The Song, The Heart Read online

  Skye stepped forward and took hold of the microphone like a marksman readying her aim. ‘Hello, London, my name is Skye, and this song is called Table Twenty-Four.’

  ‘Skye, table twenty-four?’ an agitated voice enquired.

  ‘Table twenty-four,’ Skye repeated dreamily.

  ‘Good Lord! Earth to Skye! Stop daydreaming and get it together, space cadet! Did you check on table twenty-four?’

  Skye’s face heated. She had no doubt she was a deep shade of red, similar to the stage curtain in her fantasy that her co-worker so rudely ripped her from. Of course, this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but it never failed to leave Skye in an awkward state of embarrassment.

  ‘Wh-what? Oh crap, what do they want now?’ Skye’s mood quickly elevated from awkward to aggravated as she begrudgingly made her way to table twenty-four and looked at the people eating their food.

  Not something to write a song about, that’s for sure. Skye straightened her shoulders and plastered on her best smile.

  She wasn’t exactly Peppermills’s star waitress, but she showed up and did her job to the best of her ability. Skye had graduated from secondary school ten years ago, and since then she’d only spent about twelve hours a week away from the restaurant. Exaggerations aside, Skye had dedicated an exorbitant amount of time to Peppermills, but even through hordes of grouchy customers and mountains of dirty dishes, she had always chosen the restaurant over her home life.

  ‘Sorry for the delay. What seems to be the problem?’ Skye asked the couple in a forced, bubbly tone.

  The grey-haired duo had been firmly planted in the restaurant for over an hour. Skye didn’t doubt they’d come to purposely make her life more miserable than it already was.

  ‘This pesto sauce is too oily.’ The woman prodded and poked at the pasta covered with green sauce on her plate with a fork. ‘Why is it so oily?’

  Skye frowned. ‘Oily? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but pesto is an oil-based sauce.’

  ‘Are you getting lippy with me, young lady? I’m the customer, and the customer is always right. You’re rude. Now go and get your manager.’

  ‘Lippy?’ Skye said incredulously. ‘All I said was—’

  Izzy, Peppermills’s manager, swiftly shoved Skye aside. She had undoubtedly overheard the exchange.

  ‘I see you’re having a problem with the sauce, madam.’ Before the woman could say another word, Izzy swiftly removed her plate from the table and shoved it into Skye’s hands. ‘I’ll send over another plate with an oil-free pesto sauce in a short while. No charge.’

  ‘What?’ Skye blurted.

  ‘Shut up …’ Izzy muttered under her breath as she playfully pushed Skye back towards the kitchen.

  ‘Oil-free pesto? Izzy, that would taste awful. Are you going to give her chopped-up basil leaves and pine nuts? Do enlighten me, I’m begging you,’ Skye said as Izzy placed the plate down on the kitchen counter.

  Izzy grinned. ‘God works in mysterious ways. His wonders to perform,’ Izzy intoned in her best booming Pentecostal preacher’s voice, her arms raised heavenwards.

  Skye couldn’t help but giggle.

  Izzy dropped her arms and resumed in her natural voice. ‘Seriously, though, I’ll grind up some basil, toss it on some buttered pasta and hey “pesto”… call it oil-free. The clueless old bat will never know the difference.’

  As the women shook their heads and laughed about what they had to put up with on a day to day basis with temperamental customers, the door swung open behind them, and Bea stuck her head in. Bea was a plump, prematurely greying middle-aged woman who worked at Peppermills to support herself after her husband ran off with their next-door neighbour. She lived alone with her cats and had told Skye she was so much happier now than she had been when her husband was living with her.

  Bea’s eyebrows rose at the two women’s laughing faces. ‘Laugh, you two, but your favourite table of the day, table twenty-four, has another problem.’

  Skye gave a small shake of her head. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn! This is going to be one of those days, isn’t it? What have I done wrong now? Do they want garlic bread without garlic, perhaps?’

  She wouldn’t put it past them.

  ‘You haven’t done anything. The old girl said there’s a vagrant peering through the window at her.’

  ‘Wishful thinking,’ Izzy said with a smirk.

  ‘Skye …’ Bea glanced around the room uncomfortably before settling her gaze on Skye. With a soft, regretful smile, she said, ‘Skye, sweetheart, it’s your dad.’

  ‘My dad?’ Skye closed her eyes for a minute, imagining what could bring her dad to her place of work. There was only one thing: money. Again. There were days when Skye wondered why she even bothered getting out of bed, when all she wanted was to pull the covers over her head and stay hidden from the reality of her life.

  Her shoulders drooped under the weight of her burden—a burden too heavy for her to carry but that couldn’t ever be put down.

  Izzy rested a hand on Skye’s arm. ‘It’s okay. Go and see what he wants. I’ll cover for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Iz.’ Skye placed her hand over her friend’s and gave it a squeeze. Using the back entrance to leave the restaurant, she grabbed her jacket off the hook by the door and hurried down the dimly lit alleyway. As Skye rounded the corner, she saw her dad hovering by the main entrance door. He wore only a T-shirt despite the freezing cold. It hung off his hollow shoulders and looked filthy.

  ‘Dad,’ she called out, waving her hands to get his attention. ‘Dad!’

  Oliver slowly turned around, defeated and sad. A gust of icy wind blew back his long, scraggy hair. Skye’s mouth dropped open at the sight of his mud-splattered face.

  ‘What the…?’ She met him halfway as he zigzagged towards her. ‘Dad, what happened?’

  Skye put an arm around him, afraid he would fall onto the icy pavement and hurt himself. Suddenly she realised that what she thought was grime was actually blood. Her dad was a mess.

  ‘The … bastards …’ Oliver stuttered as he ran his dirt-filled nails through his hair. ‘They … took … everything.’

  Skye’s eyes were drawn to the abscess and sores covering his arms. Oliver, a once normal, intelligent guy who had turned to the dark side for unknown reasons as a teenager, was the epitome of a drug addict. As the story went, when he fell for Skye’s mother, he vowed to change, and he had kept that vow, but only until Skye turned fifteen.

  Skye vividly recalled the cold, snowy day she came home to find her father on the sofa, zoned out.

  ‘Dad, are you okay?’ she’d questioned anxiously as she shook him.

  He turned to look in her direction, but his eyes didn’t focus. Skye was sure he was having a stroke. He then slowly responded with an absent-minded nod that Skye would eventually find all too familiar.

  ‘Mum, something’s wrong with Dad?’ she called out to her mother in the kitchen. ‘I think he’s had a stroke or a heart attack. Quick, call an ambulance. Quickly, Mum. He can’t even speak.’

  ‘Sweetheart, leave him be,’ her mother answered from the doorway. ‘He’ll be okay in a couple of hours.’

  ‘But!’ Skye protested. She looked at her dad and only saw a man who resembled him. Her dad was not in there, and it scared her. Hot tears prickled behind her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. Why wasn’t her mum doing anything? ‘Mum! Come closer! You need to see him!’

  ‘I’ve seen him, Skye. Believe me, I have. He’s not dying or having a stroke, I promise.’ Her mum beckoned her into the hallway and gave her a gentle hug. ‘Go upstairs and I’ll bring your dinner up.’

  That was the beginning of the end of her normal life. From that day forward, every day was the dead of winter at Skye’s house. The love between her parents had been thrown out of the home the second drugs had been injected into her dad’s veins.

  Skye shook her head to clear away the painful memories. That was years ago, and now her dad was her responsibility.

 
She shrugged off her jacket and attempted to wrap it around his shoulders.

  He stared at her with agitation and pushed her hands away. ‘I don’t need your fucking jacket. I need money.’

  ‘Dad, please, you’ll freeze to death.’

  He kicked the ground in anger. ‘Anything’s better than living like a fucking animal in this shit hole.’

  ‘Look, let me take you home and clean you up.’ Skye refrained from touching him. She never knew what reaction was forthcoming when he was like this. Sometimes his skin burnt as he came down and touching him had him yelling in perceived pain. She had learnt how to deal with the fragile glass figurine that was her father—a figurine with a sense of entitlement that often made her want to scream or run away or both, but she did neither. She was all he had.

  Oliver glared at her. ‘Then you’ll give me some money?’

  Skye held out her jacket for him. Of course she would give him the money. It was her fault he had been mugged in the first place. If only she’d given him five-pound notes instead of twenties, she wouldn’t have made him a target.

  ‘Okay, but you’ve got to promise me you’ll be careful.’ She raised her eyebrows and look fiercely at him.

  Oliver’s face broke into a slight grin. For a split second, he looked like her dad again, the one she had grown up with. The smart, intelligent person before the Devil entered his veins.

  ‘You’re the only person who gives a shit about me.’ His voice was barely a whisper.

  Skye wanted desperately to tell him he was wrong, but they’d both know she was lying. Neither his parents nor his siblings gave him the time of day. They had all turned their backs on him, pretending he didn’t exist.

  ‘Put the jacket on now … please, Dad. It’s bitterly cold,’ she coaxed, holding it out to him.

  He took a hesitant step towards her, like an animal unsure of her intentions. In a flash, he snatched the jacket from her hand and flung it around his shoulders.

  ‘Let me tell Izzy I’m gonna take my break. Don’t go anywhere.’ She turned to go but stopped. ‘And Dad …’

  Oliver looked at her wide-eyed.

  ‘Stay away from the window please,’ Skye said. ‘You’re scaring the customers.’

  ***

  It took Skye half an hour to tend to her father. Thankfully, the cuts on his face were superficial. He had given his mugger a taste of his own medicine. Skye had managed to get him to eat a bowl of soup before he headed back into the underworld, this time with five-pound notes tucked into each of his jeans pockets.

  The rest of the evening at the restaurant moved at a slow pace, and Skye was relieved when closing time arrived. An unending emotional exhaustion that always loomed close hit her.

  ‘Izzy, I don’t know how much longer my dad can carry on like this,’ Skye said, wiping the food counter for the third time in as many minutes. ‘If the drugs don’t kill him, it’ll be one of the people he associates with that does him in. You should have seen the state of him.’

  ‘You know what to do?’ Izzy’s gaze was direct, her tone matter-of-fact. ‘You can’t fund his habit forever, Skye. Something’s gotta give.’

  Skye threw down the cloth and slid onto a seat. ‘If I could just get enough money together—’

  ‘You’ve been saving for as long as I can remember. You save, and he takes it and sticks your money in his veins. You think he’s gonna stop? Why would he? He’s got you providing him with all the money he needs to sustain his habit. Would you give it up? He’s living the life of Riley.’

  Skye rubbed her face down with her hands and groaned. That was so far from the truth. If Izzy thought for one minute the hell her dad was going through was something he liked, she was further removed from reality than Skye had thought. Looking in from the outside was easy, but until someone had lived with a drug addict, they couldn’t understand. She could have said this out loud, but she didn’t want to get into an argument with Izzy. Not tonight.

  ‘So what’s the solution then?’ Skye mumbled.

  ‘Let him stand on his own two feet, like I keep telling you,’ Izzy said, staring back at her, visibly annoyed.

  The women had rolled this conversation around between them so often that had it been a rock, it would have been polished as smooth as a gemstone. Bea entered the restaurant area from the kitchen, a look of concern in her eyes.

  ‘Hey, they’ve just said on the radio there’s gonna be a big storm tonight.’ Bea glanced at each woman. ‘Oh, sorry. Did I interrupt something?’

  Skye exhaled a deep breath. ‘Nope, just me complaining about the same old situation.’

  Bea gave her a sympathetic look. ‘I’ve noticed your dad hanging around the Pembury Estate lately. He really ought to stay away from that area. There’re right ruffians that hang around there, and he’s not a strong man.’

  ‘I’ve tried telling him, but who am I to make him listen to good sense?’

  ‘His daughter,’ Bea said with a small half-smile. ‘He should listen to you. You’re such a good girl.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Izzy cut in. ‘She’s not his mother, wife or counsellor. He should be looking after her, not traipsing the streets, trying to score drugs while Skye worries herself sick about him.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it, Izzy?’ Bea said, frowning.

  Izzy shook her red curls away from her face. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Well, yes. Addiction is a disease. The poor man can’t help it.’

  Skye was grateful for Bea’s intervention. She was always the one who had the calm, wise words that, more often than not, diffused most difficult situations.

  Izzy rolled her eyes. ‘Everything’s a disease these days. Is my addiction to fast food a disease? No. I’m just a lazy bitch who can’t be bothered to cook, but hey ho, what do I know?’

  Izzy’s rant was a standard one. The topic of fathers was probably the only thing the two friends ever argued about. Izzy’s dad had remarried when she was still young. He lived in the Bahamas with his new wife and their three kids and sent Izzy money—blood money, she called it—every Christmas and birthday. Izzy couldn’t understand how Skye could still love her dad after everything he’d put her through. In one sense Izzy was right. Under normal circumstances, fathers were meant to look after their daughters, not the other way round. But the situation with her father was not normal, so it didn’t count.

  Skye tuned the women’s arguing out of her mind. She knew Izzy meant no harm. She spoke her mind whether people wanted to hear it or not—it was just the way she was—and Skye had become used to it over the years. Bea, on the other hand, hadn’t.

  ‘I think food’s a bit different to drugs,’ Bea said firmly.

  ‘Whatever,’ Izzy said dismissively.

  ‘Thank God he hasn’t got you for a daughter,’ Bea said, casting her a filthy look.

  ‘No, thank God he isn’t my dad, you mean.’

  ‘Come on guys, cut it out,’ Skye interjected. ‘Agree to disagree and let’s move on.’

  ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if I’m wanted.’ With that, Bea turned and walked through the swing doors.

  ‘Jesus, what’s her problem?’ Izzy said, her eyes following Bea’s departure.

  Before Skye could respond, the front door opened, and a gale-force wind literally pushed the owner of Peppermills inside. Straightening his woolly hat, he looked behind him as if he were scared the wind would drag him back outside.

  ‘Stanley, what are you playing at coming out in weather like this?’ Izzy admonished.

  Stanley reached into his jacket and withdrew an envelope. ‘Ho, ho, ho, I bring the season of goodwill to all men!’ he boomed in a deep faux-Santa voice. ‘Well, to all women as well,’ he added, laughing.

  ‘Stan, Christmas isn’t for another month.’

  ‘Well, it’s come early for you two.’ He handed Izzy the envelope.

  Izzy eyed it suspiciously. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I won a trip to London in the Sunday paper. Who would have thoug
ht people actually won those things, but there you are! I’m too old to be traipsing about London for a week—’

  ‘A week!’ Skye and Izzy said in unison.

  ‘That’s what I said. I’m glad it’s not only me who’s hard of hearing.’ Stanley chuckled to himself.

  Izzy opened the envelope and took out the paperwork. Her eyes scanned the documents, and she looked up at him in disbelief.

  ‘Stan …’ she began, but he held up his hand, interrupting her.

  ‘It’s only a three-star hotel,’ he said, ‘but it looks clean enough.’

  ‘And most importantly, it’s free!’ Izzy said excitedly. ‘What do you say, Skye? You up for a bit of action?’

  Skye sighed. ‘I dunno …’

  ‘Take some advice from an old man, young lady. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Have you two even left this town yet? At your age, I’d seen half the world.’

  Yeah, but I bet you didn’t have a drug addict father to look after.

  ‘Anyway, the offer’s there.’ He wrapped his scarf around his neck. ‘Go, don’t go; it’s up to you two.’

  When he had left, Izzy glanced at Skye with disapproval. ‘Your so-called father is gonna be your downfall. He really is.’ Izzy angrily threw the papers down on the table in front of her. ‘Have you thought that maybe life has its own plans for you, and whether you believe it or not, you have a choice? You can either embrace the change and move forward, or fight it and be left behind.’ She glared at Skye. ‘I know what I’d rather do.’

  Deep inside, she knew Izzy was right. Her words had managed to hit the right spot this time.

  Skye spoke before her brain had time to engage. ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ She picked up the papers and waved them in the air. ‘Whoo hoo! Look out London, here we come!’

  Chapter Four

  Morgan pushed the door to her living room open and froze in her steps. ‘Adrian! What the hell are you doing?’