by Shari Low
My dread at going back to my own house was balanced only by a tiny, selfish pang of relief that I could go home, close the door, just be still for the first time since I lay on that couch two weeks and one day ago, giggling with my best friend.
Pete hesitated and I immediately realised why. Even though Luke’s brothers would be with him, he still didn’t want to leave him. God, how sweet this guy was. He might not be the most communicative when it came to his feelings, but underneath he was the kind of man who stepped up when it mattered.
‘Or would you rather stay with Luke? That would be ok.’ I added, trying to make it easier for him, in case he was worried about hurting my feelings.
‘No, Matt and Calum will be there so I’m going to give them space.”
Before he could say any more, I spotted Josie out of the corner of my eye. As always, she was dressed from head to toe in black, a shock of silver hair spiked up in a style that she called a semi-gonk. Josie was Val’s closest friend, but she helped out cleaning our shop and was part of our extended, non-related family. I started to step away to go corner her before she disappeared off to talk to someone, then quickly turned back to Pete, ‘Let’s go home when this is over.’
I didn’t get a chance to hear his reply as a familiar voice from the stage at the end of the room demanded attention. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re gathered here today to mourn the loss of my niece, Dee.’ Ida paused to blow her nose on a pink hankie that she’d extracted from the cuff of her black cardi.
Oh bugger! Panic rose. I’d taken my eye off the attention-seeking ball and now it was too late. I saw Josie’s head swivel around in horror too as Ida continued, ‘I just know that our lassie would have wanted us to mark her passing with a wee song. And since I was the closest to her, it’s only right that I’m the one to do that for her.’ Another loud blow of the nasal cavities into the pink hankie.
Oh dear God, how to stop this? Val would kill me.
Ida paused, cleared her throat, closed her eyes, and broke into the first verse of a song that I recognised, yet couldn’t quite place. It took me a moment. Then I realised it was a slowed down, almost melancholic version of the Temptations song, ‘My Girl’. Which sounds beautiful and apt and poignant. If she wasn’t singing it with the warble of a pub crooner after ten vodkas and Coke. With actions.
I thought about pressing the fire alarm, but there was always the risk that she’d finish the song in the car park to the assembled evacuees. Better to hope that she got it out the way before Val came in and…
‘I gave you one job, love.’ Val. Right behind me.
Mortified, I turned to face her. ‘I’m sorry, I misjudged her. I didn’t think she’d make a play for the room so quickly,’ I whispered, hoping for forgiveness. ‘I’ll find a way to stop her,’ I added, desperate to make this right, but with absolutely no plan on how to do so.
A river of tears poured from Val’s eyes, and she began to laugh, quietly, with just a hint of hysteria.
‘Don’t. She showed up at the hospital when I was having our Dee. The minute she came out, Ida started singing ‘My Girl’. Imagine. I was affronted. But she sang her into this world with that song, so she’s as well singing her out.’
And with that, we stood and watched as Ida finished and took her bow.
The irony wasn’t lost that the one person who would find this absolutely hilarious was the one person who wasn’t here to see it.
Chapter 4
Val – 1997
“Jen, love, there are plenty of bananas in the fruit bowl if you want one. In fact, take a couple home with you for tomorrow.”
Our Dee rolled her eyes. “Mum, you’re obsessed with us eating fruit. Jen, please take them all and then maybe we’ll be allowed to break the Jaffa Cakes out of the cupboard.” I pursed my lips, more to stop me laughing than to reprimand my stroppy twelve year old for her cheek. That was Dee. My fiery redhead. Always something to say. In many ways, the very opposite of her best friend sitting next to her.
“Thanks, Val,” Jen replied shyly, slipping a couple into the plastic bag she’d come with today. The sight of it had made me wince. Poor soul. God knows, none of us had much in the way of money, but that girl had been using a plastic bag as a school bag for the last week. What the hell was Bob Collins thinking, sending her out like that? Didn’t he care that it was giving the other kids ammunition, marking her out as different?
Actually, that question didn’t need answered, because Bob Collins didn’t do much thinking or caring at all. He did drinking. And fighting. And being an arse.
Poor Janice would be mortified if she could see this. I raised my eyes heavenward, choosing to believe that she was probably watching us. I missed her.
Janice had been a great pal to me, even after she’d married that waster. Bob Collins had the looks and the chat, but he didn’t have an ounce of integrity or commitment. And if he did, he pretty much drowned them in whatever drink came to hand. Played the big shot. He acted all Bobby Big Bollocks. In reality, he was insignificant and utterly useless. When Janice first found the lump on her neck, he wasn’t interested, told her to ignore it. She didn’t, but it was already too late. Secondary cancer. Spread everywhere. She didn’t stand a chance. Only a few months later she was gone too soon.
In her last days, I’d promised her I’d look after Jen, and that’s what I was doing now, a task made easier by the fact that she and Dee had been inseparable for years,
In the weeks since the funeral, I made sure she got a decent meal every day, Kept tabs on her homework. And now I decided to take a tenner out of my housekeeping money and buy her a new bag tomorrow. It wasn’t that we were flush, but there was usually a little extra in the food budget now that our Mark had gone off backpacking to Australia. Imagine! The other side of the world. Still, it was what the young ones wanted to do these days and he’d saved up the money for his flight himself from his weekend and evening job down at the chippy.
The door opened and Don came in from work, his face weather beaten from another day on an exposed site. Putting the foundations in was always the worst bit. No shelter, endless rain, and way too much muck. He looked like he’d been rolling in it and I bit my tongue so I didn’t moan about the boot prints he was leaving on my newly mopped floor. I figured I was doing well when that was my only complaint about the man I’d married.
As he washed up at the sink, I saw Jen checking her watch, noticed the flinch of tension around her eyes, a clench of her jaw. I recognised the expression. I’d seen it often enough on Janice, when she was heading back to her house, dreading what she’d find there. Would he be sober? Drunk? Mouthing off? It was so unfair that Jen was now showing the same signs but what could I do? Bob Collins was her father.
I gave her a tight hug before she left. “Any problems, just come straight back now, you hear?” I didn’t have to spell it out. Bob had never been violent or aggressive to Janice or Jen, but he was an obnoxious pain in the arse when he’d had too many.
Don chatted to her about her day, until I put his tea in front of him. “Right madam, upstairs, homework, bath and bed,” I told Dee, and waited for the harrumph. Yep, there it was.
“I’ll do it for two Jaffa cakes,” she said tartly.
“You’ll do it or you won’t step foot outside that door this weekend,” I retorted, one eyebrow raised.
She shrugged, got up, and kissed me on the cheek as she passed. “Gotta love a trier,” she chirped, leaning down to give Don a hug, then disappearing out the door.
This time, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. The cheek of that girl. I’d brought her up to be smart, confident and independent, but the price to pay for that was a soon-to-be teenager who was way too sharp for her own good sometimes.
Don and I had dinner, watched a bit of telly, then headed up for an early night. I checked in on Dee and saw she was already sound asleep under her Backstreet Boys duvet.
When I climbed into bed, Don reached for me and wrapped me in his big, tanned
arms. “You ok?” he asked. “You’re quiet tonight.”
I sighed. “Just a bit worried about Jen. That’s no life for a young girl, Don.”
“Then bring her here,” he said, with that black and white logic he viewed life with. Not that I hadn’t thought about it, of course. But Bob Collins was her dad, a man who had just lost his wife, and he deserved a chance to show that he could change and make a good job of bringing up his daughter. The plastic bag and the tense expression had me worried though. I wasn’t going to let that girl suffer for a single second, so I hoped my fears were unfounded.
My thoughts were interrupted by a noise, one I didn’t recognise, outside. Feet on gravel? A grating sound? On any other night, I’d have left it but I could see Don was starting to drift off and my mind was too busy to do the same just yet.
I slipped out of bed, pulled on my robe, and peeked out of the blinds. Nothing to see. No-one around. Just a figure turning the corner at the end of the street, a youngster, maybe about the same age as our Dee. And the same height. The hood was up so I couldn’t see the hair but I suddenly had my suspicions.
I flew next door and they were instantly realised. Her bed was empty.
“Don. DON! Wake up. Dee’s gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?”
I now understood the sound I’d heard. Feet siding down a pebbledash wall.
“She’s climbed out the window. Jesus! That bloody girl!”
I was already pulling on clothes and Don was on his feet, hopping into his clean jeans that had been left lying on the chair in his corner.
“Where the bugger has she gone?”
I checked the digital display on my alarm clock. It was after ten. Youth clubs would be closed. So would the café on the High Street. Was she hanging about the streets? Meeting someone? A boy? Oh dear God, I’d definitely kill her.
I had absolutely no idea where she would be. But there was one person who might.
We jumped in the car and five minutes later pulled up outside the Collins house. It was in darkness, except for the flicker of a television in the living room window. Don got to the door first and battered it with his fist, every protective urge he possessed taking over. He adored his girl and while I’d gone straight to fury, this big tough man had nothing but concern and worry written all over his face.
It felt like ten minutes, but was probably two, before the door opened just a few inches. Jen looked as terrified as Don.
“Sorry if I woke you, love,” I blurted, before registering that she was still in her school uniform, “but do you know where Dee is? She’s climbed out of the window and we don’t know where she’s gone.”
“No, Val, I’m sorry, I’ve no idea.”
My internal lie detector screamed. I was a mother of two. I could spot a good fib at fifty paces and this one was coming from someone who was neither practiced nor confident enough to pull it off. I tried to work out the timings. Dee had a head start on us, but she was on foot and could cut through the scheme, so it would have taken her not much more than five minutes to get here if she’d ran all the way.
“Jen, is she in there?”
“N-n-n-n-o.”
“Jen, Are you lying to me?”
“N-n-n…”
Suddenly, the door swung open, and there was Dee, looking for all the world like we were inconveniencing her.
“It’s fine, Jen” she said with a sigh, “There’s no point resisting. She’d have worn you down and got it out of you eventually.”
Seriously? More cheek? Oh, this girl would be grounded until she was old enough to go off on her bloody backpack year to Australia.
“Look, mum, I’m sorry, but there are special circumstances.” From the official tone, I knew she’d been watching NYPD Blue again.
“They’d better be good,” Don said, with more calm than I currently possessed.
Jen opened the door wider, letting us traipse into the hall.
“Tell them,” Dee prompted Jen, weary but insistent.
Jen stared at the floor and my stomach churned, softening my voice.
“Jen, what’s up love?”
Nothing. Silence. Just a single tear dropped to the floor from her bowed head.
It was too much for Dee. “Her dad hasn’t been home in a fortnight and she has no idea where he is and she hates being here on her own because it’s like, way spooky and cold, so I’ve been coming round at night and staying with her then sneaking back into the house in the mornings before you’re up.”
“But why didn’t you just come to our house?” I asked Jen, dumbstruck.
“Because she didn’t want to get him into trouble,” Dee answered for her.
I actually wanted to throw up at the thought of my twelve year old being out at this time of night and then again in the morning with me knowing nothing about it. For a moment I wasn’t sure that I was any fitter a parent than Bob bloody Collins.
In a split second, though, that doubt escalated to sheer anger, but Don got straight to the solution before me.
“Jen, love, go pack a bag and you’re coming home with us.”
A potent mixture of relief and fear crossed her face.
“But my dad…”
“I’ll have a wee word with your dad. Don’t you worry now. He won’t get into trouble.”
“Really? I can come…?” The words got stuck in her throat and a piece of my heart broke for her.
“Go now, love,” I told her gently, then, as she took the stairs two at a time, I turned to Dee. “And you, Dee Ida Murray…” she got her full name when I was furious, “get in that car and wait for us and you’d better start working on an apology that will stop us from grounding you for the rest of your life.”
My words were stern, but all the anger was gone now. She’d gone about it completely the wrong way, but how could I fault her for doing a good thing, for looking out for her pal? I wasn’t going to tell her that though.
She responded with a petulant sigh and flounced past me, muttering, “Bet Mother Teresa’s mum didn’t ground her for taking care of someone that needed help.”
I waited until she was out of the door before I reacted.
“Mother Teresa? We’re going to have some time of it with that girl,” I told Don.
“Yep, but…”
I could see he was going to stick up for her as always so I stopped him by putting my hand up. “Save it, Don. We’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”
There was a noise at the top of the stairs and I turned to see Jen coming down, three plastic bags this time. Another piece of my heart snapped off.
“Okay, let’s get you in the car.”
Don drove us and we were back home in a few minutes. Only half an hour had passed since we left but so much had changed.
“You go on in,” he said, as we climbed out. “I’ll just go see if I can track down Bob for a wee chat.
I didn’t argue, not wanting to upset Jen any more. I took the girls inside and made them tea and toast, popped all Jen’s stuff in the washing machine, then gave her a fresh pair of Dee’s pyjamas. She could borrow Dee’s spare school uniform in the morning. We’d sort it all out.
It took time, but we got there. Within a few days, Jen had her own bed in Dee’s room, clothes in the wardrobe, a shiny new school bag and the absolutely security of knowing that she was wanted here.
My strong, silent man hadn’t said much when he’d come home, just that it was sorted. It took about a week for word to filter back to me on what that meant.
Apparently, he’d found Bob in a pub, steaming drunk, draped all over some woman he’d been shagging since before Janice had died. He’d all but moved into her house now and that’s why he hadn’t been home to check on his daughter.
According to the gossip, Don had lifted him right out of his seat, dragged him outside and put him up against a wall, then told him, in no uncertain terms, that Jen would be staying with us now. How he stopped himself from beating Collins to a pulp, I’
ll never know, but he did, because Don was a hundred times the man that odious little shit would ever be.
“You’ll visit her, contact her, keep in touch, and if you don’t, I’ll be back,” Don had spat.
In the end, Collins had got around regular contact by getting a job on the rigs, so he was away every second month. It amazed me that his craving for alcohol could withstand the enforced offshore abstinence, but the money clearly made it worth it.
I didn’t care that we never saw a penny for the upkeep of his daughter. All that mattered was that Jen was with us.
And that was where she belonged.
Chapter 5
Jen
My own home. My own blanket, still lying on the couch where I’d left it that day. Two mugs on the floor. One mine, one…
I picked it up. I couldn’t bear to wash away the traces of her, the touch of her lips on the rim of the ceramic, the fingerprints, invisible to the eye, that she had no doubt left on the handle. Instead, I carefully washed out the inside then placed it on the kitchen windowsill, facing outwards.
This was the first time I’d been back here since that Sunday afternoon. Pete had come back and packed a bag for me, then he’d gone to Luke’s and I’d alternated between Luke’s house and Dee’s old room at Val and Don’s.
I’d warned Pete not to clear anything up, when he’d come back, because I knew that I wanted to see it exactly the way it was, unchanged, just that last moment of normal before our lives were ripped apart.
Everything had meaning now. The washing basket full of clothes that I’d last worn when Dee was alive. Towels that she’d touched. Bowls that she’d used. I wanted to preserve everything exactly the way it was, to keep every trace of her here with me, like having that stuff mattered.
Yet, I knew it didn’t. It wouldn’t bring her back.
I went upstairs, past a dozen mirrored photo frames that documented our lives. The two of us, cutting open the ribbon on our shop. Taking our first flight together. Wearing posh frocks for our twenty-first birthdays.
