Perfect Daughter (28 page)

‘It wasn’t your fault. You were in a horrible position. Sorry you got dragged into it.’ Jacks opened the front door and shouted up the stairs. ‘Home, Mum! Be up in a second!’

‘It is my fault, kind of. I’m the one that suggested we go up to London. I should never have brought that bloody magazine over. I started all this!’ Gina sighed.

‘No, G, you didn’t. It started years ago, long before you saw him in a magazine. Don’t worry about it.’ Jacks was sincere. She made her way to the kitchen and filled a bowl with instant porridge oats, ready for the microwave.

‘Is Pete okay? He seemed really mad last night.’

‘He is mad and he has every right to be. He left early this morning without having breakfast. I didn’t see him. But we needed to talk and clearing the air like that has to have been a good thing. It was long overdue.’

‘There’s something else.’ Gina chewed her lip as her eyes darted from Jacks to the floor.

‘What?’

Gina let out a long sigh. ‘I googled Sven last night, had a good root around.’

‘Well, hey, Miss Marple! What did you discover? Anything juicy?’ She tried to keep the mood light, masking her fury at him having tried to buy her forgiveness.

‘I printed this out.’ Gina removed a sheet of A4 paper from her bag and unfolded it. ‘Here.’ She pointed at the top of a paragraph. ‘Read that bit.’ She took a seat at the table.

‘Sven Lundgren blah blah blah…’ Jacks scanned the words. ‘Whose first super-yacht was called…’

Gina smiled. ‘Yep. That’s the bit.’

Jacks reread the line. ‘Was called
Lady Jacqueline
.’

‘How about that! He named his bloody boat after you!’

Jacks nodded but wasn’t really paying attention. She was busy studying the following paragraph:
The
Lady Jacqueline
was the first of the fleet for Somniorum Yachts, which takes its name from the Latin,
Lacus Somniorum
, meaning ‘Lake of Dreams’.

Jacks felt conflicted. A small part of her wanted to whoop with joy at this revelation, but it didn’t change the fact that he had left her. He had known she was pregnant and he had abandoned her, leaving her alone to pick up the pieces of her broken life.

‘And there’s something else – this is the last thing, I promise!’ Gina squirmed.

Jacks looked at her mate. ‘What else did you discover?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t discover anything, but I did speak to him.’

‘To Sven?’

‘Yes. He called me this morning.’ Gina tapped the table.

Jacks wished her stomach didn’t keep jumping at the sound of his name.

Gina continued. ‘He stayed in town last night and is heading back to London today. He flies back to San Francisco tomorrow, but he asked if you would go and meet him.’

‘Why would he want to meet me? I thought I was pretty clear where we stood last night.’ Jacks stirred her mum’s porridge and then filled the kettle for her tea, thinking about how he had let her down.

‘I’m just the messenger.’ Gina held up her palms. ‘But he sounded pretty desperate. He’s going to be on the Marine Parade, where he was parked last night.’

‘When?’

Gina looked over her friend’s shoulder at the kitchen clock. ‘Now. He said he’d wait for an hour and then he’d be off.’

Jacks recalled Pete’s words.
‘You make sure, Jacks. You make sure things are sorted properly.’
She had to put the lid on this once and for all.

‘I’ll just run this up to Mum. Do you mind sitting with her for half an hour, G?’

‘Course I will. Take your time.’ She squeezed Jacks’ arm.

Jacks drove to the Marine Parade and parked her Skoda behind his flash car, which she could see in the daylight was a Ferrari. She checked her face in the mirror and ran her fingers through her fringe before furtively walking round and climbing into his front seat.

‘Thank you for coming to meet me,’ he whispered, sounding relieved.

‘Gina said you were heading off, so I thought it best we didn’t leave anything unsaid.’ She nodded, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a smile.

‘I couldn’t sleep last night.’

‘Me either. Seeing you unsettled me. And it upset Pete.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He pushed a button on the dashboard. The engine roared.

‘Where are we going, Sven? I’ve got things to do. Just say what you need to and then we can go our separate ways.’

‘Please, Jacks, drive with me for a bit. For old times’ sake.’

Jacks sighed and shook her head. ‘Okay, but make it quick.’

He indicated and pulled out into the morning sun, pointing the car away from the seafront. The car was very low to the ground and seemed to glide along the roads, which were clearly still familiar to Sven. Jacks thought how much Jonty would love a ride in this snazzy sporty number. She felt guilty as she pictured her family, only a couple of miles from them but a whole world away. She was looking at streets that she strolled daily, but it felt different, seeing them from inside the tinted windows of such a beautiful vehicle.

Sven pulled up by the path that led to the playing field.

‘Oh no!’ Jacks laughed, in spite of herself. ‘What are we doing here?’ She shook her head.

‘Come on, humour me.’ Sven jumped from the car and opened the boot, from where he pulled two very puffy, silky soft, silver jackets. ‘Put this on,’ he instructed.

Jacks took the coat, which was as light as a feather, and did as she was told. It was surprisingly warm.

They sidled through the open gates. Sven marched ahead as they tramped across the playing field, tripping in the dips and stumbling over the uneven tufts. Their clumsiness, and their nerves, made them laugh.

‘This is the spot!’ he announced, before sitting down on the wet grass. ‘Come on.’ He patted the ground by his side.

‘I can’t. I’m too old for mucking about like this, Sven.’

‘Come on! Just sit down!’

Jacks lowered herself on to the grass and sat, hugging her knees and feeling awkward. They sat in silence for a while, neither wanting to break the magic that had transported them back across time.

Eventually, when their breathing was in sync, Sven whispered, ‘When I picture you, it’s here, in this field. I still find it amazing that we are so minuscule, so tiny in this great big universe!’

She smiled ruefully. ‘I remember you telling me how to spot the Pole Star. I still look for it regularly and even now, every time I stare up at that big old star, I think of you.’

‘I thought we were going to conquer the world,’ he said quietly. ‘Together.’

‘Looks like you didn’t need me after all,’ she retorted. ‘You seem to have done all right.’ Her tone was clipped, laced with sarcasm. ‘One thing I just can’t understand: why did you make out you didn’t recognise me at the Boat Show? I was so hurt, Sven. Embarrassed.’

‘I wanted to hurt you. God, it sounds so childish. I’m such an idiot and I’m sorry, really sorry. But I wanted to hurt you for not having waited for me. I swore I would never come to you, you would have to come to me, to want me.’

‘But it was you that buggered off, not me,’ she said evenly.

They were silent for some seconds until he shrugged and turned towards her. ‘Thing is, Jacks, I was just a kid. A frightened kid with this big future ahead of me, a future my parents had plotted out for me. And I didn’t know I had options. I may have been acting like the big man, but I was only just eighteen and I was scared.’

‘And so was I!’ she said heatedly. ‘Left to literally carry the baby all by myself.’ She clenched her jaw, pictured the schoolboy Sven, tried to put herself in his young head. She softened her tone. ‘And let me ask you one thing, if you had had options, Sven,’ she asked, ‘would you still have gone?’ She held his eye.

He took a deep breath and nodded at the ground. ‘Probably.’ Shaking his head, he carried on, hesitantly. ‘When I found the courage and called your mum, I couldn’t believe you were already married to one of the sheep-boys. I just couldn’t believe it! I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. I have everything I ever wanted, you know, but last night I could taste that jealousy again, the rawness of it – you picking one of the football team over me…’ He gave a small laugh.

‘You might have had options, Sven, but what were mine? Pregnant and single at eighteen – what were my prospects? And don’t you dare call Pete names! He did an amazing thing. He rescued me, gave me a home and a family life. He’s a good man. He was wonderful, did all he could to make things better for me. He was more than I deserved.’ She looked Sven full in the face. ‘He has loved me and your daughter ever since, been the best dad any girl could hope for. We are both lucky to have him.’

Sven winced and turned away. ‘Did you love him?’

Jacks shook her head. ‘No. Not then, not immediately. I almost played at it at first. It came later, when we had the baby. And now I do. I love him very much.’ She pictured her husband wheeling her mum down the hallway to eat the tea he had cooked, heard his voice offering to fetch her glasses for her. A kind man, a good man, with whom she shared a life, a family.

‘I see.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, I was devastated when you went.’ She stared at the horizon. ‘And I think I’ve spun that over the years, made you into my knight in shining armour, fantasising that with you my life would have been perfect.’

‘Life’s never perfect,’ he said.

‘I think I’ve figured that out. I’ve also realised that it doesn’t have to be perfect – you just have to be happy.’ She laughed as though this was a revelation. Her mum’s words floated into her head:
‘Selfish people are very hard to love
.
’
She looked at Sven, realising how easy it was to love Pete, the least selfish man she had ever met.

‘I agree and I’ve nearly got my perfect formula for happiness.’ He moved a little closer towards her.

‘You have?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘I have. I’m happy as long as the adrenalin is pumping, things are moving quickly and I have a large bed and a glass of chilled champagne waiting for me, wherever I decide to lay my head. No burdens, no ties.’ Sven ran a finger over the sleeve of her jacket. ‘Come with me, Jacks. Just you and me, no distractions. Let’s go chase adventure!’

Jacks stared at him, this stranger, who was looking at her so eagerly. ‘Have you not understood anything of what I’ve been saying, Sven? My life is all the adventure I need. My perfect formula is lying next to Pete, looking up at our ugly lampshade and knowing my kids are safely asleep in the room next door.’

She realised the truth of her words as she spoke them. ‘He was there when I needed someone and he didn’t abandon me. He stuck by me, always has.’

‘And I didn’t.’

‘No, Sven, you didn’t. You went to America. You kept telling me how easy it would be for me to pack a bag and go, but I can see now that it would have been just as easy for you to unpack your bag and stay.’

Sven looked across the field with an expression of resignation. ‘I loved you, Jackie Morgan. I really loved you. What we had was real, forever real. It was magical. And I thought you felt the same.’

‘I did,’ she whispered.

‘But not now?’ It was the last throw of the dice.

‘Not now.’ She shook her head, resigned. There was just one final thing that needed clearing up. She took a big breath, steeling herself. She knew she had to ask, it was only fair, no matter how painful.

‘Do you want to see Martha? Know anything about her?’ Her heart hammered in anticipation of his answer. She dreaded the prospect of having to confess everything to her little girl when she was at her most vulnerable and she hated the thought of how much Pete would be hurt in the process.

Sven shook his head.

Jacks exhaled slowly and felt a tumble of giddy relief. ‘I guess that’s what “no burdens, no ties” means?’

‘I guess so. It would all be too complicated,’ he murmured.

She stood, unzipped the silver jacket and handed it to Sven. ‘I won’t ever forget you, Sven. But it’s time I moved on. We aren’t kids any more. I have a family, kids of my own and a husband who has given up so much for our happiness. He’s my real knight in shining armour.’

Sven’s mouth narrowed; he looked hurt. He remained where he was as Jacks started to walk towards the gate. ‘Can I give you a lift?’ he called.

Jacks pictured climbing into her dad’s little Skoda back on the Marine Parade, feeling something close to happiness. She laughed out loud. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Jacks?’ he shouted.

‘What?’

He twisted round. ‘My first yacht in the group, she was called
Lady Jacqueline
and she was beautiful – different, unique, unlike any other. She was ready to take to the high seas and conquer the world.’

Oh she was, Sven, she was.

‘I never thought she’d become washed up, stranded in the place she was supposed to sail away from…’ His words were cutting.

Jacks turned, wrapped her arms around her cheap cardigan and stared at the forlorn figure in the middle of the school playing field. When she spoke, her voice was firm.

‘No, Sven, that’s not what happened. She decided to stay put and let the world come to her. And it did. And you were wrong, you know: home is not a state or a feeling, it’s a place. And for me, it’s here. I’m home.’

Jacks couldn’t see Gina’s Corsa as she pulled up, but she did spot Pete’s van. It was unusual for him not to be on site at that time of day, especially as it wasn’t a cricket day. She poked her head into the empty kitchen and then crept up the stairs and hovered by Ida’s bedroom door.

Her mum was under the covers with her fussy bed jacket on and her head propped against her favourite pillow. Pete was sitting in the chair to the side of the bed, still wearing his heavy work boots. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and in his hands was a sheet of paper. Ida was staring at him intently. Her gnarled fingers gripped the edge of her pink candlewick bedspread. Jacks leant against the doorframe and listened. Pete’s voice was low and gentle.

‘And so, my darling, that is all my news. I remember the day we met – you looked so pretty. Do you remember that day?’ Pete paused and looked up at Ida, who had a flicker of a smile around her lips. He coughed and went back to his sheet of paper. ‘It was the best day of my life and I will never forget a moment of it. Take care of yourself, Ida. I will miss you every single day. Keep this letter safe and know that I will be thinking about you even if I can’t be with you. I love you forever and ever. Your loving husband, Don.’