Whatever Happened to Vicky Hope's Back Up Man?

by Laura Kemp

  ‘I had a month before I started my job. I thought I could just get myself ready quietly. But the sense of expectation from my mother was enormous: she was on at me every second to find a flat, choose the right suits, research the markets, all of that. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. I couldn’t cope with it.

  ‘My behaviour became erratic: I was unpredictable, overspending, under-eating, drinking too much, taking risks, sleeping around, and the buzz I got from it made me believe I was really living. Mum thought I was trying to hurt them, they couldn’t see I was going loopy. They said it would end in tears. It did. I was marched to the doctor, who referred me to a psychiatrist and she said I was suffering from a combination of panic disorder and depression. She gave me pills but I didn’t take them, I thought it was all nonsense, that I just needed to get to London.’

  Kate hadn’t spoken of this for years. Now she saw that Vee’s reappearance in her life was for this very reason: to unburden herself, to make peace with her past. She fixed her with her eyes: she needed to say this straight.

  ‘My mental health got worse. I got pregnant. I didn’t realize at first. I thought I was missing periods because I was a bag of nerves up in the City. My job, it was all fourteen-hour days, terrific pressure, learning the ropes in banking and the partying, or the covering up my anxiety, continued. One weekend, when I went home, Charlie made me do a test. I was fourteen weeks pregnant. It was too late in my mind to have a termination.’

  Saying it out loud, Kate had always thought the earth would crack open. But all she could hear was the rippling of leaves. The world hadn’t ended.

  ‘Mum slapped me round the face when I told her. Dad went berserk at her. I closed down. Everything stopped. I never went back to London. I was given anti-depressants but I refused to take them because of the risks to the baby - they were minimal but in my head they were enormous. And I wanted to punish myself, I guess. The midwives monitored me with home visits but the hormones made my depression even worse. I spent the rest of my pregnancy inside, refusing to go out unless it was necessary.’

  ‘Oh, Kate…’

  ‘I remember the beeps and the lights in hospital, the ferocious contractions. Giving him away. It was Mum’s idea…’

  Vee gasped as Kate paused to let it soak in.

  ‘She sorted all of the legal stuff. I was in a haze for months. Suicidal. Drugged up on anti-depressants because I was hit by post-natal depression by then too. Then gradually, I came out of it. I had counselling, the tablets eventually helped. Getting my job at the estate agent gave me a new focus. Then I met Jack, came off the pills, and finally understood how to love and how to be loved. I felt safe.’

  ‘What about…the father? He wasn’t involved?’

  ‘No. There was never any point.’ There was nothing dishonest about this.

  ‘So where is the baby now?’ Vee asked quietly.

  ‘I still see him,’ she said, feeling the swell of love at the memory of his soft skin and bed hair. ‘I always have done. Mum didn’t approve, never has, but if I hadn’t had any contact, I would’ve ended it all.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Vee said.

  Kate looked up from her fingers and stared her in the eyes. An explosion went off inside.

  ‘Charlie. She’d been trying for a baby for a while. They had tests. Tom was infertile. My nephew. Griffy,’ she said, ‘he’s my son.’

  ‘Oh,’ Vee said, dumbfounded, her face agog.

  ‘With my blessing, while I was pregnant, my sister and her husband applied for a special guardianship order giving them the same parental responsibility as me. I was unable to look after him. My head was in bits, I was incapable.’

  The words hung in the air but there was no thunder, Kate realized. Only love.

  ‘The wedding shoes,’ she added, feeling barefoot and blistered, ‘I can’t walk in the footsteps of the person my mother wants me to be anymore.’

  ‘Does Jack know?’

  ‘Sort of. He knows I gave up a baby. Just not that it's Griff. We told no one, we agreed. I kept it from him, from everyone, out of loyalty to my sister. But it feels wrong now.’

  ‘And Griffy?’

  ‘He knows he had a, what we call, tummy mummy, someone who gave birth to him - just not that it was me.’

  ‘Oh Kate, what are you going to do?’ Vee whispered, reaching to Kate to hold her hand.

  ‘Be honest. Take responsibility,’ Kate said, tears flowing. ‘Tell Jack. Cancel the wedding. Sit down with Griffy and Charlie to tell him, not to bring him back to me because that wouldn’t be in his interest but just to be honourable. And watch my relationship collapse around me,’ she said, running her hands through the grass as if she was wiping her hands clean, ‘but at least I’ll be able to live with myself.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  M

  London

  ‘I… think something’s…’ Dad said, stuttering, over the phone, ‘I… it’s…’

  ‘Dad? What’s the matter?’ He sounded really weird, not with it, absent. Murphy was frightened and began to look up and down the street frantically for a cab.

  ‘I… don’t…’ He could hear his father’s confused mouth opening and closing and a strange muffled sound as if his tongue was floundering.

  ‘Have you been on the piss?’ Stupid question. It was almost six o’clock on Mam’s birthday. She would’ve been fifty-five. Dad would’ve been in all day, with the curtains closed, knocking it back. But he didn’t sound drunk, more unstable.

  He flagged down a Hackney and jumped in.

  ‘Are you in any pain?’ Murphy’s heart was racing. ‘Paddington, mate,’ he said to the taxi driver.

  ‘I’m not… er… all that… clever. But… no… pain.’

  ‘Don’t move,’ Murphy said, ‘I’m on my way.’

  Fuck, fuck. Fuck. It was going to take three hours to get back, if he was lucky. Who the hell was there? The warden at the flats would’ve clocked off at 5 p.m. He had no emergency number. The only person who could get in was the cleaner. Unless… His stomach went full Mario Kart crash. He was going to have to ask Vee.

  She’d left her number on a thank you scrap of paper when she’d stayed. He’d let it remain on the coffee table for a few days, undecided whether to chuck it or make a note of it. It was like a game he’d played with himself: if he threw it away, then he could just put her reappearance down as chance. If he kept it, it’d mean he’d be tempted to see her again. Maybe when he was next down in Cardiff. Just for a drink or whatever. He resisted admitting to himself that with her he’d had the happiest night in ages: because if he did then he’d be admitting his way of life, his existence without her, was somehow lacking. Hollow.

  Eventually, he caved in and typed it into his phone. After that, his fingers had itched to text her. To say he’d heard a Pulp song and it’d reminded him of the time she’d thrown up on the dance floor of TJ’s in Newport. Or he’d seen that Twin Town was on, her favourite film, and did she know? He went from wanting to punch himself in the head to shrugging because they were sort-of mates again. Simple as.

  Now, as he found Vee in his contacts and pressed ‘call’, he was grateful at least that he had a valid reason to ring. There was no one else he could rely on to help, not geographically anyway.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  He could hear music in the background.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said. Then when he realized she wouldn’t have had any way of knowing it was him, she didn’t have his number, he added a quick: ‘Murphy.’ Even in these circumstances, he winced at his clumsiness.

  ‘I know!’ she said, which made him feel forgiven. ‘You all right?’ She sounded pleased to hear from him. The tune in the background was from one of those quiz shows. He remembered it from Mam, she’d watched it right up until the end in the hospice.

  ‘Yeah. Actually, no. Listen, are you free? Like now?’

  ‘Er…’ She was walking somewhere, away from the telly ‘…yes, why?’ She sounded suspiciou
s.

  ‘It’s Dad, he’s in a bad way. It’s Mam’s birthday.’ Straight to the point, no messing.

  ‘Oh, shit. Right, fine. What do you need me to do?’

  Thank God, she got it.

  ‘I’m on my way to Cardiff now, but could you go and check on him? His cleaner’s got a key. I’ll text her to say you’re coming, text you their addresses, they’re both in Llanedeyrn, near my old house. Get a cab and I’ll give you the money.’ There was no time for p’s and q’s.

  ‘I’ll go in Mum’s car. It’ll be quicker.’

  ‘Vee… look, I don’t know what state he’s in. Maybe take your dad? I’ll ring an ambulance now, tell them you’re coming. All right?’

  ‘Yes. Course. I’ll call when I’m there.’

  ‘Okay, cheers. Oh, and Vee…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thanks a million. I owe you one.’

  ‘No problem. Speak later.’

  Then he dialled 999, explaining there’d be someone at the house shortly. Pulling up at Paddington, he dashed to Platform One and got on the train with three minutes to spare. No seats, so he jostled his way past the students and suits to the area between the buffet and first class because if he needed a wall to lean against, it’d at least be less grubby there.

  Then he spoke to Orla, to tell her not to worry but he was on the way to see Dad, who’d sounded out of sorts. He was sure it’d all be okay but he had a meeting in Bristol tomorrow anyway. ‘Light a candle for me, yeah?’ he asked her, feeling bad he’d miss their annual ritual when they’d have pie and mash and remember Mam.

  His insides twisted when her voice went shaky, but he promised everything would be tidy. Get Phil over, he’d said, there was some lovely grub in the fridge, some monkfish that he’d got in to cook for Ruby tomorrow – he didn’t tell her that bit – a bottle of nice white, a posh pudding too. Have a party for Mam, he’d said.

  Then he gripped his phone in his slippery hand, wired with the worry, and waited to hear from Vee.

  As the London grime faded, as his head lolled to the train’s rocking, as the white noise of passing trains and wind rushing through the crack of the door window, his breathing returned to normal. But the lurch in his stomach remained. He saw kids bouncing on trampolines in terraced back gardens and remembered how their yard had been cemented: Mam knew Dad would never look after a lawn. She’d put pots out to make it nice and some gravel, but the bastard cats of the neighbourhood treated it as a litter tray.

  More gardens, with washing flying like kites and cats asleep on the tops of sheds. Then a barbecue in another garden, a bloke in an apron with a can and tongs, a bunch of adults and loads of children running around. Orla and him never had friends over. It was too risky if Dad got in pissed. Vicky was the only one who’d come round for tea, making a fuss of Mam’s cooking, which to be fair wasn’t bad. There was no need to explain to her if they heard shouting. She’d just turn the music up or start talking a bit louder, usually to Orla as if she was trying to take her mind off it. How Vicky understood, he never knew. Only that she did. And, even now, after all they’d been through, he was thankful for that.

  The suburbs gave way to industrial parks, all Pizza Huts and PC Worlds, warehouses and car showrooms. Places where, inexplicably, people went on Sundays. He had a strong signal here, come on, Vee, call.

  Then, shit, they were in the countryside where there was an intermittent service at best. Fury as the wifi on the train was lagging. Think calm thoughts, keep it together, son, he told himself as he stared at the words No Service.

  Be positive. Vee was on the case. Vee. He didn’t want to do that fate thing but… Jesus, Orla would rip it out of him if she knew that he was even going down that path. But… how come he’d been able to ring Vee for help? Why had this happened at this moment? Because Dad could’ve had a funny turn any time before now. It was luck, that’s all it was, pure chance. Yet it still made him feel weird: not just that he was able to rely on Vee but that there was no one else he could’ve relied on.

  Suddenly, there was a flurry of beeps and buzzes in his hand. Three missed calls, all Vee, new voicemail and four texts. Where did he go first?

  Voicemail. Please, God, let Dad be all right, he found himself thinking. Yet how many times had he wished for him to disappear? Did this make him a hypocrite? Or did it mean he was capable of compassion? Forgiveness – he’d considered it. Breaking the cycle, Orla called it, but it was so hard when any memory he had of Dad being more interested in him than the bottom of a can were so old they were on Betamax. Most of the time he was closer to cutting him out of his life.

  ‘You have three new messages. To listen to—’

  Get on with it, he thought, jabbing the number one, and returning the phone to his ear.

  ‘He’s all right.’

  Murphy’s head dropped to his chin. Thank fuck. But the way she’d said it, with gravity rather than relief, suggested there was more.

  ‘It’s a suspected stroke.’

  Oh, Dad.

  ‘His right arm is a bit weak.’

  Maybe that’d stop his drinking, he caught himself thinking.

  ‘He’s gone to the hospital. We’re heading up there now. We’ll wait there for you.’

  He felt a frenzy of anger: Dad had been so selfish, drinking his way through life, he was to blame for all of this. If this didn’t teach him…

  ‘He was a bit rambling. He said he’d been to the cemetery. Said he loved her. Took some wildflowers.’

  Murphy stopped. His Dad, the soak, who never mentioned Mam, he’d gone to see her. And he’d taken her favourite flowers, the one’s she said reminded her of Ireland. The revelation made his head spin all the way until his cab pulled up outside the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he arrived at his father’s ward panting but then took cautious steps to his father’s bed, preparing himself.

  Then boom, all of the emotions at once as he saw his grey face staring into space. Vee, who was sat beside his dad, stood up, her eyes tender, and came forward to touch his arm, which made him shaky inside, and his hand gripped hers tightly.

  ‘He’s okay,’ she said before she melted away from his vision because he could only see his father.

  It caught his breath, the sight of his dad so helpless. What got him the most was a strand of hair that was sticking up at the top of his head, like he was a child. The anger Murphy had felt was gone – instead his heart was pierced with pity and pain for the old bastard. But where he expected confusion, Dad just looked blank. Gathering himself, he went to him and stood in his eyeline.

  ‘Dad,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Hello, son,’ he croaked. His eyes were watery, vacant. ‘You just got in from work?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, hoping it was a turn of phrase and not a sign that his dad was out of it. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Okay, a bit… whatyoucall…’ he said, his breathing laboured.

  His eyelids, like crepe paper, fluttered then shut. He was in his pyjamas, which Vee had thought to bring.

  ‘He’s been nodding off a lot. The doctor said it was normal,’ Vee said.

  He turned to her, his vision trailing lights. ‘You can go, now? You’ve done enough.’

  ‘You sure?’ He nodded. ‘I’ll catch my dad on the way out, he’s nipped to the loo.’

  ‘Vee. Thanks.’ He felt weak and impotent, unable to put into words his gratitude.

  ‘He’s really confused, just to warn you. Like, he thought I was Kat when I got there,’ she gave a small smile and a shake of the head. ‘Asked if I wanted some breakfast…’

  Murphy felt his guts cramping at her suggestion that he was talking total shit. The fucking irony of it.

  ‘…Anyway, see you soon.’

  But he couldn’t look at her. Instead, he pinched the arch of his nose until the pain brought tears to his eyes.

  *

  Mikey’s parents’ house, February 2008


  Kat’s throbbing head drags her from the black death of sleep.

  She fights it, keeping her eyes shut, not ready to confront where she is. Because she knows from the familiarity of her dry, battered mouth, her aching thighs and her nakedness, that it won’t be good. His body is radiating heat next to her, but they’re not touching; it feels deliberately that way, like they’re opposing magnets. It’s quite a feat considering they’re in a single bed. She’s on her side facing away from him, her nose an inch from a greasy wall, but she can still smell the sourness of his sweat, and hers, which has soiled the sheet.

  Her fingertips feel something shiny just above her. She opens one eye and in the gloom she can make out a Blu-tacked cover of Time magazine. It’s a mock-up of an iPhone containing the words ‘Best Inventions of 2007’.

  Kat plays a game of denying who he is: if she wishes hard enough then there’s a chance that the flashbacks of last night, which come to her like blows from a hammer, might be all jumbled up. That actually, she blacked out before the end of the evening; perhaps she went home with another guy from the pub.

  There’s more damning evidence, with a Pixar poster of Toy Story and a ripped out photo of Steve Jobs. Shame and disgust kick in as what she knows deep down is true.

  What the fuck has she done? As the wrecking ball swings towards her, she covers her head with her hands and moves her legs into her stomach. But how can she protect herself from the violence when she is the author of her own hurt?

  But it feels as if things are happening to her, as if she is being swept along. Like last night. After a week or so of putting it off – she didn’t want to see anyone, just drink Dad’s posh wine, sleep and recover from the nightmare of her backpacking ordeal – she finally met Mikey. In The Albany, an old-fashioned local pretty much equidistant from their parents’ houses. They’d catch up and she’d give him Vicky’s letter.

  She thought the reckless feelings she’d been having, the ones which come out of fear rather than excitement, would have been deadened by the quiet. But the pub was jumping from a darts match and after her first pint of cider she began to feel the rising. The panic about her job: she can barely concentrate on reading a paper, how is she going to manage reports and figures? The mess in her mind: from drinking and sleeping till lunch. Mum going on, endlessly, about getting herself dressed, reading the business pages to prepare for the City because ‘there’s a recession on the way, you do realize’, finding a place to live in London, to take her make-up off before she goes to bed. Dad just clears his throat when Mum is on one, then he goes off, leaving Kat feeling like she’s being eaten by a lion. She’s seen a doctor, Mum made her go, and a psychiatrist. Panic disorder and depression, the psycho said from her swingy chair over a box of tissues. The palpitations, nausea and trembling were classic signs of anxiety and her behaviours a result of masking her symptoms with drugs and alcohol. Blah, blah, blah. But pills aren’t going to change that - Kat flushes them down the loo to make them think she takes them. What she really needs is to get the hell out of here, away from her mother, away from Cardiff.