Phosphorescence by Raffaella Barker Page A

her,’ says Dad, removing the lid and picking up one of the hedgehogs to admire. ‘I shall take one for my lunch.’
    He moves towards the chopping board with it, and as one, Nell and I shriek, ‘Don’t!’
    â€˜Don’t what?’ Dad is looking in the fridge, bringing out a few salad leaves and a heel of cheese.
    â€˜Don’t cut its head off,’ I plead, giggling again because I am begging for the life of a dough hedgehog.
    â€˜I wasn’t going to,’ he says, putting it down with its paler belly facing up. ‘I was going to stuff it.’
    This has me slain again, leaning on Nell, who stops laughing first and digs me in the ribs with her elbow.
    â€˜That’s good,’ she says encouragingly. ‘Mum does that with hers when she’s doing them for her wine and cheese nights and stuff.’
    Dad looks very pleased to be doing the same as Nell’s mum, and grates his cheese for the stuffing with a jaunty speed.
    â€˜What are you two up to today?’
    And as if a connection of wires has been straining to meet and has finally made it, I feel a click and a rush of comprehension as I look at him.
    He is a single parent trying to keep a relationship going with his daughter. I don’t live with him and he doesn’t know anything about my life now. I know too much about his life, though, because I’ve stepped right into the middle of it, and it isn’t wonderful. In fact I feel really sad for him. It always sounded quite cosy on the phone when he called, and he told me things like, ‘Cactus and I are sleeping in the armchair,’ or ‘I’ve been out feeding the hens and hanging my washing on the line and it’s a windy day.’ But now I’m here I can see that it is literally a third of the life we had when we were all here, right down to the way he orders one pint of milk from the milkman to be delivered to the doorstep each morning, when we used to have three. His washing on the line is just a couple of shirts, one towel and two big hankies. It hardly occupies one quarter of the line in our little patch of orchard at the bottom of the garden. I know, because I hung it out for him this morning. I would never have found it if I hadn’t needed to wash my own stuff, and I only hung it out because I promised Grandma I would be a help to Dad, but I never imagined he actually needed my help. The washing had been in the machine for a while, I think. It was clean, but it had that almost mouldy smell of being leftthere. I wonder how long for? And the bathroom had a spider in the bath and no loo paper on the holder screwed to the wall. I cooked breakfast, but I had to go to the shop to buy bacon and butter because Dad only had bread and coffee. Dad’s life is too big to take on. I prefer to think about the dough hedgehog.
    â€˜Shall I wrap it up for you?’ I pull foil from the drawer where Mum kept it, and I look in the wicker basket in the larder cupboard where there always used to be crisps, and amazingly there are still some there. ‘Look, here are some crisps and you can take an apple.’
    Nell passes the fruit bowl, and between us we pack up Dad’s lunch and wave him off. I am crying when I turn back to Nell from shutting the kitchen door behind him.
    â€˜It’s hard coming back here, Nell,’ I sob. ‘I thought it would be just the same, but it isn’t, and I feel disloyal for being relieved I don’t live with Dad now, even though I can see that he needs someone around.’
    Nell puts her arms round me and we stand close together in the kitchen. I am so glad she is my friend. Even thinking it makes me cry more.
    â€˜Mum says I may have to choose when the divorce comes through, and I thought I would choose to come back here, but I don’t know now.’
    We sit on the sofa at the end of the kitchen overlooking the quay. Our house is slightly raised, built to withstand floods, so we