The shop assistants exchange a glance and move towards the door.
Katie stumbles out of the shop. No alarm bells go off.
They focus on me.
To resolve this situation, I randomly select a pair of earrings which cost £1.99, take them to the till, and struggle to dig in my pocket for the taxi fare Mrs Nelson gave us. My jeans are so tight, now, that I can hardly fit my hand in the pocket, and the arms of my jacket get in the way. I drag the coins out.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking the bag and moving towards the exit.
No alarm goes off at the door. Outside, I walk casually for eight or nine steps, then start to run, shouting to Katie to follow as I disappear down the street.
We sprint away, rounding the corner past Woolworths, past Nelson’s Eye, across the car park to the bench outside the public toilets. We don’t look back.
At the toilets we stop, gasping for breath, and look round nervously.
‘What are you two young ladies up to, then, looking so mischievous?’
Mr Phillips has emerged from nowhere, dragging his grizzling toddler by the arm and carrying a large Boots bag. I feel my cheeks turning scarlet.
‘Nothing,’ Katie says.
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’
I can’t speak. It’s so wonderful to see him, but terrible, too. When he looks at me, I want to swoon forward into his strong arms.
The rubber bands around the dress are digging into the flesh of my back, and my spine feels like it’s going to split from the pressure.
‘Mr Phillips, I don’t suppose you could give us a lift home, could you?’ Katie asks.
‘No!’ I say. ‘We can walk.’ I don’t want him to find out what we’ve been up to.
‘Of course, girls. Are you going back now?’
‘Yes please.’ Katie drags me along by the arm.
The car stinks of baby. I sit in the front passenger seat, trying not to inhale the cabbagy nappy smells. Samuel babbles happily in the back.
‘Boo!’ Katie calls out to him from between her fingers. ‘Hello! What’s your name?’
He screeches and giggles.
‘Peekaboo!’ she calls, imitating his giggle and peeping out from behind her hands again.
She entertains him all the way home. Everything in the back seat gets covered in a film of spit.
As he changes gear, the flesh covering his knuckles tightens and relaxes. When he takes his hand off the gear stick, he places it on his left knee. It’s ever so close to my right knee. Almost imperceptibly, he stretches his little finger towards me. In reply, I stretch my little finger towards him. We point secretly at each other all the way home.
****
Mon 5th December
Our doorbell works on a coil. It must be wound up in order to function, but not too tightly or it won’t work at all. We know when the coil is loose because the only noise you can hear is a butterfly flapping in a jar.
The butterfly flaps lamely. I open the door.
‘Yes?’ I ask politely.
‘Hello!’ A wrinkled, suntanned man stands on our doorstep, wearing a wide-rimmed hat, a dark overcoat and unfashionable glasses. The skin on his chin is brown and deeply lined. So is the skin on his cheeks. The nose of a red car peeps out behind him.
‘Rebecca isn’t here. You’ll have to come back another time.’
He looks very disappointed. ‘Just thought I’d drop by.’
Instead of turning away, the man stares at me as if he’s trying to eat me with his eyes. His breath wafts warmly over me.
‘Try later maybe,’ I say as I close the door. My fingertips are tingling.
‘Who was that?’ Helen calls as I start to climb the stairs.
‘I don’t know. One of those Jehovah’s Witness men, probably.’
The butterfly flaps in its jar again. I open the door a crack.
‘When did Mummy—Mum—say she’d be back?’ he asks. ‘Lizzie? Can’t I come in?’
I’m rooted to the coconut doormat now. ‘She’s at the library.’
‘She doesn’t believe in Jehovah.’ Helen’s trying to look over my shoulder through the crack in the door. ‘Or God. And she says Jesus was just an ordinary man. So was Mohammed.’
It’s not like my sister to be assertive with strangers.
The man cranes his neck, trying to peer into the house, but I refuse to open the door more than a few inches.
‘Look at you!’ he suddenly explodes. ‘How are you both?’
I tighten my grip on the door knob. The way he speaks makes something shift around at the base of my stomach. I know who it is.
He always had a beard. That’s how I remember him. I try to imagine the beard back in place, superimposed over this one’s wrinkled brown chin, but this one has a wide, smiling mouth, not like the old mouth which he used to hide away.
I open the door.
‘Thanks.’ He looks around the hallway, smiling at the coats and the carpet. Even the old lampshade gets the same grin of recognition as the one he just gave me.
Slow on the take-up reel as ever, Helen finally asks, ‘Are you our daddy?’
‘Yes I am.’ He puts his hand on her shoulder. She freezes.
When he removes his hand, she scuttles away to the staircase. From there she examines him closely as if he’s one of her plant specimens. ‘I’ve never actually had a proper daddy,’ she finally announces.
‘Yes you have! Me! Don’t you remember me?’
She shakes her head and stares at him. ‘Sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t remember what you look like.’
‘She’s retarded. Don’t take any notice of her.’ I say. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
I always thought I’d be thrilled to see him and throw my arms round him at our reunion, but nothing about this one reminds me of my dad.
He sounds different. ‘Sure. Yes please.’
I follow him towards the kitchen. He isn’t carrying armfuls of exotic presents. He stares at the walls, the ceilings, the carpet, craning his neck. His suntanned neck-flesh creases whenever he turns his head.
‘Mum, is she okay? Still working on the same old book?’ He laughs, but this time it isn’t a proper laugh.
As we enter the kitchen, the front door opens.
‘Who nicked my parking space? What’s going on?’ Rebecca strides up behind us, then halts in her tracks. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hello! How are you?’ He sounds a bit nervous.
‘Well, what a surprise to see you after all this time.’ Rebecca’s voice sounds dangerous. ‘How long would it be, now?’ She narrows her eyes at him and dumps her bags on the floor. ‘Let me see…’ She pauses, counts her fingers, then holds out her palm. ‘Nine thousand six hundred pounds, please.’
‘Come on, don’t be like that! Let’s sit down and talk.’
But Rebecca doesn’t want to come on or sit down or talk. ‘You can’t just arrive out of the blue and expect us to roll out the red carpet. Come back when it’s convenient. Convenient for me, not you. And bring the money you owe your family.’
‘It’s okay,’ I tell him loudly. ‘We don’t mind about money. Now is convenient.’
The tip of Helen’s nose sticks through the kitchen doorway, then withdraws.
‘What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were in Africa on a whistle-stop tour to halt the famine.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic. I came back. Couple of months ago.’
‘You came back a couple of months ago, and you didn’t come to see your girls?’ Rebecca grabs her Marlboro out of her handbag. ‘It’s funny how you care so much about the starving millions, but nothing about the financial state of your own family.’
‘I tried to visit. October time. Didn’t get further than…’ He shrugs. ‘Lost my nerve. It’s been such a long time.’
‘I know how long it’s been. Don’t you have any idea how much it costs to keep two kids fed and watered?’ She extends her palm again and waves it under his nose. She’s ac
ting as if we’re animals.
I look down at my feet in shame. Rebecca is totally obsessed with money.
‘How much did you send? Go on. Tell your daughters how much money you sent to support them after you walked out.’
‘I was out of work a long time, then volunteering.’
‘A couple of quid, then nothing. That’s how much. I hope you’ve got a good job now.’
You can see from his face that this visit is not going according to plan.
He says, ‘I’m staying with some friends in town. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking about moving back into the area.’
‘Good. Then you can phone up next time before you visit. Arrange it in advance. If there is a next time now you know how much money you’ll be bringing when you come.’
Desperate measures are required. Rebecca is turning my dad’s much anticipated homecoming into a Terrible Disaster. She should be pleased to see him. She should make him feel welcome so he’ll come back to live at number eleven. Instead, she is trying her hardest to make him disappear again.
‘Don’t go, Dad! Come and see my bedroom.’ I pull him by the arm, and try to lead him up the stairs.
‘No, really, I’d better go.’
‘But I want to show you my bottle collection.’ I want to seal him inside the house and put a stopper in the top.
As he opens the front door and steps outside, he says, ‘did you say bottles? What a funny thing to collect.’
‘When are you coming back?’
He shrugs. ‘I’ll let you know. In advance.’ He sighs as he leaves, and draws a hand over the ghost of his beard.
Rebecca starts sobbing in the kitchen.
‘Why is it funny to collect bottles?’ Helen asks as we stand at the living-room window and watch the red car drive away.
****
Tues 6th December
A lone figure struggles along the path towards me, pastel pink overcoat flapping wildly in the wind. An inside-out umbrella tugs to and fro behind the figure, and a blob of white zigzags around its ankles like a piece of litter.
By the time I realise who this is, it’s too late to run away. Anyway, there’s nowhere to hide out here on the mudflats and marshes. I hunch down as low as possible in the hollow.
Gulls try to fly forward along the creek, out to sea, but the wind pushes them back.
Closer and closer she comes, taking tiny steps, slipping and sliding in the mud.
I’ve been here most of the day, tucked away in my special place with my A4 pad and biros.
Yapping enthusiastically, the dog bounces up, trying to lick my face.
The figure falls over, and a faint screech drifts my way. I crouch down even further, trying to conceal my shape in the bank. But I know my number’s up.
Finally, she stands directly above me on the seawall. Her hair is a tangled mess, and I can hear her gasping for breath, almost crying. ‘So then, young lady, is this what you call Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat? Why aren’t you at school?’
Her white stilettos are plastered with mud. She leans forward, trying to stop her heels sinking into the path, but her knees buckle in her pencil skirt.
I’ll have to think fast.
‘Don’t think I haven’t seen you sneaking round the village at funny times of day. That’s Lizzie, I keep saying to myself when I look out the window. But there you are, every night, round our house after school, telling me us about your rehearsals.’ Her face is purple. ‘No, that can’t be Lizzie Osborne, I say to myself. Just some scum off the council estate, skiving off school.’ The inside-out umbrella bobs behind her like a dead jellyfish rolling in the tide. ‘But this morning I watched you sneak down the road and run through the boatyard. I don’t like sneaky people who tell lies. Especially little girls.’
I am caught between the Devil’s Rock and the hard place at the bottom of the Deep Blue Sea. I can see from her expression that if I don’t tell her the truth, I will be in real trouble. But if she forces me to go back to school, Those Three Girls will be waiting for me in the playground. I will have to put my fate in her hands.
I say simply, ‘I’m in trouble at school.’
She pulls a plastic Sainsburys bag out of her coat pocket and tries to spread it on the ground to sit down, but it blows away.
I stand up and support her elbow to stop her falling over again.
‘Tell me! It’d better be good!’
I try to describe the behaviour of Those Three Girls at school, how they won’t stop following me around shouting repulsive things in my ears. But as I speak, my words get tangled up. To my horror, I start to cry uncontrollably. I’m terrified she won’t believe me, but I find it impossible to make sense. My mouth’s all tangled up and I can’t make any story come out.
To my amazement, Mrs Nelson acts as if she’s understood every word I said. ‘Why haven’t you told your mum about all this?’
I reply with my mother’s reply. ‘She said sticks and stones will hurt my bones, but words…’
Mrs Nelson rolls her eyes. ‘Now! Give me their names! I’ll go down the school and sort those girls out.’
‘No!’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll make things worse.’
‘I will not!’ she replies, giving the dog’s lead an indignant tug with one hand, removing her other hand from around my shoulder and looking away.
We stand quietly for a while, buffeted by the wind. I don’t know what to say next.
Mrs Nelson looks at the seawall, the grasses, the wet kelp in the mud, the sheep, and the creek. Slowly, her nose turns purple.
Finally she says, ‘it’s horrible out here. Ugly. Outdoors. What do you do with yourself all day?’
‘Not much.’ I pull my notebook out of my bag and hand it to her. The wind tugs each damp page over, and Mrs Nelson scrutinises my writing. I’ve been writing a story in Gothic Script about a lonely old man, set at Christmas time.
‘Oh dear,’ she says, puckering her lips and trying to hold the volume at arm’s length. ‘I can’t read your writing at all.’
‘It should be in proper ink, but I use biro when I’m out here because ink bottles fall over in the grass.’
‘Now then, young lady, give me the names of these three girls, or I’ll report you to the authorities,’ she says, closing my notebook with a smack.
I have no option but to spill all the beans and pulses.
She nods once, twice, three times. ‘Right! Leave this with me.’
****
Fri 9th December
Mrs Phillips is very reluctant to leave the house. She fiddles with the washing-up and tidies up the children’s toys, all the time telling me where she’s put spare bottles of milk for George, and how to calm Samuel if he wakes up.
When she pauses in her fussing, he tries to manoeuvre her out of the back door, but I can hear her nagging and griping all the way down the road to the pub.
They write the pub’s phone number on a scrap of paper, but I’m reluctant to call under any circumstances. I don’t want the Landlord to recognise my voice and strike up a conversation with them about all my purchases from the bar.
One of the most important Rules to remember, especially if you live in a village like ours, is that you mustn’t let too much information about yourself leak out and flow between different groups of people. Grownups in particular should be kept in separate enclosures and fed with different information because they like adding-up: two plus one always equals three for them, as I’ve discovered on occasions that I’d rather not think about again.
Mrs Phillips leaves a tray heaped with treats for me on the coffee table in the living room: chocolate bars, packets of crisps, bottles of fizzy drinks, packets of biscuits. It’s difficult to get through all this stuff in a single evening, so I put the leftovers in my bag. She probably thinks I’ll be nicer to the kids if she bribes me with these tasty snacks, but I haven’t had to face that challenge tonight because neither Samuel nor George wakes up whi
le I’m here.
A gutter drips loudly outside the back door, making a steady, unnerving sound, like footsteps.
I eye the shelves, trying to work out what belongs to her and what belong to him. The cuckoo clock over the fireplace is definitely his because it is complex and elegant, as is the beautiful painting of a sunset behind a smouldering volcano. But the ugly glass doorstop with a preserved dandelion head inside is definitely hers.
What I find almost impossible to bear is Mrs Phillips’s ignorance about how much I love him. I suffer all this secret pain because of him, yet she is completely oblivious. She carries on without a care in the world. Recently, I’ve found that I can’t even look at her when she talks to me. If I catch an accidental glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, I feel sick. She’s one of my heaviest obstacles. My voodoo strategy clearly failed. I can easily persuade him to drop Helen if she tries to worm her way back in. Anybody can see I’m superior to my sister. I have been designing a plan of action for February in order to get rid of this annoying and persistent ginger woman as well.
Wandering through their house this evening, I stop in the doorway of George’s room and look at him lying on his back, fast asleep, blankets kicked sideways, fingers curled over, plump and pink, cheeks glowing. He looks happy and peaceful. When I peep round Samuel’s door, the bedroom heaves with the shapes of toys and books, all lit by the glow of the bedside lamp. The boy lies in the middle of this paradise, breathing in and out noisily. Neither child wakes up.
In order to understand him from the inside, I tape some LPs that are stacked on a shelf in the living room. When I get home, I’ll sneak into Rebecca’s study and listen to the lyrics of these albums for musical clues about his personality. Personally, I prefer Katie Nelson’s choice of music these days, especially Kajagoogoo and Duran-Duran. I like their songs, although I’ll never be as pathetic as Katie who’s got pin-ups on the wall behind her bed.
Looking through the LPs on their living room shelf, I realise that my musical tastes will certainly need to change when I’m married to him.
When they come home, Mrs Phillips rushes upstairs to check on George. She’ll soon realise I’m trustworthy, and she’ll grow a lot more relaxed. I aim to become a regular fixture in the house at the back of the shop so they’ll feel confident to go out for four or five hours at a time. Or more.
The Third Person Page 15
