LITMIR.BIZ

      “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.