Читать книгу When I Met You - Jemma Forte - Страница 13

FIVE HOURS LATER

When I woke up, groggy from my unscheduled nap, I could never have imagined what lay ahead. Yet here I am, standing outside, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm, trying to compute that my dad is back. My dad is back? It can’t be true. Apart from anything else, if he’s my dad, why is he gripping on to me so hard? It’s too surreal. Just at that point, he finally removes his gloved hand from my mouth at which point, because I don’t fully believe anything he’s telling me, rather unimaginatively, I scream my head off again.

‘Fuck’s sake Marianne,’ the man claiming to be my long-lost father yells, though another crash of thunder ensures I can only just about hear what he’s saying. ‘Stop that flaming screaming will ya? It’s me, your dad. I’m not going to hurt you.’

At this point he lets go of me and spins me around to face him and there, in the blustering gale and rain, I get the first glimpse of him in twenty-seven years.

Immediately I know it’s definitely him. Without any photos – Mum has systematically destroyed all the ones that ever existed of him, even going so far as to cut him out of any group shots – it’s been impossible to preserve much memory of what he looked like, given that I haven’t seen him for so long. And yet I must have retained a handful of residual images, because something deep in the recesses of my mind makes a match with this tall, slightly menacing looking hard man who’s standing before me, dressed top to toe in black, rain pouring down his face. He’s got dark brown, almost black hair, that’s very short at the sides, slicked back on top and receding at the brow. He has green eyes, like me, sharp cheekbones, a nose that looks like it’s been in a few fights in its time and a crooked mouth. It’s my dad, and now that he’s standing before me, bathed in a shaft of harsh, overhead, patio lighting I realise I can’t have forgotten him like I always thought I had, because he looks so familiar. The same, only older, every line on his face visual evidence of the time he’s chosen not to spend with us.

I’m pretty sure at this point that he means me no physical harm but I’m still astonished by what’s happening and wary of what his next move might be. I also can’t stop staring. Probably because, when you’ve wondered about somebody all your life, when finally faced with them in the flesh you need to drink in every detail of them. It’s him and I can’t believe it.

I must be having some out-of-body experience because when someone yells, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ it takes a few seconds to register that it was me who said it, and that I’m crying. Really crying. In fact, I’m positively sobbing my heart out, probably due to a mixture of shock, anger and fear. Not that I can feel the tears. By this stage it’s raining so hard the two of us couldn’t be any more wet through if we jumped in a lake.

‘Let’s go inside. You’ll catch your death standing out here,’ he orders, his rough Essex accent a voice from a previous lifetime.

‘Not sure Mum would be so keen on that idea,’ I manage to stammer. I’ve never been as cold as I am right now. I’m numb.

‘Get in,’ he insists gruffly.

In the end it’s pointless to resist and, besides, what am I going to do? Send him back into the ether, possibly never to see him again? I have far too many questions to let that happen so I nod and go to slide the door across with numb fingers.

Once we’re both inside he pulls the door shut, which immediately dulls the sound of the driving rain. We both stand there, staring at one another, dripping wet, making a huge puddle on the carpet. All I can think is what now? I have no clue how to proceed, or what to say or do in this strange situation. My head’s swirling, my teeth are chattering. To be fair, I think I’m in shock.

‘Why don’t you get some towels or summink?’ says the man who has had the audacity to announce himself as my dad. Like he has the right.

On autopilot I do as I’m told. I go upstairs, strip my wet clothes off, dry myself and stick on a tracksuit and my slippers, all the while trying to digest the fact that downstairs is my missing parent. It’s a lot to take in and as I make my way back downstairs again I’m half-expecting him to have disappeared.

However, there’s nothing about tonight that correlates with any of my expectations.

Now, as I proceed with caution into the lounge, to my surprise, I find my father has gone into the kitchen and is stirring a pan of milk on the hob. He’s peeled off his soaking wet, leather coat and has dried his face off with a tea towel. I can tell because it’s sitting impertinently on the side, screwed up and discarded, a bit like we have been. He’s taken off his trainers and is in his socks. White sports socks. Now that the initial shock is wearing off, lots of rather more violent emotions start to encroach on my dumb state and the oddly domestic sight of him stirring a pan of milk suddenly enrages me. How dare he do something so ordinary in such an extreme situation? How dare he help himself to our milk, from our fridge? There isn’t anything normal about him coming back like this, so doing something as domestic as making hot beverages shows a blatant lack of respect for the drama he’s inflicting upon me. I feel insulted on Mum’s behalf. Thinking of her only increases the magnitude of what’s happening.

‘See you’ve made yourself at home then,’ I say frostily.

‘Get that down your neck,’ he says, before pouring the hot milk into two mugs and handing one to me. The mug he’s using is Martin’s favourite. Mum gave it to him on Valentine’s Day. It says Hot Stuff on it.

Staring into my own mug I notice my hand is shaking like a leaf. Hot chocolate. How twee. ‘What the hell do you think you were doing?’ I say coldly. ‘Why were you creeping round the house like that? I could have had a heart attack. I thought you were a burglar. Have you got a problem with doorbells or something?’

‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I went round the back ‘cos I wanted to see you on your own, so I waited till your mum and her fella had gone out. Then, I did try the bell as it goes, but there was no answer, so I came round the back again.’

‘But you grabbed me.’

‘’Cos when I reached out you screamed like a banshee.’

As I open my mouth to protest he says, as gently as his gruff voice will permit, ‘Drink your drink.’

Chilled to the bone, slowly I take a sip, only to find that it’s the perfect drink for the situation, hot, sweet and good for my strange state. I let the warm liquid defrost me from the inside but then, not wanting to pussyfoot around any longer, ask in a small voice I hardly recognise, the question I’ve wanted answering since I was a child, ‘Why did you leave us?’

And Ray, that’s his name, and I’m certainly not about to start calling him Dad, turns to me and says, ‘You know, I’ve dreamed of this day, Marianne.’

‘Whatever,’ I retort, hot rage boiling underneath the surface. This man has caused me so much pain my entire life simply by choosing to not be there, so hearing anything he has to say was always going to be hard. Such triteness is inexcusable though. Nothing he can say to me now will ever excuse his absence. As for turning up here unannounced, it’s unacceptable, inappropriate and above all, not bloody fair.

‘What’s your mum told you?’ he says, leaning back against the breakfast bar.

‘Just the basics,’ I fume. ‘That you were a pilot and that you pissed off to Australia because you couldn’t handle family life. Made for a lovely bedtime story I can tell you.’

Ray just stands there staring sadly into his cocoa. Then, to my absolute annoyance, a grin slowly spreads across his big brutish mug and he chuckles. He throws back his massive ugly head and actually laughs.

‘What?’ I say, and at this point I’m beyond seething.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘It’s just I can’t believe she said I was a pilot.’

The world tips on its axis and I become keenly aware of the fact that I can’t take much more tonight. She said he was a pilot.

‘Well, what’s so funny about that?’

‘I was never a pilot,’ he says, his face grave once more. ‘Marianne, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. I was in prison.’

I don’t believe this is happening. I put my mug down on the side and go to take a seat at the dining table, the one nearest the radiator. Needing time to fully absorb what he’s just said I use warming my hands as a delaying tactic. My head’s spinning and it’s also occurred to me that Mum could be back at any time. I glance back at Ray to see whether he’s joking but he looks deadly serious.

‘Prison?’ I manage eventually, not sure I want to hear anything else he’s got to say. Not convinced I don’t want him to just leave, so I can pretend that none of this ever happened. So that life can continue as … well … not quite normal, but as good as.

‘Yeah. I’m not proud of it, but at least I’ve served my time, though I can honestly say that living with the regret of what I did and what I put you, your sister and your mother through hasn’t been easy. You look so like her by the way. Not the colouring, but around the eyes and that.’

‘Right,’ I say faintly, not trusting myself to say much more apart, that is, from the question from which there’s no escaping. ‘So … what did you do? Why were you in prison?’

Ray inhales and looks up at the ceiling as if deliberating whether or not to tell me.

‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out somehow,’ I say, steeling myself to hear what heinous crime my long-lost dad committed all those years ago.

‘All right,’ he says quietly, his huge bulk making our kitchen look smaller than usual. ‘I was arrested for murder.’

‘You murdered someone?’ I sob. It couldn’t get any worse. It all feels so surreal and part of me hopes I’ll wake up in a minute. I know if the floodgates open I won’t be able to close them again so fight to keep calm.

‘Well yeah, but not on purpose. It’s a long story,’ he says sadly. ‘In the end I got done for manslaughter … and arson.’

I can’t look at him. It’s as if the walls are closing in on me, and it dawns upon me that I know virtually nothing about this man who’s standing in my kitchen. This man, who’s taken the liberty of helping himself to milk from our fridge. This monster, who’s telling me now, calmly, that he’s killed someone. What was I even thinking when I let him in the house? I have to get him out, preferably before Mum and Martin get back.

‘Well, now you’ve got out, it’s nice you thought to look us up,’ I say, sarcastically, yet with a hint of caution. I’m a bit worried for my own safety. I don’t want to rile him. He’s just told me he murdered someone. My dad’s a murderer. As thoughts pop relentlessly into my confused head, they’re more like newsflashes.

‘I got out eight years ago,’ he says abruptly.

‘Oh,’ I say, taken aback.

Another shocker I wasn’t expecting. In fact, if this evening takes any more curve balls I’m going to get the bends. Strangely, the fact he’s been out of prison for eight years but has only just got round to looking us up pisses me off even more than finding out he’s killed someone. I know that probably displays an awful lack of perspective but it’s more personal I suppose. Plus I’m probably not really thinking straight.

‘So, why didn’t you come looking for us eight bloody years ago then?’ I demand to know, feeling such a surge of white fury it almost overpowers me. How dare he? How can he say he’s dreamed of this day when he could have had it any time he liked over the last eight years. I’m so angry I feel like screaming.

‘I promised your mum I wouldn’t, but things have changed.’

‘Oh yeah? Great, well what’s happened then? Have you murdered someone else?’ I cried. ‘Or did it just occur to you what a shitty job you’d made of being a dad. Or maybe it’s not something you’ve ever taken particularly seriously so you just thought you’d do it on a whim. Is that it, or what?’

‘I’ve got cancer, Marianne. They’ve given me six months to live.’

And these words change the direction of everything once again. I stare at his face, willing him to be lying but can tell immediately he isn’t. Instead, I see a man who looks strangely resigned to the news he’s just imparted and even though I barely know him the anger dissipates and is joined by crippling sadness at the injustice of the whole shitty, crappy situation.

‘Cancer of what?’ Even though I’m already sitting down, my legs feel decidedly wobbly. I wipe my face as tears fall silently down it.

‘Of bloody everywhere at this stage, but it started in my colon. Cancer of the bumhole basically. Not the most glamorous,’ he jokes, though it’s so far from being funny, it’s tragic. His face is stricken.

‘Right,’ I manage. ‘Well … I’m sorry.’

‘Me too Marianne, me too,’ he says, rolling his green eyes heavenward in order to quell and stave off whatever it is he’s feeling, which can’t be good.

‘Are you scared?’ I ask, curious to know. Was it fear that had made him come back? Was he so selfish that he was only seeking us out because suddenly he needed us? I’m so confused right now I don’t know what to think.

‘No,’ he says simply. ‘I ain’t scared of dying. What does scare me though is not explaining anything to you and your sister. I’ve always left you alone for good reason but lately I’ve realised that might not have been the best plan after all. I’m so sorry I frightened you earlier.’

I think he can tell my brain is completely overloaded because the next thing he says is, ‘Look, it’s a lot for you to take in. I should go now anyway, in case your mum and her bloke get back, but I’m gonna give you my number and if you could just give me a call, maybe tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.’

I must have nodded because he picks a biro up and looks around for something to write on, settling eventually on an old receipt.

‘There,’ he says.

I take it from him and he crosses the room, clearly planning on making his exit the same way he arrived.

‘Why tonight?’ I ask, a swell of emotion suddenly surging through me as I desperately try to figure out so many things. I don’t want to cry while he’s here.

He shakes his head and smiles ruefully. ‘Didn’t have a plan really. I’ve just been watching the house a bit, you know, trying to figure out the best time to approach you.’

‘Right,’ I say, not knowing quite what to make of that either. I’m pretty sure what he’s just described amounts to stalking, not that it seems to matter very much somehow.

He slides the glass doors open a fraction and as he does the rain howls in again. As I watch him pull on his still wet coat, it occurs to me that I hope he has somewhere warm to go to. And that confuses me even further because a big part of me hates him, and yet this instinct contradicts that. He’s just about to disappear into the stormy night when he stops, turns and says one final thing, and of all the things I hadn’t expected about tonight, including seeing my dad for the first time in decades, finding out he went to prison, discovering he killed someone and is dying of cancer, the thing he says to me as he vanishes back into the storm is the thing that surprises me the most.

‘By the way, I heard you playing earlier Marianne. Through the window. You play beautiful. Bach wasn’t it?’

‘Um … yes,’ I whisper, wondering how on earth my dad, the murderer, could possibly know that.

I wander back to my room in a trance, mind racing as it desperately tries to compute everything it’s found out. My violin’s still lying on the bed where I left it, so I put it and the bow back in its case before sliding it underneath my bed. Then, utterly drained and emotionally spent, I collapse onto the bed and stare at the rain as it smashes against the window-pane, letting the tears slide quietly down my face and onto my pillow.

Seconds later I hear a key in the front door downstairs. Mum and Martin are back. Quickly I switch off my bedside light, plunging my room into total darkness. I can’t face Mum. If she sees me she’ll instantly know something’s up and I’m nowhere near ready to discuss what’s just happened.

I can hear her and Martin giggling and shushing one another, clearly pissed after an unusual Sunday night out to celebrate Sheena and Dave’s wedding anniversary. I’m hoping they’ll go straight to bed, but Martin spends what feels like hours making sure the house is locked up, while Mum crashes and blunders her way around the kitchen, burning toast by the smell of it – it’s always the same when she goes out with Sheena. In front of her she pretends she has the appetite of a sparrow, but then makes up for it when she gets home by eating her body weight in carbs.

What feels like hours later they eventually start making their way up the stairs, though their progress is painfully slow and agonising to listen to.

Mum seems determined to stop on every stair, wheezing with laughter, while saying things sporadically like, ‘Stop it Martin’ and, ‘Don’t, I’ll pee my pants Martin.’

Five long minutes later, they’re finally ensconced in their room, presumably passed out because the house falls silent once again, at which point I succumb to a proper sob. Perhaps a good cry is what I need? It’s been a hell of a weekend. And with that final thought I drift off into restless sleep, wishing I’d appreciated the relative simplicity of life before today.