All Fixed, Ellie Scott

1

The pub smelled of stale lager and pork scratchings, but that’s just the way Dad liked it. One of the last good, proper pubs left, so he used to say. A shithole, in other words. But at least it was friendly. I watched Mum as she wandered across the dingy maroon carpet. Her nose crinkled as she noted the soles of her shoes clinging to the sticky pile with each step. I sipped my large white wine and hoped its effects would wash over me quickly.

Gavin nudged me. ‘One drink and we’ll be off.’

I took in the clusters of mourners which filled the room. ‘I haven’t spoken to anyone yet.’

‘Go speak to them while you drink that.’

‘But—’

‘Don’t be long. I don’t want to be stood here like a spare part.’

‘Come with me then.’

‘I’m not talking to these old bastards.’

‘A lot of them are family.’

‘Not mine.’

I nodded and walked away from him, knuckles white as my fingers gripped the stem of my wine glass for dear life.

I slipped into a circle of mourners beside my mother. Her eyes swam as she listened to my Uncle Tom relay a story about Dad from their childhood years. Something about him installing a handmade shelf in the family kitchen, proud as punch, only for it to tumble down under the weight of a single teacup.

‘Flecks of china all over the floor, there were. And great big holes in the bloody wall! My mum heard the clatter and she came running for him, face like thunder. She was a scary woman, our mother. Grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to his bedroom. But did he learn his lesson? Not a chance. A week later he rebuilt the shelf and tried again. He smashed a plate that time. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that lad liked to break things as much as he liked to fix them.’

I’d heard the story dozens of times. Everyone had. But we laughed dutifully and murmured the right things. That sounds like him, alright. Typical DIY addict. A sign of things to come. Dad was an expert carpenter by the time he married Mum, and the personal handyman of the entire extended family. He had a knack for fixing things.

‘I remember when I gave him an old grandfather clock I got at a car boot sale. The mechanisms inside were rusted to buggery. And he’d never touched a grandfather clock in his life, but he got it ticking. Polished it and tarted it up for me and all. Couple of quid I paid for it. Sold it to an antiques collector for ten times as much. Would you believe it? He could fix anything, couldn’t he, Mel?’

I flinched at the sound of my name.

‘Toys, dollies, bikes. And then it was your car he was always mending once you were old enough to drive. That thing’s got to be past its expiry date by now—you’ve not still got it, have you?’

I didn’t answer him. I was thinking of the broken lamp Dad fixed for me just two weeks earlier. Funny thing was, it was hours after I got news of his death.

I’d been sat on the sofa, numb from head to toe, listening to Gavin shout abuse at the footballers on the telly. The lamp in the corner of the living room buzzed and flickered off. Gavin had muttered something derisive and I said I’d buy a new bulb the next day. Five minutes went by, the glare of the television screen the room’s only illumination. And then the lamp had flickered back on again.

‘Dad?’ I’d said, so quiet that I could barely hear myself.

Gavin had shushed me.

The lamp had been in full working order ever since. Daft to think it was him, I know that full well, but I let myself believe.

I brought my thoughts to the present and for a split second I considered sharing the story, but Uncle Tom had already moved the conversation along. Probably for the best.

Mum squeezed my arm. ‘Alright?’

I nodded. ‘You?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘This is my third gin since we got here. I’ll be fine.’

‘Go steady,’ I said.

‘People keep bringing them to me. Would be rude to turn them down, wouldn’t it?’

I managed a small laugh, just as I felt a hand on my lower back.

‘Ready for off?’

‘Oh, Gav, you’re not dragging her off already,’ Mum said, though she didn’t look at him. She was watching me.

‘Long drive.’ Gavin plastered a faux apology onto his face, his trademark expression. Dare you to argue with me, it said. ‘If we go now, we can beat the worst of the traffic.’

‘I haven’t finished my wine,’ I whispered.

‘Down it quick.’

I shot daggers at him, and I could feel blades coming from the others, too. My mum, Uncle Tom, Aunty Sue, the bloke Dad played pool with every other Sunday. Gavin’s apologetic face never faltered.

‘Right then,’ I said brightly. ‘I’ll text you later, Mum. Go careful on that gin. Make sure she goes careful on that gin, Uncle Tom.’

‘Aye, love,’ he said. ‘And you go careful with everything, y’know.’

A round of hurried hugs ensued and then my fiancé whisked me out the door and into the car. I left my half-supped wine on the bar along the way.

2

I didn’t speak for the first hour of the drive. I watched the greenery of the countryside give way to suburbs and then to city, on familiar roads that I once described as my own. The only words Gavin said were those berating drivers and pedestrians, and fucking bastard potholes. But when we got out onto the open road of the motorway he was in his element, pushing the speedometer a smidgeon over hundred miles per hour, so content that he started to whistle.

I clenched my fists and my fingernails dug little red crescent moons into the palms of my hands. Merry whistling. Happy as a pig in shit on the day his fiancé buried her father.

‘Please stop.’ I forced the words through gritted teeth.

‘Bit of music makes the drive go faster.’

‘If you want music put the radio on.’ I wanted to swallow back the words as soon as they were out of me. No, not the words—the tone. The snap. The growl.

‘Miserable bitch.’

In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘Can you blame me? You just dragged me away from my father’s funeral almost as soon he was in the ground.’

‘Miserable fucking bitch.’

‘I wanted to spend some time with my family.’

‘I’m your family.’

‘But they—’

‘They’re your relatives. How many times do I have to tell you that? We went to the funeral, we did our obligations and now we’re going home and back to normal. And if you whinge at me about it one more fucking time, I will throw you out of this car and leave you to rot on the hard shoulder.’

The silence returned.

3

Dad never liked Gavin. I could tell from the first day they met.

I brought him home from university for the Easter break two years ago. We’d been seeing each other since the previous September. It had been a whirlwind of picnics in the park, real ales in the pub and study sessions in the dorms where there was more snogging than studying. He was in his third year while I was a fresher, and he was like no other boy I’d ever known before. I melted every time I looked at him; his grey-blue eyes would soak me up like he was hot bread and I was butter. I was the only woman in the world he could ever want.

And then I saw Dad’s face on that first day and it all went weird. He welcomed Gav into the family home, chatted with him easy enough, cracked his usual jokes, but something in his face was rigid, no matter how wide he stretched his smiles.

Three days we stayed. Three days I had to cultivate the seed of unease that was sprouting in my gut. And just before we hopped onto the train that would take us back to university, Dad pulled me into a big hug and said, quiet enough for only me to hear, ‘Don’t rush in too fast.’

As the train pulled out of the station and left my hometown behind, the unease wilted and died, and I was back in a bubble of love. But bubbles always pop.

4

Gavin stripped out of his suit as soon as we got home and settled himself in front of the telly in his boxers and a grubby old t-shirt. He’d barely said a word since the threat of the hard shoulder. I offered him tea and he didn’t want it. I offered to make him some supper and he rolled his eyes. I offered to order a pizza and he told me not to waste his money. I was always wasting his money, even when it came out of my own bank account.

I stuck the kettle on for myself and opened the cupboard to retrieve a cup. A shiver went through me. My favourite mug was fixed.

Just that morning, ten minutes before we were due to leave, my trembling hands had dropped it. It had broken into three clean pieces and spilled its contents all over the floor. Gavin had assured me I was a fucking useless mess as I mopped the tea up with a dishcloth, gathered up the smashed crockery and left the lot in the sink to deal with later.

Now the mug was whole again and sitting in its rightful place in the cupboard, awaiting a dose of PG Tips with two sugars.

‘Gav? Did you do this?’

No answer.

I took the mug into the living room and held it up. ‘You fixed my mug?’

‘What are you on about?’ His sight remained on the telly. Snooker. He didn’t even like snooker.

‘I broke it this morning, didn’t I?’

He ignored me.

‘It’s fixed.’

He tapped at the telly remote and upped the volume.

Maybe it was my mind playing tricks, imagining something that never happened. I returned to the kitchen and examined the mug and its hairline cracks. I peered in the sink. The dishcloth was there, damp with murky brown liquid. No chunks of mug. Not a single shard.

My vision slipped briefly to half-speed and I clung to the kitchen worktop to keep myself upright. I wanted to believe.

I clutched the mug close to my chest. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

A floorboard squeaked behind me and I turned to Gavin’s smirking form. ‘You’re bloody mental.’

‘Shut up,’ I said softly.

‘What was that?’

‘I don’t want a row tonight.’

‘You told me to shut up?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Don’t you tell me to shut up.’

I raised my voice. ‘Don’t call me mental.’

His face morphed into something devilish. His brow grew heavier and cast a dark shadow over his narrowed eyes. His mouth twisted into a sneer, revealing teeth that seemed to have grown long and pointed and capable of ripping my flesh from my bones. This was the man I was set to marry.

Dad’s words came to mind. Don’t rush in too fast.

I lifted my chin and straightened my shoulders. Tensed my arms and my fingers to stop my hands shaking. ‘I’m going home.’

‘You what?’

I slipped past and hurried to the bedroom. I grabbed a bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and threw it on the bed.

He soon followed. ‘What are you doing?’

I ignored him and pulled handfuls of clothes from drawers and shoved them into the bag, my mind inexplicably thinking of the creases I was putting in and how I hate ironing and how Mum might do it for me.

‘Don’t be fucking stupid.’

I tossed in my phone charger and thought about grabbing my textbooks and laptop from the spare bedroom. Exams were coming up in a matter of days—massive final year exams that I needed to stick around for if I wasn’t going to throw away the last three years of study. But Gavin was stood in the doorway, swallowing up the space, two foot taller and twice as wide.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and approached him. ‘Let me through.’

‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Let me through.’

‘You’re pathetic.’

‘Stop trying to scare me.’

‘Why would I scare you?’

I said nothing.

‘Never laid a finger on you. Have I?’

‘Not yet.’

He shrank, just for a moment, and I took my opportunity to slip past him and into the hallway.

Phone in bag, shoes on feet, keys in hand. I wouldn’t bother with the textbooks; they’d slow me down.

I sensed him behind me.

‘Are you seriously running off home?’

My fingers faltered as I tried to zip up my boots.

‘Your shitheap car won’t make it.’

I left them unfastened, grabbed my coat and fought with sleeves that were inside out.

‘You have lectures tomorrow.’

I shoved the coat into the top of the bag and braced myself for the cold.

‘Don’t ignore me, Mel.’

I tugged on the latch, pulled open the door, flinched as his hand grabbed my shoulder and twisted me around.

His face had softened. He was human again. ‘Go for a drive,’ he said gently. ‘Clear your head. We’ll talk when you get back. Take half an hour. Alright?’

I nodded. He slid the bag off my shoulder and dropped it on the floor beside him, leaving me with nothing but the keys in my hand and the clothes on my back.

‘If you’re not back in half an hour I’ll come look for you. Check you’re okay.’

I slipped out the door and marched along the hallway and down the stairs. I heard him slam the door as I reached the ground floor.

‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘I need my shitheap car to make it.’

5

‘He’s gonna come for me.’

‘He won’t get in.’

‘He’ll try.’

‘We’ll call the police.’

I sipped brandy; Mum sipped coffee. We sat on the sofa and stared at Dad’s empty armchair.

The engine light on my car’s dashboard had started to flash as soon I turned into Mum’s road. When I walked up the path to the front door, I’d half expected Dad to be there, toolkit in hand, ready to lift the bonnet.

‘Are you back for good, love?’

I nodded.

‘For the best.’

‘I think Dad tried to warn me. I didn’t listen to him.’

‘I told him not to get too involved. My fault.’

‘No. God, no. Anyway, he never laid a finger on me. Not once. Maybe I—’

Three heavy thumps on the front door sent my skin prickling with goosebumps.

Mum got up. ‘I’ll send him on his way.’

‘Don’t open the door.’

‘I’ll put the chain on.’

‘Please, Mum.’

‘He’ll only keep knocking.’

‘Don’t let him hurt you.’

‘Never.’

I could have headed out the back door, vaulted over the garden fence and sprinted down the street in the dark. He’d have been faster than me, but I knew the network of streets and ginnels like the back of my hand. Hundreds of time I’d crept along them as a child, listening to calls of ‘Blockie, one, two, three!’ I knew all the best spots to curl up small out of sight. He’d have no chance of catching me on my home turf. If only I could get my legs moving.

I curled up as small as I could in the corner of the sofa, ears straining. I heard mumbled voices. Not Gavin’s.

‘Mel, love. Police are here for you.’

6

Gavin’s car was crushed like a coke can.

They think his brakes failed. Witnesses said he was speeding something silly. I was told he was probably killed instantly; he wouldn’t have suffered. I was glad for that. I didn’t like the thought of it being any other way. Mum was less sure.

I went to Dad’s grave the next morning, soil still fresh and piled up high, flowers starting to wilt and curl at the edges. I said thanks for fixing all those toys and dollies and bikes. For keeping the lamp and the mug and shitheap car in working order. And for whatever else he might have been responsible for, over all those years. Y’know?

©

Ellie Scott is a copywriter and author from Sheffield, UK. She has published two short story collections—’Merry Bloody Christmas’ and ‘Come What May Day’. Her writing has appeared in The Junction, Lit Up, The Haven and ‘VSS365 Anthology: Volume One’. She can be found at www.elliescott.co.uk and on Twitter @itsemscott.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Darnell Cureton

    Loved the story. Its amazing how a person can change for better or worse if you allow them to take advantage. A family’s bond is strong and can manifest in many ways.

  2. tidalscribe

    I was really wrapped up in that story. I loved Ellie’s Merry Bloody Christmas Collection so I know she is a great story teller.

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