Coming Home (9 page)

‘WHAT. IS. THAT?’

‘Umm …’

‘Is it your father’s?’

I nodded feeling like an eight-year-old. I could feel my lip curling like I was going to cry.
I made a mistake!
I wanted to say.
Go away and I’ll put it back and we’ll pretend it never happened!
‘It was in the attic,’ I said.

‘And what are you doing to it?’ Mum’s words were clipped.

‘I was just taking a look at it …’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, no reason. Just … I wondered what you wanted to do with it.’

‘Well, mark my words, young lady. You will not be riding that bike. You hear me?’

‘What?’

‘I said, you are not riding that bike.’

‘But …’

‘But nothing. Now you’ve got it down, you may as well
put it outside for the bin men. But mark my words, if I catch you …’ Mum let out a stifled scream and steamed out of the room, fury stuck to her like a swarm of bees.

‘It was twenty years ago!’ I shouted after her, suddenly furious myself. ‘When are you going to face up to it? He’s
dead
! They are
both dead
!’ I dropped the oilcan and collapsed onto my knees on the kitchen floor.

Richard looked sadly at me and shook his head. ‘To be fair, Evie, that was a bit much.’

‘To be fair, Richard,’ I snapped, ‘it’s none of your business.’

I waited for him to leave the room, then stood up, rubbing out the ache in the small of my back. I wheeled the bike out into the garden and around the side of the house, where I propped it up by the bins. I’d decide what to do with it later.

‘E
vie, what happened?’ Miss Dawson asked. ‘The school called. I came as quickly as I could. What happened?’

I liked that Miss Dawson didn’t ask if I was all right. Even my teacher had spotted that I wasn’t all right. When I hadn’t been able to stop crying in class, she’d led me to the nurse’s room and asked her to phone my mum
.

‘No! Not Mum!’ I’d curled in a ball on the narrow bed and wished I could stay there forever
.

‘Who then?’ Nurse had asked. ‘Is your dad around?’

I’d shaken my head
.

Nurse had tut-tutted. ‘Who then? Miss Dawson?’ and I’d agreed with a nod
.

Now Miss Dawson was here, I knew I had to talk to her. I pulled myself up so I was sitting on the bed
.

‘It’s Dingbat,’ I said
.

Miss Dawson waited
.

‘Hamster,’ I hiccupped. ‘He’s dead.’ I scrubbed at my eyes with the balled-up tissue I’d been holding all morning, my breath still jagged
.

‘Oh, Evie. I’m sorry to hear that.’ Miss Dawson rubbed a hand over her face
.

But it wasn’t that Dingbat was dead. Well, it was, but it wasn’t like Miss Dawson thought. Dingbat had been Graham’s hamster. He’d got him when he’d turned ten—for his last birthday. He’d begged and pleaded, claiming he’d look after the hamster one hundred per cent himself. Mum hadn’t thought Graham would manage, but Dad had persuaded her to give him the benefit of the doubt and Graham had hand-picked Dingbat from a heap of ginger-and-white fluff at the pet shop. And, to Mum’s surprise, he’d looked after Dingbat really well, feeding him, changing his water, peeling grapes for him and even cleaning out his cage. He’d really loved him. After the accident, I’d taken over caring for Dingbat. It made me feel like I was with Graham
.

‘He was Graham’s,’ I said
.

‘It’s very sad when pets die,’ Miss Dawson said carefully. ‘And it must be very hard for you with … Dingbat? … because he was a link to Graham?’

‘Mmm.’ I didn’t know what to say. I was supposed to be able to tell Miss Dawson anything, but I didn’t know if I could tell her what had happened yesterday after school. Whenever I thought about it, I started to shake
.

I’d gone into the kitchen to ask for a biscuit. Mum had been standing at Dingbat’s cage. The cage door was open and Mum had been holding Dingbat, letting him run from one hand to the other as she stared out of the window at the garden. At the exact moment that I opened my mouth to ask for the biscuit, Mum had spun around with a scream and hurled Dingbat at the kitchen wall. I could still hear the
crunch of his little body slamming into the wall, the thud of him landing on the tiled floor
.

‘Mummy!’ I’d screamed and she’d noticed me for the first time. She’d stared at me, then she’d pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and come towards me with her arms held out and a smile splitting her face in two. On the floor behind her, Dingbat twitched and then was still, blood oozing from his mouth and ears
.

‘Evie, darling. What’s wrong? Come here. Let me give you a cuddle.’ She’d wound her arms around me, stroking my hair, and I’d sagged against my mother, clinging to her, breathing in the scent of her clothes, her perfume. It was the first time she’d hugged me since Graham had died
.

‘I love you, Evie,’ she’d said, kissing my hair and running her hands through it. ‘Don’t ever leave me. Promise you won’t leave me.’

It was awful, but the attention was nice and I hated myself for liking it; hated myself for choosing Mum’s hugs instead of running to Dingbat
.

‘It’s Mum,’ I told Miss Dawson
.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘She probably misses Dingbat as much as you do. I expect he reminded her of Graham, too.’

I twisted the tissue in my hand, my eyes raw. Mum had killed a living creature. Would Miss Dawson have to tell the police? Would Mum have to go to jail? What was worse: Mum like this, or Mum in jail? I took a deep breath and made my decision: ‘It’s just that … I don’t think she’ll let me get a new hamster,’ I said. Well … at least that bit was true
.

S
lightly squiffy from having discovered Mum’s stash of good gin, I decided to spend the evening catching up on back episodes of
Casualty
. Right near the start of one episode, a man had a dramatic heart attack in a shopping centre. He clutched his chest as he dropped to the floor, groaning.

‘Hollywood heart attack!’ I shouted at the television, realising as I did so that I sounded just like Dad. It’s exactly what he would have said. ‘Most heart attacks don’t look like that,’ he’d say. And now he’d know, I thought, wondering what he’d felt—if anything—when his heart had failed him in his sleep. Had he woken up? Had there been a moment when he’d panicked? Known he was dying? Or had he simply slept through it, as Mum clearly wanted to believe? I had my doubts. Suddenly, grief ambushed me and I pressed ‘mute’ on the television, picked up my phone and flicked through my contacts to the entry for ‘Dad’. I stared at the word for a few seconds then, before I even had time to think about it, I pressed ‘dial’ and put the phone to my ear.

‘Hello. You’re through to Doctor Robert Stevens. I can’t
take your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone.’

‘Dad,’ I whispered. I clicked off the call, but kept the phone at my ear.

‘Hello, Dad. It’s me,’ I said into the handset. ‘I just wanted to … say hello. See how you are. I hope … it wasn’t painful … I hope you’re in a good place now.’ Suddenly, I felt silly. ‘OK, bye.’ I put my phone out of reach on the coffee table and clicked the TV’s sound back on.

Outside, there was the scrunch of gravel, a pause while goodnights were said, and then the scrape of Mum’s key in the door. I turned off the television as she stuck her head around the door.

‘How was your evening?’

‘Oh very nice, thank you,’ Mum said, flopping into an armchair and easing her feet out of her shoes and then her pop socks. ‘We had some poppadums, chicken tikka and tiny samosas to start, then I had chicken
korma
and Richard had lamb
biryiani
. We shared the
naan
and a bottle of red wine. I couldn’t manage dessert so we just had coffee.’

‘Sounds lovely, but I meant how was the evening? With Richard?’

‘Oh.’ Mum looked at her watch. ‘We’ve only been gone two hours. No time at all!’ She was wearing her ‘going out’ perfume and a stylish skirt and top; they could have been Ghost. So much for ‘just a curry’.

‘So, did he make a move on you?’ I asked.

‘Of course not!’ I was glad she seemed affronted.

‘So?’ I asked again, raising an eyebrow. ‘How was it?’

Mum tutted. ‘It’s not like that. He just had a voucher and knew I was on my own. He thought I might like cheering up. For goodness’ sake, Evie. Dad’s not been gone three days.’

‘Do you miss him?’

Mum flopped onto the sofa. ‘Of course. I was married to him for thirty-three years. Do you?’

I sighed. My head was starting to spin with the gin; I could feel blood throbbing at my temples. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s weird. You know what he was like. After …?’ I couldn’t say it. ‘He was distant. He wasn’t interested in me. But he was better last summer, wasn’t he? Did you notice how he asked questions about Dubai? It was like he wanted to come. And I wanted him to see what I’ve achieved. I wanted him to be proud.’

It was the most I’d ever said to her about Dad. What I didn’t tell her was about the other, unexpected conversation I’d had with Dad out in the garden last summer.

‘I still blame myself,’ he’d said,
apropos
of nothing, but I’d known at once what he meant.

‘Well, you shouldn’t. It wasn’t your fault,’ I’d said. ‘The car jumped the lights. No one could have stopped that, not even Mum. It was a quirk of fate that it was you with Graham, not her.’

Dad had looked so grateful then that I’d had to look away.

‘You really don’t blame me?’ he’d asked.

‘Of course not. I never did.’

He’d reached out and touched my hand. It was the most contact we’d had in over two decades.

Now, in the living room, Mum didn’t say anything. I
rubbed my temples, trying to smooth away the giddiness from the alcohol. ‘Well, too late now, isn’t it?’ I said.

Mum flattened her lips into a line. ‘Your father loved you very much, Evie. He just didn’t know how show it. He was ever so proud of you going off to Dubai on your own.’ She shifted in her chair and pulled at her skirt, smoothing it down over her thighs.

I raised my eyebrows. Apart from last summer, I’d not seen any evidence of Dad being proud of me.

‘He never stopped blaming himself, you know,’ she said.

‘But it wasn’t his fault, was it?’

‘No, of course not. It was a terrible tragedy. But Graham was under his care. He couldn’t forgive himself.’

‘I never blamed him.’ I needed her to see that, to understand it.

Mum was quiet.

‘Last summer we spoke about it,’ I said. ‘I told him I didn’t blame him.’

Mum stood up, yawned and stretched her arms out behind her.

‘Well, he never stopped blaming himself. That much I know. Goodnight.’

The white elephant in the room practically headbutted me: Dad had never stopped blaming himself because Mum had never stopped blaming him.

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

I may have intended to sleep that night, but the gin had
other plans for me. As soon as I lay down, the matter of the mysterious debits slithered snake-like into my mind and flicked its forked tongue at my consciousness, keeping me awake. I’d bet my last Rolo that Mum knew neither about the lump sum nor the regular debits and, if the money wasn’t for the house, what was it for? I tossed about in my bed, turning this way and that, then flipping the pillow and finally lying on my back staring at the ceiling. What on earth would my parents have spent £22,000 on? They were hardly known for their extravagant purchases.

Lying in the dark, I ran through possibilities. Could Dad have been putting money aside for a surprise for Mum? A new car, maybe—but it would have to be a really nice one. An exotic holiday? A Caribbean cruise? Maybe it was more practical: an advance payment to a retirement home? Or had he really fallen victim to a financial scam?

Giving up any pretence of sleep, I grabbed my knitting bag and sat up in bed. Knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one … the ribbed base of the hat I was knitting took shape in the light of the bedside lamp as my mind whirled. What could it be?

As my needles clicked, I tried to convince myself Dad must have spent the money on something so obvious I’d completely overlooked it. I finished off the hat’s ribbing and packed my needles away, resolving to go through the receipts with a toothcomb as soon as I could. I plumped the pillows one more time and settled into my favourite sleeping position, but still I couldn’t sleep.

After fumbling for the torch I kept on the bedside table,
I padded into the bathroom and opened the medicine cupboard. I was hoping Mum might have an old box of herbal sleeping tablets somewhere in there, but what I actually saw, as the torch lit up the contents, was a shock: the entire right-hand side of the cabinet was given over to sleep remedies ranging in strength from Night Rescue Remedy to boxes of prescription tablets. I checked the dates on the prescription labels—all were under six months old. I’d had no idea. Had things really got that bad?

When I finally got to sleep, I dreamed about moving house. Mum and I watched the movers put the last boxes into the lorry, slam the door shut and drive off with a cheery wave. The driver was Dad. Mum and I followed in the car, but we weren’t able to catch up. The faster we drove, the further from us the lorry drew, as we span along dark, wet roads, trying to find shortcuts and straining always for a glimpse of the van that contained my father and the memories of my childhood.

I woke in a tangle of sheets.

‘A
re things improving with your mum now?’ Miss Dawson asked. We were sitting in her living room—each of us in a big armchair. It was the school holidays but my sessions didn’t stop for holidays. Dad was waiting in the dining room. Miss Dawson had bought me a KitKat
.

I bit my lip. ‘Not really,’ I said
.

‘What makes you say that, Evie?’