‘We’re going on an outing.’
The morning after the Irish stew, Dad’s sitting on the edge of my bed. His grey-blond hair looks like a frayed brillo pad. His eyes are red. He’s wearing his only suit.
I sit up. ‘Is Mum coming?’
He rubs at a shaving nick on his throat. ‘Get your best togs on.’ Whistling ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, he pats the bottom of the
duvet and leaves the room.
A road sign reads ‘Heathrow’.
‘Is it a day trip to Ibiza?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Are these shoes OK?’
I wriggle my feet in the footwell. Without glancing at my new cerise pink kitten heels, Dad says, ‘They’re fine, love.’ When we reach the multi-storey car park, I wind down my window so I can hear everything echoing. Brakes screeching round corners then screeching again. Doors slamming four times. Shouts going on forever.
Dad parks the car.
‘A day trip to Oxford?’ I ask.
He pulls the handbrake up, turns to me. ‘Somewhere in Oxford you haven’t been before,’ he says.
The streets smell of old fat and melted ice cream.
‘Are you getting on all right with Shane?’
Dad’s hand is hot between my bare shoulder blades as he guides me down the High Street. I’m wearing a jade green strappy top with a peek-a-boo eyelet in the front.
‘Because he needs looking after, you know?’
I don’t say anything about anything.
The shops thin out. A sign in a doorway says, ‘Queen’s College. Visitors welcome.’ Behind it there’s a patch of bright green grass.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
As we wait at the zebra crossing, a bus stops right by my legs and pumps hot exhaust fumes round my ankles. My shoes clamp tight to my toes.
‘How much further?’
‘Nearly there.’
We pass a café with the word ‘Tiffin’ written on the window. I ask Dad what that means. He says he thinks it’s another name for tea.
Crossing the bridge, Dad tries to take my hand. I let him hold it lightly for a minute, but when we reach the other side I slip my fingers away.
‘Here we are,’ he announces.
He points at a huge dirty building with a tower and windows like you get in churches. We step through the doorway into a dark, silent passageway.
‘Is this the University?’ I whisper.
‘This is it,’ says Dad. ‘This is the University.’
We walk through the passageway and out into a big garden at the back. Willow trees swish along the grass in the breeze. All round us, people are shielding their eyes and looking up. A lot of them are clutching guidebooks.
‘Where are the students?’ I ask.
‘Term hasn’t started yet.’
‘Lazy buggers.’
Dad smiles and we stand for a minute, looking up, like everyone else, at the blank squares of glass that make up the college windows. I imagine the students sitting in there, reading, their un-hairsprayed heads bent over their desks.
I look around at the other people on the lawn. Apart from the people with guidebooks, every girl seems to be wearing a longer skirt than me. And their hair isn’t flicked up or brushed out. It just hangs.
I wait for Dad to say something.
‘Shall we sit over there?’ He points at a tree whose branches are so big and low they look like giant’s hands.
‘All this time living here, and we never came.’ Dad lays down beneath the branches. ‘Why didn’t we come here before?’
I concentrate on sitting on the grass without showing Dad too much thigh.
After a while he sits up. ‘I’m not making a very good job of this, am I?’
I pick a handful of grass and throw it over his knee.
‘Do you like it here, Joanna?’
I consider the willow trees with their long fingers, the girls with their long skirts, the blank, black windows. I don’t know the answer.
‘You could come here,’ says Dad, leaning close to me, ‘if you work hard.’
I throw some more grass over his legs.
‘Mind the suit,’ he says, brushing it off. He scratches at his brillo-pad hair. ‘I mean it.’ His eyes are big and red. ‘I know you’ve got the brains, even if you don’t always use them. You can come here. It’s possible.’
I pick up a shard of old bark, dig it under my nail to clean out the dirt.
‘No one told me things are possible. I mean, not everything you think is impossible is impossible.’
‘What are you on about?’
He sighs. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Shall we go then?’ I stand up.
A bell begins to clang.
‘Wait. Sit down.’
He grabs my hand and pulls me into his lap. ‘My girl,’ he whispers, crushing me against him and hiding his face in my hair.
‘Dad – ’ My legs are twisted under me. My skirt’s ridden up too far.
Then he begins to rock slightly, and his breath goes funny, shaky. Hot air from his mouth makes my cheek wet. Above us, the branches make a slight creaking sound, like ships in films.
‘Dad – ’
‘Sorry, love.’
But he’s still clinging on. I wonder what I can do to make his job easier. I know he’s leaving. I’ve heard them arguing for weeks. I’ve heard Dad say that he’d rather chew off his own hand than stay in her trap. Like an animal.
Shoulders heaving, his fingers dig into my spine.
We cling to each other under the tree. ‘It’s OK,’ is all I can think to say.
Eventually, his hands release me. When he looks me in the eye his face is crumpled and red, like a bruise. ‘You’ll come and see me?’
I nod.
‘And you’ll look after Shane?’
After a pause, I nod again.
Then he says, ‘Your mother’s not all bad.’
Then he says, ‘I meant what I said, about working hard.’
Then he says, ‘I’ll drop you off at home, but then I’ll go.’
‘Where?’
‘Not far. I’ll phone.’
‘Can I come with you?’ As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t.
He reaches out and strokes my hair. ‘Not now, love. Maybe later.’
As we walk back up the High Street, past the colleges with their bright green squares of light and back to the multi-storey, I let him hold my hand.