Honest Read online

  Honest

  By Ava Bloomfield

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  ©Ava Bloomfield 2014. All rights reserved.

  www.AvaBloomfield.wordpress.com

  Chapter One

  What do you call a girl with one Dad, no Mum, a dodgy left leg and a dead boyfriend? Ellen. That was my name, and all of those things were true.

  Most people, if they’ve only got one parent, are always left with the mums, aren’t they? Well, not me. My mum left when I was ten and it had just been me and Dad since then. It was the best thing that ever happened to us as far as I was concerned. Since she left us, Dad took up work at this soggy campsite in Mevagissey Cornwall in the summers. That was where we’d be living for the next three months, just like we used to every summer before my accident.

  That was three years ago, and I’d missed the town. We both had. It was our safe haven away from the memories of mum that were soaked into the wallpaper, the furniture, even the grass on our lawn back home. She was everywhere at home. Dad couldn’t seem to find the willpower to paint over the walls and buy new stuff. I would’ve bulldozed the lot and started again if it were up to me.

  I was seventeen and a lot had changed about me since we were last here, except for my gimpy leg which never healed, and our beloved mouldy cottage. Neither of those things ever changed. I doubted Peter’s grave had changed much in three years, but I hadn’t gone to look yet. Dad never changed, though he looked more miserable on some days than others. Probably because of mum. I knew he thought about her constantly.

  Sometimes I wished she’d died instead of just running away abroad with her new man. At least then she’d have a grave for us to visit, and if my leg was up to it I could have danced all over it.

  I really meant it. I would.

  I watched the moving van grumble away from us down the lane, its windscreen wipers swaying sadly back and forth. It was the first of July but you’d never know it by the smeared grey sky and the rain spittle on the wind. I liked it; it cooled down my aching arms, sore from pushing the wheels of my chair.

  Dad stepped down from the doorstep, the scuff of his boots on the flaky paint making me wince. He put the break on my wheelchair to stop me rolling back down the steep incline and put a cold hand on my shoulder. We looked down at the harbour through the misty drizzle, which matted the hair to our foreheads in clumps. In the distance the hills were verdant green like I’d remembered, and the waves crashed against the rocks just as fiercely as they had before, all that time ago.

  ‘Much better than Enfield isn’t it, El’? That’s genuine green grass over there on those hills. I bet you’ve missed seeing all that countryside out your own window,’ said Dad, gazing over the crown of my head. Whenever Dad spoke, his voice hummed in my eardrums like a trapped moth, making my head ache. I shrugged off his hand.

  ‘I’ve missed loads about this place,’ I said, wiping the space where his hand had been. I could sense him watching me do it, shaking his big sad head from side to side as if he’s seen me do it too many times.

  My counsellor at home said that the resentment of my father was all to do with mum leaving. She didn’t know half of it.

  Dad and I had each other and that was all — there was nobody else. We survived our own way. If that wasn’t love, then I don’t know love. And besides, counsellors had to say that, didn’t they? Divorce. Separation. Abandonment. Watch any day time television show, or read any magazine out there, and you could learn all of this stuff.

  ‘Would you mind letting me in?’ I finally prompted, biting my lip. I stared at the cobbled ground while Dad took the break off my chair and tugged me up over the doorstep, manoeuvring me through the tight squeeze. My fingernails clawed the padded arms of the chair as I hit the old thin door, slamming it against the wall so hard that the metal knocker almost rattled right off.

  I kept my eyes on the crashing waves in the distance, waiting in silence for Dad to spin me around. Instead he tipped me back on the wheels and pressed his lips to my ear, making the downy hairs on my skin prickle up. I held my breath, my dodgy knee tightening and pulsating as I moved.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he whispered, making my heart thud. What now? We’d just moved in, how could he have a surprise for me right now?

  In one swift movement he swung me about–face, and I stared at the object attached to the old naked staircase, the wood grey and splintered.

  ‘Urgh.’ I groaned. ‘What the hell have you done?’

  He nudged me with his elbow. ‘Oh come on, flower! Imagine how easy your life is going to be this summer, eh? No more going upstairs on your bum when your knee gets too bad. I’ll miss carrying you up too, but a dad’s got to give his little flower some independence, hasn’t he? Eh?’

  He dropped the handles of my chair and let me fall back onto solid ground with a loud thunk, then stood at the foot of the stairs with his hands on his hips, admiring the new addition.

  ‘A stair lift? Old people use stair lifts, for Christ’s sake,’ I said, loathing the very idea of hoisting myself into that stained old seat. ‘Some old thing probably peed herself while sitting in it. The seat’s all yellowing.’ I rested my chin on my fist, staring at the long white track leading to the dark hollow of the landing beyond the stairs.

  In the blurred foreground of my vision, I saw Dad’s shoulders sag.

  ‘I don’t know how you could be so ungrateful,’ he said, his voice sombre. I clucked my tongue and rolled up beside him to get a better look at it.

  ‘It’s just embarrassing,’ I said, softening my voice a little. ‘At least without it nobody would know there was a problem. I could hardly bring a friend ‘round here with that thing in the way for everyone to see.’

  I felt dad’s eyes on me. ‘What, you don’t think the wheelchair gives away the fact you have a problem?’

  I batted him in the waist with my fist. A smile sprang up on his face as he dodged a second blow, and all at once he grabbed my hand and gave it a firm squeeze. I pulled myself free finger by finger from his tight grip, but I could tell his fleeting sadness had passed. It never took him long.

  ‘The move has made it worse, but you watch. I’ll probably only need my stick most of the time I’m here,’ I said, rocking back and forth in my chair.

  It had been years, and yet I still couldn’t stand being confined to this thing, especially when the scene of my accident was just down the hill from our house, right there in the sea. I tried not to let it mock me, though I could hear the waves clearly with the front door still open. That same place in the sea was also Peter’s death site, and that gave me some comfort. He was near.

  I felt him on every crash of the water against the sea wall, every long suck of the wind over the roof, like a big deep breath. I hadn’t heard those sounds in three years, but it was good to be back. Good to be back near Peter.<
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  ‘I doubt that, flower,’ said Dad, pocketing his hands. ‘Not with all those hills. You’ll want to save your strength. Anyway, with me gone during the day I’d rather not take risks. You’ll use your chair and you’ll use this brilliant piece of equipment I’ve bought you.’ He smiled, slapping the ugly seat of the stair lift.

  I wrinkled my nose. ‘Where did you get it anyway? I never saw it in the moving truck.’

  Dad winked and folded his arms, clearly dead chuffed with himself. ‘After I got you settled into that little café so me and the moving blokes could get started, I spotted it outside a charity shop. I thought, that’s what my little girl needs. How much do you reckon I got for it, eh? Go on, guess.’ He bit his lip, stifling a smile. He loved his stupid games.

  ‘A fiver would be a rip off,’ I said, hoping to wipe the silly look off his face. It didn’t work. He shook his head, his thin grey ponytail swaying as he did it.

  ‘Fifteen quid I bought that for. Fifteen.’ He nodded eagerly, looking between me and the stair lift. ‘You should see how much they go for brand new. The bloke in the shop even helped us set it up. Took a bit of sweat and an hour or so, but what with it coming from one of the other cottages it fit just fine.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ I said, glancing at my watch. It was half past six, nowhere near dark, and yet I was exhausted already. Sitting down all day, staring out the café window at those rolling waves and the merging dark clouds had just about sucked the life out of me. I ran a finger underneath each eye, picking up flecks of dead mascara.

  ‘You look tired, petal,’ said dad. ‘Shall we get your bed all made up? I’ve got your nice new duvet upstairs, still in its plastic. You could have a nap while I get the kitchen stuff unboxed. We’ll never eat without all that sorted will we, eh?’ he prodded my arm with his finger, bending over to get level with me.

  I couldn’t stand the way he did that, treating me like I was still ten years old. Most girls found it sweet when their dad’s spoiled them, but I didn’t. It was bad enough that people made me feel like a useless cripple — even though I could walk — without him making me feel like a child. His child.

  ‘I could help with all that.’ I insisted. ‘I’ll just go to bed early.’

  ‘Oh come on love, I want to see you try that new stair lift. Don’t look like that, please. I thought you’d be over the moon.’

  ‘You don’t bloody understand, do you? Oh for god’s sake. Help me into it then.’ I rolled my eyes while his face lit up, and he set to steering me as close to the lift as he could get me.

  ‘Right, you put your hand there for leverage, and I’ll hold you by this arm, then if you haul yourself up by using your good leg on that step, that’s it, that’s it, now pull your bad leg up gently, gently, that’s it, you’ve got it!’

  I breathed through my nose, biting my tongue, and snatched my arm away from dad when I was firmly in the seat. The transfer wasn’t difficult, though I could imagine it would be for someone who had two dead legs. It wasn’t so bad. ‘Cheers dad,’ I said flatly.

  ‘You’ll be able to do that by yourself no problem,’ he said, patting me on the head. ‘Now what you do is you press that green button on the panel beside you, and away you should go. Try it.'

  I stabbed the button with my finger and, slowly, the chair began to move. Very slowly. Dad’s face beamed up at me while the motor whirred and cranked me up, making me flush red from the neck up. If you could see me now, Peter. You’d laugh your head off.

  ‘There you are! Look at you go! It’s like one of those little fairground rides I used to take you on isn’t it, do you remember? Look at that. Haven’t I done well eh? Fifteen quid.’

  ‘Close the front door or else people might see.’ I snapped as the chair halted on the landing. I noticed my stick propped against the banister, all ready and waiting for me. I heard the door slam shut and dad’s boots on the floorboards as he paced back, nodding with enthusiasm while I eyed up the stick.

  ‘Well go on then, get yourself up. Unless your leg isn’t up to it? I’ll bring the chair.’ He immediately began folding up my wheelchair to bring upstairs, but I rolled my eyes and held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘I’ll collapse on the bed if it’s too much,’ I said, my voice hard. ‘You have no idea how pathetic I feel right now.’ I grabbed my stick and leaned against it, using it as a surrogate leg while I swung my good leg out and supported myself enough to get up.

  That hadn’t been so bad, either. I could get the hang of this, I thought.

  I smiled a little for the first time all day. ‘I think the swelling’s gone down a bit,’ I said as dad followed me up the stairs. ‘I reckon I’ll be all right.’

  He hovered behind me all the way to my bedroom, the front room of the cottage with the dusty bay window seat. Three years had passed since I was last in this room, and yet every crack in the ceiling was as familiar to me as the tread of tyres were to my palms.

  There was the art deco dressing table with its massive mirror, which I’d always adored, and there was the double bed with its iron bed post, and the ugly brown carpet left from the seventies. I had to weave through my boxes to get to the window, but I shuffled and hobbled my way there, before sitting myself down in the spot I’d missed most since leaving: the window seat.

  I could see the fishing boats bobbing below our big hill, the murky water swaying them back and forth. I could even smell the brine of the sea, as if it was soaked into the wooden frame of the window. That combined with the mesmerising motion of the boats sent me yawning.

  Dad came in and began unpacking my bed set.

  I couldn’t watch him do it. There was something too personal about him putting his hands all over my new sheets. He was marking them, spoiling them; giving them his scent before I could give them mine. Now, even when the bed was empty, they would always smell like him.

  I watched the people on the harbour below, ducking under their umbrellas as the shower turned to solid rain. I could see the fisherman on the other side of the quay hurriedly packing up their boxes and reeling in their rods, desperate to get away.

  Before long I heard dad’s hand slapping the last cushion in its purple satin case. ‘Ready for a nap then, flower?’ he asked, his voice shattering my peaceful watch of the goings on below.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, without taking my eyes off the quay. I couldn’t wait to get down there tomorrow while dad was at work and I was finally all alone. All alone at the place where Peter died. It was enough to make my hands shake.

  ‘Now go away, and close the door behind you.’

  Chapter Two

  The next morning, I woke shaking. The sun was so low and bright that it flooded my room in gold, sending a liquid sheen over the dresser, the floor and bed. None of it helped, or uplifted me. None of it assured me that I was out of the dark. I was still quivering, gulping; waking up from the worst nightmare I’d had in years.

  I was sailing in a boat with Peter, with my leg all healed and his heart still beating. We’d let our little rowing boat drift out farther than we’d ever dared before, and the Mevagissey quay was a glowing half–circle in the distance. His blue–green eyes appeared almost black, as dark as the inky water surrounding us. He was shrouded in darkness, his back against the moon, with his springy hair fanned out around his head.

  My heart was fluttering, no, pounding, to see Peter alive. Yet I couldn’t move, not one finger or toe, even though I wasn’t crippled. I was perfect. He was perfect. I opened my mouth and began speaking, but nothing came out. The darkness muffled the words. The boat continued to sway, the sounds of the water lapping its sides the only sounds to be heard at all, and all the while Peter’s stony eyes remained unblinking upon me.

  Without warning, the boat began to tip. Peter remained stiff as a stuffed doll, and so did I for all the muted screaming that came from my mouth. The boat tipped and tipped, and the water flooded in like molten tar, and I could do nothing as our heads were plunged into the sea. It was so cold it swa
llowed my mind whole and sent my eardrums roaring, bursting, doing all the screaming I couldn’t do.

  I was tugged down into the depths, every inch of me hard as stone, while Peter’s silhouette circled above me, getting smaller, like a bat flitting across the moon.

  It had seemed to take hours and hours to wake up again, as if I’d been sinking in the darkness of the ocean, stuck in a timeless limbo, long after the event. I looked at the watch on my nightstand and saw it was only seven in the morning. I must have been drowning in that ocean all night.

  I’d never understood the point of dreams. I’d read somewhere that dreams were our subconscious, alerting us to our inner most feelings. What did mine mean? That I felt like I was drowning? That I felt I couldn’t speak?

  I relaxed against my pillow and thought about it. I considered that perhaps it was more about the fact that I couldn’t reach Peter ever again, no matter how hard I screamed.

  Dad rapped on my door and made me jump so hard that a splitting pain went through my knee, making me double up, my face creasing in agony. He must have heard me yelping, because he came rushing in without my permission.

  ‘Did you get up too fast, love? Ellen?’ His thin grey hair was fanned out behind his shoulders and he was still wearing his tattered pyjama bottoms, no shirt. His wiry body caved in at the chest, where a floss of grey hair filled it up.

  I bared my teeth and waited for the pain to subside into a dull throb. When my mind cleared Dad was hanging over me, leaning all over the bed, his fingertips clawing the mattress.

  ‘For God’s sake I’m fine.’ I shoved him by the shoulder to get him off my bed, off my things. ‘Give me room.’

  ‘Sorry El’. I didn’t want to leave you in pain.’ He stepped back and hovered by the window, the sun glowing against his sagging shoulders.

  I massaged my bare leg, sensing his eyes on me. I plucked the sheet up and covered myself, mindful of him watching. ‘It happens all the time,’ I said. ‘I’m fine now. Go downstairs.’

  ‘I’m all right just standing here aren’t I?’