A Daughter's Secret (12 page)

My whole body clenches and tightens, my heart quickening in my chest.

‘I get the feeling I don’t have much choice,’ I say, forcing a nonchalance I don’t remotely feel.

He smiles at me, eyes softening in a way that looks real. I’m grateful for it, even if I won’t admit it.

‘Don’t be like that,’ he says.

‘Like what?’

‘Like I’m the enemy.’

If he is the enemy, then whose side am I on?

‘I know you’re not,’ I say, giving him a fleeting kiss on the cheek like we’re party guests at a glamorous soirée. And then I’m out of there, Cinderella as the clock strikes twelve.

July 1994 (fifteen years old)

Everything is Technicolor; the sky a bluer blue than I’ve ever seen, the sea sparkling like a handful of diamonds. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. Happy slash anxious.

I haven’t slept for a month, anticipating this holiday, the excitement churning my stomach and gripping my heart. Ten days in the same house – or gite, as I now know it’s called – with Jim. I’d only seen him once since the party night, over the breakfast table the next day, but I didn’t stop thinking about him for a second. I’d spilt my guts in green ink all over my diary, but that was the only place. There was a certain loneliness to it: I knew I couldn’t tell Lysette, which meant we were no longer spit sisters in quite the way we were, but it was a small price to pay for being in love.

We flew out on Wednesday. I saw Jim before he saw me, slouching his way down the coffee queue at Gatwick, cool and handsome, a total contrast to the sweaty holidaymakers, passports clutched in clammy hands. His eyes were roving around like he was looking for something, and I couldn’t help hoping it was me. He was dressed in an artfully faded pink T-shirt, those leather strings wound around his thin wrists, his fingers playing with a handful of change.

‘There he is! Let’s ask him to get us something,’ said Lysette. I’d been thinking about this moment for the whole train journey, and now it was here I felt frozen, rooted to the spot. It’s easy to treasure a fantasy – I couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt if I had to chuck it aside and admit it was rubbish. Jim gave a slow smile when he saw us.

‘Little sis,’ he said, giving her a quick hug. ‘And little sis sidekick,’ he added, smiling at me.

‘Mia,’ I said, too quickly.

‘I know. Mia.’ His green eyes stayed on me. ‘Do you want a double cappuccino? With extra froth?’

‘That’s exactly what I want,’ I said. ‘You read my mind.’

Lysette shot a quick glance between us.

‘Me too,’ she said.

‘Then hand me some dollars,’ he said, putting out his palm. With my eyes I traced the lines that criss-crossed it, then forced myself to look away. ‘Cash money, ladies.’

We sat in a row once we got on the plane, Jim by the window and Lysette in the middle. He listened to his Discman most of the way, head resting against his rolled-up linen blazer, eyes closed.

‘Please don’t think me rude,’ he said at one point, long eyelashes peeling up to look at us. ‘Big night last night. I wanna be back on form by the time we land.’

‘Lazybones,’ said Lysette, digging him in the ribs.

‘Slag,’ he said, prodding her back, and they collapsed into giggles. I looked down at
Just Seventeen.
The whole problem page seemed to be about sex.

Jim is Gloria’s son from her first marriage. His dad is French, and sometimes he goes to Paris to see him, but he acts like Lysette’s dad, Gordon, is just as good. Lysette’s mum and dad kiss each other all the time. She calls him ‘honey’, like they’re in an American soap, and he looks at her deep, tanned cleavage unashamedly. ‘It’s gross,’ says Lysette, but I like it. ‘They’re proper lovebirds,’ I tell her – she doesn’t know how lucky she is. Gloria never tells us off. In the morning we cycle down to the beach, Lilos and suncream crammed in our rucksacks, and we stay there all day, equipped with enough francs for an Orangina and a baguette at lunchtime.

Every morning is a sweet kind of torture, as I wait to find out if Jim is coming with us. Some days he just groans at us from his bed, ignoring Lysette’s teasing entreaties. Other days he’s up before us, fresh-faced at the breakfast table, telling us to ‘hurry the fuck up’. Day four is one of those days. He cycles out ahead. ‘Come on, losers,’ he shouts, pedalling furiously, his calf muscles bulging out. Lysette and Jim laugh at me when I decide to invest a few francs in an umbrella. The sun feels relentless on my pale English skin, and I can see my shoulders have already developed an angry reddish tinge. When I show them both, Jim unexpectedly reaches out to feel it, and I pray he won’t feel my body shiver at his touch. I’m wearing my gold bikini, the cups roomier than I’d like. His fingers lightly graze the left strap, hooking underneath it to better see the burn.

‘Sorry, loser, but she might be right,’ he says.

‘Pah,’ says Lysette. Her routine is to rub greasy circles of tanning oil into her body, and then bake herself until she’s as golden as an oven chip.

‘Will you rub some cream on me?’ he says from under his long eyelashes. ‘If you can spare it.’

‘Of course,’ I say, too quickly again. He bounds over to me and kneels on the sand. I kneel behind him, trying to ignore the loud motor of my heart. I’ve got to stop being such a dork. A boy like Jim would never love a dork. ‘How does sir like his cream?’ I say in a silly voice.

‘Shoulders, please, masseuse.’ I squeeze a torrent of lotion onto my hand, and have to wipe some on my knees. I watch my white fingers progressing towards his skin, time slowing down to a crawl, and then they’re there, splayed out on its hot surface. I start to gingerly move them, hoping it doesn’t feel like I’m prodding and poking at him.

‘That’s nice,’ he says, so low I’m not sure Lysette hears. ‘Keep going.’ I carry on for a minute or so more, before he suddenly springs up like a jack-in-a-box. ‘Who’s coming in the water?’ he says, sprinting towards the sea.

Lysette and I are dragging round an entire library of dirty books.
Forever
seems tame now I’ve moved on to Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins and
Flowers in the Attic
. Jim lies on his Lilo reading
The Great Gatsby
, and asking us to read out the most filthy bits we can find. I read him a relatively tame bit of
Riders
, something about someone ‘entering’ someone ‘like an otter diving into a stream’, and Lysette counters with a piece of filth from
Hollywood Wives
that makes my ears burn. I can’t quite believe people are unashamed enough to do those things outside the tattered pages of these books.

‘Enough!’ says Jim. ‘I’m enjoying a hearty dose of literature over here. You losers should try it some time.’

‘I loved
Jane Eyre
,’ I pipe up.

‘You are
such
a loser,’ says Lysette, an edge in her voice I don’t remember ever hearing before.

‘Takes one to know one, loser,’ I reply, quick as a flash.

By the time we cycle home, I feel light-headed, like I’ve got sunstroke. Gloria’s sunbathing by the swimming pool, her large breasts (‘bosoms’ as Lorcan would call them) spilling out, dark brown nipples like targets.

‘Hello, my darlings,’ she says, sitting up to talk to us, making no effort whatsoever to cover them. Jim and Lysette don’t bat an eyelid, but I try desperately to keep my eyes focused on her face. An ex-model, she’s deeply glamorous, her hair dyed a mellow honey colour, her green eyes feline, the lines on her face taking nothing away from her blatant sex appeal. ‘We thought we’d toddle out for din-dins tonight. Get yourselves scrubbed up, and we’ll leave in an hour.’

When we get back to our bedroom, I scrabble around in my purse, counting my dwindling notes.

‘I don’t want to be a loser, but I don’t know if I can come,’ I say to Lysette. I’m such a fool: I spent all my babysitting money on holiday outfits, leaving myself vulnerable to Mum’s parsimonious attitude to pocket money. I should’ve asked Lorcan, I think, even though part of me knows why I didn’t. He might’ve thrust a bundle of notes at me, but he might just as well have got his disappointed look and told me what a spoilt baby I was. I don’t want to think about it now.

‘Don’t be a loser. Mum and Dad’ll pay,’ says Lysette, spraying herself extravagantly with a can of Impulse.

‘Choking!’ I say, coughing just as extravagantly. Lysette giggles, spraying it right at me.

‘Loser!’ she says. This is literally the happiest day of my life.

The restaurant opens out onto the sea, the candlelit terrace punctuated by overflowing pots of bougainvillea. I can smell the salty freshness, hear the waves lapping up the beach. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to. When we’re shown to our table, Jim sits down quickly, green eyes meeting mine, and lightly cocks his head towards the chair next to his. I sit down, heart hammering. I’m wearing lipstick, mascara and eyeliner: I hope it’s subtle, not clownish. I run my tongue discreetly over my teeth in case the lipstick’s gone walkabout.

‘Gordon darling, why don’t you decide what we should eat?’ says Gloria, signalling authoritatively for a waiter. ‘Excuse me, can we have a round of Kir royals for the table?’ she says, her ring-laden hand resting chummily on his arm.

The bubbles slip up my nose, the sweetness making it all too easy to sip like Ribena in a baby’s cup. I’m giggly, chatty, loving the way Gloria and Gordon ask me things like they’re genuinely interested. When the steak tartare appears, I prod at it with a tentative fork.

‘Dig in, Mia,’ says Gordon. ‘Nothing to be afraid of.’

‘To be fair, it
is
a bit like posh dog food,’ says Jim, and I wonder if there’ll be an explosion – a tirade about ingratitude – but Gloria and Gordon hoot with laughter.

‘Cheeky monkey,’ says Gloria, stroking his cheek affectionately from her side of the table.

Just for a second I wish they were my parents, then hate myself for being such a turncoat.

‘You need some red wine to wash it down with,’ says Gordon, going to pour me a glass from an ice bucket. It’s chilled, a light Beaujolais. I’ve never even heard of chilled red wine before.

‘Half a glass, Gordon. Honestly!’ says Gloria, smiling at me.

The wine sloshes in and I take a sip. The unfamiliar coolness makes it taste like Ribena too.

‘Cheers!’ I say to Lysette, worried I haven’t been paying her enough attention even though she’s my best friend, the person who gave me this incredible gift. ‘Cheers,’ says Lysette, and then everyone joins in.

‘Now, Jimbo, what’s going on with that Natalie girl?’ asks Gordon. ‘Dangerous business, dallying with a girl in an adjoining dorm.’

‘Yeah, no, she’s nice. Didn’t work out,’ he says, and, in the same second, reaches his hand under the table and plants it firmly on my leg. It’s almost on my thigh, just above my knee. I try not to react, even though my body feels like it’s been hit by a bolt of lightning. I can’t tell if it’s fear or excitement: I think they’ve been shaken up together into some kind of lethal cocktail. His fingers run up and down like he’s playing a scale, getting higher and higher.

‘You’re a terror,’ says Gloria. ‘I thought you might bring her out here with us.’

‘No chance,’ says Jim, his fingers moving around to take in my inner thigh. I can feel my face flaming up. I push the chair back.

‘I’m just, just going to the loo,’ I say, walking swiftly across the decking.

I sit on the closed seat, waiting for my heart to slow. I wasn’t imagining it: he felt it too! All this time. But now it’s here, now my ship’s come in, I have no idea how to proceed. I’ve kissed one person, once, at Julia Barratt’s Christmas party, a spotty cousin of hers who seemed to want to scoop out my insides via my mouth and smelt like sour milk. I realize how little thought I’ve given to the reality of what Jim will want from me, what he’ll have learned to expect from the limpid-eyed blondes who follow him around like he’s the Pied Piper.

I can’t wait any longer, for fear of Lysette coming to find me. I splash water on my flushed face, my eyes bright and wild, then open the bathroom door.

He’s there, standing right outside. Before I have time to speak he’s pushing me against the wall, his mouth on mine. His tongue comes next, insistent and skilful, telling me that not all the kisses in my life will feel like a dirty protest.

‘Jim,’ I gasp, once I sense a pause. ‘Someone will see.’

‘I don’t care,’ he says, his breathing heavy. ‘I had to kiss you. I’ve been thinking about this all week. You have too, haven’t you?’ Try months. Months that felt like years.

‘Totally,’ I say, winding my fingers into his silky brown hair as I stare up at him.

‘I want you, Mia,’ he says, into my ear. Does ‘want you’ mean what I think it means, or can it mean something gentler, less outside my comfort zone, I think, sobered by the realization of how pathetically small my comfort zone really is. Perhaps he sees the uncertainty in my face. ‘I really like you. Like, really like you,’ he says, stroking my cheek. ‘You’re ridiculously fuckable.’

‘Me too,’ I say, barely able to breathe. How can I be that, that thing? I want to be, I want to be worthy of the hardness of his body and the intensity of his gaze. He gives one of those lazy half-smiles.

‘I think it’s still your line.’

I smile back goofily. All I can think is: I love you. I love you, and I’m a virgin, and you’re my best friend’s brother. I don’t say any of it of course.

‘We need to go back,’ I say, my eyes telling him too much truth.

‘We do. But I want you to know,’ he says, gripping my face under my chin, ‘this isn’t over. It’s only just begun.’

Chapter Seven

Mum’s digging up the back garden when I arrive, grey-streaked hair piled up in a messy bun, denim dungarees rolled up to her knees. She’s attacking the ground with her spade, like the worms are her sworn enemy and they’ve reached their final standoff. She doesn’t see me until I’m close by, so complete is her focus. She gathers me up in a hot, damp hug that feels fiercer than the situation demands. I try not to wriggle.

‘Looking very boho there, Mum,’ I tell her, the smell of manure already starting to overwhelm me. I haven’t been out here for ages, the lush apple tree a trip switch for my guilt. It was bare in November, the skeleton of its branches stark against the grey sky. This is the house we moved to when I was ten, Lorcan’s parents helping with the deposit, a gift that always felt like it came with strings very much attached. It’s small and it’s suburban, but the fact it had a proper garden, felt like an unimaginable luxury at the time.