The Good Girl

by Fiona Neill

  Ailsa went back downstairs and out into the back garden and stood for a moment in the exact place where Georgia’s heart had stopped beating, trying to collect her thoughts. Her father was the one who took a cocktail of pills for blood-pressure problems, high cholesterol and palpitations, and it had been an unspoken assumption that he would go first. So there had been no dress rehearsal for the moment when Adam had phoned to say their mother had gone outside to light a fire in the garden and never come back in.

  Most likely sudden cardiac arrest, the paramedics explained to Adam. A loud label for such a silent death, Adam told Ailsa and Rachel when they arrived. He was sitting at the kitchen table in shock. His hands shook so much that the cup of sugary tea made for him by a paramedic slopped onto his trousers. She told him over and over again that there was nothing he could have done. The electrical pulse in Georgia’s heart had catastrophically short-circuited. The blood supply to her lungs and brain had been immediately cut off.

  ‘We were having an argument,’ Adam said, wiping huge tears from his face with a tea towel. ‘I thought she was ignoring me but she was suffocating like the fish I killed in Canada. She died, gasping for air, while I sat at the kitchen table arguing about how many people to invite to our party.’

  ‘If arguments killed, Mum would have been dead long ago, Dad,’ said Rachel, trying to be comforting. She was crying too, Ailsa remembered.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ he sobbed.

  The first couple of months after she died Ailsa kept seeing Georgia everywhere. Through the window of a train pulling out from Shepherd’s Bush station; walking through the Department of Neuroscience to meet Harry for lunch; and in the sushi restaurant at the Westfield shopping centre. It was strange, she explained to Rachel, because she thought she saw her in places where Georgia had never gone, and yet when she went up to Norfolk she never had the same sensation. ‘That’s because you can feel her presence there. You don’t need to look for her,’ Rachel had said. It was true. In this house and on the marshes her mother was everywhere.

  Now her father had disappeared. Ailsa had read a statistic about how 20 per cent of married couples died within six months of their spouse dying, and Adam was doing his best to conform to this pattern. She headed back to the car, opened the door and removed the headphones from Romy’s ears.

  ‘He’s not in the house. And I can’t see anyone out on the marshes. Will you come and help look for him?’

  Romy wordlessly climbed out. It had started sleeting, and the only coat in the car belonged to Ben. Romy allowed Ailsa to drape it around her shoulders like a cape and they headed onto the road in silence.

  ‘He’ll be in the graveyard,’ said Romy in a flat, matter-of-fact tone as they walked past a couple of vacant second homes.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Ailsa.

  ‘He told me he goes there to have tea with Granny every afternoon.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘He told me not to tell anyone.’

  ‘It’s not normal behaviour.’

  ‘What’s normal when someone dies? I thought it was sweet. On the Day of the Dead in Mexico people go to eat on the graves of their relatives.’

  ‘It’s a lot warmer in Mexico.’

  Ailsa could see the church from the road. It was built with its back to the sea, up on a hill, protected from the great flood of 1953, ridiculously large even by comparison with other churches built on the spoils of the wool trade. It also faced back to front so that the graveyard overlooked the marshes. They could see Adam sitting on the ground beside the earthy mound where Ailsa’s mother was buried. He was hunched as though the bitter east wind that blew in straight from the Urals had blown him over.

  ‘Do you think he’s all right?’ asked Romy.

  There was a tablecloth spread over the grave and two plates with rain-soaked sandwiches on top. Adam was seated on the edge of the tablecloth, drinking from a hip flask. As they came through the gate into the churchyard, they could hear him talking loudly. Every so often he would pause. At first Ailsa thought he was catching his breath, but as they got closer she realized that he was leaving time for responses.

  ‘I’m scared, Mum,’ said Romy, slipping her hand into Ailsa’s for the first time in many years. ‘Do you think he’s lost it?’

  ‘He’s sad and lonely and he can’t cope without Granny,’ said Ailsa. They reached Adam. He looked terrible. He had attempted to shave but there were small irregular islands of unkempt beard and a series of ugly gashes where he had cut himself with the razor.

  ‘You’ll tell me not to be such a foolish old bastard,’ Adam was saying. ‘Of course you won’t say bastard, because you hardly ever swear, but I can’t get the fucking washing machine to work. So I’ve been trying to wash a few things in the bathroom sink. And the cooker won’t start so it’s either sandwiches or cereal.’

  He paused for a moment and nodded several times as if agreeing with someone.

  ‘Regrets, of course I’ve got regrets, Georgia. And one of the biggest is that I didn’t get you to write a manual of how all these bloody things work. And I’m sorry for the lost years. Bloody sorry.’

  Every time he swore he fumbled in his pocket for a coin, which he tossed into a jam jar at the foot of the grave.

  ‘What does he mean, the lost years?’ asked Romy.

  ‘He’s confused,’ said Ailsa gently. Dad!’ She shook his shoulder. He turned round and squinted at Ailsa and Romy.

  ‘Who are you? Have you come to mend the washing machine?’ he asked through chattering teeth.

  ‘It’s me. Ailsa. And Romy.’

  ‘The fucking Arctic tern flew over earlier. Can you believe it? Taunting me. She was always right about everything.’

  ‘His hands are blue, Mummy,’ said Romy, slipping her own out of her mother’s and reaching out for her grandfather. ‘He’s freezing.’

  ‘It was probably a seagull. It’s the wrong time of year for terns,’ said Ailsa.

  ‘That’s what I told your mother. Why didn’t I just agree with her?’

  ‘We need to go, Dad,’ said Ailsa firmly.

  ‘Someone stole the flowers,’ he said. ‘I think it was that cleaning lady. The viburnum had disappeared. And it was Georgia’s favourite flower and I never bought her any when she was alive.’

  ‘Even the tip of his nose is blue,’ whispered Romy, putting Ben’s tiny jacket around her grandfather. ‘He could have the beginnings of hypothermia. What should we do?’

  ‘We need to get him home as quickly as possible,’ said Ailsa.

  Back at the car Romy found Ben’s SAS survival handbook under the front seat. She brought it into the house and read the section on frostbite out loud. The words soothed Adam and he didn’t protest when Ailsa pulled a bobble hat on his head. She could remember her mother knitting it and being affronted when Adam refused to wear it because it was emasculating. He argued that the enormous pom-pom made the top of the hat droop to one side like a limp penis.

  Romy pushed the armchair with Adam sitting in it towards the bar heater and layered him with blankets until finally the pom-pom stopped quivering. Ailsa made him hot tea and held the mug to his lips, urging him to drink. He didn’t try to take the cup from her. In between small sips he opened his mouth and allowed her to feed him bits of chocolate biscuit. She felt like a priest dishing out Holy Communion. It was the first time she had ever fed one of her parents and she was acutely aware of the symbolism. For a split second she wished it were her mother rather than her father. Familiar doubts swirled. She hadn’t taken enough care of her mother during the lost years. If she had, maybe she would still be around. She heard Rachel’s voice in her head reassuring her that it was beyond Ailsa’s control.

  ‘It says we mustn’t thaw him too quickly, Mum,’ Romy said. ‘He needs to be slowly warmed up.’

  ‘I’m not a shepherd’s pie,’ said Adam impatiently. They laughed with relief.

  Ailsa reached for her phone and called Rachel. J
ust as she was convinced that Rachel wasn’t going to pick up, she answered. Ailsa could imagine her sister frowning at the screen, trying to gauge whether taking a call from Ailsa on a Saturday afternoon might jeopardize the rest of her weekend.

  ‘Hi, Rachel.’ There was a voice in the background. Ailsa could hear Matt Harvey asking when she was coming back to bed.

  ‘Give me one minute,’ she heard Rachel tell him.

  ‘It’s Dad, Rach,’ said Ailsa. Her voice caught.

  ‘Is he OK?’ asked Rachel, sounding worried.

  Ailsa described in careful detail the way they had found him almost freezing to death in a state of confusion in the graveyard, the uneaten food in the freezer, the filthy kitchen and the half-drunk bottle of whisky in his bedroom. At the end she pointed out that had they been a couple of hours later, he might have died.

  ‘But he didn’t, Ailsa.’

  ‘He can’t live on his own any more, Rach. He can’t cope. His clothes are filthy. God knows when he last took a shower. He looks like a tramp.’

  ‘Can you stop talking about me as though I’m invisible,’ shouted Adam.

  ‘He doesn’t sound in such bad form,’ said Rachel. ‘Could we talk about this tomorrow? I’m on a deadline with this script.’

  ‘I heard him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I heard my head of Biology asking you to come back to bed. He has a very distinctive voice.’

  ‘You don’t own him.’

  ‘Is Aunt Rachel going out with Mr Harvey?’ asked Romy incredulously. ‘Gross.’

  ‘I was wondering if you would come up here and spend the rest of the weekend with Dad and maybe a couple of days early next week, until we’ve worked out what to do?’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ shouted Adam. ‘Don’t listen to your sister. She’s overreacting. I don’t need any help.’

  Ailsa went over to the window out of earshot.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ve got a big meeting about a new script next week and I need Sunday to prepare. It could be really good for me.’

  ‘Come on, Rach. Please. We’re all in this together. The new term starts for me on Monday. I have to be there.’

  ‘Why is your career more important than mine?’

  ‘We need to share the load, Rachel; I can’t do this on my own.’

  ‘You’ve got to remember Dad is a classic attention-seeker, Ailsa. He had Mum running around him for fifty years and now she’s not around, he’s transferring his demands to you.’

  ‘If you were here and could see him you’d understand that he can’t be left alone.’

  ‘Well leave him with Harry then.’ She paused for a moment. ‘He owes you. Sorry but I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.’

  ‘Don’t move that,’ barked Adam as Romy picked up a copy of the Radio Times to add to a pile of newspapers for recycling. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘It’s months out of date, Grandpa,’ said Romy, looking startled.

  ‘It’s the one from the week she died,’ he said, running his finger backwards and forwards over a page where episodes of Midsomer Murders were highlighted with fluorescent pen. ‘I want to bring it with me.’

  Ailsa went upstairs and bundled up her father’s dirty clothes into plastic bags.

  She would come back and clean up another time.

  6

  In our first Biology practical of the new term Mr Harvey announced that instead of dissecting a frog, he was giving us a surprise test on control, genomes and the environment to see how much we could remember. I was sitting in the middle of the back row beside Becca and she was so agitated by this that she didn’t notice when Jay blew apart last term’s seating arrangement by sitting down on the other side of me. He manoeuvred his stool close enough that I could feel the heat from his thigh without him actually touching me.

  I took deep breaths until the comforting smell of formaldehyde and bleach hit my lungs. Then I turned over the paper and tried to concentrate on the first question. There were two pictures of cats, one a Scottish wildcat and the other a colourpoint Persian. I knew even before I looked that there would be questions on their possible genotypes, phenotypic differences and the physiological problems of domesticated cats and that I would be able to answer them all correctly. I would never tell anyone how easy this was for me.

  ‘Have you heard? Marley Fairport’s having a party,’ Becca whispered.

  ‘Luke told me,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘Think he’ll invite us?’ Becca asked. ‘Can’t cope with Marnie if he doesn’t.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  ‘Couldn’t you get us invited, Roms? You spent New Year’s Eve with them, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ll give it a go,’ I mumbled. ‘Promise.’

  ‘Romy, get your head down,’ said Mr Harvey. I felt myself blush. Mr Harvey didn’t get the innuendo and blamed me when everyone giggled. Stuart Tovey turned around from the bench in front of me.

  ‘Come on, brainiac, suck my dick,’ he whispered.

  ‘Sexist pig,’ hissed Becca.

  ‘You wouldn’t say no, would you?’ retorted Stuart.

  From beneath his shaggy fringe Jay was watching me watching them. I stared back at him and he arched one dark eyebrow and smiled for at least a couple of beats too long. My guts twisted and I felt myself go even redder until even the tips of my ears were burning. I thought about states of matter and wondered if I was changing from solid into liquid.

  ‘If you find it difficult to resist the temptation to chat to your friends, Romy, then I can move you to the front of the class,’ warned Mr Harvey. ‘Will that be necessary?’

  ‘No,’ I mumbled, trying to focus on the Persian cat.

  I checked to see if Becca had noticed anything, but she was too busy glaring at the first page of questions. I thought for the first time in ages that Mum was right about something. Jay was seriously distracting.

  Dad would have some logical scientific explanation for what I was experiencing. He would find it interesting and want to attach electrodes to my scalp to see which bits of my brain lit up, and run all the data through a computer program. He would then make a pronouncement about how the brain’s reward system works in the same way for desire as it does for drugs. But being able to explain things doesn’t mean that you can control them. I couldn’t believe the King of Impulse Control would understand that.

  ‘Imagine, one day he might be your uncle,’ whispered Becca. She giggled again. It took me a while to get what she was talking about, then I remembered that I had confided in her and Marnie about Mr Harvey and my aunt. ‘Maybe they’ll have baby cougars.’

  I groaned, grateful for the distraction. Telling Becca and Marnie was part of a deal that I had struck with myself after New Year’s Eve. I reasoned that if I let them in on that, I could keep what had happened with Jay secret. Somehow even then I knew that we could wilt under too much scrutiny.

  Besides I was trying to create some history with these new girlfriends and I realized Jay would only get in the way. So when I described the evening at the Fairports, I mentioned Marley, and Marnie instantly took the bait. She wanted to know what he had talked about (clubbing in Ibiza, how tattoos done with the wrong ink can cause cancer, whether you could get an electric shock from playing bass guitar with your teeth) and whether he had mentioned her (he’d asked if I’d noticed that the freckles on Marnie’s nose looked like a star constellation, possibly the Big Dipper), and I told her how he said he couldn’t stand bitchy girls, which was good because Marnie wasn’t. She pushed me for details on what kind of girls I thought he might like and I told her that she should be herself, even though I knew that boys found Marnie too emotionally demanding. To be honest, sometimes I did too.

  ‘Uncle Matt and Aunt Rachel,’ I whispered to Becca. ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Is there something you want to share with the class, Romy?’ asked Mr Harvey, staring straight at me.

  ‘Yes. Actually there is,’
I said. I stared him down until he looked away to scan the exam paper on his desk.

  Jay edged away and I felt bereft. I forced myself to tackle the first six questions without thinking about him, to prove to myself I could, and dealt with an easy one about the increased concentration of hydrogen ions and reduction in force in a contracting muscle. Textbook, I thought to myself as I checked back through my answers, adding a bit more detail on why athletes might take cold baths after running. I couldn’t ever remember working with such clarity and wondered if this was how Stuart felt when he took his brother’s ADHD medicine.

  Then I rewarded myself with a lingering inspection of Jay. He was left-handed. An inherited characteristic. He bent his arm awkwardly around the paper to write, and I could see his pen was chewed down as far as the cartridge so it leaked blue ink onto his index finger. The pen looked too small in his clumsy wide hand. I examined his face and noticed how his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth and his eyes narrowed when he was concentrating hard. He had taken off his blazer and rolled up his shirtsleeves. His forearm was covered in a thin layer of fine dark hair. Just above his wrist bone was a small mole. I carefully logged all these details so I could play them back to myself later. I saved the best for last, allowed myself to glance down at his leg, and just the outline of his thigh in his black school trousers sent shock waves of pleasure through my body. This was a new experience for me, the way looking at him stirred me. I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Desire was definitely a central nervous system issue.

  I checked out what Mr Harvey was up to, and when I saw he was gazing out of the window I pushed over the section I had answered on chromosomes to give Becca an unrestricted view because I knew she found this tricky. She mouthed a grateful thank you and I looked up again at Mr Harvey. He was lost in his own world. His hands were in his pockets and he was slowly rocking back and forth from his heels onto his toes. Probably lusting over my aunt. Marnie claimed she would, and we trusted her judgement because she was the only one of the three of us who had had sex, even though it was over so quickly she wasn’t sure it really qualified. I couldn’t see it, in the same way I couldn’t really see why Mum was freaked out by the age gap between them. They were both ancient.