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VERONICA AND ABI REACHED Bridgwater by late morning. Abi had insisted they make the journey in her Range Rover, adamant her vehicle would make for a far more comfortable road trip than Ronnie’s red rust bucket. Veronica hadn’t put up any argument; she was right. The drive had taken them three hours in total with two stops en route. The first was a brief visit with Margo. She’d been animated, with the drama of yesterday washed clean from her mind. The second stop had been for coffee and a pastry. Today was very much a chocolate Danish day, or at least it was for Veronica. Abi was doing keto, she’d stated sanctimoniously and couldn’t possibly indulge because it would throw her out of ketosis. It sounded like a horrible disease, Veronica had thought, munching into the flaky deliciousness.
They wound their way around the quiet Sunday morning streets of the town’s suburbia that held none of the charm of the historic centre Veronica remembered from her previous visit. At last the GPS announced they’d reached their destination, the address their father had scrawled on the back of the envelope.
Abi indicated, and pulled over on the opposite side of the street a few doors up from number eight, their dad’s house. A man pottered back and forth with his lawnmower on the grass verge two doors down from where they planned on doing surveillance. Other than that, the neighbourhood was quiet.
‘I feel like we’re undercover detectives,’ Abi said, slouching low in the driving seat. She had a baseball cap on with her blonde hair pulled through the back. She was clad head to toe in black and hadn’t heeded Veronica’s advice to wear flat shoes behind the wheel insisting she was a far better driver in heels. ‘I wish we had binoculars.’
‘You could cross the street in three strides, even in those ridiculous sandals, you don’t need binoculars and I don’t know why you’re slouching, there’s nobody there,’ Veronica pointed out. She was disappointed as she peered past her sister to get a better view of the house—a non-descript bungalow. ‘At least it’s not a mansion, that would be a bitter pill to swallow.’
Abi agreed with her and then reached for the packet of gum next to the two empty takeaway cups of coffee. She tapped a piece into the palm of her hand popping it into her mouth before offering the pack to Veronica.
‘No, thanks. You’ll get wind you know. It’s a fact. It says so on the pack.’
Abi pulled a face. ‘It says excessive consumption. This is only my second piece.’ She eyed the crumbs on her sister’s lap. ‘I told you that Danish would make a mess.’
Veronica opened the door, got out and shook herself off.
‘Get back inside, you’ll draw attention to us.’ Abi hissed.
Veronica clambered back in. ‘For a slob you’re very finicky about your car,’ she said. ‘And I think the curtains are twitching at number eleven.’
Abi glanced over to the house they were parked outside. It wasn’t dissimilar to the one they were keeping an eye on. The last thing they needed was someone coming out and asking what they were doing.
‘I was teasing, relax,’ Veronica said, seeing her alarmed expression.
‘Dumb thing to say, Ronnie. How can I?’
It was true. It was hard not to be sitting like a pair of coiled springs given what they’d driven here to do. ‘Well, let’s talk about something else other than Dad.’
‘Alright, but how long are we going to sit here? I mean we didn’t think things through properly, did we, because we can hardly play knock on the door and runaway,’ Abi said recalling the childhood game.
She was right, Veronica thought, absorbing the trivial fact the garden outside their father’s house erred toward being unkempt. There were flowers that needed to be deadheaded in order for fresh blooms to be allowed to burst forth. The grass too was a tad too long. They hadn’t come to confront him and they certainly hadn’t driven down to inform him his garden needed doing. Come to that, neither sister wanted to actually speak to him but they both agreed there was a need to see him for themselves. It was time they pushed him off the pedestal they’d had him perched on. They needed to move on where Philip Kelly was concerned.
What if he didn’t come out? Or worse, what if he no longer lived there? What then? It would have been a wasted journey and, Veronica admitted silently, she’d be disappointed. She wanted to clear her slate of him the way he had them because he didn’t deserve her, definitely not her sons, or Abi in his life. She needed to see him for closure, it was as simple as that and fate couldn’t be so unkind for him to have died twice. She crossed her fingers and silently muttered, ‘Let him be there.’
‘He was a creature of habit from memory, Abi,’ she said out loud. ‘He always went to the pub around midday on a Sunday.’ It was a gamble to think he still did so, given it had been well over thirty years since Veronica had sat with her nose pressed to the glass watching him set off down the road for a Sunday session but they were here now.
Abi pulled her phone from her pocket and began scrolling through her Instagram feed. ‘Did I show you the video of me demonstrating how to do a smoky eye with this new spring colours palette I was sent to trial.'
Veronica leaned in for a look. ‘Very nice, but shouldn’t it be a spring eye. You know, soft springy colours, yellows, greens that sort of thing. I’d have thought smoky was more a winter look.’
Abi gave her a withering look. ‘Yellows, greens? I’d look like I had a black eye.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes until Abi spoke up. ‘Do you want to know why I took off for London as soon as I was old enough?’
‘Because you thought you were Patsy Kensit and you were looking for Liam?’
‘Oh shut up, Ronnie I’m being serious.’
‘Sorry. Why?’
‘Because nothing was the same at home again after you came home from Paris. You were moody and closed off and there was this awful atmosphere of stuff being unsaid. As for Mum, you know what a fighter she’d always been where we were concerned but when you stopped dancing it knocked the stuffing out of her. She didn’t see me, Ronnie. I tried so hard to impress her in so many different ways but I couldn’t make up for the dreams she’d had for you. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left.’
Veronica remained silent. It was a shock to her to realise how much what had unfolded back then had impacted her sister too. There was guilt milling about in the mix too as she registered the repercussions her actions had clearly had, not just for herself, but her mother and sister too.
‘I’m sorry, Abs.’
‘If we’d known why you’d come home it might have made a difference.’
So many might haves and what ifs. ‘I’d do things differently if I could go back but I can’t’
‘Do you wonder what she’s like?’
‘Isabel?’
Abi nodded, turning her gaze to her sister.
‘Every single day.’
Abi reached over and put her hand on her sister’s arm.
Veronica was no longer paying her any attention though. ‘Look, oh my God, Abi, is that him?’
They both gazed over to where an older man was walking down the front path of the bungalow across the street. This wasn’t the dad Veronica remembered, the handsome man with the swaggering confidence that she’d watched wither as his and their mother’s relationship deteriorated. He’d stopped in her memory in his late twenties and this man she was looking at now was nearing the pension age.
‘He’s bald.’ Abi stated the obvious. ‘And he’s got a paunch.’
‘It’s him, though, Abi.’
She nodded, unable to tear her gaze away. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Honestly?’ Veronica asked, watching him.
‘Yes.’
‘He could be anyone. I don’t feel a thing.’ It was true. She was looking at a man she didn’t know and had never known.
‘Me neither.’ Abi turned back to her sister, her eyes bloodshot from her outburst moments earlier. ‘But I do feel a little shaky.’
‘That’s probably your ketosis.’ A weak joke but it raised a small smile from her little sister. ‘Shall we go?’ Veronica couldn’t see the point in hanging around. They’d done what they came to do. The spectre of the father they’d known had been laid to rest because this man here, walking down the street oblivious to the children he’d left behind watching him was a stranger.
‘Yes.’
Abi started the car and as they pulled away from the kerb the man looked towards the vehicle which was too big for the street. The engine was an intrusive noise on a quiet lunchtime he thought, frowning at the two women inside it. For a moment Veronica locked eyes with him; she held her gaze and fancied she saw his eyes widen as they drove away.
The journey home was a silent one and Veronica stared out the window at the unfurling greens and golds, unable to stop the voice whispering inside her head that perhaps Isabel would feel nothing if she were to meet her. The thought of that was terrifying.