By the Time You Read This
Read By the Time You Read This Online
Authors: Lola Jaye
Lola Jaye
For Heaven’s Girl
I
t was like someone had just doused me in ice cold water and I couldn’t stop shivering.
It was my birthday.
And he was going to let me know that this was it. It was over. A period of eighteen years snuffed out just like his life had been.
Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t about a boy meets girl scenario. It was more than a friendship too. More than a mediocre fleeting love. In fact, more than anything I had ever known or wanted to know in my entire life.
This had been about my dad.
Deep breath.
I bounced on my childhood bed, placing the velvet lid back onto the box and pressing it shut because I knew I wasn’t ready yet. I couldn’t do it. Not now, not ever.
I stopped shivering, opened the lid again and slowly brushed my fingers across the surface, my eyes squeezed
shut, multiple intakes of breath, hoping I could freeze frame this moment forever. But I was a grown woman after all, with thirty full years of experience. Of life. And yet here I was behaving like the teenager I used to be, not wanting or unable to see that I had to get that message from him. That very last message, or else it would have been for nothing. And worst of all, I’d be letting him down.
And I could never do that.
But for now, before I could even think of opening the box again, before I could begin to go through the process of thinking about where I was going or what I was going to do with the oncoming void, emptiness and sorrow, I needed to look at where I’d been. Where we’d been. Together.
And how it had all begun that miserable, lonely morning of my mother’s wedding.
M
om’s marrying some prick she met down at bingo.
Apparently they fell in love as he called out “Legs eleven” in a smoke-filled hall in Lewisham, packed with bored housewives ticking off paper boxes. Eyes down, cross off a number and another, until some wailing overweight woman shouts “House!” to anyone who gives a damn. I hate them. I hate bingo. And sometimes I hate Mom. But most of all, I hate
him.
For ordering me about, telling me to call him Dad, for pretending to
be
my dad and, most of all, for not
being
my dad.
You see, my dad’s dead.
Some illness I couldn’t even pronounce finished him off about seven years ago in 1983 when I was five and he was thirty.
But we don’t talk about that.
We hardly even talk about
him
any more, really…
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Doc Martens feet swinging in time to my croaky hum of the
Brookside
theme tune, I shook my ridiculously ringleted hair that had taken ages to style and stunk of Dax hair grease and let out an exaggerated puff of air. I was fed-up. Almost a teenager, yet there I was clad in a frilly yellow dress that allowed me to resemble a pavlova. I wished I could just disappear. Maybe travel down the rec with Carla—my best friend—or change the habit of a lifetime and happily start some homework, complete with the seven dwarfs’ whistle. In fact, I’d do almost
anything
to avoid this crappy, stupid, pathetic “wedding of the year.”
“Lois!” Mom called in a squeaky voice.
“What?” I replied with a sigh, my eyes darting to heaven.
“Excuse me, young lady?”
“I mean, yes, Mommy?” I replied in the cutest little voice I could pull off.
The door to my PRIVATE (couldn’t she read the sign on the door?) sanctuary swung open. “Are you ready yet, Lois? We’ve got to be at the registry for eleven and it’s already nine forty-five!”
I checked out my mother in her wedding gear, glad she looked almost as tragic as I did. Thick blue eye-shadow in a tug of war with an off-white, two-piece mess with puffed sleeves. Puffed sleeves! It was 1990! Who
did
that any more? The silver shoes didn’t help matters either, along with the backcombed hairstyle, perhaps more at home on a schizo poodle!
“I’m nearly ready,” I replied sweetly, but with a spot of annoyance lurking round the corner. I swung off my bed, quickly locating the pink dolly shoes she’d bought just to humiliate me that little bit more. I didn’t care about most
people, but Carla and her brother Corey would be at the wedding to witness my shame and that just wasn’t fair.
“You look so adorable!” gushed Mom, and for one ridiculous second I convinced myself she was going to cry.
“Er, thanks?” I mumbled, pulling off my worn DMs to slip into the dolly shoes, my little right toe recoiling in instant pain as it connected with the hard plastic. Only last week, I found out my right foot was longer than the left. I’m totally deformed!
“Come on then, let’s go, Lois.” I ignored the invite of Mom’s hand as it came at me like a weapon. “I don’t want to be late for my big day, now, do I?”
This summer was one of the hottest on record, which I could believe if my dress, currently sticking to me like flies to dog poo, was anything to go by. The heat rash that ensued meant that I scratched and tugged the dress all the way through the vows and exchanging of rings. Mercifully, the service was short. Unfortunately, the reception (held in a restaurant that stank of disinfectant) lasted a lot longer than necessary. Boring stories floating around the room like confetti. And what with the kisses, hugs, dull speeches and hard squeezes from sweaty relatives I’d never even set eyes on before, things grew shoddier by the millisecond. Worse still, Carla remained cocooned between her dad and brother on a table miles from mine. It was a total nightmare of a day, growing extra tragic the minute Granny Morris drew what little strength she had to shove me onto the dance floor for a slow dance! Eeek/Eeew! The experience of dancing with Granny Morris reminded me of one of those horror films Mom wouldn’t let me watch, but I’d catch next door with Carla and Corey—only much, much worse.
I had finally managed to escape another “I remember
when you were a little girl” tale, about to join Carla and Corey in sneaking outside, when out of the shadows of balloons, streamers and “The Birdie Song,” a new guest appeared.
She was beautiful, with thick black braids cascading down her slimline back like a glossy rug. Unlike Mom’s attempt at fashion, this lady wore a simple flowery shift dress and plain rounded hat that looked a bit like a full moon on her obviously gorgeous head. She smiled at me and, instantly, my mood lifted.
She walked toward me and I realized it was my Auntie Philomena—my
real
dad’s sister. Her showing up was a massive surprise, especially as I hadn’t seen her in ages. So instead of running outside to, I dunno, argue this week’s top forty with my friends, I stood before this glamorous aunt of mine, waiting for something intelligent to pop into my head.
“Hello, Lois.”
“Hello,” I replied, sounding like a total geek.
“You look lovely.”
I stared at her full lips, which looked pilfered from some unsuspecting model in a glossy magazine, and I began to wonder, did she act like him? Laugh like him? Think like him? I could only remember a handful of things about my dad. Stupid stuff, like the tiny mole just under his right eyelid.
“Auntie Philomena?”
“You remember me, then? I really wasn’t sure if you would. I’m glad, though. Really pleased.”
“No, well, I don’t remember you THAT much…” I said, annoyed. Of course I remembered her. Unlike Dad’s younger sister Ina, Auntie Philomena called me up a few times a
year—mostly birthdays and Christmas. She even sent the odd hideous blouse, pictures or a lump of spice cake wrapped securely in tin foil through the post, when I’m sure a visit would have been more hygienic? But, apart from Mom making me travel up to Granny Bates once a year, I didn’t really have that much full on contact with my dad’s side of the family. And I was okay with that. Really, I was…I am.
I crunched a knuckle.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?” I shrugged.
“For not being around much. I live pretty far away. And the kids…”
I stifled a yawn, the frilly fabric of my ridiculous dress beginning to irritate the tops of my knees. She beckoned me outside away from the crowds—and, thankfully, away from the sight of Great Auntie Elizabeth swinging larger-than-average hips to “Let’s Twist Again.”
The only bench we could find was soiled with bird crap, though it didn’t concern me, as it would probably improve the look of the dress anyway. My mind did begin to wonder what Corey and Carla were up to, though.
“I need to talk to you,” said Auntie Philomena, who on closer inspection had yellowing teeth.
“Talk to me? Me? About what?” I raised my voice in that high-pitched manner that made me sound as if
I really wanted to know.
And I didn’t. Not really. Okay, maybe a little bit, then. Especially as the only time a grown-up ever wanted to talk to me was to ask about my homework (teachers) or nag the fun out of me (Mom, teachers).
“I have something for you, Lois…And it’s really, really important.”
“Right…” I sat on my hands, believing it could stop me from exploding. I wasn’t good at this patience thing that grown-ups always spoke about.
A wave of fear washed over me, especially as she began to look at me weirdly, before her manicured fingers began squeezing my hand so tightly I thought she’d break the left metacarpus (I’d learned that one in biology a week earlier).
She continued, “It’s something we should have told you about a long, long time ago…”
We? Okay, the woman was freaking me out now. My mind glossed over a number of likely scenarios: genetic disease; Public Enemy splitting up? The possibilities were endless and I’d had enough of this guessing game. I JUST WANTED TO KNOW.
“Is it about my dad?” I asked quietly, hopefully. A shot in the dark.
“Yes, it is.” Auntie Philomena’s mouth formed into an unusual smile. One tinged with sadness.
My mind started to wonder as suppressed joy threatened to leap from the pit of my stomach and out of my mouth like a mound of vomit. This was all too much. Something I’d dreamed of ever since I was a little girl. You know,
finding out he wasn’t dead after all. It had all been some silly mistake after he’d contracted amnesia in the early hours of that morning, seven years ago. Of course, it would be difficult to piece together what occurred in the interim years, but after recently regaining his memory, Dad had set out to find us—his loving family—and finally succeeded today, the night of his wife’s wedding! But seeing how happy she now was made him all confused, as he stood alone outside the number twenty-one bus stop located just around the corner from where Philomena and I now sat. He was too
scared to talk to me—just in case I too had betrayed him.
Poor Dad!
“Lois?”
“Yes, sorry Auntie Philomena, you were saying…? About my dad?”
My heart was ready to leap out of my mouth.
“I have something for you…a message…from your dad.”
