by Polly Crosby
I pulled at his sleeve, dragging him along. ‘Come on, Dad,’ I said, and then, when he didn’t respond, ‘Come on, Tobias.’
At his name, he lifted his head and smiled properly, the bags round his eyes crinkling. He took my hands in his, and I could feel the fragments of reed crushed beneath our skin as he beamed at me, nodding and smiling like an automaton.
As we walked through the village on our way back, I stayed behind, seeing him afresh. His walk had changed over the last year, the pattern of his steps imperceptibly different. He shuffled along now, occasionally stumbling as if his brain could not keep up with his feet.
It was still early, cool and peaceful. At the centre of the village there was a triangle of green with a solitary oak tree grown deeply into it. Dad had stopped to pull a branch towards him, tracing the curves of the leaves, picking the best ones. It would have made a beautiful painting, I thought as I watched him silhouetted next to the tree, but he hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in over a year.
‘Dad, this way,’ I said, tugging at his arm, wanting to get home now, but he planted his feet stubbornly on the grass, refusing to move.
‘Psithurism,’ he said, staring upwards, still pulling the branch towards him.
‘Dad, come on.’
But he just carried on repeating the word, gazing at the tree. Angrily, I stalked off. I would leave him on his own. He could find his own way back. A small voice told me that he might get lost, but I shoved it aside in my annoyance and stomped up the road.
At the post box I paused and looked back.
‘Romilly Kemp, I presume?’
A man was standing nearby. He was unnaturally tall, curving with pleasure over me.
‘I’m a huge fan,’ he said, standing a little too close, his voice slightly gravelly. ‘Do you mind if I take a picture?’ He lifted the camera, the lens flashing in the sun. Something about it dug at a long-forgotten memory.
‘I—’ The camera clicked before I could give my answer. I took a step back, feeling suddenly vulnerable.
‘Thank you, dear. May I shake your hand?’ Not waiting for permission, he leant in and clasped my hand, bringing it to his lips fleetingly and kissing it. His mouth was cold and wet.
‘Is that your father over there?’
Dad was reaching far up into the branches of the tree, smiling at something the man and I could not see. He had an armful of leaves already, chartreuse and deep green cradled like a baby in the crook of his arm, and I felt suddenly embarrassed by him.
The stranger’s hand was on my elbow, stroking it gently.
‘How is he, your father?’ he said, leaning towards me, ‘The great Tobias Kemp?’ The glint of his camera lens caught my eye again, blinding me for a moment.
‘I heard he’s going a bit mad?’ he continued. He was close now, close enough that I could see a tiny piece of blood-soaked toilet paper clinging to his skin where he had cut himself shaving. He ran his eyes over my body, his fingers still stroking my elbow, and in that instant, I had the sensation that my whole world was transforming, tipping onto an axis I couldn’t quite comprehend.
Desperately, I looked over to Dad, but he was still near the tree, gazing with love at the newly acquired leaves in his arms.
‘Dad!’ I called.
I was suddenly aware of my chest beneath my thin T-shirt, the shape still so new to me that I had forgotten to put a vest on underneath. I reddened, and at the same time the man lifted his hand from my elbow, eyebrows raised as if he were asking my permission, and then he leant forward and stroked his hand down the front of my top.
My brain refused to register what had happened. I took a step back, the feeling of his hand on me still. In the same moment I became aware of a sort of pained whine roaring towards me like a fine-tuned missile. Dad’s bellow, as he barrelled into the man, was something otherworldly, as if his soul had ripped from his body and was rushing into the very depths of the man to destroy him from within.
The force of the blow sent me off balance, and I landed heavily, banging my head on the post box as I went down so that everything appeared in twos. Two dads, two horrid men. Two Romillys, I thought with a drunken giggle. Falling oak leaves were spinning down all around me. I tried to sit up, but my skull felt like it had been compressed in a vice, and I lay my head back down on the cool pavement. From this angle all I could see were two pairs of ankles and feet dancing a macabre tango around me.
My eyelids closed. I could hear the soft patter of oak leaves falling nearby, and then the sudden thud of a body falling to the ground.
‘Dad,’ I whispered, opening my eyes and trying to see who had fallen, my voice reverberating painfully through my skull. The standing man lifted his left leg and aimed a hard kick at the lifeless body on the ground.
‘My… dad,’ I pleaded again. Again, the leg lifted, and again it kicked out, like some sort of clockwork device that cannot work out how to stop. There was a spattering of blood on the standing man’s trouser cuff now.
I tried to raise my head again, the double vision clearing, but now blackness was pulling into my sight from every edge, and everything began shrinking down into a small circle, as if I were looking through a telescope. Dad’s face was in that circle, and to my relief he was upright, standing over the other man, pacing, muttering, his hands sweeping over his beard and his hair. There was a smudge of blood on his cheek in the same place as my mole, and I tried to reach up, to point out we were now twins, but then he turned to the wall and, drawing back his fist, smashed it into the brick repeatedly, the skin of his knuckles mashing into the wall so that I couldn’t tell if it was blood or brick dust coating his knuckles. I tried to shake my head, but it would not move, and instead I found my sight locked onto my dad as he lifted his head high, looking for a moment towards the bright, bright summer sky. And then, with an ursine roar he brought his head down against the brick, his forehead meeting the wall with a dull thud.
‘Dad!’ I shouted silently, the telescopic view shrinking further until I could hardly see at all, but I could still feel the sickening thump of his skull ringing in my ears. I lay my head down so that the fallen man was in my vision, still and silent on the floor, his camera shattered beside him. A droplet of blood landed on my hand, and I focussed on that instead, turning away from the stranger and my dad and the pained animal sounds he was making. The drop of blood lay on my hand, quivering, and in it I could see the whole world.
From out of the shadows, dark paws emerged, padding towards me, huge and velvet.
The panther stopped by my side and slowly shook his magnificent head as if he had all the time in the world.
‘Now sleep,’ he said, exhaling his warm, somnolent breath over me, his damask tail twitching. I closed my eyes obediently.
‘Sleep,’ said the panther, melting back into the shadows, and I did.
Thirty-One
I woke up. Stacey was sitting on the end of my bed. She was wearing my denim pinafore dress with the large red buttons. The dress was dotted with patches of white fabric, each one spattered with blood. I turned my cheek to the cool of the pillow. Everything went black.
I woke again. This time my mother was sitting in a chair pulled up to the bed, resting her high heeled shoes on the duvet next to me, her bag of cat-skins on her lap. She smiled, her teeth sharp like a panther’s.
I slept.
When I next opened my eyes it was the middle of the night. Beside me, on my little table, was Dad’s carved box. A small round door had opened in its side. A shiny red bauble sat like a fat robin just inside.
My throat hurt, my head pounded. I put my hand to my hair and felt a mountain range of tender stitches on my scalp, bristles of scrappy hair sticking up between my fingers.
I closed my eyes again.
My bedroom became my whole world. Dreams and reality interwove: Monty jumped onto my white duvet, becoming a polar bear padding across Arctic lands; the man in the moon hung in the circular window, his evil eye spying through the muted co
loured glass; my father ambled past the bed on all fours, his hands and feet grizzly bear paws preserved in salt.
I ached to be able to get up, to be normal again. Stacey was spending a lot of time on the end of my bed now, watching over me. It was beginning to creep me out.
As soon as I was able, I left my bedroom behind and made the precarious journey down two flights of stairs to the kitchen in search of my father. In the hallway I paused, bracing myself to see what sort of dad I would find today.
He was standing at the sink, looking out over the garden. At the sound of my shuffling footsteps he turned.
‘Romilly,’ he said, and I let out a breath of relief.
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘I’m glad to see you up. It’s been rather lonely without you.’ His face crinkled into a smile. I sat down at the table, and he placed a glass of milk in front of me.
‘I’ve been to the shop,’ he said proudly. ‘I got milk and bread and eggs and bacon.’ There was a dressing on his temple, surrounded by a circle of shaved skin. It looked stupid, like a bald spot that had slid out of place, and I felt angry at the nurses for not just shaving all his hair off. I reached up and felt for the bump on my own head. The landscape of stitches curved like the spine of a fish.
I lifted the milk shakily to my mouth and took a sip. It tasted good, and I gulped it down, feeling the liquid strengthen me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten.
‘The thing is,’ Dad said, sitting down at the table, ‘while you’ve been having these mammoth teenage lie-ins, I’ve been thinking.’ He pointed to the dressing on his head. ‘This can’t happen again.’
‘It won’t, Dad,’ I said, wiping the milk moustache from my upper lip. ‘I’ll look after you better, I promise.’
‘It’s not that. What I mean is, it’s not up to you to keep me safe. And I certainly can’t do it. Thank goodness someone saw what happened and called an ambulance, otherwise…’ he trailed off, his face ashen. ‘The point is, I’ve been looking at this place.’ He produced a creased leaflet from his shirt pocket and pushed it towards me. ‘Briar View’ it said above a glossy picture of white-haired dears sitting around a table playing cards. Inside were other photos: a smiling, laughing grandmother with her equally happy granddaughter. A dapper be-suited old man with a carnation in his lapel. I looked at Dad.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s only a few miles away. It’s on a bus route. You could visit.’
‘No.’
‘I thought the name sounded a bit like Braër.’
‘No, Dad.’
‘You can’t look after me forever, Romilly, I’m too far gone. And I can’t look after you. What if it’s you I attack next time, thinking you’re someone else? I’ve made an appointment with the GP later this morning to discuss getting admitted. I’d like you to come – in case I get a bit forgetful.’ He smiled shiftily, scratching at the dressing on his head, and then remembering and pulling his hand away.
‘Why did you do it, Dad?’ I asked, nodding at the shaved patch of skin.
‘Who knows. I suppose I just wanted it all to end.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.’ He leant forward and pushed my fringe up off my face, cupping his cool hand to my forehead.
‘Now, I’ll cook us some bacon. You must be starving. But best you stay in the kitchen, just in case I go a bit gaga.’ He crossed his eyes for a moment, and I giggled.
‘I’ve been living off cold baked beans for three days,’ he said, getting up, ‘thank goodness you’re up and about to keep an eye on me.’ He stopped in the middle of the kitchen and gazed at me, and for a moment I thought he had dipped back into the fog of dementia. But then he said, ‘I’m so glad we’ve had this talk, Romilly. I can rest easy knowing someone is going to take care of me.’ His habitually puzzled expression melted into something more at peace and he smiled.
The doctor’s surgery was a fifteen-minute walk away. Dad maintained his sobriety all the way, chewing on a handful of leftover bacon rinds as he went. He sat quietly in the waiting room while I flashed glances at him out of the corner of my eye, searching for signs of the fog descending. Bacon fat churned unpleasantly in my stomach.
In the doctor’s room, we sat together whilst the GP surveyed us through thick-lensed glasses.
‘And do you think this is the best solution?’ he said, turning to me. I nodded, my stomach somersaulting queasily.
‘Who will be looking after you, young lady?’
‘Her mother’s back to take care of her,’ Dad said, leaning forward and patting my knee. I looked at him, unable to determine how close the mist had encroached. The doctor nodded and scribbled something on his pad.
Once we were outside I said, ‘Is Mum really back?’ I had a hazy memory of seeing her in my bedroom. But then I had also had a conversation with Mary Mother-of-God, so I couldn’t be certain.
‘Your darling mother is a gem,’ Dad said, picking at a bit of bacon rind stuck in a molar. ‘Nursed me back from the brink when I was ill with the influenza. She’ll look after you well, trust me.’
The edge of his dressing had come loose and was flapping in the wind. I reached up and pressed it to his head again, but not before I glimpsed the soft dent in his skull underneath.
Part Three
Thirty-Two
Dad left for Briar View in a taxi a few days later, with me waving him off from the gate.
‘I want to settle in before you visit,’ he said, ‘make it homely. You do understand, don’t you?’
I nodded, swallowing my tears down, not wanting to make this harder for him. But however hard I tried, I couldn’t see his logic: surely it would be homelier if I were there. Surely home for both of us was when we were together.
I came inside, wrapping my arms tightly about myself. Braër felt cold and still, as if a pulse no longer beat beneath its crumbling skin. I went to the kitchen, hoping to scrape the last of the Ovaltine from the jar to eke into a mug of warm milk. All I wanted to do was curl up in bed and never get out.
I stopped.
Stacey was sitting at the table, looking at me warily.
My skin prickled in shock. ‘Stacey,’ I said, holding onto the wall for support, ‘I thought I dreamt you.’
‘Nope,’ she said, ‘it’s really me.’ A hopeful smile hovered over her lips. Her hands were stroking the rim of the teacup in front of her as if she didn’t know what else to do with them.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Your dad asked me to come. He thought you could use some company. And he’s right: you look awful.’ The old merriment glittered in her eyes for a moment.
‘Thanks,’ I said, sitting down feebly and pulling my knees up to my chin.
We stared at each other across the table, soaking up the changes in our faces. She looked older: more grown-up. The roundness in her face was gone, and newly emerging cheekbones accentuated the delicate slope of her nose and her large, unusual eyes. Next to her I felt shabby in comparison. I put my hand to the scab that had formed on my head, feeling for the stitches, scratching at the dried blood in my unwashed hair.
‘You’re shaking,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She stood up and poured a glass of water from the tap.
‘I just… I can’t believe you’re really here,’ I said. ‘I dreamt about you, but I never thought you’d actually come back.’
‘Well, I am back.’ She shrugged, sitting down and pushing the glass towards me. ‘You don’t have to get all emotional about it.’
She lifted her tea again, looking at me over the edge of it as she sipped. I noticed the little painting of the virgin Mary was on the table. Behind her, the pantry door stood open, and I thought of the time I was shut in there when I was little; the touch of Stacey’s fingers on mine through the grate. Outside it began to rain.
‘How are you feeling,’ she asked, ‘after what happened?’ She indicated the cut on my head.
‘I’m OK. Tired, mostl
y.’ This was an understatement. The real world and the dream world had merged while I was recuperating up in my bedroom, and now their strands were so knotted that I couldn’t summon the energy to separate the two.
‘Have you been eating?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘I bet your dad hasn’t helped. I can’t imagine he’s been much good at looking after you.’ She twisted a lock of hair, looking at me, ‘He doesn’t make much sense now, does he?’ Her voice was loud in the quiet room, the mischievous grin I remembered so well playing over her face.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he was always a bit gaga, but he’s royally messed up now, isn’t he? He could hardly get a word out when he spoke to me earlier.’
She put her cup down. A droplet of tea slopped from it, landing on my cheek, like an old tear. I wiped it away.
‘He’s ill.’ My words came out sharper than I had intended.
‘OK, sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just, we used to laugh about him, you know, before. Your dad the “loony”?’
‘Of course I remember. But it’s not funny anymore.’
‘Well, he’s gone to the best place then. They’ll take care of him properly.’
‘I took care of him properly,’ I said.
‘Calm down, Romilly, I’m on your side!’ She had picked up the picture of Mary and was trying to sit it on the table, but the stand had been broken long ago and it kept falling down with a clatter. The noise jarred in my head.
‘I’m going to visit him soon,’ I said, ‘he might be well enough to come home for a bit, the doctor said dementia slows down sometimes.’ I could hear the pathetic hope in my voice.
‘But it doesn’t get better.’ She had abandoned the picture now. Her elbows were propped on the table, and she was leaning forward, looking at me intently.