Page 58 of Scars of Silk

“Tell me about the boy with the tattoos again.” Her words are barely a whisper, but with them a fresh torrent of tears slip down my cheeks.

“You’d have liked him, Mum.” I repeat what I told her earlier. “I just know you would have liked him.”

Fifteen

Dan

The night was long without Sienna there to fill the space of the shadows I battled before she arrived. They seeped back in.

Chasing thoughts, demons on highs chattered and taunted me through the hours of the night. All the while I stared at the ceiling, ignoring the sneaking realisation that this was what my life was now. Sienna being here was only a brief distraction from reality.

At three I had an urge to call Vinny and find out if he’d found a new venue yet. It was that one desperate thought that had me out of bed and grabbing my running clothes out of my drawers.

With the streets empty in the early stretch of morning, I can just run along the waterfront. The sea air tangs with salt, the frost stinging my cheeks until they hurt. I take it though; the sting makes me feel alive.

Funny, I end up at the shop just as the dim sunrise peeks over the horizon and lightens the wintery sky to light grey.

I reach for my keys in the small pocket on my running shorts and let myself in. Was it just yesterday that I was in here, laughing as Sienna took the bookings and learned the ropes of how long an average tattoo could take?

Just yesterday that for one small fraction of time my head hadn’t been full of darkness.

Why are you even bothering? No one would care if you weren’t here.

The four walls of the shop stare back at me.

Just four more tablets and this time it will be over. You couldn’t even get that right. Take five more, then you will know you’ve done it properly.

“No!” I shake my head and walk into the shop, flicking the light on at the switch at the back wall. It’s early, there won’t be any business for hours; but that’s not what I want. Under the counter in the place where dad always kept it is his address book. A lifetime of contacts: people in the business, old friends from his youth. Faith had used the book to contact everyone about his funeral. Well she had done when she hadn’t been crying about Elijah Fairclough breaking her heart and pretending to get engaged to Sienna.

Funny how it all turned out.

I flick through the names until I find the one I want. It takes me a while because I can’t for the life of me remember the right surname. All I can remember is Big Bad Barry, which is what my dad always called one of his oldest mates. Uncle Barry I knew him as, but of course he isn’t listed under that. He’s not listed under Big Bad Barry either, unsurprisingly.

I’m almost thinking I might have to do something awful like ring Faith, apologise for being a dick and then ask if she can remember his name, but then with that will come questions and I don’t know if I want to answer them or explain my actions to anyone.

I’m not even sure I want to apologise for being a dick. I mean, I know I was, but she was being one too. I can see that now. My few days with Sienna has given me the distance I needed to see the situation with Faith for what it was.

I thought I was in love with her.

She thought I was in love with her.

As a result, neither of us have been honest with one another in a very long time.

I get that now.

I laugh out loud to myself, the sound reverberating around the empty studio. Hadn’t I been listening to that sound too much the last few months?

Finally, I find a Barry Sutcliffe and the old memory box gives a little jangle. Sutcliffe, that’s the name.

I dial, knowing it’s early, but if there’s one thing I learnt from my dad it’s the fact old men like to get up at the crack of dawn. I can’t remember Dad ever sleeping in past seven in the morning, even when he was sick from his chemotherapy he still got up.

I think he would have got up early and gone for a stroll the day he died if his body had allowed him.

As I’m dialling Barry’s number on the old Bakelite phone, I pause. I can’t remember the last time I thought of Dad like that. I shut his illness off from my memories. I don’t let myself think about those weeks at all; the frustration, the pure hatred I felt towards everyone. My annoyance that Faith didn’t come home and help… it’s all there tied up in knots with my dad’s cancer.

I keep dialling and then listen to the ring tone. I don’t actually know what I’m going to say, but I know I need to make a change, and I can feel it in my gut that the change is going to come from this call and any decision I make after it.

I pull my coat tighter around myself as I walk along Abi’s road. It’s getting cold, and honestly until this morning I hadn’t even noticed. I don’t think I even registered the fading of summer and the onset of Autumn. Well let's be honest, I didn’t notice Autumn at all. Now November is chasing me down and I’ve just realised I’ve missed an entire year. For the first time in forever, I feel alive.