Mummy Knew by Lisa James Page A

anyone else who cared about me. Sometimes at night, as I lay in my bed listening to the familiar grunts and groans emanating from the room next door, I’d think about how much I loved Nanny and Jenny and all those precious memories from the time when I lived with them. When I turned my thoughts to Diane, Cheryl and Davie, I felt bereft. It was almost as if they were dead–but this was worse. I knew they were out there in the world somewhere, living a life, and I wondered if they ever thought about me. Christmas came and went, and then my birthday, and I didn’t get a card from any of them. All evidence that they had ever existed in my life was erased.
    As time passed, I trained myself not to think about the family I had lost, even at night, because if I did, my heart felt heavy and my eyes filled with tears. The pain was too much. It became so ingrained in me not to mention my missing family members that they seemed part of another life altogether. Now if people at school asked me how many brothers and sisters I had, I wouldn’t even hesitate to follow Dad’s instructions. I just had one: Kat.

Chapter Seven
    O ne day when I got home from school Dad wasn’t there and Mum told me he had gone to prison. She gave no explanation other than to say, ‘They done him up like a kipper. He’s gone inside.’ But I knew it was for drink-driving offences in friends’ cars. He had been banned and fined quite a few times and I think he’d gone on to have an accident so the courts had lost patience with him. I was pleased because just like the last time he left home for a week or so, before he and Mum got married, the oppressive atmosphere in the house lifted.
    He was gone for a few blissful months. It was as if a weight had been lifted from me, and from Mum. I skipped home from school every day, free of fear and worry. Mum was cheerful, a different person. The lines of worry that had characterised her face for so long began to soften. I wondered if my sisters or brother would visit now that Dad was safely out of the way.
    ‘Can Cheryl come over, Mum?’ I asked. It felt odd saying the name out loud.
    ‘Shush!’ she said urgently. ‘We don’t want Kat repeating that when he gets back.’
    So that was it. She was concerned that Dad would find out so we couldn’t get in touch with them.
    Mum wrote to Dad every few days. She would sit at the dining-room table, black biro in one hand, cigarette in the other, and scribble away. She used to keep the letters he sent her in the bottom of the sideboard. I couldn’t help sneaking a look at one. The paper was light blue and very thin and crinkly. I could barely read his handwriting, but the words I did make out were rude and full of the things he was going to do to her when he got back. I didn’t understand most of them but they sounded harsh and terrifying, certainly not loving.
    I knew he must be coming back soon when Mum sat down to cross off whole months’ worth of days on the calendar. She obviously wanted him to think she had been pining for him and counting the days, when in reality I had never seen her so relaxed and happy.
    Just as suddenly as he had disappeared, he came back, and the familiar black cloud settled once again. They spent the first few days locked in their bedroom. Mum would get up, go to work and then go back to bed with him, while I stayed off school and looked after Kat. Sometimes they would lock us out in the garden, which by now was overgrown with weeds. I never did get to plant the flower and vegetable garden I’d wanted.
    After a couple of days of peace, the rows started again. Dad began shouting, swearing and smashing things, convinced Mum had been with other men while he was in prison, and she did her best to placate him. It was her habit to try and make light of things, hoping to appeal to whatever good sensehe had left: ‘You’re being silly now,’ she’d say. Sometimes this worked and Dad would run out of steam and accept a cup of tea and a