The Daughter

by Michelle Frances

  ‘Job for life!’ said Janković. Then he turned and left the pub.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Saturday, 11 February 2017 – thirteen days before the accident

  It had been several days since Becky had had her lunch with Adam and he still hadn’t called. At first, she’d been amused, it served her right if he was making a point after she’d given him a fake number all those months ago. She deserved payback. But after the first weekend had been and gone, her amusement gave way to a mild indignation that steadily grew as the days passed. Why hadn’t he called? Was he playing hard to get? Had he lost her number? She knew she should’ve typed it straight into his phone.

  She took one end of the sideboard in Iris’s house as her mum lifted the other, and they shifted it across the room.

  ‘Bit further,’ instructed Iris as she watched. ‘Bit more, little bit more. There!’

  Kate and Becky put it down and they all stood back and appraised their efforts. Iris had wanted to move her furniture around so her armchairs were in the sun. The warmth helped with her arthritis.

  ‘Looks good,’ said Becky. The sun was streaming through where the sideboard had been. ‘Look at all that toasty space, right by the window. It’ll be like living in the tropics.’

  ‘I’ll probably spend most of the day asleep now,’ said Iris.

  ‘Right, now for the chairs,’ said Kate. ‘And that table needs moving too.’

  ‘We could do with a man,’ said Iris. ‘A strong one.’

  Becky giggled. ‘Mum’s found one.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard about this Tim. Bit of all right, is he?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Becky. ‘Mum hasn’t introduced me yet.’

  ‘I’ve only known him three weeks,’ said Kate.

  ‘Well, I’m relying on you to make a full assessment,’ Iris said to Becky, ‘when you do meet him. I want his entire backstory.’

  ‘What!’ said Kate.

  ‘I’ll check him out, don’t you worry,’ said Becky to Iris. ‘And I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Hello, I am here. In the room,’ said Kate, waving her arms about.

  Iris continued to speak to Becky. ‘Good. Your mum’s told me a few nice things, but, well, they can be real charmers these DIY types. I just hope he’s everything he’s seeming to be.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ said Kate, to herself really as no one else was listening.

  Iris finally looked at Kate and beamed. ‘Anyone for a cuppa? How’s about I go and put the kettle on?’

  She went into the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle, just as her phone began to ring on the table. She picked it up but didn’t recognize the number. Could be one of those cold-callers telling you you’ve had a car accident, she thought. She contemplated not answering but caved in. It might be important.

  ‘Hello?’ said the caller.

  ‘Hello,’ said Iris coolly.

  ‘I know, I know, it’s been a few days. Sorry . . . things have just been totally manic, and I had to go back home for a bit – my mum fractured her wrist at Zumba – long story but, well, I know it’s short notice but what are you doing tonight? Fancy a game of squash and some dinner?’

  ‘I’d love to, dearie, but I don’t think my hips are up to it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I thought . . . You were supposed to be someone else.’

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

  ‘Sorry . . . it’s just . . . never mind.’ The caller, a man, sighed. ‘Seems I’ve been fobbed off again.’

  ‘Iris, who are you talking to?’ called Kate from the living room.

  ‘Wrong number,’ called back Iris. ‘No need to explain,’ she said into the phone. ‘I think I get the gist. Whoever she is, she’s not worth it.’

  The man on the phone gave a low laugh. ‘You know, I think you’re right. Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘No problem at all.’

  Iris hung up and went back out into the living room, pocketing her phone as she did so. One of the armchairs was now in the window, bathed in sunlight. She went to try it out, and within minutes was basking in the winter sun.

  ‘OK?’ said Becky, smiling.

  ‘Oh, it’s like being one of those lizards in the heat lamps. You know, like you get in the zoo,’ said Iris.

  From the kitchen they heard the click of the kettle switching itself off.

  ‘Tea,’ said Iris, going to get up.

  ‘You stay right there,’ said Becky. She went into the kitchen and poured the hot water onto teabags in mugs. While she was waiting, she thought she might just check her phone again. Maybe there would be a text. Actually, she might as well admit it: he wasn’t interested. But she’d still look. For the last time, she told herself. Her phone wasn’t on the table where she’d left it. Becky looked around – had she put it back in her bag? Coat pocket? It was in neither place. But there was Iris’s phone on the counter.

  She picked it up, took it into the living room. ‘Iris?’

  Iris opened one eye.

  ‘Whose phone have you just picked up?’

  She pulled it out of her pocket, looking at it, bemused. ‘Well, mine, isn’t it?’

  Becky yelped. ‘That’s mine!’

  She quickly scrolled through the call history and saw a number she didn’t recognize. ‘Who was that person you just spoke to?’

  ‘Didn’t get his name.’

  Becky’s heart leapt. ‘It was a man?’

  ‘Yes. Asked me out to dinner.’

  Becky groaned. Immediately called back. ‘Hello? Adam? It’s Becky. You just called? My phone was answered by my daft—’

  ‘Who are you calling daft?’ Iris piped up.

  ‘. . . but adorable surrogate grandmother.’ Becky held her breath. ‘She said something about going out for dinner?’

  Totally and utterly humiliated. That was the only way to describe how she felt. She’d decided early on not to throw in the towel because she thought . . . it seemed a long time ago now . . . but she’d thought it would get better or she’d get better. Instead, she was a panting, sweating mess on the wrong side of a 10–1 score – for the third time. And she suspected he’d actually let her win her solitary point as the ball had seemed to be heading for his racquet, but he’d mysteriously missed it. She’d started this match thinking she’d hold a conversation at the same time, perhaps find out more about what Adam did in his work, probe him about the stuff he could talk about in order to try and read between the lines about the stuff he couldn’t, but she’d barely been able to draw breath – and she considered herself fit. More than once she’d caught herself admiring a shot from Adam or the way he seemed to move from one side of the court to the other like a demented ping-pong ball.

  A bit like now. He whacked the ball against the wall and, for the umpteenth time, it flew by her faster than the speed of light.

  He’d won. Thank God. They could stop.

  ‘I think that’s it,’ he said modestly.

  ‘Oh, really? Shame. Let’s have another match.’

  He looked surprised, but game. ‘OK. You serve first,’ he said, kindly.

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. ‘I will never play this game again as long as I live. Which might only be another four minutes.’ She opened the door and gulped in the air of the corridor: it was slightly stale and vaguely chlorinated but mercifully less sweaty (much of it her sweat) and cooler than the air in the squash court.

  She was vaguely aware of her dishevelled appearance but the time to care, or be able to do anything about it, had long passed. ‘I just couldn’t keep up. What have you got on the sides of your trainers – wings?’

  He laughed. ‘I enjoyed that.’

  ‘You would. You won. And without breaking a sweat. What was that squash club you used to play for back at university?’

  ‘Ah . . . that was the national team,’ he said sheepishly.

  She stared at his grinning face and realized she’d been had.
<
br />   ‘But I did play for the uni club too. Just forgot to tell you the other bit.’

  Becky started to laugh until tears ran down her face, mixing with the rivers of sweat, and she thought she probably looked even more unattractive.

  ‘Right. Now you’ve made me run fifty-seven miles in a small box like a deranged hamster, I’m starving. Where are we going?’

  They were in his neighbourhood this time, partly to take advantage of his gym membership. After showering and changing, Adam took her to a Lebanese restaurant on the high street. They ran in from the needle-sharp sleet to a smell of warm spices. It was packed, being a Saturday night in Clapham, and they were immediately asked if they could vacate their table by nine as the restaurant ran two sittings.

  ‘Nothing like being made to feel welcome,’ said Adam after the waiter also suggested they ordered within the next five minutes ‘before the table of ten, otherwise you’ll be waiting for your food’.

  ‘Here’s the welcome,’ said Becky as a belly dancer shimmied towards their table, her dark-rooted blonde hair and false pink nails incongruous against her authentic costume. Being seated meant naked flesh at eye level. Neither knew where to look and, embarrassed, Becky ended up burying her nose in her wine and Adam stared at the picture on the wall behind her head. Then, to their relief, the belly dancer moved on.

  ‘She was quite good,’ said Adam politely and Becky couldn’t help giggling.

  ‘Are you a dancer?’ she asked.

  ‘Good God, no. Actually, funny story: I used to do Morris dancing.’ He smiled expectantly, and Becky wondered if she’d missed the punchline.

  ‘Actually . . . maybe more of an embarrassing story,’ he amended.

  ‘No, funny too. Very. Did you get wooden sticks?’

  ‘Yes. Another funny story. Girl opposite whacked my arm by mistake. Broke my radius.’

  Becky was horrified. ‘That’s awful!’

  ‘At the time, yes. I remember crying. But then I got a plaster cast. Was the cool kid at Chipping Camden Primary for a few weeks. Made a change from being the nerdy one with carrot hair,’ he said, running his hand through the golden red flop on top of his head. ‘Best of all, I got a present from my parents to cheer me up.’ He spread his hands wide, eyes lighting up. ‘A chemistry set.’

  ‘Oh my God, I always wanted one of them,’ said Becky. ‘Thought I’d be able to do magic.’

  He looked bemused. ‘I was more interested in making compounds. Did you get one? A set?’

  ‘Mum had no spare cash. Had to make do with vinegar and bicarb of soda to make a volcano.’

  ‘Wow. There’s something about the way it just fizzes up, it has a life of its own, exploding there right in front of you—’ He checked his enthusiasm. ‘Sorry. Anyway, that’s what got me into chemistry.’ He paused, wistful. ‘I’ll never forget that set. What about you? How did you know you wanted to be a journalist?’

  Becky thought back. She’d always known really, even if she hadn’t recognized what it was when she was very young. As a seven-year-old she’d seen another classmate bullied by a horrible girl – Karen Jenkins. Karen had taunted a plump girl with a bowl haircut, calling her fat and saying she stank because she was always eating cheesy-puff crisps. She was, and she did, but Becky had felt angry on her behalf – and angry at herself because she didn’t stick up for her.

  Then Karen had turned her attention to Becky, picking on her because of her second-hand uniform; she wore a mix of garments that were often too big or slightly on the small side depending what was available at the school sale. Her grey pinafores were shiny with age and over-ironing and her white shirts had long ago lost their bright sparkle. The bullying happened frequently and when Karen had deliberately flicked paint over her skirt, it just got too much, and Becky had begun to cry. Karen had put her face up against Becky’s and warned her that if she told, she’d ‘be dead’.

  At seven, it was a risk too big to take and so instead, Becky had written a story in her creative-writing session in class later that afternoon, only in order to save herself from an early demise, she’d decided to cleverly disguise the names. A code that only she, Becky, would understand. The bully would be known as Jaren Kenkins.

  Empowered, she wrote up the story, relishing the details, vindicated that the facts were on the page. She remembered feeling sad that no one would actually know who it really was, and true justice would never be served. The next day, Karen was mysteriously absent for part of the lesson and reappeared with red eyes. Rumour had it she’d been to see the formidable head, Mrs Parker. Becky’s teacher had taken her aside and quietly said that if Karen ever bullied her again, Becky was to come and speak to her immediately. And the plump classmate suddenly started sharing her cheesy puffs with her. Becky had spent a number of years wondering how the teachers had found out.

  As she relayed all this to Adam, it spawned further childhood stories. Adam had grown up in the beautiful rural Cotswolds, an only child with professional parents. He’d lived in a large, comfortable house, his mum taking a career break from her job as a GP when he was young and only returning part-time during his school years. Becky told him of how Iris had brought her up during the day while her mum worked, and she’d never met her father. Adam had played in the woods that were a part of their garden, his father building him a treehouse over several weekends. Becky had gone to the local park just around the corner from her home and had loved going so high on the swings she felt as if she were flying, her feet seeming to lift above the horizon, as she pushed herself so she could see only sky.

  Once or twice, she had turned the conversation to his work, but it had been difficult to engage him on it and he always ended up changing the subject.

  They ate their way through lamb kebabs and flatbreads and finished the bottle of wine that Becky had persuaded Adam to drink with her. A little part of her thought that if he drank, he might open up a bit about his work.

  By the time the waiter was hovering with the bill, they’d also polished off yet more wine to accompany the baklava and both were feeling quite tipsy.

  ‘I’m paying,’ said Adam but Becky insisted on splitting the bill. They headed towards the exit looking warily out of the window, where small particles of icy water hit the glass and dribbled downwards.

  ‘Right,’ said Adam, ‘I’m going to get you a cab.’ He rang a local company whilst they huddled under the eaves, but all their drivers were fully booked for at least two hours.

  ‘Another company?’ said Becky.

  He tried two others, but they had no drivers available until eleven either.

  ‘It’s cold,’ said Becky, shivering.

  ‘I’m really sorry. I should have booked this when we first got to the restaurant.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll get the train.’

  ‘It’ll take as long as the wait. Engineering works, remember.’ He wondered for a moment whether to say it. ‘I only live five minutes away. If you want to wait there. It’s warm . . .’

  ‘Have you got coffee?’

  ‘A cafetière.’

  ‘Get you!’

  He laughed but didn’t make a move.

  ‘Well, come on then,’ said Becky. ‘It’s freezing!’

  They hurried down the brightly lit high street, Becky huddled against the cold, her hood pulled up over her head, the sleet stinging her skin through the thin denier of her tights. They turned down another street, then another, and then they were soon in a residential road with solid-looking Victorian properties. Halfway down, Adam dug in his pocket for some keys and then pushed open a pillar-box red front door, indicating for her to go first. She stepped into a communal hallway and there was something rather intimate about the small pile of mail addressed to Adam on the side table, a window into his private life, his domesticity. A door opened, and a young woman started to speak.

  ‘Adam! I’ve finished . . .’

  She tailed off when she saw Becky, and the DVD she held aloft in her hand sunk to her side. ‘Didn’t re
alize you had company,’ she said.

  ‘This is Becky,’ said Adam, gesturing. ‘And this is Trixie.’

  Trixie was pretty and plump with purplish-black tousled hair and enormous brown eyes. She was wearing – inappropriately, considering the weather outside, thought Becky – a pink-cotton vest pyjama top and shorts. On her feet were large fluffy bootee slippers.

  She looked Becky up and down, hiding her hostility badly. Becky, in her inebriated state, was torn between feeling annoyed – wondering exactly who Trixie was – and a perverse superior sensation of being the one going up to Adam’s flat. She knew this irked Trixie, which was ridiculous, as Becky didn’t think of him in that way at all.

  ‘Good night?’ asked Trixie.

  ‘Yes. At Shiraz. Becky is a friend from uni. Waiting until her cab arrives.’

  Trixie nodded and appraised Becky again. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said insincerely. She turned to Adam and smiled. ‘We still on for the movies tomorrow night?’ she said, which Becky thought was more for her benefit than anything else.

  ‘Course,’ said Adam. ‘I’ll come and knock for you.’

  ‘Great!’ Trixie beamed, and Becky felt her watching as she followed Adam up the stairs, her smile no doubt morphing into a scowl.

  His flat was immaculate. Fresh white walls, wooden floors and expensive plantation shutters. Furniture that was well made, comfortable, sturdy. Lamps were deftly placed, rugs had been chosen in subtle shades of neutral and well-controlled colour. The whole effect was like something out of a John Lewis catalogue. He flicked a switch near the fireplace and the coals began to flicker and glow in the most realistic way. It was a flat for a grown-up, with a grown-up lifestyle. It spoke of career success and a new independence. Becky was surprised. He hadn’t shown much interior-design aptitude at the house he’d shared with her friend and, in fact, she distinctly remembered passing his open bedroom door once and seeing a stack of science magazines passing as a bedside table and a plastic supermarket bag masquerading as a bin.

  ‘Wow,’ she said.

  ‘Not me. Mum made it nice.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Makes me sound inept – which I am. But it’s not like she’s here all the time. Never, in fact, well obviously she came to organize the place and she pops in every now and then to say hello . . .’ He trailed off, realizing he was digging a hole. ‘Coffee?’ he said brightly, leading her to the equally well-thought-out kitchen.