The Yeovil Short Story Prize 2009 was judged by Rachel Billington.
There was no theme, but at the time I had been reading a lot about Henry VIII's wives and wondering about what life would be like for the child of a much-married father.
Daddy's fourth wife was, looking back, not a bad mother. She was never nasty, often funny and absolutely did not pretend that we were going to be the best, best friends two people ever could be. Also, she made faces behind Daddy's back when he was 'going off on one' and asked him, please, not to bring his acting home with him.
I agreed with her on that. Especially when it was Iago or Dr Faustus he was bringing home, or one of those flouncy men who just have to speak the truth until everybody else ends up sobbing.
Yes she was fine, and certainly better than number 3, who even my father admitted was crazed. We found out just how crazed one Sunday when Daddy, I and Eloise (our housekeeper), had to lock ourselves in the big pantry while she smashed everything her little grabby hands could reach. Luckily she wasn't very tall and she didn't like heights, so pretty soon she ranout of ammunition. Except for her words. As they exploded against the pantry door, Eloise placed her hands over my ears and Daddy loosened the lid on a jar of plums in brandy and methodically started to eat them.They looked swollen and bruised as he popped them in his mouth, which seemed apt somehow.
When the noise finally stopped on Number 3's side of the door, it erupted on ours as my father's plummy voice launched a scalpel-like counter-attack. It becames less sharp as the brandy kicked in.
He peaked and stumbled finally on a misjudged, 'You bore me to death. In and out of bed.'
At this Eloise sighed in her particularly French way and said, 'Plus ca change,' a statement she was well qualified to make having worked for Daddy since Wife number 1 (my real mother) and my father's embarrassing flirtation with French films.
Before I could recite Number 3's catalogue of persecutions to fire Daddy up again, (a catalogue that included slapping and dark threats about cellars), we heard a grating noise and watched as bits of the things previously shattered were posted under the pantry door. She managed to send us half a gravy boat and the Christmas turkey plate, its little holly berries coming through separately, before my father's agent and his publicist cornered her in a theathrical pincer movement.
She did not go quietly.
'No more actresses,' Daddy declaimed later as we crunched our way over the kitchen floor, and then he left Eloise and I to sweep up the mess as he went to speed dial his lawyer.
So, all in all, number 4 was a cool drink after fire. Particularly as she left Eloise to do what Eloise had been doing forever - mothering me and lifting me gently back on to my feet when I wobbled (or, rather, when Daddy wobbled), and sending me off to school in the right clothes with the right books and my journal signed in all the right places.
When I fell over she cuddled me; when I was hungry she fed me. At night she read me a story and tucked my duvet in around my neck.
The complex, simplicity of love.
Number 4 understood this and left well alone, choosing instead to focus on massaging Daddy's ego; something she did very well for a number of years judging by the noises that reverberated around the house at night.
My days were filled with different sounds. When Eloise could step away from her duties, we would screech and shriek through made up games; dance with determination; escape along the lanes, singing. But what I liked best was sitting sideways on her lap and teasing out the strandsof her fat, brown plait while she told me about France. Together we walked among sunflowers and felt the waters of a blue, blue sea run between our toes.
