Page 79

“I’m busy. I’m staying at Felix’s house, and I need a few more things.”

“I’ll drive you back to Felix’s,” he offers.

I get the sense that he’s not going to let this go, and I should probably be grateful that he’s tried to get in touch with me. At least he tries, which is more than I can say for my mother.

“Fine. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

I unlock the front door, and Dad pushes it open, following me into the hallway. I had hoped he would wait outside for me. I don’t think he’s ever been in this house.

“Smells damp in here,” he comments.

“Yeah, well, Mum doesn’t always do the things she’s supposed to do,” I mutter.

He’s right, the house does smell damp. Worse than that, there’s the smell of something rotten as well. I expect she’s neglected to empty the bin in the kitchen.

“Delilah—” Dad starts, but I shake my head at him.

“Just wait outside, please. I’ll be fast.”

I rush up the stairs towards my bedroom, passing the bathroom on my way. The door is open, and I can see why the house smells damp. There’s a pile of towels in the middle of the floor, like she’s used them and dumped them where she stood, adding another and another until she ran out of clean towels. Usually this is one of the things I do: wash the towels and replace them with fresh ones, picking up after her.

“Delilah!” Dad shouts.

I groan to myself but dutifully head back downstairs. I meet him in the kitchen, too surprised by his shocked and disgusted expression to really take in the state of the space.

To the untrained eye, it would be reasonable to say that the house looks like a tornado swept through. To my eye, I can see the tornado that is my mother. Dirty plates are stacked up on the countertop, some with food still on them, hardened and on the cusp of mouldy. There’s a saucepan that maybe had beans in it at one point but now seems to have some energetic flies buzzing around it. Dirty mugs are scattered everywhere—on the countertops as well as on top of the microwave and on the windowsill. They’re outnumbered by the empty wineglasses, and those are outnumbered by the empty bottles of wine and vodka.

As I expected, the bin is overflowing, and at some point, Mum has started a bag of rubbish for other things she needs to throw away, and a second bag when that one began to overflow. The last bag is overflowing with used paper plates and empty containers for convenience foods. Clearly, when I wasn’t around to wash the pots and make sure she had clean dishes, she decided paper plates and microwavable meals were an easier option than washing the plates by her goddamn self.

I sigh to myself. I wonder if she’s even washed a thing since I left. I move the dirty things from the sink and the drainer and start the water, intending on cleaning the sink and drainer themselves before I wash the pots. I let the water trickle over my fingers and groan when I realise it isn’t heating up. I assume she’s run out of credit in the gas meter. I walk to the corner of the kitchen and reach for the light switch, flicking it on. The light, mercifully, does come on, so at least I know there’s money in the electricity meter.

I walk past my dad, ignoring his still-stunned expression. I fill the kettle up with water and put it on to boil. A couple of boiled kettles will give me the hot water I need to wash the pots.

“What the fuck are you doing, Delilah?” Dad snaps.

“Don’t worry, I’m not making you a cup of tea in here. I’m going to wash the pots,” I explain.

“Switch off that kettle. You’re not cleaning this up. Sit,” he barks, pointing at the stool that Mum has in the kitchen. It serves no real purpose other than as a place for her to sit by the kitchen door when she’s smoking.

“It won’t take me long to clean up,” I protest.

“Sit. The. Hell. Down.”

I do as he says, sitting on the stool, pondering if my dad has ever used language like that in front of me before. I don’t think he ever has. Mum’s the one who tends to swear.

I watch as Dad rolls up his sleeves. He’s got a tan, and I wonder if he’s been on holiday with Verity, or if he’s just been doing husbandly stuff like mowing the lawn and caught the sun in their garden.

Dad swears and mutters to himself as he does various jobs. He cleans the sink and drainer first, but only after he’s managed to find a relatively clean dishcloth. He fills the sink using the kettle for hot water, then angrily scrubs at dirty plates, bashing them onto the drainer to dry with such force I’m surprised they don’t shatter. The mugs follow. The wineglasses don’t get the same treatment. Those, he collects and counts, swearing as he goes, and then he stomps off, returning empty-handed. I assume he’s put them all in the glass bin for recycling. If he thinks it’ll stop Mum having a drink when she wants one, he’s mistaken.

The empty wine and vodka bottles meet a similar fate. He follows up by taking the rubbish out to the main bin. By the time he’s finished with his cleaning rampage, the kitchen looks relatively reasonable. He swears when he can’t find a tea towel to dry the pots.

“Leave them. They’ll be fine,” I call from the stool.

“How long have you been living like this?” he asks.

“I haven’t been living here recently.”

“We’ll get back to that comment in a moment. How long have you been living like this?” he repeats.