See If I Care (6 page)

He lifted the custard tin down from the shelf in the wardrobe and eased off the metal lid. When he held it upside down over his bed, a shower of coins and notes tumbled out. He made separate bundles of the five and ten euro notes, and arranged the coins in neat towers on top of his chest of drawers.

Then, pretending he didn’t know exactly how much he had, he counted it all carefully.

Four hundred and ten euro. One euro more than the washing machine cost – and tomorrow, Monday, was Christmas Eve. Luke was going in first thing in the morning to buy it. He wondered if they’d be able to deliver it tomorrow, or if he’d have to wait till after Christmas.

Not that it mattered really. The main thing was that he’d made it. He’d saved enough to buy the washing machine that was going to make his mother happy. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw it.

Pity he wouldn’t be able to buy anyone else anything, though. He’d just have to tell them that their presents would be a bit late this year, that’s all.

Not that they’d gone in for making much of a fuss at Christmas, since the accident. The first year, when Dad was still in the hospital, they hadn’t even got a tree. Uncle Jack and Aunt Maureen had invited them all out to the farm for Christmas dinner, but Mam said no, they’d be better off at home.

So she cooked a turkey like she always did, and Granny, who had been coming to them at Christmas for years anyway, made mince pies like she always did. And they pulled crackers and watched the same films they always watched, and Luke wondered if he was the only one who missed Dad desperately.

In the afternoon, Mam and Helen and Granny went to the hospital with presents. Helen’s eyes were red when she came home.

Luke didn’t think Helen would be buying anyone any presents this year. She still wasn’t really talking to anyone in the house, except her grandmother when nobody else was there. If Luke walked into the
room, she’d stop straightaway.

She still wasn’t allowed out during the week, and she had to be in by ten on Friday and Saturday, and nine on Sunday. She told nobody where she was going, or who she’d be with. When she was at home, she still spent most of the time in her room.

She never talked to her father these days, or sat with him like she used to when he came home first. The only time she saw him now was at tea, and then she ignored him like she ignored everyone else, staying just long enough to pick at what was on her plate before disappearing upstairs again.

Anne would hardly be getting presents for anyone either – as soon as she got the five euro that Granny gave her every Friday, she spent it on comics that kept her busy till Monday, and then she traded them at school for more comics that looked exactly the same to Luke, with a picture of some teenage pop star on the cover, and headlines like ‘Make Your Own Bracelets’ or ‘Ten Signs of a True Friend’ and sometimes a free packet of stickers or a lip gloss attached to the front.

Anne read each comic from cover to cover, and filled in all the puzzle pages, and read everybody’s horoscope out loud at teatime, even Helen’s.

Anne was still a bit wary of Dad. She didn’t like
being left in a room alone with him, even if he was only sitting in his armchair looking out the window, or gazing at the television. She’d shoot quick glances at him across the table at tea when she thought nobody was looking, when he was opening his mouth to let Mam’s fork in, or chewing noisily, or lifting his water glass with a hand that shook so much you were waiting for it to come tumbling down.

Of course Granny would buy Christmas presents – or make them. Last year Luke got a blue scarf and gloves, and Helen and Anne both got hats with pompoms. Mam got perfume and Dad got a scarf like Luke’s, but in green.

And Mam would make sure everyone had something, even if it was a much smaller something than they’d got in the past, when Dad was working. Last year she gave each of the three children a selection box and €20. She gave Granny three scratchcards and a box of fudge. Granny won ten euro on one of the cards and bought five more, but won nothing the second time.

Nobody really knew what to get Dad for Christmas now. He didn’t read any more, except for bits of the daily paper when he was in the mood, so the book tokens he’d always loved were no good.

He never listened to music any more either, and
didn’t seem to notice if Luke put on a Beatles or Supertramp CD. He rarely went out, apart from when his brother Jack collected him and took him to the farm for the afternoon, or when Mam drove him to the doctor or the hospital for a check-up, so any kind of shopping voucher was useless.

He didn’t really do
anything
any more – and he could eat only so many of his favourite fruit pastilles. Last year he ended up with three boxes of them.

Luke hadn’t given him pastilles – he’d given him a 100-piece jigsaw, which was still sitting on a shelf in the sitting room, unopened. Mam explained to Luke that his father’s concentration was gone, that he wouldn’t be able to keep his attention on the jigsaw, but Luke felt he could at least have tried.

Before he went upstairs to bed that evening, he asked his mother to call him when she was leaving for work in the morning.

She looked surprised. ‘You don’t want a lie-in, on Christmas Eve?’

‘Nah – I’ve stuff to do.’

She gave a tiny smile and turned back to the TV screen. ‘About half eight so?’

‘Yeah, thanks. Night.’

‘Goodnight, love. Sleep tight.’

Luke left the sitting room and tiptoed into his
father’s room next door. There was a faint glow from the nightlight in the corner, enough for Luke to make out the hump of his father’s body under the bedclothes. The room was hot, and smelt of toothpaste.

Luke sat in the chair beside the bed. His father’s eyes were closed, and his breathing was quick and shallow, like a small child’s, with a little wheeze at the end of every in-breath. One of his hands lay palm up on the pillow beside his head. From next door Luke could still hear the muffled sound of the TV.

He reached over and laid his hand gently, palm to palm, on his father’s. He felt the warm breath coming from his father’s mouth. He watched the tiny lift and fall of the bedclothes. He stroked his father’s cheek lightly, felt the roughness of the stubble.

He whispered ‘Dad’, too softly to be heard.

His father’s breathing didn’t change. Luke sat back in the chair and watched, and pretended.

When his father was asleep, pretending was easier. Pretending that the birthday party hadn’t even happened on that horrible day, or that Luke had got sick and couldn’t go. Or that Mam had a day off from work and came to bring him home instead of Dad, and stopped at all the red lights on the way home.

Pretending that when Dad woke up, he’d look at
Luke and ruffle his hair and say, ‘How’s my son and heir?’ just like he used to.

Just like nothing had ever happened to him.

After a few minutes, Luke tiptoed from the room and went upstairs to bed.

He was waiting outside Brady’s Electrical when it opened at half past nine the next morning. The woman who unlocked the door looked at him.

‘Hello there.’ She glanced up the street behind him. ‘Are you all on your own?’

‘I want to buy a washing machine,’ Luke said. ‘That one.’ He pointed to the window.

She followed his finger, then looked back at him doubtfully. ‘You know how much it costs?’

‘Four hundred and nine euro,’ Luke told her, wondering why she couldn’t see the price written clearly on the top. ‘Can you deliver it today?’

She smiled. ‘First things first,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’ As Luke followed her into the shop, she asked, ‘Is it a present?’

‘Yeah,’ Luke said. ‘A surprise, for my mother.’

She stopped and looked back at him. ‘Did you save all the money yourself?’

Luke nodded. Then he thought maybe she didn’t believe him, so he pulled the bulky brown envelope out of his pocket and held it out to her.

She didn’t take it, just looked at it in his hand for a few seconds. Then she gave a quick look around the shop and said, more softly, ‘You know, this isn’t a good time to buy a washing machine.’

It wasn’t what Luke was expecting to hear. He lowered the envelope slowly. ‘Why not?’

He had no idea that it mattered
when
you bought a washing machine. Didn’t people wash clothes all year round?

‘Because our sale is starting on Friday,’ the woman explained. ‘And that washing machine will be reduced by fifteen percent.’ She turned towards a nearby desk. ‘Here – I’ll tell you how much you’ll save if you can wait till then.’

Luke watched as she tapped numbers into a calculator. Then she turned back to him.

‘Sixty-one euro and thirty-five cents,’ she said. ‘That’s how much cheaper it’ll be on Friday.’

Luke thought quickly. He could buy pretty good presents for everyone with sixty euro – and Mam would still have her machine, just a few days later. Then he thought of something.

‘What if someone else comes in today and buys it?’ he asked. It wouldn’t be much good reducing the price of a machine that wasn’t there any more.

‘You can pay me a deposit,’ the woman explained.
‘And I’ll hold it for you.’ She winked at Luke. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, because we’re not supposed to do that for the sales. Make sure you look for me when you come back on Friday to pay the balance, OK?’ She pointed to the nametag pinned to her blouse. ‘Look for Jenny.’

Ten minutes later, Luke left the shop with three hundred and sixty euro in his envelope, and a receipt for the fifty euro he’d given Jenny to make sure the washing machine would still be there on Friday.

He bought an annual for Anne, a HMV voucher for Helen, a pair of slippers for Dad, a box of perfumed drawer liners for Granny and a gift set of hand cream and body lotion for Mam. He wouldn’t mention the washing machine until Friday.

On the way home he went into the newsagents and bought a Happy New Year card and a stamp. He felt a bit guilty that he hadn’t sent a Christmas card to his penfriend – even though the one she sent him was no great shakes, all crinkled and messy looking when he pulled it out of the envelope, and loads of little sparkly bits falling off it onto his jeans. She must have used too much glue or something. But at least she’d made the effort.

After tea he wrapped all his presents with the roll of shiny red paper he’d bought. Then he hid them
under his bed and took out the card. It had a bunch of flowers on the front – she’d probably like that.

For the first time, he wondered what she looked like. She’d never said anything about that. He tried to remember how he’d described himself in his first letter. Black hair with blue tips, wasn’t it? Something about tattoos – and didn’t he say he had something pierced, his nose or eyebrow or something?

Just as well his penfriend hadn’t asked for his photo, because absolutely none of that was true. His hair was muddy brown, not black at all, with no coloured tips, and he definitely had no tattoos or earrings – Mam would go mad if he tried anything like that.

And all the stuff about Dad being an astronaut, and Helen a model, and the rubbish about the racehorses – and didn’t he tell her they lived in a big fancy house with a lake out the back? He wondered what she’d say if she ever found out the truth.

He wished he knew for sure if she made anything up when she wrote to him – how would he ever know? Her life could be totally different, like his was.

He licked the stamp and stuck it the right way up on the envelope – just for fun, just to see if she’d notice. Then he opened the card and began to write.

On Christmas Day Elma woke early, and called Zac and Dylan, and they all ran downstairs together to open their presents. It didn’t take long. She got a book and a crinkly red top. She’d already read the book about two years earlier, and when she tried on the top, it was so small that one of the seams ripped. Their mother came in as Zac and Dylan opened a big pile of packages that turned out to contain Pokemon figures. Dylan looked kind of sulky, and Zac started to cry. He looked at his mother. ‘Why didn’t Santa know that Dylan and me don’t play with Pokemon any more?’ he wailed.

Elma thought her mum was going to cry, too, but she turned away quickly, and went into the kitchen.

Elma hugged her brothers and gave them each a small chocolate reindeer she’d bought for them the day before. ‘Happy Christmas, guys,’ she said, as she wondered if there was any hope of Christmas actually turning out to be anything other than totally horrible.

After breakfast their dad came down. He’d made a kind of an effort, and had actually got dressed, but his trousers were all creased, and his jumper looked like someone had slept in it.

‘What did Santa bring you boys?’ he asked.

Dylan turned away, almost as if he hadn’t heard the question. Zac went to find the biggest of his new Pokemon. By then, though, their dad had walked into the TV room, and was already engrossed in a programme about baby turtles.

Elma helped her mum to tidy up the kitchen, and then everyone went to sit in the TV room. The first row was because Dad refused to allow the TV to be switched to anything besides the National Geographic Channel.

The second row was because Zac, who didn’t really understand what was wrong, was trying to make things better by loudly and enthusiastically playing with his unwanted toys. This was fine for about a minute and a half, until Dad started shouting at Zac
for being so noisy, and Mum started shouting at Dad for being so mean, and Zac cried softly, and Dylan sat in a corner with a white face and said nothing at all.

The third row was over a box of chocolates, and after that, Elma stopped counting. The day dragged slowly on, with short periods of calm divided up by bouts of loud shouting.

Dinner was OK – if you just ate the slices of turkey that didn’t have any of Mum’s lumpy gravy on them. While the rest of the family was fighting over the last soggy potato, Elma sneaked her plate into the back yard and fed the brown-covered bits to Snowball. Snowball didn’t seem to mind and even wagged his tail a bit. Elma was glad that at least someone was happy. She patted him and was rewarded with a big puff of gravy-breath.

Even though she was allowed to stay up as late as she liked, Elma went to bed at ten. Bed was less scary than listening to all those fights. As she lay there with her eyes closed, she realised why the day had been so bad – it was the first day in a very long time that her mum had spent at home. For the first day in ages and ages, her mum had no work to go to, and with a jolt of sadness, Elma understood that the biggest problem of all was that her parents could no longer bear to be together.

Boxing Day was nearly as bad as the day before, and after that things began to get a bit better, as Elma’s mum left the house more and more to go to work. Elma wondered what kind of offices needed cleaning two days after Christmas. Was her mum like the woman she’d seen on TV once, who left her house every morning pretending to go to work, but really spent her time hanging around parks and shopping centres?

One morning, about four days after Christmas, when her mum was gone out, and the boys were playing in their bedroom, Elma decided it was time to talk to her dad. She waited for an ad-break, and then pounced. Before he could react, she switched off the television and ran to sit beside her dad.

‘Dad,’ she said in her gentlest voice. ‘Why don’t you go back to work?’

He looked at her, and she tried to ignore his wrinkled top and his unshaven chin. He gave a big sigh. ‘You know I can’t work, love. I’ll never work again.’

Elma took a deep breath. ‘The doctor said you’ll never work
as a plumber
again. But you could do something else.’

‘Like what?’

Elma sighed. How was she supposed to know stuff
like that? ‘I don’t know, Dad. But you could find out. Why don’t you get dressed, and we could go and look in the window of the job centre?’

‘But–’

Elma ignored him. ‘We could bring Snowball. He’d love the walk.’

Elma thought she’d die if anyone saw her in public with Snowball, but it would be worth it if it got Dad out of the house.

For a moment she thought she could see a flicker of life in her father’s eyes, then it faded as quickly as it had come. He reached for the remote control. ‘Thanks, love,’ he said. ‘I’m a bit tired today. Maybe we’ll do it next week. Now turn the TV back on, there’s a good girl.’

Elma stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She felt like crying, or screaming, or something, but what was the point? It wouldn’t change anything. Then she punched the wall anyway, just because she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

The bruise lasted for eight days.

Elma trudged into school after the holidays, with Zac and Dylan trailing behind her. She felt sorry for them, of course she did, but she felt sorry for herself, too, and what good did that do her?

As soon as she walked into the classroom, Evil Josh came over. ‘Did you have a nice Christmas?’ he asked. ‘Did you get lots of lovely lumpy gravy every day? Did your dad have any more stupid accidents?’

Elma felt like hitting him, but she didn’t fancy a day sitting in the headmaster’s office, so she resisted, and walked away, biting her tongue.

Just then Tara came in. She raced over to Elma and hugged her. ‘Elma, great to see you,’ she said. ‘Did you have the best Christmas ever? I so did. I got the best presents. I got an Ipod with the coolest skin ever, and a big box of make-up, and a whole new outfit, oh and loads of other stuff. And me and my family went ice-skating, and bowling, and we went to the panto, and …’

She kept talking, but Elma stopped listening. She didn’t want to be mean to her friend, but it was just too awful. Why couldn’t she have a nice life like Tara?

Just then Mrs Lawrence came in, clutching a bundle of envelopes.

‘Settle down, children,’ she said. ‘Now, here are your letters from Ireland, and since it’s the first day back, I am going to allow you to read them, and reply at once.’

Elma took her envelope and examined it. For once
Luke Mitchell had managed to stick his stamp the right way up. In a way she was disappointed. She opened the envelope and pulled out a Happy New Year card. It didn’t seem like the kind of card Luke would buy. Maybe his mum had bought it for him? She sighed as she read what he’d written inside.
His
Christmas dinner sounded really good.

But she wished he wouldn’t keep going on about gravy. What had she been thinking of, telling him her mum was writing a book about gravy? The book her mum should have written was
How to Turn your Back on your Family and Pretend not to Notice that it was Falling Apart
.

Elma struggled to read a bit that for some reason Luke had crossed out. Something about a surprise for his mum. She wondered why he’d crossed it out. Then she looked around and noticed that everyone else had already started their letters, so she pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write.

Just then Elma heard Mrs Lawrence coming up behind her desk. She jumped up, ran to the waste paper basket, and shredded her letter into tiny, fluttery little pieces. She smiled at Mrs Lawrence as she went back to her seat. ‘I made a spelling mistake,’ she said. Then she got a new piece of paper, and began again.