Authors: Dee Winter
“Yeah... fine.” I lie, still feeling green, inside
and out.
“You don’t look it.”
“I’m fine.” I protest, and still he looks disbelieving
of my word.
“Ok,” he says eventually. “If you need to be sick
again tell me straight. I don’t want you puking in my car.”
“Ok.” I say. “I’ll try.”
“No, you will,” he says. “If you so much as retch in
here.”
“Ok, ok…” I say, just wanting him to shut up now. I
open the window to let some of the chilly, damp and hopefully medicating air
in. I concentrate on taking deep, long and gentle breaths in and out as we start
to drive off again and into the unknown.
I sit still and be quiet as on we move, while concentrating
hard on trying not to feel ill, let alone actually being sick. It would be
more than my life’s worth. I imagine that my mouth is being stitched tightly shut
with a needle and thread. My back teeth are glued together. I can barely open
my lips, only just a crack to breathe through. I also fear that soon we will
be on the motorway and stopping won’t be easy. It probably won’t even be an
option. This is going to be more difficult than I anticipated. Taking more
strong tablets on an empty stomach, I think only now, was not a good idea. In
fact, it was stupid. I feel deeply dim and full of regret. Rob keeps looking
over at me. His eyes like king-size china marbles, super alert and nervous, watching
me like a squirrel on the grass. I think though he is only fearful of his car
getting dirty. Vomit speckles on the leather. If I am sick, I will feel
better and if I do make a mess, I can clean the car tomorrow. I try not to
worry.
I think it helps that Rob does seem to be driving a little
more safely than usual. He goes a slow and legal pace, steady too, with no
charging ahead to the next set of traffic lights that are stuck on red, and then
slamming his breaks on. My stomach still is churning. Holding it back is a
constant internal battle. I just focus on my breathing and appreciate every
single particle of fresh air that I feel rushing through the space that leads
to my lungs. It’s the nastiest of feelings, a cross between gut-churning travel
sickness, the hangover from hell and the feeling you get after eating something
dodgy, like a raw in the middle chicken shish, all rolled into one. This I
believe is the ultimate sickness, the Olympic gold medal winning kind. I
imagine myself on the top of a podium, national anthem playing, flower bunch in
hand. Any distraction will do. I somehow manage to keep a lid on the bubbling
over cooking pot that is me, all of the way. It takes a lot of doing. It is a
long drive.
As soon as we pull over again to stop on a residential
street I throw open the car door and puke what is left of my guts up on to the
road. I feel like I am going to turn inside out and hear myself make noises
like the devil is escaping from my body. Eventually there is nothing left at
all and I stop, coughing and spitting on the ground. I then can’t move at all for
quite some time. “Here, have some water.” Rob says in the distance, but I’m
feeling too ill to even respond, never mind move to reach for it. He gets out
of the car and walks round to the passenger side and inspects the floor. He
gently clasps my shoulder and softly says, “We’re here now, but don’t feel like
you have to come in with me if you don’t feel up to it. You can just stay out
here in the car if you want.”
“We’re here already?” I say disbelieving. I am not
ready for this. I feel like I’ve gone on holiday and my suitcase has been left
behind. This is a test without any revision done at all. A debt to pay and
there’s no money in the bank. I have come totally unprepared. I cannot do
this.
“Yes. We’re here.” Rob says, gently. He sounds calm,
like the flat sea in the late afternoon, and warm like the sunset that rests
upon it. He is ready. I am not. I cannot do this now, even with him.
Little sparks of adrenalin fire all about inside me.
They take over, like an army of red ants and I feel uncomfortable and nervous
and angry and full of deep dark doubt. There is still the tiny blip of hope
somewhere in there. But this is now so very small, it barely even makes itself
known to me at all. I don’t believe it exists any more in my heart, even
though I know it’s in there, somewhere. Don’t dare to hope now. Don’t set
yourself up for a fall. Stay on the ground. I am not prepared and so I will
not let it happen. I still feel sick as well but the rush of a million other feelings
stops me thinking about that at least. I can barely think or move or even do
anything at all.
I take many deep breaths, so many I am almost
hyperventilating. I’ve come this far. I really don’t know what to do. I
think about what is the worst that can happen. He could slam the door in my
face. He could not speak to me. He could just be a horrible person to the
core, a rotten worm-infested apple. I try to think reasonably. What if the
very worst did happen, even then I am no worse off. I will always have my
brother and mum and that’s all that matters. They’re my family. If my dad is
a pig, so be it. Of course as I’m now expecting bad things to happen, it makes
them all the more likely they will. It still could all go brilliantly and maybe
I will be shocked. But I’m not expecting that. If he was a good man surely he
would want to know. Surely some sort of effort would have been made in the
past nineteen years. That’s a long time to have to think about doing something.
I think that he just hasn’t thought about me much at all for my whole life and
any proof to suggest otherwise is evidentially zero. Rob waits patiently as I
just sit, thinking, still undecided what to do.
Eventually I stop thinking. I come to a decision. After
everything thrown at me these past few days, I feel like this is meant to be,
that this day has come along on purpose. I feel I have no choice but to get
out of the car and to meet him. This is my fate and I will only regret it if I
don’t. If I go home now I will never know. True. It may turn out to be one
big mistake and if it is, so be it, life will go on. The main thing is my
brother is alive and I am here with him. He wanted me to come here and I have done.
I’ve come this far, I might as well go all the way.
I check my appearance in the mirror above my seat. I
look a horror. My eyes are bloodshot and there is no makeup at all to hide
behind now. There are traces of dry saliva and snot sticking around my nose
and mouth. I rub my nose with a tissue and my face with my hands. I push back
my wild hair with my fingertips trying to mould it into some sort of normality.
I know that this is not the time to give two hoots about what I look like. However,
I feel impelled to make at least some sort of effort for this stranger I
already don’t like.
I light one more cigarette. I am feeling a little
better. I count five minutes go very quickly by on the digital clock display
in the car in silence. Ever patient, Rob is standing by. From what I see of
the house from the outside, it seems nothing amazing. I don’t know what I was
expecting. I am glad it’s not like a palace or something double-fronted.
I look more closely at
the semi-detached thing that is his home. The outside walls are pebble dashed
and painted white. The closed front door is deepest navy blue gloss. It has a
frosted glass rainbow shaped window so high up no-one could see anything through.
The driveway has no plants or trees or bushes. I can’t even see any weeds,
just yellowing speckled gravel. The shiny white-framed double glazed windows
are filled entirely with plain roller blinds pulled down. This does not look
or feel like any home I know. It reminds me of a big boxy igloo placed
awkwardly in the desert and I start to feel very cold and bad inside again. I
don’t like it here.
The cigarette is not enough. I just feel like crying
and try hard to hold back the tears that are starting to prick the corners of
my eyes. My insides feel so tense I think they are actually in knots. I cannot
hold onto to myself for much longer. I have to keep reminding myself to
breathe. Sometimes I forget to and my heart starts beating fast and I go a
little dizzy then I gasp. I just know it’s all about to spiral out of control
again. I am just too scared. “Hey,” Rob says putting a gentle hand on my
shoulder. “If you don’t want to come in, it’s fine. You wait here.”
His touch and his words bring me right back down to
ground level and to my grip on things and I say, “But we’re doing this together,
right?” I say.
“You’ve come with me this far. You don’t have to come
in with me. I’ll go in. You can wait here. If you change your mind, you can
always come in later or...” he pauses, “...or you can come back another time.” I’m
certainly not thinking that this is going to be a regular thing. Rob waits beside
me for a very long time. Eventually his patience wanes. His breathing is heavy
and deep. He has waited long enough. “I don’t want to be too late.” He says
and starts to move away from the car. I want to. Part of me wants to, but I
cannot even try to move with him. I am frozen solid, my body is stuck. He
says he won’t be too long and that he will come back to see me shortly. He turns
and crosses the wide pavement on to the big gravel driveway that crunches under
his feet with every step. I can only watch him, still incapable but wanting to
follow, to get up and go with him over the gravel, across the driveway, through
the door and in to the semi-detached house. It looks so clean and clinical and
is just so far from what I imagined. I was fully expecting Rob to drive us to
someplace just like the Hovel.
Every living cell in me wants to move but it’s like they’ve
all died at once. I feel dead in my bones too. In fact, my whole body battery
has gone flat. My eyes are still working, my brain only just about. It’s like
a heavy darkness has fallen down upon me, a weight of a twenty tonnes. Even
when I thought Rob was dead, it didn’t feel like this. This is a hundred times
more horrible. But the feeling of panic slowly subsides, like the sun is
rising, bringing light on the horizon as I watch Rob stalk away. He is gone. I
don’t have to go with him now. I relax a little. I look again at the house
he’s walking up to. I think it is lovely compared to where we live in our dark,
damp and smelly flat. I am longing to know what Rob is seeing and hearing and
what is going on in there but I still can’t move. How I wish to be a fly on the
wall or a little CCTV camera within. I settle in my seat and face forward, quietly
accepting my concrete state.
I take my phone from out of my pocket. On seeing its
darkness I remember only now that I switched it off. I didn’t want anyone to
get at me. I needed space, time and silence. I wonder whether I should switch
it on or not. I hold it in my hand, feeling its gentle and comforting weight.
I think who
may have tried to get hold of me. Mum, maybe checking how I
am. Benny maybe, maybe not, probably not after the furore yesterday. I smile
at the memory of nearly having put him to death. Benny had a lucky escape. I
did too in that I did not become a murderer. I am not guilty for now. He
would maybe call just to see how I was, after running me over, but I somehow
don’t think he will now. Maybe Etienne, I suppose. He had a lucky escape too,
from all the drama that followed after he left. I think it would be nice if he
did call. I remember the wonderful time we had together. I feel warm in my
belly and potentially in love but only momentarily, as I look up to see the
house and feel cold again.
The thought that Rob is in there now talking to my dad
is unbearable. It’s impossible almost, but the reality is, it is happening,
just metres away and I feel horrible. I’m so close to my unknown father and I
cannot find it in me to move forward at all, just so I can start to get to know
him. I want to but feel that I cannot take that risk. All I get is bad vibes.
I light up what I promise will be my final cigarette
and switch on my phone. I stare at it and wait. After several minutes of just
watching goggle-eyed, my cigarette gets shorter and shorter, and I realise that
I am not as popular as I thought I might be. I think about sending a text. Not
to Benny. He doesn’t deserve my flattery ever again. Etienne deserves every
part of me but reality is we’re complete one night stand strangers. All this,
that’s going on now is too much and too heavy to start getting him involved in.
I think mum. Let her know I’m here and ok. I could but don’t. I don’t want
to upset her again.
Just as I am thinking what to do, I become aware of a
shadowy presence. I know, without even looking, standing by the car, at the
other side of my door is my dad. I drop my phone and gasp. With just a split
second of hesitation my head jerks to look at him.
Time stands still as I look up and see his face, distantly
familiar yet so very very strange. An old man. A withered version of Rob. Grey.
There’s no doubt at all in my mind that he is Rob’s father. It’s him thirty
years from now. It makes all the hairs on my arms stand up like little blades
of grass on a frosty morning, even the marrow in my bones feels frozen. I
don’t think he looks anything like me. I didn’t expect him to and for that I
am relieved. I don’t think I could cope with an older reflection of me in my
face. I feel I have no choice but to get out of the car. I don’t want to but
something automatic inside takes control and makes me move. As I struggle out,
foot feeling numb, colder than cold, I see Rob standing close behind him. He
keeps a fair distance but is close enough and just where I want him to be. I
stand and face my supposed father. He’s only inches away but the distance
between us is huge. There is an invisible ice canyon I cannot cross. I don’t
want to speak to him. I don’t know what to say.