Coming Home (36 page)

For a long time, I lay motionless, unseeing, unfeeling, and let the water lap over me. Every now and then, I added more hot water. Luca knocked and came in with a pile of clean clothes. He smiled at me. ‘For when you’re ready,’ he said, placing them on the chair and slinking out again. When I finally felt ready to get out, I dressed in his pyjama bottoms and t-shirt, wrapped myself in his robe and padded into his living room.

‘That’s better,’ Luca said. ‘You look a million miles more human now.’

‘Thanks,’ I breathed. Even that was too much of an effort.

He came over and took my hands in his. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

I shook my head.

‘Are you hurt?’

I shook my head.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I shook my head. Then, ‘Can you get my phone? It’s in my bag.’ Luca did as I asked. ‘Can you find Miss Dawson’s number? Can you ask her to come?’

I
was lying on the sofa, still wrapped in the bathrobe, when there was a knock at the door. Luca went to open it. I heard him talking softly with a woman, then his hand was on my arm.

‘Evie … Miss Dawson is here.’

I scrambled to stand up and shake her hand, the blood rushing to my head. ‘You’ve come? Here?’ Miss Dawson was a greyer version of the lady I remembered, but age suited her. She looked serious, wise. She rubbed her hands briskly together, the cold of outside still clinging to her.

‘Luca said it was urgent.’

‘I’m just nipping out,’ said Luca, shrugging on his coat and edging towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He waved towards the kitchen cupboards. ‘Help yourselves to anything. Bye.’ He closed the door quietly after him.

‘Is that Luca, as in …?’ asked Miss Dawson. I nodded, and she smiled. ‘That’s nice. I always thought … anyway.’

She pulled a chair from Luca’s kitchen table and brought it over to the sofa. I sank back down hugging my knees to me.

‘So, Evie,’ she said, ‘what’s this all about? What’s
happened? Luca said you were in quite a state. Can you tell me what it’s about? Is it to do with your mother?’

Slowly, struggling to find the words, I told Miss Dawson what Mum had told me. Miss Dawson didn’t even flinch. She just sat, impassive, and listened. Every now and then she nodded. ‘Ahh,’ she said. ‘I see.’

‘Is that murder?’ I asked when I’d got to the end. ‘Did she murder him?’

‘Can I see the letter?’ Miss Dawson asked. ‘Do you mind showing me?’

I rummaged in my bag and pulled it out and passed it to her. I watched as her eyes moved down the page, taking in my father’s last message to me. She nodded to herself and handed it back to me.

‘What your mother did is against the law. But it’s in her favour that your father was terminally ill and that he asked her to do it. It’s basically assisted suicide.’

‘Will she go to jail?’ I stared at my hands on my lap.

‘Well. It’s a topic of debate. Some people think assisted suicide should be legalised; there are people sympathetic to it. But, as far as I know—and I may be wrong; I can look it up for you—the Crown Prosecution Services says that family members who assist a loved one’s suicide are “unlikely” to be prosecuted.’

‘So she might get away with it?’

‘Well, I’m guessing his death wasn’t seen as suspicious or they would have done an autopsy?’

‘Oh God. Mum said he’d had trouble with his heart a week or so before. She’d called the same doctor when
she “found” him in the morning. He signed the medical certificate.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Dawson. ‘So it’s not suspicious in any way. I’m not going to tell the police anything else. Are you?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what to do. At the moment, I hate her.’

‘Evie, I know it’s incredibly difficult. I know you feel like this decision was made without including you; I know you feel like you should have been a part of it.’ I nodded. ‘But it was a very personal decision your father made. It was his decision to make, not yours. And your mother did perhaps the most difficult thing, which was to help her husband do something with which she might not even have agreed. She’s a strong woman.’

‘You should have heard her telling me. She was so cold. So factual. There was no emotion at all.’

‘I think she was probably protecting herself, not allowing herself to feel the emotions. It’s probably the only way she got through having to do such a horrific thing. It must have been incredibly difficult.’

There was a silence. Miss Dawson was saying what I wanted to hear, but there was still something; something that made me feel uncomfortable.

I felt Miss Dawson’s hand on my arm. ‘Your mother’s a brave woman. She helped her husband die with dignity. Really, Evie, what your mother did was the ultimate act of love.’

T
he days passed in a haze. When Luca had gone to the house to collect my things, he’d told Mum I’d be staying with him for a few days. Apparently, she’d just nodded absently and waved him in without any questions. I was hardly expecting an argument. She must know how tenuous her situation was; that what she’d done was illegal. I passed a lot of time at Luca’s sitting out on the terrace, wrapped in fleeces and a blanket, watching the sky and thinking.

Miss Dawson had painted the assisted suicide as an act of love, but she didn’t know the background, the history of Zoe and Tom. In her eyes, my parents had stood by each other—Dad had confided in Mum and she’d repaid that confidence with what Miss Dawson had called the ‘ultimate act of love’—the devoted wife risking potential incarceration to ease her husband’s pain.

But was it really an act of love? Why would Mum help Dad, as she did, after everything that he’d done? I knew my mother, and I could see events from a different—darker—angle. Miss Dawson had framed the assisted suicide within the confines of a long-term, loving marriage, but that didn’t sit well with me. Mum hadn’t loved Dad as much as Miss
Dawson believed. She’d not only felt contempt for him, but she’d felt competitive with Zoe and, while Miss Dawson had imagined Dad’s death had finally allowed Mum to grieve for Graham, I thought there was another type of release, too. Mum had lived a secret life, lying to everyone around her for twenty years. She’d hidden the fact that I had a half-brother from me while knowing how much I would have loved to have known. And, ultimately—unforgivably?—she’d helped my father to die without giving me a chance to say goodbye.

I couldn’t help but wonder: when Dad had had his diagnosis, when they’d realised the cancer was terminal and he’d asked for her help to end his life, had there been a part of her that had rejoiced? A part of her that had thought she’d got her final, divine retribution? In her own words, she’d ‘won the war’—things had worked out well for her. The thought made me physically sick.

I sat, almost catatonic, for several days, until I’d gained control of my thoughts; desensitised myself to what had happened. Only then did I realise what I had to do. Finally, I showered, dressed and booked a cab to Maidstone, to Zoe’s.

The day still didn’t know if it wanted to be sunny or cloudy; the sky was bright blue, but huge clouds blocked the sun every few minutes, casting the shadows of giants across the landscape. I was calm in the car. As I sat in the back watching the fields and hedges of Kent go by, I tried to focus on what I wanted to say to Zoe, and what I wanted to get out of the visit. My ticket back to Dubai was booked. I wanted to make peace with her before I left. I also wanted
to see where it was that Dad had spent twenty years of weekends; where he’d gone when he’d left me and Mum every Friday.

As the cab pulled up, I took a deep breath. I was well prepared. I rang the doorbell and Zoe opened almost immediately.

‘Thanks for letting me come over,’ I said, holding out the packet of chocolate biscuits I’d brought as a peace offering.

‘It’s my pleasure,’ she said. She touched my arm and I followed her into the house that had served as my father’s second home. A faint scent of fresh coffee hung in the air. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dad stepping over this threshold every Friday evening after leaving Mum and me. Did he knock, or had he had a key? Did she wait for him eagerly, coiffed and scented, in her best lingerie, or was she slobbing on the sofa when he arrived?

‘Take a seat. I’ll get some coffee,’ said Zoe, waving a hand towards a door on the left, and I moved into the living room. It wasn’t big, but it was nicely done up. Her style was shabby chic—cosy, comfortable, used, loved and a little cluttered: photo frames, vases, books and candle holders were scattered across whatever surfaces there were. I glanced quickly at each of the photos, not knowing how long Zoe would take to make the coffee and not wanting to be caught snooping. All of them were of her family: Tom, Zoe, two older people I imagined must be her parents. Then one of my father: my breath caught as I saw him smiling out at me.

I sat on the sofa then stood up again. I stood with my
back to the window and tried to absorb as many details of the room as I could. It was a small room—a small house compared to ours. The sofa was half hidden under a clutch of cushions; to the side, a basket overflowed with soft-looking blankets. A square coffee table sat on a thick oatmeal rug in the middle of the room; on it, a couple of coasters and a stack of coffee-table books. I tried to imagine Dad in this room every weekend; Dad watching television here; flicking through the books; playing with Tom; cuddling up to Zoe under one of the blankets. I picked up the top blanket and buried my nose in it, hoping for, but not finding, a trace of my father’s scent.

By the time Zoe came back from the kitchen, I was sitting neatly on the sofa, flicking through a magazine I’d found on the coffee table while not taking in a thing. Zoe placed a wooden tray carefully on the table, then handed me a mug, the handle thoughtfully turned towards me as she took the hot cup in her own hand. The chocolate biscuits I’d brought sat on the tray. I thought I could see a slight rounding of her belly.

‘So. Here we are,’ she said, taking a seat across the room from me.

I nodded. ‘Here we are.’

‘I’m glad you and Tom managed to meet up again. He says you got on well?’ Zoe’s voice was gentle.

‘Yes. He’s great.’

‘He is, isn’t he? I’m so pleased you two finally had a good talk. I’d always hoped you would meet one day but your father was adamant until very recently that our two families
shouldn’t meet. As I said before, I think he was just starting to change his mind.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘We’ll never know now.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Let me show you something. Come.’ She stood up and beckoned for me to follow her.

She led me out of the room and up a thinly carpeted staircase. I could smell the scent of fabric conditioner as we approached the landing. It was small with only three doors leading off it. She pushed one open and held it so I could go in ahead of her, but I stopped dead on the threshold. The room was nothing special: it wasn’t big. There was just one sash window that faced the garden. Neither was it particularly pretty—it was a functional bedroom decorated in plain neutrals. A queen-sized bed was centred against one wall; there was a built-in wardrobe with white doors; a dresser; no
en suite
bathroom. I realised I was holding my breath. I expelled it with a big sigh.

‘Go on,’ said Zoe. ‘Go in, I want to show you something.’ She pointed to a bedside table, but I stared at the bed. This was the bed in which my father had woken up every Saturday and Sunday morning for the past twenty years. Those were the curtains he’d pulled. And then my eyes followed Zoe’s hand and I saw what she was pointing at: on one of the bedside tables was a picture frame—in it, a photo of me, smiling at the camera on a trip we’d taken to Stonehenge when I was sixteen; it was one of my favourite photos.

‘And here,’ said Zoe, pointing to the dresser. On top of it, a cluster of frames—all of them pictures of Graham, Tom
and me. Dad had cut some so we could all be in the same frame: his children. I caught my breath. Mum had taken down all pictures of Graham; stashed them away. Dad may have lived with us, but this was the only place he’d been able to truly be himself; to have pictures of all his children on display.

‘That’s what I wanted you to see.’ Zoe was behind me, watching me look at her bedroom. ‘He loved you very much. Let me show you something else.’ She moved past me, opened one of the bedside drawers and pulled out a photo album. ‘Pictures of you. He looked at them every week. He even took them on holiday when we went away.’ She placed the album on the bed, turned back to the drawer, pulled out a folder. ‘And this, too.’

‘What is it?’

‘Have a look.’

Zoe passed it across the bed and I opened it. I realised immediately what it was: a folder of things to do in Dubai. I stared at the folder, willing myself not to cry.

‘He wanted to come and see you,’ said Zoe. ‘He wanted to tell you about Tom in person. He’d decided it was time to stop lying. He really wanted you and Tom to know each other. He thought you’d get on well. He was planning a trip to Dubai. He was planning what you could do together when he came.’

‘Me too. I wanted it so badly. Was he going to come on his own?’

‘Yes. I think he saw, with Tom, how close he could be to his child. He regretted that he wasn’t that close to you.
He missed you, Evie. He missed you and he wanted to put things right between you … Look through them … Take your time.’

Zoe left the room and I picked up the album. It included all the best photos of me from about the age of thirteen onwards: the years in which I’d thought Dad had ignored me. It was a loving record of my life. Then I leafed through the folder and imagined Dad planning his trip. It was very similar to the one I’d put together myself: he’d printed out information from the internet on deep-sea fishing, retro desert safaris, helicopter rides. He’d wanted to reconnect with me, too. It would have worked. It would.

In the bathroom, I splashed cold water onto my face.

‘Thank you,’ I said to Zoe, as I went back into the living room.

She smiled. ‘Look, Evie, I know you must have lots of questions. Why don’t you just ask me and I’ll be as honest as I can?’