October 1982
“So, what are your thoughts, huh?” He put his arm around me. I wriggled free, stepped back.
“It’s okay,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets. I was wearing new jeans with cherry motifs on the pockets. It was a shame they were on my backside because I would have liked to have seen them more often.
“Okay? Are you kidding? It’s magnificent!” He threw his arms up, like ta-da!
I shrugged, stood on a crunchy leaf, found another one to stand on. “Why did it take so long?”
He creased his nose, scratched it. “Well, these things don’t happen overnight, for starters. We had some financing issues and construction problems, but it’s here now and that’s what counts. And it’s more beautiful than I even imagined it.”
“That’s not true. It’s exactly the way you imagined it. You said so yourself.”
He crouched down, clasping my arms. “Now what’s got into you, hey? I thought you loved this place?”
I looked up at the roof of the house, right into the sunshine, forgetting to squint. I wasn’t into squinting anymore, wasn’t into anything that I used to be into. Everything had changed: I was eleven, at senior school now, didn’t say Mommy and Daddy, didn’t pretend I lived in Gotham City. I did like the roof tiles though—the redness, how many of them there were, magically prevented from slipping off.
He led me forward. “There’s the lamppost you wanted,” he said, as we passed it, “like the one in The Lion, the Witch and the…uh…”
“Wardrobe,” I said.
“Yep, that’s the one. And…close your eyes a sec.”
I didn’t, so he did it for me, wrapping his fingers over my eyes. They smelled of cigars, even though he told Mom he’d stopped smoking. He walked me to the door. “Steady. There’s a little step…” He removed his hand. “What do you reckon?”
“What?” I said blankly.
He tutted. “The knocker.” He stepped back to admire it. “Like it?”
It was a brass lion, reminded me of Aslan. He knew I liked it; I’d chosen it. “S’okay,” I said, pushing my hands in my pockets.
“Honestly, there’s no pleasing you,” he said, jokingly, but sounded hurt. “Come on, there’s something else I want to show you… Shoes off.” He tapped my legs.
I sat down cross-legged, slowly untying my laces. He waited patiently, pretending to examine the skirting but I could tell he was trying not to let me get to him.
We went into the room on the left, which was called the reception room on the plans. “Where’s all the furniture?” I asked, my feet bouncing on the springy carpet.
“Not here yet. It’s coming tomorrow, in time for the new occupants to pick up their keys and then it’ll be theirs.”
“I thought it was mine,” I said.
He tucked his shirt into his trousers, tightening his belt. “Well, it is. The new people are only renting it. It’ll stay in my name, and then someday it’ll be in yours. Because what’s yours is mine, eh?” He ruffled my hair as though I were six.
I twisted away, going to the window, looking out at the lawn. It all looked neat and tidy, the same way my uniform and books felt on the first day at school. The windows had metal lines on them, as though very old, and everything—the front door, staircase, window frames, some of the walls even—were made of shiny oak that had a reddish tint to it.
“Look,” he said, going over to the windows. “See those squares?” He pointed to the metal frames. “That’s solid lead, that is. That’ll always be there, so long as the house is.” He motioned for me to join him. I walked forward as slowly as I could.
“What’s your birthday?” he asked, as though I was stupid. When I didn’t answer, he took a deep breath. “Seventh of May. So that’s seventh day, fifth month, seven five.” He touched the lead, tracing it. “This is like a Battleship grid.”
I gave him my full attention then—still liked Battleship. We played it sometimes, when he was home.
“If you count down seven squares from the top, see… And then five along from the right, you come to this square here at the bottom.”
He turned to look at me, checking I was listening. “And that’s how you’ll always remember where our handprints are.” He knelt down, showed me the bottom square window, traced with his finger down to the floor. “Me and you. A little piece of us here that no one can ever take away.”
I stared at him, at the exact point he was showing me, thinking of our handprints in the cement; his big, mine little.
“So what do you think? Clever, hey?”
He was always asking what I thought. And it was becoming harder to know how to answer.
My throat was starting to hurt. My ears were hot. I swallowed hard and then turned on my heel and ran across that spongy carpet as though on a bouncy castle. “Where you going?”
Out in the hallway, I grabbed my shoes, thrusting my feet into them, not bothering to do up the laces. Running out to the car, I jumped inside, the leather interior warm against my back.
I sat with my feet on the seat, my arms around me, feeling my heart race. Dad was locking up the house, pushing the key into his back pocket with a scowl.
Getting into the car, he sat facing the house, not looking at me. We stayed like that for a while, my heart going back to normal.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it Mom?”
She had been funny lately, spending a lot of time in bed. Back when I was still Batman, I might have answered that it was her who was wrong, yes. But things were different now, even though I didn’t know how or why. “Can we go home?” I asked.
He sighed, shaking his head, starting the engine.
As we went down the driveway, I turned to look at the house right before it disappeared from view. I faced forward, my throat hurting again. “Thank you for the lamppost and the door knocker and the handprints, Daddy.”
He reached for my hand, held it all the way home. “That’s okay, Batman.”
At home, I kicked off my sneakers and was about to run upstairs when I caught sight of something in the lounge that ripped my breath from my body.
On the sofa near the door was a mountain of frizzy blond hair, underneath which was a black-and-white sweater that I recognized from nearly six months ago when she came to our house and was screaming. She hadn’t been back since, but I could tell there was a good reason why she was here now—or a bad one.
I tiptoed closer, listening, but then Dad came in, slamming the front door behind him and Frizzy jumped to attention, her eyes saucepan lids.
“Robin?” Mom called, her voice all tight.
I shrank back into the darkness underneath the stairs, squatting, knowing they would forget about me here.
He stopped in the lounge doorway. “What are you doing here? I told you not to interfere.”
I couldn’t see Frizzy or Mom; Dad was blocking them. He was still wearing his boots, had tracked mud down the hallway. There was a big red leaf on his heel, all the way from Ocean View Road.
“I’m sorry,” Frizzy said, “but I didn’t know what else to do. We can’t carry on like this. It’s not fair on anyone.”
Mom spoke then. “Sara tells me that you’re leaving.”
Leaving.
The word squashed my tummy. I clasped my hands to my face, pressing my skin.
“Alice…” Dad said, moving into the room. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” He raised his voice. “You had no right to come here, Sara!”
Frizzy started to cry. Beyond her, Mom was still sitting down, wearing a flowery shirt and jeans. I thought she looked pretty. Why was Dad doing this?
“Don’t take it out on her,” Mom said. “This is your doing, Robin. You’re the married man. You’re the father. This is all you!” She screeched the last word and I stared at her through my fingers, too scared to look without a shield.
“Oh and you think it’s been a picnic living here with you?” Dad snapped back.
Mom took a moment to inhale, as though pumping herself up with air, then stood up. “Don’t you dare put this on me!” she yelled. “This is nothing about me or what I could have done or didn’t do or could have been better at and you damn well know it!”
“Please don’t shout,” Frizzy said, crying harder. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. This is all my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Mom said, waving her hands. “Don’t flatter yourself! If it weren’t you, it would be some other young trollop. You’re just some young twenty—” She broke off. “How old are you?”
“Don’t answer that,” Dad said.
But it was too late: Frizzy already had. “Twenty-three.”
Mum rolled back her head and laughed, but it was too high-pitched and jerky to be the sort of laugh that made everyone else join in. “Oh, Robin.” She folded her arms. “You’ve outdone yourself. What did you do? Hang around outside the playground with a packet of—”
“That’s enough!” he shouted. “I will not tolerate this in my own home!”
“Then go!” Mom yelled. And then she was charging at him, hitting him with her fists. “Get out! Just go! Just get out!”
I closed my eyes, held my hands over my ears, rocking on my feet.
Don’t go, Daddy. Don’t go, Daddy. Don’t—
The front door slammed so loudly, the walls vibrated. Everything fell quiet and then Frizzy spoke. She was standing so close I could see the details of her shoes. I recoiled farther into the shadows, my foot against the vacuum cleaner. Her sandals were red with black lace, a big bow at the front, a strap around the back.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Burton. I didn’t mean any of this to happen, but I thought it only fair that you should know that we’re in love.”
I held my breath, waited.
Mom wailed and then pounced. “Get out!” she screamed. “Get out of my house!” There was a scuffling of feet, the sound of the door opening and slamming again and then Mom fell down against the door, cradling her head to her knees, sobbing.
I was about to go to her, when she sprang up and ran upstairs into her bedroom. There was a lot of clattering and bashing and then there was a clunking sound outside. I ran through to the lounge and saw Dad’s shirts falling into the fishpond, a suitcase smashing in two, a pair of trousers landing in the trees. It was like carnival night, when the town was decorated with ribbons and banners.
Upstairs, she was starting to smash things now. China. Glass. I was halfway up the stairs when I realized something. This whole time, she hadn’t asked where I was. She hadn’t noticed whether or not I’d come home, didn’t even know whether I was here.
Anger frothed up in me so quickly, I ran down the hallway, grabbed my coat from the peg, and slipped out the front door, looking for Dad.
His car was still there! I ran toward him, but he was driving away. I lurched at the boot, banging my hands on it and he braked suddenly, looking at me in alarm through the rearview mirror.
I raced around to his side. The window was open. “Just keep driving,” Frizzy said.
“No, Dad!” I said, gripping the side of the car.
“Let go,” he said, prying my fingers from the window. “Let go, kiddo.”
“I’m not kiddo. I’m Batman! Please, Daddy. Don’t go. Please don’t go. Please—”
“For Pete’s sake, just accelerate,” Frizzy said.
“I’m sorry, Gabrielle,” he said. He started to wind up the window. I was still gripping it. “Let go!” he shouted. But I couldn’t. He was about to notch the window right to the top, but stopped because he would have sliced my fingers off.
Instead, he gazed at me for a second and I saw myself in his eyes, saw everything that we’d done together, every trip we’d taken in the Batmobile, every site we’d visited, every brick we’d laid.
“Let go,” he said again, even though he was beginning to cry. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t let him go. He didn’t really want me to, or he wouldn’t have been crying.
And then he hit the accelerator. I ran as fast as I could to keep up and then he turned into the road and the motion sent me flying.
I lost my balance, regained it, started running after him. He stopped again and my heart lurched because he was waiting for me, but then just as I was about to catch up, he set off again, faster now. I couldn’t catch him. I screamed after him as loudly as I could, my voice lost among the houses and trees and lawnmowers and traffic.
The whole world seemed to grow silent, my ears closing over, a dullness forming. I sat on the edge of the curb and poked at the dirt with a stick. I kicked an ants’ nest. I found a large pine cone. I watched two magpies pecking at berries.
Round about teatime, when it was dark, and the smell of sausages and onions was wafting along the street, Mom came looking for me. She didn’t say a word, just took my elbow, led me up the front path, past all the clothes strewn on the bushes as though our laundry had had a hissy fit.
“What would you like for tea?” she asked, smashed plates all over the floor. “Would you like a milk?” she said, as though every glass in the cabinet weren’t broken.
I soon caught on.
“Macaroni and cheese. And yes please to milk,” I said.
“Go and put the TV on then and wait for tea.”
On my way down the hallway, I spotted something red near the doormat. I picked it up, twirling it in my hand. It was the leaf from Dad’s boot. I would press it, hide it in a book as a secret treasure.
I set it on my knee as I watched TV and was so lost in the program that I didn’t notice when Mom came in to check on me. Before I knew it, she’d whipped the leaf away. I wanted to protest, but something had happened to my legs and mouth and I couldn’t say or do anything.
I didn’t have the strength to chase after her, just like I couldn’t run fast enough to catch him. And so it came to be that I lost my leaf treasure from Ocean View Road and my dad, all in one day.