No one speaks for five minutes. Jo draws flowers in the condensation on the windows. Then Lily hits the road out of Skipton.
Fiona is in such a state of anxiety, she doesn’t notice at first. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Your mum said you’d be at school, so we went there first and they said you had a free period, so you wouldn’t be in until one, so we went to your house and guessed you must have left, so I ran after you.” Jo smiles self-deprecatingly.
It takes another two minutes for Fiona to realise they’ve left Skipton behind. “Where are you going? This isn’t the way to the hospital?”
Jo takes a deep breath. “Skipton hospital’s full, bed shortage, she’s being taken to the next nearest, which is Accrington.”
“Accrington?” Fiona is incredulous. Lily raises an eyebrow. Hardly known for its provision of health care services, Accrington is so small it doesn’t even have a McDonald’s.
“Well not actually Accrington it’s-”
“Blackburn she means,” says Lily. “There’s a big heart unit there. We’re just going via Accrington. Don’t worry I know the way.”
Fiona shrinks back against her seat. “I wish Daddy was here.”
“I’m sure he’s on his way by now. In fact I bet he’s there already, holding her hand,” says Jo.
“Why didn’t he pick me up?”
“I’m sure he thought it was best to get straight over there.”
“But how will he find it on his own?”
“Perhaps one of the teachers will go with him.”
“How do you know Daddy’s a teacher?”
“Aren’t you a bit old to be calling your dad, daddy?” Jo asks.
“Do you work with my mum?” Fiona looks at Jo’s bleached white flat-top.
“I’m a work placement student.”
“And she told you Daddy’s a teacher?”
A sign at the side of the road welcomes them to Lancashire. Lily exhales and her shoulders drop half an inch.
Jo brazens it out. “She must have done.”
“And what about you? Are you on placement too?” Fiona addresses Lily directly for the first time. Their eyes meet in the rear view mirror and Lily flinches under her gaze. “Do I know you?”
Lily can feel the sweat running down her back. She wishes the clapped out Mini would drive quicker, as she wants to be back home. She’s finding driving much easier at forty miles an hour. Her hands are feeling clammy on the steering wheel and she’s gagging for a drink. “You don’t know me.”
“What’s going on?”
At last there is Accrington, a jewel in the crown. Lily has never been happier to see her home town in her whole life.
“Stop the car, I want to get out.”
“Ok Fiona, we’ve not been exactly straight with you,” Jo begins. “But the good news is your mum’s fine. She’s not in hospital; she’s not been taken ill. We just wanted to have a chat with you about a few things. When we have, we’ll take you straight home again I promise.”
“I want Daddy.”
“Will you stop calling him Daddy,” Lily snaps. “For God’s sake. How old are you?”
“Sixteen, nearly.”
Lily turns their car into her mother’s council estate and feels a huge wave of relief sweep her body. She pulls up at the kerb outside the house, mounting it slightly and nudging a lamp post as she does so.
Fiona’s face pales. She twiddles a pigtail round and round her forefinger and thumb. “Where are we? What are we doing here? Who lives here? What’s going on?”
“I’ve told you we just want to chat to you for a bit.” Jo leans across her and pulls the door handle. The back door opens a couple of inches.
Fiona shrinks back against her seat, bracing herself with her hands on the back seat. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to go in that house.” Her voice has risen an octave.
“Don’t be so rude,” says Jo. “That’s Lily’s home.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I just want to go home.”
Lily turns off the engine and speaks to Fiona via the rear view mirror. “I will take you home in a short while, but first I want to show you something. This is my house. I want you to come inside with me and see what it is I want to show you, and then you can go home.”
“Daddy will be very worried if I’m not home by four o’clock.”
Lily’s never met anyone who speaks like this. Contrast this with, ‘daddy has no wish to communicate’, capital letters, underlined. She takes a very deep breath. “Then we must make sure you are home by four o’clock. It’s twenty past two. So long as we set off by twenty past three we’ll be fine.”
“An hour? What do you want to show me that’s going to take an hour?”
“Look.” Lily pulls the keys out of the ignition and swivels round in her chair to face her. “Just get in the house, Ok?” The adrenaline of the day has now collected in a queasy mass in her stomach, and she needs to stand up, to get out of this car, to get home. Funny how today is the first time this house feels like home.
Lily gets out of the car and yanks the back door open wide. She stands and waits for a few moments, but Fiona doesn’t move. Lily puts one hand on the roof of the Mini and ducks her head down so she is at the same level as Fiona. She speaks quietly but firmly. “You can either step inside or I will drag you in by your hair. It’s your choice.”
Fiona turns to Jo, beseeching her with her eyes. Jo tries to smile a reassuring smile at her. Fiona’s bottom lip starts to wobble.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Jo adopts the voice of a mother talking to a small child, “honestly.”
Fiona glances from Jo to Lily and then pulls herself out of the car. She stands in front of Lily. Fiona’s dark brown eyes stare into Lily’s for a moment, challenging, defiant. Lily doesn’t look away. Fiona tuts loudly and then turns towards the house, flicking her dark brown fringe across her face, her head held high. Jo scrambles out of the car after her, pausing only to grin at Lily before chasing after the schoolgirl. Lily bangs the car door closed, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, before following the two of them up the path.
Lily’s hands are shaking so much she has trouble getting the key in the lock. When she finally manages to push the door open, Jo propels Fiona across the threshold first. Fiona looks like she’s going to go willingly, until the smell hits their nostrils and her hands grab onto the doorframe. Jo gives her an extra shove - two firm hands in the centre of the girl’s back and she’s through. Lily steps into the hallway quickly behind them and shuts the front door. She locks it and gives the key to Jo. Jo pockets it.
“Upstairs?” asks Jo.
Lily’s eyebrows meet in the centre of her face. They hadn’t got this far in the plan. She nods. Fiona sees the nod and grips onto the banister with both hands. Her schoolbag drops to the floor. “I’m not going upstairs.”
“Oh yes you are,” says Jo.
“Why does it stink?” asks Fiona, her voice high.
“Don’t be so bloody rude,” says Jo, trying to loosen Fiona’s grip on the banister. “Get her other hand, Lily.”
As Lily prises Fiona’s left fingers from the stair-rail, Fiona opens her mouth and emits a scream that cuts through Lily’s central nervous system. Lily lets go of the one finger she’s managed to prise from its grip and puts her hands to her ears. “Alright, alright.”
Fiona continues screaming.
“Shut up.” Lily shouts the last two words at the top of her lungs. Fiona stops screaming, her cheeks are flushed red. Lily savours a second of silence, before saying, “We can do it in the front room.”
Lily steps into the front room, stooping to pick up a polystyrene box, half full of cold chips and curry sauce, and drops it in the bin-liner that is propped up against the wall. Then she pulls back the curtains and is about to open the window, but stops herself. Textbook stuff; keep the windows closed.
Fiona looks around the dim room, with the wallpaper peeling off above the gas fire which is lit. She swallows audibly. “What do you want? I haven’t got any money with me.”
“I don’t want your stupid money.” Lily leaves the room and returns moments later with two tumblers and the vodka bottle. She pours Jo and herself a drink, and then, as an afterthought, says to Fiona, “Do you want one?”
Fiona shakes her head.
Lily drinks more than half of her vodka without pausing for breath. She wipes her lips on the back of her sleeve and watches Fiona take in the contents of the room. “I’m sorry there’s no settee. I’ve, er, I’ve just bought a new one, waiting for it to be delivered. It was supposed to be here last week.” Lily raises her eyebrows and tut-tuts in a way she hopes will portray her general dismay at the furniture delivery industry. She smoothes out a corner of the quilt on their bed-cum-settee in the corner of the room, swatting off broken crisps. “Do you want to sit on here?”
“No.”
“Sit,” says Jo.
Fiona stares at Jo for a moment and then folds her long colt-like legs beneath her, and perches on the edge of the mattress, barely making contact with the fabric. Jo sits on the floor by the window. They all look at each other expectantly as silence fills the room. When her mother was alive, Bert was a constant presence, always here when Lily got home from school, sprawled on the sofa with his Special Brew, as her mother grazed her way through a box of Family Circle biscuits. But now the house feels too small for three people. Lily paces in front of the fire, fighting the urge to run. Jo and Fiona both look up at her, Jo nodding encouragingly. Lily drains the rest of her glass.. “So,” she says, “I’m sorry we lied. We tried to think of a lie that wouldn’t worry you so much, but we couldn’t think of a good one. Anyway, your mum’s fine, which is more than my mum is, so that’s good. Good for you. So, so we wanted to talk to you because… because.”
Fiona is staring at Lily, her eyes wide. Lily focuses on the badge on the breast pocket of Fiona’s blazer. It looks like two unicorns carrying a shield between them. Lily tries to make out the letters, ‘Fortis est Veritas. She wonders what it means, almost asks but then Jo stands up and starts talking. “We’re pissed off with your dad.”
Fiona’s face crumples into a frown. “My dad?”
She says it in a tone of utter disbelief; like it was the last thing on earth she expected Jo to say. “Did he used to teach you?”
“No,” says Lily, pouring another vodka. “He hasn’t taught me anything.”
“Then...”
“Your dad is a lying, cheating coward and we think he needs to be taught a lesson.”
“What?” asks Fiona, the confusion evident in every inch of her body.
“Your dad,” Jo pauses and shifts her gaze from Fiona to a stain on the wall behind her, “your father is actually Lily’s father and Lily wanted to meet him, because she’s never met him. Which is fair enough, I think. Don’t you?”
Fiona’s mouth opens like she may be about to say something, but no words come out.
“And Lily asked nicely and he said no, no way. He refused to meet his own flesh and blood. Which makes him a lying, cheating coward.” Jo turns to Lily. “And he has to pay for that.”
Fiona doesn’t move. She sits on the edge of the mattress, as if waiting for a punch line. Lily watches Fiona’s cheeks turn red as she shakes her head. She licks her lips before speaking. “No way. I’m really sorry but you’ve got the wrong person.”
Jo copies Fiona’s head shake. “I’m really sorry but we haven’t.”
“You have, there’s been a terrible mix up. There’s no way Daddy would… I mean there’s just no way.” Fiona smiles with the absolute confidence of someone who has never been lied to, disappointed, betrayed. Her whole body relaxes, like someone has pulled out the plug. Her shoulders sink half an inch. Lily slips quietly from the room as she hears Jo start to explain about how the Salvation Army tracked him down. Jo shows Fiona the letter from the Salvation Army as Lily re-enters the lounge.
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Fiona says. She turns to Lily. “You must have a father with the same name or something. This is a case of mistaken identity. I’m an only child. Daddy always says, before he had me he wanted six children, and then when I was born, he realised he had everything he wanted.”
Lily stands in the corner of the room, leaning against the door, clutching the wedding album to her chest, waiting to hear more; in fact, willing Fiona to continue, to share more happy vignettes of nuclear family life, but Fiona sees her expression and falls silent. Lily waits a few moments and then hands her the wedding album.
Fiona sits back down on the bed-settee, shaking her head as she opens the first page. She smiles when she sees the first picture, the one of Pamela rushing in through the rain. “That’s not my mum.”
“No. She’s mine, was mine. Keep going.”
Fiona turns the next page and her eyes widen as she takes in the picture of Lily’s parents happily entwined. She turns another page, and another. Her cheeks are flaming red. “God, there’s Granny.”
Lily cranes her neck to see which photo Fiona was looking at. It’s a group photograph with several elderly people in the frame. “Which?”
Fiona points her out with the thumb on her left hand, while the right index finger traces over the rest of the people in the photograph. “I can’t believe it. Nobody has ever, ever, ever said a word to me, I swear.”
“Is Granny still…” Lily’s voice falters.
Fiona looks up at her. “What, alive? Oh God, yes. She was bungee jumping in Australia last year. Daddy… Dad, always says she’ll outlive everybody, even me. I can’t believe he’s lied to me. There’s Auntie Sue, Uncle Norman.” Fiona’s eyes are bright with tears.
“All I wanted was a chance to meet him; to find out something of where I’m from.”
Fiona takes in a deep breath. “Just because they were married, doesn’t mean, I mean, he might not be your dad. Maybe that’s why he left. Maybe your mum had an affair.”
“My mum did not have an affair,” Lily shouts, almost blown off her feet by the wave of anger that surges up inside her. Without a moment’s hesitation she launches herself at Fiona, knocking the schoolgirl backwards. There’s a loud thwack as Fiona’s head hits the wall behind the mattress. Lily grabs one of Fiona’s plaits and pulls her head up off the bed, so that Fiona’s face is only centimetres from her own. “Don’t you dare... She loved him all her life. He was the only man she ever loved. And when he left her, it killed her. Do you understand?”