Finding Milly

by Nathan Burrows

  ‘So,’ Jimmy said into the empty house as he sat in his favourite armchair in the lounge, clutching his mug in his hand, ‘a fucking aneurysm.’ He’d used his time on the bus—and their free Wi-Fi—to learn as much as he could about them. The doctors hadn’t been messing about. From what he’d read, Jimmy was in trouble.

  His eyes flicked across at the last photograph of his small family all together that sat on top of his bookcase. It showed him, Hannah, and Milly—complete with braces on her teeth—sitting on the seafront at Great Yarmouth tucking into oversize ice-creams. Jimmy looked at Hannah in the photograph, wondering again why there was no sign of the darkness behind what seemed to be happy eyes, and at the unbridled joy on Milly’s face. Three days after the photograph had been taken, both Jimmy’s and fourteen-year-old Milly’s entire axis had shifted as they tried to come to terms with why Hannah had done what she’d done. Jimmy hadn’t seen the same joy on Milly’s face since, nor did he think he ever would again. Nor did he think anyone ever would again. ‘A fucking aneurysm, Hannah. Can you believe that?’

  He tightened his grip on his mug of tea before bringing his arm back and flinging it at the wall opposite him. He wanted to scream as he threw it, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a pathetic grunt. As he watched the mug explode and the dark liquid spatter across the otherwise blank wall, he immediately felt pathetic. He couldn’t even be properly angry at himself.

  Jimmy sat in the chair, watching the tea slowly stain the wall on its way down, and waited for the tears. When he realised that they weren’t coming, he felt even worse. He couldn’t be angry, he couldn’t cry. What sort of man was he? Was it worth even waiting until Christmas? Where was Milly?

  When he’d got out of bed that morning, he’d been looking forward to an unexpected day off, albeit one with a hospital appointment in the middle of it. Now he was dying. Jimmy stared at the fish tank on the opposite side of the room from the tea-stained wall. His pride and joy. A marine tank, almost five foot long, with a community of expensive fish that lived in an environment that he controlled down to the last litre. Milly loved them, especially the orange and black clown fish, but she wasn’t interested in helping Jimmy maintain the tank. Jimmy didn’t mind—it was his hobby after all—but thinking about the tank made him realise something. It wasn’t just the rose bush out the front that would outlive him. He was going to have to get rid of the fish before he couldn’t look after them any more.

  Then the tears started, but this time, they wouldn’t stop.

  Chapter 4

  Jimmy lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Even without looking at his watch, he knew it was gone midnight. He’d last looked at it a while ago. It felt like half an hour, but he didn’t want to check only to find out it had only been a couple of minutes.

  He’d spent the rest of the previous day cleaning the tea off the wall, feeling stupid for losing control. Not that anyone could blame him, he guessed, but even so. By the time he’d finished, the only sign of his little tantrum was one less mug in the cupboard. Once he’d finished wiping the wall down, he’d spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the fish tank. It needed a water change, but that could wait for a day or two. Normally, maintaining the tank helped him relax and unwind—that was the main reason for having the tank in the first place—but it hadn’t worked. By the time he sat down to watch a football match on Sky that evening, deciding that would be a better way to spend the evening than in the pub, he was still as wound up as he had been when he’d left the hospital earlier.

  When he’d realised that Milly wasn’t in, Jimmy had texted her several times to see what time she would be coming home, or even if she would be home at all. He used the pretext of cooking supper as his reason for asking. She’d not replied, which wasn’t that unusual. Often she stayed out until the early hours—coming back in at four or even five in the morning wasn’t unusual. Curious though he was, Jimmy never asked her where she’d been, or who she’d been with, when she came back so late.

  Milly didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, and had never been in proper trouble in her life, so Jimmy didn’t press the issue. Milly was in her early twenties, so adult enough to do whatever she wanted to do. When Jimmy had been that age, the last thing he would have wanted was his dad on his back about what he’d got up to while he was out, so he wasn’t about to make the same mistake with Milly. The truth was, and Jimmy only really thought about it when he couldn’t sleep, was that Milly was all he had left. The worst-case scenario was that she would move out, spread her wings and make her own way in life. He knew how selfish that was, which was why he never said a word to anyone about it. Especially her.

  He rolled over in bed, careful to stay on his own side even though Hannah hadn’t slept on her side for a decade, and closed his eyes as he willed sleep to come. If he didn’t nod off soon, then the next day at work would be a nightmare. A few minutes later, he flicked them open again.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he muttered as he swung his legs out of bed. Wincing as his feet hit the cold wooden floor, he patted round until he felt his slippers. Jimmy got to his feet and made his way into the kitchen. He rarely drank on a weeknight, but he knew that he would never get to sleep otherwise. In the top shelf of one of his kitchen cupboards was a bottle of cheap whisky from Sainsbury’s—another present from Milly—which had been there for months but was still three-quarters full. He poured a generous measure into a tumbler and made his way back to his bedroom.

  ‘Down the hatch,’ Jimmy mumbled as he drained the glass in one swift movement before regretting it straight away. He rubbed at the centre of his chest as the whisky burnt its way down his oesophagus and into his stomach. Jimmy thought for a moment about going back to the kitchen to get some milk to help the whisky on its way, but decided against it. He pushed his slippers off his feet and slid back into his side of the bed, careful not to disturb the other side just as he had done every night since Hannah had gone. With a quick look at his phone to see if Milly had replied to his texts, he closed his eyes, disappointed that she hadn’t. Jimmy didn’t know how he would break the news to her, but he was determined that she was going to be the first person to know. She was his daughter. His only living relative, and the only real mark that he would make on the world after he was gone. He owed her that much.

  Jimmy lay back in bed and turned the light off. While he waited for the whisky to stop burning his throat and kick into his bloodstream, he thought for a few moments about how he was going to talk to Milly about what he’d been told at the hospital. However he did it, there was no way to sugarcoat the news.

  He thought back to the dark weeks after Hannah died, that turned into even darker months. Milly was a lot younger then and for any teenager to lose her mother so young was awful, but this time round Milly would be on her own. Jimmy wasn’t sure how much help he’d been to Milly after Hannah’s death, but somehow they’d got through it. They each supported the other in their own way, drawn together by mutual grief.

  He tried to push his emotions to the back of his mind and just focus in on the practicalities. For some reason, they were easier for him to think about than his own death. The house was paid for, so would be Milly’s once he had gone. Whether she kept it as her own home or sold it and moved on, Jimmy didn’t really mind. When Hannah had died, he’d considered selling up and moving, but there were too many memories for him to leave behind. Whether Milly would feel the same way would be up to her. He had a life insurance policy that he was sure would pay out a lump sum straight away, and then a load more once he’d gone, so at least Milly would have a chunk of change to fall back on whatever she ended up deciding to do.

  Jimmy would need to check his will, just to make sure that Milly got everything she deserved and that the tax man didn’t take a wedge because he’d missed something. He should organise his funeral, he supposed. Sighing, he thought for a second about getting out of bed and scribbling down a few things somewhere, but he decided against it until he’d talked to Milly
. If she found a list like that lying about while he was at work, that would be disastrous.

  Sleep came quicker to Jimmy than he realised, and within minutes he was sound asleep. Fractured dreams sped through his brain, although he didn’t know that was what they were. He saw Hannah, laughing as he sat next to her on a roller-coaster somewhere. Her fine blonde hair was strewn across her face from the speed of the ride, and her gasps and relieved laughter told him that the ride had just finished. Then she was lying next to him in a bed somewhere, and he was the one who was gasping and laughing with relief. Gasping because of what they had just done, and laughing with relief at the fact that she was in his bed, a fine sheen of perspiration on her skin testament to how much they liked each other. Then there was nothing for a while as Jimmy tossed and turned, oblivious to everything else in the world. Then there was a man in a white coat, telling him he was ever so sorry but he had some terrible news for Jimmy. It wasn’t Dr Fitzgerald or the other doctor from the hospital, but another doctor talking to a younger Jimmy. Only the white coat and the stethoscope around his neck was the same. In his dream, the doctor was telling Jimmy how hard they had tried to save Hannah, but that his wife’s injuries were just too severe.

  ‘No,’ the doctor said, ‘no, you can’t see her.’ He brushed off Jimmy’s pleas to say goodbye. It wouldn’t be how he would want to remember Hannah, the doctor had said. Not with the extent of the injuries. Then more darkness, then Hannah was bringing him a cup of tea, placing it gently on the bedside table for him to drink when he woke up properly.

  Jimmy opened his eyes and blinked in the faint shine of the streetlights streaming in through his bedroom curtains, the faint smell of Hannah’s favourite perfume in his nostrils. Then it was gone as he woke up fully, and Hannah died all over again. There was no cup of tea on his bedside cabinet, and there hadn’t been for over ten years. He sighed before rolling over and closing his eyes, careful not to stray from his side of the bed. That was why the whisky bottle was almost full when he’d pulled it out of the cupboard the previous evening, he remembered as he drifted back off to sleep. It might help him get off to sleep, but that was always at the expense of dreaming. Sometimes they were welcome memories, but more often than not, they weren’t.

  The next time Jimmy woke, it wasn’t because of a nightmare. Something had woken him up. He lay there, eyes still closed, as he tried to work out what it was. The estate he lived on was quiet at the best of times, but occasionally boy-racers in cheap, shitty, but well looked after cars used the streets as their own personal racetrack during the night. As he listened, he couldn’t hear any of the usual noises they made, so perhaps it was a cat. Or more likely, a pair of them determined to have some fun in his back garden.

  As he willed himself to go back to sleep, he realised it must have been the front door that had woken him. Jimmy sighed contentedly. He had no idea what time it was, and he wasn’t about to check, but the noise told him one thing.

  Milly was home.

  Chapter 5

  Jimmy closed the front door as quietly as he could before lifting the handle so he could lock it. He shivered—the predicted cold snap was definitely on its way—but he’d left the timer on the heating so it wouldn’t turn off until at least ten o’clock. He wasn’t sure what time Milly had come home, but was sure it was well into the small hours. He’d never known her sleep past nine o’clock, no matter what time she got in, so at least the house would be nice and warm when she got up. The last thing he’d done before leaving was make her a cup of tea and left it on the side in the bathroom, just like he always did before he left for work. If it went cold, then a few seconds in the microwave would be all that it would need.

  He made his way down the path of his front garden, glancing at the roses which he would need to cut back at the weekend, and towards the bus stop a few hundred yards down the road. It was cold, but not cold enough yet for ice, which was a relief. Not just for walking down the road, but when it was icy, the bin round became a different story. A lot of the bins they emptied were still made of metal, which meant that heavy gloves were a necessity to avoid ice burns. It would be gloves on, gloves off, for the entire round.

  The first bus into the city was at six o’clock, and it was the same bus that he’d been getting for years. He could walk to the depot, but it would take over an hour, and what was the point when there was a bus that took him almost from door to door?

  The current bus driver was a dour man called Mark. Jimmy’s age, marking time until he could retire and take whatever pension the bus company would offer him. Jimmy only knew Mark’s name because the company made the drivers all wear name badges. They’d barely exchanged two words in all the years that Jimmy had been getting the bus. A grunted ‘Good Morning’ was about the extent of it. When Mark had started driving the bus, he’d replaced a driver who’d become a friend of sorts to Jimmy. There was always a greeting, a comment on the weather, an enquiry about Jimmy’s welfare. His name was Kieran, and Jimmy didn’t know that because it was on his name badge but because Kieran had introduced himself. Then one day, he wasn’t there anymore.

  Jimmy had found out that Kieran had died of the Big C a week after they had buried the bus driver and had tried to get to know the new driver but given up after a week or so.

  He sat in his usual seat, half-way down the bus on the left-hand side. Jimmy didn’t have a particular reason for sitting there. The bus was empty nine times out of ten anyway, and it was as good a seat as any.

  The journey to the depot took almost forty minutes, just as it did every morning. Jimmy nodded to a few regulars who got on and then off the bus as it made its way round the outside of Norwich through the various council estates that ringed the city. There was only one part of the journey when it went through an upmarket part of town—Newmarket Road—but no-one got on or off at those stops. Jimmy looked out of the window like he always did, wondering what people did for a living to afford such huge houses. They certainly weren’t the type to get the bus.

  Later on in the morning, the bus stops on Newmarket Road would all be full of college students, but this early the posh people were still in bed. Or de-frosting their 4x4s to take their little darlings the few hundred yards down the road to the large independent school that cost more per term than Jimmy earned in a whole year. Jimmy didn’t begrudge them their money, or the head start in life that they could afford to give their children, but he wondered what it would be like to have that much money. Unless he won the lottery in the next few months, he would never know.

  As the bus approached the stop nearest the depot where he worked, Jimmy tapped out a quick text to Milly.

  Hey babe, can you be around tonight? Need to have a quick chat about something. xxx. He waited until he heard the familiar ‘swoosh’ that told him the text message had gone, and got to his feet as the bus started to slow down for his stop.

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ Jimmy called out to the driver as he hopped off. No reply.

  Jimmy shivered as he made his way towards the two Portacabins that were the nerve centre for Broadland District Council’s refuse collection service. It was known as ‘Bin Man Central’ by most of the people who knew what went on in the Portacabins, but not that many people did. It wasn’t the sort of area that warranted its own signs.

  When Jimmy had started work at the council almost forty years before, they’d had their own building with offices, a proper crew-room, even a bedding down facility for the winter. Not long after Hannah had died, they’d been moved out into temporary accommodation in the Portacabins so that a bunch of Social Workers had a decent place to work out of, and the bin men had been in them ever since.

  ‘Morning, Robbie,’ Jimmy said to his crew mate as he walked into the office, enjoying the warm blast of air that hit him in the face. ‘Bloody freezing out there.’

  ‘Yep,’ Robbie replied, looking at Jimmy from underneath a pair of stark white eyebrows. He was probably the closest thing to a best friend that Jimmy had, but it was still
a friendship that didn’t extend beyond work and the occasional pint. Even though they’d worked with each other for years, Jimmy knew almost nothing about the man, and vice versa. Robbie was ex-Army, some sort of medic, but never talked about it. ‘Tea?’

  ‘What do you think, fella?’ Jimmy replied with a grin. Robbie grunted and flicked the switch on the kettle. ‘We the first two in?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Robbie said. They’d had almost the same conversation every morning. The two men sat in companionable silence for a few moments waiting for the kettle to boil, Robbie with his head buried in the racing section of the newspaper. He made the tea—it would be Jimmy’s turn tomorrow morning—and returned his attention to the paper, making the odd note in a dog-eared notebook with an equally dog-eared pencil. Jimmy, whose knowledge of horse racing didn’t extend much beyond the fact they had four legs and the winners always seemed to be small Irish men with incomprehensible accents, knew better than to interrupt him. About half-way round their route, Jimmy would stop the lorry outside a bookmaker on the outskirts of the city so that Robbie could nip in and do his business. Whether Robbie won or lost was never revealed, but Jimmy suspected that the bets he placed were pennies, not pounds, so even a big win wouldn’t have been that noteworthy.

  There were four of them altogether. Jimmy, Robbie, a young muscular lad without an inch of excess fat who they called ‘Fat Alan’. He was perpetually happy, didn’t mind his nickname, and seemed to treat the bin round as exercise. The fourth member of the crew was a quiet bloke whose real name was Peter but was universally known as ‘Marmite’ because people either loved him or hated him.