Passion Flower

for Samantha and Stephanie Bond

Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

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