‘You could have been someone,’ he mutters. ‘A winner. Like me.’
Someone like him. No. Never. I taste the bile in my mouth at the thought of it, of us being lumped together, father and son, because I reject him. While his back is still turned I pull the gun out from under my jumper. I loathe him. Everything he is and everything he stands for, just like I always have.
And now this is going to end.
‘Hey,’ I say. I’ve just knocked on Dad’s door tentatively. I realise he’s probably been expecting me to come back in for a while now and I’m not proud of keeping him waiting. I know it took even longer because I got hi-jacked by Sam and Carlotta but still, I’m surprised to see that in the time it’s taken me to have my bath and get dressed, he’s taken himself back to bed. That’s not like him.
I go and perch on the edge of his duvet.
‘Hey,’ he says. When he lifts his eyes to me, something’s immeasurably different about him but I can’t for the life of me fathom what. Unless what we were talking about earlier is still playing on his mind? I put the offer letter down on the bedcover in front of him. I don’t have to
say
anything. He can already see that I’m grinning from ear to ear. I watch him as he reaches out uncertainly from under the warmth of his cover to pick up the letter with both hands.
‘You’re
in
?’ he says. I know he can’t see without his specs. He’s just pretending to read it but I can feel the thrill of relief, the joy in him, at the news, echoing my own. I lean in tight for a hug. ‘I knew you’d make it,’ his voice is all wobbly. He wipes away a tear. That’s when I notice that his eyes are already puffy, the sleeves of his PJs wet. He’s been crying? Is that my fault? I feel a pang of guilt.
‘What’s up, Dad?’
‘I’m happy for you,’ he says gruffly, blowing his nose, but he’s not getting away with that.
‘What is it?’ I shuffle a little closer along the bed
‘This is about what we were talking about earlier, right?’ I bite my lip, wishing now I’d been a little more careful with him. I’d only just got back. He’s probably been worried sick about me, because that’s what he always does, and the first thing I did when I arrived was go and lay into him over how I thought he’d just let Mum die without making her seek medical aid. How stupid of me.
How very thoughtless
.
‘No.’ He shakes his head forcefully, stares at my letter but I know he isn’t seeing it.
‘It helped clear the air though, right?’ I look at him entreatingly now. ‘You came out and told me a whole load of things that we’d never spoken about before. Like - I never knew about Mum’s illness as a teenager. I always thought she’d contracted that sickness by being under those trees. It would have helped me more than you could imagine if I’d only been told about all that earlier, Dad.’
‘I’m not upset because of anything you brought up about Mum’s illness,’ he says thickly.
What then
? I raise my eyebrows.
‘It’s not what I said to Carlotta before I left the house, is it?’ I look at him apologetically. ‘I wish you’d spoken to me before you let them have Mum’s room, that’s all. It would have given me a bit of time to adjust. Maybe I wouldn’t have got so upset with my aunt about the way they flung all Mum’s things about
.
’
‘Rose. You and I would never have got round to clearing out Mum’s space, would we? I know they were careless,’ he comes in sadly. ‘But we’d have left it all there as a shrine forever. I told your aunt to clear the things out, Love.’
‘You
told
her to do it?’ I look at him, taken aback.
‘I told her to do it. Because they needed the room. Because I didn’t want to keep alienating them forever when it’s perfectly clear that we need them, you and I. We need them on our side. But, look, that isn’t what’s really affected me this morning.’
Oh. My feelings of upset at him fade away as quickly as they’d come. He didn’t let them destroy Mum’s space because he didn’t care. He did it because he was trying to be prudent. For my sake, I suspect, more than for his own.
‘Rose
.
’
H
e pats my letter now. ‘I’ve decided to go and give those chaps in the States a whirl, the medics my brother’s been nagging about,’ he tells me now. ‘Give us both the chance of a new life, eh?’ He will? I can scarcely believe what he’s telling me; that he’s changed his mind. It’s what I’d hoped for, what I’d dreamed of. There are no guarantees. He knows that. But life is full of gambles...
‘What about the trees?’ I get out
.
‘
Y
our promise to Mum?’
‘You’re more important than the trees,’ he admits. ‘So am I. I think she’d understand that, don’t you?’
Thank God. He holds out his arms for a hug. All I can think of is; we’re going to be moving out of here at last, then. After all this time? It feels so strange to think that could be true. Now that it’s coming so close, I even feel a little sad. We’re going to walk away from here, this place where I was born, this place where my parents once built their new lives around the unexpected child they’d had. The wrench for him is going to be
huge
, I see that more clearly than ever, now. For him more than me, because this is what he’s spent his life building up. For me, Clare Farm is where I launch from. For a split second, my fingers reaching out to touch the wallpaper behind his back, the paper I once helped him put up, I think; I can’t ask him to
do
this, to leave this familiar place in the twilight of his years. It isn’t fair. He really shouldn’t have to be put in this position now. It’s not right.
‘Rose,
Rose,
don’t cry.’ He pats me gently and his hand on my shoulder is familiar and comforting. ‘I want to do this.’
‘No, you don’t.’ I wipe my nose. ‘You’re only doing it for me. You don’t really want to leave Clare Farm and all the memories you shared here with Mum. I
know
you don’t.’
‘In some ways, Rose, I
do
.’ His eyes look very sad, suddenly. ‘The past can be a very painful place to remain trapped in, no matter how pleasant it was at the time...’ In the quiet space that follows I’m suddenly aware of the sound of running water coming from everywhere outside. The dripping of the icicles along the guttering, the lashing of the rain against the windows. Everything has changed. Suddenly, with a turn in the weather, everything outside that was soft and quiet and still, it’s become busy, charged with movement; it feels as if real life has taken over the reins, got back in charge again.
I still don’t know where Lawrence got to, do I?
All that time we spent together, everything we shared, it’s beginning to feel like a dream to me now. A lovely dream that you awake from only reluctantly, clinging to the last vestiges of sleep for as long as you can but all the while you know you can’t bring that dream with you, back into the real world. Is that how Dad feels about Mum, now, I wonder? Is that how he’s decided it’s time for him to move on?
I smile at Dad, softly and I see that there’s something else;
‘I
have
been mulling over something we brought up earlier,’ he confesses at last. ‘What I said to you about how it’s been for me, loving your mum, how I had to make sacrifices,
big
ones
.
’
H
e’s choosing his words carefully
.
‘
I
n order to be with her.’ He looks at me pointedly but I don’t say a word, not sure yet where this is leading to.
‘I don’t know if you ever realised it but for me, falling for someone who fell so far outside my own social milieu, I’ve felt I’ve needed to fight everyone and everything around me for years just to honour my feelings for her…’ He lowers his chin. ‘People didn’t
approve,
Rose. But that didn’t change how I felt about her. It couldn’t and it wouldn’t.’
Am I actually breathing now? I think not. I cannot.
‘What I’m saying is; I think you already have some idea what I’m talking about, don’t you, Rose?’
‘Because I’ve had to fight for her too?’
‘Rose, I’m talking about
you
,’ he insists. ‘You and that young man I saw you arriving back with. You are in love with him, I take it?’ I baulk at his directness. If he saw me with Lawrence this is the first time he’s mentioned it. He could only have glimpsed us anyway. How could he go so far as to think I’m
in love
? I feel a flutter of panic in my belly now, because we are coming to it. Everything I’ve got to tell him that I haven’t yet told him. We are coming to it, and right now.
‘I...’ I stall. ‘I’ve only known Lawrence a few days, Dad.’ Does he know from where? I put my hand to my mouth, trying to figure out how much he could possibly have deduced from that one glimpse of me and Lawrence that he got.
How much does he know
?
Does he realise - as Carlotta clearly has - that I haven’t really been staying with Shona at all over Christmas? I’ve tried to be discreet since I got back, but it looks as if I’ve not pulled the wool over anyone’s eyes. I was going to tell them all, of course I was. I just wanted to give Lawrence enough of a chance to come in and square it all with Dad. But he hasn’t. I feel my heart sink. He hasn’t turned up and that makes me feel like a fool for caring about him, all over again.
‘You’re in love with him,’ Dad insists. ‘But he’s in trouble, yes?’
‘Why do you say that?’ I flare. So; Dad saw me and Lawrence together. ‘Just because I didn’t invite him in, you jump to the conclusion…’ I can feel my face flaming now.
I can’t tell him, I can’t; if Lawrence hasn’t come back and spoken to Dad himself, then that leaves me vulnerable and alone in all of this.
‘What else have you concluded?’
M
y voice assumes a hurt tone. Dad folds his arms over the top of his duvet. He takes me in quietly.
‘I suppose - just because you saw me arrive back with Lawrence, you’re
imagining
that … that I spent the last few days with the guy, right?’
M
y voice goes up a notch. ‘You’re imagining that I’ve fallen madly in love with him, only... I never invited him back in to meet all the family because you’d all be mad at me for running off and because he’s someone you’d all disapprove of?’
‘You’ve got a better imagination than me, Rose
.
’
T
here’s a sad smile in his voice now. ‘Tell me; just how much of all of that is the truth?’
I stare at Dad.
Carlotta’s told him what Matt Dougal said about me not being with them. She must have. God, I look away from him, not knowing how on earth I am going to answer him. Right now my face feels so hot I think my skin is melting. I get up and stalk over to the window and pull it up, feeling as if I’m gasping for air. The window lifts easily because the catch hasn’t been put back on. An echo of something being not quite in place here, reverberates in my head. I turn to look at him slowly. He’s still waiting.
It is
all
the truth, I think. The words don’t want to come out, though. I open my mouth to say them, but nothing comes out.