The Son-In-Law (23 page)

‘I mean every word, Scarlet.’

‘You can’t turn back time! You can’t make it not have happened just by saying sorry. You’ll always be the one who . . .’ She covered her face with a hand.

Joseph crossed the carpet and crouched beside her chair. ‘Look, I know saying sorry isn’t enough, but it’s all I’ve got.’

For a moment she seemed to freeze. Then her hand lashed out and caught him on the chest. ‘Piss
off
!’ It was both a snarl and a sob. ‘We hate you. Piss right off!’

‘No.’ Joseph felt his own throat tighten. ‘I can’t, you see.’

She pushed him away. Pressing her hands over her ears, she curled up in the chair. Every muscle seemed taut, as though her entire body was charged. Joseph waited for a moment, then tentatively stretched out a hand and laid it on her head. The blue beret was falling off, and he carefully replaced it.

‘We’ve got so much to catch up on,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing all these years.’

She shrugged, so he knew she was listening. Finally, hesitantly, he began to talk. She didn’t interrupt. He told her about prison, about the photographs he’d kept of her and the boys. She uncurled a little as he described Akash, and how he’d bored his cellmate with constant bragging about the three best children in the universe. He talked about living in the caravan, and Abigail, and the snowplough he’d followed up the valley yesterday, and how he’d spent a night in the youth hostel in York to be sure of being on time that morning.

When he ran out of words, Scarlet lifted her face. ‘I remember a dog called Jessy.’ Her voice was flat, and she wasn’t looking at him—but at least she had spoken.

Joseph smiled. ‘Jessy’s still there—an old lady now. She likes to come and snooze by the gas fire in my caravan. She pretends to hunt for rabbits but they laugh and maypole dance around her.’

‘Is the tabby cat still there?’

‘Digby? Fat as butter! He climbs on my knee and he’s so massive he hangs down on each side. Abigail took him to the vet and they had to give him a dog’s worm pill because he weighed so much.’

Her mouth curved. The movement was brief, swiftly smothered and utterly glorious. ‘You were in our park.’

‘I was.’

‘You spoke to the boys.’

‘I did.’

She nodded to herself. ‘You and Theo had a talk about football.’

‘Yes.’

‘He knew it was you.’

‘Did he?’

‘Of course he did, you idiot! He’s been in a real state ever since. Ben told on you.’

‘I know. I got into hot water.’

‘Serves you right.’

‘Scarlet . . . I’d missed you all, I was so looking forward to seeing you. It wasn’t such a crime, was it, to try and catch a glimpse?’

A roll of her emerald eyes, and a world-weary sigh.

‘Ben’s quite a young man nowadays,’ persisted Joseph.

‘Drives me up the wall.’

‘I bet he worships you, though. What year are you in at school?’

She swivelled around to face him, though she kept her knees drawn up in front of her. ‘This is just small talk. I can’t believe you really want to know how I’m doing at school.’

‘I want to know everything! Must be . . . no, don’t tell me, hang on . . . you’re year nine. Of course you are. Doing history?’

‘Mm-hm.’

‘Who’s your teacher?’

By a very lucky chance, it turned out that the teacher was a girl Joseph himself had taught, ten years previously. Scarlet was so impressed that she actually deigned to look at him. He felt the thud as his heart flipped over.

‘You’re kidding!’ she cried. ‘Miss Four-eyes Faraday? But she’s as old as the hills!’

‘Well, I’m even older.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Um . . .’ Joseph dredged his memory for anecdotes about a pupil he barely remembered. ‘Never got her essays handed in on time, if I remember right.’

‘Ha! She goes ballistic if mine’s even a nanosecond late.’

Joseph felt emboldened. ‘I once saw her outside the school gates, passionately kissing a boy with a dreadlocks and a skateboard.’

‘Oh my God, I don’t believe this. Miss Faraday was playing tonsil hockey outside school? A guy with dreads? Can’t wait to tell Vienna!’

Perhaps unwittingly, Scarlet had made space on the edge of her armchair. Joseph squeezed onto it. ‘Vienna?’ he asked.

‘A friend. A best friend. Sort of.’ The next moment, Joseph was being taken on a tour of Vienna’s opulent lifestyle—the fur bedspread and the home cinema and the predilection for chocolate that was starting to show on her bum. He listened and smiled, captivated by his daughter. She was so funny, so wry, so vital. She was beyond anything he had imagined.

Children’s voices floated from somewhere in the building. A door swung shut. Footsteps, running and thuds.

Scarlet looked at her watch. ‘Oops. That’ll be the boys.’

‘Already? Help!’ said Joseph, making an agonised face. ‘Will you help me, Scarlet?’

This time it was unmistakeable. A smile: reluctant, wary, cynical; but a smile all the same. It teased the corners of her eyes and flickered unbidden around her mouth. ‘You don’t need help, Dad. What you need is earplugs.’

Dad
. Joseph felt something warm drape itself around him. She’d called him Dad. For now, it was enough.

Twenty-one

Scarlet

So. I finally saw my dad. I finally got to tell him to piss off. But he didn’t piss off.

On our way out to Gramps’ car after the visit, I warned Ben and Theo to keep their traps shut.

‘Why have I got to keep my trap shut?’ asked Ben.

‘Look, just don’t talk about Dad,’ I said. ‘You’ll only upset Hannah and Gramps if they think we’ve had a nice time. Make out it wasn’t a big deal, okay? Make out it was boring.’

For once they listened to me. When we got home, Hannah had lunch ready. She served up crumbed fish and oven fries, which she knows is the way to our hearts. It was a school day but she gave us the rest of the afternoon off. She was as fussy as a mother hen, ruffled and clucking and peering anxiously at us all with beady eyes. I knew she was busting to know how it had gone. I also knew she didn’t like to ask.

‘Well now,’ she began, when she couldn’t bear the suspense any longer. ‘Um, you saw your . . . um, father?’ Her teeth were actually gritted.

I kept eating. ‘Yup.’

Theo yawned noisily, which may have been overacting. Ben clapped both his hands across his mouth and blinked up at her, which was
definitely
overacting.

‘How was it?’ she asked me.

‘Non-event. Do we have any ketchup?’

‘Yeah,’ chanted Theo dutifully. ‘Bo-
ring
.’

‘I’ve got my trap shut,’ said Ben.

Gramps stood up. ‘I’m unaccountably weary,’ he said to Hannah. ‘Might go and catch forty winks.’

He did look tired. He was sagging across the back of his chair like washing on a line. That wasn’t his usual style.

‘Thanks for all the fetching and carrying,’ I said. ‘Are you okay, Gramps?’

He saluted me like a naval officer on the bridge. ‘Never better, ma’am,’ he replied smartly. I saluted back.

Soon after he’d gone, I said I had homework to do and sneaked up to my room. I needed space in my head, because I had too much to think about. I felt churned up. Once I’d got the wedge under the door I sat down on the bed, looking at Mum’s collection of costume dolls. I imagined her sitting on this same bed at my age. I tried to let my real self sink away, leaving me free to merge with Mum as I had merged with the character of Puck. I tried to
be
her.

It made me feel wrong. I felt as though I was losing myself. So I stopped doing that.

Instead, I dragged my memories box out from under the bed and unpacked it. I arranged everything in a circle, with a space for myself in the middle. I held the photo of me and her at the caravan in both hands. For a long time I sat cross-legged, staring at us. I tried to imagine the smoothness of her cheek pressed next to mine, the smell of sandalwood and the singing brightness of her voice. I tried to bring her back. I strained every muscle in my memory to bring her back to me.

And yet, try as I might, I could hardly remember her at all now.

‘Mum,’ I said quietly. ‘Are you there?’

A muffled bang echoed from the sitting room; Theo’s yell, and Ben crying. He was genuinely hurt—I could tell from the noise he was making. Hannah would deal with it. I shut my eyes. I whispered the word
Mum
, over and over.

Mum. Mum. Mummy.

A breath brushed my cheek. Just the lightest, coolest whisper of a breath. My heart began to beat very fast. Perhaps it was a draught from under the door, but to me it was Mum, trying her very best to touch my face with her ghostly hand. I sat absolutely still.

Mum?

There it was again, as though a gossamer veil had been drawn across my skin. I felt the little hairs stand up straight on my arms. The air seemed to crackle with a presence. I
so
wanted it to be Mum.

‘Is that you?’ I said aloud.

I’d stopped breathing completely. The air seemed much more still than usual. I even imagined—or maybe it wasn’t imagination—a hint of sandalwood and coffee and wine.

‘I love you,’ I said.

Again, a puff of air. Perhaps she was trying to say that she loved me too.

‘Help me,’ I begged. ‘Tell me what to do about Dad.’

A door slammed downstairs. Bloody Theo, in one of his rages. I barely heard it. Every cell in my body was focused on Mum, on this feeling that she was with me. Suddenly the sun went behind a cloud, and the room was drowned in blue-grey shadow.

‘Are you sad?’ I asked.

As soon as I’d spoken, a feeling hit me—like a punch in the chest that knocked all the breath out of my lungs. Of
course
she was sad—she was dead, banished from the world. How could I have sat and chatted to Dad?

‘I’m sorry.’ I began to cry. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

The next moment, she’d gone. It was very sudden. I knew I was on my own. The cardigan that still smelled of her lay folded in my circle of memories. I wrapped it around my face, and breathed it in, and felt the softness. Then I curled up on the floor, and my tears made the cardigan wet. I hoped she wouldn’t mind.

•

Hannah

They liked him. I could tell from the way they crept into the house; I could tell by Scarlet and Theo’s guilty politeness over lunch, the blank-faced shrugs when we asked them how they’d got on, the way neither of them could quite look me in the eye. Even Ben—our chatterbox—seemed to be keeping secrets.

It didn’t make them happy, of course. We’d barely finished lunch when Scarlet took herself off to her bedroom. She claimed to have homework, and I heard her door shut behind her. Freddie went for forty winks in our room because the morning’s ferrying had exhausted him. He’d been gone for some time when Ben ran wailing into the kitchen.

‘Theo punched me,’ he roared, presenting me with his arm. ‘Here.’

I rolled up his sleeve to find a cruel flower of bruises blossoming on the soft skin. ‘Theo did this?’ I asked. He nodded tragically, rubbing his running nose.

‘What happened?’ I asked, rocking him on my knee as I rubbed in arnica cream.

He was sucking his thumb. The memory made him sniffle again. ‘Theo told me to give him my . . . give him my . . . bean bag. And I said I wouldn’t because it’s mine and I was comfy. Then he picked me up and threw me onto the floor, and then he hit my arm. And it hurt, Hannah, it hurt! And then he said I was a . . . was a stupid little fucker.’

‘He said
what
?’

‘Stupid little fucker. That’s what he called me.’

Enraged, I set Ben on his feet. ‘We’ll see about that.’

I found Theo lying rebelliously across the boys’ two beanbags, watching TV. He pretended to ignore me when I came in, so I marched across the room and switched off the set at the wall.

‘Hey!’ he yelled indignantly.

‘How dare you attack Ben?’

‘He’s a liar!’

‘He has the bruises to prove it.’ I was furious. ‘How
could
you?’

Theo rolled until he was face down, screaming, ‘No, no, no! He’s lying!’

‘I’m terribly disappointed in you, Theo.’

‘He’s just trying to get me into trouble—he’s a nasty little liar!’

I folded my arms. ‘That’s no pocket money this week for you, young man. Come and apologise immediately.’

He was up and off the beanbags, his expression livid. ‘You always take his side! You always, always do! He’s your favourite. You love him most, you always have, you don’t love me at all.’

‘What
has
got into you, Theo?’

‘Piss off, you fat old cow!’

My jaw dropped as he shot from the room. I followed—yelling dark threats—just in time to see him dart out of the kitchen door, and across the lawn. I abandoned the chase. I knew where he was heading; he had a hiding place in the far corner of the garden, behind the shed. I stood at the kitchen window, staring sightlessly at that barren winter garden and feeling as though I was in a war zone.

Ben’s voice behind me made me jump. ‘Wow. Theo is in
big
trouble this time.’

‘Maybe,’ I replied absently.

‘Can I read you a story, Hannah?’

He had a dozen first reader books clutched in his arms. I couldn’t resist such an appeal. We sat on the sofa and read stories to one another, though my mind was elsewhere. Ben’s legs stuck straight out in front of him, and he held the books up like a pompous schoolmaster. He could manage the simpler words. I was willing to bet most four-year-olds couldn’t do that. I’d taught him to write his own name, too. One of our all-time favourite books had wonderfully quirky illustrations. It was about Boogie the dog, whose appetite was forever leading her astray.

This is Boogie. Boogie is a big brown dog.

What is that good smell? It is sausages in the shop. Boogie
likes sausages.

Look! Boogie has a sausage. She is running.

‘Stop!’ shouts the man from the shop. ‘Stop that big brown
dog!’

Boogie runs very fast.

The man runs very fast too.

He huffs and puffs, but he cannot catch Boogie.