by Natasha West
As I sat for several minutes on the train, whizzing through the countryside, headed north, I kept trying to work on a way to explain myself a little better. Because I had to say something more. I couldn’t just leave her with this mysterious text. It was rude to disappear and not explain properly.
And then the woman with the tea trolley passed by, bumping my elbow and nudging my finger right onto the send button in the process.
Shit.
I wondered if I could just send another quick text as an addendum to the accidental first one, but I still had the same problem. I didn’t have a fucking clue what it would say. So I just decided to leave it alone. I’d explain more when I saw her in person.
A few hours later, I was in the bad part of the town of Felton. It was rundown, with only a betting shop and a greasy spoon to be seen in terms of local amenities. Looking around as the taxi drove through the streets, I thought gentrification couldn’t come soon enough. It was a mean, snobby thought, I’m well aware of that. And it’s not as though I didn’t grow up somewhere just as poor. But perhaps that was why I hated it so much. Forced to come to this ugly place, to see my father, who was ugly in his own way, it was all too familiar. Even if I’d never been here before.
The taxi pulled up in front of a house that was on its last legs. I couldn’t help but compare it to Penny’s parents’ home. They lived in a beautiful cottage and this was a hovel. It made me feel even further away from her than I already did.
I paid the driver and went up to the paint peeled door, tapping on it quickly. I wasn’t going to give myself any time to get nervous or doubt my intent. I wasn’t planning to go in there, cap in hand. I was going with my anger, to deliver it in person. No matter how bad things were, I swore I would not feel sorry for him. Joseph Hawke was a bastard. Being ill didn’t make him any less so. I couldn’t forget that.
Waiting there for someone to answer, I felt myself getting worked up. I was almost talking to myself in my growing rage.
But no one answered. I kept knocking but it was obvious no one was in.
It was quite an anti-climax.
And then a door did open, but it wasn’t my father’s. It was the house next door and a woman’s head popped out. She gave me a look up and down, no doubt taking in my outfit, (I was wearing a pencil skirt, heels, a dark blouse and a long black coat) which I suppose was not really very fitted to the setting.
‘Are you looking for Joe Hawke?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s not here now.’
‘You don’t happen to know when he’ll be back, do you?’
‘I shouldn’t think he will come back. He’s gone to the hospice, St Michael’s. What did you want with him? Are you a social worker or something?’
A hospice? Things were further along than I’d thought.
‘No. I’m his daughter’ I admitted to the woman.
‘Oh’ she gasped, horrified. ‘I’m so sorry to tell you like that. I didn’t even know he had kids!’
I smiled as kindly as I could. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not really a shock.’
‘Well, when you see him, please tell him Jane says hello and wishes him the best’ she said quickly and closed her door, no doubt embarrassed to have dropped such a bombshell on me. Yes, I’d surmised the situation correctly.
My father was dying.
Once I’d googled the location of the hospice, I went straight there. It was just outside of town, not quite in the country but well out of the centre. No doubt whoever had decided it’s location knew full well that people didn’t want their dying so close to their living. I didn’t blame them. Walking in to the place, which was dressed like a hospital, a place where people went to get better, it was obvious what happened here. It was filled with people at the end, when all hope was lost. No amount of cheery staff or colourful murals could disguise that.
‘I’m looking for Joseph Hawke’ I told the nurse on reception.
She raised an eyebrow at me.
‘Can I ask your name?’
‘Julia Hawke.’ When no further comment came, I added ‘I’m his daughter.’
Daughter. That word, used for the second time today, was bitter in my mouth. Because it came with connotations of a relationship that didn’t exist. It was like a lie.
‘He’s in room twenty-six, just down that corridor’ she said, pointing.
I walked down the harshly lit corridor, a flickering light at the end of the hall buzzing loudly. I drifted past door after door, feeling like I was in another one of my nightmares.
At the door, I knocked lightly. A weak voice called ‘Come in’.
I opened the door and there he was. Joseph Hawke. A thin old man, sitting up in bed, his wrinkled face a terrible colour. The shock was immense. I’d pictured him as he’d been when I was a child, handsome and strong, virility itself. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that he would have aged. Even knowing he was sick, I hadn’t prepared myself in the slightest for the shadow he’d become.
While I stood there, unable to find a word to say to this old man, he looked back at me with no hint of recognition. And then it came, a light in his eyes.
‘Jules? Is that you?’
I nodded.
He weakly pulled the covers off his body, trying to stand. My uncle Edward, who I hadn’t noticed till now, stood up from his bedside chair to stop him.
‘Joe, conserve your strength’ my uncle begged.
But my dad just laughed at him and pushed past, coming toward me. I froze.
‘Jules, I can’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d get to see you. But you’re here.’
He raised up his arms but then he seemed to register the look of horror on my face because he dropped them again.
‘Oh, right. Maybe later’ he said.
I finally found my voice.
‘Yeah. Maybe’ I said. But I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t there for hugs. But right now, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was there for. It was all too much.
‘I… I need to go to the bathroom’ I muttered and stumbled out of the room.
And I did indeed go to the toilet. I checked under every stall door before I went into the one at the end. I locked the door, sat on the closed seat and let out my tears.
Once I’d finished doing that, I came back out and checked my reflection. I looked a state. I washed my face with cold water to remove the puffiness from my eyes and then completely reapplied my make-up. It wasn’t until I was certain that no trace of my tears was apparent that I left the bathroom.
And back I went, my armour reassembled.
Before I could go in, I found my uncle Edward in front of the door, apparently wanting to intercept me.
‘I’m really glad you came, Julia.’
I couldn’t exactly return the sentiment so I said nothing.
‘I think your dad is pleased to see you. But I just need to check something. You’re not planning to… upset him at all, are you?’
‘Upset him?’ I asked incredulously.
His brow furrowed as he tried to come up with a tactful way to get his point across. ‘I think it’s just better if we leave the past where it is. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I think I get what you’re saying’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘He’s just a dying man now.’
‘Oh. Is that just what he is?’
‘Julia-’
‘No’ I stopped him. ‘I’m not a child anymore. You can’t tell me what I’m supposed to do. This is between me and him.’
He snorted with laughter but before I could get offended he smiled and said with affection, ‘You were scary even as a teenager and I guess you’ve turned into an even scarier woman. It’s good to see you, Jules.’
It was hard to be mad at him then so I simply said ‘Yeah, you too, I guess.’ And I supposed it was, in a strange sort of way.
‘Just…’ he began and sighed. ‘Just try to take it easy on him, would you? I know he doesn’t deserve it, but still…’ he finished with a
wary shrug.
I nodded. It was hard to argue with him when he put it so reasonably. Still, I didn’t know what ‘taking it easy’ would involve or if I could or would do it. Everything remained to be seen.
I left him in the hall, walking into my father’s sickroom for the second time. I didn’t want to do it. But I’d come a long way and it was too late to turn back now. Forward was the only direction I’d ever known how to go. And if that sounds like I’m paying myself a compliment, I’m really not.
Back in the room, dad was sitting up in bed, ready to receive me again. But I didn’t say anything to him. I just walked across the room and sat down in my uncle’s vacant chair.
To my eternal gratitude, my father didn’t try to hug me again. He just said ‘So, how have you been?’ It wasn’t said lightly. I think he knew it was a ridiculous question. We hadn’t seen each other in decades. What the hell was I supposed to answer? ‘Oh, fine. And you?’ But we both knew there were no words he could give that weren’t woefully inadequate, so I let it go. I simply ignored his question, asking my own instead.
‘What is it you’ve got?’
He shook his head ‘Let’s not talk about that.’
‘No. Tell me’ I insisted mildly.
‘If you took a guess, I bet you’d get it in one.’
I didn’t like the sound of that game but I played anyway. ‘Cancer?’
He gave me a wink and gun. ‘You got it, kid.’
The gesture was like a time machine, dragging me instantly back to childhood. It almost made me smile. But I pushed it back.
‘What kind?’
‘One of the bad ones. Let’s leave it at that.’
I nodded. What else could I do?
‘Did Teddy tell you? About me?’ he asked.
‘You got it.’
He chuckled. ‘Interfering sod. Still, I can’t knock him this time. I really am glad you came.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘I wanted to see you, that’s all.’
‘For what?’ I knew I was being hard. But if I wasn’t allowed to shout at him, that still didn’t mean I had to be nice to him.
‘To say goodbye, I guess’ he said sadly.
But I wasn’t having it.
‘Why would you need to say goodbye to me? I haven’t seen you since I was a teenager. You didn’t even come to Mum’s funeral. She never got any goodbyes.’
If he was ashamed of that, he didn’t look it.
‘I thought it was better not to come, it would have taken focus off her. And I knew you were out of the house by then, at university. You didn’t need me. You were an adult.’
I stood up then. I think I’d thought he was going to apologise. It was the end, after all. There was nothing more to lose. But he was still the same excuse maker he’d always been.
‘I was nineteen. And I had nobody’ I said, and began to walk out.
‘I’ve had nobody! All I’ve got left is my brother’ he almost shouted.
‘That’s more than I had. But I’ll give you what you want. Goodbye, dad’ I said bleakly as I shut the door behind me.
As I walked down the hall, I felt like this had all been a mistake. I didn’t know what I’d expected to get from all this. But I was leaving empty handed.
And now all I could do was go home and hope I could think of some way to explain all this to Penny. And I wanted to, I really did. It was just that I didn’t know if I could.
Chapter Eighteen
It had been two days since I’d heard from Julia. Two whole days. And if Julia was going to go off piste, she couldn’t have picked a worse time.
I’d been sitting in my bedroom for hour upon hour and there was no other word to describe how I felt right now but frightened. The source of my fear was a collision of events. One, things had seemingly gone wrong with Julia for reasons I didn’t precisely know. Two, there was another person in my life who wanted me. And I wanted her a little too.
I want to be clear about something though. What I wanted, truly, was Julia. I wanted things to go back to normal, to feel that she loved me again. But I worried that was over. And if it was, did that mean that I should take a chance on Zara? Was she right when she told me that perhaps there was nothing holding Julia and I together? Even if she’d had other motives in saying it, it didn’t necessarily make her wrong.
That was what frightened me. That the life I’d dreamt of since I was eighteen, the life I’d had a taste of, was slipping away. And I was starting to think I’d been an idiot to believe I could have it at all, that I could hold onto Julia for more than a few months.
Now someone had walked into my life who wanted to give me what Julia possibly didn’t anymore. And I didn’t know if I had the strength to resist her. I’d like to say I was strong enough to hold back the attraction. If this had happened a couple of months ago, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice. But that was when Julia felt like she was really mine. That wasn’t the case now.
There was my track record to think about. Poor Will. We’d been together for several years when Julia came along. And although it had given me pause, it hadn’t stopped me from sleeping with her. That meant I had a weakness in me, that I couldn’t rely on an inherent goodness or moral strength to see me through this time. I’d done it once. I could do it again if the chips were down. Which they very much were.
Still, all I wanted was for Julia to come home and tell me everything was OK, that she still loved me. And if she did, I would forget all this Zara nonsense, I promised myself. If she truly came back to me, there could be nothing else I could possibly want.
And then my doorbell rang.
I went downstairs and opened the door to find Julia. The relief didn’t last very long, about the time it takes to boil a kettle, which was what I did after we’d hugged hello. It was clear by then that nothing was different. If anything, Julia seemed even more distant.
‘So’ I asked, desperately struggling to keep my voice light ‘Where have you been?’
‘It’s a long story’ she replied. I waited for more but it didn’t seem to be coming. Was that really the best she could do? It’s a long story?
‘I’ve got time to hear it’ I said, sitting down with two cups of tea. But it didn’t come out breezily. There was a tone. Julia didn’t miss it.
‘You’re angry’ she said without surprise.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Yes, I was angry. But I didn’t want to start out like that. Because I knew there were sharp things under both our skins right now and whatever they were, anger was the quickest way to have us throwing those things at each other like weapons. God, I did not want that. If Julia had come here to end this, I wanted to delay that moment as long as possible. I didn’t want her to simply scream ‘I don’t love you anymore.’ And I wasn’t at all sure that was not where this little visit was headed.
‘It’s just a little weird to vanish without explanation’ I replied in what I hoped was an even tone.
She nodded, sadly. I took no comfort in her apparently agreeable gesture whatsoever. She was sad because she didn’t want to do what she’d come here to do. It was obvious. And I should have let her say it anyway, in her own words. But instead, I found myself saying ‘Is it because of the book award?’
She looked at me as though I’d grown a second head. ‘What book award?’
I knew immediately that it was an honest reaction. She really didn’t know what I was talking about. But I’d said it now. I couldn’t take it back.
‘We were both nominated for a debut novel thing’ I said quietly. ‘You hadn’t heard?’
She shrugged. ‘No, I hadn’t. Which one?’
‘Goldman Caan. Some kind of corporate sponsored thing.’
‘Oh’ she said, bemused. And then her face changed. ‘Hang on, what did you mean by that? Is what because of the award?’
I was in the quicksand now. Struggling could only make me sink quicker. But still, I kept flailing.
‘I thought maybe that
’s why you left, because you were annoyed with me, because I was nominated with you. I thought maybe you’d think…’
‘Think what?’ she asked softly, her tone dangerous.
‘That you shouldn’t have to share the category with me, because I’m a beginner. I thought maybe that you were a bit-’
‘You thought I left out of jealousy?’ she asked incredulously.
It did sound ridiculous when she put it like that.
‘That’s what you think of me?’ she continued.
‘I… Yeah. I guess that’s what I thought.’
She looked away for a moment. I thought I saw the smallest tear appear in the corner of her eye but then she turned to me and she wasn’t upset. Only angry.
‘If you must know why I had to leave, I went to see my dying father’ she said in a flat tone.
‘What? When did he… I didn’t even know you…’ I trailed off horrified and embarrassed. What could I really say to that? In my whole adult life, I’d never felt more like a child. She’d been dealing with huge, terrifying life stuff. And I’d thought it was about a stupid book award.
But then, my humiliation turned itself around, became defensive. Later, when I had cooled down, I knew my only question right then should have been ‘Are you OK?’ But it wasn’t. It was ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ It was a fair question, in the larger scheme. But not right then.
‘Jesus Christ, are you fucking kidding me?’ she said loudly.
She’d never spoken to me like that before. It made my defences even higher.
‘No, I’m not. I could have gone with you.’
‘The way you’re being right now, why on earth would I want that?’ she asked. I didn’t say anything for a moment. It hurt me too much, even if she was right. Especially if she was right.