The Girl Who Came Back

by Kerry Wilkinson

  It feels wrong and yet it doesn’t. I pull my underwear down and loop them over one leg out of the way, then I squat and push, waiting for the fabulously satisfying tinkle of liquid on stone.

  When I’m done, I stand and pull my underwear back up, then step away to look at the puddle of piss that’s seeping into the grooves of her name.

  Up yours, Eve Hanham.

  My only regret is that I didn’t have more to drink this morning.

  Twenty-Seven

  I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to driving on the constricted country roads that connect Stoneridge to the rest of the world. For some reason, the lanes seem to become narrower and narrower as the sharpness of the bends increase. There are always people banging on about health and safety gone mad – and yet everyone seems to accept that ninety-degree bends with high hedges, single-track roads and sixty-mile-per-hour speed limits are perfectly fine.

  According to the details Pete gave me and the route planner on my phone, it is only a sixteen-mile journey and yet it takes me the best part of an hour to drive to Winton Bridge.

  It is technically a village, but it’s so small that I’m almost through it and out the other side before I realise I’m there. I notice the ‘thank you for driving safely’ sign while somehow missing the one that reads: ‘Winton Bridge welcomes careful drivers’.

  Despite only being a few streets, a stream and a postbox, I still end up getting lost as I try to find the address Pete gave me. It doesn’t help that the village is the equivalent of the dark side of the moon for mobile phones. Even a single bar of reception is an aspiration and it’s as if the whole area is encased in a lead box.

  I park on the empty street, figuring I’ll have as much luck on foot, and start to walk along the road. There are perhaps only thirty or so houses speckled throughout the hamlet, with various farm sounds and smells drifting on the breeze. There are many more hanging baskets and drystone walls but this is a more condensed version of Stoneridge. Fewer people, smaller area, much more green.

  It’s on my second lap that I accidentally find the house I’m looking for. The stonework at the front is covered with ivy and there’s a battered, unused car on the drive. The wheels are covered with moss and murk and it doesn’t look as if it’s been driven at any point in the last decade or two.

  The door is old, wooden and, if someone was to knock too hard, a knuckle-breaker. I use the palm of my hand to knock, fearing for the skin on my hands if I were try it any other way. It takes a while but there’s a vague shuffling from inside, a grunt and then a man’s voice mumbles: ‘Hang on’.

  When the door is opened, there’s a man in a wheelchair. It’s obviously my own prejudice but it’s always a surprise to see a young person in a wheelchair. The man can’t be older than mid-thirties, with thick swishy sideways dark hair like something out of a fashion advert.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asks.

  ‘Are you Iain?’

  He looks up, trying to place me. ‘Who are you?’ he adds.

  ‘I’m having a few problems with a man named Ashley Pitman and was told you might be able to help…?’

  He stares at me for a second or two and then manoeuvres his chair to the side of the hall, pulling the door open wider. ‘You better come in.’

  The house has been converted for a wheelchair user, with a rail along the hall that’s a little lower than would be expected. There are keys, coins, a couple of books and other potentially useful odds and ends scattered along the length. The living room is a similar story, with a dining table that’s a few centimetres below the height of what might be sold in a shop and low cabinets that are stacked with papers and more books.

  Iain wheels himself in behind me and moves over towards the television. There’s a two-seater sofa and I sit.

  He speaks first: ‘I don’t know who you’ve spoken to but there’s no way I can help you.’

  ‘But you know Ashley Pitman…?’

  He rolls his eyes dramatically: ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it?’

  Iain allows the chair to roll forward a few centimetres and then he rocks it back. He does this a couple of times before stopping. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  I could give him the whole story, of course. Missing girl, thirteen years, old-new family – but the short version is still true. ‘I think he might be following me around. I’m not completely sure.’

  ‘Oh.’ Iain stops rocking his chair, clamping on the wheel brake and rubbing his chin. ‘Pete gave you my details, didn’t he?’

  ‘I, um…’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not annoyed.’ He nods towards the door. ‘Do you fancy a walk?’

  It’s impossible not to look at the wheels and Iain brays with laughter.

  ‘How about you walk, I’ll wheel. You can help me on any steep bits.’

  I agree and, a few moments later, we are back out in the afternoon sun. There might not be a lot to Winton Bridge but the entire hamlet seems to be perpetually in sun.

  Iain wheels himself to the stream and then we start to follow it out towards what turns into an empty towpath.

  ‘I was in Ashley’s class at school,’ Iain says.

  ‘You look way too young.’

  It feels strange to be looking down on someone but I see him smile at that.

  ‘Good genes,’ he says. ‘Not that I can get into my skinny jeans any more.’

  I don’t react. I’m not entirely sure if I’m supposed to laugh.

  ‘Did you used to live in Stoneridge?’

  ‘“The place from which you can never escape”.’ He laughs. ‘I used to call it the Stoneridge Triangle. I managed to get sixteen miles down the road – but yes, that’s where I’m from. Have you moved there recently?’

  ‘A week ago.’

  ‘Blimey – who’d you kill for that punishment? You didn’t choose to move there, did you?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘It’s quieter than a mute convention in a church.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like Winton Bridge is exactly rocking…’

  Iain laughs long and it seems like something he does a lot. He’s slightly camp with it and it’s hard not to join in.

  ‘Touché, touché,’ he says. ‘Can’t argue with that. Still, you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors here. I’m pretty sure we’ve got swingers living at number thirteen. All sorts of couples turning up late on Friday and Saturday evenings and then leaving in the early hours. The lucky bastards. Then there’s number nineteen with the constant parcel deliveries. It’s three or four times a day. I mean, what can they possibly need so much of? I’ve heard of Internet shopping but this is ridiculous. I reckon they’ve got some sex toy business on the go.’

  ‘Is that based on anything?’

  ‘Pure, hard, rubbery speculation.’

  This time I laugh.

  We continue on for a short distance until Iain speaks again: ‘Ashley and I weren’t friends,’ he says. ‘We were in the same year at school and it was a small enough place that you pretty much knew all the other kids in some way, even if it was only their name.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.’

  ‘You can say that again – especially when you’re a teenager who knows you’re gay.’ He waves a hand through the air, freewheeling for a couple of moments, as if sending the memory off into dust. ‘Anyway, a few years later, we’d all left school and I was nineteen or twenty, something like that. How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen or twenty, something like that.’

  He laughs once more. ‘I like you,’ he says. ‘Anyway, you’ll know it’s the pisshead age. You’ve got the idiot age – that’s like zero to eleven or twelve where you don’t know anything and you’re this bumbling idiot getting in the way. Then there’s the awkward age, which takes you up to about seventeen. You’re all elbows, knees and genitals but you’re too embarrassed to talk about anything. Then it’s the pisshead age, which, if you’re lucky, gets you through t
o your mid-twenties. After that, it’s the crushing reality age. Then the lose all the weight stage, then mid-life-crisis, then death. You’ve got all that to come but, for now: pisshead age. You go to uni or get some shit job, spend all your money down the pub. Great times. I’d recommend it to anyone.’

  ‘I have spent an abnormally high amount of time in the pub this week.’

  Iain clicks his fingers. ‘See! Can you believe I’m not some expert on human behaviour? I could be the new Stephen Hawking.’ He stops and puts on a robotic voice: ‘Anyway, where was I?’

  ‘You were nineteen or twenty – something like that.’

  Another click of the fingers and he’s back to his regular voice. ‘Right. I might not look like it and it’s not quite the gay stereotype, but I used to play rugby for the Stoneridge team. I was a flanker, or something that rhymed with it.’

  A pair of swans descend as if from nowhere, swooping low and landing on the water. It’s happened so unexpectedly that we both stop as the birds first dunk their heads and then turn as if to say, ‘What are you looking at?’

  There’s no way either of us fancy a fight with a swan, so we continue along until we reach a wooden bridge over the canal. Iain asks if I can help him with the slope, so I push him up and over until we’re heading back towards Winton Bridge on the other side of the water.

  ‘It was this really stupid thing in training,’ Iain says. ‘We had more than fifteen players in a squad, so it was an inter-team match. Twelve on twelve or something like that. Ashley was playing in the centre and I caught him late with a tackle after he’d already passed the ball. It was a total accident but I’d already committed to taking him down. In all honesty, he was too quick for me.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He jumped up and pushed me away. I had my hands up, apologising, but he was in my face. “You want to do this, gay boy?” – all that sort of stuff. I was saying sorry the whole time but he kept coming for me and, in the end, all our teammates got between us. I figured that was it. It wasn’t entirely uncommon when you’ve got a bunch of pumped-up young men charging at each other. We played a game that weekend, then had training the next week and then another match. I’d started to forget about it, but then I was in a pub with a few other non-rugby mates a couple of weeks later.’

  Iain has been pushing himself relatively quickly but his pace drops. I find myself a step ahead and have to slow to stay level.

  ‘I was walking home by myself,’ he says. ‘It was late, maybe one in the morning, something like that. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in hospital.’

  I don’t mean to do it but I grab the handle of Iain’s wheelchair. We both stop and I find myself staring down at him.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Neither did I. It’s like someone invented teleportation. One minute I was on the road, the next I was in a hospital bed.’ Another click of the fingers. ‘Like that. The only difference was that instead of teleporting in an instant, I’d lost four days and the use of my legs.’

  I’m pretty sure my mouth hangs open. There’s a moment where I’m not sure if he’s joking. Almost everything else has come with a punchline but not this.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Nobody knows… well, at least one person knows, but I don’t.’ He turns sideways and pulls his hair to the side, showing a thick purple scar that zigzags across the crown of his head. It’s so wide that I have the urge to touch it.

  ‘You can,’ he says and it occurs to me that there must be times when I’m really easy to read.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

  As he keeps his hair apart, I run my fingers along the length of the scar. It’s scaly, like a lizard’s skin, and there’s a distinct groove where it sinks into his skull.

  ‘You’d never believe how many blokes I pulled because of that scar,’ Iain adds, letting his hair fall back into place.

  ‘What caused it?’ I ask.

  ‘Not sure. Something sharp – a machete, perhaps the corner of a spade, something like that. Must’ve knocked me out in one clean blow. I had half a dozen ribs, too. The doctor said someone must’ve stamped on my chest while I was down.’

  ‘What about your legs?’

  ‘Run over with a car. They were crushed. I’m a medical miracle. Lucky to be alive and all that.’ He raps his knee with his fist. ‘Like bloody Robocop under here – and not that knock-off new one; the nineteen-eighties version.’

  We continue along the towpath and somehow I’ve ended up pushing the wheelchair. I wonder if I’m being offensive or helpful. Either way, Iain doesn’t mention it.

  ‘Are you saying Ashley did this?’ I ask.

  ‘He was never prosecuted if that’s what you’re asking. His brother swore blind they were together all night at his house.’ He stops for a moment and then adds: ‘I know who it was. I knew then and I know now. I could tell by the way he looked at me afterwards.’

  A canal boat is stopped at one of the locks and an elderly man is straining with the gates. I stop and give him a hand as Iain helpfully chirps: ‘Put your back into it,’ at me, laughing the whole time. The man thanks us both – presumably me for the physical help and Iain for the heckling – and then he jumps back onto the boat.

  ‘Did you say you thought Ashley Pitman has been following you?’ Iain asks.

  ‘Something like that.’

  He sounds serious now, the comedy act temporarily forgotten: ‘Did you end up in Stoneridge for a reason? Friends? Family?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well… if you wanted my advice, then here it is. If the Pitmans are showing an interest in you then either run to the police – or simply run.’

  2016: Lily, 19

  The house is ridiculously empty and yet overwhelmingly full. Everything’s still there: Dad’s clothes, Dad’s old tools, the jar of mint sauce that only Dad liked at the back of the cupboard. The house is packed with things and yet there’s only me to live in it. This was the type of thing that a silly, stupid fourteen- or fifteen-year-old me always wanted. ‘I’ll leave home,’ and all that. ‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’

  What a fool.

  I finally got my wish but I’d rather make a new one: To have my dad back.

  I don’t know what the protocol is for dealing with any of this. The house and everything in it now belongs to me. The mouldy broccoli at the bottom of the fridge: mine. The out-of-date tin of kidney beans in the cupboard: mine. The grime on the oven door: mine. The roll of leftover wallpaper in the nook under the stairs: that’s mine as well.

  Someone with more patience than me might clinically catalogue everything. Some things could go to charity, others things could be stored somewhere just in case, then there would be a bin pile.

  I have no such tolerance – but I do have a very large roll of oversized black bin bags. The downstairs is easy enough to sort as everything except the photographs end up in the bags. There was even an old slipper underneath the sofa.

  Upstairs feels harder. All of my father’s clothes have their own story.

  There’s the lost-his-mind red trousers that he wore a few times when he temporarily took up golf. There’s a part of me that wants to keep them, that wants to remember him looking like a complete fool. It’s not that, it’s the laughter I associate with them. Mum laughed at him and so did I. I see red trousers and think of laughing.

  They still end up in a bin bag.

  He’s kept the tracksuit jogging bottoms he wore most days for eighteen months after Mum died. There’s a hole in the inner right thigh, another on the left knee. They’re horrific and yet, as I dump them into the black bag, there’s a part of me that wants to hang onto them. When I think of my father, a lot of my memories are of him wearing those bottoms.

  He has two suits, one black; one brown. I’m not sure I ever saw him wear the brown one and, even with the black, I think it was only for Mum’s funeral. There is a twenty-pound note in one of the pockets but that’s a
ll I get from them as they end up in the trash pile as well.

  Of course losing a parent hurts. Probably a husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, too. There’s so much more to it than the actual death, though.

  When something happened to me before, one of my first thoughts was, ‘I can’t wait to tell Dad’, or ‘How am I going to tell Dad about this?’ It’s instinctive and now that instinct is redundant. I still wonder how I’m going to tell Dad about something – but then I remember I can’t. It’s like forgetting the urge to put one foot after the other when walking. Every time something happens to me, I have to reprogram the entire way I think.

  And then there’s disposing of someone else’s underwear. No one ever talks about that but a person’s drawer that’s full of boxer shorts and socks suddenly feels more intimate than anything else. The type of place in which a loved one would never look unless something like this happens.

  After everything, it’s dumping his socks into a bin bag that sets me off again. I spend the whole time telling myself how stupid it is – how irrational I’m being – but it doesn’t help. I have a good ol’ cry over filthy socks and then, like some sort of dirty washing miracle, I feel better.

  It’s when I’ve dumped the contents of the drawer into the bin bag that I notice the A4 envelope flat against the bottom of the wood. The paper corners are tatty and old but it doesn’t look as if the envelope has been disturbed for a long time. There’s nothing written on the front or back and it’s flimsy.

  The flap is unsealed and I pull out the two pieces of paper from inside. The first is a letter addressed to my mum and dad; the second is some sort of certificate. My name is there in clear grey print from an old printer that needed a new toner cartridge.

  Lily Armitage, it reads. No middle name. The rest of the information is clear, though, there in grey and white. The key words leap off the page and it’s almost impossible to take it in.