A Heartbeat Away

I felt a hand, soft against my cheek, stroking the hair back from my brow. He was here. Daniel was here. I tried to open my eyes, but my body refused to obey the distant commands from my brain, and as I felt myself beginning to slip away, a deep, trembling voice rang out inside my head, begging me to stay. I wanted to stay so much, but the darkness clawed at me with comforting fingers. Then the voice began to fade and a glorious blaze of light exploded inside my head, bursting out again in myriad colors to hover way above me, beckoning with the promise of peace. And when the dark fingers wrapped themselves more closely around me, I let myself go.

They say that your life flashes in front of your eyes in the moments before you die. Mine just flowed, on and on and on in an endless river of memories, long forgotten and eagerly relived. And they all began and ended with Daniel Brown.

CHAPTER 4

My feet felt cold in my scuffed red shoes and my hand, in the tight clasp of my mother’s, was gradually going numb, yet still I refused to put one foot in front of the other.

“Lucy!”

My mother’s voice was loud and angry, but I just made my legs very straight when she attempted to drag me forward, frowning up at her with the stubbornness that she said I got from my dad.

“I want to go home.”

I started to cry with great big sobs, just like the ladies in the films that my mom was always watching on TV. All it seemed to do was make her even crosser than she already was, and she began to yank so hard on my arm that it felt as though it was going to come right off.

“Well, I have to go to work, and you, young lady, are going to school whether you like it or not.”

For a second she stopped and gazed down at me. I scowled back with all the selfishness of a six-year-old, not noticing the harsh grooves that ran prematurely down either side of her mouth, or the tired lines that made a delicate network around her faded gray eyes. As far as I was concerned, my mother was as old as Methuselah. Thirty-five on her last birthday. How could she ever remember what it was like to go to school? If only my dad had been here. It would have been different. He would have understood my fears. He would have done something about Mollie Flynn. He would have understood about her. He would have known that I couldn’t go to school because she laughed at me and pinched my arms and stole my books so that I got into trouble with Mrs. Meeks. I hated Mollie Flynn and I wasn’t going to school. But my dad was long gone—“Up to no good as usual,” my mother said. I knew, though, that he would return one day, for wasn’t I the apple of his eye? I was. I know I was. He had told me often enough.

My feet hurt in the scuffed red shoes. They were a bit too tight, but I refused to wear anything else because my dad had bought them for me and I loved them with all my heart. The day he’d brought them home, my mother had gone mad, ranting on and on about having no money, but I thought it was just so special for my father to buy me such beautiful shoes when he had hardly any money at all. Well, at least he had had some that morning. But my mother said it had gone on a horse, so I supposed he must have bought a horse as well as my lovely red shoes. He was such fun, my dad, tall and good-looking, with sparkling blue eyes and a really wide laugh. He was always doing exciting things. But all my mom ever did was to get angry with him, and that made him sad, so it made me sad, too.

He went away that night and I haven’t seen him since, but I know he will come home soon because I am the apple of his eye. I hope his horse is okay.

Two bright spots of red popped up on my mum’s pale cheeks. That was how I knew that she was really mad, because her face did that on the day my dad gave me the red shoes and bought that horse. But I wasn’t frightened; at least, I was, but I was more afraid of Mollie Flynn.

We were nearly at the school gate when a blue car drove up. We didn’t have a car, but I didn’t mind about that anymore because we had a horse now, even though I hadn’t seen it yet.

My mom stopped and looked at me. Her face was all shiny and she wiped her forehead with her hanky, but she didn’t let go of my hand. I would have run away if she had.

I knew the big lady who got out of the car. She always wore nice clothes and her face was smiley. She had a boy who went to our school. He was older than me, but I sometimes saw him in the playground; I think he was in the eight-and-nine-year-old class like Mollie Flynn. I wondered if she nipped his arms. Yet I didn’t think so, because he was taller than her. He was even taller than some of the boys in the top class.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

The lady’s voice was soft and kind, and it made my mom cry. I don’t know why, but she rubbed her eyes and they were wet, so she must have been crying.

“I’m sorry,” my mother said, and her voice was a bit quivery, as well. “Everything seems to have gotten on top of me this morning. Lucy’s playing up and I’ve missed the bus for work.”

I stared at my shoes and pulled the worst face I could, but the lady just patted me on my head.

“Come on now, Lucy McTavish,” she said. “Be a good girl for your poor mother.”

I looked up at her and lifted my chin as high as I could. “My dad has gotten a horse,” I told her, and she didn’t laugh.

“It’s true,” I repeated defiantly. “My mom says all his money has gone on a horse, and she’s mad because he hasn’t got any left, but I’m glad, because I really like horses. And…” My voice sank to a wobbly whisper and I glared at my mother. “And now he won’t come home, and it’s her fault.”

There was a funny silence then. I felt my mom’s hand get even tighter on mine. She gazed at the lady, and did so with such sad eyes that I felt bad inside.

“It’ll be all right soon, though,” I told her, wanting everything to be okay again. “Because he’s gone away to try to get some more.”

The silence deepened and the lady reached for my other hand.

“Don’t you worry,” she said to my mother. “I’ll handle this. You get yourself off to work now.”

“Are you sure?”

My mom was all happy and her eyes were wet again. I wanted to shout at her to stay, but I didn’t dare, so I stared down at my red shoes once more and thought about my dad.

“You be a good girl for Mrs. Brown,” she told me, and then she kissed me on the top of my head and walked away.

The lady, Mrs. Brown, lifted me to sit on the wall, and then she lifted her boy to sit beside me. I hadn’t seen him until then because he must have been behind me.

“Daniel,” she said in a very serious voice. “This is Lucy McTavish and she needs some help.”

The boy turned to me and I liked his face. It reminded me of Timmy Brocklebank’s puppy—happy and kind, with warm brown eyes—so I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“I don’t like Mollie Flynn,” I told him. “She pinches my arms and she steals my books so that Mrs. Meeks will tell me off.”

Daniel Brown frowned and his eyes went dark and cross.

“Well, I’ll tell her not to,” he said, running his hand through his curly blond hair so that it stuck right up on the top.

“And I’ll tell Mrs. Meeks about it,” promised his mom.

That was the first time I’d spoken to Daniel, the first of lots of times. He was my hero, always there for me, always quick to help me when I had a problem. After he spoke to Mollie Flynn, she didn’t nip me anymore and, sometimes, she even smiled at me when we met in the canteen.

He lived in a rambling farmhouse, just down the lane from our gray-stone, terraced cottage. I used to go there sometimes on the school holidays when my mom was at work.

His house was very old, with lots of corridors and windows that resembled a face if you stood right before the front door on the smooth green lawn. We weren’t allowed to play on Mr. Brown’s lawn, but around the back was a huge overgrown area with bushes and trees and a swing and a slide. Daniel and I spent hours there, tunneling dens and building tree houses that always fell down. Daniel was good at making things.

The farm was called Homewood, and I thought that it was the best place in the whole world. I used to dream that one day we would all live there together, when my dad came home.

It was on the day that I found my mom sitting on the bottom stair in the hallway, a letter in her hand, that my dreams began to fade. Her thin face was all crumpled and tears ran in tiny rivers down the lines at the sides of her mouth.

She waved the letter at me, then threw it across the dark hall. It fluttered onto the floor and her head dropped forward into her hands.

I watched the tears run through her fingers and drip onto the floor, making small pools on the worn carpet, and I knew that something very bad must have happened. Fear washed over me in great big waves and I clasped my arms around myself, moving from foot to foot, wondering if I should go get Mrs. Brown—she always knew what to do. Then suddenly my mom looked up at me and her eyes were all glassy and red.

“Now see what your precious father has done,” she yelled, pointing at the letter.

I just stood and stared at her, my mouth wide-open and a lump inside my chest. She picked the letter up and screwed the paper into a tiny ball, twisting and twisting and twisting her fingers.

“They’re going to take our house away,” she shrieked. “And it’s all your stupid, useless father’s fault.”

“Is he coming home, then?” I cried. “Will we see him?”

“Lucy.”

My mother stood very tall, and her face was so white that it shone in the murky light of the hallway.