Ken took the remote control out of Tamara’s hand and switched off the television. She sat up straight on the sofa knowing that something must be wrong. If somebody wanted to talk they usually pressed the ‘mute’ button.
“I’ve got something to tell you, Tammy,” he said. He went to the fish tank and fed the fish, pinching flakes from a little pot and sprinkling them across the surface of the bubbling water. He loved the way the fish swam to the surface. They were dependent on him for their seemingly pointless lives, he thought. He took the top off the bottle of Johnnie Walker and drank heavily, gulping at the amber liquid until his eyes watered. Tamara watched him apprehensively. She hoped he wasn’t going to go on about Crackle again, or make her swear on Mum’s Bible that she would never see him again.
Ken sat down opposite Tamara and put the bottle on the carpet, between his feet. He took something out of his pocket and showed it to her.
“Do you know what this is?” he said.
She took the thing from him and examined it. It was a plastic cylinder with a padded top. She’d never seen anything like it before.
“No,” she said.
“D’you see that blue sort of circle?”
“Yes.” She wondered if it was a magic trick. He used to make coins come out of his ears when she was a kid.
“Well, Tammy, that blue circle means that you’re pregnant.”
She laughed out loud and shook her head. She’d done the same thing when he’d told her that her mother was dead and in the arms of Jesus. He read out loud from the ‘Predictor’ leaflet, but she said, “You’re making it up, Dad.”
With a superhuman effort he kept his voice even. “Let’s just say that you are pregnant Tam, let’s just say. What would you do about it?”
“What do you mean do about it?” she said.
“I mean would you want the baby or would you, you know, get rid of it?”
She was amazed that he’d even asked the question. He was the one who’d always said that abortion was murder.
“I couldn’t get rid of it. It’s wrong.”
Ken shouted, “I know it’s wrong but it has to be done!” He tried again to control his voice, “Tam, if you get rid of that baby I’ll pay for the operation. I’ll give you some money and I’ll get you a course of driving lessons.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it, Dad.”
“I’ll buy you a car,” he said. “I’ll take you to Raj’s garage tomorrow.”
“I’m not pregnant. It must be wind or summat,” she shouted, stroking her stomach. She couldn’t be pregnant, not without Crackle’s permission.
Ken went into the kitchen and called the emergency doctor service. Perhaps when she’d been told by a professional she would believe that she had a baby inside her.
♦
It was a young red-haired doctor whom neither Ken nor Tamara had seen before. He was very angry at being called out to a non-emergency, but Ken insisted that he examine Tamara. Ken went outside the room whilst Tamara sulkily pulled her clothes down and lay on her back on the sofa.
“She’s about six and a half months pregnant. Why isn’t she registered with the community midwife?” said the doctor, coming out into the hall, still wearing his green waxed coat.
“She’s an ignorant little cow, that’s why,” said Ken, angrily.
Six and a half months. It was too late now to intervene in order to save the child from being born.
Tamara passed the two men and went upstairs to the bathroom and locked herself in. Then she pulled her black sweater up and held her belly with both hands and looked into the mirror over the washbasin in triumph. She couldn’t wait to tell Crackle the good news.
Later that night, when Ken was asleep, she crept out of the house and went back to the flat. Crackle wasn’t there. He’d torn her clothes up and smashed the pots and thrown everything else she’d owned in a pile on the living-room floor: her make-up and tapes and shoes, and the red coat and the hairbrush she’d used when she had long hair. He’d tried to set fire to the pile, the red coat was scorched and the bristles on the brush had melted. She sorted through the mess and found the studded leather wrist band that he’d bought her for a wedding present. It wasn’t damaged and she buckled it on to her wrist. As she was leaving the flat, she noticed an envelope propped up on top of the television. ‘Tamara’ it said. It was almost the only word she could read.
♦
Tamara hadn’t got the key to Ken’s door. She had to ring the doorbell and get him out of bed, waking him from a dream in which he was walking arm in arm with Cath in the cemetery where she was buried. He opened the door cautiously, fearing that it was Crackle on the doorstep. Tamara was shivering with cold and excitement, her eyes glittered like black ice. As soon as she was in the narrow hallway, before he could ask where she’d been, she had thrust the letter into his hands and begged him to read it to her. He went upstairs to find his spectacles, taking the letter with him. He switched on the lamp with the pink tasselled shade, which was on Cath’s side of the bed, and put his spectacles on. He opened the envelope and took out a sheet of paper torn from a child’s exercise book. It was covered in Crackle’s backward-slanting, spidery scribble.
Dear Tam,
Why won’t you talk to me. I have got things to say to you that are important. Bilko has turned against me, I have got to go somewhere else to live, I want you to come with me. I don’t know who is reading this to you if it is your dad well he never gave me a chance. Just because I am not like him. Say you will come Tam. We will never get Storme back, so there is just you and me now.
Crackle.
Ken folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. He rubbed a hand over his face and got up from the bed. He went downstairs slowly and went into the kitchen where Tamara was standing by the electric kettle on the work top, waiting for it to boil. She had put a tea-bag in each of the two mugs and taken a milk bottle out of the fridge. The glass sugar bowl stood nearby. Ken said, “Right, better read it then.” He took the piece of paper out of the envelope for a second time and what she heard was: “Dear Tam, Why did it have to end like this? I am sorry but I am going away to live somewhere else. I don’t love you any more. I am sorry about hurting Storme, I didn’t mean to. Crackle.”
The kettle came to a noisy boil, then switched itself off. Tamara took the letter from Ken’s hand and scanned it. She saw her own name Tamara and near the bottom, Storme—but the other scribbled words were incomprehensible to her. She couldn’t believe what it said. “Read it again, Dad,” she said.
Ken had been dreading this, but he managed to approximate much of his previous reading.
“I can’t believe he doesn’t love me,” she said, turning her stricken face to Ken.
“He admits that he hurt Storme,” said Ken.
“He was heavy-handed that’s all,” said Tamara.
“So she didn’t fall out of her cot?”
“No,” said Tamara, then she began to cry and repeated, “I can’t believe he don’t love me no more.”
Ken tore off a piece of kitchen towel from a pine roller on the wall and gave it to her to wipe her eyes.
“We’d better burn this,” he said. “If the police found it…” She gave the letter back to him and he set fire to it in the stainless-steel sink, using his cigarette lighter. Then he washed the blackened, curling scraps down the plughole using a powerful stream of water from the cold tap.