Page 13 of Summer in Greece

She stared into the junk room. Her mother’s treasured doll’s house, the ivory teething ring with a silver teddy dangling, a box of diecast cars, and the brass steam engine that really worked were loved toys.

‘They’ll be worth a few bob now,’ Dad had muttered, but he still packed the toys away. She slid the lid off another box, and found a pile of seasonal sweaters.

*

Physically and emotionally exhausted, Shelly slipped into bed at midnight and quickly fell to sleep thinking about that last Christmas. For the three days of the holiday, Mum made Dad wear a different Christmas jumper. Shelly felt a giggle hopping around in her belly as she remembered how he hated them.

‘If you love me, you’ll wear it,’ Mum challenged as she tugged the green crewneck that bore a ridiculous, grinning Rudolf with square, white teeth over his head.

Their happy marriage was glued together by compromises. ‘I’ll only do it if . . .’ was commonly uttered, and Shelly was captivated by the sometimes bizarre deals struck to secure their relationship.

However, Shelly was not granted this bargaining power, she simply had to do as she was told.

‘Mum, I’m sixteen! I did realise some time ago, there isn’t really a Santa Claus, you know!’

Mum threw her head back and laughed. ‘Shelly, darling, stop being a pain! You can pout all you like, you’re not coming into town with me.’

‘But why not? We always shop together on Christmas Eve. The sales will be starting this afternoon.’

‘I’m going to pick up a special present and I don’t want you around. That’s the end of it. I’m leaving you in charge of the mince pies. Take them out of the oven when the timer goes and pop them onto the wire rack. Mind you don’t burn yourself. I’m just going to have a word with your father.’ Her big brown eyes sparkled with all the merriment of Christmas as she pulled on her coat. ‘He’s around the back, having a Christmas jumper sulk and picking sprouts for dinner tomorrow. So, give me a kiss, my darling daughter, and don’t let the mince pies burn.’

Mum was gone in a flash, and as Shelly hovered, horrified, on the borderline of her dream, she knew what the next ten minutes held. She tried, and tried, to shout a warning – to change the future – but her words were never voiced. Through the front window, she could see the back of her mum’s red wool coat as she walked away, heading for the bus stop.

Shelly could see her so clearly and, though sensing it was a dream, she was filled with horror. Could she stop it, change it, after all, what were dreams for? Surely, they were warnings. ‘Don’t go, Mum!’ she tried to shout, but her mouth was glued shut and the words were nothing but a muffled mumble. She tried again and again, her mother getting smaller in the distance, the red coat, the bus stop . . . she mustn’t reach the bus stop!

Then, as if Shelly had broken through into another dimension, she found her voice and yelled, ‘Don’t go, Mum! Don’t go! Don’t go! Mum, please!’ She tried to run after her, but her father held her back, she could feel his hands on her shoulders and hear his voice, but still she shouted, ‘Mum, don’t go!’

Dad cried urgently, ‘’Ere, don’t, Shelly. It’s not real, love. Wake up now. Wake up!’

A moment of confusion tangled time and place, like in one of those films played backwards, making no sense until it’s played forward once again. Her father was patting her shoulder. ‘Come on, love, you’re havin’ a nightmare.’

‘Oh, Dad, it was so real. I was there . . . you know?’ She sobbed as she surfaced from the heartbreaking drama, drained, and oh so sad. ‘Will it ever go away? It’s been such a long time now.’

‘Put yer dressing gown on and come down. Let’s have a brandy-cocoa and a bit of a chinwag.’

She looked at him, saw the pain in his eyes – he was still suffering too.

*

At the kitchen table, Shelly poured the cocoa and her dad slopped a large measure of brandy into each mug.

Gordon spoke first. ‘I know, love. It’s the same for me. I have . . . well . . . oh God. Why is it so difficult to talk?’

‘I don’t know. It just hurts too much, I guess.’

‘We’ve never really spoken about it, have we, Shelly love? I reckon we should have done, long ago.’

‘It won’t go away, Dad. I don’t know why I can’t just accept what happened and move on.’

His forehead puckered. ‘I’ve given this a lot of thought too,’ he said. ‘I think it’s because we’ve both shut it up inside ourselves. We can’t let it go. In truth, we don’t want to let my Maggie go, and why would we? We both want to keep her with us because we loved her so much. But I have to confess, I was shocked before when you said it was more than twenty years. It’s time to move on, Shelly love. More than time, especially for you. Life’s passing you by.’

Shelly couldn’t hold back her tears. ‘I loved her so much, Dad.’ She knuckled her tears away. ‘And I never told her. And it was my fault.’ She closed her eyes and tried to quell her sobs.

‘Don’t fight it. Let the grief out, Shelly. And you didn’t have to tell her you loved her. She knew, just like you knew she loved you.’

She had never thought of that before. Looking up, she saw tears had settled into the crags around Dad’s eyes too.

‘When the bell rang that day, I thought she’d forgotten her keys,’ Shelly said. ‘I was going to pull her leg, you know, tease her. I knew we’d laugh about it for ages.’ She shook her head. ‘I pulled the door open and saw the policemen . . . well, I don’t know, I thought she’d organised some kind of joke. Like a novelty telegram or something, and when it wasn’t, when they asked for you . . . I felt guilty for grinning at them, and for thinking such a thing.