Jenn Ashworth - Cold Light

‘Hmm,’ Barbara said. I bit my lip. It looked like she was weighing it up.

‘Do you know what he was doing?’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘Terry.’ She dropped the spoon into the sink and started to open and close cupboards, bringing out plates and setting the table. ‘That’s your problem, Lola. You’ve no natural curiosity. You don’t care about anything unless it’s spelled out to you, letters six foot high and two inches away from your nose. Have you put your shoes away?’

‘Yes, I’ve put them away.’

‘I’ll check. He was asking the man behind the counter if he could buy fifty pee’s worth of petrol,’ she said triumphantly. ‘There, isn’t that funny?’

‘Hilarious.’

‘I didn’t even know you could do that,’ she said, and put the plates in the oven to warm up. ‘Still, your father likes to put the petrol in the car. He says if I get to drive, he gets to do the fuelling.’

I interrupted her. ‘Can I go? I need two pounds, that’s it.’

‘What happened to your Christmas money?’

I shrugged, and didn’t want to tell her I was saving it for Chloe’s prescription charge. ‘That’s my own money,’ I said, and Barbara tutted, tucked a tea-towel into the oven handle to dry, and looked at me.

‘I’m not sure I want you going out that far on your own at night,’ she said. ‘It’s dark. And anyway, you’d think –’ She went to the bottom of the stairs, shouted my father’s name at the top of her voice, and then used the broom she kept there to bang on the ceiling a couple of times.

‘What? You’d think what?’ I said. ‘You’d think on his wages, he’d be able to afford more than fifty pee’s worth.’ She shook her head, and pointed through to the front room with a pot-scourer. ‘It isn’t safe for you to be out wandering the streets.’

‘He’s stopped, hasn’t he?’

‘For the time being, perhaps. But no one’s been caught.’

‘If you give me the money,’ I said, ‘I can get a taxi back.’

Barbara shook her head. She’d already decided. ‘Hanging about near the taxi rank after dark is even worse,’ she said. ‘I can’t let you do that, I’m afraid. Much too dangerous. You know, when I was your age some man offered my brother a bag of Everton mints to drop his trousers for half a minute. Didn’t lay a hand on him, just wanted to have a look. He came back with the paper bag, pleased as punch, and my father took his belt to him.’

‘Was it a taxi driver?’ I muttered.

‘That isn’t the point, and you’ll get nowhere being clever about it. I’ve said no, and that’s that.’

She went to the stairs and shouted again, but there was no sign that Donald had heard, or was planning to come down for his tea.

‘I really need to see her,’ I said. That was a mistake. If you sounded like you really, really wanted something, it let her know it was something worth withholding – something to discipline you with.

‘We’ll see how things go tonight,’ Barbara said, turning back to her pans, ‘and maybe you can go tomorrow. Why don’t you make her a nice card?’

I had excuses prepared – something about important homework that she needed to have, or the coursework handing-in dates. I was going to tell her that Chloe’s mother would probably give me a lift home but I gave up then and when I went upstairs I let the door slam. If I wasn’t going to be allowed to go anyway, there wasn’t any point in me tiptoeing around.

Donald was sitting in his blue chair with a stack of papers on his knee. I could see him through the crack in the door, and because it was ajar, it was all right to go in. He acted surprised when he looked up and saw me, as if he’d been asleep. I wondered what the pair of them did all day when I was out at school – if they even spoke to each other at all without me being there to carry messages up the stairs.

‘Mum says tea’s nearly ready,’ I said.

‘What was all that about down there? Banging?’

‘Nothing.’

I huffed and perched on the edge of his table. It wasn’t really a desk, though he used it as one. It was the old folding table we used to eat off in the kitchen while he and Barbara were saving up for a proper one. There were scuff marks on the white Formica top and a brown ring from a hot pan left carelessly. Now it was filled with jam jars stuffed with buttons and paper clips and the pebbles Donald picked up on his walks. An old toast rack stuffed with newspapers and magazines. Stacks of hardback books with strips of torn paper hanging out of them to mark important passages he wanted to copy out later. Strange graphs and diagrams that he’d drawn with such force the paper was torn in places and the impression scored onto the surface of the table so deep that if you wanted, you could close your eyes and get the drift of Donald’s thinking through your fingertips.

‘Chloe’s not well and she’s gone to hospital and Barbara won’t give me the money to get the bus and go and see her.’

Donald didn’t shake his head or look concerned and get me to tell him what was wrong with Chloe. He acted like he hadn’t heard me at all.

‘Do you know what I found out today?’ he said softly. He reached down the side of his chair, picked up a small green drinking glass and took a sip.

‘Terry Best buys petrol in tiny amounts,’ I said. ‘My Uncle Ron dropped his pants for a few toffees. I don’t know.’

Donald laughed, as if what I’d said was the height of wit.

‘I never knew that about Ronald,’ he said, ‘but I’m not shocked about it, no I’m not. He looks like he lives at the mercy of his sweet tooth.’

I sighed. Donald had got round me. Making fun of him was like making fun of Wilson. It was easy enough to do, but you only ended up making yourself feel bad. Uncle Ron was a fairer target – bloated, angrier and more opinionated than Barbara, and apt to go missing for months at a time, turning up once or twice a year for a meal and a loan of some money. Barbara always gave him whatever she had on her, and it made me glad I didn’t have any siblings.

‘What did you find out?’ I said, and went to sit on the arm of the chair.

‘I was doing some more preparation for the Sea Eye application,’ Donald said. ‘I’m close to finishing, so you’d better root out a suitcase for me, but I’ve had a brainwave. I thought I’d better add a few lines – maybe even a whole page, on why I’d be a suitable passenger.’

I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t think of any response, so I kept quiet.

‘They do it with astronauts. Psychological evaluations. No point sending someone up there who’s claustrophobic, is there?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Well, I thought I might as well put something in about not being afraid of the water. Not being scared of drowning. Just to reassure them that if they did pick me, that wouldn’t be a limiting factor. Save them wasting their time on the head-doctors.’

‘You can’t swim,’ I said, and then bit my lip, hating that I sounded like Barbara.

‘I won’t be swimming down there,’ Donald said, settling back into his chair and resting the glass on top of the papers on his knee. ‘If all goes according to plan, I won’t even be getting wet. And if anything did go wrong with the submersible, and there was, say, a hull breach,’ he was watching me carefully, checking to see if I looked worried or not, ‘then I wouldn’t drown, either.’

‘How do you work that out?’ I say, imagining a zeppelinshaped metal box under the water, a tear in the side, and water pouring in.

‘The pressure,’ he said simply, ‘the water would rush in at such high pressure it would be more like a blade than a spray. Cut you into slices before you knew anything about it.’