Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere (23 page)

 “Fiona’s coming back.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t say. Just that she’s coming back.”

“Does her dad know…”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“Does she need a lift?”

“No, she’s going to get the train. I just thought… you should know. She’s coming back. When are you coming back?”

“I’ll set off in about half an hour,” says Jo.

Lily puts the phone down and stands frozen for a moment. Then she turns and runs back up the stairs, two at a time. Stuart is in the bathroom. Lily can hear the sounds of the shower spitting out water. She fights the urge to throw open the door, and sits instead on the edge of the bed, picking at a loose flap of skin round her thumbnail. It starts to bleed.

She practises sentences in her head, but they all sound like clichés from soap operas. “Last night was a mistake.” Or, “It can never happen again.” Or for top marks, “I can’t lose my sister when I’ve only just found her.”

In the end Stuart saves her the trouble. He emerges from the bathroom, his dark hair damp. “I’ve got to run. I’m on earlies again. I’ll be back about four.” He puts his hand on the top of her arm, and stares into her eyes.

“Fiona and Jo are on their way back. They’ll be here by lunchtime.”

“We’ll sort this out, Lily. Don’t worry.”

She’s aware she wants to kiss him again. He doesn’t give her the chance.

“I’ve got to run.” And he’s gone. Two minutes later the emptiness hits her. She wanders around the flat, marvelling at her own triteness. After all the events of the past few days, her mind chooses to focus on a kiss, replaying it over and over in her mind, until her insides are tied in knots.

At the train station, Lily tries out various poses as she waits for the train from Skipton to arrive, trying to remember how she would normally stand. Hands in pockets or on hips? A minute after, the train pulls in, Fiona runs over to Lily and almost knocks her off her feet. Lily closes her eyes as she hugs her sister back.

Fiona looks exhausted; her eyes are puffed up and red. After spending the week of the kidnap wearing a mixture of Jo, Stuart and Lily’s clothes, or the new clothes she bought in Lancaster, she looks odd wearing her own clothes; an olive green leather jacket that Lily hasn’t seen before, and a pair of blue jeans. Her hair has been cut short and styled, making her look elfish.

“So, how was it?” Lily pulls back from Fiona.

Fiona shakes her head. “I’ll tell you when we get home. Can we get a pasty? I’m starving.”

Jo is pulling up in the mini when they reach the flat. “So go on then, don’t keep us in suspenders, tell us what happened.” says Jo, as they sit down in the front room with a tea tray. Jo starts to roll a spliff.

“It was awful.” Fiona flops down on the settee, the back of her hand against her forehead.

“Well, go on then,” says Lily.

Fiona raises herself a little in the seat. “First he was really pleased to see me, obviously. Mum was out. I was like ‘what do you mean she’s out?’ and she’s in London for the week because she’s got some big case on. Court of Appeal, apparently. Anyway, then Dad told me he’d told her we’d had a row, and I’d gone to stay at Caroline’s for a few days.” Fiona glances at Lily, and then Jo, and then back to Lily again. “I was kidnapped for six days and my mother doesn’t even know.”

“Oh,” says Lily, aware Fiona is waiting for a response.

“When I asked him why he’d told her that, he looked really shifty and said it was because he didn’t want her to worry. So I said, ‘well, are you going to tell her the truth now?’ And he said he’d rather we didn’t. And then I said didn’t he think that I’d want to tell my own mother about the torture I’ve suffered at the hands of these evil people? And he said ‘Fiona, they didn’t torture you’ and I said how did he know. And then he said ‘well, did they?’ and I said no, actually I’d been quite well looked after. Then he turned and opened the fridge, and without looking at me, he said did I find out anything about the kidnappers? And he was just so scared, not that I’d been tortured, or whatever, but that I might have found out.”

Fiona’s eyes fill with tears and her voice shakes as she continues, “And he just looked so pathetic, so old and so pathetic, and I found myself thinking, you’re not my dad. You’re not the dad I left behind. You don’t even look like him. And then the phone rang and he said, ‘that’ll be your mother. She wants to talk to you.’ And he answered the phone and told Mum I was in the bath, while I was stood there, right in front of him, and he told her I’d ring her back in ten minutes. And then he begged me to tell her I’d just been staying at Caroline’s for six days, even though I have never stayed at Caroline’s for more than one night in all my life. And so, I didn’t know what to do, so I rang her and she asked if we’d made up and I said ‘I guess’. And then she started going on about this bloke in the court case who’s doing everything he can to avoid paying maintenance for his kid, even though he’s a top lawyer. And I thought, ‘my mother doesn’t know anything about me.’ I was like, ‘Mum, I’ve just been kidnapped by my own sister.’

“Did you?” says Jo.

“No, I went to bed.”

“So what happened yesterday? Why didn’t you ring?” asks Lily.

“Well, Dad had taken the day off work and we went to Gargrave, to this pub we sometimes go to. And then we, well, we went shopping, and I got my hair cut and he bought me some new clothes, including that leather jacket.” She nods to the armchair, where the olive green jacket she was wearing at the train station, now lies draped. “I’ve wanted that for ages. And then he suggested we watch
Dirty Dancing
, which I love and he hates.”

“Ok, now I’m feeling sorry for him,” says Jo. “Joke, kind of,” she adds as Fiona frowns at her.

“And then this morning he was being all jolly, like he knew he’d got away with it all. And he said, ‘Don’t forget your mother’s coming back today. I’m sure she’ll want to know what you and Caroline got up to.” And then he asked me if I wanted cereal or toast. And I just said to him, “Dad, I know you know who kidnapped me.”

Fiona pauses. Lily is sitting on the edge of the settee, “And?”

“And he dropped the carton of juice he was holding, and it splashed all up his trousers. It looked like he’d wet himself.”

Fiona reaches for a cigarette from Jo’s packet.

“Then what?” asks Lily.

Fiona lights the cigarette and exhales a plume of smoke. “I asked him if Mum knew about Lily and he said no. So, I said, ‘I want you to tell Mum, or I will.’”

“Shit.”

“And then I told him I was going to stay with my sister, who’s lovely. And I said, ‘if you want to speak to me, you’ll have to speak to her, because we come as a pair from now on.’” Fiona smiles at Lily. “And that was pretty much it.”

Lily lies back on the sofa and closes her eyes. “Oh my God.”

“Oh, and I told him we’re staying here.” 

Lily springs back upright. “What?”

“What can he do? I’m sixteen in three weeks. If he does contact the police, they’re not really going to do anything, and anyway he’s not going to contact the police, because what’s he going to tell them? I was kidnapped and he didn’t tell anyone, not even his own wife, for fear that I may have been kidnapped by his other secret daughter and he didn’t want to look bad?”

“But he might come.” Jo dashes over to the window, looking down on the street below.

Fiona’s cheeks redden. “I might have been being tortured by evil paedophiles and he didn’t do anything, because he was too scared people might find out he told a lie.”

“Fuck, Fiona,” Lily says. “He might come here at any time?”

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell my mum I’d been kidnapped,” Fiona’s voice has a whiney quality to it.

“He knew it was me, that’s why,” Lily snaps at Fiona. “He knew from the beginning. I said he would and now he might just turn up wanting his seventy-five grand back. Sorry, eighty-five grand. Oh, God.”

Jo sits down on the settee next to Lily. She reaches for Lily’s hand. No one speaks. The sound of the front door opening makes them all lean closer to each other. They hear footsteps on the stairs. Lily puts her head into the front of Jo’s jumper. The front room door opens and Stuart appears. The sound of his voice makes the blood rush to Lily’s face and she’s glad no one can see her. She keeps her head buried in Jo’s lap. “It was a quiet day, so I begged for the day off. The suspense was killing me. What’s happening?”

Fiona takes a deep breath, ready to recount her story again, but Lily cuts in. “She’s told him she knows it was me and she’s told him we’re all here.”

The colour seems to drain from Stuart’s face, and when Fiona stands up to hug him his body is stiff. “Oh, Christ.” He pushes Fiona to one side, and goes to the window and draws the curtains.

“Let’s get out of here,” says Lily. “We can go to my mum’s, I mean, my house.” Then she looks at Stuart and she can’t bear the thought of taking him to that house. “Or Leeds maybe?”

Jo nods and stands up. “Let’s get packing.”

“Ok.” Lily rushes from the room, Jo close behind her.

“Oh,” says Fiona, looking like a deflated balloon. She sits back down on the sofa and looks up at Stuart. “Do you want to run away too?”

“I don’t know. I’m not overly excited at the idea of seeing your dad. What do you want to do? Did you tell him about, you know…”

“About us having sex?”

Lily bursts back into the room with a carrier bag in each hand, each with their contents spilling over the top. “Are you ready?”

Stuart and Fiona glance at each other. Lily waits for an answer. And then the doorbell rings.

Lily ducks. She’s not sure why, but it’s what her mother used to make her do when the Rent Officer came calling. It serves little purpose in a first floor flat, except Lily feels safer closer to the floor. Stuart picks up the overflowing ashtray, his eyes darting round the room for a suitable place to hide it. Fiona is on the settee, hugging a cushion, with her thumb in her mouth. Jo has gone as white as the walls, her mouth open; she appears paralysed. Lily crawls over to her and taps her on the knee, but she doesn’t respond.

Lily starts to laugh. The carrier bags she was holding are lying on the floor, a wad of ten pound notes and a pair of knickers having spilled from the top. Lily tries to stand up but she’s laughing so hard she can’t. She looks to the others. The sight of Stuart still holding the ashtray with both hands, proffered like a gift, makes her laugh even more. The doorbell rings again.

Crawling on her hands and knees, body still wracked with laughter, Lily leaves the room. In the hallway, she stands up straight and tries to stop giggling by biting down hard on the inside of her mouth. She bounds down the stairs, two at a time and throws back the front door, “Daddy.” 

In front of her stands her father, in the freezing December rain, wearing jeans and a black anorak, looking smaller than he did in the graveyard. His hair is plastered to his head and splashes of rain obscure his glasses. “Lily.”

The rain continues to fall, unaware of the tension. From upstairs, the sounds of frantic running around, bumping and scraping of furniture, drift down. Lily knows she should give them some time, but she can’t think of anything to say except, “Would you like to come in?”

He nods, just as a raindrop makes it to the end of his nose. His nod causes the droplet to fly off his nose and it catches Lily in the eye. She rubs it with her sleeve. Then she slowly turns to lead the way up the stairs. “Close the door behind you.”

As she reaches the first floor hallway, furious shuffling noises still emanate from the front room, so Lily pushes open the kitchen door. “Do come in. Please, have a seat. Let me take your coat. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Her voice sounds nothing like her voice, even to her. The giggles rise up in her throat again, and she has to turn her back to him as he takes a seat at the table. She thinks, at this rate it won’t be long until I’m apologising for the china and asking whether it’s one lump or two. She switches the kettle on and starts opening and closing cupboard doors. Half a packet of chocolate hobnobs fall out at her, so she starts to arrange them in the shape of a flower, each biscuit a petal. She breaks one in half to form two leaves and turns to offer her father the plate. Rain drips from his hair and his hands are red from cold.

“I’m sorry, Lily.”

The words hang in the air for some time. “Sorry for what?”

He doesn’t answer.

“For leaving?”

He nods.

“Or for lying?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but she’s too quick for him. “For hoping you'd never have to see me ever?”

He rubs his face with his hands.

“For writing that you had no desire to communicate in capital letters and underlined?”

“For-”

“For not considering my feelings for one minute ever in your whole, deceitful life?” she shouts, so loudly it strains her throat.

“For everything.”

“Oh, neat.” They listen to the kettle reaching its climax. “Now,” says Lily, “what did I do with that teapot?”

“How’s your mother?”

She whips round to face him. “How’s my mother? You don’t know? You don’t even know?” His eyebrows knot across his brow. “Fiona didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh God.”  The blood drains from his face and Lily allows herself a smile. Her father looks up at her and asks, “When?”

“She died of a broken heart.”

“Oh don’t, please.” He rests his head against his hands, like he’s praying.

“If you’re looking for absolution, you’ve come to the wrong place. She never, ever recovered from what you did to her. She died the day you left her, that’s what Aunt Edie says.” When she is certain he is crying, from the shudder of his shoulders, Lily pours the tea. “Sugar?” She puts the mug down in front of him without waiting for an answer and lights a cigarette, inhaling deeply on her first drag.

She’s almost smoked it down to the butt when he finally moves, takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and removes his glasses. “When did she die?”

“You ruined our lives. I hope it was worth it.”