That Girl From Nowhere (24 page)

My phone, on the floor by my feet, buzzed for the tenth time that day and I stooped to switch it off.

‘Who is it that keeps ringing you,
quine
?’ Dad asked me. I’d been sitting beside his bed reading while he slept and his voice, croaky and sore, made me jump a little. He was bleary-eyed from sleep, his face a network of sleep-dampened agonies.

‘Ahh, just this woman from Doncaster who wants me to make some wedding rings for her. You’d think I was the only ring maker in the world.’

‘Not the only ring maker in the world, just the best.’ His voice, like sandpaper drawn over gravel, sounded so painful to make. I wanted him to stop talking so he wouldn’t be in agony just from speaking to me, but I wanted him to speak to me. The more he spoke to me, the easier I found it to not believe what was coming.

‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ I told Dad.

‘Smitty, sweetheart …’ He kept pausing between words, drawing breath to make the sound that was his voice. ‘You need to … get back to work … go and see this woman … make her rings.’

‘I don’t want to, Dad.’

‘Don’t stop living … because of me … please, go …’

‘Do I have to?’ I used to say that to him all the time when I was growing up.

His face managed to find a smile. ‘No, you don’t … have to … But I’d like … you to. It … would make me … happy … to see you … living.’

‘That’s emotional blackmail, isn’t it, Dad?’

‘Yes … I’ll use … anything.’

‘OK, I’ll go ring her and arrange to meet her later in the month.’

‘Sooner … rather than … later.’

‘OK, Dad. I’ll go see her as soon as she’s free.’

‘Good girl … Good girl.’

‘Clemency, my little Smitty,’ Dad said. He was sitting up as he spoke. He hadn’t sat up in what seemed so long, but now he had plump white pillows supporting his lower back, and he was upright. Shades of pink tinged his cheeks, and the lines of his features that had been stretched taut like piano strings with pain had slackened. He seemed calmer, more relaxed, the agony – acute and unrelenting – seemed to have receded because the right balance of opiates and other medication pumped through his veins. ‘I wanted to say how much I love you and how proud I am of you.’ He could even talk a bit easier. ‘You are everything I could have ever wanted in a daughter. I … am the luckiest man alive … I am so honoured to have been your father.’

‘You’re still my dad, Dad,’ I replied.

His smile was that of someone who knew something I didn’t. Fear blew through me like an unexpected northerly wind. He knew it would be soon. ‘Shall I cancel this woman?’ I asked. ‘Stay here instead?’ I had arranged for the woman from Doncaster who wanted the rings to come to Otley town centre – that was the furthest I was prepared to be away from him – and was just about to nip out to see her.

‘Ach, no,
quine
. I’m just being a silly, sentimental old man. I want to … say things when I feel up to it. I am so proud of you and who you turned out to be.’

‘I’m the lucky one. You’re a brilliant dad. I’m going to rush back from this appointment so I can read you the paper. If you ask Mum to wait for me, I’ll do it. Is that a deal?’

‘Deal.’ He smiled again. He received my careful hug and even more gentle kiss without reciprocating because he didn’t have the strength.

At the door, I looked back at him and he eased his hand up, the translucent palm, a network of blue, green and grey veins, held high as he said goodbye.

By the time I returned, he was gone. He went peacefully in his sleep with Mum sitting beside him, holding his hand. The nurse who had come to check his meds arrived a few minutes later.
‘Why didn’t he wait for me?’
I wanted to ask Mum. ‘
After all of this time, why didn’t he wait for me so I could hold his hand, too?
’

‘
Because he was still being my dad right up until the end
,’ was the answer, of course. He knew it would have been too much for me to be there. Dad knew that although I wanted to be there, it would have destroyed me if I had been. My whole life, right down to his last breath, Dad protected me.

I am pushing my luck. I had to get out of the flat, away from the sadness and the remembering. I had called Melissa, but her phone went straight to answer machine. I’d almost called Seth, had gone to type in his number when a ‘Smitty, I deserve to have you talk to me at least’ type text from him popped up on my phone and I knew I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair on him to just get in touch when I needed support, and to be honest, his text made me think he had a nerve considering what he’d done. So, I decided instead to push my luck by going to Beached Heads and seeing if I could persuade Tyler to let me in even after closing time, make me a coffee, talk to me until I started to feel better.

Outside his café, which is indeed closed with the outside tables brought in and stacked neatly between the counter and the window, I stand at the door and peer in. I can see him behind the counter. He is using a white cloth to clean his machine, but he is unhurried, the movement more like pottering than essential work to be carried out before he can speed off home to his life away from here. I’m like that sometimes, especially nowadays when I know all that is waiting for me is an evening spent sitting next to Mum, trying not to rise to everything that comes out of her mouth that I take issue with. Cleaning up at work, moving boxes around the shop while I pretend I’m going to sort it out soon, is always preferable to that.

I move to knock, then decide to literally push my luck – with the metal handle in my hand, I push at the door. Someone is smiling down on me because it opens. It’ll be so much harder for him to turn me away now that I’m inside.

‘One coffee, please?’ I say from my favourite place at the counter.

‘We’re closed!’ he says without turning around.

‘But the door was open even though the closed sign was showing,’ I state.

He pivots slowly on the spot until he is facing me. I grin at him in what I hope is a winning way. ‘Ah, you.’ He says it deadpan but his expression betrays a soupçon of joy to see me.

‘Yes, me. Isn’t this the most excellent part of your day so far?’

His perfect left eyebrow hitches itself up briefly before he frowns at the door, puzzled. ‘I could have sworn I locked that. I learnt my lesson after last time.’

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ I ask.

‘Would you mind if I came barging into your workplace and demanded you make me a ring after hours?’ he asks.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I genuinely wouldn’t.’ I clear my throat, add as casually as possible, ‘Anyway, I don’t only want a coffee. I was hoping you’d be able to teach me how to make it on your machine there.’

‘What? No way! Only fully insured people behind this counter, baby.’

I’m not sure how serious he is right now, but I need something to take my mind off today. It’s not fair to burden him with that responsibility, but I am desperate. If he doesn’t help me, I will be forced to ring Seth and I can’t do that. Not to him, not to me.

‘I’ll level with you,’ I say, maintaining eye contact. ‘I’ve had a really odd day. So many strange things have happened, so many painful things have been revisited, and I just want one of your coffees and to have some fun. If I have to settle for a coffee, that’ll do. Some fun would be … probably more than you’re willing to give and more than I deserve but I thought I’d ask anyway.’

He stares at me for long minutes. It’s probably a few seconds, but standing exposed as I am in front of him it feels like minutes. ‘You have to do everything I say,’ he states.

My grin is almost one hundred per cent relief, but I restrain myself from clapping my hands in delight.

‘One deviation from my instructions and you’re outta here. No second chances when it comes to using professional, potentially dangerous equipment.’

‘It’s a coffee machine, Tyler, how dangerous can it be?’ I scoff.

‘Oh, suddenly the expert, are we?’ he says.

‘No, no, sorry, sorry,’ I say.

‘Go on, get round there, and don’t touch anything until I come back with your apron.’

‘I get an apron?’ I say gleefully.

‘Yes, you get an apron.’

‘This just gets better and better!’ I can’t stop myself from jumping up and down.

‘Enough of that! There is no messing about while we do this,’ he says before he disappears behind the left-hand door. The second he is out of sight I jump up and down again, only managing to stop when he reappears, carrying a blue apron with
Beached Heads
embroidered on to the front in gold thread.

‘Come here,’ he says. Standing in front of me on the other side of the counter, he hooks the apron over my head, carefully uses the loops to tie it once at the back of my waist, then slowly moves the ends to the front and ties them into a small bow. I watch his hands work and when his fingers rest on the bow for a few seconds, I raise my eyes to find him staring intently at me. ‘Ready?’ he asks.

I nod.

He smiles and I can’t decipher what it means, if it means anything.

‘Just so we’re clear, Smitty,’ he says. ‘Me teaching you to do this does not mean the next time you come in here you get to help yourself.’ He steps back, gives me space to move in front of the machine, wiping away the moment that had been brewing between us.

‘Of course not,’ I say.

‘I mean it, Smitty. I catch you behind this counter and you’re permanently barred.’

‘OK, OK, if it means that much to you, I won’t start to help myself.’

‘Good.’

‘Tyler,’ I say quietly.

He pauses mid-reach for the coffee beans that sit on the shelf to the right of the machine. ‘Yeah?’

‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’

I grin at him. I hope my gratitude shows in the strength of my smile, the sadness that probably still haunts my eyes. ‘I think you know.’

He nods. ‘You’re welcome,’ he replies.

I didn’t think I’d be back here so soon. Or ever, actually. She had put me off, the fear that she would do that to me again had been enough to make me send Abi ‘hello’ texts but leave it there, and it was sufficient to make me decide to never come back to this house ever again.

Yet, here I am, about to knock on the door. I haven’t told Mum I’m coming here. I couldn’t do that without feeling as though I am betraying her. And nor could I allow her to come along to this. Meeting my grandmother by birth to discuss this is something I have to do alone.

She was very clear about what time I needed to be here: two-forty-five exactly. I am guessing that this is when she will be alone in the house. Everyone out at work, my other mother probably collecting Lily-Rose from school. We probably have half an hour to talk before people return. She must be very confident about her skills of persuasion if she thinks that’s all it’ll take.

For the past four days, every day, several times a day, I have had the same message on my mobile and the phone at the workshop: ‘I must talk to you, Clemency. Remember what your name means. We are family. Remember what that means. Please answer your phone.’ I didn’t even notice that there was a phone in her room but she kept ringing, leaving the same pleading message that is designed to get me to talk to her.

Every day I would stare at my phone after I had listened to the messages from this woman who I am related to by blood and blood alone. Yes, it’s thicker than water, but what does that actually mean? Does blood being viscous and thick instead of runny and thin like water mean she can ask me to do whatever she wants and I will not question, will not refuse, I will just do?

I knew one thing without a doubt, she would keep calling until I responded. Better to just meet her, listen to her and then tell her I couldn’t do it.

I lower my hand to my side. How did I end up here? About to talk to someone about doing the unthinkable? Before I can raise my hand again, the door is opened. The woman standing in the doorway wears a beige, belted raincoat and has a large black doctor’s bag on the floor by her feet while her handbag is hooked over the crook of her arm. She is slender, her long brown hair tied back into a loose bun. Under her coat she wears a navy blue nurse’s uniform with the white stripe around the collar. She’s a district nurse out on a home visit. Dad had them towards the end, their visits and numbers increased in frequency the closer it got to that final day.

‘Hello!’ she says. Her smile is wide and bright, friendly and welcoming. I wonder if this is a requirement of being a district nurse – an ability to instantly put people who are going through difficult times at ease. Dad’s three nurses were so kind and calming that not even Mum could keep up the high stress levels she was operating on for long. ‘Are you the visitor that Soloné has been waiting on?’

‘I guess so,’ I say.

‘She’s been beside herself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited. You must mean a lot to her.’

I offer her a smile in response. If she had any idea who I really was, who my grandmother wanted me to become …

‘Can I go through?’ I ask.

‘Yes. But she’s just had some of her medication so you won’t be able to stay for too long before she’s tired and needs to sleep.’

‘Thank you,’ I tell her.

‘Hello?’ I call out when the district nurse, whose name I forgot to ask, has shut the door behind her. ‘It’s me, Clemency.’

I stand in the hallway, reminded again how lived-in and family-filled their house is, and wait for a reply, an invitation to come into this world that I could have been a part of. A large clock ticks somewhere near, I didn’t notice it last time I was here. Wood creaks, the air is unstill, the house seems to shift and move, trying to accommodate the way it is almost empty.

‘Hello?’ I call again.

I count the ticks: thirty. Thirty until I hear: ‘Come, Clemency, come.’

I move to the room I helped my grandmother to, where the door is open. She is practically propped up in the chair by the window. When I came last time I didn’t realise how much of an effort she had made to look normal. She reclines in the chair by the window. She is wearing a white nightdress covered in small yellow flowers, and a blue dressing gown, but she seems incredibly frail despite her solid weight. She trembles, too. It is not pronounced or overt, but it is noticeable. Her hair is a wiry white and black, her skin sagging against her features. She looks fragile. The woman I spoke to the other day did not seem fragile.