The Girl Who Came Back

by Kerry Wilkinson

  With my skirt, jacket and hair, I’m completely in black. Dad spent ages combing my hair earlier, asking if I wanted it down or in a plait. He’s nowhere near as good as Mum at knowing how to tie it together, so I ended up plaiting it myself. While he watched me do that, he took really long, deep breaths to stop himself crying.

  He’s done a lot of crying recently. I hear him at night when he thinks I’m asleep. One time he came into my room and watched me as I pretended to doze. After a while, he said he was sorry and then he closed the door. I heard him sobbing to himself in his own room a little after.

  Dad’s still talking, though he’s stopped watching me. At home, he’s been saying ‘the C-word’, but he says the actual word here.

  Cancer.

  With Dad, the social worker and the other people who’ve come round, the C-word is like Voldemort. People don’t want to say ‘cancer’, so they say ‘C-word’ instead.

  What cancer really means is that Mum isn’t here any more.

  Dad finishes speaking and then the organs sound and everyone stands. It only takes a moment before he’s at my side again, rough hands scraping at mine. His are so big, so safe.

  I stand at his side as we turn to the back of the church and watch all the other people in black start to walk outside. I think they’re leaving for good but that’s not what happens. When we get outside into the light, everyone is waiting for us, standing on both sides of the path and creating a tunnel. It feels so heavy as they all watch us move towards the cars.

  Dad is walking slowly, thanking people for being there. He’s still holding onto me, forcing me to move at the same pace as him. I want to run ahead, to get away from the wall of black. I focus on the path instead of the people because all I can hear is them whispering my name, along with things like ‘so sorry’ and ‘here if you need me’. A lot of people have said the same thing in the past week. The social worker sat down with me and said I could tell him anything I wanted, that I could trust him if there was anything I felt I couldn’t talk to my dad about.

  I tug on Dad’s hand and, when he ignores me, I pull him harder until he’s forced to stop and crouch at my side. The sky is so bright and everything – everyone – else is so black that it’s hurting my eyes.

  ‘Are you okay, sweetie?’ he asks.

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘We’ve got to go to the wake first.’

  He’s speaking quietly, so that nobody else can hear.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s where people go to tell stories about your mum and remember what she meant to them. There’s food—’

  ‘I’m not hungry. Can we go home instead?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie but we have to go. This is what people do. They want to remember your mum. Don’t you want to remember her, too…?’

  He says that as if I don’t. As if I’ve forgotten her just because of the C-word. I don’t reply but I squeeze his hand instead and he lets me go for a moment. He wipes his hand on his trousers and then offers it again. He’s smiling down at me but it’s sad and, for a moment, I think he’s going to cry again. His eyebrow is twitching and he looks so very unhappy.

  I take his hand, hoping it will make him feel a bit better. I don’t want to go to the stupid wake and I’m not hungry – but if it will stop him crying, then it’s probably the best thing to do.

  We continue along the path, still walking really slowly until we finally get to the road. We didn’t bring our car. We came in a really shiny, long black one and Dad didn’t drive. Someone I don’t know is driving instead. He’s old and wears a grey cap that he took off when he said hello to me.

  I watch out the back window as a row of other cars follow us until we reach this big hall that I’ve never been to before. When we go inside, there’s a long table at the end that’s full of food, just like Dad said. He tells me he needs to speak to some people and then, just for a minute, I’m alone. The hall is cold and the floor creaks when I walk across it. There are TVs on the walls but they’re blank except for the small red dot at the front. I wonder if someone’s lost the remote control. Dad’s done that before.

  Dad is waiting by the door as the people from the church enter the hall. He’s saying hello to them all again, thanking them for coming, even though he’s already done that.

  I head to the table of food by myself. There are sausage rolls and sandwiches, plus little sausages on sticks. There’s jelly and cake, with a whole tray full of Bourbon biscuits and custard creams. I told Dad I wasn’t hungry but now I am. There is a stack of paper plates and I take one of everything, piling it high. I look around for somewhere to sit but people are already walking towards me, giving that stupid weird smile that adults do. They’re not really smiling, they’re not happy. It’s this fake lie they tell with their faces when they want to ask me if I’m all right. They do it all the time now.

  Along one of the walls is a row of tables, the tablecloths hanging low to the floor. I move quickly towards them before too many people can see me and then I get underneath, using the cloth to hide away from everyone else.

  I sit still for a moment, wondering if any of the adults are going to follow and ask me what I’m doing. It feels like I’m doing something I shouldn’t. When nobody comes, I start to eat, cake first; then the biscuits. Mum always said savoury first but I’ve been able to get away with a lot more this last week.

  I’d still rather she was here to stop me.

  It’s as I start on a sausage roll that there’s a flutter of tablecloth. Dad is crouched low, squinting and smiling that sad smile for me. ‘There you are,’ he says.

  I think he’s going to tell me to come out, either that or tell me off for eating sweets first – but he doesn’t. Instead, he slides along the floor until he’s sitting next to me. His head bonks on the table above, which makes me laugh.

  ‘You’re too big to be under here, Daddy,’ I say.

  He stoops his neck so that he can just about fit and then places his warm hand on mine. ‘I love you, Lily,’ he says.

  ‘I love you, too, Daddy.’

  2009: Lily, 12

  As soon as I get through the front door, I know Dad is at home. He doesn’t say anything and there’s no other sound – but there’s something in the air. It’s hard to describe. Or perhaps it’s because he’s always at home when I get in from school. He says he’s going to work each morning and then he doesn’t.

  I drop my bag in the hall and head into the kitchen. I’m probably going to have to cook tea for us both again tonight, so I open the fridge. Except… there’s hardly anything inside. A half-finished bottle of Coke, a bottle of milk that has only a few drops in the bottom, some soggy lettuce leaves in the salad drawer that have started to go brown, four or five slices of bread wrapped in a plastic bag and a row of beers on the top shelf.

  ‘There are crisps in the cupboard.’

  Dad makes me jump as he appears on the other side of the fridge door. His eyes seem heavy, as if he’s not had much sleep.

  ‘How was work?’ I ask.

  He frowns slightly but he never gets angrier than this any more. Sometimes I wonder what I could say or do to actually make him mad.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he replies, before opening the cupboard and taking out a multipack of crisps. Twenty bags, apparently – smoky bacon, salt ’n’ vinegar, ready salted and cheese and onion.

  ‘You can’t have crisps for tea,’ I say.

  He looks at the multipack and then returns it to where it came from before opening a few more cupboards. There’s a jar of mustard that has been in there for as long as I can remember; some herbs and spices, a tube of tomato puree, a tin of chicken soup and a couple of cans of tuna.

  ‘Tuna on toast?’ he suggests.

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  He pulls open the drawers of the freezer and hunts through the thick crusts of ice until he pulls out a packet of frosty-looking sausages.

  ‘Sausage on toast?’

  That�
�s definitely better.

  ‘Okay… are there any beans?’

  A shake of the head. ‘I’ll go shopping tomorrow,’ he replies.

  I don’t point out that he’s supposed to be going to work tomorrow, nor that he promised to go shopping a couple of days ago.

  Dad digs a frying pan out from one of the lower cupboards and sets it on the stove as if he’s about to cook but he’s glancing to me the whole time. We’ve been here before.

  I say I’ll do it and he doesn’t object, shuffling to the back of the kitchen and yawning loudly as I crack apart the frozen sausages with the biggest knife in the kitchen. It takes a couple of goes before they snap away from each other, sending a couple crashing into the wall and the rest spiralling onto the floor. I wash them all off in the sink before putting them into the pan and setting the heat on low.

  After another yawn, Dad asks if I have any homework to do.

  ‘Not much,’ I reply.

  ‘Can you be a good girl and stay in your room later?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s the Champions League final. I’ve got some of the lads coming over to watch it.’

  That explains all the crisps. Dad must’ve been out to the shops at some point today, which also makes it clear where the beer came from. We’ve developed our own codes over the last year. It took me a while to realise that being a ‘good girl’ involves being out of the way and not making any noise. It does work both ways, though. Dad never bothers to read the letters from school, he simply signs them. When I got double detention, he didn’t bother asking why, he scrawled his name to say he’d seen the letter. I can keep up my end of the bargain if he can.

  ‘I’ve got books I can read,’ I reply.

  ‘Good… it won’t be late.’

  The sausages have started to fizz and I give them a poke with a wooden spoon.

  ‘Can you get cereal tomorrow?’ I ask. ‘Milk, too.’

  He nods and then yawns again.

  I give the sausages another good poking and then pop a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.

  ‘We need bread as well,’ I say.

  ‘Can you make a list?’

  I point towards the fridge, where there’s already a list stuck to the front with a magnet.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, as if it’s a new thing. We’ve been keeping shopping lists on the front of the fridge for as long as I can remember. Mum used to take it down every Thursday and do a ‘big shop’. I used to write ‘cookies’ on the bottom every week and she’d laugh, telling me I was cheeky. She’d buy them anyway but there’s no chance of that any longer.

  ‘Do you want any sausages?’ I ask.

  ‘No – you eat them. You need it more than me.’

  ‘Have you eaten today?’

  ‘Yeah, I had… er… something earlier.’

  I don’t turn to look at him because I know he’s lying.

  ‘You can watch telly down here for a bit if you want…?’

  That does make me turn, if only to see if Dad’s making some sort of joke. He never makes this offer, in fact it’s rare that he gets up off the sofa. I hardly ever go into the living room any longer. The television is on almost non-stop, either showing sport or the news. I don’t think Dad’s that bothered about what’s going on in the world, but he likes having the voices in the background. He stopped doing any amount of tidying a long time ago and the photos of Mum are too hard to look at for me. Then there are all the empty bottles. I didn’t realise for a long time that whisky and bourbon are pretty much the same thing. Dad said I could try it one time but a sip was enough to know I didn’t like it. I don’t know how he drinks entire bottles. How anyone does.

  ‘I’ll do a bit of a tidy,’ he says. ‘You watch what you want.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He moves into the hall, out of sight, and there’s the clinking and clanking of him moving things around. I wonder quite what ‘a bit of a tidy’ might mean, then I realise that he’s carrying a crate of beer up from the cellar. I wonder if it’s new, or if it’s been down there for a while. He carries that into the living room and then heads back to the basement for another crate.

  After that, he takes a black bin bag into the living room and starts to clear some of the old papers and bottles. As he does that, I continue cooking until the sausages are brown and firm. There’s no ketchup in the cupboard, so I add that to the list on the fridge along with beans, milk, cereal and bread. When that’s done, I move into the lounge.

  I know it’s not much but it really does feel important to be in charge of the remote control in the living room. There are so many more channels than I have upstairs. I spend ages hunting through everything while eating my tea. Dad continues to carry things in and out and he has finally cleared out all the empty bottles. I wonder if he’s managed to put everything in the right recycling bins. He doesn’t usually and I end up moving things from one bin to another.

  In the end, I’ve almost finished my tea by the time I settle on a show about elephants. Dad comes into the living room and stands behind the chair, watching what I am doing for a minute or two before heading out of the room without another word. I hear him going up the stairs and then it’s quiet.

  Five o’clock comes and I wash and dry up my plate and the frying pan. Then it’s six o’clock and I’ve still got the living room to myself.

  I wonder if Dad’s finally getting some sleep. Sometimes he doesn’t come upstairs at night. He’ll stay on the sofa and I have no idea if he’s sleeping or watching television. Sometimes a day or three can pass and I wonder if he’s left the sofa for any reason other than to go to the toilet. I’ll never see him eat or sleep, only watch television.

  The elephant show has long finished when I finally hear Dad on the stairs again. It’s a few minutes to seven and he yawns his way into the living room.

  ‘Can you be a good girl now?’ he asks and I hand him the remote. There’s a moment where his hand brushes mine and I remember being in the church, wanting to hold his hand. It was only a year ago but it feels like so much longer. It feels like I was a different me then. So much younger. I didn’t understand a lot then, but I do now.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he says – and that’s it.

  As I sit upstairs in my bedroom reading, I hear the front door going a number of times. There are men’s voices and then the low mumble that always comes through the floor when Dad’s got the television on too loudly. Sometimes he falls asleep with it like that and I have to creep downstairs to turn down the volume.

  It’s not long before there’s a loud cheer, which means somebody must have scored. I try to ignore it, putting on some headphones and listening to the radio while I continue to read.

  That’s probably why I don’t realise my door has opened until I see there’s someone standing at the end of the bed. I jump slightly and the man puts a finger to his lips as he closes my door. I take off the headphones and shuffle up onto my pillows.

  ‘Hi,’ he says.

  The man is taller than my dad. He’s big but it’s not fat, he’s more like a rugby player with big shoulders and thick legs. As my eyes adjust to the light, I can see he’s wearing a red football shirt and there are tattoos on both of his arms.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m your Uncle Alan. I remember you when you were a baby.’

  He smiles, showing off his bright white teeth.

  ‘Are you looking for the bathroom?’ I ask.

  ‘Not really… maybe. I thought I’d come and say hello.’

  ‘Hello…?’

  He sits on the edge of my bed and it sinks low from his weight. ‘How old are you now?’ he asks.

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘That’s a nice age. You’re a very pretty girl. Does your dad tell you that?’

  He shuffles forward and, though I want to move away, there’s nowhere for me to go. There’s something in the way he’s looking at me that I’ve never seen b
efore. Like I’m a Christmas present being unwrapped. I’m full of mystery and nervous excitement to him.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ I ask.

  Uncle Alan turns towards the closed door and then looks back to me, smiling thinly. It shouldn’t be frightening but it is. ‘He’s downstairs. We’re okay here, aren’t we?’

  There’s a part of me that knows this is wrong. I should bang on the floor and make a noise – but I can’t. It feels like I can’t move – and it’s all about the way he’s looking at me. He’s frozen me, somehow. It’s not only that I can’t move, I can’t think either. I’m trapped.

  ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here.’

  The words are so hard to get out. Such an effort to think of. It doesn’t faze him anyway. He smiles again but says nothing as he stretches a hand towards me.

  Nine

  Wednesday

  It’s the sun that wakes me the next morning. The small room in the Black Horse is so bright that I’m surprised I managed to sleep for so long. The curtains are a waste of time and I’ve never particularly understood why blinds and curtains exist if daylight beams through so easily. Like a bag with a hole at the bottom. It’s failed at the one and only thing it’s supposed to do.

  I reach for my phone instinctively to see that it’s a few minutes before eight. There are already a couple of texts waiting from my mother that arrived almost an hour ago. Seeing the word ‘Mum’ on the lock screen gives me butterflies. It’s so simple – three letters – and yet it’s a long time since any name has had that effect on me.

  In the first message she asks if I have any plans for today. The second came three minutes later and she says she will be at the house all day if I want to come by. ‘Would be nice to see you again,’ she adds, everything spelled out correctly.