A Daughter's Secret (8 page)

‘It’s lovely! Is it meant to be me?’

‘I think you need to take a better look in the mirror. Or get some glasses. It’s a chicken, a slightly hideous one.’ I look more closely. Saffron’s my god-daughter, three years old and wilful, possessed by an unwavering devotion to me and
Peppa Pig
. ‘I hope you’re not analysing it for psychopathic tendencies.’

‘No, I’m just admiring it,’ I say, smoothing it down, trying to eradicate the wrinkles. ‘I might even frame it.’

‘Are you
insane
? I mean bless, but . . .’

She’s watching me watching it, and I look away, self-conscious.

‘How’s Ged?’ I say quickly. Ged’s father to her two youngest children, a carpenter who seems to communicate mainly from inside a billowing cloud of spliff smoke.

‘Lovely,’ she says, grinning, the very thought of him lighting her up. ‘Slightly flatulent. Bit short on actual work at the moment. Seems to be mainly doing people favours. I so want a proper week away at Easter, not a rainy week of purgatory trying to entertain three kids under an arsing piece of tarpaulin in a Welsh field, but I can’t see it happening. Are you going on another mini break somewhere unbelievably hot and glamorous?’

I know she doesn’t mean it, but I can’t help detecting a certain spikiness in her comment. The truth is, I probably earn about the same as Ged pro rata, what with all the time I spend writing up my case notes and giving low-cost sessions to people who haven’t got a bean, but I know the addition of Marcus to the mix makes my life look luxurious. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the perks.

But the edginess is not about money, not really. It’s about the fact that we no longer understand each other’s lives the way we used to, like a blind person reading Braille, fingers running across, the meaning instantly apparent. We’d always been different, but our differences hadn’t rolled out into real life and become something tangible and unarguable with. I want your life too, I feel like saying, but it’s not quite true. Sometimes I want bits of it, even
long
for bits of it, but other times it terrifies me, the thought of playing endless games of pat-a-cake with sick down my front and no money of my own for shoes. I don’t like myself for it. The fact there’s no pressure from Marcus is both a blessing and a curse.

‘Marcus has got a big redevelopment deal, so I’m not sure. And I’m . . .’ I think of how Gemma looked at the end of the session, eyes glazed, our intimacy dissolved so entirely I could’ve been making it up. ‘There’s this girl I’m seeing. She’s only thirteen, and her life’s gone up in flames. I want to be around for her.’

‘What, 24/7?’

I take a deliberate sip of my wine, playing for time. Confidentiality is the absolute cornerstone of my work – it’s why we have supervision – but I suddenly desperately want to share something of it.

‘It feels like she hasn’t got anyone else. She needs me, Lys.’

I wriggle my shoulders, the grandiose words echoing around my head. I sound just like she does. I need to go and see Judith, work out why this case is wrapping itself around me like bindweed, but some part of me doesn’t want to go anywhere near the answers.

‘I honestly don’t know how you do your job. I couldn’t handle it. I’d last like . . . three hours. I’d tell someone they really
were
fat and have to resign.’

I think of Saffron’s angelic face, chubby little fingers all too eager to seek out plug sockets and scalding-hot taps. I wish I
knew
I wanted it, like so many of my patients do, their ovaries shouting at them like militant peace protesters.

‘Trust me, I couldn’t do yours,’ I say, the wine starting to make half truths feel truer. ‘I get fifty minutes with a person. You’re full-time.’

Lysette rolls her eyes, dismissive. It infuriates me sometimes, the bipolarity of being a woman. Both of us are failing at it, in our own unique way, and yet neither of us are.

‘Just – you don’t need to conquer the world single-handed. You’re brilliant. You’ve already proved it.’

She gave me this birthday card last year with an annoyingly profound quote on it, something about how the reason we’re cracked is to let the light come in. I’m sure she’s right. In principle.

‘I’m not doing it for that,’ I say too fast. ‘I love my job.’

‘I know you do,’ she says. I can hear the exasperation in her voice, but it’s not meant meanly. ‘Anyway, I’ve almost managed to train my third human to poo in the actual toilet, so I don’t want you to go thinking you’re the only one achieving professional greatness.’

‘What can I say? Any god-child of mine is sure to be embarrassingly gifted.’

Lysette signals the barman for another Martini, and I drain my glass. I hope I didn’t sound trite.

‘She’s starting full-time nursery in September. I was desperate to make it through the baby bit, but now it feels like it’s disappeared in a puff of smoke.’

‘You’re really talented! There’s loads of things you could do.’

She rolls her eyes, wrinkles her nose.

‘You say that . . . even if there was an amazing job I could do between 9 a.m. and 3.30, I don’t have a proper CV. Honestly, Mia, there was an advert for the Army on telly the other day, and I actually felt angry about the fact I’m too old to be a squaddie.’

The thought of Lysette in a hard hat, a rifle tucked jauntily under her left arm, is too funny an image. Once we’ve recovered from the giggles, I grab her hand.

‘Look, if I can help . . . if you wanna brainstorm it, or we have a go at your CV together . . .’

She waves a dismissive hand, takes a determined slug of her Martini. I hope she doesn’t think I lack the imagination to understand.

‘You were looking at the five millionth flat this week, weren’t you? Did it wow you?’

‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘It’s gorgeous.’ She fixes me with a penetrating stare, waits for a postscript I’d rather wriggle out of giving. ‘It was like an enormous Smeg fridge. I’d have felt like a petit pois rattling around at the bottom of the freezer.’

‘Why don’t you just move into his?’ she asks, laughing.

‘Because . . .’ I know she’s deeply suspicious of our slowness to commit, but I can’t treat life the way she does, like it’s one long bungee jump. She was pregnant within three months of meeting Ged, only a few months out of a marriage that was born out of youthful twenty-something certainty. She doesn’t seem to care if there’s no safety harness. I love that about her, her spontaneity like a current of electricity that I can plug myself into for a boost, but it’s not something I covet for myself. ‘It’s not my house. It’s his house. His stupid great coffee machine. His ex-wife’s bed. His porn stash, if I ever actually track it down.’ She’s looking at me. ‘What?’

‘You sound – I dunno, really cross.’

‘Look, I know you don’t like him,’ I snap, hating my waspishness. I wouldn’t have picked a beardy stoner for you, is what I’m thinking, but I don’t judge you for it. ‘Sorry, ignore me. I think this new client is really getting to me, and—’

‘It’s not that I don’t like him,’ she says, interrupting. ‘I just want you to . . . I want you to fall for someone so badly you can’t even think about silly old clients. So you miss ashtanga yoga, and stuff yourself with muffins and swill back tequila shots, and text him all the time, even if it makes you look totally needy.’

My irritation melts, dissolved by the truth that fertilizes those words. Words, schmords. What she’s really saying is, I know you, I know you all the way down to the roots, and I love all of it. I squeeze her hand, my fingers dipping between the hollows of hers. Her nails are painted a sea-green colour that I can’t tear my eyes away from.

‘I do love him, Lys. He looks after me.’

‘You need muffin love, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘I’ll bear my muffin quota in mind.’

We’re standing on the platform by the last train, eking out the five minutes before the doors slam shut. There’s a motley crew on board: a mixture of briefcase-wielding commuters and last-train casualties clutching cans of lager. I’m worrying about the tenner I’ve sneaked into my coat pocket, wondering if it’s too patronizing to press it on her for a cab at the other end. It’s only a short walk, and I know she’ll think nothing of trotting through the dark on her clip-clopping mules, but I can’t help worrying about what could loom out of the shadows.

‘I should climb aboard, don’t you think?’ she says, hugging me. ‘It was so lovely. Sooner next time. And take a sodding break if you want one!’

‘You too! Why can’t you go to your mum’s, anyway? Ibiza’s always hot, isn’t it?’

When they were finally forced to sell their rambling family home, Gloria piled the little money that was left into a tiny Ibizan villa, deep in an olive grove. She supplements her measly pension by doing B&B and giving massages. I’ve never been there, but I like to imagine it’s some kind of shabby-chic slice of heaven.

‘Wasn’t quick enough,’ she says.

‘How so?’ I say, even though I know I shouldn’t.

‘Jim got Easter,’ she says, trying to throw it away.

‘
En famille
?’ I ask, knowing it will hurt. There’s a certain satisfaction in the hurt, like pushing at a wobbly milk tooth with your tongue.

‘Yup,’ she says, eyes tracking me, each of us silently agreeing not to go there. Besides, the guard’s shooing people off the platform.

‘Take this,’ I say, pressing the tenner into her hand. ‘Thanks, Mia,’ she says, naked gratitude in her eyes, and I delve deep into my bag for my purse. ‘Take this too,’ I say, thrusting another twenty at her. The fact she doesn’t even protest makes me wonder just how broke she really is. She jumps on the train. ‘Love you,’ she mouths as the carriage spirits her away from me.

March 1994 (fifteen years old)

Mum is properly terrible at painting her nails. The red varnish smears itself over her cuticles, making it look like she’s got her hand caught in a Victorian loom and is slowly bleeding to death. She’s sitting at the kitchen table right now, wobbly right hand waving over the left, swearing under her breath. I watch her from the kitchen door, sneakily pulling down my black tube miniskirt and sliding behind the table so that, when she looks up, she can’t see how short it is.

‘Me and Lysette are going to the cinema,’ I say, as casually as I can muster. ‘I’ll be back by 10.30.’

‘Hang on,’ she says, head jerking up, a globule of varnish landing on the battered kitchen table. ‘Shit! Don’t you know we’re having family supper tonight?’

‘Do you
see
Lorcan?’ I say, in my ‘whatever’ voice. Big mistake. She hates that.

‘No Mia, I don’t. I’m not blind. But we agreed it, so I’m sure he’ll be walking through the door any minute. He’s bringing fish and chips,’ she adds, like it clinches it.

She’s scraping at the splodge on the table with a tissue, oblivious to the fact she’s turned a tiny spot of red into a full-scale crime scene. She’s only started all this – painting her nails, using mascara – since Lorcan came back. She’s always been a natural beauty, her long wavy hair and delicate features giving her the look of a Pre-Raphaelite portrait. I hate watching her trying to be something else. Besides, it feels like she’s stealing my moment, the time in my life when I’m meant to be casting off into the exotic ocean of womanhood.

‘I’m not hungry, anyway.’

‘You have to eat. You’re a growing girl: it’s vital for your brain. Have you got much homework this weekend?’

I’ve done it all already. I stayed up until one last night doing my maths, and I wrote my
Jane Eyre
essay in the library after school, but something won’t let me tell her that.

‘Yeah, loads,’ I say.

‘Then you need an early night. If you’re going to the cinema, I’d much rather you went to the early screening. Or not at all, tonight.’

‘Lysette’s waiting for me!’

Mum’s hazel eyes flash with anger.

‘That’s not my problem. You made an agreement . . .’

‘A sort of agreement,’ I snarl back, taking a theatrical look around the messy, Lorcan-free kitchen. Her face crumples, and I come close to crumpling along with it. I nearly stand up, miniskirt and all, and rush round to the other side of the table to hug her, but then I remember that I’m almost there, almost out. The whiff of freedom is too seductive. ‘If he’s not back in half an hour, then can I go?’ I can taste how much I hate myself. It’s bitter, like the dregs at the bottom of the coffee pot.

When I get to the Odeon, there’s a queue snaking right round the block. I rang Lysette’s house to say I’d be late, but I could only do it after the allotted half an hour, or I’d have had to straight off cancel. I knew Lorcan wasn’t coming, even if Mum didn’t. He’s recording his new album in the bowels of a Soho recording studio, and every Friday night is cause for a celebration. He’ll be in the Coach and Horses or the Ship with the rest of the band: if Mum really wanted to see him she should have invited herself along. I know why she didn’t though.

I was right about Frog Features: she was Lorcan’s girlfriend for a while, but eventually that bonfire burnt itself out too, just as Mum was starting to take some timid steps out into the big bad world of dating. At first she made him sleep in the spare room, but it didn’t last more than a month or so. I think she should’ve kept up the act a bit longer – all queenly and regal, going out for drinks without telling him who with. These days she’s needy, which he hates, with a side salad of angry, which he also hates. Is it any wonder I’m spending all my time with Lysette? She joined my class last September – she’d left a state school in West London – and we’ve been best friends ever since.

‘There you are!’ she says. She’s smoking a roll-up, which she throws to the ground and grinds out with the heel of her Doc Marten. ‘I’m freezing my sweet arse off here.’

She’s not really angry, which is what’s lovely about her. She doesn’t worry about stuff. Her whole family are like that. Her mum is super relaxed, even if I stay over in Lysette’s bedroom all weekend.

‘Sorry!’ I say, hugging her. ‘Are we in time?’

‘Let’s quit this joint,’ says Lysette. ‘I’ve got a cunning plan.’

I’ve heard about Jim, but I’ve not yet met him. He’s Lysette’s half-brother, two years older, and in the lower sixth at a private boarding school somewhere in Sussex. His Easter holidays are longer than ours, and he’s just got back.