‘You’re welcome.’
Olivia closes her eyes and, when she reopens them, there are tears clinging to her lower eyelashes. ‘Do you mind if I sit in here for a bit? Just to, y’know…’
She doesn’t finish – but I do know. To have some time alone. I pass her the keys and say I’ll see her in the morning.
I’m halfway up the stairs, on my way to bed, when I realise that, for the first time in a long time, I’ve actually enjoyed the evening. A couple of hours with my daughter that didn’t involve us arguing is all it took. Perhaps it’s that but, by the time my head hits the pillow, I’ve convinced myself that everything’s going to be all right after all.
Chapter Nineteen
Thursday
The digital clock next to the bed reads 05:53 when I’m woken by someone banging on the front door. In my bleary, confused state, I think it might be Alice. She’ll be in some sort of military boot camp mode, demanding Dan get himself out of bed. He’ll have to drop and give her twenty, something like that.
When I roll over, I realise Dan isn’t in bed. I stumble onto the landing calling his name, but the sound of running water is coming from the bathroom where, presumably, he is having a shower.
The sound of fist on glass continues to boom through the house and then the doorbell starts ringing. It isn’t one press, it’s a series of endless ding-dongs melding into one as someone’s thumb mashes the button outside.
I grab my dressing gown from the bannister and stumble downstairs, clinging to the rail for support and fighting a yawn. It’s dark downstairs but turning on the hallway light does little for my weary eyes. The white stabs like needles into my sleep-addled brain.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
I call that I’m coming but it makes little difference, as the banging continues. I take a couple of seconds to check myself in the hall mirror, ensuring my dressing gown is actually covering what it should, and then unbolt the front door.
It isn’t Alice, not that my waking mind thought it would be.
The person on the other side of the door is a man who’s vaguely familiar. He has straggly grey hair with a matching overgrown beard. As soon as the door’s open, he lurches towards me jabbing an accusing finger.
‘You!’ he rages.
I start to close the door, using it as a barrier between us.
‘Don’tcha close the door on me, yer stupid bitch.’
I wonder if he’s someone I once knew from school. His face is so recognisable but I have no idea who he is.
Realising he’s getting nowhere, the man steps backwards off the front step, still pointing but no longer trying to get into the house. I should slam the door and lock it. Probably call the police. The only reason I don’t is because it feels like I’m missing something obvious. I peep at him through the gap between door and frame, primed to slam it at any moment.
‘Who are you?’ I call.
‘Who am I? You’ve got some nerve.’
I realise who he is at the same time as he bellows the name ‘Frank’ at me.
He’s Tyler’s father. We’ve met once, in the early days of when Olivia started seeing Tyler. It was around eighteen months ago when I gave Tyler a lift home. Olivia was a young seventeen then – and Tyler was twenty-one or twenty-two. I didn’t know that at the time, because she told me he was seventeen. I suppose that was lie number one in what would become a series. If I’d known then, I would have shut things down straight away – and not taken her reluctance for an answer. I think Olivia might have listened to me then. In the two years since, she’s become more of her own person – and significantly more stubborn in the process. There’s a large part of that which is a good thing, of course. I want her to be independent and strong – but the other side is that she’s independent and strong against me.
On the one and only time I met Frank, he was standing in the garden outside his bungalow smoking a marijuana cigarette. As Tyler passed him and headed inside, Frank moved across to the window of the car, blowing a plume of weed smoke towards me. I don’t think it was malicious, more that he was so used to smoking around other people that he didn’t realise I might have a problem with it. He assumed I was some sort of social worker or off-duty police officer, bringing his lad home from whatever trouble he’d been in. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least – but Olivia was already smitten.
Frank hasn’t changed much in the past two years – but it’s enough. He’s dirtier, for one. There are mud stains on his faded leather jacket, more on his jeans. I can smell the alcohol on his breath even though there’s a good metre and a bit between us. He hasn’t shaven in days and his hair is mangling together. I think he might have slept rough, or perhaps not slept at all.
He starts to yell, aiming a kick at the flowerpot which sits next to the path. ‘Where’s my son?!’
‘I don’t know. Can you please—?’
‘Don’t give me that. Where is he?’
‘I’ve not seen him.’
‘He was here last. His friends told me all about you.’
The word ‘you’ is stabbing, hissed with genuine hatred.
‘What about me?’
‘How you’re always on at him. How you think we’re scroungers. How we’re beneath you. I’ll tell yer something, yer stuck-up bitch—’
Dan has appeared from nowhere, opening the door wider and standing at my side. He’s in his pyjamas but tall and strong. I hate being a woman who needs a man to protect me – I’m not, I’m really not – but I can’t help but feel a sense of relief that he’s here.
Frank cuts himself off mid-sentence. He’s never met Dan before. Perhaps he thought I was single, or that Dan might be some weedy non-threat. At the sight of someone bigger than him, he goes silent.
Dan is perfectly calm: An experienced teacher dealing with an out-of-control child: ‘Do you know what time it is?’
As if the time is the most important thing here.
‘I, er…’
‘Look, Frank is it?’
Dan opens the door further, moving onto the step as I wedge myself in half a step behind. He offers his hand but all Frank does is stare at it.
‘I’m sorry about your son,’ Dan adds. ‘We’ll help in any way we can. It’s just—’
‘I don’t want yer help.’
Dan slowly lowers his unshaken hand as Frank stares daggers and then thrusts another finger in my direction.
‘It’s her. She’s always on at him. Thinks we’re freeloaders. Thinks we’re scum. I know your sort, all high and mighty. She made him run off.’
Dan stands firm but I can sense the indecision in him. The thing is, despite the venom, there’s a lot of truth to what Frank’s saying. I don’t think he and his son are ‘scum’ – but ‘freeloaders’ is largely self-evident. Neither of them have jobs, yet they somehow find money for cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana. I’m not always on at Tyler himself but I do try to persuade Olivia that she’d be better off without him. Some of that will obviously get back to Tyler and, by proxy, Frank.
As I start to think about calling the police again, Olivia appears in the doorway. There’s an inadvertent parting as Dan and I move to the side, surprised by her presence. Her skin is pale, almost glowing against her pink hair. She’s barefooted, wearing pink hot pant shorts and a matching T-shirt.
Frank is even angrier than he was before, surging forward with a growl until Dan shoves him away.
‘Where is he?’ Frank snarls.
Olivia’s voice is delicate. ‘I wish I knew.’
‘You’ve driven him away. You know that? You! All that talk of getting a job.’
It’s the first I’ve heard of it and it’s hard to suppress my surprise. Olivia has been arguing with me for months over Tyler but, away from here, when they’re alone, she is also apparently trying to persuade him to get a job.
‘Nag, nag, nag,’ Frank continues. ‘You women are all the same.’
It’s Olivia who replies: ‘Is that what he says about me?’