If My Father Loved Me. Rosie Thomas

‘See you soon.’

      In the morning she was nowhere to be seen. While I made myself toast and a cup of tea before school I asked Ted, who was silently reading the newspaper, ‘Will Auntie Viv be coming again?’

      He looked at me as if I was mad. ‘Yes, of course she will.’ Then he refolded the Daily Express and went on reading.

      That was the beginning of quite a good time. Ted was still out of the house a lot, maybe even more than before Viv arrived, but I assumed that when he wasn’t at home with me he was with her. Viv was safe territory, I felt. She brought me her Woman and Woman’s Own every week when she had finished reading them. She played about with devising hairstyles for me and chatted about lipsticks and clothes. One evening she brought a glass bottle with a bulb spray out of her handbag. She sprayed the insides of my wrists and showed me how to rub them together to warm the skin.

      ‘What do you think?’ Her face was pink with excitement.

      I thought the perfume was wonderful. It smelled of cloves and carnations, and it made me think of velvet dresses and candle-light reflected in tall mirrors. Ted stood watching us, one hand slipped into his jacket pocket, one eyebrow raised.