Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere (13 page)

Fiona’s face is pale and when Lily lets go of the clump of hair, Fiona falls backwards again, banging her head a second time, but with less force. Her eyes close. “Steady on there, Lil” says Jo, coming over from the other side of the room. She hauls Lily up off Fiona and the mattress. Lily sways as she tries to find her feet.

“Is she ok?” asks Jo. Fiona is lying, pale and lifeless on the mattress, her head slumped at an odd angle.

The gas fire hisses quietly as Lily observes Fiona’s form. After a few seconds, Lily turns to the bottle of vodka sitting on top of the gas fire and pours herself another shot. She fills the glass to the brim from the carton of almost fresh orange and takes a mouthful.

“Course, she is,” she says as she flings the contents of the glass over Fiona’s face. Fiona’s eyes open immediately and she sits up, spluttering and trying to wipe the juice from her eyes. “See?”

Jo exhales deeply. She feels in her pocket for her packet of Marlboro’s and lights one, running her left hand through her spiked hair as she smokes with her right.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” says Fiona, her eyes filling with tears, or vodka and orange. Lily isn’t sure which.

 Lily runs from the room and up the stairs. She comes back a moment later and throws a folded piece of paper at Fiona. It lands on the mattress next to her but she doesn’t reach for it. Instead she asks, “Is your mum…”

“Dead.” Lily finishes the sentence for her and reaches across to take the lit fag Jo is handing to her.

“I am so sorry,” says Fiona, and from her tone of voice, Lily believes her. “When, how old were you… when she...?”

“She died two months ago.”

Fiona looks at her. “I don’t understand.”

Lily takes a deep drag of the fag before speaking. “The life went out of her when he went. He might as well have shot her on his way out of the door. She never recovered. It just took nineteen years for her body to die.”

Jo sits back down on the floor and takes her tobacco tin out as Fiona studies the picture of Lily’s mum in the album.

“That’s not the mum I knew,” says Lily. “In fact, I didn’t even recognise her at first.” Lily goes to a drawer in the dresser and rummages through the over-spilling mishmash of pools coupons and take away menus. She pulls out a dog-eared photo, a picture she’d taken on one of the rare occasions she’d managed to get her mother out of the house and into the garden. She’s sat on a low wall, wearing a grey dress that could double up as a scout tent. The photo is seven or eight years old, and her mother is half the size she was when she died, but still immense. Her face is almost lost, drowned in a sea of fat. Fiona recoils.

The doorbell rings, causing all three of them to jump. Lily hisses. “Get down.”

Jo jumps across the room and pushes Fiona so that’s she horizontal on the mattress. “Ow,” says Fiona, rubbing her head.

Lily runs to the window, puts her back against the wall and peers round the curtains. “Oh bloody hell. It’s Bert. Hang on I’ll get rid of him.” She turns to Fiona. “Be quiet.”

Lily opens the front door, “What’s up?”

“Just wondered if you wanted to come round, watch the snooker, have a drink.”

“Ah thanks, Bert, can’t right now. Maybe tomorrow.”

“What are you up to?” He tries to look over her shoulder.

Lily adjusts her position to block his view.

“Who’ve you got in there? Come on out, whoever you are,” he shouts over Lily’s shoulder.

“Hel-”, Fiona starts to shout, but Jo is on her straight away, pushing her into the mattress and lying her short but weighty body over the top of Fiona’s. She clasps her hand across Fiona’s mouth.

Fiona stares at Jo as Jo holds up the piece of paper Lily threw at Fiona earlier. Jo opens it out with her left hand, her right still clasped over Fiona’s mouth, as she sits straddling Fiona’s body. It’s Lily’s birth certificate, blue round the edges from spending so many years hidden in her school bag. There’s a column entitled ‘Father’, and Fiona sees ‘David Winterbottom’ typed in it. Jo releases her hand from Fiona’s face, just a centimetre at first. Fiona holds her breath as they both listen to Lily.

“It’s just a friend from college,” Lily is saying to Bert. “She’s come to visit.”

“Bring her round too. What’s with all the secrets? I’ve got Hula Hoops.”

“Tempting, Bert, but not today. I’ve got to go. I’m making tea. I’ll see you.” She closes the door in his face and goes back to the front room. Fiona is sitting mutely on the bed. Jo smiles at Lily.

“I can’t believe it,” Fiona says again, as she takes off her blazer. She glances around for a place to hang it, before folding it neatly in half lengthways, and laying it flat on the edge of the mattress.

“Yeah, well. I had to believe it,” says Lily, pouring herself another drink. “I didn’t get the choice.”.”

“He can’t have known she was pregnant. Daddy… Dad, would never leave his own child, I’m absolutely sure of that,” although her voice doesn’t give the impression of someone secure in her facts.

“He was having an affair the whole time she was pregnant. My Aunt Edie told me. Everyone knew about it.”

“Probably wasn’t getting enough sex once he’d got his wife up the duff,” says Jo.

“But-” says Fiona.

 Lily interrupts. “What about the letter he wrote to the Salvation Army? I asked them to help me trace him. He wrote back to them. The guy read me his letter down the phone. It didn’t say, ‘what are you talking about? I don’t have another daughter’.”

“Did he say-”

“He said, ‘I have no wish to communicate’. The ‘no’ was in capital letters and underlined. Did I mention that?”  A gob of spit flies out of Lily’s lips and lands on the floor in front of Fiona. “He didn’t even send note for them to pass on to me to explain. That’s what makes me so mad.”

A solitary tear runs down Fiona’s right cheek. “I saw him get the letter. He opened it in front of me. I saw the Salvation Army written across the top. I thought...” She doesn’t finish the sentence. Two more tears spill down her face. She doesn’t wipe them. Instead she picks up the photo album and turns to another page “My whole family’s here. Mum’s going to kill him when she finds out.”

“Fiona, you’re nearly sixteen years old. I’m nineteen. It was probably your mum he was having the affair with.”

Fiona shakes her head firmly. “You don’t understand. Mum’s a lawyer, a really good one. She represents women who’ve been abandoned by their husbands. There's no way she’d marry someone who hasn’t taken responsibility for his… no way.”

Jo starts to roll a spliff. Lily sits on the floor at the edge of the mattress and scratches her arms.

Fiona continues to turn the pages in the wedding album. “They didn’t get married in church. I always thought that was odd; we go to church every Sunday.” Jo and Lily both nod but Fiona doesn’t notice. “They got married in the Registry Office; Mum said she didn’t want a big fuss.”

Jo raises a single eyebrow.

“But you’re not allowed to get married in church if you’re divorced are you?” Fiona looks to them for answers. Lily, having only set foot in a church on two occasions; her Aunt Edie’s fake funeral and her mother’s, shrugs her shoulders.

“When did your parents get divorced?” asks Fiona.

“I don’t even know that they did.”

“My parents got married in 1971, three years before I was born.”

“I was born in 1970, August.”

“But Daddy said they were going out with each other for two years before they got married. Daddy always says you should spend as long as possible getting to know someone, before making any kind of commitment.”

“Daddy tells lies,” says Jo. She licks the Rizla to seal the spliff. “I think that’s clear.” 

Fiona stands up in front of Lily, her bright eyes begging for a different explanation; one that doesn’t involve her father having lied to her, her whole life. Lily looks away. Jo lights the spliff and goes over to the window.

“I’m not even allowed to go friends’ houses unless their parents are at home. He’s so worried that boys might be there. And when I tell him he should trust me, he says he does trust me, he just doesn’t trust teenage boys.” Fiona sits back down on the bed and looks at the photo album again.

“He knows what boys are capable of. He knows what bastards men are. How does he know?” Jo asks the room as she exhales a plume of smoke. “Because he is one.”

“He absolutely hates the fact I’ve got a boyfriend,” Fiona murmurs, as she turns another page. “He can hardly bring himself to mention his name. We’ve been having the most dreadful rows about it. And all the time he knows he cheated on his pregnant wife, and then abandoned his own baby?” Her voice rises an octave. “I just cannot, cannot believe it.”

Jo glances at the clock. It’s almost four. Already they won’t get Fiona home on time. Not that that was ever the intention, but now they are committed. People will start worrying soon. “What are we going to do? I mean, it’s getting late.”

“What are you planning to do? I mean, you wanted to bring me here and show me this why? What did you think I would do? Have it out with my dad?”

Lily looks first at Jo and then at Fiona. “I wanted you to stay here for a night, without your dad knowing where you were, because I wanted him to feel what it’s like to go to sleep for a night and not know where your family is.”

“What if I go home and talk to him about it?”

“That doesn’t really help me,” says Lily. “I’m sick of wondering what he’s thinking, or how he’s justifying it, or who knows what. This is the first time in my life where I’m the one that knows what’s happening.” She grins at Jo, the alcohol content in her stomach finally overcoming the adrenalin. “I kinda like it.”

Jo brushes cigarette ash from her leggings. “Fiona, try to see Lily’s point of view. Her mum’s dead. She grew up in this house,” she stresses the ‘this’ and gives Fiona a moment to fully take in the conditions before continuing, “and her dad won’t even do her the courtesy of meeting her one time. It’s a bit insulting really. And all we’re asking is that you give up one night of your privileged existence. It’s not exactly much to ask, is it?” 

Fiona loosens her tie and looks down at the photograph of her father on her lap. His arms circle his new bride’s waist, his head is tilted, their lips only millimetres apart as he bends to kiss his wife. . She lifts her head, meets Lily’s gaze. She doesn’t speak for a few moments, but when she does her voice is steady. “No, it’s not a lot to ask.”

Lily closes her eyes.

“And,” says Fiona, in a quiet voice as Lily reopens her eyes, “it might do us all good to have some time to think.” 

Time suspends for a moment, until Jo claps her hands together. “Ok,” she says “O – K.”

No one else says anything. Lily is looking at the schoolgirl and for the first time thinking she looks older than fifteen.

“What we need is food,” says Jo. “I don’t know about you guys but I’m starving. I’ll go to the chippy. What do you fancy?”

Lily speaks directly to Fiona. “Are you sure?”

Fiona nods, a ‘blink and you’d miss it’ nod. “May I have fish and chips please? And mushy peas? I haven’t had any lunch.” Fiona reaches across the mattress for her blazer. “Here,” she says, handing Jo a handful of coins, “take my dinner money.”

Jo tots up the change in her hand. “You get three pound fifty dinner money?”

“It’s for drinks as well,” Fiona says defensively.

The phone rings. Lily jumps so much she spills her vodka down her jumper. She looks over to Jo.

Jo nods at her to answer it.

The phone is in the hallway, but the flex is long enough for Lily to bring it into the doorway of the front room. “’Lo?” Lily mumbles into the receiver.

“Lily, is that you? Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

“Aunt Edie?”

“You were supposed to come for tea a fortnight since.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’ve been a bit… busy.”

“Well, so long as you’re alright,” Aunt Edie grumbles. “What about tomorrow? I could get us a nice bit of tongue from the market.”

“I, I’ve got a friend staying from college. We’ve been, er exploring together.”

“A friend?” Aunt Edie asks suspiciously. “A man friend?”

“No, no, a girlfriend. I mean, a friend who’s a girl.”

“Ah well, bring her with you,” Aunt Edie says. “I’d like to meet your friend. I bet you have a great time together.”

Lily looks at Jo helplessly. “That’s kind but we can’t come tomorrow.” Her eyes plead with Jo for help. Fiona is engrossed in the wedding album. She’s pulling out the telegrams and messages of congratulations from an envelope fixed to the back cover and reading each one. Lily wonders whether she should grab the album off her. She hasn’t read them all herself yet. “We’re…”

“Going away for a few days,” Jo mouths.

“We’re going away for a few days,” Lily parrots into the receiver.

“Are you now?” says Aunt Edie in a tone that suggests going away for a few days is akin to running naked through Morrisons. “Where?”

“What?”

“Where are you going?”

“Can I ring you back, Aunt Edie? I’ve got something in the oven. I think it might be burning.” Lily watches Fiona shaking her head at one telegram before stuffing it back inside the envelope.

“Bit early for tea, isn’t it?” Aunt Edie asks suspiciously.

“I’ll ring you when we get back.”

“I’ve got some information for you, I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Information?”

“About your dad. I’ve been asking about. Turns out he had a baby with his fancy woman.”

Aunt Edie pauses, like she’s waiting for a reaction. A gasp or some kind of acknowledgement. Lily stares at Fiona. “A baby? No way.”

“No wonder you mother went like she did. Nora Jenkins’; her daughter Flora, was in the same delivery ward when she had their Bernadette. You remember her, Bernadette Briggs they called her; with those funny things on her teeth? Made her look like that one from the James Bond film. Although Nora told me she’s found herself a husband, Lord alone knows how.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ve got to go Aunt Edie. But I’ll come and see you next week.” Lily puts the phone down and wipes her forehead with the back of hand. Her forehead is moist.