The Day She Came Back(68)

‘You loved him then, my dad?’

‘Very much.’ She spoke softly. ‘It was the kind of love that hits you in the chest and fills you up, and it doesn’t ever really go away, not ever.’

‘But you didn’t actually marry him?’ She thought of the letter and had so many questions, all queued up on her tongue.

‘No, I have only been married once, to Jens – my husband, Jens. I never married Marcus, but only because we never got the chance.’

‘What does Jens do for a living?’

‘A lawyer too.’

‘Does he know about me?’ Victoria wondered where else pockets of dishonesty might lie. She steeled herself for more deceit.

‘Oh yes! He knows all about you, every little thing I could think of.’

‘And Jens knows all about Marcus?’

‘I forget how young you are. Yes, yes, he does.’ Sarah paused. ‘There are many ways to love many different people, and it’s only life that teaches you that.’

Victoria felt her cheeks flame as if admonished and with this came the flicker of anger, as if this woman, in truth a stranger, had no right to make her feel this way.

‘I’ve been reading the letters you sent.’

‘I wondered if you had. What’s that like? Hard, I bet?’

‘Yes, it’s so sad and, as you said, raw. I have to remind myself that I am the baby you are discussing. It’s weird.’ She paused at the understatement. ‘I’m about halfway through, and you talk about how much . . . how much you love me, or the idea of me.’ It was harder to say than she thought. ‘And so I still don’t understand why you thought it best to tell me you had died?’ She bit the inside of her cheek.

‘It was . . . it was . . . Oh God, it was . . .’ Sarah paused, as if deciding how to phrase something tricky.

‘It was what?’ she pressed.

‘This is too much to talk about briefly over the phone. I need to give you the background, the full story.’

‘I was thinking of coming to Oslo for the weekend—’

‘Yes! Yes, oh my goodness, yes, come to Oslo,’ Sarah interrupted with childlike gasps of excitement. ‘That would be . . . that would be . . .’ Emotion trapped her next words in her mouth.

Victoria closed her eyes; this pose somehow made it easier to say. ‘I don’t . . . I don’t want you to be so excited. It makes it feel like a big deal and that brings even more pressure to an already strange situation.’ She spoke bluntly, her words coated with the dust of anger, of hurt. But Daksha was right: enough already.

‘You don’t want me to be so excited?’ Sarah laughed, ‘I have waited my whole life for this call, waited for this chance to—’

‘Sarah!’ Victoria cut her off again mid-sentence. ‘This is exactly what I am talking about. I don’t want you to think everything is going to be rosy because it just might not be!’ she reminded her.

‘I understand.’

‘I know you say that, but when you speak to me or hear from me, it’s as if you’ve won a prize and are about to go running off the deep end. I need things to go slowly. I really do.’

‘I will go slowly; I promise I will try, but it’s exactly like I have won a prize. You making contact with me, us chatting like this before bedtime, is the best thing in the whole wide world . . .’

Victoria closed her eyes, and again let her head fall to her chest.



Switching on her phone, she watched as it located a new service provider: Telenor Mobil.

She had a new message, from Daksha of course.

You got this! Enjoy – and don’t be an arsehole! See you soon D x

The flight had been a doddle. Just over a couple of hours from Heathrow, and here she was, walking towards the gate where Sarah would, she knew, be waiting on the other side. Her stomach lurched at the thought and her palms felt clammy, although it was possibly now a bit late in the day to be having second thoughts about the trip.

Daksha had agreed to house sit with her sister, Ananya, for the weekend and they were under strict instructions to water Prim’s plants, make Gerald a cup of tea if and when he pitched up to look after the tomato plants and orchids, and not, under any circumstances, to have a party. In the days since the whole debacle, she thought occasionally of Flynn, the little turd. She felt flashes of hatred towards him, angry at herself that she had not only offered up her body but also her story: precious facts he had no right to. She was also irritatingly curious as to what he had been trying to talk to her about when he’d been calling out her name before Gerald ushered him from the party. The question nagged at her, but it also bothered her that she cared even a little bit.

‘Hurry home!’ Her friend had waved her off. ‘We have to plan for your birthday – I am thinking a triple-stack chocolate birthday cake, with sprinkles!’ Daksha had clapped.

Victoria was, in truth, dreading her birthday, which loomed, her first without Prim. ‘I’m not planning on celebrating, not really. Plus, I think there is more to birthdays than cake.’

‘There is? Who knew!’ Daksha pulled a face.

And now, here she was, with a gut full of nerves and a head full of confusion, walking through the white shiny terminal of Oslo Airport, which seemed to have coffee shops, bookshops and tall and beautiful people in abundance. She pushed her dark, curly hair behind her ears and, not for the first time, wished she weren’t so pale. The sliding doors opened and the first person she saw in the crowd was Sarah.