by Ruth Heald
I frown, feeling embarrassed and stupid. The signs were there. I just chose to ignore them because I wanted our relationship to work. ‘He wasn’t around much,’ I admit. ‘He even missed the first days of the twins’ lives because he was with his wife.’ As I say the words the depth of his betrayal hits me once more and tears well up in my eyes.
‘What? I’ll kill him.’ I see the unadulterated rage in Melissa’s unfocused eyes. ‘Unless Mum gets there first. Have you told her that you’ve split up yet?’
‘Of course not. She’s going to be furious with me for being so stupid. I can’t face it.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Melissa pats me on the back. ‘We can speak to her together. I’ll tell her I’m leaving Graham and you can tell her Ian’s married.’ She slurs her words. ‘She can be angry with us both at the same time. We can share the pain.’
I smile. I’m not sure she’ll remember anything I said in the morning, but I’m glad I confided in her.
‘Ian makes Graham look like an angel,’ I say.
‘Well, I suppose he’s not that bad. I just don’t love him.’
‘I do feel a bit sorry for him,’ I admit. ‘He’s a nice guy.’
‘I think that’s the problem. I chose him because he was a nice guy. And had a good job. Not for any other reason. I don’t think I ever truly loved him. I just didn’t want to marry someone like our father.’
‘What?’ I ask, confused. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘You don’t remember what he was like.’
‘I remember bits,’ I say, not wanting to admit I don’t remember much at all.
‘I was older. I remember it all.’
‘But you wanted to name your baby after him. So he can’t have been that bad,’ I say. She’s drunk and talking rubbish. Maybe I should just put her to bed, let her sleep it off. It’s a pity, I wanted to talk more to her about Ian, but that can wait until another day.
‘I’d never name my child after him! I didn’t even want you to.’
‘But Mum said—’
‘What did Mum say?’ Melissa is usually so calm and collected. But now her face is flushed and she looks furious.
‘She said I couldn’t call my baby Frances because you’d reserved the name for your baby.’ I frown.
‘Really? Well, that’s the joke of the year.’ But Melissa’s not laughing.
‘Didn’t you want to call your child Frances?’
‘No. I didn’t want you to call your daughter that because Dad wasn’t the kind of person you’d want to name your child after. He wasn’t a nice man. But Mum doesn’t want you to know that. She’d prefer it if you kept an idealised image of our father forever.’
‘But he was a good guy. He used to take me to the playground, push me on the swing, walk me to school. He understood me.’
‘Where did you get that idea from?’
‘I just remember—’
‘I wouldn’t trust your memories.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You remember what Mum wants you to remember. She’s shown you photos over the years, photos of you and him smiling, him walking you to school on the one day that happened, you two playing the piano together. But it’s all an illusion.’
‘But the photos are real. Those things happened.’
‘They did. But not often. You were too young to remember what he was really like. Mum rewrote history for you. She thought it would be better if you remembered him as a good father, so she only ever talked about the good times. But I was too old for that to work on me. I knew the truth.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Melissa sighs and looks down at her empty glass, suddenly regretful. She seems calmer now, as if the conversation has started to sober her up. ‘I was never meant to tell you. Mum always told me not to. Which made sense when you were six. Less so now. But she still wants to protect you.’
I feel a bit sick. I always thought Mum and Melissa didn’t understand me, but that my father did. Now Melissa’s telling me I’ve got it all wrong.
‘What was he like then?’ I ask.
‘Nasty and drunk half the time,’ she slurs.
‘I don’t believe you. He might not have been perfect. But he was a good man. Mum always said so.’
Melissa laughs. ‘Did she? But she still suffers now, years after he died. She still has the headaches.’
My eyes widen. ‘What have they got to do with Dad?’
‘She got her head injury when she was with him. I never knew exactly what happened. But when they went out he was in a bad mood, angry with her over some little thing. They didn’t come back that night. She went to hospital with concussion. I remember because I had to make our dinner while they were at the hospital. Later, the police came to question him. They thought she’d hit her head when Dad pushed her into a wall, but they must have been satisfied with what he told them as they never took it any further. Ever since, she’s had the headaches and the dizzy spells. It was his fault.’
‘But it could have just been an accident. Accidents happen all the time.’
‘Maybe,’ Melissa says. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you what he was really like. I know how much your memories of him mean to you. Let’s just forget it.’
‘I don’t understand. If Dad was so awful, why does Mum tell people how wonderful he was? Even now, she still says she misses him.’
‘She wants people to think they had a good marriage. She tells everyone that the love of her life died. How she had to put everything back together afterwards. She thinks it impresses them. It sounds far better than the truth.’
* * *
When Melissa finally leaves, I’m still reeling. I’m not sure how much of what she said was true. She was so drunk. I sigh and pour myself a glass of water. Could it be that everything I thought I knew about my father was a lie? I scratch at the scar on my arm, racking my brain for memories. But all my memories of my father are just snapshots. Like photographs. Perhaps Melissa was right.
Paula comes in and sits beside me.
‘It’s late,’ she says. ‘Is everything alright?’
‘Yeah,’ I reply.
‘I heard Melissa. I tried to stay out of your way, give you two the chance to catch up.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’ve been crying.’
‘She just upset me a bit, that’s all.’
‘I could hear her from upstairs. She woke the twins up.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s alright. What happened?’
‘It’s about our father. She claims he was a drunk. She thinks he once gave our mother concussion. That he caused the headaches she still has today.’
‘Really?’
I tell her what Melissa said. I analyse every word, trying to work out what she meant, why she never told me before.
‘Who knows why she said all those things,’ Paula says. ‘Maybe she wants to hurt you.’
‘But why would she want that?’ If anything, Melissa and I have been getting on better lately.
‘She’s jealous, isn’t she? Of your babies.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Families are tough,’ Paula says. ‘I didn’t have a good relationship with my sister either. She was vindictive, like Melissa.’
‘Melissa isn’t a bad person,’ I say. ‘We were really close when we were little.’
‘Your relationship is all one-way. She’s so busy working that she hardly sees you and then, when she does, she drops something like this on you.’
I feel hot. Paula’s right.
‘It’s hard thinking about the past. I grew up around here,’ Paula continues. ‘Every corner triggers a memory.’
I notice her use of the word ‘triggers’, as if the memories are uncomfortable for her, as if they hurt.
‘That must be difficult.’
I think of how she used to sit in the coffee shop every day, staring out at the street. I wonder if it’s something about the area that drew h
er here, something she can’t let go of.
‘It’s hard to move on from the things that hurt us in childhood.’
I look at Paula, surprised. She’s only a bit younger than my mother. Can it really be true that difficult childhoods will haunt us forever?
I think about what Melissa said. ‘I just wish my family would be honest with me. Everyone must have lied to me for years, pretending my father was a nice guy. It sounded like in reality my sister detested him.’
‘You can’t always trust sisters. I hated mine.’
‘Why?’
‘I suppose we were always competing for our parents’ attention, like there was only really room for one of us. We looked so similar on the surface. But we weren’t, of course. Not in personality. My sister was a manipulative bitch.’
‘Oh,’ I say, shocked. As much as Melissa annoyed me, I’d never refer to her like that.
‘But she was good at hiding who she really was, pretending. My parents always preferred my sister to me.’
‘Mum always seemed to prefer Melissa. She did everything right. Did well at school, then got married and became a lawyer. I never feel good enough in comparison.’
‘They try to make you feel like that. They try to hurt you. But deep inside I knew my sister wasn’t better than me.’
‘Do you see her now?’ I ask.
‘She died,’ Paula says, matter-of-factly.
‘Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t be sorry. She wasn’t a nice person, Katie.’
‘What did she do?’
‘What didn’t she do? She hurt me.’
‘How?’ I ask, not sure I want to hear this.
‘When I was little she tortured me.’
‘Didn’t your parents stop her?’
Paula laughs. ‘No, she got away with it all. It’s part of the reason I became a doula. I suppose I wanted to help young families, stop them turning out like mine. I wanted to protect the children.’
‘Your relationship never improved, not even as adults?’ I think about how my relationship with Melissa had started to get better.
‘We didn’t have the chance. She died when we were still children.’
I feel a lump in my throat. ‘That must have been awful for you to cope with.’
Paula looks at me, her expression completely unreadable. ‘Of course, a part of me was sad. She was my sister, after all. But another part of me was happy. I was free of her.’
15
The days are getting hotter. At school there’s the hum of a lawnmower outside the window and the smell of freshly cut grass. We do all our PE outside now on the school field, running, jumping and throwing balls.
Everyone else is excited about the end of term, but we’re not. The summer looms ahead of us. The other children at school talk excitedly of summer holidays, beaches, trips on planes. But my sister and I know that without the safety of school, the summer holidays can only mean one thing. More time with Dad.
As usual, my sister doesn’t wait for me after school. She walks home as fast as she can, almost as if she’s running away from something. Running away from me.
I dawdle, kicking at stones on the pavement, watching them bounce into the path of oncoming traffic.
When I get back home, my sister is in the living room on the sofa, next to Dad, watching a wildlife documentary. They stare at the television in silence as a lion tears apart a gazelle. Dad takes a gulp of his beer. I hover in the doorway, unsure whether to go in.
‘See,’ Dad says to my sister. ‘It’s survival of the fittest out there. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, the way we were designed.’
‘Yes, Dad,’ my sister nods.
‘Humanity is overdeveloped. Take medicine, for example. It’s a great thing, but it keeps people alive when they shouldn’t be. Elderly people, babies, very ill people. So many of them would have died without medicine. So many of them should have died. Hospitals interfere with natural selection.’
I want to say something, to tell him he’s being stupid, but my sister is already agreeing with him. ‘You’re right, Dad.’
‘Take you two, for example.’ He looks up suddenly from the TV and points at me in the doorway, and I can’t help but jump. ‘Without medical care, only one of you would have survived.’ He stares at me intently. ‘Maybe that’s the way it should have been.’
Thirty-One
The next day, I’m still getting my head around everything my sister said about my father when I hear a knock on the door. It’s insistent and loud. I look at my watch. Perhaps my piano student is early. I finish changing Alice’s nappy and then strap her into her chair.
The knocking gets louder.
‘I’m coming,’ I shout.
I open the door to see Ian’s wife.
‘I thought so,’ she says. ‘You’re living in his house.’
I nod. ‘We moved in here together. I’m not leaving.’
‘When you came to my house the other day I knew I recognised you from somewhere. It just took me a while to remember. It was here, outside this house. When you were pregnant.’
‘Sorry?’ Then I have a vague recollection. A woman standing outside the coffee shop, ash-blonde hair, staring at the house. It must have been Sabrina. Why was she here?
‘He told me you were a tenant.’
‘I’m not a tenant,’ I say, shocked. Is that what he’d let Sabrina believe? ‘I’m living here as Ian’s partner.’
‘Are you even paying him anything to live here?’
‘No,’ I say, angrily. ‘I could never afford to.’ I think about how I moved out of my flatshare. Where I was happy. I’d always paid my own way until I got pregnant.
‘So you think you’re entitled to live in his house for free, do you? I expect you’ll be asking for maintenance next. You just want to take him for everything he’s got.’
‘I don’t! I love him.’
She laughs bitterly. ‘No wonder he’s in so much debt. We couldn’t afford to do the house up unless we got a tenant in for a bit to make money first. And to cover the mortgage and the loan repayments. He said he’d sorted it. Instead he let you live in the house for free.’
My mind’s spinning.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ I ask, irritated. ‘It’s his house.’
‘He was going to have to sell the house to pay the inheritance tax before I stepped in. He had to take out a mortgage to cover the tax, but they wouldn’t lend him enough money. His credit rating’s not good enough. So I took out a loan to help him.’
‘The inheritance tax? You mean, he inherited the house?’ I ask, reeling from shock. ‘It’s not from his property business?’
She laughs. ‘What property business? Is that what he’s saying now?’
‘So he doesn’t own a load of houses across London?’ My eyes widen in disbelief. I can hardly take in her words.
‘Of course not.’ Sabrina snorts.
‘What does he do then?’ I ask, as I dig my nails into the palms of my hands, trying to control my emotions.
‘His latest job is as a security guard. At least that’s what he’s told me. When he said he was on the night shift he must have been with you. He never keeps a job for long. He loses them as quickly as he charms his way into them. He won’t cooperate with the bosses, or he tries to steal from them. Most of the time his lifestyle is funded by me.’
My heart beats faster. I can hardly believe what she’s saying. Ian isn’t the person I thought he was at all. Everything he ever said has been a lie. Our relationship was built on sand.
‘So this house – whose was it?’
‘His father’s. He died nine months ago.’
‘He never mentioned that.’
‘He was estranged from his father. They were never close. He grew up nearby, but not in this house. He lived with his mother.’
I’ve learnt more about Ian in this five-minute conversation with his wife than in the whole year I’ve been dating him.
&n
bsp; ‘Right,’ I say. ‘But what’s all this got to do with me?’
‘Well, as you’re living here and there’s no tenant, then there’s no way Ian can afford to keep the house. You’re going to have to start paying rent. Starting today.’
‘But I can’t afford to.’ I feel sick. Am I going to be evicted from my home with my twins?
I hear footsteps behind me and Paula appears, Alice in her arms. ‘Is there a problem here?’ she asks.
Sabrina stares straight at Paula without speaking.
‘This is Ian’s wife,’ I say to Paula.
The blood has drained from Sabrina’s face. She stares at Paula. ‘I—’ she says. But she doesn’t finish her sentence. Suddenly she collapses, her legs crumpling beneath her. Her head tips back and her body crashes onto the Victorian tiles of our doorstep, her head hitting the cold ground, bouncing up a few inches and then twisting to the side against the tiles.
* * *
Paula and I stand over her for a second, stunned.
‘I hope she’s OK,’ I say, kneeling down beside her. ‘Wake up,’ I whisper, shaking her arm. ‘Wake up.’
‘I’ll go and get an ice pack,’ Paula says.
When Sabrina comes to, she’s breathing fast.
She looks up at the house, her eyes darting from side to side.
She starts to stumble to her feet, and I reach down to help her up. Inside the house the twins start screaming.
‘Are you OK?’
She puts her hand to her head and then winces. For a moment, she looks like she might faint again and she blinks rapidly, dizzy and disorientated.
Paula reappears with the ice pack.
‘Do you want to come in and sit down?’ I ask Sabrina, taking pity on her. I don’t want her to go back out in this state.
‘I’m fine,’ she mumbles. ‘I need to go.’
She moves clumsily away from us, down the drive.
I follow her and catch her up, grabbing her arm.
She jumps away from me and when I look into her eyes I can see pure terror. She must still be confused.