A Little Rain

by Dee Winter

  He speaks first. He turns his wrinkled, slightly pudgy head as he says, “Ella, where have you been all my life?” Maybe a house, no, a block of flats has landed upon me, wicked-witch of the east-style. Utterly and totally crushed, I feel like getting straight back in the car and demanding that Rob drives me home this second, but then he speaks again. “Sorry...”

  “Sorry?” I repeat silently in my head, trying to make sense of the word.

  He moves closer like he might touch me but I quickly shuffle back to a safer distance. He drops his hands to his side, turns to face Rob and shrugs. “What?” he says. “I said sorry.” Rob blinks and shakes his head in just a tiny motion. I know what he’s thinking. He wants to back me up but he won’t say anything now. Don’t piss the old man off, not before he lets you move in. I don’t begrudge his silence. It’s not all about me, for once. This is for him.

  “Look, you can’t just say sorry, and expect me to be ok.” I blurt out unexpectedly and they both look at me. “You know what? I’m sorry too…” I say and I turn and go to get back in the car before I say something I regret. I know I’m right but I don’t want to put nine inch nails all around the edge of the already shut coffin that is mine and my dad’s relationship.

  Rob comes over to me closely. He whispers, “He really is sorry, you know. He just ain’t good with words, like me.” His breath feels warm. I stop and think maybe, just maybe, I am being harsh and my reaction hasty. I get up from being seated in the front of the car once more. It isn’t any easier a second time.

  I say, “Ok, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound rude, and if I did, I’m sorry... But things just can’t be perfect straight away. This is going to take time. I need time. I’m not going to lie. I’m not ready for this. It’s just too much for me to take in at the moment.”

  “We can give it time,” he says softly, apologetically. I look at him and I know that he is sorry. I can see it. The expression in his sparkling silver-grey eyes is true. Not that I can trust him yet, of course. I can give him the benefit of the doubt this time. “Let’s see where we go from here,” he says, and I let him move his hand towards my arm and feel his touch for the first time. Apart from fingers pressing gently on my shoulder, I feel nothing else. The more I look at him, the more like Rob he becomes. I can see similar bits in them both. His expressions are familiar and his voice has the same tone of depth and grit, just it sounds older, croakier, and maybe even wiser. He’s far from being forgiven but his second chance starts now. He says, “Do you want to come in and have something to eat? Or come in and have a drink at least?” I can’t take my eyes away from his. The voices in my head are silent.

  “Ok,” I say, reluctantly but I’m suddenly starving. I hear my stomach bubble with anticipation as it finds a new enthusiasm for food. I cannot even remember the last time I ate. He opens the back door of the car to get my crutches and passes them gently to me. He smiles, again like Rob, and I begin to trust him a little more. After helping me, he turns and heads towards the house.

  Rob waits near me. “Come on then.” He says, softly and gently, and I know now for sure, I am doing this for him. I still want to go home but I really want to go in the house too. I start to cross the pavement to the driveway easily and then it becomes more of a struggle to move on the loose gravel, both in body and mind. My crutches slip away uncertainly with every step. I just look ahead and go slowly and steadily forward and on through the now open navy blue door. Rob closes it behind me. I step into a little hallway, with boots and shoes, umbrellas and coats. Before I’m even all the way in, I notice that the porch smells weird, like maybe there is cabbage cooking in the kitchen. As I walk further in, everything seems wooden and now the whole house starts to smell like the furniture polish. I wonder if animals live here. It does not smell like dog, but I wonder if they may be hiding, about to jump out on me. I look ahead in anticipation but nothing comes.

  We are ushered into the lounge which is one big stark room that goes all the way back through the house to a dining room. At the end there are patio windows through which I can see a very green garden that just seems to go on and on. I have never seen so much space. Plenty of room for Rob I think. I look around at everything which is so sparse and white. The walls are like blocks of vanilla ice-cream. The soft dense lumpy bumpy carpet is reminiscent of cauliflower cheese. The sofas are a little darker, like mushroom soup. The dining room suite is neutral. The rustic wooden table is like a gigantic cheeseboard with a glass bowl of purple and green grapes in the centre. I visualise a giant wedge of brie that would fit on there too, next to a massive chunk of stilton. I imagine the smell. There are eight leather backed dining chairs that look soft and plush, the colour of crisp-breads on skinny chipstick legs. The only furniture that isn’t cream or brown is the silver super-sized television in the corner, plastic and inedible.

  “Would you like something to drink?” My dad says, and I’m tempted to ask for something strong, a double vodka with the power to numb, but Rob answers first, saying quickly that we would both like a cup of tea. Rob is the sensibility here, and he is right. Now is not the time to even think about getting drunk.

  “Two sugars please.” I say, and he leaves the room. We sit down together, Rob next to me on the mushroom sofa. It nearly eats me, it is so big. I rest my crutches on the floor and sit forward on the edge. I do not feel comfortable at all. There is nothing to see or look at. No pictures on the wall, no photos on the mantelpiece. Everything must be kept in cupboards. I find the lack of clutter disturbing. I tell Rob in a whisper, “I don’t like it here.”

  “It’s ok,” he says, his tone reassuring, expected. “We don’t have to stay long. Let’s just have some lunch, and then we’ll go, ok?”

  “Ok,” I say, and my stomach rumbles again, a tiny earthquake. Moments later a little lady walks into the room. She smiles at me. She looks far-eastern, Thai maybe. She is so very slim and pretty and small, smaller than me. She carries a white tray of cut French bread to the table. She leaves without saying a word. “Who’s that?” I hiss at Rob, under my breath. He just shrugs. About thirty seconds later, my dad walks back in, not carrying anything. I wonder where our cups of tea are. He sits down with us. Then the door is pushed open again and the lady is back, carrying a silver tea tray with cups, spoons, a teapot and even a sugar bowl. I look at Rob, then at her. She smiles at me again, bows her head and then leaves the room. “Who is that?” I say again. I feel rude asking, but I have to. No-one says anything so I hazard a guess. “Is it your maid?”

  “No,” my dad says quietly, shaking his head. I look at Rob who’s looking at the floor.

  “Who is it then?”

  “She’s my wife.” I look up to the white ceiling, still no spaceship, no little green men. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re probably right.” Oh. God... I don’t want to be right. I’m thinking that there, my new diddified step-mum is a mail-order bride who is probably younger than Rob and smells like a baby. And then she walks in again, carefully carrying two white bowls of steaming soup. I feel embarrassed. I can only look down at her feet and notice she is wearing the most delicate of shoes. Pretty pink mesh slippers with stuck-on papery flowers. She shuffles out of the room again.

  “Please, go through,” my dad says.

  Stunned into silence, I begin to walk over awkwardly with my crutches to the table. Rob helps me into my chair. My dad sits one side of me and Rob in front of the other bowl. Then the lady appears again, with just one more bowl and places it in front of my dad and then she leaves the room once more. The men start to eat noisily in the deafening silence. My ears are ringing loud like non-stop intruder alarms. I can’t ignore them. I just want to go home. They continue to eat. My belly growls again.

  Rob speaks suddenly with firm determination. “You should eat something. Have some bread at least. It’ll make you feel better. You can then take some more painkillers. Please.” He sounds almost like he’s begging now. I am hungry. Very hungry. I don’t feel like eating, but
I do. I pick up a spoon and take a small piece of bread. I dip a corner in the hot soup and bite it. Tomato soup. Tinned tomato soup. The most colourful thing in the room. I think about throwing the whole bowl at the wall. Splat! But I don’t. Defeated, I eat it, all of it, along with two more pieces of bread and now at least my belly is now silent too. I sit still and satisfied. The food was a nice distraction from everything. I start to see the tea leaves at the bottom of my cup and it makes me remember where I am. The pain that didn’t exist when I was hungry now starts to burn up from my toes to my leg again. My face scrunches up a little.

  My dad looks at me, then down towards my foot, maybe sensing my pain. “Are you ok?” he says in a voice that is so creepily like Rob’s this time, I look at him, straight, no blinks, no expression. Why do people ask that question when clearly the answer is, “No!?”

  I look at him closely still but Rob speaks, “Her boyfriend ran over her foot yesterday.”

  “Ex-boyfriend.” I add. Rob and my dad nod simultaneously and again I shiver. Mirror people. Then they say nothing. Something’s got to give in the long forever silence and it’s me. “Actually, I think I might need to go back to the hospital. My foot’s killing me!” I say instantly feeling like I’ve spoken out of turn but this stalemate was going nowhere fast and pain is the first thing on my mind.

  Surprisingly Rob says, “Ok then, we’ll go. I will take you.”

  I get up, picking up my crutches from the floor, sliding in my arms and I hear myself say bye to my dad. I don’t meet his eye. Before I start to head outside towards the car, Rob hands me the key which I put in my pocket. I start to swing away and don’t look back. I open the front door and go through, leaving it open for Rob. I don’t know how long he is going to be, but I know that he will follow. I can hear the scrape of furniture behind me as I start to move away from the front door towards the car.

  When I’m by the car, I don’t want to, but I cannot help but look behind and over at them. They are talking on the doorstep, shaking hands, saying goodbye. I am glad to be away from them. I sit in the car and wait and watch the tiny soundless tears that start falling from my face onto my lap. I can still taste tomato soup. There are breadcrumbs scattered on my clothes. I brush them away.

  Eventually, ten minutes maybe, Rob is in the car and we’re moving off. I look back at him in the wing mirror. I see him watching us go. His hands are in his pockets.

  Rob has seen my tears. He reaches for my bag of painkillers and places them on my lap. “Hey Skit,” he says rubbing my shoulder. “It’ll be ok. You’ve met him now at least. You’ve done the worst part. Things can only get better, that’s if you want them to. If you let them.” I shrug, swallowing all the tablets that I am allowed to. The silence is not so deafening now but still, I turn up the radio loud, some Euro-pop repetitive beats play drowning out the forever ringing that is still buzzing in my ears.

  18

  Moving Out, Moving On

  Time does not exist. No minutes in the hour. Everything has stopped, including the pain. My eyes are still stinging a little from salt studded tears but my face is dry now. When I found his eviction note, I thought he was dead. I was so happy to find him living but then I found myself in a boat on stormy seas about to get smashed on the rocks. But now I think of Heather and smile a little, I think I can see her vague and distant on the rough sea’s horizon, getting closer, bringing a rubber dinghy to come and rescue me, but she’s too far away to focus on yet.

  Rob asks me politely to try and start packing up my things from the flat, reminding me we move out tomorrow. Of course, I already know. He hands me a plain black canvas holdall which is big and boxy. I don’t think I even own enough stuff to fill it halfway. It feels scratchy against my hand. The handle is synthetic. He is holding a roll of bin bags too. Dark containers for this dark day. “We should chuck out any rubbish,” he says. He tells me to leave my mattress set up for tonight. I think this is it. One last sleep. When I wake up it starts. There will be no stopping. No deciding. The end is here, and so is the beginning. “I’m not going to do it for you. Anything you don’t take now, you’ll lose.”

  I start to look around the flat, hold-all in hand. The first thing I see that I want to take is Rob’s leather jacket, resting on the big brown sofa. As I pick it up and hold it close, it still has the smell of being new in places. It is heavy in my hand and must weigh a few pounds at least. It still looks good. Still mostly black as night, like a thoroughbred stallion. It’s been well looked after. I drape it round my shoulders. The softness of its touch wrapped heavy around me. I feel its warmth on my skin, feeling its closeness is like the clutch of my brother. I feel its strength as it gently creaks, and its power within. Now just a little faded in places, it has aged over the years. Greying in parts, maybe like Rob would’ve done by now, if he had hair. I reach into the deep pockets, the left one is frayed. I feel a hole in the silky seam that I can push my fingers through. Years of memories, of happiness. I want to take it with me, but he wears it, always. I place it back on the sofa.

  My eyes then move to my dirty Saturday night boots. Kicked off on the floor, by the front door, tan suede, worn soles, weathered, dirty, smelly, and still stained with ketchup and grease. All the onion has fallen off now. They smell of the grimy London street. They feel heavy as I pick them up. Images of that night of Benny and of Lee are evoked just by their weight. I remember now the smashed glass. The noise it made replays in my head on cue every time I think of it. I feel sorry for breaking the window. I am sorry for the people within. The poor family. They are probably not well off, living on an estate like that. What if it was an elderly person? I might have given them the fright of their life. To find a broken window and a bottle on the carpet, a billowing curtain and cold morning air pouring into their front room. I am so sorry. I wish I could go back and explain. Give them my reason why. Offer some sort of apology, even offer to pay to repair the damage. I suggest my thinking to Rob who says, “No. Don’t go back there. Don’t ever go back there. What if you went there and saw Lee? What if someone saw you and recognised you? You could be in trouble. Criminal damage. Assault. You must never go back there. Don’t even worry about paying for the damage. It’s a council estate. They get their repairs done anyway.” But still, I feel bad.

  The boots are now gripped between my fingers. A solemn reminder of that night. I look at them closely again. They are really dirty, stained by the gloop from the ground, the rain from the sky, and more recently the burger and its accomplices, onion, ketchup and grease. A lot of grease marks I see now, like splattered drops of paint. I know they are not going to come off. I cannot put boots in a washing machine. I daren’t. One broken window, I’ve caused enough damage. I don’t want to break the washing machine too. One thing I can smile about, the uneven front of the worn right sole which kicked Lee hard in the shin, causing him to shriek like a startled monkey. This little memory is good. Without these boots I could have died or been attacked or anything could have happened. But I have no choice now but to put these physical remnants of a bad memory in the bin. They land on the plastic bottom with a thud. I look down at them. The toe of the right one points up at me, just one last time. Lucky escape. I close the lid and look up the stairs and at Heather’s home. I see a little beige ceramic sign next to the door I never noticed before. It says simply, in green handwritten scrawl, decorated with pastel flowers, ‘The Haven’.

  I head back into the flat at a speedy hobble. Looking down I notice the scruffy thin carpets in the hallway. I can see the floorboards round the edge. I notice each speck of grit, every crumb of once was food, every uneven bump and cigarette burn. The edges fraying, detached. I also see holes in the skirting, big enough for a mouse or rat, the wood the creamy colour of old, disillusioned paint. The damage they did fighting is still plain to see. Black smudges, spatters and smears of blood. I pick up the scattered cushions from the floor putting them in open-topped removal boxes. Rob has already packed what is ours. Cutlery, clothes, clock
s, safely stowed in heavy cardboard. I trace my fingers down the corner’s edge of one. It feels smooth, but smells like year old dust, like when the Christmas decorations come down from the loft. We’re leaving most of the furniture as it’s the landlords. My indispensables of daily living are all I need to take with me. The kitchen looks dirty, the bathroom now filthy, I will never clean this place again. I go in the bathroom first, taking my wash bag with me. The sink is in need of a scour with sticky soap residue clinging to all sides. The chrome taps are very green. I pick up my shampoo, red-boxed toothpaste, and my green and yellow toothbrush, wild and frayed. My beige bath towels, one big, one small. My face cloth and sponge, aging and rather smelly. My cleaning kit and bathroom bits go in a box of their own too. Yellow sponge, sprays, bottles, brush and bucket.

  I look around the kitchen. There is nothing for me. Burnt saucepans, chipped mugs, cracked plates. They can keep them. I take the custard creams and pink wafer biscuits and the half-full jar of coffee. I eat a sweet and crispy strawberry wafer first, dropping many crumbs, but one is not enough. I eat one more and then they go in the holdall too.

  Back to my bedroom. Into the holdall goes underwear first, some clean, some not so. Vests, crinkled t-shirts, one long-sleeved, a stained jumper, scruffy hoodie, dirty unmatched socks beyond the ways of washing. My fur coat. I smile as I pack that. The memory of that night will last forever. The wardrobe is now empty, so are the drawers apart from bits of hair and fluff. Everything is packed.

  As I lift up the mattress on the floor, just to check beneath, a glint of gold catches my eye and my breath. I look closer to find one of Rob’s old sovereigns still on a chain. He’s never mentioned it being lost before. It used to hang from his neck all the time, years ago. I feel guilty straight away and don’t know whether to tell him. I want to keep it and if he doesn’t know now, maybe he never will. But not telling him feels deeply wrong so I find him and show him. “Oh, wow, I thought I’d lost that a long time ago. You know dad gave it to me when I was a boy. I used to wear it all the time. Until I got sick and tired of people asking about it, so I stopped wearing it and put it away. I think Ruby found it in the drawer one day. She liked playing with it, wearing it and stuff. She’s not coming back here now, so, you can keep it.”