Her Last Tomorrow
Authors: Adam Croft
1
The combination of burnt toast and cold coffee has never been my favourite, but it’s growing on me. It does that after a while.
I’ve given up even bothering to scrape the black bits off the toast, but the coffee still goes in the microwave. Iced coffee I can understand, but lukewarm coffee might as well be dogs’ piss. Having to live off caffeine is bad enough, so it might as well taste good in the process.
The microwave bleeps three times to tell me it’s done, the shrill sound piercing through my skull as I chomp down on another bite of toast, large black chunks crumbling to the floor as I do so.
The nagging thought at the forefront of my mind is that this damn book is never going to be finished. It’ll be a year next week since I started writing it and I’m already on my third deadline. Pete tells me it’s my last deadline. I know he’s serious this time. I’m really starting to wonder if it might just be better to scrap the whole thing and run with another idea. Any book’s better than no book.
Tasha drags Ellie kicking and screaming into the kitchen and I long for the sound of the microwave.
‘Now, you be good for Daddy, alright? He’s been under a lot of stress lately and he needs you to go easy on him.’
‘She’s five,’ I say, through a mouthful of crumbs as I sit down at the table. ‘She doesn’t know what you’re saying. If you want to have a dig, do it to me.’
‘Hey, fine. Give him hell, girl,’ she says, ruffling Ellie’s hair and smiling at me. She walks over and kisses me on the top of the head. ‘Now, you get that coffee down you and stop being such a grumpy puss.’
‘What else do you expect, Tash? It’s five in the morning. I don’t see why we all have to get up just because you’ve got to go to some bloody conference.’
‘Trust me, Nick, it’s better than worrying all morning about whether you’ve woken up and actually remembered to take Ellie to school,’ she replies, pouring sugar-coated cereal into a bowl for Ellie. Great. Just what she needs to bring her back down from Planet Hyper.
‘Any idea what time you’ll be back?’
‘Late. If it finishes on time I should be out of there by six, home by ten with any luck. As long as the trains aren’t full of suits.’
I raise my eyebrows momentarily. She’d never have it that she was one of them. Her job was far more important than whatever it was they did for a living, and it always would be.
‘Right. Must dash,’ she says, grabbing her shoulder bag from the back of the chair and planting a kiss on Ellie’s cheek. ‘You have a good day at school. Work hard and be good. And you have fun,’ she adds as she does a childish little wave to me across the table, her fingers bending and straightening in one unit.
Within seconds she’s gone and it’s just me and Ellie. Same as it always is.
We’ve got some time to kill. I’m feeling pretty angry with Tasha for having got us up so early. I’m angry because I’m tired, because Ellie needs her sleep at her age and because Tasha’s insinuation was that I’m a useless father who can’t be trusted to wake up on time and get my own kid to school.
I’m sitting on the sofa, my eyes glazed over as I half-heartedly pretend to enjoy watching the cartoons on the screen. Ellie sits on the carpet in front of me, her legs crossed as she’s transfixed by the bright colours and wacky sounds coming from the TV.
I know I’m meant to know the difference between all these kids’ shows, but really they’re all the same to me. When it comes to kids’ TV, it’s really just a case of bright flashing lights and lots of noise. It’s always amazed me how there’s so much money in kids’ entertainment when really it’s just a piece of piss.
I compare this in my mind to the book I’m working on right now. The bastards who write this sort of stuff don’t have to worry about plot holes. Just chuck a monster in to explain it all away. Character arcs? Forget it. As long as everyone’s throwing gunge at each other you’re golden. Maybe I’m missing a trick. Maybe this is the sort of stuff I should be writing. What’s pride when you’ve got a nice sack of cash to sit on?
I don’t think any less of Ellie for it. Of course I don’t. She’s just like any other five-year-old, sucked in by the whole thing. What other option do they have these days? They’re spoon-fed it from all angles. Part of me would love to give her a more classical upbringing but if the truth be told, I don’t know how. I sometimes wonder if I was ever cut out to be a father. But then I look at Ellie’s beaming smile and I realise I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I look at my watch. It’s still only seven-thirty. We’ve got at least an hour before we need to worry about leaving the house. I try to engage Ellie in conversation but she’s not interested. Why would she be? I rarely prove to be interesting conversation for adults, never mind a kid who’s being bombarded with flashing lights from the TV in front of her.
She’s a sweet kid, but she has the unfortunate disadvantage of being born into a world full of colourful screens and gadgets. I sometimes wonder whether she’ll end up missing the experience of genuine human connection. As a family, we never just sit down and talk. Most families don’t, I guess, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.
If I’m perfectly honest, I’m quite happy right now just sitting here watching her smile and gawp in amazement at the programme on the TV in front of her. She’s perfectly happy. Then again, she doesn’t know anything else. This is the world she knows and accepts. She wasn’t around to see the change.
I wonder what changes she’ll see in her lifetime. Things we can’t even comprehend, probably, just the same as our parents couldn’t have even imagined the concept of the internet when they were children, and our grandparents couldn’t have envisaged the advent of television before it was invented if they’d tried. Whatever the next big technological leap is going to be, it’ll be something that we can’t even dream up the concept of yet. That’s the sort of thing that goes through my mind sometimes, and it tends to give me a bit of a headache.
I’ve got a headache now, but that’s mainly due to the fact that I was dragged from my bed at five o’clock this morning when I could’ve easily got up later and still been fine. Tasha’s not just in our lives — she rules them, too. She has a way of doing that — worming her way in and somehow managing to become indispensable. Sometimes I think she does it by making me feel more and more useless, resulting in me having to rely on her. I know I don’t, though. I’m a man. I need to retain that level of independence.
This is why I don’t like getting up early. My brain’s always too active and I end up thinking things like this. I sigh deeply, rest my head back against the sofa and close my eyes.
I jolt awake with a start as Ellie giggles at the TV screen. I’m dazed for a moment, clearly having woken up at the wrong place in my sleep cycle. I blink and look at the clock on the wall. Shit.
I rush to try and get Ellie into her uniform. She hates it and I’m not keen either. The drab grey fabric looks more like something from a Russian Gulag than a state primary school. Having seen the inside of Hillgrove Primary, the two aren’t so different.
She squirms as I try to pull the jumper over her head, the same as she does every single weekday.
‘No, I’m too hot,’ she yells.
‘Well if you stop wriggling you won’t be so warm, will you? Now pack it in and put your jumper on.’
It might as well be Groundhog Day, this tedious and energy-sapping routine reminding me that it’s only Monday and there’s another four consecutive days of this to come.
I hunt around her room for the various bits she needs for her day at school: PE kit, reading log, her bag of sticks for show and tell.
My head’s almost buried under the chest of drawers, trying to fish out the missing gym sock as I hear the doorbell go. I ignore it. Whoever it is can wait.
Five minutes later, bag assembled, I slide Ellie’s feet into her school shoes, wiggling and pushing them as I do so, pick her up and carry her down the stairs to save precious seconds. The post has arrived and is on the mat. Only two with red warnings this time, which is an improvement on Saturday.
I pick up the letters, place them on the hall table and usher Ellie through the door.
The car bleeps to let me know it’s unlocked and I open the rear door, sit Ellie inside and fasten her seatbelt. The schoolbag’s plonked on the passenger seat and we’re ready to go. Just as I’m about to start up the engine, Ellie starts yelling again.
‘My picture!’
I sigh. ‘What picture, sweetheart?’ I say, trying to sound as calm and unflustered as possible. I don’t want my frustrations to rub off on her.
‘I did a picture of Miss Williams.’
‘Can’t you take it in another day?’ I ask, fingering the key in the ignition barrel, knowing we’re losing precious seconds here and that Miss Williams would far rather Ellie was at school on time than accompanied by a crayon drawing of her.
‘No! I need it!’ she says, clearly agitated. I decide to cut my losses.
‘Right. Stay there. I’ll go and get it,’ I say, taking the key out of the ignition barrel and pocketing it. ‘Where is it?’
‘In the kitchen. Near the toaster.’
I jog up the driveway to the front door, unlock it and skip into the kitchen. Next to the toaster, propped up against the wooden chopping boards, is a piece of A4 paper with a picture of what might possibly be a human being on it. I pick it up and head back out of the house.
I get back into the car and put the key back in the ignition barrel, holding the picture aloft over my left shoulder as I ask Ellie, ‘Is this the one you meant?’
I get no response.
I turn around in my seat.
The car’s empty.
It’s okay. She’s playing. She’s playing hide and seek. That’s all it is.
I tell myself all the lies I can muster as my head darts around on my shoulders, scanning the street for any sign of her. I was only inside, what, thirty seconds? A minute? She can’t have got far.
I get to the end of the drive and turn left, calling her name as I jog along the pavement. A guy on a ladder cleaning a window a few houses up on the other side of the road turns and looks at me.
‘Have you seen my daughter?’ I shout to him. ‘She was here a minute ago.’
He shakes his head and turns back to his dirty window.
I jog back in the direction of the house, past it and keep calling Ellie’s name. There’s nothing.
I’m back up the drive and skirting around the car, looking in the bushes — anywhere I can think of, certain that she can’t have reached the end of the road on her own, so she must still be somewhere around the house.
‘Ellie, this isn’t funny. Come out now,’ I bark, trying to convince myself that she’s somewhere close by and playing a cruel trick on me. Then the realisation of what went through my head a few moments ago hits me.
She can’t have reached the end of the road on her own, so she must still be somewhere around the house.
She can’t have reached the end of the road on her own.
On her own.
If she’s gone, someone has taken her.
I’m well out of my depth here. I fumble in my trouser pocket and pull out my mobile phone, trying and succeeding the third time to enter my passcode as my hands and fingers tremble.
I hit the green phone icon and my first thought is for what number I should dial. I know I want the police, but should I still dial
999
from a mobile? Isn’t there a different number for mobiles? I can’t remember what it is.
999
will surely still work. Or should I be dialling the non-emergency number? I can’t remember what that is either, and as far as I’m concerned this is an emergency. I do all I can and dial
999
.