After You Left(26)

I hated that I’d been touchy. ‘It’s not. I’m thirty-four.’

‘Well,’ he said, appearing genuinely surprised. ‘I’d have guessed no more than late twenties . . . And you want to have kids, I assume?’

The waitress was fussing around us, and I was certain she heard that, so I held back until she left. ‘Yes. I think I do. What about you?’

‘Of course. I think my life will be in danger of becoming a bit self-centred if I don’t. Not that it would be necessarily any bad thing to just have to please yourself until the end of your days. But I think a child would add a lot. I’d like to have something of myself passed on . . . The good parts, anyway. I think I have a lot to teach a child. I mean, I like to believe that.’

He was disarmingly frank. I wondered if he was disappointed that I was a little bit older, then I berated myself for my insecure thinking.

Over dessert and Armagnac, I learnt that his father had died when Justin was only eleven. He was a doctor. ‘My mother was lost without him, and seemed to remarry at breakneck speed. Charlie, my stepfather, was a bastard. He wanted my mother, of course, but I was in the way. He always seemed to have it in for me. Never cheered for my successes. Always seeming to be looking for me to fail . . .’ He went off, seeing distant memories in close-up. I wondered if he always talked so intimately to people he didn’t really know. ‘He was a belittling, criticising prick, to be honest.’ He must have recognised that he was turning the conversation dark. He launched a smile. ‘Other than that, he was fabulous.’

‘That must have been rough, losing your dad so young.’

‘For a boy of that age, it’s probably the most defining thing that can happen to him. I never quite got over it.’

His words, his face, when he spoke of his father, touched me.

‘I had a great stepdad,’ I told him. ‘I was lucky, I suppose. I was only about seven when he came into my life. He was a decade older than my mum. He’d really wanted a family, my mother said, but it hadn’t happened for him. So he took to me wholeheartedly. I couldn’t have asked for more.’

Justin listened intently. ‘What about your real father?’

‘Oh . . . I don’t know all that much.’ This topic hadn’t come up in a long time. ‘He wasn’t a good person. He left us when I was little. I don’t think my mother ever forgave him.’

‘But she had a happy life with your stepfather? Was she in love with him?’

I thought about this. ‘Hmm . . . How do I know if she was or she wasn’t? I think she loved him in a quiet way – if that makes sense. I think she’d loved my real father in a more heartbreaking way. At least, I’m guessing.’

‘Did you never want to ask him to find out?’

I frowned. ‘My real father?’

‘Yes. Didn’t you want to know more about him?’

It took me a moment to reply. ‘Gosh, I don’t know! There was a time when, yes, I was curious. When I was younger. But my mother couldn’t bear him mentioned . . . He had a lot of women. You know . . . affairs. I think he was a bit of a drinker, too . . . Besides, once you get a bit older, you see things more objectively. He abandoned us when I was little. He never once tried to see me. So I don’t know why I would miss someone like that, or why I would want to try to find him.’

I didn’t say how angry I’d been at my mother for keeping so much back. How the questions had been undercut the moment I had brought them up. How, eventually, it was easier to just stop asking them.

Justin was scrutinising me. He was clearly thoroughly engaged by the topic. I just wanted it to end. ‘But don’t you want to know what his reasons were? Aren’t you curious to know if you’ve got half-siblings out there? You might have a whole other family. And you know, blood is blood.’

‘Is it?’ There had been a time when I’d wondered if I might have had a half-sister or brother. I was once mistaken for someone else in town, when I was about fourteen. The person said, ‘I think you must have a twin!’ It had sparked thoughts. But I was a child. My mother would never have tolerated that conversation.

‘But his reasons . . .’ Justin prompted. ‘Weren’t you curious?’

‘I’m not sure reasons really matter, do they?’ I was tired of this, and turning defensive. ‘He did what he did. That’s fine. It was his choice. We all make choices . . . But Alan was the one who was there for me. He wasn’t my blood father, but it never made a difference to me. I mean, how can I be expected to care about somebody who didn’t care about me? You reap what you sow in this life.’

‘I believe that,’ he said. ‘But, personally, I’d have wanted to know all the facts first.’

The air seemed to go out of our balloon. How quickly just one topic and a difference of opinion could dispel all optimism. This was all heavier than any first-date conversation I’d ever known. Justin had delved into territory that had never been touched by all my past boyfriends put together. I wasn’t sure that he was aware, though. He just went on studying me, contemplating me, his chin resting on his upturned hand.

‘I feel like you’re judging me,’ I found myself saying. ‘Like you’ve come here with an agenda, and I’m not measuring up.’ As the words came out, I regretted them. It was the wine. I was feeling loose and brave. He had hit a nerve, and now I wanted to punish him for it.