Three Strikes

by Lucy Christopher

  ‘I know. Harsh, but I’m grounded too, which means no snowboarding,’ said Sol flatly.

  Nia flung herself onto the floor next to Sol. He offered her an earphone. Nia shoved it into her ear but could hardly concentrate; for once the beat didn’t appeal. The music was wrong and for one cold second Nia understood how her father felt and why he’d removed all music from his life after her mother died. But it was only a second of empathy, quickly replaced with a singeing hot anger that crackled around her like fire.

  ‘Has he said how long you’re grounded for?’ Sol asked, as he offered her a sip of his drink. Nia shook her head; she was too restless, wound too tightly to sit up here as if they were hanging out and nothing was wrong.

  ‘No, forever probably. He’s ruined my chances of ever singing in the choir again. They won’t take me back when they finish the Winter Tour. Someone will have replaced me. I bet Isa asks to sing my solo; she’s been practising it, hoping for something like this to happen. The only thing I am allowed to do is walk the dogs and go to work on Saturdays. Lucky me. He’ll take my phone away next!’ Even though she was furious with her father she didn’t want to get in any more trouble – she wasn’t sure what lengths he’d go to.

  Nia and Sol had been coming up to the tree house since they were old enough to climb. Sol’s dad, Caleb, had built it the summer Sol had scarlet fever, to cheer him up. Sol had watched it grow, drifting in and out of his fever, propped up on pillows, being fussed over by his mother, Hanna. His dad had climbed the ladder as if he was Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk, wearing his heavy tool belt, and created the best tree house Sol had ever seen. It had one main platform, a pitched roof, a window and a door. Over the years they’d added extra planks of wood that Nia’s father had found lying around in his woodshed. So it now looked like a tree house with wings either side, casting wooden bird shadows on to the ground below. Nia’s mother, Lorelei, had offered some cushions, rugs and blankets and the place had become theirs, their den, their sanctuary away from the adult world. But today it felt small, childish and confined.

  ‘What’s the point in all of this?’ Nia gestured around the wooden square shed they were sitting in, elevated in the trees. Sol looked confused; she was asking some big questions today.

  ‘I mean this, all these trees, forests, mountains, lakes, towns, cities? The world is full of wide open spaces and concert halls, museums, art galleries and theatres, but what’s the point in any of them if I’m not allowed out to explore? What if I just stay here, in this little town, all my life? Like him.’ Nia finished. Sol followed her gaze, taking in the tall pine forests that stretched above them like overbearing tree giants stolen from a child’s drawing.

  ‘I want to get out there and see it all, and go to new places, like Innsbruck or Salzburg, and travel, and he won’t let me just because of all the things that might happen, all the things that could go wrong. I can’t breathe.’ She clutched at her chest with her hand.

  Sol nodded his head; he knew how she felt but didn’t share these feelings. Every time Nia talked about wanting to leave — wanting to travel away from Seefeld and escape her sense of small-town claustrophobia – Sol steeled himself, as if she might jump up that second, fly out of the tree house and away.

  ‘You will, but not yet. You have to be patient. He cares about you … he does, Nia.’ Sol repeated some of the things he’d said before many times, but they were wearing thin and he wasn’t sure he believed them himself anymore.

  ‘Look, why don’t you sit down and carve something? Did you bring your knife?’ Sol gestured to the offcuts of wood lying around.

  Nia shook her head, she didn’t want to do anything associated with her dad. Carving wood was their thing and she knew if she touched a piece of wood today she’d split it or break her blade.

  ‘Alright, how about you play instead? It’ll make you feel better.’ Sol passed her the guitar in its case, the one they kept hidden at his house. Nia wanted to push it away, but she knew he was right. Which was annoying.

  Nia opened the case and sniffed, as she always did, bringing the guitar up to her nose to inhale deeply. She searched for something, just a tiny drop of her mother’s perfume or her honeysuckle hand cream, but the guitar couldn’t hold the smell, couldn’t keep the essence of her beneath its layers of wood. The strings were stronger; they could store memories, holding on to the notes of her mother’s voice and the music it made. If Nia tried hard, really hard, sometimes when she played she could just about hear her mum harmonising in the background as she washed up cups or joined in on the piano. Sometimes. But today was for her music, loud clashing notes and lyrics that had nothing to do with her mother and everything to do with her father.

  She made it home with moments to spare, hearing his truck pull up on the drive as she let herself in through the back door. Nia sat down quickly at the table and tipped her books out of her bag. She opened the first one to hand, grabbed a pen and began to make notes. When her father came through the door, she was the picture of the perfect student.

  He almost smiled at the scene but remembered the call from the school – the reason she was grounded.

  ‘Dinner will be ready in an hour. When you’ve finished you can walk the dogs and then I want to see your homework diary.’

  Nia narrowed her eyes at him. He paused to kiss her on the cheek but she bent her head low, pretending to write and so he dropped a kiss on her head, like a blessing instead.

  Now that Jacob thought about it, he could see it wasn’t so terrible, what she’d done. He’d been guilty of plenty worse when he was in school. It was the fact that he had thought she was safe when she wasn’t. Jacob watched Nia pretending to do her homework and wished he could explain this to her. He’d been at work, confident that she was at school. Instead she’d been out in town, wandering around, where anything could have occurred and no one would have been able to help her. He wouldn’t have been there to help her. It wouldn’t happen again, Jacob decided. He wouldn’t let it.

  Images of endless possibilities, chains of what-ifs linked to buts and maybes, weighed down Jacob’s dreams that night, until he relinquished sleep and sat on the edge of the bed, questioning his decision again and again. He considered taking it back, phoning school to say he’d overreacted and he wanted to change his mind. But he couldn’t bring himself to make the call, even though he knew how much she hated him for not letting her be part of the Winter Festival. This was the only way to keep her safe from strangers, the only way to truly know she could come to no harm. Jacob was wise enough to realise thiscouldn’t last forever: they couldn’t keep on like this. But until a better idea came to him, this was all he had.

  Chapter Four

  ‘I can walk to Sol’s by myself? I don’t need a lift, Dad.’ Nia tried to insist, but it came out like a question instead.

  Jacob shook his head again, holding the door open to his truck. Her voice sounded sharp in the quiet of the early morning. She didn’t want to be trapped in the cab of her dad’s truck. She wanted to walk slowly to school through the forest with Sol and be the first to make tracks in the snow.

  ‘You’re not driving me to school, Dad. No way! It’s too early, no one will even be there yet.’ Nia protested, but Jacob just stood there in silence, waiting. Nia wanted to scream at him or punch him in the chest. She threw herself up into the truck and put her seatbelt on, angrily slamming it into the holder.

  ‘Are you trying to ruin my life?’ She kicked at her rucksack in the foot-well. ‘Dad? Is that what you’re trying to do, make my life as miserable as yours? Because it’s working. This is so embarrassing, being driven to school like I’m a child!’

  She had more, a lot more to say but wanted him to respond.

  ‘For once will you just say something back, Dad?’

  He turned the key in the ignition, head facing forwards watching the road, which was quiet and empty at this time of day.

  ‘We’re going to walk the dogs at Wildsee,’ he responded, knowing this was
n’t what she meant, that this wasn’t what she wanted him to say, but he couldn’t have that conversation with her, not while she was like this. The dogs were pacing up and down in the back of the truck, whistling and whining in excitement, oblivious to the tension. ‘This is going to be our new routine, walking the dogs together before school. Like we used to, remember? Your mum loved the lake, didn’t she?’ He tried again, as if he wanted to remind her of how things were, a hint at how things could be again if they both tried. She ignored him, folding her arms, looking out of the window. He gave up and switched on the news, letting bulletins about the weather fill the chasm between them.

  Nia knew he was trying to take up all her time, make it impossible for her to have a moment alone, no time to think between him and school. And with the Christmas holidays approaching, things would be even more intense – not that either of them had mentioned the fact that it would be their first Christmas without her mother.

  ‘Sol’s going to be waiting for me.’ Nia tried another tack as they sped past the trees and the bus stop. It was empty, of course. Everyone else would be at home, getting ready for school, making breakfast, doing normal things instead of … this.

  ‘No, he isn’t.’ Jacob shook his head.

  ‘What?’ Nia dropped her defences and turned to face him as he drove steadily along the road. ‘What have you done? Did you tell him you’re taking me to school? Oh my god, Dad! Please tell me you didn’t?’ Nia looked at her father in disbelief.

  He’d obviously decided that she wouldn’t be calling for Sol, wouldn’t be walking to the bus stop with him as they did every single day. What did it matter? Just another change being made without her permission, without anyone thinking to talk to her first, to ask her if this was OK? What was the point of this stupid conversation anymore? She’d give him silence back, that’d show him. She’d let him know what it felt like to be stuck with someone who didn’t want to speak, who kept all their words locked away, buckled down, wrapped up beneath layers and layers and layers of nothing.

  Sure, sure, it was completely normal to stumble through their lives in this way. Pretending would be a lot easier.

  Jacob pulled up by the lakeshore. Nia climbed down from the truck and whistled to the dogs. Handel and Verdi jumped down out of the cab and ran past her, full of life, happiness and joy at the prospect of an early morning walk. Nia slammed the door shut and ran after them towards Wildsee, desperate to put some distance between herself and her father. If he was set on spending every second of the day with her then he’d have to do the talking. She wasn’t going to fill any more of the silences with chatter about school, her day and her life while he sat there just listening but never joining in, never offering a story of his own to balance things out. She felt like she was on a conversational seesaw, with her stuck at the top, getting nowhere.

  She caught Verdi up. He’d stopped at the edge of the water, scenting something, probably a deer, and was snouting the ground excitedly. She looked over her shoulder, watching her father trailing behind her at a slower pace, then turned back to spot Handel further up ahead tracking something in the depths of the bracken. Nia sprinted towards him, leaving her father far behind, alone with his silence and his memories.

  Chapter Five

  Nia tried pulling the covers over her head so she wouldn’t have to engage in another awkward conversation with her father. It was Saturday morning and she’d had more than enough of her father’s company over Christmas; she couldn’t stand another second of it. Nia would have been happy to pretend Christmas was cancelled this year, but her father couldn’t quite bring himself to ignore it entirely. As if anyone cared what they did, which traditions they followed and which they could no longer face without her mother there to infuse them with life and love. Nia had blacked the days out on the calendar in the kitchen with a permanent marker, so she wouldn’t have to see Christmas Eve and the blank space where her mother’s neat writing should have been. Her father didn’t mention this, if he’d even noticed. She was almost looking forward to going back to school next week after the New Year celebrations. But right now, the only remedy for this solitary confinement was a drastic one. And probably dangerous.

  Nia tried to remember what it felt like to be on her own but all she could hear was her father’s foot tapping on the wood floor. She could smell sap and wood smoke and his pine-scented aftershave. Just go away, she willed him. Leave me alone.

  ‘I’ve got to work. And as it’s Saturday, so have you. Come on, Nia, stop giving me grief and get up. I’ve made bacon sandwiches…’ His voice took on a persuasive tone.

  Nia groaned, threw the covers off and looked at her father. He looked back. Neither of them said anything for a moment, wondering which move to make next. She gave in first, swinging her legs out of the bed.

  ‘OK. I’m up, you win. Again,’ she said flatly. He nodded at her then left the room. She almost wished he’d say something, shout at her and demand she pull herself together, instead of this endless nodding and silence and acceptance of her anger. He was letting her punish him, which took the punch out of it somehow. Her mother would have laughed at her, would have pulled her out of bed and told her to grow up, but she wasn’t here. Besides, her mother would have let her go on the tour, would have proudly bought tickets for the whole family for the opening performance in the Hofkirche in Innsbruck. The house was empty of her singing, her shouting, her laughing, her constant noise, chatter, music and life. It was a quiet place now, empty, waiting for something to come along and fill it back up.

  Nia took as long as she could in the shower, unnecessarily washing her hair. She was even longer getting dressed, making an effort: plaiting small sections of her hair and matching her blood-red lipstick to her scarf. Her father had made it for her birthday and although she wanted to stay angry with him and not wear it, she couldn’t: it was still her favourite scarf. She pulled on her thick red woolly tights and turned the waistband of her denim skirt over to make it just a bit shorter, flattening the pockets down with her hand. She looked at her face as she put on another coat of mascara. At least she could be herself at the craft market; she would sing and play her guitar and busk for the tourists. It wouldn’t matter who saw her busking today as none of that would matter after tonight.

  Nia put a third pair of studs in her right ear; these were just for her father. He’d refused to take her to get her ears pierced, so she’d done it herself with one of her mother’s sewing needles, a lump of snow and an apple as Sol had looked on, laughingly covering his own ears to stop her doing the same to him.

  ‘Nia, your breakfast is getting cold, come on or I’ll give it to Handel!’ he called up to her. She knew she was trying his patience. She sat down at the kitchen table and squeezed out a small thank you as she bit into her bacon sandwich. Verdi and Handel watched every mouthful, salivating. Her father looked surprised and then gave her a small wink, uncertain but pleased, as he sat down opposite her. She watched as he sipped his coffee and then she saw him notice her scarf. He looked like he was going to say something, but changed his mind at the last moment and bit into his sandwich instead.

  They didn’t speak over breakfast but maybe something had begun to melt. The air became less heavy, and when they got into his pick-up truck and he turned Talk Radio on, Nia for once didn’t wish he’d let her switch to a station that played music. She sat back and listened to the news with him, boring as it was, more droning on about fuel prices and tax cuts. She rested her head against the window as her father drove carefully along the forest road to Seefeld and went through her plans for tonight one more time.

  The colours blurred as they drove past the turning to Sol’s house, the bus stop, the log-felling site where her father worked and then their school as they reached the outskirts of town. The colours changed from the green of the pines to creamy buildings topped with red-tiled roofs, which merged with a palette of pastel-painted town-centre hotels, broken up by the bell tower that crowned the skyline, Sol’s favourite
place.

  Her father pulled into the car park and turned off the engine. Nia felt her stomach drop. This meant he wanted to talk, something neither of them did very well. He never turned the engine off; he usually left it running while she grabbed her boxes of spoons and matches to sell. She didn’t want him being nice now; there was nothing he could say that would change her mind or make her feel guilty about what she was going to do.

  They’d never properly spoken about it in detail – her mother’s death. He’d never sat her down and explained exactly what had happened that night. The police had told her more than he had, answering all the questions that had staggered out of her mouth. Words spoken by a kind woman in uniform had merged together so that all she’d heard was accident, black ice, impact and then the small word at the end like a frightening full stop. She’d tried to black out her dreams, paint them over with the colour of the night so that she couldn’t see the footage play, couldn’t watch the words turn into pictures of a car going too fast, sliding on the blackest of ice, wrapping itself around a too-solid tree, before the tape stopped forever.

  And when it was just the two of them, and when everyone else had gratefully crept back to the light of their normal lives, neither of them had had the right words. They tried them all, starting sentences, stopping, looking for directions, for signposts to show them the way back, to help them find the right path to one another, but they never quite made it. There’d always be another twist and turn, another fork in the road. And their compass was lost.