Operation Eiffel Tower (6 page)

Jack wondered whether to unfreeze and look. He decided to wait for instructions from Lauren.

‘Hey! This is my spot!’

‘What’s your spot?’ Lauren said.

‘Here. By the ice-cream van.’

‘Who says?’

‘The council. All the performers get a spot, and this one is mine. If you want one, you have to go and ask them.’

Jack had had enough of standing still and not looking, so he moved. Lauren was standing next to a boy. He was older than they were, but not quite a grown-up yet. He held a guitar looped on a strap round his neck. He had blond hair and tanned skin, as though he’d spent the whole summer outside. On this spot.

‘You weren’t here when we started. Finders keepers,’ Lauren said.

‘No, permits keepers. I’ve got a permit. I get to keep the spot. You lot have to shift.’

‘We’re not going!’ Lauren said.

The boy laughed. ‘Fine. We’ll see what the police have to say.’

‘Lauren,’ Jack warned.

‘We’re statues,’ Ruby told the boy.

He looked at her. He nodded. ‘I see. But you can’t be statues here. Sorry.’

‘But we need the money for Paris,’ Ruby said.

‘I need the money to buy dinner tonight,’ the boy said.

Jack looked down at the tiny dunes of sand that gathered in the corner of each step. He sighed. ‘Maybe we’ve made enough money anyway.’ His arms were getting tired from lifting Billy.

Lauren shook the bowl, then snorted. ‘Hardly. But I s’pose it will have to do. For now.’

The boy grinned at her. Did he wink? Lauren’s cheeks went a bit pink. Then she grabbed the handle of Billy’s pram and pulled it violently. She turned round and started pushing it back in the direction of the house.

‘Wait for us!’ Jack called.

As they raced after Lauren, Jack heard the sound of strumming behind him as the boy began his first song.

Chapter 11

They were back at the house in minutes. Lauren had run ahead. Jack held Billy close as he and Ruby chased behind her. They turned the corner into their street.

Then Jack stopped.

He stood still, looking at the house.

‘What is it?’ Ruby whispered.

Jack shook his head. He walked forward slowly. It felt as though the air was too dense and he had to force his legs through it. Lauren stood with the empty pram at the garden gate.

‘Lauren?’ Ruby asked. ‘What’s going on?’

There was a suitcase next to the step. And a black bin bag. The front door was open. There was a noise from inside. The sound of the night-time shouting, come like an intruder into the day. A noise like pain.

‘They’re arguing,’ Lauren said.

Jack waited with the others near the gate. The children were silent. Listening, but trying not to hear, trying not to understand Mum and Dad. The shouting voices twisted, overlapping, neither able to hear the other through the noise of it all. Jack stood on the pavement, his hand on Ruby’s shoulder holding her back. He didn’t want to go inside. Not now, not ever.

There was a sudden silence.

Dad came out.

He was carrying two plastic bags. Jack could see a black sock hanging over the edge of one of the bags. He focused on it; he could see the ribs of stitching, the bobbles in the wool where it had been washed too often in a hot wash.

Dad picked up the suitcase. It wobbled and nearly fell. He piled the plastic bags on top and tried to hold everything in one hand. He grabbed the bin bag with the other hand.

Jack looked down. He didn’t want to see Dad’s face.

‘What’s happening?’ Ruby asked.

The sock dropped from the bag to the ground, but Dad didn’t notice. Lauren reached down, picked it up and tucked it back into the bag. Dad looked as though he wanted to say something. He paused and then he just whispered, ‘Thanks.’

‘Dad, where are you going?’ Ruby said.

‘I don’t know,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll call you when I get there, OK?’

Billy wriggled in Jack’s arms, trying to reach out as Dad passed.

Dad didn’t speak; he carried on out of the gate and down the road. Jack watched him – the way the bags bumped against his knees, the way he tried to steer the suitcase with his foot, the way the muscles flexed beneath his T-shirt.

Jack felt Ruby’s hand in his, icy cold despite the sunshine. He squeezed it gently and pulled Billy closer with his other arm.

Jack felt hollow, as though his insides had just dissolved. He could feel Ruby’s hand and he could see Lauren’s eyes, but that was all. Nothing else made any sense.

Then Mum came to the door, ‘All of you. Inside. Now.’

Ruby pulled him inside, the pram left abandoned on the path. Lauren stood for a little longer, but Mum barked her name and so she came in too.

The house seemed horribly quiet.

Mum said nothing; she went into the front room and closed the door behind her.

‘What’s going on?’ Ruby whispered.

Jack looked down at her. ‘Dad’s left,’ he said. ‘They’ve split up.’ The sound seemed to come from far away, as though it was someone lost speaking.

‘For good?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘But what about Paris?’

Jack went up to his room. He peeled off what was left of the tinfoil. He had to sit, just sit and be by himself. He felt sick. He didn’t turn on his computer, he didn’t do anything. He just held himself still and small, like water cupped in his hands, trying not to let it drain away. Eventually the room got darker. He heard sounds from downstairs, maybe crying, maybe just talking. He pulled in one breath and let it out again. Night was coming. Night was coming and Dad wasn’t here.

‘Jack?’ Auntie Joyce’s voice whispered outside his door. When had she arrived?

‘Jack? Can I come in?’

‘Yes.’ His voice still sounded strange, as though there was a bubble of water trapped in his ears. Last term at school, his teacher had told the class that his body was made of 70 per cent water. He felt as though it were true, as though his insides were liquid, sloshing against his skin.
Could you drown inside yourself?

The door opened. ‘It’s time to come and eat. You have to eat something. Come downstairs, please.’

Jack got up. He felt himself move, though he didn’t know how it was happening.

In the kitchen, Lauren and Ruby sat in front of plates of fish fingers and mash. Billy, in his high chair, picked at a bowl of the same stuff.

‘Where’s Mum?’ Jack asked, slipping into his seat.

‘In her room, poor thing.’ Auntie Joyce clicked her tongue. ‘I’ll take hers up. But you, you eat at the table.’ She spoke firmly, taking charge.

Jack looked at the orange crumbs around the fish. He cut it open and stared at the white flesh, shiny and wet-looking.

‘Eat it, don’t play with it,’ Auntie Joyce said. She ran a bowl of hot water at the sink.

He lifted a forkful up to his mouth as though he were a machine.

It was Ruby who asked the question they all wanted to ask. ‘Auntie Joyce, when is Dad coming back?’

Auntie Joyce splashed some cutlery into the washing-up bowl. ‘I can’t say, sweetheart. That’s up to your mum and dad, not me.’

‘But where has he gone?’

‘I heard he was going to a B and B,’ Auntie Joyce said. ‘I expect he’ll be in touch once he’s settled. Right now you all have to be good kids, help your mum out as much as you can. She’s going to need you to be brave.’

Jack dropped his fork back on to his plate. He couldn’t stand this. He stood and left the kitchen. Down the hall, up the stairs, into his room. He closed the door and leaned against it heavily. He sank down, with his back jammed up against the door. He rested his forehead on his knees and just concentrated on breathing. One breath in, one breath out, again and again. His lungs felt tight, as though they would never fill with air again.

There was a tap on his door. It would be Auntie Joyce or, worse, Ruby. ‘Go away,’ he said.

‘Jack? It’s me.’ Lauren.

His big sister.

Jack suddenly wanted to see her more than anyone, more than Dad, even. He sprang up and opened the door.

In the darkness of the hall, Lauren looked thin and shadowy. She was carrying a glass of milk, with strawberry mix in it. ‘Here,’ she said, passing it to him.

Jack stepped back to let her into the room.

She dropped down on to his bed, half-sitting, half-lying. ‘It had to happen sometime,’ she said finally.

‘Did it?’

‘They’ve been rowing for months, you know that.’ Lauren sounded angry.

Jack nodded. Of course he had heard them. But that didn’t mean that he’d expected this, not really. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘You heard Auntie Joyce. We have to help Mum and we have to not be any trouble. And we have to hope Dad rings.’ Lauren kicked Jack’s bed frame with her trainer. It made a dull ringing noise like a broken bell.

‘Paris,’ Jack said. ‘We need to carry on with the Paris fund. If they can spend a weekend together, without the stress, then they might be able to sort it out. They never have time together. We’re always around, me or you or Ruby or Billy. We need to send them away from us.’

‘We’re not the problem!’

‘Aren’t we? Ruby thinks there are too many of us. If it wasn’t for all of us, there’d be more money, less stress. Perhaps she’s right. If they didn’t have four kids to worry about, then perhaps they’d like each other more.’

‘Ruby was just saying that because she still wishes Billy wasn’t here. You know that. She’s always been jealous.’

‘She
was
the baby,’ Jack said.

‘She
is
a baby!’ Lauren said.

‘Don’t fight. I don’t want to fight,’ Jack said. He sat down on the bed next to Lauren. She shuffled up to make room. Jack half-wished that she’d put her arm round him, tell him that it was going to be all right.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘We won’t fight.’

‘How much is in the jar after doing statues?’

Lauren shrugged. ‘I don’t know. About forty pounds, I think.’

‘And I’ve got the golf competition tomorrow. If I win, we’ll have ninety pounds in the jar. Nearly halfway there! We have to carry on.’

‘OK. Yes. We’ll raise the money. But, I don’t know if it will help, not really.’

‘But we have to try!’ Jack insisted.

‘Fine. We’ll try,’ Lauren said.

Chapter 12

That night Jack lay in bed, staring up at the glow-stars stuck to his ceiling. He was trying not to think about Dad. He was sure that everyone else was awake too; the house just didn’t feel restful – it was as though even the walls were holding their breath to see what would happen next.

His door opened at about midnight. Ruby. She trailed her duvet behind her and curled up on the bottom of his bed, like a cat. He didn’t mind. It was nice to feel her there, warm and heavy on his toes.

‘Where do you think Dad is?’ Ruby whispered into the darkness.

‘I don’t know.’

‘He’s not sleeping outside though?’

Jack shook his head. Then he remembered that Ruby couldn’t see him in the dark. ‘Of course he isn’t. He’ll have gone to stay on someone’s sofa. Or a hotel or something. He won’t be outside. He’ll call us tomorrow – I’m sure he will.’