Perfect Daughter

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I was going to bring wine, but I don’t really drink and I didn’t know which one to pick. They all look the same – apart from red or white, obviously.’

  Martha laughed as though it was the funniest joke ever told. Pete walked in and shook Gideon’s hand: a hand with rings of black grease under its fingernails, working man’s hands like his own.

  ‘Blimey, you bought her flowers?’ He indicated Jacks with his thumb. ‘What are you trying to do, make me look bad?’

  Gideon laughed.

  ‘Sit down, love.’ Jacks offered him a chair. ‘Jonty, your tea’s ready!’ she shouted up the hallway.

  Jonty thundered down the stairs and sat opposite their guest.

  ‘How’s your tummy now, Jont?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Have you been ill?’ Gideon said.

  ‘No.’ Jonty sulked, not wanting to talk about his ailment of a few days ago, having been fully informed by his mum in the car on the way to school.

  ‘So where do you live, Gideon?’ Jacks asked as she cut a slice of steak-and-kidney pie and placed it on his plate.

  ‘Thank you, that looks lovely,’ he replied. ‘Just up on Alfred Street. Not too far.’

  ‘Have you always lived in Weston?’ Pete asked, tucking into the crisp pastry, his favourite bit.

  Gideon shook his head. ‘No, we moved here when my mum and dad got divorced. I was ten. We’d been living in Bedminster in Bristol till then. But my mum got a job at Weston General – she’s a nurse.’

  ‘Ah, my mum was a nurse,’ Pete said. ‘She passed away a few years ago.’

  Gideon looked a little ill at ease, unsure if it was fitting to offer condolences after this length of time. It led to an awkward silence, broken eventually by Pete.

  ‘You a football man?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Love football.’ Gideon smiled at Martha, as though he had given a correct answer.

  ‘Who do you support?’

  There was a moment of tension as everyone waited for the name of his team to fall from his lips.

  ‘Rovers.’ Gideon looked Pete in the eye, before collapsing in giggles. ‘Nah, only kidding. City.’

  Pete beamed. ‘That’s my boy!’

  Martha laughed, clearly having briefed her man.

  ‘Shocking season though,’ Pete continued.

  Gideon leant forward. ‘No cohesion, that’s the trouble. All going for individual glory, doesn’t always feel like a team.’

  Pete nodded. ‘That’s true, but that team spirit has to come from the top and it just hasn’t been there. We should get Russell Osman back. Knew what he was talking about did Big Russ.’ He winked his approval at his daughter.

  Jacks groaned inwardly as she dished up her mum’s food and trod the stairs with Ida’s special padded tray. Her smile slipped the moment she left the kitchen. He was a nice enough lad – polite, and sweet to buy her flowers – but she had been hoping that he was going to be a disaster. With Pete now clearly smitten as well, it would only make it harder to keep him and Martha apart.

  She pushed open the bedroom door with her foot. ‘Here we go, Mum. Nice bit of steak-and-kidney pie with spuds and peas. It’s not too hot. Eat what you can – I’ve cut it into little bits. Let me get you started.’

  She placed the spoon in her mum’s hand and watched as Ida brought it up to her mouth, smacking the mashed food against her gums and letting most of it fall back on to the tray.

  ‘Martha’s brought a friend home for tea. A boyfriend, if you can believe that! I don’t know, Mum, feels like five minutes ago she was starting school and now she’s nearly finishing. Makes me feel old.’

  Ida mashed more peas between her lips, some of which stuck to her chin in a gooey green streak. She had always been a messy eater, in fact messy in general and not overly fond of housework. In the latter years it had driven Don mad. He took control of the little things, fastidious almost in his quest for order. He was painstaking in his need to perfectly slice the bread – his ability to keep the loaf straight was an art. He was similarly obsessed with the patch of grass at the back of their house; no more than ten-foot square, it was never sullied by a weed or a stray leaf and was always lovingly referred to as ‘the lawn’. Jacks could see now that he’d wanted to keep control of the little things because he could. He might not have been able to make his wife be kind to him, or stop her flinging dirty bras over the banisters for all to see, but he was happy as long as his toast was symmetrical and his grass immaculate. It made sense to Jacks now.

  ‘I’m going away,’ Ida announced through her mouthful.

  ‘Oh, lovely. Be sure to eat all your tea before you go.’

  ‘I’m going on a trip to find my letter.’

  ‘Don’t forget to send me a postcard and bring me back a nice stick of rock.’ Jacks smiled and left the door ajar.

  She trod the stairs and hovered in the hallway, listening to the boy holding court at the table.

  ‘I’ve done a lot of research. No one is doing what I want to do at an affordable price. Usually body kits and pimp jobs for cars are only available at the high end of the spectrum, but I reckon there are loads of people with low- to mid-range cars who would love modifications that aren’t too pricey. You know – lit-up dashes, neon subwoofers, fur roof-lining, you name it!’

  ‘I can see you’re really into this.’ Pete was impressed.

  ‘I am. I don’t want to be relying on anyone else for my income, I want to be my own boss, work really hard and see where that takes me.’

  She heard Pete sigh. ‘Now you’re talking – being your own boss, that’s got to be the dream, hasn’t it, to be able to manage yourself.’

  Jacks took her seat at the kitchen table and watched Martha, who watched Gideon, taking in his every move, unable to tear her eyes away from the boy who sat at their table. Her heart sank. The girl loved him. Jacks recognised the looks of longing and admiration. And love, compared to a teenage crush, was a whole other story.

  They waved Gideon off at the front door. Martha slunk up to her room with a dreamy-eyed expression on her face and Pete picked up the tea towel to wipe the dishes while Jacks washed.

  ‘He seems like a nice boy. Polite, hard working and he’s got some really good ideas, reckons this customised-car-interior business has a future. He seems to know what he’s talking about.’

  ‘What he’s talking about is staying in Weston-super-Mare for the rest of his life, watching the shops close down one by one and living in a shitty house that he can barely afford until one day he wakes up and he is grey and old! And if left to his own devices, he will try and drag Martha along with him!’ Jacks spat the words.

  Pete was aghast. ‘What, like I dragged you down, you mean?’ His cheeks were red and Jacks could see the flash of hurt in his eyes. She felt a kick of shame.

  ‘No!’ She hesitated, unsure how much to share with him. ‘It’s not that. You know that I love you, and the kids. Things were different for us. But I just… I just want the best for Martha, and sometimes… sometimes I feel that I’m the only one who does. It’s as if I can see what’s going on and the rest of you have got your heads in the sand.’ She shoved her hands back under the suds and scrubbed vigorously at the encrusted pie dish.

  ‘Well, that’s bloody charming. How to round off a perfectly nice evening. Thanks, Jacks.’ Pete threw the tea towel on to the draining board and went upstairs.

  ‘Are you and Dad arguing about me?’ Martha asked from the doorway.

  ‘Kind of.’ Jacks dried her hands.

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t like him. I said that, didn’t I?’ Martha was almost pleading.

  ‘Actually I did. I liked him very much. He’s a nice boy…’

  ‘He really is, Mum!’ Martha gushed.

  Jacks nodded. ‘I just…’

  ‘What?’ Martha folded her arms across her chest, ready to defend whatever comments came her way.

  ‘Nothing, love. Nothing. What do I bloody know?’

  She walked past her daughter
and headed for the bathroom, the one room in the house where she could lock the door and be alone.

  She sat on the floor, letting the cold of the tiles seep up through her jeans and chill her bones. She glanced at the sink, where Martha had balanced a bottle of shampoo and conditioner upside down, trying to get one more wash out of them. The sight of this act of thrift was the final straw. She wanted so much more for her kids. She wanted them to luxuriate in a warm bath full of bubbles without worrying about how much hot water they were using, and to be able to wash their hair without eking liquid out of a cut-price bottle.

  Jacks placed her head in her hands and cried. She wished things were different, and she wished she hadn’t upset Pete, who had done his best and made Gideon welcome in their home. She sat on the floor and tried to get a grip. Taking two deep breaths, she rubbed her eyes.

  She had been there a full five minutes when Jonty knocked on the door.

  ‘Mu-um?’

  ‘Yes, love?’ She controlled her voice, pulled herself together.

  ‘I need a poo!’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Jacks smiled, got up and opened the door, blotting her face with a towel as she did so.

  Jonty rushed past her, colliding with her in the doorway, holding his trousers up with the button and zip undone to save time as he hopped from foot to foot.

  That was it, her me-time was over. Back to the dishes. She shut the door behind Jonty and walked over to Ida’s room. The door was shut. Jacks gently tapped, as she did on occasion, and opened it wide. She poked her head in and looked at the bed. The covers were in disarray and she was surprised to see it was empty.

  ‘Mum?’ She looked behind the door and on the floor on the other side of the bed in case Ida had fallen, as Jacks was always fearing she might. She leant over the banister. ‘Pete? Is Mum down there?’

  ‘No. Don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s odd.’ She knocked on Martha and Jonty’s door. ‘Nan’s not in here, is she?’ she asked Martha, who lay with her knees up and a book open on her thighs.

  ‘No.’ Martha rolled her eyes, irritated by the interruption.

  She ran down the stairs. ‘Pete?’ she called, their previous ill-tempered exchange forgotten, as always, in the face of a potential crisis. She tried to keep the edge of panic from her voice as he emerged from the lounge to meet her in the hall. ‘I can’t find her!’

  ‘Is she in the bathroom?’

  ‘No, I was just in there. Jonty’s in there now.’

  ‘Kids’ room?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Our room?’

  ‘Oh God!’ She laughed nervously, feeling relieved. While there was somewhere she hadn’t looked, there was still a possibility that it would all be fine. ‘I didn’t look in there.’ She raced up the stairs, catching her toe on a tack. ‘Shit!’ she muttered as she stumbled into their bedroom and flipped on the light.

  ‘Mum?’ She stared at the empty bed and opened the wardrobe, whose cramped space, already full of boxes, suitcases and old clothes, would have difficulty accommodating another shoebox, let alone a person. Where on earth…?

  Jacks made her way back downstairs as Pete came in from the garden shaking his head. ‘I’ll go look out the front,’ he said, grabbing his coat from the banister. Out in the street, Jacks saw him look left and right before knocking on their neighbours’ doors.

  ‘Where are you, Mum?’ she whispered, trying to control the rising panic inside her. She did another full check of the house, looking under beds and inside cupboards, behind doors and even behind every curtain, as though it were a game of hide-and-seek. Ida was nowhere to be seen and definitely nowhere inside the house.

  Hovering in the kitchen, she heard Pete in the hallway. His expression told her all she needed to know.

  He shook his head. ‘Ivor helped me. We did a quick scout of the road, knocked on doors and looked up the alley. Nothing. The kids are going around the block with a torch. Don’t worry, I told them to stay together.’

  ‘Where is she, Pete?’ she asked, as though he might have the answer.

  ‘I don’t know, love. I mean, she can’t have got very far, but I think we should call the police.’

  ‘Really?’ Jacks’ breath came in shallow pants.

  ‘Yep, they can look better than we can.’

  ‘But, Pete, she can’t walk far. What on earth…? She can’t have just disappeared.’ She sat on the stair and started to cry.

  Pete squeezed her shoulder as he picked up the phone and dialled 999.

  14

  Nineteen Years Earlier

  Jacks was sitting on the stairs in her pyjamas with the curly telephone cord wrapped around her fingers and the receiver slotted between her chin and shoulder as she listened to Sven talk about what life would be like in Boston. She nodded and smiled in all the right places. Her feet rested in a basket of laundry that her mum had gathered from the line a couple of days earlier but still hadn’t taken upstairs and put away.

  ‘There are great theatres and museums, and the Franklin Park Zoo of course. We’ll have a big day out and then go and eat clam chowder in some funky restaurant.’

  Jacks wrinkled her nose at the idea of clams, wondering if they’d be anything like the ones they sold on the fish stall on the Marine Parade. ‘Sounds good.’ She smiled.

  ‘Good? It sounds more than good, it’ll be brilliant!’ The enthusiasm spilled from him.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘it sounds brilliant!’

  ‘Have you told them yet?’ he asked.

  Jacks shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper. She had no idea how to tell them she was leaving or how to ask them for the fare. ‘I think I might this evening…’ She bit her lip.

  ‘Yes! Good! Do it! Ask them now, that gives us more planning time.’ He sounded so assured, so certain, that it gave her the confidence that it might actually happen.

  She ended the call and mentally rehearsed going into the lounge to talk to her mum, figuring that starting the conversation was going to be the hardest part. She was still sitting on the stairs, planning what to say, when Don arrived home.

  Her dad came through the front door and gave her a small wave. He had an air of caution, as though he were sneaking in in the early hours. He had a dark smudge of tiredness beneath his eyes and his hair looked messy and dusty. He had explained to her a little while ago how he had taken on an extra job.

  He stood by the front door and leant wearily against the frame in his big wool work coat with its leather panels across the back of the shoulders and two matching patches on the arms. She had asked him when she was little, ‘Why’s it called a donkey jacket?’ and he’d stood ramrod straight, stroked the lapel and said, ‘It’s made of the finest donkey.’ It was only when her lip wobbled at the thought that he’d let out his loud laugh and said, ‘I don’t know, my love, but if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s because those of us that wear them work like donkeys, and I don’t mean trotting up and down under the Grand Pier with a fat kid on our backs!’

  Jacks returned his wave as he peeled off his thick socks, freeing his toes from the heavy work boots. He pinched her cheek through the banister and smiled at her. A long, slow smile, as if reminding himself why it was all worth it. She swallowed the guilt she felt, knowing she was going to abandon him for Boston’s museums and clam chowder.

  ‘Your dinner’s on the table,’ Ida snapped from the chair in front of the telly as the theme tune from Kavanagh QC wafted from the speaker.

  Jacks stopped replaying Sven’s words for a moment and listened to her dad.

  ‘Ooh, smashing. Thanks. I’m starving.’

  She heard him wash his dirty hands in the sink, using, as he always did, a squirt of Fairy Liquid to loosen the grime as he scrubbed their hairy backs and under his nails. Jacks hated the fact that he was starving, didn’t like to think of her dad hungry as well as dirty. He pulled off his coat and hung it on the hook on the back of the cupboard under t
he stairs, the cupboard that always smelt of old carpet and mould.

  She watched through the open lounge door as he was gripped by the scene on the telly, rolled up the sleeves of his long thermal vest and grabbed the knife and fork that Ida had laid ready. The plate was heaped high with shepherd’s pie and diced carrots. He dug the fork into the mashed potato and placed it in his mouth.

  ‘Oh, yuck!’ He quickly spat it into his hand and walked over to the kitchen door, where a carrier bag hung off the handle, their makeshift bin. Lobbing it from his palm into the bag, he looked at his wife, whose gaze was fixed on the screen.

  ‘It’s icy cold, Ida!’ He raised his voice.

  Jacks gripped the receiver and held it under her chin, letting her parents think she was deep in conversation rather than following their every word and gesture. It didn’t matter that she was on the verge of womanhood, she still craved domestic bliss, just as she had when she was seven. She wanted her home to be a happy one.

  She watched as her mum unfurled her legs from beneath her and sloped to the table. ‘That’s easily fixed.’ Ida hummed, a slight smile on her face. She was going to do the right thing, Jacks thought with relief. She was going to reheat her dad’s tea like she usually did, by setting the foil-wrapped plate over a pan of boiling water.

  Jacks stared, horrified, as her mum swiped the plate from the table, scattering carrots as she did so, walked over to the carrier bag and tipped the lot into it. ‘If you want hot tea, you get here at teatime. Simple, really.’ She let the plate clatter on the draining board. With that she sat back down on the chair and continued to stare at the screen.

  Jacks felt her chest heaving. She wanted to wade in and explain to her mum that it wasn’t her dad’s fault; he’d been out working, working for them. But it wasn’t her place to do that. Plus the set of her mum’s chin and her dad’s reluctance to speak up told her there was little point.

  Don looked up and caught his daughter’s eye, giving her a false smile as if to say, ‘Nothing to worry about, little Dolly Daydream. It’s all okay.’