The Girls (12 page)

He’d tried to kill himself before. When the girls were tiny. It was a side effect, apparently, of the medication he’d been on at the time. He’d made a very poor job of over-medicating himself and been rushed to the hospital to have his stomach pumped out. After which, the doctors changed his medication.

Clare had never told the girls about it. It was bad enough, she’d reasoned, that they had to live with a man who frequently heard voices in his head telling him to do ridiculous things, let alone to know that their father had once tried to remove himself from their lives completely.

So now when she scanned the papers she looked for the small sad stories about anonymous male bodies being plucked from the Thames, pulled out of abandoned buildings, scraped off railway tracks. If she saw more than one ambulance outside a tube station she would stop and wait, her breath held, to see if a man with brown curly hair and size-twelve feet came out on a stretcher.

Chris being dead made much more sense than Chris being alive.

Until today.

It was the middle of June, the day before Pip’s twelfth birthday and she’d just found a carrier bag on the doorstep. She peered inside and a cold dread crept from her gut, up her spine and down her arms: a flash of glossy red wrapping paper and a fat pink rosette and a card with Pip’s name written on it in Chris’s small scratchy handwriting.

She ran to the pavement; she looked left and right. She even looked at the window over the street with the twitching curtains, the one she’d convinced herself several days ago was a figment of her imagination. Nothing. But of course. If he’d wanted Clare to see him he’d have waited with the bag, not left it on the doorstep.

She brought the bag indoors and placed it on the kitchen counter. She stared at it warily for a moment. That she could be concerned that the man she’d fallen in love with when she was nineteen years old, the man who’d given her everything and asked for nothing, who’d carried their babies on his chest in slings and sung them German lullabies at night, might potentially have wrapped up a bomb or a pile of dead rodents or a box of faeces or a severed finger, stuck a pink bow on it and left it on her doorstep for his youngest daughter to open was beyond any definition of sad.

Gingerly she peeled back the Sellotape strips. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw what was inside: a pad of cartridge paper, a box of Caran d’Ache pencils, a packet of technical drawing pens, a family-sized bar of Milka Noisette and the new Jacqueline Wilson. She smiled. She almost laughed. For a moment she felt herself transported back to another time, when Chris was a good husband and a good father, when life had been relatively normal. But the moment quickly passed. How had he wrapped it so nicely? Chris had never been able to wrap a gift properly. She’d been picturing him on his own. But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was living under someone’s roof with access to food, clothes, money, the internet – with access to
wrapping paper
.

Chris had friends. He had family. But they’d all turned their backs on him after the house fire. Shaken their heads sadly and said, ‘Let’s hope they can help him in there. However long it takes.’ Even his own mother had virtually disowned him. ‘He put his babies into danger,’ she’d gasped in her strong German accent. ‘He set a match to their home when they might have been in it. That is not brain chemistry. That’s a hair’s breadth from evil.’

Clare couldn’t think of one person from their old life who might have taken Chris into their home.

Except – Clare paused, her hand on the birthday card, her eyes wide with realisation – there’d been that girl, back in 2011. The one who’d worked with him on his last documentary. She’d been
in love
with him. He’d come home after the wrap party, tipsy and giggling, and told her about this girl,
virtually a child
, who’d accosted him at the bar and told him that she wanted him. That she would do anything for him. When he’d laughed her off with a: ‘Well, I am flattered of course but I am a married man and you are young enough to be my daughter,’ her eyes had filled with tears and she’d said: ‘But, Chris, you don’t understand. I love you!’

Oh, how they had laughed that night.

‘What was her name?’ she’d asked.

‘Roxy.’

‘Ha!’ she’d said. ‘
Roxy
. Yes. Of course!’

They’d never talked of her again. All sorts of bizarre things happened to Chris when he was working on a documentary. Lovestruck Roxy was just another bizarre thing. But now Clare was thinking about Lovestruck Roxy in a whole new light. She peeled open the envelope of Pip’s card, took it out and looked cautiously inside. Maybe Lovestruck Roxy had shopped for the gifts and wrapped them, but she could not have written in the card.

On the front was a photo of a fat Labrador puppy in a mug. Inside was a fifty-pound note and the words:

To my darling Pipsqueak,

I hope your twelfth birthday is full of joy and chocolate. I wish I could be there but, as you know, I’m not allowed. But I will be thinking about you all day long. Every moment, every second. I promise you.

I got all your letters and I loved them all. Your new home sounds really nice and so does your new school. It sounds like you are making lots of new friends. Look after your mummy and your sister.

Love and bear hugs,

Your Daddy xx

Clare read it twice and then three times, trying to find some germ of Chris’s state of mind within. But there was nothing. Pleasant, sane, almost bland. Anyone could have written it. Maybe Lovestruck Roxy had dictated and he’d merely transcribed her words.

She pushed the card back into the envelope and attempted to stick the flap back down. Then she put the gift and the card back into the carrier bag. And as she did so, her hand felt paper. A till receipt. She pulled it out and smoothed out the creases. Tesco Metro. Walthamstow. Two days earlier. One pint of skimmed milk. Bananas. Chocolate granola.
Grazia
. Tin foil. Greek yogurt. Kitchen roll. Large Milka Noisette.

She put the receipt in a drawer and took the bag of gifts to her bedroom where she buried it at the back of her wardrobe.

Rhea was on the bench. She had the cat again, in its plastic box, and Fergus was sitting on her lap eating something from her fingertips.

‘Good afternoon!’ said Rhea. She was wearing a shiny red polo neck with gold chains at her throat, with ribbed black leggings and Ugg boots. Her lipstick was randomly applied and not quite the same shade of red as her polo neck, but she still looked nicer than most old ladies.

‘Hi,’ Pip replied, sliding on to the bench next to her and putting her fingers towards Fergus’s nose.

‘And how are you today?’

Pip smiled. ‘It’s my birthday!’

‘Ah!’ The old lady beamed at her. ‘Happy birthday to you! And you are twelve, yes?’

‘Yes!’

‘And did you get some nice presents?’

Pip nodded. ‘Lots of nice things. And my grandma gave me a hundred pounds!’

‘A hundred pounds! My goodness! A whole family could have lived lavishly off that for a month when I was young. What are you going to do with it?’

Pip shrugged. ‘I’m not sure yet. We haven’t got much money any more so I might just save it in case there’s an emergency.’

Rhea nodded slowly. ‘Very, very sensible. Although maybe you could take just twenty pounds and have some fun with it?’

‘Yes,’ said Pip. ‘Maybe.’

‘You want to take Fergus for a walk?’

Pip smiled and nodded. Rhea handed her the lead and let Fergus jump down on to the grass. ‘What made you decide to get a big rabbit like Fergus?’ she asked.

Rhea smiled. She had a dimple in her left cheek that was so deep it looked as though it went all the way through to the inside of her mouth. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Before Fergus, I had a dog. A little Pekingese called Daphne. And she lived for twenty-one years.
Twenty-one years!
Do you know how old that is for a dog? So when she died I was too nervous to get another dog in case it too lived for twenty-one years and then I would have to leave it behind. So I worked out that I needed a pet that would last about five years. But I wanted a proper pet, not something that shivers in the palm of your hand or lives in a cage. So I found out about these! And now Fergus is four and I am eighty-four and hopefully we will both pass away together. Maybe next year. Yes, next year would be good.’ She laughed and Pip laughed, although she couldn’t quite see what was so funny about looking forward to dying.

Fergus was full of energy and she let him run up the hill with her sprinting behind. The benches at the top of the hill were deserted today. No sign of Tyler, Dylan and the gang. Maybe they were all at after-school clubs. But as she rounded the top of the hill and headed towards the Rose Garden she stopped in her tracks. Sitting on the bench around the corner was a big man in a wheelchair. His face was red and hot-looking, his hair was a disturbing shade of dark brown and he was wearing pyjamas and a blanket.

‘Hello, curly!’ he said, grimacing at her. ‘Jesus Christ! What the holy blazes is that you’ve got there?’ He pointed at Fergus.

She smiled uncertainly and called across, ‘It’s a rabbit,’ before turning round sharply and dragging Fergus back down the hill. It was only as she reached the bottom of the hill that she registered the fact that the man’s foot had been wrapped in bandages and she realised that she’d just encountered the sisters’ grandfather, the man they called Puppy.

She ran back to Rhea, breathless with excitement. ‘I just saw him!’ she said. ‘Leo’s dad. He’s over there.’ She gestured towards the Rose Garden with her head. ‘And he’s in a wheelchair!’

‘Good,’ said Rhea. ‘Where he belongs. Keep the old goat out of trouble.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Oh, you know, some old men, they don’t understand boundaries. Do you know what I mean by boundaries, Pip?’

‘You mean, like, no means no.’

‘Yes!’ Rhea looked delighted by this response. ‘That is exactly what I mean. A person’s right not to be touched. A person’s right not to be ogled. A person’s right not to be insulted or abused. You know, Pip, I lost a lot of people when I was young. In the camps. You know?’

‘The Holocaust, you mean?’

‘Yes. My goodness, you are clearly a girl who listens in class! Yes, in the Holocaust. And then I came here when I was a young girl, not much older than you, and I was so grateful to be alive, to be free, that I vowed that I would not accept even the tiniest infringements of my liberties. Not a careless comment about my religion. Or a sweaty finger rubbing against my leg on a crowded train. And certainly,
certainly
not a man talking about my daughter as though she were a doll for his pleasure. And this man’ – her nostrils flared – ‘in his day! Well, let me say that I once slapped him. Very hard. Across his big fat face. Like
this
!’ She demonstrated a very hard slap, and her eyes shone. ‘And after that he left my daughter alone. But as for the other girls on this garden.’ She raised her brow and whistled. ‘Well, he was popularly known as Gordon the octopus.’ She laughed and the deep dimple reappeared. ‘Let us all just be grateful that he’s in a wheelchair.’ They both turned then and watched as Adele strode across the lawn from her apartment towards the hill, her arms folded tightly around her body. She disappeared behind the brow of the hill and then reappeared a moment later pushing Gordon in his chair. Rhea shook her head slightly from side to side and tutted quietly.

‘So, Pip,’ she said, ‘are you having a wonderful party tonight?’

Pip shrugged. ‘We’re going to Pizza Express. With my granny.’

‘And your mummy and daddy?’

‘Just my mum.’

Rhea raised a brow.

‘Our dad’s in hospital.’

‘Ah, I see. Nothing too serious, I hope?’

‘No. Not really. Just …’ she tailed off. She couldn’t quite find the words.

Rhea nodded and smiled. Pip knew she didn’t expect her to explain. ‘You’re not going to take any of your new friends then? To your party at Pizza Express?’

‘It’s not really a party. It’s just a meal. My grandma’s paying so I can’t really invite anyone else.’

‘Ah. Well.’ She reached into the small leather bag she wore diagonally across her chest and rifled about for a moment before pulling out a tiny purse with a golden clasp. She clicked it open and peered inside, prodding the contents with a finger before pulling out a two-pound coin, holding it to the light, turning it over, turning it over again and then passing it to Pip. ‘There,’ she said. ‘For spending. Not for putting towards your emergency funds. Happy birthday!’

Pip stared at the coin in her hand. She wasn’t sure about the etiquette of the situation. Should she accept the coin? Did the lady need it for paying her heating bills? Or was she very rich? The golden chains told her one thing, the tiny purse with no room for any money told her another.

‘Take it!’ Rhea folded Pip’s fingers over the coin. ‘Please.’

Pip smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘You are welcome. You really are.’

Dear Daddy,

Mummy told me you’ve moved to a different hospital and she doesn’t know where it is and that you probably won’t get my letters any more. But I still want to write them to you anyway. I’ll keep them and give them to you when you come home. Thank you for sending me the card and the present and the money. I cried when Mummy gave them to me. Everything was so perfect. And Granny gave me a hundred pounds and the old lady in the garden gave me two pounds so now I’ve got a hundred and fifty-two pounds. It’s the most money I’ve ever had in my life. But I don’t care about the money. Or even the presents. The card was my favourite thing. Seeing your handwriting. It was amazing! Thank you!

We had dinner at Pizza Express. It was nice. Mummy seemed to be in a good mood and Granny was just Granny. Even Grace seemed quite happy and it was one of those nights where it felt like maybe everything might be normal again one day. Then a quite strange thing happened after school today. Instead of walking home with me or getting the bus, I saw Grace heading off in the wrong direction and I ran after her and said, Where are you going? And she said, None of your business. So I followed her until I realised where she was going – to Dylan’s school. And he was waiting outside for her and they just kind of hooked up like it had all been pre-planned. I followed them all the way back down to the crescent and they went in through the garden gate but I didn’t follow them, I just went home and in through the front door. And Mum was freaking out! Where’ve you been! I’ve been calling you and calling you! God. I told her my phone had been on silent and I’d been for a walk and I was only twenty minutes late. But honestly, she was, like,
hysterical
.