A Daughter's Secret (9 page)

‘He NEVER invites me to stuff,’ says an excited Lysette, showing me a crumpled photocopied invitation, an address in Hampstead running across the bottom.
Eight till late
, it says.
Bring a bottle
. The bottle’s a challenge, and so is the
till late.
‘Just tell your mum you’re staying at mine,’ says Lysette as we peel away from the cinema queue. If Mum knew how I felt – guilt washing up like a wave every time I lie to her or snap at her – she’d be dumbfounded. ‘Where have you gone, Mia?’ she says when my insolence reaches new heights, and sometimes I want to tell her that I’m still here, trapped like Rapunzel in a tower I made myself, but I never do.

We take two buses, the second one snaking up the hill of Hampstead High Street, past the chichi shops and elegant restaurants. I look down the length of my body, my cheap high street Lycra suddenly seeming like the wrong disguise.

‘We’ll just ask for Benjie on the door,’ says Lysette.

‘Not Jim?’

‘He might need a bit of time to get used to the idea.’

‘Lysette . . .’

‘It’ll be fine! They’ll be hordes of people there. Hordes!’

The house is up yet another steep hill, round the back of the High Street. It’s a huge Victorian pile, lights blazing, hip hop blaring out. Lysette marches up to the grand front door and buzzes, whilst I lurk at the bottom of the wide stone steps. After a brief conversation with a bushy-haired boy in a Cure T-shirt, she beckons urgently. ‘Come on!’

The smell of spliff is overpowering as we fight our way through the crowded hallway to the kitchen. You can tell it’s not just a rich crowd but also a sophisticated one. Our school is suburban, safe – a bit Pony Club. The girls here are not only older than us, they’re wiser too. Their hair is expertly straightened, their clothes – even when they look a bit like Madonna wannabes – have an effortless coherence. I pull down my miniskirt, and grab the plastic cup of cranberry juice Lysette hands me. As soon as it hits the back of my throat I taste the vicious splash of vodka. I splutter and choke, earning a few eye rolls from nearby guests. ‘Stop it, Mia,’ hisses Lysette, bashing me on the back. I’ve never drunk spirits before, only wine, and for a second I feel as if the earth is opening up beneath me. I can’t do this: I need to make my excuses and leave. But then the second sip of vodka strips its way down my dry throat, and the edges start to blur.

‘This is Boris,’ says Lysette, and I try not to giggle at his ridiculous name. He’s spotty, a back-to-front baseball cap worn, I suspect, to cover the acne’s worst ravages. Spotty or not, he’s friendly, and falls for Lysette’s line about knowing Benjie, the host, from the pub. Lysette looks older than fifteen. She’s got real breasts, soft mounds which give her clothes a lovely hang, and perfect skin, which make-up glides onto. She’s sexy, even though she hasn’t come close to having sex yet. Soon Boris’s friends are drawn into our circle of three, and, with the vodka whistling through my bloodstream, I’m laughing and joking like I’m in my element.

It’s half an hour later when Jim discovers us. He blows his way into the kitchen, laughing at something a blonde girl’s saying to him, then is stopped in his tracks by the sight of us. I can’t explain it, but there’s something about the way he is that makes it feel like it’s as much his party as it is Benjie’s. He owns the kitchen, and the blonde gripping his arm looks like she wants him to own her too. He’s darker than Lysette, with high cheekbones that point skywards. His mouth is full and reddish-pink, his skin smooth. There’s something both girlish and incredibly masculine about him. I can’t stop looking at him, even though his arrival might just kill our evening stone dead.

‘Stay there,’ he says to the girl, squeezing her waist. I feel a hot stab of illogical hatred for her. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demands, his face up close to Lysette’s.

‘I thought you said I could come.’

‘I told you where I was going. Not the same thing.’

‘Sorry, you know me. Shit for brains.’ She grins at him. ‘I wanted to see my big brother. Is that a crime?’

He stares her down, his beautiful face immobile. Then, finally, he grins back.

‘I’ve got tequila.’

Jim pours a measure into a glass, then cascades lemonade over the top of it. ‘Hides the taste,’ he says, slamming the glass on the kitchen counter and swilling it back in one. He shakes his head from side to side, growling. ‘Bracing,’ he says. He looks at me, for what feels like the first time. I can feel heat building up, ready to stain me red. ‘You next?’ I incline my head towards Lysette, not quite trusting myself to speak.

‘Oh Jim, this is Mia. She’s made St Mary’s almost bearable.’

‘Mia?’ he says, putting out his hand. There’s a leather string around his wrist and a silver ring on his pinkie finger. He’s wearing a white shirt, made of a heavy sort of cheesecloth, flung over a pair of washed-out black jeans. ‘Thanks for putting up with her.’

I can see the blonde out of the corner of my eye, hovering near the door. I look away, not wanting to draw Jim’s eye in her direction.

‘It’s not a problem,’ I say, hating how stiff I sound. ‘I’m really glad she came.’

Jim’s mixing another drink. He looks up, hands it to me.

‘Enough small talk. Get that down you.’

I look at it swirling around in the glass, the bubbles erupting up at me. I think about Lorcan, even though I don’t want to right now. I think about how he comes back from the pub a bit slurry, full of truths that are truer for him than for anyone else. I raise the glass to my lips and take a tiny sip.

‘Down it!’ says Jim. ‘Slam it, down it!’

‘Down it!’ shrieks Lysette, a wild brightness in her eyes.

So I do. It’s instant: the room begins to spin, the colours blurring and melding. I put my hand on the counter, and lower myself onto a stool, hoping I haven’t gone green. Then Jim grabs me, kisses the side of my face, and it all feels worth it.

‘Good girl,’ he says, then turns to Lysette. ‘You next.’

I don’t really know what drunk feels like, but I’m pretty sure it’s not like this: this is more like high. Jim drags us into the main room, the blonde trailing self-consciously behind, and we all dance to the hip hop that’s booming out of the stereo. Normally I feel stupid dancing, but now my feet feel like cheetah’s paws, unstoppable and quick. Jim grabs me round the waist sometimes, but I can’t read too much into it. He grabs Lysette too, and I see him drag the blonde off for a kiss in the corner at one, excruciating, moment.

‘You having fun?’ shouts Lysette over the thumping bass.

‘No,’ I say, turning my mouth downwards, and then we burst into giggles, hugging each other so tight I can feel her heart beating.

‘My brother’s the most fun ever, isn’t he?’ she says directly into my ear. I nod, not trusting myself to formulate a reply.

It’s the police, not Jim, who end our evening, turning up on the doorstep after a noise complaint. The music stops abruptly, the lights go up, and we blink and shudder with shock. Jim disappeared a while ago, but suddenly he’s there at our elbow. ‘Let’s go and hail a cab,’ he says, which seems like the height of sophistication to a night-bus devotee like me. The blonde’s still a bit part, mascara-clumped cow eyes tracking him from the other side of the room. He goes over and kisses her, right there with the lights up. I see a shocking, pink flash of their tongues before he pulls away, impervious to the way her spindly fingers are laced between the buttons of his shirt. ‘I’ll call you,’ he says, smiling, green eyes narrowed.

And then we’re out of the door and down the hill, the cold air blowing away the last traces of tequila. And as it seeps away, the guilt seeps back in. I called Mum from a phone box, hearing the resignation in her voice as I told her I was staying at Lysette’s, yet again. ‘Love you,’ I muttered at the end of the call, but it was like a scrap of fish thrown to a seal. I push the dark thoughts away and, as I do, I feel Jim’s arm around my shoulder. His other one’s around Lysette, but I don’t care. I’ve never had a boy put his arm around me, let alone a boy who looks like him. Lysette snuggles in, but I’m not bold enough for that. When the glowing yellow light of a cab appears I’m secretly hoping it will just speed past, but Jim untangles himself and sticks his hand out. We clamber in, Jim confidently giving the driver the address. He flings his arms out again, pulling us into a huddle, swaying his body extravagantly as we take the bends, like it’s a fairground ride. It is: it’s a big dipper, my heart soaring with every lurch.

Me and Lysette always share a toothbrush, even though the dentist says it’s nothing but a short cut to gum disease. ‘Spit sisters,’ she says, loudly rinsing out and handing it over. She leaves me at the sink, a baggy Sonic Youth T-shirt thrown onto the toilet seat. I brush, looking into my eyes, trying to work out if I look drunk: there’s something different about me, I’m sure of it. I pull on the T-shirt, twisting my body to see if my breasts have any effect on its baggy outline, but naked there’s nothing, only secret Kleenex stuffed down my bra induce any kind of womanliness.

He’s right outside the bathroom door, clad only in a pair of red-striped boxer shorts. I try and smile, but my mouth clamps halfway.

‘It’s you!’ he says. ‘I’m bursting for a piss.’

‘S-sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ he says, laughter in his eyes. ‘I’ll live.’

‘It’s all yours,’ I say, stepping aside.

‘Thanks,’ he says, his eyes surfing my bare legs. I wish I had my Kleenex boobs on – I must look so shrimpish and white to him. He holds my gaze. ‘I’m glad you crashed. Even though it was very, very bad behaviour.’

‘Was it?’ I say, my eyes never leaving his face, my voice a squeak.

‘Yes,’ he says, his fingers lightly brushing my face, his nails grazing my lips. ‘It was.’ He leans towards me just for a second, but then he’s through the bathroom door, the lock snapping loudly into place.

I stand there for a minute, my palm resting against the wood. Then I climb into the camp bed on Lysette’s floor, my body shrieking its feelings so loudly I’m worried it won’t just be me who doesn’t sleep a wink.

Chapter Five

Friday. Was three days too short a gap? Gemma’s wearing her school uniform today: a grey skirt, its newness visible in the stiff pleats, a white shirt messily tucked in. It’s one of those schizophrenic spring days, summery for an hour, then so blue and chilly you’d swear you’d hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe that’s why her blazer’s stuffed haphazardly into her rucksack – no, angrily – into her rucksack, the fabric erupting out of the top. I’d be angry if I’d been yanked out of school the way she’s been, thrown into the comp down the road, people nudging and staring and whispering behind my back. The
Mail
did a double-page spread this week, which I just about managed to stop myself devouring. It was a prime piece of Middle England outrage: how could this respectable husband and father now appear to have been window dressing for a ruthless crime boss? I couldn’t bear the thought of Gemma sucking it up, the words burning their way into her consciousness, her shame mushrooming.

She said she wanted to come back. Now we’re here, she’s more like the silent scowler of week one, my gentle probing eliciting replies as cold and plain as day-old rice pudding. So much for what I told Lysette: judging by Gemma’s cool indifference, I could probably hitchhike my way across the Outback without her even noticing I’d gone. I glance up at the clock: we’re halfway through the session already. Tiptoeing around her trauma isn’t doing her any favours.

‘I thought about you a lot after our last session.’

‘Did you?’ she says, raising her eyebrows. ‘Your life must be dull as, then.’

I smile, refusing to be stung. She wants a reaction. She wants me to confirm the list of charges she’s holding against herself.

‘I thought about how brave you were. You’d only met me once, but you came in here and talked about real things. You went for it.’

She looks at me sideways, wary as a cat.

‘How do you know what’s real? You’re not psychic. You don’t have some crystal ball,’ she says, putting her hands round an imaginary one, her eyes all fuzzy, like she’s on some terrible late-night cable show.

‘You’re right, I don’t see dead people. But what you said felt pretty real to me. You let me see you, what’s underneath.’

I wish we could pause here for a minute, the words resonating through her until they take hold, the sense that someone can see her secret self and not turn away – like her even more for it, perhaps. Instead she barely hears me, her words almost overlapping mine.

‘You just want me to talk about Dad. You’re like this.’ She jerks her body forward, chin balanced on her knuckles, jaw clenched.

‘I don’t, actually,’ I say, smiling at her cheeky impression. ‘I’m interested in you. How you feel about things. How you’re coping with all the . . .’ I cock my head; I don’t want to be all pompous and Brown Owl with her. ‘All the shit you’re having to deal with.’

Her face crumples for a second, the relief I suspect of someone honestly reflecting on what she’s going through, but then I watch her tensing up, steeling herself. Vulnerability is weakness: I bet I know where that belief comes from.

‘You were so horrible about him,’ she says, almost spitting the words out. ‘You don’t even know him.’ Her eyes blazing, she looks straight into mine. ‘You were a total bitch.’

I pause a second, keep my face neutral. How must it feel, reading those things in the press? She’s so confused – marooned between hating him and hating herself. Way easier to hate me.

‘I certainly wasn’t trying to be horrible about him. I’m sorry if that’s how it sounded. I listened to what you said about him telling you about yourself, and how hard it makes you work to change yourself. Sounds pretty exhausting to me. I wanted you to know that you’re always lovable. You don’t have to spend your whole time trying to be perfect. It looks to me like your mum always loves you, even when you’re fighting, and I bet your dad does too. Lots of people love you.’

‘So stop making out he’s some . . . some fucking abuser!’ There are two feverish spots of colour on her cheeks, like a make-up artist’s been at her with a brush. Her eyes are bright, her face more animated than I’ve ever seen it. That word, it’s like a trip switch. ‘Stop saying he’s cruel to me. Tough love is love. All his love is love. My dad loves me more than anyone in the world.’