by Adam Croft
Her Last Tomorrow
Adam Croft
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Epilogue
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Adam Croft
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For more information, visit my website: adamcroft.net
Copyright © 2018 by Adam Croft
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Previously published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle.
Cover photographs © Shutterstock
Designed by Books Covered
1
Nick
The combination of burnt toast and cold coffee has never been my favourite, but it’s growing on me. It does that after a while.
I’ve given up even bothering to scrape the black bits off the toast, but the coffee still goes in the microwave. Iced coffee I can understand, but lukewarm coffee might as well be dog’s piss. Having to live off caffeine is bad enough, so it might as well taste good in the process.
The microwave bleeps three times to tell me it’s done, the shrill sound piercing through my skull as I chomp down on another bite of toast, sending large black chunks crumbling to the floor.
The nagging thought at the forefront of my mind is that this damn book is never going to be finished. It’ll be a year next week since I started writing it, and I’m already on my third deadline. Pete tells me it’s my last deadline. I know he’s serious this time. I’m really starting to wonder if it might just be better to scrap the whole thing and run with another idea. Any book’s better than no book.
Tasha drags Ellie kicking and screaming into the kitchen and I long for the sound of the microwave.
‘Now, you be good for Daddy, alright? He’s been under a lot of stress lately and he needs you to go easy on him.’
Tasha has never been able to accept that sometimes I’m actually annoyed at things she does. She just makes out it’s my fault because I’m ‘stressed’.
‘She’s five,’ I say, through a mouthful of crumbs as I sit down at the table. ‘She doesn’t know what you’re saying. If you want to have a dig, do it to me.’
‘Hey, fine. Give him hell, girl,’ she says, ruffling Ellie’s hair and smiling at me. Ellie’s still not happy. I don’t blame her. I’m a grown adult and I can’t handle being up at this time. As Ellie’s wails begin to build, Tasha takes the Rosie Ragdoll down from on top of the kitchen clock and hands it to her. Ellie stops crying immediately.
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep giving her that, Tash. It’s not a toy.’
‘Of course it’s a toy, Nick. It’s a rag doll.’
Tasha will never have it. Ellie loves the Rosie Ragdoll, but I’m not keen on Tasha handing it her way every time she throws a strop. It sits on top of our kitchen clock, looking far too much like a freaky version of the fictional scarecrow Worzel Gummidge for my liking, with bits of glued-on straw poking out of its trousers and sleeves, a straw boater slightly askew on its head. My mum used to have it in her kitchen. We bought it for her shortly after Dad died. One of those stupid ‘saw this and thought of you’ gifts, but it meant the world to her. Every time Ellie went over she’d want to play with it, even as a small baby. She was fascinated by it. We had to make sure she was careful with it, as it wasn’t meant to be a toy – despite what Tasha says.
I don’t have a whole lot to remember my mum by, but the Rosie Ragdoll (God knows why she called it that) is one small token that sits up out of the way, looking over us all. Mum died shortly before Ellie’s second birthday, from the same cancer that took dad eight years earlier. So to see Tasha casually chucking the Rosie Ragdoll to Ellie like some sort of pacifier or comfort blanket really rankles.
‘I just think we should be careful with it,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’
She walks over and kisses me on the top of the head. ‘She’s fine. She’s a good girl. Anyway, it worked, didn’t it? Now, you get that coffee down you and stop being such a grumpy puss.’
‘What else do you expect, Tash? It’s five in the morning. I don’t see why we all have to get up just because you’ve got to go to some bloody conference.’
‘Trust me, Nick, it’s better than having me worrying all morning about whether you’ve woken up and actually remembered to take Ellie to school,’ she replies, pouring sugar-coated cereal into a bowl for Ellie. Great. Just what an emotionally unstable five-year-old needs at this time of the morning.
‘Any idea what time you’ll be back?’
‘Late. If it finishes on time I should be out of there by six, home by ten with any luck. As long as the trains aren’t full of suits.’
I raise my eyebrows momentarily. She’d never have it that she was one of them. Her job was far more important than whatever it was they did for a living, and it always would be.
‘Right. Must dash,’ she says, grabbing her shoulder bag from the back of the chair and planting a kiss on Ellie’s cheek. ‘You have a good day at school. Work hard and be good. And you have fun,’ she adds as she does a childish little wave to me across the table, her fingers bending and straightening in one unit.
Within seconds she’s gone and it’s just me and Ellie. Same as it always is.
2
Tasha
Sometimes I think the only reason Nick and I have stayed together is because of Ellie. I hate to say it, but it’s probably true. I think it’s something I’ve always known. Tha
t’s not to say that we had Ellie so that we wouldn’t break up, but I think deep down I wondered whether it would change our relationship to have a child. It did, but not in the way I’d expected.
The initial joy was over pretty quickly when I told Nick I wanted to go back to work earlier than planned. Earlier than he’d planned, anyway. He wanted me to take the full twenty weeks, telling me we could make do on the statutory allowance. He’s never been one for handling money well, but I would’ve thought even he’d realise that swapping my salary for a hundred and twenty quid a week wasn’t going to cut it. Not with a new child in tow. Not with his income being so unpredictable. If there was one thing I was always sure of, it was that I wanted to be able to provide for my child, to give my child everything she deserved.
We finally agreed on eight weeks, allowing me to keep most of my salary, then going back on the basis that I could work from home two or three days a week. What Nick didn’t know at the time was that I’d already told my manager I’d be back part-time after the minimum two weeks and back to full-time after another six. I don’t like lying, but Nick’s the sort of person you have to lie to occasionally just to make things easier, smooth things over.
When I fell pregnant with Ellie, we’d been trying for years. Over the first couple of years things seemed to be going alright. Work was fairly stale for me, and Nick was still struggling to hawk his first book, but the possibility of having a child was something to cling on to. The dwindling of that possibility seemed to coincide with Nick getting his first book deal and work getting better for me, too, so the thought of having children kind of fell by the wayside.
We’d gone down all sorts of routes and had pretty much come to terms with the fact that nothing was going to happen. I fully expected us to separate within the next few months. I started to take on more responsibilities at work, perhaps partially to distract myself from the toxic atmosphere at home, but mainly because my career had taken off. We’d just taken on a huge new client and I’d been put in charge of managing the project. Three weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.
I was delighted, but at the back of my mind was this constant worry about how I was going to balance a baby and my career. Nick working from home would be a blessing, but I also knew that there was no way he was going to see it like that. He’s all about long walks in the country and idealistic family days out. He never thinks about the fact that we somehow have to pay for all that.
He’s so derisive and dismissive about my job, it makes me sick sometimes. I think he sees me as one of the faceless hordes of commuters that pass our house every morning on the way to the station. I see them, too, on the train, their faces growing more and more haggard every day. I know I’m not one of them because I feel more and more invigorated with each day, excited about the path my career is taking and how it will enable me to build a future for our whole family. But he doesn’t see that. He thinks I’m just doing this for me.
The conference today is a big opportunity. Networking could be vital for building my career further, which would give us more security as a family and give Ellie a better start in life. After all, that’s why any of us go to work, isn’t it? Because we want the best for our families. But does Nick ever see it like that? Does he hell.
I think he projects. That’s Nick’s problem. He can’t come to terms with the fact that it’s his own sense of failure and his own insecurities that are at the root of the problem. He’s so fed up with the fact that he’s been unable to replicate the success of Black Tide that he seems to assume everyone else is a failure too. He’s a good dad, though. Mostly. When it doesn’t involve him having to be organised. He dotes on Ellie, and she loves him, too. Sometimes I look at her and I imagine that I see confusion in her eyes, almost as if she’s unsure as to who I am, as if she sees Nick as the mother figure. I’m sure I’m imagining things, but sometimes I can’t help but feel guilty. And then I remember it’s just Nick projecting and I refuse to let myself feel like that.
I know I’m not a conventional mother. Perhaps it’s my upbringing. My parents aren’t as lovey-dovey as Nick’s were. But that doesn’t mean I love my family any less. He only needs to look at what’s in front of him to see my love for Ellie.
All couples have their ups and downs, and I often feel like we mostly have downs, but then I remember Ellie. Our miracle girl. She’s the reason I work so hard. She’s why I get up at the crack of dawn – and often before it – and come back late at night. I don’t get to see her half as often as I’d like to, but that’s the sacrifice a parent has to make sometimes. What Nick doesn’t see is that I’m doing it for her. For us.
3
Nick
We’ve got some time to kill. I’m feeling pretty angry with Tasha for having got us up so early. I’m angry because I’m tired, because Ellie needs her sleep at her age and because Tasha’s insinuation was that I’m a useless father who can’t be trusted to wake up on time and get my own kid to school.
I often tell Tasha that she could spend more time with Ellie by working shorter hours, which would mean not having to get her up hours before she’s due at school. It can’t be any good for her development, and those long hours certainly aren’t working wonders for Tasha, either. She always says we need the money, but I’m pretty sure we don’t. We’ve never been rich, but we’ve never really had serious money problems, either. Besides which, it’s not all about money.
I’m sitting on the sofa, my eyes glazed over as I half-heartedly pretend to enjoy watching the cartoons on the screen. Ellie sits on the carpet in front of me, her legs crossed as she’s transfixed by the bright colours and wacky sounds coming from the TV.
I know I’m meant to know the difference between all these kids’ shows, but really they’re all the same to me. When it comes to kids’ TV, it’s just a case of bright flashing lights and lots of noise. It’s always amazed me how there’s so much money in kids’ entertainment when really it’s just a piece of piss.
I compare this in my mind to the book I’m working on right now. The bastards who write this sort of kids’ stuff don’t have to worry about plot holes. Just chuck a monster in to explain it all away. Character arcs? Forget it. As long as everyone’s throwing gunge at each other, you’re golden. Maybe I’m missing a trick. Maybe this is the sort of stuff I should be writing. What’s pride when you’ve got a nice sack of cash to sit on?
I don’t think any less of Ellie for it. Of course I don’t. She’s just like any other five-year-old, sucked in by the whole thing. Part of me would love to give her a more classical upbringing but, if the truth be told, I don’t know how. I sometimes wonder if I was ever cut out to be a father. But then I look at Ellie’s beaming smile and I realise I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’ve even suggested to Tasha that she get a different job that would allow her to spend more time with me and Ellie. She looked at me like I’d just dropped down from Mars. I get it. She loves her job. That’s great. But I think she enjoys the challenges and the responsibility as opposed to actually having a deep-seated love of marketing renewable-energy products. She doesn’t get the irony of her job consisting of singing the praises of a new mode of living, becoming more self-reliant and enjoying the world more – a job that she does from the confines of a stuffy office that she has to spend two hours a day getting to and from.
I look at my watch. It’s still only seven thirty. We’ve got at least an hour before we need to worry about leaving the house. I try to engage Ellie in conversation but she’s not interested. Why would she be? I rarely prove to be interesting conversation for adults, never mind a kid.
She’s a sweet kid, but she’s a child of her time. I sometimes wonder whether she’ll end up missing the experience of genuine human connection. As a family, we never just sit down and talk. Most families don’t, I guess, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.
If I’m perfectly honest, I’m quite happy right now just sitting here watching her smile and gawp in amazement. She’s perfe
ctly happy. Then again, she doesn’t know anything else. This is the world she knows and accepts. She wasn’t around to see the change.
I wonder what changes she’ll see in her lifetime. Things we can’t even comprehend, probably, just the same as our parents couldn’t have even imagined the concept of the internet when they were children, and our grandparents couldn’t have envisaged the advent of television before it was invented if they’d tried. Whatever the next big technological leap is going to be, it’ll be something that we can’t even dream up the concept of yet. That’s the sort of thing that goes through my mind sometimes, and it tends to give me a bit of a headache.
I’ve got a headache now, but that’s mainly due to the fact that I was dragged from my bed at five o’clock this morning when I could’ve easily got up later and still been fine. Tasha’s not just in our lives – she rules them, too. She has a way of doing that – worming her way in and somehow managing to become indispensable. Sometimes I think she does it by making me feel more and more useless, resulting in me having to rely on her. I know I don’t, though. I’m a man. I need to retain that level of independence.
