A MILLION ANGELS

“I can’t manage you, darling,” she says. “Not in this state. I’m so sorry.”

“But my legs won’t work,” he cries. “I need a caaaarrrrryyy!”

Mum sighs. She rubs her enormous belly and looks at me.

“Can you manage him for me, Mima, sweetheart? He’s so upset. I can’t do it and Granny clearly can’t. I don’t know what’s got into her today. It’s like she’s been transported to another world. I hope she’s not going to go all Alzheimer-ish on us. That’s all I need!”

I know what’s wrong with Granny and it’s not Alzheimer’s, it’s Derekheimer’s, and no one knows but me that she’s hiding the photo of him in her bra. I don’t say anything about it to Mum. It’s Granny’s secret. And mine. I pull Milo into my arms, heave him up on my hip and whisper into his ear.

“I’m thinking hard, Milo,” I say. “I’m planning a Bring Dad Home mission and I promise you he’ll be home soon!”

“Come on,” says Mum. “Let’s get some lunch, shall we? We’re all just hungry and tired and overwrought.”

She rests her hand on my back and rubs soft warm circles.

“I know it’s hard, Mima,” she whispers. “I don’t really feel like being here either, but we have to go. We have to keep up appearances. For Dad. And sometimes the support of everyone helps, you know, because we’re all going through the same thing.”

She tucks a curl behind my ear.

“Like Granny says, chin up!” she laughs, guiding us in. “Chin up, and remember to be polite.”

While Mum greets everyone with her fake smile and chats about when the Bean’s due and how bad her backache is and how hard it is for her to sleep, Milo and I are forced to stand next to her and smile. Red puckered kisses land on our cheeks like planes. Perfume chokes us like fire. I wish I were brave enough to stand on a chair and make an announcement. THEY ALL MIGHT DIE! I want to say. THEY SHOULD BE HOME HERE, WITH US, EATING ROAST BEEF! HAVEN’T YOU NOTICED THAT THEY’VE GONE?

My dad and the other soldiers have barely even said goodbye and it feels like everyone but me has already bleached them away. Everyone is chattering and laughing like normal. The gaps at the tables where they should be sitting are filled with bright fake laughter that’s shrieking through the air and shattering it like glass. I wish I were young like Milo. I wish I could stand up and have a tantrum and say, I WAAAANNNTTTT MY DAAAAADDD! I’d love to see the look on everyone’s faces if I did and if I were brave enough, I would. I promise you. I’d open my mouth and let the words tumble right out.

I try. I open my mouth wide.

Hoping.

But the sounds just jumble and crash in my throat.

My dad is probably still on his plane and I wonder what he’s having for his lunch. He’s up there somewhere in the storm clouds. On his way to Afghanistan. I know he’ll be waiting until it’s dark. Until it’s time to put his helmet and body armour on and for the lights to black out so the plane can dive towards the ground, unseen. Until the heavy desert smells and heat rise and swallow him up for six whole months.

I’ve seen it happen in some of Dad’s films. I shouldn’t really, but I sneak them from the shelf sometimes and watch them on my laptop, under my covers, at night. In one of them all the soldiers rushed off the plane with their guns poking out from under their arms. Their heads twitched around, looking for danger and then piiiaaaooooww, like Milo does, the guns started shooting and bodies were everywhere, flying through the air.

I can’t believe that all this might be happening to my dad while we’re here waiting for lunch. It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t seem right.

I pick at my lunch. I’m not really hungry. Mum and Georgie huddle together and talk in whispers. Granny is lost in her dream. I have to chop up Milo’s meat and play trains with his veg. Jess is opposite me. She scoffs her food like usual with her big fat stupid grin.

“I’ve got big plans for my presentation,” she says, whooshing her dolphins through the air, dunking their snouts in her gravy. “Have you decided what you’re doing yours on yet?”

I glare at her.

“I’ve got more important things on my mind, Jess,” I say. “More important things like my dad.”

“You’re boring, Mima,” she says. “Get over yourself. He’ll either come back alive or he’ll come back dead!” She slurps a piece of floppy beef into her mouth. “Nothing much we can do about it. But he’ll be back one way or another. Shame my dad has to come back at all.”

I cover Milo’s ears.

“Please don’t say the D.E.A.D. word in front of Milo,” I whisper. “You’ll set him off crying again.”

“I’ll say what I want,” Jess glowers. “You’re not the boss of me, Jemima Taylor-Jones.”

Then she storms off to get pudding.

After lunch, Milo charges about with some little ones playing war. He uses his fingers to make a gun.

“Piiiiooooowww! Piiiioooowwwww! Piiiiooooowww!”

The noise saws into my brain. I wish they would just stop and sit down and do some colouring or something peaceful like that. A red chubby-cheeked baby on another table starts crying and crying and crying and his mum ignores him and keeps chatting on and on and on. Everyone’s voices are screeching and battling with each other and I wish I could scream out loud and say, STOP!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!! BE QUIET!!!!!

I slide closer to Mum.

“Can we go soon, Mum? Please!” I whisper. “I’m so bored.”

“I’m not ready to leave yet, Mima,” she shouts above the din, drowning me with custard breath. “I’m having fun.”

“But how can you have fun,” I say, “when Dad’s only just gone away? And you didn’t even want to come yourself. You said!”

“Because what else am I supposed to do, Jemima?” she hisses. “I have to be here, and if I let myself go I’ll end up in a puddle of tears and I won’t be able to stop for the next six months. And what good would that do? So I’m trying to get on and have fun. I’m well aware that Dad’s gone and I don’t need you to keep reminding me of that fact every five minutes. I’m just trying to put a brave face on it – we all are…”

She cradles her fat belly in her hands and her voice cracks open.

“I know you’re hurting too, Jemima, and I’m sorry that it’s so hard for you when he goes, but going on about it isn’t going to help.” She digs around in her bag and pulls out my iPod. “If you’re that bored listen to this, or go and talk to Jess, because we’re not leaving yet.”

I fire invisible bullets at her. I’d rather be facing possible death in Afghanistan with my dad than be stuck here with her and Milo and the fat greedy baby in her tummy.

I slide over to Granny.

“I’m bored, Granny,” I say. “I want to go home.”

Granny smiles at me, but she’s not really here. She’s lost in her memories of Derek and Bognor Regis and the Blitz.

She pats my arm.

“Listen to your music for a bit, pet,” she smiles. “Like Mum said.”

I get another helping of apple crumble and custard and plug myself into Kiss Twist and as soon as they start singing ‘A Million Angels’ I know I’ve discovered the first part of my Bring Dad Home mission.

I dig around in Mum’s bag, find a biro and a felt-tip pen and set to work on my skin. I draw a million angels up and down my arms and blow them to my dad. I watch them flutter from my skin and fade from biro blue to a radiant flash of brilliant white wings that swoop and soar through the sky. I watch a million angels settle around him so they can guard him and keep him safe until I can find a way to bring him back home.

I just finish linking the angels together with a string of tiny red felt-tip pen hearts when a little girl sits next to me and holds out her arm.

“Want some angels too?” I ask. “For your dad?”

“For my mum,” she whispers, her eyes twinkle with tears. “She went away this morning, before I was awake.”

“Same as my dad,” I say.