Don't You Love Your Daddy? (18 page)

I felt resentful of her criticism. I did as much as I could to help after school and at weekends. Billy now slept in the house in Pete’s old room while my grandmother and aunt still looked after him during the day. I helped him dress and undress in the mornings and evenings, and I amused him while Sue polished her nails or flicked through a glossy magazine.

A few weeks later I found out why my school uniform had to wait. The wonderful surprise was that we were moving. Sue’s father had bought them a brand new house and the building work had just been completed. It was now almost ready to move into. Evidently part of his business was near to where he lived and he needed someone to run it, and Sue had persuaded him that not only was her new husband the right person for the job but that she would be happier living nearer to her parents. It became clear that my father had known all this before the wedding and that they had just been waiting for their house, which was on a new estate, to be finished. Neither Pete nor I nor our grandparents had known of this.

When I first heard we were going to live in a new house, I thought my father meant in another part of our village. ‘Where is it?’ I asked, thinking it was going to be one of the new Wimpy homes that were springing up like mushrooms on the outskirts of our village. To my dismay, I was told that we were moving right away from all that was familiar to near where the wedding had been.

‘You’ll love it, Sally,’ my father said, in the tone he had used when he had told me I would love having a new mummy. He had been wrong about that and I was convinced he would be wrong about this.

Noticing that my face had not broken into a wide smile of joy, Sue chipped in. Her firm tone told me it would be useless to argue with her: ‘Sally, it’s where your daddy’s going to work now, so it makes sense. Anyhow, you’ll have a lovely surprise when you see it. The house is beautiful and everything’s going to be brand new.’ But however much Sue gushed and my father enthused, I could only stare at them in horror. We were moving from our house, the one my mother had loved, the only one that Billy and I had ever called home.

‘But what about going to school?’ I asked, for some reason not taking it in that there were schools in every town and that that would be the least of my problems.

I was told that I was already enrolled in a new one and that Billy’s name had been put down for the infants. ‘He’ll be old enough to start there in a few months,’ she added.

It was then that her words sank in. The thought of not having my grandmother on the doorstep terrified me.

‘You’ll make lots of new friends there,’ she said, with confidence, ignoring the fact that it was my cousins I played with, not my classmates.

‘What about Nana?’ I said.

‘Oh, you’ll be able to visit her and she can visit you,’ was the answer, and my heart sank even further, for Nana was the one person in my life who I knew loved me. I thought of the journey to the wedding and how long it had taken. My grandparents didn’t own a car and I knew it would take hours for them to get to us by bus.

The thought of only having Sue and my father to care for me made me feel as though a dark hole was opening up beneath my feet. On the pretext of going to my grandmother’s house I went to wait for Pete to return to his digs after he finished work.

‘That was her plan all along, I bet,’ he said angrily, when I told him of Sue’s announcement. ‘She didn’t want to live near our grandparents because she wants Dad all to herself. Selfish bitch! She doesn’t care about you or Billy. Anyhow, I bet she doesn’t think they’re good enough for her. And her sort certainly doesn’t want to be seen living on a council estate.’ Although my brother had refused to speak to my father since he had heard of the wedding plans and hadn’t met his new stepmother, he had observed her from a distance and formed his own unflattering opinions.

I found out much later that Pete was right in all respects. Sue’s father had offered to put mine in charge of the local business operation and helped them buy the house in the village. My father’s only concern had been the effect on his marriage of uprooting two young children who had lost their mother from their extended family. But, most of all, he knew by now that Sue was not a natural mother and he was concerned with moving Billy and me away from the grandmother who had cared for us.

It was Sue herself who told me, in one of her nasty bitchy outbursts, but not until much later. She had seen my grandmother as interfering and the rest of my father’s family as common and overbearing. She had been determined to start her married life well away from them, even if it meant she had to look after Billy and me.

But at the time, of course, I was too young to understand and was totally unaware of it when I talked to my brother.

‘You’ll just have to accept it, Sally,’ he said, when he looked at my dismal face. Bitterly he continued, ‘There’s no way she wants to stay here. Dad’s fallen on his feet, all right, hasn’t he? As soon as Mum’s buried he wants to show off Sue. Of course her dad bought that house for them. He’s rolling in it – the lads at work told me. I ’spect she can get anything she wants off him. She’s the only daughter and, from what I’ve heard, she’s got him wrapped round her little finger.’

As he saw the tears welling in my eyes my brother reached out his arm and drew me to him. ‘Don’t worry, Sally, we’ll still see each other when you come to visit Nana,’ he said, giving me a little hug. ‘I’ll miss you and Billy, but I’m pleased I’m not going too.’ He gave me another hug, then walked towards the door of the friend’s house where he was staying. I watched him as he slouched along with his hands in his pockets but he didn’t turn round. I realized that he, too, was lonely and that it wasn’t just my grandmother I was going to miss.

‘Can’t I stay here with you?’ I asked my grandmother plaintively, the next time I saw her. ‘I don’t want to move away from you – I need you, Nana, and so does Billy.’

‘Sally, you know you have to go with them,’ was the answer she gave.

‘Well, if you don’t want me, what about Aunt Janet? She does, I know she does. She’s said so.’

‘Sally, stop this nonsense. Your daddy wants you and so does Sue,’ she exclaimed.

At that I burst into tears and told her again that I didn’t want to move. ‘I’ll never see you,’ I said. ‘Why have we got to move? What’s wrong with our house?’ My voice broke and I started sobbing. As my body shook with despair all I could think was that with the move I would have no one left.

Nana told me firmly not to be silly and to dry my eyes. Of course I would see her often. I would come to visit and she would come to our new house as well.

I looked at her dubiously; her words with their unsteady lack of conviction seemed as much for her as for me. ‘But it won’t be the same,’ I howled, and to that she had no answer for, of course, it wouldn’t be. She knew I was moving away from everything that was familiar and all remnants of my mother.

‘Sally, Sue’s father has helped them buy a lovely new house. It has a large garden and Dolly’s going to like having more space to run around in, isn’t she?’

‘I suppose,’ I mumbled, as I tried to staunch the tears. That Dolly was coming was some consolation.

It was then that she gave me the photograph of my mother; the one that showed her windswept and smiling. She had put it in a pretty gilt frame especially for me. ‘I thought you’d like to take this with you,’ she said. I ran my fingers slowly over the glass, stroking her features, and thought longingly of her.

One Saturday morning I sat moping at the kitchen table. Dolly was outside in the garden as Sue had banned her from the kitchen while we ate or prepared food. As Sue was drinking her coffee and nibbling at dry toast, she dropped another bombshell.

Her large magnifying mirror was propped against the cereal box and she squinted as, tweezers in hand, she looked for any hair that might have sprung up to disturb the narrow line of an eyebrow. I stared, fascinated – my mother had never done anything like this. Eventually she glanced at me. ‘Oh, Sally,’ she said pleasantly. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Dolly.’ Almost as though she had heard her name, my dog started whining to be let in. Sue studiously ignored her. ‘I think we’ll have to look for another home for her when we go to the new house.’

‘No!’ I said, shocked.

‘Well, Sally, I know you’re very fond of her, but she might not like a move.’

I didn’t believe that Sue was in the least bit bothered about Dolly’s feelings. If she wasn’t concerned about mine, she would scarcely consider a little dog’s. ‘She likes being with me, wherever I am,’ I said stubbornly.

Light grey eyes steadily held mine, and a slim hand rested briefly on my wrist. I knew that this was one battle I couldn’t let her win. ‘I can’t let her go. She was a special present from Daddy,’ I said. ‘He gave her to me and he loves her too!’

‘He gave her to you when you were still upset about your mother,’ she replied quickly, ‘but now that we’re moving to a new house and a new life, things will be different for you. And you have me as your mummy now.’

The instinct for self-preservation told me to be quiet and bide my time. It was my father I would have to get round, and I decided to wait until we were all together at the table to tackle him. Making Sue really angry wasn’t going to help me or Dolly.

Thinking that my silence meant she had won, Sue put down her tweezers and focused on painting her nails pale pink with slow, careful strokes.

‘Daddy,’ I said, when he came and sat down, ‘I can’t let Dolly be given away and go to another home when we move. I just can’t.’

I saw by the almost guilty expression that came over his face that he and Sue had already discussed the little dog’s fate.

‘Well, Sue thought –’

I gave him no chance to repeat her words. I just turned my face so I was looking directly at him and stared him in the eyes. ‘But, Daddy, you gave her to me. You remember the day when you said she was mine, don’t you?’ I held his gaze.

He did, I saw that – and I also knew that he recalled only too clearly the day he had brought her home and what had followed in my bedroom later. Since his marriage his hands had not touched me but his eyes had. Too often I had caught him looking at my legs under their short skirts not to be aware of what he was thinking about. I watched his face closely because I knew he remembered the real reason that Dolly had become part of our family.

I heard Sue say, ‘David,’ as she tried to regain his attention. I heard her say something about new cream carpets and germs, but for once he took no notice of her as we stared each other out.

‘Oh, all right! She can stay, but you make sure you look after her. Sue has quite enough to do,’ he said finally. I felt a surge of something like power. At last I had manipulated a situation in my favour.

‘Oh, Davie darling, I thought we’d agreed,’ Sue said, with a hint of barely concealed annoyance.

‘Well, Sally does love her. I really didn’t think she’d mind so much.’

That, I knew, was a lie. He just hadn’t thought I would stand up to him. ‘As long as Sally looks after her and she stays outside or in the kitchen, of course,’ he added.

I saw a flash of rage cross Sue’s face and knew that she would be unforgiving at having lost the argument over Dolly. But it was worth it if I could keep my beloved little dog.

We moved at the weekend. The night before we left I had packed up my room and Billy’s. I had put our clothes in suitcases, and his toys and my books fitted into two cardboard boxes. Then we had all gone to my grandmother’s house for supper. Just as Sue had once monopolized the conversation with her wedding plans, now she enthused non-stop about the new house.

As usual my grandfather said very little, just commented that it all sounded very nice, but my normally talkative grandmother was unusually quiet. When we left and returned home I felt sad and dispirited. I wondered if I would ever again have a meal with all of the family members I loved so much.

The next morning, after a rushed breakfast, suitcases were piled into Sue’s and my father’s cars. My grandmother arrived to say goodbye, but after a cup of tea Sue looked at her watch and said it was time to leave.

‘What about everything else?’ I asked.

‘Oh, someone’s coming to take it all away,’ Sue said airily.

I looked at the settee where I had sat with my mother, at the cushions I had watched her making, and remembered the lovely blue quilt on my bed, which she had tucked around me at night. Surely Sue couldn’t mean that nothing else was coming with us. ‘But what about …’ I was thinking of all the china and ornaments my mother had loved and the bits of silver I had polished with her.

Sue waved a hand at me in a gesture that told me to be quiet. ‘Sally, we’re going to have lovely new stuff. We don’t need all this tat,’ she said impatiently.

Then we were outside and I watched as the meagre sum of the possessions Sue had allowed us to take was packed into the two cars. With Sue following behind I sat next to my father on the long drive to where the new house was. It was at the end of a cul-de-sac where another five identical houses stood. With its red bricks and wooden window-frames, it looked like a smaller version of Sue’s parents’ house. There was a lawn at the front and a double garage at the side, and when I walked round it I saw that outside the french windows there was a tiled patio and more lawn and garden.