“You might learn something new to keep good old Mr Platt on his toes.”
“Ta Jules,” he beams, tucking it into his coat pocket.
He turns to me and hugs me out of the blue. I don’t immediately respond because I’m in shock. When I realise I have to reciprocate or reject him, I hold him back. I never knew the power of a hug until Laurie but then again, I never knew a real hug until Warrick – so to have Joe’s now too – brings a huge lump to my throat. Hugs help keep my anxiety at bay and help people in so many ways they don’t realise.
“You’re so welcome,” I tell him in whispers.
“You make my dad happy,” he says in a small voice, and my heart breaks.
The youngster pulls back and sniggers, helping me draw my emotion back inside my eye sockets. I chuckle, waving a finger as if we just shared a joke, and he throws his head back laughing. I catch Warrick’s eyes and he’s full of love and astonishment. Joe and I are already sharing secrets and that is something.
We settle the bill and leave the restaurant, laughing and running all the way back to Anna’s before he gets into trouble. At the door, I bend down and he throws his arms around my neck and I hold him.
“Do your homework. Miss said so.”
“Yes Miss,” he strops.
He leaps into Warrick’s arms next. Father kisses son and gets a rebuke but Warrick only kisses him ten times more.
Joe buries into his father’s shoulder and I hear, “See you soon, Dad.”
Joe goes indoors and Warrick and I walk off back to my flat, hearts in our mouths.
When we get inside my place, I ask, “Give me a minute in the bathroom.”
I snatch something from my drawer on the way and make myself look pretty for him. I want to that night.
When I emerge, he’s tucked in bed already. I stroll towards him in a black negligee I bought a decade ago and he opens the covers for me to get in. I slide in and he rolls on top of me naked.
“I love you,” he says.
We make love with intensity. It increases every time. Tonight, I could die happily in his arms after what we just shared.
Afterward, we both lay on our sides. My leg is wrapped firmly around his body and his face is pressed into my boobs as we recover. I hold his head there and cradle him.
“I love you so much,” I tell him.
A few minutes later, he raises his eyes to mine and asks, “Do you want me to find your dad for you?”
I nod, biting my lip. He just knows all the right things to do.
“Yes,” I manage to say eventually. “If you’ll come.”
“You know that’s a given.”
I slide down and rest on him and he swaddles me in his arms.
In the aftermath of lovemaking, he likes to touch and kiss me but I like to lay still and commit it all to memory. I shut my eyes and remember the way in which he just gave me multiple orgasms with his tongue. The memory is enough to make me clench again.
His hands roam my body and I sense he’s more than pleased with me, and I am more than pleased with what he’s got too. He’s a bit threatening with it sometimes, until I take a few deep breaths and it doesn’t seem so huge anymore!
I roll on him and he holds my lower back while I hold my body up on his.
“How did this happen?” I say seriously.
“What do you mean?” he responds jokingly.
“Us.”
“Little Ricky and Little Julie made us,” he sniggers.
I roar with laughter in his ear and he throws me over, tussling with me across the bed. When he stops to stare at me, he says, “You’re immense.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” I giggle, nodding downwards.
He bites my breast and I throw him over so he falls back heavily into the bed. He loves how strong I am. It’s all the carrying of candles over the years, I always tell him. In our kafuffle, we fall off the bed and the duvet comes with us so we’re laid in a tangle of bedding and our giraffe limbs. We laugh for a long, long time, until we make love again, right there.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jules
When Warrick handed me a bit of paper with Dad’s address on it, the first thing I did was ask twice whether he was sure of this being where he now lives. He assured me he was doubly sure, having carried out social security and telephone record checks.
So the second thing I did was scramble for my iPad and search for the bugger on Google maps. It couldn’t be right. So Warrick handed me his iPhone and I saw an article on a local newspaper site with a story about a pub syndicate winning the lottery and my dad being among them.
As we drive across the suspension bridge over the estuary, I can’t help tapping my fingers all the way there. The drama of the coastal landscape doesn’t settle me and neither does the fact that once we’re over the bridge, we’re almost there. He lives only a few miles from me, on the opposite side of the river, the small distance as perilous as a neutral zone wedged between warring nations.
We pull up outside his farm and I leave Warrick in the car while I walk up to the gate and let myself in. Within seconds, he’s there. He must have seen me from a window.
“Jules,” he says, with tears in his eyes.
I stand back and he notices I am wary.
“You are so much like her,” he says, “you always were.”
“Willing to talk about her now then?”
I kick the dirt and despise the very land he lives on.
I recall days I left our old house with holes in my shoes, dirty clothes, ripped socks and only a slice of toast in my stomach to keep me going until lunchtime. I had lunch vouchers but it meant other kids would know I was having a free meal because I was poor. The toast never stretched far and I would steal from other people’s packed lunch boxes in the locker room, only taking little nibbles to suppress suspicion. If I were really desperate, I would go to the local supermarket on the way home and steal from the shelves.
“I know you must think I don’t deserve any of this, and I don’t.”
I sniff the air and remark, “You definitely deserve this. Feel at home with the swine, do you?”
Of all the things he could have done with his money, he went and bought a pig farm.
“I found peace. Only because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“Won’t you come inside? Please. What about your fella? Does he want to come too? Please Jules. I want to explain everything.”
“You do? You’re not kidding me?”
I look to his eyes for answers. They are clear and grey like mine. He was blonde once but now his hair is thinning and lies in grey ropes across his tanned scalp. He’s lost his waist and he looks old. Seven years can change a man.
I wave for Warrick to come up to the house and he walks towards us. The men share silent acknowledgement before we pile inside.
His kitchen is clean and tidy. The counters are chunky oak surfaces with their original smells still embedded in them. He gestures to the dining table in the centre and Warrick and I sit side by side, holding hands. My father makes us tea and finally sits down with us.
“This is my boyfriend Warrick. He helped me find you.”
“Good to meet you,” my dad says.
“Likewise. You have a nice place,” Warrick replies.
“It’s heaven, for me.”
His humble act doesn’t rub with me and I demand, “I want to know, Dad.”
I shake all over and Warrick rubs my hand. I look down at my lap to stop myself crying.
The old man clears his throat.
“Your mum and me were together in the Seventies, school sweethearts. Long time before we had you. She went off to chase her dancing career and travelled all over. She eventually came back and we found each other again. She never talked much about her time abroad but I was just happy to have her back.
“Over the ensuing years, I realised there was something not quite right. She was secretive and distant. You see, she’d picked u
p a habit on her travels. She was addicted to coke.”
Like a thump to the gut, I accept it.
“How did you find out?”
“She’d hid it well but one night, I caught her snorting. I asked her what she was doing and then, I joined in.”
My head falls in my hands and I whisper, “Tell me everything.”
“She fell pregnant with you and stopped. She said it was a chance to put right all wrongs, time to turn over a new leaf she said. I tried to stop too but I couldn’t. Eventually my habit got so bad, I was sacked from my job at the factory and went on the social. I only wanted to get high. That’s all I wanted.”
“Why did she…? You know?”
“Your mother staved off, she did, but I couldn’t get off. I mean, she liked it, but she stopped for you. But I am an addict Jules. Plain and simple. Weak and feeble, I’ll admit that to you. She and I grew apart because the addiction came between us. I started sleeping round ’cos your mum was always on at me to quit. She didn’t want me anywhere near her. One day, she found out I had slept with one of your babysitters and she went mental. I argued and said we would never be in the mess if she hadn’t have gotten me hooked.
“I stormed off and when I came back, she’d found my stash. She’d not realised it was a neat load. She jacked up so much, she overdosed… and… there was nothing I could’ve done. She was already gone.”
“But I was told she killed herself!” I screech, holding onto a yelp for saviour from this dreadful reality.
“Yeah, we told you that. Me and your grandmother told everyone that, to save you the horror of knowing your mother was a drug addict.”
I stand and kick the cupboards and throw my arms around. I pace and fume.
“You were the addict, not her!”
“I know,” he says blubbing, “but I couldn’t admit it then!”
I have to get it out. He needs to know. It’s time.
“One day not long after Mum died, I was walking home from school, when three girls took me into a field behind some bushes and beat me. They kicked me until my chest and stomach were black and blue. I had nobody to tell. Nobody! You know, I was starved. I stole food so I could eat. I sat in class sinking in my seat, hoping nobody knew it was me that stank. I stole from Nanna’s purse to buy shampoo. I worked in cafés knowing everyone knew how disgusting my father was. I suffered the pity of so many. I had nobody, Dad. Nobody!”
I move across the room and lean over the table to look into his eyes, “I took everything the world had to throw at me. The poverty, her dying, my lack of wardrobe, your fucked up ways, but what I still haven’t gotten over is that you weren’t there for me when those girls beat me. You didn’t notice and I didn’t think you’d want to know. Now I know you only had one love, your addiction.”
He snivels like a baby and I turn to look out of the kitchen window. I see from the reflections in the glass that Warrick is sat with his head bowed and his arms folded. He knows this isn’t his fight. My father cries, for a long time.
He gets up and heads for a drawer. He scribbles on some paper and sits back down.
“Amy is still in town. You should see her. It wasn’t her fault that day, it was mine. And when I realised you’d left because of that, I got help. I finally got help.”
“Wow, I fixed you, did I?”
“No, God did. I turned to God, Jules.”
“Whoopee doo dah day!”
I bite my lip to stop my mouth but I have to say it, so I turn and look at the ground while I do.
“Sometimes, it goes too far. So far forgiveness doesn’t seem possible. With time perhaps I can forgive, but what I can’t do is forget. I can’t forget how awful my childhood was. All I can do is thank God he gave me the strength to get me through. To keep me solid all these years. I didn’t need to find him to know he was there.”
He pushes a cheque across the table and says, “Take it. It can never make up for it, but please take it. It’s everything I have left from the lottery win.”
Warrick looks up into my eyes and as much as tells me it’s my choice. I don’t have to if I don’t want to.
“If I take it, we won’t see one another again. We’ll part on these terms, which are maybe not peaceful, but re-righted. I can’t do this again.”
“Okay,” he says quietly.
I swipe the cheque off the table and we leave. We get to the car and Warrick drives us away. When he pulls over at a stop-off point after a distance, I break down and nearly have another panic attack. Only his constant kisses stop me from tumbling. I cry like a lunatic.
“I love you so, so much, Jules. I fucking love your guts. I’d do anything for you.”
I break down again because I don’t know what I have done to deserve this love, this man and this level of happiness. I love every ounce of him. We squeeze each other hard and I whisper, “You’re my angel.”
***
A little later we’re in the bath. I lie back in his arms, encased in my wonderful man. I am telling him everything. He simply listens and strokes my hair, my arms and my shoulders.
“It wasn’t just the beating. It was the catcalls that continued for years after. Maybe it spread how shoddy I was at defending myself. One lad thought it would be funny one day to keep pulling my stool from underneath me and it had everyone laughing out loud. I was the butt of jokes but I took it all on the chin. Nobody knew that inside, I was dying of loneliness. It was only when Amy joined our school in Year Nine that I found a fellow outsider. Together, we battled them and they left us alone eventually. We learnt to wallow in crazy outfits and hair dye and we learnt not to mind if we stood out from the crowd. We hid in corners at school discos and didn’t care that all the other girls were getting off with boys while we stood alone and unwanted, but united in our pact to never let a boy come between us. She’d been to at least a dozen schools already and her mum kept moving her about. I realise now, Amy was seeking a father figure in my dad. He should have known better, the bastard.”
“It was wrong, so wrong. He knows it, Jules. The man will never get over what he’s done. He doesn’t deserve to.”
My face crumples and I can’t stop myself. I start crying again. He lets me. It’s better that it is out than in. While I calm down with his arms wrapped around me, my mind wanders and I recall someone once telling me that bullies are the bullied. So why didn’t I become one? I guess I escaped into my books, and told myself nothing could ever hurt me so long as I had my route out of reality and into another world.
How would I deal with a bully at school now? I wouldn’t. They are all too frightened of me. Nobody would dare let their behaviour slip in front of me. If a pupil alerted me to bullying, I would indeed be merciless in my punishment. No question. The matter would be dealt with swiftly and reported straight to the headmaster. I wouldn’t let it slide and that would be that. I am not naïve enough to imagine that bullying does go on and never gets reported. The ones who report it are so brave.
“I can’t see Amy again. It’s too much. I am past that.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. She doesn’t need to see the disgust on my face.”
“True.”
“Plus I know, even if we can clear the air, I can’t be her friend.”
“I understand.”
“You never knew what you were getting yourself involved in, did you?”
“Nope. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he tells me lovingly, kissing my hair.
He measures his hands against mine and I rest back against his shoulder and close my eyes. He turns my chin in his palm and drops his mouth on mine, sealing our kiss with his arms tightening around me.
“Jules, I am so sorry, but I can’t stay tonight,” he says right out of left field.
“Why?”
When he doesn’t respond, I open my eyes and see his worried countenance. I examine his face for a while, trying to absorb what he’s saying to me. I don’t need this from him. It’s not that he is leaving me fo
r the night, it’s what he has to leave me for that he doesn’t want to tell me about. I know he does visit shelters and sometimes stays over but he’s never compromised our time for it, yet.
“Why? It’s Saturday night! You always stay. You’ve been staying every night for two weeks now too!”
“I know,” he says gently, “but there’s a reason.”
“Tell me!”
I search his eyes for answers.
“Can’t.”
He tries to fob me off by nuzzling my shoulder.
“This is out of the blue. In two months’ of Saturdays, you’ve not had to leave me.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“You’re keeping something from me. That’s what bothers me.”
I lift myself out of the bath and reach for a towel on the radiator, wrapping it around myself. I feel on the cusp of tears.
“Jules, don’t be upset. I have to sometimes do things, you know. Tonight I am going to this hostel. They get busier in the run-up to Christmas, you know? I can’t say I am happy about it. I can’t say what it is all about either. I don’t know when I will be done. I might not be the best company afterwards. I don’t want to return when you’re asleep and disturb you.”
“We’ll get a key cut for you today. I’ve been meaning to.”
I sit on the edge of the bath and he moves forward to rest his cheek in my lap. I can’t stay upset with him. I stroke his wet hair around his ears and he shuts his eyes.
“Come home. Whatever the hour. Just come home, to me. I need you so much, especially after today.”
“I will,” he mumbles, rubbing his face in my towel.
I hear him roll in at around three a.m. I have not slept particularly well without him, worrying about where and with whom he is. I hear him stripping and when he gets in under the covers, he’s freezing cold. I wrap myself around him to warm him through and we start kissing. He makes love to me. A couple of tears fall from his eyes while we are in the act of passion but I say nothing. He doesn’t know I saw them. I pull myself up against his back and wrap myself around him while we float off to sleep. I don’t sleep much, only drifting once dawn arrives.
Angel Avenue Page 19
