Coffee

This story follows on from ‘Lost and Found.’ Deb and her father have a second meeting in a coffee shop, where memories and assumptions collide, and they both have illusions shattered about what the other has been doing since the father left home and moved all the way to South Africa.

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‘You do know it’s all your fault. You’re the one who left. And took most of mum’s money.’ The gentle tone belied the severity of the words. The defensive ‘it wasn’t like that,’ died on his lips. Debbie – sorry, ‘Deb,’ he must get used to his daughter’s new name – took a sip of her coffee to hide the wry smile. She had insisted on this public meeting place, and sitting where she could see the entrance. He was trying to remember what used to be here: clothes shop? Newsagents? No, it wasn’t going to come. His cappuccino was getting cold, the chocolate powder congealing into a brown scum on the frothy surface.

He tried to formulate a reply. Yes: he had been a fact-driven, unemotional automata, trying to find a role in his own life when the given options were limited. But the first job he’d got wasn’t actually that far away. And he’d only gone for it because, at the time, house-husbands weren’t a thing. 

‘All my fault?’ he asked, probing as gently as he could. He had to be careful, Deb’s mum, his ex-wife, was still very much in the picture, even if she was too busy to babysit her grandchildren, she (he now knew) still lived nearby. He looked across at his older daughter. Despite three children, she still looked young, attractive, elegant. The clothes suited her. Not that he knew much about the latest designers, but Deb looked smart, ‘chic’ – to use an old-fashioned term.

‘We became latch-key kids. Unless there was a club Fran could go to at the same time, I had to come home straight after school and make her tea.’ Deb had been the responsible one, looking after her younger sister, but he was surprised she had to do it.

‘So, your mum didn’t arrange for Fran to be looked after – a babysitter after school until she got home?’

‘I was fourteen. Fran was twelve. “Babysitter?”’

‘Ah.’ He paused, ‘Sorry.’ Then a thought, ‘But what about your gran? Didn’t she move in?’

‘“When I was fourteen, I knew how to cook for the whole family. And I’d left school to get a job.”’ Deb had her grandmother’s haughty voice and intonation instantly. He’d almost jumped – he’d been terrified of the woman. She had never thought he was good enough for her daughter.

‘Is that what she said?’ he asked, trying to recover, ‘Even if it was true, did she really expect you to do everything?’

‘Once she moved in, it was her home. We had to work round her.’ Deb paused, sighed, ‘It was easier to make her afternoon tea as well as Fran’s, than argue about who could use the kitchen.’

‘Even though she expected you to be able to cook for everyone?’ he leaned back in his chair, which creaked ominously under his weight, causing him to straighten back up and lose the thread of his thoughts. Deb nodded and looked down at her latte.

‘I’m told I got pregnant with Amy as an attempt to escape. Or a cry for help. And, yes, I have had counselling.’ Deb said. This time the smile reached her eyes, ‘Neither Mum nor Gran noticed – until it was too late.’

‘Too late?’ he said.

‘For an abortion. Unlike the twins, I barely showed until right to the end. I was even able to take my GCSEs.’ Deb looked away, almost as if she was gazing backwards into a different person’s life. He wondered what he could say. Yes, there was a gap between the oldest one and the other two – the boy and girl who seemed to go around as a pair even on the beach. Ten years ago, he hadn’t known. He had not been told. Dammit, he’d been paying maintenance; been getting their school reports. However, Deb’s final report merely mentioned their sorrow she was not coming back for her A-levels. Should he have asked more questions? Pushed harder for information? It was a lot to take in – at least he knew better than to sit in judgement. His daughter had to lead her own life.

He had forgotten how full of energy, and questions, young children could be. Naughty Brutus, the dog whose collision with him has caused the meet-up in the first place, gave him one sniff and ignored him for the walk back to their respective cars. Maybe it was acceptance, a recognition that he posed no danger to the family (both reasons given by the children), or maybe it was because, in stopping long enough to sniff this strange man, Brutus had gifted Deb the opportunity to snap the lead on him, so he could not run away and lengthen the time they all had on the beach.

Having three kids hanging onto him was a new experience. Correction, the twins grabbed an arm each and the eldest, Amy, a twelve-year-old who seemed to carry the cares of the world on her shoulders, walked ahead, turning every few paces to regard him with narrowed eyes: the only one reluctant to accept he was who he said he was. And why not? It wasn’t every day someone turns up in your life, who you had never seen before, claiming to be related. Olivia and Charlie just plied him with questions about his life in Africa. He found himself telling tales about camping in the bush and being visited by an elephant and having to be ‘very, very quiet.’

‘Did you see any lions? Any leopards? Any tigers?’ He had to answer ‘no’ to the last one: tigers live in India, not Africa. ‘What about monkeys?’ ‘Do they have birds?’ The only dispute – if it could be called that – was over his insistence he had seen penguins. ‘But they live where it’s cold!’

‘South Africa can get cold sometimes.’

‘But what about the deserts? And the jungle?’

‘Oh, Africa is a big place. A very big place.’

Deb had been quiet, dealing with Brutus. Back on the beach, her questions, once they had established the strong likelihood that he was her dad, and therefore her children’s grandfather, were more practical: how long was he staying in the area? Where was he living? How long had he been home? Why had he retired so young (she knew he was only just over sixty)? The last had been due to internal university politics: the woes of the British Empire, and particularly the Boer wars, had not been his personal fault, but for some of the faculty, and a significant number of the students, he became the manifestation of that part of South African history. And, although the dean had mouthed all the right supportive words, those words had not been translated into action. He turned sixty, he could collect his pension, it was time to go. He could have retired to a lovely bungalow in one of the more (though not the most) salubrious parts of Cape Town, but his family was somewhere in England. Returning became the obvious choice.

‘And we all thought you were living the high life. Servants, five-star service. The lot. And,’ Deb paused. At this point, all three children were in the car and she’d closed the boot on a trying-to-escape Brutus, ‘Mum always wondered how many “coloured bastards” you had.’

‘What?’ he exclaimed. He ran his hand through his remaining hair. ‘The answer, you can tell her, is none.’

There had been occasional opportunities for relationships, even one-night stands, but, unless he found someone to replace his ex-wife, he wasn’t going there. And, of course, in order to replace his ex-wife, he had to be over his ex-wife – something his therapist was sorting out with him. It had taken long enough for him to admit he had returned to see if there was anything to re-kindle … but his ex-wife had moved on. She had not contacted him, she had not told him anything about how his children were doing, good or bad. Wasn’t it about time he accepted it – and moved on himself?

With three children and one dog already in the car, there was no more time. The arrangement to meet for coffee was hurried, but he was thankful Deb had wanted another meeting before he travelled back south.

After waving them off, with the best part of an hour on his ticket, he stood at the top of the bank, looking out to sea, and thought back to those days. Those days when the pressure to get work (looking after the girls didn’t count, of course) was all consuming. The first job had been in Chester. He was lucky to get that, being somewhat older than all the other candidates. As it was a temporary contract, there had been ‘no point’ in moving the family; but the real split came four months down the line.

‘You’re the one who left, I’m making damn sure you never see your kids again.’ That was his father-in-law, who had driven ‘half-way across the country’ to deliver the stuff his son-in-law ‘couldn’t be bothered to collect.’ This soon-to-be ex-son-in-law hadn’t known time had been called on his marriage. Yes, he had gone ahead with the interview for the South Africa job before he’d fully discussed it with his wife – but that was because she didn’t want to discuss it over the phone, and he couldn’t come home until the following weekend. He had done as he’d been told, ‘networking,’ finding out about all the opportunities before they appeared in the advertising sheets. That’s how he found out about the job in South Africa in the first place.

So, he had ended up with a career, but no family.

In the coffee shop, trying to get his point across, without disrespecting his ex-father-in-law (and Deb’s grandad) too much, he tried to put it down to ‘miscommunication.’.

‘What about that job in Durham? If mum could have her career there, why couldn’t you?’ Deb asked.

‘What job?’ he hadn’t heard about any job in Durham.

‘There was a senior lecturer job going. Mum said so.’

A memory stirred. He leaned forward, choosing his words with care: ‘Deb, any university has many departments. While there might have been a job at Durham University, it would have to be in the right department.’ And come up at the right time, he thought, but didn’t say. The notification about the Durham job hadn’t come until after he had accepted the role in South Africa.

At first, he had hoped she would come out with the girls – he’d pointed out there were many opportunities for her, but somehow, the planned visits never happened. His chances for returning home were few and far between. His ex-parents-in-law became openly hostile and told him, ‘for the children’s sake,’ he’d better ‘keep away.’ Besides, after two years, they were in court (at a hearing he had no chance of getting to), claiming desertion.

But all that was irrelevant to Deb just now. He tried to explain:

‘I sent extra money for birthday presents; Christmas presents. It was you, wasn’t it? Did well in textiles? I sent a whole load of traditional cloth for your designs …’

He stuttered to a halt at her face. Puzzlement, through to thoughtfulness, to fury.

‘What have I said?’

‘That charity dinner! Gran was chair of the committee. NSPCC. A round-the-world meal: recipes from all continents. Something for the great and the good to be seen at.’ Deb slammed her coffee mug down on the table, ‘And she wowed them all with her “traditional” dress. I was allowed the off-cuts after her designer had finished. I had to intersperse it with black cotton even to make a skimpy top.’ Deb breathed hard. Looked up at him: ‘And you sent the cloth for me?’

He shrugged, ‘I just thought it was a good idea. At the time …’

‘But we never got anything from you!’

‘But when you were latch-key kids, surely you would have picked up the post? Checked who it was for?’

‘The post went into a lockable post-box. On the wall by the front door. Only Mum and Gran had keys. Parcels went to the next-door neighbour – mum collected them.’

‘But … wasn’t this delivered by hand? My colleague was flying to England for her sabbatical. I sent the cloth with her.’ Unlike the Royal Mail, people knew not to trust the postal system in South Africa – too many items got ‘lost.’ He’d only bought the cloth when he knew his colleague was going back to the UK to visit family and friends.

Deb decided it was time to drink her coffee. A memory stirred in his mind of a conversation with his colleague after she returned to South Africa. All about handing the cloth over to ‘a very sweet old lady,’ who said she’d ‘make sure the right person got it.’ Too late now; it was clear Deb was not considered the right person, and the cloth wasn’t used in a GCSE textile project.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. What else could he say? As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew how his therapist would react: why are you apologising for something that’s not your fault? But he was sorry for more than a stolen dress. He was sorry he had accepted being pushed out. That he had prioritised his career over his family. He was sorry his daughters had missed out on the sunshine, the safaris, and the freedoms that living in South Africa could bring. The place wasn’t all guns and inter-racial violence.

‘Mum always said you didn’t care. That’s why you left.’

‘I always cared about you – and Francesca,’ he reached his hand across the table, ‘I’ve got all your school reports.’

‘How?’ Deb sniffed.

‘I contacted the school. I am your dad. I was paying maintenance.’

‘“Twopence ha’penny,” as Gran always said. And I was told it stopped when I turned sixteen.’

He sat back, and named the real figure, saying he could show her the bank statements if she wanted, and the fact he carried on paying until after Francesca left school. The conversation paused, both of them absorbing the new information they’d been given.

He found out Deb left school with her baby on the way. After the birth, there was college: a secretarial course. She had to live at home, so she could help look after gran – grandad had died by then. Looking after gran and Fran, and her baby, became a full-time job. It didn’t help that Gran became more and more difficult, though Mum wouldn’t ask for, much less accept, a dementia diagnosis until right towards the end. Even then, the systems and organisations to move gran into care were too slow. Gran had a fall, broke her hip, and died in hospital. Before she was twenty-two, Deb knew what it was like to be glad someone had died.

Mum was working, Fran was away at university for her first degree (‘it’s Dr Fran now’ Deb said, almost in passing), and the childhood sweetheart – Amy’s dad – came back from his uni with tales of faraway places and exciting plans. Deb and he got married. She had dreams of fairy-tale endings. But the plans came to nothing once the twins arrived. Her husband left to have his own adventures.

‘We were too young, immature.’ Deb shrugged again, ‘He certainly was.’

‘He pays maintenance?’

‘When he remembers.’ But Deb was looking over his shoulder.

‘You seem to be doing ok?’ he tried to get her attention back. He didn’t want to crane his neck. Twisting around to see what had distracted Deb would be rude, wouldn’t it? Besides, he had seen the car she was driving, and how many parents of three kids these days can take days off work?

‘She’s doing very well. Aren’t you, sis?’ A new voice arrived at the table. A new voice that came with cropped hair, a baggy top and ripped jeans. Deb had leapt up, squealing ‘Fran! You made it.’ As a kiss was exchanged between the sisters, he had time to stand and grab a spare chair for their table.

‘I bet she hasn’t told you about her clothes – her designer business?’ Fran said, sitting down.

Before he could formulate a reply to that piece of news, Fran continued, ‘Set it all up in her bedroom, and it went from there. All online.’

He remained standing and said the only thing he could think of, ‘Shall I get you a coffee?’