by Sophie Duffy
I look at the three girls, lined up across the back seat like Russian dolls, and try to fill the hollowness boring away inside me with thoughts of the week ahead. Of Dad, Worthing, tattoos.
I feel Steve’s hand on my knee. His plumber’s hand. His vicar’s hand. The hand that has fixed washing machines and baptised babies. That I held at our wedding, squeezing on a ring that was too tight as it was such a hot day. I sometimes wish I could go back to the start, just me and Steve. Back to our old flat, my biscuit tin in the wardrobe, minus its hospital name bands and scan photos. Back to a time when there were no babies, no worries. But time cannot go back or stand still though I must replay that night over and over. Time goes on and we move forward leaving that day further and further behind though never far enough away to lose any clarity. Time goes on and I keep breathing. I go to bed at night, I get up in the morning and in between I do all the things I’m supposed to do. And now, right now, the car wheels of our Espace turn round and round and move us on. We leave our home, travelling slowly through the streets of Penge, the Saturday shoppers, the comings and goings, to-ings and fro-ings. It’s my home but I’m disconnecting from it. I’m being cast out into a world of fear where I have no control. And this panicky feeling is down to Martin. He’s the one who’s made me stand outside of myself, forcing me to examine an unwelcome picture of my life.
My husband’s hand squeezes my leg and I’m pleased to report my leg is not made of wood. Blood moves through it. Pulses throb. My breath comes and goes. My heart beats. I am alive.
‘Don’t worry, Vick,’ Steve says. He is always saying this to me, probably because I am always worrying. But then he says something unexpected. He says: ‘One day your soul will sing.’
I don’t know what to say to this. I am trying to visualise this soul of mine, singing, when Imo starts up a whimper, a tell-tale sign that vomit is on the horizon and all visions of souls are blotted out and obscured by the things of this life. This holey life.
The Worthing wind, as usual, is bracing. It bowls along the flat coast and knocks the London grey from us. We take the kids to see the wood slick that has washed up from the shipwrecked Ice Prince since we were last here. It is quite a sight. Dad has told us about it but we had to see it for ourselves. Five minutes of this attack on the senses and then we’ll regroup and grapple with whatever Dad has in store for us.
‘So, Vicky, what’s it like being married to a vicar? D’you have to watch your Ps and Qs or are you all religious?’ Pat has called round to check me out. I am a novelty, somewhere between the Holy Mother and Meggie from The Thorn Birds.
Steve comes to my rescue and asks her what it’s like being a home help, telling her he’s humbled by her job. Pat is not won over this easily and switches her attention to Steve instead.
‘So what d’you reckon to that Da Vinci Code? Have you read it?’
When Steve says yes, he’s read it, her eyes widen enough to show how jaundiced-looking they are, as if nicotine-stained by her constant smoking. She has already ‘nipped outside’ twice and she’s not been here an hour, though the clock is ticking slowly and I’m hoping her curiosity will be satisfied soon and she’ll leave. Today is supposed to be about family. I can feel Mum’s eyes on us, from her photograph on the telly. Poor old Mum. She’d hate to be missing out on this, her family here, drinking tea with a strange woman, in her house by the sea. If only they’d stayed put in London, her and Dad, I could’ve kept an eye on them, made sure things were done properly. Who knows how things might have turned out then?
‘How come you’ve read it?’ Pat perseveres. ‘It’s not exactly church-friendly, is it?’
‘Maybe not, but I need to know what’s out there. What everyone’s talking about. How else can I come alongside them?’
Pat is quiet. For a blink of her yellow eyes. Then she excuses herself, says she’s got to make Dad’s bed.
Dad’s bed? How can he let her touch his bed, their bed, where he lay down each night with my mother for nearly forty years? I had the party all planned but it never happened. The anniversary came and went and Mum wasn’t there to celebrate it... and now there’s this woman.
I should be relieved, a burden lifted and all that, but I feel put out. It’s always been my job, tidying up after Dad, cleaning out the bath, wiping up mud, sweeping the floor clean of dead leaves dragged in on his wellies, scrubbing work surfaces, sluicing out loos. That’s me, Vicky. That’s what I do, how I am Dad’s daughter. He moans and tells me to stop fussing and I carry on regardless, like he expects me to. Only now here is Pat, teetering overhead on her heels, in Mum’s bedroom, messing with her things. And there is Dad, watching the football, oblivious to how I feel. All my life I’ve followed him around with a dustpan and brush, ready to pick up every crumb, every speck of dust. My job. My role. And now.
‘Put the kettle on, Vicky-Love.’ Dad indicates the ceiling above. ‘Pat must be parched.’
Eight o’clock and Steve is putting the kids to bed. They are flushed from a long walk along the prom, from hide-and-seek, from baths and sitting in front of the fire. They’ll be no trouble, they’re whacked, so I can stay put in the front room with Dad, watching Saturday night rubbish.
Dad is fidgety. More than usual.
‘What is it, Dad? You’re making me nervous.’
‘Sorry, Vicky-Love. It’s just there’s something I need to tell you.’
‘Is it Pat?’
‘Pat? Why would it be Pat?’
‘I don’t know. She seems to be here a lot, that’s all. She’s cleaned everywhere and you know... ’ I run out of steam and Dad’s anxiety has turned to confusion.
‘Is it a problem, her being here? Don’t you like her?’ He asks this like she’s a beautiful exotic flower that everyone would love to have in their midst. How could anyone not possibly like the tattooed lady? But this exotic flower has been transplanted into a cottage garden, sitting there amongst the foxgloves and the roses.
‘She’s fine, Dad. Salt of the earth. She’s setting things in order.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘I am, Dad. Really,’ I lie. But it’s a white lie because I know I actually should feel pleased. ‘What is it, then? That thing you wanted to talk about?’
‘It’s you, Vicky-Love. I wanted to talk about you.’
‘Me?’
He turns down the rubbish a notch but keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the telly. ‘I’m worried about you. I don’t think you’re doing as well as you should be and if your mum was here she’d be saying the same thing. I only wish that brother of yours would get his backside into gear and do something for you.’
‘Martin?’
‘He’s your brother. He knows you.’
‘He doesn’t know me at all. He knows nothing of people. He only cares about himself. Martin. And his big ideas.’
‘That’s not fair, Auntie Vicky.’ Jeremy has crept downstairs, somehow managing to negotiate the obstacles that usually jump out at him only to find his auntie bad-mouthing his dad. Whatever I feel about Martin, I don’t want Jeremy to be influenced. He already has to contend with Claudia’s point of view.
‘It’s alright, son.’ Dad pats the dustbowl and Jeremy sidles over and perches on it. ‘Your Auntie Vicky’s a bit cheesed off,’ he goes on. ‘Brothers and sisters, they’re always arguing. You know what it’s like.’
‘No,’ is Jeremy’s small powerful answer. There’s a moment’s silence that I’m unsure Jeremy will fill, but he does. ‘I don’t have a sister. And my cousins are all girls – they don’t have any brothers. So no, I don’t know what it’s like.’
Dad finally looks at me, shifting in his seat, fiddling with his trousers.
A picture of Thomas floats into view, obscuring Dad’s worry, obscuring pretty much everything. As always, this picture threatens to floor me but I am sitting on the dustbowl and Dad is there ready to catch me with his big earthy hands.
‘Take it from me, son,’ Dad says to Jeremy, ‘if yo
u did – if they did – there’d be arguments galore and that’s normal. It doesn’t mean they think any less of each other, your dad and Auntie Vicky. Why do you reckon she’s so happy to have you come and stay?’
I want to tell Dad that has nothing to do with Martin, that I think a lot less of my brother than anyone will ever know, but I realise this is faintly ridiculous. Jeremy is, after all, Martin’s son. They are connected. We are connected. But at any moment, if I wanted, I could get out a pair of scissors and... snip.
Jeremy’s not that easily fooled. ‘But my dad upsets you, doesn’t he, Auntie Vicky? And he really upsets Mum. So it must be Dad, not you.’
This boy is astute.
‘It takes two to tango,’ Dad chips in. ‘Six of one and half a dozen of the other.’
‘Thanks, Dad, for that Cockney wisdom.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Jeremy ignores this exchange between father and daughter and takes a step towards me. I find myself getting up and meeting him in the middle of the room where he is beginning to sag. I find myself putting my arms around him, holding him up, holding onto him. I find myself giving him a hug that both he and I are crying out for.
‘Can you move a bit,’ Dad calls out. ‘Only I can’t see the box.’
Thoughts for the Day: Maybe we could replace the dustbowl. DFS must have a sale on. They’ve always got a sale on.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Sunday 17th February Second Sunday of Lent
Last night there was a fire. All that wood on the beach, what arsonist could resist? Maybe it was Martin, creeping down from London in the night with his lighter. A shame, though, all that wood gone to waste. It would have made lovely decking for all those seaside gardens.
I go down and have a look. The smell of it. The fire crews are still there, on the beach, with noisy diggers, shifting planks and dousing down. I leave them to it and walk the back streets. I remember them well. We used to come here every summer when I was a kid – apart from that one holiday to Weston-super-mare where Martin made me go on that smelly old donkey. Two weeks out of London to get the air and lose the stress. Not that Dad was ever stressed as a gardener. The holidays were far more trying, being cooped up overnight in a B&B with Martin, banished from the house from ten in the morning till five in the evening by the landlady. That’s stress.
Most days we’d sit on the beach for a few hours, a picnic of sausage rolls and crisps, or fish and chips, trying to ignore the smell of rotting seaweed. Sometimes for a treat we’d have a bite to eat in a café: the Connaught, the Denton, Macari’s. Or maybe afternoon tea in one of the seafront hotels. Martin would sit there, morose, shovelling heaped piles of food into his big gob, every now and then eyeing up the girls. Any girls. Mum would try and engage us in some kind of discussion: Northern Ireland, school, our favourite pop bands. It was excruciating. At home we managed to avoid all this. At home Martin would be out most of the time, playing cricket or rugby or slouching around with friends. Mysterious friends without Christian names. We rarely saw them because Martin was even less keen on bringing them back than I was my own friends. My small group of select friends. Mainly Alice. I thought I was going to lose her after primary school but her parents sent her to the dump after all. Something to do with their socialist principles. But she was always going to shine, wherever she went. She got into Oxford, took a degree in chemistry and I went to teacher training college. Alice had rooms to herself in a quad. She met her future husband at a May ball. I shared a bedroom with Stacey from Woolwich. It overlooked the dustbins. We had a black and white telly and a leaky radiator and when I complained about it, that’s when I met Steve and I didn’t have to go on any more family holidays.
Family holidays. When it was raining or it wasn’t one of our days to eat out, we had to walk around the shops – unless we were at Arundel castle or Bignor Roman villa. I found this bookshop. It was small and cosy, the way bookshops are supposed to be. The old chap who worked there didn’t mind me going through his stock. He didn’t mind that I never bought anything more than a bookmark.
The shop has gone now. Time marching on again. I am left behind, wondering what happened to my childhood. Wondering what happened to my mother. Just another story with an unfortunate ending. Not a Da Vinci Code thriller to be made into a film with the likes of Tom Hanks. But an important one nonetheless. It stars a woman: Pamela Stanton. She marries a gardener, Jim Wright and becomes Mrs Wright. They have two children, a boy and a girl, Martin and Victoria (aka Professor Bumface and Vicky-Love). Pam lives a good, honest life, working alongside her husband, weeding, hoeing, raking. She has bad feet. Bunions. She has an operation and her feet get better.
It’s only later when her kids have grown up and produced kids of their own that she gets bad knees. Years of kneeling, carrying and fetching. Keep your back straight and bend your knees, that’s what the Health and Safety gurus tell you. Health? Safety? Forget your back. What about your knees? What about my mum’s knees? They got bad. They got really painful so she would have to stop herself crying in pain because it upset Dad too much. She forced herself to get out of bed in the mornings to make Dad a cup of tea the way she’d done every day of her married life except for birthdays and Mother’s Days. That was her job. That’s what she did. Never mind all those other roles she might have played had life dealt her a different hand. All those other shoes she might have worn.
So this woman goes to see her doctor. Unlike a certain Polish woman with hennaed hair, she trusts her GP. The doctor says she needs an operation and writes off to the specialist, the knee man, who is in agreement about the necessity of putting my mother under the knife. She gets a letter in the post with a date and my mother, unlike the time with her bunions when she made up a biscuit tin for Martin and me, is not at all anxious. She is grateful to have the prospect of an end to her pain so that she can once again spring out of bed and do somersaults for Dad in his gardens.
Only this time she has every reason to be anxious. The matrons have disappeared and a new breed of germs has crept into our hospitals, worming their way along floors, sidling up walls, clutching onto door handles and swarming around toilet bowls. We cannot see these germs but they are there, waiting to pounce on the sick, the old, the frail. They lie in wait for my mother. They come and get her in the middle of the night and they take her away to a place from which she can never return. The same place they took my Thomas. Two years before. They come back for her, not the same germs exactly, but another deadly battalion with the same deadly intentions.
This is an important story. One I want to tell the whole wide world. Only whenever I open my mouth to speak, the words melt in my mouth and I am mute. Dumb. I have nothing to say. So I let my hands do the talking. My hands clean and scrub and brush and wash so that one day my life will be free of germs and my family – what is left of it – will be safe.
Afternoon. While Steve and Dad are out in town hunting for treasure in the pound shops with the older kids, Imo naps in her travel cot on the landing. I tiptoe past her, moving between bedrooms, sorting things out, Dad’s stuff. Tatty old clothes that charity shops these days would turn away. The bin is the only place but Dad struggles with the idea of throwing away stuff he believes to be ‘perfectly good’.
Every now and then I pause in my sorting and watch my baby sleep. She is pink-cheeked. A good colour. I don’t need to worry. I shouldn’t worry. Jesus tells us not to worry.
I have a go under Dad’s bed and for once I can see through to the other side. Pat’s been here. Where’s she put the tin... ?
I find it eventually on the top shelf of Mum’s wardrobe, which looks intact, her clothes still hanging there, empty. Maybe Pat does have some idea of boundaries after all. I take down the tin and feel Mum surround me, like she’s in the room, watching me, telling me not to fuss, to leave things be. But I don’t. I take the lid off. Inside, amongst her important documents, letters, postcards and mementoes, is the photo I was hoping to find. Uncle Jack.
This p
hoto has always held a fascination for me, ever since I first found it, stuck down the back of the sofa. Jack was not an actual uncle but Dad’s best mate. It was his friendship that earned him this title. Dad’s other friends were known by their surnames, Mr Brown and Mr Slater and all the rest of them who met down the pub or spoke on the street or maybe came round for a tipple at Christmas. But Jack was Uncle Jack. Only we never got to call him that to his face because Uncle Jack was dead before we were born.
Two men in a photo. One got married and had children, the other died. Never got old and retired to Worthing. Never lost a wife. Or had a tattooed home help. Time marched onwards for Dad but it stopped for Uncle Jack and though we never met, I somehow can’t forget him. As if I don’t have enough to fret over without adding Uncle Jack to the ranks.
Still, I can’t help wondering why this snapshot taken on a sunny day of two best friends never earned the right to a frame, a place on the mantelpiece amongst the wedding photos and goofy school pictures. How did it get lost in the sofa? Why was it put away in Mum’s tin, hidden away in the dark? Why did Mum look out in the street like that when I first asked her about him? What did he do that was so bad? Someone with a smile like that.
‘What are you doing, Mummy? Can I help you?’ Olivia has appeared by my side, creeping in without me even realising they are back from their bargain hunting.
‘Hello, sweet pea.’ I give her a kiss and feel the cold of her skin burn into me. ‘Did you have a nice time?’
‘Not really. We spent ages in these smelly shops. You’re going to be really cross with Granddad. He spent twenty pounds in the pound shop, which means he bought twenty things. I don’t know where he’s going to put them all. But I had an ice cream.’
‘An ice cream? In this weather?’
‘Granddad says it will put hairs on my chest. I don’t want hairs on my chest. Will I get hairs on my chest?’