by Dee Winter
“Tomorrow?” I say, spellbound and scared. I haven’t even got through today yet. Today is Father’s Day. Tomorrow is Eviction Day and now it is also going to be The Start of the Rest of My New Life Day. Really though I already knew about the kicking out, having read the eviction thing, but I didn’t believe it. In fact, I don’t think this current chain of events could be any less comprehendible for me. If an alien from outer space landed his spaceship on the car bonnet right now and got out and asked for directions, I don’t think I would even be shocked at all.
“Yes. Tomorrow. But don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I’ll be there with you. Heather’s lovely. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, and like I said, it’s quite a nice little place. In fact, I’m sorry I’m not moving in there myself.”
I look at him sharply, even though I’ve never even seen this room, I feel like it’s mine already. He better not even dare to think about it. “So you’ve seen this room then? What’s it like?”
“Yes, I’ve seen it, yes, it’s nice.” Unexpectedly a spiked pain sears through my foot like a wave of fresh fire and I sharply inhale and scrunch up my eyes closed. It hurts, a lot, and for now I cannot speak again. “By the way, I’m sorry but you were right, I took your tablets. I don’t know why.”
“Yeah, I knew that already.” I say sharply, breathing in deep. This sudden new onset of pain hasn’t let me forget.
“How is your foot?” he asks.
“Well it was ok, ‘til just now but it’s started hurting again. I think I’ve had too much to think about to be honest. It just got bad again now.” I am very much aware of the sting beneath the bandages. In fact, now I realise it’s been a very long time since I have taken any of my super-strong mind-altering little biscuits. “Where are my pills?” I ask.
He reaches into the back pocket of my car seat and brings them forward. I jokingly snatch the plastic bag from him, smiling only to hide my pain-filled desperation. They all seem to be there. I quickly open up the boxes and pop pills out of the foil packets into my lap. I greedily swallow them with a bottle of something sweet that Rob hands to me from the pocket of his door. I cannot bear the thought of this pain getting any worse now. Pain is useless and needless and chemically avoidable. Painkillers are the answer. Soon enough there will be a distraction so much more than this tingling bit of pain. I try not to even think ahead but feel too feeble to take on anything else at all right now. Tablets are taken.
“Are we there yet?” I say eventually after what seems like a fairly long silence. It turns out we’ve not been driving for long. We’ve still got quite a way to go. I feel tired like I want to go back to bed. As it’s not an option, there’s not a lot else I can do or say right now. I yawn and stretch out in my seat. I roll it back so I am almost horizontal. I try to make myself comfortable. My cheek turns and touches the cool leather. “Mind if I sleep?” I say. The silent shrug of response I take to mean as ok. I stretch out. I kick off my loose-tied trainers. I lean forward to turn up the heater and it starts to blow out warm air that smells of heated dust. I feel exhausted, exhilarated too, but sleep is what I need right now, so sleep is what I do. I shut my eyes and start to feel myself drift slowly away, listening to the quiet softness of the hum.
I don’t know how long I’m out for, half an hour, maybe more. The painkillers definitely helped, without them I’m sure I wouldn’t have slept at all, with so much to think about. But the drugs led me to a heady place of blissful ignorance. But sleeping during the day makes time disjointed. Now the day has turned shadowy and cloudy too. Everything is dark and gloomy grey. Rainstorms like the one we are in at the moment, I imagine to be everywhere, darkening the whole entire sky, like judgement day is upon us. The sound of thunder rumbles gently above me, but not loud enough I think to have woken me up. We are stopped in a petrol station and Rob’s not in the car. There’s no music playing now and it’s quiet, aside from the distant dissolving echoes of the thunderclap. I suddenly don’t feel well at all. I feel myself turn green. It’s almost instant as vomit projects out of me like a frog’s tongue to catch a fly. I only just open the car door in time to lean out. I’m sick straight down all over the petrol station forecourt, by the step of the petrol pumps. I do not know who is nearby to see this disturbing spectacle but frankly I feel too wretched to care. There was nothing else I could have done. I feel a little better but still far away from ok. My foot is hurting still, taking on a new dimension of pain, feeling juddery, tingly, and hot. It throbs and burns and aches like I never noticed before. Although I know I have not waited long enough since I last took painkillers, I’m very tempted to overdose. Not to kill myself, just to kill the pain. Now I think about it, the pills I took earlier are probably all sicked up on the floor. I think to myself that it will be fine to take a couple more. So safety second, I take two more tiny cookies and say a little prayer wishing that I don’t die or damage myself in any way and please please please, may I not be sick again. Just as I breathe out and whisper Amen, Rob gets back in the car. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah... fine.” I lie, still feeling green, inside and out.
“You don’t look it.”
“I’m fine.” I protest, and still he looks disbelieving of my word.
“Ok,” he says eventually. “If you need to be sick again tell me straight. I don’t want you puking in my car.”
“Ok.” I say. “I’ll try.”
“No, you will,” he says. “If you so much as retch in here.”
“Ok, ok…” I say, just wanting him to shut up now. I open the window to let some of the chilly, damp and hopefully medicating air in. I concentrate on taking deep, long and gentle breaths in and out as we start to drive off again and into the unknown.
I sit still and be quiet as on we move, while concentrating hard on trying not to feel ill, let alone actually being sick. It would be more than my life’s worth. I imagine that my mouth is being stitched tightly shut with a needle and thread. My back teeth are glued together. I can barely open my lips, only just a crack to breathe through. I also fear that soon we will be on the motorway and stopping won’t be easy. It probably won’t even be an option. This is going to be more difficult than I anticipated. Taking more strong tablets on an empty stomach, I think only now, was not a good idea. In fact, it was stupid. I feel deeply dim and full of regret. Rob keeps looking over at me. His eyes like king-size china marbles, super alert and nervous, watching me like a squirrel on the grass. I think though he is only fearful of his car getting dirty. Vomit speckles on the leather. If I am sick, I will feel better and if I do make a mess, I can clean the car tomorrow. I try not to worry.
I think it helps that Rob does seem to be driving a little more safely than usual. He goes a slow and legal pace, steady too, with no charging ahead to the next set of traffic lights that are stuck on red, and then slamming his breaks on. My stomach still is churning. Holding it back is a constant internal battle. I just focus on my breathing and appreciate every single particle of fresh air that I feel rushing through the space that leads to my lungs. It’s the nastiest of feelings, a cross between gut-churning travel sickness, the hangover from hell and the feeling you get after eating something dodgy, like a raw in the middle chicken shish, all rolled into one. This I believe is the ultimate sickness, the Olympic gold medal winning kind. I imagine myself on the top of a podium, national anthem playing, flower bunch in hand. Any distraction will do. I somehow manage to keep a lid on the bubbling over cooking pot that is me, all of the way. It takes a lot of doing. It is a long drive.
As soon as we pull over again to stop on a residential street I throw open the car door and puke what is left of my guts up on to the road. I feel like I am going to turn inside out and hear myself make noises like the devil is escaping from my body. Eventually there is nothing left at all and I stop, coughing and spitting on the ground. I then can’t move at all for quite some time. “Here, have some water.” Rob says in the distance, but I’m feeling too ill to even respond, never mind move to reach
for it. He gets out of the car and walks round to the passenger side and inspects the floor. He gently clasps my shoulder and softly says, “We’re here now, but don’t feel like you have to come in with me if you don’t feel up to it. You can just stay out here in the car if you want.”
“We’re here already?” I say disbelieving. I am not ready for this. I feel like I’ve gone on holiday and my suitcase has been left behind. This is a test without any revision done at all. A debt to pay and there’s no money in the bank. I have come totally unprepared. I cannot do this.
“Yes. We’re here.” Rob says, gently. He sounds calm, like the flat sea in the late afternoon, and warm like the sunset that rests upon it. He is ready. I am not. I cannot do this now, even with him.
Little sparks of adrenalin fire all about inside me. They take over, like an army of red ants and I feel uncomfortable and nervous and angry and full of deep dark doubt. There is still the tiny blip of hope somewhere in there. But this is now so very small, it barely even makes itself known to me at all. I don’t believe it exists any more in my heart, even though I know it’s in there, somewhere. Don’t dare to hope now. Don’t set yourself up for a fall. Stay on the ground. I am not prepared and so I will not let it happen. I still feel sick as well but the rush of a million other feelings stops me thinking about that at least. I can barely think or move or even do anything at all.
I take many deep breaths, so many I am almost hyperventilating. I’ve come this far. I really don’t know what to do. I think about what is the worst that can happen. He could slam the door in my face. He could not speak to me. He could just be a horrible person to the core, a rotten worm-infested apple. I try to think reasonably. What if the very worst did happen, even then I am no worse off. I will always have my brother and mum and that’s all that matters. They’re my family. If my dad is a pig, so be it. Of course as I’m now expecting bad things to happen, it makes them all the more likely they will. It still could all go brilliantly and maybe I will be shocked. But I’m not expecting that. If he was a good man surely he would want to know. Surely some sort of effort would have been made in the past nineteen years. That’s a long time to have to think about doing something. I think that he just hasn’t thought about me much at all for my whole life and any proof to suggest otherwise is evidentially zero. Rob waits patiently as I just sit, thinking, still undecided what to do.
Eventually I stop thinking. I come to a decision. After everything thrown at me these past few days, I feel like this is meant to be, that this day has come along on purpose. I feel I have no choice but to get out of the car and to meet him. This is my fate and I will only regret it if I don’t. If I go home now I will never know. True. It may turn out to be one big mistake and if it is, so be it, life will go on. The main thing is my brother is alive and I am here with him. He wanted me to come here and I have done. I’ve come this far, I might as well go all the way.
I check my appearance in the mirror above my seat. I look a horror. My eyes are bloodshot and there is no makeup at all to hide behind now. There are traces of dry saliva and snot sticking around my nose and mouth. I rub my nose with a tissue and my face with my hands. I push back my wild hair with my fingertips trying to mould it into some sort of normality. I know that this is not the time to give two hoots about what I look like. However, I feel impelled to make at least some sort of effort for this stranger I already don’t like.
I light one more cigarette. I am feeling a little better. I count five minutes go very quickly by on the digital clock display in the car in silence. Ever patient, Rob is standing by. From what I see of the house from the outside, it seems nothing amazing. I don’t know what I was expecting. I am glad it’s not like a palace or something double-fronted. I look more closely at the semi-detached thing that is his home. The outside walls are pebble dashed and painted white. The closed front door is deepest navy blue gloss. It has a frosted glass rainbow shaped window so high up no-one could see anything through. The driveway has no plants or trees or bushes. I can’t even see any weeds, just yellowing speckled gravel. The shiny white-framed double glazed windows are filled entirely with plain roller blinds pulled down. This does not look or feel like any home I know. It reminds me of a big boxy igloo placed awkwardly in the desert and I start to feel very cold and bad inside again. I don’t like it here.
The cigarette is not enough. I just feel like crying and try hard to hold back the tears that are starting to prick the corners of my eyes. My insides feel so tense I think they are actually in knots. I cannot hold onto to myself for much longer. I have to keep reminding myself to breathe. Sometimes I forget to and my heart starts beating fast and I go a little dizzy then I gasp. I just know it’s all about to spiral out of control again. I am just too scared. “Hey,” Rob says putting a gentle hand on my shoulder. “If you don’t want to come in, it’s fine. You wait here.”
His touch and his words bring me right back down to ground level and to my grip on things and I say, “But we’re doing this together, right?” I say.
“You’ve come with me this far. You don’t have to come in with me. I’ll go in. You can wait here. If you change your mind, you can always come in later or...” he pauses, “...or you can come back another time.” I’m certainly not thinking that this is going to be a regular thing. Rob waits beside me for a very long time. Eventually his patience wanes. His breathing is heavy and deep. He has waited long enough. “I don’t want to be too late.” He says and starts to move away from the car. I want to. Part of me wants to, but I cannot even try to move with him. I am frozen solid, my body is stuck. He says he won’t be too long and that he will come back to see me shortly. He turns and crosses the wide pavement on to the big gravel driveway that crunches under his feet with every step. I can only watch him, still incapable but wanting to follow, to get up and go with him over the gravel, across the driveway, through the door and in to the semi-detached house. It looks so clean and clinical and is just so far from what I imagined. I was fully expecting Rob to drive us to someplace just like the Hovel.
Every living cell in me wants to move but it’s like they’ve all died at once. I feel dead in my bones too. In fact, my whole body battery has gone flat. My eyes are still working, my brain only just about. It’s like a heavy darkness has fallen down upon me, a weight of a twenty tonnes. Even when I thought Rob was dead, it didn’t feel like this. This is a hundred times more horrible. But the feeling of panic slowly subsides, like the sun is rising, bringing light on the horizon as I watch Rob stalk away. He is gone. I don’t have to go with him now. I relax a little. I look again at the house he’s walking up to. I think it is lovely compared to where we live in our dark, damp and smelly flat. I am longing to know what Rob is seeing and hearing and what is going on in there but I still can’t move. How I wish to be a fly on the wall or a little CCTV camera within. I settle in my seat and face forward, quietly accepting my concrete state.
I take my phone from out of my pocket. On seeing its darkness I remember only now that I switched it off. I didn’t want anyone to get at me. I needed space, time and silence. I wonder whether I should switch it on or not. I hold it in my hand, feeling its gentle and comforting weight. I think who may have tried to get hold of me. Mum, maybe checking how I am. Benny maybe, maybe not, probably not after the furore yesterday. I smile at the memory of nearly having put him to death. Benny had a lucky escape. I did too in that I did not become a murderer. I am not guilty for now. He would maybe call just to see how I was, after running me over, but I somehow don’t think he will now. Maybe Etienne, I suppose. He had a lucky escape too, from all the drama that followed after he left. I think it would be nice if he did call. I remember the wonderful time we had together. I feel warm in my belly and potentially in love but only momentarily, as I look up to see the house and feel cold again.
The thought that Rob is in there now talking to my dad is unbearable. It’s impossible almost, but the reality is, it is happening, just metres away and I feel horrible. I’
m so close to my unknown father and I cannot find it in me to move forward at all, just so I can start to get to know him. I want to but feel that I cannot take that risk. All I get is bad vibes.
I light up what I promise will be my final cigarette and switch on my phone. I stare at it and wait. After several minutes of just watching goggle-eyed, my cigarette gets shorter and shorter, and I realise that I am not as popular as I thought I might be. I think about sending a text. Not to Benny. He doesn’t deserve my flattery ever again. Etienne deserves every part of me but reality is we’re complete one night stand strangers. All this, that’s going on now is too much and too heavy to start getting him involved in. I think mum. Let her know I’m here and ok. I could but don’t. I don’t want to upset her again.
Just as I am thinking what to do, I become aware of a shadowy presence. I know, without even looking, standing by the car, at the other side of my door is my dad. I drop my phone and gasp. With just a split second of hesitation my head jerks to look at him.
17
Father’s Day
Time stands still as I look up and see his face, distantly familiar yet so very very strange. An old man. A withered version of Rob. Grey. There’s no doubt at all in my mind that he is Rob’s father. It’s him thirty years from now. It makes all the hairs on my arms stand up like little blades of grass on a frosty morning, even the marrow in my bones feels frozen. I don’t think he looks anything like me. I didn’t expect him to and for that I am relieved. I don’t think I could cope with an older reflection of me in my face. I feel I have no choice but to get out of the car. I don’t want to but something automatic inside takes control and makes me move. As I struggle out, foot feeling numb, colder than cold, I see Rob standing close behind him. He keeps a fair distance but is close enough and just where I want him to be. I stand and face my supposed father. He’s only inches away but the distance between us is huge. There is an invisible ice canyon I cannot cross. I don’t want to speak to him. I don’t know what to say.