Coming Home (32 page)

‘Yes, absolutely. Mum told me. Apparently it wasn’t related, though. He didn’t die of cancer.’

A shadow passed across her face. I could see she was struggling not to show how upset she was. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Maybe he didn’t tell you everything after all.’

‘Rob wasn’t a big talker when it came to health issues. Typical man.’

‘He spoke to Mum about it.’

Zoe composed herself, then took a deep breath. ‘Look, Evie, we’re not here to score points. I can’t tell you how
much it means to me that you and Tom have met. I’ve wanted so much for you to know each other.’

‘Well, why didn’t you tell us? Surely you could have persuaded Dad? Worked on him over the years?’

‘Rob—’she corrected herself ‘—your father wouldn’t hear of it.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Not until last year. I think he was just starting to change his mind. He was talking about going to Dubai to see you. I think he planned to tell you then. But, well … oh, it was complicated. I don’t think he ever felt truly happy with the way he handled the situation. He was always torn. He felt a duty to your mum.’ She said it kindly, but the implication was there: he’d have preferred to live with her and Tom.

‘I don’t understand why it was such a big secret,’ I said. ‘Like, in the beginning, maybe, when Mum was … you know? But once she was better? I don’t understand why he didn’t just tell her then. She’d have got over it.’

‘Oh, Evie. I don’t think your father thought she ever got better.’

‘What do you mean? She was fine. She had a job. Friends.’ Zoe didn’t reply.

‘It was nineteen years ago!’

‘But you know how she was. Up and down? All right one minute and not the next? She’d already tried to kill herself once. Rob was worried she’d try to do it again.’ There was a silence. ‘Or worse.’

‘What do you mean? “Worse”? What’s worse than trying to kill yourself?’

Zoe just looked at me.

‘What? I don’t know what you’re trying to say.’ My voice rose.

‘Him. He actually worried that she might try to harm him if she found out. He said she was volatile. He thought finding out something like this might send her over the edge. And the longer the secret went on for, the harder it became. He had to treat her with kid gloves.’

A laugh exploded out of me. I thought of how calmly Mum had handled it. ‘Now that’s just ridiculous! Seriously? Mum! Oh God. He had no idea. She tried to kill herself, like, nineteen years ago. And he still worried
—nineteen years later—
that she’d harm him? Oh, excuse me, but for heaven’s sake!’ My shoulders shook with laughter.

‘I suppose, when you put it like that …’ Zoe smiled. ‘Look. I didn’t know what state your mother was in. All I heard was what your father told me.’

‘Like what? Give me an example.’

Zoe looked up while she racked her brains for an example. ‘Well, there were those rumours about what happened to your grandfather.’

‘What rumours?’

Zoe shifted on her seat. ‘You know, when he died.’

‘No, I don’t know. Tell me. What are you trying to say?’

Zoe bit her lip. ‘No. I’m wrong. It’s nothing.’

‘Well, clearly it’s not nothing because you’re claiming that Dad used whatever it is that you’re now not telling me as an excuse not to leave Mum; that whatever it is you’re implying happened between my mother and my grandfather was the reason why Dad thought his wife
might murder him!’ My voice rose in indignation as the words rained out of me. ‘So what exactly is it you’re trying to say?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Look, Evie, maybe there’s someone in the family you can ask.’

I looked scathingly at her. ‘I can assure you that there’s nothing to find out. My father told you what suited him,’ I said, ‘and, for whatever reason, you lapped it up, whether or not it was true. I think we can both agree that he wasn’t known for his confrontational style. He probably just wanted to maintain the status quo. It suited him because, whether or not you want to believe it, he loved Mum. Anyway, what neither of you knew is that Mum knew all along about the two of you shacked up in Maidstone.’

‘What?’ Zoe’s face drained of colour. She held on to the edge of the table.

‘She knows about you and Tom. Even the baby.’ I looked at her stomach.

Zoe hugged her belly protectively. ‘Seriously? No.’ She looked around, as if Mum was hiding behind the bar. ‘Does she know where I live?’

‘What are you scared of? She won’t
do
anything. She’s known about you for years.’ My tone was scathing. ‘If she’d wanted to, she’d have confronted you years ago.’

‘You don’t know that, Evie. This—’ she patted her belly ‘—this changes everything. Especially now Rob’s dead. Oh, dear God.’ Zoe was fanning herself with her hand again. Her face now looked flushed.

‘You’re being ridiculous.’

‘Your mother’s not normal, Evie. She’s insane and she’s got a history. Who knows what she might do?’

I knew how unpredictable Mum’s moods could be but, seriously? Anger coursed through me. I stood up, shoving my chair back. ‘Look, Zoe,’ I said, my voice tight, controlled, ‘I really want for us to get on. I really do. But you can’t sit here and insult my mother and me like this and expect me just to take it. In the five minutes that I’ve been here you’ve told me my mother’s barking mad and accused her of wanting to harm you, Dad—’ I shook my head in disbelief ‘—and even an unborn baby. I’m sorry. There’s absolutely no point in us continuing this conversation. I’ll tell Tom I tried.’ I shook my head at her and turned to go.

Zoe called after me, maybe she even got up, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t look back. The café door slammed behind me as I left.

I sat on the top deck of the bus home from Bromley. As I stared out at the identical houses of outer Woodside, at the cars parked in the driveways, and at the colour-coded wheelie bins lined up neatly by the front gates, I went over and over what Zoe had said. Maybe Dad had had reason to worry about Mum twenty years ago but, in the last decade—and in particular since she’d had her job—Mum had been pretty strong. And what had Zoe meant about my grandfather? He’d died before I was born and I hadn’t heard anyone ever speak about his death.

There was only one person I could think of who might be
able to shed some light on all of this and, given what Zoe had said, I now felt entirely justified in calling him. I needed to get to the bottom of this. I rummaged in my bag for my phone, scrolled through the address book and dialled. After four rings, the line connected.

‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Uncle David? It’s Evie.’

T
ucked away around the back of Paddington Station, the coffee shop Uncle David had suggested we meet in didn’t advertise its presence. I’d walked past its discreet, dark-painted door three times before I noticed it and now, as I stood nervously outside, I wondered why my uncle hadn’t chosen somewhere a bit more mainstream for us to meet. It had been a long and frustrating slog for me to get there from Woodside but, with curiosity burning inside me, I’d have gone to Timbuktu if he’d have asked.

But, as soon as I pushed open the door, I understood why Uncle David had chosen the place: it was the antithesis of every coffee-shop chain I’d ever seen. Baroque in style, it was scattered with comfy, high-backed armchairs upholstered in jewel tones. The walls were wood-panelled and the overall effect was more gentlemen’s club than coffee house. The aroma of coffee hung in the air; over the low burble of grown-up conversation I could hear blasts as milk was steamed for cappuccinos.

I looked around, unsure. I’d no idea what my uncle looked like and there were three men of about the right age sitting alone with their newspapers. One stood up and I knew then
that it was him. There was a familiarity about his face—he had Mum’s high cheekbones and his skin, under a bushy beard, was the same sort of pale, pinkish tone as Mum’s and mine. His eyes, though, were what I noticed most: while they were the same piercing blue as Mum’s, they looked in different directions and I realised with a jolt that one of them was glass. He was wearing a red-and-white checked shirt with blue jeans and a jacket. There was something jolly about his appearance that made me warm to him at once.

‘Evie?’ he asked, holding out a hand to shake. I offered mine and he clasped it in both of his. ‘David Evans.’ His voice was soft, languid and rich, almost musical in tone. He looked closely at me with his good eye. ‘Nice to meet you. At last. I always hoped I’d get to see you one day. But Carole … well …’ He shrugged. ‘Does she know you’re here?’

I shook my head and he acknowledged my deceit with a single nod. ‘OK.’

We ordered our coffee, made the necessary small talk. Uncle David told me he was a musician. ‘Well, of sorts,’ he said. ‘Some will say I sold out—went over to the dark side: these days I compose ditties for advertising companies. You know? Those irritating little jingles you hear on the radio? I’m too old to be a rock star or a struggling artist. I need to finance my retirement home in Thailand!’ He laughed and I had no idea whether or not he was joking.

‘I was sorry to hear about your dad,’ he said, looking serious again. ‘How’s Carole taking it?’

‘She seems … um … all right. Given the circumstances.’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘It’s hard to say. She’s up and down.’ I thought about her screaming at me; hitting me when I tried to stop her throwing out Dad’s things. ‘Unpredictable, I suppose. I’ve talked to a counsellor and she thinks it might be some sort of grief dysfunction since my brother died. But I actually wonder if there’s something else going on.’ I paused, and then remembered the other reason why I was there. ‘What I really wanted was to ask you—sorry, strange question—how your father died. No one’s ever spoken about it and I was just wondering? If you don’t mind?’

Uncle David stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘OK. We’ll get to that. But, first, has Carole ever told you why we don’t speak?’ he asked. ‘Why she “banished” me? I presume that’s part of why you’re here.’

I leaned forward, all ears. This was a secret I’d thought Mum would take with her to the grave. ‘All I know is that you refused to go to her wedding.’

David laughed, a snort of a laugh. ‘I didn’t “refuse”. I was, how shall we put it, “disinvited”. But it goes further back than that. Carole always had quite a temper.’ He tapped his glass eye with a finger. ‘You see this eye? This comes courtesy of my sister.’

‘Seriously? How?’ I was horrified. My mother!

‘There was a game we’d play in the garden when we were kids. It involved throwing stones at a target we’d made. Sort of like darts, I guess, only without darts and a dartboard. Mum hated us playing it, but we played anyway. The rule was, when one person went to pick up the stones or reset the target, the other wasn’t allowed to throw.’

I could guess what was coming. Uncle David nodded. ‘Yep. One day I went to reset the target and Carole threw one more stone. Got me smack in the eye. Good shot, my sister.’

‘But it was an accident?’

‘Well, that’s what our parents wanted to believe, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. Carole knew the rules; she knew I was there. But I was winning and, well …’ He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘She always was very competitive. She couldn’t bear anyone else to win.’

A shiver ran through me. Hadn’t Mum said something about not wanting Zoe to ‘win’? But misunderstandings, accidents like this happen all the time with kids. Maybe my uncle was reading too much into it. ‘So that’s why you stopped speaking?’

‘No. Not at all. That was just background.’ He took a sip of his coffee and I followed suit. ‘No. The reason we don’t speak is because of what happened with our father—your grandfather. This must be what you were getting at when you asked how he died. Did your mother ever tell you anything about it?’

I shook my head, desperate to hear more. Uncle David was a thoughtful speaker; he said his words slowly and with lots of pauses. I clasped my hands around my cup to repress my fidgets. Go on, I wanted to tell him. Hurry up!

‘Our mother died when she was sixty. She and Dad had been married since they were seventeen. I think Mum had worked for a year or something before she got married, but she’d never actually had what you’d call a career. She’d dedicated her life to staying home and looking after Dad,
Carole and me. Nothing wrong with that, of course,’ he said, fixing me with his good eye. ‘It’s just how it was in those days.’

I shrugged—I wasn’t going to judge. I just wanted to hear the story. I picked a tiny pastry from the plate that had come with the coffee, and bit into it, nodding to get him to carry on.

‘Dad hadn’t learned to do anything around the house. He couldn’t cook; didn’t know what to use to do the cleaning. He probably didn’t even know what the washing machine was for; he really was a domestic dinosaur.’ I smiled at the thought, but Uncle David carried on. ‘He hadn’t a clue. After a few months, it became apparent that he was really struggling. He became thinner, started missing appointments. His clothes looked shabby; he stopped taking care of himself and retreated into himself. Carole and I talked about it and we agreed he’d have to move in with one of us while he readjusted to being single. I didn’t ever imagine it would be a permanent move. I just thought one of us could “rehabilitate” him, so to speak; teach him how to cook and take care of himself. There was nothing physically or mentally wrong with him. It was just ineptitude.’

I nodded. The irony wasn’t lost on me that Mum had also lost her life partner young. Thank heavens she knew how to take care of herself or I’d have been on a one-way ticket home from Dubai.

‘Anyway, I was staying temporarily in Manchester for a work job, so it was decided that he would live with Carole rather than me. She’d teach him how to shop for ingredients
and cook a few simple dishes; teach him how to do the washing and ironing and generally get him back on his feet.’

Uncle David stopped talking and stared into space.

‘So what went wrong?’ I said. Zoe’s words were dancing in my head. I knew something bad was coming.

‘Well, it was a good plan. I called every few days to check things were ticking along fine. Carole always sounded fine; she said things were going well and that Dad was frail and a bit reclusive, but he wasn’t a burden. Then, one Saturday, I called as planned, and there was no reply. I tried again and again. I managed to get hold of the neighbour and asked her to go around. She had a key.’ He paused. ‘She found him lying face down in his own vomit.’ I gasped. ‘He’d hit his head as he’d fallen. We’ve no idea how long he’d been there. There was no sign of Carole.’