Glitter

When I get back to the Grand Hall I find my dad sitting alone with his head in his hands, all of the air sucked out of him again. All my rage has been sucked out of me too and it’s growing into cold goose bumps under my skin.

“Come on, Liberty,” he sighs, “let’s go.”

“What about Sebastian?” I ask.

“He’s convinced me to let him stay. Mr Jenkins is going to sort out some funding for him. He has so little time left here, even I can see the madness in taking him away. So it’s just you and me, I’m afraid.”

I want to scream again and ask if I can stay and get some funding too so I can stay at school. But deep down I know that screaming won’t work, not with my dad, not with anyone. And anyway, I’m too scared to say anything because I can’t bear to hear the truth. I’m not a success like Sebastian, I’m an embarrassment to the Parfitt family and nobody in their right mind would waste their precious funding money on me.

The porters carry my trunk out to the car park and help Dad tie it on to the roof rack of a rusty old banger that I have never even seen before. Matron appears, waving me goodbye and crying and tucking a copy of 100 Favourite Poems into my hand. Mr Jenkins is shaking my other hand and wishing me good luck and good health for my future. And although I can hear all the good wishes coming from their mouths, I can’t really feel them; they bounce off my blazer and fall like raindrops, splashing to the ground. Sebastian joins us, his eyes all red rimmed and teary.

“Sorry, Libby,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “I just have to stay…you know?”

“I know,” I lie. “I’ll be OK. And it’s good for you stay. It’s important for your success. Don’t worry about us, I’ll take care of Dad.”

“I knew you’d understand, sis, and I’ll be home soon enough for the holidays,” he promises.

“I’ll miss you,” I say, covering the scared wobble in my voice and climbing into the passenger seat next to Dad. “Have a good rest of term.”

He gives my hand a friendly squeeze and keeps on waving us goodbye, until he’s a tiny speck in the distance.

Our new car is noisy and smoky and travels at snail’s pace compared to our old black Mercedes. The seats are battered and torn and big chunks of foam are forcing their way through the scratchy grey fabric. My dad sighs and turns on the Radio 4 news to fill the awkward silence that is growing between us. The newsreader keeps groaning on and on about the credit crunch and financial scandals and I wish we could have something more cheerful, like music, to fill our car. But that will never be possible. After a while he huffs and turns the radio off. I feel lonely, like all the warmth and friendliness of my life at school has drained down the plughole and I’m left alone sitting in an empty bath shivering, with no soft towel for comfort. There’s so much I want to ask, like what’s happened to our houses and cars and where are we going to live and if he thinks that Sebastian really will come home for the holidays, because I don’t think he will. But all of these questions are out of bounds because they might turn my dad into a snapping dog again. So I file them away in the back of my brain.

“Granny will help,” I say. “I’m sure of it. Granny has the Wisdom of Age.”

My dad’s eyes flash fire at me. “I don’t want you mentioning a word of this to your grandmother,’ he spits. “The last thing I need right now is for her to start interfering and busybodying around. Do you hear me, Liberty? I need you to keep your mouth firmly zipped. I need to find my own way out of this situation. And if I discover you two have been gossiping on the phone there’ll be trouble. OK?”

Chapter 6 welcum to the dump… (#ulink_a96e9c5a-f678-5c72-aa98-d3014ade4719)

My dad stops the car in front of a grey concrete block of flats somewhere in London.

“We’re here, Liberty,” he says. “I need you to help me with your trunk because it’s not safe to leave it on the roof. It’ll be gone in a flash.”

“Where are we, Daddy?” I ask. “Who lives here?” “We do,” he says, running his hand through his hair, “for now anyway. I know it’s a mess, Liberty, but this is what it’s come to: a grotty flat in a grotty part of town.”

“But why here?” I ask. “Why not home?”

“Because, as Sebastian so delicately put it, we don’t actually have a home any more. He was right, Liberty; we don’t have anything left. The bank has taken everything except a few personal bits. This flat belongs to a friend of mine, he usually rents it out, but it’s free at the moment, so I moved in yesterday and we’re staying here until I get back on my feet. It won’t take long, I promise, I’ve got my finger in a few pies already.”

I stare up at the ugly grey building.

“So we don’t have a home?” I whisper.

Some big kids are click-clacking on skateboards, a few girls are playing hopscotch and there are some really young children squealing and running around playing catch without any grown-ups watching them. The words “Welcum to the dump” are written in red graffiti on the wall near the lift. I’ve seen places like this on TV but I’ve never been to one in real life and I don’t feel very welcome.

My trunk is heavy and it keeps twisting around and hurting my wrist. I try my hardest to be strong, but it’s just too heavy for me. My dad sighs and ends up dragging it along on his own, while I manage our bags. He’s not talking and when we discover the lift is broken he groans and snaps while he bumps my trunk up the stairs. After we’ve gone up a couple of flights, he starts getting out of breath, so I try to help again. But he shakes me off, like I am an insect trying to bite him.

Beyond the green front door of our flat I find a few unfamiliar rooms to explore. A tiny kitchen with grey tiles, a sitting room with glass doors leading on to a balcony that has a few dead plants on it, a small bathroom and two bedrooms, one with a double bed and one with a single. I spy a pile of my things already heaped on the single bed and go on in to make myself at home. The room is tiny and has musty damp smells lurking in the corners. Whoever graffitied “Welcum to the dump” was right. It is. I try not to remember my beautiful bedroom in our London house, with my own en suite bathroom and four-poster bed or my room in our French house with its deep blue walls and wooden shutters that overlook the pool. A sick taste rises in my throat, which I swallow down fast.

I look out of my bedroom window on to the car park below. A sad lonely tree is crying autumn leaves that scatter in the breeze and I wish the wind would blow me back to school where I belong. I kick the stupid bed. It’s small and tatty and old like the rest of this dump and I don’t want to be here. I lie down and stare at the ceiling. It looks like it’s made from a million tiny snowy mountains. I wish I were skiing on them. I close my eyes and imagine that I’m on the Alps, in my skis. But then Sebastian spoils my dream by zooming past me, waving and reminding me that I’m not that good at skiing anyway; just like everything else, I’m actually quite rubbish. But I don’t care because I’m almost certainly never going to go skiing again. Now we’re poor I’m probably doomed never to do anything fun ever again.

I get bored of ceiling gazing and busy myself unpacking my trunk and arranging my belongings. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to put pictures on the walls, so I leave my posters in my trunk and put it at the end of my bed like a little seat. I make the bed with my duvet and stuff from school then try out the mauve plastic blinds. They don’t work very well so I pull them back up quickly so no one can accuse me of breaking them and sit quietly on my bed, waiting for my new life to begin.

After about half an hour of waiting nothing in my new life has happened. My dad hasn’t come to find me and I haven’t gone to find him. We’re like hide and seek gone wrong. Everybody’s hiding and no one is seeking. We’re just sitting waiting for something to happen. My tummy’s rumbling. I missed lunch at school and I was too scared to ask my dad to stop for food on the way. I can hear a quiz programme blaring out from the television, filling our quiet flat with other people’s laughter and clapping and cheerful sounds. I should probably go and join him but I’m scared, I don’t want to make him angry again. I pull out my book of 100 favourite poems, flick through it and wish Matron had given me a book on 100 top tips on what to do when the credit crunch has turned your life upside down. It would have been more useful right now than poems.

After another hour of waiting, I am so bored with looking at poems that even a maths lesson would seem like fun, so I decide to go and explore. I’m nervous and can’t stop scratching the patch of worry eczema that’s popped up on my wrist. I’m really hungry and my dad must be starving as he looks like he hasn’t eaten for days. I can’t remember my dad ever cooking dinner for me. I can remember him flying through the door and bolting his food down before going off for a business meeting or a game of squash at the gym, but cooking isn’t something he’s able to do. All he’s really good at is work.

Eventually I creep out of my room and explore the dingy kitchen. I find a tub of margarine, a tomato and a litre of milk in the fridge. In the cupboard on the wall are two tins of baked beans with sausages, half a loaf of bread and some instant coffee. I make us both some beans and sausages on toast and even though I don’t actually like coffee I make a mug for each of us to have with our meal. Maybe helping out will make him like me more.

“Eat your dinner, Daddy, ” I say, “before it gets cold.”

He doesn’t reply. He’s just staring at the telly, like I don’t exist any more.

“I made us some food,” I say, a little louder. “I thought you’d be hungry, Daddy.”

He just keeps staring so I balance his food on his lap and put a knife and fork in his hands. An old memory of how to eat food sparks up in his brain and he eats and eats and eats, without saying one word, until his plate is empty. I take it from his lap and give him his coffee, which he quickly drinks down.

“Do you need anything else, Daddy?” I ask.

“What do you think I need?” he storms, his words flashing through the room like lightening. “It’s a pretty stupid question, Liberty, isn’t it? But then I suppose that’s why you don’t seem to be able to get on very well at school. Even a fool could work out what I need. I need money! I need a job! I need a life! Look at me! I’m ruined! And if you think a plate of beans on toast is going to make it all better, you’d better think again.”

I shrink back into myself, wishing I could disappear into the sofa, and then he’d never have to bother with me again. I keep my eyes on the carpet and my body very still. One wrong move and he’ll get more furious. One wrong word and I’m dead.

I hate my dad. I wish I could get up and shout my own head off at him and say mean stuff like, “Failure is not an option for a Parfitt, blah, blah, blah.” Or, “You’re letting the side down, Henry Parfitt, time to pull your socks up and put your head down and find the money to send me back to school where I belong.” But I don’t because I’m frozen to the sofa like a statue, not daring to move.

Chapter 7 school…? (#ulink_dc002fd1-c77c-5fb8-92b5-6a307fe51cd5)

The next morning my dad is still sitting where I left him. The beardy stubble on his face has grown a little longer, his skin is a little greyer and his eyes look darker and more tired and far away. He’s staring at breakfast telly like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen in his whole life. I peep in at him and try to say hello but the words get stuck in my throat, I think they’re too scared to come out in case he bites their heads off. I go and have a shower instead. The shower in the bathroom doesn’t work properly. It keeps going from freezing cold to boiling hot and I have to dance in and out of it and try to wash myself quickly when it lands on warm. This bathroom is rubbish. It’s got black mould growing in the bits between the tiles and it’s spreading like some deathly disease all over the walls. I shrink away from it, not wanting to catch anything bad. My bathroom in our London house was made from soft, cool marble and the decorator put things like lighthouses and starfish all about the place to give it a seaside feel. At least I have my old sand-coloured towels here to dry myself with. At least they’re clean and uncontaminated.

I dry myself and wrap up in my bathrobe, which smells all friendly of school, then make us both some coffee and toast with sliced tomato. I’m getting used to the taste of coffee and decide that I actually even quite like its rich, roasty flavour, just like that advert says. My dad’s used to our old housekeeper, Maureen, making his breakfast for him, so if I wasn’t here to do it I truly think he’d starve. There’s hardly anything left in the cupboards and I’m worried about what we’ll have for supper. But I’m not going to ask him what’s going to happen. I don’t care if we die from starvation.

“Your uniform’s in the plastic bag on my bed,” my dad barks, making me jump, because I thought he’d actually forgotten how to speak. “You start school at 8.45. Turn left as you come out of the flats and keep going straight until you get there. It’s simple. Then go to the office and they’ll tell you were to go and what to do and how the whole free school lunch thing works. It’s all sorted, OK?”

“School?” I whisper.

“Of course, school,” he barks. “What did you think, Liberty, that you were going to laze around the place all day long watching daytime telly? Of course you’ve got to go to school, that’s what children do, isn’t it? And with your poor academic record, Liberty, you haven’t got a moment to spare. Go and get stuck in! And I want you to make a good impression, do you hear? Don’t let me down.”

I wish I could ask if I can wait until Monday morning, because starting school on a Friday seems pointless to me. I wish I could ask if I can have some time getting used the idea of a new school and a new life, but I can’t, so I swallow my words down with a bitter sip of coffee.

My dad’s bedroom is a mess. There are a few huge old trunks that I don’t recognise stacked in the corner, loads of plastic bin bags full of clothes and stuff, a suitcase and some dusty boxes that look like they’ve come from our London house attic. There’s a pile of Sebastian’s medals and trophies on the floor and masses of important-looking paperwork toppling off Dad’s bedside table. His bed’s not made up and I can see stains on the mattress left behind from people who’ve lived here before. There’s a fresh pile of starched cotton sheets, cleaned and ironed by Maureen, our old housekeeper, waiting to go on. But they look all wrong here in this stupid old flat, they look all sad and shy and out of place.

I rummage through the piles of stuff until I come across a carrier bag of clothes that look like they might be my school uniform. Next to them I spy a battered old violin case that’s completely covered in dust. I’ve never seen it before and I can’t quite believe my eyes. I rub them to make sure I’ve not gone completely mad and started seeing things that aren’t real. But when I look again it’s still there, lying on the bed like the best treasure I have ever seen in my whole life. I’m dying to open it and pull the violin out and play. My skin is glittering all over with excitement and I can already feel the music washing right over me and carrying me away to paradise. But I can’t open it, can I? My dad would go mad, especially if I started playing it first thing in the morning. He doesn’t even know I can play. I’d make him splutter his coffee all over himself in shock. But what is a violin doing on his bed anyway? My dad hates music, everybody knows that. So how did it get here? Who does it even belong to?

Relief starts flooding through me. Maybe he’s changed his mind? Maybe with the credit crunch and everything he’s decided to stop fighting me about music? A frog jumps into my head with an idea in its mouth. It’s my birthday next week; maybe he got the violin for me as a surprise? Maybe he got it to make up for me having to leave my school and everything else in my life behind? Maybe he isn’t so mean after all? I actually can’t believe it; my dad’s finally got me a violin! I know everything will be OK when I’m allowed to play. It won’t matter where we live or what stupid school I have to go to.

I decide not to say anything because I don’t want to spoil his surprise. Instead, I draw a tiny heart in the dust, and then rub it out quickly so my dad won’t see.

My new uniform is very different from my old one. It’s more relaxed. I have a pair of black trousers, a red polo shirt, and a black jumper with red stitching on it that reads “Cherry Grove Community School”. And there’s a blazer with a badge that has an embroidered picture of a red cherry tree and the Latin words: Prosperitus est non quis vos perficio, est quisnam vos es written underneath. I search in my brain to remember some Latin words from my old school and work out that my new school motto is saying something about success, so my dad will be pleased with that.