The House We Grew Up In

by Lisa Jewell

  ‘Thank you!’ she said and hugged Richard to her. ‘And Happy Easter to you, too. Sorry, I didn’t get you anything …’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t expecting anything. And I know Easter is a strange time for you, so …’

  She shrugged and smiled. She’d told him early on about Rhys. She had to. You couldn’t really get to know someone without having the inevitable ‘So have you got any brothers and sisters?’ conversation. And she could have lied, or at least, omitted to mention Rhys. But she wasn’t able to do that. She would never be able to that.

  ‘Do you do anything,’ he continued, ‘at home? To, you know, commemorate the day?’

  At home. She shuddered at his words. This was home. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘not really. I mean, it was fourteen years ago, it all seems so distant now. I think we’ve all moved on.’

  He nodded sagely, as if this was somehow a satisfactory response. When it clearly wasn’t. He poured her a coffee and they sat together on his sofa. He slung his arm around her shoulders and picked up the remote control. The window was wide open, his light curtains billowing in the early evening breeze. The sun was still high and she could hear the sound of the ocean from here, the reassuring whisper of the ebb and flow, the calls of children on the beach, the hum of the traffic that flowed in between.

  ‘New shoes?’ he said, eyeing up her sandals.

  She eyed them too, smiled and said, ‘No, I’ve had these a while.’

  ‘They’re nice,’ he said. ‘Pretty. Although I’d still give a hundred dollars to see you in a pair of flip-flops.’

  She nudged him with her elbow. It was a standing joke.

  She stared at the Creme Egg on the table in front of her. Just the merest glance at it filled her head with a dozen childhood memories. And as these tiny vignettes danced around her head, she could not help but think of England, of her mother, of poor Vicky, of pregnant Megan. And then she thought of the pathetic email from her father that had been sitting there in her inbox this morning like a big festering boil. She’d skimmed it, barely taken in a word, had let the cursor hover above the link to the photo of Tia for a second or two before changing her mind – too early for that, far too early – and then shut it down, shuddering delicately. But her father had been right about one thing. Her family. She should phone them all. If she was normal, really, truly normal, not this arty-crafty, hand-stitched semblance of normal she’d made out of the warm, sweet, thin air of Sydney, Australia, that is exactly what she would do. She would phone them all and say, ‘Happy Easter! How are you? How are the kids? How are you doing? What are you eating? I miss you all so much! I love you too.’ It would take ten minutes. It would make everyone happy. But she couldn’t do it. And she had no idea why.

  Instead she buried her head into the crook of Richard’s shoulder, his strong, unquestioning shoulder that smelled of right here and now, and thought herself, hard, back into the moment and away from the past.

  Rory opened the email again and reread it. He didn’t know why he kept doing it; it was as though he was fiddling with the edges of a plaster that sat over a particularly revolting and infected wound. It almost didn’t make sense. The content seemed so far-fetched. This time last year he and his dad had been bonding in a tattoo studio. Now his dad was living with the mother of his child on a hippy commune. The email needed to be reread, just to see if it contained some missed word or phrase that would stop it sounding so unlikely. But no. There it was. In black and white. The love triangle from hell. Or, God, even worse, a love square if he included himself in the shape.

  He saw them every day, men like his dad, old and tired and scared of the women at home, terrified of being like their friends, incapable of allowing themselves to be rejected. They came here, to the other side of the world, and they found women who made them feel as though it was OK to be a loser.

  And now his dad was one of them.

  Pitiful.

  Did he honestly, truly believe that Kayleigh was interested in him for his mind? For his body? For his sexual prowess?

  Rory shivered involuntarily.

  Of course she wasn’t. She was with him to ensure her connection with Rory’s family. To maintain her connection with Rory.

  He read the email one more time, and then he shut it down.

  He’d first found out about his dad and Kayleigh a few months ago. Beth had emailed him. Sheepishly. She’d known since before it had even happened. But his dad hadn’t got in touch with him. He’d not heard from his father until now. And then it was in a joint email, addressed to all three of his children.

  Rory shrugged to himself.

  Whatever.

  He didn’t care any more. He’d come so far unravelled from the few remaining bonds that had tied him to his family that, really, who cared. Who gave a shit? Who gave a shit about Meg and all her bloody children? Who gave a shit about his weird mum and her sick girlfriend? Who gave a shit about vacuous Beth and her boring new boyfriend? Who gave a shit about Kayleigh and her kid and his dad and who gave a shit who called who Dad or Granddad or whatever? Who gave a shit about any of it? Seriously.

  Rory left the Internet café and pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was Owen.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Mate, where are you?’

  ‘I’m on Moo 2. Just heading back.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing there?’

  ‘Nothing, just sending some emails.’

  ‘Seriously, you need to get back here, like, right now. Right this fucking minute.’

  Rory’s heart rate picked up and he started walking faster. ‘What? What’s going on?’

  ‘Just get here. And make sure there’s nobody following you.’

  ‘Oh, what?’ Rory spun round as he walked. He didn’t know what he was looking for but assumed he’d recognise a threat if he saw one.

  ‘Should I chuck it out, Owen? Should I dump it?’

  But Owen had already hung up. Adrenalin blasted through him. He half walked, half ran, looking over his shoulder. It took him twenty minutes to get back to the club. By the time he burst through the doors and into the back room he was soaked with sweat. Owen sat behind his desk. A plug-in fan blew his paperwork about in front of him. He looked cool and collected. On the chairs in front of him sat two Thai men wearing short-sleeved shirts and trousers. As he entered the room they both turned and appraised him. Rory vaguely recognised one of them. Had seen him around.

  ‘This is the man,’ he heard Owen saying. ‘This is the man who brings the drugs into my bar. Please arrest him.’

  Both men nodded and one of them stood up and turned Rory backwards against Owen’s desk while the other clipped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. Hands rifled through his pockets, came out clutching little bags of pills and powder, the currency of his work.

  ‘Owen?’ Rory breathed out, looking up at his friend from where his head rested against the warm wood of his desk. ‘Mate?’

  ‘You’re not my mate, mate. You’re a drug dealer.’

  Owen stood up and held the door open for the two policemen. Rory stared beseechingly at his friend over his shoulder, struggling against the pressure of the men’s hands against his body. ‘Seriously, Owen, what is this shit? What the fuck is going on, what are you doing?’ He was shouting now through a closed door. His heels were dragging against the floor of the club. Girls and customers were staring at him in horror. ‘Jesus! For fuck’s sake! Someone help me! Owen! Jesus!’

  Somehow the two policemen had got him on to the pavement. They were shouting at him urgently in Thai, with occasional words of English. ‘Stop moving! Just come!’ A police van sat outside. Rory hadn’t even noticed it before. He was pushed into the back and the doors slammed shut behind him. He was on a hot metal floor. The van smelled of sweat and cigarettes. Then they were moving, slowly through the midday traffic. Rory closed his eyes and saw Owen’s face again. That cool, hard expression of professional disappointment. The satisfaction buried beneath it of hav
ing swerved a curve ball, dealt with a problem, sorted it. Taken care of business.

  Rory let his face fall on to his chest. He’d almost believed that he was Owen’s friend. Voices in his head had told him time and time again, ‘Don’t trust him. He’s only out for his own interests. He doesn’t care about you.’ But he’d ignored the voices and fooled himself that he was the special one in Owen’s tightly controlled, sordid little world. He bashed his elbows together against his ribs, with frustration.

  ‘Fuck!’ he shouted to himself. He kicked the sides of the van with the soles of his feet. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

  He breathed back the tears that threatened to fall. He kicked the side of the van again. And then he breathed out. Fine, he thought, good. Here it is. The thing. The thing that had been hanging over him ever since he’d left Kayleigh alone in Spain with an eight-month-old baby. The cartoon anvil above his head. Here it was. It had fallen on him.

  Fine, he thought again, good.

  10

  Tuesday 11th January 2011

  Oh, Jim,

  I knew you’d understand. I honestly feel like I can tell you anything, absolutely anything. And I do hope (believe!) that you feel the same way too. I had suspected that the ‘radio silence’ from you over the New Year was probably the result of a ‘bender’. That’s OK. At least you have your drinking more or less under control. (Everyone’s allowed to let their hair down from time to time, after all! Even alcoholics!) Which is more than could be said for me and my so-called ‘hoarding’. Oh, Jim, even I can now see it’s getting out of control. And it’s not even so much the actual STUFF. Honestly. I am fine about all the stuff. I love all the stuff (although I do miss my kitchen. I do miss my bath. I do miss all the things I can’t even see any more. Photos and favourite clothes and whatnot, but anyway …) No, the STUFF is not the problem. The LACK OF MONEY is the problem now. Colin, my ex, used to give me an allowance, but then the little BITCH he lives with told him to stop, that he was ‘not helping me’. Oh, God, Jim, I was livid. I was beyond furious. And the tone of voice, so PATRONISING, as though I were a small girl and he was my darling-daddy, being cruel to be kind. I can’t tell you. I have not spoken to him since. The bastard. So, now I am living off thin air. But still (God help me) BUYING. Yes. I am spending money I do not have on things I do not need and I have absolutely no control over this. None whatsoever. I find myself at the supermarket with an empty purse, scrabbling for coppers to pay for things, having to put things back on shelves. I am often hungry. Isn’t that ridiculous???? Hungry, yet buying things I have no need for??? Because I derive more pleasure from buying a nice little painting or a packet of clothes pegs than I do from eating. And that is the truth, Jim. I’m sure you understand. I KNOW you do.

  Anyway, MOVING ON.

  Rory. You wanted to hear more about Rory.

  Well, poor Rory. He was always the superior twin, you know, there has to be one, doesn’t there? It’s impossible not to draw all these comparisons when two children are born concurrently. And Rory was simply taller, cleverer, blonder, more popular, happier. He just was. He was also more susceptible to things, to peer pressure, to the crowd. He didn’t really have a mind of his own. And after we lost Rhys, after he lost his twin, he had no plan, no direction, just seemed to be waiting for somebody to tell him what to do next. And unfortunately that person was her. Kayleigh. She took him away from here to a place with no phones, no cars, no money, got herself pregnant against his will, turned him against me, against US, made him so miserable that he left her and the baby, and went to work for a drug dealer in Thailand.

  Well, cutting to the chase, my son is currently serving a five-year jail term for possessing class A drugs. In a prison in Krabi.

  Can you believe this, Jim? Can you believe it???

  Anyway, he’ll be released any day now, apparently. I only know this because Megan told me. And Megan only knows this because she read it in the paper. Megan tried to get a campaign started, to appeal the sentence. But he told her no, he wanted to do the time!! He said it was his ‘destiny’!! And he didn’t reply to any of our letters and told us not to see him. He has completely estranged himself from us, turned himself into a stranger, it’s like he’s painstakingly extracted the DNA from himself, become someone not related to us. I don’t know who he is any more. I have no idea.

  Honestly, Jim, would you believe me if I told you we all used to be close? Like a paper-chain family. Inextricably linked. And now we’re just ephemera. Scattered across the globe. Nothing to link us together. Absolutely nothing.

  Apart from the past.

  Do you ever wish you’d had more children, Jim? I’m sorry if that sounds insensitive in the light of what happened to your lovely boy. But I’m curious. Because I truly thought that the advantage of having so many children was that I’d end up close to at least one of them. That one of them would end up being my friend. But not only have none of them ended up being my friend, they’ve all become strangers to me, Jim. My own children!

  Anyway. SORRY! This has been a very depressing email. I promise next time I’ll be upbeat and full of fizz!

  Tell me more about your life, Jim. Tell me about your flat. What does it look like? What can you see while you’re typing to me?

  Lots and lots and lots of love,

  L xxxxxxxxxxx

  April 2011

  Molly looked shy when she saw her grandfather standing in the doorway of their hotel room. She’d been lying on her stomach on her bed, the remote control in her hand, pointed at the TV. She quickly brought herself up to a sitting position.

  ‘Hello, Molly.’

  She nodded and said, ‘Hi,’ in a barely audible squeak.

  ‘Wow,’ said Colin, ‘you’re all grown up.’

  Molly smiled tightly and looked beyond embarrassed. Meg had tried over the years not to discuss her father in front of the children, not to let her feelings and her opinions filter through to them, but it was impossible to protect them from everything, stuff got through by osmosis sometimes. And Molly was old enough now to feel the full horror of her grandfather living with his son’s ex. ‘It’s like one of those “True Life” stories in those trashy magazines at the dentist,’ she’d once said in horror.

  Meg pulled out the dressing-table chair for her father and switched on the kettle. ‘Where are you going to stay?’ she asked.

  Colin smiled, his gaze still on his oldest grandchild, his eyes full of regret. ‘Oh, gosh, at the house I would’ve thought. I mean, I don’t suppose this place would fit my budget somehow.’

  ‘No,’ said Meg, ‘probably not. What are you living off these days?’

  ‘Well, my pension, obviously. And Kayleigh makes a bob or two, running these courses, you know.’

  ‘What sort of courses?’

  ‘Oh, God, well, I’m not sure how to describe them, I mean, I suppose, relationship workshops.’ He smiled apologetically and Meg shuddered. It truly did not bear thinking about.

  ‘Well,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘If you want to stay at the house, you’ll have to sleep in Rhys’s room.’

  Colin shrugged. ‘I thought as much. It’s fine. I’m cool with that.’

  I’m cool with that.

  Jesus Christ, thought Meg, who was this man?

  ‘And you’ll need to eat out. There’s no kitchen to speak of. And no bath or shower. But the toilet on the landing is still usable.’

  Colin nodded. ‘Good. Good,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty used to basic living these days.’

  The kettle clicked off and Meg poured water into a posh glass teapot filled with fresh leaves. She opened a packet of handmade biscuits, tied with black ribbon, and dropped them on to a china plate. She tried not to ponder too long on the contrasts between herself and her father: the five-star boutique hotel with the £4.50 bag of shortbread, and the unfurnished bedroom of a dead son. The five-bedroom house in Tufnell Park with off-street parking and CCTV, and the shed on a dusty commune in southern Spain with a chemical toilet
and a goat tethered to the gate (she imagined). Her pristine, laundered and pressed White Company top, and his crumpled, sun-bleached T-shirt.

  Her father.

  It hardly seemed possible.

  She saw Molly eyeing him curiously, watching everything he did as though she would be writing a report later. She took a tiny bottle of organic milk from the mini-bar and poured it into a milk jug.

  ‘We’ve been to the coroners,’ she said. She gave Colin the breakdown, the dreadful details. ‘They’ll release the body tomorrow morning. So, we need to, you know …’

  ‘Plan a funeral.’

  ‘Yes.’ She stopped for a moment. She’d been desperate to get her mother’s body back, desperate to start organising everything. And now she could and she felt herself suddenly, dramatically, losing momentum. ‘You should do it,’ she said.

  Colin nodded. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Yes. Of course. I’ll arrange everything. Did she leave any …?’

  ‘No,’ said Meg. ‘Nothing. Although, of course, I think we could all make a pretty good stab at it. You know. Dancing. Music. Colour. All the obvious Mum stuff.’

  Colin smiled sadly. He turned to Molly. ‘Do you remember her?’ he said. ‘Your grandma?’

  Molly shrugged shyly. ‘Sort of. I remember her in her chair, in her bedroom. I remember her being kind of … weird?’

  Colin sighed. ‘That’s so sad, isn’t it?’ He turned to Meg. ‘Sad that her grandchildren never saw her at her best. You know, when she was bustling and mad and full of energy and rainbows.’

  Meg nodded. Yes, she thought, it was. But then so was all of it. Sad that Molly only knew her grandfather as a sleazy old man, not the sweet, patient, sexless man who’d played such a big part in the upbringing of all his children. Sad that Molly only knew her uncle as a pathetic drug dealer who’d spent the last few years of his life in a Thai jail, not the beautiful blond child who’d been everyone’s best friend and the most popular boy at school. Sad that Molly only knew her aunt as a half-formed shadow on the other side of the world, not the sweet, naive child who’d once been the centre of Megan’s universe. And sad that Molly had never got the chance to know her other uncle at all, because he’d hanged himself when he was sixteen years old.