‘Sit down, for a moment!’ Mum says. ‘You’re always rushing off out somewhere, or coming back from somewhere! We’ve hardly seen you for days.’
‘And? Your point is?’
‘Kate!’ Dad starts saying, but Mum interrupts him.
‘No, David. I’m handling this, thank you very much’.
She turns back to me. ‘It would be nice to talk to you for a change. More than a brief good morning or goodbye or goodnight. We’d like to hear about what you’ve been up to. About your new friends. And we need to make a few rules about you telling us where you’re off to, and when you’ll be back.’
‘I don’t see why I should tell you anything.’ My words come out more stroppy than I intended.
Dad can’t contain himself. ‘Good manners cost nothing,’ he says. ‘Show us a bit of respect, Kate.’
That does it.
‘Me? Respect you! When you and Mum are so catastrophically disrespecting our family with your horrible rows and silences! And you tell me nothing! You must think I’m stupid not to see what’s really going on. This pretence of happy families when you are on the verge of splitting up . . . And you, Dad! Total hypocrite; phoning some woman every chance you get to go off to that phone box –’
‘Stop! Enough!’ Mum spits words through tight lips. She’s shaking with rage.
Dad walks away to the window and stands there with his hands in his pockets, fiddling with the coins in them, making the annoying chinking sound that drives both me and Mum mad on a good day.
But Mum’s crumpled down on the sofa, her head in her hands, weeping softly.
‘You phoned her? How could you, David?’ she keeps saying. ‘After all we discussed. All your promises that you’d really try, for these few weeks of summer.’
So. I guess that means my hunch was right. There is someone. Dad has been phoning her.
Even though I’ve imagined this over and over, as if to prepare myself for the worst, the realisation that I was actually right still comes as a horrible shock.
Dad doesn’t deny it, doesn’t even try.
The room feels suddenly airless, my chest tight with pain.
Mum is crying, needs me, but I can’t go to her, can’t offer any comfort. All I can think of is myself. My world crumbling, dissolving to dust.
Dad still has his back to us. He doesn’t try to explain or excuse himself. I want to hit him, drum his pathetic back with my fists and make him yell, or cry or say something.
Sorry would be good.
‘Well. Thanks for a great summer holiday,’ I say as sarcastically as I can manage. ‘Cheers, Mum and Dad.’
I walk to the front door, open it wide, bang it shut so hard the whole house shudders.