A Daughter's Secret (25 page)

The truth is that I’m not very good with booze – my tolerance is pathetic. When I sit there all high and mighty it’s because I know how easily I could topple, and no part of me will let that happen. But tonight my desire to escape real life is outrunning my self-control, and I let Patrick keep filling my glass from the bottle he insisted on buying. Soon the edges start to blur, our kisses one long kiss, our conversation no longer a fiercely fought tennis match.

‘Surely you’ve got a girlfriend?’ I tease, squeezed in so close I can smell him. I remember how much I like the way he smells. It’s unabashed maleness – no sweat, no cologne. ‘Just tell me the truth. I don’t want to feel like the only sinner.’

I am a sinner. Where’s Marcus right now? Sitting round some dimly lit restaurant table, his artist’s hands digging into the expensive dim sum as he simultaneously charms and fleeces his latest client. I shouldn’t be here, and yet I can’t leave. As soon as I do, the song will start up again. And that’s only the beginning.

‘I won’t lie, I’m no priest. Father Patrick O’Leary,’ he declaims, his arm flung out dramatically.

‘So you do?’ I wish I hadn’t asked. It’s giving real life an open invitation to join our circle of two.

‘Sometimes.’

‘You’ve got an on-off lady friend?’ God, I’m out of practice. ‘A friend with benefits?’ Gemma’s obviously lodged that horrible, crass expression in my consciousness. How could she have had to associate that with her own father?

‘No,’ he says, sounding vaguely annoyed. ‘They come and go. Not really my priority.’

‘Sounds lonely. Or are you a bit of a player?’

I don’t want the snarky tennis match to start up again. Are we protecting ourselves from each other? The thought makes me sad.

‘Mmm, and it sounds like a real barrel of laughs with King Midas.’

‘Have you been spying on me, Patrick?’

‘First of all, I haven’t been spying on Gemma. I’ve been doing my job. And second,’ he says, anger spitting up, ‘you’re not signing up for some West London shag pad with a bin man.’

‘That’s not why I’m with him. It’s bullshit. The Vines are your proof. All those expensive birthday parties and ponies – Gemma’s pretty much the unhappiest, angriest child I’ve ever laid eyes on.’

‘What, when he took her to The Grove?’

‘Yes.’

‘With Stephen.’

‘Yes.’ I could be wrong, but I feel like something clunks into place. ‘Patrick, we agreed not to talk about this.’

‘That’s how he does it,’ he says, the cogs visibly whirring. ‘Stephen goes and finds Christopher in places where he knows he won’t be bugged. Perfect cover, lounging round the jacuzzi in their trunks. Fat, middle-aged bellies spilling out.’

It consumes him, this case. As soon as it intrudes, he can’t see or feel anything except his own righteous quest.

‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ I say, furious with both of us. ‘This is exactly why—’

‘I thought as much when I found out about that party. The timing of it. It had to be a cover, a way to see Stephen. He was just using Gemma, like you said.’

‘You tricked me . . . you’re the user.’

‘I didn’t trick you. I knew. You confirmed my suspicions.’

The legalese is the final straw. I stand up, grabbing my bag.

‘I am SUCH a fool, an incompetent fool, for letting you manipulate me like this. Leave me alone. And leave Gemma alone – she’s just a kid. She doesn’t need another man abusing her.’

He stands up, tries to come after me, but I shove my hand against his chest, push him away, tears blurring my vision.

It’s humid and drizzly, traffic choking up the busy highway. The taxi queue snakes around the side of the station, inching forward so slowly I could scream with frustration. Everyone seems to have a houseful of luggage, an incomprehensible address to mutter in broken English. My heart is racing, anger – with Patrick, with myself – thrumming through my veins. I can’t face the fridge. There’s nothing much left in my flat but my bed and a few boxes, but with three more days before the tenants arrive, it’s still there as a refuge.

The shame I’m feeling – so old, so familiar – is even more toxic than the anger. How could I have been so stupid? How is it, that, even now, Lorcan can leave me so vulnerable? Tears roll down my cheeks, and I scrub at them with the sleeve of my trench coat, hating them for their refusal to obey my will. Self-pity is the last thing I deserve. I’m nearly there, just two harried commuters and a Japanese tourist to go, when he appears.

‘Please don’t tell me to fuck off. You’ve got every right, but let me speak for’ – he looks at his horrible gold-plated digital watch, fiddles with it – ‘ninety seconds, and then you never have to see me again.’

‘Well I do, don’t I? That’s just another lie. You can subpoena me . . .’

He holds a hand up, puppy-dog eyes pleading. I want to kick him.

‘You get to me. I’m the one who feels like a fucking idiot, chasing after some glamorous creature who’s going to go straight back to her perfect life, with her George Clooney lookalike boyfriend, once she’s had a sneaky nibble on a bit of rough.’

‘You’re not a bit of rough . . .’

He waves an angry hand at me.

‘Hush. You’re stealing my seconds. You asking me about girlfriends – I’m shit at this stuff, at least I’m shit with the ones I might actually want to be with. You’d never look at me in real life – you’re just having some kind of meltdown. This case can do that to people. It’s a nasty, disgusting business. And I’m sorry if I dragged us back there, but I’ve got a job to do. And you making me think about my dad, and about you – I can’t do that right now. There’s no time.’ He looks at me, his gaze so direct I can feel it reaching right inside me and grabbing hold. ‘But the truth is I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s not an option.’

‘Excuse me, are you planning to avail yourself of this cab?’ It’s a grey-haired man, his voice cut glass, his wooden-handled umbrella like something from another era.

‘Yes, I’m taking it,’ I say, trying to drag my gaze from Patrick’s face.

‘No you’re not.’

‘Yes I am! This isn’t me.’

‘Be not you then. Just for now. I’ll take any version I can get.’

Patrick holds out his hand and I step towards him, letting him envelop me in his arms. The man looks between us, flummoxed.

‘I think I’ll just hop in,’ he says, and I grin at him, whilst tears run down my cheeks.

‘I’m sorry if I make you think about things,’ I say, my face buried in Patrick’s bony clavicle. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the things I don’t want to think about either.’

‘What like?’ he says, hooking a piece of my damp hair away and kissing my ear with supreme gentleness.

I look up at him, wondering why it is I’m about to tell him what I’m about to tell him.

‘I did lose my dad, but not because he died. I just lost him, Patrick. I lost him.’

Chapter Fourteen

Patrick’s arm is flung around my shoulders, my face pressed flat against the warm expanse of his chest. We’re quiet right now, but it’s a soft kind of quiet. We’re about to cross Waterloo Bridge, my favourite bit of the journey, the lit-up London skyline splayed out like a winning hand of cards. Tonight it feels like crossing the Rubicon, the point of no return.

‘So there’s literally NOTHING there?’

‘Nope. No milk. No wine—’

‘Hang on,’ he says, throwing himself forward. ‘Driver!’

I’ve missed laughing the way he makes me laugh. I grab his arm, yank him back towards me.

‘It’s a good thing. I can’t drink another drop. I’ll die. Time to get excited about some delicious, nutritious hot water.’

‘Oh, so you’ve got a kettle?’

I cock my head, pull a face.

‘I couldn’t swear to it.’

My key scrapes loudly in the lock, another Rubicon about to be crossed. Patrick steps straight inside, his big brown eyes quickly scoping out the space. My sofa’s still here, a bog-standard Ikea number bought with one of my first pay packets, and I’ve accidentally left a print hanging up, a Modigliani of a woman in a green bonnet.

‘It’s pretty swish,’ he says, stroking the painted wooden frame of the big sash window that looks out over the narrow road. I liked how hidden away it was when I bought it, quiet and cosy.

‘Thank you,’ I say, pleased and self-conscious all at once. Marcus never seemed to come here: for him, Balham’s the equivalent of Antarctica.

‘So we’ve got some art work to gaze at,’ says Patrick, tilting his face and stroking his chin extravagantly, ‘but no kettle?’

‘You are SO uncultured,’ I tell him, grabbing his hand and leading him towards the sofa, marooned in the centre of the bare room.

‘Uh uh. I know your game. I’m going to get myself some of that delicious hot water before I let you ravish me.’ Patrick spots everything, even the tiny moment where I lose my game face. He puts his arms around me. ‘Hey, Mia, I’m joking. We don’t have to do anything. You know that, right?’

‘You’re lovely,’ I say, reaching up to stroke his face. It’s soft, his skin, its pale milkiness giving it a smoothness that I wouldn’t have appreciated all those times I snootily dismissed him as a callow youth. I try not to think about how different it feels from the stubbly landscape of Marcus’s face. This isn’t me. This is another Mia who I most likely won’t be on speaking terms with this time tomorrow. ‘I mean, you’re obviously a doofus, but you’re a lovely one.’

And then he kisses me again.

It’s me who suggests we go upstairs, me who pulls him down onto the bed, me who ignores the text beep from my phone, even though I know in my bones it’s from a newly landed Marcus, all ready to kiss and make up.

‘Are you sure about this?’ says Patrick, his fingers starting to undo the buttons that run down the front of my black cotton dress. I look at them weaving into the gaps in the fabric, grazing my naked skin, and think about stopping him.

‘I’m sure,’ I say, leaning upwards to kiss him, my hand slipping tighter around him, pulling us closer. I unbutton his shirt, push it off his shoulders with an urgency that comes from somewhere I can’t quite own. He looks at me – no, gazes at me – naked but for my black bra and knickers. I feel my hand unconsciously reaching to cover my stomach, but he gently puts it back by my side, continues to look. He smiles. ‘You’re even more beautiful than your imaginary incarnation.’

‘Have you hung out with her a lot?’

He makes an embarrassed face, shrugs, makes me giggle. I reach towards him and unbutton his jeans. He awkwardly shrugs himself out of them, looks back at me.

‘Socks on, right?’

Now he’s exposed too. He’s more lithe than skinny; his long legs have a racehorse quality to them, his chest punctuated by unexpected ridges of muscle, dusted with more hair than I’d have predicted. I run my finger down it, feel his heartbeat speed to my touch. I pull him back towards me, craving his lips on mine – right now, his kisses are my oxygen. I lose any sense of time, but as the wanting builds up inside me I roll on top of him, look down at the face that looks beautiful to me now. He stares back up at me, his long fingers pushing my hair away from my face. His eyes burn dark, suddenly hard to read.

‘What?’ I demand.

‘We shouldn’t do this.’

‘I’m sorry?’

He groans, slapping his palms hard against the mattress.

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this. I am going to hate myself tomorrow. But I’d rather hate me than have you hate me.’

I roll off him, turn my back, hot humiliation scorching through me like a forest fire.

‘Fine.’

‘Mia . . .’ He tries to roll me, but I make my body as heavy as lead. He leans in, his lips brushing my ear. ‘Listen to me. This is too important to trash.’

‘What, this is trash to you?’ I say, the words spitting out at him.

‘I’m not saying that. Jesus, you’re the therapist.’ I don’t feel like a therapist tonight. I feel like the vulnerable, stupid girl who got knocked up by a man who saw her coming. ‘I don’t want to take advantage of you. You’re in a state.’

‘What, I’m too much of a bunny-boiling loony to shag?’

He grabs my shoulder now, turns me over, forces me to look at him. I want to reach up to him, but I force myself not to, keep my eyes cold. Could this all be just another move? Pawn two steps forward, checkmate?

‘OK, stop it. You’re the one with a boyfriend.’ The shame I’ve been damming up torrents through me. How is it that he’s the one affording Marcus proper respect? What is wrong with me? ‘How about if I don’t want to get hurt?’

I look into his brown eyes properly now, so soft they could almost be velvet. I feel my own eyes filling, my heart too.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ I tell him.

‘Come here,’ he says, opening his arms. I snuggle against him, let him stroke my hair. He adjusts our position, pulls me back in. ‘Sorry, my head and my nether regions are having a serious disagreement.’

‘It’s pathetic how gratifying that news is.’

I don’t want to go to sleep – it’s stupid, but I don’t want to leave him. Tomorrow is another day, and there’s only so long I can keep real life chained up. It feels unsaid, neither of us articulating it, a thought bubble floating above us in the bare bedroom.

‘Do you want to tell me about it properly?’ he says, his body snaking itself around my exposed flesh like a creeping vine.

‘Oh Dr O’Leary, I feel like I could tell you anything.’ He doesn’t snap back with a smart reply, he waits it out. I told him a little bit when we were standing in the King’s Cross drizzle: that Lorcan and I are so terminally estranged that I don’t even know where he is any more, that I like to think it’s for the best, the only way I can protect myself, but that on a day like today I come face to face with how it makes my heart feel like a bloody steak, raw and tender.

‘I don’t mean to be a nosy parker,’ he says, stroking my nose like he did earlier. ‘I just . . . I hope you don’t end up with unfinished business. They do go,’ he adds, his voice low.

‘I know. I know he’s not immortal, but he could contact me. He’s the parent.’

‘I get that . . .’ says Patrick, still stroking me.

‘Anyway, I thought you said you didn’t have regrets?’

‘Er, hello, year one, Mia. We don’t always say exactly what we mean. Or maybe it’s that we think that if we say it with enough conviction it’ll start to be true.’