After that, it was just me, Alison and mum living together in our family home. I don’t really remember much of that next year or so. But I do remember the next time I saw my dad. We’d all gone out shopping and were pushing the trolley around the supermarket when Alison let out a scream and ran off down one of the aisles. Mum shouted at her to come back but she carried on running full pelt. I was stuck sitting in the trolley facing the other way so didn’t know what was happening. To my little four year old brain, the only sensible thing seemed to be to cry. So I did. Mum sighed and wheeled me round and went trundling along behind Alison with me strapped in, bawling.
As we turned the corner into the aisle that Alison had gone down, my mum stopped suddenly. I craned round to see what she was staring at: stood there in the aisle was my dad, whom I hadn’t seen for nearly a year, holding my big sister in his arms. I screamed with joy and struggled to get out, to get at them, to hug him, but mum held me back with one firm hand.
“Alison,” She called clearly down the aisle, through the throng of hapless shoppers, “It’s time to go.” Dad looked up and started, a look of overwhelming fear and sadness etched across his face. Receiving no reply from either my dad or sister, mum’s eyes began to boil. I remember her suddenly becoming engulfed in flames, the floor cracked beneath her and her eyes turned the deepest black. She screamed at this point, tilted her head upwards and pillars of fire leapt from her mouth and eyes. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that, but I was four. Schemas and all that.
“Anthony, put her down. Alison, we are leaving.” When neither moved, mum leapt forward grabbed my sister from dad’s feebly clutching arms and strode back towards me.
Taking hold of the trolley, mum started off towards the exit, gripping tightly onto Alison’s wrist and dragging her along whilst I pulled at the sides of the trolley and stretched my arms out to my daddy.
“Cleo, they’re my kids too! I haven’t seen them for a year! Please can I hold them? Two minutes?” Everyone was staring at us now. Security guards and checkout staff alike came up to us, but mum deftly swatted them away as though they were little more than irritating flies. Dad, following behind us, grabbed hold of mum’s arm. “Can we just talk like sensible-?”
Flinging the trolley aside, it went ricocheting across the floor. Mum’s arm swung round, and, in one fluid movement, slapped my dad round the face, almost knocking him to the floor, picked both me and my sister up and strode out the door. She turned back to face him, and scathingly spat out “I’ll see you in court.”
