So I moved in with him, I got a job, and we started saving up for our future together, which we decided we’d spend travelling the world, helping people in need. All we needed was enough money to get our tickets and to live on until we got settled, and we’d be good to go. This happened much quicker than we expected and, by the time I was 22, I was getting ready to travel the world with the love of my life. Just eight weeks before we were due to leave, I found out I was pregnant.
‘What do I do?’ I ask Alfie, my legs still locked around his waist. I’m not sure why I’m asking him, it’s not like he has the backstory needed to offer any kind of advice.
‘Talk to him,’ he suggests.
There’s a knock on the front door.
Still in shock, I hop down from the worktop and answer it.
‘Surprise,’ my mum says, holding out her arms for a hug, a bunch of flowers in one hand and a bottle of Prosecco in the other.
‘Viv, you’re early,’ I say, grabbing her and giving her a hug.
‘And your blouse is all the way open,’ she says with a laugh, nodding towards my bra. I guess Alfie must’ve done it while we were kissing – God, he’s good.
I quickly wrap it closed, holding it with my arms.
‘I thought it might be a nice surprise if I got here early,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think you’d be busy, I…’ My mum breaks eye contact as her voice trails off.
‘Well, hello,’ she says, as I realise Alfie is standing next to me in the doorway. I see that glimmer in her eyes, the one she gets when she sees a handsome young man. My mum is such a cougar.
‘Hello,’ he says politely. My mum passes me the flowers and the Prosecco, which I struggle to hold on top of pulling my shirt closed. She offers Alfie a hand to shake, but as his hand touches hers, she pulls him close for a hug.
‘Mum, Nathan is here,’ I whisper weakly. Seconds later, he appears.
I notice my mum’s expression change as she suddenly realises.
‘We thought we’d surprise you,’ she says.
‘Well, you did that,’ I say, annoyed.
‘Hey, Lil,’ Nathan says, finally breaking his silence. I ignore him.
‘This is a terrible surprise, Mum,’ I tell her. ‘He has no right to be here.’
My mum, embarrassed, changes the subject. ‘So, is this your neighbour?’ she asks.
‘Er, yeah,’ Alfie replies awkwardly, running a hand through his hair.
‘I have every right to be here,’ Nathan insists. ‘I’m here for my son.’
I laugh wildly.
‘Are you joking?’ I reply. ‘Would you even know him if you saw him?’
‘Viv showed me photos. He looks just like me.’
‘He looks nothing like you,’ I insist. ‘You have no right to just turn up and think you can be his dad – he has no idea who you are.’
‘Oh, because you’re such a great mum?’ he replies. ‘Banging the neighbours on your lunch break.’
I feel the rage bubble up inside me.
‘I should go,’ Alfie says.
‘Tell you what,’ my mum starts, taking Alfie by the arm. ‘Why don’t you give me directions to the school, and maybe a nice local café, I can get a cup of tea in me while I wait for Frankie to finish. We can leave these two to talk.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Alfie suggests.
‘I have nothing to say to him,’ I insist, annoyed that he’s turned up like this and driven Alfie away.
‘Just hear him out, darling,’ my mum suggests.
I sigh. ‘Alfie, I’ll call you later, OK?’
He gives me a half smile. ‘See you, Blossom.’
‘Blossom,’ Nathan sniggers once they’re gone.
‘I suppose you should come in,’ I say reluctantly.
Chapter 20
I step aside to let Nathan in. I wait for him to walk past me before placing down the gifts from my mum and finally – and hurriedly – buttoning up my shirt.
It’s so strange seeing him after nearly a decade. In my head he hadn’t aged a day and yet here he is now, not only looking older than I expected but older than his years. Travelling has aged him but otherwise, he doesn’t look all that different. He’s still dressing the same (in fact, he absolutely had that T-shirt when we were together) but his hair is much longer now. The last time I saw him he had just decided that he wanted to grow his brown hair into dreadlock – which he has, long ones, so at least he’s stuck to that.
‘You look good,’ he says. ‘And surprised to see me.’
‘I am,’ I eventually reply.
‘Didn’t you and Frank get my postcards?’
Oh, I got his postcards all right, but I never showed them to Frankie. Well, when you receive a ‘happy birthday’ postcard from Nepal two months after your son’s sixth birthday, from the dad he didn’t know he had, what are you supposed to do? And then, of course, there was the postcard he sent me just before I accepted the job here, saying that he was coming home to see his ‘family’. I’d be lying if I said that this job didn’t appeal partially because it meant I could get away from him. I thought we’d be hidden away from him up here. I didn’t count on him going to my mum, or her bringing him here! It’s not that I don’t want Frankie to have a dad, but Nathan made his decision a long time ago. He can’t just show up and pick up where he left off, nine years later.
‘I destroyed them,’ I lie.
‘So, what, my son doesn’t know I exist?’
I can’t believe he’s annoyed at me.
‘No,’ I reply firmly. ‘Par for the course when you abandoned his mum the second you found out she was pregnant.’
Nathan rolls his eyes.
‘Lil, we had plans, people were expecting us. We had jobs lined up—’
‘I had your son growing inside me,’ I interrupt him.
‘I wasn’t ready to be a dad, I hold my hands up,’ he admits. ‘I wanted to travel, to make a difference in the world – you did too. You might have been prepared to give it up, but I wasn’t. Not after we worked so hard for it. We could’ve had more kids eventually.’
‘Frankie is the best thing that ever happened to me, he is amazing,’ I tell him, sick at the thought of a life without him. ‘And talking about giving things up…I gave up everything for you. I dropped out of uni for you.’
‘Lil, you’ve got to let the past go,’ he insists. ‘You’re obviously doing OK, despite not finishing university, so why not just let it go, hmm?’
‘I’m doing OK because my wonderful employers gave me the time and the resources to finish my degree,’ I tell him. Eric and Amanda not only gave me a job, but they helped me to finish my degree while I was working for them, and then they promoted me so I could put my new qualification to good use in their head office. Without their kindness, I don’t know where or what I’d be. YumYum really is such an amazing company, from taking care of their employees to doing their bit for the environment to donating chunks of their profits to charitable causes. They’ve always appealed to the hippy that still lurks deep down inside me somewhere.
‘Lil, I’m here now. We can be a family now – it sounds like you need me.’
‘I definitely do not need you. They need you somewhere building wells – we don’t need you here.’
‘You can’t even button up your shirt,’ he laughs. ‘I’m supposed to trust you with my son?’
I think he’s kidding – my God, I hope he’s kidding.
‘I’m not actually needed anywhere right now,’ he says. ‘Work dried up and I had a few accommodation problems in Port Douglas, so I worked a few temp jobs to get enough money together for a plane ticket home – and I bought a rad VW campervan to drive around in, and, y’know, live in until I figured out what the new plan was. I wanted to come here with Viv but I didn’t have anywhere to leave the van, so we convoyed all the way here. It was fun.’
‘Wait, Port Douglas? The postcard you sent me was from Ghana…isn’t Port Douglas in Australia?’
‘We
ll, yeah,’ he says, scratching at his unwashed looking hair. ‘I’d been in Australia for a little while. I was working on a farm but there was a…misunderstanding with the farmer’s wife.’
‘There weren’t any other women in Australia?’
‘Not there,’ he says truthfully.
I pull a disgusted face.
‘After that I headed to Noosa Heads, but couldn’t find any permanent work. One night I had to sleep on the beach – it was beautiful though. Sunshine Beach is something else, I’d love to take you and Frank on holiday one day.’
From where I’m sitting next to him on the sofa, I only need to lean over a little to sniff the air around him.
‘Are you high?’ I ask.
‘Not right now…’
‘We’re not going on holiday with you. And stop calling him Frank – his name is Frankie.’
‘Isn’t that a girl’s name?’
I sigh, and for a moment we just sit in silence.
‘I just want to be a part of my son’s life,’ he says softly. ‘I’m not trying to make you angry, I’m just upset you never gave him my postcards.’
‘Because I wanted him to grow up feeling loved, and me giving a 5-year-old a pile of postcards from the dad who abandoned him, saying what an awesome time he was having on his never-ending holiday, would’ve made him feel unwanted and unloved – and what’s to say you’ll stick around now?’
‘Please, Lil, just give me a chance? I’ve changed. Sure, I was the live-to-travel type before, but I want to settle down, and this seems like a great place to do so.’
I rub my temples as I think for a moment. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. All I wanted was for Frankie to have a relationship with his dad, before he waltzed off travelling. Now I’m worried it will do more harm than good, but who am I to stop him meeting his dad? And anyway, if I say no, he could just take legal action to see him, and that would be so much worse. Better we do it now, on my terms.
‘OK,’ I eventually say. ‘You can meet him.’
‘You won’t regret this, Lil,’ he says, grabbing me hard, pulling me close for a hug.
It’s crazy to me right now, to think that I was ever attracted to this man. He looks grubby and he smells like damp – although I suppose that could just be circumstantial. It’s so strange how someone I felt so much for – someone I was willing to give up on my education to be with – I suddenly view so differently. I used to think he was the sexiest, smartest man I had ever met. I was forever dragging him to the bedroom. The only place I want to drag him now is the hell out of here or, failing that, to the bathroom for a good scrub. Did he always look this unclean? Did I? It’s funny, thinking of who I was back then, because that girl doesn’t even feel like me. I remember when I was at high school, I had these short, fine, barely visible blonde hairs on my legs and all I wanted to do was to shave them off. Thinking back, I don’t suppose they were at all unsightly, I think I just wanted to feel like a grown-up. Skip forwards a few years to when I decided I was a strong, independent feminist, so sure of her own mind, and the only person who had the right to judge her own body, I did a complete U-turn, refusing to shave my legs ‘for a patriarchal society’. My mum, who had been so adamant that I didn’t shave my legs when I was younger, was suddenly buying razors and waxing strips for me, to try and encourage me to fit in, but I wouldn’t have it. It’s funny because, these days, I take an almost excessive pride in my appearance. I’m just like any girly-girl who loves to get her nails and her hair done. That said, I’ve been known to skip a shave or two in the winter months – well, it’s not like anyone is going to see, is it? Plus, it acts as an extra layer of insulation.
‘Can you make yourself scarce for a bit,’ I ask. ‘I need to talk to Frankie when he gets in, to explain everything to him carefully, before you just jump out and ask him if he wants to play Nintendo.’
‘Oh, I’d never play video games with him,’ he insists firmly. ‘They’re terrible for children. It cuts into their exercise time, encourages idleness – not to mention the fact that it makes them more aggressive. And then what have we got? A bunch of fat, violent kids.’
‘Dad of the year,’ I say sarcastically.
‘Sorry,’ he laughs. ‘I’m just nervous.’
I notice a softer side to Nathan, lurking under the surface. Perhaps he really does just want to make things right.
‘Dinner this evening then?’ I suggest.
‘OK,’ he replies, clapping his hands excitedly. ‘I’ll go wait in the van.’
I don’t really know where else to tell him to go – I can’t imagine the locals embracing him, especially if he drops into conversation that he knows me. Anyway, he did say that it was a campervan, I’m sure he’ll be fine for a few hours.
I see him to the door and watch as he climbs into the back of the tired, old van. It’s bright orange (or at least it was bright orange, once upon a time) with a white roof. Parked alongside my green Beetle, they bring out the worst in each other visually. It looks like I’m holding some kind of ugly German car convention.
With Nathan out of the way I search for my phone and call Alfie. It rings and rings but he doesn’t answer – you can’t really blame him, can you?
Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that things can’t get any worse, because that’s exactly when life proves you wrong. I’ve always been one for thinking that it’s always darkest before the dawn, that the only way is up, that things can only get better…but the truth is, things can and do get worse sometimes. I’m never going to be younger than I am right now. Every day I find myself with more responsibilities, more obstacles to overcome. But now that I’ve acknowledged that things can – and do – get more difficult, I can concentrate on making things better, rather than hoping they will.
The first thing I need to do is introduce Frankie to the dad he never knew he had…but God knows how I’ll do that.
Chapter 21
With my mum by my side, I sit Frankie down on the sofa and try to explain to him that he does have a dad and that he’s here if he wants to meet him.
Frankie just stares at me for a moment. I can practically see the cogs in his brain turning.
‘Would you like to meet him?’ I ask.
Frankie continues to think it over. I look over at Viv for support.
‘Your dad is a very important person,’ she tells him. ‘He’s being doing work all around the world, I’m sure he’ll have a lot of stories to tell you.’
‘OK,’ Frankie says. He looks terrified, the poor little thing.
‘How about, I finish cooking dinner and you, your mum and your dad sit down at the table and just have a chat, see what happens.’
‘OK,’ he says again. It’s hard to read him, to figure out if he doesn’t want to meet Nathan or if he does, but he’s just nervous.
‘You sure, kiddo?’ I say, squeezing his hand.
He nods.
I lead him over to the table and sit him down before heading outside to get Nathan. I feel my heart sink as I watch a cloud of smoke escape from the window of the campervan.
‘Nathan,’ I call out. He pokes a head out of the window curiously, a small, rolled up cigarette hanging from his mouth as he looks to see who might be calling his name.
I widen my eyes at him, which causes him to quickly stick his head back in, closing the window behind him. In a few seconds he’s out of the van, hurrying over to the front door.
‘You didn’t think a change of clothes might be nice?’ I say.
‘None with me,’ he says. ‘If you fancied washing me some maybe?’
He makes a move for the front door, but I stop him.
‘Nathan, listen to me. Frankie is the most important thing in the world to me. If you hurt him…’
‘You’ll what, kill me?’ he laughs.
‘I’m serious,’ I insist. ‘You’re getting a second chance that you absolutely don’t deserve.’
‘Take a chill pill, Lil,’ he laughs. I’m not a violent
person, but I could change my mind for Nathan.
‘OK,’ I say softly. I want to believe that this is the right thing to do, but for some reason it feels like I’m jumping out of a plane without a parachute, just hoping and praying I find a soft landing.
Frankie looks dumbstruck as Nathan walks over to him.
‘Oh wow, look at you,’ Nathan says. ‘My little boy, all grown up. The man of the house.’
I don’t point out that he never actually saw Frankie when he was a baby, or that he’s the man of the house because Nathan left.
‘Should I hug him?’ he asks me.
‘Maybe just give him some space,’ I suggest quietly, seeing how nervous and confused Frankie looks. ‘You’re basically a stranger.’
We both take a seat at the table. Frankie is sat at the end and Nathan and I are either side of him, facing each other.
‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me,’ Nathan says.
‘Were you in prison?’ Frankie asks him. I exhale deeply. I can’t believe those are his first words to his dad.
‘No, of course not,’ he says before turning to me. ‘Although there was a little incident with a bag of W-E-E-D when I was in the States that saw me locked up for a night.’
I think that was supposed to impress me.
‘Nathan, he’s 8 years old. He can spell,’ I point out.
‘Oh, right, sorry.’
‘Didn’t you want to be my dad?’ Frankie asks him.
Just hearing him say these words hurts me, so I can’t even begin to imagine how he must be feeling and, as for Nathan, that must sting.
I watch as Nathan struggles to find a worthy explanation when, the truth is, that he didn’t want to be a parent, he wanted to go off travelling and have fun with zero responsibility, so he left me alone and pregnant to figure things out for myself.
‘Your dad didn’t want to leave you,’ I lie. ‘He had important work to do abroad, that no one else could do.’
Summer Secrets at the Apple Blossom Deli Page 13