“You can’t, they might be evidence down the line.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
But I didn’t know if Lola was being ridiculous. I didn’t know whether to tell Alma what I had found, or the police. I didn’t know what my responsibility was.
I knew that I would now probably feel safer living above this man if I had two knives stashed in my flat. I knew that I was grateful not to go to sleep alone that night. I knew not to shout at him about recycling any more. And I knew now that I wasn’t just living above a nightmare neighbour. I was living above a psychopath.
“Matters of the Sartre,” Mum announced. “Isn’t that good? For our next literary salon.”
“So the theme is?” I asked.
“Existentialism!” Gloria replied. “I’m coming dressed as Nietzsche.”
“Did you find a moustache big enough?”
“I did in the end,” Gloria said, topping up her glass of white wine. “Brian had an enormous one left over from a Freddie Mercury costume.”
“When did you dress up as Freddie Mercury?” Mum asked, passing round a platter of devils on horseback.
“New Year’s Eve do a few years back,” Brian said.
The five of us were sitting in Mum and Dad’s garden around a table on plastic chairs to celebrate Dad’s seventy-seventh birthday. Mum had reluctantly agreed to let me organize the menu as part of my book research—I’d chosen all of Dad’s favourite dishes, particularly the ones he talked about from childhood. But Dad was distracted—he had barely responded to any of us when we tried to speak to him and when he did he seemed agitated.
“Who else is everyone coming as?” Gloria asked.
“Annie is coming as Simone de Beauvoir, Cathy is coming as Dostoyevsky if she can find the beard and Martin is coming as ‘existence,’ which I thought was quite fun.”
I looked at Dad to catch his gaze and laugh, but he was silently staring ahead into nothingness. His mouth was horizontal, his eyes unblinking. His face looked as if the plug that connected him to the world had been yanked out of its socket.
“Now, Mandy,” Brian said, helping himself to another prune wrapped in bacon, “how’s it all going at the church since you’ve become social sec?”
“Oh, it’s all politics, politics, politics, as is always the way with these things.”
“What have you got lined up for the next quarter?” Gloria asked.
“We’ve got a Widows and Widowers mixer happening next week, which I think will be a laugh. When it gets a bit warmer we’ve got a whole lot of outdoor things happening—Boules and Bake-off, Volleyball and Vol-au-vents, that sort of thing. A lot of activities.”
“A lot of alliteration,” I said.
“Where’s my mother?” Dad asked suddenly. “Where is she? We can’t start lunch without her.”
“I don’t think she’s coming today, Dad,” I said. Mum looked nervously at Brian and Gloria.
“Of course she’s coming! I’m her son, it’s my birthday.”
“I’d like to talk about her, though,” I said. “Shall we look at some pictures of Nelly?”
“Why would we look at pictures of her, we’ll see her shortly.”
Mum remained quiet and took a sip of her wine. Brian stared at the table and Gloria fiddled with her necklace.
“I’m going to give her a call.” He stood up from the table and walked into the house. I followed him.
He stood in the kitchen and picked up the landline phone.
“Now,” he said, holding the phone away from his eyes to focus on the numbers, then began pressing the buttons. “Oh-seven-one—”
“Dad—”
“Shush,” he said, flapping me away irritably. He continued to punch in numbers before holding the phone to his ear with one hand and leaning on the table with the other. “Oh, bloody hell.”
“Is it not working?”
“No.”
“She must be out, Dad. Or on her way. We can save her some food.” He hung up the phone and put it back in its cradle. “Tell me about the last birthday you spent with her.” I walked back out to the garden and he followed me slowly.
Mum and I brought lunch to the table—pork chops with green beans and mashed potato. Dad held the platter of pork chops up to his face and gingerly examined it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s pork chops,” I said. “Like you ate when you were a kid.”
“I never used to eat this.”
“Yes, you did, Bill,” Mum said. “They’ve always been your favourite.”
“It is not my favourite, I can’t bear the taste of pork chops. I’ve never liked them.”
“I’ve always enjoyed them,” Brian said, merrily reaching for a piece by the bone. “Like to eat them with mustard.”
“Well, bully for you, but I can’t stand pork.”
“What would you like instead, Dad? It’s your birthday, you choose.”
“Anything but pork chops.”
“Do you have eggs, Mum? I could make him a quick omelette?”
“No, no, I don’t want fuss,” he said. “I’ll just have to eat around it.”
We served ourselves and there was little noise other than crockery clatter, sounds of appreciation and some discussion about what a mild spring it had been, as bland as the pork chops, which Dad ate with laborious chews and flared nostrils.
“Where were you born, Bill? Which hospital?” Gloria asked.
“Homerton,” Mum answered.
“Was it Homerton?”
“Yes, Grandma Nelly showed me your birth certificate once. Homerton Hospital, May third, 1942. William Percy Dean.”
“Percy!” Gloria said. “What a lovely middle name. Mine’s boring old Judith. What’s yours, Nina? I can’t remember.”
“George.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Because Wham! were number one the day I was born.”
“Wham! weren’t number one the day you were born,” Dad said, putting his cutlery down.
“Yes they were,” Mum said.
“The song that was number one when you were born was ‘Lady in Red’ by Chris de Burgh.”
Mum laughed. “Very funny, Bill. Now—how is everyone for drinks?”
“It was!” he said.
“No it wasn’t, it was ‘The Edge of Heaven’ by Wham!, which is why we gave her the middle name George. Now—drinks.”
“Oh, for CHRIST’S SAKE,” Dad growled and slammed his fists on the table in uncharacteristic frustration. “Why does nobody sodding LISTEN to me any more?”
“I’m listening, Dad,” I said.
He closed his eyes and spoke in a quiet voice to calm himself. “The day you were born, ‘Lady in Red’ by Chris de Burgh was number one in the singles charts and I remember it very clearly because it was playing in the Nissan Micra when we drove you home from the hospital.”
“Oh, I loved that Nissan Micra!” Gloria said through a mouthful of mash. “So dinky. You looked hysterical driving that thing, Bill. Like Noddy in his little car.”
“You’re getting muddled again,” Mum said, loading more green beans on to Dad’s plate.
“I am NOT. And I do not want ANY MORE bloody beans so stop FUSSING.”
“Bill,” Mum pleaded.
“Okay, Dad, I’ll look it up, don’t worry.” I took my phone from my bag. “Here we go, there’s a website that lists all the UK number ones since the 1950s.”
“Oh, look up ours when you’re done!” Gloria unhelpfully chirped.
I scrolled down to the 1980s to find 3rd August 1986.
“Mum, he’s right.”
“Thank you!” he said triumphantly.
“No, he can’t be.”
“He is. From the second of August to the twenty-t
hird of August in 1986, the UK number one was ‘Lady in Red.’ ”
“I’ve never seen you lookin’ so lovely as you did tonight,” Brian crooned, closing his eyes and swaying in his seat. “I’ve never seen you shine so bright, mmm hmmm mmm.” I suddenly realized that for all my life, I had always hated Brian.
“When was ‘The Edge of Heaven’ number one? The week before you were born?” Mum asked.
“No, miles out. It was number one from the twenty-eighth of June to the twelfth of July.”
“That’s not miles out, that’s the same summer.”
“But why have you always told me that it was number one the day I was born?”
“I don’t know, I must have remembered it wrong.”
“Why didn’t you name me after Chris de Burgh?”
“ ‘Lady in Red’ is a terrible, terrible song. You would have hated for that to be the song you were named after. I love George Michael, I love Wham! and I love ‘The Edge of Heaven.’ ”
“You should have seen Mandy dance to it on our wedding day,” Brian said. “She nearly took my brother-in-law’s eye out with her high-kick!”
“Who is Mandy?” Dad asked.
“I am,” Mum said.
“She is not Mandy, Dad, she is Nancy.”
“This again,” she said, looking at Gloria for support.
“You can’t change the course of history because it suits your own story,” I said.
“Course of history!” she said through a hoot of a laugh. “Listen to yourself, Nina, how over the top.”
“Do you know what ‘The Edge of Heaven’ is about, Mum? Have you ever actually listened to the lyrics?”
“Of course I have.”
“I don’t think you have because if you had you would realize it’s a completely inappropriate song to name your baby daughter after.”
“No it isn’t! It’s a great, upbeat, dancey song.” Mum started clearing the plates in an attempt to finish the conversation.
“Screaming to be set free, I would lock you up.”
“Are those the words?” Gloria said. “I always heard it as I would have laughed you up. But now that I think about it, what would that mean?”
“I would lock you up,” I repeat.
“What are you getting at?”
“It’s about BDSM, Mum. It’s totally fucking weird that we listen to it all together as a family every morning of my birthday.”
“The driving school?” Gloria asked, her nose twitching.
“No, not the driving school. Sadomasochism.”
“Don’t speak like that in front of your father.”
“I’m enjoying it!” Dad said.
“Bill—be quiet.”
“Don’t tell him to be quiet, he’s the only one talking any sense.”
“Gloria, Brian, am I going mad? I just don’t understand what the problem is here.”
“Gloria, Brian, with all due respect, this has nothing to do with you.”
“You’re being incredibly rude, Nina.”
“You have lied to me for thirty-two years about who I am.”
“It’s not who you are, it’s who you’re named after.”
“Those are the same things.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been filling in too many of those dating app profiles.”
“I’m not on dating apps any more.”
“Fine, MyFace. All of those websites that make you obsess over ‘who you are’ and how to explain it to everyone. You don’t need to explain it to everyone all the time! In our day, ‘who you are’ was just the thing that happened when you got out of bed and got on with the day.”
Gloria gave a sage nod of agreement.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said, standing up from my chair. “I’ll help you clear up when I’m back.”
“Okay, darling!” she said lightly. “Come back in time for cake.”
* * *
—
I returned within half an hour—enough time to walk to the corner shop, buy a packet of cigarettes and chewing gum, smoke two fags and chew through half the packet of gum to disguise the smell. When I returned, calmer and determined for Dad to have an enjoyable, relaxing birthday, I found him alone, reading in his armchair.
“You okay?” I said. “Where are the others?”
“They’re outside, er—” he said, putting his book down and taking off his reading glasses. “Um.” He screwed his eyelids together tightly. “Forgive me, what is your name again?”
“Nina, Dad,” I said, nausea grabbing me by the throat.
“And we’ve met?”
“Ninabean. I’m your daughter.”
“Of course you are!” he said. “Of course. How are you?”
“Generally?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Got a lot of work on at the moment, but I’m enjoying it.”
“I’m so glad you’re enjoying it,” he said. “You’re so good up there in your room, revising and revising. It will all pay off on results day, promise.”
“Not my GCSEs. My job. I have a job now. I worked as an English teacher like you and now I’m a journalist and a writer. I write about food.” Dad stared at me with a frown. I didn’t know what else to say. The rhythmic ticks from the mantelpiece clock seemed to be so loud they echoed. Dad put his reading glasses on and turned his attention back to the book.
“The others are outside,” he finally said.
* * *
—
I went into the garden, where Mum and Gloria were discussing the merits of reserving used Christmas gift tags to repurpose for the following year’s homemade cards.
“Why is Dad in there on his own?”
“He just wanted a bit of time to read, he’s finding it harder and harder to concentrate on a whole book these days,” Mum said. “We mustn’t baby him, Nina, he really hates that.”
“You’re right, sorry,” I said, sitting down at the table. “He’s very agitated today. What do you think has caused it?”
“There’s going to be days when he’s fine and days when he’s not fine, just like Gwen said.”
“The memory-jogging-through-food thing didn’t work, did it?”
“No, but his appetite just seems to be changing, I wouldn’t worry about it. It happens with age.”
“What’s the memory-jogging-through-food thing?” Gloria asked.
“I’m writing about food and memory. My next book is all about how taste aligns with nostalgia.”
“Oh, that’s a nice idea,” Gloria said. “You know, whenever I eat a Tunnock’s Tea Cake, I think of the Girl Guides.”
“Did you eat them when you were a Girl Guide?”
“No, I was never a Girl Guide,” Gloria said. “I just think of them for some reason.”
We heard a noise from inside the house—sudden, sharp, high-pitched. We all got up from the table and rushed into the house.
Dad stood over the kitchen sink with blood dripping from his hand. He looked up at us with a confused expression that made him look disturbingly childlike.
“What happened?” Mum said, running over to him.
“I was trying to open a tin of beans,” he said, wincing as Mum touched his hand. I glanced at the kitchen counter—there was the tin with a small slit pierced through, a chopping knife next to it and large splashes of blood leading to the sink.
“Why were you trying to open it with a knife?!”
“I have always opened tins with a blade,” he said.
“You use a tin opener, Dad, it’s right here.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Mum said. “I can’t see how deep it is.”
“Let me have a look at it.” Gloria leant down to examine him. “I’m First Aid–trained,” she boasted.
“Should we go to a hospital?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It really hurts!” Dad yelped earnestly, like a little boy persuading his mummy that he’s worthy of a cuddle. He was suddenly seven years old. Cowering into himself. Clinging on to Mum. My dad, so curious and confident, my father the headmaster—I had never seen him this tiny.
“I think it just needs to be cleaned up and some dissolvable stitches,” Gloria said. “I’ll pop home to get them and come back. Until then, just apply pressure with a tea towel.”
Dad said nothing for the rest of the afternoon. He said nothing when we tried to distract him with tea and talk while Gloria got her first aid kit. He grimaced silently when Gloria applied the dressing to his cut. He said nothing when we sang “Happy Birthday” to him. He didn’t eat the banana cake with condensed milk icing. When I said goodbye, he remained still and stiff as I wrapped my arms around him in a hug.
I wished there was a way I could access the filing cabinet of his mind and keep track of which memories were being lost and when. I knew there was no way of retaining them on his behalf, but I longed to understand what version of the world he was seeing at any given moment. If he thought I was a fifteen-year-old preparing for summer exams, what else in the seventeen years of our relationship since had been wiped? So much of the love you feel for a person is dependent on the vast archive of shared memories you can access just by seeing their face or hearing their voice. When I saw Dad, I didn’t just see a seventy-seven-year-old man with black-and-grey hair, I saw him in a swimming pool in Spain teaching me how to front crawl and I saw him waving at me in a crowd on graduation day. I saw him dropping me off for my first morning of primary school and leading a conga line around the living room at a Christmas Eve drinks party in our flat in Albyn Square. But what would happen now that only I could access that shared archive of our history? What would he feel for me and what would I be to him as these memory files dwindled from his side? Would I become just a thirty-two-year-old woman with brown hair and a vaguely familiar face, standing in his house, offering him food he didn’t want?
I walked to Pinner station. The next train wasn’t for fifteen minutes, as was characteristic of London zone five tube stations. I sat on the platform bench, took my phone from my bag and redownloaded Linx, desperate for a distraction. I flipped through 2-D humans like pages of a catalogue, reading meaningless declarations of identity: “love socialism, hate coriander”; “SARCASM IS MY RELIGION”; “always big spoon ;)”; “Mancunian Aquarius”; “my weakness is an inteligent women”; “is it weird that I always brush my teeth in the shower?!”; “next on my bucket list: the Grand Canyon”; “dogs are better than humans!!”; “I have a thing for girls with their hair tied back”; “interesting fact about me: I have never been on a tram”; “COYS!!!!!!”; “love me some pubbage on a Sunday”; “would rather die than eat a mushroom”; “I have lived in ten countries and thirteen cities”; “when people ask if I’m a legs or a boobs man—I’m a pussy man!!!!”; “working in the emergency services but also writing a sitcom”; “Carpay Deium is my mantra x”; “DETOX TO RETOX”; “Korean cinema, rainy days, strong tea”; “msg me if u got a fat ass and tiny titties with puffy nips”; “pineapple does NOT belong on a pizza!”; “poly, pansexual sex+”; “NO REMAIN VOTERS, PLS.”
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