By the Time You Read This

‘Yes, it is.’ Auntie Philomena’s mouth formed into an unusual smile. One tinged with sadness.

My mind started to wonder as suppressed joy threatened to leap from the pit of my stomach and out of my mouth like a mound of vomit. This was all too much. Something I’d dreamed of ever since I was a little girl. You know, finding out he wasn’t dead after all. It had all been some silly mistake after he’d contracted amnesia in the early hours of that morning, seven years ago. Of course, it would be difficult to piece together what occurred in the interim years, but after recently regaining his memory, Dad had set out to find us – his loving family – and finally succeeded today, the night of his wife’swedding! But seeing how happy she now was made him all confused, as he stood alone outside the number twenty-one bus stop located just around the corner from where Philomena and I now sat. He was too scared to talk to me – just in case I too had betrayed him. Poor Dad!

‘Lois?’

‘Yes, sorry Auntie Philomena, you were saying…? About my dad?’

My heart was ready to leap out of my mouth.

‘I have something for you…a message…from your dad.’

* * *

With Stars On (#u762aad71-2263-5b3a-bf65-5843fc46753b)

I remember my dad lifting me up by his large hands and twirling me around in the air. Me, giggling with wonderful anticipation of the giddy feeling that would grip me, right before the remnants of my breakfast would start to rise in my throat.

‘She’s going to be sick, put her down!’ Mum would shout. Spoiling the moment. Our moment. And that’s basically all I could clearly remember about him. Oh, and the mole under his eye. The picture on my dressing table, and others banished to a small box in the loft, was all I had to help piece together the size of his nose, curve of his large lips, cute little button ears encased in what I could only imagine to be the smoothest skin I could ever wish to touch. I often imagined jumping into that photo, if only for sixty seconds – each one spent running my finger across the surface of his skin, the contours of his face, implanting an image in my brain that would live there for ever and ever.

But I didn’t have the power to jump into a photo.

And Dad wasn’t alive again.

In fact, when Auntie Philomena left the reception I ran into the reeking toilets of that restaurant and cried. I continued to sob for the rest of the night, away from the noisy crowds and uncool music. And then again in my bed, still dressed in that awful frilly dress, dolly shoes banished to the ether. As usual, Mum didn’t notice, she was too loved-up with the Bingo Caller to care. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying because, as Auntie Philomena had put it, this was a good thing. Right? Like hearing a message from the grave. But I suppose that’s what really bothered me the most: he was still dead. Lifeless. His ashes scattered in a foreign sea thousands of miles away along with old tyres and rotting bicycles. He hadn’t come to rescue me from my life of endless days at school, Mum’s moaning and now a stepdad thinking he’d acquired the right to tell me what to do just because he was knobbing my mother.

Dad was still gone.

Philomena had handed me a crumpled old Tesco bag like it was a pot of glistening gold; a perfect, divine specimen needing special handling. It was heavy, with something book-shaped inside. Great, I thought. Yet another book to read. So all I could do was chuck it on the floor among my Doc Martens, twelve-inch singles and one of the pink dolly shoes, staring at it from time to time with a cocktail of confusion, fear, excitement and sadness floating in the background.

Luckily, that weekend was spent with Carla while Mum and the Bingo Caller honeymooned in Cornwall. Although my best mate and her family lived only next door, same south London, same Charlton, it felt like a trillion miles away. And it might as well have been. Carla and her brother Corey were allowed to stay up late AND were allowed to eat ice cream AFTER nine o’clock. So, staying there was perhaps a great way of forgetting about Dad’s ‘message’ for a while and get my head right. But my head remained jumbled and I couldn’t get it out of my mind, counting the days till Mum returned. And the minute the sickly newlyweds arrived back home, complete with their first all-shrieking, super-duper, mirror-cracking argument over what to watch on telly, I raced to my room, desperate to peer inside that Tesco bag.

‘Don’t I get a kiss, young lady?’ shouted Mum as I reached the top of the stairs – just outside my room and that Tesco bag. My heart raced as Mum slowly climbed the stairs, moved towards me and smiled wildly to reveal her front gapped teeth.

‘Sorry, Mum. Welcome back,’ I said, one eye on the door to my bedroom as she planted a wet kiss onto my cheek.

‘Is there one for me as well?’ said the Bingo Caller, opening the door to their bedroom. They couldn’t have heard my silent toot as I replied, ‘Yes.’

At last on my bed, I carefully removed the plastic and instantly clocked the ugly green notebook with the words TheManual written on the front in thick black ink.

Mum shrilled my name. ‘Lois!’

I quickly replaced the plastic bag over TheManual, stuffing it under my bed.

‘What??!!’ I replied, totally exasperated.

‘Carla wants to know if you want to go to the sweetshop.’

I clocked the piece of plastic poking out from under the bed. ‘Erm…yes, tell her I’ll be right down…’

‘What is she doing up there?’ said Carla.

‘Nothing! I’ll be right down!’ The Manual could wait another half-hour, right?

*

I waited impatiently as Mr Tally, the bald man behind the counter, looked on as Carla picked out her ten penny sweets. Mr Tally had this annoying habit of watching us and ignoring the grown-ups who were probably busy out back, nicking a pint of milk (I’d never even stolen before, although Corey swiped a sherbet dip once).

‘I think you’ve gone over,’ said Mr Tally, and I wasn’t sure why, considering he’d always tip the tiny paper bag out onto the counter and recount the contents anyway.

‘How have I?’ challenged Carla, today dressed in a pair of very ripped jeans. The door pinged as another young customer ignored the ‘only two schoolchildren at a time’ notice slapped onto the glass door. ‘I’ve got a Flying Saucer, a Mojo, Refresher, whistle, pink shrimp and a Fruit Salad. How’s that up to ten pence?’

I sighed and glanced at my watch. We’d been at this for ten whole minutes and I was bored. I had to get back to my bedroom and that plastic bag.

‘The Jamie whistle counts for two pence,’ he said.

‘So I’ve still got three pence then! Div!’

To save on time and aggravation, I picked out a ready-made bag, hoping it contained my favourites, and we headed towards home.

‘Why don’t we go down the rec?’ asked Carla.

I opened my bag, relieved to find a white chocolate mouse. ‘I don’t feel like it today. Let’s just go home.’

‘You got stuff to do?’ she asked with a look of utter disbelief. As if Lois Bates would ever have anything exciting to do. She had a point.

‘So what’s it like with the new pops?’ she asked, her mouth stuffed with at least three items.

The white mouse and Black Jack currently being demolished in my own mouth nearly flew out as I shrieked, ‘He’s not my dad, Carla!’

‘Sooooreeee!’ she shrugged, curling her lip like they did on telly. Actually, Carla could very well be mistaken for one of those actresses or models, anything she wanted to be. She was easily the prettiest girl in Charlton – no, make that south London – and even with short hair. Tall, slim, always wore the latest fashion, fun, but an absolute whinger if she didn’t get her own way. I was relieved when she sucked on a gob-stopper, leaving me to gossip about Sharlene Rockingham and whether Mrs Codrington – our science teacher – used to be a man or not.

The hot sun shone above us, warming my insides like an electric blanket, and I could swear I felt Dad’s presence. Like he was willing me to do it; just go home and open up that Tesco bag, start acting my age and not my shoe size. I was a big girl now, after all – and, I repeat, almost a teenager.

I finally left Carla in front of her telly and came face-to-face with the plastic bag in my bedroom. I discarded the plastic and the relief was instant – followed by a stab of fear. Puke tents were suddenly pitching themselves in my tummy as the plastic fell to the ground, mercifully covering the pink dolly shoe I now used as a pencil holder.

And there it was again.

The ‘something’ my dad had left me.

The ugly green book, staring back at me.

The Manual

I opened the hard cover and immediately smiled at the first caption.

This is my (Kevin Bates’s) manual to my daughter Lois. The love of my life.

I sighed heavily, dropping the book straight onto my toes, wincing as the pain shot upwards. My body flopped backwards onto my untidy bed, shoulders colliding with the one-eyed teddy, and a single tear poured from my eye like a waning waterfall. My chest heaved up and down with the force of a silent sob, not because it hurt (and it did) but because, after all these years, I’d finally heard from my dad.