The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (23 page)

‘She's not coming out,' says Norah.

Adam sits down beside her at the top of the stairs. Louis slumps down next to Adam and rests his head on his lap.

‘She'll come round,' says Norah. ‘She needs time, that's all.'

As he strokes Louis's curly hair, he thinks of the picture of the little boy and something collapses inside him. Did Norah make a new family so easily? Did she love the boy more than she loved their two girls?

Music blares out through the door. The radio. Cheap pop.

Adam knows that Ella's doing it on purpose, to upset Norah. She hates that stuff, refuses to listen to anything but jazz.

‘It was good of you to invite him. You're a good dad.' She strokes his arm. ‘And the girls are doing really well.'

You're a good dad?
He wants to laugh. She hasn't got a clue how badly he'd screwed things up in that first year, before Fay moved in.

‘I let Willa get attacked by a wild animal, Norah.'

Louis licks Adam's hand.

He remembers that night, standing outside the family room at Holdingwell General. Willa was in the operating theatre because the gash under her eye was so big that it needed special treatment. Ella hung back, looking at Adam as though someone had swapped her dad for a stranger.

Fay had leant in and whispered:
You're no good to her like this, Adam. Go home and sober up.

He'd hated her. Hated that she was right. That she'd always been right about him: a loser, a poor excuse for a man, let alone a dad.

And yes, he was drunk. On the night their little girl got hurt, he was blind drunk.

‘These things happen, Adam.'

‘No they don't. Not if you're a halfway decent parent.'

As he took the bus home on the night of the attack, he looked at his reflection in the window, his face blurred behind his smudged glasses, hair dishevelled, dark shadows under his eyes. No wonder Norah left me, he thought.

And now he was doing it again: messing up, falling short, letting down everyone who mattered to him.

Sober up,
that's what Fay had said. He remembers thinking how pointless that instruction was. At least when he was drinking he could forget – that he hadn't been able to hold on to his wife, that he'd allowed his little girl to get attacked by a wild animal in his own home. And that a woman who wasn't even related to them seemed to be raising his children.

He got off at the next stop and walked along the high street until he found an off-licence, where he bought a bottle of vodka and six-pack of beer. Enough to get him through another night. And then he stumbled home, the bottles clinking at his side.

He and Norah had been too tolerant of each other's shortcomings; they made each other worse, not better.

If it wasn't for Fay, God knows where he'd be now.

‘But it turned out okay, didn't it?' Norah asks. ‘Willa's fine. They're all fine.'

When he got home that night he'd scanned the lounge. On the floor, a white sheet stained with cigarette ash. The couch pressed out of shape from months serving as his bed. Empty bottles on the floor. The smell of sweat and sleep and stale beer.

‘I saw it,' he mumbles. ‘A flash of red darted across the lawn. I wanted to kill it.'

‘The fox?'

He nods.

He remembers picking up one of the empty bottles, stumbling out through the door and hurling it at the fox. The bottle landed in the middle of the lawn, nowhere near her. The fox didn't move: she stood by the hedge, staring at Adam with her amber eyes.

He thought of Willa lying in the operating theatre and felt a burning in his chest.
You monster
, he yelled as he picked up the bottle and ran after the fox. Then he threw the bottle again. It hit a rock and smashed; broken glass showered the hedge next to the fox. But still the fox didn't move.

Adam stared at the shards of glass glinting in the dark grass. A man who can't even scare away an animal, who can't protect his family.

‘It was Louis who got rid of it. He bounded past me in the garden, barking like a maniac.'

The fox had stared at him for a moment, then flicked her tail and skittered away.

‘It must have been hard, to wait at home for news of Willa.'

She felt sorry for him? Was she so detached from her family that she didn't care that her daughter had been attacked? She should be telling him how irresponsible he was. That he was a terrible dad. That this was the reason she left.

‘Yes, it was hard.'

While he'd waited to hear from Fay he'd sat at the kitchen table with the bottle of vodka, waiting for the numbness to come back. And then he heard voices at the front door. Fay and Ella.

They came into the hall.

He heard Ella yelling.
Get off me! You're not my mum!

Adam had heard those words so often in the last few months that they no longer shocked him.

The sound of Ella tearing up the stairs.
Dad! Dad!
she called.
Are you there?

Adam took the bottle of vodka to the sink and tipped it away. Then he came out into the hallway.

I'm here, Ella
, he said.
I'm here.

Norah touches his arm. ‘I should have been with you.'

He stays silent. He doesn't need her forgiveness or her apologies or her acceptance or whatever the hell she's trying to communicate. He doesn't need anything from her.

‘Things happen to the best parents,' she says.

He shakes her off. ‘I didn't think you were into that self-help crap.'

When Fay moved in, took over looking after the girls, she'd bought piles of books about parenting, about adoption, about helping children to eat well and sleep well. How to raise them to be happy. How to help a little girl overcome the trauma of losing her mother. Norah didn't believe in reading about life.
I rely on my intuition,
she'd always said.

Walking out on her family – was that part of her intuition?

‘I just meant that you can't protect the people you love from everything. There are some things that are outside our control.'

He stands up. ‘Leaving – was that out of your control?'

Why had he never seen it before, this inability of Norah's to face the truth of who she was and what she did and how it affected people? The blindness that allowed him to fail as a father.

And he's failing again. He's letting them all down – and most of all Fay. Fay was pushing him away. He was losing her, just like he'd lost Norah.

His eyes burn with tiredness.

Louis gets up and walks over to the window on the landing. He lets out a low whine and pads down the stairs.

‘We need to talk, Adam,' Norah says. ‘I need to tell you something.'

‘Not now.'

He needs to go and find Willa and help her understand about Fay, about this whole godforsaken mess of a family.

He runs down the stairs.

‘Do you love her?' Norah calls after him.

Adam turns round and looks at Norah. There's a pink flush behind her freckles.

He thinks about the ring box that Norah saw fall out of his trouser pocket.

Below him, he hears footsteps across the hall. And then a pause. Norah looks past him. He turns round.

Fay stands there, looking from Adam to Norah.

Do you love her?
The words hang between the three of them.

Norah looks at Fay, frozen halfway up the stairs. She's always looked so strong, so firmly rooted, but at this moment, as she grips the banister, he realises that she's just as vulnerable as Norah, just as weak as he is. Was that why the three of them were thrown together that night in a London park? Because they needed each other? That Fay needed them as much as they needed her?

Fay turns to go.

‘Fay —' he calls, but she doesn't stop.

Norah walks down the stairs. She stops and watches Fay walk into the kitchen and close the door behind her. Adam stands in the hallway, shifting from one foot to the other.

When she looks up she sees Ella higher up on the stairs, looking down at her.

She has to speak to her and mend things between them, explain to her why she really came home.

‘Ella —' Norah climbs back up the stairs.

Ella stands with her hands on her hips, her eyes dark.

‘We need to talk,' Norah says.

Ella shakes her head.

‘You think you can turn up here after all this time and act like it's not a big deal? Have a good old heart-to-heart with Dad, catch up on the gossip?'

‘It's not like that, Ella.'

Ella looks past Norah. ‘You don't have the right to come between then.'

She must have seen Fay, and Adam running after her.

‘That's not what I'm trying to do.'

‘Really?' Ella shifts her gaze to Norah. ‘So why are you here?'

Norah drops her shoulders. She can't tell her, not like this, not when she's so angry.

‘We have to take it one step at a time —'

‘But one of those steps is getting Dad back, right? Don't you think I've seen it? How you look at him. How you're trying to make him fall in love with you again.'

Never, in all the scenarios that had played through Norah's mind, had she thought she would be having a conversation like this with her daughter.

‘I wanted to see you all again. I wanted to see if maybe we could —'

‘Kiss and make up?'

‘I know it will take more than that.'

Ella tugs at the short bits of hair at the nape of her neck. ‘So, suppose for a second that it's not about Dad. Why are you here?'

‘I guess I just want us to be a family – whatever that family looks like.'

‘It's too late.'

Ella grabs something from her pocket.

‘It's never too late, Ella. I know that I've let you all down, that I need to explain, but if you'll just give me some time —'

Ella holds up the pregnancy test. ‘Fay's pregnant.'

Norah stares at the pregnancy test. ‘I know.'

Ella lowers her arm. ‘What do you mean, you
know
?'

Too tired to keep standing, Norah sits down on one of the steps.

‘I guessed.'

Fay's mood swings, her nausea, her tiredness. Maybe Norah hadn't wanted to face it – or what it would mean for her and Adam and the girls – but she knew: Fay was pregnant with Adam's child. And that was meant to change everything. A sign, if ever she needed one, that coming back was a bad idea, that it was time to turn round and leave. Except she can't let go, not yet.

‘So what's Dad meant to do now, then? Marry her? Walk her down the aisle in a white dress and pretend you never came back? You've ruined it for them.'

Her daughter telling her that her father should marry another woman. Another item on the long list of things she hadn't prepared herself for.

The doorbell rings.

Norah and Ella look down the long staircase. They watch Fay coming out of the kitchen, stopping for a moment when she sees Adam and then opening the front door. Norah hears a voice that makes her heart stop.

She walks down the stairs, Ella following close behind.

When she gets to the bottom step she puts her hand to her mouth.

The sun is so bright that it lights up the two figures standing on the doorstep: the smaller of the two, a little boy of about five, runs into the hall.

Norah walks towards him and he throws his arms around her. ‘Mama!' he says over and over. ‘Mama!'

‘Great,' laughs Ella. ‘Fucking great.'

As Fay steps aside a man walks in, short and skinny with blond hair and brown eyes. He and Adam stare at each other.

Willa bursts out of the lounge.

‘The boy from the photo!' she cries. ‘He's standing on our doorstep – and there's a man with him too!'

Then Willa notices that the man and the boy are already inside.

‘You see?' she says.

Norah tries to smile at Willa. None of this is her fault.

Willa runs up to the boy and tugs at his coat. ‘Would you like some fox cake?' She beams at him.

But the little boy buries his head deeper into Norah's waist.

‘Mama?' he asks, his voice lost as he presses himself against her. ‘
Warum bist du hier?
' Why are you here?

All the grown-ups stand in the hallway, staring at their feet.

No one's talking.

Willa pokes her tongue into the raw hollow left by her tooth. Later, she'll ask Mummy to give her some Calpol to make her feel better. She wonders whether Auntie Norah found the tooth. And then she wonders whether Auntie Norah's little boy has lost any of his teeth yet.

Ella and Sai and Louis come downstairs to see what's going on.

The little boy starts crying. Maybe he doesn't like cake, thinks Willa. He's got bags under his eyes and looks pale and scared, and now his face goes red and wet and puffy too.

‘
Nat ist mude,
' says the man who came in with the little boy. ‘
Und er hat Hunger.
'

When Daddy stares at the man, the man translates in a funny accent: ‘Nat's very tired and he's hungry too. We've been travelling for hours.'

‘I told you to wait, Walter…' Auntie Norah whispers. She doesn't know the rule, that when you whisper it's louder than shouting because it makes everyone want to listen more.

‘I told you on the phone. He missed you, Norah.'

This makes Ella stare at Auntie Norah likes she hates her even more, which Willa didn't think was possible.

Mummy looks at Nat; her eyes are sad. Willa can tell that she wants to pick him up and give him a hug and tell him it's okay, like she does when Willa's upset. But instead she just stands there, looking lost.

Auntie Norah lifts Nat up and presses him against her, which makes Nat look a bit happier, but not much.

Mummy stares at the floor.

‘He needs to get some sleep,' Auntie Norah says, kissing the top of Nat's head. And then she whispers something to him in another language. ‘Through there,' Auntie Norah says to the little boy's daddy, nodding at the lounge door. ‘He can sleep on my bed.'

Nat shakes his head really hard and more tears plop down his cheeks. ‘
Ich bin nicht mude,
' says Nat. ‘
Ich will nicht schlafen.
' He buries his face in Auntie Norah's chest.

‘You have to sleep, little Nat,' says Auntie Norah. And then she smooths his blond sticky-uppy hair , a bit like Daddy when he's just woken up, and she rocks him a bit, which makes Willa think of how Mummy does the same thing when Willa doesn't want to sleep.

Nat wriggles in Auntie Norah's arms and shakes his head. ‘
Nein. Ich will nicht schlafen.
' His voice is small and tired. ‘
Ich will mit Dir sein.
' Willa's surprised because she didn't think he understood any English, but he responded to what Auntie Norah said. Maybe he can understand English but not speak it. He wriggles so much that Auntie Norah has to put him down on the floor, and then he clings onto her leg.

Willa knows what it's like to be made to sleep when you don't want to, so she takes Nat's hand and says, ‘Would you like to come and see my room?'

Nat stares up at his daddy, who gives him a nod and then Nat looks at Willa, wipes his snotty nose on the back of his sleeve and says, ‘
Ja.
' After that he turns and points to Louis, who's standing by the kitchen door. ‘
Kann er auch kommen?
' he asks Willa.

Willa isn't sure what he said, but from the little boy's smile he seems to like Louis, so she goes over and puts her fingers under Louis's collar and walks him over to Nat. Nat kneels down and wraps his arms around Louis's big tummy, which makes Louis close his eyes like he does when he's happy, except once Nat's finished giving him a hug he goes over to the door, where Auntie Norah is putting on her coat.

‘Where are you going?' Daddy asks Auntie Norah. The bulgy vein pokes out of his forehead.

‘I need some air,' she says.

‘Norah —' says Nat's daddy.

Ella shakes her head like she's heard the most incredible thing in the whole world.

Mummy holds onto the banister. She's been holding on to lots of things recently.

And Louis thumps his tail hard against the wooden floor of the hallway.

‘I'll pick up some food for dinner,' says Auntie Norah, and then she goes out through the door.

 

Upstairs, Willa guides Nat around the room. She shows him her crayon drawings of Mrs Fox and the other foxes.

‘She's going to have babies soon.' Willa points at the little cubs she's drawn in one picture. ‘When she comes into the garden, I'll show you. You can help me name them.'

Louis stands with his paws on the windowsill. Nat goes over to him and Willa follows and looks down through the scaffolding at the front garden.

It's weird, because Auntie Norah was meant to go shopping but she's still standing on the doorstep.

Louis barks and then he turns round and paces a bit and then he leaves the room; Willa hears him charging down the stairs and then, when he gets to the hallway, he starts barking again.

‘I think Louis wants to go with Auntie Norah,' Willa says to Nat.

She thinks that this might upset Nat, because he wanted Louis to stay with him, but instead, he smiles and nods.

Willa goes to dig a box out from under her bed, where she keeps a supply of chocolate and sweets from birthdays and Christmases and Easters. Some of them are really old because she loses track of which ones she should eat first, but they still taste okay. She hands Nat a Cadbury's Creme Egg. ‘These are really good. Better than real eggs.'

He sits on the bed and peels off the foil wrapper.

‘You have to lick out the inside first.' Willa takes the egg and mimes licking it. ‘And then you eat the chocolate coating.' She pretends she's munching around the egg.

Nat nibbles the top off the egg. By the time he's finished, his lips are covered in white fondant and smears of chocolate and his sticky smile takes over his face.

‘
Danke,
' he says.

‘Where is your language from?'

He licks his lips. ‘
Deutschland.
'

‘You're lucky. I wish I could speak two languages.'

Nat licks his lips and points at the crayons on Willa's desk.

‘
Darf ich zeichnen
' he asks.

She's not sure what he's asked, but he points to the crayons like he pointed to Louis, so he must like them too.

‘You want to draw?'

He nods.

She gets out a piece of plain paper and picks up her pot of crayons and takes them over to the bed. Then she gives Nat her big hardback book,
Wild Animals of the British Isles
, to lean on. He takes them and rests his back against the wall.

For the next ten minutes, Nat sits on the bed, the book on his knees, his head bowed, his blond hair falling into his eyes. He draws and draws as if he hasn't been allowed to draw anything in ages.

When he's finished, he holds up the piece of paper. There are three people on it, and a dog, but the dog's much smaller than Louis. Maybe Nat and Auntie Norah got him from an Animal Ark like the one in Holdingwell. One of the people in the picture is Auntie Norah, because she has the same long red hair, and he's put freckles on her face and she's holding a trumpet. The other grown-up person is Walter, Nat's daddy, and he's got a white coat on, and there's a puppy in his arms that looks like it's got a bleeding paw. And between them stands Nat.

Willa hears Mrs Fox cry out in the garden, like she did earlier, only louder. ‘Did you hear that?'

Nat nods but doesn't look up. He's taken a black crayon from the pot and he's labelling the parts of his picture.

Over the dog he writes: Dizzy.

Over Norah he writes: Mama
.

And over Walter he writes: Onkel Walter.