Last Night

by Kerry Wilkinson

  ‘I checked the toilets and Tracy’s logged onto the till,’ Olivia says. ‘Everything should be set for night shift.’

  ‘You’re too good to me, Livvie. Too good. Young girl like you should be off seeing the world, breaking the hearts of all those boys.’

  She wraps her arms across her front, flattered yet embarrassed because I’m here. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she says, before turning to me. ‘Can we go?’

  I use the table to push myself up, fighting and losing the battle against giving the old-woman sigh.

  Olivia says nothing as we head to the car, clambering into the passenger seat and then resting her head on the window. I touch her gently on the knee and she neither flinches, nor kicks me away.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ I ask.

  ‘Bashington. There’s that block of flats on the outskirts, near the park. D’you know where I mean?’

  I tell her that I do. Bashington is the closest town to North Melbury. Our nearest rivals, if you will. There was uproar a few years back when Bashington won a Britain in Bloom commendation and we didn’t. This is the sort of place in which we live.

  The roads are nearly empty and, though it is largely country lanes between the two places, having someone else in the passenger seat makes everything feel more comfortable.

  It’s now been four full days since Tyler was last seen and I can’t remember if this is the same length of time as the previous occasions when he disappeared. The last time was between Christmas and new year. He and Olivia had gone to the Red Lion at lunchtime and ended up having a row over something of which I’m not sure. I only know that much because I went to school with one of the barmaids and saw her in town a few days later. Tyler stormed out, flinging a pint glass into the wall as he went – and that was the last anyone saw of him until after Boxing Day. He was definitely back before new year but I wouldn’t be sure of the actual day. All I saw of it was that Olivia was upset for a couple of days and then the clouds lifted and there were rainbows and unicorns once more.

  I do worry about her mood swings, not to mention her infatuation with a young man who thinks throwing pint glasses in a pub is perfectly acceptable. That’s not to mention the time he went off with another girl, or the multiple occasions he’s been arrested for shoplifting. But what is there to do? If I tried to stop her seeing him, she’d rebel even more. And she’s eighteen anyway. My mother used to use the ‘not under my roof’-stuff on me and it only made me spend more time outside with Ellie, Wayne and Jason.

  Look where that led.

  Olivia hasn’t spoken for almost fifteen minutes. Her head is pressed against the glass of the side window. I suspect she’s dozed off, though, when I glance sideways, her eyes are open.

  ‘I know you miss him, love.’

  Her only response is a deep breath through her nose.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do?’

  ‘No. This is good.’

  She sounds so pained that it hurts me. I want her to be small enough that I can pick her up, wrap her in a blanket and hold her tight to me.

  There’s a little more silence and then: ‘I’ve set up a Facebook page.’

  Olivia speaks so softly that I can barely hear her over the warm air being spewed from the vents.

  ‘That’ll do some good,’ I reply, not really knowing what I’m talking about.

  ‘It’s called Find Tyler. There are some pictures of him, plus I’ve put down some of the places he used to go. That sort of thing. Some of his friends have shared it.’

  It’s a fine line between encouragement and being patronising, so I offer what I hope is a reassuring ‘mmm’, rather than overdoing it.

  Olivia doesn’t add anything to that, not speaking again until the Bashington block of flats is in sight. Despite the town’s commendations for its attractiveness, this part is an ugly stain on the area. It’s a ten-storey pebble-dashed mistake which the council have been talking about knocking down almost since it was built. Olivia directs me to a darkened car park and asks if I’ll wait. There are no street lights, only a pair of skips and a line of overgrown trees that flail imposingly against the night sky. I’d rather go with her but don’t have much of a choice. She disappears into the shadows, heading in the vague direction of the tower and I know that I don’t approve of all this.

  In essence, my daughter – my teenage daughter – hangs around with dodgy people in dodgy areas. Does that make me a bad mother for knowing about it and not stopping it; or would it make me a bad mother for trying to stop it and only succeeding in causing arguments that make Olivia want to move out? She could end up living somewhere like here. For now, at least there’s some degree of knowing she’s safe. She generally does let either Dan or me know if she’s staying out but, most times, she sleeps in her own bed anyway.

  The block of flats is largely in darkness, with only a handful of lights glimmering through curtains or around the gaps in blinds. From the outside, it doesn’t look as if too many people live here. I’ve not been this close before – but it’s hard to miss the blight when driving through.

  I wait in the dark for a little over ten minutes before Olivia hurries back from the shadows. She’s hugging her arms across her front, shivering from the chill as she slips back into the car and closes the door with a slam. A puff of breath disappears into the warming air.

  There’s little point in asking if she found anything because her features are taut, her gaze distant.

  ‘Do you want me to take you somewhere else?’ I ask.

  She replies breathlessly. It’s hard to know for certain, but I think she mentions someone named ‘Peggy’ – and then directs me through the roads of Bashington until asking me to stop outside a row of housing association apartments. It’s an improvement on the tower block but not by much. The long terrace is grubby with years of neglect. Moss is growing between the tiles that are attached to the facias around the upper windows and there are scorch marks on the muddied lawn at the front.

  Olivia opens her door, mutters that she’ll be right back, and then disappears into a walkway between two terraced buildings.

  A dog is barking somewhere in the distance and there is so much shadow that it’s hard to see much more than the outline of the buildings. It’s chilled enough that my knuckles are starting to stiffen without the heat from the vents.

  Olivia returns after another ten minutes or so, her face grim. ‘There’s a play park round the corner,’ she says. ‘Can we check there?’

  Her definition of ‘round the corner’ isn’t literal and she directs me another half-mile or so through the estate until we arrive at a small playground on a patch of green next to a pub. It’s a much nicer area of town, all yummy-mummies and 4x4s in the car park during the day. Olivia first checks the pub and then I spot her emerging from the door at the back. She traces the outline of the park and then sits on the swings, making a phone call before heading back into the pub and re-emerging from the front door. It’s clear she thinks I didn’t see her, so I don’t bring it up.

  ‘Where now?’ I ask, but I get a long, mournful sigh in response.

  ‘Can we go for food?’ Olivia replies.

  It’s half past ten, past my bedtime, let alone time to eat – but this is the first thing we’ve done in a long time where it’s been only the two of us.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’

  ‘McDonald’s.’

  A hint of a smile creeps onto Olivia’s face. She bites her lip as if trying to force it back but it’s too late. I’ve already seen it.

  North Melbury is a relatively sleepy area – but there’s a service station a little further up the dual carriageway that’s open all day. Aside from The Cosmic, it’s one of the few places for miles that’s open late.

  I set off without complaint and we have something approaching a normal conversation. It skirts all our issues, of course. Neither of us mention the impending separation and, for a few moments at least, Tyler is forgotten as well. We talk about her wor
k and she tells me some funny stories about Rahul and her colleagues. She tells me what Ellie already has – that she’s looking at possible college courses for next year. It’s good to hear it from her. I don’t mention that Ellie had already said something.

  There’s a small queue at the McDonald’s drive-thru but that only extends the time I get to spend talking to my daughter as an equal. It’s a glimpse of the relationship we could have. I miss her being that little girl I could smother with a blanket – but I look forward to the things she’s going to do in the future. They’re all parts of the same whole.

  She orders two double cheeseburgers, large fries and a chocolate milkshake, plus asks for sweet chilli sauce on the side. I pay, obviously, and then any doubts she might be under-eating are shredded completely as she spends the journey home munching her way through the bag of food.

  It’s nearing half past eleven when I pull into the garage and park. Olivia has finished her food and is busy cleaning her fingers on a wedge of napkins.

  She touches my arm before I can get out of the car, gripping me firmly until I turn to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Olivia closes her eyes and, when she reopens them, there are tears clinging to her lower eyelashes. ‘Do you mind if I sit in here for a bit? Just to, y’know…’

  She doesn’t finish – but I do know. To have some time alone. I pass her the keys and say I’ll see her in the morning.

  I’m halfway up the stairs, on my way to bed, when I realise that, for the first time in a long time, I’ve actually enjoyed the evening. A couple of hours with my daughter that didn’t involve us arguing is all it took. Perhaps it’s that but, by the time my head hits the pillow, I’ve convinced myself that everything’s going to be all right after all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thursday

  The digital clock next to the bed reads 05:53 when I’m woken by someone banging on the front door. In my bleary, confused state, I think it might be Alice. She’ll be in some sort of military boot camp mode, demanding Dan get himself out of bed. He’ll have to drop and give her twenty, something like that.

  When I roll over, I realise Dan isn’t in bed. I stumble onto the landing calling his name, but the sound of running water is coming from the bathroom where, presumably, he is having a shower.

  The sound of fist on glass continues to boom through the house and then the doorbell starts ringing. It isn’t one press, it’s a series of endless ding-dongs melding into one as someone’s thumb mashes the button outside.

  I grab my dressing gown from the bannister and stumble downstairs, clinging to the rail for support and fighting a yawn. It’s dark downstairs but turning on the hallway light does little for my weary eyes. The white stabs like needles into my sleep-addled brain.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.

  I call that I’m coming but it makes little difference, as the banging continues. I take a couple of seconds to check myself in the hall mirror, ensuring my dressing gown is actually covering what it should, and then unbolt the front door.

  It isn’t Alice, not that my waking mind thought it would be.

  The person on the other side of the door is a man who’s vaguely familiar. He has straggly grey hair with a matching overgrown beard. As soon as the door’s open, he lurches towards me jabbing an accusing finger.

  ‘You!’ he rages.

  I start to close the door, using it as a barrier between us.

  ‘Don’tcha close the door on me, yer stupid bitch.’

  I wonder if he’s someone I once knew from school. His face is so recognisable but I have no idea who he is.

  Realising he’s getting nowhere, the man steps backwards off the front step, still pointing but no longer trying to get into the house. I should slam the door and lock it. Probably call the police. The only reason I don’t is because it feels like I’m missing something obvious. I peep at him through the gap between door and frame, primed to slam it at any moment.

  ‘Who are you?’ I call.

  ‘Who am I? You’ve got some nerve.’

  I realise who he is at the same time as he bellows the name ‘Frank’ at me.

  He’s Tyler’s father. We’ve met once, in the early days of when Olivia started seeing Tyler. It was around eighteen months ago when I gave Tyler a lift home. Olivia was a young seventeen then – and Tyler was twenty-one or twenty-two. I didn’t know that at the time, because she told me he was seventeen. I suppose that was lie number one in what would become a series. If I’d known then, I would have shut things down straight away – and not taken her reluctance for an answer. I think Olivia might have listened to me then. In the two years since, she’s become more of her own person – and significantly more stubborn in the process. There’s a large part of that which is a good thing, of course. I want her to be independent and strong – but the other side is that she’s independent and strong against me.

  On the one and only time I met Frank, he was standing in the garden outside his bungalow smoking a marijuana cigarette. As Tyler passed him and headed inside, Frank moved across to the window of the car, blowing a plume of weed smoke towards me. I don’t think it was malicious, more that he was so used to smoking around other people that he didn’t realise I might have a problem with it. He assumed I was some sort of social worker or off-duty police officer, bringing his lad home from whatever trouble he’d been in. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least – but Olivia was already smitten.

  Frank hasn’t changed much in the past two years – but it’s enough. He’s dirtier, for one. There are mud stains on his faded leather jacket, more on his jeans. I can smell the alcohol on his breath even though there’s a good metre and a bit between us. He hasn’t shaven in days and his hair is mangling together. I think he might have slept rough, or perhaps not slept at all.

  He starts to yell, aiming a kick at the flowerpot which sits next to the path. ‘Where’s my son?!’

  ‘I don’t know. Can you please—?’

  ‘Don’t give me that. Where is he?’

  ‘I’ve not seen him.’

  ‘He was here last. His friends told me all about you.’

  The word ‘you’ is stabbing, hissed with genuine hatred.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘How you’re always on at him. How you think we’re scroungers. How we’re beneath you. I’ll tell yer something, yer stuck-up bitch—’

  Dan has appeared from nowhere, opening the door wider and standing at my side. He’s in his pyjamas but tall and strong. I hate being a woman who needs a man to protect me – I’m not, I’m really not – but I can’t help but feel a sense of relief that he’s here.

  Frank cuts himself off mid-sentence. He’s never met Dan before. Perhaps he thought I was single, or that Dan might be some weedy non-threat. At the sight of someone bigger than him, he goes silent.

  Dan is perfectly calm: An experienced teacher dealing with an out-of-control child: ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  As if the time is the most important thing here.

  ‘I, er…’

  ‘Look, Frank is it?’

  Dan opens the door further, moving onto the step as I wedge myself in half a step behind. He offers his hand but all Frank does is stare at it.

  ‘I’m sorry about your son,’ Dan adds. ‘We’ll help in any way we can. It’s just—’

  ‘I don’t want yer help.’

  Dan slowly lowers his unshaken hand as Frank stares daggers and then thrusts another finger in my direction.

  ‘It’s her. She’s always on at him. Thinks we’re freeloaders. Thinks we’re scum. I know your sort, all high and mighty. She made him run off.’

  Dan stands firm but I can sense the indecision in him. The thing is, despite the venom, there’s a lot of truth to what Frank’s saying. I don’t think he and his son are ‘scum’ – but ‘freeloaders’ is largely self-evident. Neither of them have jobs, yet they somehow find money for cigaret
tes, alcohol and marijuana. I’m not always on at Tyler himself but I do try to persuade Olivia that she’d be better off without him. Some of that will obviously get back to Tyler and, by proxy, Frank.

  As I start to think about calling the police again, Olivia appears in the doorway. There’s an inadvertent parting as Dan and I move to the side, surprised by her presence. Her skin is pale, almost glowing against her pink hair. She’s barefooted, wearing pink hot pant shorts and a matching T-shirt.

  Frank is even angrier than he was before, surging forward with a growl until Dan shoves him away.

  ‘Where is he?’ Frank snarls.

  Olivia’s voice is delicate. ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘You’ve driven him away. You know that? You! All that talk of getting a job.’

  It’s the first I’ve heard of it and it’s hard to suppress my surprise. Olivia has been arguing with me for months over Tyler but, away from here, when they’re alone, she is also apparently trying to persuade him to get a job.

  ‘Nag, nag, nag,’ Frank continues. ‘You women are all the same.’

  It’s Olivia who replies: ‘Is that what he says about me?’

  She sounds stung, damaged by the accusation. I move to step ahead of her, instinctively wanting to protect, but she pushes around me until she’s in front of both Dan and me.

  ‘Does he think I nag him?’ she asks.

  ‘You and her,’ Frank says, nodding towards me and then turning back to Olivia. ‘You’re a bad influence on him. Driving him to god knows what. Don’t think I don’t know about you. You’re—’

  Dan has finally had enough. He moves around Olivia, holding one arm out and pointing towards the road with the other.

  ‘I think you should be going,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, aye. Who’s going to make me, tough guy?’

  Frank takes a small step back but his shoulders are tight, fists clenched. Dan’s the taller man but I’m not sure what that means any longer. I really don’t want to see a fight.

  A light beams out from the house on the opposite side of the road as curtains are pulled. The lace netting starts twitching and, though I can’t see a face, I know this is all being watched. There’ll be other neighbours, too – this is prime entertainment first thing in the morning.