She wants to be able to revise for her exams without being distracted so she’s taken herself off for the weekend, to somewhere without wi-fi.’
‘How did we make such a sensible child?’ he jokes, his good humour back.
‘I have no idea.’
I give him a weak smile and, thinking I’m nervous about my party, he gives me a kiss.
‘Relax. Everything’s going to be fine. What time is Kirin picking you up?’
‘Not until eleven.’
‘Then you can rest a bit longer.’ He gets up from the bed. ‘Have your coffee while I shower, and when you come down, I’ll make you breakfast.’
9 A.M. – 10 A.M.
I push at the canvas of the marquee with my shoulder and it gives slightly before bouncing back. I push at it again, harder this time, and manage to get the door of my shed open just enough to get inside.
I love my shed, with its earthy smell of the sawdust that powders the floor. Several large blocks of wood – oak, pine and walnut – sit at different levels under the front wall, where the window looks onto the garden. A twenty-foot workbench runs the length of the back wall, dotted at various intervals with clamps and power tools. Two open shelves hold the smaller tools I use. In the far corner, there’s a TV and DVD player and two old armchairs. Nelson and I come here sometimes to watch sport or a black-and-white film. He brings beers for the fridge and admits that he’s hiding from Kirin and the kids.
It’s the other end of the shed that I’m here for. I’ve been keeping a box there since Marnie came up with her idea to surprise Livia. It’s a metre-long wooden crate that held a large piece of black walnut and I need to move it into the garden and hide it under the table as soon as Liv leaves.
I drag the box to the doorway. And that’s when I realise the marquee is too close to the door for it to pass through.
‘Damn!’
I look at taking the box apart and putting it back together in the garden, but each of the sides is nailed down tightly. I sit down in one of the armchairs, wondering where the hell I’m going to find another box big enough for Marnie to hide inside. The smell of wood and varnish calms my mind and I prop my feet up on the workbench and let my mind wander. I never intended being a carpenter. Ever since my dad took me to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge when I was seven years old, all I wanted was to build bridges, so when I was offered a place at Edinburgh to study Civil Engineering, I couldn’t wait to go. Josh’s arrival changed everything – at least, that was how I saw it at the time.
I’m not making excuses for how I behaved back then but it was hard seeing Nelson and my other friends having a great time at university when I had to do an apprenticeship I wasn’t interested in. I don’t know how Mr Wentworth, the only person who would take me on, or Liv, put up with me. I’d disappear to see Nelson in Bristol, leaving her alone with Josh, sometimes not coming back for days. I’d crash in his room and sneak into his lectures with him, then stay up drinking, living the student life I so badly wanted. It’s why I can understand Liv craving this party. When you’ve been robbed of something you wanted more than anything, it never really goes away.
My ledger is lying open on the table and I pull myself up from the armchair and flip through the pages. I automatically log my orders on my computer but I also keep a written record, something Mr Wentworth insisted we did. I’ve kept all of his ledgers. He loved the idea that one day someone would read about the different pieces he made; the wood he used, the approximate number of hours it took, the amount he charged. He died five years ago and although I hadn’t worked with him for more than ten years, I still miss him.
Most of the wood in my shed has already been commissioned – the biggest piece, a beautiful block of burnished oak, will eventually be a table for a rich banker in Knightsbridge – but the black walnut, my favourite, is reserved for Marnie. I’m going to make a sculpture for her twentieth birthday in July.
I had zero expectations before she was born. Josh’s arrival three years earlier had been so bewildering that I still hadn’t adapted to being a dad. But the minute I laid eyes on Marnie, I was besotted. If Josh’s arrival brought out the worst in me, Marnie’s brought out the best. She taught me how to be a father, simply by being.
When she got older, we became close in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever be with Josh. After school, she’d come and find me in the shed and sit in one of the armchairs, chatting about her day as I worked. I got my first motorbike when she was twelve, and she loved it as much as I did. Livia had always insisted that the children walk the twenty minutes to school, but as Marnie got older, she began to take her time getting ready in the mornings, then ask me to take her on my bike, insisting she’d be late otherwise.
‘And there’s nothing cooler than arriving on a Triumph Bonneville T120,’ she’d whisper, once Livia was out of earshot.
Livia disapproved of me indulging her. I’d have done the same for Josh, if he’d asked, but he preferred to get a detention for being late rather than ask me for a lift. Later, when Marnie began going to parties, I’d take and fetch her on my bike. She never worried about her hair getting crushed under a helmet, or her dress crushed by the leathers I insisted on her wearing. I was proud that she shared my love of bikes. Stupidly, I never thought that one day, she’d want one of her own.
‘I’ve decided,’ she announced to me and Liv only a month ago, during one of our FaceTime chats. She was sitting on her bed, her phone balanced between her knees. On the wall behind her, along with a KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON poster, she’d stuck photos of me, Livia and Josh, and her friends from home. There was also a group shot of her and Cleo, with me and Rob – Cleo’s dad – standing behind them. We’d taken them to a pizza place in Windsor not long after they’d finished their exams, I remembered.
‘I’m not going travelling when I finish here in June,’ Marnie continued. ‘I’m going to come straight home instead.’
‘What? Why the rush?’ Liv said before I could reply. She sounded sharper with Marnie than she’d been for years and I knew she was worried that Marnie was feeling homesick again.
‘Because I want to be able to do the Long Walk on my birthday.’
Neither of us knew what to say. The Long Walk in Windsor Great Park was something we’d done with Marnie on her birthday for the last ten years, but only because she’d been around. To give up her chance to go travelling just to come home and do a walk she could do anytime, given that we lived nearby, was worrying. And then, unable to keep up the pretence, she burst out laughing.
‘I’m joking!’ she said. ‘I’m coming home to study for my motorbike licence.’
‘Right,’ I said, relieved. ‘But there’s no rush, is there?’
‘Yes, because I want to get a motorbike.’
‘You won’t be able to afford one for years,’ Liv pointed out. ‘Isn’t it better to go travelling? You might never get the chance to visit Vietnam and Cambodia again.’
‘Mum,’ Marnie said patiently. ‘I will – by motorbike!’
Nothing
