jake’s notebook
Saturday 21st December
Days since Mum got sick: Six
Days until Christmas: Four
things you can’t control:
- How long Rose spends in the bathroom
- Grandma’s bad moods
- Dad’s obsessive tidiness
- Lukas being friends with Nerdy but quite nice Nora
- Mum being in hospital
- Neil, the school bully
- Whether we can stay at home with Grandma
- Whether we will get any Christmas presents this year
- Whether Mum will be home in time for Christmas
- When Mum will come home
On Saturday morning, Grandma insisted on PACKING US OFF TO DAD’S. She said a CHANGE OF SCENERY would do us good, that we needed to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and couldn’t stay cooped up indoors all day, getting under her feet and MOPING about like WET DISHCLOTHS. Grandma has some FUNNY IDEAS sometimes.
I wasn’t ONE HUNDRED PER CENT CONVINCED that a trip across the estate to Dad’s flat was the DRASTIC CHANGE she seemed to think it was, and Dad’s idea of fun would probably involve getting me and Rose to help him clean the living room or something equally EXCRUCIATINGLY (painfully) DULL.
As far as I could see we were simply exchanging one flat for a slightly different, in fact, almost identical, EVEN TIDIER one. But at ten am exactly, Grandma was shoving us out of the door and there was NO CHANCE to protest.
This time, there was no way that Dad wouldn’t be able to hear us, as I had Rose with me for back-up. We both DRUMMED and HAMMERED on the door with our fists until we heard him shuffling slowly towards it to let us in.
‘Alright, kids. Jesus Christ. Keep your hair on.’
As far as I’m aware, Dad is not particularly fond of any religious movements, but he seems to be VERY WELL ACQUAINTED with the son of god for someone who has NEVER SET FOOT inside a church.
‘How’s your gran getting on?’ he asked. ‘You’re not being any trouble, are you?’
The one thing that Grandma was even less keen on than our Dad was being referred to as ‘GRAN’. Luckily for Dad, she wasn’t there to hear it.
‘Grandma’s fine,’ I replied. ‘She’s probably just taking another nap right about now.’
‘Tired her out, have you? I bet you’ve been running rings around the old bat.’ He chuckled manically to himself.
As you have PROBABLY GUESSED by now, Dad and Grandma don’t get on too well. Though they seemed to have decided to call a TEMPORARY TRUCE whilst Mum was away, which meant they were spending AN INORDINATE AMOUNT (a lot) OF TIME pretending to be nice to each other. But this didn’t seem to apply when the other one wasn’t there to hear it.
‘This is all very nice,’ interrupted Rose. ‘Exchanging pleasantries on the doorstep, but can we come in now or what? I need to sit down.’
Rose was shifting her weight huffily from one leg to the other as if it was a REAL STRUGGLE just to keep herself upright. You’d think she was APPROXIMATELY ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD not a SPRITELY FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD.
‘All right, Rosie, keep your wig on.’
Dad stepped aside, rolling his eyes at me as Rose flounced dramatically into the living room.
‘What would you kids like to do today, then? The football’s on telly later.’
Rose ROLLED HER EYES so far back in her head her pupils all but DISAPPEARED. We certainly all know where she gets that from and it’s not from our mum.
‘I’m going out with Louise later,’ she announced, whilst angrily putting in her headphones and turning up the volume as high as it would go. If she wasn’t careful she would give herself EARLY ONSET HEARING LOSS at this rate.
‘Just us then, son?’ Dad shrugged.
I sat down on the sofa and tried to prepare myself for a day spent watching football whilst Dad DRANK LAGER and SHOUTED AT THE REF. It was going to be a VERY LONG DAY. I didn’t mind watching football when it was Lukas playing, but I DRAW THE LINE at watching it on TV.
Lukas had an away match that day so, unfortunately, I had no way to get out of it. They had all piled onto the school minibus first thing in the morning and would be WELL ON THEIR WAY to WHO KNEW WHERE by now.
Hopefully I’d get to see Lukas at some point this weekend. I was totally relieved that we were now back on speaking terms and I didn’t want anything else to go wrong between us again.
Once Rose had gone out and Dad was a couple of lagers in, enough that he was QUITE MERRY but still ONE HUNDRED PER CENT COHERENT most of the time, I decided it was time to give Dad a GOOD GRILLING. It wasn’t very often that it was just the two of us after all.
‘Dad? Do you think Mum will be home soon? Do you think she’ll be back in time for Christmas?’ I ventured hesitantly.
At exactly the same moment, West Ham scored, causing Dad to SWEAR VIOLENTLY at the TV, take the Lord’s name in vain, and curse the ref, all in the SAME BREATH.
It really was QUITE SOMETHING to behold but it also meant that he hadn’t heard me or had chosen not to listen in the first place. Either way his attention was totally focused on the match and he was not paying ANY ATTENTION to me.
I had two options. I could wait patiently until the match ended and then talk to Dad or I could try to make him listen to me RIGHT NOW. As we have already established, I am not an INCREDIBLY PATIENT PERSON, and I was running the risk of Dad being a bit TOO MERRY to talk to me if I waited for much longer.
Dad hated being interrupted when he was watching football, especially West Ham v Tottenham. Almost as much as Grandma hated being called Gran. But this COULDN’T WAIT. I had to try and talk to him, before it was TOO LATE.
‘Dad,’ I raised my voice above the noise of the cheering fans on the TV.
‘DAD, WHEN WILL MUM COME HOME?’