed again.
That night I cooked spaghetti Bolognese for dinner and fried the onions and mince and boiled the spaghetti, and all Father did was stir it. I asked if we could pretend the sauce wasn’t from a jar, and we did, and while we were eating, Mike said: “Can I borrow the chef?” and Father said he would have to think about it, and I couldn’t remember feeling so happy for a long time.
LATER, WHEN MIKE had gone and we were washing up, I said: “Can we invite May and Elsie and Gordon over?”
“Not now,” Father said.
I waited a minute, then said: “Are you going to go to the meetings again?”
And he said: “Judith, I don’t want to talk about this.” So we didn’t.
But later, when I was in my room, I said to God: “Please help Father.”
God said: “I can’t help him. He has to help himself.”
“He’s trying.”
“Then tell him to try harder.”
I took my journal into bed with me and turned over three pages and wrote:
The last day I marked was a Wednesday. But, as it turned out, we didn’t get that far because the very next night something happened that ended all of that. It ended pretty much everything, and I didn’t even see it coming.
Where to Find Mustard Seeds
D. S. Michaels
The Flat
The Old Fire Station
