Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere (18 page)

“Toad in the hole. Haven’t you had it before?”

As Fiona fills Stuart in on the details of their telephone conversation with her father, Lily cuts up the pork sausages into small slices. She pushes the pieces around in the gravy for a while, stacking them up like pennies.

“I can’t believe he’s going to pay,” says Stuart.

The red, Formica topped table is only just big enough to seat four. Stuart sits at the top of the table, Jo facing him at the opposite end. “I need a beer,” says Jo. “Anyone else?” Lily nods. The table falls silent as the others eat. Lily drinks her beer silently, head bowed. “Delicious,” says Jo eventually, pushing her plate away. “Respect.”

“You not hungry again, Lily?” Stuart asks. She shakes her head and mouths ‘sorry’ and pushes herself up from the table. Once the others have cleared their plates, they join her in the front room. Fiona has Stuart’s road atlas clutched under one arm. Lily is sat, Buddha-like, rolling a spliff. The others spread the road atlas across the coffee table and kneel around it, their heads touching.

“So, do we go for somewhere small and quiet, so there’s less chance of the money getting nicked?” asks Jo. “Or somewhere busy, less chance of attracting attention?” 

“You need loads of people,” says Stuart. “You can always disappear in a crowd; a train station or something.”

Fiona shakes her head. “But then the police could be watching you and you’d have no idea. It needs to be dark.”

Lily lights the spliff and lies back on the floor. Small, smouldering specks of dope keep falling from her spliff, burning her face. She flinches but perseveres, allowing herself to drift away from the conversation.

“That’s no good,” she hears Fiona arguing when she drifts back. “What if the police are watching and arrest her? It has to be dropped somewhere and collected later.” Lily raises her head slightly so that she can see Fiona’s inflamed cheeks, her pouty lips. She watches as Fiona reaches across the table to take a cigarette from Jo. Lily collapses back on the floor, frowning as another shower of sparks hits her chest.

As the conversation grows more heated around her, Lily sits up, using her stomach muscles alone to pull her up from her prostrate position on the floor. She pats out the embers that have fallen down the front of her shirt. “I’ve just thought of something.”

“What?”

“Remember when Aunt Edie rang? You know, that first night. She said she knew my dad had another baby because one of her friend’s daughter’s was having a baby at the same time. They were in hospital together.”

“So?”

“Well, her friend’s daughter’s baby was called Bernadette Briggs. She was at the same school as me, but a year below.”

“So?”

“So, if she was born at the same time as my dad’s other child, that child will also be a year younger than me.” She looks at Fiona. “Not three and a half years younger.”

Fiona stares at her elder half-sister. “You mean he’s got another child?”

“What else can it mean?”

No one speaks. Lily crushes the spliff out in the ashtray. “Maybe Aunt Edie got mixed up,” says Jo. “You know how old people get.”

“I’m going to do it,” says Lily, feeling her resolve set like concrete.

“Do what?” asks Jo.

“I’m going to take the money from him.”

“That’s way too risky,” says Stuart.

“What if he recognises you?” asks Jo.

“How’s he going to recognise me? He’s never even seen me. And I don’t look like him.”  Jo opens her mouth, and then considers whether she’s brave enough to tell Lily she looks like her mother. She closes her mouth again. “And besides,” says Lily, “even if he does know it’s me, he’s still going to go along with it, because all he cares about is whether Fiona knows his secret.”

“What if he refuses to hand over the money until Fiona’s back with him?” Stuart’s cheeks are flushed and his voice seems louder than usual.

“I don’t care about the money.”

“There’s too much that can go wrong.” Stuart gets up off his knees and sits back on the settee behind him. “It’s hardly the right environment for your first meeting with your father.”

“I have to do it, Stuart.”

“What if the police are there and you get arrested?”

“I’ve kidnapped a minor, got her drunk and stoned. I’ve demanded money with menaces. I’ve driven a car without a licence or insurance. Don’t you think I’ve already considered the ‘I might go to prison’ angle? At least I wouldn’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay the rent next month.” Lily tries out a smile; it convinces no one. She stands up. “You’re all always telling me I have nothing to lose. I don’t care about prison. It’s like, my mum died and my first thought was great, I get to meet my dad. So, I’m fucking going to meet him.”

Stuart storms out of the front room and slams the door behind him.

“What’s up with him?” Lily turns to Fiona.

Fiona shrugs. “He worries too much.”

“Ok,” says Jo. “If you’re going to do it, where’s the place?”

“Somewhere quiet, just me and him. I’ll say I’m the messenger for the bad guys. I’ll say these blokes have paid me to come and collect a suitcase, I don’t know why and I don’t want to know why. I’m just in it for the money. And he may suspect it’s me, but he won’t know. He’ll still have to consider the possibility that it could be someone else.”

“Do you think we asked for enough money?” Fiona wonders out loud.

“I was thinking that,” says Jo, doodling a swag bag on the side of the map. She draws a dollar sign on the front. “He didn’t have much trouble getting it together, did he? Maybe we should ask for more?”

Lily shakes her head. “All my life I’ve wanted to meet my dad. Other kids wrote to Father Christmas asking for Barbie dolls and Girl’s Worlds. I wrote asking for a dad,” she looks over at Fiona and her voice falters, “and it’s great to have met you, but still, I started this madness, I have to finish it.”

Stuart trips over a pair of boots that have been left on the top step, and falls flat on his face in the hallway. Fiona steps out of the front room as he crashes to the floor. “Where have you been?”

“I needed some air.”  He rolls over and lies on his back, his face red from the cold night. “Where is everyone?”

“Jo’s gone to bed; Lily fell asleep on the sofa.” Fiona kneels on the floor next to him and strokes his face; the beer fumes rising from him, stronger than scent. “You’re freezing, wait here.”

She steps over him and into the kitchen. Ten minutes later she’s back carrying a tea tray. His eyes are closed and he doesn’t stir as she steps over him again to take the tray up the attic stairs and into his bedroom. Moments later she returns and pulls him by the arm, half leading him, half dragging him up the stairs.

In the bedroom, Fiona sits Stuart down on the bed and feeds him toast and Marmite. She puts a large mug of hot chocolate by his side. When he’s swallowed his last mouthful of toast he says, “Do you think we should let her…”

“I don’t think we can stop her.”

“But she’s so fragile. What if he has rung the police and she gets arrested?”

Fiona shakes her head. “It’s what they both need. As soon as Dad sees her he’ll come round, I know he will.” She kneels by his feet and begins to unlace Stuart’s trainers.

 “God, I wish I had your faith, Fiona. What if he has her arrested?”

“He’s not going to have his own daughter arrested.” She pulls off both his trainers. She can feel the coldness of his toes through his socks. “It’s weird that he won’t just be my dad anymore.”

Stuart drains his hot chocolate and shivers. “It’s freezing out there.”

“I could warm you up.” She kneels up, her eyes dark beneath her fringe. She stands and leans the weight of her body against him, tipping him backwards onto the bed, as she brings her lips down on his, soft and tentative.

A few minutes later he tries to sit up. “I don’t think we should be doing this, Fiona.”

“Shh.” She puts her finger to his lips. “I really, really want to.” Her lips press down on his again and she runs a hand up under his shirt, feeling the smooth skin of his chest. As her fingers brush past his nipples, a moan escapes his lips. She pushes harder against him, using all of her strength, until he’s flat on his back on the bed. Her hands tremble as she sits astride him and undoes the buttons on her shirt.

Afterwards, Fiona curls up in his armpit, breathing in the smell of sweat and Right Guard. Her fingers toy with his underarm hair and her legs entwine with his own. She waits until he’s fallen asleep before she whispers to him, “I’m never going home.”

The sound of the delivery van, unloading the day’s produce at the bakery across the street, wakes Fiona. It’s still dark outside. She wraps a sheet around her and floats downstairs to the kitchen. Sitting on the worktop, smoking a cigarette while she waits for the kettle to boil, is Lily. She looks miles away.

“You’re up early,” says Fiona from the doorway.

“I woke up on the settee at two. Couldn’t get back to sleep,” says Lily, as Fiona steps into the kitchen. Lily takes one look at Fiona’s mussed up hair, the smudged eyeliner around her eyes and the smile on her face, and jumps down. “Oh. My. God.”

Fiona giggles. Lily pulls her younger sister into her arms. “Oh Fi, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Fiona stands back from Lily and takes the cigarette from Lily’s hand. She puts it to her lips and inhales, her eyes screwed up against the smoke. “I do now.”

They both start to laugh, and the smoke Fiona’s inhaled makes her cough so much she can hardly breathe.

An hour later the four of them are eating breakfast together at the red topped table in the kitchen. Jo says, “So we’ve still got to think of a place for Lily to meet him.”

“Why don’t we do something different today?” says Fiona. “Let’s go to the seaside.”

“The seaside?” says Jo. “Don’t be ridicul-”

“Why not?” asks Lily. “It’s a great idea. Come on Jo, let’s have a break.”

Fiona licks Marmite off her fingers. “I’m sure the biggest criminal masterminds give themselves the odd day off. Stu?”

Stuart clasps his forehead, as if feeling for his own temperature. “Now you mention it, I’m not feeling so good. I think I feel a sick day coming on. I haven’t had one since I started this job.”

Fiona claps her hands and jumps up from the table. “I’ll get ready.”

The journey to Blackpool takes less than an hour. Lily sits in the front, with Stuart’s road map taking up most of the space, twisting it through angles of 360 degrees, trying to follow their route. She looks up. “I don’t know,” she says, beaten.

“We’re here,” says Jo. “This is Blackpool.”

“Where’s the sea?” asks Lily.

Fiona has her head out of the rear window. “There’s the tower.” She pulls her head back inside the car. “Head for that.” Jo makes a last minute right hand turn and they are on the front, heading north. Lily looks out of her window. “Oh my God, it’s the sea. Stop the car,” she shouts at Jo.

Jo finds a space on the front and pulls the car into it. She turns to Lily. “Tell me you’ve seen the sea before.”

Lily is already half way out the door. “Duh, of course,” she stands up, feeling the sea air catch her dreadlocks and send them flying. The wind is so strong it whips the rest of her sentence away, so Jo doesn’t hear the last two words, “on TV.”

Stuart and Fiona climb out of the back seat and join Lily at the railings by the beach. Stuart takes in the endless strip of tacky rock shops, nightclubs, pubs and amusement arcades. “This is the ugliest place I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to Third World countries that look way better than this.”

Lily stares out to sea, holding onto the railings. A few hardy souls are down on the beach, wrapped up against the freezing cold wind. The sea stretches to the horizon, the grey water blending with the low, heavy clouds. “It’s so massive,” she whispers.

“Ok,” says Jo, having locked the Mini. “Pleasure Beach.” She nods down the front. “It’s opposite the south pier.”

“Oh, look,” says Lily, as a horse and cart trots past them. “Can we have a ride in one of those?”

Jo looks at Lily like she doesn’t quite recognise her. “Seriously?” She shrugs her shoulders at Stuart and Fiona. “Why not?”

Lily strokes the nose of a white and tan pony wearing blinkers, before climbing up into the trap. She laughs as the driver flicks his reins and the cart lurches forwards.

The white arch bears the sign ‘Pleasure Beach’. They walk through, Fiona and Stuart holding hands, leading the way. Fiona hears the screams from the riders of the Wild Mouse ride. “Look at that,” she says pointing to the wooden roller coaster. The bolts are rusted, so that long lines of rust stain run down the woodwork. “Who’s coming?”

“I will.” Jo digs in her bag for her purse.

Fiona holds up her hand. In it is her purse, which contains the remainder of the £500 she withdrew from her father’s account. “This is on me,” she says grandly. She looks to Lily and Stuart. “Coming?”

“No chance,” says Lily.

“I’ll, er, wait with Lily,” says Stuart. “Keep her company.”

“Chicken.” Fiona grins. “Meet you back here.” She kisses him on the lips and then runs off after Jo, who’s already joined the queue.

Lily and Stuart watch Jo and Fiona inch up the line, and climb into the car. Lily starts to chew on a nail. “Do you want to hook a duck or something?” asks Stuart.

“Yeah, ok.” Anything not to have to watch her little sister and only friend cheat death a moment longer. “Oh look, there’s a carousel. I’ve always wanted to go on one of those.”

“Come on then,” says Stuart. “What are you waiting for?” He helps her onto a horse called Jean Michel and hands the dark attendant some cash. Then Stuart climbs up onto the horse next to her as a waltz starts to play. Lily grips on tightly as the carousel speeds up. “Are you ok?” Stuart reaches out and touches her hand.

“I didn’t realise they go so fast.” Lily opens her eyes and shouts to him, but her words get lost in the music. Stuart smiles at her.

When the ride ends he helps her down. “Let’s go meet the others.”

Fiona shouts over to them, “That was fantastic. I want another go. We nearly died. It’s so fast.”