The roads are dark, there’s a man following me, I’m running. There’s a street light up ahead. I must get to it. My dress is catching on my heel and I don’t care. I can hear the sound of ripping satin, a man’s voice calling my name. You’re a whore – you lied about my child! I’m sobbing, wet tears are falling down my cheeks and I fall. I trip up over the dress. You lied to me! The road is brittle on my skin. I hit my elbow on the ground and it’s bleeding, everything’s wet…
‘Mum!’ Tyler is standing next to my bed. His hand is on my shoulder. I turn my head to look at him. My pillow is soaking. ‘Mum,’ he says softly, ‘you’re having a nightmare, wake up.’
I slowly sit up and look around. Daylight filters through the curtains and I remember last night. It’s the morning after the ball. My head is splitting. I’m not used to having all that champagne – especially with very little food.
‘Are you OK, Mum?’ He sits on the bed next to me and for once, I just don’t know what to say to him. The full shock of last night comes flooding back and I stare at him.
Tyler avoids my eyes. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ he says and gets up and wanders slowly out of my bedroom.
The cat is meowing in the corner when I get to the kitchen, so I let him out; as I open the back door a cool breeze hits me and I shiver in my light dressing gown. I look out onto the back garden. It’s neglected and nettles have sprung up in the borders, the rose bushes are past their best, the flowers faded and depleted – yellow and red petals lie, like rotting confetti, all over the soil. I feel awful. Betrayed, angry, I don’t know who to trust. I feel like going into the garden and shouting and shouting, until all my words are used up, until all my tears are dry. I feel like I have lost something real.
‘Here’s your coffee.’ Tyler comes into the kitchen and slides a cup of coffee towards me. He sits down heavily on one of the wooden chairs and it creaks in the silence.
‘What were you dreaming about, Mum?’
‘Being chased. Being called a liar.’ I turn around to look at him and fold my arms across my chest.
‘Who was chasing you?’
‘Daniel.’
‘What’s the deal between you two?’ He stares at me.
I come to the table and sit down.
‘I think I should be asking you that question, don’t you?’ I stir some sugar into my coffee. I am fizzing inside. I need to keep calm to understand and I certainly don’t want Tyler storming out of here until he has explained. ‘How long have you known? Known that he was your father?’
‘Look, Mum, Daniel came round a few weeks ago when you were out and said he needed to talk to me. He was here for about an hour – explaining it all. I was pretty shocked. I really was. But part of me, a small part of me—’ he scratches his head ‘—wanted to listen. Wanted to feel part of something – you know, like part of something bigger. I mean a dad, it’s like, big, Mum.’ As he says it, there are tears in his eyes. I take sip of hot coffee, trying to reconcile all the feelings erupting in my heart.
‘Then he told me all about his photography.’ Tyler shrugs and lets out a deep breath. ‘Look, he said he wanted to talk to you first, that he owed that to you, but that you’d texted saying you didn’t want to see him. He didn’t want me to say anything, said something like he didn’t want you to feel obliged to him or something, that he’d help me with my portfolio. I’ve been to his house a couple of times. He just said, Let’s get on with it and not involve your mum; it will be a nice secret. He’s really helped me, Mum. He’s got loads of photo-editing kit and my stuff looks amazing now. I—’
A nice secret. How cosy. I can’t help it, but part of me feels furious. How dare he? How dare Daniel just lie to me? So him and his girlfriend and Tyler will make up – what do they call it now – a fucking blended family, will they?
‘Why aren’t you pleased, Mum?’
‘Because you’ve both lied to me,’ I say feeling drained. ‘I’ve been wondering about Daniel, wondering what I should do, how I will cope; I’ve been worried about you, spending all that time in your room – out God knows where, because you don’t tell me – and all the while you’ve been with Daniel, lovely little father and son get-together?’ I practically spit the last bit out. I know it’s wrong. I know Tyler has a right to a dad, but I’m just so confused.
‘But you lied to me – and Daniel, Mum! You never told me about Daniel and about Lucy.’ Tyler pushes his chair back and folds his arms. His mouth is twitching and I stare at the scar just above his eye. This is true and so much harsher coming from Tyler.
‘I felt I was doing the right thing, Tyler,’ I say quietly. The wind’s gone out of my sails. I don’t know what else to say. Tyler’s right. He did have a right to know.
‘I didn’t know where Daniel was, Tyler, all those years ago. I didn’t know Daniel was the “Daniel” we know now. I didn’t know him. To me, all I knew was that someone’s husband abandoned me – in grief, that’s fair enough,’ I say shaking my head, ‘and he told me not to keep the baby. But I did,’ I say gently and reach out and touch his knee. ‘And I’m so glad I did.’ I squeeze his leg. ‘But see it from my point of view, will you? What was the point of telling you about your dad when I had no idea where he was, he thought you didn’t exist and I needed to get on with my life. And it wasn’t easy, Tyler, on my own,’ I say, pulling my dressing gown around me. ‘But I wanted to give you the best I could, which is why I do what I do: the cleaning jobs, the loan sharks, all of it – staying in this house because it’s familiar to you, even though I could rent a bit cheaper a few roads down in the estate.’
‘But didn’t I have a right to know who my father was, even if you didn’t know where he was?’ Tyler’s dark lashes brush his cheeks as he looks down at his coffee.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Daniel wanted nothing to do with a baby all those years ago. How was I to know that would all change when he came back into our lives?’ Waltzed back from his amazing time in another country and set my heart on fire, when he realised he had a son. My son.
‘When he realised I had been the surrogate, he didn’t say anything – anything, that’s the bit I can’t understand.’
‘Look, you need to talk to him, Mum, let him explain,’ Tyler says, getting up. ‘He’s been really good to me, helped me with all my portfolio like I said. Kind of like, well, an uncle or – like, I guess a dad would, I suppose – and I stand a very good chance now, my tutor said – I’ve only got one more bit to do to complete it.’
A dad. I wince, feeling uncharitable that I’m jealous of someone else’s relationship with Tyler, but I am, especially with how Daniel’s done this: found out, seen Tyler behind my back, got a girlfriend. I shudder.
‘I can’t help feeling he’s used me to get to you.’ I stop, I’ve said enough, and after all, Daniel is his father. However things are going to continue, I need to make sure Daniel and Tyler’s relationship is not clouded by me.
‘You’re wrong, Mum, it’s not like that.’
Tyler can’t see what Daniel’s done, that once he realised, he didn’t really care about me. I’m just his ticket to Tyler. I inwardly sigh. ‘OK, OK, maybe you’re right.’ I don’t want to argue any more.
I can’t help thinking about him and his new girlfriend. A new girlfriend and a son, just like that! Insta-family. His Christmases just got better. Him and dancing girl can salsa off into the sunset with a newly made family, can’t they? With my son. I get up and throw my coffee in the sink and stare out the window.
Just then, my phone goes and I pull it from my dressing gown pocket. It’s from Daniel.
Need to talk. Call me? D.
He probably wants to talk about Tyler, about access, about how they can sort out their new ‘blended family’ – I feel a surge of rage rise up in me and stand up and hold on to the side of the stainless steel sink. There’s a glass on the draining board from last night, a wine glass stained with a dark damson lipstick, when I’d had a drink before I went out to calm my nerves. When I was on a high thinking about Daniel. Thinking about him being there. When little ol’ Charlie thought she was off to the ball to meet her Prince Charming.
Little did she know that her Prince Charming was sleeping with someone else at the time, that he had his own agenda. That he only wanted to talk to her for the sake of their son, the son that he told her to get rid of. How can he just do that? How can he just walk into our lives and expect everything to be OK? And now him and his new girlfriend want to cosy up with my son. He’s lied to me, to Tyler, to himself. Talk?
That is the last thing I’m going to do.