by Katy Regan
“Your eyes look mad,” Teagan said.
“Do they? What do you mean?”
“They’re going like this.” She made her eyes go dead fast from side to side. She looked like Mr. Dabrowski, who lives on our estate. He’s blind, but his eyes move all the time.
*
• • •
ME AND TEAGAN decided we needed to go and explore. We had to find a place for an urgent FDMC meeting, to discuss what we were going to ask Kelly when we got to her house. Mum wasn’t going to come inside with us, you see. She said it was for the same reason she thought it was a good idea that I sent the letter to the council instead of her—adults are more likely to listen to children than grown-ups.
There were loads of weird people on the train. You could have a good time just looking at them. There was a woman with loads of black makeup on and tattoos all over her arms—she was definitely a vampire—and there was a man snoring. It was the funniest thing ever. He was just snorting like a pig with his mouth open and didn’t even know.
We got to a door that said First Class. You could tell it was first class already, because even the glass of the door and the sign were posh. There was nobody stopping us going in, so we just sat down for a bit. I was scared in case there was a secret camera and we’d get charged loads of money, but Teagan didn’t care.
“Let’s have our meeting in here.”
“But what if we get done?”
“Don’t worry, Zac, honestly. First class is where all people hold important meetings. You can’t have it in the normal bit where there are loads of little kids crying because they’ve dropped their felt-tips.”
I could see what she meant.
“When I’m a professional gymnast,” she said, getting out the file, “I’ll only ever go in first class—especially if I’ve won a medal in the Olympics. You never go in normal seats if you’ve won a medal for your country, you know. You get in everywhere free. You don’t even have to pay to go in the toilet at the station. You just have to show your medal.”
I decided then that if I couldn’t be a medal winner, I would be a chef for people who were. I could work in the first-class bit of a train. “I’ll cook you lobster thermidor every day if you want.”
“What’s lobster thermidor?”
“The poshest dinner you can ever have. Rich people literally have it once a week; it’s as normal for them as spaghetti hoops.”
*
• • •
MANCHESTER PICCADILLY STATION was the maddest place you’ve ever been to in your life. Everyone was late for their trains. There was a woman talking over a speaker all the time; you couldn’t even understand what she was on about, she just kept on talking. Everyone was talking. The only person who wasn’t was Teagan—it was the first time me and Mum had seen her quiet. She literally didn’t speak for ten minutes; we were a bit worried! She just followed me and Mum.
The aquarium was sick. Teagan couldn’t believe her eyes—she was just running from one thing to the next like she was crazy, and Mum had to tell her nicely to stop hogging the windows, where you could see in to the sharks and the jellyfish and the stingrays just gliding around, like they were totally the boss of you. Our favorite bit was when you walked down the corridor in the dark, but above you were glass ceilings and you could see the fish. It was like being underwater and in space at the same time, and when you reached out your hand, you could pretend like you were tickling the dolphins’ bellies. We touched a stingray too, but I think that the dolphin-belly tickling in underwater space where everything was lit up beat that in the best things that have happened in my life so far.
After the Sea Life Center, we had to get the bus to a place called Chorlton, which is where my aunty Kelly lives. We found her road on Google Maps, then asked the bus driver what stop it was. We had to do loads of detective work just to get there.
We stood on the street corner for a bit while Mum fussed with my top. (I was wearing my favorite shirt with the palm trees all over it. It’s like what people wear in the Caribbean.) “Now, don’t be nervous,” she said. “Or you, Teagan. I told Kelly you were popping in, and she’s fine with that.” Mum kissed me on the cheek, then Teagan, on the top of her head. “And anyway, you two are so cute, I’m sure you’ll charm the pants off her in no time.” The idea of Kelly with no pants on made me and Teagan both laugh.
Mum gave us the box of Celebrations we’d got for Kelly (even though it wasn’t a celebration, not yet), wished us luck, told us what number it was, then she went for a walk. She said if she didn’t hear from us beforehand, then she’d see us outside the newsagent’s at the bottom of the road in an hour.
Kelly must be loaded, because her house was massive. It was on its own—not in a block like mine—and it had four big windows at the front, instead of two like Nan and Grandad’s. It even had grass and flowers and a garden at the front, not just concrete, with a big tree that shook blossoms all over you when you walked past. I rang the doorbell. I knew Teagan would think I was going to expect her to do it, so I wanted to surprise her. It wasn’t a buzz one like at my house, it was a proper “ding-dong” one like you get on the telly. We waited, but nobody came, then just as I was about to ring it again, you could see a person through the glass.
The person opened it, but it wasn’t Kelly. It was a girl. She was chubby like me with long brown hair and she looked a bit younger than us. I guessed she was nine.
“Um, hi, we’ve come to—”
“Mum!” the girl shouted, before I had chance to finish what I was saying. “There’s some people at the door.”
Just then, a lady ran down the stairs. She had blond hair in a bob like Miss Kendall and she was thin—you could see her bones through her jeans. She had a top that showed off her belly button. It had a diamond stuck in it. “Libby, just go upstairs for a bit, will you?” The girl (Libby) stared at us for a moment, then went off. But she kept looking back. She wanted to stay and talk to us, you could tell. I smiled at her, so she knew I knew.
Kelly was holding the door open but not that far. She looked a bit nervous, just like us. “All right? I’m Kelly and you must be Zac?” she said, holding her hand out. I nodded and shook it. She stared right at me then. “Bloody hell,” she said and I felt my cheeks burn. She’d only just met me and she was swearing. If I did that, my mum would kill me.
“And you are?” she said to Teagan, as Teagan just walked straight past her and into the house.
“Teagan,” said Teagan. I didn’t know what to do, so I just followed her in.
“Right, well, hello, Teagan,” Kelly said, closing the door. “Come in, why don’t you?”
You could tell they were rich because everything matched. We got taken to a room at the back of the house that was all glass. It had a big settee in it, even though we’d just passed the front room where there was another massive settee made out of leather, and you could see the garden through all the glass, which was ginormous compared to my nan and grandad’s and had a trampoline. I really wanted a go; it looked totally boss.
“In case you’re wondering who I am,” said Teagan, looking around, “I’m Zac’s deputy.”
Kelly laughed. “Sorry?”
“I’m helping him.”
“Helping me find my dad,” I said. It was the first time I’d ever said it to anyone who didn’t live in Grimsby, and it felt scary and exciting at the same time. I felt like we were the police on a proper investigation.
I gave Kelly the box of Celebrations we’d brought, which she said Libby would be very pleased about, and then Kelly told us to make ourselves at home and went to get us a drink. We both sat down on the settee. It was spongy—you sank into it like my beanbag—and the sun was coming through the glass roof, making it warm as anything too.
Teagan nudged me. “If this is his sister,” she whispered, “then I bet your dad’s rich too.”
“I don’t think he is.”
“I do.”
“I wouldn’t really care if he was, either
.”
“I would. I’d love to have a rich dad—he’d have to be nice too—but if he was rich, you’d get to go to loads more places. You’d get to go to an aquarium every week if you wanted.”
Just then, Kelly came in with the drinks. “Right, it’s just Ribena, I hope that’s okay.” She’d put ice in them, like you get in the pub. She passed mine to me. “I’m sorry I swore at you the first second I saw you, Zac,” she said, “but you’ve got exactly the same eyes as Liam. I couldn’t believe it.”
Me and Teagan looked at each other. I didn’t know what to say. I just knew that her saying that felt nice and I wondered what my dad would have thought if he’d ever met me, if he’d ever held me and seen that I had the same eyes as him. Perhaps he would have wanted to be my dad then. “You get those from your dad’s dad, Vaughan,” she said, sitting down. “I got these boring hazel eyes instead, worst luck. Pissholes in the snow.” She might be rich, I thought, but she swore like a trooper.
Teagan did a massive sigh. It was so loud, we both looked at her. She hadn’t realized she’d done it. “So do you know where Zac’s dad is?” she said then, and Kelly started laughing.
“God, your deputy doesn’t mince her words, does she? Get straight to the point, why don’t you?”
I wasn’t sure whether I was meant to laugh too. You couldn’t tell if she thought Teagan was too cheeky or not.
Kelly leaned back on her chair. Her belly button diamond twinkled in the sun. I noticed she had a pointy nose, not a squidgy one like mine and Mum’s, and I wondered if my dad had a pointy or a squidgy one too. I suddenly felt all excited to find out. Kelly put her feet up on the chair—I can’t do that, my stomach gets in the way—and sipped her tea. “Okay, here’s the thing. I’m three years older than Liam, but he always treated me like his little sister and we used to be thick as thieves when we were about your age. We were like best buddies. My dad hated it, because, well, it’s grown-up stuff, but he was jealous of Liam’s dad, Vaughan, because he’d basically stolen his wife—my mum—from him. You following?”
“So my grandad—my dad’s dad—stole your mum from your dad?”
“Yes,” said Kelly. “Basically.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”
She laughed. “It’s not your fault, you daft thing!”
“Oh, he always thinks everything’s his fault,” said Teagan. “Don’t worry, it’s just what he’s like.”
“Like father, like son, then,” said Kelly, taking a slurp of her tea. And even though I wasn’t sure it was a good thing to have in common—I wish I didn’t worry so much and think everything was my fault—I felt a bubble of happiness inside me just hearing her say those words. I didn’t just have my dad’s eyes; I was like him in other ways too. And I realized that I’d only ever been thinking how he was my dad, whereas I was his son too. I was somebody’s child apart from my mum’s. It felt crazy and totally brilliant.
“Liam was exactly the same. Always apologizing when he’d done nothing wrong. Just wanting to make sure everyone was happy. It’s why I always thought he would be amazing at running his own restaurant. The customer service would be top-notch.”
I was grinning from ear to ear. I breathed in. I realized I hadn’t breathed for ages. I’d been holding my breath. I didn’t want to miss one fact, one tiny piece of information.
We had a bag of Quavers each and an orange Club biscuit. Kelly told us how she was really mad—is still mad—with her mum for running off with my grandad Vaughan and leaving her when she was only little.
“She thought it wasn’t that bad, because Grimsby, as you know, was only an hour or so away on the train and so I could go and stay with her at weekends—but I was devastated,” she said.
I was nodding. I felt dead sorry for my aunty Kelly. My mum would no way leave me, ever, for any boyfriend. She loves me too much.
Anyway, then Aunty Kelly told me some stories about my dad: about how when they were teenagers and could do what they wanted, Kelly used to come and visit him in Grimsby, and he went to visit her in Manchester; about how he always looked after her, even though she was older than him; how he always introduced her as “my sister, Kel,” and how even though Kelly’s dad didn’t like my dad, because he was the son of the man who had gone off with his wife, Kelly knew he was different—at least, she used to.
“He was my brother, my hero, back then,” she said. “Which is why I just couldn’t understand it when he went and let your grandmother …”
She stopped, like she was going to say something she shouldn’t.
“My nan?” I asked. “What about my nan?”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said quickly. “I just meant … him leaving you. He should never have done that. He should never have allowed that to happen.”
It felt like too good an opportunity to miss. I got my letter out of my pocket. I’d put it in an envelope with Liam written on the front and my special signature on the back, with Please RSVP. (“RSVP” is French and it means “please reply.”)
“Could you give him this?” I said. “It’s a letter I wrote. It’s kind of private but important as well.”
Kelly took the letter and looked at it for quite a long time. Then she looked up at me. “But I don’t know where he is, love,” she said. She was smiling as she said it, but it was a sad smile. “I’m really sorry. I’m as disappointed as you that you’re not in touch, but I’ve hardly seen him since … he left. I’ve not even heard from him in about five years. It was always tricky because, as I said, my dad didn’t like him and then when your … when he abandoned you and your mum … well, he sort of retreated into himself for a bit, didn’t want to know any of us. And our mum was dead by then, you see, and she’d always been the main link between us, so that made it even harder to keep in touch.”
Just then the door opened. Libby was standing there. She wanted to come in, but she wasn’t sure she was allowed, you could tell.
Kelly sighed. “Well, come in, if you’re coming in.” Libby looked dead happy then and sat down on the floor next to the settee. “This is Libby, my daughter. Sorry, she’s a bit bored at the moment, doesn’t quite know what to do with herself.”
“I get like that sometimes, when Teagan’s not playing, because I haven’t got any brothers or sisters,” I said.
“I haven’t either,” said Libby. “Have I, Mum?”
“No, and don’t we know about it.”
“I have,” said Teagan. “But it’s not that good, believe me. My sister hates me so much she poured a bowl of Frosties on my head the other day.”
We all laughed then. It felt nice. Libby’s laugh is a bit like mine. It’s because she’s my cousin. There are forty-six chromosomes in each human cell—we would definitely have some of the same ones.
*
• • •
EVERYTHING AUNTY KELLY had told me about my dad so far had just made me feel more excited to meet him, but then she told me something big: after my dad left Grimsby, he went into the army. My belly flipped when she told me, and it was like loads of different feelings all came at once. I was proud of him for being a hero, but what was the point of having a hero dad that didn’t want to be your dad? Who wasn’t really your dad? (Anyone can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a dad—that’s what Nan says.) Then I thought, what if he’d been bombed? If I’d spent all this time looking for my dad and he wasn’t even alive?
Kelly must have been able to tell what I was thinking, because then she said, “It’s okay, he’s out now—I know that much.” The relief was like when you finally get into bed when you’re dog-tired, but better. “I just don’t know where he is. I don’t know his address to send this, I’m afraid. Although …” She was thinking what she could do, and I was hoping, had my fingers crossed in secret. “I could ask my dad if he’s got any idea, but I can’t promise anything. Like I said, he was never a big Liam fan for reasons of his own.”
Then it was like she suddenly thought of something, and she got up
and left the room. “Anyway, I’ve got something to show you before you go,” she called, from wherever she was in the house. I looked at the clock on the wall—it was half past three; we had ten minutes before we said we’d meet my mum. A few minutes later, Kelly came back with something and gave it to me. It was a picture of a man with black hair sitting on a settee holding a baby—you couldn’t see his face much because he was looking at the baby. My heart suddenly started beating like mad. I looked up at Kelly.
“That’s your dad.” She smiled. “Holding you.”
I looked at Teagan, then back to the photo. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. It just felt totally crazy.
“When you were two weeks old, your mum and dad brought you to visit me in Manchester.” She was talking, but it sounded like gobbledygook. “I told your dad not to bother, that it was a trek with a newborn baby and that I’d go and visit him soon instead, but he was so proud of you, he couldn’t wait to show you off.”
I didn’t know what to say. My brain felt like it had forgotten how to talk and I just felt dizzy, like I might fall over. And over and over again, the thought going round and round in my head: My dad met me. He held me. My dad knew me …
When I looked up at Teagan, she was frowning. Her brain was just working it out, you could tell. My dad met me … I had the achy feeling in my throat when you know you’re going to cry and I just wanted to get out of there. He knew what I felt like and smelled like. He probably even changed my nappy and fed me. Someone took a picture of him holding me, looking like he actually loved me. But he still left.