Girl Unknown(49)

‘It seems? Do you not believe her?’

‘I don’t know what to believe, Aidan. She can be two-faced. After the overdose, David wanted her to move in with us and I felt I couldn’t say no.’

‘Why not? She’s not your responsibility.’

‘Not mine, perhaps, but David feels responsible. He is her father, after all.’

His expression was sceptical.

‘Listen, he gave her his DNA, that’s all. And in the great big scheme of parenting, that doesn’t amount to much. Where’s the mother in all this?’

‘She’s dead.’

‘Any other family?’

I shook my head. ‘A stepfather, but he doesn’t seem involved.’

‘So you’re left with a cuckoo in your nest.’

There was dry humour in those words but his gaze was serious. I felt a chill cross the back of my neck, like some unseen person had just breathed across it.

I picked up the sugar sachet next to my cup, turned it over. ‘I don’t trust her,’ I said quietly.

‘How come?’

‘She’s always perfectly polite to me, but for David’s benefit. There’s no real connection between us. It’s like she doesn’t want it. Every effort I make in that direction just seems to wash over her.’

‘She’s freezing you out.’

‘That’s what it feels like. David thinks she’s great. He doesn’t see what I see.’

There had been incidents over the past few weeks – nothing major, but enough to stir up trouble. Once, returning laundry to her room, my hand had accidentally brushed against her laptop, awakening the screen. At that particular moment, Zo? had walked in. Later, she told David she had caught me snooping through her emails. Another time, she had come down to breakfast wearing a blouse that was mine – grey silk, scoop-necked. It had been hanging at the back of my wardrobe. I hadn’t worn it in months.

‘You’re wearing my top,’ I had said, surprise in my voice.

‘Am I?’

She had looked down at it, pulling it between fingers and thumbs to examine it in a pantomime way. ‘So it is,’ she replied, laughing. ‘It must have got mixed up with my clothes in the wash. I thought it was mine!’

She was all charm and politeness, David in the background observing. She had offered to run upstairs and change, but somehow that made things worse. I tried to feign a casualness I didn’t feel, told her to put it into the wash at the end of the day when she had finished with it. I wasn’t as good an actress as she was, and despite my efforts, suspicion leaked into my tone. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew she had been going through my things.

‘Thanks, Caroline,’ she said, those shallow green eyes of hers briefly finding mine.

I recounted the incident for Aidan, but what I didn’t tell him was that when I looked at the grey silk skimming her slender curves, I realized, with a pinch of envy, that it looked far better on her youthful frame than it did on me. I knew that I would never wear it again.

‘Have you spoken to David about your misgivings?’ Aidan asked, regaining my attention.

‘Any time I do, we just end up arguing.’

Sympathy entered the look he was giving me, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer but firm. ‘You need to think about what it is you want, Caroline. It’s all very well flinging wide the doors and welcoming her in, very noble, but it shouldn’t be at any cost. You’re not the girl’s mother. Have you thought about what kind of relationship you want to have with her? What you expect from her in return for welcoming her into your family?’

‘Not really.’

‘Take my advice and think it through properly. Work out exactly what you’re prepared to live with and what you absolutely cannot accept.’

He drained his coffee and returned the cup to the table with an air of finality. ‘Work it out and then stand your ground. You can’t let this interloper walk all over you with her poor-little-orphan side-show.’

I checked my watch and said I’d better get back to my colleagues. He came around the table and we hugged awkwardly, each of us feeling the strangeness of contact after all that had passed.

It was the final day of the trade show and, once the doors of the great halls closed, I stayed behind with the others, tidying away our brochures, samples and posters, folding up the stand and loading it all into the backs of our cars. By the time I got home, it was after eight. Coming through the front door, I saw David’s bags by the stairs, and Robbie sitting on the bottom step, his arms folded, his face drawn and anxious.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘In there,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Dad and Zo?.’

I could hear the rumble of an argument from behind the closed door, the words indistinct. My pulse quickened. What had happened?

‘Stay here,’ I told Robbie, taking off my coat and pushing through the door.

‘That’s not true! I never meant it like that!’ Zo? was saying, as I came into the room.

She had her back to me and it was only when she turned to see who was coming through the door that I saw her face was streaked and ruddy with tears. Beyond her, David was leaning back against the counter, his arms folded, a grave look on his face. He barely acknowledged my presence, continuing the conversation with his daughter.