by Caz Frear
‘Trouble?’ I say, smiling, prickling with animosity. ‘That’s the problem when you go young, Dad. Us Millennials can be a bit demanding. A bit entitled. I think it used to be called “high maintenance” in your day. Maybe a nice little Doris your own age might be less hassle? More grateful?’
He grins. I get a sudden urge to swipe his face, quick and vicious like a cornered cat.
‘She’s not that young. I thought you’d have better observational skills in your line of work.’ He stops, flags the attention of a minion and waves him over. ‘She’s in her thirties, actually, and anyway she’s just a friend.’
‘Didn’t look too friendly.’
He ignores this, turns his head towards his little fiefdom. ‘So what do you think?’
I shoot a bored stare in the same direction. ‘I think the Christmas tree sucks.’
‘Oh yeah? Pray tell?’ He looks genuinely wounded. I almost laugh.
‘It’s a bit . . .’ I struggle to find the right word. I’m tired and my brain feels doughy – a big flabby lump of contradictory thoughts. ‘There’s just not many decorations, that’s all. It’s a bit spartan.
‘A bit spartan, eh? Good word.’ He digests it for a moment. ‘Tell me, is that the same as “a bit shit”?’
‘Exactly the same.’
I suppress a smile. Smiling at Dad always feels like defeat.
‘So to what do I owe the pleasure? I like the hair, by the way.’ It’s only an inch shorter and half a shade darker but Dad’s the type of man who notices these things. ‘You look a bit tired though,’ he adds, throwing his arm wide across the back of the seat. ‘Are you eating properly? Tell you what, I’ll get chef to make you something. Anything you want. Peach and honey pancakes, maybe? You could never resist them.’
Some things never change. Dad trying to manipulate me with sugar is one of them.
‘Peaches are rank this time of year. I’ve gone off honey.’
His jaw tenses but with the arrival of the minion at the table, he softens in a flash and the affable gaffer takes centre-stage. All back-slaps and banter and loud effusive laughs.
‘Hey, Xavier, meet my daughter, Catrina. My baby girl.’ He taps the side of his head. ‘She’s the one who got all the brains.’
The implication being that Jacqui got all the beauty.
I let that sit for a minute, ride out the hurt until I arrive at a place of ‘Who-the-fuck-cares’.
Dad’s voice comes back into focus, that geezer-lite lilt that the punters lap up. ‘So yeah, Xav used to work at Artesian, sweetheart. We nabbed him eventually, though, didn’t we, mate? Got big plans, me and Xav. Big plans . . .’ ‘Xav’ smiles vaguely, as if he was hoping for a far simpler plan that just involved being handsome and perfecting Negronis. ‘Anyway, a Peroni for me, chief, and anything my girl wants.’ To me: ‘He does a mean Mai-Tai, sweetheart. Ex-Trader Vics, you see.’
‘Just tap water. Please.’
Never let it be said that I got all of the brains and none of the manners.
I wait until he’s gone. ‘Artesian, no less. No offence but isn’t this place a bit of a comedown? You must be paying him well. In fact, Frank must be paying you well. I wouldn’t have thought the pub trade’s as lucrative as your other sidelines, or are your “big plans” just a cover?’ A wave of nausea, then a tiny jolt of nostalgia, washes over me. ‘I mean, is this place really just Frank’s nerve centre again? His counting house, like before.’
A step back in time to the 1990s. To iffy-looking men talking in low voices in the back room. Iffy-looking packages piled high in our airing cupboard.
Dad chews the side of his cheek – a habit I’ve inherited for riding out anger. ‘It was nothing to do with money. I just fancied a change. Radlett felt too big after a while. Too many memories and not enough visitors.’
I brush off the dig. ‘Seriously, I thought barrel changes and blocked loos would be a bit beneath you these days? Don’t you miss lording it around Hertfordshire in your Jag.’
He grins at this. ‘Oh come on, Cat. It was never really me, was it? All that gardening and golf club guff. Radlett was never my dream. I never really . . .’ He tails off, picks at a non-existent thread on his cuff but we both know where he was headed. I never really wanted the straight life. ‘So yeah anyway, Frank mentions he’s looking for someone for this place again. Says he knows it’s been years, but do I fancy it? He’d spent a load on the place, you see, but it was going down the tubes – usual story, a couple of managers don’t know their arse from their elbow and boom – suddenly the place gets a reputation.’ He takes a packet of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket, bats them between his hands. ‘Basically, Frank wanted someone to put a bit of heart back in the place.’ A coy glance up. ‘I don’t know what you think, but I think I’ve succeeded.’
What I think is that Frank needs to rinse more dirty money than Mr Arse and Mrs Elbow were prepared to turn a blind eye to, and he knows there’s none more blind than Michael McBride when it comes to a nice fat earner.
This all goes unspoken, of course. Instead I focus on the cigarettes. ‘What’s this? I thought you’d packed up? A bit stressed-out at the moment, are we?’
I don’t know why I’m goading him but it’s a habit set so hard, it’s Pavlovian.
He shrugs. ‘I tried. I failed. As my old man used to say, you’ve got to die of fucking something.’
‘Right before he dropped dead at the age of fifty-six. What are you now?’
‘Fifty-five.’ He sits up, puffs his chest out. ‘Anyway, it won’t happen to me, I’m at the gym most mornings.’
I’d rather cut my own tongue out than admit it but it shows. While a lot of men wither and stoop under the weight of spousal grief, Dad’s stock seems to have appreciated year on year. He’s certainly never looked stronger or fitter than he does now.
But then, Dad was always good-looking. Problematically good-looking, some would say. Eyes glinting green-gold and a smile like a solar flare. Even now, with his hair peppered grey and his jawline slightly softer, he’s still got that catch-all appeal that makes teenage girls want to grow up faster and elderly ladies reverse the clock.
Our drinks arrive along with a bowl of something birdseedy. ‘So I assume you’re not here to test the tap water?’ he says, eyeing my glass with disdain.
I’m here because you lied about Maryanne Doyle and now she’s dead.
‘Jacqui says you’ve rented out Radlett. What’ve you done with my stuff?’
His eyebrows shoot up. ‘And that’s what you’re here for? Honestly? You’re worried I’ve thrown out your old board games?’ He lets out a deep sigh. ‘Well, panic over, sweetheart. I haven’t actually rented it out.’ He casts me a warning glance. ‘And that goes no further than us, by the way.
‘But Jacq—’
He holds up his hands. ‘Shoot me, I lied. Look, I couldn’t bring myself to have strangers moving in but you know as well as I do that the minute I said I was moving out, that’d be Jacqui’s cue to move in. She’s always dropping hints about how it’s a more of a “family home”.’
‘There’s only three of them, what do they need a five-bedroomed house for?’
‘Trying for another baby, I think. I don’t ask much, it’s their business.’
‘Really? Finn will be seven by then, at least.’
He looks at me, confused. ‘So? Same age as Noel was when you came along. Only a year older than Jacqui.’
Mum banged out her first two in quick succession. I came later – a happy accident, apparently. They joked they’d been hoping for a new Sierra that year, instead they got me.
‘Yeah, and look how that turned out. They both hated me for getting all the attention, spoiling their fun.’
‘Jacqui didn’t hate you.’ He doesn’t have a leg to stand on with Noel. I don’t have one happy memory of him playing with me, except the time he said we’d play hide-and-seek and he locked me in the pub cellar.
‘Jacqui tolerated me becau
se I was a toy she could show off.’ Her living breathing Tiny Tears.
‘You’re too harsh on that girl.’
‘Am I? It’s not me lying to keep her out of her family home!’
‘Oh I need this, I really fucking need this.’ He tilts his head back, aims a long, laboured breath towards the ceiling. ‘Look, I love the bones of Jacqs – and Ash’s a good bloke and Finn’s a dote – but I might want to move back in again at some point, you know, and the idea of living with them full-time . . .’
‘As opposed to Noel who’s the perfect house-pet?’
He rolls his eyes. ‘What do you want me to say, Cat? He’s my son and I worry about him. I worry about all my kids. Jesus, you have no idea how much I worry about you.’ I try to tell him not to bother but he railroads on. ‘I mean, did you hear about that young copper? Shot dead, somewhere in America. Pennsylvania, I think.’ A sad shake of the head. ‘She was only twenty-four. Just a child.’
A child unless you’re fucking them and then anything post A-levels is fair game.
‘Save your prayers, Dad, it doesn’t happen a lot here.’
He raises his voice. ‘It’s still a dangerous job, and you’re still my baby.’
This is new. Danger’s never really come into it before. He usually prefers grandiose speeches about ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘never the twain’ blah blah blah. Pithy little statements about blood-ties and trust.
‘It makes me happy though,’ I say, which is partly true. ‘And you once said I could be anything I wanted – even a Tory – if it made me happy. I bet you don’t remember, do you?’
Straight back at me. ‘I bloody do. Six years old and you announce you want to be a plasterer after we’d got all the work done in the hallway. Noel and Jacqui were laughing at you.’
‘Yeah, and you said if it made me happy, then why not? You even bought me my own set of trowels.’
This gets me, gut-level. I see it in his eyes too but he wards it off with a laugh. ‘I don’t think anyone ever got shot doing a day’s plastering. And trust me, sweetheart, when you have kids of your own you’ll realise that “safe” trumps “happy” every time.
And yet I haven’t felt safe with you in years.
‘They found Maryanne Doyle’s body.’ There’s a roar from across the bar. A last-minute penalty. An eleventh hour reprieve for someone. ‘Near here,’ I say, louder over the cheering. ‘Leamington Square.’
Dad’s eyes flick to the commotion. He hunches his shoulders as if bracing himself against an invisible storm. It can’t be more than a few seconds before he speaks again but it’s time enough for him to make a decision.
‘They found who?’ he says, cocking an ear towards me, squinting in irritation at the noise.
‘Maryanne Doyle.’ My mouth feels full of grit. ‘You know, the girl from Mulderrin.’
A slant of the head. A search through his mental rolodex, then suddenly, enlightenment. ‘Jonjo Doyle’s girl, you mean? The one that ran away?’ His voice goes up a notch higher. ‘What, they found her here, in London?’
I nod. ‘Yep. Murdered. You must have seen it on the news? Heard about it?’
His face clouds over but it’s not what I think. ‘I haven’t been able to watch any frigging news. Noel did something to the TV and now it won’t “initialise”, whatever the hell that means. Do you know what “initialise” means? I can’t find the manual . . .’
Classic stonewalling.
I don’t let him off.
‘It’s just, well, it happened pretty much on your doorstep. The old grapevine mustn’t be working like it used to?’
‘To be honest, I haven’t been here much the past few days.’ He takes a slug of his pint, a third in one swallow. ‘I mean, yeah, now you mention it, I think I did see some yellow tape flapping about up the road but that’s hardly big news around here.’
My heart bangs. ‘So what do you think?’
He looks at me quizzically, like he doesn’t quite understand the question. ‘Well, it’s terrible, of course. Bloody terrible. Tessie Doyle – wasn’t that the grandmother’s name? She was one of your gran’s cronies. We should send a mass card, at least. What do you think?’
I slap down the sentiment. ‘The granny’s probably dead by now. She was practically dead then.’
‘The father then. Don’t get me wrong, he was a prick of the highest order but I wouldn’t wish that on my worst . . .’
‘He’ll be dead soon too.’
His eyes narrow. ‘I must say, you’re very well informed.’
‘I’m working the case.’
And for that second, the world shrinks to just us. Just his face and mine. Every smell seems to evaporate. Every colour ceases to exist. And there’s a silence. A silence so laden with fear and mistrust that it turns everything else abstract and us both to stone.
Dad recovers quicker though, lets out a low whistle and a sarcastic tut.
I wait for a few seconds as the room comes back into focus. ‘What?’
He tries to do casual but there’s a flush creeping up his neck. ‘Ah, nothing really. Just thought there’d be some petty coppers’ code about personal connections and all that jazz . . .’
I try casual too but my shoulders are locked. My neck’s coiled like a helix.
I plump for confusion. ‘And what’s my personal connection, Dad? That my gran played bingo with her gran?’
His hands lock tight around his glass. ‘Is that how your boss sees it?’
‘Since when have you been so concerned with police ethics?’ I say, bristling.
He picks up a napkin with the other hand, a grease-stained white flag. ‘Hey look, work away, Detective. I mean, what would I know? But if memory serves me right, Jacqui had a few words with the Guards at the time.’
I stare at him, blankly, pretend I don’t get the point.
‘Well, that’ll be on some system somewhere, surely?’
Top marks.
‘Tell you what, Dad, how about you let me worry about that? And anyway, she was killed on Monday night, thirty-five years old and a long way from Mulderrin. I doubt there’s a connection.’
I’m about five bottles of wine, sixty sleepless nights and seven hundred dark thoughts away from knowing whether I believe that or not.
Dad seems to take it at face value.
‘God, that Mulderrin holiday, that takes me back,’ he says, forearms on the table, all slumpy and relaxed now. ‘Good-looking kid, weren’t she, the Doyle girl. Jacqui will remember her, I bet.’
I remember her, Dad. I remember every little lie you told too.
‘Do you know what I remember about that holiday?’ I tell him. ‘You disappearing all the time. Mum putting me to bed every single night so I never got a story.’
‘Christ, and you reckon Noel knows how to hold a grudge!’ His laugh is short, sharp and hard. ‘Aw poor little Catrina. Do you want me to read The Three Little Pigs to you now? Make up for it, like?’
I refrain from ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Convey it with a death-stare instead.
‘Do you know what I remember about that holiday?’ he says. I switch the stare to ‘impassive’ but I’m ravenous for what he’ll say next. ‘I remember you didn’t want to go. Got yourself in a bit of a state about it. We were taking you out of school a few days early and you were stressing your class rabbit wouldn’t get fed. And you were worried about Reg. Do you remember Reg?’
I remember Reg. One of the pub’s regulars and a lovely old man. He lost his wife to cancer and his dog to the number seventy-three bus in the space of three weeks but he rarely lacked a smile or a poorly executed joke.
I say nothing though, just nod.
‘So I said you shouldn’t worry so much about everything – Reg and Bugs-fucking-Bunny would be fine, but that it was lovely you were such a thoughtful little girl and that I was proud of you.’ My face feels hot. I press my lips together, blink three times. ‘And you were, back then. You were such a little belter. So kind. A bit o
n the lively side sometimes, but never naughty, not like Jacqui, and well . . .’ He leaves Noel’s name hanging. ‘I mean, I know parents aren’t supposed to have favourites, but there was never any contest. What happened, Cat? Why are you so determined to be miserable?’
‘I’m not. Why are you so determined to convince yourself you’re happy? Is that what the Jag and your women and this stupid place does? Makes you forget that life’s essentially shit?’
He reaches for my hand, managing to graze the tips of my fingers before I snatch it away. ‘I know I’m not happy, Cat. How can I be? “You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.” Ever heard that saying?’
My eyes prickle and I know I’m going to cry, or capitulate, if I don’t shift the tone of this conversation and do something drastic.
I pull the pin out of the grenade.
‘Did you sleep with Maryanne Doyle?’
He shifts. The light throws a shadow across his face and I lose his eyes for a crucial second. When they reappear, I swear he looks different. There’s an icy serenity about him. About as far away from sucker-punched as an accused man can be.
‘Well, did you? It’s not a trick question, Dad. It’s not multiple choice.’
‘Are we really going to do this?’ He almost sounds amused – like he’s heard the corniest joke ever for the hundredth time but still can’t help smirking. ‘I mean, don’t you ever get bored of this, Cat?’
Bored, no. Bone-weary, yes.
‘So tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m crazy, like you always do.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “crazy”.’
He hasn’t in fairness. ‘Maddening’, ‘antagonistic’, and on one occasion, ‘pure poison’, but never crazy.
‘I notice you haven’t used the word “no” either.’ My voice is shaky. I’ve been shackled to this narrative since I still had my milk-teeth but now that I’ve said it – now that it’s out there – it sounds fantastical, or at the very least, flimsy. ‘Say it, Dad,’ I urge him. ‘If you didn’t sleep with Maryanne Doyle, say “no”. Just answer the question.’