Beneath the Surface

by Heidi Perks

When you and I met an hour later at the bar you asked me how I felt, meeting him on my own. I told you I hated it, that I wasn’t comfortable without the security you gave me. But, strangely, that wasn’t true: I felt liberated.

  ‘Let’s get something to eat,’ I said, picking up a menu. ‘We can talk about it tonight.’ You looked at me and I knew you wanted to ask more but you didn’t, and instead sat back as I called the waiter over.

  But I didn’t tell you the depth of my deception that night, or even the night after. In fact I didn’t tell you for another month. I wanted to, Adam, more than anything. But every time I tried to find the words my mouth dried up. As soon as I thought about it, I imagined losing you and the reality slapped me in the face.

  The following month, when I got my period, you looked so sad. I asked why you seemed more bothered than usual and you said, ‘I don’t know why, I just hoped it might be different this time.’

  I knew then I couldn’t drag you through another month. ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I said.

  *****

  I paused and looked up at Maggie but she was still watching me with the same non-judgemental expression.

  ‘Don’t you think that’s awful?’ I said. ‘Because I do. I can never forgive myself for lying to Adam.’

  ‘I think you were probably desperate, Abi,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re awful.’

  I didn’t think you would ever understand, Adam. I couldn’t contemplate bringing another life into this world. I was so frightened I would make a bad mother like the line of mothers who have gone before me, and you deserved so much more than that.

  When I told you the truth you didn’t react as I thought you would. I expected you to get angry, not to hit me of course, but at least to hit something. It was so much worse: you remained calm. At least if you’d shouted I would have got what I deserved.

  ‘I can’t talk to you about this right now,’ you said. ‘I will do, but not yet.’

  I watched you sling your washbag and clothes into a case.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I whispered.

  You shrugged. ‘Probably up to Mum and Dad’s for a bit.’

  ‘Will you tell them?’

  ‘No.’

  I followed you as you took your case down the stairs and let yourself out of the front door.

  ‘Adam?’ my voice cracked as I called after you.

  You turned around and said, ‘I need time, Abi. I need to work out what this means.’

  When you left me that night my whole world fell apart once again. This time there were no nasty surprises, I knew I was being left. This time I knew why, and I understood I was definitely the reason.

  *****

  I had lost the love of my life just as my mother had all those years ago. Only hers wasn’t her own doing. I think back sometimes to how it was after my daddy died, and how Kathryn must have felt. Amongst my anger and bitterness I sometimes feel a pinch of sympathy for her but it always passes quickly, when I remember something else about her. Like the time a few weeks after my dad died when I came home to find all his photographs missing. I stood in front of the wall, staring at the bright patches of paint where they once hung.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ I asked when my mother came into the room.

  ‘We’ve talked about this,’ she said. ‘Daddy’s gone to Heaven.’

  ‘No, he’s gone from the wall,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes, well …’ She was flustered, ushering me into the kitchen, where she pushed me onto a chair and pointed to some jam sandwiches. ‘It’s probably better if we put them away for now. Then we won’t get sad.’

  ‘But I still want to see Daddy,’ I said, the tears splashing down my face and onto my plate. ‘If I don’t see him, I might forget what he looks like.’

  My mother turned her back to me, busy at the sink, cups and plates clanging together. I could see her shoulders shaking but she said nothing more. I slipped off my chair and crept out of the kitchen, trawling the house for anything I could find. Eventually I found just one photo tucked inside a book: a photo of my daddy’s face, smiling, tanned and happy. I ran into my room and hid it under my mattress so no one could take him away from me.

  *****

  Not long after that Eleanor said something to my mother. I think of it as days later but it could well have been months.

  ‘The girl needs a father figure in her life,’ she said.

  My grandfather was there at the time. I didn’t see Charles often; he rarely made an appearance. He was forever working away, or if he was in the house he was holed up in his office until Eleanor called him down to dinner.

  ‘Eleanor,’ he snapped, ‘it’s too soon.’

  ‘I’m just saying she shouldn’t let the grass grow under her feet,’ she hissed back at him. ‘She’s almost thirty-two.’

  I don’t remember my mother saying anything in return. She might have protested but if she did, I didn’t hear. Then Eleanor mentioned a man called Peter, who had apparently never married even though he was thirty-five, she said, making it sound like a good thing. ‘Peter works for your father,’ she told my mother in the tone she reserved for showing off. ‘And he wants to get into politics with Charles.’

  The next morning at breakfast I heard his name again.

  ‘Charles, have you heard from Peter lately?’

  I looked up at her and then at my mother, whose head hung low, looking down at the breakfast table as she slowly circled her spoon around her cereal bowl. I didn’t know why but I had a funny feeling in my tummy that day. I didn’t like Eleanor talking about this man even though I had no idea then how much he was going to affect my life. I waited and hoped for my mother to say no, but of course she never did.

  I’m sure Kathryn can’t have wanted to meet him. It was Eleanor pushing him onto us, but my mother let her. I wish I could go back to that day and shake her to life, tell her not to let him come into our lives and pull apart everything we had. Why didn’t she say no, why did she let them take away the memory of my daddy so easily?

  Two weeks later I came home from school to find a strange man in our kitchen.

  ‘Abigail, this is Peter,’ Kathryn said. ‘He’s my new friend.’

  Peter was leaning back against the counter, an arm resting on it, one hand cradled around a mug of tea and the other in his trouser pocket. He had dark curly hair and wore wire-rimmed glasses and was only slightly taller than my mother. He pushed a curl away from his thin face, set down his mug and held out his hand to me. I stared at it – I was seven years old, I didn’t want to shake his hand, and all I could see were hairy knuckles and spindly fingers that weren’t my daddy’s.

  ‘Why?’ I asked Kathryn.

  ‘What do you mean, why?’

  ‘Why do you want a new friend?’

  She giggled nervously and said we were going to be spending quite a bit of time with him, so it would be nice if I liked him.

  ‘What do you think? He’s going to take us to the seaside tomorrow, for a day trip. That’ll be fun, won’t it?’

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked me again at the end of our day in Bournemouth. ‘Do you think you like him?’

  Peter had bought me an ice cream and paid for us to play crazy golf although he always passed on his turn, waiting with a bored expression for us to finish. We walked to the pier and he handed me a pile of cash and told me I could spend it at the amusements. I ambled into the arcade, amongst its flashing bright lights and the beep beeping of fruit machines, but I had no desire to waste the money on the slots. My daddy had never liked them – he always said they were for fools. So I pocketed the money and wandered back outside, where I saw my mum being pawed at by Peter. She was giggling again and neither of them noticed me sitting on the bench, waiting for them to finish.

  So of course I didn’t like him.

  ‘He’s OK,’ I shrugged.

  ‘Is that all?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t want a new daddy,’ I replied.

  She l
ooked at me and took a deep breath. ‘No one’s going to replace your daddy,’ she sighed.

  My mother asked me a lot over the next couple of months: ‘So, Abigail, what do you think of Peter? Do you like him?’

  I have no idea why she wanted my opinion; it was obvious it counted for little.

  ‘He’s OK,’ I would say. And that was all I felt: he was OK. He never once asked me what I had done at school, or what my favourite subjects were. He never played a board game with me, took me to the park or sat at the table while I ate my tea. He brought me a gift occasionally but it was never anything I wanted. Often I heard him ask her when I would be going to bed. And then when I was in bed I would hear him murmuring and her tittering and I would pull the covers over my head to block out their noise.

  One day she asked me again. ‘What do you think of Peter, Abigail? Do you like him?’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, Abigail, he is more than all right! He is a very nice man, and he’s asked me to marry him. What do you think, Abigail? Isn’t that wonderful? I’ll have a new husband.’ She smiled at me with a tight jaw and dead eyes.

  No, it wasn’t wonderful. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. My dad was all I wanted, not this new man. Not Peter who barely registered my existence. I stared at my mother and cried. And she stared right back at me. Then she shook herself and said in a very jolly voice, ‘Right, fish fingers for tea?’

  *****

  I sometimes wonder where Peter is now. I have no idea whether or not he still lives with Kathryn and the girls, but I hope he isn’t in their lives. Peter was only ever interested in one thing and that was looking after number one. I still wonder what Eleanor’s reasons were for bringing him into our family.

  – Ten –

  The exams were over. Hannah and Lauren walked to the diner perched at the edge of the clifftop overlooking the bay. It was usual for most of the students from Year 11 upwards to go and they expected at least forty to turn up. This was an informal invitation, always arranged by someone in the final year. That year it was Donna Morton.

  Donna was already at the diner when the girls arrived. Her blonde hair piled high on top of her head didn’t move as she flung her arms about her while she talked. She wore a white, low-cut top with denim shorts that were probably too short but still looked good on her long, tanned legs. One of the boys leaned over to whisper something in her ear and she threw her head back and laughed loudly, her large white teeth on show. Afterwards she stole a quick glance around the diner just to check everyone was watching her.

  ‘Oh, hello, twins!’ she called out when she saw the girls entering. ‘Have a mocktail,’ she winked as she scooped juice from a punch bowl into plastic cups, handing one to each of them before whispering, ‘If you want anything added, then go and see Becky. She’s out by the barbecue.’

  ‘I swear she doesn’t know who’s who,’ Lauren whispered as they walked outside, into the heat of the early evening sun. ‘I don’t think she’s ever called me by my name. If you aren’t around, she just refers to me as Twin A.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘Well, obviously she has more in her boobs than her brain. Did you see the size of them? She must have implants, no one’s are that large naturally.’

  ‘Sophie says she has. Apparently her dad bought them for her for her eighteenth birthday. Can you believe it?’

  ‘Not really. That’s probably just what she’s told everyone.’ Hannah looked around to see if she recognised anyone. ‘It makes it sound like her dad is cool. Look, there’s Becky.’ She pointed towards the small group gathering by the barbecue area. ‘What do you reckon?’ she waved her plastic cup. ‘Do we see what she can add to this?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Hannah tugged at her sister’s arm. ‘It’s not as if we’ll be here for long anyway. Might as well have a bit of fun while we are.’

  It was the first year Hannah and Lauren could go to the end-of-exams party. Every year it took place at the diner, where parents could rest assured a watchful eye would be cast over potential underage drinkers. But every year a Donna or a Becky would manage to sneak in bottles of vodka and gin they had stolen from their parents’ houses.

  The party at the diner usually ended early. There was no licence to serve alcohol and no one in the Bay was keen to encourage teenagers to hang out at the beach and drink. That didn’t mean there weren’t those who still did, but on the whole, once they attended the sixth form, and if their parents were lenient enough to allow it, the students headed out of the Bay and into the nearest town, half an hour away.

  ‘It’s a bloody prison!’ Becky was laughing as they neared her with their cups of juice. ‘They could film Big Brother here, there are that many eyes looking at you.’ Whatever she was pouring into the gathering mass of cups was coming out of a large water bottle. ‘Better to be safe,’ she added, holding up the bottle. ‘Extra water?’ she shouted loudly.

  Becky was a carbon copy of Donna. Except for her dark brown hair, which she once tried to dye blonde but failed dismally, they looked like clones of each other. Becky’s shorts were white, and her vest slightly less revealing, but other than that they dressed and sounded the same. And they were both as dumb as each other, Hannah thought, as she held out her cup.

  ‘I think she’s had enough water already,’ Lauren sniggered after they had topped up their cups and were sitting down at one of the benches.

  Hannah slipped her sunglasses down to cover her eyes, shifting on the seat so that she could keep one eye trained on the path leading up to the diner from the road.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Come on, Hannah. I’m not stupid. Is it Dominic?’

  ‘No.’ Hannah could feel the burn in her cheeks and gulped down the rest of her drink. The strength of whatever alcohol Becky had added made her gag and spit it out onto the grass in front of her. Then, just as she looked up, she saw him. Dom was walking towards them, an arm casually slung over the shoulder of one of his friends, a boy called Cal, and they were laughing. She didn’t know if it was at her; she didn’t think Dom would do that but then she didn’t know him well enough to say for sure. They had spoken a number of times; he had always been friendly but there was never more than that, despite Hannah hoping there might be.

  He nodded in her direction and saluted before disappearing into the diner with Cal.

  ‘What a nob!’ Lauren gave a suppressed laugh.

  ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘Oh no, Hannah is properly in love!’ Lauren sighed, rolling her eyes.

  ‘He’s just so good-looking,’ Hannah said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘No, he’s not my type at all.’

  ‘And what’s your type, dear sister?’

  ‘I don’t know really. Less stereotypical, I guess,’ Lauren said. ‘He’s too surfer dude for me.’

  ‘You can’t say a toned, tanned body isn’t attractive.’

  ‘His eyes are too close together.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

  ‘And I prefer dark-haired guys.’

  ‘Like Cal maybe?’

  ‘Jesus, no!’

  They both laughed. Cal was known as a player but neither of them could understand why. He was shorter than Dom by at least a head and what he lacked in height he made up for by being loud and brash. Hannah didn’t know why Dom hung out with him other than to make himself look even better.

  ‘So tell me,’ Lauren said, turning to face Hannah, ‘have you been thinking any more about what you mentioned the other day?’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘Looking for our dad.’

  Hannah was shocked her sister had brought the subject up. It hadn’t been mentioned since the time on the beach, and she was struggling to think how she could say anything to Lauren, given her previous reaction.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, sitting forward on the bench. ‘I’ve been writing a list of everything I know about him. Or at least eve
rything Mum has told us, which of course we can’t take as gospel.’

  ‘OK, go ahead.’

  ‘Really?’ Hannah was excited. It was more than she could have imagined, having Lauren on board so easily.

  ‘I’m not saying I agree with what you’re doing, but I don’t want to be left out either.’

  ‘Well…’ Hannah held out a hand and started counting off her fingers. ‘We know his name is Peter Webb. We know he must have left us in about 2001 because that’s when we came to the Bay. We don’t know how old he is but guessing he’s about Mum’s age, then he’s in his late fifties. And we think he might be in Australia.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Well, probably not. Mum once told me that but I’m not sure I believe her. It’s a bit clichéd to come up with Australia, isn’t it? I think it was just the first thing that popped into her head. She didn’t look as if she knew what she was talking about.’

  ‘And is that it?’

  ‘Yep, major stuff to go on, eh? Looks like he’ll be found in no time,’ Hannah added sarcastically.

  ‘So where are you thinking of starting?’ Lauren asked, sipping at her drink. ‘This stuff is disgusting, I can’t drink any more of it.’

  Hannah reached over and tipped it into her own cup. ‘It’s not that bad. Anyway, I like the buzz it gives you.’ She had noticed Dom coming out of the diner and watched him as he made his way to where Becky was still laughing loudly, attracting a group of students around her who wanted whatever taste of alcohol they could get their hands on. Becky was inching away from the group and making a beeline for Dom. ‘Look at the way she flicks her hair and pouts her lips at him. She’s so obvious. Surely he doesn’t fancy her, does he?’

  ‘Don’t all the guys? Anyway, back to us.’

  Hannah sighed. ‘I have to get my hands on someone’s iPad. I thought of using Morrie’s computer but I can’t risk him telling Mum. And I tried at school but social media sites are blocked and Facebook must be the easiest place to start looking. Can you believe in this age of technology, it’s nigh on impossible for you and me to search the internet?’