by Mel Sparke
“Is everything all right, sir?” asked their concerned waiter, rushing over. So far, he’d only brought a basket of bread and a bottle of mineral water to their table, but the last thing he wanted was for the restaurant’s only customers to have any cause for complaint.
“Yes, yes, everything’s fine!” Eddie insisted.
Reluctantly, the young man seemed to accept his assurances and left them alone.
“Is it?” asked Cat in a small voice. “Fine, I mean?”
“With the drinking? Oh, yes, Catrina,” he assured her. “I knocked that on the head… ages ago. Clean as a whistle, me. Trust me.”
“I’m glad,” she smiled.
From what he’d managed to tell them the previous night-in between her mother’s bitter comments-his alcoholism had taken a complete hold after he left them and he’d descended into a booze-induced haze, drifting from town to town, from dead-end job to dead-end job, until he’d slowly started dragging himself back to health and fitness. It was only now, he’d explained, having regained his self-respect, that he’d had the courage to get back in touch with his family.
“Got to be on top of everything, now that this mate of mine wants me to help him run his new business!”
“Oh, yes-so what’s it going to be like?” Cat nodded enthusiastically, remembering what her dad had told them about this club his friend was starting up.
(“Club? Huh! What do you know about running a club, Eddie!” her mother had sneered at his news. “It’ll come to nothing-just like all the plans and schemes you ever tried!”)
“Well, not your scene, I don’t suppose,” he grinned. “It’s going to be a jazz venue.”
Cat suppressed the urge to wrinkle her nose. Just because the music wasn’t to her taste didn’t mean the project didn’t sound glamorous.
“I’d love to come and see it once it’s finished!” she gushed.
“Really?” beamed her father. “That won’t be for a while yet though. The whole bar’s got to be ripped out and redesigned before anything else. And that can’t be done till he gets enough investors to put up the cash to do it.”
“I don’t mind how long it takes,” said Cat cheerily, imagining her father in a swanky cocktail lounge, dressed in a smart black suit instead of the jeans and baggy jumper he was wearing now.
“But let’s not talk about me, Catrina,” he shrugged with a smile. “I want to hear all about you.”
“What do you want to know?” asked Cat, fidgeting with the napkin in her lap. Much as she normally loved talking about anything to do with herself, she suddenly felt strangely shy, faced with her father’s question.
I mean, where do I start? How can I tell him nearly ten years worth of stuff just like that? she wondered to herself.
“Well, what about this college course you’re doing? Hairdressing, didn’t your mum say?”
“No, Beauty Therapy. It’s a two-year course,” she corrected him.
“Ah, right. So, do you want to own your own beauty salon then? You’d be a great advert for it, a lovely girl like you!”
Cat blushed at his compliment then felt her heart thump fast. Should she tell him what she’d never told her mother? What her real plans were? She felt reckless, like she had nothing to lose. She decided to spill.
“No, what I really want to do is become a make-up artist and use that to get in the back door to TV and film work. Acting, I mean,” she gushed, feeling excited at sharing her secret.
“Really? Can you do that then? Get into acting without any qualifications or experience?” asked her dad, raising his eyebrows and looking genuinely interested.
Right now, put in the same situation, her mother would have been snorting with derision at the very idea, Cat knew.
“Oh, yes! It happens all the time!” trilled Cat confidently, buoyed up by her father’s enthusiasm. She didn’t have anything to back up her statement, but that didn’t mean, in Cat’s mind, that it could never happen.
“And anyway, I have got experience. I beat off all the drama students at college to get the part of Cinderella in the Christmas panto, and I’m one of the two leads in a play we’re just starting to rehearse!”
“Really!” Eddie Osgood gasped, his brown eyes wide with amazement. “To think my little girl’s an actress! I can’t believe it!”
Cat glowed with pride. It was just too wonderful to have a response like this. Even her friends had never been so instantly encouraging.
“Actually, we’re rehearsing in the college auditorium on Sunday,” she suddenly announced, feeling anxiously excited about what she was going to suggest. After all, she didn’t even know how long he was planning to stick around in Winstead. “Would you… would you like to come and watch?”
“Would l? Just try and stop me!” he grinned as if Cat’d just given him the best present he could imagine.
Any more talk was suspended for a few moments as the waiter brought over their steaming plates of pasta, along with bowls of salad and yet more bread.
“So, your mum’s doing really well for herself. Pretty good job she seems to have. Nice flat too. That firm she works for must pay well,” said her dad as soon as they had the table to themselves again.
“I suppose,” Cat agreed, though she’d never been very interested in her mother’s career.
“Listen, I meant to ask you, Catrina-is your mum… seeing anyone?” he asked out of the blue.
Cat couldn’t help feeling disappointed; she’d been lapping up his attention and had hoped to keep to their previous topic before the food had appeared, not end up diverting to something as unpleasant as her mother.
But then it struck her: could her dad still be hung up on her mum? Was this why he was asking?
“Yes. She’s going out with my friend’s dad actually…” she said simply, trying to read his face for any clues, any sign of disappointment. But all Eddie did was nod and casually ask another question.
“Is that right? And who’s this guy then? Would I remember him?”
“Maybe,” shrugged Cat. “His name’s Matthew Ryan. He’s some kind of property developer or something.”
Cat saw a flutter of recognition register across her father’s face.
“Matthew Ryan? I remember there was a Matthew Ryan who ran a local building firm…”
“Mmm, yeah, I think that’s how he started out. I’m sure my friend Matt-that’s his son-once told me that.”
“A property developer, eh? Must be worth a fair bit of money…”
“You bet-you should see the house they’ve got and the size of Matt’s allowance!”
Eddie Osgood looked thoughtful for a second as he stabbed at his pasta with a fork.
“Serious, are they?”
It was a pretty pointed question as far as Cat could see.
It’s got to mean that he still cares about Mum! she decided, butterflies fluttering in her stomach at the realisation.
“Ah, 1 think that’s what went wrong with your mother and me-money,” her father sighed.
“How do you mean?” asked Cat.
“Well, I think she always wanted to marry a rich man-someone solid,” he shrugged. “I took risks, you see-trying to get into new businesses at the ground floor-and she always hated that. Said I was gambling away our future.”
Cat blinked. It was strange hearing about her parents” relationship from her dad’s point of view. All she’d ever heard was her mum’s carping.
“I mean, I know I was drinking,” he continued, “but it was hard not to when Sylvia was constantly criticising what I did.”
Cat’s head began to spin. She’d always been led to believe that her father’s alcoholism was what tore their family apart. Now, according to her dad, it seemed like everything she’d trusted to be true had been turned upside down.
My mum drove him to drink! she realised with a shock. My carping, bitchy mother’s the one to blame-not Dad!
CHAPTER 10
MAYA SMELLS A RAT
“Maya! Just the
person I wanted to see!”
Cat bustled into the booth opposite her friend, who’d been sitting on her own, flicking through a magazine and sipping a cappuccino. Maya could tell from Cat’s wide-eyed stare that she had something special to talk to her about; she only hoped it wasn’t going to take too long.
“That’s nice. Only thing is, Cat, I’ve got photography club tonight and I’ll have to leave in…” Maya paused as she pushed up her sleeve and looked at the blank space on her wrist where her watch should be. “Damn! I forgot to put my watch on after my shower!”
Cat pushed up the fake-fur trimmed cuff of her jacket and smiled as she studied her own wrist.
“Need to know the time? Look-there you go!”
Maya glanced down at Cat’s outstretched arm and saw with surprise that her friend’s favourite Baby-G watch had been replaced by something completely different.
“Where’d that come from?” she asked, admiring the very elegant art deco-style diamante watch.
“My dad,” said Cat, grinning fit to burst.
“What?” squeaked Maya, loud enough for Anna-who was busy serving a family over by the counter-to glance their way.
“Uh-huh,” nodded Cat. “He’s back! Oh, Maya, he’s lovely!”
“That’s great. But—” Maya tried to say, but was steamrollered by her friend’s exuberance.
“He’s totally different to my mum-I mean he listens, really listens, to me,” said Cat, looking star-struck. “It was like last night, I went out for a meal with him, just the two of us, and we talked and talked for hours!”
“Is he staying at yours?” Maya managed to ask.
“Oh, God no! My mum wouldn’t dream of letting him stay!” Cat replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “He’s staying at a B&B down by the bus station-1 was round there just now. Oh, Maya, it’s totally amazing getting to know him all over again!”
“But where’s he been all this time? Is he all right? What’s brought him back?”
Cat waved away Maya’s questions as though they weren’t important. She didn’t have the time or the inclination to go through it all (not that Cat was famous at the best of times for her patience) and right now her relationship with her father seemed to have moved light years on from those initial considerations.
“He came back to see me, Maya!” she replied simply, her eyes sparkling with excitement and happiness. “And I can’t believe some of the stuff he’s been telling me-it’s blown my mind!”
“Like what?” asked Maya, sensing from Cat’s slightly hysterical air that she wasn’t going to get all that much sense out of her at one sitting.
“Like…”
Cat looked round the room as if spies might be listening in, then bent low across the Formica table and hissed what she had to say.
“Like the fact that my mother’s completely to blame for driving him away!”
“How?”
“I can’t explain… it’s all too-too messy. But, you see, I’d always thought it was his fault all these years!”
Maya didn’t know the full story of Cat’s parents’ relationship and break-up-only that Cat’s dad had left when she was little, never to be seen again. But despite only being privy to that much, and despite knowing that Cat’s mother wasn’t exactly an apple-pie, cosy cuddles kind of a mum, Maya still felt a little uncertain about what her friend was telling her.
“Cat, you haven’t seen him for an awfully long time. He must almost be like a stranger. Do you…” Maya hesitated and tried to phrase her doubts tactfully. “Do you think you can believe him 100 per cent? I mean, I know you don’t get on all that brilliantly with your mum, but she’s always been pretty straight with you, hasn’t she?”
Maya’s gut reaction was that a man who’d stayed away for years from his family and never bothered to get in touch might just try any tactic to get back in his only child’s good books.
Of course, what he’s saying might have some truth in it, Maya considered, but I don’t think I’d leap in and trust him implicitly, just like that.
“Maya-you know what a cow my mum can be to me! So it makes sense, doesn’t it, that she was so horrible she drove my dad away?”
And you can be a real monster to your mother too, thought Maya, sparing her friend’s feelings by not saying so out loud. Instead she said, “I can’t tell, Cat; I don’t know all the ins and outs of what’s gone on. I just think you should be a bit careful, that’s all. What’s your mum said?”
“I’m going to go and ask her that right now!” said Cat, her eyes flashing. “She was out last night and gone before I got up this morning. But she’s not getting away with it. Wait till I hit her with what I know!”
Maya knew right then that she’d wasted her breath; there was no way Cat was going to be rational or sensible about this. But how could she be anything else when her dad turns up out of the blue like that? she acknowledged.
“Wish me luck!” said Cat, grabbing her bag and getting ready to leave only moments after she’d arrived.
“Luck!” Maya shouted after her to the tinkling of the bell above the café entrance as the door shut behind Cat.
Folding up her magazine and stuffing it in her bag, Maya caught sight of a still busy Anna mouthing over, “Is she all right?”
Maya shrugged. Whether Cat would be all right or not was hard to tell at this point.
“Jeez, everything’s going crazy this week and it’s only Wednesday!” said Matt, shaking his head. “First, Anna getting caught up in that robbery at the launderette yesterday, and now Cat’s dad turning up like a bad smell…”
“Matt, that’s not fair!” scolded Maya. “It must be amazing for Cat to have him back on the scene! Hey, look, that’s my turning there…”
Maya had been very glad to see the blue Golf slide up beside her as she’d hurried from the End towards her photography club. Getting a lift from Matt had saved her the hassle of rushing, but now she was slightly irritated by his response to Cat’s story. She might have had some doubts herself, but Matt didn’t have to put it so bluntly.
“Here? OK…” said Matt, following her directions. “But about Cat’s dad-I’m sorry, but I don’t get the feeling he was exactly a great guy. My dad says Sylvia’s told him some pretty depressing stories about what went on before they split up.”
“God, sorry, Matt-I forgot about your dad and Sylvia!” Maya apologised, suddenly realising that her friend had a real interest in what was going on in the Osgood’s family life. Eddie’s reappearance could potentially mess up his own father’s happiness. “So what’s Sylvia told him?”
“Nothing my dad’s spelt out,” Matt shrugged, drawing up outside the Downfield Adult Education Centre. “He just came out with it one time, when I said something about what a hard time Sylvia gives Cat. He told me that if I knew what he knew-like how hard it had been for Cat’s mum with her ex-I wouldn’t be so quick to slag her off.”
“What a mess…” muttered Maya, seeing the complications widen. “Well, I hope she manages to straighten things out with her mum tonight.”
“I doubt it. Sylvia’s seeing my dad tonight; he told me earlier.”
Maya groaned. Nothing was going to be resolved quickly, she sensed.
“Listen, Maya, can 1 ask you something? I know it’s going to sound really stupid and trite compared to what’s going on with Cat, but it’s kind of urgent…”
“Go on then-what?”
“Can you take a photo of the car for me? I’ve got to put it in the paper to sell it and I need a picture.”
It might not have been as devastating and important as Cat’s news, but Maya knew that, in Mart’s book, giving up his precious car wasn’t that far down the emotional ladder.
“‘Course I will. Can I call you later on tonight and we’ll sort out a time?” she suggested.
“Sure,” said Matt as she opened the door and slipped out.
“Tell you what, Matt-are you sure this photo’s for the paper?” she laughed, bending down to look at
him.
“How do you mean?” he frowned.
“Are you sure it’s not just for your bedside table? Something you can remember little Miss Golf by when she’s gone?”
Matt tutted, pretending his feelings were hurt, even though he was trying not to laugh.
Maya gave him a wave as he tooted goodbye on the horn. Standing on the pavement watching him speed off, she felt momentarily guilty at having had such a great year so far, when friends like Cat and Matt had both had nothing but heartache and hassles.
She remembered how she’d wished Cat luck only a short while earlier. She hoped for Cat’s sake that the luck would be good and not bad…
“Can I have a word?” Cat stood glowering in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom.
“What about?” asked her mother, looking into her dressing table mirror while fixing her earrings. “Let me guess… your darling father, perhaps?”
“Yes-about my dad!”
“Well, what rubbish has he been filling your head with?”
Cat’s blood boiled. “It’s not rubbish! He’s told me things-things we need to talk about!”
“Not tonight. I’m going out with Matthew,” her mother replied, smoothing down her dress in the mirror.
“You’re going out? How can you go out at a time like this, Mum?! How can you be so casual about this? Dad’s back and you’re acting like it’s a minor inconvenience!”
“Catrina,” her mother sighed, turning to face her, “I would never, ever dismiss your father as a minor inconvenience. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a major inconvenience, thinking he can waltz back into our lives like he’s done nothing wrong. But he’s already ruined my life once and I’m not going to let him do it again.”
“Aren’t you even prepared to listen to what he’s got to say?” demanded Cat.
“No-but I know you are, Catrina. I could see he’d got you on Monday night as soon as you opened that present. And I also know that I could stand here and rant and rave and tell you a hundred different reasons why you should be as wary of your father as I am, but I know I’d be wasting my time. You’ll just have to find out for yourself. Your father’ll show his true colours soon enough.”