What They Do in the Dark - By Amanda Coe Page 0,75
to the neighbours about burglars. No one else has had a break-in or seen anything funny.
‘It’s a rum do,’ says Mum. ‘What makes us so special?’
When I look up, Ian is looking at me. His eyes jump away when they see mine.
‘Maybe they’ve got wind of what you do,’ she suggests. ‘Working with money.’
Ian sweated all the time on holiday. I can see that clean sweat of his gathering now on his temples like condensation on a warm window, even though the kitchen isn’t actually hot.
‘It’s not like you keep money in the house.’ Mum forks her beans neatly back on to the toast. Now she looks at me. I know she’ll be able to conjure Pauline Bright’s name right out of my mouth. I think of all the things I’ve taken from Pauline, that she’s given me. Surely that will get me into bad, bad trouble? Some of them have been stolen, I bet, because she’s poor and can’t afford proper clothes, let alone presents. Taking things that have been stolen is practically like stealing yourself.
But Mum passes over me to Ian. A bigger look. I can see he’s not sure whether to talk in front of me.
‘Well, maybe it’s nothing to do with that.’ He mounds up the food on his plate, eats and chews. ‘Maybe it’s closer to home.’
Mum works this out. I don’t.
‘He wouldn’t.’
‘Wouldn’t he now?’
‘Course not!’ Mum quells some uncomfortable words, like burps, before she allows a few smaller sour ones out. ‘Wouldn’t have the get-up-and-go, for a start.’
‘Maybe you should give him a ring.’
They’re talking about Dad. Ian is talking about Dad as though he really is a burglar, as though he’s a baddie. But really, Ian’s taken Mum away from Dad, and that makes him the baddie. I’m living with the baddies. And since I’m definitely a goodie, that must make me their prisoner.
Suncream.
I don’t hear Mum making a phone call to Dad, or even Ian ringing the police, because I fall asleep quickly from the travelling and the early start. But next morning, I wake up early and hear Ian getting ready for work and leaving without Mum getting up with him, which is unusual. I wonder if we’ll go out later to get the uniform. There’s only one shop in town that sells it, Cooper and Sons. I know its window but I’ve never been inside. Having the uniform will turn me into someone else, more like Abigail, or even Lallie. I think that will be better. But when I hear Mum’s getting-up noises after two and a half chapters of Charlotte Sometimes and join her in the kitchen and ask, she clatters pans and says we won’t be going to Cooper and Sons today.
‘Will we go on Saturday then?’
‘Gemma!’
That’s not nagging, asking about something twice. But her tone means I’m definitely not allowed to ask about it again. I spoon up cereal, and she does the pans with her back to me. It’s funny to see her washing up wearing the same kaftan thing she wore by the pool on holiday. Her legs are really brown.
‘Ian and I have had a long talk.’
I wait for ages for her to say something else, but she doesn’t. So as I take my milky bowl to the sink for her to wash, I ask if I can go to Christina’s today to play.
‘No!’
She says it as though I’m still nagging her about the uniform, as though asking to play at Christina’s is the thing I’ve chosen to push her over the edge of unbearable exasperation. I go upstairs and cry indignantly. I want to see Christina, I want to go back to the life I had before. I call myself a goodie but I’m a receiver of stolen goods (which is a fence, I’ve seen it on Cannon), and a betrayer of my dad. Ian might go round and punch him if he thinks he’s a burglar. He might even call the police and get them to arrest him, and then I’ll have to tell them I know it’s Pauline, and why, and I’ll be the one the police will arrest once they know about the Kit Kat and the tights. There’s the guitar charm she gave me as well: I’ve got it in my jewellery box. She said it was from her mum but what if she was lying and she stole that too? She lies all the time. Lies and steals.