Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(86)

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be. There is one reason I’m glad I met him, you know. He told me about all the places they lived overseas, and how he’d met her in Brighton.’ I smile encouragingly although I don’t know where he’s headed. ‘And it made me think – she always wanted to be by the coast, didn’t she? And he said that himself – that this Thames Ditton place was a massive compromise for her, but at least she was by the river. So I’m thinking that must mean she’d been happy growing up in Mulderrin, right? I mean, we were only a mile’s walk from the Atlantic fucking ocean. Just made me feel better to think she hadn’t completely forgotten where she came from, even if life at home was shite a lot of the time.’

Speaking of. ‘How is your dad?’

‘Ah sure, not good, Cat, not good.’ He looks out the window again. I follow his gaze but I’m not looking at Nelson’s Column or the skeletal, rider-less horse standing on top of the Fourth Plinth. I’m looking at his reflection. His faraway, sad expression.

‘If there’s anything I can do?’ It’s woefully inadequate but it’s all I can think to say.

He brightens quickly. ‘You could let me take you out for dinner sometime. Sometime soon,’ he adds, quickly. ‘Or I could cook you dinner? If you’ve got a particular fondness for cheese and ham toasties or microwaved pizza, I’m your man.’

‘How about cheese and beans toasties?’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Fuck’s sake. There’s always one who goes off-menu, isn’t there?’

I like him. I really like him.

*

My moonstruck spell is broken by the hypothermic heap waiting on my doorstep when I get home. I didn’t even know she knew my address. I’ve always kept things deliberately vague.

Lesson sorely learned. This is what happens when you don’t answer your phone.

‘Jacqs, what are doing here, it’s freezing? How long have you been there?’

She doesn’t answer but the colour of her nose tells me it’s been a while. I open the front door, half-hoping to hear noise, but realistically, it’s good that the Dawsons still aren’t back.

They really don’t need to see this.

I walk inside, slip off my coat and hang it at the bottom of the bannister. Jacqui doesn’t follow. ‘Are you coming in then?’ Her eyes bore into me. ‘Look, I’m shutting the door, Jacqs, so make up your mind.’

She steps into the hall and looks around, baffled by the framed artwork and expensive Turkish rugs. I’m about to ask what her problem is but then it dawns on me. She thinks this is all mine. That I’m renting this whole place. It doesn’t occur to her that some people live in ten by eight attic rooms and have two shelves assigned for their food.

‘Tea?’ I say, heading towards the kitchen. ‘You look like you could do with a hot drink.’

‘Fucking tea?’

They’re only two words, not even a coherent statement, let alone a sentence, but these two words sound truer than anything Jacqui’s said in a long time. She’s hardly sworn in years.

‘OK, do you want some fucking tea?’ I know it’s a mistake as soon as I say it.

She steps towards me. ‘Why do you do it, Cat?’ Under the hall light I see it’s not just her nose that’s red, she’s been crying. ‘Why do you have to make everything so unbearable? Can’t you accept people for what they are?’

I drop heavily onto the bottom stair. This isn’t going to be a cosy kitchen type of chat. ‘By people, I take it you mean Dad. What’s he been saying?’

Her face twists in indignation. ‘Nothing! That’s the whole point. He won’t answer my calls. He won’t answer the door. I even asked for him in the pub on Sunday night but they said he wasn’t around, even though I could clearly see the lights on upstairs.’

‘Maybe he .?.?.’

‘Maybe he what, Cat? Maybe he’s decided daughters are too much hassle and he’s cut me off too. What exactly did you say to him on Christmas night?’

I’m too tired for this, too unprepared. I’ve dreamed of having this conversation with Jacqui – for her to spar with me, face things head-on – but just this once I wish she’d stick her head right back in the sand.

‘We had a disagreement, that’s all, nothing for you to .?.?.’

‘Fuck off, Cat. You and Dad don’t “disagree”, you destroy each other.’ So she does notice. ‘I knew you were both in the kitchen, on Christmas night. I said to Ash, “oh here we go,” but when I didn’t hear any shouting, I thought maybe you were talking – you know, talking like normal people. Next thing I know, the door slams and Dad’s walking into the living room and ordering us to leave.’ She pounds her chest with a gloved fist. ‘Us! Me, Ash and Finn. So Ash says he’s drunk too much to drive and that a taxi back to Edgware will cost a fortune on Christmas night and Dad just whips out two twenties and says, “Now get out of my house please, I’ve already asked you nicely.”’

I can hardly believe it. ‘He kicked out Finn?’

‘Well, not exactly,’ she admits. ‘He did say we could leave Finn where he was, but I was livid, Cat. I said, if we’re not welcome nor’s Finn, so then I had to wake Finn up, put him in the taxi in his PJs.’