The Girl Who Came Back

by Kerry Wilkinson

  That’s all it takes. Georgie leans in conspiratorially and it’s clear gossip is what keeps her going. She’ll be dining out on this for months. ‘What would you like to know? We grew up together, y’know. Same school, same village, all that.’

  ‘I know she and my dad got divorced but I don’t know much about Max.’

  Georgie takes a moment to fill the kettle and set it boiling. She leans against the kitchen counter and starts to fiddle with the wire of her bra. ‘Bloody things,’ she mutters, before looking up. ‘I’ve known your mother since school – but we’ve both known Max since school as well. We were all in the same class at Stoneridge Primary, all the way through to our exams. Your mum started going out with him long before she ever got together with your dad.’

  ‘Was that when you were still at school?’

  A nod and then Georgie starts to count on her fingers in the exact way her daughter did last night. ‘You’re talking twenty years ago and more. We were younger than you. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen – that sort of age. I guess we were probably sixteen when your mum was seeing Max and I was going out with his older brother.’

  ‘Ashley?’

  Her brow ripples but only for a moment. ‘So you’ve met the other Pitman brother, then? No surprise – it’s like they’re conjoined half the time. Anyway, we used to go around as a foursome. Ashley was older than the three of us. He would’ve been eighteen or nineteen. The village was smaller then. Everyone knew everyone else. It was a bloody nightmare trying to get up to no good.’

  She winks and then the kettle plips off, so she sorts herself a cup of tea.

  ‘Things moved on after school,’ she says. ‘Your mum started seeing Dan, who was a bit older than us. He was very different to Max. It was a first-love thing for your mum with Max, where you see someone every day and it becomes this sort of natural infatuation. Your mum went loopy when she first met your dad. That was proper love at first sight. They adored each other. She was pregnant almost straight away with you and then they got married a few years later.’

  ‘What happened to Max?’

  A shrug. ‘No idea, not really. I’d stopped seeing Ashley and met Natalie’s dad. I assume the brothers went off and did their own thing. I’d see ’em around the village now and again but that was all.’

  She hugs the mug of tea into her palms and stares off into the distance as if remembering fonder times.

  ‘You got a fella?’ she asks.

  Her question takes me by surprise. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You seeing anyone? Boyfriend, or whatever? You never know nowadays. I asked Nattie that once and she said I was being homophobic.’

  It’s hard not to smile: ‘No.’

  She shrugs. ‘Not worth it half the time. Still, you’re young…’

  Georgie doesn’t expand on that thought, instead she hunts through the cupboards until she emerges with a giant tin of biscuits. She clicks off the lid and picks out a chocolate digestive. She dunks it into her mug and then sucks on the soggy half. It’s somehow equal parts appealing and disgusting.

  ‘I was at both weddings,’ she says after swallowing. ‘The only one at both… well, aside from your mother, of course. Ten years apart, almost to the day.’

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘Chalk and cheese, hon. The first one to your father was something special. A proper church affair.’

  ‘In Stoneridge?’

  Georgie nods into the living room and I follow. By the time I get there, she’s on her knees at the back of the room hunting through a wooden cabinet. There are puffs of dust as she heaves out some frames and then a padded photo album. More dust and then there’s a metal filing box, then one more frame. She blows even more dust from it and wipes the glass with her sleeve before holding up the photo.

  ‘Here you are, love.’

  I think she’s talking about the picture – but her finger is pointing at a blonde girl in a white bridesmaid’s dress.

  ‘You were about three,’ Georgie says. ‘No way you’d remember it but you, me and Natalie were the three bridesmaids. Course, that meant I was a glorified babysitter all day. You two wanted to run off and all sorts. Right little tearaways.’

  She laughs to herself as I take the picture and wipe away a few more flecks of dust. Mum looks so different in her wedding dress. Slimmer and taller – though it’s probably her heels. She wears her worry now, but in the photo she’s so happy.

  ‘How long ago was this?’ I ask.

  Georgie counts on her fingers again. ‘Sixteen years. Your mum would’ve been twenty-one.’

  That’s only a little older than me. It seems like such a huge decision for someone that age… but then she gave birth when she was still a teen, so everything came early to her. By the time she was thirty, she’d lived more than some people ever do.

  The three bridesmaids are off to the side, all in matching dresses. Georgie’s hair is so bright, so big, that it’s hard to focus on anyone other than her. Nattie’s not looking at the photographer; she’s turned to peer up at the married couple.

  ‘Don’t laugh at my hair,’ Georgie says. ‘Christ knows what I was thinking. I’d had this perm and then the sun got to it and it went massive.’

  I don’t recognise the best man, which isn’t a surprise – but he’s in a matching suit to my father. Dad is smiling broader than anyone; trim and smart in traditional black with a shaved head.

  ‘The second wedding was much smaller,’ Georgie adds. ‘That was a register office affair. There were only five of us there: your mum, me, Max, Ashley and the registrar.’

  ‘Mum was thirty-one for the second wedding?’

  Georgie’s eyes roll upwards and then she starts to nod. ‘Right.’

  ‘When did my mum and dad break up?’

  She leads me over to the felt sofa, which is far comfier than it looks. ‘Pretty much straight after you, er…’ She pauses and glances off to the corner of the room. ‘After you, um… disappeared.’

  ‘Three years after they got married?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘When did she and Max get together?’

  Georgie shuffles in her seat and then tugs on her bra again. For the first time, she seems uncomfortable. ‘Not long after, I guess...’

  She doesn’t make eye contact but that’s enough for me to know what she feels. There is every chance my mum was seeing Max before the divorce was official.

  My brain aches a little but, from what I can figure out, Mum gave birth at eighteen, got married at twenty-one, then divorced at twenty-four. She started seeing Max at around that time and then got married for a second time seven years later. That means she’s been with Max for twelve or thirteen years. She also went out with him as a teenager.

  ‘You can have that if you want,’ Georgie says, indicating the photo. ‘Not doing any good here getting dusty at the bottom of a cupboard.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll have a bit of a dig around and see if I’ve got anything else you might like. I don’t chuck much out, so there’s probably all sorts hidden away. Probably got some school photos of you and Natalie together.’

  ‘That’d be nice.’

  ‘Have you seen your dad yet?’

  I look away from the photo, surprised Georgie’s brought him up.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s so sad…’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘After everything with your mum, he went to pieces. I was friends with your mum but I knew him as well. I was caught in the middle. I think he wanted someone to talk to but it turned out most of their friends were her friends. He didn’t have anyone.’ She glances away to the window and then back to me. ‘I’m not sure I should say any more.’

  That means, of course, that she’s dying to say more. I like her, I really do, but I know I’m going to have to be careful with what I say around her. Say something too juicy and it’ll be all round the village before I’ve got out the front door.

  ‘I’d like
to know,’ I say.

  She clenches her teeth, winces. ‘He tried to kill himself,’ she says. ‘He took the break-up really badly and swallowed a bunch of pills. It didn’t work, obviously.’

  Georgie might be the village gossip – but she’s deadly serious about this. This must’ve been what Mum meant when she said he wasn’t the man he used to be.

  ‘Does he still live in village?’

  She nods – and so I ask for the address.

  Eleven

  Stoneridge has been postcard-perfect so far. Trimmed lawns, pretty flower baskets, clean streets and a general air of tidiness.

  My dad lives in the other part of the village. I walk rather than drive, going the other way along the High Street, crossing the bridge over the river and then heading up a hill towards a community housing block.

  It must be deliberate that the entire estate is hidden at the back of an outcrop of trees. From the High Street, it looks like a pretty green copse on top of a hill; it’s only when I get closer that I realise there is a sprawling mass of red-brick two-storey flats behind. They’re like Lego – square and blocky. An abandoned rusty child’s tricycle has been dumped in the gutter and there is a long stream of oil stretching from a back yard to the nearest drain. I can imagine some parish-council-types properly losing it over this type of thing. All house-prices this and blight-on-the-community that.

  Someone’s arseing about with an engine on the other side of an equally ugly red-brick wall, revving and revving until anyone in a half-mile radius wants the perpetrator strung up. The only thing it’s really achieving is to drown out the sound of somebody else’s dreadful music.

  I follow the road through the estate, paying attention to the graffitied signs as I try to figure out where all the paths lead. I find myself in dead ends a couple of times before eventually ending up in front of a two-storey block that’s seemingly identical to the rest. It’s only the name on the front that gives it away.

  Dad apparently lives in a ground-floor flat on a cul-de-sac at the outermost edge of the estate. Any further and he’d be living in the woods. There’s a tiny front garden, a square ‘why bother?’ sort of job. If I were to lie flat on the grass and stretch my arms and legs, I’d take up the entire space. The outside of the flat has a thin crust of weathered grime; not out-and-out filthy but hardly clean either.

  I knock on the front door and wait, running through scenarios of what I might say. Mum said ‘Olivia’ first so that I didn’t have to but, from what she and Georgie said, my dad will be another matter entirely.

  Nobody answers so I try knocking again. It’s a thick double-glazed door and there’s no doorbell, so I can’t figure out if anyone inside would be able to hear me. The curtains are pulled across the window and I can’t see anything through the letter box other than thick bristles.

  I try knocking again, palm against the glass this time and then clank the letter box a couple of times for good measure.

  Still no answer.

  I’m ready to walk away when I figure I may as well try the handle. It needs a good yank but the metal clanks downwards and then the door swings open. As I step inside, I notice a key in the lock that’s obviously not been turned.

  ‘Hello?’

  The hallway is dark and smells of soggy old socks. It’s only because of the light through the front door that I can see there are stairs to my left and two doors on the right.

  ‘Hello? Anyone home?’

  Still no answer – and not even the hint of movement anywhere. The thought crosses my mind that I’ve got the wrong address, or Georgie had it wrong. I’ve stumbled into a complete stranger’s house and this is breaking and entering. I should probably leave, except… something doesn’t feel quite right.

  The first door opens into a living room, although it’s bare to say the least. There’s an armchair, a television, a lamp and that’s it – except for the man who’s sleeping in the chair. His chest rises and then falls as he honks out a large snore like an irate goose. He’s wearing a flat cap that’s fallen across his eyes and it’s hard to make out any more features.

  I can smell the alcohol without moving any further into the room. As I start to get used to the light, I can see the empty bottles as well. There are at least three at the side of the chair; vodka or whisky. Perhaps both. There are pizza boxes, too, stacked waist high in the corner.

  It’s as I take another step into the room that the man splutters, the cap slipping from his head as his eyes blaze open. It’s enough to make me jump as well. The only light is coming from the lamp but the dimness doesn’t stop him seeing me as he leaps out of the chair to his feet.

  ‘Whuh… uh… what are you doing here? Get out!’

  He races across the room and is almost upon me as I throw up my arms to protect myself. In doing that, I lose my balance, falling backwards and landing with a whump on the uncarpeted floor.

  ‘It’s me!’ I shout. ‘It’s Olivia.’

  The man stops like a statue, arms half up, body arched forward. He has a hipster-like bushy beard, more out of laziness than fashion. The top of his head is bald. He stands up straighter and backs away as he stares down at me.

  ‘No…’

  I’m left flailing in the ground, slightly disorientated as I realise there’s a pain at the back of my head from where I must have hit it on the way down.

  Then he bursts into tears.

  He stumbles backwards, covering his face with his hands and flops into the chair as I manage to get to my feet. I cross the room slowly but all he can do is fold in on himself, head to his knees as he continues to sob.

  ‘Dad…?’

  I crouch in front of him, one hand on his knee as he slowly raises himself, peering through the gaps in his fingers.

  ‘Olive…?’

  I smile weakly as he reaches out and tugs on my hair in the way Mum did. He brushes my cheek with the back of his hand and, much as I try to ignore it, it’s impossible to miss the smell. He can’t have had a shower in days, perhaps weeks. There are crumbs in his beard and grease stains on his tatty shirt.

  ‘Do you want a drink, Dad? I’ll get you some water or something…?’

  He nods and I push myself up, heading through the door at the back of the room into the kitchen.

  It’s a mess.

  The sink is filled with grimy, stained dishes; half the cupboard doors are open, showing that they’re empty – and then I notice the small pellets of mouse or rat droppings at the back door.

  I don’t know where to start.

  The fridge is empty except for some green and brown gunk at the back and even if I wanted to get him something other than water, it’d be a struggle because there isn’t anything. I dig around the sink and find the cleanest glass – which isn’t very clean. Something brown and furry is growing at the bottom, so I return it to where I found it.

  I check all the lower cupboards and find the bin underneath the sink. I expect a horror show but it’s not… or at least it isn’t in the way I expected. It’s full of empty glass bottles. There’s knock-off Smirnoff and Jack Daniel’s to choose from, so I take one of the clear vodka bottles, rinse it out three times – and then fill it a third of the way up with water.

  That’s as good as it’s going to get, so I head back into the living room and hand Dad the bottle, telling him it’s water. He mumbles a ‘thank you’ and then I open the curtains at the front and back, finally allowing some light into the room.

  In many ways, I wish I hadn’t.

  There are more droppings around the edges of the room, plus nibbly teeth marks on the pizza boxes at the bottom of the stack.

  Dad’s clothes are hanging off him, masking what must be a stick-thin body underneath. He gulps from the water, blinking and swilling it around his mouth. There’s nowhere to sit and I’m not risking the floor, considering the droppings, so I end up standing in the middle of the room, trying not to touch anything.

  He stares up at me, eyes wide. ‘I thought you were…’ />
  ‘That’s what everyone says.’

  He blinks and then glances away. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Dad.’

  His bottom lip is starting to bob again and he clamps down on it with his teeth. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Healthy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘I’m happier now.’

  He nods, bows his head so that he’s staring at my feet. This is a different reaction again. Mum, Max, Ashley, Nattie, Georgie have all contrasted with varying degrees of acceptance, scepticism and wonder. This is a mix of grief and relief. I’m not sure how to deal with it.

  ‘Have you had a good life?’

  His voice is a croaky whisper, barely there. It’s a strange question. Nobody’s asked that before – people have asked where I’ve been, what’s happened – but no one wondered if it had been good for me.

  ‘It’s getting better,’ I reply.

  Dad takes a really deep, husky breath and then glugs more of the water.

  ‘They blamed you, didn’t they?’ I say.

  He bows lower and then starts to nod. He’s practically burying his head in his knees again.

  This is what Mum and Georgie tried to warn me of. He’s divorced, single, unemployed, drunk, living in… this. No wonder they wanted me to think twice before coming.

  I cross the living room and stand next to the chair, resting a hand on his shoulder. He reaches and holds my hand but his grip is flimsier than a child’s.

  ‘Is it true?’ I ask. ‘Did you try to kill yourself?’

  He squeaks a low moan and then starts to rock back and forth. I shouldn’t have asked but I do eventually get a raspy reply: ‘One more thing I failed at.’

  I perch on the edge of the chair and put an arm around him, resting my head on top of his. There isn’t the spark that I had when Mum reached out to touch me – but there’s less of the awkwardness I have with her. It’s comforting, even though we’re strangers. We sit like that for minutes, so much so that there’s a crick in my neck when Dad finally sits up.