Coming Home. Annabel Kantaria

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      Nurse had tut-tutted. ‘Who then? Miss Dawson?’ and I’d agreed with a nod.

      Now Miss Dawson was here, I knew I had to talk to her. I pulled myself up so I was sitting on the bed.

      ‘It’s Dingbat,’ I said.

      Miss Dawson waited.

      ‘Hamster,’ I hiccupped. ‘He’s dead.’ I scrubbed at my eyes with the balled-up tissue I’d been holding all morning, my breath still jagged.

      ‘Oh, Evie. I’m sorry to hear that.’ Miss Dawson rubbed a hand over her face.

      But it wasn’t that Dingbat was dead. Well, it was, but it wasn’t like Miss Dawson thought. Dingbat had been Graham’s hamster. He’d got him when he’d turned ten—for his last birthday. He’d begged and pleaded, claiming he’d look after the hamster one hundred per cent himself. Mum hadn’t thought Graham would manage, but Dad had persuaded her to give him the benefit of the doubt and Graham had hand-picked Dingbat from a heap of ginger-and-white fluff at the pet shop. And, to Mum’s surprise, he’d looked after Dingbat really well, feeding him, changing his water, peeling grapes for him and even cleaning out his cage. He’d really loved him. After the accident, I’d taken over caring for Dingbat. It made me feel like I was with Graham.

      ‘He was Graham’s,’ I said.

       ‘It’s very sad when pets die,’ Miss Dawson said carefully. ‘And it must be very hard for you with … Dingbat? … because he was a link to Graham?’

      ‘Mmm.’ I didn’t know what to say. I was supposed to be able to tell Miss Dawson anything, but I didn’t know if I could tell her what had happened yesterday after school. Whenever I thought about it, I started to shake.

      I’d gone into the kitchen to ask for a biscuit. Mum had been standing at Dingbat’s cage. The cage door was open and Mum had been holding Dingbat, letting him run from one hand to the other as she stared out of the window at the garden. At the exact moment that I opened my mouth to ask for the biscuit, Mum had spun around with a scream and hurled Dingbat at the kitchen wall. I could still hear the crunch of his little body slamming into the wall, the thud of him landing on the tiled floor.

      ‘Mummy!’ I’d screamed and she’d noticed me for the first time. She’d stared at me, then she’d pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and come towards me with her arms held out and a smile splitting her face in two. On the floor behind her, Dingbat twitched and then was still, blood oozing from his mouth and ears.

      ‘Evie, darling. What’s wrong? Come here. Let me give you a cuddle.’ She’d wound her arms around me, stroking my hair, and I’d sagged against my mother, clinging to her, breathing in the scent of her clothes, her perfume. It was the first time she’d hugged me since Graham had died.

       ‘I love you, Evie,’ she’d said, kissing my hair and running her hands through it. ‘Don’t ever leave me. Promise you won’t leave me.’

      It was awful, but the attention was nice and I hated myself for liking it; hated myself for choosing Mum’s hugs instead of running to Dingbat.

      ‘It’s Mum,’ I told Miss Dawson.

       ‘OK,’ she said. ‘She probably misses Dingbat as much as you do. I expect he reminded her of Graham, too.’

      I twisted the tissue in my hand, my eyes raw. Mum had killed a living creature. Would Miss Dawson have to tell the police? Would Mum have to go to jail? What was worse: Mum like this, or Mum in jail? I took a deep breath and made my decision: ‘It’s just that … I don’t think she’ll let me get a new hamster,’ I said. Well … at least that bit was true.

       CHAPTER 21

      Slightly squiffy from having discovered Mum’s stash of good gin, I decided to spend the evening catching up on back episodes of Casualty. Right near the start of one episode, a man had a dramatic heart attack in a shopping centre. He clutched his chest as he dropped to the floor, groaning.

      ‘Hollywood heart attack!’ I shouted at the television, realising as I did so that I sounded just like Dad. It’s exactly what he would have said. ‘Most heart attacks don’t look like that,’ he’d say. And now he’d know, I thought, wondering what he’d felt—if anything—when his heart had failed him in his sleep. Had he woken up? Had there been a moment when he’d panicked? Known he was dying? Or had he simply slept through it, as Mum clearly wanted to believe? I had my doubts. Suddenly, grief ambushed me and I pressed ‘mute’ on the television, picked up my phone and flicked through my contacts to the entry for ‘Dad’. I stared at the word for a few seconds then, before I even had time to think about it, I pressed ‘dial’ and put the phone to my ear.

      ‘Hello. You’re through to Doctor Robert Stevens. I can’t take your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone.’

      ‘Dad,’ I whispered. I clicked off the call, but kept the phone at my ear.

      ‘Hello, Dad. It’s me,’ I said into the handset. ‘I just wanted to … say hello. See how you are. I hope … it wasn’t painful … I hope you’re in a good place now.’ Suddenly, I felt silly. ‘OK, bye.’ I put my phone out of reach on the coffee table and clicked the TV’s sound back on.

      Outside, there was the scrunch of gravel, a pause while goodnights were said, and then the scrape of Mum’s key in the door. I turned off the television as she stuck her head around the door.

      ‘How was your evening?’

      ‘Oh very nice, thank you,’ Mum said, flopping into an armchair and easing her feet out of her shoes and then her pop socks. ‘We had some poppadums, chicken tikka and tiny samosas to start, then I had chicken korma and Richard had lamb biryiani. We shared the naan and a bottle of red wine. I couldn’t manage dessert so we just had coffee.’

      ‘Sounds lovely, but I meant how was the evening? With Richard?’

      ‘Oh.’ Mum looked at her watch. ‘We’ve only been gone two hours. No time at all!’ She was wearing her ‘going out’ perfume and a stylish skirt and top; they could have been Ghost. So much for ‘just a curry’.

      ‘So, did he make a move on you?’ I asked.

      ‘Of course not!’ I was glad she seemed affronted.

      ‘So?’ I asked again, raising an eyebrow. ‘How was it?’

      Mum tutted. ‘It’s not like that. He just had a voucher and knew I was on my own. He thought I might like cheering up. For goodness’ sake, Evie. Dad’s not been gone three days.’

      ‘Do you miss him?’

      Mum flopped onto the sofa. ‘Of course. I was married to him for thirty-three years. Do you?’

      I sighed. My head was starting to spin with the gin; I could feel blood throbbing at my temples. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s weird. You know what he was like. After …?’ I couldn’t say it. ‘He was distant. СКАЧАТЬ