A Daughter's Secret (27 page)

I’m crying properly now, fat tears rolling down my cheeks, laying my carefully applied make-up to waste.

‘I deserve every word. I’ve been arrogant and irresponsible. I don’t deserve to do this job.’

Judith waits, observes me.

‘You’re an excellent therapist, Mia, really excellent.’ She looks out of the window, then looks back at me, her gaze properly landing. ‘But you’re haunted.’

Judith gave me the option of going home, but I was determined to work. The prospect of my suspension, of having nothing to occupy me but my thoughts, is almost too much to bear. My first session starts a little shakily, like I’m a colt learning how to walk, not sure my legs will hold me up, but then I find my stride. I don’t want to think about anything beyond this room, and I pour all my energy into being the best therapist I can.

Angela’s my last client of the morning, a one-time bulimic who’s gradually learnt she doesn’t need to binge, to stuff the outside inside her, to feel whole. She’d had a messy break-up recently, and she’s still managed to resist the urge – I feel ridiculously proud of her. She cries during the session, but there’s strength running through those tears. As we hit the last ten minutes, I broach the fact I won’t be here for the next little while.

‘Why?’ she says, her distress palpable. I always give my clients weeks of notice if I’m going to be off – for many of them the regularity of contact gives them a safety they never experienced in their chaotic early lives. Seeing her face brings on a whole new wave of self-flagellation. I’ve not just let Gemma down, I’ve let all my clients down. What if I can never come back?

‘It should just be a few weeks,’ I tell her. ‘Something personal’s come up that I have to deal with.’

‘OK,’ she says, fear in her eyes. Angela’s mother died suddenly when she was six, and she was sent to live with her grandparents, not even allowed to go to the funeral. Whether or not she knows it, I suspect that little girl, Little Angela, is being triggered.

‘I’m not ill,’ I say gently. ‘I’ll . . .’ No more lies and half-truths. ‘Hopefully I’ll be back.’

I sit there for a few minutes when she’s gone, sadness engulfing me. Where are my certainties? Where is home? I’ve texted Marcus back, guiltily saccharine, but it’s still early there. He’ll be home in two days: is honesty really the best policy, or has today proved it’s the absolute opposite? If I tell him the truth two things are guaranteed: I’ll devastate him, and I’ll destroy our relationship. But when I think about holding on to that secret painting over the black mark, I know I’ll always see its outline through the whitewash.

I’m shaken from my thoughts by a smart rap on the door. I’d think it was Brendan, except I know he’d just barge in.

‘Hello?’

Juliet pokes her head round the door, all glossy blonde blow-dry and wide grin.

‘Juliet, what are you doing here?’ I recover my manners. ‘Hi!’

Her eyes are darting round my room, taking in what they can. Is she thwarted by how intentionally neutral it is, nothing here for her to report back on to her mum? I chide myself for my negativity.

‘Sorry to ambush you!’ she says, bustling over to kiss me. She smells so clean and polished, salon-fresh hair and expensive perfume. ‘I was in the area for a meeting, and I thought I’d call your office on the off chance. Brendan – it is Brendan, isn’t it? He’s gorge, isn’t he? – said you were about to break for lunch.’

This is a nightmare. I admire the concept in principle, but today is the last day I want to have to try and find my inner stepmother – step-monster is the best either of us can hope for.

‘I am!’ I say, feigning as much
joie de vivre
as I can muster. ‘Do you want to go and grab a sandwich?’

‘Yeah!’ she says, her voice as tinny as my own. ‘And I wanted to give you this. Dad asked me to.’

Oh God, please, let it not be another elaborate, extravagant gift: guilt prowls around my insides like a big cat left to languish in a tiny cage. I try and prepare my face as she reaches into her huge, beautiful handbag, but all that comes out is a manilla envelope.

‘What’s this?’

‘Um, he said it’s . . .’ She at least has the good grace to look a bit squeamish. ‘What did he call it – a prenup lite? Said you’d know all about it.’

A sharp burst of shame spreads through me. I didn’t think for one minute he really meant it. Does he really think I’m lulling him into a false sense of security before I fleece him for every penny? Perhaps he was both right and wrong: did he sense on some animal level that I wasn’t to be trusted?

‘I don’t know what to say . . .’

‘I’m sorry if I’ve – he said you knew!’

‘He sent you to do his dirty work?’ Her pretty peaches-and-cream face rearranges itself into a bland mask. ‘I understand if he wants to do this, but he should’ve talked to me himself.’

‘Mia, I think you’re overreacting.’ I shoot daggers at her. ‘He was called away. Sending me was the last thing he planned to do. Of course he’d want to be here.’

I should leave well alone, but I can’t.

‘Do you honestly believe that, or are you just parroting what he told you to come out with?’

‘I’m not
parroting
anything,’ she says, suddenly haughty. She’s got a strange sandwich of a personality: the outside as confident and articulate as her top-class education and life of privilege guarantees, the filling – the thin slice of Juliet that’s lying inside – weak and uncertain. She only dares see herself in the mirror that Marcus or her adoring fiancé holds up for her. ‘My dad has an incredibly responsible job. It’s not his fault if you can’t appreciate the kind of pressure a person at his level has to deal with, day in, day out. He protects you from it.’

I snort unattractively, like an angry warthog.

‘Just leave his stupid, insulting contract on my desk.’

She casts a wary look at me, trying to work how to angle her next shot.

‘He asked me to make sure you sign it, so I can take it back for our lawyer.’

I bet he did. I’d wager a guess there’s some legal requirement that the ink’s on the page before we formally begin cohabiting. Is this work trip an elaborate ploy to get it done and dusted without our having to deal with a messy bit of business?

‘Well, you can tell Daddy that you tried to, but I was completely unreasonable. Tell him that, for some reason, I refused to submit to his commands. Luckily he’ll still have you.’

There’s a coldness to Marcus, a way he has of cutting off. Just for a second it makes me long for last night to have been different, for Patrick’s entreaties in the rain to have added up to something real, but I shove the feeling away.

‘You’re lucky to have him,’ she says, two rosy spots of colour splashing her elegant cheekbones. ‘You should be a bit more grateful.’

‘Thanks for the advice,’ I say acidly. This is horrible, the day nothing but a series of pitched battles. ‘Juliet, I’m sorry for what I just said – about you, I mean. Your relationship with him is none of my business.’

‘Dad says you’re like this. Always acting like you’re the oracle.’ I can just imagine him saying it too. I should’ve listened to my instinct, instead of driving myself forward like I was an old car in need of a sharp stamp on the accelerator.

‘Yup. I’m sorry. I really would like you to leave now.’

Juliet grabs her enviable leather bag in her diamond-encrusted hand, and flounces out. So many compromises, so many contradictions. Goodbye, Juliet.

When my last client leaves, I can barely prise myself from my sofa. After Angela’s reaction, I’ve dreaded telling them I won’t be here, silently transmitting there’s more to it, however much I pour out reassurance. Our goodbyes have taken on the feeling of real goodbyes.

I’m sitting there, frozen, looking out into the streaming traffic with the same blank, hypnotized gaze that Gemma often had. A wave of regret rolls across me as I think of her.

There’s a soft tap on the door, and then Judith appears. Her smile is muted, but not without kindness.

‘Mia, I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this . . .’

‘Tell me,’ I say, shivery suddenly.

‘I’ve spoken to Annie Vine, and been as honest as I needed to be. She was furious, understandably, but she’s just rung back. Gemma’s still begging to have one last session with you. How do you feel about doing it?’

March 1995 (sixteen years old)

Lorcan was as good as his word, bursting through the door the very next night. This state of affairs was almost unimaginable – belief in him sprang up inside me, like bright purple crocuses bursting through winter soil. Normally I’d have stifled it, but nothing was normal. Not now.

‘My precious girl,’ he said, hugging me fiercely. I could smell whisky, in fact I could see it in the slight wateriness of his gaze, but I pushed the thought aside, and concentrated on how it felt to be enclosed in the tight cage of his arms. He beckoned to Mum, and I wondered if she’d step forward. I could see wariness in her eyes, a choice being made. But then we were three, a tight huddle, my DNA muddling up around me, another tiny bundle of it inside me. The thought made my eyes fill with tears, as almost everything had since I’d found out.

Mum laid out the chicken she’d roasted, and Lorcan got stuck into carving whilst I rooted out some plates. Why couldn’t this just
be
? I pretended it was for a few short minutes, but then Mum soberly reminded us that we needed to talk.

‘She hasn’t told Jim yet,’ she said. ‘He’ll be back from school tomorrow.’

Lorcan swooped his fork down, stabbing a roast potato with a showman’s flourish.

‘He should be pleased!’ he said, waving it around. ‘You can tell him that from me.’

I swept my eyes over him, a quick forensic analysis. His jeans were new, dark blue denim and straight-legged, more expensive, I’d bet, than Mum’s whole outfit. His hands moved through the space with a new kind of self-belief: even the nails on his long fingers had lost their raggedness, looking almost manicured. He wore an effortlessly cool checked flannel shirt, which hugged a chest that had developed a newfound masculinity. At first glance his stubble looked messy, but it was no more than an artful pretence. Coldness gripped me: somebody, somewhere was moulding him in a whole new image and he was revelling in it. How could Mum be so blind?

‘He won’t be pleased!’ I said. I hadn’t gone to school that day, had stayed on the sofa watching mindless crap whilst my mind whirred at a million miles a second. Would this be the reality, the intellectual highpoint of my day a snatched episode of
Neighbours
? But then my feelings would swing around a hundred and eighty degrees: this baby was conceived in love – of course it would be hard, but how could I throw that away, submit to some nameless doctor sucking the life out of me? Lysette had left an awkward message on the answering machine, but I didn’t want to expose myself to her relentless practicality just yet.

‘
I
wasn’t pleased!’ he said, as if that clinched it. ‘I was a fool. He might be an even bigger fool, but this baby’s a Cosgrove. We’ll make it work. Won’t we, Granny?’ he said, raising his wine glass to Mum.

Her smile was equal parts love and exasperation. She’d barely eaten anything, just pushed it round her plate, like I often did. Poor Mum.

‘Mia needs a chance to really work out what she wants,’ she insisted. ‘This is her whole life we’re talking about. If you want to have the baby, of course we’ll do everything we can to help, but you’ve got years ahead to have a family. It’s hard doing it on your own.’ Lorcan sent her a quick, dark glance at the ‘on your own’ but she pretended not to notice. It stung me too, the assumption that I’d be a single parent. She hadn’t even met Jim, and she was assuming the worst.

‘Thanks,’ I said, reaching across the table to give her hand a squeeze. I knew she meant well. The skin felt dry and flaky to my touch. I’d buy her some posh hand cream with my babysitting money, I thought, then imagined a whole new life where any spare pounds had to be spent on dull necessities like nappies and baby wipes. I don’t want to have you and resent you, I said silently. You don’t deserve that. I’d found myself talking to it with worrying frequency these last twenty-four hours.

‘What’s wrong with you, woman?’ said Lorcan, his blue eyes flashing, his hand hitting the table. ‘This is our grandchild! Our flesh and blood.’

My hand swooped unconsciously to my still flat tummy. I was less than three months gone: when I was trying to be hard-headed, I forced myself to think of it as a bundle of cells, but hearing Lorcan say that made me wince. Mum stood up, crossed to the sink.

‘Newsflash, Lorcan,’ she hissed. ‘It’s not all about you.’

It wasn’t exactly an advert for family life. But Jim and I were different – we loved each other. Perhaps I could start again, build a family from scratch in my own image? After all, Jim’s family was everything I’d ever wanted – we could be an unexpected branch that sprang off their mighty oak. I caught Lorcan’s eye as I lost myself in the fantasy, and he smiled at me with something that looked a bit like pride. I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.

Jim met me at Hampstead tube station. I was late, unusually for me, delayed by the pile of discarded clothes on my bed. I wanted my outfit to be perfect for this momentous occasion, but I didn’t want it to look thought out: I was aiming for that flung-together insouciance that the tousled-haired girls always pulled off. I watched him as I hurried up the hill from the bus stop. He was smoking a fag, fidgety, headphones in his ears. This was his before moment, but he had no idea.

‘Er, loser! Late,’ he said, smacking hard lips against mine.

‘Sorry, sorry!’ I said, grabbing his hand. ‘Let’s get hot chocolates at the Dome.’

‘Yeah, and you’re paying.’

The Dome was a pseudo-French bistro a few feet back down the hill, the jewel in the social crown for North London youth. The staff were hot and so were the crowd: no one cared that the croque-monsieur tasted like an old slipper. Jim’s bad mood evaporated once our drinks were in front of us. He lit up another fag and I tried not to breathe in the smoke. Would he stop smoking if he was a dad? It was so much a part of his shtick, the fag always loosely held in the left-hand corner of his mouth, the silver Zippo a beloved pet.