by Anna Bloom
“Do I need to?”
This is real. This is actually happening. Tomorrow, Dad is going to tell me I’m marrying Scott, just like he tried to with Elijah. The difference being Elijah is one of my best friends and I knew he was on my side, regardless of what our families thought. This is different.
This is very, very real.
“I need to get back to my mother,” I say.
I’m sure Scott knows where she is. I’m sure Dad thinks the family secret is safe with him because he’s offered him enough money to marry into us.
I’m sure Dad has explained that the way to keep your wife pliant and docile, and pretending not to be bored out of her frigging head every day, is to send her on the odd trip to hospital. I’m sure he’s explained that money can cover everything up.
That next week Mother will get another pair of diamond earrings, or another cruise on a ship, and everything will be fine; until I fuck up again.
“Let me see you to a cab.” He goes to stand, but I hold out my hand and lift myself out of my own chair, my legs barely holding my weight.
“I’m fine, thank you.” I turn for the door, ignoring the waiting staff in their starched white shirts.
“Believe me, I’m fine.”
Later I’m running over some notes I picked up from my apartment. Melissa left them for me on my sterile and immaculate kitchen counter. I was in the flat for three minutes tops before I turned around and headed straight back to the hospital.
Mum is still sleeping. It’s probably better this way. Sighing, I thrust the papers away and grab my phone. My stomach dips when I see the blank screen. But then honestly what was I expecting? The only person my heart wants to hear from doesn’t have my number. I thrust it back in my bag and then throw myself back into the high-backed chair. This will be a long night. What’s worse than sitting here at my mother's side, seeing the effects my actions have had, is the simple fact I just don’t know if I would do anything different.
That makes me a bad daughter.
Possibly, it makes me a bad human being.
I shut my eyes and remember the brush of Dan’s lips across my sensitive skin.
I don’t regret a single thing.
My eyes fly open when Mum stirs. She doesn’t rouse from her sleep, but her hand unfurls, her fingers reaching for mine. I grasp them tight.
“Tell me about the boy with the tattoos again.” Her words are barely a whisper, but with them a fresh torrent of tears slip down my cheeks.
“You’d have liked him, Mum.” I repeat what I told her earlier. “I just know you would have liked him.”
Fifteen
Dan
The night was long without Sienna there to fill the space of the shadows I battled before she arrived. They seeped back in.
Chasing thoughts, demons on highs chattered and taunted me through the hours of the night. All the while I stared at the ceiling, ignoring the sneaking realisation that this was what my life was now. Sienna being here was only a brief distraction from reality.
At three I had an urge to call Vinny and find out if he’d found a new venue yet. It was that one desperate thought that had me out of bed and grabbing my running clothes out of my drawers.
With the streets empty in the early stretch of morning, I can just run along the waterfront. The sea air tangs with salt, the frost stinging my cheeks until they hurt. I take it though; the sting makes me feel alive.
Funny, I end up at the shop just as the dim sunrise peeks over the horizon and lightens the wintery sky to light grey.
I reach for my keys in the small pocket on my running shorts and let myself in. Was it just yesterday that I was in here, laughing as Sienna took the bookings and learned the ropes of how long an average tattoo could take?
Just yesterday that for one small fraction of time my head hadn’t been full of darkness.
Why are you even bothering? No one would care if you weren’t here.
The four walls of the shop stare back at me.
Just four more tablets and this time it will be over. You couldn’t even get that right. Take five more, then you will know you’ve done it properly.
“No!” I shake my head and walk into the shop, flicking the light on at the switch at the back wall. It’s early, there won’t be any business for hours; but that’s not what I want. Under the counter in the place where dad always kept it is his address book. A lifetime of contacts: people in the business, old friends from his youth. Faith had used the book to contact everyone about his funeral. Well she had done when she hadn’t been crying about Elijah Fairclough breaking her heart and pretending to get engaged to Sienna.
Funny how it all turned out.
I flick through the names until I find the one I want. It takes me a while because I can’t for the life of me remember the right surname. All I can remember is Big Bad Barry, which is what my dad always called one of his oldest mates. Uncle Barry I knew him as, but of course he isn’t listed under that. He’s not listed under Big Bad Barry either, unsurprisingly.
I’m almost thinking I might have to do something awful like ring Faith, apologise for being a dick and then ask if she can remember his name, but then with that will come questions and I don’t know if I want to answer them or explain my actions to anyone.
I’m not even sure I want to apologise for being a dick. I mean, I know I was, but she was being one too. I can see that now. My few days with Sienna has given me the distance I needed to see the situation with Faith for what it was.
I thought I was in love with her.
She thought I was in love with her.
As a result, neither of us have been honest with one another in a very long time.
I get that now.
I laugh out loud to myself, the sound reverberating around the empty studio. Hadn’t I been listening to that sound too much the last few months?
Finally, I find a Barry Sutcliffe and the old memory box gives a little jangle. Sutcliffe, that’s the name.
I dial, knowing it’s early, but if there’s one thing I learnt from my dad it’s the fact old men like to get up at the crack of dawn. I can’t remember Dad ever sleeping in past seven in the morning, even when he was sick from his chemotherapy he still got up.
I think he would have got up early and gone for a stroll the day he died if his body had allowed him.
As I’m dialling Barry’s number on the old Bakelite phone, I pause. I can’t remember the last time I thought of Dad like that. I shut his illness off from my memories. I don’t let myself think about those weeks at all; the frustration, the pure hatred I felt towards everyone. My annoyance that Faith didn’t come home and help… it’s all there tied up in knots with my dad’s cancer.
I keep dialling and then listen to the ring tone. I don’t actually know what I’m going to say, but I know I need to make a change, and I can feel it in my gut that the change is going to come from this call and any decision I make after it.
I pull my coat tighter around myself as I walk along Abi’s road. It’s getting cold, and honestly until this morning I hadn’t even noticed. I don’t think I even registered the fading of summer and the onset of Autumn. Well let's be honest, I didn’t notice Autumn at all. Now November is chasing me down and I’ve just realised I’ve missed an entire year. For the first time in forever, I feel alive.
Barry gave me some options and I’ve been mulling them over. I should have reached out weeks ago, months possibly.
I’m not sure which offer to take him up on, but in my veins is a rush of blood I haven’t felt for a fair while, and I’m eager for it. Even in the ring, desperate for an end, I never felt that rush.
It’s her. The woman with the skin of silk. She’s woken me up in ways I never anticipated.
I knock on Abi’s door and then wait for the slap of her feet against the laminate floor on the other side. With the fall of her footsteps, I try to school my face into one of sheepish apology but I can’t quite pull it off, so instead I hold my hands up in an a
ct of surrender.
“What do you want?” She leans against the door frame and a broad smile spreads itself across my face. “Oh, smiling now are you?”
I hold my hands up higher. “I’m sorry. I’ve been an arsehole. I can admit it, and I’m sorry.”
“Sorry you nearly died twice? Or sorry you failed?”
The whispered sound of my dark thoughts from earlier in the study threatens to steal back in, but I lock it down. I’m going to fight those whispered words if it’s the last thing I do.
“Sorry I’m an idiot. And I’m sorry I caused you so much grief.”
“You said that to me two weeks ago. Why should I believe you?”
“Because we are best friends and you have to.” I attempt a cheeky smile.
“And you’ve given up the fighting?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“No more pills?”
“That was once.” It was more.
“Still.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She pulls me into a tight hug on the doorstep. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Feed me?” I ask optimistically.
Pushing me back, she rolls her eyes right in front of my face. “I’ll see what I can find. Come on, Charlotte has been asking after you. I couldn’t tell her Uncle Dan was a prick.”
I step up behind her into the warmth of their family home. Adam, her husband, is there with Roger on his knee. Roger is much bigger than I remember him, but then I can’t even remember the last time I saw him. I lean down and hold my hand out to shake Adam’s. “Alright, mate?” I ask.
“Yeah. You?”
“Doing good, better.”
Abi’s head spins around at my statement and I can sense her scrutiny. Her and Faith have always been as subtle as sledgehammers. “Did Sienna get what she needed, you know?”
I blush, my neck burning until I understand what she’s talking about. “About Faith?” I shake my head, noticing her eyes narrowing further. “No. She’s gone back to London, I think. She said she doesn’t think she will get the evidence they need.”
“That’s nonsense.” Abi bashes the teaspoon harder against a mug before she hands me a well stirred cup of coffee. “Faith will be devastated.”
“I know.” Hell do I know. “I wish there was something we could do.”
“Aiden’s a tricky bastard. It’s how he got her to stay quiet all those years.” Adam chips in, bouncing Roger on his knee and making him squeal. The sound of his laughter shoots straight to some place in my chest.
“I’d kill him outright if it didn’t mean I’d go to jail instead of him.” I mean this, but the urgency behind the words is less that it would have been before. I can sense the ebb to my anger. “Anyway, I’m here, firstly to apologise for being an arsehole these last few months.”
Abi nods sagely and I kick my toe out to jab her in the shin.
I take a deep breath, finding the strength to say what I need to say. “And also, that I’m going to be moving on for a while.”
Abi stares at me blankly and Adam’s knee stops bouncing. “What do you mean moving on?” Abi asks, her voice rising a notch like it has my entire life when she’s not liking something she’s hearing. It gets a shrill edge, sharper, brain drilling.
Just as I’m about to say more a cloud of dark curls barrels down the stairs and launches against my legs. “Uncle Danny.”
Charlotte squeezes me so damn tight and for a moment the words I was about to say evaporate as I bend down and hug her hard, a lump forming in my throat. Crouching down on my knees I give her a proper hug. “Hey, princess. Have you been good for mummy?”
Her hazel eyes blink at me. “Mummy was cross with you. She called you a naughty word.”
I lift my head and meet Abi’s gaze. She shrugs but her cheeks tinge a little.
“I know. I’ve been very, very naughty but I here to say I’m sorry.” Her little arms tighten around my neck and I wonder if I can find the strength to leave these people, this place that’s been my home my entire life. Am I strong enough to give myself the new start I so desperately need?
In a year of facing all the things no one person ever wants to face, here I am at the crossroads staring down one last challenge.
“Do you want to stay for dinner and tell us about it?” Abi’s voice is soft, and it makes me glance up, catching tears in her eyes.
“I’d love that.”
I straighten up and pull Charlotte with me, twirling around.
For the first time I’m able to be the Uncle Danny she remembers, just as I’m about to say goodbye.
“Ibiza?” Adam takes a sip of his beer.
“Well, it’s got to be better than Brighton, right?”
Abi is silent. Too quiet.
“It’s a long way, mate. Are you sure? Your dad left you a good business here.”
I take a sip of my water. “It’s what I need right now. I’m not saying I’m never coming back. I just need a change. Losing Dad, it’s had more of an impact than I think I’ve acknowledged, even to myself. And then with Faith. I know we messed up there, and it’s not that I don’t want her to be happy. I do, believe me. I just want to be happy too.”
Abi’s gaze is on my face. “And girls in bikinis and drunks making bad ink choices is going to help you?”
I laugh, throwing my head back, a solid blast of mirth, freeing more of those dark shadows that follow me everywhere I go. “Girls in bikinis can’t be a bad thing, right?”
Adam nods, but quickly shuts up as Abi turns her 'don’t shit me' stare onto him.
“And anyway, it’s only for a few months. It’s out of season over there. Barry just wants someone who can keep an eye on things and then open up at the start of the season. If he gets a good trade with some decent recommendations going about, then he will be busy all summer.
“So you will manage someone else’s shop instead of working in your own?”
I shrug. “For now.” Now it’s time to ask my next question without sounding like a total tool. It’s been on the tip of my tongue the entire meal. “Actually, Abs, could you do me a favour?”
“Sure, what?”
“That Sienna chick, she left some stuff at the house. I want to get it all locked up while I’m away, it wouldn’t be right to leave her stuff there. Could you text her and ask her address and I’ll post it back?”
“No worries. I’m going up to see Faith next week.” She watches me to see if I flinch at the mention of Faith’s name, but I don’t. “I can take it with me if you want?”
Bollocks.
“No, no it’s fine. I’ll just pop it in the post. I’ll be on my way tomorrow.”
“So soon?”
My shoulder lift and fall again. “I think some space would do me good. And also Vinny will want me to fight again, and I’d rather not go back down that route.” I hesitate. “Will you tell Faith I’m sorry?”
Abi nods, her lips in a straight line. Then she reaches for her phone and texts a number I never got the luxury of receiving.
“And tell her I wish her the best with her pregnancy. Her and Elijah both.”
“Sure.”
Her phone pings and my heart all but leaps out of my chest. So not cool. But then nothing about me is cool right now.
“Here, I’ll forward it over. Although I can take it just as easy.”
“It’s fine. Send it over.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket and it takes all my self-control not to get it out.
“Are you really going tomorrow, Dan?” Abi’s eyes fill with tears again.
“Yeah. It’s for the best, right?”
She nods, but I don’t miss the way she reaches for Adam’s hand and squeezes it tight. “Just be us left soon, Adam.”
“You guys have to be here.” That solid lump builds in my throat again. “You are my home. All I have left.”
A tear slips down her cheek and I get up from my chair and pull her into a tight hug. Long, long ago, there would have be
en a time when Faith, Abi, and I would have hugged. First as kids; then in our school uniform, our blazers scrunching as we pulled each other into the 'circle of truth' as the girls named it.
“Love you, Abs.” My words choke. “But I have to see what else is out there.”
“I know.” She wipes at her cheeks. “I know.”
I push away and give Charlotte a hug, then shake Adam’s hand. I can’t stay now. I need to keep moving. I can’t look back. Dropping my dad’s old set of keys onto the table, I manage to say. “Will you check on the house and shop for me?”
Then I’m at the door, turning one last time as I watch the fractured remnant of my past spread out behind me.
Then I’m one step at a time walking to whatever comes next.
The house is in darkness, no lights, no laughter to greet me. No shouts of “Son, put a brew on.”
And that’s okay.
My dad died. I can accept it now.
My dad died, and it hurt like nothing I’d ever known and every single bad decision I’ve made has stemmed from that one truth I haven’t been able to admit to myself.
As I near the house, I notice the broken glass first, and then the front door hanging open. Walking in, I take in the sight of my childhood home trashed. Shelves pulled over, the cushions of the chair ripped with a sharp blade.
On the door to the kitchen is a note held in place with one of my kitchen knives.
Snitches Pay
Vinny.
Upstairs, I grab the holdall I packed before I went to Abi’s, ignoring the mess that’s been made of the rooms.
There is no better time to leave.
Ibiza here I come.
Sixteen
Sienna
I’m in bed when there’s a knock on the door. Are you kidding? I haven’t slept a wink at the hospital and only left when a nurse who said I’d be better off with some sleep under my belt shoe-horned me out of the chair and marched me for the exit.
She knows nothing about me and my family.
