Kate Hamer - The Girl in the Red Coat

As I’m playing I see two big white birds flying side by side. One’s a bit in front of the other like he’s the leader. Their necks are stuck right out and they’re flying low down, wings flapping away like it’s hard for them to stay up. I climb onto the bottom of the wall to see better and, guess what? They fly right over my head and I have to laugh at their big tummies wobbling in the air and their orange legs dangling down flappy and useless.

But that’s when I turn round and see Mum’s face at the window. Oh, she tries to go back but it’s too late. I’ve caught her checking I’m still there, like she does since the maze. Then she comes out of the back door with her coat on like it’s nothing at all and I never caught her. She smiles the sort of smile people do when they want you to stop being grumpy.

‘What was funny, Carmel?’

‘What was funny, what was funny, Carmel?’ I mutter under my breath but so she can’t hear. But I feel bad because her smile looks a bit broken. Anyway I want to tell her about the birds.

‘Geese,’ she says.

‘Like snow geese or like goose that Alison had for Christmas dinner?’

‘Yes, both. They mate for life. That would be a male and a female you saw.’

I have to ask as I’m not sure. ‘Mate for life …?’

‘Yes, they stay together forever like they’re married.’

So not like you and Dad then. I don’t say that of course , even though she’s annoying me again, crouching down and pretending to play with my leaf plates because she doesn’t want to go back inside and leave me alone. She fiddles around with the twigs I’ve put down for knives and forks, making them all untidy. One of her brown boots stands on a plate and crushes it though she probably can’t realise and thinks it’s just a leaf.

I sigh and kneel down and straighten it up again as best I can. But now she says, ‘Carmel, you’re getting your trousers wet.’ And she starts stroking my hair and her hand feels very heavy on my head and I’m wishing she’d stop though I don’t say. I just carry on putting bits of chicken back onto plates and waiting for her to go away.

She goes in the end but now I feel mean because perhaps she just thought she was being nice playing with me. Being mean goes right into my stomach, sick and uncomfortable, like I’ve swallowed a stone. After the maze I’ve been feeling mean a lot. Last week we went to McDonald’s. I was so excited because we were taking Sara. Sara’s mum smells nice and so does their house and her mum wears the most gorgeous shoes with gold bits on them. We were in McDonald’s and me and Sara were laughing together about a silly secret but Mum’s there watching and listening. Oh, she was pretending not to but she kept looking at me without turning her head, just out the corner of her eyes like a spy. And then I had such a mean thought it made the McFlurry I’d just had go all hard in my stomach. It was — I wish Sara’s mum was my mum and I was Sara’s sister and we could all live together in their little warm house in town and maybe I could have some peace.

After we’d taken Sara home and we were on the way back on the bus to our house I was still feeling horrible. I was thinking maybe she wasn’t spying like I thought at all, maybe I’d just wanted it to be me on my own with Sara — more grown-up like, so I said, ‘I wish I could buy you some gold shoes.’

Mum turned and smiled a lovely smile.

‘What a nice thought, Carmel, but where would I wear them? To Tesco’s?’ And she laughed. ‘Tell you what, we could both have gold shoes and we could just wear them for shopping.’

I started laughing too at the thought of us trying to walk round Tesco’s in high-heeled gold shoes, tottering behind the trolley. Then I looked down at her feet on the bus floor. She was wearing her big brown boots she’s worn for so long there’s toe shapes in the leather. I remembered she has quite big feet with lumpy toes and I imagined seeing her there on the bus with her feet squeezed into tiny gold shoes like Sara’s mum wears and it made me feel a bit sad. So I looked out of the window so she couldn’t see my face.

The maze was fading to a distant memory.

It was Saturday and we’d been shopping. We were walking down the lane with our Tesco bags when we saw Paul’s red Peugeot parked outside the gate. He got out of the car when he saw us and stood with his arms folded, smiling at Carmel. Then he opened his arms up wide as she raced forwards and flung herself at him.

‘Daddy,’ she screamed.

‘My girl,’ he almost shouted. ‘My lovely girl.’

He never looked at me once the whole time, but maybe, after all, I was relieved. I’d tried to keep myself together in the time since he’d left, for my own sake and Carmel’s — flowers on my blouses, deep berry colours, or summery yellows. A dash of lipstick, cheap and cheerful. The same with the house — I’d put bright orange curtains at the windows and hung little mottoes up on the walls, to try and fill the gap he’d left. But typically Paul had caught me on the one day we’d rushed out to catch the bus, me still looping my hair into a haphazard ponytail. And Carmel was ecstatic to see him and I didn’t want to spoil that so I unlocked the front door to let us in and waited till she went to hang her coat up.

‘What’s going on?’

He sat at the kitchen table looking bigger than I remembered. Tall and handsome with his legs lolling about like our little kitchen chairs were from a schoolroom. He smelled strange though, the chemical scent of fabric conditioner hung about him.

‘I’ve come to see our daughter, that’s OK, isn’t it?’

Then I heard her coming down the hall so I didn’t mention access agreements or how he was supposed to see her every weekend and hadn’t been near us for nearly five months. I was just glad for her that he was there. Carmel was bringing armfuls of things to show him — a cushion she’d made at school with her name painted on it; her last report; her new umbrella which had ears sticking up in little flaps when you opened it.

‘Never mind all that.’ Paul stood up and he looked so strong and handsome that I had to harden my heart. ‘Let’s you and me go and watch a film in town and you can choose a place to eat afterwards.’

He leaned down and unpeeled a strand of hair stuck to her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Such a tender gesture. I wondered how he could have beared to stay away for so long. Then, like he’d been reading my mind: ‘I’ve been wanting to see you so much, Carmel. I’ve just been waiting till everything was settled …’ I realised he meant till I was settled. ‘We’ll have a lovely evening now. We’ll stuff our faces with popcorn.’

‘And Mum?’ Carmel was looking over at me. God, how alike they looked: clear hazel eyes; curly hair; strong bones.

‘No, let’s leave Mum in peace for once. Just you and me.’

I chimed in with a smile as bright as a piece of tin, ‘Yes, you two go. Enjoy yourselves. I’ve things to do.’

Carmel looked suspiciously at my tin smile so I softened my face and said, ‘I’ve got lots to do here, Carmel. I’ll be able to read in front of the fire without the television on.’ So she slowly put her things down and went to get her coat.

‘You could come, but probably for the best, eh? It would only spoil it for her, wouldn’t it? I mean, if us two fall out again.’

I said, ‘Yes, Paul,’ and turned away, conscious that my hair was in a scruffy ponytail with scrappy bits falling around my face and hating myself for caring. ‘You go,’ I said and willed myself not to ask about Lucy, and whether they still lived together, but I didn’t need to ask really. It wasn’t just the smell of fabric conditioner that was new, anyone could see he’d been dressed by a woman. Pink-and-green polo shirt, sweetie colours. A chunky Patek Philippe watch gleaming on his wrist.