Conditional Love (18 page)

I nodded, my heart swelling with pride for him. I nestled against his chest. Oh, happy days! He wanted me, not my money. Emma was wrong. He wanted me!

‘Would you like to stay over tonight?’ I asked shyly.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ hissed Emma several hours later when she found me in the kitchen in the early hours of the morning.

I was tucking into a plate of thickly buttered toast. Cutting down on the carbs would have to wait another day. I was ravenous.

‘It just happened… I needed an ego boost,’ I explained, refusing to meet her eye.

‘A wolf whistle from a builder is an ego boost. A new bloody haircut is an ego boost. Not a shag with the world’s most uneligible bachelor. Is he still here now?’

‘Yes.’ I jutted my chin up at her. Why did she always have to be so negative?

She gulped at a glass of water, glaring at me over the rim.

‘It’s early days, but I think we’re back together.’

‘You
think
?’

She had never liked Marc, never trusted him, and had always been quick to point out his failings. It suddenly occurred to me why that was: she was jealous. What sort of friend did that make her?

‘Yes. He makes me happy, he makes me feel special, and let’s face it, I haven’t had a lot of support from you recently.’

Emma reeled back from the strength of my attack, shook her head in disgust and stomped back to bed.

‘And it’s
in
eligible,’ I muttered to the empty room.

twenty-one

It was my birthday. I had dark shadows under my eyes from lack of sleep, a face full of spots and I hadn’t been able to stray too far from the loo for the past two hours.

The reason for this lapse in poise and inner calm? Not because I was now closer to thirty-five than thirty. But because somewhere in this fair city, Terry Stone was preparing to meet his estranged child. Right now, my father was probably staring out of the window of a chintzy B & B, waiting for his full English to arrive and pondering what on earth he was letting himself in for.

‘Next week,’ Mr Whelan had announced portentously. ‘After the bank holiday. If that suits?’

Typical. I could have gone to Spain to see Mum as usual and been back in time to meet him and she would have been none the wiser. As it was, she had been emailing me every few days, badgering me to sort my flights out.

Putting the Costa del Sol out of my mind for the moment, I sorted out a pair of navy shoes from the bottom of my wardrobe and chose the least tatty bag to match.

I should have bought a bag as well as a new outfit. I’d treated myself to a white and navy dress with matching jacket. Very smart. Sort of thing you could wear to a wedding. Meeting my father felt like a very formal occasion. Like a reverse wedding, with my father waiting for me after a thirty-three-year walk down the aisle.

The shift-style dress was very flattering. It would skim over my curves. Not like the summery one I’d worn to go out with Marc. I didn’t want Terry to get the wrong idea and think he was about to become a granddad.

I stuck my hand gingerly into the recesses of my handbag to give it a clearout, digging out old receipts and paperclips, being careful not to damage my nails. I’d just had a French manicure and the white tips were squared off like little spades.

At some point you’ll run out of jobs, Sophie.

I know, I know.

And then you’ll have to think about what you’re going to say to your father.

Yes, I know, but… oh, is that the time? I’m late for the hairdresser’s.

‘Just the ends please, Roberto.’ I pinched my thumb and forefinger together, leaving a tiny gap, to reinforce my futile request.

Roberto nodded, trawled a wide-toothed comb through my wet hair, scooped up a section from the back and snipped off a good four centimetres. It was a game he liked to play with his clients, I reckoned. How much can I cut off before they cry?

‘Straight?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘That makes one of us!’ he tittered. I rolled my eyes. He always said that too.

I loved having my hair straightened professionally. I was like the model in the Frizzease commercial, only I was stuck at the ‘before’ stage for three hundred and fifty days a year. My bi-monthly appointment with Roberto afforded me a brief entrée into the ‘after’ world of sleek, smooth and shiny.

An hour later I stepped out into the drizzle. Clever me for bringing an umbrella! I never left home without it on my birthday.

‘You're so lucky having a birthday in the summer – barbeques, parties in the garden…’ my friends always said to me.

Little known fact: August the twenty-ninth was unofficially the first day of autumn. The sky was invariably grey. Rainclouds would force my birthday barbeques to be manned by some poor frozen soul in a fleece clutching an umbrella, and a chill wind always blew the stack of paper napkins across the wet grass.

I knew this yet still I wore a thin dress and bare legs. Shivering with cold and nerves, I made my way across the city on two buses to Mr Whelan’s office.

I hammered on the solicitor’s door, desperate to be inside in the warm and rescue my hair before it returned to its natural texture of bird’s nest.

After confirming the date – my stomach had churned throughout our conversation and incidentally every moment since – Mr Whelan had asked me where I would like to meet my father.

Tricky one. Definitely not our flat. I didn’t want him to think I still lived like a student. Even if it was true.

Not a restaurant. I might need to make a sudden and dramatic exit. I didn’t want my getaway to be impeded by asking for the bill and counting out change for a tip.

In a park? A bit MI5: spies swapping information in manila envelopes while a long lens poked out of the foliage recording the double-crosser with a whirr of the shutter.

Mr Whelan had cleared his throat. ‘Might I suggest our meeting room?’

‘Yes,’ I had sighed. ‘That would be perfect.’

I was on time but even so, my father had beaten me to it. I followed the smiley receptionist as she swished her way down the corridor, leading me to the room or doom, I thought, mournfully.

Cue violins, cue soft lighting, cue two figures flinging themselves into each other’s arms. Their euphoria at being reunited cutting through the decades of their estrangement.

She left me at the door. My mouth was dry and my throat had almost completely closed up. Just as well, it would help to keep the vomit in. I placed my hands on my hot face and concentrated on my breathing. Remnants of snipped hair tickled my cheeks and I brushed them away. Didn’t want him thinking I was some bearded-lady freak.

Why didn’t I tell Mum the truth? She could have talked me out of this. Why didn’t I listen to Jess? Why the bobbins didn’t I bring Marc?

I gripped the cold metal door handle, pushed the door open halfway and held my breath. Sitting at the table was a tall thin man, grey-haired, with bushy beard and an encouraging smile. Mr Whelan. I let my breath out in a high-pitched whistle and forced myself to enter the room.

Bang smack opposite my trusty solicitor, invisible from my first view of the room, was Terry Stone.

All of a sudden, my mind started whirring as if someone had put my brain on a fast spin cycle. I saw Mr Whelan stand up, make introductions, his hand outstretched, but all I could hear was whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and then he left us to it.

Just the two of us. United by name, divided by everything else.

Terry was already on his feet. He stumbled towards me, tripping over two chairs in the process.

From a distance he could be anyone: average height, average build, bit of a tummy. But as he approached me, his face told the real story. Green eyes flecked with brown, short lashes like mine. (So I had him to blame. Mum’s eyelashes were fair but enviably long.) His hairline was a carbon copy of mine, hair growing perpendicular to his forehead. His wavy hair was thick, brushed back off his face, as dark as mine although tinged with grey. I suspected that if he grew it long, it would be just as curly as mine too.

I touched my own hair automatically, and was shocked to find it so smooth and flat. My visit to the salon felt like weeks ago.

He was only inches away, staring at me. We both gave an embarrassed laugh, although the situation was anything but funny.

Awkward. Do we shake hands? Hug? No, definitely not hug.

I heard a noise escape from his throat. He was about to speak. I knew without doubt that his first words to me would remain in my memory bank forever.

‘You
could
be my daughter, I suppose.’

What the chuff?

My mouth dropped open. I gasped. I screwed my face up into an angry gurn. All the pent-up emotion came flying out in his direction, floodgates opened, no holds barred.

‘That’s it? That’s all you can say?’ I yelled.

Fury gripped hold of me and I shoved him. Two hands to the chest. His face paled. He staggered back and landed skewwhiff on a chair, one hand clasped across his body.

‘Of course I’m your bloody daughter, you bastard! What do you think this is, a friggin’ identity parade?’

He turned his head to the side and mumbled something under his breath.

‘What?’ I swivelled towards him, hands on hips. ‘What did you say? Spit it out!’

‘I said, you’re definitely your mother’s daughter, using language like that.’

I blushed in spite of myself.

This is only my second proper swear ever, I wanted to shout. I hate swearing. But I didn’t have time to make excuses for my behaviour, I was in full flow.

‘Who else’s am I going to be? Hardly likely to have any of your mannerisms, am I?’

I scowled and folded my arms. I seemed to have regressed to my teenage self. Even down to the spots.

‘Happy birthday, by the way.’

That shocked me. He knew. Well, of course he knew, but he remembered. Had he thought about me last year on my birthday? The year before that?

‘Ooh, thanks.’ I did a teenage-style sarcastic shimmy. ‘Does that cover the last thirty-two birthdays as well?’

His eyebrows furrowed and met in the middle. That was what mine would look like without a daily tweeze.

I was looming over him in his slumped position on the chair. My limbs felt all gangly and I wanted to escape his gaze. I chucked myself down onto the seat furthest from him.

‘Um, what do you do for a living?’ he asked. His voice was calm, mellow, affable even. A sharp contrast with my frosty tone.

Of all the questions! I shrugged, not bothering to impress him. ‘Advertising sales for
The Herald
.’

‘Enjoy it?’

I growled with frustration. Small talk, small talk. What about big talk? There were so many things we should have been talking about. Like had he loved my mother? How could he have abandoned her? Abandoned me, a newborn baby?

I took a sideways peek at him. He still had a hand to his chest and his face was a picture of misery. Like Robbie Williams when he found out about Gary’s OBE, I thought inappropriately.

Why bother to see me now? Why return after all these years? There must be something in it for him, I realised with a jolt. Something more than simply indulging his aunt’s last wishes. I wondered if he got a payout from her estate too, on condition that he agreed to meet me. Or worse, what if he was pretending to be all ‘Henry the mild-mannered janitor’, when really he was planning to contest the will?

‘So where have you been all my life?’ Privately, I was very pleased with my line. If I hadn’t been so cross, I would have smiled.

His mouth twitched, only for a second, until he noticed my glare.

He sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Then shorten it. Tea?’

Someone had left us a tray of tea, coffee and biscuits. I decided to be mother. No use waiting for him to display any parental inclinations.

‘Milky, two sugars please.’

That was how I took mine. I felt ridiculously possessive of my tea preference all of a sudden. I poured myself a weak cup of coffee instead. It didn’t taste anywhere near as nice as the one Nick Cromwell had made me. I blinked furiously. What was I doing thinking of him at a time like this?

We sipped our drinks in a weighty silence for a minute or so.

Terry set his cup down and sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He looked as rough as I felt; he was tanned, but looked far from healthy. There was a yellow pallor to his skin and the bags under his eyes looked big enough to set sail in.

He nodded. ‘OK. Split up with your mother, Royal Navy for ten years, met an American nurse, married her, left the army, moved to Nevada, had a son –’

‘Son? I’ve got a brother?’

Break it to me gently, why don’t you?

Terry nodded and chewed on his lip, his eyes wide, probably expecting me to explode again.

I had a brother. Half-brother.

My breathing came short and fast as if I was blowing up a balloon. Why had this possibility never occurred to me before? It was inevitable, really. My father had moved on. Started a new life. No wonder he hadn’t been interested in me and Mum; he’d replaced us with newer models.

Damn him. I could easily walk away from a father who hadn’t wanted me, who had shown no interest in me. But a brother? Different ball game! What about a sister-in-law, nieces, nephews? My arms prickled with goose pimples. My biography was being torn up and re-written, new pages, new chapters added.

‘How old?’

‘Twenty.’

Still a boy. I’d been thirteen when my brother was born. Hating the world and everyone in it, with a special brand of hatred for the man I’d never met.

‘Name?'’

‘Brodie.’

I was interrogating him. He probably felt like he was on trial. He was – crimes against fatherhood.

Now I should like to call Terence Stone to the witness box.

His eyes were darting left and right as if he was watching a Chinese ping-pong match.

‘He’s here with me, as it happens.’

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I shivered. Here? Had I walked past him in reception?

‘Not
here
here. In Nottingham. I left him at the university finding his feet. He starts his degree next month.’