The Liar’s Daughter (ARC)

by Claire Allan

  I see lights on through the stained-glass panelling of the front

  door. It might be the middle of the day but it’s dull and dark,

  and January has us firmly in its grip. The darkness is as oppres-

  sive as this house looming over us. Semi-detached. With a big

  back garden. There was a wooden swing set there when I first

  visited all those years ago – a sure sign of wealth, along with

  a phone in the hall that didn’t have a lock on it to stop anyone

  from running up a big bill.

  I’d felt intimidated then, but that was nothing compared to

  how I feel now.

  ‘I’m not sure I can go in,’ I say to Stella.

  ‘You know you don’t have to, but you’ve come this far. And

  look, if it feels all wrong, you never have to come back again.

  Focus on that.’

  I squeeze her hand. There’s no way I could be here without

  her by my side. ‘Okay, then,’ I say. ‘Here goes nothing.’ I reach

  up and rattle the brass knocker, and it’s not long before I hear

  footsteps clacking along the tiled floor and see the shadow of

  a person approach.

  I’ve not seen Heidi in as long as I’ve not seen my father. She

  was only a teenager the last time our paths had crossed, in her

  second year at university. She’d come home for the Christmas

  break – wherein my father had made a disastrous attempt to

  have us all round for drinks. I shudder at the memory.

  Looking at Heidi now, she looks as if more than ten years

  have passed. Her face is pale. Tired-looking. There are dark

  circles under her eyes, and her hair, which clearly could benefit

  from a wash, is pulled back in a tight ponytail, which does her

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  no favours. Her roots need touching up, I notice. There’s a lot of grey there for a woman still in her twenties.

  She pulls an oversized grey cardigan around her small frame,

  wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she does. Her body

  language screams that she is deeply uncomfortable with this

  situation.

  She blinks at me as if it is taking her some time to put a

  name to a face. I know I look different now – but not that

  different. And she had been aware that I was coming.

  ‘Heidi?’ It is Stella who breaks the silence – coming to my

  rescue as she always does. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’m Stella,

  Ciara’s partner.’

  I watch for any sort of reaction on Heidi’s face at the real-

  isation that I’m gay. It has never been something I’ve advertised.

  It’s no one’s business but my own, and Stella’s, of course.

  Heidi barely blinks. She looks from Stella to me and then

  takes a step backwards to allow us in. ‘Please, come in, both of

  you,’ she says, her voice quiet. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Stella,’ she says. ‘And it’s good to see you again, Ciara.’

  I smile at her because it is what is expected. We both know

  that what she has said is a lie. It’s not nice to see each other

  at all. I think we could have quite happily existed without ever

  seeing other again and been perfectly happy.

  I hear the cry of a baby, look to Heidi.

  ‘That’s Lily,’ she says. ‘My baby. She’s due a feed. If you’ll

  excuse me. Joe’s sleeping just now, but I’m sure he would be

  okay with you waking him.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll just wait a bit,’ I say.

  She nods, looks anxiously towards the living room door where

  the cry is becoming more persistent. ‘Well, you know where

  the tea and coffee are, why not make yourselves a cup?’ she

  says, and with that she scurries, mouse-like, into the living room, closing the door behind her.

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  I lead Stella to the kitchen.

  ‘So that’s Heidi,’ Stella says as she sits down and I switch the

  kettle on to boil.

  ‘It is indeed. Although she is much more mouse-like than

  before. And she was pretty mouse-like then.’

  ‘It must be hard for her, with a new baby to look after and

  Joe to be minding,’ Stella says as she looks around the room,

  taking in the slightly dated décor. I bristle. I do not want to

  be any part of a ‘poor Heidi’ narrative. I saw and heard enough

  of it over the years to be done with it for good. I’m not so

  much of a bitch that I don’t accept she had it rough to lose

  her mother at a young age, but she has led a life of privilege

  and him – my father – he chose her over me. Not just once.

  But time and time again.

  I don’t answer Stella. I just make the tea, rattle around the

  cupboards for sugar. This house is familiar and yet it isn’t. It’s quieter. Darker. Colder. I think briefly of the angry teenager I

  had once been. I can almost hear echoes of her stomping up

  the stairs or slamming the front door. My heart aches for her

  a little. I wish things had been different.

  I turn to hand Stella a cup of tea. I see her shudder.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Hmmm, uhm, yes, I think so,’ but she doesn’t look it.

  ‘You know you’re a terrible liar, don’t you?’

  ‘Never mind me. It’s nothing. I’m being silly.’ But I notice

  she is holding on to the mug of tea for dear life.

  ‘Stella?’ I raise an eyebrow.

  ‘Honestly,’ she says, ‘it’s nothing. Someone just walked over

  my grave. If you could find me a biscuit I’d feel much better.’

  I look at her for a moment, sure it’s more than that, but I

  know her well enough to know she won’t be drawn any further,

  so I start to rummage for biscuits in this house that has never

  been my home.

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  This has never been a place where I was made to feel particularly welcome.

  As a teenager it had felt as if every time I’d visited here I

  was reminded of just how much I was no longer the centre of

  my father’s universe.

  I’d asked him once if I could put some posters up in the

  spare room – the room I slept in every time I visited. He shook

  his head. It wouldn’t be right, he’d said. He didn’t want Natalie

  to think he was making assumptions. It was still her house, he

  said. He was just a guest. I didn’t understand it, not really. Not at the time. Natalie was always so welcoming. Annoyingly so.

  She was desperate for me to like her, but that was never going

  to happen. Not when she had taken him away from me.

  I’d left my pyjamas there once, about six months after my

  father moved in. It was shortly after Natalie took sick, I remember that. I remember I felt, momentarily, sorry for her. I wanted to

  help more. To do more. I folded them and stashed them under

  the pillow, waiting for me to pick them up and put them back

  on. When I came back the following week they were folded

  and neatly placed in a plastic carrier bag on the end of the bed.

  ‘Now’s not the time to make changes,’ my father had said. I

  always wondered who deci
ded that. Was it him? Or was it

  Natalie? Regardless, I felt a renewed hatred towards them both.

  I find a pack of Bourbon creams, pass them to Stella and sit

  down, the only noise around us being the ticking of the big

  clock in the hall.

  ‘Do you want me to come up and see him with you?’ Stella

  asks, splitting the biscuit in two.

  I think of all the things I need to say and want to say and

  shake my head. ‘I need to do this on my own.’

  His room smells of dust and stale breath and illness. The curtains are drawn tight and an electric radiator is pumping out heat

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  into a room that feels oppressively warm. I feel myself break into a sweat.

  He is small in that bed of his. So small that for the briefest

  of moments, I question if he is there at all. I look behind me,

  half expecting to see him come out of the bathroom larger

  than life, as imposing as he ever was. Tall, sturdy, full of bravado and his own self-importance.

  As my eyes adjust to the darkness, his new shape becomes

  more apparent. Illness has shrivelled him. He’s curled on his

  left-hand side, his duvet and blankets folded up to his chin. The

  cancer has carved hollows in his face. His skin sags limply over

  his bones, grey, thin, wrinkled. His hair now more salt than

  pepper.

  I step forwards. Slowly. Quietly. As if he might jump up at

  any moment to shock and surprise me. He doesn’t shift. I

  contemplate leaving. I could close the door. Lie to Stella that

  I’ve spoken to him and we have nothing more to say to each

  other.

  But I can’t lie to Stella. I don’t want to. It’s not what we’re

  about. She knows almost everything about me.

  He shifts, just a little, a loud sigh accompanying the movement

  followed by a small groan of pain. My heart quickens. I should

  let him know I’m here, but what do I say? Do I say ‘Daddy’,

  or ‘Joe’, or ‘You bastard’?

  I feel tears prick at my eyes. I have to hold in a low groan

  of pain myself. I’m not sure who I want to cry for most right

  now. Him, or the little girl I was, who was so hurt all those

  years ago.

  ‘Dad,’ I say softly. ‘It’s Ciara.’

  He should know, of course. I’m the only person who has

  ever called him ‘Dad’. Despite their many years together, Heidi

  has never given him that title. He stirs. I can almost hear his

  bones creak as he does so. He’s still a relatively young man,

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  only in his early sixties, but the way in which he tries to pull himself to sitting in his bed is more fitting to a man much

  older. I wince at the sight of him – the thinness of his hands

  as he reaches out to lift his glasses from the bedside table and

  put them on.

  ‘Ciara?’ he mutters. ‘Open those curtains. Let me see you.’

  I fall into the role of dutiful daughter quickly, to my annoy-

  ance, pull open the curtains. Not that it makes much difference.

  The gloom outside is such that the light barely lifts in the

  bedroom. I reach over and switch on the bedside lamp instead.

  Then I sit at the bottom of the bed. Far enough away that

  he cannot touch me. I have drawn my lines. I have to. Self-

  preservation is everything.

  ‘I didn’t know if you would come,’ he says, his hand shaking

  as he reaches for a glass of water from the bedside table.

  I lift it and hand it to him, watching him take a few sips

  before I take it from him again.

  ‘I didn’t know if I would come, either,’ I say. There’s a harsh-

  ness to my voice that makes me feel both proud and ashamed

  of myself.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you did. And Heidi told you, did she? My

  news?’

  ‘That you’re dying? Yes.’

  He winces a little at the word dying, as if my uttering it will

  summon the Grim Reaper sooner.

  ‘If I can get over this operation, I might get back on my feet

  again,’ he says. ‘For a while anyway.’

  I nod. I don’t know what he expects me to say.

  ‘Ciara, I don’t have much time, but I wondered if I might

  have enough time to make things right with you. We’ve wasted

  so many years. If there’s any chance at all that we can even start to reconcile . . . it would mean more to me than I can say.’

  I wait for him to say he’s sorry. I will him to say it. I’ve

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  wanted him to say it for twenty years. Surely now, when time is running out, when he says he wants to reconcile – when he

  wants that more than he can say – surely now he can force

  those words out.

  Maybe, if he does, I can think about a reconciliation. He’s

  scared now – I can see that in his eyes – in the way he looks

  at me. I need to know if he is really interested in acknowledging

  the pain he caused, or if he’s just scared of the judgement he’ll

  face from his God.

  ‘Heidi says you have maybe three months. Six at most,’ I say,

  picking imaginary fluff from the blanket on the bed.

  ‘I’ll not see six,’ he says. ‘I feel it. I can feel it getting closer.

  The cancer’s spreading.’

  I look at him. There’s so much I want to say that I don’t

  know where to start. I could quip that the cancer started to

  spread a long, long time ago. But I don’t.

  ‘I’m scared, Heidi,’ he says, his voice weak. Pathetic.

  I close my eyes. Just once, Dad, I think. Just say sorry once.

  I can feel tears prick at my eyes. A well of emotion I know

  wants a release rises up in me. It’s a mixture of anger and grief

  and fear. I’m that thirteen-year-old again having her heart

  broken, asking her daddy to say he loved her enough to stay

  and that he was sorry that he ever hurt her.

  I swallow them down and look him straight in the eyes. He

  will not see me cry. He will never know how much he hurt

  me, or how scared I was.

  ‘I’m not sure what you want me to do about that,’ I say, not

  caring in that moment about the icy tone in my voice.

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  Chapter Seven

  Joe

  Now

  I don’t like being in this house alone any more. I used to enjoy

  the silence. I’d be happy lost among my books, or out in the

  garden. Now, no amount of books can distract me from the

  knowledge that my body is giving up on me.

  I should have known I wasn’t well. Maybe I did and I was

  in denial. I’ve felt myself slowing down for the last few months

  – having less energy, less drive. I was foolish to think, or hope, it was merely my age.

  Time is running out and I don’t know what’s ahead of me.

  Will it be a painful death? Will I just slip away? What will be

  waiting for me on the other side? I’m a believer, of course. I

  believe in a God who
forgives all sins when the sinner repents,

  but is there is a cut-off point in His tolerance for wrongdoers?

  Are some sins unforgivable?

  Ciara has been so cold with me. I’m not sure what I expected.

  A hug? A tearful reunion? It’s been almost ten years or more

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  since we last saw each other. Ten years since she said I was no longer part of her life and never would be again.

  I suppose I expected some sign of love. That she cared. She’s

  not the thirteen-year-old girl I moved out on any more. She’s

  a grown woman, old enough to know that adult relationships

  aren’t always straightforward. She should have more cop on me

  now. Then again, maybe I don’t deserve to be forgiven, by Ciara

  or by God.

  Maybe I’ll ask Heidi to call Father Brennan for me. Get him

  to come to the house and provide some spiritual counsel. I’m

  too sore and too tired to get out of this bed save to shuffle to

  the bathroom and back again. I’m definitely too sore for a trip

  to chapel.

  What will he think though, if I tell him? Will he stay impar-

  tial as priests are supposed to? Will he dole out the penance of

  a couple of Hail Marys and Our Fathers and all will be forgiven,

  or will he never think of me the same again?

  The clock in the hall is ticking loudly. I used to find it a

  comfort – a constant companion on quiet afternoons in front

  of the fire, reading my books with a cup of tea at hand.

  Now, though, it’s just reminding me that every second passing

  is one that I won’t get back, and brings me one second closer

  to facing the judgement of God.

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

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  Chapter Eight

  Heidi

  Then

  Ciara’s face was incandescent with rage. Her blue eyes narrowed.

  Her mouth set in a snarl. She was lashing out, swiping at him

  with her arms while he tried to subdue her.

  I was standing in the corner. If I could have pushed myself

  further into it, disappeared through a crack in the plaster, I

  would have. I was cradling my favourite doll and trying to

  understand what was happening. My mother was trying to coax

  me to come and sit beside her, but I’d never seen such rage

  before and it scared me.