‘I take it there’s none of those fancy cakes you normally get in,’ he says. Wry smile. ‘I’m going to waste away. Tell me there’s a biscuit at least.’
‘Nothing,’ I say, weak smile. ‘You’re sorry you came now aren’t you?’
There used to be brownies that I would buy from our local deli. A spotless hob.
I glance out of the window to see weeds that would come up to my knees. If we stopped living the day that Felicity showed me the video six days ago, other things have grown up like those weeds in our place. Grime, mess, distance.
I flush pink because my relationship with my dad goes like this: we meet up, I spend the entire time proving that I am not the car crash I once was. I tell him stories of presentations I have given at work, I dress my child in overpriced clothes because I am middle-class and successful. I tick as many boxes as I can, without even realising what I am doing. I am like product placement, attempting to sell you something without you realising it. I am as good as the one I think of, truthfully, as your ‘proper’ daughter, the subliminal message goes, love me, love me, love me.
I spray some Dettol on the coffee table and wipe it down and wish they sold a human version. If only it was so easy. I touch the grease at the top of my hair, self-consciously, where the greys peek through. The kettle boils and Dad goes out to get it.
He comes back into the room and hands me a mug that I usually reserve for builders, containing tea when I rarely drink it.
‘Okay then so what about the …’
He looks away from me before he continues his question.
‘… other fella?’
I cradle my hot mug away from her direction as Poppy pulls herself along the sofa.
‘Well done, chicken.’ I smile as she takes her hands off for a second and stays upright. I reach down to stroke her hair and kiss her. ‘Well done, clever girl.’
The other fella you were having sex with at the same time as this boyfriend who loved you. No wonder this is difficult for my dad to compute. Not for the first time I think of my half-sister Josephine and how much cleaner she is than me. How much more glossy. How much less ruined. She must have been sent the video, Josephine, but she hasn’t said a word to me. I can’t face asking her. I can’t face adding another layer to this conversation and asking my dad. I think about Josephine’s upcoming wedding, and how she is at the start of things, unblemished. I scratch at my skin. I’ve covered it in expensive moisturiser and fancy bath oil for a few years now but it’s still me under there.
‘Well,’ I say, with a cough. ‘He says no too.’
‘But it has to be one of them, doesn’t it?’ he says, looking astounded that the daughter who takes the phone off him when he calls his utilities companies to take them down and make them quiver and offer refunds would be so meek; so accepting.
I sigh.
‘Dad, you’re not ashamed of me, are you?’ I ask.
I look down at my odd socks, a tiny hole forming at the ankle. I think of the chaos in my kitchen. I picture my ethereal sister, kindly keeping her sex life hidden from view so no one has to think about it.
Then I feel myself enveloped, so tight it is hard to breathe but I don’t want it to stop.
‘Now you listen here,’ my dad says, firmly. ‘You never say that again. I have never been ashamed of you for one day in your whole life and I never will be. Don’t let anyone make you feel ashamed, my lovely girl, ever. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re bloody gorgeous. You’re a huge success at work, you’re making money somehow from posting pics on the internet even when you’re on maternity leave, which I don’t fully understand but sounds bloody savvy to me. And you made that perfect girl.’
He nods towards Poppy then pulls away from me.
‘You make me proud as punch. Every single day. As much as Josephine, but we will always have our special bond – me and you, my love – we will always have that. And I will look after you, because your mum can’t, and that’s not bloody fair.’
I cry hard then because I want her, for the first time in years, and it’s horrific that I can’t have her, but it’s also the biggest relief that she has left my dad behind to put his arm around me.
‘Now listen,’ he says, as he pulls on his trainers to leave. ‘I know that Jos is a bit off radar, with all her wedding admin. “Wedmin”, she tells me it’s called, you heard that?’
I smile, at this strange word coming out of my dad’s mouth.
‘But do you have friends to spend time with, to keep busy now you’re off work?’ he carries on.
I nod. ‘You know the mum friends I made at antenatal classes?’ I say. ‘They’ve become very close. They do stuff for me – babysitting, helping out, we spend a lot of time together.’
My dad nods, fierce. ‘Well I like the sound of these girls,’ he says. ‘Keep them around. Get all the love you can get at the moment, poppet.’
10
Scarlett
11 May
It is 12 p.m. on a Monday and I am in a pair of flannel pyjamas that I sniff occasionally, suspicious. My insides feel achy. Poppy is napping in her usual star shape on her stomach in her cot.
My phone rings. Jonathan White.
‘Sorry you had to cancel the meeting, Scarlett,’ he says about the catch-up we had been due to have after I saw Mitch.
I couldn’t face it. The trip into town, the eyes on me.
‘Just easier to do it on the phone, you know, with childcare,’ I reply in my lawyer voice;
