by Ruby Soames
Florence opened her eyes. A large woman stood over her, the tongue wildly slapping against orange lips. Necklaces swung close to her nose, Florence’s heart jolted. The tepid water had turned cold around her. She lifted her head up in fear of being drowned by the creature.
‘What in God’s name are you doing here?’ the stranger bellowed. ‘What on earth is going on? Get out of my house!’ A golden necklace swung past Florence like an incense ball.
Florence tried to bat it away. ‘Having a bath.’
The woman turned to the maid who was still peeping from behind the door. ‘Carla, get the police! Tell them there is a woman in my bathtub.’ She turned to Florence and ordered, ‘I want you up and dressed and out in ten seconds.’
Mrs Metcalfe turned her back on the now shivering Florence and thudded down the stairs.
All eyes were fixed on the main staircase. The crowd waited, no one moving, for the trespasser to emerge.
‘She doesn’t look dangerous, but I mean, how would I know?’ Veronica Metcalfe declared to her troops. No one answered. They stood dumbly, watching through the wide doors in anxious anticipation.
‘Did she say anything to anyone?’
Each one looked to the other.
The space at the top of the stairs filled slowly with a slight silhouette. The intruder lowered herself, stair by stair. She walked as if asleep, unaware that her hair dripped down her soaked shoulders and onto the cream carpet.
A police car arrived and two men pushed through the gates, past Mrs Metcalfe and into the hall. They stopped to watch the naked woman reach the bottom step.
‘Well, aren’t you going to arrest her?’ asked Mrs Metcalfe.
‘It’s all right Madam, we know who she is.’ They filled their lips with air like tired baboons.
‘What? Is she wanted? Is she a known criminal?’
The older officer stepped forward, ignoring Mrs Metcalfe. ‘Come along, Florence. Where are your clothes?’
Florence muttered something under her breath. Mrs Metcalfe turned to the officer, ‘Excuse me! Can you tell me what’s going on here? This is my house!’
Carla stepped up to the officer cautiously and handed over the trespasser’s clothes and a towel. The policeman opened the police car door for the dripping woman, with an encouraging, ‘Put these on. Mind your head.’
Florence turned to the man, her eyes wide and imploring. ‘I’ve done a poo,’ she whimpered.
The policeman paused.
‘In the bath.’
‘Never mind love, hop in the car,’ he said, distracted by the sight of her bare, shrivelled feet as she curled up on the back seat.
‘Could someone please …?’ enquired the lady of the house.
The younger officer turned to Mrs Metcalfe. ‘No need to be alarmed, Madam. We know her, she’s just a bit –’ He tapped his forehead; ‘She does this every once in a while. She’ll turn up in houses all round Holland Park, Knightsbridge, Chelsea. She usually just goes to bed or watches TV. Some places she stays for days, weeks even, before anyone notices. She doesn’t do harm. Check to see if anything’s missing and give us a call. It’s unlikely though.’ He passed her a leaflet on victim support and circled the help number.
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ croaked Mrs Metcalfe.
‘Oh yeah, we’ll take her down to the station. Her daughter’ll probably come to pick her up. Her daughter goes out with Joseph West, you know the …?’
‘So she has family?’
‘Just the girl. Anyway, as I said, give us a call if there’s anything. And thank you for your patience.’
‘Yes, indeed. Come along Carla. Stop gawping.’
And Mrs Metcalfe closed her large, heavy doors behind them.
14
I find mum arranging plastic flowers in the hospital’s day lounge. Florence doesn’t acknowledge me; she simply follows me out onto the road where I flag down a taxi.
‘A taxi? You’re not going to bounce a cheque on him are you?’
‘No, it’s alright. The money from the flat came through.’
‘Won’t last long if you’re taking taxis across London.’
I hiss, ‘You heard what they said at the hospital? Next time they’re throwing away the key.’
We go back to the flat that we’ve lived in for most of my life. Although it’s a council flat in a huge, red tower block, it is in Chelsea which makes mum proud. The lift’s out of order so we take the stairs all the way up and I noticed as we get to the top that she’s barefoot. I take her keys and lead her in. She sits in the chair by the door, not moving. I make some tea. Mum’s not a tea person but it’s my closest approximation to first aid. We don’t speak for a long time. She is ashamed, but conceals it by being cross with me.
I smoke one of her cigarettes. I don’t usually smoke, but there’s something about being in my mother’s presence that draws me towards self-harm. We have more in common than she realises.
Apart from these sporadic excursions into other people’s homes, Mum rarely leaves her flat, thanks to home deliveries and Agnes’s weekly visits.
The place looks like Versailles compressed into two bedrooms. Brass doorknobs shine, cold to the touch, and the bed is made, always, with the pillows rounded and welcoming. The towels, curtains and table covers are all pressed, starched and straight like a navy officer’s locker. There are no tell-tale signs that anyone actually inhabits the place, apart from a small radio which she leaves on at all times, often between stations so that there’s a constant sizzle of voices in the background. All the old people in her building seem to have their radios on. It must make them feel they’ve got company.
When I put the tea in front of her she waves it away. ‘There’s wine in the fridge.’
There’s no point arguing, she’ll drink it anyway. I pour the sparkling wine and we sit with the bottle between us. In fact, there’s always been something between us. Something unidentifiable, sad, loving and hating.
‘I don’t know what you’re looking so smug about. You look like shit.’
‘Thank you. You don’t look so hot yourself.’
‘It’s not surprising he left you for Sylvia Amery. And where’s the dog?’ she asks in a baby-voice, as though she expected him to collect her.
‘He’s with Joseph.’
‘Oh,’ she sighs, hurt. ‘I saw him on the telly the other night.’
‘Elvis?’
‘Don’t be stupid. Him. Joseph. Some costume drama with that woman, you know, the one with the mole, married to what’s-his-name. I always said he should keep his hair long.’ She drops her head down as if finding the grief of losing a prospective son-in-law too heavy, but she lifts it up again with the helium of a great thought: ‘You’re too independent. Too tough. You put men off,’ she adds, uninvited. ‘You’ll end up just like me … and then you’ll know.’ She starts to cry.
I used to chase up these comments, counter-attack, but now I let them go.
‘I miss him, so much…. so much,’ her cries are heart-wrenching.
‘I know. You and Joe were very close.’ Although I really didn’t think they were.
‘Not him! Not Joe,’ she snaps, withdrawing from my touch. ‘Henry. Henry Hardwick. Your father.’
‘My father?’ The man I saw in the park yesterday getting married to a young woman who flashed her buttocks at her guests. The one with the diamond on her hand the size of a golf ball. The one going to Barbados on holiday while mum is struggling to pay her heating bill. The one I am going to meet in a few days. ‘You miss my father.’
‘I miss him every day. Henry. He was the one,’ she moans.
‘Right. That’s it. I’m taking you back to the Jellinek Unit. Get your bag.’
‘Sarah! He’s coming back to me. I can feel it!’ She wails as if she were in the middle of the chorus of a folk song. ‘He’ll come back, to me, in time, he will … and the time is coming.’
I had been going to tell her that I saw Henry yesterday. I’d pla
nned to tell her about my plans to confront him but she’s just too vulnerable and unstable. It would break her heart to think he’d been free and chosen someone else when he could have found her.
‘Mum … Hypothetically … if I were to find my father … what would you like me to say to him?’
She doesn’t answer but moves slowly to her desk. I assume she’s about to help herself to some barbiturates – the Henry subject stirs up so much. But her hand wavers over the bag of pills and falls on a pile of papers. She takes out an A4 manila envelope and drops it in my lap.
While she lights a cigarette, pours another wine, I look at my birth certificate. I can still feel the sting from the first time I ever saw this piece of paper. It confirmed what Kamilla and her little gang used to call me in the girls’ toilets. ‘Bastard.’
Originally, mum had said that my father had loved me very much but had had to go away on business for a very long time. Two hours was a long time then for a child, six years had seemed pretty busy. But I’d accepted it until one night I asked mum the question: ‘What’s a “bastard”?’
It was the cue for mum to know I was old enough to hear the truth, but I’d got her on a bad day. She thrust my birth certificate in front of me.
Father: Unknown.
Dad wasn’t away on business, he was away making another family, one he did want.
Twenty years later I was again looking at that paper.
‘That’s what you should do,’ she says pointing at Father. ‘If you were to see him.’
She swallowed down the wine, grimacing, wiping the taste from her tongue against her front teeth. ‘I could die happy with his name on that, and not that swear word.’
‘He should have been made responsible though, don’t you think?’
‘Of course. When DNA testing came in, I could’ve done it. Remember Alison, the social worker we had? She was always on about it. The DSS wanted him for paternity payments – why should the taxpayer pay when he earned a fortune? But that’s not my way. Courts. Lawyers. Ours was a love affair, not something for paperwork – and then after the incident … that injunction … Sarah, you could do it, you could make him responsible … if you saw him … couldn’t you? But that’s your choice.’
She rocks her head from side to side: the drugs are kicking in.
I stare at the paper, put it down. It all seems too silly, old fashioned. A crumpled up birth certificate, what does it matter unless you’re a character out of Dickens?
But it matters to her.
‘If it’s what you want, I’ll do my best.’
With one hand around her frail shoulder I look through the window at the sheet of a sky over Battersea Power Station. Nine floors below, on ground level, the council recently planted a flower bed and put in a bench. An old man sits there with his two shopping bags collapsed by his side, he watches a grey Aston Martin cruise by as an expert team of crows edge around his groceries.
‘Mum, listen. I’m going to Barbados.’ But she’s lolling into unconsciousness. I open my wallet and hand her a large roll of fifty-pound notes. ‘Here’s a little money. I’ll be back but I don’t know when. OK?’
She nods but she’s not really listening. ‘Sarah? Does he ever think of me?’ she says from her dreams.
‘I’ll call you when I get there,’ I say. I stretch out her legs across the sofa and stub out her cigarette.
15
The woman at the check-in desk returns my documents. ‘Your boarding card, gate number and pass to the High Flyers’ Club lounge. Have a very enjoyable journey, Miss Tyler.’
The doors to the first class lounge slide open. I wonder if I did jump into Camden Lock on Sunday night and have now arrived at some celestial sorting hub.
The hush is reverent. My feet bounce across the carpet to one of the soft, wide armchairs. I pass the buffet serving fresh coffee, croissants, brightly-coloured fruits on one side and silver platters of hot foods on the other.
I haven’t eaten since morning so I pour a coffee and gather three mini chocolate croissants on my plate along with scrambled eggs and crispy bacon.
I open the paperback I picked up at Smiths but am barely through the first paragraph when I hear a woman’s laughter, followed by a high shriek.
Heads turn towards a large winged-back armchair. I see a leg flailing over the seat and thick strands of black hair. An empty champagne bottle falls over. As it rolls across the carpet, the woman’s voice whoops, ‘Oh well done, my man. And now … for your next trick!’ She laughs so hard she snorts.
She’s straddled across the man’s lap, then I see the top of his bald patch as she gnaws at his ears and pulls on his tie making sloppy, lapping noises. The few hairs on the top of his head are askew. One young business exec, no longer able to tolerate the distraction, closes his laptop and moves away.
‘Bye bye!’ she sings after him with a little wave.
The drunken woman dips one of her beau’s fingers in Champagne and sucks it off with a pop.
Before I can make out their faces, they disappear behind the back of the chair again. But I don’t need further confirmation – this is yesterday’s wedding couple.
‘Baby, watch this!’ she calls out as she leaps up, heaves all her hair behind her and picks a champagne bottle out of its bucket. Henry Hardwick covers his eyes as she shakes the bottle, pushes it between her bare legs. She thrusts at him, pushing the bottle in and out, causing him to laugh out loud.
The airline receptionist walks as fast as her tight pencil skirt will allow. ‘Excuse me, Sir, Madam, I’m afraid you are causing too much of a disturbance. Could I please ask you to quieten down?’
The bride juts her hips forward and backwards. ‘Hey! We’re celebrating! We just got marrrrried!’
‘Congratulations.’ She smiles weakly. ‘If you could just keep the noise down. Thank you.’
‘Sssshh everybody!’ says the bride.
‘I’d also like to remind you we have regulations about alcohol consumption prior to boarding.’
‘I do apologise.’ The bride falls into her new husband’s lap. ‘I promise, this is only our first bottle today!’ She spins around. ‘Would you care for a glass?’
The receptionist fails to hold up the professional smile. ‘Your flight to Georgetown boards in twenty minutes. We’ll call you as soon as it’s announced.’
The groom turns theatrically to the few remaining people around him. ‘I’m very sorry … for my very noisy wife … she’s a terribly naughty girl.’
This is the first time I’ve ever heard his voice.
‘Hey! Thank you! Thank you verrrry much!’ says his wife, ‘It was him! He’s a bad influence! A bad boy! Rrrright! That’s it! I wanna divorce – but first, spanking!’
‘Please …?’ Scowls another woman from the reception desk. This one more senior with a line of badges stuck to her royal blue lapel.
‘It wasn’t me, it was him!’ says the bride pointing at an elderly man asleep in front in his Daily Telegraph.
‘I said –’ says the attendant.
Henry puts his hand to his forehead and salutes her. ‘Ab-so-lute-ly!’
The bride slides her bottom lip out. ‘So-wwwy,’ she says trying not to laugh. As soon as the attendant turns away, the bride stands and rocks back and forth.
‘Do you wanna see how high I can get my leg?’ she asks Henry. ‘Seriously, watch this, darling, you’ll be so impressed!’ While she goes over a dance routine, Henry watches, drinks and occasionally shushes her when she knocks into furniture.
I watch over the top of my coffee cup as she spins into his chair and falls on him. He calls out in pain, they giggle and then over the next twenty minutes they unwrap the latest iPad and take photos of themselves until the flight is called.
I stand behind the newlyweds as we board and try to eavesdrop on their conversation. The bride talks with a south London accent though it’s peppered with a trans-Atlantic inflexion as though she’s watched too many American comedy shows, but mo
st of the time they’re whispering to each other so I can’t hear what’s said.
The bride is checked through first, and Henry seems temporarily lost without her. He grows flustered with his documents but musters a sober face.
‘Enjoy your flight Mr Hardwick,’ says the steward.
‘Enjoy your flight hard dick!’ laughs the bride, looping her arms around him.
My father turns to me, raises his eyebrows and says, ‘Please excuse us,’ and joins his new wife.
Fathers
1
Hi Daddy - Sarah here!
How are you? I hope you are fine. I am too. It’s hot today. I went to school. Borrring! I hope you like this picture. It’s of a dog. And me and mummy. And you. Please write to me. My address is at the top. Yes, a hotel! Mummy and I are pretending that it’s the Ritz in Paris and we’re royals on holiday, but it’s not a holiday one but a temp hotel for families to stay in until we get given a flat if Mummy doesn’t do it again and then maybe we will get a dog. Do you have any animals?
Lots of love,
Sarah XXX
PS Please send photo.
2
My seat has nine different settings – ten if you include ‘zero gravity’, my favourite. I go with the Shiatsu massage option and sit back listening to Michael Bublé. I eat all of my meal, as well as the one donated by the person nearest, he’s on a protein only diet – Dan, three children, accountant from Ohio on a trial separation from his wife. I watch a movie until Joseph comes on, riding a motorbike with a half-naked Latino girl clasped to his torso, then I read the in-flight magazine, three times, especially the page where their astrologer analyses Joseph’s character. She says he’s very passionate in bed but predisposed towards moodiness. Now they tell me.
Henry Hardwick. The name on the boarding card read Henry Hardwick. The man I saw was around the same age as my father would be, and he’s a lawyer which is the same profession as my biological father.
