Dear Nobody Read Free Page A

else.’ I could feel my voice breaking into a nervous giggle.
    â€˜Funny,’ Dad said. ‘I didn’t know how much I loved your mother till she told me she was leaving me. You’d think I would have hated her. I did later. No one likes to be rejected, you know. I hated her because she didn’t want me. And I hated her because she was splitting up a family. I didn’t want that to happen, and I was powerless to stop it. How old were you then?’
    â€˜Ten. Guy was six.’
    â€˜You see. Guy cried for his mum every night. How could I explain to the kid? And you… “where’s Mum, where’s Mum”… every five minutes. How could I explain to you that she wasn’t coming back? So it helped, being able to hate her. But I’ll tell you something else, Chris, and this’ll shock you a bit. I used to wish that she was dead.’
    The drama on the screen was suddenly interrupted by noisy adverts. A smiling troupe of mushrooms danced its way across a table and dive-bombed into a bowl of soup.
    My dad leaned forward in his chair, intent on the mushrooms. He was fiddling about with his watchstrap as if it was suddenly too tight for him, twisting it and twisting it on his wrist, tugging hairs with it. ‘If she’d died, you see, I could have got it over with. There’s ways of dealing with death. There’s funerals and flowers and crying. It would have been terrible, but I would have known absolutely certainly that she wasn’t going to come back and that I was never, never going to see her again and somehow I’d have got on with my life and with you kids. But whilever someone’s alive there’s always a chance that they’ll come back again, so you never quite let go. I wanted her back, however much I hated her for going.’
    I felt my throat tightening. I wished Dad would stop now. I wished he’d stop talking. I wished I could switch off the television but I daren’t. I was afraid of the silence and of having to look at him again and talk normally. I sat with my head back and my eyes closed tight. Even then I could see the dance of light from the flickering screen: flash, and flash, and flash. Dad’s voice was a dull monotone.
    â€˜I used to think of her enjoying herself with this natty bloke with all his books. And I knew that she couldn’t be happy. Not really. I knew she’d be going through hell. Don’t tell meany woman can walk away from her own kids and carry on as if nothing had happened. I think she went through hell.’
    There was some fancy guitar music on the screen. The man and woman were walking hand in hand along a beach. I thought it might be Brighton.
    â€˜You think you’re the only one in the world it’s happened to till you go down the pub and talk about it. Makes you wonder. What’s it all about? Love? I don’t know what love is. It’s a con trick to keep the human race going, that’s all it is.’
    â€˜Why didn’t you get married again or something?’
    â€˜Ouch!’ Dad shook his hand as if his fingers had been burnt. He switched off the television abruptly as the snaky woman pouted out her lips for another kiss, and went into the kitchen. I could hear him filling the kettle.
    â€˜Ovaltine, Chris?’
    I sauntered into the kitchen. I leaned on the door jamb casually, my hands deep in my pockets.
    â€˜I just wondered, Dad. You don’t happen to have Mum’s address, do you?’
    Dad lifted two mugs from the cupboard. He’d made them himself, down in the cellar. One day he planned to give up work and make a living ‘pottering about’ as he called it. As he spooned Ovaltine powder into them he spilled some and carefully wiped it up, and wiped the whole surface and the kettle before he answered me. ‘I should have. Somewhere.’
    I passed him a bottle of milk from the fridge. The cat strolled over to him and eyed him