Wilderness Read Free Page A

wasn’t
    doing right. Other times, he decided she was just a
    selfish wagon, like her mother, and the sooner she
    grew up and got out of the house the better. And then
    he’d feel guilty again. He was the selfish one. She was
    a teenager; it was a phase she was going through. It
    would end and they’d be pals again.
    â€œFancy going to the Bad Ass?” he said one Friday,
    when he came home and she was by herself in the
    hall.
    â€œNo,” she said.
    â€œJust the two of us,” said Frank.
    â€œLike, wow,” she said, and she went up the stairs.
    He felt her door slamming. The whole house shook a
    bit.
    â€œYou’re not my mother!” she roared at Sandra. More
and more often.
    It was rough.
    â€œIt’ll only last a few years,” Sandra told Frank, even
    though she’d just been crying because of something
    Gráinne had said to her. “I was like that myself when
    I was her age.”
    â€œYeah,” said Frank.
    But he didn’t sound convinced.
    He stayed out of Gráinne’s way. He didn’t
    interfere, and he hoped she was doing OK at school.
    He hoped she wasn’t being stupid when she went out
    at night, on the weekends. He always stayed awake until she came home, but always in bed. He didn’t
    want her to think that he was spying on her. The next
    day, he always asked her how she’d got on, and he
    never looked too closely at her eyes or tried to smell
    her breath. He kept his distance and respected her
    independence. But it was hard.
    She was caught mitching from school, and
    suspended for two weeks. She was caught shoplifting.
    Mrs Fallon, from the shop at the end of the road,
    didn’t phone the Guards, but it was awful. Frank
    apologized, and thanked her, and bought loads of
    things he didn’t need or want.
    Gráinne left school two months before the Leaving
Cert exams. She wouldn’t go back.
    â€œYou can’t make me,” she said.
    And that was the really terrifying bit: she was right.
    They couldn’t make her. They just had to hope she’d
    be OK, that she’d calm down and become Gráinne
    again, their Gráinne.
    But, for now, she was a different Gráinne. A
    monster, a big, horrible kid. A terrorist. It was after she
    threw the cup at Sandra that Frank suggested that
    Sandra and the boys needed a break.
    He wrapped the broken pieces in some newspaper.
    They could get away for a while, he said. It would
    be good for them. It might even be good for Frank
    and Gráinne to have the house to themselves. Like
    the old days.
    â€œLike the good old days,” said Sandra. “Before I
arrived.”
    â€œAh stop,” said Frank.
    â€œNo,” she said. “I won’t.”
    She was still shaking. The cup had just missed her
head. She looked at the coffee stains on the wall and
on her blouse. She took off the blouse and soaked it in
cold water. Frank put the newspaper into the bin and
wiped the wall.
    â€œI’m not going anywhere,” said Sandra. “And what
about the money?”
    â€œWe’ll manage,” said Frank. “We can do without a
holiday in the summer.”
    â€œNo,” said Sandra, finally. “She’s not going to push
me out of my own home. It is my home.”
    â€œI’ll talk to her.” said Frank.
    â€œGive me a break,” said Sandra. “Just shoot her.”
    It was quiet enough for a few months. It wasn’t too
bad. They all kept out of Gráinne’s way, and she kept out
of theirs. The days got colder and shorter. Sandra came
home one day and found the three of them, Johnny,
Tom, and Gráinne, watching the telly. They were all on
the couch, long legs and arms all over the place. It was
the sweetest thing she’d seen in a long time. But Gráinne
saw her looking at them. She took back her arms and
legs, stood up, and walked out of the room, past Sandra.
Black eyes, black lips in a sneer that would