Someday Find Me (15 page)

The next night after work the flat was empty again. I sat on the chair and I put my feet up and then I put my feet down and then I hung them over the arm and then I stood up again. I straightened all the CDs on the shelf and took one down and looked at it and put it back and straightened them all again. I lined them up with their fronts at the edge of the shelf and then I lined them up with their backs all straight against the wall. I went to the fridge and took out the last sad little beer and opened it. It was cold and too fizzy and made my mouth taste all metally, like tears or like how your fingers do when you’re a little kid and you’ve been holding pennies for ages and ages while you look at all the penny sweets. I went into the bedroom to tidy up but there was nothing left to tidy up and there were big gaps where all Saffy’s things should’ve been, so I went back out and into the bathroom and looked but everything was tidy in there too, except for the four sucker holes where Phyllis the Fish used to live.

I went back to the lounge and drank some more of my beer and then I realised it was the quiet that was making everything so sad, squashing me down and making me feel all floating and lost at sea, so I put the radio on and that made me feel, well, not at all better but still at least I had something else to listen to other than the tumbleweed and memories in my head. I turned on the little lamp that Quinton had got from a car boot sale and
which had weird fringy stuff all around its shade. It looked like if we were in a cartoon film it might start dancing around the drawers to cheer me up. But we weren’t and so I just shuffled around a bit more, bopping my head a bit to the music and moving things around and putting them back and drinking my beer in tiny little penny sips.

And then there was a knock at the door which in my little world of my own confused me so much that I just stood still for a minute wondering what it was until it came again.

I went out into the hall, which was dark because it was nearly night outside, and I opened the door and Win was standing there looking a bit sheepish and also a bit red, even in the nearly nighttime.

‘Hello, Fitz,’ she said. ‘You left your wallet in your jacket – you know, the other day – and I thought you might need it.’

I was a bit bewildered and my head was still all messed up and so I think I just looked at her a bit silly for a while before I remembered myself and said, ‘Right, cheers, Win, yeah, thanks. Come in, come in.’ I didn’t even remember having a wallet and it had probably been in that pocket for months but it was just as well she had found it because I’d been looking for my driving licence for ages, and it was a new one anyway and I hadn’t dared send off for another. So it was enough to put a very small smile on my face for the first time in what felt like ages. ‘You want a beer?’ I said, and then I remembered I didn’t have any beers left. ‘Or a vodka?’

She smiled like she wasn’t sure. ‘Okay, yeah, a vodka, thanks.’

I got the little bottle of voddy out of the freezer and got a glass down but when I looked in the cupboards I could see we didn’t have any mixers. ‘You all right with it neat, Win?’ I asked. ‘Or I could open a box of tomatoes if you like? Get some of the juice in for a Bloody Mary?’

She looked at the glass with the vodka in a bit nervous. ‘Like that’s fine,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’s how I like it. Neat.’

I handed her the glass and leant against the counter. ‘So, yeah, thanks again for dropping that off, mate,’ I said. ‘I’d been shitting it about telling Saf I’d lost my licence already.’

She took a sip from her glass, a big one, and it made her eyes go all watery-runny and she pulled a face without meaning to. ‘That’s okay,’ she said, when she’d got a nice face back on. ‘I don’t live far.’

That made me think for a sec and I said, all curious, ‘How’d you know where I lived?’

This made her go quite a lot more red. ‘Your address is on your driving licence.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ I had a little chuckle. ‘That’s clever of you, that.’

The radio was playing Motown now, which made me want to go and lie face down in a big pile of duvet and never come out again, but I didn’t want to be mean so I said, ‘How’s Max?’

She got on this shiny happy soppy face and said, ‘He’s lush. Thanks for asking.’

I looked at my feet and tried not to listen to the song. ‘I like kids,’ I said, for something to say to cover up the music, which was making my heart feel all heavy in my chest and my eyes feel all fuzzy around the edges. ‘Maybe I could babysit for you someday, you know, to say thanks for dropping this off.’ I could feel my eyes starting to water so I watched my toes in their socks really really closely and scrunched them up and then let them go and then scrunched them up. ‘I’m a good babysitter,’ I said. ‘The kids down our street were always asking for me when it was the Seventies disco for the parents and that. Or I could just take you for a drink maybe, just to say thanks, you know. There’s a nice pub down that way …’ and I pointed even though I was just pointing at the kitchen wall and my eyes were still all watery and my nose was tingling a bit and my voice felt a bit small. ‘I’m not much company at the moment, but in a bit maybe—’ And then I felt an arm sneaking round my waist and I thought, That’s nice, I do need a cuddle, I really do need a
cuddle, and I was about to say thanks when she leant up and kissed me.

Her lips felt soft and thin and for a second I almost kissed her back but then it was like my head had done an emergency stop on the brakes and everything went flying forward and I pulled away. ‘What you doing?’ I asked, stepping back across the kitchen.

Her eyes all filled up and she went pink in the cheeks in two blotches and she couldn’t get any words out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she turned and ran out of the flat.

I felt terrible then, like everything was just a big whirl of sadness and the whole world was rubbish and I sat down on the kitchen floor and cried into my knees.

I felt squashed down with thoughts, like I was suffocating, on the train out of the city, but as I got closer to home I felt like I could breathe again and like maybe I might be okay someday. I thought, Yeah, that’s better already, because even the air felt lighter and cleaner by the time I was walking off the main road on to our street. But that didn’t last long because as soon as I opened the front door with the key that lived under the little stone beagle who sat on the step, and the yellow puff of fags and staleness and sweat and gravy hit me in the face, I suddenly felt myself sink again.

My mum came hurrying out, clutching her rolling pin, with flour dust following behind her. She looked tiny and even more like a mouse than the last time I’d seen her, bits of beigey brown hair falling out of the do she always had pinned up behind her head and flour dust and grey sprinkled in between. When she clocked it was me she grabbed at her heart and let the rolling pin down a bit. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she goes in relief. ‘Hello, love.’

‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, bending down to kiss her floury cheek.

‘I forgot you were coming,’ she goes, looking confused. ‘I must’ve forgotten to put it on the calendar.’

‘No, Mum,’ I said. ‘Surprise visit today. That’s all right, isn’t it?’ Which was a stupid question, I thought, as I took my shoes off and stuck them under the telephone table; it was pretty
unlikely she had plans seeing as she hadn’t left the house in over a year, in fact probably longer. Except the one time Dad had been off goose-stepping down the high street and the Jewish butcher had gotten a hold of his cleaver and started waving it about and the nice woman from the baker’s with hair like a Chelsea bun had come and got Mum and she had gone out, but that was the only time.

Hannah was upstairs – you could hear the bed frame slapping the wall and the muffled moans even from down there. We’d all just learnt to ignore it and you did get used to it, after a while you wouldn’t even notice it, which was just as well because it was a pretty regular occurrence. She didn’t have a boyfriend but she seemed to have four or five or six special friends after the bomb, and whether we thought that was a good idea and whether we could see the link between surviving a terrorist attack and being struck with the urge for a good cocking didn’t really matter. If it made her feel better then she could shag her way through the Black Country and I wouldn’t mind. I just wanted her to be happy and if that was what she thought would do it then, yeah, it was all right with me, but I did hope that what would also make her happy was a new bed.

Anyway, not really wanting to hang around and listen to my sister’s shagging noises any more than the next person, I hurried into the lounge where you couldn’t hear it quite so much, probably cos the yellow fog blocked your ears a bit. My dad was sat at the computer but that was nothing new, he was a permanent fixture in that chair and if he ever got up to make a brew for himself, which was next to never, or go to the loo, within a few minutes the phone would start ringing off the hook. I wished he wouldn’t give out the home number, it was bad enough with Mum’s nerves, let alone having all these dodgy types ringing up for ‘Griff’. Thing is, to me he was my dad, he was Griffin Fitzwilliam, postie and pub darts champion, but to the people on the other end of his chatrooms he was Griff and
his opinion was really really important. He was sat there typing away, typing like dads do with one finger stamping out each letter like they were all very very important each and every one. The bald patch on the back of his head had got even bigger and he was peering over his glasses, hunched in his chair, so he looked a lot like one of the freaky horrible birds out of
The Jungle Book
, but I felt bad and guilty for thinking that because you’re only supposed to think good things about your family and besides I was no oil painting myself. He didn’t look up, just said, ‘All right, son,’ and I walked up behind him and put my hands on his bony little shoulders but I was careful not to look at the screen with its bright red and black letters because I’d learnt to pretend not to see that, not to see ‘nigger’ and ‘paki’ and ‘allah’ or any of the horrible words that popped up all over the place like nationalist Tourette’s, which was what Saf called it, because even though they were sick and it made me feel sick, he was still my dad and it’s hard to think bad things about your dad, not when there’s a picture of you when you were five with a bowl cut and little flared jeans on, digging in the garden with him, up on the mantelpiece, so I’d just learnt to make my eyes go blurry and ignore it until I forgot it was there, just like I couldn’t hear the thumping and groaning coming from upstairs any more.

‘Journey okay?’ he asked, because that was a dad thing to ask, especially my dad, who had millions of books of maps and would print directions off the computer for you if you were going somewhere, even though he knew shortcuts and better ways so he crossed off half the steps and filled them in himself in his spider’s handwriting. He didn’t get out that much now so all the maps were in the corner getting dusty, which made me sad right in the middle of my chest.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Train was a bit rammed at first but all right after Coventry.’

‘Mmm.’ He nodded, like to say he’d expected as much.

I stayed standing still looking at the pictures on the fireplace and the maps in the corner and the bald bit at the back of his head.

‘Everything all right?’ he said after a while and I said, ‘Yep,’ and took my hands off his shoulders cos that felt a bit weird and awkward and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but that was okay because one of his little conversation windows had popped up and somebody was asking him something and he was typing back looking serious so I just squeezed the back of his chair instead of his shoulder and went into the kitchen to see my mum. She was there, back rolling away in her little cloud of flour dust. There was always pastry in the oven, didn’t matter when you popped your head in, an empty doughy bed would be in there baking away, probably another one sat on the windowsill cooling down. She looked up a bit surprised when I strolled in, probably’d forgotten I was there bless her.

‘Cup of tea, love?’ she said, clapping her hands to get the bits of pastry off them, and sending a big puff of white in front of her face.

‘I’ll get it, Mum,’ I said, as she was blinking away the dust. I got her cup off the draining-board, remembered which one it was and everything. Han had bought it for her ages before, Best Mum Ever, it said with a big heart on it and stuff. They used to go shopping all the time, girly stuff and that, sit there in those mud things girls put on their faces and the big pink fork things in between their toes up on the coffee-table while we laughed at them. I got a mug out for myself and I didn’t bother looking for mine just in case it wasn’t there. I put tea in the teapot and that was nice, me and Saf didn’t have a teapot, which was a shame actually cos Quin had a tea cosy, one of those ones that’s a lady with a big woolly skirt to cover the teapot. While I waited for it to brew I leant back against the counter and watched her putting the pastry into its silver dish, prodding around the edges and slicing off the extra bits flopping over the side with a knife.
When she was done, she stacked up the knife and the rolling pin and the board next to the sink and starting wiping up the flour dust with a soggy J-cloth, putting it all into her little bird hand.

I poured the tea into the cups and got the milk jug out of the fridge and poured some in. I didn’t sniff it cos it was best not to, Dad was quite bad at forgetting to pick up milk so it was sometimes, well, you know, a bit on the sour side, but Mum’d get upset then so it was best to just dump a bit of extra sugar in, give it a stir and hope for the best. She’d stuck all the extra flour neatly in the bin and was brushing her hands over the sink and looking a bit lost so I steered her over to the table and plonked the tea in front of her. We both sipped at it even though it was too hot, just sipping and smiling at each other while we tried to think of something to say. I was trying to think of things that wouldn’t upset her, you had to be careful you really did because, even if you started off on something quite normal, before you knew it you’d somehow wandered on to bad topics and then it was too late. Don’t get me wrong, she was definitely getting better, it was nothing like in the first few weeks after that day, when I’d come into the kitchen to make tea for the pair of them or to get ice for Han’s face, because the burning carried on for weeks, her face was so hot it melted ice in minutes and so I was always running back and forth with peas and mugs and sympathy and brave faces, and I’d find her sobbing in a little heap of tea-towel on the table. Or when you tried to get her out down the shops or just a little spin around the block, just to get some fresh air, and even the sound of a car starting or a dog barking and she’d curl up on the pavement and you’d have to carry her home wobbling like jelly. She had nightmares about it for months, even though she hadn’t been there; in the dreams it was her not Han and she was trapped. She’d wake up screaming and it would be me who went, because Dad was slowly rocking on the back step in the dark, smoking and thinking about murder and war and grinding his teeth, so it was me who went
and cuddled her and told her it was okay, we were all okay, we were safe. No, she was much better by then but it was still definitely a case of being bright and breezy and watching very carefully to make sure her eyes didn’t start blobbing up with tears.

‘How’s Saffy, love?’ she said, and I looked at my tea.

‘All right,’ I said after a minute. ‘She’s been off visiting her parents as well.’ Which wasn’t a lie, was it?

‘That’s nice,’ she goes, with a smile. ‘Lovely girl she is.’

I nodded. ‘What’s new with Phil and Holly?’ I asked eventually, and this is the thing, you see: when somebody doesn’t leave the house the people in their life are the ones on the telly so I ended up asking after the bloody presenters on
This Morning
like they were real mates of ours, but I’d obviously hit on a winner because she squeezed my hand excitedly.

‘Ooh,’ she goes, ‘ever so well this week. That Holly she’s a lovely girl, she had on the loveliest dress the other day, beautiful curves, reminds me of when we were young. And that Philip, ooh, I’ve got a soft spot for him, William, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, winking at her and taking the cups to the sink. ‘Well, I’m no Pip I’m afraid, Mum, but you need anything doing in the garden while I’m here?’

‘Oh, you are a good boy,’ she said, pinching my cheek. ‘The beds do need doing – do you mind, pet?’ and she started rolling out the pastry for the pie lid.