by AJ Taft
Fiona takes a deep breath, ready to recount her story again, but Lily cuts in. “She’s told him she knows it was me and she’s told him we’re all here.”
The colour seems to drain from Stuart’s face, and when Fiona stands up to hug him his body is stiff. “Oh, Christ.” He pushes Fiona to one side, and goes to the window and draws the curtains.
“Let’s get out of here,” says Lily. “We can go to my mum’s, I mean, my house.” Then she looks at Stuart and she can’t bear the thought of taking him to that house. “Or Leeds maybe?”
Jo nods and stands up. “Let’s get packing.”
“Ok.” Lily rushes from the room, Jo close behind her.
“Oh,” says Fiona, looking like a deflated balloon. She sits back down on the sofa and looks up at Stuart. “Do you want to run away too?”
“I don’t know. I’m not overly excited at the idea of seeing your dad. What do you want to do? Did you tell him about, you know…”
“About us having sex?”
Lily bursts back into the room with a carrier bag in each hand, each with their contents spilling over the top. “Are you ready?”
Stuart and Fiona glance at each other. Lily waits for an answer. And then the doorbell rings.
Chapter 29
Lily ducks. She’s not sure why, but it’s what her mother used to make her do when the Rent Officer came calling. It serves little purpose in a first floor flat, except Lily feels safer closer to the floor. Stuart picks up the overflowing ashtray, his eyes darting round the room for a suitable place to hide it. Fiona is on the settee, hugging a cushion, with her thumb in her mouth. Jo has gone as white as the walls, her mouth open; she appears paralysed. Lily crawls over to her and taps her on the knee, but she doesn’t respond.
Lily starts to laugh. The carrier bags she was holding are lying on the floor, a wad of ten pound notes and a pair of knickers having spilled from the top. Lily tries to stand up but she’s laughing so hard she can’t. She looks to the others. The sight of Stuart still holding the ashtray with both hands, proffered like a gift, makes her laugh even more. The doorbell rings again.
Crawling on her hands and knees, body still wracked with laughter, Lily leaves the room. In the hallway, she stands up straight and tries to stop giggling by biting down hard on the inside of her mouth. She bounds down the stairs, two at a time and throws back the front door, “Daddy.”
In front of her stands her father, in the freezing December rain, wearing jeans and a black anorak, looking smaller than he did in the graveyard. His hair is plastered to his head and splashes of rain obscure his glasses. “Lily.”
The rain continues to fall, unaware of the tension. From upstairs, the sounds of frantic running around, bumping and scraping of furniture, drift down. Lily knows she should give them some time, but she can’t think of anything to say except, “Would you like to come in?”
He nods, just as a raindrop makes it to the end of his nose. His nod causes the droplet to fly off his nose and it catches Lily in the eye. She rubs it with her sleeve. Then she slowly turns to lead the way up the stairs. “Close the door behind you.”
As she reaches the first floor hallway, furious shuffling noises still emanate from the front room, so Lily pushes open the kitchen door. “Do come in. Please, have a seat. Let me take your coat. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Her voice sounds nothing like her voice, even to her. The giggles rise up in her throat again, and she has to turn her back to him as he takes a seat at the table. She thinks, at this rate it won’t be long until I’m apologising for the china and asking whether it’s one lump or two. She switches the kettle on and starts opening and closing cupboard doors. Half a packet of chocolate hobnobs fall out at her, so she starts to arrange them in the shape of a flower, each biscuit a petal. She breaks one in half to form two leaves and turns to offer her father the plate. Rain drips from his hair and his hands are red from cold.
“I’m sorry, Lily.”
The words hang in the air for some time. “Sorry for what?”
He doesn’t answer.
“For leaving?”
He nods.
“Or for lying?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but she’s too quick for him. “For hoping you'd never have to see me ever?”
He rubs his face with his hands.
“For writing that you had no desire to communicate in capital letters and underlined?”
“For-”
“For not considering my feelings for one minute ever in your whole, deceitful life?” she shouts, so loudly it strains her throat.
“For everything.”
“Oh, neat.” They listen to the kettle reaching its climax. “Now,” says Lily, “what did I do with that teapot?”
“How’s your mother?”
She whips round to face him. “How’s my mother? You don’t know? You don’t even know?” His eyebrows knot across his brow. “Fiona didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh God.” The blood drains from his face and Lily allows herself a smile. Her father looks up at her and asks, “When?”
“She died of a broken heart.”
“Oh don’t, please.” He rests his head against his hands, like he’s praying.
“If you’re looking for absolution, you’ve come to the wrong place. She never, ever recovered from what you did to her. She died the day you left her, that’s what Aunt Edie says.” When she is certain he is crying, from the shudder of his shoulders, Lily pours the tea. “Sugar?” She puts the mug down in front of him without waiting for an answer and lights a cigarette, inhaling deeply on her first drag.
She’s almost smoked it down to the butt when he finally moves, takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and removes his glasses. “When did she die?”
“You ruined our lives. I hope it was worth it.”
“When did she die?”
“September.”
“September? I thought you said…”
“When you left her, she stopped living. It took twenty years for her body to get the message.”
“Why did no one tell me?”
“No one knew where you were,” Lily screams at him. “And when I did finally manage to track you down… you had no fucking wish to communicate.”
“It wasn’t,” he says, the quietness of his voice a contrast to hers. “Worth it, I mean. There’s Fiona, but that’s all there is. If it wasn’t for her, well…” his voice trails off. “I loved your mother.” He looks down at his hands. “I still do.”
Lily frowns and shakes her head. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
“I made a mistake and Pam, your mum, wasn’t big on forgiveness. You must know that. I begged and begged for another chance and she was like stone.”
“You made a mistake? Oh well, that’s ok then. You made a mistake.” Lily lights another cigarette, her hands shaking. “What ‘mistake’ did you make?”
“The mistake all men make.” He stares at the table.
“I want to hear it.” Lily takes another deep lungful of smoke. “I want to hear it all.”
He sighs. “Oh, God.”
“I need to know.”
“It’s past.”
“Maybe for you; it’s my inheritance. I lived the life I did because of you. I need to know.”
He takes a swig of scalding hot tea and flinches from the pain. “I was working in a recording studio, nothing glamorous, I was a session musician. A band came in, the lead singer was… female. We recorded together for a few days. She had this amazing, soulful voice. I found out her husband had left her and she’d moved down from Northumbria and didn’t know anyone. So, I asked her to our house a few times, your mum made her tea, that kind of thing. They got to be quite good friends and everything was fine.”
“Go on.”
“And then your mum, well, she was expecting you. We always said we weren’t going to have children. We were happy, the two of
us. I know this doesn’t paint me in a very good light, but I felt left out. She was so wrapped up in her pregnancy; I barely got a look in. She didn’t want to go out to the pub anymore because it was too smoky, didn’t want to go dancing because she was too tired. She started going to bed at seven. I suppose I was jealous. And then there was the Christmas party at the studio, and I had a bit too much to drink and well, one thing led to another.”
“You had an affair.” Lily hurls the accusation at him.
“Well affair’s a bit strong, I kissed her. That’s all, I swear. I kissed her.” He runs his hands through his thinning hair.
“Liar.” Lily doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows. She stands with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “Don’t you dare waste my time-”
He starts talking again, the words falling over themselves in a bid to be heard. “And then I met up with her another night and we went out for a drink together.”
Lily gasps like she’s been stabbed. “How could you?”
“And we kissed again, a few times.”
“You cheated on her. You cheated on us.”
“But that was it, I swear it.”
“You lying, cheating, low-down-”
“I was jealous; you had each other, I had nothing.”
“…miserable, pathetic excuse for a-”
“Course your mum wouldn’t believe me.”
“You’re all the fucking same-”
“She went through the roof when she found out.”
“You told her?” Lily winces. Their brown eyes lock and a flicker of understanding passes between them.
He stands up and turns away from her, to stare out of the window. “Worse than that, bloody Freda Matthews saw us and she told your mother. Pam was so heavily pregnant, I thought she was going to have the baby right there and then. She went off to her parents’, your grandparents. Are they still around?”
He turns back to look at Lily. She shakes her head. David turns back to the window. “He never liked me, your granddad. Never approved; musician? I might as well have said murderer. Your gran had a soft spot for me though.”
He watches the rain drip down the glass. “And then, all bloody hell broke loose. Your grandparents went bananas. They’d always thought your mum had married beneath herself; maybe they were right. I felt so bad, for a while I believed what everyone was saying; that she was better off without me. I didn’t even find out you were born until days later. I went round to Edie’s and she said, ‘You’ve got a beautiful baby daughter.’ And that was it. I tried and tried to get to see you. I rang a hundred times and your mum put the phone down on me as soon as I spoke. Then she changed her number. I wrote letters, and they all got sent back. I’d open the envelope and the pieces would fall out like confetti. She moved house and no one would tell me where she was. And then I got a letter saying she wanted a divorce. And I thought, ‘she’ll have to see me then,’ so I went along with it so I could see her in court. Only she didn’t turn up, sent a lawyer instead, and before I knew where I was, I was divorced.”
“And then you married that bitch. You couldn’t have been that heartbroken.” Lily stubs out her cigarette and reaches for another.
David looks confused. “I didn’t marry Anne, I never even saw her again. I lost my job, I had nothing.”
“You had more than we did.”
“I didn’t. You had each other, I was alone.”
“You can’t have been alone for long.”
“I was hopeless on my own. And then I met Fiona’s mum, and well, I didn’t tell her about your mum. Or you.”
“Pathetic.”
“I didn’t think we’d be together long enough. And then… a small white lie-”
“A small white lie?” Lily screws up her face.
“Turns into a much bigger er, thing, because well, we got married. And I never found the courage to say-”
“So whose is the other baby?”
“What other baby?”
“God, you’re compulsive. Aunt Edie told me. You had another kid the year after I was born. I’m guessing you’ve not told Fiona about that one either, huh? Which poor cow did you get up the duff that time?”
David seems to deflate in front of her. He becomes physically smaller, like his bones have turned to jelly and won’t hold him up straight any longer. “That was Ruth too.”
“So, where’s-”
“The baby died. Cot death they call it now, but in those days it didn’t have a name. I hadn’t known Ruth very long when she, well, when Daniel came along. He died when he was five weeks old.”
“Oh,” says Lily, feeling suddenly uncomfortable as tears start to stream down her father’s face.
“Ruth couldn’t cope with it. She threw herself into work and I never dared tell her about you. I thought it was my punishment from God for what I… for losing you.”
Lily can barely make out his words between the sobs. She sits down at the table and puts her head on her hands. Her father stands staring out of the window, talking so quietly, Lily can barely hear him. “I was so afraid at being by myself again.”
He takes a deep breath and turns towards her. “And then Fiona was born and I felt like I’d been given a chance to make things up. That if I could be a really good dad to her, it would somehow compensate for you. I never even saw you once.”
“So why the no desire for contact, underlined, capital bleeding letters, when I came looking for you?” Lily smashes the palm of her hand against the table, causing her father’s mug of tea to spill.
“I panicked, I was so scared of losing Fiona, I didn’t think-”
“Where’s Anne now?”
“Anne?” It takes her father a second to remember who Anne was; the woman who had destroyed Lily’s family. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Does she know what she did? Does she know she destroyed my family?” Even as the words spew out of her mouth, Lily recognises her latent misogyny. Jo would never forgive her. ‘Men,’ she would say, ‘you just never stop covering for them.’
Lily picks up the milk bottle from the kitchen table and sends it flying across the room to the door. It smashes and the milk gushes out, drenching her and her father.
Moments later Stuart throws open the door. “Are you ok?”
“Great, the cavalry,” mutters her father, removing his spectacles and wiping them with his handkerchief.
Stuart doesn’t glance at him. “Are you all right, Lily?” He tries to make eye contact with her but she’s staring at the floor.
Fiona joins them. “What’s going on? What’s happened?” She rushes to Lily’s side. “Lily?”
David stares at his two daughters, Fiona’s arm around Lily. He stands a little straighter.
“Have you made up?” Fiona asks Lily.
Lily looks up at Fiona, sees the hope in her face. “Fiona, how can we make up? We never fell out. He didn’t stick around long enough for us to fall out in the first place.”
Fiona’s face falls. “Oh.”
Jo appears in the doorway. “Come on Fi. This isn’t ‘Surprise, Surprise’. You can’t expect Lily to forgive him for what he did.”
“It was only a kiss,” David mutters.
“Yeah and only bears shit in the woods,” says Jo, her hand on her hips.
“Who are you?” David asks.
“I’m Lily’s only friend.”
“I’m Lily’s friend too,” says Fiona. “And Stuart’s her friend as well, aren’t you, Stu?”
“I…” Stuart’s cheeks start to glow, “I… yes… I mean…”
“Look,” says Lily, anxious to divert attention from her friendship or otherwise with her sister’s boyfriend, “it’s alright, we’ve made up.”
Jo frowns at her. “What?”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Lily.
“Yes it does,” says Jo.
“Really?” Fiona looks over to her dad for the first time. “Oh, that is so great.” She throws her arms around Lily and th
en beckons for her father. “We can all be a family together.”
David moves towards them awkwardly. Fiona puts her arm around him. He clears his throat. “Well, let’s not get carried away. There’s your mother, she…”
“She’ll come round,” says Fiona. “When she’s had the chance to… come round. Do you think Lily could live with us?”
David groans. “Listen, your mother, she isn’t going to want us to be a family all together. I can tell you that now, even if we were to tell her.”
“You are going to tell her,” says Fiona. “And we are a family, whatever she thinks. Lily exists. She’s your daughter, my sister. We are a family.”
“Christ,” says their father, mopping his brow with his handkerchief.
Chapter 30
Fiona releases David and Lily from their uncomfortable embrace and grins broadly. She appears not to notice the unbending stiffness in either of them. “I’ll clear this mess up,” she gestures at the spilt milk and broken glass, “and make us all a nice cup of tea. You go into the front room and make yourselves comfortable.”
Jo leaves the room, but the other three remain rooted like dandelions. “Go on,” Fiona says to her father and sister who are still standing next to each, their bodies turned slightly, so that although they are next to each other, the distance between them seems vast. “You have so much to talk about.”
This surprises Lily, as she can’t think of a single thing to say. Fiona walks behind them, shooing them out of the kitchen. Stuart is still standing by the doorway. “I’ll make the tea, Fiona.”
She shakes her head at him, reaching up to kiss him as she pushes him through the door. “Go on.”
“It’s my kitchen.”
“You’re the host,” she says. “You have to make sure conversation flows. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Stuart trudges into the front room to find Lily and Jo sitting together on the settee, with David perched on the edge of the 1950s armchair. A vacant seat remains on the settee, at the end closest to David. Stuart elects to sit in the upright chair, by the window, at the far side of the room.
