Tuesday, 20 March 2035
Things That Have Bloody Annoyed Me Today:
Heather’s sons who keep looking at me like I’m the antichrist.
My own brain which agrees with them.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee from the café at the beach.
The fitted sheet on my bed that doesn’t fit.
My bra.
Rhiannon Lewis. For killing my beautiful dad.
Heather was indeed not amused by my latest antics, nor the fact I’d somehow become a raging alcoholic in the last fortnight.
Not that I had. I just liked feeling nothing.
Being afraid of no one. Not caring about anything, apart from making sure Maddox got fed.
Aside from that, all I did was laze around, reading the Rhiannon book and think how great it would be if she was free and could be my mum.
But at the same time, whenever I would think about Rhiannon, I wanted a drink.
I wanted to dull down that part of me. I didn’t want to love her.
I wanted to feel the hate but I was afraid of it too.
The only slightly good news was that I was off the hook for the Kieran Andrews murder.
Two detectives, different to the ones who’d come to the school, came round last night and said they were not proceeding with the case against me.
Basically, because they didn’t have one.
No evidence I was there, someone else’s fingerprints on a screwdriver found at the scene, and footage of a black-clad guy with a neck tattoo on a neighbour’s doorbell camera.
I tried to look relieved but to be honest I was too pissed to care.
The following Tuesday, I picked up an alert on my phone that our own doorbell at home was ringing and it made me sit up in bed fully alert.
‘Holy shit!’
Mitch – aka my former dad whom I hadn’t seen since I was ten years old – stood on the doorstep.
There was no sign of any paps behind him, as far as I could see, so he continued to wait; one hand in the pocket of his jeans, the other sweeping his greying brown hair from his forehead.
I watched him saunter around the side of the house and disappear, revealing the brand-new midnight-blue Jaguar sports car parked at an angle on the drive.
My chest pounded as I swept out of bed and shoved on whatever day clothes I could find as fast as possible – jeans, Arsenal away shirt, socks, trainers – keeping one eye on the doorbell footage.
‘Come on, come on, where are you, where are you?’ I said, clicking the microphone. ‘Is anyone there? Mitch? MITCH!’
His face appeared at the door again and lit up. ‘Dolly! Is that you? Are you home?’
‘No, I’m away at the moment. Staying with Heather, Mum’s solicitor, well, her friend. Oh my God, is it really you?’
‘I just heard the news about your mum – there was an obituary online, I saw it and flew right over. How are you doing, Dolly?’
‘I’m okay.’ Hearing him call me Dolly filled me with two emotions; hurt and happiness. Dolly was who I was as a child. Dolly was happy. Dolly knew nothing. He was a good dad to Dolly, for a while. The only dad I ever knew before everything changed.
‘Can I come and see you?’ he asked. ‘I need to know you’re all right.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, before I could think any more about it. ‘But I’ll come to you. There’s no press around, is there?’
‘Press?’ he said, scanning the grounds. ‘No, it’s just me. There was a creepy-looking guy in black in the lane earlier but he seems to have gone now. Do you want me to pick you up?’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll come to you. Give me twenty minutes.’
I clicked out of the app and suddenly a new horizon had opened up; I had a dad, of sorts, and he wanted me.
He knew I was hurting and he had come back for me.
Maybe he’d want me to live with him and I wouldn’t have to go to Australia.
We could start again. Maybe he’d remarried and had a nice new wife and kids. I could have siblings.
Then, as I was leaving my bedroom, I caught sight of my face in the mirrored door of my wardrobe. ‘Jesus Christ what are you doing? He doesn’t love you. He hasn’t so much as tried to contact you in six years. Oh and also, he’s a registered sex offender. This is crazy!’
Crazy but I’m desperate, I thought. ‘Technically he’s not on the sex offender’s register anymore,’ I told my mirrored self.
‘I mean, he did do that – he did groom that girl – but that was five years before I was even born. And he didn’t hurt me.
And he hasn’t groomed any other girls since. I don’t think so anyway …’
I let the sentence hang in the air. There was no defending him – I was just desperate.
‘Fuck it. He’s one option that isn’t Australia so I have to try.’
I went down to the kitchen and poured myself some OJ before I could think any more about it.
‘We saved some pancakes for you – they’re warming,’ said Heather.
‘Thanks,’ I said, reaching into the oven and taking two out, folding them over and shoving them in my mouth.
‘Do you have any plans today?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘I need to go to the library to take a book back. And I need to stop by the house and get some things.’
‘What things?’
‘Just things I’ve left. I checked on the doorbell. Coast is clear.’
‘Who were you talking to?’
‘Huh?’ I said, pretending I was still chewing.
‘Just now – I thought I heard you talking to someone.’
‘No. I called Chloe, maybe that’s what you heard.’
‘Sounded like a man’s voice.’
‘Her dad answered,’ I lied, stuffing the last heft of pancake inside my mouth like that would stop her asking questions.
‘I can drop you off at the library if you want,’ she offered, sinking the dregs of her coffee and placing her mug in the dishwasher.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Ed said I can use his bike whenever I want.’
‘It’s ten miles away, Ivy. Come on, you’re ready, I’m ready, let’s go.’
There was no arguing with her – she knew I was hiding something.
It’s a mum thing I guess. They receive the signals my face doesn’t know it’s transmitting – some micro expression that gives me away.
And when we pulled into the drive and she saw Mitch’s Jaguar there and him pacing the gravel on his phone, her fears seemed to have been confirmed.
‘I bloody knew it,’ she sighed.
‘He saw the obituary. He just wanted to see if I was okay.’
‘Sure he does,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That man’s a predator, Ivy. And a gold-digger. No wonder he flew back here the second he heard Claudia was gone. I bet he was rubbing his hands the whole way.’
‘The whole way from where?’
‘He moved to Geneva not long after she kicked him out.’ Heather glared at him, still on his phone, seemingly oblivious to us. ‘He wants your money, Ivy; I’d bet the house on it.’
‘Well, I never knew him as a predator, did I? All that happened before I was born and it was with a schoolgirl. He never did anything to me.’
‘Ivy—’
‘—I want to speak to him. I never got the chance when I was a kid – he just disappeared from my life. As far as I’m concerned, one day he was my dad and the next day he wasn’t and I just had to put up with it. Don’t I deserve at least a conversation with him?’
Mitch had seen me and waved, ending his call. Heather turned the engine off, sitting back in her seat but clicking out of her belt.
‘Go on then. I’ll wait here.’
‘You’ve got work though.’
‘I’ll be late then, won’t I? Go on.’
I stepped out and Mitch beamed, walking to me with his arms out.
‘Wow, look at you. You got so big! How are you?’
‘I’m okay.’ I nodded, falling into his warm leather-jacketed hug. He still had the smell I always associated with a dad – a soapy, Floris 1962 smell. Clean, safe. I was initially comforted, but now it smelled a bit sickly. A bit like a sad memory.
I pulled back. ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time.’
‘I was going to come a week ago but I thought you might need some time. Didn’t want to intrude.’
I nodded, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt. But a silent voice was all, Why the hell are you giving this man the time of day? Why were you so frantic for him not to leave? To come here and speak to him, teetering on the edge of calling him ‘Daddy’ again?
Because I’m desperate, I thought. Desperate not to go to Australia. Desperate to have anyone in my life who wants me. Desperate for a dad. But the more he spoke, the more I realised that he wasn’t that anymore.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been by, when she was ill. Your mum stopped returning my calls years ago so I didn’t feel like I had the right. If I’d have known earlier …’
‘It’s okay.’
He looked down at my shirt. ‘Ah, so you’re a Gooner, are ya?’ He playfully punched my chin.
‘Yeah. Do you support a team?’
‘Spurs. Or Man United.’
Figures, I thought. I didn’t get my love of football from him then. ‘So where do you live now? What are you doing?’
‘I live in Geneva. Got a new PT business off the ground, new wife, Chloe.’ He grinned broadly, showing off his black wedding band. ‘We just came back from our honeymoon actually. Seychelles.’
‘My girlfriend’s called Chloe. Was.’
‘You’re … gay? That’s amazing.’
‘No, it’s not, it’s just normal.’
‘Of course, of course. I’m completely an ally. I’d wear a badge but I don’t want holes in my clothes. But I’ll get one now; now that I know you’re …’
‘Gay.’
‘Yeah. So how have you been?’
‘Grieving. You came over here just to see me?’
‘You’re my little girl,’ he said. A car door slammed behind me and when I looked round, Heather was marching up the drive. Mitch’s face fell. ‘… and I’ve got to sort a few things out, haven’t we, Heather?’
‘No, not at all. You were sorted out long time ago, Mitchell,’ said Heather abruptly. She stood, hands on grey power-suited hips. I shrank behind her.
‘I wasn’t fishing,’ said Mitch, palms up like Heather was about to lamp him one. ‘I just came by to see Ivy and see if there was anything I could do.’