by Holly Seddon
When I got the call to say my father had died, I told John because I needed to take leave. He looked uneasy – was I asking for emotional support? I wasn’t. John was my boss and he was my lover but he was not my boyfriend. To prove it, I arranged a fabricated client meeting in the hotel next to Paddington station, and we fucked each other stupid for a few hours before I left for Somerset.
Afterwards, I lay curled in the crook of his arm, afternoon sun seeping through the crack between the curtains. He looked at me for a while, and then got up and filled the small kettle from the bathroom basin tap. I wondered if he judged me for not crying about my father; I hoped he thought I was strong and mature. I was always looking for his praise.
‘Take as long as you need, yeah?’ he said, bare arse to me as he stirred hot water into the coffee granules.
‘I won’t be long,’ I said, ‘and I’ll forward my direct line to my mobile.’
He fiddled with the lid of the long-life milk tub but couldn’t get it off and brought it over to me. I pierced it with my nail.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘You need to take time off, even if you don’t realise it. No-one will steal your accounts.’
‘Promise? Look, I’ll just stay long enough for the funeral and then come back.’
‘Well, I want you back as soon as possible but you need time to grieve,’ John said, and passed me a cup without a saucer.
‘I really don’t,’ I said, and blew on the thin coffee.
I met my father’s second wife at his funeral. She was pleasant, a bit bland and very attractive. I’d have guessed she was in her late forties.
‘Nice to meet you. I’m your step-daughter,’ I smiled, hoping she’d appreciate humour in the absurdity.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You must call me Joanna.’
Joanna, not Jo.
I hadn’t been invited to their wedding, no-one had. It had taken place somewhere in the Caribbean. I’d asked Janet, our team’s PA, to send flowers.
The funeral took place in Little Babcombe’s church, just like my mum’s had years earlier. I kept expecting to go back to Greenfinch Manor afterwards, just like in 1987, but my father had long sold the house to prop up his shrinking business. Drinks and sandwiches were served in The Swan, in the old skittle alley that was by then a private function room. I crouched down when no-one was looking and ran the tips of my fingers along the old floor that had given me so many splinters when I was ten.
As mourners arrived, Joanna and I stood next to each other and thanked people who had come. Almost all of the guests were business associates and their wives, most of whom looked a lot like Joanna.
‘I didn’t realise Roger had a daughter!’ one of the women said to my father’s wife, clutching her hands to her chest as if a little joke had been played on her.
‘Yet here I am!’ I said, my cheeks pink from a couple of glasses of wine.
Lorraine brought in the trays of food, teetering on heels. Quartered baguettes and crisps, sausage rolls. I wondered if my father ever had a single drink in this pub, I couldn’t picture it.
Lorraine was still striking but her big bosom had slid halfway down her chest and her bottom was wider. A solid, smiling Somerset woman in a leopard-print dress. No wedding ring. I wondered how many other women’s husbands she’d slept with, and shrugged off the hypocrisy.
The house in which my father had his heart attack was on the edge of the village. Large, red brick, double-fronted but nothing like the manor. In her call about the funeral arrangements days before, Joanna hadn’t invited me to stay at their home. Instead, I called Viv from London and asked to stay at 4 Church Street. She agreed immediately, and told me she’d make up Paul’s old room.
———
I slipped away after a couple more glasses of wine, slightly tipsy. I had sat next to Joanna, stifling yawns from the wine and feeling more of an intruder and less of a daughter with every conversation. I had no idea what the people around me were talking about. My father’s business was a mystery. He’d imported bits of things, and exported bits of other things. Whatever these things were, people had started to want them less and less. Maybe some of those people were at the funeral, maybe he blamed them. Joanna’s blank look was no comfort, she was dazed and grieving. Maybe she often looked blank, I didn’t know.
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t moved and sad that my last living parent had died. I wasn’t sad that Roger Howarth had died, because I didn’t really know him, but I felt flattened that my father had died and any chance to feel anything for him had died too.
The pub was almost opposite Viv’s house, and I saw her watching for me through the curtains. As I crossed the road, slightly wobbly, I was caught by a memory of Mum’s funeral, and for the first time since the call about my dad, my lip trembled.
Viv threw open the door. ‘Katie!’
I had to stoop down to hug her, lower than I remembered. Her hair was still dyed jet black, her eyes sparkling, deep smile lines and deeper creases criss-crossing her face.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ I said.
I slipped my shoes off in the hall, Viv still holding one of my hands. ‘I have a surprise for you,’ she said. And then her sympathetic smile slipped just briefly and she said, ‘Oh, maybe I should have checked, I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Mind what?’
We walked into the tiny sitting room and there was Paul, sitting on the edge of a new blue three-seater sofa, one I didn’t recognise. The sight of an unfamiliar sofa threw me more than he did.
‘Hey, Kate,’ he said, without smiling. ‘I’m so sorry about your dad.’
He stood, looking a bit taller, a bit broader. I felt a sense of betrayal that I couldn’t fully articulate – he’d turned into a man behind my back. We hugged clumsily.
‘You’ve come to see the twenty-seven-year-old orphan then?’
That night, we drank tins of beer and ate fish and chips with curry sauce, mushy peas and buttered doorsteps of dense white bread. The three of us talked over each other, reminiscing and taking the mickey. Paul and I laughed at Viv’s ‘Vivisms’, her mangled memories and funny phrases. We even talked about Mick. According to Viv, Mick was in touch quite often, popping in for cups of tea and asking after Paul. I found out that he’d been to see Paul a couple of times while he was at uni and called him every now and then to tell him about funny things he’d seen. That he’d occasionally, mistakenly, tried to offer life advice. ‘If you get a good bird, son, never let her go.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Paul had apparently retorted but when he recounted the story, it was with laughter.
Paul was different that night, new. Easier, honest, open. His life in Bristol was stagnant and dull, he said, but he told its stories with a sense of humour. His job at a low-circulation magazine was at risk, and he wasn’t sure if he hoped to keep it or lose it. Later I found out that he’d played this all down considerably. He’d had his hours cut to part-time and been applying for bar work to make up the money. His credit card – something he always said he’d never get – was at its limit and he thought he might have to move back to Little Babcombe, which would have crushed his ego.
Viv turned in before us that night and Paul and I took mugs of tea to bed. I had the Tetley Tea Folk mug that I’d always loved, instinctively feeling for it in the cupboard above the kettle.
I took the Z-bed and, despite Paul’s protestations, he had his childhood divan. It was everything I needed right then. He wore some blue cotton pyjama bottoms and a white T-shirt and I wore a black Agent Provocateur chemise that looked fucking ridiculous in his little bedroom. I wished I could borrow some PJs like old times.
‘So, do you want to stay in Bristol?’ I asked, trying to get comfortable as the Z-bed creaked. ‘I mean, would you be conflicted about leaving if the chance arose?’
‘I never wanted to go to Bristol in the first place and I’ve definitely got no love for it now,’ he snorted, with the first bitter edge I’d heard all night. ‘Why do you ask?’
&n
bsp; ‘Well, I know a junior copywriting job is coming up at my agency,’ I said, shifting onto my side as the coils twanged under me. ‘But obviously that’s in London so. . .’
‘Really?’ he asked, and his uncharacteristic enthusiasm broke my heart.
‘Yeah, one of our art directors is a nice guy called Colm and his copywriter left suddenly last week so they’re looking for a new writer to join up with him.’
Paul was trying not to smile and I worried that I might have made it seem like too much of a sure thing. I didn’t even know if Paul was any good. He always had been good but teenage poetry and schoolboy essays aren’t exactly the same as pitch-winning campaign lines.
‘I mean, those jobs are very sought after and we always get hundreds of CVs,’ I started to fumble. ‘So I can’t promise anything but I could definitely try. If you think you could handle the ignoble art of advertising?’
‘I’m too skint for ideals, Kate.’
I laughed, and so did he. Still smiling, I lay back on the creaking Z-bed and looked up at the ceiling, its wrinkles in the paint like the creases of an old palm. The same paper globe lampshade hung over us and when I heard Viv use the loo, the chain rattled in a way I instantly recognised. For the first time in a very long time, I felt a sense of home. Home with a capital H. Not my flat, not my personal space, but the soil that I’d come from. I turned over to ask Paul how often he came back to visit but his arm had flopped out of the bed he was too big for and his chip-shop-and-beer breath caught in his open mouth.
That night, I slept better than I had in years.
10 Morrison House
St Katharine Docks
London
E1W
August, 1999
Dear Viv,
I just wanted to write and thank you again for having me to stay after Dad died. I’m sorry it took so long – and such horrible circumstances – for me to visit. It was lovely to stay with you, though. It turned a crap experience into a nice thing. And you always make the best tea.
Paul’s settled in really well at work. He’s paired with an art director called Colm and they’ve made an excellent team. Colm’s previous copywriter was a girl called Toni and she’d left under less-than-great circumstances (drink was involved) so Colm was a little bit bruised and nervous. Paul has completely set him at ease. Their ideas are brilliant and I’ve heard plenty of people requesting P for their accounts. I’m so pleased he applied. I’ve never recommended anyone before but he’s not dragged my name through the mud – quite the opposite.
It’s nice having him to stay as well, like old times. Unfortunately, I know it wouldn’t work long term because it’s not a big flat, and I’m sure Paul wants his own masculine space!
Did I tell you that my dad left his house to Joanna in his will? I didn’t think he had much left after that but his solicitor got in touch the other day and I’ve been sent just over £200,000! I can’t believe it. I paid off my mortgage and credit cards. And I bought a take-away curry home for Paul!
It’s such a relief to know that I have my place paid for, that I’ll always have that. And it means I don’t need to ask Paul for any rent. I know how badly TMC pays junior copywriters, after all.
I would love to come to stay again soon.
All my love,
Katie xxx
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1988
We found a new normal. And Viv and I were closer than ever. With Mick gone and Paul so insular, I think I became a confidante, a sort of peer at times, other times a compliant de facto daughter.
I’ve often wondered how she could have been so black and white about what she saw in the hall that October night. So many times I thought about asking her, checking that she hadn’t thrown away her marriage because she thought I was covering something up.
In the end, she said it to me. It was the anniversary of my mother’s death and I spent it curled up on the Loxtons’ sofa. I was wearing a new dressing gown that was nominally from my dad, and found that I could cry easier that year and at the same time, felt lighter about it all. I think it was because my father was away, I didn’t need to pretend that time spending the day with him showed some kind of honour to my mum. Instead, Viv told me about her mum and I told her about mine. Paul made us cups of tea, read in his room, stayed out of the way.
Viv told me about the boy her mum wanted her to marry. Laughed at how, really, he wasn’t all that different from Mick, a ladies’ man, always a wink and nudge away from a bad idea.
‘I know nothing happened on the night of the storm, love.’
I sat up. ‘Do you?’
‘Yeah. I know you told the truth and Mick’s a lot of things but he’s not a perve, he thinks of you as a daughter.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘I was just at the end of my rope, that’s all. So don’t think about it, alright?’
‘Alright.’
Mick had been coming back to see Paul every week or so, drinking a cup of tea and asking awkward questions about school. I hadn’t been there.
And then, in the first hours of New Year’s Day, Mick was back at the front door.
Outside, a newly minted 1988 was still black, the ground slick and shiny in the occasional street light. The pub was silent, but a light on in the flat above it suggested a lock-in had rung in the new year, and Mick had probably been a key player.
‘Vivian!’ he shouted through the letterbox. ‘Vivian!’
I pushed the living-room curtains to the side as carefully as I could but suddenly his face was there, staring into mine with wild dark eyes. I snapped the curtains back as I jumped out of the way but it was too late.
‘Katie!’ he shouted. ‘Little Katie, it’s me! It’s Mick! I’ve forgotten my keys!’
In the hall, I heard the top step sigh underfoot and crept out to the hall to see Viv sitting on the stairs in her maroon dressing gown and slippers, head in her hands.
Mick must have seen my shadow move across the hall as I made my way up to her.
‘Katie! Let me in, I know you can see me!’ He paused to regroup. ‘I won the meat raffle, I’ve got some chops for Viv.’
I held my breath and wedged in on the step below Viv, leaning my head on her legs.
‘I know you’ve seen me,’ he yelled, his chipper shouts turning to more of a growl. ‘Let me in, you little cow.’
Paul’s door creaked open and Viv and I craned our necks to look up at him.
‘Dad’s here, is he?’ Paul said.
Viv and I moved single file to one side of the stairs as Paul made his way down to the front door. He crouched down, pushed the letterbox flap open and out with his finger and said firmly: ‘That’s enough, Dad. Go home.’
‘This is my home, boy!’
‘Dad, you’re pissed. Go home.’
‘This was my dad’s house, Paul. This is my house. Let me in, you little sod.’
‘Go home, Dad,’ Paul continued in his measured tone as I reached back to put my arm around Viv. ‘That’s enough now,’ he said, evenly.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Mick said, and the sound of smashed terracotta scudded across the path as he kicked a plant pot.
‘Dad, there’s nothing for you here. You need to go and sober up. It’s cold out there,’ Paul started.
‘So let me in,’ Mick said, his voice trembling a little, bravado slipping. ‘It’s bloody cold, Paul,’ he said quieter than before, ‘so please let me in.’
Viv opened her mouth to say something but before she could, Paul had opened the door and was standing inches from his father, who was swaying and shivering.
‘Dad.’ It was more of a statement than a name. ‘You don’t live here any more. Mum doesn’t want to see you and I don’t want to see you like this. Get the fuck away from this house or I’ll call the police.’
The door slammed and Paul marched back up to his room, squeezing past Viv and me. As Mick walked away down the street, we heard more terracotta scudding across the icy ground.
<
br /> ‘The neighbours’ll kill me if he’s smashed another pot.’ Viv sighed, squeezing my hand and easing to her feet to go back to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
November 2012 – Thursday afternoon
Izzy has just lost her first tooth. When I came into the living room and saw her outstretched, shaking hand covered in spit and blood, my first thought was Harry. Because Paul’s first thought, if he came in and saw the scene, would be that it must be Harry’s fault. ‘He gets so carried away, he’s so boisterous,’ he says, astonished as ever by the physicality of our little boy.
Most boys are, I think and rarely say.
Izzy isn’t crying, but her eyes are wide and her flashes of pink smile are uneasy.
‘What happened, baby?’ I ask her, as I rub her shoulders and walk her like a drunk to the bathroom, her dripping hand still outstretched.
‘I was wobbling it,’ she says, through her wet mouth.
‘Did you pull it?’
‘A bit,’ she confesses. ‘But not that much.’
‘Where’s Harry?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know,’ she says, and then brightly: ‘Can I show him?’
‘Of course you can, but let’s clean you up first.’
After showing Harry, to his delight and disgust, we wrap the tooth in toilet roll and tuck it under her pillow. Paul watches from the doorway, looking dejected that Izzy has shared this moment with me. She looks so strange with her little gap, her broken bit of mouth. ‘She’s growing up so fast,’ Paul says when we go back into the kitchen. But she isn’t. They’re babies for years these days. Far longer than we were. And I’m glad of it too.
I set my phone alarm for 11 p.m., just in case I fall asleep on the sofa after a couple of glasses of wine. I can’t send an IOU for her first tooth.
It can all be measured in teeth, of course. From birth to death. The tiny little dots sprouting from red cheeks and gnawed knuckles, growing all those baby teeth so violently and then losing them like petals. Then come the big chunky adult teeth that twist their faces into new expressions. And eventually, decades later, they’ll lose most of those and be left pulpy-mouthed and old.
