by Sara Barnard
Dad looks at me, still smiling warmly, in just the way any father would if his nineteen-year-old daughter had moved away to a different city and didn’t keep in touch as much as he’d like. ‘Spare a few minutes for your old man?’
Everything I ever knew about putting on a face in public I learned from my dad. Both me and Brian are charmers, just like him. And now he’s here, the reality of that makes me feel sick. So much of me is him, but he is not good. So how can I ever be? When I was a kid, I played along. Willingly. I went to his work functions and had whole conversations with him in front of his colleagues like the two of us were best mates. A double act, like he was Father-of-the-fucking-Year. ‘You’re lucky,’ one said to him once. ‘My daughter will barely talk to me in public these days.’
‘Ah, Suzie’s well-trained,’ Dad said, and everyone laughed. Ha, ha, ha. He put his arm around me. ‘Aren’t you, Suzie?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘I mean, Dad.’ And everyone laughed again – and see how I was complicit in my own nightmare? Do you see? My therapist said surviving is not the same as being complicit, but it feels like it is. I think that’s exactly what it is.
And you know what I do right now? I smile. I roll my eyes. I say, ‘Go on, then.’ And I make him a goddamn cappuccino. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, why I can’t just tell him to leave. I try to conjure up Rosie in my mind, her straight-talking, blunt self. ‘God, Suze, just tell Tracey he’s literally your abuser and go and sit in the back until he leaves.’ That’s what she’d say, right?
My hands are shaking. Why is he here? What does he want? Why am I walking over to him?
Dad is sitting at a table in the centre of the cafe, which is something, at least. It’s in full view of everyone, so he’s obviously not planning on hurting me. I put the tray on the table and he takes the cappuccino, glancing up at me to smile. ‘Thanks, Suzie.’ Genuine. Unexpected.
I sit opposite him and put my fingers on my own cup, then change my mind and slide my hands on to my lap, out of his view. I don’t want him to notice if they start to shake again.
‘You look well,’ Dad says.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
‘Seeing you,’ Dad says, his forehead crinkling. ‘Is that so strange? Relax.’
I don’t smile. ‘Why?’
‘Because it seemed like a good time. I’ve got a conference at the Amex this weekend, so I thought I’d stop by.’
‘Here?’ I say. ‘Where I work?’
Dad frowns, then nods. ‘It seemed like a better option than turning up at your flat,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d think I was … Well, trying to scare you or something. If I did that.’
I would definitely have thought he was trying to scare me if he’d turned up at my flat. Because he would have been. ‘Why didn’t you ask first?’
‘What is this, an interrogation?’ he asks, an edge of irritation in his voice. ‘Why is it so awful to want to see you for ten minutes? Have you taken out a restraining order I don’t know about?’
Should I? I think, but I’m not brave enough to say it. I don’t say anything, just look down into my coffee, concentrating on keeping my breathing slow and normal. Sometimes I go off into little daydreams about all the things I’d say to my stepdad if I had the chance, and now he’s here in front of me, I know I will never, not ever, say any of them out loud.
‘Listen,’ he says. His voice has softened. ‘I just wanted to see you. That’s all. I’m not trying to upset you.’
Does he mean it? I really can’t tell.
‘This is a nice place,’ he says, looking around Madeline’s. ‘Cosy.’
I feel some of the tension in my shoulders ease. I can handle a slightly stilted conversation. I’d take awkward over scary any day of the week. ‘Yeah, it’s not bad,’ I say.
‘It doesn’t pay well, though, does it?’
‘It’s OK,’ I say carefully, looking for traps. ‘I can pay rent, so … that’s good.’
‘But you need money,’ he says.
I look at him, confused, trying not to show it. Dad’s a master manipulator, and he’s probably just trying to throw me. I mean, of course I need money. Doesn’t everyone? ‘Well … yeah? I guess?’
‘You guess,’ he says, deadpan.
What is he getting at? Anxiety is starting to tingle at the base of my neck, crawling down my spine.
‘Suzie,’ he says, and he’s smiling. No, not smiling. Smirking. ‘Don’t be obtuse, now. I know you want money from us.’
All of the heat leaves my body in one sickening instant of realization. I’m cold all over. Because, oh fuck. No. He can’t … How can he …?
‘What?’
‘You want money,’ he repeats. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? You want to take us to court?’
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe.
‘Sue me?’ he adds, and he doesn’t look angry or annoyed or even worried. He just looks amused. ‘Say something, then.’
I can’t believe he’s come all the way here to blindside me like this. Except I can. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Your brother.’
No.
‘Decent of him to give us a heads-up.’ And then he actually chuckles.
He can’t have. He wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t.
‘Now, listen,’ Dad says, all friendly, resting his elbows on the table and leaning slightly towards me. ‘That all seems like an awful lot of fuss, doesn’t it, Suzie? Imagine how traumatic it would be for you, getting up in court, telling them all about your sad little life. Why should you have to go through that? If it’s money you want, we can give you money.’
My head, which has been one long scream for the last thirty seconds, suddenly goes quiet. What?
‘What is it you want, five grand?’ Dad continues. And somewhere inside me, buried underneath the fog of shock, a small voice says: He looked it up. ‘We can give you five grand, if you need it.’
He looked it up. He found out how much I’d get if I successfully sued them. He researched.
‘You don’t want to sue us,’ Dad says. ‘Do you?’
He’s scared. He came here to scare me, because he’s scared.
‘Say something,’ he says.
I could say, I was never going to sue you. That was just something Rosie said. But I’m thinking about him looking it up, figuring out how public it would be, who’d find out. His colleagues, his friends. Deciding to come here out of the blue when my guard was down, in a place that’s always been safe. Offering me the money like he’s doing me a favour. ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.
His casual smile disappears, just for a moment, before returning with an edge. ‘Suzanne,’ he says. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Do you want the money or not?’ I let the silence build, my eyes on my coffee, until he breaks it. ‘You’ll need it, if you want to study.’
For God’s sake, Brian. My heart hurts. I say, quietly, ‘He really told you?’
The question is a mistake, and I know it immediately, just by the look on his face. The slight smirk, his eyes sharp. He is about to skewer me.
And he does.
‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘It was a bit of a surprise at first, but we had quite a laugh about it in the end.’ And then he smiles, like I’m in on it.
He’s lying; Brian wouldn’t laugh at me. I know that. And he knows I know that, too. But it doesn’t matter. The fact that Brian has told our parents something I clearly wouldn’t want them to know, that he’s aligned himself with them, compromised the loyalty I’d always thought he had to me – all of that has created an opening for Dad to say those words and make me doubt everything. Brian has created this.
‘Don’t be upset with him,’ Dad adds. ‘Of course he had to tell us.’
‘Was that all you wanted?’ I ask, getting to my feet and reaching for his cup. He’s just a customer and I am just doing cup collection. He’s just a customer. ‘I should get back to work.’
‘Suzie,’ Dad says.
‘
I’ll have a think about the money,’ I say. All I want is to turn and walk away from him, but I force myself to look him in the eye, just for a moment. I want to say something dramatic like, Come here again and I’ll call the police. Or, By the way, I hate you. I manage, ‘Bye then.’
‘Thanks for the cappuccino,’ he says.
I carry our cups across the coffee-shop floor, behind the counter and through the door to the kitchen. There’s no one else round the back so I throw them, hard, into the industrial sink, watching as they smash into large, jagged pieces. I want to rage. I want to smash everything. I want to cry and scream and break.
I pick up the shards, wrap them in paper and put them in the bin. I pull my hair out of its ponytail and shake it out over my face. I wind the hair-tie around my fingers, down over my wrist. I twist it until my skin turns white, then red. I breathe in. I breathe out. I tie my hair back up, pulling it back from my face, tight and steady and safe.
I message Brian. I will never forgive you for this.
And then I turn off my phone.
28
‘i can’t breathe’
Bea Miller
By the time I get home, I’m caught in a spiral I don’t have the strength to fight. Seeing Dad for the first time in three years. Watching Tracey laughing with him. Listening to him use that voice with me, like I’m still a kid he can destroy at will. The fact that I couldn’t even say one thing, just one thing, to stand up for myself.
Being in my flat should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. It makes it worse. My head, which had managed to keep a lid on the panic while I was at work, starts to talk to me the moment I walk through the door. You think this is safe? Ha! It is safe. I’m home. He’s far away. What if he comes here? He knows the address. Of course he won’t come here, why would he? Don’t be stupid. But what if he does? He came to Madeline’s. He’s not going to come here as well. But what if that was just a false-sense-of-security thing? He could come here, if he wanted. There’s no one around. He could …
Stop it. That’s obviously not going to happen.
But it could.
I put my headphones in and try to listen to music, but I can’t settle into anything. The lyrics are putting me even more on edge because I can’t focus on them, but I can’t shut them out, either. I click from song to song, but the panic keeps rising in my chest. I’m working myself up into even more of a state and it’s really, really not helping.
I leave the safety of my flat to go to the corner shop. One bottle of vodka, one bottle of Coke. I drink one glass and give up on the Coke; it’s just slowing me down. Then I give up on the glass, too, and stick with the bottle. Look at me, I think. Cliché of the year. Drinking straight vodka on my own in a bedsit. Look how well I deal with my problems.
I’ve drunk about half of the bottle when there’s a knock at my door and I freeze, choking a little on the sip I’d just taken. My head immediately goes: Dad. He’s come to hurt me. But no, that can’t be. Dad would have to buzz to get in. How many people know the front door code? Dilys and Sarah. That’s it, isn’t it?
No, wait. It’s not. There’s one more person it could be. I hear a muffled, ‘Zannie?’
I open the door and there’s my brother. He looks at me for a moment, taking me in. He looks stunned. Brian has seen me at my absolute lowest. Pre-, mid- and post-breakdown. He’s seen me flip out at the side of a motorway. He’s seen me drugged up to my eyeballs on morphine. He’s seen me crying like my heart is broken.
But he has never seen me drunk.
‘Ah,’ I say. I put the bottle behind my back.
‘Jesus,’ he says, but in a worried way, not an angry way. ‘Zanne. Are you OK?’
I block his way when he tries to walk in. ‘Nope,’ I say. ‘Nope. No entry for you.’
‘Zannie,’ he says. ‘Let me in so I can talk to you, OK?’
‘OK?’ I repeat, mocking. ‘Maybe you should just go, OK?’
He shakes his head and comes into the flat, pushing me gently out of the way. Even though I said no. Three times.
‘If you stay here,’ I say, turning to face him and swaying slightly on my feet, ‘we are going to have a huge fight.’
‘I’m not here for a fight,’ he says.
‘Oh no, of course not,’ I say. ‘You’re just here to explain, right?’
‘Well, yeah. Shut the door, Zannie.’
I clench my fist around the neck of the bottle. ‘I said I don’t want you here.’
‘I came straight here,’ he says. ‘I got straight in the car and drove here, Zanne.’
I hate how he keeps saying my name. No, not just my name. My childhood nickname, the one only he still uses.
‘So?’
‘So I have to talk to you.’ When I still don’t move, he leans past me and closes the door, because who cares what I want, right? ‘Are you … drunk?’
‘Yes,’ I say, swinging the bottle around and hugging it to my chest. ‘Yes, I am.’ I lift my chin and hold his gaze until he caves and looks away. Ha. Who’s the weak one now?
Brian looks around, like he’s hoping someone else is going to materialize and help him deal with me. ‘By yourself?’
‘Clearly.’
‘Shit, Zannie. That’s really bad.’
‘What is?’
‘Getting drunk by yourself. You’re nineteen. Jesus. Alcoholics get drunk by themselves.’
‘So do abuse victims,’ I say, because like hell am I above using my own trauma as a weapon in an argument with my pious, perfect, un-abused brother.
He rolls his eyes. Just quick, like he can’t help it. And then he leans over and tries to take the bottle from me.
‘Uh, no, thank you,’ I say, spinning away. ‘This is mine. I paid for it, and it’s mine.’ He just stands there, and he suddenly seems too tall to me, all awkward in my tiny little bedsit. ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Remember when I said I didn’t want you here? That’s still true.’
‘Where the hell is Sarah?’ he mutters, almost to himself.
‘Er, at home?’
‘Why isn’t she here looking after you?’ he asks. ‘Why has she left you to get drunk on your own?’
Which is a real dick thing to say.
‘Sarah has done more for me than you or anyone else ever has, so don’t you fucking dare put this on her.’
There’s this weird thing that happens when you get drunk, which is that certain things become clear, and you realize things that you didn’t even know you thought. I’ve never consciously thought that about Sarah before, but it suddenly feels like the truest thing in the world. I feel fierce with the truth of it.
He says, ‘I’m going to make us both some tea.’
I watch him walk into my kitchen and begin busying himself with the kettle. I lift the bottle to my lips and take a quick, burning gulp. Ugh.
‘You told them,’ I say, and he freezes. Which makes no sense, because isn’t that why he’s here?
I see him swallow. He doesn’t say anything.
‘How could you tell them?’
‘I didn’t …’ he tries, then stops. ‘It wasn’t like whatever he said to you, however he made it sound. It wasn’t like that.’
‘Then what was it like?’
The kettle clicks as it comes to the boil and he reaches for it. ‘I saw them last weekend. Just a normal visit, you know?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t know.’ A normal visit. What’s that like?
He winces. ‘Sorry, I just meant … I just meant it wasn’t unusual. I didn’t go there to tell on you, or anything. We were talking, I was telling them about how you were thinking about going back to studying, and how great it is.’
I have a sudden image of the three of them, my family, sitting around our old kitchen table, cosily talking about me and – what was it Dad had said? – my sad little life. Oh, bless little Suzie, thinking about trying to earn an actual qualification! Isn’t it nice that she has goals?
I lift the bottle to my lips again.
‘And I said I wasn’t sure how you would pay for it.’ At this point he hesitates, and I know that he’s wording this so carefully, that he’s presenting it in the best way he can. It’s still lying that way, even if it’s dressed up a bit nicer. ‘And I …’ He trails off, and I wait. ‘I said that someone had told you that you should try and get the money from them. In court.’
He stops, like that’s the end of the story, and I can’t stand it. ‘And?’
‘And …’ He opens my fridge and takes out my carton of milk, pouring it into my cups on top of my tea bags. ‘And they were a bit … surprised. And, look, OK, I wanted to know if that was a thing that could actually happen. If it was even a possibility.’
There is a burning, burning rage in my chest, and every sip of vodka is like fuel.
‘But I wasn’t telling them to … I don’t know, warn them, or whatever it is you think. And I had no idea Dad was going to turn up at your work and bring it up, Zanne. Honestly. I would never have told him if I’d known. You know that, right? I could kill him for this.’
‘Why do you care?’
Brian looks up at me, rabbit-in-headlights. ‘What?’
‘Why do you care if it’s a possibility? What’s it got to do with you?’
Clearly, this is not what he was expecting me to say. ‘Zannie, if you sued our parents, that would be a lot to do with me.’
‘Why?’
He stares at me for a long moment. ‘Zanne—’
‘Stop saying my fucking name like that.’
‘Put the bottle down, OK? Put it down and we can talk about this properly.’
I don’t move. ‘What would change? You think things could get worse than they already are? You think I could have even less of a relationship with them? You think they’ll love me any less?’
He hesitates and sets his hands on the counter, leaning his weight on them. ‘It’s about more than just that.’