The Unexpected Gift of Joseph Bridgeman (The Downstream Diaries Book 1) Page 22

  ‘Oh, okay I guess,’ and then, without thinking, I add, ‘my Mum and I get along fine.’

  Chad glances at me, ‘And your Dad?’

  ‘We were never close.’ I look out of the window at the patchwork of fields. ‘He was at work too much for that, but when we did spend time together it was okay, he was always…’ I pause, searching for right word, one that will be fair to a dad who was never cruel, never hurt me, one who just worked all the time to support his family. ‘He was always solid,’ I say eventually, ‘he and I have some work to do though.’

  Chad laughs, a great puff of blue smoke pouring out between thick layers of blonde hair. ‘Me and my old man haven’t spoken in years. It’s part of life, you know? Separation, I mean. I reckon he and I will hook up together again one day. When he’s chilled out and old and I’ve grown tired of having fun.’ He flicks his cigarette without care and nods his head enthusiastically to the music, which has just reached a crescendo.

  Chad has probably nailed it. Since losing Amy, Dad and I have been drifting. We’ve talked on the phone, but only pleasantries, nothing of any substance. I want to see if I can change that, make more effort, break through his barriers. We all lost Amy, we all hurt. I know Dad is bottling that up.

  After more smoking and singing, Chad and I arrive in Cheltenham, not far from my parents’ house. I want to walk a little of the way, take in the place, reset my bearings and adjust to the calmness of home. ‘Thanks for the lift mate,’ I give Chad some cash.

  He nods, takes the money and taps it into his shirt pocket. ‘Take it easy man, see you after the summer for some more major shit.’ And with that, in a cloud of weed-laced smoke, he’s gone, engine complaining with a pop as he pulls away.

  I look down at the long street of tree-lined houses and begin walking. It’s really warm now and my own long hair is in need of a good wash. In fact, a soak in the bath, some home cooking and clean laundry sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

  The last time I spoke to Mum she said Dad was worried about losing control of the business, that he had been at home more lately. This was unlike him. Sugar was his life and Bridgeman Imports had always been where his heart lay. Mum described things as difficult. That could mean anything though. She would probably describe being eaten alive, legs first, by a Great White shark as an inconvenience. Whatever’s going on I decide, if possible, to connect with him again and who knows, maybe even lift his spirits. Take him fishing (we used to occasionally and I think he liked it), or just drink a beer together.

  I’m home two weeks earlier than expected – and plan to surprise them – but when I walk up the driveway I’m disappointed to see it’s empty. I’m regretting not taking Chad up on his offer of a lift into town when I notice Dad’s workshop door is open. Originally a stone double garage, he partitioned it; one side a garage, the other a workshop to accommodate his hobby of woodwork. He’s actually very good at it and could, in my opinion, run a sideline hand-made furniture business.

  I knock on the door, don’t hear an answer and so walk in. I can hear the radio chatting away to itself but not the usual accompanying sounds of a sander or a hammer. Instead the workshop is quiet and looks absolutely immaculate. This wouldn’t be surprising as Dad is very particular about cleanliness (he claims that quality got missed out with me on God’s production line) but I can’t remember ever seeing this place so organised. His work table is cleared and his tools are back in their slots in the rack, one he built to house them. Each has its place, each one angled in the same way.

  ‘Dad?’ I call out, expecting to see him jump from some unseen nook or cranny. The workshop is quiet though, just the echo of my voice and the radio, clearer now. I hear the sound of machinery next door and smile. He’s working on one of his projects after all; a classic car, one that only he is convinced will be roadworthy again.

  I glance around the workshop and feel an unexpected lump of dread travel through me. I’ve never seen the workshop looking so… So what? I wonder.

  So ordered, I realise. It’s the kind of thing you do when you are expecting visitors. I wonder if they’re planning to move after all, to sell up. Have things gotten that bad?

  I walk towards the sound of the engine and pause. The internal door that separates the workshop and garage is closed, but through the large glass panel I see something moving, drifting. I step forward, my hand hovering for a moment on the handle. When I finally open the door I’m hit by a wall of foul smelling fumes, the sudden opening of the door dragging a cloud over me like a duvet. I step back coughing and gagging. Inside the garage I make out the cherry red paintwork of Dad’s project car and, through the mustard haze of smoke, the shape of him slumped at the wheel. My scream arrives, the weight of the truth pulling me to the floor. I fight the building panic and shock and stagger into the smoke.

  He can’t be gone, not Dad, not him too.

  6.

  My eyes flick open and I’m crying. The viewing of the day my Father took his life has left me alone for nearly three years now. It used to come as often as the fairground but somehow, as time has moved on it loosened its grip, until now. I suspect it was the police interview (after Amy, I had a belly full of police) and the pressure of Alexia Finch and her family that brought it back. ‘Triggers’ one therapist called them, before she explained she could no longer help me. Therapists, can’t live with them, can’t punch them out.

  I spend a long time under the shower, washing away the memories. It works, to a point, but somehow the smell of fumes always remains, sometimes deep into the afternoon.

  I hate him. I despise him for what he did, for checking out of this world. Yet, as I brush my teeth, I sigh heavily. I love him too of course, and miss him now, perhaps more than ever. I stare at my reflection for a while. My eyes tell a story, one that knows if I save Amy, I might also save my Father. There’s also a madness in my eyes; as I spit white foam into the sink and watch it disappear I let any rational reasons why I shouldn’t mess with the past go with it.

  ‘Fuck the past and fuck you too,’ I whisper to my reflection, clicking off the light and deciding what to wear. I want to look smart, want to make Mum happy if I can. Christmas has come and gone and I need to see my Mum. She might not realise I’ve not been around much, but I know and that’s all that matters.

  I suspect that I’m not going to see Mum out of the goodness of my heart, I’m going because I feel lonely and she’s all I have left. I’m doing this to make me feel better. Most acts of kindness are selfish. Some clever philosopher came up with that, I think.

  Whatever the reason, I just hope it works because I feel properly shit at the moment. I don’t know if I’m any closer to getting Amy back. In fact all I do know is that I can’t reach her. It’s like some weird kind of self-harming. I try not to think, get dressed and head out.

  The streets are busy again and the snow is starting to turn brown at the edges of the road. Slush. Only good if combined with the word puppy. Or fund.

  I arrive at Beech Trees Nursing Home, enter the reception area and am greeted by a large poster. It’s mainly an image of a very nice woman (well, she’s smiling) and an old coffin-dodger (he isn’t). It reads, To us, caring comes naturally. I wish it did to me. Although the brochures under my arm suggest I do give a shit somewhere deep down. Next to the poster, tree lights twinkle away, coloured boxes are piled high around it. It’s December 26th , or as we say in ol’ Blighty, ‘Boxing day’, so named because this was the day “the workers” would receive a boxed gift from their employers. Not sure why they waited till the day after Christmas? Maybe they just forgot. Whatever.

  There is no one manning reception so I wander the corridors alone. The smell of bleach, flowers and hint of puke finally beats the fumes from my brain. That’s good, and I realise that for the first time in ages I’m actually looking forward to seeing Mum. I really want her to like my idea.

  I enter her room to see her sitting in a tall chair (one of those cream leather ones you get in pla
ces like these). She’s up, dressed and engrossed in the News, which is playing silently with subtitles. I lean into her sight-line and smile. She looks confused for a brief moment but then nods, gesturing to the bed. I sit down and wait, looking up at the television with her. She always has to watch the News, believing whole-heartedly whatever she’s told. The current story is something to do with a rowing team and lots of jumping fish. The subtitles attempt to keep up with the news story.

  ‘A university rowing team found themselves caught up in the crossfire when hundreds of flying cars mounted an attack.’

  Flying cars? The text skips back and corrects itself to Flying Carp. I wonder – not for the first time – if there are people typing this shit all day. Or do they just sit and wait for the computer to make some terrible faux-pas. My personal favourite? Asking for ‘a moment’s violence’ during the Queen Mother’s funeral. Oh, and ‘A volcano in Mexico that erupted ‘cash’ over the villages surrounding it.’

  Imagine that! An eruption of cash!

  ‘Hello darling,’ Mum says, presumably done with the news. She looks well, her cheeks – often pale and drawn – have a little colour and someone has cut her hair. It’s thin these days, like cotton, but the beautiful woman she once was manages to shine through.

  ‘How are you feeling, Mum?’ I ask. ‘You look well.’

  ‘Oh, you know, okay, can’t complain.’

  ‘You can if you like.’

  She glances around her room and curls her lip, ‘It isn’t so bad, but your Father promised I wouldn’t end up in a place like this.’ She shrugs and smiles but it’s a haunting, sad gesture. ‘He’s gone you know. He died.’

  I stare at her and fight the pain threatening to push tears up and out of me. ‘I know,’ I say, softly, ‘I dreamt about him last night.’

  ‘I often do.’ She tuts and inhales quickly, the way old people do and pats the cover of a book she has tucked down the side of her chair. I look puzzled and she pulls it up and out. It’s a dark leather book, midnight blue, old looking and a little frayed.

  ‘What are you reading?’ I ask.

  ‘This is your Father’s diary,’ she says with an easy, unapologetic shrug, ‘he kept it after…’ She stops, seemingly lost in thought. She tries again but then shakes her head, ‘Oh, I don’t know anymore, but I like to read it sometimes.’

  I stare at the book, intrigued but consumed by fear, as though ghostly hands could emerge from the pages and pull me down into their darkness.

  ‘Do you remember that time in Wales?’ She asks, shifting her thoughts as easily as the wind, ‘I’d forgotten it, but it’s here somewhere, in his diary. Amy was about five, I think, and we stayed in a hotel with a pool.’

  I nod, ‘Yes, I remember that.’

  ‘Amy met a girl and they played beautifully but then the girl left her doll outside overnight and in the morning we found it broken, all smashed up.’ Mum’s face drops and she frowns, ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘The world can be a cruel place.’

  She locks eyes with me, ‘Yes. It can, can’t it?’ She blinks, a thin smile. ‘Do you remember what Amy did?’

  ‘I do.’ I smile. ‘She dragged you into town to buy the girl a new doll.’

  ‘Not one – two, and the most expensive she could find.’ Mum stares out of the window onto the snow covered gardens. ‘She was determined that her new friend’s holiday wouldn’t be ruined, determined to make it right.’

  I frown, pain crushing into a ball in my chest. Amy was a light in this world and when she went out the whole place just got darker.

  ‘She’s a good girl.’ Mum says, her voice frail, eyes glazing.

  I don’t say was, thank goodness. That correction stays in my brain, exactly where it belongs.

  ‘She said she’ll be back soon,’ my mum says, optimistically.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Amy,’ Mum nods, ‘she said she’ll be back soon.’

  I almost ask her what she means but stop myself. I’ve followed her down these conversational dead ends, these roads that just lead to more confusion. Mum is a time-traveller, like me, but a very different kind. She is truly cursed, locked in this room without knowing when.

  ‘Your Father’s gone you know,’ Mum announces suddenly, ‘killed himself, the bloody idiot.’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, taken aback by her sudden and brutal terminology. ‘I know.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have done that.’ She picks up the remote control and selects a channel. ‘It’s a Sin,’ She snarls, grinding her lips. ‘A sin.’

  I agree, but not on any religious level. It’s my belief that we don’t always need someone to tell us what’s right or wrong. Sometimes it’s just obvious.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, desperate to change the subject, to choose something good, ‘I bought you these.’ I hand her the brochures that have been tucked under my arm.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Some places I want you to look at, somewhere you could move if you wanted to.’

  She looks at the covers like a child studying their least favourite meal, ‘I’m okay here.’ She places them on the table next to her. ‘Plus, we can’t afford that.’ She makes a Pah sound and waves her hand. ‘We’re not made of money. No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘But Mum, I’ve won some money and it means you could stay somewhere warmer, or bigger or whatever.’ I’m searching for something she might latch onto. ‘Will you just think about it? About what you might want?’

  ‘Oh, I know what I want,’ she whispers, studying my face, ‘I want Amy and your Father to come home, I want to cook a meal, I want to laugh and joke like we used to.’ She stops suddenly and her lucid expression lifts as a confused fog seems to descend. ‘I wouldn’t know what to cook though,’ she murmurs, ‘I don’t know what I would do, actually.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say, as if somehow it can possibly be. ‘You don’t need to do anything Mum.’ I shift closer to her, take her hand in mine. ‘You were amazing, you did a brilliant job of raising me and I wanted…’ I swallow, fighting the fresh bite of tears in my throat. ‘I just wanted to say, thank you.’

  She smiles, thank goodness, she smiles. ‘You’re a good boy, Joseph.’ She hands me my Father’s diary. ‘You should read this.’ Her eyes hold mine and I feel a rare and beautiful connection to the woman who raised me. I reach out, fingers trembling, and take the diary, feel the weight of those years in my hand; a book that my Father owned and poured his thoughts into, feelings that he never shared and perhaps felt unable to. I stare at it, fanning the pages, opening it at a blank page near the middle. I can see embossed grey marks where a pen has grooved its faint tracks through the pages above. I flick backward a few pages and see his last entry, a full page that begins with, ‘Forgive me. I thought I could carry on but I was wrong.’

  I close the book, fighting back tears, forcing myself to breathe.

  Mum nods. ‘It’s not easy,’ she says softly, ‘but if it’s worth doing, it never is.’

  7.

  I wrap myself up in my duvet and pretend the world doesn’t exist. It’s been this way for two days, venturing out only when absolutely necessary. It’s raining heavily now, a constant patter above me, familiar and somehow comforting. Other than the rain, the house is quiet. Cold and empty. I stare up at the ceiling, my mind blank. The phone rings and I make a decision, my first in a while. Next time I go downstairs I’m going to unplug that bastard, once and for all.

  Half an hour later, someone knocks at the front door, banging the big metal knocker like the whole world needs waking up. They wait thirty seconds and then do it again, just as hard.

  ‘Alright, alright!’ I shout, getting out of bed and walking to my bedroom window, a large bay, old glass, warped and streaked with rain. I frown when I realise who my mystery guest is. I twist the window’s brass lock, raise the heavy sash and lean out, rain splashing against the back of my head. ‘Alexia?’ I call down, ‘What are you doing here?’

  She slides
a hand across her wet face and looks up at me, squinting against the downpour. ‘I believe you,’ she shouts. ‘It happened, just like you said it would.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I call back.

  A truck roars past, spraying an arc of water onto the pavement nearby. ‘Joe, can I come in?’

  ‘Yeah, of course, sorry,’ I shout down. ‘Hang on.’

  I grab a laundry bag on my way to the door and gather up clothes, socks and underwear like a vacuum cleaner. The house is a mess but there’s not much I can do about that, apart from go back in time a few days and you know… Bother. How was I supposed to know she was coming over? The last time I saw her –

  ‘Joe?’ Alexia calls, her voice muffled, hands cupped against the stained glass window of my front door, ‘Are you there?’ She peers inside.

  ‘Hang on!’ I grumble, cramming the now full laundry bag into the hallway cupboard. I take a breath, rub a hand over my messy hair, fix a smile and open the door.

  Alexia Finch is wearing a dark green woollen jumper, jeans and trainers. It’s the most casual I’ve seen her and completely at odds with the current weather conditions. Her usually mousey brown hair is so wet it looks almost black. It’s pinned up but trying to escape, falling in heavy curls over her eyes. Her hands drop and she stares at me, eyes locked on mine, rain dripping from the end of her nose. She glances, nervously, over her shoulder and then back at me. ‘Somebody followed me here,’ her voice is thready and tense, ‘I think it’s the police.’

  I look past her and see a car parked opposite, a black Ford SUV. ‘Come in,’ I say, stepping aside. She does and stands in the hallway, shivering. Her eyes move to my right and widen. I follow her gaze to see a pair of boxer shorts hanging on a coat hook. How on earth did they get up there? I close the door, grab the boxers, flush red and then throw them into the cupboard with the others.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Alexia asks, the words shuddering from her. ‘I was doing my make-up this morning, checked the time and then…’ She stops, biting her bottom lip. ‘And then my watch just disappeared, literally into nothing, right in front of my eyes. I checked my earrings too and the clothes I was wearing.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘Gone. Just like you said.’