6

‘Where’s the tank?’ I ask as I climb into Dad’s car on Sunday morning.

As usual, he’s parked several doors down, firmly out of sight of his former home. Instead of his ridiculous and entirely unnecessary four-by-four, he’s behind the wheel of Melanie’s car, a shiny red Mini with plastic eyelashes attached to the headlamps and a ‘Princess on Board’ sticker displayed in the back window.

‘Mel needed the big car to pick up the cake,’ Dad replies, pulling out into the road. ‘That for Izzy?’ He nods at the plastic bag on my lap.

‘No, Princess Charlotte,’ I say, rolling my eyes.

‘Rosie,’ he says in a warning voice.

The name on my birth certificate is Rosie but I’ve been known as Ro for as long as I can remember. Dad (and by extension, Melanie and Izzy) are the only people who insist on calling me Rosie, or, even worse, Rosebud. I’m so not a Rosebud, it’s unreal.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It was just kind of a stupid question.’

‘Stupid or not, I could do without the attitude.’

‘Where are we going?’ I ask after a few minutes of loaded silence.

Instead of heading out of Ostborough and towards Claybridge, the nearby town where Dad lives, we’re driving in the complete opposite direction.

‘The trampoline park, of course.’

‘What trampoline park?’

‘There’s more than one?’

‘Wait, I don’t understand. I thought Izzy was having a pizza-making party at your house.’

‘She is. After the trampoline park.’

‘You didn’t tell me about the trampolining. You only told me about the pizza.’

Now it makes sense why Dad’s wearing a tracksuit instead of the usual chinos and shirts Melanie lays out for him at the weekend, like he’s a little kid.

‘I don’t have a change of clothes with me,’ I say.

Dad glances over at my outfit. I’m wearing one of the few dresses I own (a loose denim sundress) and a pair of black rubber flip-flops. I only put the dress on in the first place to stop Melanie from lamenting that I don’t ‘make enough of my figure’, the way she usually does when I turn up in my normal weekend uniform of jeans and baggy shirt.

‘Well, I don’t know what you want me to do about it,’ he says. ‘We can’t turn back now. Mel’ll go spare if the guests start arriving before we do.’

‘God forbid,’ I mutter, closing my eyes and resting my head against the window.

 

Melanie and Izzy are already there when we arrive, waiting just inside the foyer. Izzy has an oversized ‘10 Today’ badge pinned to her pink sequinned hoodie, her gleaming blonde hair pulled into a neat ponytail.

‘There you are!’ Melanie says.

She waves us over, the Pandora charm bracelet she wears on her left wrist jangling, every charm polished within a millimetre of its life. Everything about Melanie Snow is spotless, from her French-manicured nails to her bouncy blonde bob. Even in tracksuit and trainers, she looks pristine.

‘Now, Rosie, don’t you look a sight for sore eyes. A dress! Finally! Although it could do with cinching in a bit.’

I brace myself as Melanie steps forward, wrapping her hands round my waist, her fingers pinching my skin.

‘There!’ she says. ‘Much better! Perhaps we can find you a belt when we get back to the house …’

‘Are you going to trampoline wearing that?’ Izzy asks, looking me up and down and pulling a face. ‘Everyone will be able to see your knickers.’

‘I’m just going to watch,’ I say.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s Izzy’s birthday!’ Melanie says. ‘Plus, we’ve paid for you.’

She stalks over to the Reception desk, pushing to the front of the queue and returning less than a minute later brandishing a pair of baggy red shorts.

‘From the lost property box,’ she says, handing them to me.

‘I married a genius!’ Dad says, kissing Melanie on the forehead. ‘Say thank you, Rosie.’

I stare down at the shorts in my hands. They’re huge. ‘Are you serious?’ I ask.

Melanie tuts. ‘Oh, don’t be such a drama queen. Just tie the drawstring nice and tight and you’ll be fine!’

If Dad notices the look of horror on my face, he doesn’t acknowledge it. But then he’s used to ignoring things that make him feel uncomfortable, even when they’re right under his nose.

 

I manage three bounces before the shorts are around my ankles, sending Izzy and her gruesome little mates into mass hysterics.

‘We can see your pants! We can see your pants!’ they chant as I pull them up, struggling to tuck my dress into the waistband.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rosie,’ Melanie says, bouncing over and tying the drawstring so tightly I might as well be wearing a corset. ‘You’re not even trying to make them work.’

Cue sniggers from a group of girls around my age on the next trampoline. My face flames.

‘Forget it,’ I say, pushing Melanie away.

‘Rosie?’ Dad calls after me as I head down the padded steps towards the changing rooms.

‘Oh, she’s just having one of her strops,’ I hear Melanie say. ‘Leave her.’

*

I wriggle out of the shorts and return them to Reception before going to the café where I’m 3p short of enough money to buy a bag of crisps. I ask for a glass of tap water and sit down with an abandoned copy of yesterday’s paper.

On page 11 there’s a story that makes my blood run cold. An elderly woman’s body has been found buried under her belongings in a cottage in Wales, the post mortem suggesting she’d been dead for over four years. Her daughter was also found on the property, weak and severely dehydrated. Every word makes my stomach turn over.

I’m still thinking about the story when Dad and I pull up outside the house he shares with Melanie and Izzy. It’s not even 2 p.m. but it feels like light years later.

On the drive over, I was tempted to ask him to drop me at home so I can check on Bonnie, but I knew he’d only make a fuss if I did. He hates it when I try to pull out of anything relating to Melanie or Izzy.

‘They’re my family, Rosie, and by extension, that makes them your family too,’ he’s fond of saying.

They feel like a family, all right – just not mine. And I can’t fake it, no matter how much Dad tries to guilt-trip me into it.

I can’t pretend I feel at home in their house either – a symmetrical new build with double-glazing and cream carpeting and a kitchen full of shiny white appliances. All of Izzy’s toys, of which there seems to be an endless supply, are kept in an elaborate shelving system in her playroom just off the living room. I’m used to it by now, but every so often the unfairness of it all hits so hard it takes my breath away.

In the end, I settle for sending Bonnie a text.

Just checking in. Everything OK? Rx

The front door is festooned with pink balloons, a shiny silver birthday banner stuck diagonally across it. Melanie has changed out of her tracksuit and into a floral dress and pink apron, every inch the Stepford Wife of Dad’s dreams, and is assembling the pizza ingredients while the kids tear around the garden.

‘I thought you might like to sit with Izzy and her friends, Rosie,’ Melanie says, pointing out a seat round the extended dining table.

She dresses it up as a friendly suggestion, but the subtext is quite clear: you’re sitting with the kids, no arguments.

Behind Melanie hangs a wooden plaque listing the ‘Snow Family Rules’ – things like ‘hug lots’ and ‘laugh out loud’ and ‘dream big’.

God, I hate that plaque. Cheesy crap. Sometimes I fantasize about smashing it into a dozen pieces. Or graffiti-ing all over it – BULLSHIT, in big angry red letters. I wonder what would happen if I did. Melanie would definitely cry. She cried when someone helped themselves to her rhododendrons. And Dad would go ballistic, accuse me of being rude and ungrateful and tell me off for upsetting poor delicate Melanie.

 

While Izzy is opening her presents, I sneak upstairs and use the bathroom before slipping into the guest room for a quick lie-down.

Although Dad and Melanie insist on referring to it as mine, apart from a single drawer containing spare sets of underwear, socks, pyjamas and school uniform, there’s barely any evidence of my monthly occupation. The room is dominated by Melanie’s epic collection of Disney snow globes – 27 at last count – and her massage stuff. She’s training to be a massage therapist and when I’m not here she uses this as her treatment room, her fold-up massage table tucked away in the corner and a selection of oils and a stack of fluffy chocolate brown towels stored neatly on a shelf above the bed. Usually the stench of massage oil keeps me awake, but today I fall asleep practically the instant my head hits the pillow.

 

‘Rosie, Rosie, wake up.’

I open my eyes. Dad is bent over me, his left hand shaking my shoulder.

‘What time is it?’ I ask, rubbing crispy flakes of sleep from the inner corners of my eyes.

‘Gone six. The party’s over. You missed Izzy cutting her cake.’

He’s clearly annoyed about it, his mouth set in a straight line and his arms folded across his chest.

Irritation flares in my chest. ‘It’s not like it’s her wedding,’ I say.

Dad lets out a sigh. ‘Please don’t talk like that, Rosie.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like that. Full of attitude. It doesn’t suit you.’

Oh, yes it does. It suits me perfectly actually.

‘I’m going to need to drive you back in a bit,’ he says.

‘OK,’ I reply, sitting up too quickly, the blood rushing to my head as I grope for my abandoned flip-flops with my toes.

‘Before I do though,’ Dad says, his eyes focused on the snow globes above my head, ‘I need to talk to you about our plans for half term.’

‘I’ve been doing some research actually, Dad,’ I say. ‘And I really want to go to the Natural History Museum. They have this really cool wildlife photography exhibition on.’

Dad hesitates, raking his hands through his wiry, dirty-dishwater brown hair – pretty much the only physical trait I inherited from him. That’s when I know our annual October half-term trip to London – literally the only time I get Dad to myself – is officially off.

‘I’m really sorry, Rosebud, but we’re going to have to postpone,’ he says. ‘It’s mine and Mel’s anniversary in November, and you know what a special place Disney is for us’ – he nods up at the snow globes – ‘well, we thought it would be nice to do a trip with Izzy and, the thing is, half term is our only real option.’

‘But you’ve been to Disney loads of times.’

The mantelpiece downstairs is littered with photos of the three of them cuddling up to Mickey and Minnie in the Florida sunshine.

‘Not to the one in Paris.’

‘Right.’

‘I would have offered for you to come along too, but I know how you hate all that stuff.’ He glances up at the snow globes again and rolls his eyes. I can tell he’s trying to be conspiratorial with me, but I’m not in the mood to play along.

Dad reaches out and smooths down my slept-on hair. I just about resist the urge to slap his hand away. I’ll only be accused of ‘attitude’ again if I do.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘We’ll go another time …’

‘Whatever.’

Dad sighs. ‘Please don’t be a brat about this, Rosie.’

‘What about Izzy? She’s been behaving like a massive brat all day!’

‘It’s her birthday. And please don’t call her a brat.’

‘Why not? You just called me one. Or is it one rule for me and a different rule for Izzy? Or is that a stupid question?’

There’s an anger-charged pause. I can practically see it crackling in the air.

‘I’m not getting into this now,’ Dad says briskly. ‘Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. It’s time I dropped you home.’

I wait until he’s closed the door behind him before letting the furious tears fall.