Moon Pie Read online

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Martha. I said, where are we going on our holidays?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know, Tug.’

  ‘Shall we go to Russia?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Russia’s so far away.’

  Tug thought about this for a while. ‘Martha?’ He pulled on her hand until she turned to him again.

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Have you ever eaten bear?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not in a pie?’

  ‘No, Tug.’

  ‘Not in sandwiches, Martha?’

  ‘No, I’ve never eaten bear at all.’

  He examined her closely. ‘You’re tired,’ he said, as she yawned.

  ‘I didn’t have a very good sleep last night.’

  ‘I did,’ he said.

  She looked down at him walking alongside her, small and chunky, with his soft, untidy hair and his quiet, smudged face. Whatever else I do now, she thought, I have to stay calm. More than ever. After all, there isn’t just Dad to think about. There’s Tug too.

  They reached the library and went up the steps and inside.

  She did not allow Tug to renew The Very Hungry Caterpillar a second time. It would be good for him to choose something completely different, she said. He chose Gobble, Gobble, Slip, Slop: A Tale of a Very Greedy Cat.

  While Tug was choosing, Martha went across to the adult section of the library to ask if she could borrow adult books on her children’s membership card.

  The librarian said she could. ‘Up to five at a time. Is it your first time in the adult section?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll come and show you how it works. Is there anything in particular you’re interested in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Martha said. But she didn’t say what.

  Even with the librarian’s help the adult section was a confusing place. It was half an hour before Martha found what she was looking for. Tug came in and played on the computers while she searched.

  At last they went together to check out their books. The librarian gave Martha a long look as she stamped them.

  The books were Gobble, Gobble, Slip, Slop: A Tale of a Very Greedy Cat, Alcoholism: The Family Guide, The Truth about Alcoholism, Cure for Alcoholism, I’ll Quit Tomorrow and Dying for a Drink. Martha had taken some free brochures too. They were called Alcohol Misuse, Getting Help and Liver Disease.

  ‘School project?’ the librarian asked.

  Martha nodded.

  They went back across the park towards home.

  For some time Tug had been looking at Martha and her pile of books with a puzzled expression, and now he turned to her. ‘Martha?’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Yes, Tug?’

  ‘What sort of bear is best to eat?’

  She sat in her room with the door shut and the curtains closed, and began to read.

  The first book was called The Truth about Alcoholism and it was written by a doctor. There were no pictures and it contained unhelpful sentences such as, ‘Drinking to excess may cause an accumulation of acetaldehyde harmful to cellular proteins’.

  The second book she tried was Alcoholism: The Family Guide. It began: ‘A wide variety of alcoholism theories are based on psychological and socio-cultural variables’, and she put it down, and picked up Cure for Alcoholism. It seemed to be mainly about God, which was puzzling.

  I’ll Quit Tomorrow and Dying for a Drink were different, but just as difficult to read. One was written by a man who worked for a newspaper, and the other was by a football player, and both were noisy, confusing books full of parties and holidays with crowds of people drinking alcohol all day, and falling into swimming pools and waking up at airports in Brazil or Iceland.

  There was no one like Dad in any of these books.

  The brochures were easier to read. Questions in big colourful letters headed each page – like What is Alcohol Misuse? and How Do I Know if I Have a Problem? – and there were lots of pictures in them, of people drinking, people looking ill and people with their faces on tables full of empty glasses and bottles.

  But none of these people looked like Dad.

  In the end she went downstairs and borrowed Dad’s big dictionary, and looked up ‘Alcoholic’. It said ‘Suffering from alcoholism’. She looked up ‘Alcoholism’. It said ‘Addiction to alcohol’.

  She said experimentally to herself, ‘My dad is an alcoholic.’ It still didn’t sound quite right.

  Perhaps Laura had got it wrong. After all, Martha had never seen Dad drink alcohol. But something was making him strange: Olivia had seen it in him straight away, and Martha remembered what Grandma had said to him at her house: ‘Anyone can see it, just looking at you.’

  Even so, she didn’t quite believe it. How could she find out for certain? She still couldn’t imagine asking Dad.

  Then she remembered something else Laura had said.

  19

  After school the next day, while Dad was out, Tug found Martha searching through the piles of sheets in the airing cupboard.

  ‘What are you doing, Martha?’

  ‘Nothing. Go away.’

  ‘Is it a game?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can I play?’

  ‘No.’

  Martha carried on searching and Tug watched in silence. First she stood on tiptoe to feel under all the sheets on the shelf just above the boiler, then she got on her hands and knees and hunted round the back of the boiler on the floor, among the dusty pipes. Finally she stood up and looked at the top shelf, which she couldn’t reach. She sighed. ‘You have to help me now, Tug.’

  ‘All right. Why?’

  ‘You have to sit on my shoulders, and reach up there, and look under the sheets on the top shelf.’

  ‘All right.’

  He got on her shoulders, and, after some wobbling, began to feel under the sheets.

  ‘Can you feel anything?’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Can you feel a bottle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her heart raced. ‘Give it to me.’

  Together, they examined it.

  ‘What is it, Martha?’

  She read out the label: ‘BestValue London Dry Gin Triple Distilled.’ It was nearly empty.

  ‘Now I believe it,’ she said, and suddenly in her mind she saw an image of Dad with his face on a table crowded with empty glasses in The Crooked Pot.

  She groped for Tug’s hand and held it hard.

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘It’s good to keep bottles with towels, isn’t it? In case they get wet.’

  His eyes were big and troubled, and she wondered if her own eyes were the same. But she wasn’t five. She was eleven. She was the one who had to keep her head.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We have to find the others.’

  In a wooden box under the sink where Dad kept his shoe polish they found a second BestValue London Dry Gin Triple Distilled, half full. On the bookshelves in the front room, behind a copy of Jack London’s White Fang, they found a Special Deal Dry London Gin, three-quarters full. And in Dad’s sock drawer they found a Teachers Highland Cream Perfection of Old Scotch Whisky, brand new and unopened.

  ‘That’s four,’ Martha said. ‘Four.’

  Tug didn’t like the sound of her voice. ‘That’s a lot, isn’t it, Martha?’ he said cautiously.

  Martha thought for a moment. ‘Wait,’ she said. She went down the garden, and in a carrier bag on a shelf at the back of the shed she found a full bottle of Special Deal Dry London Gin.

  ‘Five,’ she said to Tug.

  ‘That is a lot.’

  Martha thought some more.

  ‘Wait,’ she said again. Taking the car key from the nail next to the front door, she went out into the street and came back a few minutes later with a half bottle of Bells Extra Special.

  ‘In the glove compartment, behind the log book,’ she said to Tug. ‘That makes six. Maybe that’s it. N
ow you have to help me carry them into the kitchen.’

  ‘All right. Why?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  In the kitchen, they collected the bottles on the table, then Tug passed them to Martha, and one by one she poured their contents down the sink. When the bottles were empty, Martha passed them back to Tug and he lined them up, very neatly, in a row on the floor by the bin.

  ‘It makes a noise, doesn’t it, Martha? Like swallowing. It smells too,’ he said happily. ‘Like paint.’

  It all worked well until they reached the new bottle of Teachers Highland Cream Perfection of Old Scotch Whisky. Martha couldn’t get it open, the plastic wrapping round the cap was too stiff. Fetching a corkscrew from the cutlery drawer, she began to work at it, scouring the wrapper and pulling at it with her fingers, and Tug gave her advice. But they still couldn’t open it. Five minutes went by while they struggled, and they were concentrating on it so hard that neither of them heard Dad come in.

  ‘Give that to me,’ he said suddenly.

  The bottle fell on its side as they jumped apart, and he bent down and picked it up.

  For a moment he looked as if he was going to say something, and then he looked as if he wasn’t. He left the kitchen carrying the bottle, and they heard him go upstairs to his room.

  Tug said sadly, ‘I think he wants to keep it with his socks, Martha.’

  She bit her lip to stop it trembling. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go and talk to him.’

  She had no idea what she was going to say. All the way up the stairs she tried to think of something, and couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine what Dad was going to say to her either. Perhaps he’d say that it was all a silly mistake, that it wasn’t his drink, that he’d never seen it before. Or he might tell her a funny story, the way he sometimes did, so they could both laugh about it.

  But he hadn’t looked very comical. He’d looked angry.

  She went slowly up the stairs, her heart beating fast. On the landing, she hesitated and looked back at Tug standing at the bottom, and he solemnly waved up at her as if she were going away for a long time. Then she went on again. When she got to Dad’s bedroom, she stopped and listened with her ear to the door. Inside there was no noise at all. She stayed there for a full minute until her heart slowed down. Then, taking a deep breath, she opened the door and went in, and stood silently with her back to the wall.

  *

  He was sitting on his bed with the bottle in his hands, staring at it. ‘What were you doing with this?’

  ‘Trying to open it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So we could pour it down the sink, like the others.’

  ‘This is none of your concern,’ he said. ‘Do you understand? I ought to be very cross.’

  Martha didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘There’s six. All hidden, like Laura said.’

  Dad breathed deeply. ‘I don’t know what Laura has said to you, but Laura knows nothing about me, or you, or any of us.’

  ‘Her dad was a drunk.’

  Dad raised his eyebrows. ‘So you think I’m a drunk?’

  Martha didn’t say anything.

  Dad pulled the top off the Teachers Highland Cream Perfection and held it out to her. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Tip it down the sink. I’m not a drunk and I don’t need it. Where did you find it, by the way?’

  ‘In your sock drawer.’

  ‘I didn’t even know it was there. I recognize it: it was a present from ages ago. I must have bunged it in there when I got it and forgotten all about it.’

  ‘There was a bottle in the airing cupboard too,’ Martha said. ‘And under the sink. And behind the books. And …’

  ‘All right, I know. Those bottles I hid. Silly of me. Look. You’re quite often in on your own, you and Tug; I didn’t want to leave alcohol lying about. Especially not with Tug. You know what he’s like.’

  ‘But there were six bottles.’

  ‘I believe you. But I’m telling you I had no idea. I’d have a drink and put the bottle away and forget about it. Then when I fancied another drink I’d have to buy a new bottle. I bet some of those bottles were really dusty, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They won’t have been touched for months.’

  Now she was unsure. What Dad said sounded right. But he looked uneasy.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Were you drinking at lunch when Olivia and Laura were here?’

  He bit his lip.

  ‘Did you keep going out to get it?’

  ‘I told you I was an imbecile. I was nervous, Martha. Frightened. I wanted to make a good impression on Olivia and I thought it would help me.’ He groaned. ‘I know what sort of impression I made. You don’t need to tell me. But I won’t be making that mistake again.’

  He sat on the end of his bed, running his hands through his hair and licking his lips. His face was pale and shiny.

  ‘Listen, Martha. Things have been bad. But they’re going to get better, I promise.’

  He’d said that before, in the shed. He still didn’t look as if he could make anything better.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ she said. ‘If I can,’ she added.

  Then he smiled and she wanted to hug him, and be hugged by him, but he stood up briskly and handed her the bottle of Teachers. ‘You’re a good girl, Martha. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not a drunk. Now go and tip that stuff down the sink.’

  That was on Tuesday. The next evening, Dad was an hour late picking Martha up from Cookery Club, and when he finally arrived his breath smelled odd. It was that paint-like smell again. Martha asked him if he’d had a drink and he angrily denied it.

  ‘Listen to me now,’ he said. ‘We’ve had that conversation already. I’m not having you accusing me of drinking all the time.’

  They drove home in silence.

  Over the next few days Dad spent a lot of time in the shed and Martha spent a lot of time in her room. Often Tug came in to keep her company. He lay on the carpet looking at Gobble, Gobble, Slip, Slop: A Tale of a Very Greedy Cat, making gobbling and slopping noises to himself, and occasionally chatting, and Martha sat next to him trying to concentrate on Alcoholism: The Family Guide.

  ‘Martha! You’re not listening to me!’

  ‘Yes, I am. You said you wanted to get a cat when you’re older.’

  ‘No, Martha! I said I want to be a cat when I’m older.’

  When she snorted, his bottom lip began to droop, and she felt sorry for him.

  ‘It’s too late, isn’t it?’ he said sadly.

  ‘Poor Tug. I’ll make you a cat costume instead.’

  Cheered up, he came and sat with his arms round her, to help her read.

  ‘That’s a dull book, isn’t it?’ he said after a while. ‘They forgot to put the pictures in.’

  Martha agreed. It was both dull and difficult. She went on with it because she didn’t know what else to do. More than ever she felt that it was no use talking to Dad. But after hours of struggling with Alcoholism: The Family Guide, she had found very few sentences that she understood completely. Only one of them stuck in her mind: ‘If an alcoholic doesn’t get better, he gets worse, and the collapse of his health is often followed by the collapse of his family.’

  I need help, she thought. But who can help me?

  20

  Casablanca was Marcus’s favourite movie. He had always wanted to do a speed version, he said.

  ‘Romance, danger, self-sacrifice. What could be more like life? Martha, darling, this trench coat is superb. You’re a genius.’

  Martha smiled briefly. The coat had been praised at Costumes Club too; her teacher had even said she would recommend it for display at the annual Summer Exhibition.

  But she wasn’t thinking about the coat any more.

  Turning up the collar, Marcus looked at himself in the mirror.

  ‘Play it again, Tug,’ he d
rawled.

  ‘All right,’ Tug said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Ignore him, Tug,’ Laura said. ‘He’s just being strange. Pass me that clip.’

  Laura was positioning her Sanyo 1010 on its revolving perch and Tug was helping her. Laura was Marcus’s new first grip.

  Martha didn’t mind Laura taking over the camerawork. It was Laura’s camera, after all. Martha was Costumes, as usual. Marcus had tried hard to persuade her to play the part of the heroine, Ilsa Lund, but Martha said she didn’t like acting.

  ‘But your mother, Martha. I’m sure you’d be a wonderful actress.’

  ‘I’m not my mother.’

  So Marcus was going to play Ilsa himself, and also Victor, her husband, and Rick the hero and various policemen. Ilsa was a Swedish beauty noted for her accent and her hats. Victor was a Czech freedom fighter with a cough. Rick had a drawl and a trench coat. And Marcus had voices for them all.

  He explained the story to Tug. ‘Rick loves Ilsa, but she left him for Victor. You understand?’

  Tug nodded.

  ‘And then she comes back and says she loves Rick. You see?’

  Tug nodded again.

  ‘So Rick sends her back to Victor. Got it?’

  Tug said he thought that sounded all right.

  Marcus was silent for a moment. ‘There’s a nightclub scene,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you can play the piano?’

  Tug shook his head.

  ‘But you can sing, of course. I wonder what. It needs to be haunting, emotional. Yet uplifting, resonant with hope. And at the same time sad and poignant.’

  Together, they thought about this.

  ‘How about “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”?’ Marcus said. ‘That should strike the right sort of note.’

  ‘All right,’ Tug said. ‘But will there be biscuits?’

  They were busy all morning: Ilsa met Rick, and then Rick met Victor, and then all three met together, which required some tricky camerawork from Laura. Tug sang his song and Marcus – to his delight – had fifteen costume changes. They filmed a lot of the action in slow-motion, and quite often zoomed in. It was a cheerful, energetic session. Only Martha was quiet.

  At eleven o’clock they stopped for biscuits and perched around the studio, chatting. Marcus was wearing the trench coat, high-heeled shoes and a fez, and he addressed Laura and Tug, who were partly listening, on the importance of style in the movie business.