After You

I should have said no. I knew I should. But I was so angry with that woman. And just for a moment I felt as if I had to stand in for Will, to do the thing he couldn’t do. ‘Fine,’ I said, as a large Lego creation whistled past my ear and smashed into tiny coloured pieces by my feet. ‘Grab your things. I’ll be waiting outside.’

The rest of the day was a blur. We moved my boxes out of the spare room, stacking them in my bedroom, and made the room hers, or at least less of a storage area, putting up the blind I had never quite got round to fixing, and moving in a lamp and my spare bedside table. I bought a camp bed, and we carried it up the stairs together, with a hanging rail for her few things, a new duvet cover and pillow cases. She seemed to like having a purpose, and was completely unfazed at the idea of moving in with somebody she hardly knew. I watched her arranging her few belongings in the spare room that evening and felt oddly sad. How unhappy did a girl have to be to want to leave all that luxury for a box room with a camp bed and a wobbly clothes rail?

I cooked pasta, conscious of the strangeness of having someone to cook for, and we watched television together. At half past eight her phone went off and she asked for a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Here,’ she said, scribbling on it. ‘This is my mum’s mobile number. She wants your phone number and address. In case of emergencies.’

I wondered fleetingly how often she thought Lily was going to stay.

At ten, exhausted, I told her I was turning in. She was still watching television, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, and messaging someone on her little laptop. ‘Don’t stay up too late, okay?’ It sounded fake on my lips, like someone pretending to be an adult.

Her eyes were still glued to the television.

‘Lily?’

She looked up, as if she’d only just noticed I was in the room. ‘Oh, yeah, I meant to tell you. I was there.’

‘Where?’

‘On the roof. When you fell. It was me who called the ambulance.’

I saw her face suddenly, those big eyes, that skin, pale in the darkness. ‘But what were you doing up there?’

‘I found your address. After everyone at home had gone nutso, I just wanted to work out who you were before I tried to talk to you. I saw I could get up there by the fire escape and your light was on. I was just waiting, really. But when you came up and started messing about on the edge I suddenly thought if I said anything I’d freak you out.’

‘Which you did.’

‘Yeah. I didn’t mean to do that. I actually thought I’d killed you.’ She laughed, nervously.

We sat there for a minute.

‘Everyone thinks I tried to jump.’

Her face swivelled towards me. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

She thought about this. ‘Because of what happened to my dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you miss him?’

‘Every single day.’

She was silent. Eventually she said, ‘So when is your next day off?’

‘Sunday. Why?’ I said, dragging my thoughts back.

‘Can we go to your home town?’

‘You want to go to Stortfold?’

‘I want to see where he lived.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

I didn’t tell Dad we were coming. I wasn’t entirely sure how to have that conversation. We pulled up outside our house and I sat for a minute, conscious, as she peered out of the window, of the small, rather weary appearance of my parents’ house in comparison with her own. She had suggested we bring flowers when I told her my mother would insist we stay for lunch, and got cross when I suggested petrol-station carnations, even though they were for someone she’d never met.

I had driven to the supermarket on the other side of Stortfold, where she had chosen a huge hand-tied bouquet of freesias, peonies and ranunculus. Which I had paid for.

‘Stay here a minute,’ I said, as she started to climb out. ‘I’m going to explain before you come in.’

‘But –’

‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘They’re going to need a minute.’

I walked up the little garden path and knocked on the door. I could hear the television in the living room, and pictured Granddad there, watching the racing, his mouth working silently along with the horses’ legs. The sights and sounds of home. I thought of the months I had kept away, no longer sure I was even welcome, of how I had refused to allow myself to think of how it felt to walk up this path, the fabric-conditioned scent of my mother’s embrace, my father’s distant bellow of laughter.

Dad opened the door, and his eyebrows shot up. ‘Lou! We weren’t expecting you! … Were we expecting you?’ He stepped forward and enveloped me in a hug.

I realized I liked having my family back. ‘Hi, Dad.’

He waited on the step, arm outstretched. The smell of roast chicken wafted down the corridor. ‘You coming in, then, or are we going to have a picnic out on the front step?’

‘I need to tell you something first.’

‘You lost your job.’

‘No, I did not lose my –’

‘You got another tattoo.’

‘You knew about the tattoo?’

‘I’m your father. I’ve known about every bloody thing you and your sister have done since you were three years old.’ He leaned forward. ‘Your mother would never let me have one.’

‘No, Dad, I don’t have another tattoo.’ I took a breath. ‘I … I have Will’s daughter.’

Dad stood very still. Mum appeared behind him, with her apron on. ‘Lou!’ She caught the look on Dad’s face. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘She says she has Will’s daughter.’

‘She has Will’s what?’ Mum squawked.

Dad had gone quite white. He reached behind him for the radiator and clutched it.

‘What?’ I said, anxious. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘You – you’re not telling me you harvested his … you know … his little fellas?’

I pulled a face. ‘She’s in the car. She’s sixteen years old.’

‘Oh, thank God. Oh, Josie, thank God. These days, you’re so … I never know what –’ He composed himself. ‘Will’s daughter, you say? You never said he –’

‘I didn’t know. Nobody knew.’