The Day She Came Back

by Amanda Prowse

  I cannot think what I will tell her. I can’t think what I might say to explain how we have arrived at this desperate, desperate crossroads.

  I love you. I can only keep repeating, I love you, I love you, but I know that is not enough.

  Mum Xx

  October 2001

  Sarah Jackson

  Henbury House

  West Sussex

  October . . . any day now.

  And I agree not to contact her. I hear what you are saying, and I don’t want to confuse her or bring her a moment of sadness. I only want for her the best, the very best.

  Tell her anything, Mum.

  Tell her anything you think might make it easier for her in the long run. I don’t care what.

  You are right, she doesn’t need to be part of this world I inhabit.

  I am sorry I let her down.

  I am sorry I let you down.

  I have one thing to ask.

  Please don’t take her immediately.

  Please let me see her.

  I won’t take her anywhere you can’t get to.

  You can be there, but please . . . let me hold her a few times.

  Kiss her a few times.

  To try and give her something to remember me by, that’s all, just something to remember me by . . .

  Please.

  Sarah

  ‘Something to remember me by . . .’ Victoria whispered.

  Closing the cab door, Victoria was delighted by the sight of her friend.

  ‘Welcome home! Welcome home!’ Daksha yelled, and grabbed her as she walked up the front path. ‘How was it? Did you miss me? What was Oslo like? Meet any nice Norwegian boys? Was it cold? How was Sarah? Did you guys talk? What was her fella like? Do you want a cup of tea? I’m afraid there’s no cake left. We ate it all. I ate it all.’

  Victoria stared at her. ‘I had almost forgotten how much you say and how quickly.’ They both laughed. ‘I must invest in the very best ear plugs on the market – it’s the only way I will ever get through our trip,’ she levelled, only half joking. ‘Right now, I can only respond to the last question: yes, please, to a very large cup of tea, and then I need to get changed. I have a double shift at the coffee shop this afternoon. I promised Stanislaw.’

  ‘No! Not the coffee shop!’ Daksha sulked. ‘We have so much to catch up on; it’s been a whole weekend, and I have to go home today. I’d stay longer, but Nani has cooked and Mum has summoned us. You’re welcome to come too?’

  ‘I can’t, Daks, but thank you. I need to go to work and get laundry done and stuff.’

  ‘Well, the offer’s there. Ananya is just packing – you won’t believe how much shit she brought just for a weekend. The girl’s a klutz! And I’ve had some great ideas about our trip, and I’ve been looking up hostels and things in Vietnam and Cambodia – some amazing places! Oh, don’t go to work, Vic – can’t you phone in sick? You could come to ours and we could write a list or do a spreadsheet – you know how much you love a spreadsheet!’

  ‘I do absolutely love a spreadsheet.’ Victoria hitched up her carpetbag and looked at the wide frontage of Rosebank. It looked old and a little ramshackle, dated, and didn’t really look like home, not now things were different, not now she was different. ‘But, no. I absolutely cannot phone in sick.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll give you a call and come over later in the week.’ Daksha smiled, happy, it seemed, to have her friend home.

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘I love you, Vic.’

  ‘Yep, I love you too.’

  It had been a long and demanding day, on top of her flight, the busy weekend and the emotional rollercoaster of spending time with Sarah and Jens. By the time she put the key in the lock after her shift, as evening fell, Victoria was beyond tired. She went around the house, putting on lights and peeking into rooms, still cringing when she thought about the awful party that could have been so much worse, feeling thankful that there was no lasting damage and wishing, again, that she had not been so stupid. Her thoughts flew to Flynn, trying not to recall how nice it had been to have him around of an evening and the sheer joy she had felt at feeling his skin against hers. It was maddening how she had felt such attraction for the boy, who was both a liar and a cheat. Interestingly, she then conjured a picture of Vidar, the tall Norwegian she had flirted with on the bench, and she wondered if he had thought about her at all . . . she had certainly thought about him.

  The house was quiet and felt huge with only the soft pad of her bed socks on the wooden floors to pepper the silence. She pictured Sarah and Jens’s cosy flat and the warmth that emanated from wherever the two of them sat. She figured it must be nice to live like that; the image of them asleep on their sofa, snuggled together like dormice, was one that would stay with her.

  With a hot cup of tea in her grip, she took up residence on the sofa, pulled up the soft blanket and once again opened up her laptop to look at the photograph Sarah had sent her, the only one she had, until this weekend, when many more had been snapped at just about every opportunity. But this was the one she wanted to look at right now. She stared at the woman who shared her blood and her heritage, the woman who was broken, thin and desperate. And the hand of Prim, her beloved Prim, cupping the baby’s head, keeping her safe, protected, doing her very best to find a way through the mess, to figure out the best outcome for the baby Sarah was carrying. A steadying hand that was no doubt scared, and yet so proud, protective, because despite her best efforts, she knew something bad was around the corner . . .

  Me . . . that’s me . . . I am that little baby . . . It was a painful thing for her to grasp.

  She pictured her gran, possibly sitting on this very sofa with a pen in her hand, writing the letters to Sarah – knowing that to give that baby the best chance, the stability Prim believed she needed, it meant sacrificing her own daughter.

  ‘You did that for me . . . you did that for me . . .’ She wept as she again went back to the beginning and read the letters through once more.

  Victoria was unaware that sleep had claimed her, but clearly it had, as a knocking on the front door woke her mid-morning. She jumped up and rubbed her eyes into wakefulness, before putting the letters on the table and racing to the door, trying to look as fresh-faced as possible in case it was Gerald. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she had returned to her slatternly ways and had fallen asleep on the sofa in her clothes. Even though that was precisely what she had done.

  As she pulled the front door wide, she felt the smile slip from her face and transform into a cold scowl.

  ‘Hi, Victoria.’

  Flynn. She noticed how he preferred to look at the toes of his grubby trainers than into her eyes. The coward.

  ‘What do you want?’ she snapped, walking forward to block the doorway and placing her folded arms across her chest, making it very clear that he would never set foot inside her home again.

  ‘I just wanted to, erm . . . I just wanted to say . . .’ He took a deep breath and swallowed. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘What?’ He looked up at her now, perplexed.

  ‘I am curious as to what it is exactly you are apologising for?’

  ‘Erm . . .’ Again he floundered.

  ‘Let me help you out, Flynn. Are you saying sorry for lying to me? Making out to be interested in me? Taking my virginity, like it was nothing? Or that bloody party, perhaps? Or having sex with Courtney in my dead grandmother’s bed after stealing the key I’d hidden in the plant pot? Or for just generally being a total prick? Or is it something else altogether? Like, did you forget to put your dirty mug in the dishwasher, or maybe leave one of your little drug sticks on the floor of the garden room for Gerald, “the courgettes guy”, to find?’

  Not only did it seem she had lost the inane desire to giggle in his presence, she had also apparently found her voice. And that voice was loud and assertive, that of a woman who was not going to be cur
tailed by sadness but had taken the reins of her life and was going to steer her future.

  He looked up at her. ‘All of it, I guess.’ He kicked at the gravel. ‘Can I come in?’ He looked past her into the hallway and she gave a dry, genuine laugh.

  ‘No. No, you can’t come in. Jesus!’ She tutted.

  ‘I also wanted to say goodbye before I left for Newcastle.’ He stared at her, seemingly waiting for a reply that never came. ‘And I wanted to say that I don’t really know what happened. I thought the party would be a good laugh, but it wasn’t, was it?’

  ‘No. It was not a “good laugh”!’ She shook her head at his pitiful explanation.

  ‘And I didn’t make out to like you. I did like you. I do like you. I really do, you are cool, you are different, and if I hadn’t been drunk . . .’

  ‘Oh, pur-lease!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘It’s the truth! I never planned it! I never wanted to hurt you. I liked it when it was just you and me here, eating noodles . . . but I guess it doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘It doesn’t.’ She sighed, slightly irritated, if anything.

  ‘You said it was just sex.’ He swallowed.

  ‘That’s right, Flynn. Just sex.’

  He looked up and took a deep breath. ‘And I wanted to say thank you for letting me stay here with you for a few days. I was wrong. This isn’t an old-lady house: it’s a wonderful house. The nicest I have ever been in. Not the stuff in it, but the way it feels. I think it must have been a very nice house to grow up in and I think you’re very lucky.’

  She cursed the thickening of her throat and the tears that pricked the back of her eyes. Flynn wasn’t quite finished.

  ‘And I know you don’t care what I think—’

  ‘I don’t,’ she interjected.

  ‘But I think your mum coming back from the dead is the most amazing thing I have ever heard. I lied to you about Michael junior. I do care. I think about him all the time. I wonder how it was possible that I got a whole life and he only got a couple of years. It’s not fair, is it?’

  ‘No, Flynn.’ She gave him the beginning of a reserved smile, recognising that he, like her, was a passenger in a life where events unfurled that were way, way beyond your control. ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘And I know that if my mum and dad could have him back, they would jump at it. It would be all their dreams and wishes come true.’

  All she could do was nod and bite down on her lips.

  ‘Well,’ she sniffed, ‘good luck in Newcastle.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He gave her that lopsided smile that made her heart flex, just a little bit.

  ‘And happy birthday for the eleventh.’

  ‘How did you know my birthday was coming up?’

  He looked surprised. ‘I used to stalk you on Facebook. For years, in fact.’

  This made him laugh cautiously, and he looked up into the bright morning sky, where birds flew overhead, possibly after refilling at the last bird service station before the motorway, stocking up on two different types of sweet, an out-of-date chicken salad sandwich and a compilation CD of crappy covers.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what happened with Courtney,’ he stammered. ‘I regret it, I really do, and I am sorry, Victoria. I never wanted to hurt you. I think you are brilliant. You are cool. I was looking for you, I swear. I went upstairs, and there she was on the landing, and she just looked at me and . . .’

  ‘Let me guess: your pants fell off?’

  ‘Something like that!’ He laughed, and raised his palms as if it had been quite beyond his control.

  ‘Don’t worry, Flynn. It’s her superpower.’

  Victoria spent the day cleaning the house and pottering in the garden with a new and profound sense of calm that was most welcome. She was, for the first time, able to walk into the garden room and see the beautiful display of orchids nestling along the back wall, rising up to give colour and form to the pale brickwork, and not the image of Prim slumped in the steamer chair with her head lolling to one side. She also felt lighter. Flynn’s words might have been too little too late, but they did have an effect on her and, despite her best efforts, she knew she would be unable to hold a grudge against him. If anything, she felt sorry for him. Flynn McNamara, the boy of her dreams, who had turned out to be just a boy; a boy who, like her, had his secrets. Who didn’t?

  Her phone rang. It was Daksha.

  ‘Just checkin’ in, little miss.’ Her tone was nonchalant.

  ‘Hey, Daks!’

  ‘I was thinking, do you want me to come and sit with you, Vic? I could bring some lunch? Or we could bake?’

  ‘Daks, my lovely friend, today I want to be alone.’

  ‘You . . . you want to be alone? Oh . . . I just thought . . .’ It was rare for her to hear Daksha at a loss for words.

  ‘I love you, Daksha, I really love you, but I need to pull up my big-girl pants and cook my own food and sleep in my house, alone. I need to be mature: an industrious coper, the very best kind of person!’ She heard Prim’s voice in her ear, ‘That’s my girl . . .’ and she smiled, That’s right, I am your girl . . .

  ‘Okay, doll, but you know where I am if you need me.’

  ‘I do. Thanks, Daks. See you at the weekend?’

  ‘You bet.’

  As dusk fell on the day, Victoria sat on the veranda in one of Grandpa’s old chairs with the double duvet wrapped around her. It sat snugly over her clothes and, with a red, moth-eaten woolly hat on her head, which she had found in Prim’s gardening trug, she was, despite the chill of the October night, warm and cosy. The fact that she looked a little peculiar didn’t bother her – it was, after all, highly unlikely anyone could see her here in the back garden of the detached house as she sat looking over the lake. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Prim to carry the burden of the secret her whole life, and it made her sad to think that behind the wonderful, outgoing, happy façade, the woman who had danced with her at Grandpa’s funeral hid her own secret burden. Victoria would have liked to lighten it for her; it would have been the least she could do for the woman who saved her.

  She fished for her phone in her pocket.

  ‘A misdial?’ Sarah answered casually.

  ‘No! Are you ever going to let that go?’

  ‘Not sure.’ She laughed.

  ‘I thought I’d call, as I’m sitting in one of Grandpa’s old chairs by the lake.’

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  She blew her warm breath in a plume out into the dark, inky pallet of the night sky. ‘Says you, who lives in Norway!’ She laughed. ‘No, I have a coat on and an old hat of Prim’s I found, and my duvet is wrapped around me for good measure.’

  ‘Well, I’m stuffed on to the balcony in my pyjamas and Jens’s ski socks and jacket. And I might or might not have a large glass of red wine in my other hand.’

  ‘I’m picturing the lights on the water; I loved that view so much. I thought Oslo was beautiful.’

  ‘And I’m picturing the big moon that hangs so low over Rosebank that on some nights it felt like I could reach up over the lake and touch it. I used to sit with Dad and gaze at it.’

  ‘We look at the same moon . . .’ Victoria whispered.

  ‘We look at the same moon . . .’ Sarah managed.

  ‘What did we say about that crying thing?’ Victoria smiled.

  ‘I know, but it’s going to take a bit of practice.’ Sarah sniffed. ‘Go inside, don’t be cold.’ Her words sounded a lot like maternal concern, and it felt nice. ‘Yes, go inside and light a fire or have a warm bath. The deep bath in the bathroom on the second floor is the best, the one with a view of the oak tree. I used to spend hours lying in it.’

  ‘I might just do that. This has been . . . nice.’ She meant it, hating the inadequacy of her words. It was so much more than nice.

  ‘It really has. And thank you, Victoria. Thank you for calling and thank you for talking to me. It means more to me than I can say. C
an I call you on your birthday?’ Sarah asked with a note of caution that was heartbreaking and unnecessary.

  ‘That would be fine.’

  ‘All right then.’ Sarah sounded positively perky at the thought. ‘Oh, before I forget, Vidar has been asking after you.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ She tried to sound casual as her heart boomed in her chest. ‘I like Vidar.’

  ‘Yes, I told him as much.’

  ‘You did not!’

  ‘No, but I thought about it. He asked if I might give him your number. I said I would ask you first, of course.’

  ‘I guess you could.’ She tried to sound casual about it, hiding the whoop of delight in her gut at the prospect of him getting in touch.

  ‘Okay, well, night night, Victoria.’

  ‘Night night, Sarah.’

  There was a second of silence after they stopped speaking, but the call was still connected, and it was in that moment of quiet that the most was said. It was no more than a crackle on the line, faint with their breathing, which spoke of hope, and of the future. Victoria ended the call and went inside, closing and locking the French doors behind her, expertly fixed by Bernard-the-handyman. She looked back through the glass up into the night sky.

  ‘The same moon.’ She spoke aloud and smiled.

  Having clicked off the lights, she made her way up to the second-floor bathroom, where she decided to run a deep, hot bath. And as she sank under the bubbles she felt a sense of contentment that was alien to her, and with the contentment came clarity.

  Victoria made a decision.

  This was her one life, and she was not about to waste a second of it. She looked at the shadow of the vast oak tree outside the window and thought of her daddy’s words, written by Sarah in a letter:

  ‘. . . hate and recrimination are big things and if you let them fill you up it brings you the opposite of peace because if you hate it takes all of your energy – and that’s such a waste; how can you live life weighed down like that?’

  ‘You can’t live like that, Dad, can you? You can’t, and I won’t.’ Again, she spoke aloud, hoping her words went all the way up to heaven.

  It was mid-morning on October the twelfth as Victoria sat in the back of the taxi and saw the number flash up on her phone for the third time that morning.