The Lost Child by Suzanne McCourt Page A

with beer bottles clutched to his chest, I see Mrs Daley watching me. But even though I’m sitting at the table, helping Faye fold red table napkins into double Vs, Dad doesn’t notice me. He tells Mrs Daley that Layle’s old man is on his last legs and if he croaks over Christmas it won’t be before time. He says she’ll be back the day after Boxing Day. His voice is loud and seems to bounce around the room like a tennis ball thrown hard against a wall. Blue Daley pours them each a glass of beer and they take it into the lounge while I keep on folding Vs.
    Mrs Daley says the turkey is almost ready and we’d better get on with opening the gifts. I don’t have a gift for anyone. Mum didn’t give me any. Should she have? I am no longer sure how much I can trust my mother. She didn’t tell me it was wrong to scrape the crust of toast across the butter dish; Mrs Daley told me that. And sometimes she says she can’t remember things. Sometimes she says she forgets her own name. What if she’s forgotten the presents?
    In the lounge, Santa is standing next to the tree but I can tell it’s Blue Daley dressed in the costume that Mr Boland wore for the Christmas party at the Institute. It fitted Mr Boland better than Blue Daley; he is too skinny and the pillow for his stomach keeps dropping down. Besides, his eyebrows are reddish-brown and I can see the elastic holding up his beard.
    We all crowd in. Blue Daley takes a present from beneath the tree, reads the name, then he tosses it to my father, who tosses it back, and Blue Daley tosses it back again. Mrs Daley says: ‘Come on, you two, stop mucking around and get on with it.’ But they do the same with every present, back and forth, laughing from too much beer.
    I am not sure how Dad can toss the presents and not see me. Then one comes flying at my head. ‘Here, catch this,’ he says but Faye catches it instead and hands it on to me. It is a new pencil case from Faye. Then my father tosses me another. When I tear off the paper I find a new Marigold book inside. To Sylvie, love from Dad , says the card but I can see it is Mrs Daley’s writing and when I call out thank you like the Daley kids, the present throwing is finished and my father is at the window drinking beer.
    I am wondering if I should go home and be with Mum, when Dad looks at me. His eyes are black and shining and as soon as they settle on me they slide right off again. But I know he has seen: I know because he sneaks another look when he thinks I can’t see. And then I look away and he looks away and we both look back and pretend we haven’t, and look away again. I want him to keep on looking but all through Christmas dinner he eats turkey and pudding and drinks beer; he tells funny stories that I can’t understand, but he doesn’t look at me again.
    I am glad to leave. I thank Mrs Daley and don’t look at Dad. I run home along the clay path that edges the lagoon, jumping on the samphire weed to make the blood juice squelch. There is no one anywhere, no one in the streets or in their yards, no cars, no sounds at all except the glug-glug of sleepy frogs in the lagoon and the sea breeze rustling through the reeds. No one anywhere, just me. And then I see an eagle, drifting in the sky above my father’s new house, rising in a wind draft without a flap of wings, drifting higher and higher, then dropping, rising, hiding in the sun that shines behind the dunes.
    I run through the gate and up the gravel drive. I want to tell Dunc about the eagle. I want Mum to be up off the floor. I want to take my bride doll outside and play with her on the lawn.
    Where is she? I cannot feel her lying next to me, cannot hear her breathe. The kitchen clock tick-ticks ; the house fidgets like a dog with fleas, so many sounds I never hear when I’m asleep: a crackle in the kitchen, a creaking in the roof, Georgie snuffling in his cage beneath his