by Jenny Oliver
Dolly said, ‘No.’
Olive closed her eyes for a second, unable to look at her. ‘I feel like I really let you down.’
Dolly shrugged. ‘I survived, I think I just wanted to say it. And now I’ve said it, all I can think about is how nice you were to me when I was little! How much you looked after me.’ Then, fiddling with the quilt on the bed, she added, ‘I was wrong about what I said earlier about being a martyr. I know you tried really hard.’ Dolly kept her eyes averted, focusing on the fabric she was pleating between thin fingers. ‘I think I was just jealous of everything you had. Of who you were. I felt like I lived in your shadow. Or,’ she glanced up, big blue eyes on Olive’s, ‘it was like Mum always said, I just felt things more.’
Olive felt a swell of emotion inside herself. Thinking of all the effort she went to. How tired she’d been, how wrung out by life when still so young. ‘I felt things too, Dolly,’ she said.
‘I know,’ Dolly agreed, insistent, then she pressed her lips together and after a moment she laughed, ‘but you always seemed to get what you wanted.’
Olive shook her head at the preposterousness of the idea.
Dolly shrugged. ‘Well, that’s what it felt like from the outside.’
Olive was going to go in for a counter-argument, to defend herself properly, but instead she took a moment, as she’d watched Dolly do, to take a few breaths, to sit with what had been said. From Dolly’s point of view maybe it had seemed like Olive got everything she wanted. Whether that was true or not wasn’t necessarily the point to be arguing right now, because like it or not, it had been Dolly’s truth and Olive couldn’t deny her that. In the end she said simply, ‘I think we both lost.’
And Dolly nodded. ‘Yes.’
It felt so much nicer than launching into another row. Especially when Dolly then said, ‘I’m sorry I was such a pain at Aunt Marge’s.’
And Olive replied, ‘I’m sorry I was such a pain at Aunt Marge’s!’
Dolly said, ‘Shall we get Marge in here and she can apologise for being completely insane?’
Olive laughed.
Dolly grinned.
Olive wanted to capture the moment and keep it in her pocket.
Then Dolly looked across and said, ‘I think all I’ve ever wanted, Olive, is for you to see me as a person. A real-life person. Rather than someone to take care of or an annoyance.’
Olive said, ‘I don’t see you as an annoyance.’
‘You do!’ Dolly countered. ‘And I know I can be annoying sometimes. But I’m trying not to be; although I know everything I’ve just said is probably annoying. I am grateful, Olive.’
Olive looked across at Dolly. Adjusted her eyes slightly to see someone new. She saw the vague lines on her face where wrinkles would one day be. She saw the mascara on her lashes. Saw the seriousness of her expression. The sinewy muscles in her arms. She looked for her younger sister but she wasn’t there. Instead, there was a woman with glorious blonde hair and interesting eyes. A contemporary. An equal. A person.
What was it Aunt Marge had said? We’re all just human. Maybe that applied to them too.
Dolly went on, ‘Perhaps we could start again from now – you not seeing me as annoying, and I won’t be annoying. How does that sound?’
Olive said, ‘Well I won’t be annoying, either. I know I tell you what to do, it’s just I worry about you.’
‘You don’t need to, I’m fine,’ said Dolly.
‘Except you’ve been suspended from work—’
‘Olive,’ Dolly cut her off. ‘That’s being annoying.’
‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Olive made a show of buttoning her lip.
Dolly nodded, satisfied she’d got her point across, then she stood up, the mattress lifting under them, and picked up the dungarees. ‘So let’s burn these and go and find Zadie!’
Olive felt like a parent must feel when their child flies the nest. ‘I really did think you looked sweet in those dungarees.’
‘Yes, and therein lies the problem,’ Dolly replied, perfect brows arched. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.’
Olive took one last look around her childhood bedroom before following Dolly’s fast clip down the corridor. But at the front door she paused; behind her she could hear things for the first time. Like her memory was returning. She sensed the parties and the laughter. The Saturday morning TV, the clink of the cereal spoon. She saw her dad with his dark green adventure hat on his head, weaving stories like magic. She felt the hugs. The blankets. The weight of the dog’s head on her thigh. The bedtime kisses. The autumn tides. The games. The shells washed up on the shore. The first tomato of the season. She clutched for the sadness but felt it drifting away. Suddenly Olive found herself dashing back, returning to the familiar darkness of her old bedroom to grab the dusty handmade quilt off the bed. She had left it behind on purpose once before, she wasn’t going to make that same mistake again. As Marge had said, and she finally understood, none of them were perfect, least of all Olive. And sometimes, she realised, it was just as necessary to remember the good as it was to forgive the bad.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Ruben fell down the ravine he’d been thinking about his ex-girlfriend’s rabbit of all things. A great fluffy thing called Boo-Boo. Ruben hated the rabbit and he hated the name of the rabbit. It lolloped around his lovely flat, leaving little round rabbit presents all over his rug. It was disgusting. It did nothing. It smelt. Eventually he had to split up with Kylie – no Kelly – because of the damn rabbit.
‘See, I can’t even have a pet,’ he exclaimed to the heavens, ‘how in God’s name can I have a daughter?’ And then whoosh, he fell. Straight down. No messing. The rock was all jagged and sharp, slicing his back, his chest and his thighs as he slipped, eventually wedged by his small but not unnoticeable middle-aged belly, his legs dangling above waves sluicing into the crevice. The dark sky was far above him. It was like being stuck down a well.
‘Shit,’ he snapped.
He tried to push himself up but there was nothing to hold on to. Were he one of those agile free climbers he marvelled at in documentaries from the comfort of his sofa, then he’d be out in a jiffy. But no. Ruben had been seduced by the Peloton advert and was only good for cycling stationary in his living room.
He did a desperate, futile pat of the pockets of his shorts for his phone. Most of the time it lived in the right-hand back pocket but sometimes, if he’d been on it recently, he slipped it into the front pockets, which was exactly where it was now because he’d been desperately trying to call Zadie. But alas there was, as there had been when he was trying to reach his missing daughter, no signal.
He blew out a breath. He didn’t realise he could feel any more wretched. Her words had gone round and round in his head, plaguing him. And that final, teary ‘to thine own self be true’ ending, he closed his eyes, that had been like a punch in the gut. He wasn’t 100 per cent sure what it meant but he was going with: being honest with himself.
A tiny camouflaged crab scuttled across the rock in front of him. Then stopped still. Ruben moved his head back. He didn’t want a crab on his face.
He checked what he could move. His hands and arms were free. One leg was free, the other was caught at an uncomfortable angle below him and if he moved it something sharp sliced against his ankle, but he couldn’t see because of the rock wedging his belly.
He could hear the sea. Below him was just darkness. What if he was dangling above an underwater cave? Could the tide rise this high? He touched the rock below him to see if it was damp. He couldn’t tell.
On instinct he looked up at the sky and said, ‘Alexa, get me out of here.’
A seagull circled overhead and then nothing.
Ruben wriggled and writhed to no avail. He shouted but the sound just echoed around him in the ravine. He rested his head against the rock and shut his eyes. The waves out to sea crashed.
‘Shit, shit, shit.’
The crab s
cuttled past his nose and he jerked his head back. He watched it, translucent green with little eyes like olives. Oh Olive. Would she ever look at him kindly again?
Ruben closed his eyes and said, ‘Shit!’
Right, come on, pull yourself together, man. He tried again to free himself but it was no good. He looked up at the navy sky. OK, so, if he was honest with himself, what did he feel now?
Pain in his stomach. Annoyed that he was stuck here and not on the search. Guilty for what he’d said to Zadie. Foolish for saying it in front of everyone – but that had been him being honest. That was him telling the truth about how he felt about fatherhood. About responsibility. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be burdened with it. She drove him up the wall.
He remembered her crumpled face when she was shouting at him and the flutter it provoked in his chest.
He had to admit that when she’d stormed off, he hadn’t felt good. It wasn’t like when he shook off a bad date and was rolling his shoulders with relief by the time he got round the corner of the restaurant.
Zadie was quite sweet sometimes. Quite funny. Making her cry was like jabbing pins in his own heart.
But he didn’t want to feel that.
Why not, Ruben? Because you’re afraid of being loved?
‘No, that’s not why,’ he said out loud.
Then he steeled himself. ‘Come on then, Ruben,’ he said. ‘Be truly honest with yourself. What are you feeling right now?’
He thought for a moment. Squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed deep into himself. Unhappiness. Shame maybe. Annoyance.
Fear.
He opened his eyes. Fear that he had lost Zadie.
Fear that he would have to tell her mother that he’d lost her. But mainly fear that she was alone somewhere in the dark and in danger. For a split-second he saw her tumbling down into the waves below and realised he would risk his life to reach out and grab her hand, do whatever he could to haul her back up.
He put his hand over his mouth and let out a small sob.
‘Oh Zadie,’ he cried.
And then as if summoned from his imagination, there she was. Huge wide eyes staring down at him. ‘Ruben? What are you doing down there?’
‘Oh Zadie! Zadie! You’re here. You’re alive. Oh my God, I’m so pleased.’ He exhaled with relief. ‘I’m so sorry for upsetting you. Oh thank God I’m not going to have to tell your mother I lost you.’
Zadie was crouching over the ravine, puzzled. ‘Are you stuck down there?’
Ruben nodded. ‘Yes, yes I am. Where did you go? I was so worried.’
Zadie settled into a more comfortable position, lying down on her stomach so she could talk to him better. ‘I went to call my mum. There’s no signal unless you’re practically on top of the hill.’
‘But you could have got lost.’
‘I’m really good at orienteering.’
‘Oh.’ Ruben looked up at her. Her messy hair, crazy long eyelashes, cherubic face. ‘I didn’t know that about you.’
‘There’s lots you don’t know about me,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I know.’
In front of him, the crab was wedging itself into a tiny overlap in the rock face. Snuggling in tight, legs underneath it.
‘Do you know what my middle name is?’ Zadie asked.
Ruben shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’ It was in his mind to ask her to run back to the house and alert Marge so someone could come and rescue him but just the sheer fact she was talking to him and not leaving him there to die alone, which was what he deserved, kept him from saying anything about rescue.
‘It’s Ruby,’ she said. ‘After you.’
‘Get out of here! It’s not.’ Ruben couldn’t believe it.
Zadie nodded. ‘It is. I promise.’
‘Well, blow me down.’ Ruben half laughed. He was chuffed. ‘Good old Penny,’ he said, wondering, were the situation reversed, whether he’d have incorporated Penny’s name into his child’s. No, he knew.
‘Do you know if I had named you, you’d be called Arlette?’
‘Really? Arlette? Why?’ Zadie scrunched up her nose with distaste. Her hair was all wild from the sea salt. He could just make out the freckles across her nose from the sun. Ruben remembered how much fun he had with her in the surf. Shackles of convention thrown to the wind. Just him and the water and this odd, excitable girl.
Arlette.
He couldn’t picture it. Arlette was tall and blonde and a little haughty. She probably carried a skateboard but never rode it. She wouldn’t have got in the water today, she wouldn’t have wanted to get her hair wet. She would have been the one stretched out lithe on the towel with the swanky new phone and the withering gaze, beating the boys off like flies.
That would have been Arlette de Lacy.
And Ruben would have been proud. He realised to his shame.
‘Because you are a de Lacy,’ said Ruben, thinking how many times he had heard this told to him by various ancestors. ‘And the de Lacys originate from Calvados, which is in the North of France – you may have been there,’
Zadie shook her head. ‘No, I’ve never been to France.’
‘Never been to France!’ He imagined his grandparents’ horror. ‘Well Arlette was my grandmother’s name. I would have had to call you Arlette. It’s a family tradition. And if I had had a son he would have been called Montgomery after his grandfather.’
Zadie made a face. ‘Montgomery? Yuck.’
Ruben frowned. He thought about his doddering grandfather Montgomery who would get so wound up about politics that spit flew out of his mouth and his liver-spotted hands shook. Would he really have called his son Montgomery? Montgomery de Lacy. Would he have subjected the poor kid to that? Monty? ‘Yes, I suppose it is a bit yuck,’ he agreed. ‘But that’s the way it’s done. And has been done for generations.’
‘But they’re all dead, aren’t they?’ Zadie said. ‘How would they know?’
‘They wouldn’t,’ he said, ‘but it’s tradition. History.’
Zadie plucked some grass and let it fall next to her. ‘Did you know that Barry says that history only repeats itself through lack of imagination?’
Ruben tipped his head. He was about to say something facetious about Barry and how conversation with him must just be one bad Instagram slogan after another, but in an attempt to rein himself in from offending Zadie he paused, which made him consider the sentiment. All those old de Lacys were all dead, he thought to himself. None of them know what’s going on. And why would you try and please them when you didn’t like them anyway? He swallowed. He thought of Olive saying that she bet he spent his life thinking if he’d passed his exams his dad wouldn’t have whipped him and kicked him out. Had he? Of course, he bloody had. It’s bullshit, you idiot. Of course, you don’t have to do what they say. His eyes widened at the notion.
Zadie was watching him like a little owl.
Ruben cleared his throat and said, ‘Your Barry sounds like a very wise man.’ And for the first time, he didn’t begrudge the perfect stepdad. He wasn’t the enemy, Ruben realised, if anything that role had so far fallen to Ruben. He should be in awe of Barry because Barry had managed it – Barry hadn’t shied away from parental responsibility, he had taken Zadie on and taught her stuff that she’d listened to and could quote at meaningful moments. What could be more flattering than that – being worthy of being listened to and looked up to.
‘He is pretty clever,’ said Zadie.
Ruben felt a fluttering of jealousy but tamped it down. Determining to do better.
He rested his head back against the jagged rocks and looked up at Zadie’s little face in front of the blackening sky. He licked his dry lips. ‘I am sorry about what I said earlier. It was unforgivable.’
Zadie nodded.
Ruben said, ‘If you’ll take me, I’d really like to go surfing with you again.’
‘Yeah?’ she said, hesitant.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
She did a small smile.
Ruben thought how he’d like to take her for dinner and show her some of the places he loved in London. How he wanted to see her Shakespearean monologue on the Hove promenade and stand by her side ready to do open-hand combat with any nasty, spotty little teenagers. Ruben had dabbled in karate in his time. And if he could get out of this bloody ravine, he would even, if it was absolutely demanded of him, sample a plant-based meat substitute. And he would read – the classics if he must – so they could have meaningful conversations, and she could quote him as often as she quoted Shakespeare and Barry. He would let the stupid black cat sleep in the house. He would do better with recycling because that was what her generation was obsessed with. And air travel. And those tiny beads that fish eat in the ocean. Perhaps they could plant a tree or two together to offset his gallons of carbon. The world was opening up before his eyes. He was a de Lacy but it didn’t mean he had to be that kind of de Lacy. He didn’t have to perpetuate what went before. History repeats only through a lack of imagination. And who did he know with imagination? Zadie.
‘Shall I go and get some help?’ Zadie asked, starting to stand up.
‘No! I don’t want you to get lost again,’ Ruben said, feeling the creep of parental selflessness.
But Zadie just laughed. ‘I didn’t get lost. I was on the phone. It’s a straight path from here back to the house.’
Embarrassingly Ruben wasn’t quite sure where he was, he’d stormed off in such a huff. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’
Zadie nodded. ‘Yes, Ruben, I’ll be fine.’
‘OK then,’ he said.
As Ruben watched her go, it was on the tip of his tongue to say, you can call me Dad.
