Passion Flower

“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.

“She’s an old cow,” said the Afterthought.

Mum and the Afterthought were finding it really difficult to get along; they rowed even worse than Mum and me. The Afterthought wanted a kitten. A girl in her class had a cat that was going to have some, and the Afterthought had conceived this passion.

(Conceived! Ha! What would Mum say to that!) Every day the Afterthought nagged and begged and howled and pleaded; and every day Mum very firmly said no. She said she was sorry, but she had quite enough to cope with without having an animal to look after.

“Kittens grow into cats, and cats need feeding, cats need injections, cats cost money …I’m sorry, Sam! It’s just not the right moment. Maybe in a few months.”