Flour Babies - Anne Fine [17]
‘Can I go on ahead, Mum?’
‘Simon, please! I won’t be much longer. This is the last game.’
Maybe it was. But as soon as they finished playing it, Muni’s good friend Sue would always act as if Simon’s misery and restlessness were just something best ignored, like gnats or rain, and sweep his mother along to the club room for her idea of ‘just one quick drink’. If Simon so much as opened his mouth to complain, he was treated to an earful along with his Coca-Cola.
‘Simon, please! It was a hard game, and I’m thirsty. We’ll only be a few minutes. Try and be patient.’
He’d sit in a separate booth, sullenly stirring the bubbles out of his drink with his straw while she and Sue gassed away: ‘Her husband…’ ‘My father…’ ‘Their neighbours…’ ‘His daughter…’ He’d glance round the club room for the ninetieth time. No one his age. No one to stand beside at the machines. No one to muck about with in the lavatories.
He’d hang over the partition between their two booths.
‘Why can’t I stay home by myself?’
‘Soon, sweetheart. As soon as you’re old enough.’
‘I could have a babysitter.’
‘Simon! It’s once a week! For one hour! You know this is practically the only time I ever get to go out. Now don’t be a pain!’
And he’d been nine or ten. She didn’t even have to watch out for him. He wasn’t going to fall out of a bush and get covered in mud, or be kidnapped and kicked to bits in the changing rooms…
Round the last corner! He could see the worst! Was that really the flour baby, still safely hidden in the bush? Did the bundle of towel look as bulky as when he first stuffed it in there? Or had –?
Once more the ball rolled between his feet, unchecked.
‘I’m warning you, Martin! One more duff yard, and you’ll be following this with fifty press-ups!’
It wasn’t a job for one person, that was the truth of it. To look after a flour baby, you needed two. A substitute. A reserve. Someone with no particular plans for the evening. He’d heard his mother saying as much often enough herself when she couldn’t find a babysitter, or they couldn’t afford one. It would have been a whole lot easier if there’d been two of them, that was for sure. Odd, then, to realize he’d never heard her wishing his father back again (unless you counted the time she’d stood at the end of his bed and said rather sourly: ‘So. Mumps. Pity your father’s not here to look after you…’).
But Simon had missed him. Oh, not personally. It wasn’t possible to miss someone whom you’d never known, and whose face was a rather blurry picture. The person Simon missed was someone he had made up. Dark and curly-haired, as in the few poor photos he’d found lying about in drawers. And with a splendid singing voice, as even Gran still admitted. “A glorious tenor. When he sang out, he made the rafters ring.’ But it was Simon who threw in the crinkly blue eyes and the strong hands, the grin and the genius at throwing and catching. Long hours of Simon’s childhood had been spent working out how his father would come back. One day he’d change his mind. He’d just show up, without any warning, and he and Mum would try again. And this time it would work. He’d want to stay. As Simon sauntered down Wilberforce Road each afternoon on his way back from his first school, he’d let his thoughts run riot around his father. He would be standing at the gate, his arms outstretched. He’d shout to hurry Simon. And Simon’s run would shake the paving stones under his feet, till finally he made it past the last house, and hurled himself into those strong arms.
Ten feet from the corner, Simon would slow his pace, to hold the dream a few moments longer. Then, just as he’d conjured his dad up, he’d snuff him out. Wipe him away, before turning into his own street. It was a trick he learned to keep disappointment from rising, like tears, and spoiling the pleasure of getting home.
He’d cried once, though. He hadn’t been able to help it. He’d been terribly young – only about six, for heaven’s sake. Six-year-olds cried all the time. He had the main part in the Christmas play. (Joseph the car-painter, as he thought