Free White Goods by Guy Johnson Page A

knew from cuts, sores and sheer terror –
TCP.
    ‘ Nearly done.
Ok, that’ll stop it going bad.’ A few sounds filled an otherwise
silent lapse of time – a cap screwed onto a bottle top, bathroom
cabinet doors being closed, a tap running water over hands. ‘There.
OK. I’m gonna head off.’ A kiss – we heard a kiss, but it was
clearly on a cheek. No funny business . ‘So, you’ll tell the
kids it was the police. Ok, I’ll go along with that, if that’s what
you want.’
    ‘ I can’t tell
them the truth.’
    ‘ No, you can’t
have them knowing that. Can’t tell them the whole
truth.’
    ‘ It’s gonna be
hard enough as it is.’
    We went to slip away, but
Auntie Stella momentarily revived their conversation.
    ‘ Can’t believe
she’s back, Tony. Can’t believe she’s back.’
    We listened, waiting for
Dad to respond, to say more, but he kept it simple.
    ‘ Yeah,’ he
said, sighing a deep long sigh, before he added: ‘She’s better off
dead, though.’ A silence fell between them, like there was nothing
else for them to say. I could hear his hand rubbing his
end-of-day-stubble, making that scratching sound. ‘Right,’ he
added, abruptly breaking the lull. ‘As agreed. Police did it.
Ok?’
    ‘ Ok?’
    And with that, we had
slipped away, silently, back to our beds before they came out and
found us.
    In bed, I lay there,
thinking about it all.
    Going through
all the dramas, all the actors trying to hog the limelight: Auntie
Stella with her short skirt and Ocean-liner hat; Tina Tankard
coming to the funeral; Justin in my bedroom; Shirley White at the
dump, hiding when Ian arrived. What had Auntie Stella said? ‘I can’t believe she’s back .’
    And the weirdest thing
was, that despite the funeral, despite Dad being picked up by the
police, I felt an odd sense of happiness.
    Felt a small a small curve
work at my lips, creating a smile there.

4.
     
     
    A week after the funeral,
Dad brought home a big square box and placed it on the kitchen
side. He said nothing, but made a big show of what he did, making
sure we all noticed; making sure we all wondered what was in
it.
    ‘Don’t really
care,’ Della had insisted, shrugging, walking off, but I wasn’t
fooled. No one was. Because when it finally came to opening the
box, she was there with the rest of us, for the great unveiling, as Dad had
called it.
    He even got Auntie Stella
round for it.
     
    Dad and Auntie Stella
stuck to their story about him being beaten up by the
police.
    ‘Couple of coppers
whacked me,’ he said, pointing to a scratch just above his left
cheek at breakfast the next day. ‘But it’s worse than it
looks.’
    Auntie Stella had stayed
over in the end, and was in the kitchen, frying breakfast, wearing
Mum’s dressing gown. Nothing was said about that.
    ‘You gonna sue ‘em, Dad?’
Della asked, looking straight at him, catching his eye.
    ‘It’s worth thinking
about,’ Ian insisted, and for a moment, I wondered if he knew. If,
like us, he had been hiding in the shadows, listening. Only we just
hadn’t seen him.
    ‘I think your father’s
got enough to deal with at the moment, kids,’ Auntie Stella
interrupted, coming in with two plates of bacon and eggs, and I saw
a small shift in Dad’s face, like a flicker of relief. ‘Right, who
has tea and who has squash?’
    ‘Tea,’ said
Della, pushing her cup forward, looking at me. I haven’t forgotten what we heard, her face told me. We’re gonna find
out what’s really going on. I smiled. I
liked our little secret and what it had begun to do: overnight, it
had changed something between us. I couldn’t quite nail it down,
but something was different.
    Two days later, she even
invited me into her room - something she hadn’t done since the
caravan incident. Della’s was at the rear of our house, tucked
behind mine and Ian’s.
    ‘Were you really looking
at me?’ she asked me, calling me in just before my bedtime. ‘At the
caravan, last summer.’
    I shook