It sounded nice, hearing him speak like this, but the thought was swept away as the lodging-house owner emerged from his cubbyhole.
‘Oh, she do, do she? Well, tell ’er that ’er ol’ man owes me money fer the bed what ’e’s occupying and is she gonna pay me?’
‘If he’s her father,’ Ronnie replied, ‘she’ll pay you. If he ain’t, then she won’t. What room’s he in?’
‘Top o’ the stairs, turn right, second door along!’
The man went back into his room and Ellie mounted the stairs that creaked and shook to each step, the banisters dangerously wobbly. She was glad to have Ronnie hold her arm, not only supporting her physically, his touch immediately boosting the courage that had threatened to fail.
She had known for years just what she would say to her father. It was why she had put on her best clothes, so he would see that she’d risen above his humiliation of her. She had rehearsed the words so many times: what she thought of him over what he’d done, and for walking out on a dying woman. She would take delight in watching him squirm under her haughty contempt. But she hadn’t expected to find him in such a place as this, and apparently ill. Now her courage was failing her.
At the door, Ronnie’s hold on her arm tightened. ‘I’ll come in with you, give you support.’
The words brought her mind back to her quest. She lifted her chin with recaptured resolve. ‘No. I need to do this on my own.’
Ill or not, there would be a reckoning – she knew that now. All the scheming, planning, the hard work – it mustn’t go to waste. She wanted to see his expression when he saw her, tall and elegant and self-assured.
She wanted to see his face blench, twist, his eyes unable to meet hers as she gazed steadily down at him with venom in that stare. She’d stay calm as she belittled him, condemned him to eternal remorse, finally to turn from him with dignity, knowing she had accomplished all she’d set out to do. She knew just how to go about it, and now she could hardly wait to carry it out.
‘Stay here. I won’t be long,’ she said firmly, Ronnie stepping back.
Without knocking she turned the handle of the door. Her intention was to walk quietly up to where he sat, to look straight into his amazed face. She would not rant and rave. She would be calm and cold – ice-cold.
The state of the house should have forewarned her. As she opened the door to the room, the smell made her clap her hand to her mouth and nose yet again. She felt herself quail.
A man lay on a filthy bed. It wasn’t her father, this emaciated wretch whose face she could see covered in sores. All this effort and she’d found the wrong man. She stood quaking, staring from the door at the apparition.
Her father could never have looked like this, even if he had been ill – the tall, burly, handsome man she remembered, with the handlebar moustache, the fair hair always slicked down, face ruddy with health, arms bulging with muscle, the whole belligerent attitude of him that would never have allowed him to be reduced to what this man was like.
‘I’m sorry…’ she began.
The body stirred, the head turned and the eyes opened to look towards the voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I think I’ve made a mistake.’
Flustered, she could hardly wait to get out of the room, back into Ronnie’s strong, comforting, healthy arms. He’d got the information wrong, but if nothing else it had brought him and her together.
Making towards the door, wanting only to escape this horrible place, she was stopped by the man’s cracked voice. ‘Ellie? Is that you?’
Ellie froze. It was a while before she could turn to face the stricken man as he said again, ‘That you, Ellie?’
Thirty
As Ellie stood transfixed, he spoke her name again, the voice just a croak, hardly above a whisper. Then she heard him say, ‘Come ’ere, so’s I can see yer.’
She didn’t want to go near him, wished she hadn’t been so full of resolve in telling Ronnie to wait outside. Her determination had collapsed into crass fear, wanting only to have Ronnie hold her hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to say, ‘I don’t know who you are. I’ve made a mistake.’
A skinny hand and forearm rose from the bed. ‘Come ’ere.’ Though the voice croaked, little above a whisper, it bore a note of command, just like her father’s requests had always done. ‘Ellie, come ’ere, yer silly little fool. I ain’t goin’ to ’urt yer.’
The voice came now, weak and croaking: ‘Ellie, I’m ill…’
Yet as the words trailed off, an unexpected feeling of pity overwhelmed her, as it would have done at seeing any poor wretch in these conditions. Not knowing why she obeyed, Ellie moved towards the bed.
At close quarters the state of the sick man was even more alarming. The hair was thin and patchy, revealing the scalp beneath. There were ugly weeping ulcerations on the face and scrawny neck. The eyes looked red and sore. The arm and fingers that had been held out to her were partly covered in a strange rash, the rest of the skin showing brownish-red stains.
She almost felt relief that this was no one she knew. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, her voice sounding small. ‘How do you know my name?’
His whisper came haltingly. ‘Don’t yer know me? I’m… yer dad.’
At the words, panic swept through her. ‘You’re not!’ she burst out. ‘You can’t be!’
Her voice trembled then broke; fear and disbelief combined into denial that this apparition might once have been a strong man, her own father.
‘I don’t know you,’ she whispered, trying to convince herself. But he’d spoken her name. Who else in this awful place would have known it?
He made no reply. A sigh issued from his blotched lips as if the whole of his breath
