Читать книгу The Love of Her Life - Harriet Evans - Страница 10
ОглавлениеDaniel Miller had not been an ideal father to a teenage girl, in many ways. After Venetia left, his professional decline had been rapid: in 1990 The Times had said that his interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was probably the best ever – yes, ever – yet by the time Kate was taking her A-Levels, four years later, he hadn’t had a proper solo recital for months. The gigs were starting to dry up, as Daniel was late for rehearsals, argued with conductors, cried in his dressing room, got drunk at lunchtimes and sometimes didn’t turn up at all. When he’d had a reputation as being one of the best, if not the best, he had been – for a musician, admittedly – modest about it. Now it was on the slide, he had turned into a prima donna, sulking in the house in Kentish Town, skulking angrily, smoking furiously, talking, always talking to friends, on the phone, around the kitchen table.
It wasn’t as if Venetia had been the world’s most regimented mother, either; but when she’d been around there had, at least, been some semblance of order, some idea that there might be food in the fridge or water in the boiler; now, Kate and Daniel simply got used to muddling through. Dinner times were sporadic, usually set by Kate; school parents’ evenings went unattended. Daniel never knew where he was going to be on any given day, or indeed where his daughter was: it was luck on his part that his only child was a shy girl, more likely to be in her room reading Jean Plaidy than out in London somewhere, raising Cain. Sometimes Kate would come home and find him talking to the postman, eagerly, angrily, about budget cuts, about society today. (The postman read Socialist Worker and was also angry about a lot of things.) Daniel remembered Kate’s birthdays, but only after he’d been reminded by others. But he forgot to ask about most other things: when her university interviews were, when she started her exams, how she might be feeling about everything.
In other ways though, for Kate, her father was the perfect father. Kate was tall and ungainly from her teens onwards, with long spindly legs that rarely did what she told them. She was thin, flat-chested; like a stick drawing. Later, of course, she would come to see that being tall and sticky wasn’t so bad; in fact lots of other girls wished they were like that. But being tall and sticky, with an always-too-long fringe, and short nails, bitten and chewed cuticles, and no social skills whatsoever, it was a long time before she could see it. She was not particularly sure of herself, much as she longed to be, much as she desperately wished she was like her charismatic father or her mesmerizing, much-missed mother, or the confident, smiling girls at school who hung around at the Tube station. She would gaze at them shyly from under her fringe as she passed them, going down the stairs to the platform, going back to her dad, to an evening of homework, of music, of conversation around the kitchen table with Russian composers, Italian singers, obtuse German conductors … and Daniel, directing the evening, shoving his floppy blond hair back with his hand when he got excited, as young Kate collected up the plates, dumped them in the sink, drinking the dregs of the wine quietly behind their backs, alternately fascinated and bored by their conversation, as only the wistful outsider can be.
She wished she could be one of them. Not necessarily the band gathered around her father, but the band of girls outside the Tube station, gossiping about ‘EastEnders’, about who Jon Walker liked best, about whether Angie really got fingered by Paul at Christa’s party on Saturday and did her dad know because he was really strict? Whether Doc Martens were just totally over or who was going to see Wet Wet Wet at Wembley? But she knew she never would be.
Kate thought about this, how much things had changed, as she came out of the Tube station and walked towards her father’s new house. New – well, not any more, she supposed. It was a long time since the days of the house in Kentish Town. And it was years now since Daniel Miller had found himself not only a new wife, but a new career, as a recording artist doing covers of ABBA and Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, posing artfully with a loaned Strad (for the photoshoot only) in black and white, standing on a clifftop. He’d even been nominated for a Classic FM Award (and whether he had been outraged not to win or secretly relieved, Kate couldn’t be sure). Just before his health had declined a few months ago he had emailed Kate to announce that his next project was a cover album of Barry Manilow’s greatest hits.
She was proud of him – she was his daughter, how could she not be, having seen him at his lowest, and how he’d built himself up again? But Daniel Miller’s change of career had been greeted with absolute outrage in the more traditional musical world – an open letter to him in the Telegraph signed by the six biggest music critics, pleading with him to pull his album of Abba covers, offers of ‘proper’ work, third desk in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, publicized far and wide, making Daniel a scapegoat, almost, for what the more puritanical elements of the classical music world saw as the selling out of genuine talent for big bucks. Daniel had stuck to his guns, though, and his bank manager thanked him for it, and the Hello! interviews started, as did the chats on the GMTV sofa orchestrated by Lisa, who was herself in PR. For Lisa was behind it all, it was Lisa whom Kate had to – reluctantly – credit with turning her father’s life around, even if Kate didn’t love her the way she felt she should …
Now Daniel and his new wife and daughter lived in Notting Hill, in a cream townhouse off Ladbroke Grove, with a huge, clean, neutrally coloured basement kitchen (not a chaotic, eclectic basement kitchen) leading through to a perfectly manicured garden, artfully designed, with an enormous communal garden at the back of it. A distressed chandelier hung in the hallway; aluminium window boxes with ferns adorned the window sills; the 4x4 stood outside. In its careful independence it was virtually indistinguishable from the other houses on its exclusive little road. Yes, times had changed for Daniel Miller: until now, for the better, as he had frequently told his eldest daughter, almost daring her to challenge him on it.
As Kate rang the doorbell of her father’s house, just after six o’clock that Sunday evening, she was shaking somewhat, though she tried to hide it. In her hands were some more daffodils – she wasn’t sure what to bring her father, not knowing what he would or wouldn’t be able to eat. And she couldn’t remember him, couldn’t remember what colours he liked, what present might cheer him up, what books he liked reading, these days, who was out of favour with him, who was in – though, conversely, she now knew all of those things about her mother.
The door was suddenly flung open. There, like an action heroine and her matching miniature doll, were Lisa, her stepmother, and Dani, her little sister, as if they’d been standing there, simply waiting for her to come along.
Lisa was standing with her hands on her hips, her tiny frame encased in an expensive brown velour tracksuit, chocolate Uggs on her feet, car keys jingling in her hand. Kate goggled at her rather stupidly, not knowing what to say. She stared at Lisa’s beautiful, unlined face, her skin moist and tanned, perfectly buffed and cleansed and possibly peeled by a team of high-tech beauticians, and just said, blankly,
‘Lisa!’
‘Kate, hi,’ said Lisa. Her expression was neutral. She pushed Danielle forward. ‘Dani, it’s your sister. Kate. Say hi.’
‘Hi-yerr,’ Dani spoke loudly.
‘Hi, Dani,’ Kate said and, bending down, kissed her.
‘Hey there! Hi!’ Dani said, showing her tiny teeth.
‘Why’ve you got an American accent?’ Kate said, peering at her half-sister as if she were an alien. Dani stared back at her, impassively, her curly blonde bunches bobbing slightly as she sucked her thumb.
‘Kate, she hasn’t got an American accent,’ said Lisa. She gave a tight smile. ‘Dani, we’re going to get you ready for bed in a minute, OK? Then you can come back and talk to Kate.’ She turned back to her stepdaughter. ‘Look, it’s lovely to see you.’
‘Oh, and you,’ said Kate. She held out the daffodils, and Lisa reached out for them. ‘Um, these are for Dad,’ Kate went on, as Lisa’s hands dropped like stones. ‘I mean, you know. Shall I show them to him?’
Lisa stared at her with something close to exasperation. ‘Whatever you want,’ she said. ‘He’s through there.’
She guided Kate with her hand on her elbow, pushing her down the cream-carpeted hallway to the sitting room, where she said,
‘Dan, darling? Kate’s here, and I’ll be back soon.’
Kate stood in the centre of the huge space and stared at the figure at the other end of the room.
‘Kate?’ came a low, raspy voice, from the sofa underneath the window, and Kate walked towards her father.
‘Hello, darling girl,’ he said, reaching up. Kate leaned over him and he put his hand around Kate’s neck, pulling her down to him as he lay on the sofa. ‘How’s my Katya? Look at your old dad, eh? Bit of a shambles, I’m afraid.’
Kate hugged her dad, kissed him awkwardly, still holding the flowers. She stuck her lower lip out, unintentionally mimicking her thoughts. She was totally, utterly knocked sideways by what she saw. His face was yellow, his hair colourless, the creases in his cheeks looked like folds, and now his hands were lifeless, crossed pathetically on his stomach, like an old lady waiting for a bus. Those hands, which once coaxed sounds of pure heaven from a three hundred-year-old wooden box, the hands that were insured for a million dollars when Kate was ten – they looked flat, deflated, like the rest of him. Where once his hair had been dark browny blond like his daughter’s, slippery and uncontrollable, his grey eyes snapping fire as he waved a fork at a friend, violently disagreeing about something, where once his tanned, healthy face smiled excitedly down at an adoring crowd, now did he smile gently at his daughter and pat the sofa.
‘Come and sit here, old lady, come and tell me how you are.’
‘God, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry…’
She trailed off, and bit her lip. A tear rolled down her cheek. Daniel looked at her.
‘Oh darling,’ he said. ‘Come on,’ and he pulled her arm so she sat down next to him. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it? But I’m having a bad day today, leaving hospital and all. I’ve been much better than this. You haven’t seen me for a while Kate, that’s all. Never mind, it’s over now isn’t it? I just have to concentrate on getting better.’
‘I didn’t realize,’ said Kate. She felt almost dizzy with sensation overpowering her. How could this have happened, how could she have known this was happening to her dad and not come sooner? Forget her mercurial, vague mother; he was, without doubt, the person she loved most in the world. How could she have shut herself off so completely? She stared at him frantically, and he looked at her.
As if reading her thoughts, her father said,
‘Lisa’s been amazing, you know. I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t –’
‘I know, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.’
‘She has been brilliant,’ her father persisted. He lay back on the sofa again. ‘And Dani – gosh, she’s quite different from you at that age. Very noisy!’
‘I bet,’ said Kate, smiling at him, holding his hands.
‘But it’s nice to have a young person around the house again. A little Katya.’ He blinked. ‘Ah, here she is!’
Danielle rushed into the room, in her pyjamas. ‘Daddeeee!’ she cried. ‘I’m here!’
Her pyjamas were pink; she had a glossy, huge teddy under her arm and slippers in the shape of bunny rabbits, and she looked very small and totally innocent, her chubby legs thumping across the carpet.
Kate bit her finger sharply, the pain flooding through her, calming her down, and she looked away from her father to her half-sister.
‘I like your pyjamas, Dani,’ she said. ‘Pink pyjamas, like the song.’
‘What song?’ said Dani, in an American accent.
‘“She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”,’ said Kate. ‘Do you know it?’
‘No,’ said Dani. ‘You’re lying, man.’
‘I’m not lying,’ said Kate. She sang.
‘She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes,
She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes,
Wearing pink pyjamas,
Wearing pink pyjamas,
Wearing pink pyjamas when she comes.’
‘Singing aye-aye ippy-ippy aye,’ Daniel boomed loudly, suddenly, from the sofa, and Kate jumped, and Dani laughed. ‘Singing aye-aye ippy-ippy aye,’ they sang together.
‘Aye-aye ippy
Aye-aye ippy,
Aye-aye ippy-ippy aye.’
Dani laughed again. ‘I like it,’ she said, jumping onto the sofa. She wiggled in between Kate and her father, her warm, hot little body writhing with excitement. Kate put her arm around her and hugged her, inhaling the scent of her damp hair. She looked over at her dad, watched him smiling down at his small daughter, then up at her, and she squeezed Dani a little tighter.
‘Sing it again,’ Dani said.
‘I’m tired now, darling,’ said Daniel. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Daniel,’ came a clear voice from the door. ‘Is Dani giving you trouble? Is she being a bad girl?’
‘I’m not, Mom!’ Dani screeched in a slow, high voice. ‘Kate wouldn’t sing me another song and she promised!’
‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to,’ said Lisa.
‘I didn’t,’ said Kate, sounding totally unconvincing. Lisa walked into the centre of the room, and Dani ran towards her and clutched her leg, with the desperation of a man finding the last lifebelt on the Titanic. Lisa looked down at her daughter.
‘Ah, mum’s darling girl,’ she said. ‘Is she tired tonight?’
‘Yes,’ said Dani, sucking her thumb so loudly it echoed, the sound bouncing off the fake dove-grey antique French armoire all the way across the room. ‘Rilly, rilly tired. Night Dad.’
‘Say goodnight to Kate, darling,’ Daniel said, shifting on the sofa. ‘She’s come to see you too, you know.’
‘She should have come earlier,’ Dani said. ‘Mum told me.’
Silence, like a blanket, flung itself over the room, broken only by the noise of Dani sucking her thumb again.
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lisa, looking flustered for the first time in her life. She ran a hand over her forehead, the other resting on her daughter’s head. Kate thought how tired she looked, for a second.
‘Sshh, darling,’ said Lisa, looking at Daniel, who ignored his youngest daughter.
‘Lisa.’ Her husband’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘Why don’t you put Dani to bed, and Kate and I can catch up.’
‘See you in a minute, Kate,’ said Lisa, ushering Dani out of the room.
‘Bysie bye, pink pyjamas,’ cried Dani as she skipped out of the room, utterly unconcerned with the familial havoc she, the only person in the room related to everyone present, had wrought.
‘She didn’t mean it,’ Kate’s father said. ‘She’s got a lot on her plate at the moment.’
‘Dani?’ Kate said, smiling gently.
‘Hah,’ said Daniel. ‘Lisa. I’m not easy at the moment. She’s very … organized.’
She saw him now, in these new surroundings, and watched him as his hand scraped, pathetically, over the surface of the coffee table, as if searching for something to cling onto. The thought that this was the best thing you could find to say about your wife, for whom you had almost had to throw your daughter out, for whom you had worked yourself into the ground, moved houses, made new friends, gone on flashy, expensive holidays to ‘network’ with flashy, expensive people that you didn’t really like that much, for whom you had essentially reinvented yourself, struck Kate as singularly depressing. But she said,
‘I know. Yeah. She must be great to have around at a time like this.’
‘Oh sure,’ said her dad, and they both fell silent, the two of them sitting awkwardly in the pristine sitting room. Kate shifted on the sofa.
The letter from Charly was in her bag. She could feel it in there; humming with intent. She hadn’t opened it, she didn’t want to open it, knew she couldn’t. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thrown it away. But she hadn’t. Now, silent next to her father, she slid her hand into her bag again, to touch it for the umpteenth time since she had left the house.
The envelope was stiff; there was something inside it, more than just a piece of paper. What could it be? What was it? The postmark had said Mount Pleasant, the main London sorting office: that proved nothing at all.
‘What’s that?’ said her father curiously, his voice resonant in the stillness of the vast room.
‘Nothing.’ Kate thrust the envelope hurriedly into the darkest recesses of her bag, way out of sight. ‘Just something that was waiting for me. Post.’
‘You must have a lot to deal with,’ her father said. He shunted himself up slightly on the sofa, grimacing as he did so. ‘Sorting out the flat, and everything.’
‘Yes,’ said Kate.
Daniel looked up at the ceiling, then at the floor. ‘Um – while I think of it,’ he said, casually, ‘are you going to get a new tenant while you’re here? Approve them yourself?’
Before she left for New York, her father had bought half the flat, and as such he was entitled to half the rent. Kate skimmed her foot along the carpet. ‘Not sure yet,’ she said. ‘I might wait till I go back, get the letting agents to do it again. I need to think about it. I mean, Gemma leaving and me coming back – it was all quite sudden.’
‘Right,’ said Daniel. ‘Still.’ He coughed, Kate thought rather awkwardly. ‘We don’t want to lose rent on it, do we? You don’t, I mean.’ He cleared his throat extensively.
‘Two weeks, I’ll be here, Dad,’ Kate said gently. ‘You won’t lose that much rent, I promise. I’m sorry –’ she didn’t know what to say. ‘I’ll get onto it,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, wondering what else to say. A germ of an idea formed in her head; she rejected it, surely not. ‘Anyway, Dad, you mustn’t worry about that at the moment. It’s not important.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ her father said, quickly, loudly. ‘Eh? Isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, realizing she had to appease him, not aggravate him. ‘Of course, Dad. I’ll get onto it.’
‘Hm,’ said her father. He breathed out, heavily, a sort of groan. ‘We don’t want it sitting idle. That’s all.’
‘I’m talking to the estate agents tomorrow,’ Kate said, mentally adding this to her list of things to do. Her father groaned again. ‘Dad, you OK?’ She put her hand on his, it was shaking.
‘Yes, yes,’ Daniel said, almost impatiently. He shifted slightly.
‘How long till they – till they know?’ Kate said. ‘Whether it’s taken, I mean?’
‘What’s taken?’ He shook his head, not understanding.
‘The kidney.’ It felt like a dirty word.
‘Oh, I see. I don’t know. If it hates me, it’ll tell me pretty soon; I’ll go into arrest and probably die,’ he said, smiling mordantly. ‘They’ve got me on enough different pills though; good grief, I could practically set up a fucking pharmacy.’
‘Dad.’ Kate put her hand on his, which was lying on his chest. Her hand was shaking.
‘Oh, Kate,’ he said. ‘God, it’s lovely to see you, darling. I miss you.’
She looked down at him; his eyes, blue, fierce, with a flicker of their old fire, locked with hers.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate, and she meant it. ‘I am so sorry.’
‘No need,’ said Daniel, mildly. ‘I could have come to see you more, you know. But you should have come back. Dani hardly knows who you are. And she’s your sister. You’ve only seen her once in the last three years.’
Kate had a childish, stupid impulse suddenly, to scream like Dani, but she merely tightened her grip on her father’s hand.
‘You know why I had to get out of here,’ she said instead.
‘You did the right thing,’ Daniel said. ‘It was right that you left, you know. I just think you’ve been gone too long.
That girl,’ he added, casually. ‘Charly. It was Charly, wasn’t it, the one you met in your first job?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate.
‘Well, I never liked her, I have to say.’
Since this was patently untrue, and Daniel had always had a crush on the long-legged, tousle-haired, foul-mouthed Charly, Kate said nothing, but she smiled at him, and he twinkled back at her. ‘Well,’ he said after a while. ‘Maybe just a bit.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘How’s your mother, then?’
‘She’s well. She sends her – well, she sends her love,’ Kate said, cursing herself for phrasing this so badly. What Venetia had actually said at the airport, hands clasped to chest, while Oscar struggled with the bags, was,
‘Oh my god. My darling Daniel. Tell him … God, what? You know, he’s a shit, but I still can’t help loving him.’
‘How’s that gay husband of hers?’
‘He’s not gay. He’s fine,’ Kate said automatically.
‘Hmm,’ said Daniel, flicking back his hair, in an unconscious gesture. ‘Do you or do you not remember your engagement party? When he told me he’d had a manicure specially for the party? My god.’ He shook his head.
‘Some men like manicures,’ Kate said defensively.
‘Not any men I know,’ said Daniel.
‘Dad!’ Kate said, hitting him gently on the arm. ‘You used to wear gloves in summer to protect your hands!’
‘That’s completely different,’ Daniel said crossly. ‘I was a musician, they were my tools.’
‘Well, so’s Oscar. He’s a musician.’
‘No, he’s a tool,’ Daniel said, chuckling to himself, coughing a little bit. He recovered. ‘And he’s not a musician. Arranging silly songs about farmers and cowmen is not being a musician.’
‘He doesn’t –’ Kate wasn’t going to get into the merits and demerits of Oklahoma! with Daniel, nor point out to him that actually it was probably the greatest musical ever written. She and her father had fallen out over this many times before. So she frowned at him, smiling too, but her frown quickly turned to alarm.
‘Dad, are you alright?’
‘I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine. Aarrpff.’
She looked at Daniel in panic rushing over her; perspiration covered his forehead, and he was terribly pale.
‘Lisa,’ she called, getting up. ‘Dad, I’m going to get Lisa,’ she told him, shaking free of her father’s frenzied grip.
‘No, don’t,’ he said, flashing a ghastly rictus grin at her. ‘I’ll be fine. When do you have to go, darling?’
Kate looked at her watch, she didn’t want to look at him. ‘I’m going to see Zoe, but it really doesn’t matter if I’m late.’
Lisa appeared in the doorway. ‘Dan? You OK?’ she said, bustling forward. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He went a bit … funny,’ said Kate. She looked down at her father as Lisa put a hand on his forehead and checked his pulse.
‘Went a bit funny,’ Daniel repeated. ‘That’s the medical term for it, I’m sure.’ He closed his eyes. ‘God, I’m fucking tired. It really knocks you for six, this business. And I’m so bored. So bloody bored.’
He was a man of action, used to doing, speaking, thinking, striding around and yelling. Kate could see how much he hated this confinement. He needed constant distraction, attention, to keep him stable, otherwise … she remembered this much from her childhood. The consequences were awful.
‘I’m sure you are,’ said Kate, still standing, and watching him. Her eyes met Lisa’s. ‘Look Dad,’ she said, bending down, ‘I’m going to take off and let you get some rest, OK? But I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘How great!’ said Lisa, smiling thinly. ‘That’ll be great for you, won’t it Dan?’
‘I look forward to it,’ Daniel said, slightly inclining his head, mock-formally. He took his daughter’s hand and kissed it. ‘Until tomorrow, my darling.’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, stroking his hair. ‘Bye Dad. I love you.’
‘It’s great to see you again,’ he said, clutching his heart in a dramatic way; a flash of the old Daniel Miller, the amateur dramatics that the crowds used to love. ‘So wonderful to have you back.’
She couldn’t speak; she shook her head, smiling at him, as her eyes filled with tears, and followed Lisa out into the hall. Lisa handed her her jacket with an air of polite efficiency.
‘So – are you getting a job while you’re over here?’ Lisa said suddenly. ‘How did you leave it with them?’
‘In New York? I said I wasn’t sure when I’d be back. They’ve got someone to cover for me, don’t worry. She’s really good.’
‘It’s not that hard to learn the skills though, is it.’
Uh-ho, Kate thought. She steeled herself for another blow.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, trying to sound polite and friendly.
‘You’re the office assistant.’ Lisa sounded exasperated. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Er – I –’ Kate didn’t know what to say.
‘I’m just surprised, that’s all,’ said Lisa. She drummed her fingers on the stone-coloured wall. ‘I never thought that’s what you’d end up doing.’
‘Right,’ said Kate, briskly. ‘OK, well, thanks, then, I’ll –’
She put her hand on the door frame, and pointed vaguely towards the street, but Lisa was not to be put off. She ran her forefinger lightly over the flawless skin on her cheek, stroking it.
‘It was such a shame, what happened, wasn’t it,’ she said, conversationally. ‘Because you know. You were doing so well on Venus. Your dad thought you’d be editor of the magazine in a few years. Or writing a novel, or something. He always said that. He’s a bit surprised, I think –’
Lisa’s eyes were bulging slightly; Kate realized, with a start, that she had been dying to have this conversation with her stepdaughter for some time. Her face loomed close to Kate’s, and Kate could see her pores, as Daniel coughed in the other room.
‘Right,’ said Kate again, nodding furiously. ‘Lisa, look, now’s not the time for –’
Lisa held up her hand, briefly. ‘I must say this –’ she began. Kate’s heart sank. ‘That’s all very well. But I don’t think you quite understand how much your dad worries about you now, Kate.’
‘I know he does.’
‘He feels very let down.’ Lisa looked at the floor.
Kate was angry, suddenly. Angry at herself for mismanaging this situation, angry with Lisa for her insinuations, her nasty barbed comments.
‘Look, I’m very tired, and so are you, much more so than me. I haven’t seen you for eighteen months, or Dad or Dani. Please, Lisa,’ she said, surprised at how scary she sounded, ‘Let’s not get into this.’ Being angry made her stronger, she realized. She wasn’t scared of Lisa anymore. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, is that OK?’
Lisa stared at her. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Look – I’m really tired,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’m sorry, Lisa,’ said Kate, feeling really uncomfortable. ‘I should have been back more. To see him, and to see Dani. I can’t believe how much she’s grown.’
If she was expecting a more emotional moment on the doorstep, she wasn’t going to get it from Lisa. She nodded, as if the apology was what she was hanging out for, and then opened the door. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She’s a great little kid,’ as if Dani were a neighbour’s child who lived down the street. ‘So then, see you tomorrow, and – yeah.’
That was not how Kate would have put it, but this was her cue to leave, clearly, so she did. She stepped into the front garden, and knocked on the sitting room window, peeping over the frosted glass so she could see her dad on the sofa again. He waved at her, his face lightening, and then shooed her away, blowing a kiss, as Lisa came back into the room and stood, watching her from a distance. Kate made her escape, hurrying down the path into the crisp March night.
