Her Last Promise

by Kathryn Hughes

  She’d been in Lytham for a little over six weeks and just as Nan had predicted, she’d had no choice but to start a new school. ‘I miss you too, Tom. When are you coming to see me again?’

  He’d managed only one visit in all that time, a trip by coach in which he’d been the only passenger without a flat cap or a blue rinse.

  He sounded hesitant, nervous even. ‘It’s going to be difficult. I . . . erm . . . look, I wasn’t just ringing to wish you luck. I have some news. It came in the post yesterday.’

  ‘You’re worrying me, Tom.’

  At the sound of Nan coming down the stairs, she lifted the phone and, as far as the flex would allow, crept into the larder and closed the door. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’m not going to find a job, Tara. I’ve got a place on a course.’

  She laughed with relief. ‘That’s fantastic news, Tom. Mechanical engineering, like you wanted?’

  ‘Yes. It’s at Thames Polytechnic.’

  She came out of the larder as she heard her nan filling the kettle. ‘Tom’s going to university, well . . . a polytechnic.’

  ‘Is he? Ooh, the clever lad.’ She set the kettle on the stove and lit the gas. ‘Brew, love?’

  ‘That’ll be lovely.’

  ‘It won’t be lovely, Tara. Have you any idea where Thames Polytechnic is?’

  ‘Sorry, I was talking to Nan. No, I don’t. Where is it?’

  ‘London, two hundred and fifty-odd miles away.’

  They both fell silent, the implications unspoken but looming large. Tara was the first to speak. ‘That’s a long way, Tom, but we’ll make it work. When do you start?’

  ‘Next week. I’m going to stay with my aunt to start with. She’s got a spare box room.’

  As the doorbell rang, Nan glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘Who on earth is that at this time?’

  ‘Honestly, Nan, I don’t know. Go and answer it.’

  ‘As I was saying, it’s a long way and I don’t know how often we’ll get to see each other so if you want to see other boys then . . .’

  She slid back into the privacy of the larder. ‘Are you chucking me?’ she hissed.

  He was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know what to do, Tara.’

  ‘Tara, where’ve you gone, love?’ Nan was back. ‘It’s Sandra come to call for you. Says you can walk to school together. Tara?’

  ‘I’ve got to go, Tom.’ She cupped her hand round the receiver and whispered, ‘Everything’ll be alright. I love you.’

  ‘There you are, Tara. Look, Sandra’s here.’ Beryl pointed unnecessarily to the spiky-haired girl who was now standing in the kitchen. She had certainly adapted the school uniform to suit her own particular brand of fashion. Fishnet tights and bovver boots were not a look everybody could carry off. Tara looked down at her own grey socks and sensible black shoes. She thought she’d been daring in going for a heel above the regulation two inches.

  ‘Y’alright?’ asked Sandra, chewing gum both visibly and audibly.

  ‘Her boyfriend’s just got a place at pyrotechnic college.’ Beryl beamed.

  Sandra seemed uninterested. ‘Great.’ She lifted the lid on the teapot. ‘Any tea in there for me? I’ve not had me breakfast.’

  ‘Sit yerself down, Sandra. I’ll do you a bowl of cornflakes.’

  Since moving to Lytham, Tara had barely spoken to Sandra, so she was more than a little surprised that she’d come to call for her.

  They waited at a pelican crossing for the lights to change. ‘Thanks for walking with me, Sandra. I’m really chuffed.’

  Sandra shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to but your nan gave me two quid to do it and told me not to say anything.’

  Tara bit back her annoyance. ‘Then why did you?’

  ‘Two quid’s two quid, innit?’

  ‘I meant why did you tell me?’

  ‘Dunno. Didn’t want you thinking I’d gone all soft, I suppose.’

  As the lights changed, they crossed the road, Tara acknowledging the cars with a polite wave. ‘We could be friends, you know.’

  Sandra scoffed and looked Tara up and down. ‘No offence but you’re a bit . . . straight. I mean you’ve even got your top button done up.’

  Tara unfastened the button and pulled at her tie, loosening the knot so that it lay skew-whiff across her shirt. ‘Better?’

  Sandra nodded and gave a half-smile. Her lips were edged with black liner and she wore a ring through her nose, like a bull. ‘So, that boyfriend of yours is off to London then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tara sighed. ‘It’ll be difficult but we’ll manage.’

  ‘You two slept together yet?’

  Tara blushed. ‘Well, that’s none of your business.’

  Sandra laughed. ‘Thought not.’

  Tara seized the chance to get one over on Sandra. ‘Actually, that’s where you’re wrong. For your information, we have done it, so there.’

  Sandra seemed impressed. ‘Well, bugger me. Who’d have thought?’ She picked away at her black nail varnish. ‘Love him, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I don’t make a habit of going around sleeping with people.’

  Sandra pulled a packet of cigarettes from her school bag. ‘Want one?’

  ‘No thanks, I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Course you don’t.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nowt, don’t be so touchy.’ She lit the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. ‘It won’t last, you know.’

  Tara kicked at a rusty Coke can in the gutter, sending it clattering along the street. ‘Shut up, you don’t know anything about us.’

  ‘Trust me.’ Sandra took another long drag, narrowing her eyes as she looked at Tara. She waved the cigarette in the air. ‘And I’ll tell you summat else for free.’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘Your mum ain’t coming back either.’

  Tara stopped and pulled on Sandra’s sleeve. ‘Take that back.’

  ‘Gonna make me?’

  She dropped her school bag to the ground and rolled up her sleeves. ‘If I have to.’

  ‘Ooh-er,’ mocked Sandra. ‘I’m really scared.’

  Tara hadn’t planned to spend her first morning at a new school in the headmistress’s office, but punching another pupil in the face generally made plans go awry.

  Mrs Grimshaw sat across the desk, her fingers steepled and her glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘I’m really disappointed in you, Tara.’ She glanced at the file on her desk. ‘I’m looking at the report from your previous school and it appears it’s not the first time you’ve attacked another pupil.’

  Tara frowned. ‘I’ve never attacked anybody, Mrs Grimshaw.’

  The headmistress ran her finger along the report. ‘Lisa Cooper?’

  ‘Oh, that was different. She said some awful things about my mother.’

  ‘Really, and what did Sandra Hobson do to deserve your wrath?’

  Tara looked at the floor, her voice quiet. ‘She said my mother . . .’

  ‘Speak up, girl, I can hardly hear you.’

  Tara raised her voice, almost shouting. ‘She said my mother was never coming back.’

  There was a knock at the door and the secretary bobbed her head in. ‘Mrs Dobbs is here now.’

  ‘You called my nan?’

  ‘This is a very serious matter, Tara Dobbs. We may have to get the police involved.’

  Tara slouched in her chair and folded her arms. ‘It’s got fuck all to do with you. It didn’t even happen on school premises.’

  Mrs Grimshaw ignored the remark, turning to the secretary instead. ‘Send Mrs Dobbs in, will you?’

  Tara sat up a little straighter as her nan walked in. She could hardly bear to witness the disappointment written across her face. ‘Sorry, Nan.’

  ‘Could I just have a minute with my granddaughter, please, Mrs Grimshaw?’

  The headmistress stood. ‘I’ll just be on the other side of that door.’

  Nan sat down next to Tara
. She opened up her handbag and pulled out a bag of Murray Mints. ‘Want one?’

  In spite of herself, Tara smiled. Nan always tried to make everything better with sweets. ‘No, ta.’

  Nan shook her head, the plastic spotted rain hood rustling. She took it off and shook the droplets of rain onto the carpet. ‘What am I going to do with you, eh?’

  Tara stared out of the window. There really was no answer to that.

  ‘You can’t go around thumping people, our Tara. Violence is not the answer, it never is.’

  ‘Hmph . . . wonder why we’ve had two World Wars then.’

  ‘Less of the cheek, young lady, it doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘She had it coming.’

  ‘Sandra? What did she say?’

  ‘That me and Tom wouldn’t last and that me mum was never coming back.’ A tear slid down her cheek and she took a savage swipe at it.

  ‘You can’t let things get to you, love. Sandra doesn’t know her arse from her elbow.’

  ‘What if she’s right though? What if Mum never comes back? I couldn’t bear it, Nan. I love living here with you but you’re not me mum and I want her back.’ She stood up having difficulty breathing. ‘What has happened to her, Nan? Everything’s just so . . . so fucked up . . .’

  ‘Language, Tara.’

  She stared at Nan, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘Gosh, you sounded just like her then. She was always telling me to mind my language.’

  She was standing by Mrs Grimshaw’s desk, the files ordered into neat piles, the pencils freshly sharpened. ‘Aargh!’ she suddenly screamed, her voice cracking. ‘I want my mum back, I need my mum. Nan, you’ve got to help me, I can’t . . .’ She tried to inhale but couldn’t find any breath. Without words to convey her rage, she swept her arm across the desk, sending the files, pens and an industrial-sized stapler crashing to the ground.

  Nan was on her feet. ‘Tara, calm down. You . . .’

  Tara wasn’t finished. She picked up the headmistress’s mug of coffee and hurled it at the wall, where it smashed into Mrs Grimshaw’s fancy diploma or whatever the hell it was. The glass shattered as Mrs Grimshaw reappeared, her over-plucked eyebrows half-way to her hairline, her shocked secretary bringing up the rear.

  Tara slid down the wall and hugged her knees, rocking back and forth, the sobs coming freely. ‘I just . . . I just miss my mum.’

  ‘Tara Dobbs,’ shouted Mrs Grimshaw. ‘You leave me no choice but to . . .’

  Nan threw her a venomous look. ‘Shut up you. I’ll handle this.’

  She sat down on the floor next to Tara. ‘We’ll find her, Tara, we will. As long as I have breath in my body, I’ll never stop looking.’ She took hold of Tara’s chin. ‘Look at me. I promise you, we will find her.’

  She unzipped the secret pocket inside her handbag and pulled out her building society passbook, running her finger down the final column. ‘Mmm . . . I think I can manage it. Had a small bingo win a month or two back. I’ve been saving for a twin-tub but this is more important.’

  ‘What is?’ Tara sniffed.

  ‘You and me are going on a little trip, Tara. We’ll find our Violet and bring her back here where she belongs.’

  ‘I don’t even know where she went, Nan, other than she caught the car ferry from Dover.’

  Nan snapped her bag shut. ‘Well, that’s where we’ll start then. We’ll put some posters up around the port.’

  ‘It’ll be impossible.’ She linked her arm through Nan’s. ‘But thank you anyway.’

  ‘Tara, just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. If everybody thought like that we wouldn’t have put a man on the moon, nobody would have climbed Everest. I never believed I would ever meet my granddaughter and yet here you are sitting right beside me.’

  Tara smiled. ‘Being a right pain in the arse.’

  Nan turned to the headmistress. ‘Tara will be absent from school for the next couple of weeks.’

  The headmistress began to speak but Nan held up her hand. ‘I don’t expect any arguments. I made a promise to this young girl here and I intend to fulfil it.’ She swept her arm around the office. ‘Tara, help get this lot cleared up and then we’ll make the arrangements. We’ll have your mum home before you know it.’

  40

  2018

  I had the worst night’s sleep in a long time. Every time I closed my eyes I was plagued with visions of my poor mother’s broken body and, for some reason, that monk’s bloody feet. Over the years I had driven myself almost insane imagining what had happened to my mother but in not one of those scenarios had she been alive and well because if she was, she would have found her way back to me. Long ago, I buried the pain of losing her. I had to or else I would’ve gone under. And now I had been offered a crumb of hope.

  I pulled on my dressing gown and headed out onto the landing just as Dylan’s bedroom door opened. Out came a young girl with jet-black hair, her face pure white except for the dark rings of mascara framing her eyes. She looked like Morticia, if Morticia had spent the night sleeping under a hedge and had then been dragged through it backwards. ‘Morning,’ she said through a yawn, then padded off to the bathroom, her t-shirt barely covering her buttocks.

  I went into Dylan’s room. He was sound asleep, one leg hanging out of the bed. I resisted the urge to grab it. ‘Morning, Dylan.’

  He opened his eyes, his furred-up mouth trying in vain to form some words. He frowned, feeling around in the empty space next to him. He lifted up the duvet and peered under it.

  ‘She’s in the bathroom,’ I offered, helpfully.

  ‘Oh, shit. Sorry, Mum.’

  ‘You’re not at uni now, Dylan. It’s not acceptable to bring random strangers home for me to bump into on my own landing.’ I sat down on the bed. ‘I hope you’re being careful because . . .’

  ‘Christ, Mum, not now.’ He pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead.

  ‘When then? Because it’ll be too late once you’ve got some girl up the duff.’

  He shuddered. ‘No one says up the duff anymore, Mum. Don’t worry, everything’s under control.’

  I heard the toilet flush. ‘Ssh, she’s coming back. Look, I need to talk to you about something else. When’s she going?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. I can’t just turf her out after we’ve just . . .’

  Mercifully, he left the sentence hanging. ‘What a gentleman you are.’ I stood up. ‘What’s her name, by the way?’

  He slumped back onto his pillow and laid his arm across his eyes. ‘Erm . . . I wanna say . . . Sadie?’

  The door opened and in she walked, toothpaste all round her mouth. ‘That’s better.’ She held out her hand to me. ‘Hi again. I’m Abigail.’

  I turned to Dylan. ‘Not even close.’

  We were sitting at the breakfast table, a huge antique pine thing that still bore the scars of our family life. I traced my finger over a patch of navy-blue ink which had seeped indelibly into the cracks in the wood. Dylan would sit at that table doing his homework, whilst I concentrated on preparing the tea. He was fourteen when his fountain pen sprung a leak and no amount of bleach or elbow grease had been able to shift the stain. There was also a circular scorch mark from a saucepan. Ralph, not known for his culinary expertise, decided to have a go at making treacle toffee one Bonfire Night. He wandered over to the table with a pan of the bubbling, molten toffee and, deciding it looked good enough to eat, stuck his finger in to taste it. Five-year-old Dylan’s eyes were like a startled fawn’s as a torrent of words he’d never heard before spewed from his father’s mouth. Ralph had a blister the size of a whoopee cushion for days.

  Dylan noticed my scrutiny. ‘’Bout time you got a new table, Mum.’

  I was shaken out of my reverie. ‘Never. Now then.’ I clasped my hands together on the table and adopted a headmistress-like tone. ‘There’s something we need to discuss.’

  He folded his arms and rolled his eyes but said nothing. I filled him in on t
he letter from Br Isidore. He listened intently, his shoulders dropping slightly as he realised this wasn’t about him and his latest misdemeanour I might or might not know about.

  ‘Wow,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘That’s amazing. Are you going to tell Nan?’

  I knew what I was going to do but I wanted to hear his opinion first. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Tell her,’ he said emphatically. ‘You have to tell her, Mum.’

  I gave an audible sigh of relief. ‘Good, because that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’ I paused for a second. ‘Fancy coming with me?’

  He leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. ‘Ooh, I dunno, Mum. I’m not great with things like this. I would rather remember her how she was. It really upsets me to see her so poorly. I hate it.’

  ‘I see.’ I looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact, because I knew exactly how he felt, but this wasn’t about us. ‘So, you’d rather do what’s best for you then?’

  He didn’t reply but turned instead to look out of the window.

  ‘She’s your great-grandmother, Dylan. She adores you and I know it’s hard but you have to think about what she would want. I’m telling you, if you walked into her room today, any awkwardness or sadness you might feel would be completely evaporated by the utter joy it would bring her.’

  He thought about this for a moment and then nodded. ‘You’re right, Mum. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be raring to go.’

  It was about twenty minutes before he came back down but I didn’t mind because I was witnessing a miracle. He’d had a shave. Without saying anything, I ran my fingers across his smooth cheek and smiled.

  Nan sat in the chair, her puzzle book open across her knee, her pen stuck into her mouth as she ruminated over a clue. She looked up when she heard the door open.

  ‘Tara, love. Ooh, you’ve had your hair cut. Makes you look even more lovely.’

  Nothing got past my nan. It was good to see her out of bed for once and had she not been dressed in her nightie and slippers, with a drip attached to her arm, it would have been hard to tell she was even ill. Her face had been powdered and her hair rolled into a neat bun. I was so thankful that Dylan would not be seeing her at her worst.