‘The Letter’ is the winning story from the Stripes YA Short Story Prize in partnership with The Bookseller. Congratulations, Tracy!

 

 

It’s hard to imagine, but the Bowling Plaza is even worse than usual tonight. A bobbing, giant inflatable snowman is tethered to the roof, casting menacing shadows over the car park. Inside they’ve strung up cheap tinsel and ‘Season’s Greetings’ banners, and a plastic tree with red and green baubles sits on the reception desk, getting in the way. It’s only the first day of December, but already there’s a sickly smell of stale mulled wine and a drunken office party is messing about by the pool tables.

Spotty Paul on shoe duty is dressed as an elf. You’d think he’d have more respect for himself. I don’t like doing anything where you have to wear communal shoes. I’ve had enough of hand-me-down crap. Paul sprays them with a sickly aerosol between each customer, but even so, it freaks me out. I shudder as I put them on. This interests Julie and she makes a note in her stripy book as usual.

“Maybe it’s due to my feelings of abandonment,” I tell her helpfully so she has something else to write down. “Or maybe it’s because I dislike other people’s smelly feet – which is completely rational, by the way.”

Can you believe Social Services still has a budget for bowling and ice cream with Julie? The free ice cream would be OK if I was, like, six years old and on a beach. I’d rather have a double shot Americano. But I don’t want a machine coffee in a plastic cup, so I stare for a while at the ice-cream choices to build the suspense before saying, “Nothing, thanks.”

Julie looks disappointed. Maybe because she is now a grown woman licking a Solero next to a teenage girl sipping at a cup of water. I tell Julie she should cut back on the ice creams. If she takes all her clients out like this, no wonder.

“No wonder, Julie,” I say, tutting.

Julie reddens and makes another note. Does she ever just call it as it is and write ‘Bitch’ or does she always have some mumbo-jumbo excuse for my behaviour?

“So who’s drawn the short straw this year?” I ask.

“We’re having a little trouble getting the right placement for you after term finishes,” says Julie, fidgeting. This is Julie-speak for ‘nobody wants you’.

“How will Santa know where to find me?” I stare, wide-eyed. I see her processing whether I’m serious or not. She just doesn’t get irony. I learned the truth about Father Christmas early on in life.

To be honest, I see the Christmas stuff happening around me like a trailer for a film I don’t get to watch in full; like those adverts on TV where one big happy family sits down at a glittering table with a shiny turkey and everybody is so frigging happy. It’s not my world. I’m like the Ghost of Christmas No One Wants in a foster home. They have to pretend to like me and cover up the fact their own child gets piles of gifts from relatives who actually give a shit.

“So no room at the inn,” I say and laugh. “That reminds me of something.”

“It’ll be fine.” Julie pats my hand. I shrug her off.

“Tell them it’s only dogs who aren’t just for Christmas – you can get rid of kids, no problem,” I say. “Anyway, I don’t know what all the fuss is. It’s just a day when the shops shut and the telly’s better.”

Julie’s Solero is dripping down her hand. I watch as the drip plops on to her lap.

“Can’t I stay at Beechwood by myself?” I already know the answer.

The office party’s getting rowdier, singing along to piped Christmas singles from last century. Paul the elf has to intervene.

I start bowling with Julie. “The sooner we begin, the sooner it’s over,” I say. We take the furthest alley as usual, like an old married couple picking their regular table at the pizzeria.

I watch as she bowls. The ball trickles down the polished lane, heading slowly for the gutter at the side. She looks surprised. I don’t know why. She’s always rubbish at this. I used to think she was letting me win and hate her for it, as if my winning a game of ten-pin bowling would make everything all right in Julie-land.

She keeps asking me if I’m OK, if I’m having a good time. Please! In this place? She’s poking in her bag and casting glances my way like she’s got more to tell me. I know the signs.

I win the game, by the way. I always win at things that don’t matter.

“I have some news,” says Julie, when we stop for her to take a rest and guzzle a fizzy drink.

Finally. What now?

“We’ve had a letter for you. From your dad. How do you feel about that?” She is obsessed, literally obsessed, with how I feel about everything. “We’ve struggled to find him, as you know. There was some confusion over names and information.” She rummages in her briefcase and hands me an envelope, opened. It sits in my hand like an unexploded bomb.

“If you don’t want to look at it today, we can save it for another time. This must all be a big surprise,” says Julie. She pats my knee. “Turns out he was back in America.” She says it like that’s an achievement – like he’s a film star rather than a waster.

STRIKE! The teenagers on the alley next to us are doing a moonwalk as the scoring machine flashes and plays loud music.

What am I doing in this shitty place?

I look carefully at the envelope addressed to Somerset Social Services. The idiots must have told him where I ended up. I flip it over. The return address is a place in Florida. I can picture it already – a duplex on a housing estate surrounded by retired golfers and repossessions.

Julie checks her watch. Her concern for me only operates until eight o’clock. She has to get back to her real life. She fiddles with the wedding ring on her pudgy hand.

I breathe. I listen to the clatter of the bowling lanes and the whoops of another strike.

“OK,” I say. “I’ll read it.” I remove the letter from the envelope with my fingertips as if it’s hot. It’s oh-so-carefully typed, but I’m not fooled by him – unlike Julie and her team.

“Short but sweet,” says Julie. “He’s been looking for you all this time.”

There’s nothing sweet about the bastard, but then she’s never met him. She knows nothing real about him. About him and me. I promised Mum in one of her lucid episodes that I’d never tell anyone what he used to do to her … to me. He damaged her forever as sure as if he’d poured the alcohol and the pills down her throat himself. Some secrets are safer kept – especially when your dad’s not the forgiving type.

It dawns on me that Julie’s probably thinking Dad’s the Christmas miracle, appearing to solve all her problems with placing me. She’s seeing a happy reunion in Disney World. But that’s the last thing I want. And now he’s found me, I know there’s no way Julie can keep me safe. Not from him. And I can’t rely on anybody but me.

“So how do you feel about your dad getting back in touch?”

Feelings again. Always feelings.

She checks her notebook. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen him. We had a lucky break in tracking him down at last.”

Lucky? He always was a lucky bastard. After all Mum’s efforts with fake names and addresses to make sure the do-gooders couldn’t find him, even when she was in rehab and I was playing foster-care roulette.

“Would you like to write back?”

“No need,” I say.

“You may feel that now,” starts Julie, “but let’s talk about it again when you’ve thought about it some more, maybe chat it through with Dr Meadows. It’s a lot to take in, sweetie.”

And as usual she’s got the wrong end of the stick. She hasn’t actually read the letter properly. She doesn’t know how my father operates – but I do. Ten days have passed since the postage date. He’ll be on his way – if he’s not already here. I look around me, suspicious now of the office partygoers. I need to make plans. I have to disappear.

“Now that your mum is…” Julie pulls awkwardly at her necklace.

“Dead, you mean.”

“…No longer here, we could explore other family options.”

Family? My dad? I’d rather be shacked up with some cardboard and a blanket in the multi-storey car park. Mum and I did it to get away from him before. All I have to do is keep moving, making it harder for him to find me again. And yet now … now I have more to lose. I have what Julie would call prospects. My grades are good, I wanted to go to university. I have actual friends and decent teachers. Not that I’d ever tell them that.

Julie puffs to her feet and waddles over to choose a bowling ball. “Come on, double or quits.”

I think of my neat little room at Beechwood: the duvet cover that Julie and I picked out at Primark, the posters I carefully stuck to the wall and the row of books on the shelf. There’s a bright orange cushion Julie bought me for my birthday that I pretended not to like. Too big to pack now. The furniture is brown and slightly tatty, circa 1999, but everyone’s room is like that. I don’t stand out among the boarders – except in the holidays.

Julie heads off to the ladies after all that Diet Coke, while I stare at the wall and try to think straight. I thought I’d made myself invisible, but then Julie’s boss ruins it all by interfering in my business. The letter has tracked me down like a heat-seeking missile and I’m not free of him even at the shitty Bowling Plaza. I dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand, cross with myself for getting complacent, for getting to like somewhere, when I should have known it wouldn’t last.

*

Julie hugs me in the car once we’ve pulled up outside Beechwood. I let her. She won’t be seeing me again. I bite my lip and stare out at the flickering lights on the tree by the main entrance. The angel at the top has broken and the wings are blinking on and off. I was going to help decorate the hall with holly and ivy next week. Proper greenery from the garden – real decorations, not ones made of foil and plastic.

“It feels like snow’s on the way,” says Julie. “A white Christmas maybe.”

A cold one, then. Shit.

“Could I have some extra cash?” I ask. “I need some toiletries and stuff.”

She marks it in her notebook and hands me £30.

“I’ll see you next week. We can write a response to your dad’s letter together, if you like. No pressure. Whatever’s best for you.” She smiles. “Maybe with Christmas coming…”

She’s happier being useful, making plans.

“Sure. I’ll think about it.” I shove the cash in my pocket and toss her a bone: “I know I can be a right cow sometimes.”

She blushes, unsure what to say to that as it’s so true. I can’t help but feel slightly fond of her and her flowery smocks.

“Take care of yourself,” she says.

I intend to.

“We’ll sort something out for you, I promise.”

Julie tucks my hair behind my ear.

I get out of the car and lean down towards the window. I nearly say something. I nearly say, Thanks, I know you want to help, it’s not your fault. I nearly tell her how I really feel and ask for help, but I can’t quite do it. The weight of all that’s happened is pushing on my chest. So instead I tap on the glass.

“Go easy on the mince pies, Julie,” I say.

I turn and walk away.