by TL Dyer
‘Grampy’s having a party?’ he says, as I carry him into the kitchen to fill the kettle with water and switch it on. His warm hand lands on my cheek and pulls my face until I’m looking at him. ‘Can I come?’
‘Don’t know about that. You’ll have to ask Grampy. Maybe he’s seen enough of you this past three weeks.’
‘Never,’ Dad shouts down the hallway. ‘Course you can come, Little Man. You’re the star guest.’
He pokes his tongue out at me and I do the same back. Then he rests his head on my shoulder, his soft hair brushing my neck, the fresh scents of soap and clean air clinging to his skin and clothes.
‘What’s starguessed?’ he mumbles sleepily, breath warm on my chin and smelling faintly of blackcurrant.
I tighten my arms around his small body, press my cheek to his, and whisper into his ear. ‘It means you’re the most important one of all.’
*
Jake couldn’t wait for his uncle. By the time Shaun gets home three hours later, bringing more food and drink than we can manage in one evening, I’ve already been treated to the slideshow presentation of the grand trip. Several hundred images and over fifty videos in total, approximately a third of which were out of focus or else aimed at his leg. But to say he made good use of the phone his uncle bought him for his birthday is a fair assessment.
To punish his nephew for not waiting for him, Shaun throws him up onto his shoulder, then tickles him until he almost wets himself. Only on my protests does he drop a squealing Jake to the sofa and demand he starts again with the photos from the beginning. Which seems the perfect time to leave them to it and do what I promised I would as soon as they returned.
I pass Shirley in the kitchen, offer to give her a hand preparing the food for Dad’s tea party, but she waves me away, tells me I’ll know where to find him and rolls her eyes. Going out through the back door and walking the path to his workshop, I consider whether this is the right time. Probably not. There is no right time. But I can’t have this haunt me a day longer.
In our conversations over the last few days, Darren and I have agreed to wait until the custody hearing is out of the way before we explain to Jake what’s happening. First I’ll speak to him, and then we both will, doing all we can to show that we’re a team, we work together, and that this huge disruption to his life is built on a solid foundation, this new person accepted and respected in the same way we all are. But before all that happens, Dad needs to be prepared too. The sooner he knows, the more chance he has to come to terms with it. It won’t work if there’s tension in the air. Jake will sense it.
Tapping lightly on the workshop door, I wait for Dad’s response before I open it. Not one who likes to be disturbed while at work, his smile is unusually welcoming as I lean against the door frame. He waves his hand to beckon me inside.
‘Come on, come take a pew. Let me show you. What a great birthday present this is. Do you know what this here will do?’ he asks, holding the multi-tool Shaun and I bought him up to the light of the window as if it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
‘Wish I could say I do.’ I close the door and sit on the low wooden stool beside him, the one most often reserved for Jake.
‘This beauty right here…’ He points to one side. ‘This will file and smooth. Then this? This cuts. And this one over here, that’s for those really fine carvings, when you want to etch into the wood.’
‘Like a pattern, you mean?’
‘Yeah, a decoration, or letter carvings, all that kind of stuff.’
‘So it’s useful then?’
‘Useful? It’ll be a godsend. Especially because all these parts are replaceable. If one goes, you don’t have to throw the whole tool. You can just keep renewing the parts you need. Because inevitably you end up relying on one more than the others.’
‘Course.’
‘No, this is grand. Thank you.’
It’s been a while since I’ve been inside Dad’s workshop. But as I peer around at the thick work benches made by his own hand, the clumps of sawdust wedged into the impossible to reach gaps between the floorboards, and the boxes of parts neatly stacked and labelled ready for their trip north, I’m pretty certain it’s not usually this tidy.
‘You’ve got further in your packing than I was expecting,’ I say, with a smile I hope he’ll take the right way.
He returns the smile, but packs the multi-tool back into its box with just a hint of sadness about it. Another thing to label and ship.
‘It’s beautiful up there, Sach,’ he says, placing the box on the floor. ‘You’d love it, you really would. It’s like the best bits of Wales but without all the rest.’
‘We have best bits?’
‘You know what I mean. The countryside. It’s something else up there. It goes on for miles.’
‘Yes, in all weathers.’
‘But that’s the beauty of it. It’s never the same all year round, the landscape changes with the seasons. On the farm our lives will revolve around them, and that’s what keeps it interesting. And honest. It keeps it honest.’
His skin flushes when he notices my raised eyebrow. They’re Shirley’s words, we both know that. But that he speaks them with such excitement is testament to how much the place got to him, the idea of that new life. And maybe Shaun was right – being here is only holding Dad back, keeping him in Mam’s shadow. Shirley and Scotland are his chance to enter a new phase. Not necessarily begin again, just do something different.
‘Dad, talking of honest, there’s something I have to tell you,’ I start to say, breath tightening in my chest much as I’ve rehearsed this. ‘I’m sorry about the timing. I really am. But I need to have your backing. So the sooner I explain, the better.’
The abruptness with which his post-holiday contentment slides from his features is brutal. But now that the words are out there, I have to see it through. And so I rush what I’ve planned to say, my eyes on my lap and not on his face where I’ll be forced to gauge his reaction.
I begin at the end. Tell him there’s a forthcoming court hearing regarding visitation rights for Jake’s father. I sense him bristle beside me, but go on to how I approached this individual a few months back, having decided it was in Jake’s best interests that his father be part of his life. I leave out my concerns about the man, how I wondered after I’d told him whether I’d made a mistake, if he was not the sort of man we wanted in our lives. Nor do I tell him that one reason I went to him in the first place was because I felt their leaving for Scotland would leave Jake bereft of a father figure, and me bereft of extra support. Eventually there’s no more running from it, though. I return to the very beginning and the reason I never revealed who the father was back then, not even to the man himself. My voice shakes as I say the words out loud to the one person I’ve most dreaded telling.
‘Dad, it was Darren Isaacs. He’s Jake’s father.’
The floor blurs, then loses focus altogether as I tip over the edge into that black unknown void, that place I’d never intended to go, this a conversation I never thought I would have. At one point I’d even promised to take the identity of Jake’s father to the grave. How unrealistic, naïve and selfish that was. But from Dad there’s nothing. No sigh, no words of anger, no sharp intake of breath. My hand shakes as I swipe at the tears I can’t stop from falling, my throat and chest hot where the shame burning beneath my skin rises to the surface once again. When I can stand it no more, I look up, expecting him to be seeing me with new eyes, hard, unforgiving eyes that say I’ve betrayed him. But his are only as damp as mine. His lip trembles and he catches it with the back of his hand. And then he does gasp.
‘God, I thought you were going to tell me you were ill.’ He covers his face with both hands and drops his elbows to his knees. ‘I thought you were going to say it got to you too.’
It. Cancer.
‘Oh, Dad, no. I’m sorry. No, not that. I’m fine.’
After another moment, his hands fall from his face and
he draws in a deep sniff. ‘Are you, though? Fine? When Shaun said he had to call the doctor, I didn’t know what to think. I’d booked a flight home until you talked me out of it. Is this what it was about? Is this why you were unwell?’
‘No, I told you, that was just work stuff. Bill jumping the gun and being over-cautious. I told him it was unnecessary, but he wouldn’t listen.’
‘So that wasn’t the reason, all this with Jake’s father? With…’ He stops before he says the man’s name, runs his tongue over his lips.
‘No, Dad,’ I lie. And whether or not he believes me, he doesn’t push further. ‘I need your support on this, though. For Jake’s sake. I know it’s a lot to ask, but…’
He stares at a point on the floor long enough that I think his initial relief my news wasn’t the type he was expecting is now passing, and in its place are arriving all those reactions I’ve feared from him. Hurt. Disgust. Shame. But when he looks up, his eyes are as certain as they are weary, his nod firm. ‘You have it. You have my support. Of course you do, you always have. I’ll speak to Shirley after, tell her I won’t be going.’
‘What? No, Dad—’
‘She could still go on without me. There are too many plans in place for her to back out now. But maybe if it all works out, I can join her later on.’
‘Dad, stop.’ I lower myself from the stool to my knees and put my hands over his where they tremble in his lap. He never was at ease with family drama. The only reason he got through Shaun’s prison sentence was because Mam was there to take the strain.
‘That’s not what I’m asking you for. I just…’ I sigh, dropping back onto my heels. ‘Jake’s father is going to be in his life now, in one way or another. And however we feel about it, we all need to respect that. Me most of all. It hasn’t been an easy decision, but I owe it to Jake. I have to put right what I messed up. I have to give both of them a chance to… To somehow…’
‘Sacha.’ Dad’s voice is soft, his hands warm as they fold over mine. ‘Stop explaining yourself to me. You and Shaun and Jake, you’re all that matter to me. You know that, don’t you? Whatever you need…’
I tilt my head to look at him. Three weeks apart wasn’t so bad after the first twenty-four hours, but what about months? What about all the years spent apart barring a couple of weeks in the school holidays? How is that going to feel? But when I’ve had him all to myself for this past twenty-seven years, do I deserve to demand any more of his time?
‘You’ve got to go, Dad. Shirley needs you.’
‘You need me.’
‘Don’t be stupid, I’ve got bug-a-lugs in there, haven’t I? We managed okay without you these last few weeks. Well, kind of. And anyway, I’m tougher than I look.’
‘Oh, I know that, you daft sod. I just wish you didn’t have to be.’ A sad smile curls the corner of his mouth. ‘Sacha Jane Sanderson against the whole world. That’s what your mother used to say.’
‘She didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, she bloody well did.’ He laughs. ‘And see? There you go again. Questioning everything.’
I open my mouth to argue the point, but then snap it shut at the gleam in his eye challenging me to dig a deeper hole.
‘You’re in the right profession, my girl, I’ll give you that. Now come on, up off your knees, you’ll be filthy. Good job I had a sweep around before I went away.’
He places his birthday present in a box marked GERALD’S WORKSHOP while I get up from the floor and brush the sawdust from my jeans.
‘I’m bloody starving,’ he adds, putting our stools under the workbench. ‘Christ knows what your brother picked up for us. Chicken nuggets and fries, I expect. Right now though I’d eat a scabby horse.’
‘I wouldn’t rule that out, you know what he’s like when he sees a bargain.’
Dad chuckles, but pauses at the door before pulling it open. ‘Sacha?’ He grips the door handle in his gnarled fingers, turning towards me. ‘You and…’
‘No, Dad,’ I answer, when his eyebrows cave, annoyed at what he can’t bring himself to ask, even while not knowing the answer will gnaw away at him. ‘It was just the once, a mistake. And no, he did nothing wrong. We were both responsible for what happened. Both equally to blame.’
‘Blame?’ He opens the door and looks towards the house. ‘There’s no blame here, Sacha. There’s only a silver lining.’ He looks back at me. ‘That’s something else your mother was right about. Jake’s a silver lining. And we don’t question where those come from. We just grab at them with both hands.’
*
Later that night, Dad drinks too many of the beers Shaun brought home, and Shirley and I have to help him upstairs to bed. Once he’s flat out on the mattress, Shirley takes off his shoes and socks. While I head out onto the landing, I hear him wittering about his beautiful girls and Shirley telling him to: ‘Shut up, ya daft wee sod.’ Back downstairs, I push open the living room door, intending to retrieve a slumbering Jake from the sofa where, exhausted, he fell asleep earlier in the evening. Except now he’s not the only one unconscious.
Shaun has one hand propped under his head, the other hangs down to the carpet. His bare feet lie on the sofa arm, snores are long and slow, but not loud enough to wake his nephew tucked up beside him with his legs pulled up so his knees rest on Shaun’s thighs, Suzu clutched in both hands beneath his chin.
I had wanted to take him home, first night back in his own bed, in our house, just the two of us. But how can I disturb them? And anyway, there’ll be plenty more nights now that I’m off for at least the next month.
I turn off the living room light, leaving the lamp on behind their heads. Only Jake moves. His right hand tightens on Suzu, his left arm stretches across his uncle’s chest. Taking the throw from the back of the sofa, I lay it lightly over the two of them, then settle into the armchair and try to get comfortable. I could go home and leave them to it. But now that Jake’s back, I can’t bear to let him out of my sight.
Chapter 52
Telling myself I’m doing the right thing doesn’t make it any easier. If I were to listen to my instincts, they’d all scream that this is wrong. Very, very wrong. I just don’t know how. Besides, this is one occasion where instinct is no use to me. It’s bent out of shape by my urgency to protect my son, thrown off course like a column of refracted light through a shard of glass. For Jake, I remind myself as I brush my hair for the umpteenth time before going out of the door. This is for Jake.
I look sick. Pale cheeks drawn, dark shadows a clue to the sleepless nights and restless days since the court hearing date came through. No wonder Dad’s first thought when I told him I had something to tell him was that I was ill. I could certainly pass for ill. Not in my bones maybe, in my healthy organs, or the blood and adrenaline pumping unhindered through my veins. But some part of me, right there in the centre of my gut, feels more ill than I’ve ever been. I rush up the stairs to the bathroom to throw up for the second time this morning.
*
‘Quick word a sec,’ Jen says, taking me by the elbow and guiding me down the hallway, her heels striking the polished linoleum, their click-clack echoing off the walls on either side of us. She steps inside an empty office and closes the door.
I swipe away the messages of support from Dad on my phone and drop it into my bag. Jen looks confused, which does nothing for my queasiness. Of all the things you want your solicitor to be at a court hearing, confused is certainly not one of them.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ she adds, and my stomach takes another tumble. ‘Just that… Well, Mr Sheppard, Darren’s solicitor, has just approached me with a request on behalf of his client. They request that you settle this matter and make the contact arrangements outside of the courtroom. Is this something he’s already suggested to you?’
‘No, not at all. The last conversation we had was that we’d do this the right way, continue with the hearing then speak to Jake. That was several weeks ago. I haven’t heard from him since.’
Jen crooks her knuckle at her chin in a way that makes me uneasy.
‘Why, what are you thinking?’ I urge. ‘That I should agree to the request?’
‘I’m thinking why does he suddenly not want to proceed with the hearing? Wasn’t he the one who insisted the mediation meeting would be insufficient to resolve the dispute?’
‘Yes, but only because I was struggling to deal with what I’d started. Letting Jake go and all of that. But I’ve accepted it now, we’ve drawn up the boundaries of where we both stand. So maybe we don’t need to do all this.’
‘You had doubts about him before.’
‘I was looking for doubts. Reasons, excuses, not to go through with it. There was nothing solid to base it on, just my insecurities.’
‘But you had doubts, Sacha. Your instinct told you something was wrong.’
I press my fingers to the tight spot on my forehead, just above my eyebrows. ‘Look, Jen, where are you going with this? We’re supposed to be in there in ten minutes.’ I check my watch. ‘Less than ten minutes.’
‘Where I’m going is that Mr Sheppard asked me to put his client’s request to you and that’s what I’m doing. I’ll do whatever you want me to do, but as your solicitor – as your friend, Sacha – I’m strongly suggesting you proceed with the hearing today. And this is my instinct talking, not yours. If you agree, I’ll go back out there and tell him that, seeing as we’ve come this far, it would be beneficial to all parties involved, including the judge’s time and patience, that we complete the process accordingly. Then, as long as there are no issues, the matter will be resolved amicably and lawfully and everyone can get on with their day.’
‘Issues? Do you think there will be?’
Jen doesn’t answer. Just flicks her wrist to check her watch, then raises her eyebrows to hurry me for a response.
‘Yes. Okay, yes, I agree. We’re here now. Let’s get this sodding thing over with.’