Welcome To Wherever You Are (13 page)

Instinctively Savannah knew he was referring to her relationship with Michael, but the attack and the realisation that somehow he had discovered her secret prevented her from thinking straight and thus talking her way out of the situation.

‘What? . . . Daddy . . .’ she stuttered.

‘Don’t even try to deny it! Pastor Jackson witnessed that black boy’s hands all over you in a coffee shop. Allowing one of
them
to touch you, to be physical with you . . . how could you?’

‘But—’

‘Don’t “but” me! Tell me how long.’

‘Daddy, please . . . let me explain.’

Savannah’s heart raced as quickly as the thoughts travelling through her head. She desperately attempted to cobble together a credible explanation for why she would have kissed a black man at all, let alone in public. She struggled to loosen herself from her father’s grip but to no avail.

‘He’s lying,’ was all she could think of to say. ‘Pastor Jackson is making stuff up.’

‘Pastor Jackson does not lie,’ her father replied with conviction. ‘Besides, he showed me the video recording he made on his phone.’

And with that, Savannah knew the game was up. She wasn’t sure whom she loathed more, the snitching Pastor or the man who called himself her father.

‘Have you let him screw you?’ he raged. ‘Has he been inside you?’

‘Daddy—’

‘Don’t daddy me; you forfeited the right to call me your daddy the moment you were soiled by an animal. How long?’

Savannah didn’t reply and sobbed instead. Her ear throbbed, her cheek smarted and she wanted to vomit. She shook her head and refused to reply. She was desperate to get in her car and call Michael because when she was in his arms, nothing could hurt her.

‘Well if you’re not going to tell me, then let’s go visit someone who will, shall we?’

TODAY

Ruth was hiding under a bus shelter when she spotted Tommy and Jake leaving the hostel.

While her head was still swimming with the events, or non-events, of the afternoon, she didn’t want to even make eye contact with anyone she recognised from the hostel.

Upon leaving the restaurant, Ruth had spent hour upon hour parked on a bench in a small patch of greenery between the beach and the road, overlooking the bright swirling lights of Santa Monica pier. She mind lurched from disappointment to anger and embarrassment, but none of it was aimed at Zak; all of it was towards herself for being foolish enough to believe she deserved to be happy.

After the sun set and the night crept in, a homeless man with two bin liners of soda cans slung over his shoulder cursed at her for sitting on his bed. So she left the bench and slowly made her way back to the hostel. The beach was too dark and unsafe to navigate by night, so Ruth chose the pavement by the road instead.

There wasn’t enough noise from the passing traffic to muffle her despondent sobs, so she bit hard on her index finger to stem the flow of tears. With each step, her heels dug further into her flesh, so she tore them from her feet and threw them into a trashcan, barely feeling the grit of the sidewalk.

Aware her nose was running, Ruth reached inside her handbag for a tissue and instead, unwittingly pulled out the $20 bill the
maître d’
had returned to her. It was folded, but inside appeared to be another piece of paper.

‘4765 Sunset Plaza Drive, Hollywood Hills – Zak’s address’, it read.

It took a few moments before Ruth realised the
maître d’
s action had been the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her.

Nicole perched on the windowsill, willing a waft of cold air to blow into her musty dormitory room, when she saw Tommy leaving the hostel and crossing the road with someone she didn’t recognise with a ponytail.

Her brows knitted as she reached for her mobile phone and turned it to camera mode, zooming in to see if she could get a better view of who was accompanying him.

‘Who’ve you got your beady eye on, Miss Marple?’ began Eric, his head peering over his top bunk.

‘No one,’ she replied defensively. ‘Well, I was just trying to see who Tommy was going out with. It’s a bit late.’

‘I haven’t seen him slobbering over you much today. I presume you’ve had a little tête-à-tête?’

‘If you mean have I had a word with him, then yes, I’ve cooled it,’ she lied.

‘It’s for the best, trust me. Besides, we’re leaving in a couple of days; I’m sure that’s probably your replacement he has lined up.’

Eric rolled back on his side and smiled, satisfied at having Nicole to himself again. ‘And is there any chance you can clear your crap up from around the bed before rats start nesting in it?’

Nicole ignored him, even though she was aware there wasn’t enough room by their bunk to swing a cat, let alone to leave all her clothes and belongings scattered and piled up.

With Tommy and his companion now out of sight, Nicole closed her eyes and quietly hovered in that space between consciousness and sleep, when the sound of a sleeping bag being unzipped caught her attention. In the gloom, she squinted to catch Ruth slipping her dress off and packing it away in her suitcase.

‘Oh, hey Ruth, have you just got back?’ Nicole whispered.

‘Yeah, just now,’ replied Ruth.

‘So? Don’t keep me in suspense . . . How did it go? How was Zak?’

Ruth paused before offering an answer. ‘Really, really great. I’m going back tomorrow because Zak’s asked me if I wanted to spend the day at his house.’

‘Did he?’ replied Nicole, a little louder than she’d intended. ‘Oh, wow, well, you must have made an impression on him.’

‘I reckon so,’ replied Ruth before entering the bathroom with her pyjamas under her arm.

‘Do you think it was the hair, the dress or the air of desperation that won him over?’ sniped Eric from above.

‘You have a streak of bitch in you a mile wide,’ Nicole replied, as she considered whether she had got Ruth all wrong, and that maybe once you really got to know her, her personality was a lot more vivacious than on first impression.

Nicole slipped back under her sheet, shuffled around a little longer before leaning over the side of her bed and grasping for her suitcase. She partly pulled it out, unzipped it and removed a brown, oblong, cardboard box.

ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER – LONDON

‘I bought an
OK!
magazine and a
Guardian
to read to Mrs Baker during my lunch break,’ smiled Nicole as she rushed past Eric and into the room behind the nurse’s station. ‘She likes the news but she loves a bit of celebrity gossip too.’

Eric followed her inside, watched as she unbuttoned her coat and waited for an opportunity to speak.

‘Last night she said her eyes are still causing her problems so I’m going to ask Doctor Kotnis if he can take a look at them later.’

‘Nic—’ began Eric, but Nicole interrupted.

‘I know what you’re going to say, but Matron can’t complain if I’m seeing her in my own time.’

‘I’m sorry, Nic, Mrs Baker passed away earlier this morning,’ Eric began gingerly. ‘Doctor Stephens thinks it was probably her heart that gave out.’

Nicole’s face dropped and she bit her bottom lip as Eric held her and kissed the top of her head.

‘I tried to call you but your mobile was turned off.’

‘Was she on her own when she . . .’

‘I think so.’

Nicole shook her head. ‘She’d have hated that.’

Before Eric could reply, Matron appeared and thrust a small brown Jiffy bag into Nicole’s chest. Nicole looked at it – her name was written on the front.

‘She left this for you in her drawer,’ Matron began gruffly, as Eric eyed it up suspiciously, ‘now spare me the tears, nurse, you’ve lost patients before.’

‘Mrs Baker was special to me,’ replied Nicole.

‘They all are. Now go and strip her bed, as you have work to do.’ Matron grabbed a clipboard and began to walk away, but not before Nicole saw red.

‘What is wrong with you?’ Nicole asked angrily. ‘When did you stop caring for people and become such a bitch?’

‘Excuse me,’ a surprised Matron replied, and turned slowly on her heels.

‘You heard me. Why do you feel the necessity to be such a cow all the damn time?’

‘Right, you are on report. In my office – now!’

‘No,’ Nicole replied firmly, and caught sight of Eric’s aghast expression. ‘Fuck you and fuck your job. You win, I’m out of here.’

Both Matron and Eric were speechless as Nicole grabbed her coat, stormed out of the room and out of the hospital.

*

Nicole opened the door of her flat and remained in the doorway, surveying her poky home.

She’d bought most of her furnishings on eBay, at IKEA or in end-of-line sales at Next. And with just a lounge/diner and galley kitchen leading towards a bedroom and bathroom, she hadn’t spent much filling it up. She’d tried hard to make it feel like home, but it didn’t, and it never would. It was a bridge between her past and an undisclosed future, but the thought of spending the rest of her life living alone in that box terrified her.

Matron couldn’t understand Nicole’s logic, but making time to talk and listen to a patient was equally as important as making sure they were clean and medicated. It was the human touch that attracted Nicole to nursing, and the inability to offer that was the reason she’d just quit. But quietly she worried if she’d let her mother’s memory down by making such an irrational, life-changing decision.

However, Mrs Baker had planted a seed in Nicole’s mind that was quietly germinating. She allowed herself to imagine what it must feel like to live for the moment; to wake up and not have your day mapped out in front of you; to go where you pleased; to meet new people from all walks of life and to absorb sights most people only witness in TV documentaries.

It was all just a fantasy, of course, because when Nicole thought about it rationally, she knew she had no savings to do any of that. So she slipped off her coat, closed the door behind her, blew a kiss to a photograph of a bare-chested Zak Stanley stuck to the fridge door and poured herself a glass of wine.

The next two pre-bedtime hours would be filled, as most evenings were, by a mixture of soap operas and reality TV recorded on her digibox.

Little did she know, a forgotten Jiffy bag in her coat pocket would soon alter everything.

TODAY

Quietly in the darkness of the room, Nicole pulled back the Sellotape that held the lid of the cardboard box in place and smiled as the metallic silver urn slipped out. She ran her fingers down its side and checked to make sure the lid was still secure.

‘We’ll find a home for you somewhere soon,’ she whispered.

Four empty mugs sat on the counter of the coffee bar as Tommy and Jake spent their second hour flopped in leather armchairs comparing notes on their travelling experiences.

The walls surrounding them offered a stark warning of what can happen when success and excess collide. They were covered in framed photographs of iconic actors and singers including River Phoenix, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, John Bonham, Dee Dee Ramone and John Belushi, who’d all descended on LA to find or revel in their fame and fortune but were spat out by the industry – and the world – at too early an age.

‘And you’ve not heard from your mate Sean since then?’ Jake asked.

‘Nope. His mum says he’s met some French girl and they’ve gone to Mexico, but I’ve not heard a thing from him. I keep checking my emails and Facebook but he’s gone off radar.’

‘Do you miss him?’

Tommy thought carefully about the question before he answered. ‘I did at first, but you’re never really alone when you’re backpacking, are you? You’re always meeting people in the same boat at you.’

‘Yeah, you develop these intense relationships, trade life stories, then within a few days, you’ve gone off in your own separate directions.’

‘Exactly! And then your name joins the list of a hundred others CC’d on a round-robin email, or you’re reduced to a photo on Facebook and have to tag your own name because it’s already been forgotten. You sound like you’re an old hand at this.’

‘Well, I’ve been living out of a rucksack for two years so far.’

‘Wow, it’s only been just over seven months for me. So what inspired you to start travelling?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ replied Jake, vaguely. ‘What about you?’

‘Pretty much the same,’ replied Tommy, unwilling to cast a dampener on what had turned out to be a pleasantly spontaneous middle-of-the-night.

EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER – NORTHAMPTON

‘What the hell are you doing here?’