by T. M. Logan
‘We don’t keep secrets from each other,’ she said. ‘It’s so nice to have finally found a proper grown-up man, an actual adult, rather than an overgrown teenager. Ryan’s different from the rest.’
Yes he is, I thought. He’s definitely different.
I thought back to the framed medal on the wall of his lounge. ‘Is that because he was in the forces, do you think?’
‘Maybe,’ she shrugged. ‘And he’s a bit older, more mature.’
‘Has he talked to you much about his time in the army?’
‘Not much, just that he went straight from uni into officer training and saw some horrible things when he was over in Afghanistan. Then when he came out of the army he started his career in recruitment. But if you really want to study his CV, you could check his profile on LinkedIn?’ She teased. ‘Want me to send you a link?’
Tilly turned her face to me and began rubbing her cheeks against the stubble on my chin, her purr vibrating up my jaw.
‘Of course not,’ I smiled.
‘Really?’
‘I’m not a big fan of LinkedIn.’
Claire smiled and leaned up against the wall next to me. ‘That means he’s looked already,’ she said.
‘Dad! Have you really?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’
‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ Abbie said suddenly. ‘What are you both doing on Thursday night?’
Claire plucked the little blue diary from her handbag and flicked through a few pages.
‘Looks clear at the moment. Why?’
‘Because Dad wasn’t able to make it today, we want to take you both out for dinner.’
‘Ahh,’ Claire smiled. ‘That would be nice.’
‘You don’t need to do that,’ I said. ‘Really, it’s not necessary.’
‘But Ryan wants to, Dad. He wants to say thanks for having him here at ours the other weekend. He’s booked a table at World Service.’
‘Sounds wonderful,’ Claire said, taking a biro from her handbag. ‘I’ll put it on the calendar. Are you going to tell your dad the other thing, Abbie?’
I looked from my daughter to my wife and back again. ‘What other thing?’
‘I wanted to ask you something else, Dad. Mum said it’s OK but she said I had to check with you too.’
‘Ask me what?’
‘Well, the thing is, Ryan bought a new saw the other day, one of those electric jigsaws.’
‘Right.’ The saw I’d seen in his kitchen a few hours ago. But I had literally no idea where this was going. ‘He’s quite handy with DIY, is he?’
‘Yes, he’s . . . going to cut a cat flap in his back door.’
‘You’re getting a kitten?’
‘Erm, not a kitten, no.’ She paused. ‘I was thinking that Tilly could come and live with us at Ryan’s house.’
‘What?’
‘Please, Dad? I’d love it so much, and I know Tilly would love it too.’
Claire said, ‘She was always Abbie’s pet really, wasn’t she Ed? Tilly was her tenth birthday present.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ I thought back to the first night I’d met Ryan, the cat hissing at him and limping away. ‘I didn’t think Ryan even liked cats. He’s not a cat person, is he?’
‘Of course he is, Dad. He loves them.’
‘Tilly’s an old lady, Abs, she doesn’t want to be uprooted now. She’s a creature of habit.’
‘Ryan’s road is a cul-de-sac, it’ll be safer for her there. And there wouldn’t be loads of tomcats around scaring her all the time, like there are here.’
I felt a weight settle on my chest, of an argument I probably couldn’t win.
‘Let me sleep on it,’ I said.
20
THURSDAY
Twenty-five days until the wedding
The dining area at World Service was dark and formal, with wood-panelled walls and two fireplaces burning low on opposite sides of the room. With the meal finished, Claire had gone over to the other side of the restaurant to say hello to an old friend, Abbie in tow to announce our family news. Ryan, his oil-black hair freshly trimmed and perfectly brushed back, took an American Express card from his wallet and laid it on the starched white tablecloth.
‘Thanks again,’ he said. ‘For having me over to yours, the other weekend. You have a lovely house.’
‘And thank you for dinner this evening,’ I said.
‘Abbie is a very special girl.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, she is.’
‘You and your wife did a wonderful job, raising such an amazing person. I only hope I can do half as well as you if I ever get the chance to be a father.’
He sounded utterly sincere and I knew I should have been flattered. But instead, and not for the first time, I thought: creep.
‘So Ryan, how are you finding Nottingham?’ I said. ‘Getting to know the city a little bit now you’ve been here a few months?’
‘I love it. Living in Manchester you feel like it’s the be-all and end-all, but when you move away you realise what you’re missing. Like not having to commute for an hour each way, not having to find 300K to buy a house in a half-decent area, not having people on top of you whichever way you turn. You spend a few months out of Manchester and the blinkers start to come off, you know?’
‘Have you seen much of Nottingham yet?’
‘Bits and pieces. Hockley, the arena, University Park, Wollaton Hall – that was Batman’s house in the film, right? Abbie has taken me to a few places. It’s really nice to get to know a new city.’
I took a sip of my espresso, trying to keep my voice casual.
‘Been to the Bestwood Estate?’
‘Bestwood,’ Ryan repeated. ‘I don’t think so, what’s there?’
Liar.
‘I was up there last week with work, thought I saw your car – Audis stand out a little bit in that neck of the woods.’
Mix the truth with the lie, make it harder to spot.
Ryan looked at me, his eyes betraying nothing. Not a flicker of discomfort, or alarm, or anything.
Those eyes.
Blank.
Reptilian.
Horrifyingly familiar.
A memory dislodged from the deep, floating upwards like flotsam from a sunken wreck, pushing up and up until it broke the surface.
Ryan reminded me of a documentary I had seen a few years ago. Its subject was a handsome man with a cold void behind his eyes. A vital piece missing that could never be replaced: Ted Bundy.
‘Ed?’ Ryan said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sure, yes I’m fine.’ I drained the last of my espresso. ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’
‘You were asking about Bestwood.’ He nodded to himself. ‘You know, I was there the other week, I went to see Stephen.’
I tried to recover the thread of the conversation.
‘Someone from work?’
‘One of the lads from the regiment. Wanted to see how he was getting on. He came out of the army the same time as me; he’s had a bit of a rough time getting used to civilian life.’
‘You’re still in touch with some of your army colleagues?’
‘I like to catch up with the lads from my platoon when I can. Stephen lost a leg to an IED in Afghanistan.’
‘It must be hard, coming back with an injury like that.’
‘He’s had a hard time, but he’s a tough one.’ Ryan took another sip of his water. ‘He’s doing OK but I wanted to check in on him, see if he was getting the help he needed.’
‘And is he? Getting help?’
Ryan nodded, but there was a slight hesitation in his reply. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘He’s on the right track.’
‘Does he have many visitors? At his house, I mean.’
Ryan gave me a strange look and opened his mouth to reply when a waiter appeared at our table with a black leather-bound folder.
‘Ah, here’s the bill.’ He handed over his credit card. I held up my card too, but Ryan put up a hand. ‘Let me get this,
Ed. I insist.’
*
Claire sat on the sofa, a mug of camomile tea untouched on the side table next to her.
‘It was very generous of Ryan,’ she said. ‘To pay for everything.’
Abbie nodded slowly. ‘I wanted tonight to be perfect,’ she said. Her voice was quiet, subdued.
Claire patted her arm. ‘It was perfect, darling. It was a lovely evening.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What’s the matter, love?’
Abbie shook her head. ‘I wanted all of us to celebrate together, for everyone to be happy.’
‘We are, Abbie,’ Claire said. ‘We’re all absolutely thrilled.’
‘Dad isn’t.’
Claire’s gaze swivelled towards me. ‘Of course he is, love.’
Abbie ignored her mother. ‘I don’t understand why you don’t like him, Dad.’
I held my hands up. ‘I never said I didn’t like him.’
‘You don’t need to say anything, it’s obvious enough.’
I put my drink down on the coaster. Should I just tell her now? Tell her that I had a sixth sense about Ryan, that I didn’t believe his stories? Tell her about his visit to a dealer’s house in Bestwood with a spy camera over the front door? Tell her that when something looks too good to be true, it’s because it usually is? Tell her that I wanted more than anything for her to take a step back, put things on hold for just a little while, until I could help her find out the definitive truth about this man who wanted her to make the ultimate commitment?
Not yet. Not until I had cast-iron evidence, the killer fact that would convince her.
‘The thing is, Abbie,’ I said, ‘we’ve only just found out you’re engaged and getting married, things are moving awfully fast and I guess I’m finding it hard to adjust to it all.’
‘Well then, I don’t know,’ she put a hand to her forehead. ‘Try a bit harder, Dad.’
‘All I’m saying is that we’ve met him, what, twice? Three times? It’s not that I don’t like him, Abbie, it’s that I barely know the guy.’
‘From what you do know, so far, what is there to dislike?’
‘Well, it’s hard to—’
Claire flashed me a warning look, cutting me off.
‘Nothing, darling. Nothing at all.’
‘You’re not the one who’s engaged to him, Dad.’ Her voice was rising. ‘And don’t lie, I can tell you don’t like him. You’re absolutely rubbish at pretending.’
If only you knew.
I wasn’t sure exactly when this had happened. I had always play-acted the protective dad, made jokes about boys that had come into her orbit. About little Oscar at her nursery who was fond of showing off his privates to anyone and everyone, or that lad in her primary school who made her a huge Valentine’s card every year. But it had always been light-hearted, always a joke. Ed’s going around to so-and-so’s house, set his dad straight on a few things. Isn’t it cute, the protective father routine? Until the point came when the joke started to morph into something more serious. When it wasn’t entirely a joke anymore.
When had that been? Puberty, probably.
‘It feels really sudden, Abbie, and I’m not sure—’
‘You proposed to Mum within a year of meeting her!’ Abbie’s cheeks had bloomed a deep angry red and I knew from experience that tears were close. ‘And the way Mum tells it, you’d already faffed around for a couple of months plucking up the courage!’
‘That was different.’
She threw her hands in the air. ‘How? I’ve known Ryan for nearly eight months. Just because everyone else waits for ages nowadays, it doesn’t mean we have to. And I feel like I’ve known him all my life.’
Claire moved over to sit down next to our daughter, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. ‘Ignore your dad,’ she said. Her eyes made daggers in my direction. ‘He just doesn’t want things to change.’
‘It’s not that,’ I said, looking into my glass of brandy.
Abbie tucked her legs under her on the sofa. ‘When I was little,’ she said, ‘all I wanted out of a relationship was what you and Mum have. Finally, that’s what I’ve got with Ryan, and I can’t believe Dad’s crying wolf again. It’s like you want to take it away from me.’
Claire raised a hand. ‘No one’s taking anything away from you, darling.’
‘That’s what it feels like.’
‘Abbie,’ I said. ‘It’s your choice, I just want you to be sure.’
‘I am sure, it’s you that’s not. You didn’t want me to move out, and you don’t want me to get married. Mum’s OK with it, but you’re not. That’s true, isn’t it? You don’t want me to move on with my life.’
‘Of course I do.’
‘But how am I supposed to do that if you only ever see the bad in everyone?’
‘That’s not fair, Abbie.’ I kept my voice low. ‘I’ve always had your best interests at heart. Like it or not, your mother and I have both been around the block a few times and that gives us insights we wouldn’t necessarily have had when we were younger.’
Claire waved a finger at me. ‘Don’t drag me into this, Ed. I think Ryan is thoroughly lovely and the two of them make a brilliant couple.’
Abbie gave me a look that said See? It’s just you. ‘The thing is, Dad, you look for everyone’s flaws first, see everyone’s worst side, even when they haven’t really got one. Sometimes you have to take things on trust, Dad. Or do you not trust anyone anymore?’
‘I trust you and your mum.’
‘Well then trust me to make this decision!’ She wiped a tear away. ‘Thanks for ruining what should have been a perfect night, anyway. I’m going to bed.’
She stood up, kissed her mother on the cheek, and stalked past me without another word.
21
‘That could have gone better,’ Claire said icily as she walked into the bedroom.
I stood in the wardrobe doorway, unbuttoning my shirt. ‘Do you think I should go and talk to her?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘I could—’
‘Definitely not. Not tonight, anyway. Wait until the morning, at least.’ She faced me, hands on hips, spots of colour high up in her cheeks. ‘I know all of this has come as a surprise, but you do realise that you’re being totally unreasonable, don’t you?’
I glanced at one of the framed pictures on the dresser, a shot of Abbie in her first school nativity decked out in a sheet belted at the waist and a headdress improvised from a tea towel. I’m a general public, she had announced proudly of her first role. I had spent most of the performance pacing the back of the hall with Joshua on my shoulder, trying to soothe him to sleep.
‘I could just say no.’
‘No to what?’
‘Say I don’t approve of the marriage anymore.’
‘And then what? He only asked out of courtesy, because he thought it was the right thing to do. Because he wants to make the right impression with us.’ Her voice was sharp with exasperation. ‘You do realise that he doesn’t actually need our consent, don’t you? This is not bloody Jane Austen.’
‘I know that.’
‘All that will happen is that Abbie will be even more upset than she already is, and you’ll push her further away.’
‘I don’t want to push her away,’ I said quietly. ‘But it’s just—’
‘Just what?’
‘Ryan’s not who he says he is.’
Claire took off her silver drop earrings and laid them on her dressing table side by side. ‘What does that even mean?’
I perched on the edge of our king-sized bed. ‘He’s not right for her. He’s not right, full stop.’
‘Him and every other man, in your eyes.’
‘Him in particular.’
She sighed. ‘Do you remember,’ she said, ‘when Abbie was seventeen she went out with that older lad she met at Goose Fair? He had a motorbike, tattoos, piercings, all that stuff going on.’
‘Toby, the bloke who asked her
to pay half for her Valentine’s present?’ I grunted. ‘He was a right piece of work. Cheated on her, didn’t he?’
‘She went out with him for, what, eighteen months during her A levels? Even though she was ready to call it a day after about six months.’
‘And?’
‘Do you know why she went out with him for so long?’
‘She didn’t want to hurt his feelings?’
‘No,’ Claire said, unzipping her skirt and stepping out of it. ‘It was because of you, Ed.’
‘Me?’
‘Because you had this violent objection to him, wouldn’t have him in the house. Because you made such a big deal out of what a waster he was.’
‘He was a waster.’
‘I know that,’ Claire’s tone was one of weary explanation. ‘But it was your reaction that kept that relationship going. You made it exciting for her because you didn’t like him. If not for that, she would have dumped him ages before.’
I frowned. ‘She never told me that.’
‘Of course she didn’t, that’s why I’m telling you.’ She sat down at her dressing table, busying herself with makeup removal pads. ‘Even if you don’t like Ryan – and I can’t for the life of me see any earthly reason why – you need to be careful how that comes across to Abbie.’
‘She’s a lot more mature now.’
‘She’s still your daughter. Pushing back against Ryan will probably achieve the exact opposite of what you want.’
‘I can’t just sit back and do nothing.’
‘Why not? We both want her to be happy, we knew this day would come sooner or later. Yes, they’re getting married a bit sooner than we thought they might, but she’s an adult, she knows what she’s doing. It’s a momentous thing, the joining of two families—’
‘He doesn’t have a family, as far as I can work out.’
She sighed. ‘That’s not his fault though, is it?’
The urge to confide in someone was suddenly overpowering. I went to the bedroom door and pushed it shut with a quiet click, standing with my back to it.
‘Has it never struck you that he’s too good to be true?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Not this again.’
‘Just look at him for a minute: first-class degree, decorated army officer, partner in his company at thirty-three, hospice volunteer, special constable, marathon runner, charity fundraiser, looks like he was in a bloody boy band.’ I put my hands in the air, palms up. ‘It’s just too much, isn’t it? He’s too perfect.’
