Page 35 of Fix Them Up
Written on the walls in messy, juvenile handwriting:
Jim and Brian, aged ten and seven, decorated this room.
The sentence was followed by some funny, albeit disturbing, sketches of three-headed monsters and stickmen with giant hands, as if the boys got bored halfway through helping their parents redecorate.
Grief came hurtling through me as my hands touched the wall, and a memory hit me like a ton of bricks.
We’d driven up to Manchester to visit Uncle Brian, Sandra, and Lydia, just Dad and me. He drove me around Everly Heath, showing me places he’d loved growing up. The Art Deco cinema that showed old movies. His favourite pub where he got served at fourteen because it was the seventies. Some places I can’t even remember now. It was so long ago. But he said he saved the best until last, as we drove up this same cul-de-sac. My dad pointed at the house, telling me stories about his childhood. His dad, a mechanic, tinkering on the narrow drive, his mum calling him and his younger brother in from the garden for tea.
A picture of domestic bliss.
‘One day, Kit Kat,’ he’d said, in his deep Mancunian accent that became more pronounced when he was back home, ‘when this house is going to come up for sale, I’ll buy it, and we’ll do it up together. How does that sound?’
On the long drive back home, like a typical eight-year-old, I’d excitedly detailed all the features I’d add to the house. I wanted a slide from my bedroom window down to the garden. A pink playhouse at the end of the garden. My dad had listened to me, nodding indulgently and chuckling. We agreed over petrol station McDonalds that he would get me a playhouse if it could double up as a pub for him. He held my hand, walking back to the car, promising he’d let me make dens in the garden.
That excited, naive ten-year-old was far away now. But even though I shouldn’t, I still craved that promise. The little agreementwe’d made together, plotting in the four-hour car ride. Two years later, we’d all fall apart. He would go from a doting father to a ghost. We’d shift to missed milestones and stilted, awkward conversations over the phone that eventually died out.
Where did it all go wrong?
Did he not love me enough to give me those memories, too?
I felt a single tear rolling down my cheek. I hadn’t realised I was crying.
‘Looks like they had fun here,’ Liam said gently, touching the sketches.
I huffed and rubbed the tear away. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to –’
‘Don’t apologise,’ Liam interjected. ‘I get it. It’s hard to…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Grief is complicated.’
I laughed, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Yeah. Yes, it is very complicated.’
‘If you ever want to speak to anyone about it.’ He flinched. ‘You have Lydia to talk to about it. And Brian and Sandra, too. I’m sure they would be there for you, if you asked.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s hard to speak to them about it. They had a very different relationship with my dad than I did. You can forgive absent uncles. It’s harder to forgive absent dads.’
‘I get that.’ Liam nodded.
I wiped my eyes. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be trauma-dumping on you. I’m sure you got an eyeful at the funeral as it is.’
I finally met Liam’s eyes, and his expression was full of that same pity as at the funeral, and my stomach turned.
‘I understand how you feel –’ Liam lifted his hand to put… where I wasn’t sure.
My whole body screamed to get out of this conversation. I couldn’t do this. Not now, not with Liam.
‘Anyway!’ I said breezily. ‘Let’s get back to the job at hand –’
‘Kat.’
‘I’m fine, Liam.’ I dusted my hands of plaster. I refused to look in his direction. I was too embarrassed about getting so emotional in front of a stranger.
‘Do you want some good news?’ Liam asked, his tone brighter. Lighter. I was grateful for that shift.
‘Yes, please.’
‘I spoke to my dad; you know he and Brian are thick as thieves. Well, he knew your dad as well. They played football together or something like that. Probably back when the ball was made of leather, and everything was in black and white.’
I gave a teary laugh, and Liam’s lips twitched. So close to a smile.
