Kiss Her Goodbye: The most addictive thriller you'll read this year Page 19

  At college, the day drags. The plastic chairs seem harder and the time goes slower than ever. I watch the caretaker raking up soggy leaves outside and think about the last time I saw Dad. I stare at the tattoos creeping out of his sleeves and realise that I don’t know much about Dad at all. There are so many questions that I need answers to, but the day never wants to end.

  Later, in the common room, Leila lifts up an Amnesty International poster to show Barbara as they start another big discussion. Since her dad got made redundant, they’re never apart. They’re always campaigning about something: first Save the Seals, and then Support the Miners and now it’s something else. She’s no time for me any more. I just wish I could talk to her properly one last time, but she’s not interested. Her lips shine like slices of wet peach as she smiles, and yet none of that matters. I can’t even get near her. Girls in hooped tee shirts with dyed black hair and patterned tights surround her. They call themselves alternative, but they’re all clones. As she laughs at their jokes it feels as if I’ve already left this place. At the other side of the room, Maxine Turner is telling Beth about the funny phone calls she’s been getting, but I don’t feel anything. I look around at the groups of people: the girls in biker jackets with black nail varnish, the quiet group in the corner in long woolly cardigans and the lads in tracksuit bottoms and chunky trainers. They all know where they fit. I don’t. This is the day that I leave them all behind.

  When I walk out of college at the end of the day, I push past one of the boys on the way out and don’t look back. Sunlight glints from the windows of the parked cars outside and the breeze is sharp and cool. A girl walks in front of me, satchel banging against her thigh, blonde ponytail bouncing with each step, and Kirsten is so clear in my mind that it could be her. I think about the turquoise T-shirt that she wore that day, reflecting back so brightly in the river water. I long for the salty smell of the ocean and the heat of the sand dunes to escape into so that I can forget her at last.

  When I get home, there’s a Mini outside that’s the same yellow as the hot-dog van from the seaside and I know that it must be Dad’s. I drop my key on the path twice before I manage to open the door and when I step inside, his brown leather jacket is hanging on the stand in the hall. I let my fingers brush across the sleeve as I walk in towards the sound of voices in the living room. My chest’s so tight that I take short breaths until I see him. He’s wearing a pink shirt and stonewashed jeans – not as tall as I remember, but apart from the streaks in his blond hair he looks the same. Mike looks scruffy next to him, with his shirt hanging out and untrimmed beard, but Dad looks good.

  I try to say hello, but my mouth hangs open in silence.

  ‘I should have come back sooner,’ he says, to Mike, ‘but you know what she’s like.’

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ I finally manage to squeak.

  ‘Hayley.’ He turns around and looks surprised.

  I cough. ‘Are you staying for dinner?’

  ‘No, I need to get off.’ He pauses, before turning to Mike. ‘If she finds anything else she can post it on to me.’

  He walks towards me and looks me over. I wait for him to hug me, but he stands and faces me like a stranger.

  ‘You can’t go yet. You’re kidding, right?’

  He swallows. ‘I hardly recognised you. You look different.’

  Mike smiles and I want to shut the door in his face, but I don’t want to look bad in front of Dad.

  I take a step closer. ‘I’m doing my A levels. It’s going well.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to catch up,’ Mike says, going in the kitchen, but leaving the door open so that he can listen.

  We stand there staring at each other until I speak. ‘I missed you,’ I say, looking down at the floor in case he laughs at me. It feels odd to say the real truth.

  He stares at the door and not at me as he says, ‘I think about you a lot.’ Then he taps the space on his wrist where a watch should be. ‘It’s a shame I can’t stay for longer, but it’s a long trip back.’ He smiles. ‘I thought you’d look more like your mum now, but you don’t really.’

  ‘No, I’m like you.’ I smile back. I’m so happy, because it’s just how I wanted it to be. ‘Oh, yes,’ I say as I pick up the shortbread from the table in the hall, ‘it’s a present. From Wales.’

  The box is crushed on one side and the ribbon has fallen off, but it doesn’t matter.

  ‘I don’t really eat sweet stuff,’ he says, and I feel my face drop. ‘I’ll take it still.’ Our hands almost touch as he takes it. ‘I’ll give it to Lily…’ he pauses ‘…my daughter. She’s three now.’

  I didn’t buy it for her, I bought it for him, but I try not to look angry.

  He glances at the black scruffy cardigan over my tee shirt and I’m annoyed that I didn’t get a chance to dress up nicely as I wanted to.

  I move closer. ‘Fancy the pictures? Like we used to?’

  He steps backwards towards the door. ‘I’ve got a long drive.’

  ‘There’s a four o’clock show. We’ll just make it if we hurry. It’s only a pound.’

  He smiles a tired smile.

  ‘OK, I suppose it won’t hurt to be a bit late.’

  *

  We pass an old woman walking her dog and I want to shake her and say, ‘Look! Danny Reynolds is back. Isn’t he the best dad you’ve ever seen?’ but she walks past without noticing us and shouts at the little dog before crossing the street.

  We turn the corner onto the main road and I don’t have to struggle to keep up with him as I do with Mike. We’ve got the same stride and walk at the same pace, as if we’re meant to be together. I tell him about my camera and he talks about composition and how to take better pictures. I tell him that I want to photograph wildlife and he looks pleased. He even bends down to show me the way the sun shines on a puddle by the road and says he’ll send me some of his new photographs. If the hide hadn’t been ruined by the weather I could have shown him, but I don’t mention it.

  There aren’t many people there, because it’s the early show. The usher shines her torch through the darkness of the aisle and we sit near the back. There’s a man on his own near the front and someone giggling at the side, but I pretend that we’re the only ones in here. Dad lights a cigarette and exhales. He taps it into the ashtray in the back of the seat in front as I pretend to watch the adverts. The grey smoke hangs under a beam of yellow light from the projector, just out of reach, like all the happiness of the past.

  The film plays and I wriggle down in the orange felt seat, so that my elbow is close to his and put my hand on the armrest so that he can hold it if he wants to, but he doesn’t. I could stay here in the darkness forever, just like the times he’d sit by my bed and we’d watch the shadows change on the bedroom wallpaper at night until I fell asleep. He didn’t leave my side for weeks before he left.

  I remember Dad’s friend with the dirty nails who always sat too close to me when Dad left the room. I try to put him out of my mind and remember every bit of Dad instead so that I’ll never forget him again. I’ve learnt so much already. I know that his hands are small and he has a freckle on his little finger. I know that his legs are skinny and he laughs through his nose. I know these things are just like flecks of burning paper on the wind: things without substance that tell me nothing about who he really is, but I memorise them because they’re all I’ve got. The last time we were this close was at the hide by the river, but it didn’t matter. I hope he doesn’t remember it now.

  The film’s called Letter to Brezhnev and it’s good. When the girl in the film, Elaine, tells her mum she wants to leave Liverpool for a new life in Russia I smile. She says she’s got nothing to leave behind and neither have I. All I want to do is escape from this place. It’s perfect. As ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ plays, I hope that Dad’s thinking about us. It’s a special moment and I couldn’t have chosen a better film.

  The film finishes too quickly and we stay seated until the lights go on so that
the moment can last for as long as possible. When we get into the foyer, Maxine Turner is standing in front of a ‘coming soon’ poster for My Beautiful Laundrette and I keep away from her. Dad smiles and with the streaks in his hair he looks a bit like Daniel Day-Lewis himself. He’s everything I hoped he would be.

  ‘That was OK,’ he says.

  ‘Should we go and get something to eat?’

  ‘I can’t,’ he says, but there’s sorrow in his voice as though he doesn’t want the moment to end either. He wants to be with me, just as I want to be with him.

  A sign says that Santa Claus: The Movie is out soon and for once I’m looking forward to Christmas, because everything is going to change. For the first time it won’t be Mum’s dry turkey on flowery plates. It will be new and exciting. Maxine glances over, but I ignore her. In a few hours when I’m on my way to France she’ll be as irrelevant as all the yesterdays.

  On the way home, we walk slowly, but we don’t say much. There are so many things that I want to talk about, but I can’t think of a way to start. All I can do is stare at his white brogues and wish that he’d put his arm through mine as he used to.

  ‘What music do you like?’ I ask him. If he says New Order then the day will be perfect.

  ‘Simple Minds.’

  ‘Don’t you forget about me,’ I reply, sadly.

  ‘Yes. Brilliant.’ He smiles.

  ‘We used to have some nice walks by the river, didn’t we?’ I say, but he looks at me blankly.

  ‘Sure,’ he replies, but I don’t think he remembers at all.

  When we get back home, he stands by his car and looks at the house with disdain.

  I want him to remember the good times. ‘You used to have loads of parties. Remember?’

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Doesn’t feel like it to me.’

  It does though. All of Dad’s friends stopped coming when he left. None of them ever came back. Not even the woman with the red fingernails who used to come in the back door and give me cherry sweets when Mum was out.

  ‘Your mother all right?’

  ‘She’s fine now. Not like she used to be.’

  He probably doesn’t remember that they were happy sometimes. I’d sit by their bed when they were asleep and there was no shouting or arguing. They were still and peaceful as if they’d been fixed too.

  I hold up my index finger. ‘Wait a minute! Don’t go.’ I run down the path and go inside. I’d have liked him to stay for dinner so that I could bring up the idea slowly, but there’s no time now. I grab the bag that I’ve packed from my bedroom and run back outside. He’s standing with his back to me, car keys in his hand, ready to go.

  ‘I can come to France with you,’ I say as I hold up my bag and smile. ‘She’ll be fine with it.’

  I wait for him to throw his arms around me and lift me up in the air. To tell me that this is what he’s always wanted, but he looks at me as though I am ridiculous.

  ‘I’ve packed!’ I tell him with a wave of the bag, but he shakes his head.

  ‘Impossible. You can’t.’ He looks embarrassed and puts his keys in the car.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll send you those photographs and my new address.’

  ‘But I’ve got my passport. Mum got me one for Torremolinos.’

  ‘It’s not been easy for me either. I’ve started again. I’m a different person now.’

  I take a step closer. That’s all I want too. ‘I won’t be any bother. There’s nothing here for me.’

  ‘Your mum’s here.’

  My mouth gapes. I wish I could tell him that I need a fresh start more than anyone, but if he knew about Kirsten he wouldn’t want me at all. I’ve got to be careful what I say this time. I’m older now. I know which secrets shouldn’t be spoken. He looks back at the house and mumbles something before he opens the car door.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve got a new baby,’ he says as he gets in. ‘You’re better here with your mother. Maybe when things settle down a bit you could come and stay for a few days. It’s been really nice to see you though,’ and he slams the door.

  ‘You don’t even like babies.’

  He looks shocked, but it’s true.

  ‘How am I better off with her? Don’t you remember what she’s like?’

  I step into the road and he winds down the window as I pull on the metal door handle.

  ‘You’ve locked it?’ I look at him with disbelief.

  ‘I need to go. It’s better.’

  ‘Better for who?’ I shout as he turns the engine on. He looks at me as if he can’t even bear to be near me and nods at the house. ‘That was a different life,’ he says, and as he drives away I bang on the passenger window with the side of my fist.

  ‘You had me first!’

  He speeds up so fast that he nearly clips one of the neighbour’s parked cars and I shout after him, ‘Please! Please take me with you! Please, Dad!’

  I want to stop him, like Margi Clarke stopped the bus in the film, but he’s gone too quickly. I run after him, but the car goes round the corner and the street is quiet and grey again. I stop and stare at the empty road, then scream as loud as I can. I do it until one of the neighbours opens her window, but she just watches. Now I know why he never comes. It’s because of them – his ‘other family’. I wish his daughter were here so I could throw her in the river and watch her float out of his life forever, then the baby and his ugly wife. All of them! I scream at the neighbour until my throat feels ripped open and she slams her window shut.

  When I go inside, Mike is in the hall. He rubs his earlobe with his fingers and looks nervous. ‘What did he say to you? Are you all right? I heard—’

  ‘Piss off,’ I shout as I run upstairs.

  In my bedroom, I punch the wardrobe door as hard as I can. The plastic window shatters and cuts my knuckle. It hurts, but the pain is better than Dad’s look of distaste when I asked to go with him. I can’t believe that he’s got another baby now and he doesn’t want me. As I look at the tops of the trees through the window, it feels as if everything I’ve ever wanted has been taken away with him in that little yellow Mini.

  I pick up a piece of the broken plastic and press it hard into my arm while the wind whips through the trees outside and next door’s cat cries from the garden. I put the stereo on and turn my New Order album up louder than I’ve ever had it on before. Stefan can say that we’ve got a Smiths song, but this whole album is Kirsten’s and mine. They can do what they want, but they can’t take that away from me.

  As ‘Love Vigilantes’ comes on I think about Dad going home to his family like the solider in the song. Even though I haven’t cried for a long time, I can’t stop and I hate myself for it. I thought he was mine, but he never was. He doesn’t want me and it’s all because of that night. I bury my face in the pillow until it’s wet with snot and tears. I have no idea how to change into a better person now. If I have to stay here everything will stay the same forever.

  After a few hours, Mike makes me jump when his hand touches my shoulder, because I didn’t hear him come in.

  ‘I made you something to eat, if you want it,’ he says. ‘It’s downstairs.’ He sighs. ‘I’m not very good at this.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I say. He puts his hand on my forehead and I can smell the booze on his breath.

  ‘He shouldn’t have upset you like that.’ He stares accusingly towards the door and screws up one eye. ‘Your mum said this would happen, but I didn’t want to be selfish. I thought you should have some time together.’

  When he says selfish it sounds like ‘shellfish’.

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘Had a few watching a film.’

  ‘Go away, you div,’ I say, but he sits down next to me and I let him stroke my hair and don’t turn away.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says as his hand moves down my ear and onto the side of my face. This makes me cry more, because I don’t want him there, but it feels nic
e too. My head aches and when he strokes my face it feels better. I let his warm fingers slide down the tears on my cheek and we stay that way until he puts his legs up on the bed so that he’s lying next to me.

  ‘He doesn’t want me,’ I say.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says, with a soft voice, ‘you’re fine now. I shouldn’t have let you go.’ He pulls me close to him so that my head is on his shoulder and my tears soak into his top. Outside, the cat has stopped crying. The wind gusts and lulls through the branches of the trees as it builds and fades.

  ‘You’re fine,’ he says again, and I move down so that my cheek is against his chest. He feels warm and as he breathes I can hear the thump of his heart. As he strokes my hair with his fingers I look up at him and he smiles.

  ‘What about you?’ I ask.

  ‘Better now that you’re all right.’

  I sit up and press my lips onto his. He tastes of old booze. He pulls his head sideways away from me.

  ‘Hayley.’

  ‘I was just saying thanks.’

  He screws up his eyes. ‘When I said you can talk to me I meant it.’ He moves over onto his side and closes his eyes. ‘I just want to do what’s best…’

  We lie next to each other until fifteen minutes pass on the clock. When I slide my hands inside his pants he mumbles something, but he doesn’t stop me. The hum of the television downstairs beats like a heart and I grit my teeth together until they hurt while I try to get him excited, because I’m not going to be weak any more. I’m going to be in control and no one’s ever going to hurt me again. I can smell his body through his cotton shirt and feel his warmth through the material. He groans once, before he starts to snore and I open the curtain to watch the moonlight shine on his pale skin until he gets up and staggers towards the door without saying a word.