Authors: Samantha Hayes
‘It’s a lovely evening. Why don’t we go for a walk when you’ve done the washing-up?’ He burst out laughing just as I picked up my glass of water and pretended to pour it over his head.
‘Bugger what my mum would think,’ I said, clearing away the plates and tossing a tea towel at him. ‘It’s my dad you’ll have to watch out for, speaking to me like that.’
Neither of us had met the other’s parents. It was early days yet.
He followed me to the sink. ‘Is your old man one of those downtrodden new men then?’ He rested his chin on my shoulder from behind.
I thought about that for a moment. ‘He’s just Dad, really. He doesn’t mind sewing on a button any more than he minds mowing the lawn.’ I felt warm inside as I thought of him, remembering the time Mum was so poorly she’d had to delegate the making of my Nativity fairy costume to him. My teacher had told me it was ‘cleverly unique’, and Dad’s face in the audience had been aglow as I’d come on stage.
‘My dad’s a bit old-fashioned when it comes to things like that,’ Tom said, in what I thought was a wistful tone. ‘And he certainly wouldn’t be seen dead sewing on a button. That would definitely be the dry cleaner’s job.’
‘I might have to have a word with your old man then,’ I said playfully, turning round and kissing him again.
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Are you two still at it?’ Karen came back into the kitchen and clattered her plates on to the worktop. She poked me in the ribs. ‘Just do it already, will you?’
‘She’s got a point,’ Tom said once Karen had gone. ‘We could always go on that walk another night.’
‘Well, the good news,’ Mum says, passing me more tissues, ‘is that Susan’s son is as good-looking in real life as he is in the picture she showed me.’
I laugh through the mess of my face. ‘Boys are the last thing on my mind right now, Mum.’
She looks pensive. ‘Well, you know what? They shouldn’t be. Boys, fun and having a great time should be at the forefront of your mind.’ She stands up, holding out her hands. I take them and she hauls me upright, guiding me over to the full-length mirror.
‘Look. You are a beautiful young woman with everything going for you. You deserve some happiness in your life, Hannah. You’re eighteen and you’ve had enough tragedy to make Coco the bloody Clown depressed.’
She squares me up to the mirror, forcing me to look. Staring back, I see a blotchy-faced girl with hunched
shoulders wearing clothes she hates, and with a look in her eyes that tells no one but her that she’d rather be dead.
‘I don’t think clowns are intrinsically happy,’ I say. ‘And Coco got shit shoved at him all the time. We did something about it once at school.’
Mum sighs, followed by a laugh.
‘What I’m trying to say, young lady, is that it’s about time you had some fun. Starting now.’ She takes my shoulders. ‘I don’t care what we talk about, or how much wine I have to ply you with, but you are coming to dinner and we are going to have a good old laugh.’ She turns me to face her. ‘Agreed?’
Mum’s breath sparkles with gin and lemon, touched with a hint of hope.
‘Agreed,’ I sigh reluctantly, wondering how awful it could actually be to meet Susan’s son.
It was pure magic.
I felt alive and wanted and special and filled with bliss.
University had turned out to be the best place ever.
Tom ran his finger down the length of my spine as I was sprawled out on my front. The single bed in my room barely had space for us both, with Tom pressed against the wall on his side.
‘I know you’re watching me,’ I said. I could feel the heat of his stare.
‘You have a beautiful back. Perfect skin.’
He kissed the length of it.
But then I sighed, suddenly filled with apprehension. It came out of nowhere.
‘What if this is all too fast?’ I rolled over, pulling the sheet up under my arms. I felt self-conscious. It was still light outside and the curtains were open.
I was overly anxious. Things that felt this good were usually short-lived.
‘What do you mean?’
I sighed, not wanting to push him away. But I needed to be sensible too. ‘I mean, what if we’re rushing into things, Tom. It’s only our first term here after all.’
I had my parents’ voices in my head, of course, telling me to take things steady, that it was easy to let emotions rule my head. But I was so besotted with Tom that I was fearful of him getting tired of me if things ran out of control.
‘Don’t be silly. Of course we’re not rushing.’ He kissed me again. ‘We’ll respect each other’s space, keep time for other friends.’ He smiled. ‘Somehow try to concentrate on work, though I admit that bit will be hard.’
‘But you’re a terrible distraction, Mr Westwood. I don’t know how I’m going to write a single essay.’ I giggled then, realising how silly I sounded.
‘We’ll manage.’ He pulled back the sheet and looked at me, beginning all over again, making me feel as if I was the only girl in the world.
We saw each other almost every day for the next few weeks, sometimes studying together, though admittedly not getting much done, sometimes exploring the local area, or cooking our favourite meals. Some nights we watched movies and fell asleep in each other’s arms to wake in the morning fully clothed and stiff-necked.
Campus life soon fell into a familiar rhythm for all the freshers, with me eventually remembering where all my lectures and tutor groups were taking place. Early on, when my hopelessness had reduced me to tears, Karen
bought us each a take-out mocha and marched me round the departments I would need, my timetable in her hand and a determined look on her face.
‘Old green door and wonky tree means module A237, OK?’ she said, pointing at the landmarks with her pen before jotting down notes on my schedule. She even took photographs.
‘Got it,’ I said, trying to remember the route before we moved on to the next building. Patiently, she took me round three times until I fell against her, laughing. Then we saw Tom across the road and she selflessly batted me in his direction with a promise of punishment if I was late for another lecture. Despite her oddities, her now slightly pink hair and assorted tattoos, Karen had become a good friend.
‘Hey,’ I said to Tom. ‘What’s up?’
He looked concerned, shrugging at my question, kicking the leaves. He wore an intense frown.
‘Want to talk?’
He nodded, so I took him to the little campus café and we sat at a table at the back. His usually bright face was tarnished and distressed.
‘Mum rang me in tears last night,’ he confessed. ‘She and Dad had been arguing.’
This wasn’t my area of expertise, but I listened to him all the same, held his hand across the sticky table as he told me what she’d said. He hadn’t spoken much about his family, though I knew they lived in a village about an hour away, and that he was an only child.
‘That’s tough.’ It was hard for me to understand. Despite all that had happened to them, my parents were still madly in love, even if they didn’t show it all the time. ‘Did they fight?’
I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing because after that Tom just wanted to talk about other stuff, as if shrugging off the issues at home would make them go away. I knew differently.
‘Let’s make a pact,’ he finally suggested. I was curious.
‘You mean like become blood brother and sister?’ I winked at him. ‘Because there’s no way I’m drawing blood, not even for you.’ I longed to lean over and kiss him, but made do with a playful squeeze of his hand.
‘No, I mean let’s make a pact never to turn into our parents. I love my folks, but man, they piss me off sometimes.’ Tom was shaking his head. It was his way of confiding.
‘Have you got grandparents?’ I asked.
Tom nodded. ‘Barely,’ he replied. ‘Only Mum’s mum is left and she’s been in a home for years. Slim pickings,’ he said, shrugging.
I closed my eyes briefly. ‘That’s sad.’
I didn’t want to make him feel bad by telling him that I still had both sets alive. We saw Mum’s parents often, though Dad’s family had never approved of them marrying, saying Mum wasn’t good enough for him. Naturally, Mum hadn’t wanted much to do with them after that, and I’d followed suit, but Dad still visited, though he said it was out of duty.
I squeezed Tom’s hand. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much. They’ll work it out.’ I remember how mine pulled together after Jacob, when it could easily have torn them apart.
Tom focused on the floor.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ he said. ‘Though Mum gets lonely.’
I thought how that must feel, which made me want to take him home to meet my family, share them with him. In the end, I decided it wasn’t the best time to bring that up. Our home lives sounded very different.
‘There was this time once,’ I said, ‘a month or so after Jacob died.’ I’d already told Tom exactly what had happened to my brother, wanting to be utterly transparent from the start. ‘I was going through my emo phase.’ I smiled and rolled my eyes. ‘I wasn’t quite fourteen and pretty much locked myself in my bedroom all the time, or the bathroom if I thought Mum and Dad were being annoying. I’d sit on the loo seat sulking for hours.’
‘It was a tough time for you,’ Tom said.
‘But I made it tougher than it needed to be. I nicked stuff from shops. Nail varnishes and an eyeliner, a few trashy bits of jewellery. Tons of sweets and magazines.’
‘I hope the nail varnish was black,’ Tom said with a laugh.
‘Right. But then I got into stealing booze from my parents, buying it off the older kids at school when Mum got wise to it. I even got my hands on some dope but kept throwing up.’
‘Lightweight.’ Tom grinned.
‘The point I’m trying to make is that I didn’t
want
to be like that. I hated the person I’d turned into. I was just trying to make the world go away.’
I paused, sipping my tea. It was good to talk, and I hoped in some small way it might help Tom.
‘It got so bad, I decided I was going to hurt myself. I didn’t know how, but I reckoned it would involve some blood and booze and a ton of self-hatred.’
‘Hannah, that’s awful.’ Tom moved his chair round to be next to me.
‘I got everything ready – a load of pills, a full bottle of vodka, a razor blade. I even pushed the wardrobe in front of my door.’
Tom was silent, holding me.
‘The thing is, I didn’t actually want to hurt myself, let alone die. But I couldn’t see any other way to get rid of the pain. Then I kept thinking about my parents, how they would feel if they lost both their children.’
‘What happened?’ Tom’s voice was soft and warm against my hair.
‘It was weird. I reckon Mum and Dad must have sensed something was up. It was the middle of the day and Mum was at work and Dad had gone out, but next thing I know they’re both hammering on my door, screaming out my name. In the end, Dad got a ladder and smashed my window, getting in that way. He found me lying on my bed, perfectly fine apart from all the trouble I was in for freaking them out.’
‘I’m so glad they stopped you.’
‘Looking back, I was testing them. Testing their love. Testing our togetherness.’ It was hard to explain. ‘I’d been so messed up by losing Jakey that I couldn’t stand to think that I was losing them too.’
‘That sort of makes sense,’ Tom said.
‘And they passed with flying colours, I should add, even though I put them through hell.’
Tom stroked me as we sat in the middle of the busy café.
‘What I’m trying to say is that maybe it’s the same with your dad. When people need to be needed, they show it in crazy ways. Sometimes the opposite of how you’d expect.’
‘You think?’ Tom said, pulling away so he could see me. I reckoned he thought I was on to something.
‘I do. He probably hates rowing as much as your mum does. I bet, given the choice, he’d rather be home all the time.’
That’s when I realised Tom was laughing. ‘You’re too wise for your own good, Miss Forrester,’ he said. ‘And I love you for it.’
A chill ran through me – a warm chill, if that’s even possible. He’d said he loved me.
‘The problem with Dad,’ Tom went on, stirring the froth on his coffee, ‘is that he’s always wanted it all.’ He shrugged, as if there was no helping the man. ‘He’s always been greedy, always wanted the world.’
I tried to relate this to my situation. I thought about Mum and Dad and how they held hands when they
thought no one was looking, how they bought random little gifts for each other, how they left notes on each other’s cars on frosty mornings.
I smiled at Tom. ‘My dad’s exactly the same.’
It seemed the right thing to say. I didn’t want to drive a wedge between us when it came to our parents.
But the difference
, I thought as we left the café later,
is that my dad
does
actually have the world.
By the end of January – Rick minus two months – it was more than I could stand. I’d started back at work and while it was good to be distracted, I couldn’t get what I’d seen jotted in his notebook out of my mind.
Why had he gone to see a therapist? Why hadn’t he told me?
By that time, I assumed the details that I’d given to PC Kath Lane about Jennifer Croft-Bailey hadn’t been worth pursuing, or had produced nothing of interest. I’d tried to find out from the police, but had drawn a blank. No one seemed that interested any more. But it was still killing me, and I was desperate to know why Rick had been seeing her.
‘He’s changed since you’ve been away,’ Steph whispered on my first day back, touching my arm and glancing across the office. Her hair was an even lighter shade of blonde than usual, fizzing in the light thrown out by her monitor. It was dark outside, quarter to five, with me counting down the minutes until I could leave. I’d considered
making up a bogus viewing, but everything was logged in the system and in the couple of months I’d been away, it seemed that Adrian had become even more of a controlling arse.
Steph stared at him. He was with a customer at the front, and our desks were close together at the back so he couldn’t hear. ‘Since Mick delegated more responsibility to him, he’s become insufferable.’ She rolled her eyes. She thrived on drama, but she was also my only ally. I wondered what she would reveal.