Footprints in the Sand. Eleanor Jones

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      I DIDN’T GO TO DAFFYD’S funeral....

      After I told everyone I’d found him, Mr. and Mrs. Mac, Ted and Sam the postman—he was the first person to know because I saw him as I ran toward our row of cottages—things went mad. I don’t think anyone really remembered about me after that.

      They brought the coffin to the Macs’ cottage and it sat right there on the table. Shiny gleaming wood with curvy golden handles; it seemed a shame to me to put it in the ground. I saw it arrive from my hiding place behind Mrs. Mac’s blue sofa but I didn’t stay there for long. All I could think about was Daffyd, lying inside it, a solid gray swollen lump with a face that was Daffyd’s and yet nothing like Daffy at all. We used to laugh a lot, me and Daffyd. He called me his little sister. Now he would never laugh again.

      I couldn’t find my crossness that day so I went to our cottage and curled up in a ball in my bedroom until I got too hungry to stay there. The bread in our kitchen was hard and moldy so I sneaked next door again. That was when I heard them.

      The kitchen door was slightly ajar, so I peered through the crack to see Ted and Mrs. Mac. He had one hand on her shoulder and she was shaking all over.

      “I can’t go on, Ted,” she said with tears in her voice.

      He patted her awkwardly, as one would a dog.

      “Now, come on, Mary, time heals all and there’s the child to think of.”

      She looked up at him, her face all puffy and pale. Did everyone keep changing? I wondered. Did no one ever stay the same?

      “But I can’t stand to see her, Ted,” she cried. “All I can see is Mad Mick’s eyes in her face, and I can’t forget what he’s done.”

      “But she’s just a child, Mary.” Ted’s voice was very, very sad. “Then you take her, Ted,” she said in a low, angry tone. “I’ve got too much pain in me to care where she goes.”

      I knew then that eventually they would send me away. It seemed that my world would keep on changing. But I liked having my dad’s eyes.

      * * *

      THE CHURCH MUSIC WAS heavy and slow. I thought Daffyd would have liked something much more jolly, for everyone to sing to. I sat behind a tall gravestone and waited for all the people to file into the church. I waited for my dad. If he was an angel now, then surely he would come to his friend Daffyd’s funeral.

      He didn’t come that day, though, so when everyone came outside again, I headed home to sneak some cakes and sandwiches from the plates that were laid out in Mrs. Mac’s front room. It was the first time in days that I was able to eat my fill, and my stomach felt so sore that I climbed up the stairs to my own cold bedroom and finally slept.

      I felt a bit better when I woke—the hunger pains no longer gnawed at my stomach—so I went next door to see if Mrs. Mac had changed back into herself yet.

      I hadn’t really minded not having a mother up until then, for Mrs. Mac had always been like a mother to me. Now, when she looked at me with sad, vacant eyes, vague memories kept coming back, of glossy brown hair, a merry smile and the sweet scent of summer flowers—memories of the mother I hardly knew. She’d gone away, too. Perhaps it was my fault that everyone left.

      My dad had been upset—I remember that. He yelled at her when she ran from the house in her high-heeled shoes. They went tippety-tap on the concrete path, then her laughter was lost in the roar of an engine. He cried when she’d gone, and I cried, too, because he was sad. I had Mrs. Mac, though, and my dad, so I soon forgot my mother. Suddenly it seemed as if she’d left just yesterday. Maybe she’d come back to look after me now. I asked Ted about it when he came to find me, but he shook his head slowly.

      “Oh, Elsa,” he groaned. “You poor little mite.”

      Was that what I was now, a poor little mite?

      “What’s a mite, Ted?” I asked.

      He lifted me up very high, swinging me around and around and laughing too loudly, but he didn’t answer my question.

      “Let’s go see if Mrs. Mac will clean you,” he said. “You look as if you haven’t had a bath in days.”

      I felt a bit better. Perhaps Ted would take care of me now.

      * * *

      I HAD ONLY JUST STARTED school that autumn. I liked my class and my teacher, Mrs. Meeks, and I liked learning things. But no one had told me to go to school since my dad went away. I wondered if I should go by myself, but I wasn’t sure of the way, so I took long walks on the shore instead.

      Mrs. Mac ignored me most of the time, so I stopped trying to sit on her knee. She thought I had my father’s eyes and she didn’t like him anymore, so she must not like me, either. Sometimes she tried to be nice, but even when she spoke to me she never looked into my eyes. I searched for my lump of crossness when she did that, to hide the ache inside me that wouldn’t go away.

      One day I heard her talking to Mr. Mac.

      “The authorities will have to take her,” she said. “I can’t go on like this.”

      That was when I decided to go and ask Ted if I could live with him.

      A narrow lane led along the shore to our row of cottages, so close to the sea that in high tide the water lapped right up to it. Ted’s house was at the other end, higher up on a rocky incline. It was small and white with twinkling windows—a clean and friendly house, I thought, as I walked quickly toward its neat red door.

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