I was standing in the middle of my room, lost in thought. ‘Nothing’s going on. I just want to get out of this ridiculous dress and get back to normal.’
‘It’s not ridiculous, it’s lovely. I was just surprised to see you in something other than jeans and an apron, that’s all. You look gorgeous.’
I turned to look at myself in the mirror. All I saw were the bags under my eyes, the hair in need of a trip to the salon and a body that wasn’t quite what it used to be. Sighing to myself, I pulled the dress off my shoulders and pushed it down to the floor. This should be interesting, I thought. I stood back up and saw Lucy’s open-mouthed expression as she took in what I had on underneath. Liz’s tiny thong underwear and half-cup bra, that barely covered anything it was supposed to, proved too much for my daughter. She curled up in a ball on the bed and began laughing uncontrollably at the sight of me in such skimpy items.
‘Thanks, Lucy. What happened to “You look lovely, Mum?”’
She sat up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just a bit of a shock, that’s all. Normally you’re a bit more conservative in your underwear choices.’
I assumed that ‘conservative’ was just another word for ‘boring’ but I couldn’t argue with her. I picked up a pair of crumpled blue pyjama bottoms from the chair in the corner and shoved my legs into them, then pulled on an oversized grey sweatshirt with the word ‘awesome’ emblazoned on the front. I surveyed myself in the mirror and decided that this was much more me. I gave my daughter a little twirl.
‘There you are, Mum’s back to normal.’ I hung the lovely red dress on the outside of my wardrobe door and vowed to return it to its rightful owner, along with the shoes and underwear, as soon as I’d had it dry-cleaned. ‘Now, where did I leave my rubber gloves?’ The ping of Lucy’s phone told her she had a text; I went back to the kitchen.
I busied myself putting the little sachet of nasty-smelling chemicals into the kettle and filling it with water. As they mixed together I watched the liquid begin to fizz and bubble, eating away at the scale in the bottom of the kettle. Would there be a market for a similar kind of product that you could use on your brain? Something to erase the scaly build-up of all those memories you’d rather forget. What a relief that could be. So many things in your past that you’d rather rub out, only keeping the good stuff. Unfortunately, the brain isn’t a dirty kettle, and when memories start to get rubbed out it’s indiscriminate, descaling the mind of the good as well as the bad. I had watched that happen to Ted and Rose, the couple who used to own the café. Rose went first, just little things to start with, mixing up names and faces, forgetting recipes she’d been making for years. Then came the panic and confusion when she would find herself out shopping but forget where she was or how to get home. Towards the end of her life she refused to leave the flat at all, preferring to stay inside where she felt safe.
Once she passed away, it was Ted’s turn. Without her there to focus on, to live for, he just slipped slowly away. I would sit with him in the retirement home and read to him from the newspaper or from one of his favourite books, but he rarely even acknowledged me. The only time I saw a spark of recognition from him was on the last day I visited before he died. We’d been sitting in our usual spot in the day room of the home. I hated that room. All those stiff, high-backed, wipe-clean chairs and the television always on, playing to no one. It was a cliché to talk about the smell in those places but it was true. It was a potent mix of disinfectant, boiling vegetables and urine. I’d gone to visit, doing the same things I always did with no real response from him; there was nothing to make me think that this would be the last time I saw him. When I leaned in to kiss him goodbye he suddenly grabbed both my hands and wouldn’t let go.
‘What is it, Ted? What’s wrong?’
‘You should have been told, Abby. They shouldn’t have kept it from you; it wasn’t right.’ He was shaking his head and his eyes filled with tears as he spoke. ‘Rose and me, we tried to make sure you were all right, we wanted to look after you and Matt but we didn’t know what to do.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Me and Matt have turned out fine. We’re all fine.’ I didn’t understand what he meant – what should I have been told about? He held my face between his hands; his papery skin felt rough, and for a brief minute he looked at me as if he knew exactly who I was. He looked relieved to see me, as if he’d been waiting for me to come, even though I’d spent hours with him every week since Rose died.
‘You can go now, Abby. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.’ I didn’t know what to say to him, so I just nodded and put my hand on his.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Ted. I might be able to sneak some chocolate and a can of Guinness past Gestapo Nell on the front desk, eh? What do you reckon?’ But it was too late; the fog had descended again and he was lost.
I got the call from the home later that same evening. He’d just passed away in his sleep. No fuss, no drama, just like Ted. I told Mum what he’d said to me but she dismissed it.
‘He was old, Abby, confused. It probably didn’t mean anything. Don’t worry yourself about it. Ted was always a silly old sod anyway.’ There wasn’t any way of knowing for sure so I forgot about it and moved on. So why was I thinking about it now? In the middle of descaling a kitchen appliance, for God’s sake – what was the matter with me?
‘Who’s Jack Chance?’ Lucy’s voice made me jump and I dropped the kettle into the sink, splashing myself with hot, scaly water.
‘Oh shit! What? Who?’ I grabbed a tea towel and tried to wipe the water off my sweatshirt.
‘Jack Chance – Auntie Liz just text me to say she has your phone and stuff. She asked if you’d told me about Jack Chance.’
Bloody Liz and her big mouth! I wasn’t planning on telling Lucy anything about Jack – ever! She’d recently become quite obsessed with getting me out on a date. Any man that showed the slightest interest in me had become a potential target for her matchmaking. This had led to quite a few awkward situations; the most recent one had been when she’d ‘accidentally’ trapped me and the boiler repair man in the cellar for half an hour because she’d thought he was flirting with me. According to Lucy, I’d been a bit slow to pick up on his signals so she’d thought she’d give me a shove in his direction. So much for her intuition; whilst trapped in the basement the gas man had spent the time telling me how funny his husband would find this whole story. She had since been warned off any further attempts to matchmake, but the mention of Jack’s name had obviously piqued her curiosity.
‘He’s just someone I used to know, from school. He used to live around here but he moved away.’
‘And now he’s back?’
‘Yes. But please don’t start getting carried away, all right?’
Lucy eyed me suspiciously. ‘Auntie Liz said he was gorgeous so I looked him up. She’s right – he is bloody gorgeous, Mum.’ She turned her smartphone round so I could see and there he was: Jack Chance looking gorgeous in a dinner jacket at some charity event. I recognised the woman standing next to him as Lexie Morgan. They looked like the perfect couple. And Lucy was right, he did look good. He had just enough designer stubble to contrast the smart evening wear, making him look a little rebellious even in the formal picture. His dark hair was just messy enough without looking unkempt. No doubt some very expensive hair products had gone a long way towards helping with that look. He was tall and obviously worked out – a lot! The caption underneath the picture read, ‘US entrepreneur Jack Chance and Internet star Lexie Morgan attend charity gala held at the US Embassy in London.”
‘She’s that annoying woman on YouTube. Always banging on about lipstick and kale. I don’t think much of her, do you?’ said Lucy.
‘I didn’t really look, to be honest,’ I lied. ‘I think I’m just going to head downstairs for a bit. Get some stuff done before tomorrow.’ I didn’t have any reason to go downstairs to the café, but I wanted to be on my own for a while. As if
sensing something was off, Lucy came over and gave me a massive hug. She was a little taller than me so she had to lean down a bit to give me a proper reassuring squeeze.
‘Love you, Mum.’
I could feel the tears pricking my eyes and my throat was tight. I mumbled, ‘You too,’ into her shoulder before I pulled away and headed down the stairs that led from my kitchen into the café.
The staircase was dark as I went down; I could have switched a light on but I didn’t want to. I liked the dark. It was calming and quiet. I unlocked the door at the bottom into the café and I stepped into my own little kingdom. The only light was coming from the street lamps outside, but I didn’t need it; I knew this place like the back of my hand. It made me sad to think that one day, probably sooner than I’d like to think about, this place, and all the other shops in this little parade, would be gone.
The parade had been built before the age of the supermarket, back when people used a greengrocer, a butcher or a baker. The little row of eight shops had been the centre of day-to-day life. Customers had come for bread, or had gone to the boot menders, or the off-licence that sat at the very end of the row. They’d shopped, they’d lingered, they’d gossiped. But those days were long gone. The off-licence was still there but was now more of a convenience store, carrying everything from milk to mousetraps. There was a nail salon, a mobile phone shop, a betting shop and my café. The rest of the shops were empty, and according to Mrs Owen, who ran the nail salon, some local developers were just waiting for the rest of us to go under so they could swoop in and build luxury apartments. All in the name of progress, obviously.
Now I was down in the café, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I paced around a bit, straightening tablecloths that didn’t need straightening and wiping the countertop unnecessarily. As I stood behind the counter I looked across the room to the table by the window – the best table in the house, Ted used to call it. Although I’d changed some things when I took over, I’d kept the layout of the café pretty much how it was when I’d started coming here with my school friends all those years ago. When I was a teenager none of my friends ever really wanted to go home. We always preferred hanging out in a crowd and keeping away from whatever dramas were going on indoors. Before my dad left, my parents argued a lot, usually about his lack of employment and his inability to provide for us, so I never wanted to go home. Then after my grandparents moved in to take care of us, I stayed out because I couldn’t bear seeing the state my mum was in or listening to my grandparents go on about how much they’d had to sacrifice to come to our rescue.
There was usually a group of about twelve of us who would hang out in the café after school and between us we could count four absentee dads, one dead dad, two dead mums, assorted petty criminal relatives and a handful of alcoholics. In fact, before he disappeared from my life, Jack’s family had been the only seemingly normal one. His parents were happily married and his dad had a responsible job in our local bank. Jack used to say he wished he had more drama in his life but I don’t think he meant it. He’d sit with me in the café and listen to all the other kids make jokes about how crap their families were, laughing along when Jamie Bristow would tell us another story about his drunken mum and her escapades. He found all their stories funny but the minute I told one he would stop laughing. One day, I remember it was just the two of us sharing a plate of chips, sitting at that table by the window, and I asked him why he never laughed at my stories.
‘Because I don’t like it when bad things happen to you, Abigail. It makes me feel helpless and I hate it. Stupid, eh?’ He grabbed a chip and dipped it in tomato sauce, shoving it all into his mouth in one go, before smiling nervously at me, and I remember my stomach doing somersaults. That was the first time he’d ever said anything like that to me and I think I fell in love with him right there and then.
Chapter 5
What are they saying? I can’t make out the words. Why won’t they help me? I can see Matt. Help me, Matt, get me out – I can’t breathe. Please help me. Don’t walk away – I can’t hear what you’re saying. I don’t understand what’s happening.
*
I woke early the next morning feeling exhausted and miserable. What little sleep I’d managed had been disturbed by the reappearance of a nightmare that I hadn’t had for years. I’d almost forgotten about it, but last night it had returned. In the dream I’m trapped behind glass, watching friends and family come and go. They talk to me but I can’t hear them. I try to make them understand but it makes no difference. They stare at me through the glass, their mouths forming unheard words, and then they leave.
I’d started having the dream after my dad disappeared. That sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? As if he were abducted by aliens or something. It wasn’t like that. He left the house one day and just never came back. I was only fifteen so when I should have been obsessing about pop stars and lipstick I spent my days trying to get someone, anyone, to tell me where my dad had gone. Everyone else knew something, that much was obvious. I caught their raised eyebrows and meaningful glances to one another any time I brought the subject up.
I knew my questions affected Mum most of all; the more persistent I became in my quest for answers, the more she seemed to fade away. Every day that passed saw her grow more fragile. Eventually she retreated to her bedroom and would only come out once she knew everyone else was in bed for the night. I would hear her door open and the gentle creak of the stairs as she floated down them like a ghost. I never followed her. I came close once; I opened my bedroom door just enough to see her heading for the top stair. When she heard me, she froze and looked up like a startled deer. Her face was so full of sadness and I could only hold her gaze for a second before I retreated behind my door. I never did it again.
After a few months, my grandparents moved in to take care of me and my brother, since mum seemed incapable of functioning on any level. They arrived one afternoon; I came home from school and there they were, unloading suitcases out of the back of their old Rover.
*
‘What you got in these bags? All your worldly possessions? How long we bleedin’ staying for, Eileen? Three months?’ Grandad shouts.
‘Shut yer face and get those bags inside. Stop making a show of yourself.’
I have to squeeze past two suitcases already in the hallway to get to the kitchen. I find my brother sitting on the back doorstep, smoking a cigarette and muttering under his breath.
‘I’m seventeen. I can look after us. They don’t need to bloody move in.’ He gestures behind him, sending orange sparks of cigarette ash floating down to the concrete.
‘According to my teacher, we need proper adult supervision,’ I say, sitting down next to him. ‘The headmaster told my form tutor this morning.’
‘And we’ll get that from them, will we?’ Matt says, jerking his head back in the direction of the front door. ‘She hates kids – she told me as much when she got here.’ He stubs out his cigarette. ‘Fuck that. They’re gonna drive me nuts. George’s mum said I could go and stay with them for a bit if I wanted. I might take them up on it. Better than being here with those two old farts.’ Matt stands up and brushes cigarette ash off his jeans.
‘You can’t!’ I wail. ‘You can’t leave me here on my own. Please don’t move out, please!’ Matt looks at me for a minute and then obviously takes pity on me. He leans down and pulls my ponytail.
‘Fair enough, Midget, I won’t leave you. But you owe me for this, big time.’ He sticks out his hand and I stand up and grab it eagerly.
‘Let’s go and help the old people unload their crap, then, shall we?’
I nod, happy that I’ve managed to convince him to stay. My brother and me, united against the world.
*
In the end, my grandparents stayed with us for almost two years; until one morning, when my mum suddenly appeared in the kitchen with her hair done and a full face of make-up on. She made us breakfast and a pot of tea and acted as if the previous two years
hadn’t happened. The house was suddenly spotlessly tidy all the time, and my mother became obsessed with my comings and goings. It was stifling but also unnerving; the slightest thing could set her off and she would rant and rave about what a worry I was to her. All of this made living with her a daily adventure. I never knew quite what mood she’d wake up in or what would be the thing that would set her off. Walking on eggshells didn’t really do it justice, but it was the best description I could think of. Actually, if you replaced eggshells with landmines, you might be nearer the mark. Despite all outward appearances to the contrary, she never got over what happened.
I gave up asking questions about Dad; what was the point when no one ever gave you any answers? The noiseless voices of the people in my dreams represented all the unanswered questions I had about him and what had happened to him. I stopped talking to my mother, beyond the occasional yes, or no, or grunt. A horrible cloud of silence descended over us all and when an opportunity of escape presented itself, I took it. I stopped having nightmares, buried any feelings I had about my father and moved on. I figured that I’d learned a valuable lesson – sometimes people just left.
*
I lay in bed, trying to get my racing brain to calm down but I was restless; I decided to go downstairs to the café and start work. To try and make some extra cash, I’d started offering my services as a birthday-cake maker; I hadn’t had that many customers but there were two cakes downstairs that I had to finish and deliver that day, so I needed to crack on. I brushed my teeth and pulled my hair back into a hasty ponytail, before grabbing my well-worn jeans and a T-shirt and jamming my feet into my favourite green Converse shoes. I caught sight of myself in my mirror as I passed; I looked tired and scruffy. The picture I’d seen of Jack and Lexie popped into my head. They’d looked so glamorous, so right for each other, and I felt a little bit sick suddenly. I told myself not to be so silly. I hadn’t seen the man for years – what did I expect? That he’d lived like a monk after he left London? Stupid woman. But I couldn’t help thinking about him. I was just trying to picture myself next to him in that photo when Lucy poked her head round my door.
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 4