by Kim Nash
But then I heard Mum shout, ‘It’s not time yet, if we tell her now, it’ll break her heart. You have to go by my pace here, not yours. We’ve waited this long. She’s got enough on her plate without you bulldozing in and throwing this into the mix. She’s not strong enough.’
‘I’ve already missed thirty-seven years of her life, Josie, and I’m not prepared to miss any more.’
Mum sighed and seemed to give up all her fight and I heard her say, ‘Don’t do this to Maddy! We will tell her, but not right now. Please Theo, I beg you!’
Theo? Theo? Why the hell was she calling Edward Theo? My mind was whirling around. And as the realisation hit me, I felt hot and clammy and I struggled to get my breath. I grabbed onto the bookshelf for balance and as it toppled towards me, I dropped the flowers I was holding, slid to the floor and passed out.
* * *
As I came round, I spluttered. Mum had shoved smelling salts right up my nose. Bloody hell! They were strong and made my eyes water. As my head started to steady, it all came back to me. Mum had called Edward Theo which, if I had got my sums right, made Edward my father. I just looked at Mum who was crying and trying to hug me. ‘Oh Maddy, you’re ok.’
‘Well I think ok is probably an overstatement don’t you, Mum? I think you two have some explaining to do, don’t you?’ I looked from Mum to Edward, or should I say my father, Theo.
‘On second thoughts, save it. I’m not fucking interested.’ I got to my feet, grabbed my handbag and practically ran to the front door. I jumped in my car and screeched off the drive, nearly reversing into a lamppost. Mum was running down the path towards me yelling my name. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. How could she have been lying to me? The only person I’d been able to rely on all my life? The one who had never let me down, never! And now, this – the ultimate betrayal. Could I trust anyone in my life at all?
* * *
Skidding to a halt in the farm, my heart was pounding as I jumped out the car and slammed the door behind me. Racing over to the main house, I walked in and found Uncle Tom sitting at the kitchen table.
‘Just breathe and calm down, Maddy. I’ve just had your mum on the phone. I know what’s happened. Come here, darling.’ He opened his arms to me and I just melted into them and broke down. I couldn’t get any words out, I was sobbing so hard.
‘Darling, don’t say a word and just listen to me for a minute.’
I looked up at him and nodded.
‘Now, I know you’ve had a huge shock. Huge. But you also need to know that not telling you about your father was a decision that your mum made because she thought it was the best thing to do at the time. You know in your heart, that she would never intentionally do anything to hurt you. You mean the world to her. And that’s the reason that she was trying to find the right time to tell you. The one thing I’ve learned from being a parent is that there’s never really a right time. You can only do what you think is the correct thing to do at that moment. Now go and wash your face and I’ll pour you a nice big gin and tonic. Your mum is on her way over to talk to you.’
‘But, but… I don’t want to see her. Or him.’
‘Did you just butt me?’ Even through my tears, this standing joke raised a smile. Years ago, the farm was home to a lovely little Billy goat, who had a tendency to butt you up the bum. Uncle Tom, to his surprise and to our amusement, once got butted and asked the goat very seriously, ‘Did you just butt me?’ and Beth and I fell about laughing. Since then, whenever the word ‘but’ was mentioned, we always asked, ‘did you just butt me!’
‘That’s better. Now go on, go and sort that face out. It’s horrendous!’ He winked at me as I headed to the downstairs loo. As I passed the hall mirror I caught sight of myself. God, I did look ghastly. Mascara had streaked down my cheeks, and I was red and blotchy from the chest up. I sounded extremely snotty and my nose resembled Rudolph with a cold. Very attractive, indeed.
‘Mad, are you ok?’
Oh great! The one person I didn’t want to see me right now was the one person who was stood in front of me.
I hesitated, took a deep breath and turned. ‘Alex, hi!’
‘I hope you don’t mind but I was in the room with Dad when your mum rang so I heard what happened. You must be feeling a little confused right now.’
Feeling confused was my permanent state of mind around Alex. Just looking at him made me feel warm and fuzzy even at a time like this. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but then I remembered that I looked like crap, and excused myself to go to the loo. I wiped the mascara from under my eyes and splashed cold water on my cheeks to try to get rid of the redness. I bet Sophie never looked this awful. I wish I hated her but over the years I’d discovered that she was actually really nice too. I hadn’t even known Alex was here. I wondered when he had come back. I wished he never had to go back to the States.
Voices were coming from the kitchen and I knew that Mum must have arrived. Taking a deep breath, I put my hand on the handle and opened the door. Thank goodness it was just her. I didn’t think I could have coped if he had been there too.
She looked at me with tears in her eyes and whispered, ‘I’m so very sorry that you found out that way, Madison. That was never our intention.’
‘So what exactly was your intention, Mum? When were you going to tell me?’
‘I don’t even know.’ She steadied herself on one of the kitchen chair backs. She looked a bit wobbly and Uncle Tom took her arm, guided her over to the sink and poured her a glass of water.
‘Come on Josie, come and sit down and I’ll leave you two to talk. Somewhere neutral will do you good.’
‘We were working out when and how to tell you. Theo contacted me a few months ago. He’d been keeping in touch with a friend of his that we used to know and he tracked me down. He found some pictures on the Facebook page and said that he had recognised me immediately. He said he’d know my face anywhere and that I’d hardly changed. We’ve been trying to get to know each other again and spending a bit of time together, as you know. We wanted to make sure that you finding out about him was the right thing for you. You and no one else. It didn’t really matter how it affected us. It was all about you, my darling. You just happened to walk into the middle of a conversation that you shouldn’t have heard. But in hindsight, perhaps it’s best that it’s all out in the open now. Goodness knows when we’d have got round to telling you otherwise.’
‘How do you feel about him now, Mum, after everything that happened all those years ago? Can you ever forgive him?’
‘Darling, I’ve done lots of soul-searching over the years. I missed Theo so much even though I’d only known him for a short time and as you know, I was completely devastated when he left. I’ve since found out some things, which I’ll let him tell you when you’re ready, that made the decision for him, and I know that he’s thought about you every day of his life and has never regretted anything more.’
‘So you do forgive him, then? I’m not sure I ever can.’
‘I think I have forgiven him. I’ll never forget what happened; it shaped our lives. But I think you have to forgive to move forward. Forgiving someone is not about letting them off the hook for what they did, it’s about freeing yourself of all those negative emotions and the hurt that can destroy you, so that you can finally find some peace in your life. Not forgiving someone makes you bitter and angry at the world and I don’t want to be those things any more. I’ve been those things for long enough. Forgiving gives you strength to carry on and have a normal life.’
‘So how do you feel about him now?’
A huge sigh escaped from her lips. ‘It’s like there hasn’t been nearly forty years between then and now. He seems to be the same man that I fell in love with all those years ago. He still makes me laugh and he still takes my breath away every time I look at him. I wish he didn’t, but he does.’ A tear trickled down her cheek, and I went to sit next to her and took her hand in mine. I was still angry with her and him,
but she was my mum and I loved her dearly, and would never want to see her in pain.
‘I never once thought that you’d still love him.’
‘Neither did I.’ Mum rested her head on my shoulder and I pulled her close as she sighed again. ‘What a blinking mess, eh?’
If she had chosen to forgive Theo, perhaps I should consider forgiving them both. If I did, maybe then we could all move forward. I just wasn’t sure that I could.
* * *
The need to talk things through with Beth was overwhelming. I’d stayed away for far too long making excuses because I didn’t want her to quiz me over Jamie. I knew she would work me out straight away. But right now I needed my bestie to chat to. When I knocked on her bedroom door, she yelled, ‘About bloody time, get your arse in here, bitch!’ Which sure broke the ice.
‘Do you know what that was like for me? All that shouting going on and I hadn’t got a bloody clue why. Now get your arse over here and tell me what the fuck is going on.’
I poured out the story from start to finish, leaving nothing unsaid. The whole Jamie business came out, and I told her about Theo too. Beth was always the most practical person I’d ever known. She just got right into sorting out a problem without all the dramatics that most people generated.
‘So let’s start with Jamie, shall we? That’s quite easy to sort out. Do you love him?’
‘I like being with him.’
‘But do you love him, with the whole of your heart? Do you like the person you are when you are with him? Can you forgive him for what he’s done to you? May I remind you that you caught him shagging someone else in your bed? Just in case you had forgotten.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten, but cheers for reminding me. I don’t know if I love him and whether I’ll ever be able to forgive him, but I think that I want to try. Perhaps working together and being together will be the making of us.’
‘OK, well, I think you are a complete fucking idiot, but you’re my fucking idiot and if you want to try to make it work with him, then do it. And I’ll be here if it goes tits up again, to pick you back up. Problem One sorted. Now onto the very important matter of Theo.’
I smiled at how matter-of-fact she was. She wasn’t actually as mad about Jamie as I thought she’d be; perhaps she’d already got an inkling.
‘So, you’ve always pretended you were ok without a dad in your life, and you kind of adopted mine, which helped massively, but deep down you were always sad that your dad wasn’t around, weren’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Ok, so, now your dad is here, and you don’t know whether you want him in your life or not. Is that right?’
‘Yep, I suppose so.’
‘So, Mrs List-maker. Let’s make a list. Get your notebook out.’ God, she was bossy! Beth knew that I always carried at least one notebook around and I got one out and a pen and she instructed me to draw up two columns. One was titled ‘No Theo’ and one ‘Yes Theo’.
On the ‘No’ list I wrote:
Never had a dad so not really missing out on what I never had.
I might hate having a dad in my life
I might still yearn for a dad in my life
On the ‘Yes’ list was:
Mum and Theo might become a couple
Theo could give me great advice
I might LOVE having a dad in my life
Theo could give me support
I won’t have to wonder what it’s like to have a dad in my life because I’ll have one.
I might realise what I’ve missed out on all these years
Theo is a nice man
Theo could become my friend
So it was clear that one list was way longer than the other, and the things on that list were actually starting to excite me. This could be my chance to have a proper relationship with my father. Whatever ‘proper’ in our situation meant. I looked at Beth and she smiled.
‘Well, that’s sorted that out then, hasn’t it love?’
I leaned across and gave her a hug. ‘It’s about time we got you sorted out then. Isn’t it time you got your lazy fat arse out of bed?’
‘Cheeky bitch! I’m going to my next physio session tomorrow. But my normal physio has left so apparently there’s a new man. I’m dreading it, to be honest. Apparently he’s not long left the army but thinks he’s still in it. I was going to ask you if you could take me at all? Alex is busy and Dad’s on dog duty. I have to be there at eleven. Would you mind?’
‘Only if I can stay and watch him put you through your paces. Now that’s something I’d pay to see. I’ll come up and fetch you about quarter past ten; that’ll give us time to get you to the hospital and I can drop you off and get parked and all that malarkey. I’m shattered, babe. I’m going to go home and to bed. Thank you for talking through everything with me, I really do appreciate it. I do love you, you know.’
‘Be off with you, you big girl’s blouse. See you tomorrow.’
* * *
As promised, the next morning I helped her down the stairs and into the car. She looked so uncomfortable but we knew that the only way she was going to get better was to keep moving and get this physio regime underway. Pulling up as near to the hospital entrance as I could, I got her comfy on a bench while I went off to find a parking space. Spotting one in the next row, I headed for it, only to have some tosser in a BMW convertible screech into the space I was just about to drive into. I lowered my window and shouted, ‘Excuse me, I was just about to park there!’ to him but he just grinned and shouted over, ‘You snooze, you lose! Sorry, babe, it’s clearly not your day. Good luck with finding a space!’ What a knob – even if he was an incredibly good-looking one. It surprised me that I could still appreciate a handsome man even if I was pissed off, but I still shouted ‘Dickhead!’ as loud as I could at him and he grinned again and blew a kiss at me as he swaggered off towards the hospital entrance.
I spotted an old dear wearing a big winter coat, a headscarf and slippers, shuffling over to her car and I waited another ten minutes for her to do a twenty-five point turn to get out and face the right way. The thought of how competently she would actually drive the car scared me to death as she kangaroo’d out of the car park. She raised her hand in thanks and as she drove past and beeped, I noticed that she’d got a sticker on the back of her car that said ‘honk if you’re horny!’ which really made me titter and forget all about the dickhead who had nicked my parking space.
‘Bloody hell Maddy where’ve you been, we’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on. We need to make a dash for it.’
We both laughed at that, bearing in mind that she was on crutches and I didn’t think either of us would be going anywhere in a hurry. We headed for the physiotherapy department and were asked to wait until Beth’s name was called. She didn’t want to sit down again, so we stood around waiting for Mr Miller.
‘Beth Millington please.’ We turned towards the voice and oh great!
‘Yes, it’s me. Pleased to meet you. My name is actually Dan Miller though, not Dick Head.’ His eyes twinkled and I knew that he was one of those guys that would be able to get away with murder and that you couldn’t stay angry with for long.
‘Come on Beth.’
I turned to see that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. I whacked her on the arm to get her attention and bring her back in the room. ‘Close your mouth love, you’re dribbling!’
She grinned and we followed Mr Miller into his consulting room. He invited me to take a seat next to the bed.
‘I’m just going to get your notes. I’d like you to get on the bed, please Beth.’
He closed the curtain around the bed and we giggled like teenagers as Beth said ‘I’d like you to get on the bed please, Mr Physio. Phwoar! Cop a load of him. What a bloody hottie!’
‘Still here but thank you, that’s very kind,’ came his husky voice from behind the curtain. Mortified, Beth’s eyes became the size of saucers and she turned the colour of beetroot. I had an unco
ntrollable laughing fit and had to grab a bottle of water to calm me down, which went down the wrong way and I snorted out of my nose, making us even worse.
When Mr Miller came back to us, I couldn’t look at Beth without laughing again, and he suggested that it might be better for all of us if I waited outside so he could concentrate on his patient. Beth nodded, still a little flushed. I took a seat in the waiting room and had to take lots of deep breaths to get back to some sort of normality. Beth came hobbling out after about half an hour, with Mr Miller helping her along.
‘I haven’t worked her too hard today, but she does have some exercises to do at home too. It’s going to be tough, but the more she does, the quicker she’ll mend and we’ll soon be able to get rid of those crutches.’
‘You’re a hard taskmaster, Dan. But thank you. I do want to get back to work as soon as possible, and get my life back to normal.’ As we walked away, we heard a shout.
‘Beth, here’s my card. If you need anything,’ he winked at her, ‘anything at all, just give me a bell.’ For the first time in a very long time, her face lit up as she took his card. Their hands touched and you could feel the spark between them sizzling away and I rather hoped that this might be the start of something special for my bestie. I can’t remember the last time she had any romance in her life. Seeing my friend under the influence of love gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my tummy.
* * *
I had agreed to meet Theo and Mum at the garden centre at the edge of the next village. It was always better to meet on neutral territory, I thought. That way if I wanted to strop off and have a tantrum, I could. My nerves were getting the better of me and I was all of a dither as I drove there. As soon as I walked into the café, I saw them sitting together at a table at the back of the room. Theo was tucking a strand of hair behind Mum’s ear and she smiled at him bashfully, then saw me and brushed his hand away. I smiled at her, realising just how much she must still love him. It was a true love story really, come full circle. I supposed we just needed to all work out how and where and even if, we fitted in.