A Girl Called London

by Clare Lydon

  Silence.

  Tanya chewed her bottom lip, wincing as she heard her words echoing down the line. They’d come out harder than she’d wanted. This wasn’t the time to lay into her mum, she knew that.

  Today wasn’t about her mum.

  Today was about her beloved gran, and how cancer had stolen her life sooner than anyone wanted. Way sooner.

  Eventually, her dad spoke. “I would have liked to have seen you, I told you that.”

  Tanya sighed. “You did, Dad. But you never came to see me, so what am I meant to think?” She felt sorry for him even though she was angry at him.

  Yes, it was her mum who made the rules, but it was her dad who abided by them. Tanya had always hoped he’d try to stick up for his only daughter, but it had never happened.

  “If you’re coming home, will you stay with us?” he asked.

  A chill ran through her, causing every hair on her body to stand up straight.

  Every fibre of her being screamed “No!” at the top of its voice.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?”

  He was silent again for a few more seconds. “I do, actually. I’ll talk to your mother, but it’d be nice to have you home.” He paused. “I’d like to have you home.”

  “Is Jonathan coming?”

  “He says he can’t get the time off work.”

  The coward. Maybe she’d email her brother and ask him to come for some moral support. After all, Jonathan was the only one who fully understood.

  “I’ll speak to him. But it might be better if I got a hotel. You can speak to Mum till you’re blue in the face, but can you truly tell me she’ll be happy to have me home?”

  He cleared his throat again, a stalling tactic she was well used to. “She will be. She misses you, she just finds it hard to express her feelings.”

  Tanya sighed. “Let me know the moment you find out any details for the funeral, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “And do me a favour?”

  “Anything,” he replied.

  “Don’t let Mum throw out all of Gran’s stuff before I get there. You know what she’s like, getting rid of things, putting things out of sight. I want a couple of keepsakes, so promise me that?”

  Another clearing of his throat. “I’ll do my best,” he replied, and then she heard him speaking to someone else: her mother. “Nobody, just a sales call, be there in a minute,” he said, covering the receiver to spare Tanya.

  But Tanya heard what he’d said, and her heart drooped. Whatever her dad claimed, nothing had changed. Her mum still ruled the roost and he still toed the line, just like always.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, his voice now spiked with tension. How he lived like that, she’d never understand.

  “Bye, Dad,” she said, and hung up.

  In all the emotional commotion that call had entailed, she’d almost forgotten the reason for it.

  Her gran was dead. Her beautiful, funny, warm gran.

  Tanya waited for the emotions to spill down her like raindrops, but nothing came. She just felt numbness, from the top of her head to the tips of toes. Gran was gone for good. No more smiles, no more laughs, just the dull ache of a life well lived.

  Her phone beeped: she was due at her meeting.

  She took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts and stood up.

  The show must go on.

  Chapter Ten

  “Hi Alan — it’s me,” Tanya said, relief flooding through her. Alan was her gran’s best friend and also her parent’s next door neighbour. But more than that, he was another place Tanya called home.

  “I’ve been expecting your call,” he said, his voice soft and familiar. “I’m so sorry, pet. How you holding up?”

  Her dad had never asked that once in their chat earlier.

  “I’m… I don’t know. Better for hearing your voice. I just spoke to dad and he was as useless as ever.” She’d made it through her meeting in a daze, and now she was just glad to hear a friendly voice.

  There was a pause on the line. “He does his best,” Alan said eventually.

  But her chat with her dad was still fresh in Tanya’s mind, as was the way he’d pretended she was a sales call. “I don’t want to talk about him. It’s all been said before.”

  “I know,” Alan replied, because he did.

  He’d been there after the fallout ten years earlier, and he’d been there ever since. She could imagine him sitting in his lounge, his beloved pooches at his feet, a tot of brandy at his side. The familiarity warmed her: when Alan died and her final loving connection to her childhood disappeared, she might just fall to pieces.

  But Tanya put that thought to the back of her mind: she couldn’t deal with that today.

  Now, she had to focus on her gran.

  “I’m at a loss, really,” she replied. “I mean, she was my one and only, the one I truly loved my whole life.” She paused. “Along with you, of course.”

  He laughed at that. “I don’t think I can hold a candle to your gran.”

  “You gave her a run for her money,” Tanya told him. And he had. However, it was her gran that she judged all other women by, her gran who’d shown her that love could be pure, never expecting anything in return. Her gran who’d taught her what love should feel like.

  “When are you coming back?” Alan asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Whenever the funeral is — Dad said he’d let me know.”

  “Are you staying there?”

  “He wants me to, but it doesn’t feel right.” That was the understatement of the year. “We left it up in the air, but you know how things are.”

  “He does want you to, he’s told me.”

  Tanya sighed. “It’s not as easy as that though, is it?”

  They both knew the answer.

  “If it makes it easier, I’ve got a room you’re welcome to,” Alan said. “You’d be close by and we’d all welcome you with open arms: me, Bouncer and Margo.”

  Tanya smiled at the mention of Bouncer and Margo, Alan’s two dogs. Bouncer was an arthritic golden labrador, while Margo was a poodle-terrier mix and always up to mischief.

  “I might take you up on that.”

  “I’ll make the bed up just in case,” he replied.

  “How are you doing with it all?” Tanya asked.

  Alan paused, and Tanya pictured his sad smile sitting underneath his thick shock of grey hair. He might be 70, but he’d always been a snappy dresser, and his hair was always just-so.

  “I’m fine,” he replied. “Trooping on, you know. I’m the wrong side of 65, so I’m a little more used to people disappearing. It doesn’t make Celia’s loss any less acute, but she was ready to go. Honestly, I’ve been to more funerals than anything over the past year. It can make a man paranoid.”

  “You’re not allowed to die, Alan, okay? You’re bullet-proof. You and gran were my safety net. And now she’s gone, there’s only you.”

  His gentle laugh soothed her down the phone. “I’ll do my best — but you never needed a safety net. You were always far braver and wiser than I’ve ever been. You lived your life out and proud, and never took any bullshit. Celia was proud of you and I am, too.”

  Hearing him swear made Tanya sit up: Alan wasn’t normally one to have a potty mouth. “Are you trying to make me cry?”

  “Just telling the truth,” he said. “And I know it’s going to be a sad occasion, but I can’t wait to see you. And try not to be too sad, your gran wouldn’t have wanted it. We’ll make it a celebration of her life, okay?”

  Tanya nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. “Okay,” she agreed.

  But even as she clicked off the phone call, Tanya swore she felt her heart break just a tiny bit, a hairline fracture that started in the centre and then simply carried on, with no end in sight.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sophie was taking a drag of her second cigarette of the day, the sole of her right trainer flat against the station wall when she sa
w her dad’s white van trundling up the street. The van could do with a wash, but then, it always could.

  Her dad was a builder and carpenter, and Sophie knew the back of the van would be a mess of tools, wood and dirty boots, all covered in a fine layer of dust. She ground out the stub of her cigarette under her foot as he pulled up, blowing the smoke out of her mouth and replacing it with a grin.

  Sophie opened the passenger door and it creaked, as it always did.

  “You should get some WD40 on that, you know.”

  She’d been saying that for the past two years. She smiled across at her dad, his bald head the colour of the wooden coffee table they’d had growing up, a hazard of working outdoors.

  Nick London was a six-foot bruiser of a man which had always come in handy if anybody had tried to pick on Sophie at school — once they saw her dad, they soon shut up. He was also the archetypal softie: tough on the outside, a marshmallow underneath.

  “You should stop smoking; it’s a disgusting habit.” Her dad threw her a grin as he replied, playing his traditional role in their standard conversation.

  But Sophie wasn’t listening — she already had her arms around the family border collie, Doris, ruffling her thick black-and-white fur, and Doris in turn was licking her face with wriggly enthusiasm.

  “How’s my gorgeous girl? How’s my favourite girl in the world? You’re such a good dog!” Sophie placed a kiss on Doris’s face, and she barked in return. She’d been their family dog for the past nine years, and when Sophie had moved out, leaving Doris had been almost as hard as leaving her dad. Sophie still worried about them both.

  “How come I never get that greeting?” her dad asked.

  “Because you’re never quite as happy to see me as Doris. If you panted in my face, I’d pat your head, too.”

  In response, her dad gave her a broad smile, before sticking out his tongue and panting at her.

  Sophie rolled her eyes, before ruffling Doris’s fur, letting her spread out on her lap. She put an arm around the dog to hold her in place, and they pulled away, their destination unspoken, but known: Epping Forest, her dad’s favourite place to walk Doris. He lived nearby, north London being his manor.

  Fifteen minutes later, they parked up. Sophie snapped a lead on Doris, who gave her a look as if to say ‘how dare you!’. But once they were out of the car park and into the forest, she set her free and Doris galloped off, as if she’d been locked up for days. Her boundless energy had dwindled over the years, but even now at nine years old, she still ran rings around the humans in her life.

  “So how’s tricks? You’re looking thin — is that the fashion these days?” Her dad’s grip tightened around her shoulder as they walked, and Sophie leaned into his embrace.

  “That’s what Mum said when I spoke to her on Skype the other day.”

  Her dad stiffened at the mention of his ex-wife. “Did she?”

  Sophie’s parents had split up eight years ago when her mum walked out one day and never came back. She left her dad, Sophie and her brother Luke without so much as a note, taking a shiny blade to their perfectly embroidered lives and slicing it in two.

  Her mum had since emigrated to Portugal where she was now living with a man named Rui, leaving the others to pick up the shreds of their family life and restitch it in a whole new way. It was only in the last couple of years that her dad was starting to get back to his old self, going golfing again and meeting up with friends. He’d worn the embarrassment of being abandoned like a dark cloak for years, but gradually, he was coming back to life.

  “And how is she?” her dad asked, his face pinched.

  “She’s fine, you know Mum. She’s got sunshine and wine all year round, so she’s happy.”

  Her dad nodded knowingly. “She always did enjoy the sun.” Looking at his face, Sophie was certain he was thinking about all the family holidays they’d taken to Spain and Portugal, the photos showing a happy family with two chirpy kids. But nothing was quite that simple.

  “No plans to run off to Portugal with your latest squeeze, I take it?”

  Sophie smiled. “None whatsoever,” she replied, her stomach flipping when she thought about the other night in the bar. She still hadn’t told anyone about it, not even Rachel. She was still coming to terms with being played so blatantly. “In fact, there is no current squeeze — I’m like you, footloose and fancy-free.”

  Her dad laughed as he leaned down and picked up a stick, before throwing it for Doris. The Collie chased it with gusto and not for the first time, Sophie wished life could be as simple and as satisfying as it was for a dog.

  “Footloose and fancy-free: is that what I am?”

  “As well as being an eligible bachelor,” Sophie replied, giving him a grin.

  “You’re a kind daughter, you know that?” Her dad kissed the top of her head and they walked on, the only sound around them in the forest being the birds tweeting and the snap of twigs under Doris’s clumsy paws. It was a beautiful early spring day, the weather on the turn from crisp to hazy, the smell of the soil and surrounding greenery seeping into their airwaves.

  Her dad grabbed the stick from Doris’s mouth and threw it again, Doris gamely giving chase. “And how come you’re single again? I thought you had high hopes for this one?”

  Sophie sighed. “I did, but I think my hopes might have been misplaced. Turns out the reason she didn’t want to commit was because she had a girlfriend.”

  “A girlfriend?” her dad replied, his tone telling her he couldn’t believe it.

  Sophie gave him a wry smile. “I know — you’re the first person I’ve told.” She blew out a long breath and prepared to be overwhelmed with embarrassment. However, instead she just felt lighter after revealing it, which in turn made her next step lighter, more relaxed. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t her fault, even though that’s how she’d taken it over the first few days.

  “Well, I’m honoured,” her dad said. “How did you find out?”

  Sophie risked a glance his way, but all she saw were his hazel eyes sparkling with concern. She should have known he wouldn’t stand in judgement — after all, her judgement was always going to be the harshest around.

  “Her girlfriend paid her a surprise visit in the bar, and I was still there — and the less said about that awkward encounter, the better. So now I’m single again and jobless.” That night, she’d crawled into bed, too numb to even cry. The tears had come the next morning, but later she’d realised they hadn’t been for Helen. Rather, they were for the loss of yet another relationship, even if it had been completely the wrong one.

  Sophie dug her hands deep into her pockets and hunched her shoulders. She was glad to be rid of Helen and her dead-end job — but the loss of both at the same time had left two gaping holes in her life. A shard of sunlight broke through the trees, making her hold up her hand to shield her eyes.

  Her dad winced, putting an arm around her as they continued up the forest path. “Sorry to hear that, but it’s probably for the best. Better to find out she’s a cheat now than months down the line.”

  Sophie buried her hands deeper and nodded. “I know you’re right, I just feel a bit stupid for being so gullible. I’m a grown woman after all, I shouldn’t be able to be duped so easily.”

  Her dad gave a short, sharp laugh. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. When it comes to love and relationships, normal rules fly out the window.” He put a finger to his chest. “Look at me — I’ve got a successful business and two great kids, but my wife still walked out on me for no apparent reason and I never saw it coming.” He paused, and Sophie knew he was thinking about her mum and their life together, which she’d so casually and thoughtlessly rejected.

  “And I’m not saying it runs in the family, far from it. When the right woman comes along, you’ll know, that’s all.” He squeezed her shoulder hard. “And I never thought this one sounded right, anyway. It wasn’t even that she was your boss — you just never had any excitement in your voice when yo
u spoke about her, and that’s important.”

  Sophie looked up at her dad’s stubbled face and gave him a slow smile. “That’s true — I wanted to be excited, but I wasn’t.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “So what happened was probably what I needed: it’s forced me into a fresh start, a new challenge. So I’m looking for a new job at the moment.”

  Doris interrupted their conversation, circling them while she barked, the sound echoing around the forest.

  She was stickless.

  Sophie bent down and picked up the nearest replacement, wiping the dirt away as she did. She threw it and Doris chased obediently, then ran back towards them with the stick protruding from both sides of her mouth.

  “Is she grinning? I swear she’s grinning,” Sophie asked, grinning herself.

  “She’s always grinning — what’s she got to frown about?”

  Her dad grabbed the stick from Doris’s mouth and threw it, smiling as she scarpered after it. “So what’s next for you jobwise? Are you going to stick with the same kind of work or do something different?”

  Sophie rolled her shoulders before replying. “I’m not sure, but I feel like I need to shake up my life — start focusing on me again. I need to stop smoking and get healthy, then get a new career. The problem is I dropped out of uni and my skills are admin, bar work and catering. And I’ve done that for the past ten years.” She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “I feel like I need a change.”

  “Now’s the time to do it — you’re young, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

  They both fell silent for a moment, monitoring Doris who was saying hi to another dog on the path ahead of them. There had been a spate of dog attacks in the area recently, but Doris’s new friend seemed harmless enough. When the dog left Doris alone and she wandered back to them, they resumed their conversation.

  “Why don’t you take the time to think about what you’d like to do? I can give you some money to tide you over for a few months, you know that.” He stopped walking and turned to face her. “And I’ve told you enough times you can come and work for me — Luke was never interested, but you could join the family firm.” He swept his hand across the air above him as he spoke. “London & Daughter: got a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”