Jess
Following Elijah’s directions, The Rose and Crown wasn’t hard to find in North Parade. It had a pink frontage hiding a rather surprising number of bars and dining rooms beyond. It looked genuinely old, with a slightly wonky roofline, which made me instantly like it. Not sure why. I think I just like survivors. The crew had developed the habit of pitching up for happy hour and some stayed on to eat if they wanted to make a night of it. I’d already excused us from the second part of the evening, still uncertain I could keep all my appointments tonight. I wasn’t the world’s best timekeeper but I tried to make an effort not to let down a client. Jago had offered to drive me to Windsor for eight, saving me hours on the train. It might be a bit risky in case he coincided with Drew but hopefully Jago wouldn’t stick around.
‘What have you told everyone about me?’ Jago asked as we entered the bar. The hubbub of voices wrapped around us so I had to go on tiptoes to reach his ear to answer.
‘Not much – just that we’re seeing each other.’ I didn’t want to admit I’d claimed him as my boyfriend to put off puppyish Elijah. Jago might find that a bit too heavy a description for what we’d so far only pursued as a casual thing. And besides, he didn’t yet feel like a boyfriend. I wasn’t sure what he was, but not that, not with Drew flying home right now.
Jessica, what are you doing? I got very frustrated by myself so often. I managed to screw up all my relationships and this one seemed to be heading that way. One man at a time. Decide!
In the midst of self-recriminations, I felt a buzz on my leg and dug in a pocket for my phone. A message popped up on the screen from my sister, full of uncharacteristic exclamations marks: Call me!!!!! I now noticed I’d a couple of missed calls earlier.
I angled it towards Jago so he could see. ‘Sorry – I’ve got to speak to my sister. Can you get me a drink?’
He looked a little unnerved heading into a crowd of strangers without me, but then gave me a brash smile. ‘Fine. What do you want?’
‘Surprise me.’
‘I’ll wait at the bar for you.’ He headed off into the press of Friday night drinkers as I turned back to the street.
‘Hi, Miriam. What’s up?’ I rested with my back against Jago’s car, shivering slightly. The evening had a nip in the air that reminded me summer was fast going. The recycle bins smelt of rancid wine.
‘Jessica – at last! I’ve tried you at least five times. It’s Mum.’ In the background to my half-sister’s robust voice I could hear a Labrador barking. Her Cotswold farmhouse was always busy and I imagined, now I recalled that it was six, I’d picked a bad time to call. The evening meal would be underway if she was keeping to her usual schedule.
‘I thought it might be. She’s OK, physically, I mean?’ Neither of us judged her entirely sound on the emotional level – never had been, never would be.
‘Yes, yes, she’s basically fine.’ My sister wasn’t coming right out with it, which either meant she had someone on her end listening that she didn’t want to hear this, or she felt unsure how to introduce the topic. Neither was typical of my outspoken sister.
‘Do you want me to call back?’
‘No. Look … God, this is difficult.’
I was now getting worried. Up until this point, I’d been telling myself that it was just one of Miriam’s occasional flaps about something my mother was doing, some local homeless person she’d befriended, or a cause she’d been conned into giving too much of her time. ‘You’d better just tell me before I start imagining all sorts of horrors.’
‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’
Miriam, apologising? It had to be bad. ‘Please, put me out of my misery here.’
‘Jess, Mum’s agreed to meet your father.’
‘She’s what!’ I saw, not red, but rainbows as my thoughts recoiled and bumped around inside my skull in horror.
‘Exactly. I told her not to – told her to cut him off when he got in touch via Facebook, but you know how she is.’
Our mother was a sucker for any sob story or any chance to forgive. She was too good for this world in so many ways. That was why we both worried about her.
‘Can the situation be salvaged? Stopped? Do you want me to talk to her?’
‘What can you say that I haven’t? It’s bloody hopeless. No, I’m just warning you. Apparently,’ her tone was dry, ‘your father’s been to counselling and is making amends.’
Otherwise known as the perfect story to pull in my mother. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
‘You don’t think that maybe …?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said flatly. ‘He won’t change. This was how he got to her in the first place – pretended to be the strong man she needed after your father died. He knows it’s her catnip; she’ll roll around in ecstasy on the chance that all might be sweetness and light in her world.’
‘She told me that she isn’t going to do anything foolish and that there’s absolutely no chance they’ll get back together.’
‘Oh God.’ I fisted my hair in my free hand.
‘But he apparently wants to be on good terms with her.’ Miriam paused. ‘And with you.’
I should’ve known that was coming. ‘Not a chance in hell.’
‘I thought I’d warn you so that you can be prepared when Mum starts on the emotional blackmail. She’s already said that if their first meeting goes well, then she’ll see if she can bring you two together to mend fences.’
‘That man doesn’t know what a fence is. He is a steamroller – no, a category five hurricane!’ I was so tempted to punch a parked car I had to move further off before I started setting off alarms.
‘She’s muttering something about daughters needing their father, some sentimental nonsense about who’s going to walk you up the aisle.’
‘Oh my God, the woman’s insane. A – I’m not getting married; and B – I’d not let my father anywhere near me; C – he’d be struck down by a bolt from on high if he tried to enter a church.’
‘Then maybe you should set a date so we can all toast the charred remains of the lightning-struck father of the bride.’
This was why actually, at the end of the day, I loved my sister. ‘Thanks for the advice, sis. I’ll get right on that. When’s this disaster of a meeting supposed to happen?’
‘Coffee, tomorrow morning. In a bookshop.’
‘Where exactly?’ I wondered if there was any chance I could kidnap my mother before then.
‘Cheltenham.’
Too far for me to get to in time, not having my own car. ‘Can’t you stop her?’
‘How?’
‘Tie her up in the basement? Slash her tyres? Fabricate a false charge and get her arrested?’
Miriam sighed. ‘If I thought that would stop her, I’d do it, but Mum is surprisingly stubborn, as you well know.’
I did. Mum had the appearance of someone soft and gentle, but she had the ability of a limpet to stick to the rock she’d decided upon. Meeting my father was her latest boulder.
‘Would you please at least ask her not to make any promises to him, or to forgive him on first meeting, or, for that matter, to tell him how to contact me?’
‘I can try, but she has this religious code. She’s pretty unshakeable about forgiving.’
That was a lost cause – I knew that really. ‘OK, forgiveness I can live with, but not forgetting. Ask her not to forget what he is really like under all the flannel he’ll be giving her. She’s not to believe in his transformation, not unless he’s lived without reproach for over a decade, sacrificed himself in any way for someone else, adopted and nursed stray animals, and has a reference from the Pope, or another respected religious leader of proven worth.’
Miriam snorted. ‘With your father, that would be Satan.’
I returned to the bar but the thought of my mother meeting my father had sent a ice scalpel slicing down my spine. It was hard to explain why I was still so scared of him – I was thirty-one now, not sixteen – but the old instincts were humming. I wanted to rush to the farm, wrap my mother up in a blanket and bundle her away to some safe house where he’d never find us.
I tried to be rational. What harm could come to her in a bookshop cafe?
It was the fact that she wouldn’t see the damage that really worried me. He’d hook his nasty bloodsucking tentacles into her heart and start taking her over again like some Dr Who alien. All he had to do was find the right words of apology, flash the same smiles, make her feel like she was ever the only one for him and I would predict she’d make all the same mistakes all over again.
People didn’t really learn from disasters; they just had fewer excuses for repeating the same mistakes. At least, that was my experience.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Jago, handing me a cocktail glass with an olive balanced on the rim.
I felt exhausted but summoned up my inner party animal. ‘Wow. What’s this?’
‘A Martini, shaken and not stirred,’ he attempted a Scottish accent.
‘That’s perfect!’ Unlike his Sean Connery impression. ‘Thank you!’ I kissed him.
He smirked. ‘It was Kieren’s idea.’ He nodded to the barman. ‘Seeing how we’re rubbing shoulders with film stars.’
I raised my glass to Kieren. ‘Thanks!’
‘Your guys are in the back room,’ the barman said, with a nod behind him.
Jago took my hand. ‘You didn’t answer me.’
‘Your totally rocking choice of drink sidetracked me. It’s just something about my mum.’
‘Serious?’
‘Nothing I can do anything about so let’s leave it for the moment.’ And I didn’t know Jago well enough to start pouring out all the family history. Maybe Drew would listen later?
Don’t think about him. You’re with Jago! I mentally gave myself a telling off for being so inconstant.
‘Sorry we’re late!’ I called with a fair impression of my usual happy tone as I spotted my smoking gang. They’d cornered a prime spot in a booth and had already had a round from the evidence of the empty glasses.
‘Here’s Princess Jessica!’ said Leanne. ‘Shine worn off the magic kingdom yet?’
‘Nope – and I hope it doesn’t. Guys, this is Jago. Jago – Leanne, Ben—’
‘Len!’ Len the lighting gaffer corrected me. Oh well, that sorted that out.
‘Elijah, Roman, Pete, and gosh, I forgot your name?’
‘It’s all right, love, I don’t think I ever told you. I’m Neil, and this is Margaret, my better half,’ said the designer, whose name had so far escaped me.
‘Don’t I recognise you?’ Leanne narrowed her eyes at Jago. ‘You’re the wild swimming man. You were on TV last month – I caught a few episodes.’
Jago puffed up a little. ‘That was me. Did my sales the world of good.’
‘Then you can get the next round.’ Her quip was well received by the others. Jago took it in his stride and did a little table round to take orders. I tried to pass him a twenty as a contribution but he brushed it away. ‘It’s fine, Jess. Really.’
I then remembered Michael had hinted at a trust fund behind Jago’s lifestyle and felt a little less guilty.
As we were waiting for Jago to return with the refills, a girl sidled through the tables to put her hand casually on Roman’s arm.
‘Hey, Dad.’
He turned around and grinned. ‘Angelica! How was your day?’
And, of course, my attention was immediately riveted to the girl. She was a gangly teen, features a little too big for her face yet, pale hair highlighted in the usual mid-shoulder length style favoured by so many girls. When did conformity become such a thing for hair? It was like they were all recruits for The Handmaid’s Tale, minus the funky hat. I couldn’t see much of her mother in Angelica, apart from the nervous way she had of hovering at her stepfather’s shoulder and shooting us looks.
‘My day was fine. Saw some friends. Are we eating here tonight?’
He didn’t try to introduce us to her. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Starving.’ She gave him a real smile.
He patted her hand. ‘Then go ask Kieren for a menu and get us a table in the restaurant area for seven-thirty.’ He waited for her to go. ‘My stepdaughter.’ He caught my eye. ‘Angelica.’
Yes, Roman, I saw how she said she was hungry. No sign of an eating disorder there.
‘Nice kid. What’s she doing with herself this summer?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t got any leave left so we’re just hanging out in and around Oxford. She’s made friends locally thanks to Pete’s daughter. Same school year.’
‘It doesn’t take much to give them something in common at that age,’ said Pete, proving he knows nothing about girls.
I thought of Angelica’s Instagram feed and knew that the men were either lying or were blind to the truth. She wasn’t posting pictures of any of her new friends. I suspected she was feeling fairly isolated, moving to a new village on the edge of a city where she had no friends.
Jago returned with the drinks and joined in the conversation. I watched Angelica, waiting for my chance. After a few minutes, she looked around awkwardly, not seeing anyone she could chat to now her stepdad was occupied, so sloped off to the Ladies – a familiar move to anyone who has felt out of place.
‘Excuse me a moment.’ I grabbed my handbag. ‘Look after him for me,’ I said to my work colleagues and patted Jago on the shoulder in passing.
I made it into the toilets as the door swung back from Angelica’s entrance. She’d already disappeared into one of the cubicles. Fishing in my bag, I got out a lipstick and made a fuss preening in the glass, all the while watching the closed stall door behind me. There were only two sinks so when she came out she had to stand next to me. I smiled blandly.
‘Hey.’
‘Hi.’
‘I was with your stepdad when you came over.’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘I’m Jess. So, how’s living in Elsfield? Your stepdad told me you just moved here?’
She reached out for the hand dryer but it didn’t appear to be working. She kept waving her hands though as if she could force it to switch on for her.
‘I think it’s broken.’
She wouldn’t look at me, determined to have things her way.
‘Here.’ I passed her a paper towel from the stack on the window ledge.
‘No thanks. I’m fine.’ She wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans instead.
I didn’t have long for this and she was being less than forthcoming, which was fair enough seeing as how she didn’t know me. ‘Angelica, I wanted a chance to talk to you.’ I couldn’t mention her mum’s name; I could tell it would be kryptonite, sending her flying out into the bar in protest. Instead, I handed her a business card. She didn’t know what to do with it.
‘What’s this?’ She turned it in her fingers. I guessed it might be the first card she’d ever been handed.
‘My business card with my phone number.’
‘Why do I need your phone number?’
‘I look for missing people. One of my jobs is to act as a go-between. I pass messages for people who don’t want to be directly in touch.’
She was no fool; she quickly made the connections. ‘Did my mum put you up to this?’
If I said yes, she’d go straight and tell on me to her dad. ‘Put me up to what?’ I smoothed the lipstick over my top lip again.
‘Approaching me! If I wanted to contact her, I would. But I don’t. I never want to see her again.’
‘I know how you feel.’ I tucked my lipstick away and zipped up my bag.
‘No, you don’t!’ She was quivering with righteous anger in a quite splendid teen funk.
‘Interesting.’ I leaned back on the sink and crossed my arms. ‘You think you are the only person to live estranged from a parent?’
She scowled.
‘Lots of us fall out with our parents. I’ve not spoken to my father for over a decade.’
‘So?’
‘So you might find a go-between a useful person to know. I can pass on messages from your mother, and ones from you to her, and that will reduce the drama in this situation.’
‘Drama?’
‘Angelica, if you keep stonewalling her, she’ll end up going to court to get access to you, social services will become involved, judges, solicitors, your stepdad will be questioned, the nature of your relationship put under the microscope – none of it will be pretty. He’s no blood relation and they’ll listen to your mother, who is. And that will all happen because you wouldn’t use the channel being offered to you.’
She didn’t look as though she was listening until I mentioned Roman, which in itself was not reassuring. I wasn’t getting a sexual vibe between the two but she certainly seemed more protective of him than was normal. ‘You don’t understand what she’s like.’ She fixed me with her intense gaze, willing me to see things her way. ‘She makes me ill.’
I wasn’t going to fall in with her version of events when I knew so little about the facts. ‘What does she have to do to make it possible for you to see her?’
‘There’s nothing she can do.’ She looked up at me, a hint of cunning in her expression as she prepared to bargain. ‘But I do want to see Pawel.’
There was the one thing both sides had in common. ‘That’s where I might be able to help then. Do you want me to ask your mother if that can be arranged?’
‘She won’t. She’s stopping Dad seeing him. She hates him – but it’s her who’s to blame for all this! Why can’t Pawel see his dad?’
‘Because she’s scared. If you reduce the tension in the family by agreeing some ways forward, then the barriers will begin to drop.’ This was common sense, of course, but I didn’t hold out much hope for a fifteen-year-old to go for the reasonable when she had the drama-filled option.
Angelica thought about it for a moment. ‘You know what? I don’t want you or anyone interfering. This is my life – my brother!’
A woman came in, glanced at us, and went into one of the stalls.
Better to beat a retreat before Angelica started making more flamboyant gestures, such as ripping up my card. ‘OK, let’s leave it for now. But the offer stands.’ I lowered my voice, hoping the woman couldn’t overhear. ‘Let’s keep this just between the two of us at the moment? I won’t tell your mother your address, you can trust me on that; and in return you don’t mention this to your stepfather.’
Angelica snorted. The toilet flushed so I at least had some cover for the next thing I wanted to say.
‘No, really, I won’t tell. It’s in my code of practice if you want to check it out on my website. I was a runaway once so I do know what it’s like.’
‘I haven’t run away.’
‘No, but there are parallels between what you’re going through and what I experienced. If – when – you are ready to talk, then just call.’
I left as the other woman emerged. I could feel Angelica following me but she headed off in the opposite direction, towards the restaurant. I knew I’d taken a big risk, confronting her like this. She was what my mother would call ‘an awkward customer’. I thought it was a chance worth taking, even if it did get back to her stepfather. I probably couldn’t go much further with Roman: he’d dished his dirt on Amy so not much lost if he did turn his back from now onwards. Now I had to find out what Amy had to say. If she was as Roman painted her, then I’d not help her mess up her daughter’s life any more than she had already.