A shower of pebbles hit her bedroom window and jolted her out of her thoughts. Picking up her mobile phone, she pulled the quilt off the bed and made her way to the cupboard on the landing. Taking the key from the lock, she activated the torch on her phone and ducked into the small space. She closed the door behind her and locked herself in from the inside. The torch turned off, she drew the quilt over her head, then stuck her fingers in her ears to drown out the sound of hammering at the door. Either the neighbours would call the police, or he’d give up, eventually. Either way, she’d had enough. This had to end.
Chapter Two
London, 2017
‘How are you feeling? You look much better.’
She was lying. He looked terrible. Worse than last time.
‘I’m alright, darling. Just having trouble with my memory. I can’t seem to sort my thoughts out. It’s like someone gave my head a good shake and jumbled everything up.’
Katy squeezed his hand. She loved her dad. She couldn’t understand why she chose such unsuitable men when she’d had him as a role model all of her life.
‘What are the doctors saying now?’
‘The usual,’ he replied. ‘It was another stroke. A nasty one. It’s knocked me for six, I can tell you.’
She thought back to the earlier TIAs. Like Louis’s inevitable punch, this had been coming for a long time, but what could they do? Terry had to sit it out and wait: monitor his blood pressure, take the blood pressure pills, have another aspirin. Katy felt helpless. She couldn’t even wire a plug with any degree of confidence, let alone make any recommendations about how to deal with her dad’s medical problems. They were in the hands of the doctors. They had to follow their advice.
‘How’s it going with that young idiot? Has he backed off yet?’
Katy didn’t want to trouble her father with it. She’d let it slip shortly before he was rushed to hospital. For all she knew, hearing what had happened with Louis is what had pushed him over the edge.
‘It’s fine, Dad. I think he’s got the message.’
He hadn’t, of course. But Katy couldn’t possibly tell her father that. She’d been huddled in the upstairs cupboard, terrified for her life. Louis had been pounding at the door, thumping the windows and shouting horrendous threats through the letterbox for at least an hour before one of the neighbours chased him off.
The police came soon afterwards. With her fingers still in her ears, Katy had been too exhausted to move. It didn’t help that they thumped so hard at the door she thought it was Louis back again. A policeman’s knock they call it. Well, in the middle of the night it was downright frightening.
She didn’t move for half an hour. She was too scared. They pounded down the door in the end. It made a complete mess of the frame, but they thought she might have harmed herself, apparently.
‘Do you want to make an official complaint?’ they’d asked.
‘Will it make any difference?’ she replied. ‘It hasn’t done so far.’
The problem was, he hadn’t hit her again and he hadn’t threatened her directly in public. There was nothing for the police to get their teeth into. Not yet. It was more mind games. He knew he could paralyse her with fear – he didn’t need to hit her. How long would it go on? Surely the bully would move on and find another target soon? Katy was passing him on for some other poor woman to deal with. She was too spineless to sort him out herself, so she would hide from him until he got fed up, and then some other female would go through exactly what she had done. She simply didn’t have the energy for the fight.
‘I know you’re lying,’ came the reply. ‘I can see it in your face. You never were a good liar. I could always tell.’
‘Look, Dad, I know you’re worried, but I’m okay, honestly. It’s being handled. You need to get better, don’t worry about me. Just get well again, okay?’
‘You know we always loved Elijah. The minute you brought him home at Easter I said to Sue, those two are made for each other. If they don’t marry, I don’t know anything about relationships. And as we got to almost forty years together, I’m at least partly qualified to say something like that.’
‘I know, Dad. Talk about coming on heavy with him. I think he was scared that you wouldn’t let him leave the house until he’d proposed. We’d only known each other a term – I was eighteen or nineteen. I can’t even remember properly. Eighteen, I was still only eighteen then. What do you know about relationships at eighteen?’
‘I met your mum when I seventeen, and we were married by twenty. That’s how you and Elijah would have been. If he hadn’t …’
‘I know, Dad. We were young, who knows what might have happened? But it’s over, it’s a long time ago now. I thought I was in love with Elijah back then, but I can hardly remember it now.’
Katy watched as her dad’s eyes began to tear up.
‘What, Dad? What is it?’
‘I’m sorry, darling. I’m so sorry, but they don’t come to ask me often enough. They leave me here and my legs are still too shaky to get out on my own.’
‘Oh Dad,’ she said, moving over to put her arms around him. ‘It doesn’t matter. You can’t help it. Please don’t let it upset you.’
She held him tight. She could smell the urine through the sheets. This man who’d once been so big and strong to her, it was humiliating for him to be like this. Weak. Defenceless. At the mercy of nurses who were too busy to give him the care that he needed.
‘I love you, Katy. You know that, don’t you? I’m so proud of you. I know things haven’t always gone right for you in your life, but I never doubted you. You were always my little girl. You’ll find someone who deserves you one day. You’ll get your happiness, don’t you worry.’
A nurse walked up to the bed, sensing that something was going on. Katy didn’t want to stress her dad, but she unleashed her anger anyway.
‘Can you please take care of your patients properly? He’s been here on his own for hours and nobody thought to bring him a bedpan. What do you think he’s going to do, for Christ’s sake. He’s had a stroke.’
‘Okay, Ms Wild, calm down please, we’ll take care of this. I’m sorry, Terry. You should have pressed the buzzer, you know what it’s like in here.’
She beckoned to another nurse who pulled the curtains around the bed to give him some privacy from the other patients.
‘I’ll be outside, Dad,’ Katy said, wanting to spare her father what little dignity he had left. There was a flurry of activity behind the curtain, and all Katy could hear was the constant apologies of her father to the nursing staff. Sorry for the trouble. Sorry for making a mess. Sorry they were having to clean up after him.
Katy sat on one of the plastic chairs outside the cubicle and waited for them to finish. It was time to make changes in her life. She couldn’t bear another night like that. She had to move, maybe even away from London, certainly to a place where Louis wouldn’t be able to do what he’d been doing. She couldn’t let him carry on like that. Enough was enough, she was shaking things up. She would change her job, move away and start again.
Then, to her side, panic and activity.
‘Page Doctor Flynn!’
‘Dad? Is he alright?’
She could tell from the nurse’s face that he was not.
‘You’re going to need to stay here, please,’ she replied. ‘He’s having another stroke.’
‘Oh no … Dad!’ Katy pleaded, but stepped to the side, letting the professionals get on with their job.
It was only ten minutes. That’s all it took to lose her father. Technically he was still alive for those minutes, but once the stroke had occurred it was only a matter of time. As far as Terry Wild was concerned, life ended in that hospital bed. There were scans and discussions about the possibilities of surgery, but he didn’t make it. The bleeding was too great.
‘It was a haemorrhagic stroke,’ the doctor had explained. Katy didn’t care, it was all superfluous now. She’d lost her mum to cancer three yea
rs previously, and now she’d lost her dad to a stroke at only sixty-two years of age.
The nurses let her sit with Terry for a while, but it soon became clear that they needed to get on with whatever happens when someone dies in hospital. Katy held his hand, it wasn’t even cold yet.
‘We need to get your dad moved, darling. I’m sorry. You’ll be able to see him later. They’ll make him look nice for you.’
Katy didn’t need him to look nice, he was her dad. He looked peaceful. She hoped it had been quick.
‘Would he have been in pain?’ she asked. ‘Is it a peaceful death when you have a stroke?’
‘It was quick. It happens very fast and I don’t think he would have known what was going on.’
‘Did he say anything?’ Katy asked. ‘Did he speak to you when it happened?’
‘No darling, he was just muddled – he kept saying the same thing over and over again. Something about how he did ring the buzzer.’
Chapter Three
London, 2017
Katy moved the wine glass round and round in her hand as Emma scolded her.
‘You’ll knock that over if you’re not careful,’ she said, touching Katy’s hand to discourage her.
‘Now you’re about to put it all behind you, how do you feel?’
‘Drained. And tired.,’ Katy replied.
‘It’ll soon get better. You’ve had a lot of horrible things happen recently. You’re doing the right thing, you know, but I’m going to miss you.’
‘Well, it’s not over yet, by a long stretch. You’re still meeting me in Inverness on the Sunday. That’s your half-term then, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s fine. I’ll see you there. Mind you, it’s such a long way to travel by train. It takes over nine hours. Nine hours! I could fly halfway around the world in that time.’
‘You of all people know why it has to be in Inverness. I have to go back there before I move on to Europe. It feels like something I have to do.’
‘I know, I know. You are going to be safe on your own, aren’t you? You are taking care?’
‘It’s rural Scotland, Emma. What do you think it’ll be like? Rapists behind every tree? I’ll be safe. I’ll let you know on Facebook. It’s fine.’
‘How are you feeling about your dad?’ Emma asked, squeezing Katy’s hand again.
‘I’m okay,’ she replied. ‘We gave him a good send-off. He’s back with mum, and they’ll be having a good old laugh again wherever they are now. I miss him though. I miss him so much. It feels like there’s nobody left.’
Katy fought back the tears. She didn’t want to cry. She was sick of talking about strokes, funerals and death.
The only consolation about losing her father was that Louis had cooled off. He’d left her alone. Perhaps it was Terry’s final gift to her. He’d managed to see off the idiot who was ruining her life.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it all up again, but it doesn’t go away either. I don’t want you to feel that you can’t say anything now the funeral is over. If you need to talk about him, you can bang on as much as you want. I knew them both for a long time too. I’ve been seeing your dad on and off since … well, since we were at university, almost twenty years.’
‘Bloody hell, we’re old buggers,’ Katy laughed, shaking aside her thoughts. ‘How did we end up like this?’
‘We’re no different from anyone else. Everybody has terrible relationships these days. Your dad and Sue, they were lucky, like my mum and dad. I don’t know what they fed that generation, but they make marriage look so easy. I guess they didn’t have Tinder to distract them back then.’
‘Nor did we when we were young. Mobile phones were just coming in when we were at uni. I couldn’t even afford one until after I’d started work – they were dead expensive then. Besides, you could only make a phone call on those old Nokias. You certainly couldn’t swipe right for a shag!’
They laughed. It helped Katy to forget everything when they did that.
‘I wish I was as brave as you,’ Emma said, serious all of a sudden. ‘I hate my job. Teaching, for fuck’s sake! How did I end up teaching? I despise those spotty teenagers. If they had as much brainpower as they do acne, our nation could be great again. They have no interest in learning. I don’t know how the hell they’re going to pay for their mobile phones and laptops when they’re adults if they can’t even be bothered to get out of bed and come to school in the morning.’
‘Dad left me a bit of money, and with the sale of the house – it won’t be much, but it’ll be another ten thousand in the bank – I reckon I can last two years on my own with zero income. I’m not an accountant for nothing, you know. I’ve done the spreadsheets. But I hope it won’t come to that. I’m sure I can pick up accounting work on the way. If not, I’ll only be thirty-nine, I’ll be able to find another job by the time I’m forty. Besides, I’ll be married to some nomadic digital tech entrepreneur by then.’
More laughter, more swigs of wine.
Two well-groomed men walked up to their table, full of themselves. Katy clocked them and quickly assessed that the dark-haired one was wearing more hair product than she and Emma combined.
‘Hello girls, how are ya doing?’ asked Mr Cocksure.
‘Sorry boys, married!’ Katy said, waving her hand at their suitors.
She watched as the guy’s face dropped.
‘I’m still game if you are?’ he chanced.
‘Much as we’re tempted, we’ve got to go home for our cocoa,’ Emma chipped in.
They took the hint and pushed off.
‘Where did you get that?’ she burst out, the minute the men were out of earshot.
‘It’s my mum’s,’ Katy smiled. ‘I found it in some of the stuff that Dad left me. I’m putting it all into storage. I reckon I’m going to get a lot of that when I’m hiking on my own. See, it works. Scares ’em off every time.’
‘You’re good!’ Emma laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have thought of that. What a shame it won’t keep that jerk Louis away too. I can’t believe I was jealous of you that night you copped off with him. I dodged a bullet there. Though his mate was terrible too. He was wearing Fred Flintstone boxers. I chucked him out when I saw those. I refuse to have sex with a grown man in Fred Flintstone boxers!’
Shit, we’re shallow. Maybe that’s why things are so bad.’
‘Well, it all stops now,’ Katy replied.
‘Yeah, right!’
‘I’m serious. When I spoke to that counsellor guy, he reckoned it all goes back to what happened in Scotland. Unresolved issues, he said. I agree with him. I’ve hidden from what happened for too long. It’s not right for a woman of my age to still be getting it so wrong with men. I’m changing. I’m sorting out my life.’
‘I’ll bet you five quid you can’t keep off sex for two years,’ Emma said.
‘It’s not the sex, it’s the relationships. I’m not getting into any more relationships like that, not until I’m sure. Louis is my last dickhead. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m telling you, no more idiots.’
‘Good luck with that,’ said Emma, finishing off her wine. ‘What time are you leaving tomorrow? Can I see you off?’
‘Of course you can,’ said Katy, consulting the emails on her phone to pull up the times.
‘I leave Euston at a quarter past nine. I’ve got to go over to the storage unit with the removal guys first and get my stuff locked up and hidden away. Will you drop the key into the estate agent’s for me? I’m not going back into the house. The council will take my dad’s place back as soon as I’m out of it. The bastards wanted it last month, but I managed to play the bereavement card. The post is all sorted too. Are you sure you’re okay to forward it on to me? It’ll be a pain in the arse, but I’ll owe you one.’
‘Of course I’m happy to take your mail. And you’ve been a pain in the arse for almost two decades, there’s no reason to stop now.’
So there it was. Their last drink before Katy headed off on her
backpacking adventures. Her job was gone, the house was on the market and what was left of her and her father’s possessions all neatly stored in boxes. It felt as if her past was all bundled up and ready to pack away. But she knew that she wasn’t quite finished yet. There was still something left. After all those years the one thing that she would have liked to have locked up and packed into storage was still out there. And it would soon be coming back to haunt her.
Chapter Four
University, May 1999
‘Bollocks to the Student Loans Company. The next thing you know, they’ll be making us pay all of our fees.’
Sarah was ever the conspiracy theorist, convinced that the government was out to sabotage everything. Nathan had not yet had the youthful idealism kicked out of him. His parents topped up his student income, and he even had a car, so the new loans system was only a curiosity for him.
‘No way!’ he replied, stirring the large pan of beans that the friends were about to share.
‘How’s that toast coming on?’ he asked, managing to mix his politics with culinary duties. ‘Besides, nobody would ever accept paying over five thousand quid for fees.’
It was a heady cocktail of cheap food, naive politics and sexual manoeuvring in the student kitchen. They’d been in the halls of residence for over two terms and the Easter break was just behind them. They weren’t yet living in close enough proximity to begin to loathe the sight of each other. There would be plenty of time for that when they moved out into shared houses, and the fighting over fridge space, lack of toilet paper, and bathroom-hogging began for real. For now, it was all friendly. They could still retreat to their separate rooms if things got a bit tense, and in any case they were spread over several halls. Of course, that meant a feast such as the one they were about to enjoy took some coordination.
Two Years After ; Friends Who Lie ; No More Secrets Page 34