Now You See Her

by Heidi Perks

  I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him.

  ‘I was suffocating, Harriet,’ he said. ‘Being in that house with her was too much. But I don’t expect you to understand what I mean.’

  I didn’t answer but I must have made a sound because he looked up at me and said, ‘I’m sorry. Of course you understand. You would have seen the way she was. I realise I don’t know how it was for you after I left.’

  ‘Mum was fine,’ I said, and for the first time I considered I had been suffocated by someone my whole life. ‘She was who she was and I loved her for it.’

  ‘She loved you very much too. More than anything else in her world so there was no doubt in my mind you’d be fine after I left, that you’d be better off with her. I’d never have considered taking that away from her.’

  ‘But surely you didn’t need to make that choice?’ I said sharply. ‘You didn’t need to get out of my life completely.’

  ‘I could have fought,’ he said solemnly. ‘It would have been one hell of a fight, though. I’d met someone else, you see. Marilyn. She was this light, she saved me from—’ He paused. ‘Well, from many things really.’

  ‘So you chose Marilyn over me?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. Your mum knew about Marilyn and made it very clear that if I didn’t leave her I wasn’t welcome in your life. I begged her, pleaded that she didn’t need to stop me seeing you, but there was no moving her. If I’d stayed, it would have ended me, Harriet. Like I told you, I was already drinking too heavily and it was only with Marilyn’s help I finally stopped.

  ‘I tried to visit,’ he went on. ‘But your mum wouldn’t even let me in the door. It was the seventies; there weren’t support groups for dads back then. Then a week or so later I found out she’d told everyone I’d died. I didn’t come back after that. Part of me thought it would be for the best.’ Les shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to make things harder for you, with people wondering why your mother had lied to them. I’m sorry, Harriet. If I could turn back time—’

  ‘Then you probably wouldn’t do anything differently,’ I said. ‘Are you and Marilyn still together?’

  ‘She died six months ago but yes, we were.’ His eyes watered and I found myself reaching across the table and taking hold of his hand, feeling his rough fingers curling around my own. It may not be how I would do it but could I honestly blame him for needing to get away?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘So how was it after I left?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I wished Mum wouldn’t hover over me as much as she did but I never lacked love. Why have you come looking for me now?’

  ‘It was something I’d talked about for a long time. Marilyn kept prodding me to do it – she was the one who told me to try Facebook – but I never had the nerve. Then she passed away and now everything in life looks different. I’m an old man with no one left. I don’t deserve to have you back in my life, but I wanted the chance to see you again. And see your little girl, of course.’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘That’s a pretty name. How old is she?’

  ‘She’s just turned four.’

  My father nodded. ‘I promised myself that whatever you wanted from me, I would do it. If you tell me to get lost then I’ll go.’ He gave me a sad smile. ‘I just had to know for sure. I don’t want any more regrets.’ He looked at me expectantly, but I didn’t answer.

  Eventually he pushed away from the table and told me he should probably be going. I didn’t stop him because I didn’t want to risk Brian arriving back, however unlikely it was, to find my father in our kitchen. But when my dad asked if he could see me again and spend some time with Alice, I agreed because I had nothing to lose. I wanted to find out more about him and he wanted to get to know us. And whether I liked it or not, there were similarities between us.

  We arranged to meet the following week in a cafe in Bridport and I led him to my front door and said, ‘My husband thinks you’re dead.’

  ‘Oh?’ He looked shocked. ‘You told him that?’

  I nodded. ‘I told everyone that,’ I said. ‘And I don’t think I should tell him otherwise for now.’ He looked at me quizzically but I didn’t add any more. ‘So it’s better we keep this between us,’ I went on. ‘I’d rather no one else knows you are here.’

  ‘Apart from my cousin.’ He gave a small smile.

  ‘Oh, right.’ I’d forgotten he’d mentioned a cousin.

  ‘But you don’t need to worry about him. He’s practically a hermit,’ my father said.

  ‘Well please don’t mention any more to him.’

  ‘Of course I won’t if that’s what you want.’ He smiled. ‘But you may be surprised; if you tell your husband about me you might find he’s a lot more understanding than you’re giving him credit for.’

  I shook my head. No, Brian would not be understanding in the slightest.

  Tuesday 8 November 2016

  ‘You’re both soaked through.’ Brian grabbed two towels from the airing cupboard and ordered me to take off my clothes. ‘What were you thinking, Harriet?’

  ‘I didn’t think the weather was that bad,’ I said, wrapping my arms tighter around the damp shirt that clung to my body. I hadn’t expected the clouds to open. I hadn’t taken umbrellas and our raincoats were packed at the bottom of the suitcase.

  ‘You were inches from the edge of the train platform,’ he hissed into my ear. ‘Do you have any idea what went through my mind when I saw you?’ I turned my head away from him as he peeled my arms apart and shoved a towel against my chest. ‘You need to get undressed.’

  ‘I will.’ A sob balled in the back of my throat. I wished he would leave the bathroom. I didn’t like the way he was watching me, waiting for me to take my clothes off.

  Brian began unbuttoning my shirt, exposing an old greying bra that bagged over my breasts. I recoiled from his touch, which made him suddenly stop. ‘Do you do this on purpose, Harriet? When I’ve done everything for you, this is how you treat me?

  ‘You were leaving me, taking my daughter with you. Did you see how Alice was shivering when I got there? Her little body was drenched. Harriet, how do you expect me to live without you?’ He took hold of my arms and pressed his thumbs into my skin.

  ‘I can’t do this any more,’ I cried.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Live like this.’

  ‘And how do you suppose you can live without me, Harriet?’

  I didn’t have the answer to that. When I’d packed up a case and taken Alice to the station, telling her we were going on holiday, I hadn’t thought through what we would do. Not long term. All I knew was that we needed to get away from Brian.

  ‘I found you. I’ll always find you. You do know that, my love, don’t you?’ He took a step back. ‘I can’t shake the image of you both standing so close to the edge. I wondered what you were about to do. I doubt you even knew what you might do next, did you? Of course I’ll need to talk to the doctor about this and see what he suggests, though I’d hate him to say you need a stay in a hospital, but—’ Brian tapped a finger against his lip. ‘I see you turning into your mother, Harriet. That’s what worries me.’

  ‘You can’t put me in a hospital,’ I cried. Brian looked at me pityingly and then walked out of the bathroom knowing he held all the power.

  Harriet

  In the aftermath of Christmas, as Charlotte became embroiled in the planning of her sister’s wedding, I found myself increasingly reliant on my father.

  We met up in various places over Dorset, each time somewhere different. With him living in Southampton he wasn’t so close that Brian would ever bump into him, but he was near enough to see us for a day. I hid our meet-ups from Brian, always arranging them when he was at work. Seeing Les was an escape from the downward spiral of life at home and I began to enjoy watching his blossoming relationship with Alice.

  There were times when I was resentful, particularly when he would run away from the waves with a squealing Alice or
make her cars out of sand.

  ‘Why didn’t you try harder?’ I asked, when he insisted on buying us ice creams in the middle of January. I had missed out on so many moments like this. I’d been fine not knowing what I hadn’t had, but now that he was back in my life it opened up a hole I hadn’t realised was there.

  Then I would see Alice curl up on his lap like a contented cat, in awe of his card tricks, and I wondered if it really mattered what had happened in the past. It was more important that I didn’t let it ruin the future. Alice had a grandfather in her life now, and one she doted on. And secretly I was excited at the thought of having my dad again.

  Les felt like a world away from my real life and I began telling him snippets about the man I had married, certain he would never meet Brian. It was good to finally share the truth with someone, and even better when that person was my father. Eventually I told him how Brian had led me to believe I was crazy.

  ‘I can assure you, you are not crazy,’ he said.

  ‘He drops it into conversations that I’m like Mum.’

  ‘He never even knew your mother,’ my dad said angrily. We were sipping hot chocolates in the cafe of a National Trust house watching Alice play outside. ‘And she wasn’t crazy. She just had a lot of anxieties.’

  I didn’t tell him Mum and I were more similar than I would have liked, but it was what I was thinking.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘being like her is not a bad thing. She was a very good mother and in her own way she always put you first.’

  I dropped my head so he couldn’t see the tears that had sprung into my eyes. ‘I can’t see a way out,’ I said.

  ‘There’s always a way out.’

  ‘I have no money. Not a penny of my own. I don’t even have my own bank account. If I walked out I wouldn’t be able to buy Alice and me our next meal.’

  ‘Well, I can help,’ he offered.

  ‘Thank you, but with what? You’ve already told me your state pension barely gets you through the week.’ He didn’t have his own house and was still in the rented flat he and Marilyn had lived in for years.

  ‘So you need to go to the police,’ he persisted.

  ‘And say what? I have no scars to show them,’ I said, rolling up my sleeves. ‘No bruises. I’ve no way of proving he’s abusing me.’

  ‘But somehow you just need to get away, take Alice and—’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ I cried. ‘Brian finds me. He’s done it before. Somehow he manages to track me down and haul me home, and I know he’ll take Alice away from me. He’ll prove I’m crazy, that’s the beauty of what he does,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Brian has it all worked out.’

  ‘You really think he wants to take her from you?’ my dad asked. ‘I don’t have the impression he has much of a relationship with Alice.’

  I watched Alice pick up a leaf and carefully tuck it into her pocket. ‘He loves her,’ I said. But I also saw the way their conversations looked awkward, that he didn’t always know how to talk to her. That, when the three of us were together, Brian often hung on the edge like an outsider. Surely he must have noticed that too? ‘I have no doubt he’d make sure she was taken from me,’ I said. ‘If he thought it was what he had to do.’

  ‘Let me help,’ my father pleaded. ‘At least come and stay with me while you work things out. You can both have my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa. Let me do this for you and Alice, please.’ He took hold of my hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘I want to.’

  ‘But everyone thinks you’re dead,’ I cried. ‘Don’t you see? If I suddenly announce I’m off to stay with my dead father, who I’ve been seeing for the last few months, Brian will have a ball. I write “mother and father deceased” on forms. My best friend thinks you died when I was five. If they find out I’ve been lying to them all this time, Brian will be shouting from the rooftops that this is exactly what he means.’

  ‘But there’s got to be something I can do for you,’ my father said.

  ‘Maybe there is one way.’ I took a deep breath and told him about the Harbridge family and the idea Charlotte had put into my head.

  ‘You want me to abduct Alice?’ He was clearly aghast at the idea.

  ‘Shhh.’ I looked around but the cafe had emptied. ‘Let’s go outside.’ We grabbed our coats and went out, waving at Alice, who was still busy stuffing her pockets with leaves and twigs that she’d make into something later. ‘It would only be temporary, and you’re not abducting her. You’d be keeping her in a safe house for me while I figure out a way of exposing Brian.’

  ‘No, Harriet. I don’t like it one bit.’

  ‘No one will suspect you because you don’t exist,’ I went on.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Too many things can go wrong. The police won’t see it that way.’

  ‘If anything went wrong I’d tell them it was all my idea,’ I promised him.

  ‘It’s ridiculous. You’d go to prison. Have you even thought of that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. I hadn’t thought of much more than getting away from my husband.

  ‘And how do you suppose it ends, Harriet? What are you planning? That you’ll run away with Alice and live abroad?’

  ‘No.’ I’d thought about that, but I couldn’t contemplate us living the rest of our lives hiding. In some ways it would be no better than what we had now. ‘No,’ I said again, carefully. ‘What I’ve been thinking is that, when the time is right, you leave her somewhere. Somewhere safe where there are people and you could tell her to call the police.’ I spoke with as much conviction as I could. We both needed to believe it was a plausible outcome. ‘By then you’ll have gained her trust and she’ll know not to say it was you. All anyone will have is her description of the man who took her. She’s four, they’d expect inconsistencies, they wouldn’t expect her to know exactly where she’d been.’

  ‘Yes, she’s four,’ my father said. ‘You’re entrusting a four-year-old to carry this lie. It’s so not right, I can’t believe I’m hearing it.’

  ‘Alice trusts me. And you,’ I replied. ‘She’s bright, she’d understand if we told her this was the only way to be safe.’

  ‘Oh, Harriet,’ my dad sighed, shaking his head. ‘This isn’t the way.’

  ‘Do it for me,’ I pleaded, ignoring him. ‘If nothing more, then because you owe me this.’

  ‘Don’t put that on me.’

  ‘But that’s what you said. The first time I met you, you told me that whatever I wanted you to do you’d do it. This is what I want,’ I said. ‘You can either walk away or be in our lives,’ I tried as a last-ditch attempt.

  He walked away.

  I had lost my only hope of a future and my dad. He still turned up at the museum where we’d arranged to meet the following week as planned, but there was a distance between us. We reverted to being more like the strangers we’d been two months ago than the father and daughter we’d become.

  Over the following weeks the gap widened. The only times I saw flashes of the father I’d grown to care so deeply about were when I watched him playing with Alice. He’d throw her into the air and spin her round and tickle her on the ground until she begged him to stop because she was laughing too hard. Only in those times did he look like he’d almost forgotten what I’d asked of him.

  One Wednesday in mid-March we took a ferry to Brownsea, an island in nearby Poole Harbour. I sat on a log while my dad took Alice to show her the peacocks, but when they came back he had a grave look on his face. ‘We need to talk.’ He joined me on the log as I continued to watch Alice running across the grass. ‘If you’re adamant it’s the only way, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I gasped.

  ‘There are many things we need to sort out.’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course.’ I leaned towards him and wrapped my arms around his waist, though I felt him stiffen. ‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked, pulling back.

  ‘For what it’s worth I think it’s very risky, Harriet. Many things could go wrong.’ He took m
y hands and peeled them away from him. ‘And if anything bad happens, I need you to promise me something.’

  ‘OK?’

  ‘It’s me who takes the blame. Not you.’

  ‘No way. I can’t let that happen.’

  ‘That’s one of my conditions,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s up to you to ensure no one knows you had anything to do with it. I won’t let Alice be taken away from you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘If you can’t promise me that, we don’t go ahead.’

  ‘How would I ever be able to do that?’ I asked him. ‘Alice will say she knows you and then it’ll be clear I’ve been meeting you for months.’

  ‘I’ll come up with something,’ he said. ‘But for now it’s best we don’t see each other again.’

  I gaped at him. ‘Why can’t we?’

  ‘We can’t risk anyone remembering us together while we work out what to do. But I’m deadly serious, Harriet. You need to promise me you’ll never let anyone think you had anything to do with this if it all goes wrong.’

  I stared at my father whose eyes hadn’t once strayed from Alice. ‘OK,’ I said in a whisper. ‘I promise.’

  He nodded.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’ I asked him.

  ‘I just did,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Dad? What is it?’ I followed his eyeline to where Alice played, running after an unsuspecting peacock. ‘Has Alice said something to you?’