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quiet. I could see my dad licking his lips. Then Mum said, “You and Gill better go upstairs. Your dad and I need to talk.”
    Gill said, “But we haven't finished.”
    “Just go upstairs for half an hour. Both of you. Go on.”
    Gill tutted and groaned, but we got up to go. Mum looked at me and said, “Happy?”
    We got upstairs, and I made to go into my room, but Gill grabbed hold of me and said, “What's going on? What's
wrong
with you?” I didn't want to, but she made me tell her everything. Afterwards, she thought I was the most stupid person in the whole world. She started to shout at me, which was a bit much after I'd told her everything. It made me incredibly angry, it was so unfair. I screamed and shouted, I was so angry, and I threw her out of my room. Afterwards, I could hear her crying next door.
    Of course, I got the little talk
then.
Then she was right up the stairs, my mum, telling me how it wasn't my fault, but it was all too late then, wasn't it? Anyway, she was only saying that, she never believed it. Gill thought it was my fault all right, she never stopped going on about it. Mum and Dad were always saying how it wasn't my fault at all, but even they say I should have spoken to Mum about it first. But I never let it out, did I? I didn't actually say anything about it.
    They were down there for ages. We never did get our pudding. After a while, they started shouting. It went on for ages, and then the next night and the next … it just kept on.
    The thing that gets me is the way it all just fell to pieces. I don't think they even tried. My dad had it coming, actu-ally. He's always been the smart one, the good-looking one, the clever one. He's one of those people, everything they do is perfect … it makes you sick. And then when things do go wrong he can't take it! And he's had affairs… he admitted it. Can you believe that? Gill heard them talking about it. You know what he said to Gill when she accused him of being a hypocrite? He said, “Yes, but that was just mucking about. Your mother is
in love.”
    The day she left he was working in the garden. All along the bottom of the garden there's a long row of poplar trees. He's been on about them for years. He says poplar trees have robbing roots, which is why nothing grows well in our garden—they steal all the goodness out of the soil. You can find the roots just under the surface almost any-where in our garden. So on this day, the day she left, he started to dig a trench right across the end of the garden to cut through all the roots growing our way.
    Mum said she really wanted to stay, but they had to split up, so she gave him the choice and he chose to stay on at the family home. She said it made more sense because he was the one who was going to be spending more time at home, so he was better able to look after us. Gill said heshould have stayed away while Mum was moving her stuff out, but instead of doing that he went into the back garden straight after breakfast. He spent the whole day there, digging this trench. Mum was popping in and out with boxes.
    You know what? She made me and Gill help. Well, she tried, anyway. Gill just said no and went into town. I did a couple of boxes, and then I went into my room and sat by the window watching Dad dig his trench. He just worked and worked. Gradually he went deeper into the ground.
    About lunchtime I opened the window and shouted out at the top of my voice so everyone could hear, “Why don't you do something? Why don't you
stop
her?” I saw him lift his head up and stare at me, but then he just went back on with his spade. By late afternoon you could just see his head poking out of the top, bobbing up and down as he dug.
    Mum went about teatime. She said she'd see us tomorrow at her new place for tea.
    “It's just up the road, we can see each other whenever we want,” she said. Then she drove off to Nigel. Later, Gill came home and we went out to the garden to see Dad. He stood at the bottom of