‘Wonderful. You must be proud of him. What does he do?’
I knew she knew. ‘He’s a historian. He writes papers. And books, and he’s made TV shows and everything. He’s just finished a series of books for children. He’s been on TV.’
People talked about how my dad managed to make history ‘come alive’ for children. Mum’s friends stopped mentioning Graham when they came to the house; they stopped asking how we were. All they wanted to do was meet Dad; you could see it in the way they looked past me and Mum. Everyone talked about the way Dad could ‘connect’ with his students. I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded nice. I wished he could ‘connect’ with me.
‘I just want him to notice me again,’ I said. ‘I want it to be how it was before.’
‘Oh, Evie. It will get better. Everyone deals with tragedies differently. Your dad lost his son. It’ll take time.’
‘But I’m still here,’ I said. ‘Can’t he see that? I’m still here.’
It wasn’t easy getting the bike down from the attic but, somehow, I managed. I was keen to do it before Mum got back and, somehow, after a struggle that broke two of my nails, gouged out a small section of wallpaper and left a smear of oil on the paint of the attic door, both the bike and I were on the landing. I bumped it down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I examined it more thoroughly, remembering the do-it-yourself tutorials Dad had given Graham and me in this very room; the reluctant (on my part) Sunday afternoons spent learning how to oil our chains, flip off the tyres and change the inner tubes. The bike needed a bit of a service, a good re-grease and a couple of new tyres, but, aside from that, it was in good shape. I lay newspaper over the kitchen floor, dug out the toolkit and the oilcan from under the stairs and, cranking up the radio, got to work.
I didn’t hear Mum come in, not until she snapped off the radio, causing me to jerk up from where I was slowly dripping oil into the chain. I was starting to wonder if I’d actually have to take the bike for a professional service; the chain was more dilapidated than I’d originally thought, and the brake blocks definitely needed changing.
Mum was breathing heavily, her basket of shopping dropped at her feet, Richard hovering behind her. ‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was quiet, but a red spot high on each cheek belied her calmness.
‘Oh hi!’ I said, realising at once that I’d underestimated her. Woefully underestimated her. Of course she would remember Dad’s bike. I looked at the floor, my cheeks burning in shame. I could have handled it so much better. How could I have been so stupid to think she wouldn’t recognise the bike?
‘WHAT. IS. THAT?’
‘Umm …’
‘Is it your father’s?’
I nodded feeling like an eight-year-old. I could feel my lip curling like I was going to cry. I made a mistake! I wanted to say. Go away and I’ll put it back and we’ll pretend it never happened! ‘It was in the attic,’ I said.
‘And what are you doing to it?’ Mum’s words were clipped.
‘I was just taking a look at it …’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason. Just … I wondered what you wanted to do with it.’
‘Well, mark my words, young lady. You will not be riding that bike. You hear me?’
‘What?’
‘I said, you are not riding that bike.’
‘But …’
‘But nothing. Now you’ve got it down, you may as well put it outside for the bin men. But mark my words, if I catch you …’ Mum let out a stifled scream and steamed out of the room, fury stuck to her like a swarm of bees.
‘It was twenty years ago!’ I shouted after her, suddenly furious myself. ‘When are you going to face up to it? He’s dead! They are both dead!’ I dropped the oilcan and collapsed onto my knees on the kitchen floor.
Richard looked sadly at me and shook his head. ‘To be fair, Evie, that was a bit much.’
‘To be fair, Richard,’ I snapped, ‘it’s none of your business.’
I waited for him to leave the room, then stood up, rubbing out the ache in the small of my back. I wheeled the bike out into the garden and around the side of the house, where I propped it up by the bins. I’d decide what to do with it later.
‘Evie, what happened?’ Miss Dawson asked. ‘The school called. I came as quickly as I could. What happened?’
I liked that Miss Dawson didn’t ask if I was all right. Even my teacher had spotted that I wasn’t all right. When I hadn’t been able to stop crying in class, she’d led me to the nurse’s room and asked her to phone my mum.
‘No! Not Mum!’ I’d curled in a ball on the narrow bed and wished I could stay there forever.
‘Who then?’ Nurse had asked. ‘Is your dad around?’
I’d shaken my head.
Nurse had tut-tutted. ‘Who then? Miss Dawson?’ and I’d agreed with a nod.
Now Miss Dawson was here, I knew I had to talk to her. I pulled myself up so I was sitting on the bed.
‘It’s Dingbat,’ I said.
Miss Dawson waited.
‘Hamster,’ I hiccupped. ‘He’s dead.’ I scrubbed at my eyes with the balled-up tissue I’d been holding all morning, my breath still jagged.
‘Oh, Evie. I’m sorry to hear that.’ Miss Dawson rubbed a hand over her face.
But it wasn’t that Dingbat was dead. Well, it was, but it wasn’t like Miss Dawson thought. Dingbat had been Graham’s hamster. He’d got him when he’d turned ten—for his last birthday. He’d begged and pleaded, claiming he’d look after the hamster one hundred per cent himself. Mum hadn’t thought Graham would manage, but Dad had persuaded her to give him the benefit of the doubt and Graham had hand-picked Dingbat from a heap of ginger-and-white fluff at the pet shop. And, to Mum’s surprise, he’d looked after Dingbat really well, feeding him, changing his water, peeling grapes for him and even cleaning out his cage. He’d really loved him. After the accident, I’d taken over caring for Dingbat. It made me feel like I was with Graham.
‘He was Graham’s,’ I said.
‘It’s very sad when pets die,’ Miss Dawson said carefully. ‘And it must be very hard for you with … Dingbat? … because he was a link to Graham?’
‘Mmm.’ I didn’t know what to say. I was supposed to be able to tell Miss Dawson anything, but I didn’t know if I could tell her what had happened yesterday after school. Whenever I thought about it, I started to shake.
I’d gone into the kitchen to ask for a biscuit. Mum had been standing at Dingbat’s cage. The cage door was open and Mum had been holding Dingbat, letting him run from one hand to the other as she stared out of the window at the garden. At the exact moment that I opened my mouth to ask for the biscuit, Mum had spun around with a scream and hurled Dingbat at the kitchen wall. I could still hear the crunch of his little body slamming into the wall, the thud of him landing on the tiled floor.
‘Mummy!’