Candyfloss Read online

  But I saw Dad’s face. He was nodding and trying to smile. I couldn’t say yes. I just shook my head sadly, but promised I’d take great care of the ticket.

  Dad opened the van door. Steve lifted me in. Mum gave me one last kiss. Then we were driving away from my mum, my home, my whole family . . .

  I waved and waved and waved long after we’d turned the corner and were out of sight. Then I hunched down in my seat, my hands over my mouth to stop any sound coming out.

  ‘It’s OK to cry, darling. Cry as much as you want,’ said Dad. ‘I know it must be so awful for you. You’re going to miss your mum so. I’ll miss her, in spite of everything. But she’ll be coming back in six months, and the time will simply whizz by. If I can only win the lottery we’ll both jet out to Sydney for a month’s holiday, just like that. Yeah, if I could win the lottery all our problems would be solved.’ Dad sighed heavily. ‘I feel so bad, little Floss. I should have insisted you go with your mum.’

  ‘I want to be with you, Dad,’ I murmured, though I wasn’t sure it was true now.

  We went back to the café. Dad opened it up and got the tea and coffee brewing. There wasn’t much point. We had no customers at all, not even Billy the Chip or Old Ron or Miss Davis.

  ‘I might as well shut it up again. I doubt anyone will be in until lunch time, if then,’ said Dad. ‘Come on, kiddo, let’s go out for a bit. What would you like to do?’

  That was the trouble. I didn’t really want to do anything. We mooched around the town for a bit, peering in some of the shops. There wasn’t much point getting excited about anything because I knew Dad didn’t have any money. He tried to start up this game of what we’d buy if we won the lottery. I didn’t feel like joining in much.

  ‘I suppose your mum’s Steve could buy you any of this stuff with a flash of his credit card,’ Dad said.

  ‘I don’t want any of it,’ I said.

  ‘That’s my girl. The simple things in life are best, eh?’ Dad said eagerly. ‘Come on, let’s go to the park and feed the ducks. You like that, don’t you?’

  I wondered if I was getting too old for feeding the ducks, but we picked up a bag of stale sliced bread back at the café and trundled down to the park, even though it had started raining.

  ‘It’s only a spot of drizzle,’ said Dad.

  By the time we reached the duckpond we were both wet through and shivering because we hadn’t bothered with our proper coats.

  ‘Still, nice weather for the ducks,’ said Dad.

  They were swimming round in circles, quacking away. Mother ducks and ducklings.

  I threw them some bread, large chunks for the mothers and dainty bite-sized morsels for the ducklings, but they seemed full to bursting already. There were large chunks of bread bobbing all around them but they couldn’t be bothered to open their beaks. They’d already had so many visitors. Mothers and toddlers.

  ‘Never mind, let’s take the bread back home and make chip butties, eh?’ said Dad. ‘Two for you and two for me. Yum yum in the tum!’

  I wasn’t listening properly. I was looking up at an aeroplane flying high in the sky, as small as a silver bird.

  ‘Your mum won’t be on her plane yet,’ Dad said softly. ‘They aren’t going to the airport till this evening. It’s a night flight.’

  I had mad thoughts about packing my case, running like crazy to Mum’s and begging her to take me after all.

  Maybe that was why I was so fidgety when I got home. I heaved around on the sofa, I lolled about the floor, I watched ten minutes of one video, five of another, I read two pages of my book, I got out my felt pens and started a drawing and then crumpled up the paper. I ended up rolling the pens all over the floor, flicking them moodily from one side of the room to the other.

  One went right under the sofa. I had to scrabble for it with my fingers. I found little balls of fluff, some old crisps, a tissue and a screwed-up letter. I opened it up and saw the word debt and the word court and the word bailiffs before Dad snatched it away.

  ‘Hey, hey, that’s my letter, Floss,’ he said. He crumpled it up again, screwing it tighter and tighter in his hand until it was like a hard little bullet.

  ‘What is it, Dad?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Dad.

  ‘But I thought it said . . .?’

  ‘It was just a silly letter sent to try to scare me. It’s not going to, OK?’ said Dad. ‘Now, you just forget all about it, there’s a good girl. Come on, let’s have our chip butties!’

  Dad made two each, and one for luck. I could only eat half of one, and that was a great big effort. It turned out Dad didn’t have much appetite either. We looked at the chip butties left on the plate. It was as if Dad had made enough for both my families. I wasn’t sure I could stand to be in this very small family of two now. I wasn’t sure how we were going to manage.

  8

  I WAS SWIMMING in an enormous duckpond, gigantic birds with beaks as big as bayonets swooping towards me. I opened my mouth to scream for help and started choking in the murky green water. I coughed and coughed and went under. I got tangled in long slimy ropes of weed. I couldn’t struggle free. The vast ducks swam above my head, their great webbed feet batting me. I was trapped down there, my lungs bursting. No one knew, no one cared, no one came to rescue me . . .

  I woke up gasping, soaked through. I thought for one terrible moment I might have wet myself – but it was only a night sweat. I staggered up out of my damp bed, mumbling, ‘Mum, Mum’ – and then I remembered.

  I stopped, shivering on the dark landing. I couldn’t run to Mum for a cuddle. She was six miles up in the air, halfway across the world.

  I started crying like a baby, huddled down on the carpet.

  ‘Floss?’

  Dad came stumbling out of his bedroom in his pyjamas and very nearly tripped over me. ‘What are you doing here, pet? Don’t cry. Come on, I’ll take you back to bed. It’s all right, Dad’s here. You’ve just had a bad dream.’

  It seemed as if I was stuck in the bad dream. Dad tucked me in gently but he didn’t know how to plump up my pillow properly and smooth my sheet. He didn’t find me a big tissue for my runny nose. He didn’t comb my hair with his fingers. He did kiss me softly on the cheek, but his face was scratchy with stubble and he didn’t smell sweet and powdery like Mum.

  I tried to cuddle down under the duvet but it smelled wrong too, of old house and chip fat. I wanted to go to Mum’s house, but it was all changed. Our stuff was all packed up. Soon there would be strangers renting it. I imagined another girl my age in my white bedroom with the cherry-red carpet and the cherries on the curtains. I saw her looking out of my window at my garden and my special swing and I couldn’t bear it.

  Three months ago Steve had fixed up the baby swing for Tiger, all colours and bobbles and flashing lights. I’d done the big sister bit and patiently pushed him backwards and forwards, but I couldn’t help remarking that I wished I’d had a swing when I was little.

  I didn’t think Mum and Steve had taken much notice, but the next weekend when I was at Dad’s Steve rigged up this amazing proper traditional wooden swing, big enough for an adult – certainly big enough for me.

  ‘My swing!’ I sobbed now.

  ‘What? Please don’t cry so, Floss, I can’t make out what you’re saying,’ said Dad, sounding really worried. ‘Listen, I know how badly you’re missing your mum. I’ve got your airline ticket safe in the kitchen drawer. We can book you onto a flight and you can join up with them. It will be like a big adventure flying all that way.’

  ‘No, no. I want my swing,’ I said.

  Dad missed a beat before he understood. ‘Well, that’s easy-peasy,’ he said. ‘We’ll nip round to your mum’s place tomorrow and take your swing. Don’t upset yourself, darling. Your old dad will sort things for you.’

  We went round to the house early Sunday morning, before Dad opened up the café. Dad parked the van outside the house. It looked so absolutely normal I couldn’t believe Mum and Steve and