Passion Flower

for Samantha and Stephanie Bond

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OF COURSE, MUM shouldn’t have thrown the frying pan at Dad. Especially as it was full of oil, ready for frying. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if it was hot. And it didn’t even hit him. Mum is such a lousy shot! In any case, Dad deserved it.

Needless to say, the Afterthought didn’t agree with me; she always took Dad’s side. But I really didn’t see what excuses could be made for him this time. Mum had been scrimping and saving for months to buy herself a new cooker. She had been ever so looking forward to it! It was really mean of Dad to go and gamble all the money away at the race track. I said this to the Afterthought, but she just said that it wasn’t Dad’s fault if his horse had come in last, and that if Mum didn’t want him to spend the money why didn’t she keep it in a separate account? I said, “Because they’re married. Being married is about sharing.” The Afterthought said in that case, Mum oughtn’t to complain.

“Dad was only trying to make some money for us!”

I said, “He never makes money at the races.”

“He does, too!” said the Afterthought. “What about that time he took us all out to dinner at that posh place and got champagne?”

“Once,” I said. “He did it once. And anyway, Mum didn’t want champagne.”

“No, she wanted something boring, like a new cooker,” said the Afterthought.

I have to admit that a new cooker would not come high on my list of priorities, but we are all different, and if Mum wanted a cooker I thought she ought to be allowed to have one. As she pointed out to Dad just before she threw the frying pan, she was the one who did all the cooking.

“You never lift a finger!”

“Why should he?” whined the Afterthought, when we were talking about it later. “Cooking’s a woman’s job!”

She doesn’t really think that; she was only saying it to stick up for Dad. She was the most terrible daddy’s girl.

Dad always hated it when Mum got mad at him. He would rush out and do these awful things that upset her, then grow all crestfallen and sorry for himself. That used to make Mum madder than ever! But somehow or other Dad always managed to get round her. He always promised that he wouldn’t ever do it again. And Mum always believed him … until that day when he gambled away the money for her new cooker. That was what made her finally crack. She really blew her top!

“How am I expected to provide for a family of four on this clapped-out piece of junk?” screamed Mum.

I remember we all turned to look at the piece of junk. Half the burners had rotted away; one didn’t work at all. The oven was unreliable. It kept burning things to crisps. Really annoying! Mum was absolutely right. But it didn’t help when Dad, with a boyish grin at me and the Afterthought, suggested that we should all live on takeaways.

“Suit me! Wouldn’t it suit you, girls?”

The Afterthought cried, “Yesss!”

Mum snapped, “Don’t avoid the issue!” The issue being, I suppose, that Dad had gone and wasted all Mum’s hard-earned money on a horse named Toasted Tea Cake that hadn’t even reached the finishing point.

“Daniel Rose, you knew I was saving up for a new cooker!” screeched Mum.

That was when she reached for the frying pan. Dad backed away, holding his hands out in front of him.

“You can have a new cooker! You can have one! We’ll go out tomorrow and we’ll get you one … heavens alive, woman! Haven’t you ever heard of credit?”

That was when Mum threw the frying pan. We didn’t buy things on credit any more; not since the car and the video got repossessed. We didn’t even have a store card. Mum never did anything by halves. I guess I have to admit that she sometimes went to extremes. But it was Dad who pushed her! She’d probably have been quite normal if it hadn’t been for him.

I don’t know whether Dad was always the way he was. I mean, like, when he and Mum first met. I think from what Mum says he was just easygoing and fun. Dad was fun! He was more fun than Mum, but then it was Mum who had to look after us and provide for us and keep things going. Dad was really a bit of a walking disaster. He liked to say he was a free spirit, by which he meant that he couldn’t be tied down to a regular job the same as other people, which meant he sometimes earned money but more often didn’t, which meant it was all left to Mum, which was why she got so mad when he did some of the things that he did. Not just losing money on what he called “the gee-gees”, but suddenly taking it into his head to go out and buy stuff that Mum said we couldn’t afford and didn’t need. Like, for instance, the time he came home with a camcorder. The camcorder was brilliant! Me and the Afterthought both sulked like crazy when it had to go back. And then there was the trampoline. That was pretty good, too! At least, it would have been if we’d had anywhere to put it. We tried it in the garden but our garden is about the size of a tea tray and the Afterthought bounced too high and fell into a prickly bush and screamed the place down. Mum said she could have poked an eye out, so that was the end of the trampoline.

These are just a few of the other things I remember Dad buying:

* a night owl light, so you could see in the dark (except that we never got around to using it as it came without batteries and Dad lost interest. Anything that came without batteries ended up in a drawer, forgotten).

* a microdot sleeping bag, in case one of us ever wanted to go off to camp. (The Afterthought tried sleeping out in the garden one night but got scared after she’d been there about five minutes and had to come back indoors.)

* a digital car compass, which didn’t work.

* an inflatable neck pillow, for Mum to use in the car. (It was supposed to give off soothing scents, only Mum said they made her feel sick. Even I thought that was a bit mean, after Dad had got it specially for her.)

* a digital watch camera (sent back before we could use it).

* a digital voice recorder (also sent back, more is the pity). and

* a special finger mouse for Dad’s new laptop, which he said he needed for his work, whatever that was.

To be honest, I was never quite sure what work Dad actually did. When people at school asked me, like my best friend Vix Stephenson, I couldn’t think what to say. Once when we were about ten Vix told me she had heard her mum saying that “What Stephanie’s dad does is a total mystery.” Vix asked me what it meant. Very quickly, I said, “It means that what he does is top secret.” Vix’s eyes grew wide.

“You mean, like … he’s a spy, or something?”

I said, “Sort of.”

“You mean he works for MI5?”

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “It’s confidential.”

It was so confidential I’m not sure that even Mum knew. ‘Cos one time when I asked her she said, in this weary voice, that my guess was as good as hers. I said, “Mum, he’s not a … a criminal, is he?”

It was something that had been worrying me. I had these visions of Dad climbing up drainpipes and going through windows and helping himself to stuff from people’s houses. Tellies and videos and jewellery, and stuff. I didn’t imagine him holding up petrol stations or anything like that; I didn’t think he would ever be violent. Mum was the violent one, if anyone was! She was the one who threw things. But I was really scared that he might be a thief. I was quite relieved when Mum gave this short laugh and said, “Nothing so energetic! You have to have staying power for that … you have to be organised. That’s the last thing you could accuse your dad of!” She said that Dad was an “opportunist”.

“He just goes along for the ride.”

I said, “You mean, he gets on trains without a ticket?”

“Something like that,” said Mum.

“Oh, well! That’s not so bad,” I said.

“It’s not so good, either,” said Mum.

She sounded very bitter. I didn’t like it when Mum sounded bitter. This was my dad she was talking about! My dad, who bought us trampolines and camcorders. Mum never bought us anything like that. I was still only little when we had this conversation, when I got worried in case Dad was a criminal; I mean, I was still at Juniors. I was in Year 8 by the time Mum threw the frying pan. I still loved Dad, I still hated it when Mum got bitter, but I was beginning to understand why she did. There were moments when I felt really sorry for Mum. She tried so hard! And just as she thought she’d got everything back on track, like paying off the arrears on the gas bill, or saving up for a new cooker, Dad would go and blow it all. He didn’t mean to! It was like he just couldn’t stop himself.

The day after Mum threw the frying pan, Dad left home. The Afterthought said that Mum got rid of him, and I think for once she may have been right. Mum was certainly very fed up. She said that Dad spending her cooker money was the last straw.

I don’t think that she and Dad had a row; at any rate, I never heard any sounds of shouting. I think she simply told him to go, and he went. He was there when we left for school in the morning – and gone by the time we got back. Mum sat us down at the kitchen table and broke the news to us.

“Your dad and I have decided to live apart. You’ll still see him – he’s still your dad – but we’re just not going to be living together any more. It’s best for all of us.”

Well! Mum may have thought it was best, but me and the Afterthought were stunned. How could Dad leave us, just like that? Without any warning? Without even saying goodbye?

“It was Mum,” sobbed the Afterthought. “She threw him out!”

That was what Dad said, too, when he rang us later that same evening. He said, “Well, kids —” we were both listening in, me on the extension “ —it looks like this is it for your poor old dad. Given my marching orders! Seems I’ve upset her Royal Highness just once too often. Now she won’t have me in the house any more.”

Dad was trying to make light of it, ‘cos that was Dad. He was always joking and fooling around, he never took anything seriously. But I could tell he was quite shaken. I don’t think he ever dreamt that Mum would really throw him out. Always, in the past, he’d managed to get round her. They’d kiss and make up, and Mum would end up laughing, in spite of herself, and saying that Dad was shameless. But not this time! This time, he’d really blown it.

“She’s had enough of me,” said Dad. “She doesn’t love me any more.”

“Dad, I’m sure she does!” I said.

“She doesn’t, Steph. She told me … Daniel Rose, I’ve had it with you. You get out of my life once and for all. Those were her words. That’s what she said to me. I’ve had it with you.”

Oh, Dad, I thought, stop! I can’t bear it!

“She’s a cow!” shrieked the Afterthought, all shrill.

“No, Sam. Never say that about your mum. She’s had a lot to put up with.”

“So have you!” shrieked the Afterthought.

“Ah, well … I’ve probably deserved it,” said Dad. He was being ever so meek about it all. Taking the blame, not letting us say anything bad about Mum. Meek wasn’t like my dad! But that, somehow, just made it all the worse, what she’d done to him.

“Dad, what are you going to do?” I said.

“I don’t know, Steph, and that’s a fact. I’m a bit shaken up just at the moment. Got to get my act together.”

“Shall I try asking Mum if she’ll let you come back?”

“Better hadn’t. Only set her off again.”

“But you don’t want to go, do you, Dad?”

“Want to? What do you think?” said Dad. “Go and leave my two girls? It’s breaking my heart, Pusskin!”

He had me crying, in the end. If he’d been spitting blood, like Mum, I wouldn’t have felt quite so bad about it. I mean, I’d still have felt utterly miserable at the thought of him not being with us, but at least I’d have understood that he and Mum just couldn’t go on living together any more. But Dad still thought Mum was the bee’s knees! It’s what he’d always called her: the bee’s knees. He wasn’t the one that wanted to break up. It was Mum who was ruining everything.

“Couldn’t you just give him one last chance?” I begged.

“Stephanie, I have lost count of all the last chances I’ve given that man,” said Mum. “I’m sorry, but enough is enough. He has turned my life into turmoil!”

It is very upsetting, when one of your parents suddenly isn’t there any more; it’s like a big black hole. The poor old Afterthought took it very hard. She went into a crying fit that lasted for days, and when she couldn’t cry any more she started on the sulks. No one can sulk like the Afterthought! Mum tried everything she knew. She coaxed and cajoled, she cuddled and kissed – as best she could, with the Afterthought fighting her off – until in the end she lost patience and snapped, “It hasn’t been easy for me, you know, all these years!” The Afterthought just went on sulking.

Mum said, “Stephanie, for goodness’ sake talk to her! We can’t carry on like this.”

I tried, but the Afterthought said she wasn’t going to forgive Mum, ever. She said if she couldn’t be with Dad, her life wasn’t worth living.

“Why couldn’t I go with him?”

I suggested this to Mum, but Mum tightened her lips and said, “No way! Your father wouldn’t even be capable of looking after a pot plant.”

“It’s not up to her!” screamed the Afterthought. “It’s up to me! I’m old enough! I can choose who I want to be with!”

But when she asked Dad, the next time he rang us, Dad said that much as he would love to have the Afterthought with him – “and your sister, too!” – it just wasn’t possible right at this moment.

“He’s got to get settled,” said the Afterthought. “As soon as he’s settled, I can go and live with him!”

“Over my dead body,” said Mum.

“I can!” screeched the Afterthought. “I’m old enough! You can’t stop me! As soon as he’s settled!”

Even I knew that the chances of Dad getting settled were about zilch; Dad just wasn’t a settling kind of person. But it seemed to make the Afterthought happy. She seemed to think she’d scored over Mum. Whenever Mum did anything to annoy her she’d shriek, “It won’t be like this when I go and live with Dad!” Or if Mum wouldn’t let her have something she wanted, it was, “Dad would let me!” There was, like, this permanent feud between the Afterthought and Mum.

Her name isn’t really the Afterthought, by the way. Not that I expect anyone ever thought it was. Even flaky people like Dad don’t christen their children with names like Afterthought, and anyway, Mum would never have let him. Her name is actually Samantha; but I once asked Mum and Dad why they’d waited four years between us, instead of having us quickly, one after the other, so that we’d be nearer the same age and could be friends and do things together and talk the same language (instead of one of us being almost grown up and the other a child, and quite a tiresome one, at that). Mum said it was because they hadn’t really been going to have any more kids. She said, “Sam was an afterthought.” Dad at once added, “But a very nice afterthought! We wouldn’t want to be without her.”

Oh, no? Well, I suppose we wouldn’t. She’s all right, really; just a bit young. Hopefully she’ll grow out of it. Anyway, that was when me and Dad started calling her the Afterthought. Just as a joke, to begin with, but then it sort of stuck. Mum never called her that. The Afterthought said she wouldn’t want her to.

“It’s Dad’s name for me!”

I wasn’t sure how I felt when Dad left home. I mean, like, once I’d got over the first horrible shock. I did miss him terribly, but I also had some sympathy with Mum. Mum and me had done some talking, and I could see that Dad had really made things impossible for her. So that while feeling sorry for poor old Dad, thrown out on his ear, I did on the whole tend to side with Mum. Like I would always stick up for her when the Afterthought accused her of turning Dad out on to the street – ‘cos Dad had told us that he had nowhere to go and might have to live in a shop doorway. To which Mum just said, “Huh! A likely tale. He’ll always land on his feet.” The Afterthought said that Mum was cruel, and I suppose she did sound a bit hard, but I still stuck up for her. Then one day, when Dad had been gone for about two weeks, I told Vix about it, because, I mean, she was my best friend, and she had to know, you can’t keep things from your best friend, and Vix said, “It’s horrid when people’s mum and dad split up, but I’m sure it’s all for the best. My mum’s always said she doesn’t know how your mum put up with it for so long.”

I froze when she said this. I said, “Put up with what?”

“Well… your dad,” said Vix. “You know?” She muttered it, apologetically. “The things he did.”

I said, “How do you know what things he did?”

Vix said she’d heard her mum talking about it.

I said, “How did she know?”

“Your mum told her,” said Vix.

Suddenly, that made me lose all sympathy with Mum. Talking about Dad to other people! To strangers. Well, outsiders. I thought that was so disloyal!

“Steph, I’m sorry,” said Vix.

I told her that it wasn’t her fault. It was Mum’s fault, if anyone’s. How could she do such a thing?

“Dad wasn’t as bad as all that,” I said. “He never did anything on purpose to hurt her! He loved her.”

Vix looked at me, pityingly.

“Well, but he did!” I said. “He couldn’t help it if he wasn’t very good at earning money… money just didn’t mean anything to him.”

“I suppose that’s why he spent it,” said Vix.

She wasn’t being sarcastic; she was genuinely trying to help.

“He spent it because he wanted Mum to have nice things,” I said. “Not stupid, boring things like cookers!”

“But perhaps she wanted stupid boring things,” said Vix.

“Well, she did,” I said, “but Dad wasn’t to know! I mean, he did know, but – he kept forgetting. He’d see something he thought she’d like, and he couldn’t resist getting it for her. And then she’d say it was a waste of money, or stupid, or useless, or she’d make him take it back… poor Dad! He was only trying to make her happy.”

“This is it,” said Vix.

What did she mean, this is it!

“It’s what people do,” said Vix. “When they’re married… they try to make each other happy, but sometimes it doesn’t always work and they just make each other miserable, and – and they only get happy when they’re not living together any more. Maybe,” she added.

Mum ought to have been happier, now she’d got rid of Dad and could save up for new cookers without any fear of him gambling her money away on horses that didn’t reach the finishing point. You’d have thought she’d be happier. Instead, she just got crabbier and crabbier, even worse than she’d been before, when Dad was turning her life into turmoil. At least, that’s how it seemed to me and the Afterthought. She wouldn’t let us do things, she wouldn’t let us have things, she wouldn’t let us buy the clothes we wanted, we couldn’t even read what we wanted.

“This magazine is disgusting!” cried Mum, slapping down my latest copy of Babe. Babe just happened, at the time, to be my favourite teen mag. I’ve grown out of it now; but at the age of thirteen there were things I desperately needed to know, and Babe was where I found out about them.

I mean, you have to find out somewhere. You can’t go through life being ignorant.

I tried explaining this to Mum but she had frothed herself up into one of her states and wouldn’t listen.

“DO BLOKES PREFER BOOBS OR BUMS? At your age?”

“Mum,” I said, “I need to know!”

“You’ll find out quite soon enough,” said Mum, “without resorting to this kind of trash… what, for heaven’s sake, is Daddy drool supposed to mean?”

Again, I tried explaining: “It means when people fancy your dad.” But again she wouldn’t listen.

“This is just so cheap! It is just so tacky! Where did you get it from?”

I said, “The newsagent.”

“Mr Patel? I’m surprised he’d sell you such a thing!”

“Mum, everybody reads it,” I said.

“Does Victoria read it?” said Mum.

I said, “No, she reads one that’s even worse.” I giggled. “Then we swop!”

It was a mistake to giggle. Mum immediately thought that I was cheeking her. Plus she’d actually gone and opened the mag and her eye had fallen on a rather cheeky article (ha ha, that is a joke!) about male bums. Shock, horror! Did she think I’d never seen one before???

“For crying out loud!” Mum glared at the offending article, bug-eyed. Maybe she’d never seen one before… “What is this? Teenage porn?”

I said, “Mum, it’s just facts of life.”

“So is sewage,” said Mum.

Was she saying male bums were sewage? No! She’d flicked over the page and seen something else. Something I’d been really looking forward to reading!

“This is unbelievable,” said Mum. “Selling this stuff to thirteen-year-old girls! I’m going to have a word with Mr Patel.”

“Mum! No!” I shrieked.

I wasn’t worried about Mr Patel, I was worried about Babe. How was I going to learn things if he wasn’t allowed to sell it to me any more?

“Stephanie, I don’t want this kind of filth in the house,” said Mum. “Do you understand?”

I sulkily said yes, while thinking to myself that I bet Dad wouldn’t have minded. Mum had just got so crabby.