Flour Babies - Anne Fine [22]
Miss Arnott had to know. Slipping from the desk, she crept round the room on her rubber soles, till she was directly behind him. She leaned forward a little, so she could see over his shoulder. And with two years of decoding the work of Russ Mould in her professional armoury, Miss Arnott no longer had any problem at all deciphering Simon’s crabbed writing and his unique spelling forms.
DAY 4
Till I was forced to lug this stupid flour baby round with me everywhere I go, I never thought about my dad having to look after me. When I asked Mum, she said he wasn’t too bad at it really. He never dropped me on my head, or left me floating face down in the bath while he went off for a towel, or anything like that.
It’s just he didn’t stay.
I’ve asked why he left before. Mum and Gran always say it didn’t have anything to do with me, it wasn’t my fault, and it was bound to have happened anyway. But last night I asked Mum how he left, and what wasen she tried to fob me off as usual, I wouldn’t let her.
Simon broke off. He wasn’t sure how to describe the next bit. Mum had rolled up her eyes, the way she always did when she was getting fed up with a conversation.
‘How many times do I have to say it, Simon? I don’t know why he left.’
‘But I’m not asking why. I’m asking how.’
‘How?’
‘Yes. How? How did he go? What did he say? What did you say? Was there a giant great row? Was Gran there?’
He leaned across the table.
‘I’m not asking you to tell me what was inside his brain. I’m asking something different.’
She was close to defeat. He knew it, and pressed his advantage home.
‘I have a right to know.’
She reached over the table and patted his hand.
‘I know, I know.’
But she said nothing more. So Simon pushed on.
‘You’ve finished with him, right? And he’s definitely finished with us. He’s disappeared, never sent any money, and never even written. I bet, after all this time, even a private detective couldn’t find him.’
He pulled his fingers out from under her hand.
‘But I’m not quite finished with him. See? There’s things I think about. Things I want to know. And this is one of them.’
He stared down at his battered knuckles, close to tears.
‘Please, Mum. Tell me about the day he left.’
And so she told him – told him everything – right down to what his father had for breakfast that morning, and what he was wearing, and even the rude things he said about the people in the next flat when their dog started barking at the postman as usual. She told him all the things his father did that morning, and what they had for lunch. She even remembered the joke he made to Sue when she came round, about needing her regular Saturday afternoon fix of cuddling the baby.
‘Me.’
‘You.’
She spread her hands, like someone trying to convince a policeman of her innocence.
‘Honestly, Simon,’ she said. ‘Nothing was different. There wasn’t anything about the day to make it special. So far as anyone could make out afterwards, your dad wasn’t in a mood, or feeling jealous or left out, or anything. In fact, when he disappeared, everyone thought that something terrible must have happened – a road accident or something. It was only afterwards we worked out that some time in the afternoon he must have packed the large blue bag and lowered it out of one of the back windows on a rope. When he strolled out of the gate, he wasn’t carrying a thing. He had his hands in his pockets and he was whistling. We thought he was going to buy beer, or a bar of chocolate or something. But he must have walked round to the back of the building, picked up his bag, and gone to the bus station – timing it perfectly for the last coach to London.’
She gave a rueful smile.
‘As soon as she heard that, of course, your Gran went wild.’
And now Simon couldn’t help smiling as well. He could imagine it. Gran down the phone on the day her son-in-law did a major bunk.
‘Volcanic!’
His mother took the opportunity to rise from the table. Clearly