Less than half an hour after I’d left Jess’s house, I burst through the doors of Hammersmith Hospital’s A&E department and saw my mother, directly ahead, sitting alone in the midst of a pile up of cuts, bruises, wounds and wails. Despite the chaos, she sat ramrod straight, staring forward, ignoring the human suffering around her. Her stoic isolation was almost pitiful.
I dashed across the room, but when I got to her side, realized I didn’t know what to do. We’d never been a ‘hugging’ family. We didn’t do sharing of emotion or demonstrations of affection. I’d never seen her stricken like this, and I had no idea of how to respond. After a hesitation, I sat down beside her and put my hand on her arm. ‘Mum, what happened? Is he okay? What’s going on?’
It was just a little movement at first, a slight undulation, then it became a steady pendulum of pain as she rocked backwards and forwards, no tears, no wails, her voice still strong, carried by the momentum of her sway. I could see a man in the next row watching us with interest – this middle-aged woman, perfectly groomed with her blonde bob, pink jeans and chic leather jacket, looking woefully out of place in this setting. Beside her, an exhausted companion, all dressed in black, displaying confusion and awkward body language.
She finally answered my question.
‘They’re working on him now. They say it was a heart attack. Unresponsive in the ambulance. No way of knowing how he’ll be.’
Still staring forward, no emotion, just backwards, forwards, backwards. I’d never seen her upset before, so close to dissolving that pristine, impenetrable façade.
‘Mum, it’s okay,’ I told her. ‘He’s going to be fine.’ Of course he was. My dad was what? Sixty-four years old? Sixty-five? It was a sad indictment of our relationship that I couldn’t recall his age. He was still a fit, healthy strong man. This must be a pulled muscle. A faint. Something simple. Not a heart attack. No way.
‘What was he doing it happened? Was he on the golf course?’
She turned to look at me, her expression very strange, like I should already know or like it was obvious. At least she’d stopped rocking. I felt a pang of regret. Or perhaps it was resolve. After this was all over, I really had to talk to her and my father, find out what was happening in their lives. I don’t think we’d had any more that a four-sentence conversation in the last ten years.
I realized she’d answered me, but it was a whisper that I didn’t quite catch.
‘What was that?’
‘He was with his girlfriend,’ she said, perfectly calmly. Oh God. This couldn’t be good. Lulu had told me years ago that our parents were no longer sharing partners, but that must have changed again. Bugger, Lulu’s mum must be traumatized. I really hoped that when it happened they weren’t in the middle of having… urgh, I couldn’t finish the thought.
‘So where’s Gwen now?’ I asked.
My mother stared back blankly. Damn, she was totally altered by this.
‘Gwen? Gwen isn’t here.’
‘But you said…’
‘I know what I said,’ she snapped. ‘He was with his girlfriend. She’s over there.’
Oh for Christ’s sake. Not only did she have to deal with my dad being ill, but his bloody girlfriend was here too. I looked around for Gwen. Lulu would go crazy at her mum for this and I had a good mind to tell her to piss off.
‘Gwen? Where is she?’
My mother flinched, then a sad smile. “Not Gwen. That seems like so long ago.” Her tone suddenly hardened. ‘Her replacement.’
Well this was news.
Slowly, perplexed, my head turned in the direct of her stare and there was… no.
No way. This couldn’t be right. On unsteady legs, I got up, crossed the room to where she was sitting, on her own in the corner, bent forward, her arms around her stomach as if she was hugging herself. I hadn’t even noticed her before. Now, she looked up at me, eyes pleading, apologetic, scared.
‘Rosie?’ A question, born out of incomprehension. Then realization. ‘You’re my dad’s girlfriend?’
‘Shauna, I’m so sorry, please…’ Begging now. I tried to sit, but it was more of a fall into the seat beside her.
‘Oh dear God. I don’t believe this. You’re seeing my dad.’ No longer a question. An accusation. A pissed off, outraged, furious accusation. ‘Since when?’
‘About fifteen years ago.’
If she’d revealed she was shagging Brad Pitt I wouldn’t have been any more shocked than I was now.
‘It was at their anniversary party. Their twenty-fifth. You were there with Colm.’
I flicked through the memories in my mind, turning back time.
‘But I saw him with Gwen that night.’
She nodded. ‘We got talking later, and that grew into… something.’
No. This didn’t make sense. It just didn’t. Another flashback. Rosie and my dad dancing, a crowd around them, her flushed face as she rejoined us. That was the start of something that had lasted fifteen years? I tried again to understand.
‘But, Rosie, all the guys you’ve met since then? You so wanted things to work out with them.’
She sighed, sadness enveloping her like a thick cloud.
‘I did. Jeff said…’
My mind interrupted with a scream. Jeff? Jeff? Not bloody Jeff. My dad. MY DAD! The thought didn’t make it out of my mouth.
‘…that he would never leave Debbie.’
My mum. MY FRIGGING MUM! Again, my objection was only on the inside.
‘So I went out with other guys. Jeff wanted it that way, didn’t want me to be sitting at home waiting for him. So I didn’t. And every time I met someone I wanted it to be the one who would make me want to change this, the one that I’d love more that Jeff. I tried so hard to make that happen, but it never did. I always loved him more,’ she whispered.
Another memory raised its head. Jack, at Rosie’s party, telling us he thought she was seeing someone else. He’d been right and we’d dismissed that theory out of hand. He’d sensed it, while we’d remained absolutely clueless. Fools. Fucking fools. How had we missed it?
‘I’m sorry Shauna, but I couldn’t tell you.’
I understood that. How did you even start that conversation? ‘Hey chum, we’ve been best mates forever but guess what? I’m shagging your dad.’
This was surreal. It felt like I had been transported to a parallel universe or the set of a TV show, anywhere other than my own life. How should I react to this? What was the accepted response? I plunged to the depths of my emotional reservoir and came up with…. Nothing. Numb confusion.
All these years of friendship, based on a lie. We’d shared every aspect of our lives, lived like sisters, and all the while I’d no idea there were shades of incest going on.
My father. Rosie. This wasn’t some cute Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta Jones twenty-five-year age difference love match. This was my dad and my best bloody friend.
‘Do you hate me?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure I know how to feel. My relationship with my dad has always been… complicated.’ A bitter laugh escaped this time. ‘Who am I kidding? It wasn’t complicated, it was non-existent. There was no love there, Rosie. Not like a normal mum and dad. Sometimes I think that the only good thing to come out of my relationship with them was that their indifference made me tough, independent. I’m not sure I could have coped with everything that’s happened to us if I wasn’t as strong.’
She didn’t respond, let me ramble on until I wasn’t sure if I was talking to her or myself. I took it back to her.
‘But that’s what I don’t get, Rosie. All these years you’ve listened to me talk about him, you’ve watched how he treated me, saw what that did and yet you were screwing him?’
That was the betrayal, right there. He’d hurt me. Ignored me. Made me feel that I didn’t matter. And she’d rewarded him for treating me that way by loving him? Sleeping with him? How could she do that?
Nausea overwhelmed me and I fought it back until I could speak again.
‘I just can’t believe I didn’t see it. Does my mum know how long it’s been going on?’
‘Yes.’
Bloody hell. ‘She’s always known?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Not right at the start. Back then she was in a thing with Lulu’s dad. Now there’s someone else. Her personal trainer.’ My mum and Lulu’s dad. So it had been a full-scale wife swap situation. Lulu and I hadn’t sussed that one.
‘Welcome to my family, people,’ I said, utterly depressed by the thought. ‘I’ll never understand why they stay together.’
Rosie’s whole face crumpled. ‘Jeff says they love each other. They just don’t consider sex to be part of that. He loves me too, but there’s a loyalty to Debbie that he won’t break. They’ll never separate; never break up the lives they’ve built. I don’t understand it either, but I’ve learned to accept it.’
‘So you’re going to go through the rest of your life waiting for him? Always being second choice? Being on your own while they’re pissing off to Marbella every second month?’
‘It won’t always…’
‘Of course it will! Rosie, how could you think… what?’
I realized that she was no longer looking at me. She was staring at my mum, or rather, at the doctor in the white coat, who was now speaking to her. The doctor put out his hand to help my mum stand and she did as she was beckoned.
I stood too, went to follow, Rosie stayed put. ‘I’ll wait here. Can you tell me how he is?’
My anger was tempered by the almost palpable anguish that seeped from her. How could she have been so foolish? So blind? So secretive. Yet, if I pushed aside the fact that he was my father, she was just one of my closest friends, utterly devastated because the person she loved was ill.
Pity made me agree to her request, before I followed the doctor and my mum through a door that required an entry code, then into a side room. There were two small sofas, sitting at right angles, a small white plastic coffee table in front of them with a jar of cut peonies. My dad’s favourite flower. I don’t know how I knew that.
He spoke to me first. ‘I’m Dr Wilson.’
‘Shauna,’ I replied. ‘Jeff’s daughter.’
I had to spit out the words. Daughter? The man didn’t know the first thing about being a father. He was a conniving, odious manipulator who had cheated me out of a proper family and cheated Rosie out of fifteen years of her life. How would I ever come to terms with that? How could I ever start to move past it?
The doctor’s voice brought me back to the moment.
‘Shauna. Mrs Williams,’ he said, his attention back on my mum. ‘We brought your husband in and it was clear there had been a cardiac event. We attempted to resuscitate him but I’m afraid we were unsuccessful. Mr Williams passed away ten minutes ago. I’m so very sorry for your loss.’
I had no idea if I’d ever have forgiven him – but now I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to find out.