Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere (28 page)

Stuart leads Lily through to the kitchen. Lily sits at the table, staring at the floor and smoking a cigarette, while Stuart boils the kettle. Stuart clatters cupboard doors. “God, he’s so smug.”

If Lily hears him she doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even look up when David throws open the door and steps into the kitchen. “Ok,” says David, “the police have radioed her details to all foot patrols and they’re going to get someone in Skipton to meet the bus, so if she’s on it we’ll know.”

“What about-”

“She’s not at the infirmary.” David sighs heavily. Lily senses it’s an exaggerated sigh.

Stuart shuts the fridge door with his foot and nods his head at the cup of tea on the worktop. “That’s for you.”

“Good,” says David. “Right, I want you both to visit every single place you’ve been with Fiona. Everywhere; cinemas, sports centres, coffee shops. She will have gone somewhere she knows. Lily, you come with me. We will try the bus, train station and taxi firms. We will meet back here in ninety minutes. No one is to do anything alone, clear?”

Lily and Stuart both nod. “I’ll just get my, things,” says Lily, running up the attic stairs as she’s remembers the new packet of fags that are up there. Jo’s got the old ones.

“I think I can hear Jo,” says Stuart, as Lily leaves the kitchen. He follows behind her, running down the bottom flight of stairs. “I’ll see you in an hour and a half.” The front door bangs behind him.

David watches Lily as she steps down the attic stairs. “So, what happened?”

Lily stumbles on the last few stairs and lands upright at his feet.

“Never mind,” he says. “Let’s just get going.”

 “Haven’t you a hat or gloves?” he asks outside, as he pulls his own hat firmly down over his ears. Lily feels an inappropriate flush of excitement that he cares that she’s freezing. She looks up and down the street. There’s no sign of Jo or Stuart. David doesn’t seem to notice. He starts walking in the road, where car tracks have made the snow less thick. Lily follows in his footsteps, trying to get the words of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ out of her head; ‘heat was in the very sod, which the saint had printed.’

Stuart jogs into the town square and sees Jo talking to the same two policemen they had seen earlier. Jo looks up, spots him, turns and says something to the police and then runs over to him.

“They’re going to have a look down by the canal. And there’s a place that does soup and stuff.”

“Well, we’ve got to go to every place we’ve ever been to here with Fiona. Even places that are shut.”

“Can’t we go with them?” She gestures towards the policemen. “I mean, they’re trained in this kind of stuff.”

“No, David said…”

“He’s here?”

Stuart nods. “And he’s pissed off with us all. Obviously. He said we’ve got to stick together. He’s gone with Lily.”

Stuart starts marching down the street. Jo shouts over to the policemen, “I’ve got to go, see you later.” She catches up with Stuart and matches her steps with his own as they walk along for a minute or two in silence. “So, is it true? Do all men think with their dicks?” Stuart doesn’t answer. “You see, I thought you might have been different.”

“I love her, Jo.”

“Who? Lily? Or Fiona?”

“I love both of them.”

“So do I. Doesn’t necessarily mean I have to shag them both.”

“I shouldn’t have slept with Fiona and I haven’t slept, I haven’t had sex, with Lily. But then maybe you shouldn’t have encouraged one emotionally fragile sister to kidnap the other. So don’t start on me, I’m not in the mood.”

David strides down the road, leaving Lily trotting in his wake, like a three-year-old child. He barely speaks to her, apart from barking the odd instruction. “If you see an all night garage, remind me to buy a street map.” 

As they turn the corner into King Street, a group of women out on a hen night are lurching down middle of the road. David calls over to them, “Excuse me.”

There doesn’t appear to be a sober one amongst them, and Lily flinches with embarrassment as one of the women starts shouting, “Ignore him, he wants to get his leg over, you’re spoken for.”

 “I just wanted to ask you ladies whether you’ve seen a young girl, on her own, without a coat.” He acts oblivious to the dozens of inflated condoms, safety-pinned to their dresses. No one has seen Fiona. As the women stagger off, David turns to Lily, “I should have brought a photograph.”

“I’ve got one,” says Lily excitedly, glad to be of some use at last. She pulls the picture of her and Fiona on the log flume ride, out of her wallet.

“You went to Blackpool?” David asks, his brow creased.

“Yeah, we, er…” Lily lights a cigarette.

“Do you have to smoke so much?” They watch two drunken men career into the road outside the train station, to be screeched at by an oncoming taxi. The taxi swerves up onto the pavement and the driver winds down his window and shouts obscenities.

“Have you not read anything on attachment theory? I smoke because my early childhood needs weren’t met by my loving parents.” Lily mutters as an afterthought, “We studied it in ‘Youth and Crime’.”

“It must be great for you having someone to blame for everything that’s wrong with your life.” David’s face is clenched against the sleet. They cross the road in front of the station in silence. A homeless man asks them for 20p for a cup of tea. David shows him the photograph and gives him a fifty pence piece..

The man shakes his head and asks, “You couldn’t stretch to a fiver could you? I’m supposed to be meeting a friend but I’ve lost my train ticket.”

David strides past him, and out of the station. He takes off a glove and wipes the cold from his eyes. “Wait a minute. Let’s try in here.”

Lily follows his gaze to the church next door. A banner above the door advertises a midnight carol service. The snow is coming down thickly now and settling on the ground. Her breath hangs in the air.

David pushes open the heavy door. The church is empty, but still warm from the memory of the late night carollers. Huge candelabras at the front of the church are still lit, and Lily notices a teenage boy in a white smock, working his way along the front of the church, extinguishing each candle with a snuffer. He moves slowly, methodically. He snuffs out another flame, before turning round and making eye contact with Lily. Then he nods to a corner pew, and as David makes his way down the central aisle, Lily sees her, a small bundle, hunched over, the bare skin at the back of her neck, red with the cold.

Lily runs down the side aisle as David works his way down the pew towards her. Lily comes in from the other side and they meet at Fiona. Her lips are tinged blue and her eyes are swollen. David takes off his sheepskin coat and wraps it around her shoulders. He pulls her towards him, trying to warm her body against his own. “Oh, baby, you had me worried.”

Tears start to pour down Fiona’s face and Lily is struck by how young she looks.

“What’s up, titch? Did you girls fall out?” He looks at Lily now, acknowledging her for the first time this evening. “That’s what happens with sisters, you know. Think about Hannah. She’s always fighting tooth and nail with Kate. It drives Auntie Sue mad.” 

Fiona leans her head against her father’s chest as he strokes her hair. “Do you want to tell me about it?” Fiona doesn’t answer. David turns to his eldest daughter. “Lily?” 

Lily shakes her head and Fiona looks up. “You can bet she doesn’t want to tell you.” Lily sees the bottle of vodka by Fiona’s feet. She picks it up. “Where’d you get this?”

“I bought it.”

Lily shakes her head. “You didn’t have any money on you.” 

“What do you care?”

“What’s going on?” David asks, the relief that had made his voice soft, melting into something more akin to anger. “Come on, someone’s got to tell me.”

Fiona tries to focus on Lily. “Go on, you tell him.”

Lily closes her eyes and wishes to be anywhere else but here. For the first time she regrets finding her father; wishes she’d left it alone. Wishes her mother wasn’t dead. She opens her eyes. Fiona and her father are still there, looking at her, waiting for her to speak. “It was only a kiss for Christ’s sake.”

The ‘for Christ’s sake’ comes out too loud and reverberates around the church. The choirboy turns his head for a moment before continuing with his task. The smell of extinguished candles has filled the front of the church.

A puzzled frown crosses David’s face. “I know, I told you that.”

“No, I kissed Stuart under the mistletoe. Just a Christmas kiss, but Fiona saw us and…” she raises her hands, trying to pass it off as a gross overreaction from the kid sister.

“He says he loves her,” Fiona interrupts, her words slurred and her head lolling as she speaks. “He doesn’t just love her, he’s ‘in love’ with her.”

Lily feels her stomach turn over with excitement. She squashes the feelings down. “No he’s not. That’s not my fault. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you. Honestly, Fiona.” Lily slides down the back of the pew in front, so she is sitting on the floor at Fiona’s feet. Her voice shakes as she speaks, “Finding you has changed my life. You have no idea. Before I met you, family was a word I didn’t understand. There’s been no one else in my whole life, ever. He shouldn’t have said that because it doesn’t matter. Nothing’s going to happen, Fiona, please.” 

“Do you love him?” says Fiona in a small voice.

Lily doesn’t answer.

“Do you?” asks David.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lily half whispers.

“It matters to me,” says Fiona.

“It doesn’t matter, because I love you.” Lily’s voice rises so that the last three words ring out in the church. Never having said, ‘I love you’ to anyone before, it now feels like a curse, a prison sentence. She stands up, her nose running. “I shouldn’t have kissed him. I’m sorry, I wanted to know what it felt like to have someone who cared.”

“Look, let’s talk about this some other time. Please,” David begs. “Things will look different in the morning.” 

“Please, Fi.” Lily’s touches Fiona’s arm.

“I always said he wasn’t good enough-”

“Shut up!” Both sisters turn on their father at the same time.

“I want to go home.” Fiona sways as she stands up. As soon as she hits the fresh night air she vomits. The sick hurtles to the pavement, splashing half way down David’s trousers. Fiona’s legs buckle beneath her. She groans and says, “I don’t feel very well,” before collapsing at her father’s feet.

’Tis the season to be jolly, and violent and drunk. Casualties of the festive spirit lurch around the streets. Lily watches a window being boarded up, sees the broken pint glass that smashed it lying in the middle of the street. Fiona is slumped, barely conscious. Lily and David try to march her up and down the church path, but her legs trail along the floor. David calls 999 three times, the third time yelling, “My wife’s a lawyer” into the phone. The ambulance takes nearly forty minutes to arrive.

Fiona is admitted straight away. Because Accident and Emergency is full of drunks with cut heads and broken limbs, Fiona is taken to the paediatric ward and Lily and David have to pace it out in an empty waiting room with stencils of Winnie the Pooh on the wall. David strides up and down the centre of the room, under the fluorescent lights, while Lily sits in a blue plastic chair, her arms folded across her chest.

Half an hour of pacing later, David turns to his eldest daughter. “You’ve really gone and fucked up my life haven’t you?” he says through clenched teeth.

Lily continues to stare at the floor.

“You kidnap my daughter, blackmail me, take my money, renege on your promises, destroy my marriage, and now my daughter’s in hospital, having overdosed on vodka. All because you were jealous.”

“It’s not my fault. If you’d just written me a letter, instead of having no fucking wish to communicate-”

“I’ve explained that.”

“Yeah, well explaining it doesn’t make it any better. I live with the consequences every day.” Lily stands up. “I am what I am because of you. Same way Fiona is. She’s bright and well adjusted and lovely, and I’m fucked up, hopeless, a mess. That’s what you get when you did what you did to me.”

“Do you ever take any responsibility for your own life? I fail to see how having an affair with your sister’s boyfriend can be construed as my fault.”

“It was just a kiss,” Lily shouts.

“Yes. Well. Maybe that makes us even.”

“How dare you compare... I’m not married. I haven’t got a pregnant wife. I’m not about to have a baby.”

“Kissing your sister’s boyfriend is the moral high ground?”

A nurse appears around the door. “Could you keep it down in here please? Or I’m going to have to ask you to leave. There’s a ward full of children right next door.”

“Sorry,” says David, not meeting the nurse’s eye.

“I should think so. Now, don’t let me have to come in here again.” The nurse turns on her heel and leaves the room.

“I’m sorry,” says Lily after some time. She sits down again and puts her hands over her face. “I didn’t ever mean it to be like this. You know it was Fiona who first told me we were sisters. I hadn’t even realised being your daughter meant she was my sister.”

David sits down in a chair on the other side of the room, facing Lily. He looks at his watch and groans. “I should ring Ruth.”

“We spent weeks watching you, you know, before the kidnap. Watching Fiona in her pigtails and knee socks, glowing like the Ready Brek kid. You’re right. I was so jealous. I didn’t see her as a person; I just saw a way to get at you. And then we kidnapped her and she was so indignant, so absolutely sure we’d got the wrong man ‘Daddy would never do that’. And I loved showing her the wedding album, the pictures of you and Mum. You should have seen the look on her face.”

Lily can’t help a small smile at the memory. She stands and walks over to the window, lays her head against the glass. “She was more pissed off with you than I was. She wanted to make you pay and I thought great, this is going to be a piece of cake. But then she said she’d always wanted a sister, and that was the first time I realised.” Lily looks over to David. “She never held it against me, you know, that I’d kidnapped her. She was so cross and so outraged by the injustice of it all, that I started thinking, if she’s this good a person then you couldn’t be all that bad, because you’d raised her. She thinks the world of you.”