Girl Unknown(22)

‘Jesus.’

‘And she wanted to know if I’d considered the consequences of my actions and what I was going to demand.’

‘Demand?’

‘Those were her words. I don’t want anything, David. I’m not demanding anything. I never wanted to upset anyone, you or your wife, or your two children.’ She spoke clearly and calmly, but I could tell it was an effort for her. ‘She said she had come with your express agreement and …’

‘And what, Zo??’

‘And didn’t want to see you hurt … as if I … as if I …’

The tears came. I was torn between sympathy and suspicion. Here we were again, thrown together – not in the crush of a pub but alone and, more worryingly, in my office.

‘I know you don’t want to hurt me,’ I said.

There was a swift and sudden knock. I looked up and noticed, too late, that I had accidentally closed the door shut behind us; in so doing, I had broken one of the cardinal rules. McCormack’s face appeared around the door.

‘Sorry, I can see you’re busy,’ he said, gazing at Zo? and raising an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Perhaps you can ring me when you get a chance. Nothing urgent … A departmental matter, that’s all.’

He smiled, and left the door pointedly ajar. Zo? wiped her tears, blew her nose and picked up her bag. ‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to have sprung this on you. It didn’t occur to me that you might not have known.’

She walked out, and I was left again with the uncomfortable sense of being on the receiving end of another awkward revelation, something to remind me yet again of how life could be so unpredictable and perplexing.

This time, I didn’t run after her. Instead I went to pick up the phone to ring McCormack, but stopped. He could wait. I pulled the envelope out of my jacket and cut it open with a paperknife, which was lying on the corner of my desk. I scanned the document and found the results printed in bold capitals at the bottom of the page. My heart sank. It was the worst possible outcome. Neither one thing nor the other. It didn’t tell me whether I was or was not Zo?’s father. Above a blizzard of qualifiers and small print, the word ‘INCONCLUSIVE’ glared back at me.

Another test would be necessary, the report said. That, and a ream of information on why the results had come back as they had. The strand of hair had not been enough for definitive confirmation.

What to do now?

I folded the report, put it back into the envelope and stuck it in my desk. Already, I was thinking about what I would tell Caroline when she asked. I would not show her the actual report. That was one thing I had decided quite quickly. I could tell her it had been delayed. Or, and this was how I discovered that one deception breeds another, I could tell her what she didn’t want to hear, but what I suspected by then to be the truth: that, whether she liked it or not, Zo? was my daughter. Even if my latest deceit felt like kind of a punishment to Caroline, well, I thought fleetingly, after her intimidation of Zo?, after her affair with Aidan, maybe she deserved it.





9. Caroline


Take the time back, and I wouldn’t approach her again. Had I known the heart beating in her chest was cold, I would have left her sitting alone at the pond, the sun warming her face. If I had known what was to come, the violence it would lead to, I wouldn’t have said a word. Curiosity led me to it. Curiosity over a dead woman. Linda. A woman I had never met. I would be lying if I claimed I’d never thought of her, though. Throughout the years of our marriage, she was alive in some part of my imagination. The truth is, she was there from the very start.

David never liked talking about Linda. Whenever I probed him about her, he grew sullen. He didn’t love her, he said, when I pressed him. It was never love, he maintained, and for a long time I believed him.

It was a lie, though. He did love her. I found that out in the end, on my fortieth birthday. A weekend away at a farmhouse in Crookhaven, stunning views of the west Cork coastline – it should have been perfect. David and I, Chris and Susannah. ‘It’s like Russian roulette, going away with those two,’ David had remarked, on the way down, but he’d said it good-naturedly. We were both in high spirits, looking forward to the break, some time away from the kids.

It happened on the second night. Dinner in a lavish country house, a lot of wine, and one too many suggestive comments from Chris about the attractive young waitress – and Susannah snapped. They were off in their own whirl and tumble of conjugal battle, passion and principle tangling together in a barbed and nasty way. David and I glanced at each other across the swathe of white tablecloth, unwilling to intervene, but not wishing to bear witness either. The taxi journey back to our accommodation was icy and silent. Susannah went straight to bed, and I followed suit, leaving the two men downstairs with an open bottle of whiskey.

Some time in the night, I heard their voices. The drink, rather than mellowing them, had made them garrulous – confessional. I got out of bed to use the bathroom and at the top of the stairs I stopped to listen.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ David said, his voice sluggish and heavy with booze. ‘The constant bickering. The full-scale rows. Doesn’t it exhaust you?’

‘Completely.’

‘I don’t get it. How do you put up with it?’

‘Because I love her.’