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Or if they did, they weren’t letting on.
    Nothing much had happened that afternoon, had it? Nothing that dramatic; not the sort of shock-horror stories you read in the Sunday papers. Our little scene wouldn’t have made the headlines.
    And it hadn’t really disturbed me, him kissing me like that. After all, grown-ups did incomprehensible things all the time, like puffing horrible cigarette smoke in and out. They spread mustard on their food – how could they? – and got emotional about dull things while not minding the important ones, like me never having proper, long socks for school. No, that part wasn’t so disturbing . . . I’d always loved him hugging me. What terrified me was how he behaved afterwards. What had I done, that he’d shouted like that, with tears in his eyes? If I didn’t know, how could I stop it happening again? Wasn’t it my fault?
    All I felt, that afternoon, was that I’d stopped knowing him quite so well.

Chapter Four
    NOTHING MUCH HAPPENED the rest of the time Mum was in hospital. At least, nothing much that an outsider would notice. It was cool and showery; I spent most of the time in my bedroom. The day after the one I’ve described my Dad went into West Drayton and he came back with a bumper colouring and puzzle book, the best I’d ever seen. It had its own Cellophane bag of crayons too. They were too blunt for the join-the-numbers so I used my pencil for those pages.
Hours of Fun
, it was called; and I did spend hours lying on my bed, Kanga within reach. It was too young for me; I was ten after all, I could do all the puzzles easily. He often misjudged my age. But I liked that; it made me feel secure, it made me feel in control of things. And I didn’t have to ask my Dad about any of the brainteasers. Before, I’d enjoyed plonking myself on the settee beside him. We’d ponder together, him gnawing my pencil until it was damp and frayed. But now I preferred my room, with its glass animals all attentive on the shelf and the door closed.
    Nobody came into my room, you see. It might have been out of shyness – after all, I never went into their bedroom either. We were a modest family, I’ve told you that. On the other hand, perhaps they just weren’t bothered to visit my arrangements. My Mum and Dad always said goodnight in the lounge – they were usually in position by then, in front of the telly; often it was late because I didn’t really have a bedtime.
    It meant everything to me, my bedroom. It was small and narrow, but that made it safer. My Dad had put up a shelf; then there was the bed, of course, and my furry lion called Leo, with a zipped tummy with my nightie inside. I’d sorted my toys into different cardboard boxes which I’d covered with Christmas wrapping paper. I had several books; my favourite at that time was
Gaye is a Ballerina
, though I already knew I was too big to become a ballet dancer like Gaye. At night I closed the curtains. They were too short; from my bed I could see the black night beneath them. But I kept my eyes away from that before I went to sleep, and gripped Kanga instead.
    No, nothing could have looked much different. Dad behaved quite normally. A gale had blown down some corrugated iron; that was how the pigs’ field was fenced. My window looked out that side. I watched Dad stomping through the mud, wedging the gaps with planks and bits of rusty machinery. Around our place, things were always collapsing, or just about to. You couldn’t trust the floors not to give under your weight. He would have been pleased if I was out there helping him. But I stayed indoors, setting out the fences of my model farm. I only had six bits but they all slotted together and stood upright. I had two cows, a lamb and a carthorse with a harness on. It was satisfying, fencing them in. Outside it looked grey and treacherous.
    I did go and look for the piglets’ grave. I found a