Chapter 7
FAYE
Faye had been travelling for thirty hours so far – thirty hours since she got into the hire car, drove to Brisbane International Airport, boarded her plane that went via Sydney and then Dubai, before landing here at London’s Heathrow.
She was exhausted but the excitement as the plane came in to land took over any other feeling.
She was here, back in England, after all this time.
‘I thought you’d be more tired,’ said her dad after she finally let him go at the arrivals gate. Somehow she’d found the energy to race around past fellow travellers, and launch herself into an enormous hug.
‘I’m too happy to see you to be tired.’
‘It’ll hit later on.’ She gladly let him take her suitcase. ‘Did you get any sleep at all?’
‘I dozed; that was it.’
He put his free arm around her. ‘It’s lovely to have you here.’
They found their way to the short-term parking and were soon on their way, chattering about the weather of course – a top of twenty-four was expected today – her uncle, Frank, the busy roads around the airport that proved plenty of people weren’t still in bed, and after her dad had navigated his way from the terminal and they were on the motorway she knew it was time to be honest with him.
‘I’ve taken a month off work,’ she said.
‘That sounds like a good idea. It’ll give you time to enjoy being over here once the jet lag has passed.’ He put a hand up to wave a thank you at a driver who let him into the lane he needed. ‘Frank says you can use the caravan as long as you like.’
‘It’s good that you’re here with him.’
‘It is. He’s had some bad days, unfortunately, but lots of good ones too, and it’s nice to be in Dorset.’ He grumbled as the traffic came to another halt. It really was like one big traffic jam on this motorway. ‘You know I’d missed the green grass of home more than I realised.’
She sniggered. ‘Can’t see any green yet.’ All she could see was the side of a long lorry and the rear windscreen of the vehicle in front.
‘Just you wait until we get closer to Dorset.’ The traffic had them moving at the rapid rate of fifteen miles per hour. ‘So how are you really doing?’
The speedometer slowed to zero yet again.
She took a deep breath before she admitted, ‘Dad… I’m not getting married any more.’
From her peripheral vision she knew he’d turned to face her but his action was short-lived when he got beeped by the driver of the vehicle behind as the traffic moved once more.
She told him all about how Brad hadn’t only left Queensland with his family to hide out in Tasmania, he’d been applying for jobs there as well.
‘And he didn’t ask you to make the move with him?’
‘No.’ She looked out at the traffic, bumper to bumper in the lane next to them.
‘I really thought we would spend the rest of our lives together, but this makes me feel like I never knew him at all. I thought marriage was about being there for each other even when it got hard, but he left, just like that.’
They moved from the middle lane to the outside one, passing other cars, and her dad maintained the quiet as he took the next exit, but once he was on the way and through a roundabout he spoke again. ‘You’ve been all by yourself.’
‘It’s not been easy.’ Although Steph leaving too had been kind of a blessing. Perhaps it was the one thing her twin sister might have done right. ‘Actually, it’s been really shit.’ She explained about the reporters, the man the other morning after her kayaking session.
His grip tightened on the wheel. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all that. I wish I’d been there to—’
‘No, Dad. It was good that you were away from it all.’ She paused. ‘I’m so angry with Steph. Her decisions have made my life difficult. They caused Brad to…’ She couldn’t even say the words again.
‘I know you are really upset with your sister.’ He waited a while before he said, ‘She really fell for that man.’
That man. When the scandal broke and a reporter turned up at the water-sports business premises, her dad had had a lot more choice words than those, including pervert and predator. He’d apologised to Faye because the man was going to be her father-in-law but she’d agreed with everything he’d said.
‘You’ve spoken to her?’ she asked.
‘I have. She’s upset too. And it makes my blood boil thinking that man might have taken advantage of her.
’ He indicated to change lanes. ‘But she gave me the impression that he didn’t, that she honestly believed they were going to be together.
And then he stood up on television and told the country and the world that it had all been a mistake. That hit her pretty hard.’
It almost burst out of her that Steph should’ve known or should’ve at least suspected the man would have wanted to come out smelling of roses. But Faye had long since given up being her sister’s keeper, the responsible one, the one Steph could run to whenever things went wrong for her.
The girls were sixteen when their mother upped and left.
The family had already emigrated to Australia as a foursome.
They were living quite the life in Queensland; the girls had sunshine, freedom, and plenty of friends.
Their dad’s water-sports business was growing but a few months before their mother walked out for good Faye had noticed a change in Daria, who was spending more and more time away from the house with friends she’d met at yoga.
Some of those friends lived in the hinterland in smaller country towns with rainforest walks, and soon Daria was spending nights there, then weeks, and drifting away both emotionally and physically from her family more and more.
Faye had seen her dad looking weary but trying to put on a brave face, and one night Faye had asked him whether they were getting a divorce.
He’d sat her down and said that he honestly didn’t know.
This move to the southern hemisphere had been initiated by Daria all along, and Faye wondered then whether their dad had agreed to it in an attempt to save his marriage.
Their parents never really had a big row after that day or even a significant argument; they literally drifted a bit like a tide falling away from the shore but never returning again.
Daria moved up to Far North Queensland, some eighteen hours away by car or a three-hour flight, leaving the girls with their dad.
Steph took it really hard. It came as more of a shock for her because, unlike Faye, she hadn’t really seen it coming.
She’d been wayward as a teen, often in her own little world with little regard to what was going on for everyone else, so when their mother upped and left it came out of the blue.
Steph got progressively worse and the more trouble she got into the more Faye wondered whether her younger sister was just like their mother and only able to think about number one.
She’d yelled at her once that she only thought about herself and Steph had broken down, sobbed, asked why their mum had had to leave, asked whether they were such terrible daughters.
Faye had ended up crying that day too and had called her mother, telling her in no uncertain terms that her shitty parenting had consequences before she slammed the phone down.
Daria had turned up three days later, showering both girls with presents – little cloth bags with smelly soaps, decorative hair accessories Faye wasn’t sure either of them would ever wear, some chocolates that had partially melted in her bag, a T-shirt each although Faye’s had been far too small.
The only good part about their mother showing up that day was that she’d apologised to Faye when Steph was in the bathroom, and later on Faye had heard Daria telling Steph the truth: that her leaving had nothing to do with her daughters and whether they were good enough, it was because she just couldn’t be this person any more.
She needed to be free, she didn’t like the suburbs, she wanted the freedom and lushness she’d found up north.
Faye hadn’t really cared what she’d found, only that she put things right. But how could she?
In the years that followed, Steph liked visiting their mother but Faye eventually chose not to.
It never appealed to stay in a house with a bunch of strangers, her mother’s so-called wider family who all seemed as lazy – or maybe stoned – as each other.
None of them worked, they were happy to live in a mess, they all shunned technology and hated mobile phones.
The only thing they’d allowed was a landline at the property so at least there was a way to know that Daria was okay.
The lifestyle they chose was so cut off, but Daria insisted that was the brilliant thing about it.
She was a strange woman to understand but slowly, over time, Faye had found it easier to deal with the fact.