‘The one thing I have always wondered,’ she ventures, ‘the thing I couldn’t possibly have guessed at – did you come back up here to work because you knew you were from here originally? I’ve always wondered what you knew about your roots.’
For a moment, I almost forget what I knew. ‘It’s all a bit confusing, really. I have no memories of having lived anywhere other than Stockport. My mother had a North East accent, and my gran used to come to visit us, but we never came up here, oddly – though I’m not sure if it was odd to me at the time; it was just what we did. I think we may have gone once, to Whitley Bay – which was where my gran lived.’ Memories have been trying to refresh themselves before my eyes. ‘She would mostly come to us, and we’d go on beach holidays – sometimes with Alan; mostly without. We’d go to Wales and Cornwall; my mum loved it there.’
Saying it now, it did seem odd indeed. But there was a lot that I hadn’t questioned because my mother never gave me room to. ‘Moving up here for work was pure coincidence. After Uni, I applied to public galleries all across the country. Newcastle was the only one to offer me a job.’ I narrow my eyes. ‘You didn’t have a hand in that, did you?’
‘Good heavens!’ She places a hand on her heart. ‘Now you’re giving me a little too much credit!’
For the first time, I smile.
‘It’s weird, but you know when you were telling me about how Eddy was supposed to wait until after Christmas to tell his wife, but he jumped the gun? Well, I remember that shitty Christmas! I remember suddenly being palmed off to go stay with Gran, then when I came home, my dad wasn’t there. I remember it was Christmas morning, and I wanted to open my presents, but not without him. I kept asking my mother, and she finally said I had to just do it because he wasn’t coming home.’ I frown. I can see her. ‘She was very . . . changed. Distant. Somewhat indifferent to me. I opened my presents and I remember thinking no one cared that my Christmas was spoilt.’
‘I’m so sorry, Alice,’ Evelyn says.
‘I think he might have come to my house in Stockport once, too. I can’t be sure . . .’
I had taken the bus home from school with my friend, Trish. I must have been about eight years old. Right as I walked into the house, I heard Alan’s voice, and my mother’s, and that of a stranger. A man.
They stopped talking as I came in. They were in what my mother called the posh room, the one that rarely got used, except when I practised piano. There was a tall, dark-haired man sitting near the piano stool. All he could do was look at me for what felt like a very long time, then he said, ‘Hello, April.’
‘This is your stepfather’s friend, my mother said. I can’t recall what she said his name was.’
This friend shook my hand. No one had ever shaken my hand before. I remember saying, ‘Can I go play now?’
He stayed for dinner. My mother seemed springy and tense. I remember thinking my stepfather and his friend didn’t talk very much – for friends. He did ask me lots of questions, though. About school, my friends, my subjects, my piano. He was very interested in the fact that I could play. At one point, my foot caught his foot under the table, and I pulled both of mine back, determined to keep them out of the way. I didn’t eat much of my dinner, and I thought I would die if anyone suggested I play the piano, but thankfully no one did.
I daydreamed about him after. But I was like that. All my report cards from school said the same thing. Alice never pays attention. Alice is always in a world of her own. Somehow, I made it grandly romantic – the stranger who had watched me as though we had shared something my mother and father were unaware of.
‘Will Dad’s friend be coming back?’ I remember the nervous glee in my voice. He was possibly my first crush. My mother was washing dishes. She stopped washing for a moment. ‘Why do you ask?’ she said, flatly.
I can remember the tiniest detail of a bluebottle hitting the window, as though it, too, felt the weight of my mother’s disapproval and was dying to get out.
‘No reason,’ I said.
I tell Evelyn all this, and say, ‘I wish there was a way I could know if it was him for sure!’
‘I don’t know if it was him,’ Evelyn says. ‘Stanley never said anything about him having gone there. I would have thought he’d have told me if he had.’
‘It probably wasn’t him. I’m probably just grasping at straws.’ I try not to feel too downcast. ‘How did it happen? The fight? Have you any idea?’
Evelyn’s face takes on that look of haunted melancholy again. ‘Well, according to Stanley, your father started going out a lot after your mother and you left. I think he was drinking a bit more than usual. He was in the bar. I think he knew the two men. One of them must have said something to him about it – you know, there’s the whole Northern male’s moral code when it comes to people messing around with their wives – anyway, Eddy threw the first punch. And he wasn’t like that. So whatever they said must have been something awful to provoke him.’ Evelyn places a hand over her mouth, momentarily silencing herself. ‘People think that in real life they can punch and kick each other like they do in the movies and nothing bad happens. People fall down, but then they get up and walk away. They never end up with a brain injury in movies . . .’
The words brain injury make me flinch.
‘He was in hospital for five months. He was in a very, very bad state. I only learnt this after – Stanley knew that if I’d known it at the time, I’d have upended my life all over again. He made a surprisingly amazing recovery, considering the extent of his injury. But he was never the same. He lost his driving licence, which impacted his job, of course. He suffered off and on with seizures and headaches.’
The man who had come to dinner looked healthy. It clearly hadn’t been him.
‘It was just such a terrible twist of fate. Whatever he’d done, he didn’t deserve getting his head kicked in. He didn’t deserve ending up like this . . .’ Evelyn breaks off and looks at me with alarm. ‘Are you all right?’