Honest Page 12

  I gave dad a long look. His eyes flitted away from me as he paced. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, crouching down to my level. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just trying to think, all right flower? Let me think.’

  I sat and watched him pacing back and forth, his hand covering his mouth, a bead of sweat meandering down one side of his face. There was more to this, I knew it.

  ‘Why would he come here, dad? For me? Why would he be so stupid as to come for me when he’s just served nearly three years?’

  Dad scraped his fingers over his scalp. ‘Not for you,’ he said, shutting his eyes tight. ‘He knows it’s me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He knows it’s me.’

  ‘How does he know it’s you?’ I asked, panicking. ‘He doesn’t have any reason—’

  Dad pulled his hands away from his face and sprang at me, gripping the arms of my chair. ‘Grow up, Ellen! Don’t be so stupid. Dennis isn’t a fool. Why else would I have stood up in court and defended my daughter against my best friend, eh? Why would I do that if I was innocent?’

  ‘Because that’s what dads do,’ I said, staring him out. He pressed his face closer to mine, his watery iris’ like the pale eyes of a dead fish.

  ‘Dads don’t let their mates go to prison when they know better, daughter or not.’ He pulled away and sat down on the stairs, massaging his temple. When he piped up again, his voice was calmer, though shaking.

  ‘Dennis used to have a bit of a speech impediment. When they asked me to come to court and answer questions about him, he was a stuttering moron — could hardly string a few words together properly.’

  ‘I never heard him with a speech impediment,’ I said. ‘He always sounded fine. Loud, even.’

  Dad nodded. ‘Yes, but that’s because he was relaxed. He worked off his speech impediment by singing backing vocals in that band of his, do you understand? He controlled it. In court he couldn’t control it. He was scared and upset.’

  ‘Don’t, dad,’ I said. I felt so sorry, thinking of him stuttering in court, and all because of me.

  ‘You don’t get it,’ he said. ‘In court they asked me stuff. They wanted to know if I’d ever known of his speech problems. They must have thought he was putting it on, because nobody else apart from Diane said they knew about it. I did, though, didn’t I? I’d always known about it. But they needed to make sure he wasn’t trying to look vulnerable, do you understand?’

  ‘And you lied about it,’ I said. Dad nodded, his face creasing up with guilt.

  ‘Course I did. I lied and it made me sick to my stomach, but I stood there and I said no, your honour, I’ve never known him to have problems with his speech. And right there in that bloody court Dennis went nuts, shouting at me, asking why I was doing this to him. When he got too violent they dragged him out of the court room. He wasn’t helping himself, of course, but that was Dennis — he wore his heart on his sleeve. I saw his eyes, Ellen, like he had just realised everything while they were dragging him through that door. He’d worked me out.’ Dad took a long, deep breath and whined as he let the air out, like a sad old dog.

  ‘He didn’t shout anything about me? Call me names?’ my stomach tied itself in a knot, squeezing tighter.

  ‘No,’ said dad. ‘Even then he didn’t blame you. He probably thought you were just looking for attention, but when they brought up the evidence and then that incident happened with me in the court, it must have all fallen into place. He knew it was me you were protecting.’

  ‘I wasn’t protecting you,’ I snapped. ‘I did it for Peter.’

  Dad laughed, but it was hollow and lifeless, an act. ‘Then why did you blame that poor bastard, eh? Why did you blame him if you weren’t protecting me? How did you think Peter was going to take it?’

  ‘It just came out all wrong. And you just shut up about Peter. He never had to know. I thought we’d both escape all of this.’ I wiped my eyes, tearing up. Dad didn’t understand about what really happened that night.

  In court, I told them that Peter had gotten angry about his dad interfering with me, and that it was him who sped the boat up. I told the court that Peter had walked in on me and Dennis. I could still see Diane’s face as she leapt up from her row and screamed out that I was a liar, and that Peter was in that room with me while Dennis had been downstairs all along, enjoying his party.

  ‘She’s lying!’ she’d cried, pointing one of her long fingers at me. ‘You lying little cow!’

  It was no use. I almost felt sorry for her, standing there screaming and crying with her plain face and hair tied back, her cheap brown suit and the bags beneath her eyes. But the jury only saw me, a girl under sixteen, dead boyfriend, wheelchair bound, crying into her hands. It wasn’t until I saw the artist’s impression of that very moment in the paper that I realised I was going to win the case.

  If only the artist had known the truth then he would’ve had a better picture, and so would the rest of the world. It wouldn’t have been so dramatic, but it would have been honest. The truth was I wanted to take it all back, take back everything I’d said, but it was too late. Peter was dead and Dennis was taking the wrap for my dad’s crimes.

  And now I was still stuck with dad, more alone than ever.

  ‘I never learn what really happened when it comes to you,’ dad said. ‘You never tell the whole truth. I still don’t understand why you did it, why, when we were so happy.’

  ‘I have never been happy,’ I said. ‘And I told you, I had to go to the police station because Peter knew everything.’

  ‘You told him.’ Dad stiffened his lip, not meeting my eyes. ‘And then he tried to kill you both in that boat.’

  ‘Oh just shut up!’ I wheeled myself into the kitchen and laid my head down on the table. I could hear dad’s pathetic cries coming from the hallway. ‘Just shut up,’ I muttered, too low for him to hear me. I laid there listening to him crying for what seemed like forever before he finally came into the room.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ he said, folding his arms.

  I sat up, heavy—headed. ‘Decided what?’ I said.

  ‘I’ve decided that a man has to protect his daughter, and I need to set an example. If he does come here, and he might not, but if he does—’

  ‘You’ll fight him off?’

  Dad’s mouth twitched. ‘No. No, I’ll just call the police.’

  I nodded. ‘Right, right. Because you aren’t man enough.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said dad. ‘You’re being spiteful.’

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’ I said. It had taken me years to figure this out, and if any bit of goodness had come from what happened three years ago, it was that I’d found out that my dad was a fraud. All my life, since mum left, I’d thought he was in control. He wasn’t. I’d read about men like him in Cosmo and Marie Claire and I’d seen interviews with girls like me on This Morning, so I knew better. Dad was weak; one of the weakest men on the planet. He wasn’t in control, and never had been — I was.

  ‘Now look,’ he said, pointing a trembling finger at me. ‘I don’t appreciate this attitude of yours after everything I’ve done for you. Now, we’re going to stay here and show everyone that we don’t have anything to be afraid of. If he comes, the police will take him away, and then we can get on with our lives. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough for everyone, no matter what he says.’

  ‘You mean if he tells everybody about you?’

  ‘Even then. The justice system found him guilty and we’re just two people living here peacefully. That’s enough.’

  It wasn’t enough. Not for me, and not for dad, because we knew the truth. If Dennis knew, then he could do some real damage. I wouldn’t blame him for trying. Dennis had guts where dad was only skin and bones.

  That night in bed, I saw Peter’s shadow walking along the cliff top. I was so mesmerised, so happy, even, that I didn’t notice the sound of dustbins being kicked over outside. I didn’t pay attention to the smashing of a bottle, or the sound of a man hammerin
g against our kitchen window with his fist.

  It was only when I heard him kicking our front door in that I snapped out of it. The shadow vanished, and I was left poised in my bed, listening closely.

  Dennis really had come for us.

  I huddled up under my covers. Dad had woken up, and I could hear him tapping 999 into his mobile, the beeping noises clear in the silent house. The door rattled, thumped, then rattled some more.

  Then he started screaming. It was Dennis, all right. ‘Come out and face me Terry!’ he shouted, his voice thick and slurring. I could tell he’d been drinking, but I hadn’t heard his voice in so long that I wasn’t so much afraid as stunned. It was like waking up from a coma, back in my old life.

  ‘Terry, you piece of shit, you come out here or I’ll break this fucking door down!’ he shouted, banging his fist against the front window again.

  I could hear dad’s voice muttering into the receiver. I could just imagine his knees shaking, crouched down low in the dark.

  I pulled the duvet off and leaned out of bed for my stick, which was propped up against my bedside table. My fingers nearly touching it, my breaths quick, the stick fell from its place and rattled against the floor. When I reached down low for it, determined to get a look at Dennis out the window, a cold shudder rippled over my skin.

  A sickness did tumbles in my belly. I’d felt this before, recently — the time I flung myself down the stairs.

  Only it hadn’t been me. Peter did it.

  I looked around my dark bedroom, searching the walls for shadows in that familiar shape of him. I found nothing. I only felt the sickness writhing around inside me, like a worm, while my skin got colder and colder.

  ‘Peter?’ I whispered, almost whimpering the name. My bad leg stiffened, then my right, and soon my arms stiffened too. Pins and needles rose on my skin, my hairs standing up, my toes and fingertips numb.

  My right hand closed up into a fist, then flexed, against my will. I gritted my teeth and tried to prize the fingers open, willing them with my mind, but they refused. They weren’t mine anymore. I panted, afraid, as my legs swung themselves off the bed and I was propped up, as if by invisible hands, shivering in my nightie.

  I made a sound like crying, but the sound soon faded. I felt trapped inside my own body, possessed by some Other. My mouth tightened up and I lurched stiffly towards the bay window. My hands slammed against the glass when I hit it, my body flexing and convulsing while in my mind, trapped, I screamed and screamed.

  I could see Dennis below, shouting through the letterbox. He was still large like I remembered, but his hair had turned grey and was buzzed close to his scalp, shaven at the sides. I was shut in, watching him like a fish inside a bowl. Then, creeping up beside me, was my own hand reaching for the latch. I groaned and whimpered but it was no use; my mouth closed up, zipped tight.

  When I unhooked the latch and pushed the window open with my white, stiff fingers, I felt my good leg rising up. The night air rushed over me, warm compared to the chill in my bones, the wind teasing up wispy lengths of my hair. My knee pressed down on the window seat as my hand gripped the windowsill, then my other joined it, and while I cried inside my body continued with determination.

  Dennis looked up and saw me, a pained look spreading upon his face.

  ‘You!’ he said.

  I was in a fog now, completely numb. Accept it, I thought — you are going to die. I deserved it. I didn’t know what was happening to my body, but did it matter? Perhaps I really was sleepwalking after all. Perhaps this was all a horrible dream.

  I could almost feel the wind sailing over my body as I was plunged down into the street below, eager for it even, when two startling hot hands grabbed me around the waist. I twisted in his grip, screaming, when the coldness left me suddenly, and I went limp, a cool sweat bathing my skin. The mist cleared from my mind.

  As dad laid me down on the bed and closed the window with haste, I heard Dennis’s shouts getting louder and more furious down below. I stared over dad’s bony shoulder at the cliff top beyond the harbour. Peter’s shadow was walking again, making his way up that long, steep hill.

  When he reached the peak, he carried on and walked right off, his body disintegrating as it fell.

  The sky flashed blue when the police came to take Dennis away. I remembered Peter on the harbour wall three years ago, watching out for those blue lights, waiting for me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dad decided we had to go away somewhere else for the weekend, seeing as Dennis was around, and because I was ‘set on killing myself’. It was no use convincing him that I’d been possessed by the ghost of Peter, and that he was intent on killing me.

  We drove to another cottage closer to Devon, an old building near the moors. Inside it had been refurbished and modernised, much better than our place in Mevagissey. I asked Dad why we hadn’t just gone home if he wanted to escape so much.

  ‘We aren’t escaping,’ he said, getting our bags from the car boot. He fumbled with the keys we’d picked up from the estate agents. ‘Two hundred quid this is costing me! Two hundred quid, and you think it’s to escape, do you? Believe me, if we could afford to go home, we would.’

  Dad was a school caretaker back in London, but his salary was halved over the summer because he didn’t have the same rights as most of the other staff. He’d always threatened to get the union involved, but dad being dad, he’d just shut up and put up with it.

  Now that the recession was on, we couldn’t afford to stay away from Mevagissey forever. Even after what’d happened, I could hardly say I regretted it. I liked being near Peter, even if he was cruel to me now.

  ‘Then what’s the point?’ I said, helping myself over the doorstep with my stick. Being away from the house, things felt different, lighter somehow, like the hold it had over us had lifted. Well, over me, at least. I didn’t like this new feeling. It felt empty. ‘What do you think two days here will achieve?’

  ‘I want you to rest and stop thinking about the past. Dennis shouldn’t be bothering us again, and as for that David and his girlfriend upsetting you, you can spend the time thinking about making some new friends.’ Dad left his bag by the stairs and took mine into the living room.

  I followed him in. ‘Where are you going with that?’

  ‘You’ll sleep down here on the sofa,’ he said. ‘I’ll make it up like a proper bed, don’t worry, flower. Remember, we haven’t got your nifty stair lift here.’

  ‘Thank god,’ I said. I watched dad pull the linen out of a separate bag and begin fitting the sheet over the sofa cushions. I turned and observed the arch doorway, no actual door attached but a through—way into the hall. Would dad be tapping on the wall, or would he just walk right in at night?

  That depended on what he considered relaxing, I realised; depended on what this weekend recuperation involved. I could only hope that a certain part of his routine would be broken, but I doubted it.

  ‘What do you intend for us to do here? There’s even less around than there is in Mevagissey.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said dad, plumping up a pillow. ‘There’s a little town within walking distance. It’s got a few shops, a tea room—’

  ‘Bloody hell. You know, if I didn’t love being here so much, I’d wonder why the hell we’d leave London for this.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Dad, looking up at me. ‘Love coming to Cornwall?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I used to. That means something.’

  ‘You mean because of him,’ he said. He gave me a long look, and then carried on with the sofa.

  ‘So what am I supposed to be doing to occupy myself?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘Anything you like. You could go shopping, if you like, or get your hair done? You could get some of those magazines you like.’

  I looked dad up and down. ‘All of it,’ I said.

  ‘Eh? All of it? Well Christ, that’s a bit expensive love,’ he said, laughing. His eyes were glassy and blue as ever, and deep i
nside I could see his brain ticking over. The tension between us was ever present now that Dennis had brought it all flooding back. I realised deep down, Dad knew we weren’t a team anymore. It was just a question of keeping me happy.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Fine, fine. No, you’re right, you deserve to make yourself feel pretty.’ He fished his debit card out of his pocket. We didn’t use credit cards — couldn’t afford them. Every scrap of money we had was in dad’s debit card. I already knew the PIN.

  ‘I’ll nip you down there in the car,’ said Dad, taking the keys from his pocket. I shook my head.

  ‘No, don’t bother. You said it wasn’t far. I fancy the exercise.’

  Dad looked all but heartbroken, but he put his keys away. ‘My girl’s growing up,’ he said, pressing his lips firmly together. He got back to arranging the sofa, but I could see his mind was on me.

  I went in my wheelchair just because it was fastest. It was a cool, breezy sort of day, but the sunshine lit up the countryside and made it resemble something off the back of a cornflakes box. When I thought of the cottage, I thought of the gloom and the damp; the rattling front door and the bath tub I couldn’t get clean in.

  Here we had a power–shower and a new tub, but I knew just from sticking my head round the door that I didn’t like it. It wasn’t the same.

  I liked the darkness, the dusty bay window, the view over the grey, muddy harbour and the towering cliffs beyond. How could I think of all that and dislike it, really, when in every nook and cranny I felt Peter’s eyes peering out, watching me?

  Dad wouldn’t understand it in that sense, but I knew he liked the cottage too. Why else pick the same house after the trial? Why pick the same town, even, when there were plenty of neighbouring seaside towns?

  It was because none of the past really mattered. That was our cottage, and it was our town, full–stop.

  The sooner David and Lauren realised that, the easier it’d be for both of them. I wasn’t leaving. In fact, I wondered: why leave after summer at all? Dad could find permanent work, and I could stay and potter around the cottage, keep an eye on David, and, yes...stay close to Peter, whatever Peter was now. A ghost. A poltergeist.