CHAPTER FIVE
It was the weekend after the whole trauma of Dad having to sell Mum’s car to pay the mortgage arrears.
And apparently, Dad was going on a date.
I still couldn’t quite believe it but after some coaxing, he’d finally admitted it. And I was really pleased for him.
Dad had been behaving a bit oddly and out of character ever since that emotional day.
I knew my dad so well and ever since Mum died, he’d become a complete home-body, rarely venturing out at night – except to pick up an occasional takeaway – and preferring to sit in and watch TV every evening.
But a few nights after the car was sold, I came home to find him getting ready to go out.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked, and he told me he was going out... meeting up with some of his old mates he hadn’t seen in a while.
‘That’s great! It’s about time you started getting out.’
He nodded vaguely as I followed him to the front door. ‘It was after our talk the other night. You’re right, love. We have to stop wallowing in the past and try to move on.’
‘Well, I hope you have a great time.’
‘Thanks, love. Better go. See you later.’ At the car, he paused and looked over, a serious expression on his face. ‘Love you,’ he called.
‘Love you, too, Dad,’ I called back in surprise.
It wasn’t something we did as a rule, saying ‘Love you.’ But ever since our emotional chat following the sale of Mum’s car, we’d been closer than ever.
I waved him off and retreated inside.
It felt odd rattling around the house on my own. I tried to relax and watch TV, but once it got past ten o’clock, I had one ear on constant alert to hear the sound of a car engine and a key in the lock. It was after midnight and I was in bed by the time Dad arrived back.
‘What time do you call this?’ I shouted cheerily down the stairs, having gone out onto the upstairs landing to greet him.
There was no reply, so I tied my dressing gown belt and went downstairs.
Dad was slouched at the kitchen table, his head in his hands.
‘Dad?’
He looked up and I could tell from his slightly crossed, bloodshot eyes that he was having a hard job focusing on me.
‘Oh gosh, you’re actually drunk.’ I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my dad the worse for drink and I was finding it quite amusing.
‘No, I’m not,’ he insisted amiably, scraping back his chair and getting to his feet, staggering a little. ‘Need a coffee.’
The chair fell over and he turned slowly and looked at it, bemused.
I chuckled. ‘Sit down, Dad. I’ll make the coffee.’ I set the chair upright and he sank back down on it. ‘I guess it was a good night, then?’ I checked out of the window for his car but he’d obviously left it in Guildford and taken a taxi.
‘Yes, good night,’ he mumbled, leaning over the table, his head resting on his arms again. ‘Good night.’
I abandoned the kettle and gently suggested he might want to forget the coffee, drink some water and then go up to bed.
He agreed and – smiling to myself – I helped him upstairs to make sure he didn’t stumble or end up in the wrong room.
(I seriously doubted he would have known his own name, the state he was in!)
The following day he had a humdinger of a hangover, although when I asked him about how the night had gone, he seemed oddly reluctant to talk about it – but I assumed that was temporary because of how ill he was feeling.
But the next afternoon, as he was getting ready to go out for garden supplies, I asked about ‘the boys’ – his old mates – and he couldn’t seem to remember what they’d been talking about.
I was puzzled. It wasn’t like Dad to be so weirdly evasive.
He was also wearing a new black jacket, instead of his usual dark green zip-up, which seemed suspicious in itself.
And that’s when I started to wonder.
‘Dad, did you meet someone the other night? A woman, I mean?’ I smiled at him as I flicked on the kettle. It was obvious now that I thought about it. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk to me about it if he’d met someone at the pub!
‘What?’ He looked at me in confusion as he snatched up his car keys.
‘You can tell me, you know,’ I murmured. ‘You keep telling me I should start dating again. But it’s high time you did the same. Mum would have wanted you to – and so do I.’
He sighed and looked away, as if he was weighing up whether or not to explain.
‘It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me,’ I said at last.
‘No, I do, Anika,’ he said, looking directly into my eyes. ‘You’re right, love. I... well, I did meet someone at the pub.’
‘It isn’t Janet, is it?’ Janet had been Mum’s best friend. She’d recently been widowed herself and I’d joked a few times to Dad that she was lovely and why didn’t he take her out for a drink?
He looked shocked. ‘What? No! I told you before, Anika. Janet’s great but it wouldn’t feel right. What with her being your mum’s best friend.’ He shook his head. ‘It just wouldn’t.’
‘So it’s someone you just met the other night, when you were out with the guys? At the pub?’
‘Yup.’ He turned away, checking distractedly in his pockets for something.
‘You don’t have to feel awkward about it, you know. I think it’s great.’
He nodded vaguely as I followed him to the front door. I thought he was going to stride straight out to the car. But instead, he paused and turned. ‘That’s where I’m going now, actually,’ he said. ‘To meet her.’
‘Oh.’ I smiled. ‘So no garden supplies?’
‘I’ll go there afterwards.’
‘Well, you look really smart. I haven’t seen that jacket before,’ I teased him.
He was also wearing his favourite black jeans – to give him confidence, I guessed. He’d bought them in the south of France one summer when he and mum were there celebrating their wedding anniversary.
I’d heard the story many times. They’d been wandering back to their hotel after dinner when Mum had spotted them in a shop window and joked that they were definitely meant for him.
She’d dragged him back to the shop the following day and he’d tried them on and really liked them.
They’d been black originally, with the shop’s distinctive orange logo on one of the back pockets, but they’d faded quite a bit over the years to a dark charcoal grey.
‘Phone? Where’s the phone?’ He looked around in a panic then he checked in his pocket and nodded. ‘Got it.’
‘No, it’s here, Dad.’ I reached behind the fruit bowl, held up his mobile and placed it on the edge of the table for him. ‘Where are you meeting her?’
‘Café. Just for a coffee,’ he said, heading out. ‘Better go or I’ll be late.’
‘The Little Duck Pond Café?’ I asked.
He nodded and ducked into his car.
‘What’s her name, Dad?’ I called after him, but there was no reply as the engine burst into life. Either he hadn’t heard me or he was fed up with my twenty questions.
I stared after the car as he drove away, wondering what I thought about this new development in our lives.
We’d been trundling along, relying totally on each other since Mum died.
I didn’t know how I would have coped with my broken engagement if Dad hadn’t been there for me.
.. making me smile in spite of everything, cooking my favourite food so I wouldn’t waste away, and telling me that Les was nowhere near good enough for me anyway.
My experience of romance had left me cynical – and convinced that the single life was probably best. It was far less stressful.
But now things were changing for Dad and I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that.
He’d met someone he liked, although it was clear he felt bad about it... worried maybe that I wouldn’t approve of a ‘mum replacement’ in my life? Which was ridiculous, of course, because no one would ever replace Mum. And it was right that Dad should move on with his life.
I was really pleased for him. But at the same time, a panicky feeling was fluttering inside me.
Was I really ready for Dad to move on?
It was only when I walked back into the kitchen that I noticed his mobile phone was still lying on the table. I shook my head slowly and smiled to myself. He must be very nervous about his date to have forgotten to pick up his phone.
*****
Half an hour later, I was heading into Sunnybrook myself.
We’d almost run out of milk and I really wasn’t human until I’d had my first cup of tea in the morning, so I’d decided to walk the mile or so into the village and pick up a few groceries. It was the perfect day for it. Sunny and warm with just a light breeze.
I’d almost reached the high street when my attention was caught by a cluster of people up ahead – four or five of them – standing outside one of the shops. It looked to be the jewellers, I decided. What was going on? Had there been a fire alarm?
Then, as I drew closer, I saw several people – men in black balaclavas – burst out of the jeweller’s shop and run towards a dark-coloured van parked in the side street next to the shop.
Two of the men dived into the back seat of the vehicle, but the third, presumably heading for the driver’s seat, got tangled up in the little crowd of bystanders.
And as I stood there, frozen with shock, I saw him bump roughly into an older woman with white hair.
The impact knocked the woman and her shopping trolley right into the road.
I started hurrying towards the chaos and people were rushing over to help the poor woman. She’d managed to get up and was moving towards her shopping trolley, further over the road – and next second, I noticed a white van speeding along the high street towards her, doing well over the limit.
I stared at it in horror.
The van driver wasn’t even slowing down!
‘Oh, my God!’ I gasped, my hands clamped over my mouth as I realised it wasn’t going to be able to stop in time. The woman was going to be knocked over!
And then in a split second, it happened.
A man dived into the road and somehow managed to pull the woman clear a second before the white van hurtled past. It eventually screeched to a stop a hundred yards further along the road.
My heart was thumping as I started running towards the scene.
That poor woman!
She was looking dazed on the pavement, people clustering around to help. I guessed she must be in her eighties. She’d have had such a terrible fright. But how lucky she was that that man had reacted so speedily, launching himself into the road to save her...
Her shopping trolley was lying crushed in the middle of the road.
Then I realised I couldn’t see the man. Was he still lying where he’d fallen after he pulled her back onto the pavement?
People were rushing anxiously over to him now, and when I arrived out of breath a moment later, people were clustering around him and a woman was on her mobile calling the emergency services.
Was he still lying there? I couldn’t see because there were people standing in the way. They were blocking part of the road and I could see that the dark-coloured van was having difficulty manoeuvring away from the corner because of the crowd that was gathering.
Then a woman in a pink sundress in front of me leaned down to comfort the child she was with, telling her everything would be all right, and that’s when I got a clear view of the scene.
The man was sprawled on his side in the road, his face turned away from me.
A cold hand gripped my insides.
He was wearing a pair of faded black jeans – and stitched onto one of the back pockets was a familiar orange logo...
My heart lurched with shock.
Dad?
Oh, my God, no!
The van finally got free of the crowd and accelerated away, disappearing into the distance along Sunnybrook High Street, taking the men in the black balaclavas with it...