by S K Sharp
Sitting on the bus on the way to work the next morning, I let myself float back to the autumn of 1991, to the one day she really talked about him. It was a Tuesday afternoon in September, and Declan and I still thought we were happy. I was working in Streatham at a travel agency and we were between flats, living with Declan’s Aunt Eileen. I was watching the rain falling outside the windows at work, when the phone rang.
‘Hi. Can you come over later?’ Kat’s voice sounded wrong and she never called me at work, so I said yes, of course. I called Declan to let him know, left work early and went right over. I found her, red-faced from crying and with a bottle of wine already open.
‘Bloody hell, Kat! What happened?’
‘I found my dad,’ she said.
I sat with her for three hours. We drank the rest of the bottle of wine and then I went out and bought us a cake and we ate nearly all of it, the two of us together, and she told me how she’d always wanted to find her real dad – not Stephen Clarke, who still sent her cards at Christmas and for her birthday, but her real dad: Daniel Robbins, Arty Robbins’ little brother. I have a strange sense of detachment as I relive that evening. She’d talked about him over the years, but only in passing. I’d had no idea it meant so much to her to find him; and yet here it was, all coming out: how she’d been trying to track him down ever since she turned eighteen.
‘I just wanted to know, you know? Why he left. Why he never even stayed in touch. Why he never came to see me, not even once.’
She eventually told Gary, who by then had ditched his quiff and his weed-dealing and was working twenty-hour days in some bank in the City, taking us all by surprise by forging a career for himself; and, Gary being Gary, he’d talked to an investigator who was some friend of his. Tracking down Daniel Robbins, it turned out, had been a simple matter of checking public records. A week later, Kat saw the death certificate. Daniel Robbins had died in Scotland three years ago, in a motorbike accident. She’d never get to meet him, never get to ask her questions, never get any answers.
By the time Gary showed up at eight, I had Kat back on her feet. She was herself again, laughing and a bit tipsy and full of cake. I asked her if she wanted me to stay over and she said no, it was fine, she felt better now. She told me I was the best friend anyone could ever have and I told her that she was wrong; that she was the best friend anyone could ever have. And then I went home to Declan.
I like this memory. I did a good thing that evening. I was there when Kat needed me, which wasn’t always the way. Kat was definitely the better of us in that regard, but that evening I did it right. I cherish the warmth of how it felt as I left, and on the bus on the way home, and that glowing sense of virtue as I snuggled in Declan’s arms later that night, telling him why I was so late.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Your uncle pulling a vanishing act and then, fifteen years later, your dad does the same. Like it runs in the family. You’re not going to vanish on me, are you?’ I was laughing as I said it. It was meant to be a joke – with hindsight, not a good one – but I wonder whether there was a grain of real fear there. We were happy and in a good place, and yet I think the first cracks had already been showing.
That memory leads me to another. I find myself propelled forward in time by a few months, to the spring of 1992. Declan and I had been married for twenty months and we were still between apartments, still living in Clapham in Declan’s Aunt Eileen’s spare room. It’s cramped and we’ve long worn out our welcome and I want to get out. I want it to be just us again. We’re both still working, which is good news because unemployment is high, so are interest rates; rents are rising, the country feels ill at ease and an election is coming. I’ve found a place in Battersea that looks promising – a bit expensive, but I think we can manage. I’ve made an appointment to see it. I’ve told Declan to meet me there after work and he’s said yes, he’ll be there, and now he isn’t. I wait until he’s half an hour late and then I go and look at it on my own and it is perfect. I’m angry, thinking Declan doesn’t understand how badly I want a place of our own, so I say we’ll take it and I put down a deposit and go back to Clapham. When Declan shows up, he’s full of apologies. He tells me that something came up at work but I can smell the beer on him. He apologises some more and admits that yes, when he knew he wasn’t going to make it, he let himself be persuaded to go to the pub for a couple of pints. He listens attentively as I tell him about the flat, and makes all the right noises and doesn’t mind that I’ve said yes without him. He’s enthusiastic and excited and seems as glad as I am to know that we’ll have a place of our own again. He tells me he loves me and how wonderful I am, and I forgive him, and everything is fine again.
But I don’t forget. I can’t, and so it never goes away.
I push the memory aside and think of happier times. I think of the day we moved into that flat, how Declan carried me across the threshold and filled the place with flowers; and then I find myself back in bed with Declan that night, after Kat told me about Daniel Robbins.
You’re not going to vanish on me, are you?
Declan didn’t laugh. ‘I’m nothing like my dad,’ he said, like I’d touched something raw.
‘Do you ever … do you ever think about where he is? What he’s doing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your dad?’
‘Not really.’ He twisted away from me and turned out the light. Later, as I lay there listening to him breathe, I went back through the other conversations we’d had over the years. He always seemed uninterested, like the past was the past and he didn’t want to know. I thought about Kat, desperately searching for memories of a father she’d never known. I thought about Declan, walling away the memories he didn’t want as though it was as easy as putting up a garden fence. It left me wishing I could do the same. That I could live in the present and not be constantly haunted by the past …
Back in the present, I’m so busy being haunted by the past that I forget I’m on a bus on the way to work and miss my stop and end up almost in Regent’s Park. It takes me twenty minutes to walk back and makes me late, which earns me a concerned look from Joy on reception and a stare at his watch from Ed, who runs the archive.
‘Trouble on the roads?’ he asks, and I’ve been here long enough to know he’s already checked Google Maps for a traffic update.
‘Not really. I just got engrossed in something and missed my stop. I’ll make up the time.’
‘You could leave earlier in the mornings,’ he says, which is what he always says to anyone when they’re late. ‘Then it wouldn’t matter.’
I give a meek nod, both of us knowing I have no intention of following his advice. For the rest of the morning, I try to look busy, but I can’t concentrate because my mind’s all over the place. I can’t stop thinking about the mud on Dad’s jacket – that’s the thing – and hearing Dad and Constable Simmons talking in the lounge. I keep seeing Declan from that night, smiling and turning away and walking to the end of Byron Road, the night swallowing him as he turned the corner towards the Shelley and the park. I want to help him – I do – but I don’t know how; maybe Kat’s right and I’ve already done all I can, and so what if I can remember things better than anyone else? I was with Declan until midnight but that’s all I know. Whoever killed Arty Robbins was probably some stranger I never even met.
Over lunch, I call Lainton Legal. A young woman takes my name and number and promises that Ms Watson will call me back as soon as she can. I tell myself I should go and see Mum and ask about that night. I even manage to call her, but it’s dick-face Dave who answers, and I don’t know what to say and so I hang up. Maybe I’ll try again later.
Detective Scott wonders why Declan staying the night in the Shelley didn’t surprise me. But the Arty Robbins that the rest of the world saw wasn’t the real Arty Robbins …
Why was Dad out in the park shortly before midnight?
Ms Watson from Lainton Legal doesn’t get back to me. I stay lat
e to keep Ed happy and then go home to curl up with Chairman. We watch the movies that Declan and I used to watch together – Cocktail for me, Die Hard for Dec, Dead Poets Society for both of us – letting myself remember everything that I threw away, trying to flush the old feelings out of my system. It doesn’t work. I can’t stop thinking about him. About us. About the past. I can’t turn it off.
On Tuesday morning, I drag myself into work and stare at the screen, feeling completely incapable. I almost forget we have a client coming in that afternoon. I have a presentation to give, and thank God I did most of the work last week. I stagger through it, relying on my memory, hardly aware of what I’m saying. I tell myself Ed doesn’t notice. I honestly don’t think he does.
Still no call from Lainton Legal. I go home and deluge myself with cream and fruit and sugar. I allow myself half a bottle of wine, which lands me sitting on the doorstep clutching an old half-pack of cigarettes, tugging on my vaporiser like a drowning woman gasping for air, rueing the day that Joy and I made our pact to give up smoking. I knew, as soon as I heard Declan’s name, that it would be like this, this storm-surge of memories. I wonder if I should phone in sick for the rest of the week and spend the time going to cat shelters and rescue centres looking for a friend for Chairman – anything that might work as a distraction. My life in Wordsworth Park is ancient history. It’s twenty-five years since Declan and I went our separate ways and I need to walk away from this. I don’t care. I shouldn’t care. It’s not my business. I’ve done my duty and I’ve told the police what I know, and it’s not like I haven’t been here before with things coming up that drag me into the past. Sometimes it happens out of the blue and I have no idea why.
I tell myself all these things and I know that this time it’s not going to work. I can’t let this go, even if I should. I’m not sure why, but I feel it: some little piece of steel inside me that won’t be moved. I’m fifty-one years old and on a rollercoaster of emotions like I’m fifteen; and my way out is to do what I always do and take myself back to the years in America, twenty-eight, divorced, aiming to make a career for myself; but even that’s not good enough any more. I wasn’t happy then, not really, I wasn’t even content or OK. I was focused. It seemed enough, but if I’m honest, it’s simply what got me through each day.
I take an early bus to work on Wednesday morning to make sure I get there on time. When I check my phone, there’s a text from Kat: U OK hun?
I message a reply: A bit wobbly but I’ll live. I check my voicemail and my email but Declan’s solicitor still hasn’t called back. I suppose I’ll try again later. I suppose I’ll try again with Mum, too. I don’t want to, but I think I have to.
My phone pings. Another message from Kat: Free tonight if you want to come over. G has work thing.
I get off the bus a stop early and nip into my favourite café to buy coffee and a hot sandwich for breakfast. Sausage, bacon and egg with a touch of tomato salsa. It’s a treat, the closest I allow myself to a fried breakfast; and a mistake, because the smell walks me straight into another memory of Declan. I’m upstairs under the duvet, fresh coffee and frying bacon wafting through the house. I hear his feet on the stairs as he comes up and so I pull the duvet around me, pretending to be asleep. He comes in and I hear him put a tray on the table beside the bed. I feel him close as he leans over me. He thinks I’m asleep. I hear him whisper: I might just have to ask you to marry me, Nicola Walker. I don’t react …
And suddenly I’m sitting on a plane to New York, years later, three empty whiskey miniatures on the seat-back tray in front of me. I’ve actually done it; I’ve walked out. I’ve left him, and my whole life should be stretching before me on an endless road of possibilities, but I’m crying and I can’t seem to stop, and I feel so damned miserable, and I already know I’ve made the most terrible mistake of my life, and it’s too late to take it back …
‘Hey, Miss? Are you OK?’
I have to blink a few times to bring myself back to the present. The world is blurry. A waitress stands over me, someone I don’t recognise, hardly any older than I was back then.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘The father of an old friend just passed away.’
‘Oh.’ She hovers in that way people do, like they should offer something or do something, despite us being perfect strangers.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’ God, I could murder for a cigarette. I still have that crumpled half-pack in my coat pocket, remnants of a twenty bought three weeks ago on a Friday night out with Joy, before we made our pact to quit. Before I heard about Arty Robbins.
I cram the last of the sandwich into my mouth and wash it down with gulps of coffee. Outside, I take half a dozen long drags on my vaporiser and walk quickly to the library, shaking off the spider-web memories of Declan as best I can. Joy waves at me from reception as I hurry past. I flash a smile back, and her own grows wide and bright. I like Joy. She’s young and full of an infectious enthusiasm for life. I wave the vaporiser at her. ‘Please tell me it gets better.’
She puts on her right-with-you-sister face and clenches a fist. ‘Stay strong!’
I used to be like her. I wish I still could find that version of myself. I can remember it. But I can’t be it.
Ed works at home on Wednesdays, thank God. At my desk in the archives, I call Lainton Legal and leave another message for Declan’s solicitor. Then I close my eyes and take myself deep into the past: 1983, February, sitting in a Portakabin that passed for a classroom, all of us shivering in the winter cold, Mrs Spare droning on about geography. I turn to look out the window and there he is: a boy I’ve never seen until now, a couple of years older than me, dressed in the same school uniform as the rest of us but shiny and new. His hair is in a side parting which would make him look all grown-up, except he’s mussed it over. I look at him and he looks back and smiles. And it wasn’t like we became friends afterwards or even had anything to do with each other – two years apart at secondary school might as well have been the Berlin Wall back then – but I remember that smile.
Declan. The first time I ever saw him.
My phone rings. A number I don’t recognise.
‘Nix?’
My heart almost jumps out of my chest. He sounds so distant, so uncertain. ‘Declan?’
‘Nix?’
‘H … Hi.’ I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I can say. ‘How are you?’ I almost ask, Aren’t you in prison?
‘I … I’m …’ I hear his sigh. ‘How are you?’
‘Not dead and not mad and not in hospital, so I suppose I’m fine. What … what do you want? Are you—’
‘My solicitor says you’ve been calling her.’
‘I wanted to know—’
‘They gave me bail,’ he says.
‘They’ve – they’ve dropped the charges?’ I can’t hide the joy.
‘No, I’m … They let me out on bail because of Mum. They do that sometimes, even when they think you’re a murderer.’ Murderer. I hear the scorn in his voice, the despair and the loathing. ‘I had to give up my passport, and I’ve got one of those ankle-bracelet things and … Well, you know.’
I don’t, but I’m not sure what to say.
‘There was a cock-up about some evidence they were supposed to have that wasn’t ready. There’s another hearing next week. That’s probably all I’ve got. But I just … Thank you. You know, for … for telling them what happened that night. Thank you for trying.’
I could almost hate Declan for the honest concern in his voice. I know he means it, and I was the one who walked away, even if he was the one who was having an affair; and he knows I wish things had been different, and I know that he wishes it too, but what does he think he’s doing, sounding like I’ll somehow forget what I saw – like there’s a chance we could be friends again?
We could never be only that, not with so much history between us.
‘I … I wanted to thank you properly. You know, if I can, if you wanted to … I mean, I’ve got t
his tag on me so I can’t really go anywhere, but I could cook dinner or something. If you … if you wanted to come over.’
Walk away, Nicola Walker, walk away. ‘When?’
‘Whenever.’ He laughs. ‘Like I said, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.’
I can’t do this. I absolutely can’t. ‘Tonight?’
‘That would be great. About seven?’
Why? Why am I so stupid? ‘OK.’
‘Great. I’ll text you my address. I’ll see you then.’
‘Declan!’ I whisper. ‘You should know, I … I didn’t tell them everything—’
Too late. Too slow. A click and he’s gone.
I stare at my phone. I can’t believe I’m such an idiot. I should call him back. Call back right now and tell him I’ve changed my mind. Tell him that I’m meeting Kat. Or simply not show up, because otherwise the memories of being in love with him will come in unstoppable floods, and it would hurt less to dive head-first into the bloody office shredder.
I need to calm down. I need to call him and tell him I can’t do this. No, what I need is to go back in time, to something calm and neutral – a memory from before I ever knew about Arty Robbins being dead—
PING!
I jump and almost drop my phone as Declan’s text comes through, giving me his address. In my head, I’m already right back to the last time we spoke before he called on Saturday, sobbing down the phone, telling him how sorry I am for everything that happened and begging him to see me again, and of course he says no because I’m drunk, and he knows it.
I feel Joy’s eyes on me as I pass her desk. I go outside and sit on the library steps, off to one side, out of the way of the steady ebb and flow of people. I can’t get that memory out of my head. How he told me to leave him alone. How he told me to go to hell. How I chain-smoked my way through a whole packet of cigarettes after he hung up.