Shell House (11 page)

       
Harry turned from where he was knelt on the floor, a mixed look of bewilderment and humour on his face. “I know you were and I was listening. I said to you I was going to clear the table and that I had something to show you.” He pulled himself up wearily by holding onto the top of the side board; his face wincing at his creaky limbs.

       
“No you didn’t, you just got up and walked out of the room without a word.”

       
He wandered over to her, a large ornate silver box in his hand. “I tell you I did! I told you I was listening to you and that I’d be back in a minute.”

       
“Why didn’t I hear you then?” Gabrielle was immediately transported back to being a child again; indignant and wanting to be heard.

       
“Because you obviously weren’t bloody listening.” He laughed and tapped her hand. “Pass me that bottle, I want a top up. This was your mother’s.” He pushed the box across the table for her to look in.

       
She reluctantly indulged him and opened the box, still convinced that he’d not been listening and was trying to change the subject. She gasped when she saw the piles of photographs inside.

       
“See, I was listening. Your mother was fascinated by photographs. It didn’t matter whose they were, she’d look at them. You obviously take after her.”

       
“Did I know this about her?” Gabrielle began excitedly looking through the piles, turning each picture this way and that.

       
“I doubt it.”

       
“You never really talked about her when we were little or maybe I just can’t remember?”

       
Harry took some of the photos from the box and began to flick through them, seeing the memories in his head clearer than what was in front of him. “I didn’t talk about her, I know I should have but I just couldn’t. That sounds selfish, I know. I felt if I talked about her I’d hurt more, that she’d be more present in a spiritual sense, only I still wouldn’t be able to see her or touch her. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. Maybe it would have been easier if I had.”

       
“Do you find it easier now?”

       
“Of course. The years alter that. You can have that box with the photos.”

       
Gabrielle quickly put the pictures back and shut the lid pulling her hand away as if it had bitten her. The old familiar undeserving feeling crept in.

       
“I couldn’t. They belong to Nancy, she should have them.”

       
“No she bloody well shouldn’t! They’re yours and they were always intended for you.”

       
“Thank you.” Gabrielle squeezed his hand which felt as dry and worn as the pictures. “I’ll look at them another time.”

       
“At your leisure, my dear. Now then, I better get that turkey out of the fridge.”

       
“I’d try the oven if I were you unless you haven’t put it in, in which case we’re going to be quite hungry.” Gabrielle laughed and Harry chuckled, not really understanding the joke.

        
“It should be ready.” He shuffled out of the room and she realised how much he’d aged from the time she’d met him at the start of the month. He was getting confused and his body was beginning to slump as though he’d let go; released his grip on the rope of life. As though he’d completed the one last thing he wanted to do; to see his daughter again. She shook the morbid thought away, telling herself he’d been through quite a lot of stress of late.

       
She pushed her chair back and went to help him in the kitchen even though he’d told her quite sharply on her arrival she wasn’t to.

       
In her head she’d imagined Harry taking the turkey out of the oven and placing it on the stove top but she was met with a completely different vision. He was sat at the kitchen table, staring out of the window weeping.

       
She ran to him and hugged him feeling like she’d combust with love and choked back her own sobs. “You silly old bugger!”

       
He hugged her back. “I let you down, I let you down. My own flesh and blood; my daughter.”

       
Gabrielle felt like he’d ice skated over her heart and caused it to crack across the surface; the pain she felt left her speechless for a few moments. It was as though all the love she had for him had been locked away all those absent years and it had seeped through the last few weeks and was now flooding her body. She managed to compose herself as she rocked him in her arms, allowing him to cry. Eventually they released one another and she sat in the chair next to him.

       
“Dad, I let you down and I’ll never forgive myself for that, for all the people I hurt. I’m not going to lie and say you dealt with it in the right way because I don’t think you did. But who knows what the right way is in that situation. I missed you and I needed you but you didn’t let me down. You did what you felt was right at the time and it must have been horrific to deal with. I’ve asked myself the question over and over, what I would do if it was my daughter and I can’t answer it; not truthfully anyway.”

       
Harry couldn’t respond. He was mentally exhausted. Fifty years of heartache seemed to have become apparent to him and it was coming out in muffled sobs.

       
“Hey, come on,” she gripped his hand harder, trying to reassure him along, “I’ve turned out okay. I’m alright, Dad. We’ve got to move forward because if we keep raking over it we’ll achieve nothing and it’ll all be a waste of time.”

       
“I know, love.” Harry whispered; his voice broken and soft from crying. He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief while Gabrielle tried to wipe the tears from his face. “I can’t make excuses for abandoning you but I did have some sort of breakdown.”

       
“Was that about the time you stopped visiting me?”

       
Harry nodded, ashamed he’d mentioned it. It sounded so feeble when he said it out loud.

       
“It must have been hard trying to bring up two children alone, still grieving for Mother and working long hours too. I wasn’t the easiest child, I do know that.” She rubbed his back with her spare hand.

       
“It’s no excuse, dear heart. Blood’s thicker than water and all that.”

       
“Dad, what’s that smell?”

       
Harry looked around the kitchen slightly disorientated as she grabbed a tea towel and ran to the oven.

       
“Oh buggeration! I put the vegetables back in to warm through!”

       
“Well, they’re definitely warm now!”

       
The smell of burnt vegetables permeated the air as they quickly busied themselves opening windows to let out the fresh smoke that had escaped from the open oven door.

       
“Did you hear someone knock?” Gabrielle stopped what she was doing and listened.

       
“No, who would that be on Christmas day?”

       
“Nancy? Jonathan maybe?”

       
“Nancy comes round the side door normally and Jonathan won’t come round, I know that for sure.”

       
Harry was staring in the direction of the front door a look of bewilderment on his face.

       
“Well you’d better go and see who it is. I can’t go, can I?”

       
“No quite right.”

       
“Why are you so worried about answering the door? You don’t think someone’s realised who I am?” Gabrielle placed the dish of burnt vegetables on the table and waited for him to respond.

       
“I’ve just got a horrible feeling it might be Anna or even Jonathan. You know, causing trouble?”

       
“You just said it wouldn’t be Jonathan.”

       
“I’m not so sure now.”

       
The knocking grew louder and more aggressive. They both stared at one another; various scenarios racing through their minds.

       
“I don’t want to answer it!”

       
“No and I don’t want you to! Quick let’s hide before whoever it is comes around this side of the house!”

       
But it was too late as a bang at the back door startled the pair and they turned to see a surprisingly dishevelled Jonathan staring at them through the glass. His face distorted further when he focused on Gabrielle standing in his father’s kitchen.

       
It was a few moments before Gabrielle and Harry realised he was quite drunk. They stared at him through the clear glass door as though they were examining an insect in a jar as he grappled with the lock.

       
Gabrielle took a deep breath and moved towards the door to unlock it and let him in. Even though she was apprehensive about what was happening she wanted to protect her father.

       
“Oh how the tables have turned!” Jonathan staggered into the kitchen sounding like a petulant school boy.

       
“I don’t want any trouble, Jonathan please.” Harry raised his hand up towards his son who was moving precariously close to him. Gabrielle planted herself firmly by his side.

        “Neither do I, Dad.” His voice, almost comical, had become slightly high pitched. “I just wanted to wish you happy bloody Christmas. No that’s not right...merry Christmas...Yep. Merry fucking Christmas and Happy fucking New Year...”

        “Either sit down son and
I’ll make you a coffee, or go home.”

       
“It’s funny this,” he began waving his finger backwards and forwards between them, “don’t you think it’s funny, Gabrielle? He got rid of you first and now you’re back and he’s getting rid of me. Ha ha!”

       
“Come on Jonathan, sit down before you fall down.” Gabrielle pulled out a chair and grabbed his arm, trying to hold him steady. He was swaying backwards and forwards as though he were on a ship; his eyelids blinking in time with the movement as he desperately tried to focus.

       
“Don’t touch me! You can’t touch me!”

       
“Jonathan!” Harry’s voice boomed, “This is your father speaking! Sit down now!”

       
This sudden retort seemed to startle Jonathan out of his drunken stupor for a few moments and he staggered back into the chair that had been pulled out for him. Gabrielle, unable to control herself began to laugh. The two men turned and looked at her as though she’d gone slightly mad.

       
“I don’t know what’s so funny, Gabrielle but please try and control yourself.”

       
“I’m sorry, Dad...sorry.” The more she tried to stop the harder she laughed until it was quite loud and high pitched.

      
“Ha ha bloody ha. She’s mad, father.”

       
This just made the situation worse and Gabrielle started another spate of laughter which caused Jonathan to laugh. Harry on the other hand was not finding any part of the situation amusing at all.

       
“Well, when you two have composed yourselves and can explain to me what’s so funny you’ll find me in the sitting room.”

       
This remark caused them both to snigger like a couple of school children; that was what they had regressed to. Harry’s outburst towards Jonathan had transported Gabrielle back to when they were children and were reprimanded in that manner by him. Instead of it making her cry, as was normal when she reminisced, because of all the heartache that came thereafter, it had caused her to laugh. Even Jonathan in his drunken state had suddenly remembered and the infectious laughter had caused him to join in. Gabrielle had visited memories time and again in her mind and the pictures were always marred by the terrible events that had followed. It was as though she had to cross a very precarious bridge before she reached any happy memories. On this occasion she had been physically transported back in time due to the enactment of the memory and had been flown over that rickety bridge and landed the other side, enabling her to indulge in a remembrance without any of the unhappy attachments.

       
After a while the laughter subsided and Jonathan and Gabrielle were left in the kitchen alone with nothing but their silence. The only noise they could hear was the muffled jazz music their father was playing in the sitting room, that and the usual calamity of hungry seagulls outside.

       
“I’ll put the kettle on and make you a strong coffee.”

       
“I’d rather have a proper drink...I’ve started so I may as well finish.”

       
“I think in all honesty, you finished a while ago.”

       
“Who do you think you are telling me what to do in my own house.”