The Year of the Rat (23 page)

He opens his wallet and shows me a picture of a smaller chubbier Verity in a bridesmaid’s dress, tiara askew, face covered in chocolate.

‘She seems like a great kid,’ I say.

‘Bel says I’m a sentimental old fool,’ he says, ‘but when I look at her it’s like I know why I was born. I know what the point of my life is. Sounds daft, I
know.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t sound daft.’

‘And the thing is, I realized that was how your dad must feel about you. And I thought how I’d feel if Verity’s birth father got in touch with her and wanted to see her –
not that he’s likely to; he’s a total bloody waste of space.’

He stops and takes another drink of his beer.

‘And the point is I knew I couldn’t do that to your dad. I knew it’d break his heart. He’d brought you up from a baby; he’d looked after you, hadn’t he?
Worried about you when you were ill, and picked you up when you fell over, and made you feel safe when you’d had a nightmare or were scared about the monsters under the bed. Am I
right?’

I can’t speak.

‘I had no right to call myself your dad.’

He looks at me. ‘Oh no, I’ve made you cry. Please don’t. I’m sorry.’ He rummages around in his pocket and passes me a handkerchief. ‘It’s clean,’
he says.

I blow my nose.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he says. ‘That’s the last thing I wanted to do.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I say.

‘It is,’ he says. ‘Raking over the past. And look at you, you’re exhausted. Let’s get you back to the house. We’ll phone your dad and if he’s OK with it
you can stay the night at ours and we’ll see about getting you home tomorrow.’

I think about Dad and his face when I said I was coming here, and I can’t stop the silent slide of tears down my cheeks.

‘Everything’ll look better after a good night’s sleep,’ Jim says. ‘I promise.’

‘I can’t come back with you. What will Bel say? Something tells me she won’t be too keen on me staying.’

He smiles. ‘She’ll be all right once I’ve explained.’

We step out into the cold.

‘Do you mind if I just have a few minutes by myself?’ I say. ‘I just need to walk. Clear my head a bit. I’ll find my way back to the house.’

‘What now? In the dark? I’m not sure it’s a good idea. You don’t know where you’re going.’

‘I won’t be long.’

He doesn’t look convinced. I lean over and give him a very quick peck on the cheek.

‘I’ll see you back at the house.’

And I walk away before he can speak, his hand raised to his cheek in surprise.

I walk down to the main road that runs along the front. It’s dark, but the amusement arcades are all lit up and there are Christmas lights on the lamp posts.
There’s snow in the air, just a few flakes, glowing as they float through the light, and then disappearing into the dark. The fairground and the crazy golf are deserted, the boating lake
frozen round the edges.

Further along I see some stone steps leading to the seashore. I make my way down on to the stony beach, the large pebbles crunching as I step on to them. The wind is fierce. I lean into it,
walking down towards the wild sea, the noise deafening. I stand, the wind tearing at my hair, watching the foaming waves crash against the shore.

My head’s spinning with tiredness and hunger and with everything Jim’s just told me. I can’t keep the thoughts straight in my head. I think about Mum, and what it must have
felt like to be young and scared and pregnant. I think about Jim and how his face lit up when he was with Verity, when he even talked about her. And, most of all, I think about Dad. I think about
how much he loved Mum. I think about how he looked after me when I was a little baby who wasn’t his.
I’ve
never seen anyone dote on a baby like he doted on you
.
That’s what Granny said.

The sea is big and dark and cold. I am so small and so tired. I just want to lie down. If I lie down, the sea will just come and take me. It will carry me away and drag me under.

I think about the car and the football and how Dad saved me.
What would I do without my Pearl?

I’m not going to lie down.

I sit on the bed in the little lamp-lit spare room back at Jim’s house, hugging my knees to myself, but I can’t stop shivering.

There’s a small desk in the corner and a pinboard behind it with photos on, of Verity and Alfie and the Fish-finger Burner and Jim all doing happy family things: holidays, birthdays, trips
to the park.

When I was a little kid, I sometimes used to play a game where I’d pretend that my bed was a raft floating alone in the middle of the ocean, waiting for someone to rescue me.

But there’s no one to come and rescue me now.

When I wake up, the room is filled with a strange brightness. Verity’s shouting downstairs.

‘It’s snowing! It’s really, really snowing!’

I go to the window and pull the curtains back. Everything is dusted with snow and it’s still falling. For a moment all I can feel is childish excitement.

But how am I going to get home? Will the trains be running?

I feel more alone than ever.

There’s a knock on the door and Verity comes in, carrying a cup of tea. Most of the tea is in the saucer, but I thank her anyway.

‘Mum says come and have some breakfast,’ she says.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Mum said you’d say that,’ she says. ‘So she said I have to use my persuasive charms because you need to eat.’

‘Go on then,’ I say.

‘PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEEEASE—’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘OK, I’m coming.’ And she leads me downstairs, gripping my hand tightly in hers.

‘How old are you?’ Verity asks as we sit at the kitchen table.

‘Sixteen,’ I say.

‘That’s old,’ she says. ‘Have you got a job?’

‘No.’

‘Have you got a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? You’re quite pretty really.’

Great.

‘Thanks.’

She looks me up and down thoughtfully.

‘A bit thin though.’

God, she’s worse than Granny.

‘Are you anorexic?’

‘Verity!’ The FB – Bel – gives me an embarrassed look as she spoons food into Alfie’s mouth.

‘No,’ I say.

I pick up a piece of toast to prove the point, but it’s dry and cold and I put it back down again.

‘Bulimic?’

‘Verity, that’s
enough
.’

‘You know a lot for someone who’s seven,’ I say accusingly.

‘I like reading.’ She carries on assessing me as she crunches on her toast. ‘So why haven’t you got a boyfriend?’

I try not to think about Finn and take a swig of coffee which burns my mouth.

‘It’s not compulsory.’

‘Have you got a girlfriend instead?’

‘No.’

‘It’s OK if you have.’

‘I know. But I haven’t.’

‘But—’

‘Have
you
got a boyfriend?’ There’s only so much interrogation by a seven-year-old you can take over breakfast.

She looks at me like I’m mad.

‘Me? Why would I want a boyfriend?’

‘Exactly,’ I say.

She watches me for a moment. Then she smiles.

‘Want to come and build a snowman with me?’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t. I have to go home.’

I go back up to my room to get my bags. The snow is still falling, slow and steady, and I go to the window to look at it.

And then, as I watch, out of it, slowly through the falling flakes, a red car appears.

I watch it pull up and see Dad and Finn get out. And then I run downstairs and out of the front door without my coat or even my boots. And when Dad sees me his face looks like Jim’s did
when he saw Verity last night and I want to explain everything to him: everything that I’ve done wrong, and everything that he’s done wrong, and how angry and lonely and scared
I’ve been and how I want things to be different, but I don’t know how to change them. But when I get to him I’m crying too much to speak and he hugs me so tight that I
couldn’t speak anyway.

But it doesn’t matter, because I realize he already knows.

‘Yes,’ Dad’s saying. ‘Thank goodness for Finn here. My car wouldn’t start with the cold and he and his family are down staying with our neighbour,
Dulcie, who’s just out of hospital. He saw me trying to start the car and offered to drive me. Very good of him.’

We’re all squashed into Jim and Bel’s tiny kitchen, drinking tea, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a certain amount of awkwardness. Dad and Jim have shaken hands
and done a manly sort of ‘Thanks’ and ‘No problem’ and now they’re talking about roads and gritters (‘It’s fine once you’re on the A21’); Finn
is drinking tea and being interrogated by Verity (‘But why the cello? It’s just a big violin’); Bel is trying to unpack the groceries that have just been delivered, battling to
fit a turkey that’s almost as big as Alfie into the fridge; and Alfie is eating old breakfast cereal off the floor, assisted by the dog, who I now know is called Dottie (‘Because she
is,’ Verity had told me proudly). I just watch them all. And I find I’m smiling.

‘You said you didn’t have a boyfriend,’ Verity says accusingly as we leave.

‘I don’t,’ I say.

‘I may be seven, but I’m not stupid,’ she says.

Dad phones Granny on his mobile as we walk down to the car. I can hear her exclaiming even from several metres away. Dad can hardly get a word in.

‘There’s no need to cry, Mum,’ he says at last. ‘She’s fine. You’ll see her yourself soon enough. We’re just setting off now.’

While no one’s looking I take Finn’s hand.

‘I’m glad you came,’ I say.

He looks at me, surprised. Then he smiles. ‘Me too.’

Before I get in the car, I look out over the snowy rooftops and the cliffs, everything white now, everything new. The world is transformed.

Granny takes me to an unbelievably posh hairdresser’s in Chelsea. She won’t take no for an answer.

‘Your dad’s looking after Rose for the day. It’s all booked,’ she says. ‘We can’t cancel now.’ When she tells me how much it costs, I nearly choke on my
cornflakes.

They bring me a cappuccino and a little biscuit and I have a hand massage and manicure. I have to admit it’s quite nice.

Afterwards, we go for lunch at an equally posh restaurant, despite the fact that I’ve told Granny a hundred times I’m not hungry. Granny orders us both a glass of wine and the waiter
doesn’t dare to contradict her. She tells me embarrassing things that Dad did when he was young that make me laugh, and about his dad, my grandad, who died before I was born. She tells me
about her lovely flat in Edinburgh and how I must go and visit her there when she goes back.

‘Go back?’ I say. ‘But what will we do?’

She laughs. ‘You’ll be fine. Now the insurance is sorted out Rose can have a proper nanny or go to nursery. I’ll miss you all, but I have got a life of my own you know. I
haven’t been to a Pilates class for months. And Hector misses his little friends, I know he does.’

‘Oh.’

Halfway through her second glass of wine, Granny stops and looks serious.

‘I said some unfair things about your mum, Pearl.’

‘I’ve talked about this with Dad,’ I say. ‘It’s OK.’

‘It’s not OK,’ she says. ‘I do understand why she didn’t want me around when you were a baby. Once she was over the postnatal depression I mean. I know I can be a
bit opinionated. Perhaps I did give her the impression that I didn’t think she was good enough for Alex. But, more important than that, she wanted you to herself. She felt so guilty about the
time she’d missed out on. And all that time you’d been with me. I’d been like a mother to you for those months. It was hard for her. I can see that now. Perhaps I should have been
a bit more understanding.’

I think about it and smile. I catch sight of myself in the mirror on the far wall. My face is a bit flushed from the wine and I can’t deny that my hair looks a lot better.

‘Shall we order pudding?’ I say. ‘I’m hungrier than I thought.’

That afternoon I go and get a new mobile phone. The first person I text is Molly.
Can I come and see you? Pearl xxx

I don’t get a reply, but I go anyway. I’m so nervous as I walk along the slushy pavements to Molly’s that I almost bottle out. What would I do if I was in her shoes? I picture
her shouting, slamming the door in my face. I wouldn’t blame her.

I take the stairs up to her flat, all four flights of them, rehearsing what I’m going to say as I go. It starts with ‘I’m really sorry . . .’ But then I can’t
decide what order to put it all in. There’s just so much to apologize for; so much to explain.

I knock on the door and then wait, trying to catch my breath, running through it again in my head.
I’m really sorry . . .
There’s the sound of pounding feet from inside and
the door opens to reveal one of the twins dressed as Darth Vader.

‘Hi, Jake,’ I say. ‘Or Callum. Is Molly in?’

The small Darth Vader just breathes at me loudly through his mask. It’s kind of unnerving. Then he raises his red lightsaber slowly and growls, ‘Now
I
am the master,’
before running off into the flat, cloak billowing, yelling, ‘
Molleeeeee!
It’s Pearl. I thought you said you hated her?’