Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere (24 page)

“When did she die?”

“September.”

“September? I thought you said…”

“When you left her, she stopped living. It took twenty years for her body to get the message.”

“Why did no one tell me?”

“No one knew where you were,” Lily screams at him. “And when I did finally manage to track you down… you had no fucking wish to communicate.”

“It wasn’t,” he says, the quietness of his voice a contrast to hers. “Worth it, I mean. There’s Fiona, but that’s all there is. If it wasn’t for her, well…” his voice trails off. “I loved your mother.” He looks down at his hands. “I still do.”

Lily frowns and shakes her head. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

“I made a mistake and Pam, your mum, wasn’t big on forgiveness. You must know that. I begged and begged for another chance and she was like stone.”

“You made a mistake? Oh well, that’s ok then. You made a mistake.” Lily lights another cigarette, her hands shaking. “What ‘mistake’ did you make?”

“The mistake all men make.” He stares at the table.

“I want to hear it.” Lily takes another deep lungful of smoke. “I want to hear it all.”

He sighs. “Oh, God.” 

“I need to know.”

“It’s past.”

“Maybe for you; it’s my inheritance. I lived the life I did because of you. I need to know.”

He takes a swig of scalding hot tea and flinches from the pain. “I was working in a recording studio, nothing glamorous, I was a session musician. A band came in, the lead singer was… female. We recorded together for a few days. She had this amazing, soulful voice. I found out her husband had left her and she’d moved down from Northumbria and didn’t know anyone. So, I asked her to our house a few times, your mum made her tea, that kind of thing. They got to be quite good friends and everything was fine.”

“Go on.”

“And then your mum, well, she was expecting you. We always said we weren’t going to have children. We were happy, the two of us. I know this doesn’t paint me in a very good light, but I felt left out. She was so wrapped up in her pregnancy; I barely got a look in. She didn’t want to go out to the pub anymore because it was too smoky, didn’t want to go dancing because she was too tired. She started going to bed at seven. I suppose I was jealous. And then there was the Christmas party at the studio, and I had a bit too much to drink and well, one thing led to another.”

“You had an affair.” Lily hurls the accusation at him.

“Well affair’s a bit strong, I kissed her. That’s all, I swear. I kissed her.” He runs his hands through his thinning hair.

“Liar.” Lily doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows. She stands with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “Don’t you dare waste my time-”

He starts talking again, the words falling over themselves in a bid to be heard. “And then I met up with her another night and we went out for a drink together.”

Lily gasps like she’s been stabbed. “How could you?”

“And we kissed again, a few times.”

“You cheated on her. You cheated on us.”

 “But that was it, I swear it.”

“You lying, cheating, low-down-”

“I was jealous; you had each other, I had nothing.”

“…miserable, pathetic excuse for a-”

“Course your mum wouldn’t believe me.”

“You’re all the fucking same-”

“She went through the roof when she found out.”

“You told her?” Lily winces. Their brown eyes lock and a flicker of understanding passes between them.

He stands up and turns away from her, to stare out of the window. “Worse than that, bloody Freda Matthews saw us and she told your mother. Pam was so heavily pregnant, I thought she was going to have the baby right there and then. She went off to her parents’, your grandparents. Are they still around?”

He turns back to look at Lily. She shakes her head. David turns back to the window. “He never liked me, your granddad. Never approved; musician? I might as well have said murderer. Your gran had a soft spot for me though.”

He watches the rain drip down the glass. “And then, all bloody hell broke loose. Your grandparents went bananas. They’d always thought your mum had married beneath herself; maybe they were right. I felt so bad, for a while I believed what everyone was saying; that she was better off without me. I didn’t even find out you were born until days later. I went round to Edie’s and she said, ‘You’ve got a beautiful baby daughter.’ And that was it. I tried and tried to get to see you. I rang a hundred times and your mum put the phone down on me as soon as I spoke. Then she changed her number. I wrote letters, and they all got sent back. I’d open the envelope and the pieces would fall out like confetti. She moved house and no one would tell me where she was. And then I got a letter saying she wanted a divorce. And I thought, ‘she’ll have to see me then,’ so I went along with it so I could see her in court. Only she didn’t turn up, sent a lawyer instead, and before I knew where I was, I was divorced.”

“And then you married that bitch. You couldn’t have been that heartbroken.” Lily stubs out her cigarette and reaches for another.

David looks confused. “I didn’t marry Anne, I never even saw her again. I lost my job, I had nothing.”

“You had more than we did.”

“I didn’t. You had each other, I was alone.”

“You can’t have been alone for long.”

 “I was hopeless on my own. And then I met Fiona’s mum, and well, I didn’t tell her about your mum. Or you.”

“Pathetic.”

“I didn’t think we’d be together long enough. And then… a small white lie-”

“A small white lie?” Lily screws up her face.

“Turns into a much bigger er, thing, because well, we got married. And I never found the courage to say-”

“So whose is the other baby?”

“What other baby?”

“God, you’re compulsive. Aunt Edie told me. You had another kid the year after I was born. I’m guessing you’ve not told Fiona about that one either, huh? Which poor cow did you get up the duff that time?”

David seems to deflate in front of her. He becomes physically smaller, like his bones have turned to jelly and won’t hold him up straight any longer. “That was Ruth too.”

“So, where’s-”

“The baby died. Cot death they call it now, but in those days it didn’t have a name. I hadn’t known Ruth very long when she, well, when Daniel came along. He died when he was five weeks old.” 

“Oh,” says Lily, feeling suddenly uncomfortable as tears start to stream down her father’s face.

“Ruth couldn’t cope with it. She threw herself into work and I never dared tell her about you. I thought it was my punishment from God for what I… for losing you.”

Lily can barely make out his words between the sobs. She sits down at the table and puts her head on her hands. Her father stands staring out of the window, talking so quietly, Lily can barely hear him. “I was so afraid at being by myself again.”

He takes a deep breath and turns towards her. “And then Fiona was born and I felt like I’d been given a chance to make things up. That if I could be a really good dad to her, it would somehow compensate for you. I never even saw you once.”

“So why the no desire for contact, underlined, capital bleeding letters, when I came looking for you?” Lily smashes the palm of her hand against the table, causing her father’s mug of tea to spill.

“I panicked, I was so scared of losing Fiona, I didn’t think-”

“Where’s Anne now?”

“Anne?” It takes her father a second to remember who Anne was; the woman who had destroyed Lily’s family. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Does she know what she did? Does she know she destroyed my family?” Even as the words spew out of her mouth, Lily recognises her latent misogyny. Jo would never forgive her. ‘Men,’ she would say, ‘you just never stop covering for them.’

Lily picks up the milk bottle from the kitchen table and sends it flying across the room to the door. It smashes and the milk gushes out, drenching her and her father.

Moments later Stuart throws open the door. “Are you ok?”

“Great, the cavalry,” mutters her father, removing his spectacles and wiping them with his handkerchief.

Stuart doesn’t glance at him. “Are you all right, Lily?” He tries to make eye contact with her but she’s staring at the floor.

Fiona joins them. “What’s going on? What’s happened?” She rushes to Lily’s side. “Lily?”

David stares at his two daughters, Fiona’s arm around Lily. He stands a little straighter.

“Have you made up?” Fiona asks Lily.

Lily looks up at Fiona, sees the hope in her face. “Fiona, how can we make up? We never fell out. He didn’t stick around long enough for us to fall out in the first place.”

Fiona’s face falls. “Oh.”

Jo appears in the doorway. “Come on Fi. This isn’t ‘Surprise, Surprise’. You can’t expect Lily to forgive him for what he did.”

“It was only a kiss,” David mutters.

“Yeah and only bears shit in the woods,” says Jo, her hand on her hips.

“Who are you?” David asks.

“I’m Lily’s only friend.”

“I’m Lily’s friend too,” says Fiona. “And Stuart’s her friend as well, aren’t you, Stu?”

“I…” Stuart’s cheeks start to glow, “I… yes… I mean…”

“Look,” says Lily, anxious to divert attention from her friendship or otherwise with her sister’s boyfriend, “it’s alright, we’ve made up.”

Jo frowns at her. “What?”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Lily.

“Yes it does,” says Jo.

“Really?” Fiona looks over to her dad for the first time. “Oh, that is so great.” She throws her arms around Lily and then beckons for her father. “We can all be a family together.”

David moves towards them awkwardly. Fiona puts her arm around him. He clears his throat. “Well, let’s not get carried away. There’s your mother, she…”

“She’ll come round,” says Fiona. “When she’s had the chance to… come round. Do you think Lily could live with us?”

David groans. “Listen, your mother, she isn’t going to want us to be a family all together. I can tell you that now, even if we were to tell her.”

“You are going to tell her,” says Fiona. “And we are a family, whatever she thinks. Lily exists. She’s your daughter, my sister. We are a family.”

“Christ,” says their father, mopping his brow with his handkerchief.

Fiona releases David and Lily from their uncomfortable embrace and grins broadly. She appears not to notice the unbending stiffness in either of them. “I’ll clear this mess up,” she gestures at the spilt milk and broken glass, “and make us all a nice cup of tea. You go into the front room and make yourselves comfortable.”  

Jo leaves the room, but the other three remain rooted like dandelions. “Go on,” Fiona says to her father and sister who are still standing next to each, their bodies turned slightly, so that although they are next to each other, the distance between them seems vast. “You have so much to talk about.”

This surprises Lily, as she can’t think of a single thing to say. Fiona walks behind them, shooing them out of the kitchen. Stuart is still standing by the doorway. “I’ll make the tea, Fiona.”

She shakes her head at him, reaching up to kiss him as she pushes him through the door. “Go on.”

“It’s my kitchen.”

“You’re the host,” she says. “You have to make sure conversation flows. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Stuart trudges into the front room to find Lily and Jo sitting together on the settee, with David perched on the edge of the 1950s armchair. A vacant seat remains on the settee, at the end closest to David. Stuart elects to sit in the upright chair, by the window, at the far side of the room.

“So, do you think it will snow for Christmas?” Jo asks the room. All heads turn to the rain lashing at the windows. Lily picks at the loose piece of skin on her thumb.

“So,” David clears his throat. “Fiona says you’re at university?”

Lily looks at him, her face blank.

“Studying politics?” 

“Oh, yeah,” she tries to think of something to add but can’t. “Politics.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

Lily considers this question for a moment. It’s hard for her to remember Leeds. Her life feels like a film she watched a long time ago.

David rubs his forehead. “Do you have a favourite subject?”

“We’ve enjoyed ‘Feminism and Gender’,” says Jo. “Have you read any Dworkin? She thinks all men are-”

“Jo.” There’s a warning note in Lily’s tone.

“…rapists. But I think she’s wrong actually. I think all men are cowards. Miserable, lying, cheating cowards.”

“Bit of a generalisation,” says Stuart, but his voice tails off as Lily looks across the room at him.

Fiona bounds through the door, tea tray held high. “I’ve found biscuits,” she announces. “Chocolate ones. How’s everyone getting on?”

Stuart goes cross-eyed at her from the other side of the room. No one says anything.

“What?” Fiona sets the tray on the coffee table and takes the seat next to Lily, forcing Jo to squash up into the corner. Fiona extends an arm across Lily’s shoulders and smiles at her father. “Isn’t this great?”

Her father doesn’t reply, but tries vainly to return her smile.

“Don’t you think she looks like Hannah?” Fiona asks, as she takes a bite of chocolate biscuit. Crumbs spill from her mouth as she continues, “And guess what, Dad? Lily wanted to be a librarian when she was little, same as me.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Fi.”

“And she supports Liverpool.”

Lily nods and lights up another cigarette.

“How long have you been smoking?” asks David.

“And The Stone Roses played at Leeds Poly last term. Lily says if they play again she’ll get me a ticket.”

“Yes, you can come and stay with us whenever you like,” says Jo. “We’ll have a blast.”

“Well, GCSEs first,” David says. Fiona frowns at him. “But after that, I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time. It would be great for you to see what student life is like. You may even start getting an idea of what degree you’d like to do.”

“Oh, I think I may be able to find a spare evening before July, Dad. You know what they say about all work and no play. You wouldn’t want me to burn out now, would you?”