A Daughter's Secret (18 page)

‘So how does that work?’

‘British Museum, that would be a good one. Why do you head straight for the Elgin Marbles, not the Roman bronzes?’

‘Because the Elgin Marbles might not be here forever. They’re always trying to nick them off us, aren’t they?’

I called it right – so right he hasn’t even questioned my assumption. I smile to myself, back in the zone.

‘So are you going because it’s the thing – the thing that’s most tempting and interesting – or are you going in case it’s something some cunning stranger is going to snatch away from you?’

‘It’s just a fact. It could be my only chance.’

‘Nothing’s just a fact. They’ll give you plenty of warning if they’re going. You could go then.’

‘Of course some things are facts,’ he counters, annoyed. ‘Two plus two equals four. And anyway, I don’t waft about, finishing at four and pressing a cold compress to my fevered brow to temper the stress of the day. I’m there, on site. Course I’m gonna go.’ He looks like he’s the one who could do with a cold compress, particularly now; but I don’t say it. I nod sagely. Irritatingly. ‘So come on, what’s your diagnosis?’

I’d never be so pompous and judgemental with a client, but he doesn’t need to know that.

‘Competition runs through your veins, doesn’t it? I bet you’re a demon when you stand up in court.’

‘You say it like it’s a bad thing.’

‘If you were my client, I’d certainly be interested to see how it plays out in other areas of your life.’

‘Such as?’ he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

‘Love.’ Perhaps the light in his eyes slightly dims when I drop the L bomb. He isn’t married, I’m sure of it now. ‘Home. Friendships. I think our greatest strengths tend to be our greatest weaknesses too. They’re our points of extremity.’

He’s watching me intently, like he’s waiting to see what comes out of my mouth next, but I’ve run out of words, caught by the spider’s web of my diagnosis. I’m thinking of him sliding his way round the reception door, catching Gemma out, willing to stop at nothing to get his win. I think he must see it in my face.

‘I don’t need you fixing me,’ he says, defensive.

‘I’m not offering. You’re the one asking the questions.’

We carry on walking, silent now, although it’s a noisy kind of silence. We skirt the side of the rose garden, heading in the direction of the grand iron gates that open up onto the wheezing artery that is Marylebone Road.

‘Right, I’ve got to go,’ I say, making slightly too much of a show of looking at my watch.

‘What’s the rush?’

‘I’m signing a contract on a flat. I’ve got to meet my . . .’ ‘Boyfriend’ is a ridiculous word for Marcus. ‘Man friend’? ‘Lover’? All heinous, suggestive of a chest rug and a glowing cigar. ‘Boyfriend at the estate agent’s in like, fifteen minutes.’

‘Where is it? Let me guess. Holland Park? Knightsbridge?’

‘Is that who you think I am?’

‘It’s what I think
he
is,’ he says, an edge to him. I feel a tremor of unease. Lucky guess, or something more considered?

‘It’s in Ladbroke Grove. I live in Balham, really.’

‘South London. Total mystery to me.’

‘Where do you hang out then?’

‘Stoke Newington. I’ve moved roughly three miles in my entire thirty-two years on the planet.’

So that clears up one question. Thirty-two: he probably dates twenty-three-year-old PAs who fall hook, line and sinker for his Irish blarney and don’t murmur a word of complaint when he doesn’t call them for a fortnight.

‘Are your family still there?’

‘My mum,’ he says, a look of slight exhaustion crossing his face as he says it. ‘Are your parents in London?’

‘My dad’s not around any more,’ I say, the words sounding high and discordant, a jumble of notes that crash inside my head. ‘And my mum – well, barely. Hillingdon.’

I pick up pace. I can’t keep existing in this weird bubble – ducks and ice cream, flirtation and attack – I need to step back into real life. I can hear the relentless stream of traffic, the fumes slyly infiltrating my nasal passages.

‘Walk me back to the main road?’ I say. I’m not looking at him, but I can feel his eyes surfing my profile.

‘Sure thing.’

Our feet obediently track the tarmac, none of the wild zigzagging anarchy of his route across the grass. I’m rifling around my brain for a neutral bit of conversation to throw his way, like the synthetic white bread the toddler tossed to the ducks, but I can’t find a scrap.

The wrought-iron gates loom up in front of us. I turn to him, give him a quick smile.

‘This is goodbye, then.’

He pauses, looks at me. It occurs to me that I have no idea what it is he’s thinking. I look down at my bag, the message light flashing on my phone.

‘Mia . . .’ I don’t want to hear the rest of the sentence. ‘Will you promise me you’ll keep your wits about you? I get how smart you are, but don’t assume . . .’

‘I thought you said my degree was from the University of Ocado?’

He won’t do it, he won’t smile back at me. For a second I hate him for it, for the way it makes the dread start up inside me again, a cold and oily trickle.

‘I do care about Gemma, whatever you might think, but I care about you too.’

I can’t let those words enter my being and start to mean something. Trusting him is not to be trusted.

‘Don’t try and scare me into doing what it is you want.’

‘Just because she’s a child it doesn’t mean she’s an innocent. I wish for her sake she was. If you insist on thinking she’s a sacrificial lamb, I’m worried that you’re the one who’ll get sacrificed.’

‘Ooh, very iconoclastic. The priest would be so proud of you, Patrick O’Leary.’ I say it too fast for my glibness to be convincing. I gather my cardigan around my body, the chill that’s spreading through me about more than the rapid descent of the blood-orange sun. I need to go.

‘I know I’ve said it before, but . . . They’ll know who you are by now, Mia. Christopher doesn’t ever take off her training reins. If she gets too close, too loose-lipped, and you don’t have my back-up—’

‘I’ve already said I’ll tell you if she says anything relevant to your investigation. I get it. Wasn’t that the whole point of the last two hours?’

Was it?
say his brown eyes.

‘I know you think it’s me who sees the world in black and white, but I think it might be you,’ he says. ‘You think you can make it that way if you try hard enough.’

‘You don’t know how I see the world.’

Patrick shrugs in a way that doesn’t concede anything.

‘Just make sure she knows who’s in charge.’

‘I’m not some Dickensian headmaster.’

‘I’ll be here, Mia. You can call me any time.’ His face softens, the intensity draining away. ‘Shame really, I reckon you could pull off a mortarboard. Jaunty angle,’ he says, reaching up to his unruly mop of hair to adjust an imaginary one. ‘You know.’

‘Thanks for the fashion advice. Well, for all the advice.’

We stand there a second, looking at each other.

‘Can I have a hug?’ he says, his long arms, strings of spaghetti, already wrapping themselves around my shoulders. He smells nice in a way that’s not about well-chosen aftershave. I stay inside the wrap of his arms a second too long, and then I jerk myself away, smooth down my dress.

‘It seems like you can,’ I say, prim. I’m quite unfair to him really. I remember Lorcan’s parents taking in a rescue dog, a black mongrel with a white patch over his left eye, then shaming him every time a river of pee would slither across the kitchen floor, like he was maliciously staging a dirty protest. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, the words escaping before I have time to pack them away.

‘What are you sorry for, Mia?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I just am.’

He steps towards me before I can protest, holding me against the thin damp fabric of his shirt.

‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he says. ‘Like I said to you, we’re on the same side.’

And I stay there a second longer, oddly soothed by the steady drum of his heart. Then I say a final hurried goodbye, rush away, my hand already stuck out into the traffic, searching for a cab.

December 1994 (sixteen years old)

We didn’t tell Lysette. I couldn’t face it after the gig, couldn’t take the risk of losing someone else precious. A phoney war is better than an actual war, I’ve decided.

It’s not that I’ve lost Lorcan, but I’ve lost my trust in my ability to read him. I was like a guide dog, attuned to his every movement, silently anticipating what he needed from me – what he needed from the world. Now I’m on the same lurching seesaw as Mum, grasping at what little of him he’ll give me, all the time hating him for the fact he won’t give more. Not that he’s even noticed, as wrapped up as he is in his newfound success. He’s been in America the last couple of weeks, sending us postcards of the kind of tourist traps (the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building) that I know he’d sneer at in real life. It’s a double bluff: I’m thinking of you, sort of.

I holed up at Lysette’s for that entire weekend, trying not to look at Jim in case my face gave me away. She didn’t really know what to say about what had happened, although she gave me the kind of hugs that told me she knew how much it must’ve hurt.

‘He really likes a drink,’ she said, squeezing me hard.

‘He doesn’t mean to get like that,’ I told her. ‘He’s just . . . he’s an artist.’

‘Big personality!’ she agreed, and we left it at that. For me it was enough just to be with her, to be with her family, and not my own. The party was a blur of tequila shots and paranoia, the weekend one that’s best forgotten.

I’m happy, actually happy. It feels like being spirited upwards in a hot-air balloon, higher and higher, the unhappy things shrinking until they’re as small and insignificant as ants on the pavement. Jim wraps his hand tightly around my gloved one, and I fight the urge to pull my glove off, feel his skin against mine, but I worry I’ll look like a total keeno. We’re squeezing through the tightly packed stalls in Camden Market, sniggering at the way the nearest stallholder has artfully draped fairy lights over a bong in the hope it’ll look like the perfect festive gift. It’s freezing, a few days before Christmas, a sense of controlled panic in the air.

‘Hot chocolate!’ says Jim, yanking me towards a van. ‘Mexican hot chocolate. Have you ever been there?’

‘What, Mexico?’ I say, trying not to sound incredulous at the question.

‘It’s really spicy,’ he says, handing a fiver to the dark-skinned man behind the hatch. ‘Ah, we can have rum in it. How great is that? You got any bucks?’

I scrabble in my purse, hand him another fiver. I love the way he makes everything such an awfully big adventure. He slurps his hot chocolate straight back, crumpling the cardboard cup ready to toss whilst I’m still gingerly sipping mine.

‘Again!’ he says, slapping down a tenner. ‘The man’s a wizard.’

We walk down the canal towards Primrose Hill afterwards, my head a little muzzy, our breath clouding up in the sharp blue cold.

‘What do you want for Christmas?’ he asks me.

‘Duh. A bong! One of those ones with a neon peace sign painted on.’

‘Oh no. No bong for you. I’m gonna get you some of those Tibetan slippers. The ones with the tassels and the mirrored bits for your little tootsies.’ He turns to me, pinches my cold cheeks as he says it, grinning.

‘I’m going to get
you
one of those incense-burner things so you can hang it above your bed at school and think of me. The boys’ll think you’re
sooo
cool.’

‘Wind chimes! No, a dream-catcher.’

I’m laughing so much by now I can barely speak.

‘Hemp doorstop,’ I counter.

Jim swivels me towards him, slips his hand into my hair, kisses me like it’s the climax of the best film I’ve ever seen. I wish I could tell him I love him, but he has to say it first and boys don’t like saying soppy things.

‘Let’s go home,’ he mutters. The rest of the family have gone to visit Gloria’s mother in Devon, the house our playground. I’ve known about this weekend for weeks, the unspoken meaning writ large.

‘I thought we were going to go to the cinema this afternoon?’ I say, squeezing his hand.

‘“And I-yee-I-yee-I will always LOVE yooo-oo,”’ he croons, his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, dancing me into the rubbish-strewn undergrowth. He trips over a discarded can of Special Brew, kisses me, laughing. ‘Let’s make our own slushy movie, not see one.’

‘I really wanted to go,’ I say, my voice verging on whiny. I don’t, not really, but I’d like to stay a virgin a few more hours. A few more months, truth be told, but I know my time is up. There’s a lot riding on Jilly Cooper right now.

Jim’s key turns in the lock, the sound magnifying in my head. Everything feels hyper-real to me, loaded with significance.

‘Gordon’s got some champers somewhere,’ he says, heading for the kitchen. ‘Let’s put it on ice.’

‘OK,’ I say, standing in the doorway, watching him rootle through the kitchen cupboard. I’m twirling my hair around my finger like I used to when I was little. Jim pulls a bottle out of the dark recesses, sticks it in the freezer.

‘Half an hour and we’ll be good to go.’

Gordon and Gloria have a bath in the corner of their bedroom, a pinkish colour, deep and round, with jets for bubbles strategically placed. It seems wrong to be in here, Gloria’s fat, shiny jacketed novels stacked on her bedside table, Gordon’s reading glasses and half-drunk water on his, but Jim laughs away my objections.

‘The cats are away . . .’ he says, pouring a great stream of bubble bath into the water and taking a swig from the bottle of champagne. The bubbles whoosh up in the steaming water like a perfumed cloud. He crosses over to me, takes my face between his hands. ‘Come on, little mouse. I think it’s time you got undressed.’

He peels off my jumper, leaving me standing in front of him in my bra; it’s a black one, new, the wire digging into the underside of my breasts. I’m wearing a denim skirt, thick woolly tights. Jilly Cooper heroines wear fishnet stockings, suspender belts, but they don’t find themselves walking up canal towpaths in deepest winter, wind howling up their gussets.