Missing Me (5 page)

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ I said quickly. ‘I just wanted to meet you.’

The suspicious look faded slightly from Faraday’s eyes. He smiled at me and, again, I was reminded of Lauren.

‘I bet none of this is how you imagined,’ he said with a chuckle. He held out his hand. ‘Shall we start again? I’m Allan.’

I shook his hand. ‘Madison.’

‘It must have taken a lot of guts to find me . . .’ Allan pointed to a café just along the road. ‘Would you like to get a coffee?’

I nodded. ‘OK.’ I still wasn’t sure what he was going to do or say, but at least he seemed to believe that I’d genuinely been looking for him.

The café was virtually empty. Allan bought a double espresso for himself and a hot chocolate for me. We sat down in the corner and Allan placed his hands flat on the table in front of
him.

‘How on earth did you track me down from this old address?’ he said, nodding towards the sperm donor report.

I explained how I’d searched his name on a range of social networking sites. ‘It wasn’t that hard in the end,’ I said.

Allan nodded. ‘To be honest with you, Madison, I always wondered if this – someone like you – might happen along one day. But if your mother wanted to know so much about me in
the first place, why didn’t she try and find me sooner?’

‘Oh, my mum just wanted to make sure you were properly healthy,’ I said. ‘She got a nurse at the clinic to pass on your name and address. But that was all back then, years
ago.’

‘You mean your mother doesn’t know you’ve come to meet me tonight?’ Allan’s eyebrows arched with surprise.

‘No, she . . . actually, she doesn’t want me to try and find you at all.’ I looked down at my hot chocolate. The cream was dissolving into the brown. I suddenly felt miserable.
This whole meeting was completely surreal. Worse, this man, Allan, was a stranger. I realised I’d been hoping that when I met him, there’d be some way in which we felt connected. But
the truth was: he could have been anybody.

I looked up. Allan was sitting back in his chair, arms folded. ‘You realise I could sue your mother
and
that nurse for revealing my identity?’

I gasped. That hadn’t even occurred to me. ‘But it was so long ago,’ I stammered.

Allan shook his head. ‘I’m forty-three,’ he said. ‘I did the whole sperm donation thing when I was a student to make some extra money. That’s only twenty-three . .
. twenty-four years ago. Not long at all, in legal terms.’

I looked down again. Jeez, what had I done? The last thing I wanted was to get anyone into trouble.

Allan chuckled again. ‘Don’t worry, Madison, I’m not going to sue anyone. To be honest with you, I’m more intrigued than anything. And impressed . . . you’ve gone
to a lot of trouble to find me. You’ve made me wonder how many other little Allans there might be out there.’

‘There’s Lauren,’ I blurted out. ‘She’s my older sister. They used you for her too.’ I paused. ‘I . . . you actually look a bit like her. I mean, she
looks a bit like you.’ I tailed off, feeling I’d said too much and exposed myself again.

Allan watched me for a minute and, when he spoke again, his voice was more gentle than before. ‘What is it you’re looking for here, Madison?’ he said. ‘Why did you want
to find me?’

I looked up, into his intense eyes. There were lines on his forehead and grey hairs at his temple. Despite that look of Lauren’s around the mouth, I couldn’t see myself in his face
at all. It was still so hard to believe I was related to this man. Impossible to imagine having any kind of relationship with him.

‘I just wanted to meet you once, before you left London tonight and went home . . .’ I said quietly. ‘I just wanted to know who you were.’

Allan made a face. ‘What makes you think I’m leaving London?’

I frowned. ‘It was on your Twitter feed. You said: “leaving London tomorrow” or something?’

‘Leaving for a few days, sure,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m away on business until Friday, but I’m back home then.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘London is
my home now. I live in Fulham.’

‘Oh.’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘Are you married? Do you have . . . you know, your own kids?’

‘No and no,’ Allan said. ‘Never met the right lady, I guess.’ He made another face. ‘Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself, Madison? Home. School. What
you do in your free time.’

I swallowed. I hated talking about myself. Still, I’d wanted this . . . I couldn’t exactly expect Allan to tell me about himself if I wasn’t prepared to confide a few personal
details as well. ‘School’s OK,’ I said. ‘I like English and History best . . . I don’t like reading out loud or doing sums and stuff like that. And I
hate
swimming.’

I paused, my head filling with the memories of nearly drowning – once when I was six and trapped on a boat and, a second time, two years later, in a bay with the rising tide threatening to
pull me under. Ever since those experiences, water had terrified me, especially the sea.

I shook myself and turned my attention back to Allan. ‘Anyway, most of the girls in my class are total airheads, but Rosa’s nice, she’s like my best friend, and Rory looks out
for me.’

‘Rory?’

‘He’s Lauren’s brother, the one she grew up with after she was adopted. She was stolen away from us, her original family, when she was little.’

Allan’s eyes widened as I told him the whole story. He listened carefully, just asking a few questions as I went on. I found myself talking about things I never spoke of: the near
drownings and how I’d watched as Cooper Trent set fire to the building where Lauren, Shelby and Jam were trapped inside.

‘So Shelby died, like my dad.’ I paused. I couldn’t really remember Shelby any better than Dad, but most of the memories I did have featured her being mean to me. Lauren says
she had a hard time growing up, but it’s difficult to feel sympathetic seeing as how Shelby took out her ‘hard time’ on me. Still, I didn’t want to say all of that to
Allan.

I looked up to find him watching me intently. ‘The truth is that Shelby and my dad dying makes me different from everyone and sometimes I think they look at me like I’m a total freak
. . .’ I stopped, realising I’d been talking for ages. I bit my lip, feeling exposed yet again. I hadn’t intended to tell Allan so much. It was just that he’d listened so
well.

‘That’s a lot to go through for a little girl,’ he said. And there was real kindness in his voice.

I looked down. The cream had totally disappeared into my hot chocolate. I took a sip. It was cold.

Allan checked his watch. ‘I have to get going,’ he said. ‘But . . . look, would you like to meet up again?’

‘Yes, um . . .’ I realised that I hadn’t asked him anything about his own life. ‘What is it you do, exactly?’ I said.

‘I’m – well, since recently, I’m a reporter. I work mostly for
The Examiner
though I do other freelance work too – all sorts of things . . .’ Allan
waved his hand as if to indicate a wide sweep of work activities.

‘Wow.’ I was seriously impressed. This, right here, this
was
a proper connection between us. It couldn’t be coincidence that my genetic father did the very job I most
aspired to myself. And on a really impressive newspaper.

Allan smiled. ‘I wonder . . .’ He paused. ‘No, you wouldn’t be interested.’

‘Interested in what?’ I said.

‘Someone I know through work is having a birthday party on Hampstead Heath. It’s this Saturday, in fact, a big celebration with a circus theme, like a festival almost. There’ll
be loads of teens there too. I know he’s got four kids . . . I’m not sure how old they are, but all definitely teenagers. You’d be welcome to come along with me, if you’d
like.’

I blinked. Was he seriously asking me to a party? Old ingrained warnings from Annie about accepting invitations from strange men sprang into my head.

It’s too risky.

Allan clearly saw the anxiety in my eyes.

‘Perhaps I should speak to your mother first?’ he suggested.

‘No.’ Definitely not. Annie would go into hysterics at the mere idea of me being in touch with Allan. No way would she agree to me seeing him again.

I took a deep breath. This was surely exactly what I’d wanted . . . a chance to get to know my birth father. And he
wasn’t
a stranger. Plus, the party would be full of people
and Annie didn’t need to know about it and . . . I looked at Allan’s slightly lined face again . . . the man had a kind smile. My instincts told me he had no desire to hurt me.

‘That would be great,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

The three days until Saturday passed slowly. I didn’t want Annie and Lauren to know I’d met Allan Faraday in case they tried to stop me doing it again. Anyway, I
was still cross with both of them for not telling me I had a sperm donor dad for so many years. Plus, I was worried Annie would start freaking out that Allan Faraday knew she’d had him
checked out. I was sure Annie and the nurse had acted illegally – and that although Allan had said he wouldn’t do so, suing them was definitely an option.

I told Rosa, of course. I knew she would keep the secret for me. Then I spent hours agonising over what to wear. Allan had said we were going to a party. But he hadn’t said how formal it
was going to be. In the end, I decided on my smartest jeans and my most glamorous T-shirt: silky-soft, pale blue cotton with a slash neck. I put on a bit of make-up, like I had for the drinks
reception, then set off. I was using Rosa as cover again – Annie didn’t suspect a thing. She’d tried to talk to me about the sperm donor dad revelation several times in the past
few days, but I’d brushed her off saying I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Lauren, who understands me so much better, just sent a text saying:

Come round whenever you want. We can talk. Or not. Love ya, kiddo. Lx

Allan met me, as he’d said he would, at Hampstead tube station. He was wearing a different suit this afternoon – darker, with a crisp white shirt underneath. His hair was slicked
back off his face and he smelled of a fresh, light, lemony aftershave.

‘You look nice,’ he said, offering me his hand again.

We shook hands. It felt a bit weird, but I was glad he wasn’t being too familiar. I wasn’t ready to kiss him on the cheek like I guess you might a real dad.

‘Please don’t be angry with my mum,’ I said, as we walked along the road. ‘She was just worried about using a sperm donor and she didn’t think the clinic did proper
checks . . . My mum worries a lot.’

Allan shot me an amused look. ‘I told you I wasn’t serious about suing her,’ he said. ‘Truth is, there are other ways you could have tracked me down, though it might have
taken longer. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve found me. I’m glad to have met you, Madison.’

I could feel my face flushing. And yet, in spite of my embarrassment, I was pleased Allan had said that. Not because it proved Lauren and Annie wrong, but because it meant maybe he wanted to get
to know me.

‘What kind of stories do you write as a journalist?’ I asked. ‘When I Googled you, it didn’t come up with any newspaper articles.’

Allan shrugged. ‘I write all sorts. Campaigning pieces mostly . . . investigative stuff into businesses. I often work undercover – that’s why you won’t see a
byline.’

‘A what?’

‘The bit that says who the story is written “by”.’

I nodded, taking this in. Allan was
really
cool. I was itching to tell him about my own ambition to be a journalist – and how I won a London-wide competition for a short story I did
a couple of years ago. But I didn’t quite have the nerve.

After a couple more minutes, we turned onto a quiet road opposite Hampstead Heath. A large house was visible about fifty metres away, with a huge marquee in the foreground.

‘That’s where the party is,’ Allan said. ‘I parked here earlier to get a good space, before I came to meet you. Now, the host’s name is Declan Baxter. I checked on
his kids. There’s a boy of eighteen, twins of thirteen and a girl in between, about your age. Her name is Esme.’

I gulped. It sounded like Allan was going to expect me to socialise. This Esme probably had a load of fancy clothes to match her fancy name – it was obvious from one look at the house and
marquee up ahead that Declan Baxter was loaded. I’d met a few rich kids in the past few years. Some were nice. Some weren’t. But they were all irritatingly confident . . . compared to
me, anyway.

As we walked towards the house, Allan squeezed my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Madison, you’ll be fine.’

I shrugged, embarrassed that he’d seen through my anxieties so easily. We reached the large driveway. There was a bouncer on the door who asked politely for our phones. Allan rolled his
eyes but gave up his mobile without complaint. I handed mine over too.

‘Baxter is
very
protective of his privacy,’ Allan whispered darkly as we went into the house. The entrance hall was huge . . . and decorated with streamers and balloons like a
carnival. It was full of smartly dressed adults, all drinking and chatting. A woman in a white Lycra bodysuit with clown-style face make-up appeared with a tray of glasses. Allan took an orange
juice for each of us.

‘Need to keep a clear head,’ he said with a wink. ‘Let’s go through to the circus.’

The way was wreathed with bunches of balloons and the same brightly coloured decorations as the hall. As we turned down a short corridor, the smell of fried onions wafted towards us. Another
face-painted girl in Lycra, this one also wearing a red and pink apron, was handing out hot dogs from a huge oval platter. She smiled at me, offering the platter, and the big red paint circles
round her eyes crinkled.

‘Er, no thanks,’ I said.

‘Me neither.’ Allan patted his stomach. ‘Watching my weight.’

Allan steered me through the crowd. More adults, all talking loudly and clinking glasses. I hadn’t seen a single person under twenty so far.

‘Ah, there’s Hobbs,’ he said. ‘He works for Declan Baxter; he’ll be able to tell me when the man himself is most likely to be free for a chat. Won’t be a
second, Madison.’