Wake Up Happy Every Day (10 page)

‘I think it’s that one,’ Megan says as she points at a particularly film-setty palace painted the colour of manuka honey. ‘And do you think that’s him?’

Lorna follows Megan’s imperious finger with its short athlete’s nail. She sees a plumpish, balding, rosy-cheeked man in a dark suit come out of the gate that belongs to the golden house. They watch as he points elaborately at the line of parked cars. It’s a gesture that seems overdone, more like a G-man taking a bead on a mobster with a handgun than a man opening the doors to his car. It does the job though, the lights on an anonymous, grey Lexus-Volvo-Audi-SUV thing blink twice.

The guy is about the right age, and he looks anxiously uncomfortable. Meaning that, yes, he looks English. Is there any creature less built for elegance in the sun and heat, than the middle-aged English bloke in a suit? So it could be her dad, it really could. Yet she feels no exhilaration. Instead she feels flat and frumpy and her headache is worse.

Megan is already out of the car. ‘Come on, sister, look alive.’ And yes, of course, this bloke, this possible dad, might be driving off any second. There isn’t time to sit around plucking up courage and rehearsing what she is going to say and whatnot. She clambers out of Megan’s battered Focus feeling hot, ungainly, sticky, sweaty and nauseous. Perhaps it is just as well her dad – if that’s who he is – doesn’t look like a glamorous movie exec.

Megan links arms with her and hurries her along. ‘Exciting, huh?’ she says, and she doesn’t sound satirical or anything. She sounds like she means it.

They are about 100 metres from the house now, and the silver Lexus-Volvo-Audi or whatever is maybe another 50 metres beyond that. The man, her dad, whoever, hasn’t got in yet – he is leaning against it waiting for someone. Waiting in fact for this small, thoughtful woman coming out of the gate now. A woman with a kind face wearing a funky mod-inspired black–and-white dress that almost fits, but somehow doesn’t quite.

‘Balenciaga,’ whispers Lorna to Megan, ‘four thousand dollars. At least.’ And then she notices that both the woman and the man are now standing together, silent, motionless, looking at them oddly. Megan and Lorna come to a halt too. There is an uncomfortable gap of thick swampy air between them. Lorna feels panicky now. There’s nothing to say. Nothing at all.

It is the woman in the ill-fitting Balenciaga dress who speaks first.

‘Can we help you?’ A kind voice. Soft. Pleasant. Cautiously friendly, with warm brown tones to it. It’s also definitely English. Southern but not London, maybe just a hint of the M4. Reading? Bristol? Bath? Not as far west as that. Swindon? A careful voice anyway, one that doesn’t want to draw attention to itself.

‘Um,’ says Lorna. The thick dead air sucks at her tongue. Next to her Megan coughs.

‘Excuse me, sir.’ This uncomfortable bloke turns his worried frown towards her. ‘My friend was wondering if maybe, by any chance, you were, kinda her father?’

Uncomfortable bloke opens the car door, making ready to leave.

‘I don’t think so.’

He is also English though. Southern again, with more of a London thing going on. That ‘t’ on ‘don’t’ almost disappeared. Her dad was from the south-east originally. Lorna swallows hard and steps forward. She puts out her hand.

‘I’m Lorna. Lorna Dawson.’

He looks at her hard now, lets a few long moments pass, and then, briefly, touches her fingers with his.

‘I’m not your dad,’ he says quietly. He sounds tired. Lorna looks at his face and, true, she can’t see herself there. She just sees some randomer’s ordinary middle-aged face, pouchy with weariness, pink on the cheeks and nose where the sun has caught him.

‘So. Tell the poor girl your name.’ The woman sounds like she’s smiling, but her eyes are glittery. She suddenly has the look of the women in the gym, thinks Lorna. She looks like she proper wants to belt something, someone. And to belt them very hard. Not so soft, pleasant or cautiously friendly now.

‘Nigel,’ says the bloke at last. ‘Nigel Smith.’

‘Oh right.’

‘Nigel,’ repeats the woman heavily. Then she says, ‘He –
Nigel
– works for Russell Knox. Is that who you were looking for?’

‘Yes. Yes it was, ma’am.’

‘He’s gone travelling.’

‘Oh.’

There is silence.

‘He’s not expected back for months. If at all. Sorry.’

And she actually does sound a bit sorry.

Megan ignores the woman, directs her whole attention to Nigel, gives him the steady force of her peachy, apricotty light. She says, ‘Sir, perhaps you have a number? Or an email address? My friend has been trying to find Mr Knox for a long time. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Well, I . . .’ The bloke – Nigel – looks confused. He glances towards the woman who makes a face, shakes her head slightly. ‘Well, I . . .’ Nigel begins again. The woman cuts in briskly. Sharp.

‘We can’t give out contact details, dear. Nigel would get fired. As I’m sure you understand.’

‘Oh right.’ Lorna just wants to be gone now. This is all excruciating.

‘But maybe you could give us your details and that way Mr Knox can get in touch with you if he wishes.’

‘I never knew he had a daughter.’ Nigel seems to be announcing this to the world at large. There is a silence. The world at large doesn’t seem to be listening. Doesn’t seem to care much.

‘Have you worked for Mr Knox long?’ This is Megan again.

‘We’ve known him years, haven’t we, darling?’

‘Quite a while.’ Nigel seems to be recovering his composure now, thinks Lorna. Perhaps he senses the whole conversation, confrontation, whatever, coming to an end.

Lorna gets her pen and notebook out of her bag. She starts to scribble her email and phone number. The pen goes dead after the first three letters. She scratches furiously at the page, but it has really had it. Lorna can feel herself blushing. It shouldn’t matter – one of the others is bound to have a pen – but, somehow, it does. A competent person, a person with a proper father, would have a pen that worked.

Silently Megan hands her another Biro.

‘Thanks.’ Lorna feels like crying.

She finishes scrawling all her details, not just cellphone and email, but her address in Emeryville and her mum’s in England. Nigel takes the page from her and examines it carefully.

‘You’re from Saltaire in Yorkshire?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The town Sir Titus Salt originally built for his mill workers?’

Lorna is startled. She rarely meets people who know her hometown.

‘Yeah, the very same. They let ordinary people live there now.’ And then in a rush she says, ‘They don’t do that these days, do they? Modern millionaires, I mean. Where’s Billgatesville? Where’s Tetrapack City?’

The man smiles. ‘Who’d want to live in those places?’

‘You’re right. Billgatesville. Imagine, everyone rocking the double denim and getting themselves all stressy about recycling.’

The man’s smile broadens. He looks nice now. Shy. Decent. Ordinary.

‘Nigel,’ the woman prompts.

‘Oh right, yeah. We better get going.’ Nigel’s smile vanishes, replaced by the worried frown again. She can see black fillings in his mouth. Russell Knox – her dad – clearly doesn’t pay enough for proper dental care. Who has black fillings these days?

‘We’re going to a funeral,’ says the woman.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ says Megan.

‘It’s OK. It’s not—’ she stops, looks over at Nigel.

His face is twisted in an odd little grin. He finishes the sentence for her. ‘It’s not anyone close.’

‘That’s right,’ says the woman, and she’s also strangely twinkly. ‘It’s only my husband.’

Afterwards, when the couple have driven off in their Lexus-Volvo-Audi thing, after Lorna has sat in the sticky passenger seat and wept for a while, without knowing why, and after she’s kissed Megan and told her how much she loves her for coming with her, and how much she admires her for always knowing what to do and say. For always having a Biro when one is needed. And told her how great it has been to see her do her thing at boxing and how ace she is at that and at everything else actually, and after Megan has told her to shut up, but in a way that tells Lorna she’s pleased and that the whole business with Linwood is forgotten about. After all that, and when they are driving back through the city, something occurs to Lorna.

‘She never told us her name.’

‘What?’ Megan has her grim traffic-face on again.

‘The woman who was with Nigel. She never told us her name.’

‘Do we need to know her name?’

‘I guess not. It’s a bit weird though.’

‘They were both weird. They were freaks.’

‘He was OK. Anyway, I bet they think the same about us.’

‘I bet you’re right. I bet they do think that. But that’s because they’re freaks.’ She clicks the radio on, a kooky girl is singing a funny little song over a scratchy guitar about wanting to be a bumble-bee. College folk. Kinda twee, but kinda fun. ‘
Honest-ly . . . I’d be quite hap-py . . . Yellow and black is where it’s at . . .’

Lorna finds herself idly curious about what Jez is up to. Next to her Megan shifts in her seat.

‘Don’t,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘I know you’ve had a stressful day, but don’t do it.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t call the Fuckweasel.’

Spooky. Sometimes Lorna wonders whether Megan is actually a qualified witch.

And on the radio the girl sings: ‘. . . 
made out of fluff . . . life wouldn’t be tough . . . I wouldn’t need no clothes or go to fancy shows . . . all I want to be is . . .’
Lorna thinks that if she ever had a coat of arms it would feature a bumble-bee. The creature that shouldn’t be able to fly, but somehow does. Then she thinks that she’s actually the opposite. A girl that should fly, but somehow doesn’t. Well, fuck that. She’s going to start flying. And as soon as.

The rhythm is a sort of bossa nova. It reminds Lorna of Megan bobbing and dancing as she hit the bags in the gym earlier.
Pha-pha-pha pha-pha pha-pha-pha

All people, thinks Lorna, are freaks when you get down to it.

Twelve

CATHERINE

She is in the kitchen making scrambled eggs and getting wound up by the radio. The presenter is quizzing some cabinet minister on the
Today
programme and not giving him anything like enough of a hard time. It makes her cross. They are reducing troop numbers again and the wars are not actually won yet. Imagine if budgetary constraints had led to the allied forces being cut in half three weeks after D-day. The liberation of Europe would have been a lot more tricky then. A war isn’t over just because an accountant in Whitehall says it is.

And it is stupid because soldiers are cheap. You can get a fully trained up squaddie for £25K a year. Peanuts – about the same as a teaching assistant, or some call-centre kid in a shiny Top Man suit. And all those laid-off soldiers, fit and knowing how to fight, are going to be hitting the streets angry and broke. Most of them suffering from PTSD. It’s a recipe for a shit-storm, anyone can see that, and here is this soft-bodied desk-jockey mumbling on about tough decisions and hard choices. Leave him alone on an Helmand hillside for twenty-four hours and then let him talk about tough decisions and hard choices.

And then it’s time for the bloody sport. Football and Rugby. Bread and flipping circuses more like. Spectacles to keep the population entertained so they won’t notice the mess they’re in. And this bread and these circuses are not even trying to entertain the whole population. Just the men. And how much do those players get paid? A million a week? And none of them would last a day in Afghanistan either.

She beats the eggs carefully, adds them to the pan where the shallots and chopped green-finger chillies have been frying in butter. She puts the bread in the toaster.

Catherine thinks that politicians shouldn’t run armies, it should be the other way round. Look at Greece – the economy was fine when the generals were in charge and turned to shit when the politicians took over. Same in Spain. Not that she would necessarily trust British generals, most of them are like politicians anyway. And that’s not surprising given that most of them have been to the same schools as the bloody cabinet. They’re probably all related, or have touched each other up in the dorms after lights out.

Catherine had been in the Army ten years when she went to Afghanistan. Ten years of having to prove to everyone, including herself, that she was better than the blokes. Better at everything. Better at running. Better at the assault course. Better at shooting. Better with a bayonet. Better at swearing even. Proving that she could carry more, further, faster, than anyone else could. Ten years to progress from hoisting arseholed grunts out of dodgy clubs in places like Colchester and Aldershot as part of the military police, all the way to getting her commission in 2001. By that time she could fly helicopters and gliders, she was an accomplished sniper and she could kill with her bare hands. She knew she could because she’d done it, more than once. In Iraq and in Bosnia.