Saving Silence (22 page)

Dad swore under his breath. I folded my arms.

‘Over to you. Tell me how wrong I’ve got everything.’

Dad looked at me. ‘You can stop pretending you don’t care. I know that’s your trick when you’re feeling vulnerable, but we’re having an honest talk here. I can do
without the sarcasm.’

I didn’t think Dad paid me enough attention to have noticed my ‘trick’ as he called it. I let him take a moment to figure out how to start. ‘I never wanted to tell you
all this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you to think less of me. But it’s clear you have a pretty poor opinion of me already.’

‘Do you blame me?’

Dad ignored me. ‘Back in Kent I got in a rut. I didn’t enjoy working for the charity, and everything felt static. I was bored. I needed something.’

A horrible idea popped into my mind. ‘You didn’t have an affair, did you?’

‘God, no. Nothing like that.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Online gambling, that was my vice. A little bit of fun, I told myself. The problem is, it didn’t stay just a little
bit of fun.’

‘Dad! What were you thinking? Gambling never pays. Everyone knows that!’

‘You say it like it’s obvious, but when you’re doing it you don’t think like that. You get hooked, Immy. Especially when you win. It’s like a drug. You tell
yourself it’s OK.’

‘It’s not OK! You hid it from Mum, didn’t you?’

‘I hid it from everyone. Then I had a losing streak. I lost a lot – and I mean a lot. I panicked.’

‘What did you do, Dad? Tell me you didn’t start nicking stuff or something stupid like that . . .’

‘Unfortunately I did.’ His face looked grey, like he might be sick. ‘I started using money that wasn’t mine. From work. I convinced myself I could win back what I’d
lost. Then I’d stop.’

‘You stole from a charity!’

Dad gave a helpless gesture. ‘I was always planning to return the money, but as you can guess . . . I got found out. I thought I’d be safe, but the charity was in the middle of a
merger and auditors came in. It didn’t take long to trace the missing money back to me.’

I could barely bring myself to look at him. I couldn’t bear how matter-of-fact he was being about something so wrong. ‘How much did you take?’

‘Enough to be a big deal.’

‘How much, Dad?’

A long silence. ‘Fifty thousand pounds.’

More than I had possibly imagined. I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.

‘I paid it back,’ Dad said, sounding as though he was in pain. ‘We sold our house to raise the money. The trustees of the charity decided not to press charges in the end. They
didn’t want the negative publicity.’

I thought of our nice house, with the pretty garden, on the well-to-do street. I compared it to where we were living now, with its draughts and creaking floorboards. ‘Fifty thousand
pounds!’ I repeated.

’Your mother gave me hell and I deserved it. Of course I got defensive and blamed her, and . . . well, we needed space, to think about whether to stick together or go our separate ways.
That was why I went away, Immy.’ I felt his hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s as simple as that.’

‘And no one told me and Benno because you didn’t want to frighten us.’

‘There was no need for you to worry about us splitting up unless it happened. In the end we decided to ride it out and start again somewhere new.’

Somewhere new being much cheaper Walthamstow.

I thought of all the things I’d wanted and been told we couldn’t afford. All of that, and Dad was directly responsible for it. I felt rather than saw his shrug. ‘Do you have
any questions?’

‘Unsurprisingly, yeah.’ I looked at him, narrowing my eyes. ‘Why didn’t you even
try
to explain? You must have realized I’d notice the police coming
round.’

‘If you were me, would you have told your ten-year-old daughter that her dad was a thief? I don’t think so.’

I wasn’t going to admit he had a point. ‘Didn’t you realize how hard it would be for me? I needed you, Dad.’

‘It was a difficult time for all of us, Immy. Your mother and I thought you acting tough and shutting off emotionally was just you mimicking the Walthamstow kids because that’s how
it’s done round here.’

I snorted. ‘You’re terrible parents. What did me and Benno do to get stuck with you?’

I’d said it without thinking.

Dad seemed to wilt in front of me. All he said was, ‘I know.’

What else was there to say? I wasn’t going to tell Dad it was OK and I forgave him. I didn’t. However much he knew he’d got it wrong, it was me and Benno
who’d paid the price. Mum too, I suppose. When he left, I flopped down on my bed and wondered how different things would be if his stupid online-gambling addiction hadn’t got out of
hand. After a few minutes I gave up. I was who I was – nothing could change that now. At least the truth had made everything clearer. I understood why Dad had become the ‘nothing’
man. I understood why Mum seemed funny with him sometimes. I understood why my family was more of an illusion of a perfect family than an actual loving home.

But what I didn’t understand was why Dad had felt his life was so empty he needed online gambling to spice it up. Weren’t his kids enough to make him think twice?

I rolled over. I could see my bedside table. On it was my alarm clock, a novel that had been there ages and a photograph of me holding the volleyball cup my team had won earlier in the year.
I’d been feeling proud and happy. One day, I thought, I’ll feel proud and happy again. I am not going to be one of those people who gets dragged down. Not by what Dad did. Not by the
McAllisters. Not by anyone.

WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER

The next day was almost disturbingly normal. Tamsin dropped me off at sixth form, I ate lunch with Imogen and Nadina, came home, walked Jessie and spent the evening watching a
film with Dad and Tamsin from the Alfred Hitchcock box set we’d started making our way through. There was not even the tiniest hint of danger. I was so embarrassed about being such an idiot
in the kitchen last night that I’d decided not to mention it to anyone.

Imogen had told me about the precautions her family had decided on. These got me thinking about my own routine. The best time for Josh and Dale to get me would be on my walks with Jessie, when I
was by myself. Perhaps I had better stop going to the nature reserve – it would be a brilliant place to spring an attack, as it was usually empty so no one would hear me if I yelled for
help.

‘If you’re coming out with things like that, maybe we shouldn’t be watching these creepy Hitchcock movies,’ Tamsin said when I told her.

‘It’s OK. They’re old. Everything seems a bit less real when everyone’s wearing fifties gear.’

She laughed. Dad wasn’t in tonight – apparently he was meeting ‘people who could help us’. So far the big noise he’d made to the press and his solicitor
hadn’t got us anywhere. Last night as I’d been brushing my teeth I’d overheard him talking to Tamsin. He’d mentioned the American transfer again. Deciding now was a good
time, I asked her what it meant.

‘It’s work. What else?’ Tamsin was usually very tolerant of Dad being a workaholic – so it was a surprise to hear her sounding irritated. ‘They’ve offered him
a contract that would mean moving to Illinois for five years. It’s an amazing opportunity – more money, house provided, all that – but it’s a big step, and you know how
attached your Dad is to this area, having grown up here.’

‘Is he going to take it?’

‘I don’t want him to. I don’t fancy moving to another country, away from my friends and parents, and, heavens, I can’t see my career taking off stateside – Illinois
is hardly LA. It’s hard enough getting any work here! There’s the baby to think of too. But now that things are as they are, it might be a good idea.’

So we might leave Walthamstow? I was shocked to find that the thought disturbed me. Things had changed. I had friends. I was beginning to feel for the first time in a long time that my life was
going somewhere.

If we went to America I was scared I’d fade back into old Sam who couldn’t cope with change. How was I ever going to make a life for myself if everything I had kept being taken
away?

I decided to try not to think about it. There were lots of reasons for Dad not to take the US transfer. I’d just have to wait and see what happened.

The rest of the week passed smoothly.

‘Perhaps they’re waiting until we let our guard down.’ I said to Imogen as we left school together on Friday.

‘Not sure I credit them with that much brainpower,’ Imogen said. ‘We’re not talking criminal masterminds. They’re two thugs. If they come for us, we’ll know
about it.’

She zipped up her coat in a purposeful manner. It was bitingly cold; I was beginning to forget what it was like to go outside without a billion layers. I thought Imogen seemed distracted. We
hadn’t had a proper chance to speak at lunch.

‘You OK?’ I asked. ‘Apart from the obvious, I mean.’ She hesitated. ‘I was thinking of talking to Ollie.’ Inwardly I groaned. Imogen spoke about Ollie very
rarely. Without knowing any details, I gathered that she’d heard his side of the story; perhaps that had changed things. Or perhaps I was still being unfair because this was Ollie, who I
still couldn’t help being jealous of, despite the awful things he had done. They weren’t together any more; from the way Imogen spoke it was clear it was over. Good, I thought. She
deserves someone better.

Still, I couldn’t help wondering if the possibility of seeing him was why Imogen was wearing her hair loose today. I’d never seen it any way other than pulled back and it was longer
than I’d realized, a little way past her shoulders. I found myself staring. It just looked so different – really pretty. She also had a new pair of glasses. They were bigger with black
frames, cool in a geeky kind of way – and they really suited her. With her fluffy bobble hat and long hair, she almost looked cute. Not that I would ever say that to her – I
didn’t want her to kill me.

Curiosity got the better of me. ‘You don’t seem as mad at him as I thought you would be,’ I said. ‘He really dropped us in it.’

She shrugged. ‘I am mad at him. But I’d like to understand why he did it before I really let rip. I’ve been thinking of speaking to him for a while actually, but I wanted to
wait until I was calm.’

‘Do you still have feelings for him?’ When I realized it had slipped out, I was so horrified that I almost clamped my hands over my mouth. To my relief, she just shrugged.

‘It’s weird to say this, but I don’t think I ever really did.’

‘But he was your boyfriend. And he’s, well . . . got that exotic South American thing going on.’ For some reason the words ‘good-looking’ had stuck on my
tongue.

‘He was never really my type,’ she replied unexpectedly. ‘Don’t think he’ll be coming back to Devereux. Everyone knows what he did. He’s probably enrolled
somewhere else. It’s a shame really. He loved this school.’

I wanted to ask if she thought the school would take his face off the prospectus, as it wasn’t exactly great to have a criminal for a poster boy, but realized in time how mean that would
sound. ‘Are you going to go to his house?’

‘Promised my parents I’d avoid that estate. Josh and Dale have mates there, plus it’s a craphole. No.’ She shoved her hands in her pockets. No gloves today, I noticed.
‘Part of his community sentence involves cleaning graffiti from the parade of shops at Gate Street. Thought I’d catch him there. Wanna come?’

‘Why? Do you need an escort?’

Imogen half smiled. ‘The word “escort” has a slightly different meaning round here, Northern boy – take it out of your dictionary. I’m asking cos I fancy the
company. All right?’

I found myself saying I’d come. As we waited for the bus, snow began to fall, though it didn’t look like it was going to settle. Someone walked by playing a Christmas pop song from
their mobile. I hadn’t thought about Christmas yet; I ought to make a start buying presents. Should I get something for Imogen? Or would she think that was weird?

By the time we arrived at Gate Street it was dusk. Imogen took me round to the back by the car park. There we found a group of about ten people scrubbing the walls. It didn’t look much
fun, especially on a freezing cold day like this. I felt a little sorry for them. None of these people here looked like criminals – just like kids who were down on their luck. Ollie was at
the end, working robotically. Before Imogen could call out, he spotted us.

‘How much longer?’ Imogen called. Ollie signalled fifteen minutes. Agreeing that he might find it humiliating if we watched, we had a cup of tea in a nearby Lebanese deli, which
seemed to be the only place selling hot drinks around there. I watched shoppers cross the dull grey quadrangle, shuffling from shop to shop. Although the graffiti they were cleaning off
wasn’t at the more imaginative end of the street-art spectrum, I could follow the thinking of whoever had decided this place needed some colour. All I could see was concrete and faded signs.
It was like being in a black-and-white movie.

When a quarter of an hour had passed we found Ollie. Work had clearly finished earlier than anticipated because he was alone.

‘Hi.’ Imogen stopped a few steps short of him. ‘All right?’

Ollie shrugged. There was something different about him and after a moment I placed it; he wasn’t wearing sports gear, just jeans and an anonymous-looking sweater and jacket. It made him
look less cool, less like a school pin-up.

‘Where are you studying now?’ Imogen asked.

‘Birch House. Bit shit academically, but the sports facilities aren’t bad.’

There was a silence. I looked from Imogen to Ollie. ‘D’you want me to go?’

Surprisingly it was Ollie who answered. ‘Don’t bother. This ain’t gonna take long. Im’s come to ask why I changed my statement. Right?’

‘Wrong.’ Imogen gave him her wry smile, the smile that I liked so much. ‘Came to see how you were first. Asking about the statement second.’

‘You can see how I am. I’m cleaning crap off walls.’ Ollie glanced over his shoulder, but no one else was around, save a woman with a pushchair a good ten metres away.
‘Don’t feel sorry for me, all right? Especially not you, OK?’