The Day She Came Back

by Amanda Prowse

  She fired it off with a sense of nervous anticipation, unsure of the convention when it came to chatting like this.

  But your not sleeping – your chatting to me.

  Victoria cringed at his grammatical error. She might not have been au fait with the rules of flirtation, but she knew enough to stay shtum on this.

  You got me!

  Have I?

  Came his immediate response.

  It would have been hard to describe how this brief exchange, his words curt and unimaginative, made such a difference to her state of mind. It was the finest distraction, and also, at some subtle level, she wanted to talk to someone who had no part in the whole sordid lie that was her life. Her first thought, with a ball of excitement gathering in her gut, was to shout for Daksha and show her the messages, picturing how they would hug each other and squeal with childish excitement, but Daksha was no doubt sleeping deeply in her loving home with her mum and dad keeping watch and her siblings within earshot along the corridor. Unlike her, who was all alone, having more or less sent her one friend and ally packing. It was this thought that sent a wobble of fear through her very core. Looking out of the side window towards the path, which snaked its way around the house, she wished she had had the forethought to draw the curtains. She listened hard now, in case there might be footsteps on the gravel, alerting her to . . . what? An intruder? Now she gathered the quilt around her shoulders a little tighter and curled her toes beneath the fabric.

  I honestly don’t know what to say to that.

  She wrote the absolute truth.

  Ill take it as a yes.

  What was it with him and apostrophes?

  A yes to what? I don’t know what the question was?

  Victoria felt bold and liked the rush of confidence that swelled in her veins.

  The question was, would you like some company?

  Now?!

  Her panicked response.

  Her thoughts were so frantic they collided with each other, making it almost impossible to think straight and come up with a coherent plan.

  I haven’t washed my hair for days! How can I see Flynn! I’ve got a spot on my chin. He wants to come here, to this house, right now? It’s late! I’m wearing dirty shorts! Do I like him? Do I know him? What would Prim think? What would Daks say? This boy who I have thought about for years wants to come here and see me!!!

  Sure.

  Felt like the best response.

  On my way. We can talk about Chelsea’s latest performance! Ha ha! (they are blue ones by the way!)

  This final message sent Victoria into something of a tailspin. Letting the quilt drop to the floor, she ran around the sofa for no good reason, before rushing up the stairs and into the bathroom, where she thoroughly cleaned her teeth and rinsed with mouthwash twice for good measure. She stared at her reflection and pulled her hair back into a loose knot before letting it down again and then putting it up again. There was no disguising the dark circles of grief that sat beneath her eyes or the lack of polish to her skin, which she had neglected in recent times. But this was who she was and this was how she was. She remembered what Prim had said about when she met Grandpa and he had liked her for being her, ‘warts and all’. Her tears gathered and she cursed the memory, which like all memories of her gran right now were bittersweet, tinged with the pain of recent loss and betrayal. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted the irony seep of her blood.

  ‘Why the fuck did you do it to me?’ she asked the mirror, picturing her gran standing behind her at a time when she might stop by to chat while Victoria got ready for bed, in the time before – when she was in the dark; before she felt like her whole life had been compromised.

  The wardrobe doors were propped open with bundles of dirty laundry. Prim had been fastidious about gathering up anything on the floor and shoving it into the washing machine. Victoria rummaged through the rail stuffed with overloaded hangers. To her dismay, she discovered that many of the items in there were no more than jumble fodder. Old sweatshirts with transfers of ponies on the front, dresses that were at least three sizes too small and a whole range of school uniform for the school she had left a few months ago now. She chose her linen shirt from the laundry pile, giving it a quick sniff before spraying it with her perfume and slipping it over her vest. It was as she stood back and pondered what to do about the bottom half that the front doorbell rang. Too late; her denim cut-offs showing off her chicken legs would have to do.

  Despite having known that Flynn was en route, it still shocked her. It was rare, if not unheard of, for the doorbell of Rosebank to ring any time after dusk.

  Supposing it wasn’t Flynn?

  Being alone in the house for the first time in the dead of night, intrusive, fearful thoughts gathered around her. She felt her blood race as she looked at the closed doors along the landing, wondering what might lurk behind them. It wasn’t so much that she had relied on Prim to come out wielding a hammer in the event of an emergency, more that she had never considered there might be an emergency, not with her gran close by, keeping her safe. Prim, the woman who tamed her wild thoughts when her grief felt a little overwhelming.

  ‘What a joke!’

  She gripped the bannister as she crept down the stairs. His dark hair was visible in the small leaded window at the top of the door.

  And then, just like that, there he was.

  ‘Hi, Flynn.’ She spoke with as much calm as she could muster. Trying desperately to give the impression that it was no big deal, an everyday occurrence. Whereas, in reality, it was the stuff of her daydreams come true. Flynn McNamara was in her house! Standing in the hallway in the middle of the night with his backpack in his hand. She had quite forgotten what the sight of him did to her: warmed her gut, made her smile and sent shivers of longing through her body.

  ‘You live in an old-lady house!’ His opening gambit as he looked around and then laughed. Victoria laughed too, because she didn’t think it through, overwhelmed by the whole experience, but remembering enough that ‘doll-like and dumb’ were what she needed to strive for. She took in his unkempt curly hair, scruffy trainers, skinny jeans that sat tantalisingly low to reveal the navy-blue waistband of his underwear, and his slightly bloodshot eyes, their gaze a little off-centre. As her giggles burbled, however, each one left a dot of shame on her tongue.

  This is your home! Prim’s home! And you know and love everything in it! Or at least you used to . . . But it was too late; she had slipped into that role. The one some take on when they meet a person they like too much and try to squeeze themselves into the shape of someone they think that person might like. Assuming, sadly, that the real them, the ‘warts and all’ them, would simply not be enough.

  ‘I didn’t decorate it, any of it. No way!’ She hated the disloyalty and knew deep down this appeasing cowardice paved the way to a destination she did not want to visit, but it was too late; she had jumped into a cart and it was hurtling along a track faster than she knew how to steer.

  ‘No shit!’ He gave her his beautiful, lopsided smile and walked forward. ‘Good morning, Victoria!’ He gave an elaborate bow with one arm flat against his stomach, his other outstretched.

  ‘Are you drunk?’ She laughed again, like some giggling stupid thing, stating the obvious, as Flynn wobbled on the spot and the air around him thickened with the foul odour of booze. He straightened and teetered towards the wall; his outstretched palm, fixed to break his fall, thankfully found a space between a Victorian framed needlepoint and a black-and-white photograph of Great-Granny Cutter on her wedding day, looking, it was fair to say, less than ecstatic about the whole affair. Victoria felt her heart leap at the mere prospect of something getting broken or damaged, aware almost for the first time that she was now the custodian of Rosebank and everything in it. And then another thought: if stuff got broken, so what? Who did she have to answer to? No one.

  ‘Where have you been?’ She thought she might be able to help him focus by engaging him in conver
sation, anything to try to control those flailing hands and unsteady feet.

  ‘What, tonight?’

  ‘Yes, tonight!’

  ‘Oh, pub, and then to Jasper’s, and then I was walking home and I thought’ – he clicked his fingers loudly – ‘Victoria!’ The slur of his speech was a little more obvious to her now.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ She didn’t know the right course of action; his state was seemingly something very different from how she felt after sipping a glass of wine with Prim over dinner. Her concern was now in figuring out how to get him to sober up – she wanted to talk to sober Flynn.

  She led the way to the kitchen and he walked slowly beside her. This was not how the many fantasies of Flynn McNamara pitching up at her house in the middle of the night had usually played out.

  ‘So you, like, live here all by yourself?’

  Even the words were alarming. It was something she was only beginning to consider, living in and caring for this big old house alone. She didn’t know if she was up to it and desperately wished Daksha was asleep upstairs.

  She watched his eyes rove the painted ceilings and then peep into the open doors of the rooms leading off the hallway and wondered what his house might be like. If she had to guess, it was probably much closer to Daksha’s than to this.

  ‘This place is massive!’ He sounded impressed, which made her feel more than a little uncomfortable. She revised her mental image.

  Like Daksha’s, but smaller . . .

  ‘Uh-huh. I’m on my own now, but Daksha has been staying, so I haven’t really been alone. But she . . . she’s gone home.’ She blotted out the image of her friend’s face, her look of hurt, not wanting it to blemish this interaction.

  ‘And now you’re not alone because I’m here.’

  ‘Yup.’ Her hands felt clammy and her gut full of jitters. She knew she was perspiring and hoped she didn’t smell, thinking now not only of her sweat but the worn blouse she had hastily retrieved from the bedroom floor. Her stomach jumped with all the possibilities of what might happen. She was as excited as she was petrified.

  ‘It sucks what happened to your nan.’ He held her eyeline and she was thankful for his sincere tone.

  ‘Yes, it sucks. I know it’s real, but I don’t believe it’s real, if that makes any sense. It’s all been really shit.’ She decided not to elaborate, not yet.

  He nodded. ‘Yep. I know that feeling.’

  ‘Have you . . .’ She coughed, trying to relax but still feeling over-awed and anxious. ‘Have you ever lost anyone?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sat at the kitchen table. ‘My big brother.’

  ‘Oh no! I didn’t know that.’ She took the chair opposite him, trying not to think of how she and Prim had sat like this to eat their breakfast every morning.

  ‘Did you have any sweet dreams, darling girl?’

  ‘Grapefruit or muesli?’

  ‘Oh, by the way, a funny thing: you know I told you that your mum was dead, well . . .’

  ‘Well, it’s all a bit weird; he would have been my big brother,’ Flynn explained, running his palm over his face. ‘Except he died when he was a toddler, so he is kind of always my little brother too.’

  ‘So you don’t remember him?’

  ‘Again, weird.’ He yawned, suggesting the night might finally be catching up with him. ‘I was born after he died so I don’t remember him at all, but my mum and dad always told me I had a big brother watching over me, and they’d kind of point upwards. I thought for years he lived in the loft and wondered why I’d never met him.’ He smiled at her and she took this as permission to release the giggle that was brewing behind her lips.

  ‘I thought he might come down when I was at school or while I was sleeping, like we had the job of being my parents’ kids on a shift system. And then by the time my little sister, Maisie, was old enough to be told about him, I heard my mum tell her that Michael junior was in heaven, and that’s when it clicked for me.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Seventeen.’ He smiled, and again she laughed, liking this ready, easy humour. It put them both at ease.

  ‘Just kidding, I must have been about six.’

  ‘That must be really hard. Your poor mum and dad.’

  ‘It is hard, even now. They still mourn him, of course, but I can’t because I never really knew him. I’d never tell my parents that, though. They cry on his birthday and the anniversary of the day he died, and I sit with them and they hug us, like we are sad too, and Maisie and I look at each other, a bit embarrassed, but I don’t feel much at all – I never knew him, he’s just a baby photo on the sideboard.’ He rubbed his eyes and exhaled foul breath. ‘God, I’m starving!’

  Her eyes fell upon the chicken dish prepared by Mrs Joshi. ‘Do you want some chicken?’

  ‘Yeah! Chicken!’ He sat up, brightening.

  She ladled two large helpings of the succulent dish with its aromatic coconut-scented sauce and dug the spoon back in to retrieve the golden, plump rice from the bottom of the pot, which nestled on a bed of onions. A quick whizz in the microwave, and the smell of the steaming-hot fare filled the room with the subtle scent of spice, tantalising enough to make her taste buds sing.

  Flynn took the fork she offered and dived straight in, filling his mouth and refilling the fork before he had finished chewing.

  ‘Oh my God! This is so good! Did you make it?’

  ‘No. Daksha’s mum made it.’ She felt the pang of guilt that here they were, tucking into the food Mrs Joshi had made in good faith before being summoned to come and drive her daughter home from the house where she no longer felt wanted.

  ‘Do you want a glass of wine?’

  ‘A glass of wine?’ He let out a loud guffaw and small flecks of rice flew from his mouth and landed on the table. ‘What are you, like, sixty?’

  She felt the bloom of embarrassment on her neck and chest.

  ‘No, I just . . . My gran always drank wine with her dinner and she used to give me a glass with supper sometimes.’ There was much she hated about the situation: the fact that she was having to discuss Prim, as well as trying to justify her habits. She also smarted from his criticism: the fact he thought it was uncool that she drank wine at all, and finally, that she had absolutely no clue as to what the fashionable or right thing was to do.

  What would Courtney do?

  Picturing the drinks cabinet in the dining room, she mentally worked her way through the shelves: port, brandy and advocaat, which had probably gone off, and a bottle of whisky bought for Grandpa’s wake and still, as far as she knew, unopened.

  ‘What do you usually drink?’ She hated the timidity to her voice, confirming again that this wasn’t the real her but the doll-like and dumb version of her, trying to be the kind of girl that a boy like Flynn McNamara might like.

  She continued to summon her inner Courtney, and thought of Daksha, knowing this one aspect would be the thing she remembered for the retelling, where she would embellish and make it funny. That was if they ever reconnected and she got the chance. A thought that, in the company of this boy, didn’t distress her as much as it should have.

  Flynn paused mid-mouthful and considered what might be his tipple of choice. ‘I drink beer or vodka, but mainly beer and then vodka afterwards, and then sometimes I switch back to beer.’

  ‘I don’t think we have beer or vodka.’

  We . . . we . . . there is no ‘we’, it’s just you now . . . just you in this big old-lady house of lies with your bottles of wine and fine antiques . . .

  ‘Could I have a cup of tea?’

  ‘A cup of tea?’ This time, her laughter was the relieved kind. ‘Yes. That I can manage.’ She abandoned her food and filled and flicked on the kettle. ‘Well, this is a strange evening. One I won’t forget.’ She found it a lot easier to talk freely and be herself when looking away from him. Maybe that was the key, to always avert her eyes . . . ‘I didn’t think when I sat on the sofa tonight that it’d end here in
the kitchen at this time, eating supper with you, Flynn.’

  ‘Me either.’

  ‘What made you decide to message me? You never have before.’ She placed two mugs on the countertop with teabags nestling inside and retook her place at the kitchen table.

  Flynn finished his mouthful, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and rested his fork on the edge of the bowl.

  ‘It was when I saw you the other week when you walked past and we talked a bit.’

  Yes, that day . . . The guilt she had felt was now replaced by a frothing anger. I wish I’d got home earlier, I wish she had told me herself and given me the chance to ask her why!

  ‘And I was thinking about you. You’re not like the other girls at school.’

  Victoria smirked at the irony, thinking how she had always figured her life would be that much easier if she were exactly like the other girls at school.

  ‘You’re sensible.’ He slurred a little.

  ‘Oh God! Is that code for boring?’ She rolled her eyes.

  ‘No, it’s code for easy to talk to because you get stuff and you don’t seem to give a shit about the rubbish that Courtney and her mates harp on about.’

  ‘I didn’t think we’d spoken enough over the years to allow you to have formed an opinion.’

  Just the three exchanges in our whole school lives, in fact.

  ‘True, but I used to listen to you chat to other people like Daksha. I used to watch you in class.’

  This she did not know. And it thrilled her.

  ‘And tonight, I didn’t feel like going home and I knew you lived close by and so I messaged you. I think I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘And here we are.’ She swallowed as the kettle boiled.

  ‘Yes, here we are.’ He reached around his gums with his tongue, to free lodged chicken, no doubt. ‘I’ve never told anyone that before.’

  ‘Told anyone what?’ She had lost the thread a little.

  ‘About my brother.’

  She felt ridiculously flattered that he had shared something so personal with her. This felt like a sure-fire way to leapfrog the chitchat and get close quickly, the thought of which she relished right now, as loneliness and confusion lapped at her heels.