a memory of some place I’d been before, long ago. And it was. It was the world I used to live in, when Dad was alive.
I wished he could come back and everything could be like it was before he got too ill to stay at home. I wished he could come back for just one minute so I could feel his arms round me, holding me tight like he used to, because if that happened I’d be so grateful I wouldn’t care if everyone else I ever met hated my guts. And then I was pressing the bell to get off because suddenly I knew where I wanted to go.
I didn’t remember the gates because I hadn’t been there for years – not since I was about ten. They were like those gothic ones you see in films that have a winding path beyond them, leading up to a scary house on top of a rock. The metal letters in the top spelt out Bushgrove Cemetery.
I went through. Everything was quiet and still. It was so neat, the grass all mown, the flowers all red and pink in the beds along the driveway. I walked past the low brick building. Three pathways led off into the distance like massive wheel spokes through a hundred thousand graves. It was just as big as I remembered, and being the only person there that was actually alive made me feel a bit weird – like that if I stood still too long, I might start sinking into the ground without even realising what was going on till it was too late, and I was under a headstone too. Like the graveyard would swallow me.
I went down the left path. I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling it was Dad’s. The only thing I could remember from the funeral was a big tree near where they put him. I remembered sitting under it away from the huddle of people round his grave. I’d picked the petals off daisies, whispering that old-fashioned thing ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ – only I kept saying, ‘He loves me, he loves me, he loves me . . .’ Maybe that was the day I started with the whispering thing.
I looked at the gravestones as I walked. They were either incredibly old or just quite old – like either so old you couldn’t see what words had been engraved on the stones anymore, or like people that’d died in the ’70s or ’80s, like Annie Stott who was nineteen when she died. Her grave had fresh flowers on it – yellow and white ones – and little china fairies were sat all round the headstone. I wondered who’d keep coming all those years with fresh flowers. Someone who really loved her. Her stone said 1959–1978: Snatched away too soon. But it didn’t say how. They seemed like funny words to put on a gravestone – ‘Snatched away’ – as if the person who’d chosen them (probably the same one that was still bringing flowers) was pretty mad. Mad at God – or mad at someone, anyway. I wondered if Annie had literally been snatched away by someone like you – maybe even by you. Maybe you’d been taking girls for years and years and years . . . so long you couldn’t even remember how many you’d snatched away. If that was true, I thought you must be really clever, not getting caught.
The tree I remembered was up ahead, off the path on the left. It was big with a great thick trunk. An oak, I think. Actually I have no idea what it was. Maybe it was an ash or a cedar or something else. Tree identification isn’t one of my stronger points – not one of my areas of personal expertise. Anyway, I traced an imaginary line from it to the place where I remembered everyone standing, and there it was. I saw it even though I was still quite far away – standing out from all the pale stone ones round it – black and shiny like a rich person’s kitchen worktop: Dad’s grave.
I turned away, my cheeks burning. I thought, what am I even doing? He won’t want to see me – not like this! What if he doesn’t recognise me? And I wanted to run, but then I thought, oh God, what if he’s seen me and he does know it’s me? I thought how awful it’d be if, after five years of waiting and waiting for me to come, he had to watch me running off, having no idea why. So I pressed my cuffs into my eyes till I could breathe again and told myself to turn round. ‘Turn round,’ I whispered, over and over. ‘Turn round, you useless cow!’
So I did (after about five minutes) and I made myself walk straight over to him, gripping my hands in fists and clenching my teeth so I wouldn’t chicken out.
The gold letters shone out of the smooth shiny black:
Thanos ‘Terry’ Laksaris
1963–2006
Beloved husband to Jennifer
And dad to Yasmin
Forever in our hearts.
The ground over his coffin was filled with that grey gravelly stuff that looks like cat litter. There was grass growing up through it and a rusty metal vase on top.
I touched the stone. It was so cold.
‘Hi Dad,’ I said. I had to look away over the graveyard so I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t want to cry. Not after making him wait so long to see me. Then, when I thought I could go on, I said, ‘It’s me.’ It sounded stupid saying that but he might not’ve known. I don’t exactly look like the skinny kid he used to swing round by the ankles and give piggybacks to. I stood there in silence then, feeling him there – his eyes on me, unbelieving, taking me in bit by bit – and I felt fatter than ever. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and then without any warning, this giant sob sort of unfolded out of me, making me fall on my knees.
When I’d recovered a bit, I traced over the word dad with my fingers. Then I ran my hands over all the gravel stuff with grass growing through it, moved the vase and climbed in. I sat with my back against the stone and my legs on the gravel and after a while I started talking.
I told him everything. I told him how I hadn’t come for so long because I didn’t want him to see what a mess I was. How I’d tried really hard to be OK in the world without him, but how everything I did after he died felt wrong or bad, and how eating was the only thing that felt good, and then how I hadn’t really noticed I was getting big until it was too late and I couldn’t stop. I told him how everyone hated me, how Katy had spat at me.
Sitting there, I remembered something the vicar said to me at the funeral. It was after the service, I think, when we were outside the church. He put his hands on my shoulders, bent down to look me in the eyes and told me, ‘Talk to him. And don’t ever stop because he’ll always be listening. It’ll help.’ I thought it was odd that I’d only remembered that then, leaning against Dad’s stone. But he was right. It did help. It was nice. I could feel Dad listening.
I told him Mum was fine and that she missed him too. I didn’t mention Gary because, even though Mum’s always saying Dad would be pleased she’d met him, I wasn’t sure that was true. I thought it was probably just easier for her to think it was true. I’m not pleased she found Gary, so why would Dad be? And Dad would never of gone off with someone new. He loved us. He would’ve gone on loving us. I didn’t tell him about you either, in case he worried about me. I thought I’d already given him enough to worry about just by turning up.
It was getting dark when I got up to go. I had to pick off about a million bits of Dad’s gravel that were stuck to the back of my legs first, because I didn’t want to take any of his gravel away from him. It wasn’t like he had much else. Then I promised him I’d come and visit again soon. I told him the next time I’d bring flowers and make his grave nice like Annie Stott’s.
Mum and Gary weren’t in when I got back from the graveyard. I remembered they’d gone out to a restaurant because it was their anniversary. I went to my room and lay on the bed and looked at the galaxy on my ceiling and thought about nothing.
I must’ve fallen asleep because the next thing I knew Mum was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the yellow landing light.
‘You alright, Yaz?’ she whispered.
‘Yeah,’
