Harriet Evans - The Love of Her Life

‘Dan, darling? Kate’s here, and I’ll be back soon.’

Kate stood in the centre of the huge space and stared at the figure at the other end of the room.

‘Kate?’ came a low, raspy voice, from the sofa underneath the window, and Kate walked towards her father.

‘Hello, darling girl,’ he said, reaching up. Kate leaned over him and he put his hand around Kate’s neck, pulling her down to him as he lay on the sofa. ‘How’s my Katya? Look at your old dad, eh? Bit of a shambles, I’m afraid.’

Kate hugged her dad, kissed him awkwardly, still holding the flowers. She stuck her lower lip out, unintentionally mimicking her thoughts. She was totally, utterly knocked sideways by what she saw. His face was yellow, his hair colourless, the creases in his cheeks looked like folds, and now his hands were lifeless, crossed pathetically on his stomach, like an old lady waiting for a bus. Those hands, which once coaxed sounds of pure heaven from a three hundred-year-old wooden box, the hands that were insured for a million dollars when Kate was ten – they looked flat, deflated, like the rest of him. Where once his hair had been dark browny blond like his daughter’s, slippery and uncontrollable, his grey eyes snapping fire as he waved a fork at a friend, violently disagreeing about something, where once his tanned, healthy face smiled excitedly down at an adoring crowd, now did he smile gently at his daughter and pat the sofa.

‘Come and sit here, old lady, come and tell me how you are.’

‘God, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry…’

She trailed off, and bit her lip. A tear rolled down her cheek. Daniel looked at her.

‘Oh darling,’ he said. ‘Come on,’ and he pulled her arm so she sat down next to him. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it? But I’m having a bad day today, leaving hospital and all. I’ve been much better than this. You haven’t seen me for a while Kate, that’s all. Never mind, it’s over now isn’t it? I just have to concentrate on getting better.’

‘I didn’t realize,’ said Kate. She felt almost dizzy with sensation overpowering her. How could this have happened, how could she have known this was happening to her dad and not come sooner? Forget her mercurial, vague mother; he was, without doubt, the person she loved most in the world. How could she have shut herself off so completely? She stared at him frantically, and he looked at her.

As if reading her thoughts, her father said,

‘Lisa’s been amazing, you know. I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t –’

‘I know, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.’

‘She has been brilliant,’ her father persisted. He lay back on the sofa again. ‘And Dani – gosh, she’s quite different from you at that age. Very noisy!’

‘I bet,’ said Kate, smiling at him, holding his hands.

‘But it’s nice to have a young person around the house again. A little Katya.’ He blinked. ‘Ah, here she is!’

Danielle rushed into the room, in her pyjamas. ‘Daddeeee!’ she cried. ‘I’m here!’

Her pyjamas were pink; she had a glossy, huge teddy under her arm and slippers in the shape of bunny rabbits, and she looked very small and totally innocent, her chubby legs thumping across the carpet.

Kate bit her finger sharply, the pain flooding through her, calming her down, and she looked away from her father to her half-sister.

‘I like your pyjamas, Dani,’ she said. ‘Pink pyjamas, like the song.’

‘What song?’ said Dani, in an American accent.

‘“She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”,’ said Kate. ‘Do you know it?’

‘No,’ said Dani. ‘You’re lying, man.’

‘I’m not lying,’ said Kate. She sang.

‘ She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes ,

She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes ,

Wearing pink pyjamas ,

Wearing pink pyjamas ,

Wearing pink pyjamas when she comes .’

‘ Singing aye-aye ippy-ippy aye ,’ Daniel boomed loudly, suddenly, from the sofa, and Kate jumped, and Dani laughed. ‘ Singing aye-aye ippy-ippy aye ,’ they sang together.

‘ Aye-aye ippy

Aye-aye ippy ,

Aye-aye ippy-ippy aye .’

Dani laughed again. ‘I like it,’ she said, jumping onto the sofa. She wiggled in between Kate and her father, her warm, hot little body writhing with excitement. Kate put her arm around her and hugged her, inhaling the scent of her damp hair. She looked over at her dad, watched him smiling down at his small daughter, then up at her, and she squeezed Dani a little tighter.

‘Sing it again,’ Dani said.

‘I’m tired now, darling,’ said Daniel. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Daniel,’ came a clear voice from the door. ‘Is Dani giving you trouble? Is she being a bad girl?’

‘I’m not, Mom!’ Dani screeched in a slow, high voice. ‘Kate wouldn’t sing me another song and she promised!’

‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to,’ said Lisa.

‘I didn’t,’ said Kate, sounding totally unconvincing. Lisa walked into the centre of the room, and Dani ran towards her and clutched her leg, with the desperation of a man finding the last lifebelt on the Titanic . Lisa looked down at her daughter.

‘Ah, mum’s darling girl,’ she said. ‘Is she tired tonight?’

‘Yes,’ said Dani, sucking her thumb so loudly it echoed, the sound bouncing off the fake dove-grey antique French armoire all the way across the room. ‘Rilly, rilly tired. Night Dad.’

‘Say goodnight to Kate, darling,’ Daniel said, shifting on the sofa. ‘She’s come to see you too, you know.’

‘She should have come earlier,’ Dani said. ‘Mum told me.’

Silence, like a blanket, flung itself over the room, broken only by the noise of Dani sucking her thumb again.

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lisa, looking flustered for the first time in her life. She ran a hand over her forehead, the other resting on her daughter’s head. Kate thought how tired she looked, for a second.

‘Sshh, darling,’ said Lisa, looking at Daniel, who ignored his youngest daughter.

‘Lisa.’ Her husband’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘Why don’t you put Dani to bed, and Kate and I can catch up.’

‘See you in a minute, Kate,’ said Lisa, ushering Dani out of the room.

‘Bysie bye, pink pyjamas,’ cried Dani as she skipped out of the room, utterly unconcerned with the familial havoc she, the only person in the room related to everyone present, had wrought.

‘She didn’t mean it,’ Kate’s father said. ‘She’s got a lot on her plate at the moment.’

‘Dani?’ Kate said, smiling gently.

‘Hah,’ said Daniel. ‘Lisa. I’m not easy at the moment. She’s very … organized.’

She saw him now, in these new surroundings, and watched him as his hand scraped, pathetically, over the surface of the coffee table, as if searching for something to cling onto. The thought that this was the best thing you could find to say about your wife, for whom you had almost had to throw your daughter out, for whom you had worked yourself into the ground, moved houses, made new friends, gone on flashy, expensive holidays to ‘network’ with flashy, expensive people that you didn’t really like that much, for whom you had essentially reinvented yourself, struck Kate as singularly depressing. But she said,

‘I know. Yeah. She must be great to have around at a time like this.’

‘Oh sure,’ said her dad, and they both fell silent, the two of them sitting awkwardly in the pristine sitting room. Kate shifted on the sofa.

The letter from Charly was in her bag. She could feel it in there; humming with intent. She hadn’t opened it, she didn’t want to open it, knew she couldn’t. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thrown it away. But she hadn’t. Now, silent next to her father, she slid her hand into her bag again, to touch it for the umpteenth time since she had left the house.