‘Has he fallen out with you about the cardigan?’ Daniel turns to me, kicking sand up in the air as he walks.
‘Shhh, Daniel, he’s not mentioned it for two days.’
‘I see.’ Daniel half smiles, the cogs ticking.
‘Has anyone seen anything of Nigel this week?’ Mo asks.
‘Not since the other day in the hallway.’
‘I have, last night. Then again this morning with his bike,’ Daniel chips in.
‘Why doesn’t he drive, do you reckon?’ I ask, glancing at Mo.
‘To Truro? It will be because of the traffic, I’d guess. Knowing Nigel, he’d probably like being able to use the time productively too, wouldn’t he? You know he’s a stickler for not wasting anything.’
Nigel is the only one in our house to own his flat. I’ve often wondered why he hasn’t simply purchased a town house in Truro, where his practice is situated, rather than commute each day. ‘Maybe. Thinking about it, he told me once, he enjoys having the divide of the two. Doesn’t believe in mixing business with pleasure.’ I sometimes wonder if Nigel believes in pleasure at all, which is potentially grossly unfair.
‘He’s a funny old stick. Isn’t he?’ Mo adds. ‘I mean, he’s not old but comes across as much older than he is, don’t you think? He always seems lonely in a way. And for all his idiosyncrasies, he’s really rather pleasant – maybe he’s one of those people who doesn’t know how to let himself go, kind of restrained. Still, we could do a lot worse for a neighbour’
‘Absolutely. I agree. Perhaps we should make more effort with him. He could be shy? Isn’t it all too easy to make assumptions about people, then to live by them? Maybe he wants to open up to us but can’t.’
‘Who’s restraining him?’ Daniel pipes in.
‘A figure of speech, Daniel, as in – sometimes, it’s as if he finds it difficult to relax and enjoy himself. Which can’t make you feel very happy, can it?’
‘No. But, I was going to say, he was smiling the other day. Riding off on his bike. And he seemed happy enough the other night when I called to see him. And it was after seven.’
‘That’s good, then,’ Mo says, winking at me.
‘I took the local newspaper. He likes to have it; he’s told me before. He had music playing in the background. I’m sure he was humming before I knocked on the door, so he seemed happy. We had tea with a plate of ginger biscuits and sat and talked about the books we’ve read. He was very pleasant to me.’
‘Lovely.’ Mo smiles. ‘We never doubted whether he was nice though, just that we felt sorry he doesn’t always seem to be as happy as maybe he could be. But then, perhaps we’re wrong and he’s quite content just as he is.’
‘He is nice, in a straight, dependable kind of way,’ I add. ‘I can imagine him being kind too. He has that reliable, kind air about him, don’t you think?’
The other two nod and affirm.
‘How old do you reckon he is? Forty? Ish?’ I ask.
‘Probably about that,’ Mo agrees. ‘He’s a good-looking guy too, always nicely dressed.’
I’ve never truly given this too much thought space, but I suppose he is, in a classic, moody, Bronte character type way. ‘He’d be quite a catch for someone,’ I add. ‘Toy boy, Mo?’
Mo falls about laughing. ‘I’m fine as I am, thank you.’
‘Did he tell you, he has your cardigan, Natalie?’ Daniel asks.
‘Sorry?’
‘Did he mention you needn’t worry because he has your cardigan? The one you were looking for. The cashmere cardigan?’
‘What are you talking about, Daniel?’ I’ve stopped walking and am now facing Daniel, who isn’t grinning, so is being serious? ‘Nigel can’t have my cardigan. Why would he have it?’ I love Daniel to bits but sometimes he comes out with such arbitrary comments, like the one the other day about Nigel following Mo.
‘Oh, I must have been mistaken, then, if he can’t have it. Must have only looked like your cardigan. Just, I remember thinking, when Nigel was making us tea in the kitchen – There’s Natalie’s cardigan. It was under the armchair in the window.’
‘Dan?’
‘Yes?’
‘That imagination of yours. Why on earth would Nigel have anything of mine? But especially my cardigan. I’m not sure it’s his colour anyway.’
‘Yes, exactly,’ Daniel agrees, ‘why on earth? It must have been something else that looked like your cardigan. Sorry.’
I turn to see Mo wink at me again. ‘Not unless he’s a covert stalker and not a solicitor at all.’ She laughs, linking her arms through mine and Daniel’s. ‘How funny,’ she adds.
‘My mother always wore cashmere cardigans,’ Daniel drops on us.
Is Mo holding her breath as I am? Too afraid he’ll dismiss this talk of his mother if we exhale. I glance sideways to catch her eye.
‘Really?’ she asks.
‘My father gave her one each Christmas, always the same colour. A peachy coral colour. I used to wonder – why not a different colour? The cardigan became her sort of uniform. Thinking of it, we all kind of wore uniforms.’
Like mine, Daniel’s childhood was clearly anything but normal. I’m wondering what to add to his words – should I probe further? – when Mo carries on.
‘You don’t often mention your mother, Daniel.’
‘No.’ Daniel sighs out. ‘Tommy says – it’s best not to. He says my mother wouldn’t want me to either.’
‘Oh, surely that’s not the case, love? Tommy must have that wrong,’ Mo says.
‘I don’t think so. Anyhow, he’s right, she’s never forgiven me.’
This is really sounding wrong. I’ve always been dubious about Tommy; something about him makes me feel uncomfortable. ‘For what?’ I don’t attempt to hide my irritation. ‘What could you have possibly done so bad? I think Tommy is playing you, Dan, for some unfathomable reason.’
Daniel’s eyes fill with tears. He stops to pick up a small stone, then throws it out to sea; we all watch on as it bounces across the surface before disappearing. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned her,’ he says.
I reach out, to re-thread my arm through his. ‘It’s okay, you’re only talking to us. You’ve no need to feel bad.’
‘I have. You don’t understand. I ruined everything. I ruined our family.’
‘Dan, I’m not entirely sure why you feel like this, but I find that very hard to believe. You mustn’t let people coerce you into believing you’ve done wrong. Sometimes people say things because they have an agenda and not for the right reasons.’
‘You think?’
‘I know so.’ I’ve no idea what Tommy is playing at but he’s up to something iniquitous. And for all his aptitude, Daniel is a suggestible, open target. I just wish he’d talk to me more.
16
Daniel
With hesitant steps he begins the climb to the cottage, peeved, having had a great day, to need to be here, but Daniel needs to do whatever is necessary to keep Jacob from trespassing any further on his life. Each time they meet, he understands this is becoming more and more difficult. Always looking for the signs he has grown to recognise. Jealousy, anger, resentment, control and power are constantly at the root of all the problems.
‘To be liked, or to be – not liked,’ Daniel mutters. ‘This is the question.’
Being liked is something new; his sister loved him but did she like him? She said she did. Look at Mark – perhaps he loves Natalie, but can he like her if he’s attempting to change her? That’s what Natalie intimated to Mo, but then Natalie’s not herself at the moment, so perhaps he isn’t. Or, is Mark to Natalie what Jacob is to him? Is this what Cambridge was all about? Was Jacob jealous of Daniel’s independence, as Mark is of Natalie’s?
As he continues the spiral climb his mind slinks back to Cambridge. In the beginning, it wasn’t as bad as he had feared. Enrolled on a course, encouraging his love for books, where he was able to disappear alone into the realms of his imagination, escaping
the world he belonged in. Wasting days away reading, nothing anyone could say about it, no looks of disdain. For the first time in a long time, he began to feel the steel chains of childhood slacken and the shackles around the ankles release.
He made friends too. Who would have stuck by him, probably, if it hadn’t been for Jacob. Why did he need to turn up uninvited? Daniel can remember clearly the night he reappeared. Was he some kind of illusion? Daniel was having a heavy drinking session with his flatmates, high on weed. At the time, life was good, he was literally floating. He was still floating the instant he caught sight of Jacob; doubting the reliability of his eyes, he staggered to the bathroom. The sweet smell of weed wedged up his nostrils. He splashed ice-cold water over his face, once, twice, three times. Before returning back to the bar. To join Jacob? Was it really him, back from his travels?
The subsequent banter passed him by – not in the usual high-as-a-kite manner, but because no matter how hard he tried, how many times he slapped at his cheeks, Jacob had returned, there in the pub, bold as brass, leaning up against the doorway on the opposite side of the room, steel eyes fixed on his. An upturned wicked smile on his face. He was back to take care of Daniel because – he could never be trusted, alone. It was for his own good.
17
Natalie
After Mo left The Crab and Tiller, Daniel and I chatted for a little longer before he left for his friend. We ended up talking about fathers; seems I’m not the only one with an intrinsic fear. I could see it in Daniel’s eyes. I wasn’t very old myself when I first met it – fear is one of those states you recognise no matter the age. Tangible enough to reach out and touch, to smell from a distance. It wasn’t mine to experience, not really, it was Mum’s, but her fear soon became mine. That look in Mum’s eyes, similar to Daniel’s earlier. Unlike Daniel’s blue eyes, hers were a deep chestnut brown, the colour of fallen pine cones, all one colour from a distance but up close the varying shades stood out. Full of expression, some happiness but mostly sadness. That deep sadness, like a soaked-in stain, can never be removed.
Sometimes when I sleep, I see the other victim who shared that same roof, curled up on her bed like a wooden kidney bean. How her eyelashes, long and thick, stick together with salty tears. I hear her in the night, crying out, but it’s too late for me to reach her. She stopped listening to me. Instead for hours she would lie still, waiting for the bully to return. She was no more than a fly caught in the web, at the point it stops struggling, waiting, hoping the end will come soon. This was me. My father has never left me, not truly. The footsteps I hear behind me each and every day are his. The whispering in my ears when I eventually fall asleep, his voice. He’s still here with me; I feel him. Whether I lock the doors or not, it doesn’t matter. Because I will never forget the fear. This is what Daniel and I share, I’m sure of it.
18
Natalie
I’ve let Pauli and Alex, the bistro’s staff, leave; it’s been a quiet afternoon with the rain, only the odd couple wandering in for a moment’s relief. Standing at the super-duper coffee machine, I decide to make myself coffee. There are voices and clanking sounds from the kitchen, prepping for the early morning. Mark likes me to be the last off the premises, the only one he trusts to lock up properly, and as the manager I should always be there to the bitter end. I don’t mean to moan, it’s just - this isn’t exactly what I’d hoped for when I was a child – to work in the service industry. So many of my friends were opting for this route, but not me. I intended to go to university, to travel or do something creative; I used to have dreams of being an archaeologist, looking for dinosaur bones or other ancient relics.
I take my coffee and move to the bottom end of the bistro, near the window overlooking the rooftops towards the sea. The light outside is closing in with a silvery tinge. It’s magical but also makes me sad. This light always reminds me of Christmas, and I desperately want to love Christmas; even as a child I still wanted to love Christmas, despite him. My father used to laugh at me, not in the usual jovial, innocent way, but in a mocking, sardonic way. Christmas? Father Christmas? An archaeologist? What a stupid pathetic dreamer. Words fired by an arrow loaded with venom, followed by toxic spittle fumes.
When I was eleven, after Mum died, I made a wooden house in DT, spent hours putting together each delicately hand-carved piece before painting it, a dreamy cottage, one that I would have loved to live in. Up the walls I brushed a crawling wisteria and a pink rambling rose. We had very little money, then, with none of my own, so I thought it could be his Christmas present. Now I wonder, after all he did, what the hell was I thinking? Proudly, I wrapped it up and sat it on the kitchen table on Christmas Eve; I should have known when he returned from the pub, reeking of spirits. I’d made him a sandwich and lit the fire with coal I found in the shed. ‘What am I supposed to do with this piece of shit? Is this all you do at school these days? Still, it’ll make good firewood.’ With that he hurled it into the smouldering fire, before crashing for the night on the sofa.
In the end I held my dreams to myself or, before sleep, after he’d passed out on the beer-stained sofa, I’d whisper them to Mum, somewhere in the sky, hoping she was somewhere beautiful in heaven. I’d pray for her to hear me; maybe somehow she could help me find them. But by the time it came to picking up my GCSE results with grades to surprise even me, it was too late. All I wanted to do was go to college, learn whatever demanded the least commitment so I could work too in my spare hours. Desperate to earn money to take me away from home, my father, hanging on by a thread. Unable to lead the life of friends, afraid to become too close in fear they would learn how I lived. My friends had long stopped inviting me before I locked myself away. After Mum died, I washed my clothes in hand soap squeezed from the school toilets. What money we had my father blew on alcohol and cigarettes and minimal amounts of food for us to stay alive. It’s amazing what you can use hand soap for: shampoo, deodorant. Smelly and unclean was not an option; I was already weird enough.
The bistro front door is shunted open, slightly swollen with the rain, making me jump. I swivel around feeling my heart in my throat, but it’s Mark. ‘So this is what I pay you for?’ He smiles, raking his hand through thick hair, wandering towards me. He plants a kiss on my head. ‘You look shattered. I’m here now so get yourself home. Just need to have a word with…’ He jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen. Our chef has been a little temperamental lately and it hasn’t made for the best working conditions. I’ve tried but I think this requires Mark’s charm and persuasion. As he’s disappearing into the kitchen, he says, ‘Go on, get yourself off for a nice bath and pamper. I’ll call you later.’
See, Mark is nothing like my father; for most of the time he’s considerate and thoughtful. ‘Thanks. You know what, I think I may just do exactly that.’ All the thought of my past has made me feel dirty. I swig back the coffee, set the dishwasher off and disappear up the crooked stairs, minding the beams, to fetch my coat. By the time I step out onto the street the rain has stopped, replaced with an autumnal freshness. I decide to take the long way home, turning left out of the bistro to drop down on the seafront. I turn the corner and I’m hit by a wall of sea mist. Even the harbour wall in the distance has disappeared, as has the assembly of brightly coloured fishing boats. Other than the odd lingerer, the front is quiet; the weather has had such a purgative effect, as if it’s literally washed everything away.
I make my way along the pavement edging the beach, digging in my pocket for my mobile. In the last week or so I’ve been receiving calls from unrecognisable numbers. I’ve stopped answering them, ever since the caller asked me to identify myself before explaining the purpose of his call. What? You called me and you’re asking me to identify myself? This is ludicrous, I told him before he hung up. Boiling my blood. Then, out of spite, he must have added my number to every conceivable call-centre list – for a couple of days I was bombarded. Until I made a complaint. Then it stopped, or at least I thought it had until it star
ted again in the last few days. I hope it was him because I can’t help but worry the obvious alternative.
I flick through the register: no voicemails, but two missed calls, no stored caller ID. Nuisance call or psycho father? Opening the handbag slung over my shoulder, I drop the mobile into it but miss; next I hear the ominous crack of screen hitting the concrete path. ‘Shit. Shit, double shit.’ I bend down to pick it up, wincing as I turn it over – cracked screen again? Still bent over, a sharp pain daggers through my left shoulder with such force it knocks me from my feet. My arms break the fall as I topple to my knees. Feeling vulnerable, quickly I turn my head to identify whoever has done this to me, because – how rude – they’ve not uttered a word, no apology, nothing. But there’s no one there, no one standing over me. From the corner of my eye, I catch movement, something scampering away. Staring over my shoulder, I spot a figure, zipping along the pavement. A man? I assume it was a man by the force with which they hit me but, with the mist and hurt-pride tears clouding my eyes, can I be sure?
How could they not have noticed me? With my hands and knees still resting on the cold damp pavement, I watch as the figure strides onwards, oblivious but with purpose, before disappearing almost a limb at a time into the crawling mist. They didn’t even glance back. Were they drunk? No. I know the inebriated signs all too well – there was no swagger to the stride, no telltale whiff in the air. Except there was something, a smell, a sweet smell, not weed sweet, something else, something ever so vaguely familiar.
A family leaving the fish and chip restaurant across the road, begin to call out as I’m pulling myself to my feet, before rushing to me. ‘Hey, you okay? Have you had a fall? You hurt?’
I push back the welling tears. Why has this shaken me so much? It was probably some teenager with headphone-plugged ears, for God’s sake. ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I say, brushing myself down, and I am, but only because my hand broke the tumble. ‘Hurt pride, that’s all,’ I tell them.
I Know You're There Page 7
