“And your mother?”
“Ah, ya know, Mam’s Mam.”
I don’t mean to sound dismissive. Callista’s rushed across London to be with me. It’s the least I can do to be nice. She’s one of the few people who know us. The real us. The real Glyn. The real Maureen. The real me.
“She looked tired. She’s lost a lot of weight since I was home last.”
It had been the same old story at Christmas. We’d spent most of the time skirting around the elephant in the room. The elephant sitting next door drinking in front of the TV, to be exact. Dad.
On Christmas Eve, after he’d left for The Cross Keys, I sat in the kitchen with her, trying to persuade her to leave him. To come live with me, or even Callista, here in London.
But, Mam had just smiled and carried on obsessively with her knitting. She makes hats and cardigans for premature babies, and still visits the hospital to catch up with her old workmates.
Callista goes over to the kitchen area in search of coffee. She's sussed that I’ve been drinking.
“How’s the married man?”
“I ended it today.”
I shrug.
“Probably cost me my job.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s a long story.”
She frowns.
“Well, whatever happens, I’m glad you finally came to your senses. He sounded like a self-absorbed prat to me. You deserve so much better, sweetie.”
She knows everything about me. Too much, really. But she always has. It was Callista who picked up the pieces after Jac, her son, left. In many ways, and not just geographically, she’s been closer to me than my mother’s ever been.
“So what you gonna do?”
“Call Mam first thing. Get the train home.”
She senses me tensing.
“And how do you feel, about seeing Jac again?”
“Cal!”
Callista is usually careful never to mention her son, unless I ask first.
“Annie, you need to face it. You’ve been ignoring the fact that Jac is back at the farm. He’s gonna be there. On the yard. You’ll probably see him tomorrow.”
I chew it over. This ridiculous block that I’ve built up in my mind about him.
“Hmm.”
“And, you’ll probably need a lift from the station, now your Dad’s…”
She didn’t finish.
I sob and look away.
“Sorry.”
“Annie; don’t fight it. You must grieve. And it’s perfectly natural to feel mixed emotions, after what he’s done to you and your mother.”
“It’s hard. Is it wrong to love him, in spite of everything? And to feel relieved too… that he’s gone?”
“No honey, it’s not. Whatever you do, don’t feel guilty about the things he did to you.”
But I do. And while I’ve been away in New York and London, I’ve left Mam to deal with him all on her own.
“Cal… Seeing Jac again, terrifies me.”
Callista takes our coffees and places them on the side table. With her arm around me again, she hushes me, like I’m a small child.
“It’s been twelve years. You’ve both changed so much. Give him a chance to be your friend again.”
I calm down and we sit for a while in silence, drinking our coffee.
“Annie, he’d joined up. He had to go.”
“He should have told me he was going. Not slip away like he did, in the middle of the night.”
“Darling, you have to let it go. Jac needed to get out, see the world as much as you did.”
“It still hurts. The way it happened. The way he did it.”
“The way you let him go too, you mean?”
Exactly. Trust Callista to see right through me.
“You’re scared… in case he’s still angry with you?”
She hugs me tight.
“You both need to talk about it.”
I’ve never opened any of his letters.
For over two long years, he’d written them regularly from the army base. And they sit in their sealed envelopes. Mam's piled them in a neat stack on the antique dresser. He must have seen them when he’s been in the kitchen.
Callista changes the subject, trying to cheer me up by telling me all the latest about her charity supporting vulnerable women in North London, where she lives now.
I’m a little embarrassed because it’s been so long since I was over there, helping her fundraise. The stories of some of the women are so inspirational. Especially the ones who’ve been brave enough to leave abusive relationships.
I’ve run away too, but there’s only been cowardice on my part. I’ve been too chickenshit to go back and help Mam.
Callista mentions Sam, her new partner. Jac met her at Christmas. He was in London when I was in Wales. We must have passed each other on the train.
“Does Jac ever ask about me?”
Callista gazes at me wisely.
“He’s as stubborn as you are, darling. And just as curious. Though, like you, he’d never admit it.”
CHAPTER 5
---------?---------
My grief is messy, but Callista has helped me to realise that it was bound to be like this.
We stayed up talking through the night and I cried some more. Much more.
And by the morning, I’m a little wrung out and strung out, but it has definitely helped me to sort my tangle of emotions about Dad.
My father, the vulnerable man battling with alcoholism and his mental health, and Daddy the monster with the belt strap. I can’t help but love him and hate him at the same time. But above all, I feel immense pity for him. How depressed and isolated must he have been.
He had manic times. The sleepless nights and the crazy projects. Like, the three days and nights he spent knocking stuff together in the far shed, making a commercial chicken unit. Of course, he finally crashed. The shed was never finished, and chicken farming was never mentioned again.
But, the depression was far worse. Then, he’d be hitting the bottle hard at home, and that was when the belt came out. He’d flare up at the slightest thing.
Callista used to call him a functioning alcoholic. He never had hangovers and was still doing farm jobs and getting about, if he wasn’t at his blackest. The farm gradually deteriorated as Dad got worse. The stock numbers declined every year. The fencing needed patching up, and the fields became poached and weedy.
I speak briefly with Mam on my way to the train station. I can tell she’s teary as she tells me the news, and she's pleased I'm coming home.
I hate to admit it, but I can’t deny it either. Part of me is glad that Glyn has passed. The other part of me grieves for the man I worked with every day on the farm. Lambing, driving the tractor, feeding the sheep.
Then, as if I wasn’t already feeling enough emotional turmoil, Callista casually drops the bombshell that Jac is picking me up from the station. Telling me it’s cold turkey. We have to meet, and it may as well be like this, so I’ll just have to suck it up.
Brutal but true.
I can’t go on hiding from him forever, I suppose. Still, it doesn’t stop my stomach from clenching as I stare out of the train window, getting ever closer to the end of the line.
Exhausted from lack of sleep, I’ve bunched my jacket into a pillow. But every time I close my eyes, Jac’s there, floating through my thoughts.
Us, messing around together on the farm. Swimming in the river. Hanging out on our last day together. Before he deserted me.
I remember climbing up to the craggy outcrop. The highest point on our farm. Through the bracken, up onto the mountain tops. From there, you can see for miles. It was always our favourite place to go, and I’d spotted him sitting up there, on our ledge, as I’d driven around the fields.
There was something different about him. And as I got closer, I could see wha
t it was; he’d shaved his head.
Of course, that was a sign, I totally missed.
I sat down beside him and studied the pencil sketch he was busy drawing. A lapwing. My favourite bird. They were nesting in the heathers and tufts of grass below the rocks.
He bit his lip as his pencil lightly brushed the paper, carefully shading in the feathers of the wing.
“Hey!... D’you like it?”
I rubbed his head playfully with my hand, feeling its prickliness. It made him look tougher.
“What? The drawing? Or this?”
He carried on etching with focussed intent.
“What happened to the hippy drifter look?”
Callista and her son Jac had rocked up at our hill farm five years before, looking to rent somewhere remote and rural. Off the grid.
“Does Ellie like it?”
“Dunno. Split up with her last month.”
He shot me a look, a grin I can still remember. It made me squirm. The secret crush I had for him had been killing me.
I recovered myself.
“And, you never told me? Thought I was your mate?”
His head bent over again, his eyes focussed hard on the sketch.
“So… How’s it going with Lizard Man?”
It’s what I’d been calling Alun, the next-door neighbour’s son I’d been dating more off than on since Christmas.
“Trying to avoid him.”
Alun’s hands were always cold and clammy, and his overly eager tongue made me feel like I was kissing something vaguely reptilian.
Jac carried on making light strokes, creating depth to the plumage.
“You’re bonkers not going to Art School. You could still apply.”
High school had been over for a couple of weeks. Our final exam papers had been sent off; our fate was being decided with a red pen.
“Your A in Art’s already in the bag.”
“What you been up to?”
“Dad’s got me on maggot watch.”
“Found any?”
“Yeah, I’ve treated three lambs.”
I eased myself up off the rocky ledge onto my feet.
“Wanna come for a ride?”
Nodding, Jac packed his sketchpad and pencils in his bag; but stayed sat where he was, gazing out at the mountains around us.
Reaching up, he suddenly grabbed my hand, pulling me back down to sit with him. Making me giggle.