by Phil Earle
And now, when light shone through it, her multicoloured, fractured rising sun, it made perfect sense.
Even on the drabbest days, when the hall light forced its way through the glass, well, it lit up the whole street. It was impossible to look at it and not have hope. Not believe that the person responsible for it would live forever.
Walking up the path, I lift my chin and close my eyes to its glare, breathing in its warmth.
I push through the front door, my pulse quickening slightly.
‘Hello?’ I yell, my voice questioning just who might shout back.
There’s a clatter of a bottle, then the door to the kitchen slides open and, for the millionth time, my crazy dreams die.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I whisper, as he smiles, pulling me into his arms, like we haven’t met in years.
‘Cup of tea?’ he asks.
‘As long as there’s biscuits,’ I reply.
His laugh is long and smoky. ‘Naturally. You can’t have one without the other. You do the boiling. I’ll get the dunking material.’ And with a peck to the top of my head, he turns and heads for the cupboard, leaving me to smile guiltily and wonder how I lucked out so much.
Me and Dad are all about routine. Like the home-time tea and dunking sessions. It’s a ritual that only lasts fifteen minutes, or three Rich Teas each (chocolate-covered if we’re feeling decadent), but it happens Monday to Friday without fail, as soon as we’re both home.
It’s not as if the tea prompts any deep conversation or anything either. Just the bog standard ‘How was your day?’ routine. I suppose it eases us into the evening gently, reminds us both that we’re not on our own.
I often wonder if Dad feels the same as me when he walks down the path at night. Does he dare to dream as well when he sees her window?
There have been occasions when I’ve seen disappointment on his face as I come through the door, because no matter how much I might look like her, it’ll never be enough.
‘Right, then,’ he yawns, pushing his glasses on to the top of his head. ‘On to the big decision. Whose turn is it tonight?’
‘Mine,’ I say without hesitating. ‘You chose The Shining last Friday. I’ve barely slept since.’
‘You big wuss!’ He grins. ‘We watched it at your request I seem to remember, and we watched it early on. So don’t blame me.’ He reaches into his cardigan pocket and pulls out his tobacco, tossing it on to the table. ‘So what’s it going to be, then?’
I say nothing and smile. Dad groans theatrically.
‘Again? How many times is that this year?’
‘Not enough.’ I smile, before adding, ‘Six.’
‘Well, let’s get tea out of the way, then, shall we? We can’t keep Shawshank waiting, can we?’
Tea can’t pass quickly enough, but to be honest, with our cooking skills, it never takes long to make. Fridays are all about stealth, though, about getting to the main event with the minimum fuss and maximum speed.
I love films.
No, let me rephrase that.
I LOVE films.
Love them at the cinema. Love them at home. On a laptop. An iPod. Whatever. I don’t care where or how I watch them, as long as I get my fix.
TV’s fine, but there’s something different, something purer about a film. About condensing a whole story inside a couple of hours.
My earliest memory (at least I think it is, though I may have blocked every other early thought out on purpose) is of sitting in this huge room, surrounded by other kids all as wide-eyed as me.
And then the lights went out.
And I was scared.
But only for a second, because then there was colour, and noise, this overwhelming, ear-filling noise, followed by laughter, and chases, and tension and happiness. And then it was over, and I cried all the way home because I wasn’t allowed to stay and watch The Jungle Book again.
To be honest, Dad probably felt like crying too, because I’ve inherited my love of film from him.
He’s a real fidgeter, though. When you talk to him, he’s forever nibbling at his nails or jiggling his legs. But when he’s watching a film, he’s motionless. Well, almost. His eyes never shift from the screen. The only thing that moves is his hand to his mouth as he draws on his cigarette or swigs from his wine glass. Sometimes even that’s too much of a distraction for him and he leaves the fag dangling from his mouth, inhaling intermittently as ash falls unnoticed on to his jeans.
I suppose I should mind about the smoking, but I can’t really. I know it’s killing him, burning his lungs and rotting his throat, but it’s part of him. I can’t imagine him not sat in the open bay window, blowing smoke into the night as he polishes his lighter over and over again on his jumper. The Zippo lighter Mum gave him on their wedding day. His initials scratched into its surface.
I don’t smoke.
I’ve tried it.
Obviously.
It felt like hot gravel being tipped down my throat. Where’s the attraction in that? But rolling them? Now, that is addictive. Dad only smokes rollies, so when he’s sat by the window, eyes fixed on the screen, I sit and occupy my hands, making his cigs for the next day.
I love the way tobacco smells. I can never believe that something so sweet-smelling can taste so foul, but I love rolling it in the papers, and the feeling of satisfaction as the pile grows on the coffee table.
Even Dad’s impressed when he collects them at the end of the night.
‘You’re going to want paying for these works of art soon,’ he says, though the smile on his face disappears as he adds, ‘You’d better not be rolling anything else but tobacco, you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you’re with your mates. Weed or anything.’
I shove him playfully, although it’s not as if I’ve never been offered it.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? How would I afford it on the pittance you give me?’
He leans down and plants a kiss on my forehead, an ashy, sour-wine kiss. ‘I’m off to bed. Make sure you don’t leave the TV on standby.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I sigh, ‘I know. Save the planet, blah, blah, blah.’
He offers me one last smile before backing out of the room, his eyes not leaving mine, like he fears it could be the last time he sees me.
I hear him shuffle up the stairs, his bedroom door closing, so I reach for the remote and flick The Shawshank Redemption back to the opening credits.
My eyes retreat to the screen, pushing away the thought of Dad hiding his loneliness from me. I mean, we all have our secrets.
Me more than most.
Chapter 4
The central heating had clicked off by the time I woke, the cold air nipping at my exposed skin.
The clock told me it was half past three and I groaned in protest before stretching for the corner of my duvet.
A slicing sensation in my arm stopped me before I could reach it and suddenly the truth of what I’d done slapped me across the face.
It’d happened again. I’d given into it, hadn’t I?
My left hand moved hesitantly down to my right arm, tackling the job that my eyes were too ashamed to. The pain on contact shocked me upright, forcing me to look at what I’d done.
Initially there was nothing to see but a bulky wad of gauze, but as I teased it away from my skin I was left in no doubt. Around the cut was a drying patch of blood that had been staunched by the padding, but the wound itself was still angry, bleeding in protest as I pulled gently. Reaching to the floor with my good arm, I grabbed a fresh piece of gauze, plus the Savlon. Taking the cap off with my teeth, I smeared it on to the gauze and pressed gently, wincing as the cream fought with the cut.
The nail scissors were sat on another piece of gauze, at the end of the bed where I’d left them, the bloodstains wiped off, alcohol applied. I’d clean them again once my arm was sorted.
Being methodical about it all helped somehow. God knows there was no method to the rest of it. The rest of it was anarchy, this sudden wall of panic that I couldn’t fight off.
When the fear first came six months ago, I could beat it with deep breathing and pacing around. It scared me, but not enough to bother Dad with. I just put it down to hormones, and there was no way Dad was going to talk to me about that.
It’s about more than that, though. I’ve known that ever since the pacing stopped working. At first I upped the ante a bit, splashing my face with cold water, pressing my forehead against the condensation on the bedroom window. But that didn’t cut it either, not once I’d found Mum’s report and seen for definite what I’d done to her.
From that point on, a couple of months back, the fear had come thick and fast. Not every night at first, it picked its moments, overpowering me when I was at my most tired, most stressed. Teased me it did, working me up into such a sweat that I started to pinch at the skin on my arms, doing whatever I could to jolt myself to my senses.
That worked too for a while, until the fear got wise to it, pressing the accelerator so hard that a pinch didn’t touch the sides. Until there was nothing left to do but turn to the nail scissors in my bedside drawer.
I winced at the shame of it, casting my eye at the skin above my right elbow, the series of nicks and lines that sat in various states of repair. Some of them were long shallow scratches; others were short sharp nicks, clustered together like an equals sign. Not that any of them gave me the answer.
The only thing I knew was that the scissors worked. Why or how I had no idea, but to be honest that didn’t matter. For now it was enough – it had to be, until I worked out what to do to make the fear go away for good.
What I couldn’t afford to do was let it get in the way of school, of fitting in. If I started to show weakness now it would only make things worse, give them an opportunity to see what I was really about, and I couldn’t let that happen.
Gingerly I stood, wrapping the duvet around me without reducing pressure on the gauze.
Stop the bleeding. Check it’s clean. Bin all the evidence. Get some sleep. Follow those steps and I’d be OK. It was simple if I just followed the instructions.
When my eyes managed to open, they were greeted by a sight I hadn’t expected.
Dad was perched on the edge of the bed, cup of tea in hand, cigarette tucked behind his ear.
‘You look like I feel,’ he said softly. ‘There’s a cup of tea there for you. Couple of dunkers too if you want them.’
‘You been up long?’
‘Few hours,’ he lied, the wet hair slicked back on his head giving the game away. I watched him closely enough to know that the first thing he did every morning was have a shower.
I rolled towards my tea, the first real movement I’d dared since coming round, aside from blinking. But as I pushed my arm beneath me to sit up, I felt a white-hot pain shoot up it and I fell on to my back, swearing madly.
Dad was up in a flash, his arms on my shoulders, ‘Daisy? What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
I glimpsed under the duvet as discreetly as I could, and saw that my arm was covered in a crusted brown mess, the material sticking to it in places. It looked like a toddler had been finger-painting with it.
‘Didn’t sound like nothing. What’s hurting? Let me look.’
I recoiled, tucking my arm beneath me, trying to ignore the second wave of pain, which made me want to be sick.
‘I SAID IT’S NOTHING! Listen to me, will you?’
Dad was practically blasted off the bed with the force of my words. I’d never spoken to him like that. Never had reason to. And he didn’t know what to do as a result, except back away slowly towards the door.
‘OK. Sorry. I’ll … er … I’ll wait downstairs for you. Make you another tea.’
I could see his hand shaking as he reached for the handle, the colour in his face draining away.
I cringed as the door closed softly, knowing I’d hurt him as much as I’d hurt myself.
With the balled-up bedding under my arm, I plodded down the stairs towards the kitchen.
Dad was lost in his mug, a coffee as black as his mood steaming in front of him.
I scooted behind him, hoping to get to the washer without him noticing my bundle, but as I tried to ram it through the door, it unravelled just as Dad turned towards me. He clocked the large patch of blood on the corner.
‘You all right?’ he asked, his eyebrows turning up. ‘You have a nosebleed or something?’
My mind froze as my hands went into overdrive, shoving the load into the drum as quickly as I could, hoping the exertion would mean the blood rushed to my hands instead of my cheeks.
‘Daisy?’ Dad repeated. ‘I said, is everything all right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, wobbling as I pulled myself to my feet. ‘Yeah, fine.’
‘Was it a nosebleed?’
I fixed him with a look, a desperate lie flitting into my mind just in time.
‘No, Dad,’ I mouthed slowly, ‘not a nosebleed, no. Believe me –’ and at this point I put a full stop between each word – ‘I. Don’t. Think. You. Want. To. Know. Know what I mean?’
Dad stared at me for a second longer than I thought he would, until the world’s biggest penny dropped and the prospect of talking about periods scared him half to death.
‘I’ll just finish your tea,’ he blushed, jumping to his feet and hiding behind the kettle.
I exhaled deeply, hoping I could breathe out the shame of the lie before Dad got back to the table.
Sliding a mug towards me, he stroked my head softly with his other hand, an action that made me want to confess everything.
Unfortunately he didn’t give me a chance.
‘You got plans for today?’
I shrugged. ‘Nothing exciting.’
‘Well, I reckon we can remedy that. There’s a double bill on at the Ritzy. Couple of spaghetti westerns that I haven’t seen in years. I reckon you’d love them. Do you fancy it?’
It wasn’t the kind of thing I ever said no to. Not out of duty, although I knew it made him happy. I gave him the biggest smile I had, nodding so hard I must have looked weird.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked. ‘You know, if something’s bothering you, you can tell me. You know that, don’t you?’
I couldn’t look him in the eye and diverted my gaze to my cup instead.
‘I’m fine,’ I gulped. ‘Just tired. But thanks. And the same applies to you.’
He looked confused.
‘You know, if anything’s bothering you. I’m here for you too.’
It was an invite to talk about her, to tell me how much he missed her. But he didn’t, he just mirrored my reaction and studied his drink.
That was all I needed to know. He wasn’t all right, and neither was I, but at least we had Clint Eastwood to take our minds off it, for a few hours at least.
Chapter 5
English lessons had taken on a new dimension since Mr Hobson’s arrival, to the female half of the class at least.
Suddenly, chairs were occupied as soon as the bell went and the classroom shimmered with the amount of lip gloss being applied. It was funny to watch, there was no denying it.
Donna Riley stood at the front of the admirers’ queue, her skirt getting shorter by the lesson. What I didn’t expect, though, was to be enrolled in her plan to impress him.
‘I need you to help me,’ she beamed, no trace of embarrassment on her face as she sat beside me.
I was tempted to look around, to make sure she wasn’t speaking to someone else.
‘Do you reckon you can get him over here more often? To our desk?’
‘Who?’
‘Hobson, you fool. You’re good at this English stuff, know what buttons to push. So I need you to ask the right questions
. Ones that’ll get him over to us.’
I was stumped. She wasn’t someone you said no to, not unless you had a death wish, so I grinned knowingly, nodding along.
Somehow I got my expression wrong, as she fixed me icily.
‘I don’t want you trying too hard to impress him or nothing. You just need to get him over here at least once a lesson. That way he’ll keep noticing me.’
‘What’s the best thing to ask him?’
‘I don’t know. You’re the brain. Just ask him about apostrophes or something. Nothing impressive, mind. I need him to see me, don’t forget.’
I tried the expression again, more successfully this time, which was a huge relief.
And so, for the next couple of lessons, I played my bit part in Donna’s plan, waiting for her to nudge me under the table, egging me into some crappy question that I already knew the answer to. It usually got Mr Hobson over to us, and as expected Donna did her best to flutter her eyelashes or giggle at what he said, whether it was funny or not.
To be honest, I don’t think he had a clue what was going on, but he was a lot more patient with me than he was with her, humouring me despite my ridiculous questions. I thought I still caught him looking my way, fixing me with this hesitant smile for a second too long, but I pushed it to the back of my mind, thinking he was probably just waiting for my next inane question.
I was doing my job, pleasing Donna as much as I could, but eventually, about three weeks in, the wheels fell off.
‘From reading your creative work,’ he crowed, ‘it’s become clear that a number of you don’t understand the importance of dialogue. How it can sometimes tell you more about a character’s state of mind than even the finest piece of prose.’
He was met by a sea of blank faces. But I knew where he was going.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘I’m going to show you a scene from a film. But my question to you is “Why?”’
Shoulders shrugged. Heads dropped to avoid making eye contact and I felt a dig in my ribs from Donna.
