‘Zoe!’ I gasped, glancing round the restaurant to see if anyone had overheard. ‘How dare you!’ I actually sat on my hand to avoid slapping her in public.
She shrugged. ‘You asked me to talk to him,’ she said. And then she pushed her chair backwards and stormed from the restaurant.
‘Just let her go,’ I told Scott, when he, too, started to stand. ‘She knows her way home.’
Zoe’s was such clichéd angst, it was almost as if she’d looked up how to behave in a psychology textbook. She would position herself in constant opposition to Scott, seemingly with the sole aim of reminding him that he wasn’t her father, should he finally attempt to overrule her.
Scott, bless him, had the patience of a saint, and would explain every time that he wasn’t trying to be her father, but that he was there for her if ever she needed him.
Like with the food issues, I tried pleading with and/or bribing her. I tried threatening and punishing her, too. But as ever, nothing worked. Zoe never treated poor Scott with anything other than disdain.
A couple of months after they’d met, by which time Scott was staying over a couple of nights a week, I heard him lose his cool for the first time. It was a miracle, really, that it hadn’t happened before.
I was in the kitchen checking my Visa statement on the laptop and, because Scott wanted to watch the match, he’d headed through to the lounge, only to find Zoe had left her almost untouched sandwich on a plate bang in the middle of the sofa.
‘Are you eating this?’ I heard him ask.
I paused what I was doing and listened more intently.
‘Does it look like I’m eating it?’ she replied.
‘OK. Let me rephrase that,’ Scott said. ‘If you’re not eating that, how about you carry it through to the kitchen, put it in the bin and put your dirty plate in the dishwasher?’
‘Why should I?’ Zoe asked in her most belligerent tone of voice.
‘Because leaving our dinner plates in the middle of the sofa isn’t sustainable behaviour,’ Scott explained, reasonably.
‘You what?’ Zoe said. To my despair, she was starting to sound a lot like Vicky Pollard from Little Britain.
‘Sustainable behaviour is something that everyone can do without it being a problem. Unsustainable is something that everyone can’t do,’ Scott explained. ‘So, for instance, if we all left our dinner plates on the sofa, then none of us would be able to sit down, would we? So we can’t all do that. It’s unsustainable.’
‘Whatever,’ Zoe said.
I blew through my lips and closed the lid of the laptop. I was loth to stop what I was doing, but my daughter’s rudeness was becoming intolerable. But as I started to stand, for the first time ever Scott spoke up.
‘Just do it, Zoe!’ he shouted. ‘Take your bloody plate through to the kitchen before I ram it down your throat.’ I shuddered to hear him talking to her this way, but she’d been so consistently foul to him I had kind of been waiting for it to happen. As I hesitated over whether to intervene, Zoe said, predictably, ‘You’re not my father. You don’t get to tell me what to do.’
‘You’re right,’ Scott said. ‘And thank God I’m not. Because being the father of such a rude, gutter-mouthed, sulky, ungrateful daughter would be a real f— a real effing downer, wouldn’t it?’
‘And so would having a dad like you,’ Zoe replied childishly, but with a quiver in her voice I hadn’t heard for a while.
I was unconvinced that this was a constructive way for Scott to build a relationship with my daughter but, after all, everything else had failed. He’d been as nice as pie to her for months and it had got him precisely nowhere. So as she entered the kitchen and dumped her plate in the sink, sandwich and all, I said nothing. I just watched and waited to see if things might now improve.
A few days later I got my friend Ellie to phone her psychologist brother for advice. He said that Zoe’s reactions were all pretty normal and that I should just keep things as calm as possible. I should ensure Zoe felt loved and safe, he said, and wait for her to get over it. So even though I was finding the love bit increasingly challenging, that’s what I tried to do.
In the beginning, Scott and I just seemed to get on better and better. I could barely believe my luck.
The main reason for this was his honesty, I think. He was so truthful about everything that I never really doubted his word. So if Scott said, ‘I’m going to go home for a bit. I need a bit of quiet time. It’s just the way I’m built,’ I’d know that it was exactly as he’d said. It didn’t mean, ‘You’ve annoyed me,’ or ‘I’m going off you,’ or even ‘Your daughter is driving me insane,’ though he often enough said that last one, too.
I found I was happier, that I was more satisfied sexually as well, than I had ever been before. It will sound clichéd, but I really did find myself singing in the shower of a morning, and it seemed to me that perhaps I’d been in the wrong relationship all along. I even occasionally felt grateful towards Ian for having prompted the break-up. And that took all the anger out of our separation.
He started stopping by for a cuppa about then. He’d bring the kids home and then stay for a cup of tea or, depending on the time of day, even a bite to eat. He’d split up with Linda so he had time on his hands, I suppose. I have to admit to feeling a bit smug about the fact that their relationship hadn’t worked out.
The mealtimes when Ian ate with us were the only times Zoe was bearable. She was never happier than when Ian and I were being civil to each other.
But there was someone who didn’t have such a positive view, and that person was Scott. Finally, the man with no faults revealed that he wasn’t so perfect after all. He suffered from jealousy, and it was all directed at my ex.
Of itself, we could probably have worked around it. After all, I was as in love with Scott as I was comfortable with the fact that I was no longer with Ian. So all I had to do was avoid mentioning the one to the other and everything would be fine.
But Zoe soon discovered she could wind Scott up about it. She’d compare them constantly, and within earshot, always painting Ian as Scott’s far superior rival. She’d tell Scott what a great father Ian was, how he earned so much money, or how much his new suit or car had cost. If Scott gave me a gift, usually something cute and home-made, or tasty and home-grown, she’d mention some previous expensive gift I’d had from Ian, exaggerating freely. She was turning into a sort of Glenn Close of daughters and if Scott had owned a pet rabbit, I’m pretty sure she would have boiled it.
Once she’d twigged that I was avoiding mentioning Ian, things really got difficult to manage. Zoe started to note when Ian lingered for a drink and then make me look like a liar by mentioning it.
‘You didn’t tell me Ian stayed for dinner,’ Scott said accusingly one night, and I knew instantly that Zoe was behind it.
‘He brought the kids home,’ I said. ‘That’s all. He is their father, Scott.’
‘But you invited him to dinner.’
‘I was serving up, Scott. I could hardly not invite him, could I? He stayed just long enough to wolf down a jacket potato and then he left.’
‘That’s not what Zoe said.’
‘Well, no. Of course it isn’t. But I can assure you, he ate a potato and left.’
‘He didn’t have dessert?’
‘Yes, he ate a yoghurt, if you must know.’
‘And wine.’
‘And he drank a glass of wine.’
‘But you decided to keep that a secret?’
‘I didn’t keep it a secret, Scott. I just didn’t think it worth mentioning.’
‘You didn’t think it was worth mentioning,’ Scott repeated. ‘Funny, that. We spoke for half an hour last night and you didn’t think to tell me.’
‘OK, if you must know, this is exactly why I didn’t mention it. Because it makes you get like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Jealous. Absurdly jealous.’
‘Right,’ Scott said, pulling his still-war
m jacket back on. ‘Whereas knowing you’ve been seeing your ex-husband behind my back doesn’t make me feel jealous at all.’
No sooner had the front door slammed than Zoe appeared, looking smug. ‘Scott didn’t stay for long,’ she said glibly.
‘You’re right,’ I replied, as neutrally as I could manage. ‘He didn’t.’
Four
Jude
It takes us less than ten minutes to walk to the house on Bantry Road.
Our lunch of Pot Noodles and crisps hasn’t really hit the spot for me, and my stomach is grumbling as we walk. But when I mention this to Jess, she suggests it’s probably just nerves, so I wonder briefly if she might be right before deciding that, no, I simply haven’t eaten enough. Jess always likes to find a psychological explanation for everything, and sometimes, for instance when you’re just hungry, that can be quite annoying.
The rain has completely stopped now, and there are even occasional glimpses of sunshine bouncing light off the glistening pavements, making the whole place look just a touch less sinister.
‘So, what would you say to her?’ Jessica asks as we walk. ‘I mean, she’s obviously not going to, but just suppose Zoe opened the front door. What would you say?’
I think about this for a moment, and then tell Jess the truth: that I haven’t the faintest idea. As we continue to walk, I try out various ideas in my mind, but none of them quite seems to work.
When we get to number forty, it’s a council house surrounded by other identical council houses in a street surrounded by other identical streets. It has a small, rather absurd iron gate across the narrow concrete path that leads through the overgrown front yard to the door – absurd because there is no fence on either side of it, so we could just step around it if we wanted to. I open the gate and theatrically bow and beckon to Jess to enter.
The paintwork on the front door is peeling, one of the panes of glass has been replaced with cardboard and to the left of the door, pushed up beneath the lounge window, is an old rain-soaked fake-leather sofa. ‘This is nice,’ I murmur.
‘Just stop it,’ Jessica mutters, knocking boldly on the front door. I think I see the net curtains in the upstairs window twitch, but I’m not sure. After a moment, Jess raps on the door again before bending down to peer through the flap of the letterbox. ‘Hello?’ she shouts out. ‘Anyone home?’
She straightens and pulls a face. ‘The problem is that you look like trouble,’ she says.
‘What do you mean, I look like trouble?’
‘Men in suits,’ Jess says. ‘They rarely bring good news to ordinary people. They’re usually here to seize the telly or serve a writ or something. You look like a lawyer or a judge. You look like trouble.’
I fiddle with my tie as I consider this. ‘OK . . .’ I say doubtfully.
‘I nearly said something when we left the unit,’ Jess says. ‘I nearly asked you to change. I wish I had now.’
I give her an exaggerated once-over of my own, taking in her candy-pink coat, the leggings, the yellow Dr. Martens.
‘What?’ she says. ‘I’m not saying you have to look like everyone else. I’m just saying that looking like a plainclothes cop isn’t perhaps ideal.’
‘I think I preferred it when you said I look like a judge.’ I laugh.
‘Whatever,’ Jess says, waving one hand at me dismissively. ‘You know what I mean.’
We step back from the front door and look up at the bedroom window. I still think I can sense someone there, peering out at us. ‘This isn’t going to work, is it?’ I say miserably.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, I’m just realising. It’s like, I thought we’d find her, or, you know, not be able to find her. Definitively. But the probability is actually just this, isn’t it? It’s just no answer.’
At that moment, a yellow DHL van comes hammering up the street, then scrunches to a stop in front of where we’re standing. A young guy with a blond ponytail climbs down, retrieves a package from the rear of the van and then, ignoring the ironic gate, jogs across the patch of grass to join us. ‘All right?’ he says. ‘Anyone in?’
‘We’re not sure,’ Jessica tells him, standing back. ‘You try.’
He knocks loudly on the door and raps his knuckles on the window. ‘DHL!’ he shouts. ‘Delivery for you!’
Surprisingly, the front door opens immediately, revealing a middle-aged woman in a velour dressing gown. ‘Oh, is that my Amazon stuff?’ she asks, reaching out to take the package from the DHL chap’s outstretched hand.
‘Just sign here,’ he says, stuffing a touchscreen device in her face. The package signed for, he jogs back across the garden and climbs into his van.
The woman starts to close the front door again, but then hesitates briefly. ‘If you’re Jehovah’s or whatever, I’m not interested,’ she says.
Both Jess and I grin at this.
‘We’re not,’ Jess says.
‘No, we’re really not,’ I add.
‘And if you’re selling something . . .’ the woman begins.
‘We’re actually just looking for his sister?’ Jess interrupts. ‘Zoe Fuller. Do you know her?’
The woman freezes. It only lasts a split second, but I can see the name means something to her.
‘You know her?’ I ask.
The woman shrugs. ‘I might do. She in trouble?’
‘Not at all,’ Jessica says.
‘I’m her brother. Like I said, I’m just trying to track her down.’
‘You don’t look like her brother.’
‘Well, no,’ I say, unsure how to respond to that. ‘Apparently I look like a Jehovah’s Witness. But I’m not. I’m Zoe’s brother.’
‘She was here, then?’ Jess asks. ‘At this address?’
‘Ages ago, she was. She was ’ere with Dwayne.’
‘Dwayne?’
‘My son. But they only lasted a couple of months. His relationships never last. Too selfish. And then they both fucked off. Separately, mind.’
‘Do you know where to?’ Jess asks.
The woman shakes her head. She pulls back the flap of her Amazon package and peers inside. I can see that she’s already losing interest in us. ‘Nah,’ she says. ‘Dwayne went back to his dad’s, I expect. As for Zo, I really couldn’t say. Nice girl, though. I liked her. It was just a shame she got into smoking that rubbish.’
I open my mouth to ask her what rubbish, but Jess is already saying, ‘Do you have an address for Dwayne, maybe? Or a number?’
‘Of course I do,’ the woman tells us. ‘He’s my son. But I ain’t giving it to you. I’m sorry, love, but I don’t know you from Adam.’
She starts to push the door closed, but Jess positions one foot in the gap. ‘Just one quick question,’ she says brightly. ‘We have this other address for Zoe. Do you know it, by any chance?’
The woman reopens the door a little and shoots Jess a glare designed to kill. ‘Take your foot out of my door, and maybe I’ll answer that,’ she says.
‘Yes, sorry,’ Jess says, withdrawing her boot from the opening. ‘Here,’ she says, plucking the sheet of paper from my grasp and handing it over.
The woman studies it. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘That’s over in Lawrence Hill, that is.’
‘Is that a walk, or, like, a drive away?’ Jess asks.
‘It’s a long old walk. Or you could get a bus. The number . . .’
‘We have a car,’ I interrupt. ‘So we’ll probably drive.’
‘Right,’ the woman says. ‘Well, watch your backs. It’s rough up there.’ And then the door clicks shut, and it’s over.
As we walk back towards the car, I repeat the woman’s warning. ‘Watch your backs,’ I say. ‘It’s rough up there.’
‘I know,’ Jess says. ‘The mind boggles.’
‘And what do you think Zoe was smoking?’ I ask.
‘Let’s just hope she only meant weed,’ Jess says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But it didn’t sound like she meant a bit o
f weed, really, did it?’
‘Not everyone knows to differentiate,’ Jess says. ‘Plenty of people think that all drugs are basically heroin.’
‘And what do you think she had in the package?’ I ask.
‘A vibrator, I reckon,’ Jess says.
I snigger. ‘Yeah, she was kind of in a hurry, wasn’t she?’
‘Definitely,’ Jess says. ‘A rabbit, probably. I hope she remembered to order batteries, too. Otherwise there’s going to be a frantic nip down to the shops.’
It takes us fifteen minutes to drive to Lawrence Hill and another five to park up and walk back to Queen Ann Road. Most of the area looks as if it was redeveloped in the sixties or seventies: low-rise tower blocks vie for space with ugly industrial units.
Number 127, when we reach it, is the address of a long-out-of-business garage in the middle of yet another row of boarded-up shop fronts.
To the right of the defunct garage is a grubby off-white door with a carefully stencilled plaque that reads, ‘Flat 1. 127 Queen Ann Road’. Above this is a dilapidated sign, the remaining letters of which read, ‘TY E & E HAUST CHANGE • BO YWO K • VAL TI G • MOT’.
‘Queen Ann Road is pretty majestic,’ I comment as we stand in front of the doorway, peering up at the yellowed net curtains in the first-floor windows. ‘Zoe’s tour of the world’s most glamorous hotspots.’
‘I know,’ Jessica says, as she knocks on the door. ‘She’s not been moving up in the world, has she?’
The door is opened almost immediately by a young man in a dirty Nike tracksuit. ‘Yeah?’ he asks. He smiles at Jessica and then turns to look at me, actually scratching his balls as he does so.
‘We’re looking for Zoe Fuller,’ Jess tells him. ‘Do you know her?’
The guy shakes his head. ‘Should I?’ he says.
‘She used to live here,’ Jess tells him. ‘Or at least she told us she did. This is her brother. We’re trying to track her down.’
‘Our mum’s ill,’ I tell him, deciding to create a heart-rending narrative to get a maximum of information out of him, but then almost immediately feeling guilty for having invented an illness for my mother. I worry that I have somehow tempted fate. ‘I thought Zoe needed to know.’
The Road to Zoe Page 5