If I put this off any longer I’ll never go in. Turning off the engine, I lock the car and head towards the doorway of the Talluah Arms in search of the answer.
The Talluah is busy and I don’t spot him straight away. The long mahogany bar faces the doorway, and when I walk in, the young man standing behind it wiping the counter looks up briefly, then goes back to his task. I scan the tables of people: families enjoying their lunch and a few student types. My eyes eventually rest upon the table at which he sits nursing an untouched pint of Guinness.
Life has taken its toll. My father now looks every minute of his sixty-two years. He’d looked old ever since my mother’s death, except those moments he spent with Dylan, but now he looks a different kind of worn: tired, crushed and – my mind searches for the word – defeated. When I was a child, I used to climb on to my toy chest sometimes, after my parents thought I’d gone to bed, and sneak the curtains open just a tiny bit. My room faced the back garden, and if I heard the familiar crackling of the fire in the fire pit, I’d be there, at the window, watching. My mum and dad would be sitting on the swing seat, his big arms around her narrow shoulders, just gazing at the flames, folded up inside one another. They were so close it was like they were one person. She’d smile and I’d see her mouth form one word; Dad would laugh, a whole-face laugh that said they didn’t even need full sentences to communicate. Once I dared to push open the back door and sleepily tell my mum I was hungry. Instead of sending me back to bed, she disappeared into the kitchen and returned clutching something in her hands, torn between exasperation and love. It was marshmallows; we stuck them on sticks and toasted them, the way she said she used to do with her own mum. My dad watched her, smiling like he always seemed to when he looked at my mother. He still smiled at her like that on the day she died, never letting anyone but me see his pain.
Taking a deep breath, I head over to the table.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ Dad says as I stop opposite him. He was watching the door when I walked in and didn’t take his eyes off me as I walked over. His face, his voice after all this time render me speechless for a second or two. I pull out the chair across from him and sit down, still stupidly mute.
‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’ he asks when I don’t speak.
‘Hello, Dad,’ I reply, careful not to let my voice break. ‘How are you?’
It seems such an idiotic thing to say when so many other questions, explanations and apologies are running through my head at breakneck speed, but it is all my lips seemed to manage. We can’t just sit here staring speechless at each other, wondering how it went so wrong.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ says Dad.
We escape the stuffy confines of the pub and go for a walk along the river, something we did an awful lot in the early days following Mum’s death, just to get away. As my pregnant belly got bigger, the walks got shorter, and the irony that I’d lost a best friend at the same time as gaining our coveted child became too much to bear. I shiver and automatically pull my jacket tighter around me to guard against the cold wind. Dad looks concerned.
‘Not enough meat on you.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my weight,’ I assure him. ‘I’m looking after myself, don’t you worry. Can you say the same?’
‘I’m doing my best, love,’ he replies, and I feel guilty once more. I need to get this over with and get out of here. As much as I love seeing him again, this is slowly killing me.
‘Dad,’ I start, and I see the look on his face darken.
‘And here it comes,’ he says. ‘The reason we’re here.’
‘We couldn’t talk round it all day.’
‘No, you’re quite right.’ His expression is serious. ‘I’ve spent all night wondering why you called me when you did, Susan.’
‘I got the photo you sent,’ I tell him slowly, watching for the expression on his face. I expect guilt, not confusion.
‘What photo?’ he asks, looking like he genuinely has no idea what I am talking about. That throws me. My father never did do lying well; I thought all it would take was a mention of the photograph and he’d come clean. What if I’m wrong? I pull out the photo of the young boy and hand it to him. He turns it over, sees the writing on the back and his face drops. I know in that instant that I’ve made a huge mistake.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asks, then, without waiting for an answer, ‘You think I sent this? Why would you think that?’
‘I, um, someone put it through my door at my new address.’ I stumble over my words, caught by the hurt in his voice. ‘I
didn’t
think it was you, not until the photo album, then I got the blanket . . .’
‘The blanket?’ My father rounds on me. ‘What blanket? What are you talking about?’
I stop and my father follows suit. We stand side by side looking out across the river. Taking a deep breath, I start at the beginning, the day I received the photo, and tell him everything.
Dad doesn’t interrupt, despite the thousands of questions that must be running through his head. His face grows darker and more concerned as I tell him about Nick being a journalist, and about the intruder in my house. Then I come to the part about the blanket. I pull it from my bag and hand it to him, watching his reaction as I explain how the box was posted to me but ended up with a neighbour. Realisation and understanding dawn on him slowly.
‘You got this yesterday?’ he asks. I nod. ‘And that’s when you called me. Because I’m the one you trusted with Dylan’s things.’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry, the last thing I wanted to think was that you had something to do with this whole thing. And then I rang you and you said you’d spoken to Rachael . . .’
‘
She
called
me.
She said she felt obliged to let me know you were coming out of Oakdale. I thought you must have asked her to call me until she asked if I’d spoken to you.’
‘Dad, about the blanket . . . If you didn’t send it to me, who did?’
His face is pained. ‘I never saw it, love. I packed up Dylan’s things, like you asked, but the blanket wasn’t one of them. I never even thought to look for it . . . I should have thought.’
I imagine my father silently putting away the memories of his beloved grandchild and pain pierces my chest. What made me think it would be any easier for him? I should never have asked him to do that so soon.
‘It was the night before Dylan’s funeral,’ he continues quietly, his face scrunched up as though the memory causes him actual physical pain. He refuses to look my way but begins to walk slowly along the riverside once again. I stay by his side, hanging on his every word.
‘I went to the funeral, you know?’ He isn’t waiting for a reply; I don’t think he’d even notice if I turned and walked away. ‘I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome, but Mark made sure no one so much as
thought
a bad word. I really appreciated that.’ He shoves his hands deep into his pockets.
‘The night before, I went round to do as you’d asked me. I sat on the floor in his room, putting all his teddies and clothes into storage bags, but it never even crossed my mind to look for the one thing he was never without. I’m so sorry, Susan, I have no idea where that blanket came from.’
I link his arm to calm him down.
‘It’s OK, Dad. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,’ I assure him, but he shakes his head.
‘I wanted to do it. I wanted to feel like I was being some use to you. But I never saw that blanket, not in the house, not at the funeral. So where the hell did it go? And how did it end up back with you?’
22
Jack: 24 January 1990
‘You are not going to fucking believe this.’
Jack hadn’t seen Billy like this in ages, not since everyone started filling out their university applications. Maybe he’d got laid. ‘What?’
‘My dad, his business got a new investor. He’s brought in these massive new contracts, four this month. He’s going to be able to pay for me to go to uni.’
‘Yes! Nice one!’ Jack jumped up from the sofa and punched the air. He’d tried everything to get his friend to apply to Durham: offered to pay his rent, researched scholarship grants. He’d never admit it, but he hated the thought of going away without any of them: Adam, Matt, Billy, even Mike. With his grades Billy was the most likely to actually get in. ‘You’re applying for Durham, right?’
Billy’s face dropped and he looked down at his hands, where he started picking at his fingernails – something he always did when nervous. ‘Well my form tutor says with my grades I could try for Cambridge . . . Dad says he’ll pay for wherever I want to go now that the business has taken off, so I thought . . .’
‘You thought you were too good for the rest of us now. Clever and loaded, well haven’t we done well for ourselves?’ Jack’s words were hard and his blue eyes flashed with anger.
‘Don’t be like that, mate . . .’
‘Mate? I gave you everything you wanted, let you borrow my clothes so you didn’t look like a bloody gyppo, introduced you to my friends – you had no one before you met me! Three years I’ve been the best mate you’ve ever had and what, now you just want to desert me? I offered to pay your fucking rent, for fuck’s sake! Now look at you, a fancy haircut and a bit of money and you’re off to Cambridge to try and outdo us all.’
Billy hung his head and Jack could see he knew how right he was. It was only through him that the square boy people called Shakespeare had become attractive and popular. His pimply skin had cleared up thanks to Lucy’s various face creams; it had been Jack’s mum who had taken him to get his mop of greasy hair cut into a half-decent style at the best barber’s in town. He’d even had his first shag courtesy of Jack’s wallet – not that he knew that Jack had paid the girls they had taken home that night. And now he was going to swan off to Cambridge and look down on the person who’d made him. Jack was clever, but he was too lazy to get the kind of grades Cambridge required, and even if his dad could pay his way in there, he wouldn’t last long. And what was wrong with Durham? It was one of the best universities in the country.
‘Look, I just thought you would be happy for me, I didn’t think you’d take it personally. My dad said—’
‘Fuck what your dad says. What, he gets a couple of contracts and he’s Donald Trump? Just fuck off to Cambridge, go on.’
Billy opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and got up to leave. Good fucking riddance. Who did he think he was?
Jack heard the front door slam, then stood up and made his way to his dad’s study. So Billy thought he’d be leaving behind everyone who’d made him what he was. Jack didn’t fucking think so. His best friend was not going to Cambridge.
He banged on the door to his father’s study. ‘Dad, I need a word.’
23
We wander along the river and talk for the next two hours. It’s as though we’ve never spent a day apart. The fact that I refused his visits, effectively cutting him out of my life for four years, has fizzled and faded away, as though it was a tiff over who took control of the TV remote.
‘I’m torn, Dad,’ I confess to him when he asks in his most fatherly voice how I’m coping with the situation. ‘I haven’t told anyone else this, I’ve barely admitted it to myself, but a part of me so badly wants to believe that someone is trying to tell me that Dylan is still alive and the whole thing is a mistake, some cruel prank. Then I get this reality check, this nasty little voice telling me that real life doesn’t work like that. But people do lash out at convicted killers. Human beings don’t care about the truth, justice or rehabilitation, not really. They care about revenge, retribution and judgement.’
‘Even if it was someone wanting to punish you, would it change things?’ Dad asks. ‘Would it make you feel you were any more capable of taking Dylan’s life? If you want to find out the truth, you have to stop doubting yourself, Susan. Before you went to that place you knew who you were, and what you were and weren’t capable of. I’m going to tell you this right now: I never for a minute believed you killed your son. Not just because I’m your dad and I raised you, but because I saw you with Dylan and you loved the bones of him. I’m not saying that I know whether that little lad is alive or not; all I know is that
you
didn’t hurt him. I’d like to think that after thirty-two years of being your father I know you better than some doctor who met you days after you’d lost your son. You’re as sane as I am and I’d have attested to that in any court of law if they had given a fig what I thought, but they didn’t. I’d say it’s about time you shared a bit of my faith in you. That’s just what I think, if it matters.’ He falls silent, looks embarrassed at his outburst.
‘It matters, Dad,’ I tell him, tears stinging my eyes. ‘It matters a lot.’
I leave with the promise that I’ll phone him every day to let him know I’m safe and sound. I feel like I’ve gained so much more than getting my dad back today. I have finally begun to remember how it feels to be Susan Webster again.
Dad’s right. Before I went to Oakdale, I knew unequivocally that I hadn’t killed my son, no matter who tried to convince me otherwise. I’d trusted in my own sanity, my own mind, and believed in my love for my son. Gradually my certainty had been chipped away by so-called ‘experts’, who’d decided that just because a jury of my peers had deemed me responsible for my son’s death, then it was true, and eventually I began to believe it too. It’s taken my father’s faith in me to remind me that I once believed in my own innocence. Well now I believe. And if I’m innocent, then my son might still be alive.
24
I push open my front door, emotionally exhausted and ready for bed. It’s only seven o’clock, but all I can think of is crawling under the covers and sleeping for a lifetime.
The house is too quiet, too empty without Cassie or Nick here. Throwing my bag on to the chair, I quickly fire off a message to both of them: Things went OK with Dad – no closer to truth. Call u 2moro. Then I make a cup of tea and grab a girlie book to take to bed. Reading takes my mind off everything; when I’m lost in the words on the page, I don’t allow my mind to think of anything else.