by Ryan Casey
He’d lost his job on the buses shortly after Caitlin’s death. They’d given him some compassionate leave, which was really bloody nice of them. But when he’d gone back, things just hadn’t been right. He’d struggled to focus. He’d make simple, stupid little errors that were well out of character for him, and get unnecessarily wound up at passengers when they took too long to pay.
Oh, and he’d started boozing on the job. There was that.
He’d got a warning at first. A formal one. But even that was delivered with passion and understanding, like his boss really regretted doling out punishment against someone who’d done something like he had.
But the final straw came when he’d clearly been drinking before driving one of the buses.
It was a good job he’d been stopped before he got on, before he started driving. He heard stories about what drink drivers did all the time. He didn’t want to be responsible for the kind of chaos they so often were.
But that day he’d lost his job. That day he’d been sacked. That day six weeks ago had been freedom.
And ever since, he’d just been making the most of his lonely summer days in the only way that wasn’t painful.
He thought about Holly. He felt bad for her, of course. She was sixteen, and she was a good kid. Mature beyond her years.
She’d taken her mum’s death like any daughter would take a death of a mother—not well at all. She’d always kept good friends, but it seemed like she’d fallen in with an older crowd who liked drinking, things like that, in recent months.
And Mike could hardly judge Holly for whatever actions she was committing. Not while his only hope was in the bottom of a bottle right now.
One thing he was proud of with Holly was that she had still kept up her passions. She was a keen gymnast, netball player and more than anything, a ballerina. She wanted to go into ballet when she was a kid, but in the end it became more of a hobby for her than a vocation, such was the life balance.
But she always threw herself into these hobbies with such a degree of passion and commitment that Mike could only conclude was a form of escapism. A break from the harshness of reality. A change from the pain of the new way of life.
And she’d done so well with her ballet. She was in a show—a re-enactment of Swan Lake, but with a post-modern twist. She’d done two days of the show already, and today was her…
Mike opened his eyes.
His heart skipped a beat.
“Shit,” he said.
He staggered to his feet, raced across the garden, throwing his beer bottle onto the grass. He felt a little wobbly, but nothing major. He was certainly able to make decisions. Drink wasn’t hindering him.
And it couldn’t.
It just couldn’t.
He rushed through the house, grabbed his car keys. He looked at his watch. Ten to three. Damn it.
Because Holly had a performance at three.
The place she was performing—her last performance of the ballet—was at least a fifteen-minute drive away.
And Mike had made a promise to be there for his daughter.
He looked at his car keys. Then he looked back into the garden, over at the empty beer bottles.
He’d be okay.
He had to be okay.
Didn’t he?
Right?
He took a deep breath as he stepped outside, unlocked his car and climbed inside.
Even then, he got a bad feeling that today wasn’t going to go as planned…
Holly
The Day Of…
Holly felt her heart racing in her chest as she prepared to step out on stage one last time.
It was scorching outside, and the air conditioning was playing up in the ballet hall too, leaving what she was about to do more like a workout than a dance. She could hear the chatter of parents beyond the door, cheering and clapping at the group on the stage before her. She knew what would happen soon—she’d go on and perform her solo, while a larger group dance went on around her, that she’d eventually blend into, as subtle and delicate as a swan.
She didn’t usually get nervous about this kind of thing. Sure, the same little butterflies in her tummy that everyone got. But she’d been doing this for so many years that she didn’t worry about it, didn’t let it bother her.
But today was different. Because today was the first time Dad had shown any real interest in her hobbies and her passions since the day Mum had died.
Her stomach sank the second she had the thought about Mum. Because it still didn’t seem real, in a way. She was so close to her mum, right from when she was a little girl. It wasn’t that she and Dad weren’t close in any way. They were. But there was always just something different about her relationship with her mum. The way they could go shopping together. The way they could review different skincare regimens together. The way they watched the same movies.
Dad was always a bit of a joke to them—in a nice way. They laughed at how he didn’t understand the way they were, the things they laughed at. Not in a malicious way. Just in a schoolgirlish way.
But now Mum was gone. And suddenly Holly was living with a very different dad to the one from before she’d died.
Because now, he didn’t even try to understand.
“You okay, Hol?”
Holly looked around. Mrs Butcher was by her side. She had a smile on her face, but it wasn’t totally happy. It was like she was thinking about the fact Holly’s mum had died every time she spoke to her, like she was as fragile as a basket of eggs, or something.
And that was part of what upset Holly, too. People didn’t speak to her the same way anymore. People didn’t tell her when she was doing the right thing, or not quite doing something as well as she used to. Even in her dancing, where constructive criticism used to be an essential part of the learning process, people always danced around the point nowadays.
She worried that one day, they’d just pat her on the back, tell her “well done” and move on to something else.
She nodded at Mrs Butcher. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been excellent in both shows so far. Just more of the same, okay?”
Holly nodded. “My dad’s coming to see me.”
A smile lit up on Mrs Butcher’s face, more genuine this time. “Is he? He’s a lovely man, your dad. It’ll be good to see him.”
Holly heard the way Mrs Butcher spoke and she thought about what Candice Milford once said about how Mrs Butcher fancied Dad. She said she was all over him at parents’ evening, and even spread a rumour that Dad and her were having an affair.
Holly knew it wasn’t true. She knew because Dad adored Mum. But she still got that weird feeling whenever she saw Mrs Butcher, or whenever she spoke about Dad.
Because it just reminded Holly of how things like schoolyard rumours used to be her biggest worry.
“Anyway,” Mrs Butcher said, patting Holly on the shoulder. “You look gorgeous. Your moment’s almost here. You ready?”
Holly took a deep breath in through her nostrils, held it a couple of seconds, then let it go. It was something she’d learned from Mum whenever she was feeling nervous. Stimulated some funny sounding nerve or other. Always did the trick.
Just… it was nicer when Mum was there to actually walk her through it, to hold her hand and tell her everything was going to be okay.
She heard the ringing of the bell that marked her entrance onto the stage. She looked over at Mrs Butcher, who stuck her thumbs up and smiled, and then she stepped out onto the stage.
The second she was on stage, she was in the zone.
She danced with the applause. She danced with the cheers. She flowed in and out of movements, the whole routine second nature by now.
She knew she couldn’t pay too much attention to the audience. She had to stay focused on her routine. It might feel second nature, but there were a lot of subtleties to what she was doing.
But she couldn’t help herself glancing over at the seat she’d reserved for her dad.
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br /> And when she saw it, everything fell apart.
The seat was empty.
Dad wasn’t there.
She heard gasps, then. Saw awkward looks on the faces of the audience.
And she didn’t truly realise what was happening until it was too late.
She collided with her friend. Sent her tumbling to the floor.
Siobhan looked up at her, shock on her face. “What the hell, Holly?”
Holly felt her face reddening as the dancers around her continued to move. Siobhan got back to her feet, leaving Holly there on the floor.
She could only look at that empty chair.
She could only stare and think about Dad.
He’d promised to be here.
He’d promised he was going to make it today.
But he was nowhere to be seen.
“Holly!”
She heard the shout from backstage. When she looked around, Mrs Butcher didn’t have a kind look on her face, not anymore.
And with the dancers moving around her and the audience staring at her, Holly did the only thing she could do right now.
Fighting back the tears, swallowing a lump in her throat, she got to her feet.
And as her knees wobbled, and her legs trembled, she looked over at that empty seat.
Then she took another of those deep breaths and she ran off stage.
Mike
Mike threw himself into his car and reversed out of his driveway rather haphazardly. But he didn’t put it down to the six bottles of Bud he’d just knocked back.
He just put it down to an urgency to get to the ballet hall to see Holly do her performance.
That’s what it was. Because he was in control. Completely. Totally.
He sped down the road, took a sharp right and headed along the new bypass. He was covered in sweat. His breath smelled a bit. If he had time, he’d stop off and grab a pack of mints—but there was no time. And besides, he didn’t care what the parents around him thought. He didn’t care what anyone thought.
He just didn’t want to let Holly down. Not after the promise he’d made her.
When he got to the opposite end of the bypass, his stomach sank.
There was a large queue of traffic ahead. A lorry looked like it’d tried to take a sharp turn, but got stuck, and now the road was as good as closed off.
“Shit,” Mike said, bashing his fist against the dashboard a little too hard. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He looked over his shoulder. There were cars behind him and cars coming the other way. And sure, now he was on the bypass, he should stay on it because there was no turning back.
But then he looked at the clock. Saw there were seven minutes to go.
And then he knew what he had to do.
He whacked on his hazard warning lights.
Spun out of the traffic, over the embankment in the middle of the bypass and accelerated onto the other side of the road.
A car swerved to avoid hitting him, blasting its horn in the process.
Mike stuck his middle finger up, then continued to drive off down the road, in the other direction.
He kept on going, heart racing, a little laugh hitting him as he sped down the road. He hadn’t thrown himself into such an adrenaline-fuelled situation like this for a long time. He was starting to realise just why his daughter threw herself into her hobbies. When you focused on the present, you really could break through the illusion of everything.
He turned off the bypass, glancing at his clock.
And then when he looked up, his stomach sank again.
A bunch of cyclists. All of them in his way.
“Oh for God’s sake.”
He looked at the road beyond. There were crossroads up ahead. He could try overtaking… but it wasn’t a good idea. Not when anything could just turn out of the crossroads at any moment.
Another look at the clock. Six minutes left.
Screw it. He had no choice.
He put his foot down on the gas, moved to the other side of the road and sped past the cyclists.
He saw a few of them wobble on their bikes as he moved past. He heard a few curses in his direction. But that was okay. He could handle that, just as long as a car didn’t come the other way, just as long as…
He felt a sigh leave his body when he saw a car turning.
He kept his foot on the gas. Just three bikes to overtake now.
But at the speed he was going… this could get drastic. Real quick.
He kept going, knowing he was in too deep to change anything now.
The car heading towards him honked their horn. They were getting closer, closer. And the closer they came to colliding, the more Mike couldn’t shake the thought from his mind that he’d be with Caitlin soon, that he’d be joining her, wherever she was…
“No,” he said.
And then he swerved in front of the bikes and narrowly missed both them and the car.
He took a turn. Heart racing. Sweat pouring down his face. He’d had a near miss. He couldn’t come that close again. But it’d made him realise something. His daughter… she was the one that mattered to him more than anything.
She was the one who kept life worth living.
He kept on driving down the main road. When he got to the bottom of it, he saw the lorry had moved from the bypass, which meant he’d have been just as well sitting in the bloody traffic anyway.
He kept on driving, kept on going. He saw he was five minutes late. But that was nothing. He could just go in and take a seat. Everything was going to be fine.
He pulled up after a struggle to find a parking space, eventually opting for a disabled spot. Nobody ever went in those anyway. He rushed up the steps, right over to the door of the ballet hall.
When he opened it, a man was standing in his way.
He was tall. Lanky, actually. And he glared at Mike judgementally. Behind the doors, he could hear the claps of the audience, the sound of music.
“I need to get in there,” Mike said, in no mood for messing around.
“I’m sorry, sir. The show has already started.”
Mike sighed. “But I need—”
“We aren’t going to have to escalate things here, are we?”
Mike was seething. Especially when he saw someone else walk beyond the man and inside the ballet hall.
He was about to argue some more when he saw through the door.
Holly was on the stage.
She was on her knees.
Looking over at the audience, sadness on her face.
“Holly,” Mike said.
He went to walk into the ballet hall when the man stopped him, put his hands up against him.
And that was when he pushed him aside and barged his way in.
“Holly!” Mike called.
But by the time he stepped into the ballet hall, disrupting the event, he knew he was already too late.
Holly was nowhere to be seen.
The performance was going on without her.
And a sole empty seat rested right ahead of him, just waiting to be occupied.
Mike
“I’m sorry, Holly. But I’m… I’m here now, right?”
Mike looked at Holly as she stood outside the ballet hall and he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her looking so broken down, so upset.
Holly was rarely so publicly angry and upset like this. Tears built up in her eyes. She couldn’t look at her dad, no matter what. It was like she was holding a bundle of tension inside her body and it was threatening to surface. And Mike wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what his daughter finally had to say when it did surface.
“It’s fine,” Holly said.
“It’s clearly not fine,” Mike said. “I mean, look at how you’re acting. I don’t know what more you want me to say than I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to say a thing,” Holly said. She was glaring right at Mike now. “I wanted you to turn up. Not to say anything. But just to turn up.”
Mike fel
t guilt building up right away. Because he saw it in Holly’s eyes now. He saw that no matter how much he apologised, he’d screwed up big time. And there was nothing he could say that could undo the damage that had already been done.
“Holly… I can’t say anything. I know I can’t say anything. But—”
“Have you been drinking?”
“What?”
“I can smell it on your breath. I can hear the way you’re talking. You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”
Mike shook his head, stepped away from his daughter. “Don’t lecture me about what I can and can’t do. I’m your father.”
“You’re not my bloody father,” Holly said.
Mike frowned. He knew he should’ve kept his composure; knew he should’ve resisted the temptation to jump right in. “What?”
Holly skulked away. “Nothing.”
“No, what did you just say to me?”
She looked back at Mike. And this time, her expression was cold. “I said you’re not my ‘father’. Because you’d have to act like one for that to be true.”
Mike was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to comfort Holly, or even how to tell her off. He didn’t know what the boundaries were. She’d always been closer to her mum anyway.
And that stark realisation hit Mike, right then.
The realisation that he didn’t really know his daughter well at all.
“If I’m not your dad then I reckon you find somewhere else to stay tonight then, hmm?”
Mike couldn’t believe he was saying what he was saying. He saw Holly recoil a little when he said the words. And he worried that what had been said had torn a hole in the relationship between the two; a hole that would be impossible to repair.
“Well I might then,” she said.
“Go on then. Where you going to go to? Who else is going to put a roof over your head?”
“Any one of my friends.”
“What? The boozers?”
“No different to you.”
Again, Mike knew he should keep his calm as best as he could, but he wanted so much to lambast Holly for what she’d said.
