The Love of Her Life

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.

CHAPTER SIX

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I know. Zoe, I need a drink. Put some wine in the freezer.’

‘Already in the fridge love. Got some Twiglets here too.’

‘Twiglets! Oh my God, when was the last time I had –’

‘I know, I know. Now stop wittering and get on the Tube. I’ll see you when I see you.’

‘Bye. Zoe –’

‘Yes love. Bye.’

Kate picked up her pace. She was going to see Zoe! Actually see her, look at her face, be in her presence. Sit at her kitchen table, see Harry, meet Flora for the first time! She was terrified, but she couldn’t wait. After seeing her father, nothing else seemed as bad as that, and it was with a curious lightness of heart that she stepped off the kerb, looking around her in the evening gloom.

Zoe, Henry and Flora lived in Kilburn. When they were first engaged, Zoe and Steve had bought a garden flat in a terrace house, moving from a spacious, airy flat in Muswell Hill because, as Zoe kept saying, Kilburn was the Next Place. The Next Place that was going to go stratospheric, the new Notting Hill/ Clapham/Shoreditch. By the end of the year, where there were roadworks and rubbish and old green Eighties council bins with white stick men on them miming ‘Don’t Litter’, where there were dealers and a WH Smiths with old livery, there would now be potted plants. Widened pavements, tapas restaurants, and all the shops apart from the Primark and the Tricycle Theatre would have gone, to be replaced by Space NK, Carluccio, and Strada. Zoe and Steve would stroll out of an evening, to sample the delightful new Italian and friends would say admiringly, ‘You live in Kilburn?’ much as one might say, ‘You live in Mayfair?’

Three years on, and everything else had changed. They’d bought the flat upstairs, when Harry was born. But Steve was gone now, Harry and Flora were here, yet Kilburn was still more commonly bracketed with Soweto, the Gorbals and South Central LA than Fulham or Battersea. But by then other things were, simply, much more important.

Kate realized, as she stumbled along in the dark, that she knew the route to Zoe’s house from the Tube so well she could have done it almost blindfold. The broken cracks in the paving stones; there was the parking ticket machine; there was the gate that half hung off its hinges. It was so unlike Daniel and Lisa’s house; it was more like Kentish Town, where she’d grown up. She ignored the lounging youth who sat on a wall two houses along from Zoe’s, staring balefully at her; she even smiled quite sweetly back at him, hammering on the door impatiently, all thought of fatigue gone.

And then darling Zoe opened the door. They didn’t say anything. Zoe just smiled at Kate, and held out her arms, and Kate remembered what she’d forgotten, that Zoe and Steve’s house was more of a home to her than anywhere she’d ever known, that she loved Zoe more than most people in the world, probably. Zoe looked exactly the same, like a little brunette imp, and as she stepped forward and hugged her best friend, Kate felt her heart hurting, physically hurting.

‘Missed you.’ Zoe’s silky thin brown hair muffled Kate’s voice; after about a minute they laughed, and stepped back, Zoe still gripping Kate’s elbows.

‘Look at you, lovely girl. You’re so grown-up. What’s happened to my Kate?’

‘Hardly,’ Kate laughed, and shook herself free. She crossed her arms. ‘Where are the children?’

‘In bed,’ said Zoe. ‘Sorry,’ she added. ‘I knew if I let them stay up to see you we’d never get rid of them. I told them if you came round at all it’d be very very late. And I told them you wouldn’t have had time to buy any presents yet, because there aren’t any in America.’

‘Ah.’ Kate followed her in, and shut the door behind her, looking round in pleasure at the long corridor, littered with small wellington boots, a bike with stabilizers and coats, hung on various things. A birdcage hung off the umbrella stand.

It was like being home again. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this house. Zoe gazed around rather helplessly, then clapped her hands and said,

‘Right, let’s get some wine. Put your coat – er, there. That’s right.’

‘Thanks.’ Kate followed her through into the sitting room, piled high with brightly coloured videos, books, toys, cushions, and more cushions – Kate had forgotten this, that Zoe was incapable of entering one of those Cath Kidston-style lifestyle shops so beloved of her, the kind that stocked chipped enamel jugs and beautiful cups and saucers for the modern vintage home, without walking out with a cushion under her arm. She must have had about twenty. It made sitting on sofas in Zoe’s house extremely hard.

‘So how was –’

‘So how are –’

There was a constraint in the air all of a sudden; they broke off and laughed. ‘You go first,’ Kate said.

‘How’s your dad?’

‘Fine. Weak, bit shaky, but basically fine, for the moment. They won’t know if it’s been a success for a while.’

‘Must have been great to see him.’

‘Yeah.’ Kate couldn’t articulate it all. She scrunched up her nose, and nodded, and Zoe nodded back. She understood.

‘How was the flight?’ said Zoe, brushing the worn edge of the large blue sofa.

‘Good, good, thanks,’ said Kate.

‘How’s New York! I want to hear everything. How’s it going?’

‘How’s it going’ is one of the world’s most annoying questions. It is not a request for specific information, more a general ‘fill me in’ command. Kate didn’t know where to start. Trying not to sound churlish, she said,

‘What do you want to know about?’

‘You know!’ Zoe’s enthusiasm was loud, too loud. ‘How’s everything going, what’s it like in NYC, are you liking living there. What’s new?’

‘Um. Well, I saw Betty on Friday –’

‘Yeah? How’s she?’

‘She said she’d just spoken to you.’ Betty was an old friend of both of theirs.

‘Yeah, she rang last week, actually.’ Zoe cleared her throat. ‘Who’s Andrew?’

‘Andrew?’ Kate was blank for a moment, then she remembered. It seemed years ago. The drinks, the kiss, her running away … Andrew. She tried to picture his face, mortified, in the darkness. She felt her cheeks flame red; she raised her hand to her face. It was another life.

‘He’s – no-one, really,’ she said. ‘Someone Betty’s always trying to set me up with.’

‘Oh!’ Zoe said, too loudly again, like this was a jolly, great conversation between two normal friends. ‘Oh you!’

‘No,’ said Kate flatly. ‘I kissed him and then I felt sick and had to get into a cab and run away. If you want the truth.’

Zoe’s brow furrowed. ‘Right.’

‘Nothing really to talk about,’ Kate said. ‘Honestly.’

Zoe took the hint. ‘So, then. That’s – great. So, how’s the flat? Did the tenant leave it in a state?’

‘No, it’s fine actually,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve unpacked, it’s nice to be back there.’

‘Yes, it must be.’ Zoe ran into the kitchen, collecting the wine out of the fridge. ‘Is it – er, is there a lot of stuff in it still? From … before?’

‘Yep.’ Kate took the glass she handed her. ‘Most of it’s in the storage area in the basement. But quite a lot’s still in the cupboards in the hall. Just – you know. Books. Photos. Clothes I should have thrown away years ago. Joint stuff we had together.’