by Ali Harris
I’m trying really hard not to think too much about the fact that Kieran hasn’t shown any interest at all in kissing me since that time late at night in front of Loni’s house. His eyes haven’t lingered on my lips, his mouth hasn’t once hovered that tiny bit too close to mine. In fact, whilst it seems that the intimacy, the honesty and the friendship have grown equally between us over the last few weeks, the sexual tension has plateaued. I want – no I need him to kiss me so I know just what we’re doing here.
‘What do you want to do?’ Kieran asks now with a friendly smile.
There’s a beat while an answer pops into my mind that I know I would never say.
‘It should be something involving a leap, right?’ Kieran continues. ‘Although I take it you’re not ready to jump out of a plane yet, huh?’
‘Definitely not!’ I exclaim. ‘You may have got me swinging like a monkey through the trees, but I won’t do that.’
‘No you won’t do that!’ Kieran sings in a cheesy rock voice and laughs. I can’t help but think of the first line of that song title.
Would I do anything for love? Do I love him?
Kieran glances at me. I pull my Parka tighter around my body and nestle my mouth in the collar. After an Indian summer the temperature is beginning to drop. Winter is on its way. A new season before a brand-new year . . .
‘So, how about trying to find your dad?’ The words are thrown out carelessly. It feels like they have tied a noose around my neck, tightening so much I can’t breathe.
He brakes suddenly as the tractor in front indicates a right turn and he instinctively puts his arm across my body as I find myself flung forward. I grip the dashboard tightly. My knuckles are white as if I’m about to jump myself and Kieran slowly removes his arm. He looks at me and places his hand lightly on my leg. I look at it, because I can’t look at him. I feel like if I do, he will see everything I’m feeling illuminated in my eyes.
We’ve talked a lot about ourselves over the course of our last few meetings. More than we ever did when we were together. Back then it was all fun and thrills: the future, not the past. We knew a little of each other, but we wanted to live in the present. But this time, I’ve told him more about my dad, my lifelong feelings of loss and abandonment, about my complex relationship with Loni, and my inability to make decisions or commit to anything since Elliot died. He in turn has told me more about his childhood being pushed from pillar to post, first the foster home and then the care homes, how it was always just him and Elliot and how he’s never got over losing him. He’s also told me about the naval rescue operations he’s been involved in, how he served in the Iraq War in 2008, about his inability to commit to relationships, and his complete apathy at discovering his father was still alive and living in Ireland.
‘Bea,’ he says softly. ‘You say you’ve always wanted to know your dad. But as far as I can tell you’ve always been waiting for him to come and find you. So why not take your life into your own hands now and try to find him?’
‘Because . . .’ I stop and try again. My voice is shaking. ‘Because . . .’ I can’t finish. I don’t have a reason other than what the small seven-year-old girl inside my head is screaming: Because it’s his job to find me; he’s the one that left!
‘I know you think that it’s his move,’ Kieran says. ‘But you’ve been waiting for that move for over twenty years. And you know what they say, the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’
‘I – I . . .’ I stutter. He is way too close to the bone.
Kieran pulls up onto a grassy verge, cuts the engine and turns to look at me. ‘I know exactly how you feel, Bea; I mean, me and you, we’re just the same. You think you’re defined by what you have lost in your life and that’s exactly how I felt when I lost Elliot. But I’ve learned that the only way to change that is to take charge of the future.’ He takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘I did that when I joined the Navy. How about you do the same by trying to find your dad?’
‘You’re right,’ I say at last. ‘I know you’re right. But I’m so scared, Kieran. I’m afraid of him not being alive, of him not wanting to see me, or me not liking what I find. I’ve built him up in my head until he’s almost become the missing half of me. At the moment, that half is made up of my good memories of him. But what if seeing him destroys them all?’
He glances out of the window and then gazes back at me, his eyes not just looking at me, but through me. ‘Surely it is better to know and be disappointed, than to never know and always wonder?’ Kieran says softly. I stare at him, unable to breathe. Is that why he came back? Because he wanted to know about us? Has he always wondered too . . .?
I force out some words just to break the intensity of the moment. ‘So what do I do? Where do I begin? I don’t know where in the world he might be . . .’
‘You should start by going to his last known address in this country.’
‘That would be the place he moved into when Loni kicked him out.’ I’ve always known this because I’d seen an address written on a box of belongings Loni had delivered the week after he’d gone. But he didn’t stay there long. Loni told me it was just a stopover before he left for good.
‘Where was that?’ Kieran asks now.
‘Cley-next-the-Sea.’
He starts up the engine, glances in his rear-view mirror and does a three-point turn. ‘Do you remember the address?’ he says over his shoulder.
‘What, wait – but we’re not doing this now, are we?’ I say, somewhat startled.
‘No time like the present,’ he says with a grin and I cling on to my seat, my heart thumping as he puts his foot down and we speed off.
Chapter 45
As we approach the small village of Cley-next-the Sea I find my mood dampening like the marshes that surround it. When Loni told me years ago that he’d stayed here briefly I found it hard to understand. The village is less than fifteen minutes from Holt; if he lived so close, why didn’t he come and visit us? Surely the reason he would have moved here was so he could still be an actively involved parent to me and Cal? But why move here temporarily, and then move away? It didn’t make sense then – or now.
I have so many questions, I realise. Questions I have put to the back of my mind for years because Loni has always made it clear that there was nothing more to know. She didn’t like being married to Dad, he was old and set in his ways. He fell in love with her spirit and sense of adventure but when they had kids he wanted her to be the archetypal stay-at-home mum. He hated her going out, didn’t like her friends, or her wild spirit. They battled on for a few years until finally she told him she wanted to go it alone. Then he moved out to a friend’s place before heading off into the sunset to make a new life for himself. End of story . . . Whenever I’d question it she’d tell me that he didn’t want to leave but she was adamant. That he tried living close by but couldn’t cope with seeing her make a new life for herself without him.
So I’ve just silently blamed her all these years for taking the decision out of his hands, for not giving us any other choice. And then I’ve waited for him to make the choice to come back.
I can’t believe I’ve been waiting all this time. Doing nothing. Letting other people’s decisions mould my life. It wasn’t even me who tried to find him when I got engaged, it was Adam.
Adam. His name pops into my mind and with it an explosion of memories and pain. Right now, I don’t know which is more painful. Being left, or leaving someone who loves you.
‘You OK?’ Kieran says. Small, grey, fast-moving clouds are sweeping across the marshy landscape like liquid mercury, the sails of the windmill marking the picturesque village like an X marks the spot on a treasure map. I can’t believe I’ve never thought to try this before. I mean, what if the clue to Dad’s whereabouts for the past twenty-three years have been here all along? I used to come to Cley a lot – there’s the Garden Centre on the Holt Road that I worked part-time at when I was seventeen
after I dropped out of my A levels; I got all our plants for our garden from there. It gives me shivers to think I might have driven past the place that would have told me where Dad was.
I texted Loni on our way here, asking her for Dad’s old address in Cley, and she replied with it instantly. So quickly she clearly didn’t need to go hunting for an old address book. She must remember it off by heart. She texted again, moments later, unable to resist sending a follow-up: Why do you need it, darling? Are you OK? I haven’t replied. She’s always worried about me. It’s the curse of being a parent – particularly a parent of someone prone to depression. I’ll explain everything when I go home later. She has a right to know. Just as I have a right to know where my dad is.
After driving down the tiny high street, past a series of small shops, including Crabpot Bookshop, a cute little place selling second-hand books and where, I now suddenly remember, Dad used to buy a lot of his gardening books, we get to Beach Road and pull up in front of a small flint cottage, overlooking the marshes.
I look at the brightly painted front door, glance at Kieran who smiles and squeezes my leg. I try to disguise the shiver that travels through my body as I slide out of the van.
Walking up the overgrown path I feel like I’m treading in my father’s old footprints. Is that where he came with his suitcase of clothes, after leaving us? Will I find a clue here that will tell me where he’s been all these years and why he didn’t come back?
I knock on the front door; a tentative, apologetic rap, and then I wait. I look up at the cottage that appears in dire need of repair. Has it been neglected by just one owner over several decades? An owner who may know where my dad is.
I wait breathlessly and then, just as I’m about to give up, the door opens a tiny bit and an old man with small, inquisitive eyes gazes at me suspiciously through the crack.
I think I’m about to find out.
Chapter 46
‘So?’ Kieran says when I get back into the van half an hour later.
I don’t say anything for a moment. I’m still recovering from the shock that this has been so easy. That finding some answers to my dad’s disappearance has been on my doorstep all along.
I nod and smile weakly. ‘You could say that.’
‘Holy shit, it wasn’t him, was it?’ he says, his mouth dropping open in shock.
‘No! God, I would have . . . I don’t know what I would have done. No, it was this sweet old guy in his late seventies who gave my dad a place to stay. He’s a priest at St Margaret’s Church in Cley. He said Dad had always been a good friend and came to him after he left us. Dad told him he knew he couldn’t be with us any more but that he didn’t want to be too far away either.’
‘How long did he stay?’ Kieran asks as he pulls onto the road.
‘Not long. Just under a month. Father Joe said Dad wouldn’t tell him exactly what had happened, but he said he was incredibly low. He felt he was being punished but he couldn’t explain what he meant by that. Father Joe said all he could see was a weary man who loved his family and was deeply ashamed by the breakdown of his marriage. Dad told him that he didn’t want anyone to know where he was.’
‘Was your dad religious then?’ Kieran asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘I mean, Loni’s always said he struggled with her Buddhist beliefs but I don’t remember him being a particularly active church-goer. As far as I can recall he always said gardening was his religion.’
‘So did this Father Joe have any idea where your dad went afterwards?’
‘California,’ I reply, dully. I’m still in shock. As is Kieran who gapes at me. ‘Yep. Middle-aged family man who gets kicked out of family home by bonkers Buddhist wife hides away in priest’s house in sleepy Cley-next-the-Sea for a month and then jumps on a plane to Los Angeles . . .’
‘Whoa!’ he exclaims gleefully then resets his expression into one of more appropriate concern. ‘Why?’
‘To fulfil a lifelong dream of becoming a movie star? To join a monastery? I don’t know . . .’ I gaze out of the window, irritated by Kieran’s reaction.
‘So did he leave a forwarding address?’ I nod and turn over the piece of paper Father Joe gave to me. ‘Some place in Orange County.’
‘So what are you going to do next?’
I shrug. ‘Google it, I guess.’
‘We could go,’ Kieran says excitedly, his green eyes shining like a cat’s. ‘We could turn this into an American road trip. Just think, me, you, Route 101. Now that would be a leap.’
I laugh nervously. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Kieran shrugs, gazing back at the road. ‘But the offer is there. I could extend my leave from the ships. And you did say you wanted more excitement in your life . . .’
A contemplative silence descends over the van and as the road curls and coils ahead of us I can’t help but wonder, did I say I wanted that? Or did Kieran?
Chapter 47
It’s a briskly chilly Saturday morning and I’m lost in my thoughts as I weave through pretty cobbled back streets and through Greenwich market which is already bustling and heady with the scent of spices and incense. I walk down the tiny passageway past the independent shops and out onto Church Street.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, scrolling through the perfunctory birthday messages from my friends on Facebook. I know I have no right to but I can’t help but feel Adam’s absence today. I think longingly of how he’d always take the day off work – a treat in itself – and would wake me up with a special birthday breakfast in bed of pancakes, fruit and coffee and we’d stay there for most of the morning before he took me out for a surprise. Sometimes we’d head out of London in the car to a hotel, or he’d drive me to Kew Gardens, or to a National Trust house for lunch. Adam loved my simple tastes and I loved how relaxed he became when I took him out of the high-powered, money-and-status-obsessed world he’d been brought up in. Out of London, our differences were pruned back and it was then that we seemed most compatible. We laughed about the same thing; talked about the same goals – kids, living in the countryside, working for ourselves. Adam would open up about the things he loved: art, travel and history. He once even admitted that he wished he’d studied History of Art at university, like he’d wanted to, instead of being pushed by George into doing an advertising degree.
I miss him, I realise with a sharp jolt. I miss him a lot.
I walk towards the flower shop, and am surprised to see the ‘Closed’ sign on the door. It’s past 7 a.m. – Sal had told me to have a lie-in this morning but I can’t. I’m always up early, desperate to fill my day with the one thing that is finally right with my life – work. If not in the flower shop, then in Milly’s garden. I’ve realised just how much my happiness depends on me doing the thing I really love. And I want to make sure it is part of my life every single day. It is better for my head and heart than any amount of therapy.
My mobile rings as I peer through the window; all the lights are switched off.
I glance at the caller ID. ‘Hi, Lon—’
‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, my darling beautiful daugh-ter, happy birthday to you. And many mooooore!!!’ she trills. No matter how lonely I feel, Loni is always there.
‘Thanks,’ I say with a smile.
‘So how is my gorgeous girl on her special day? What are you doing, darling? Anything nice? I’m off to do some T’ai Chi on the beach now and I’m even considering a cheeky little skinny dip to get the old toxins out of my skin. I can’t believe you’re thirty-one,’ she gasps. ‘I look too young to have a daughter your age!’
‘And I feel too old to have a mum who looks as young as you!’ I say warmly. ‘I’m fine. I’ve just got to work.’
‘Oh Bea, why don’t you hop on a train and come here after you finish at the flower shop? Let me look after you. We can go for a long walk, have some proper time together.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, racking my brain
s for an excuse. ‘I think I just want to be on my own.’ Even as I’m saying these words I know they’re not true. Besides, I’ve had no luck finding out any more about the address. Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to ask Loni. She knows my birthday always makes me think about my dad.
‘Nonsense!’ Loni says. ‘No daughter of mine is spending her birthday weekend on her own. I had plans but I can definitely rearrange for you . . .’
‘What plans, a retreat?’
‘What? No, just, I’m seeing a . . . some . . . friends. But they can wait. I’ll cancel everything to see you, darling. So how about it? Please? Pretty please?’
I laugh, steam-rollered by Loni’s energy and enthusiasm.
‘OK, I’ll get a train tomorrow.’
‘Such a JOY!’ Loni squeals. ‘I’ll tell Cal.’
‘I don’t want any fuss—’ But she’s already rung off.
Yes, she can be overwhelmingly full-on and her crazy life often gets in the way of our relationship but she always makes me smile.
I open the door into darkness. The flower shop smells dank and heady with the scent of pungent autumn flowers. Even without seeing them I can smell gerberas and chrysanths, dahlias, rosehips and seeded eucalyptus as well as the sweet smell of the carved pumpkins in the windows. Suddenly the lights ping on and I find myself surrounded by laughing faces as not just Sal but also Nick, Glenda, Tim and Jeeves all stand singing their little hearts out and holding out a cake with my name spelt in beautifully iced flowers on the top.