‘Please, I need to…’
‘Billy,’ Samantha had moved away from the door, calling over her shoulder, ‘get back on the sofa.’ The eye was back in the crack. ‘I don’t have time for this.’
‘Let me wait with him,’ Elsie pleaded.
Samantha didn’t waver. ‘Remove your foot.’
‘Someone was here,’ Elsie called as the crack closed, as the door slammed shut, as she was left outside, alone. ‘Someone… was here.’
Without you I collapsed and Mother pieced me back together. She never once mentioned my plans to leave, the life I almost had that had been stolen from me. I let myself believe that this was how it had always been meant to be: just the two of us. Two peas in a pod. That there was no alternative.
Mother and the garden became my world. I would spend hours on my knees, barely feeling the damp, the soil between my fingers, as I nurtured the plants, tended to them as I wished I could have tended to you. Everything flourished when it was given attention and I poured my broken soul into each task, Mother watching on.
She would play cards with me, sit in silence, listen to me talk about you, hold me while I cried. At times it felt I had fallen back through the years, a dependent child once more. We needed each other, it was only us now against the world and the world seemed a threatening and dark place.
She was my comfort, her steadfast presence and her abiding love for me.
And Wednesdays. Wednesdays when I could allow myself to write the things I felt, the memories we had shared. I circled my grief, choosing instead to write down the times that seemed golden in my mind: the tandem ride, the terrace pub, the endless afternoons walking or resting by the river.
I didn’t have an address any more but I needed to send the letters, to post them in the box I knew was out of service, to pretend you were receiving them, wherever you were. In my imaginings I would fool myself into thinking you were away, back in Bristol perhaps or working abroad in a steamy kitchen, shouting orders to the sous chef, shaking a sizzling frying pan. Busy. And alive.
Chapter Thirty
BILLY
Mrs Maple was stood on the street when we got back in the taxi, her face lighting up as I stepped onto the pavement. Memories from the ambulance ride the day before, the worry on her face, her shaky voice, made me want to stop and say hello. Mum didn’t feel the same, pushing me gently up the path and into the house, and I let her, too tired and achy not to just follow instructions.
Then Mrs Maple rang the doorbell and tried to talk and Mum was like the rudest I’d ever seen her and then I really did feel a bit bad.
‘I don’t want to hear more apologies,’ she’d said, reaching for the throw off the back of the sofa. ‘She should never have let you go up a ladder. A reckless, thoughtless thing to do…’
‘You’re overreacting,’ I replied as she started tucking the throw around my legs like a blanket as if I were an old man. ‘Mum, it’s June, it’s like twenty degrees,’ I added, secretly liking all this attention, something I realised I’d needed since we’d arrived in this village.
‘I mean, what was she thinking? Oh, of course, send a ten-year-old up thirty feet to do dangerous jobs. I shouldn’t have trusted her, but she seemed to understand…’ Mum had finished with the throw and was now fussing with the two cushions we owned before moving to bring me more things.
‘It wasn’t her fault, you know,’ I said, feeling guilty about the way Mum was speaking. She had always been the one defending Elsie and I had been the one to slip. I remembered the ambulance, the sound of the siren, the terrified look on Elsie’s face as she’d sat there. She cared about me and I knew it was real, that in her own strange way she loved me.
‘I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to.’ Mum crouched down in front of me and placed two hands on the sides of my face. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘I know.’
‘And you promise me you will stay here, not move a muscle? And now you have that mobile you can phone me at work if you need anything. Alright? I’ll come straight back.’
She ran up the stairs, her feet light on the carpet, grabbing what she needed for work and calling out various instructions. ‘You can listen to the radio, or read a magazine… I bought a book of Sudoku from the hospital shop too… and grapes, but I’ll bring back dinner from work so there’s no need to eat anything until then if you don’t want…’ She appeared again, breathless and dressed. ‘Have you got everything you need?’
‘Mum, I’m OK, you can go,’ I said, realising she was torn. Was this how she always felt when she had to work and look after me?
Scraping her hair back into a bun and kissing me on the head, Mum left for work. ‘Love you, Bean,’ she called behind her and she hadn’t called me that in forever.
The doorbell rang. I’d promised her I wouldn’t get off the sofa and for a second, I considered leaving it. It wasn’t like it would be a friend, it would be the postman with junk or something.
A voice through the letterbox: ‘Billy, can you let me in?’
I knew Mum wouldn’t like it but I found myself moving from the sofa, picturing Elsie’s strained face in that ambulance.
‘I’m worried about you,’ she called through the letterbox.
I paused just by the front door, inches from where she was standing, chewing on my lip. Then I reached up and opened it, stepping back in surprise as she piled into the room.
‘Thank you, Billy, thank you,’ she said, barely looking at me before she was reaching to close the curtains to our living room, even though it was being bright outside.
‘Mrs Maple,’ I said, the name sounding a bit strange as I said it, ‘El… what are you doing?’
‘There’s a man,’ she announced, moving to the side of the curtain and pulling it back an inch to peer outside into the street.
‘Well, there are lots of men,’ I replied, wondering if she had gone a bit mad.
‘I think he’s your dad,’ she said, the curtain falling back into place as she turned to face me.
‘My da…’
I swallowed.
Dad.
Oh my God!
‘I messaged him,’ I whispered, panic filling my voice. ‘Mum’s going to…’ I started to fret, tugging on my hair with my good hand.
‘You’re OK, I did wonder…’
‘I told him where we lived,’ I admitted.
‘Do you want to see him, Billy?’ She stood there, her pale blue eyes trained on me as I shook my head left to right. I definitely did not. I don’t know what I’d been thinking when I messaged him. With a cold certainty I knew why Mum had left that night and taken me with her. It was a mistake. A terrible mistake.
She eased the curtain back again and then quickly let it go. ‘He’s coming back,’ she said, a frightened look passing her face, ‘Quick!’ She moved urgently across the room before pausing to look back at me, not knowing what to do by the front door. ‘I’ve got an idea. Quiet now! Are you alright to walk, not dizzy?’
She stepped back towards me and offered me her arm and the small gesture made me smile.
‘I’m alright, Ells. I can walk.’
She beamed at me then, no more Mrs Maple, and I realised how much I had missed her. She was a bit nuts but she was my friend.
‘We can get out of your back door and there’s a gate at the back of the fence into the alley behind the house.’ She was talking to herself as I watched her fumble with the key to the back door.
I lingered. A tiny last part of me wanted to return to the living room and open up that front door and see if all my fears were somehow made up, see if he’d changed and if he’d missed us. Memories of happier times flooded my head: Dad laughing next to me on the sofa with some cheese and onion Kettle Chips, building a den in the living room, taking me to see my first football match, watching some from his shoulders.
Then the feeling I had got when Elsie asked me if I wanted to see him, like someone was sat on my chest, crept in. The way he’d got drunk
at that match and dragged me along in the car park and another man asked if I was alright.
There was hammering on the front door. I imagined Dad’s fist on the wood, closed my eyes. Other memories, the ones I had wanted to convince myself weren’t real, overlapped. The play fight that had ended when he’d really hurt me, something about his expression as he’d twisted my arm, the meaty fingers of his hand as he gripped me a little too tightly, shouting swear words at me for messing with his stuff, spittle on my face. Or when he would look over his shoulder for me when he was speaking to Mum in that low whisper.
And he was here, now.
Outside the door.
What had I done?
Mum was going to be so angry.
Elsie looked over her shoulder at me as she cracked open the back door. ‘Come on,’ she whispered, beckoning me with a finger.
I paused. Mum had made me promise not to leave the house. Would she be cross again? Surely this was different?
‘What about Mum?’
‘We’ll phone her from my house,’ Elsie replied, a worried look now as the knocking stopped.
‘Sam! Billy!’ The voice was loud, urgent and so familiar. I froze, staring at Elsie with wide eyes.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, reaching for me. I was glad she was there.
We moved quickly into the garden, the latch on the gate stuck with rust. What if he moved down the path of the house?
How does he know we live here? I only told him the village. Maybe he would leave soon. He had to, didn’t he?
The latch finally unstuck and Elsie nudged me through the gate first, biting her lip. It was only then I saw she was wearing her house slippers: she must have left in a hurry.
A few moments later we were in her garden, inching past the greenhouse with its cracked ceiling and past the space where we had found the tin.
‘Come on, let’s get inside,’ she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper, nervous as she encouraged me inside, clutching my arm.
The panic made my head spin. Blinking, I followed her into the house and when we were in her kitchen, safe, she turned the lights on.
‘Right,’ she fussed immediately, ‘you sit down there, my dear, and what can I bring you? Water? Paracetamol? A custard cream?’
‘Water would be great,’ I said, cradling my elbow and sitting in the wooden chair she had pulled out for me.
What had we done? I had just run away from my dad.
Elsie bit her lip as she brought the glass over to me. ‘Are you alright? Was that… OK?’
I nodded sadly. ‘Yeah, yeah, we had to.’
‘So that was your dad?’ she asked, head tilted to one side.
I nodded quickly.
‘How did he know where to come? I thought your mother had left without saying.’ She flushed then, perhaps worried she was betraying Mum’s trust. What else had Mum told Mrs Maple? Why had she known to come over and get me out of there?
‘I told him,’ I admitted in a quiet voice. ‘I was lonely and angry with Mum and I…’
Elsie sat down slowly opposite me, a kind expression on her face. ‘Oh, Billy, he’s your dad, of course you want things to work out.’
‘But I knew,’ I continued, ‘I knew he was hurting Mum, that he got… got angry and did things.’ I felt my cheeks wet and realised I was crying. Elsie reached out for a hand, forgetting I was in a sling, before patting the table.
‘Well, you stay here and we will work out what to do. First, I think we better—’
‘Mum!’ I said urgently. ‘It won’t take him long to find out where she works, he might already know…’ I was on my feet, a sharp ache in my head and the room tilted.
‘Woah!’ Elsie forced me back into the chair. ‘Don’t hurt yourself again, I’ll get the telephone and we’ll phone h—’
We both froze as a sharp knock interrupted what she was saying. Elsie’s eyes widened as she looked at me.
‘It’s him,’ I mouthed.
She nodded grimly and then her expression changed. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said, standing and putting her finger to her lip.
‘No, don’t…’ I felt my palms dampen as I watched her get up.
‘Do you trust me?’ she asked, squaring her shoulders, a determined glint in her eye.
I nodded slowly.
‘Well, you stay here then and don’t make a sound. Promise?’
I gave her a silent nod and satisfied, she turned towards the door. ‘Right,’ she said, in a voice that sounded like it might have been giving her strength. She walked purposefully out of the room and I heard her slide the lock across the front door.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked in a soft voice.
I didn’t need to strain to hear my dad’s reply: ‘I was wondering if you could tell me who lives next door?’ He sounded on his best behaviour, the polite voice he used on the phone to his boss when he called in sick but was really playing stuff on his laptop on the sofa and drinking beer while I went to school.
‘Oh,’ Elsie paused, ‘I don’t really speak to my neighbours, keep myself to myself, you know. In the old days people would borrow sugar and the odd egg, always dropping in on the other, knowing everyone’s business, but it’s very different now, young man, as I’m sure you know. No time, everyone on their phones. I’ve got a hundred grandchildren and they barely say a word. Just the other day, I…’
She continued for a few minutes, my eyes round in my head as I heard her build lie on top of lie, my dad’s replies shorter and shorter and more and more bored as he tried to get off her doorstep.
‘If I see them, I’ll be sure to tell them someone was looking for them.’
‘Nah,’ Dad said, a hint of panic. ‘Nah, you’re alright, don’t do that. It’s nice to surprise ’em, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, how lovely!’ Elsie replied, clapping her hands together. ‘Oh, I won’t say a thing, how splendid! What a thoughtful thing to do. It reminds me of when—’
‘Well, you’re alright, sorry to bother you,’ Dad said. ‘You get on then.’
A few moments later, hearing the door shut and some footsteps, Elsie was stood back in the kitchen, the same concerned look on her face as she glanced at me.
‘What,’ I said, staring at her slack-jawed, ‘was that?’
Elsie batted a hand at me. ‘I played the nice old lady card, works a treat. I do it on tradespeople so they’ll fix things for me.’
‘Ells,’ I replied, a smile for the first time that day, ‘you sly dog!’
She laughed, and I joined in and then, suddenly, right out of the blue, she reached down and gave me a gentle hug.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice fast and loud. ‘I’m so sorry, Billy, for everything. I don’t deserve you.’
She smelt of peppermint and the garden and, with my good arm, I squeezed her back.
Chapter Thirty-One
ELSIE
The man was straining in his T-shirt and coat, thick muscles, meaty hands. Something in his eyes was cold, determined, his smile wide and false. Elsie held the door with both hands, her palms damp as she felt Billy’s presence behind her in the house. Jabbering away, she could see the man lose interest, a flash of irritation before the smile was back, stretched over wonky teeth. More babbling and he had a hand up, stepping away, realising he would get nothing from the dumb but kindly woman next door.
She slumped, relieved, against the door, brushing at her cotton shirt before moving back through to Billy.
He looked wide-eyed and confused, the last few moments a strange whirlwind. He had a leaf in his hair from pushing between gardens and she wanted to reach and pluck it out. For a moment she felt nervous: was he still angry? Would he revert to the scowls and sullen silence of the time before? With relief, when his words came they were surprised and impressed and she found herself needing to hug him tight, glad she had been able to help, the unsettling memory of that man, his dad, making her want to protect him.
The panic set in quickly. ‘Will he go to th
e restaurant, do you think?’
It wasn’t a big village and they were fine in this house but Samantha needed to be warned. Elsie was moving through to the front room already, the local directory bulky, the print tiny as she looked about for her reading glasses.
‘Billy, we need to phone your mum,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light.
Billy’s face was serious as he plucked at his sleeve. ‘I told him where we were,’ he admitted again. ‘I just thought… I was angry and…’ His eyes were filling.
‘It’s natural, Billy, he’s your dad,’ Elsie replied, needing his help, trying not to sound panicked. ‘Now is not the moment for recriminations.’
She wasn’t sure from his expression that he knew what that meant so she added in a gentle voice, ‘You read out this number for me, will you?’
Billy moved across to sit on the sofa, looking at where she was pointing before seeming to revive. ‘Hold on, I know her mobile number. It’ll be quicker and she won’t want Dick, won’t want her boss hearing…’
He called out the digits and she tapped them in.
At the other end of the line she could hear the clash of a busy kitchen, shouts, a man’s voice…
‘Hello?’
‘Samantha, is that you?’
‘Sam, get off your mobile, I haven’t got time for drama! Table five need their mains and you need to wipe down seven ready for another sitting,’ she heard a man’s voice say.
Samantha was distracted as she replied, ‘Yes, hello, who is this?’
Elsie realised she might be angry if she realised who was phoning, might hang up. She stuck the phone out at arm’s length, waving it frantically at Billy. ‘Billy, it’s your mum, you need to tell her he’s here.’
Billy looked horrified at the thought, the phone in between them, the tinny questions from Samantha on the end of the line.
‘Who is this? I’m hanging u—’
‘Mum,’ Billy said, taking the phone in a wobbly hand. ‘Dad’s here, he was outside. I’m at Mrs Maple’s – he doesn’t know I’m here.’
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 21