Chapter 66: Chapter 66

*****

Forty-Two Years Ago “I don’t want to go,” wails the little girl. “I want to stay with Daddy.” She rubs at her eyes. “Why do I have to go?”

“Because you’re coming with Mommy, Sweetie. We’re going to stay with Aunty Alice.”

“But why do we have to go?”

*****

“Here you are, Shelley, you can sleep in here.”

The woman turns on the lights to what was a spare room. A bed has been made up and there is some attempt to make the room into a welcoming place for a little girl, with comic books and borrowed toys on a table. Some second-hand child-sized furniture, the bright plastic worn to grey at the edges, is set out on a brightly coloured rug. “Mummy will be sleeping just next door, and….”

“I want my room,” weeps the little girl. “I want Daddy. I want my friends.”

“You’ll make new friends really quickly. You’ll see.” Aunty Alice squats down, bringing her face level with Shelley’s. “We’ll take you to your new school tomorrow. Abigail from next door’s coming with us.

She’s so excited about meeting you.”

*****

On a cardboard box on the rug in her new room, Shelley carefully sets out her tea-set: teapot, cup and saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug. Seated on cushions and shoe boxes around the central box are a pink plastic pony, a teddy bear with one eye hanging by a loose thread, a Barbie doll dressed half in disco clothes, and half in what could be an Action Man uniform, and of course, Shelley herself. She arranges circles of paper onto a red plastic plate then offers it to the Teddy-Bear. “Would you like a cookie, Reggie?”

Her mother walks past the door, her gait heavy and slow. “Come and play, Mummy. We’re going to have tea.” Beaming and showing small pearly teeth, she holds up a plastic teacup to her mother.

Outside, rain batters against the windows. Eve pauses, her overcoat half on and half off. “I can't, Shelley. I have to go to work.” She looks tired.

“Will you come back before I go to bed?”

“No, Sweetie. I’ll see you in the morning.” Shuffling the coat to settle it over her shoulders, Eve stoops to pick up her daughter. “I’ll see you for breakfast. I’ll be there when you get up. I’ll take you to school.”

Shelley’s face screws up, her lip quivering. “Won’t you come and tell me a story?”

“Aunty Alice will tell you a story.”

“But her stories aren’t as good as yours or Daddy’s.” She begins to sob. “Why can’t Daddy come and tell me a story?”

Eve swallows hard, turning her face away from the little girl. She puts her back down on her cushion.

“You play with Dancer and Barbie and Reggie.”

Shelley just sits, head hanging. Eve looks at her, then at the door. Hesitating, she checks her watch then, muttering something under her breath, dashes out and down the stairs.

She goes through the small lounge at a run. “Gotta dash. I’m late for my shift.”

As she opens the door to lashing rain, her sister pushes a packet of sandwiches into her hand. “See you tomorrow evening. I'll leave something under a plate for you in the morning.”

*****

“I want to go to the party. It’s Abigail’s birthday and I want to go.”

“You are going, Sweetie. I’m just making this present for you to take.” Eve works at her sewing machine, chewing her lip as she stitches together the pieces which, reclaimed from an old summer dress, are going to be a soft toy, a little pony, stuffed with bits of off-cuts of fabric and buttons for eyes.

Shelley wails. “But everyone else has a new dress to wear. I’ve only got this old one.”

“It’s going to be just as pretty as all the other dresses.” Eve takes the party dress from her work-box, lifting it to the light. Already it shows much wear and signs of having been let out and down several times.

“See, I’m going to make it longer here, and then I’m going to add some nice lace here….”

She offers a box to her daughter, filled with odds and ends of ribbon, buttons, lace and tapes. Many of them have a tattered edge, having once been part of other clothes, now picked off and ready to be re-

used.

“Which do you like best, Shelley? This one’s pretty isn’t it? Or what about this with the little pink flowers in it?”

The little girl folds her arms and turns her back to her mother. “Don’t like any of them. I want a new dress. Why can’t we go back to Daddy? I always had new dresses then. I want to go home.”

*****

Michael Ben climbs out from his car. “Hi, Mike.”

“Hi Ben, thanks for coming.”

A small tatty terrier jumps out from the car after him. It trots along behind, watching attentively as Ben opens the trunk, taking out a pick, spades and shovels and other tools.

I eye the dog; unpromising canine material if there ever was. It wags a stub of a tail at me. “Who's this then?”

My brother gives me one of his rare smiles.

You should do that more often….

As our mother is fond of reminding him, he’s a lot better-looking when he smiles.

“Meet Scruffy,” he says. “We met on the beach while I was out for a run. He came home with me.”

“A stray?”

“I suppose.”

“And you’ve called him ‘Scruffy’?”

He casts an eye over the rag-tag. “Got a better name for him?”

The dog appears to have been assembled from the parts left-over from when they made all the other dogs. One ear is askew and, in any case, doesn’t match the other. The coarse, spiky fur points in random directions, reminding me of a door-mat overdue for replacement. Either that or he’s the bastard lovechild of a meercat and a porcupine.

“What breed would you say he is?”

Ben scratches his nose. “All of them, I reckon. “

I nod slowly, considering God’s last creation. You'd think if you mixed all the dog breeds up, you'd end up with something a bit foxy-looking or wolfy perhaps. Not some kind of canine scouring pad.

“He looks as though his mother was rogered by a toilet brush,” I say. “Either that or his creator ran short on lightning strikes when he was tightening up the bolts in his neck.”

Ben sniffs and shrugs. “Can’t argue with you there, but he’s good company, and he’s very faithful.”

“He’d have to be.”

He looks at me askance but, pick in one hand, spade in the other, “So, where’s this area we’re clearing then?”

I jerk a thumb around the back of the house. “This way.” Ben follows me and Scruffy follows him.

We turn the corner to the looming tangle of briars, nettles and old rose bushes long grown past garden expectations.

“Christ, Mike. I know you said it was bad, but….”

“You did volunteer.”

Leaning spade and pick against the wall, he rubs at the back of his neck. “So I did.” He squints up at the climbing sun. “We’d better get started. It’s not going to get any cooler by waiting.”