I nod, although I don’t want one. I just want Leo out for a moment so I can think.
When he leaves the room, I find my mum’s number and I hit call.
It rings off. And I immediately send her a text message.
ME:CALL ME
And then I ring again, because waiting is not an option. I need confirmation right away. This time she picks up within moments.
“Olive?” she says, slightly breathless herself. “Is everything all right?”
“Hi,” I say, my mind going blank suddenly. How do I ask? What do I say? “Mum. I just wondered if you could answer a question for me.”
“Of course,” she says, “are you okay? You sound funny, Olive. Have you been drinking?”
“I am funny,” I say. “I have been drinking.”
She sighs. “Where are you? Are you at Roger’s?”
“Yes. And he told me, Mum. He just came out and said it. That Dad was a great man taking me on as his own,” I say, and then, as I feel tears threatening again: “I have to know. Is Dad, you know, my dad?”
A pause. A pause long enough to confirm it. But then she lies.
“Of course he was, darling,” she says, a small nervous chuckle escaping her lips. “What a question.”
“My biological dad. Is he myrealdad?”
“Oh, Olive,” she says, but I hear the fragility in her voice. “He loved you so much.”
Leo comes in with the tea and I look up at him. I drop the hand holding my phone to my side.
I can hear the tinny sound of my mum’s voice coming through the earpiece. “Olive! Olive?”
“Speak to her,” says Leo, as he pulls me back down to sit on the edge of the bed. I lift the phone back up to my ear. “I have to go,” I say, hanging up on her.
A moment later, before I’ve had a chance to collect my thoughts, the phone starts vibrating in my hand. Mum. I let it ring out, staring at the screen for what feels like an eternity. Then I switch off my phone.
“Olive,” says Leo. He puts his arms around me and pulls me in, tight. “You need to speak to her.”
“I need to get out of here.” I feel utterly trapped suddenly, in this little inlet with its towering cliffs and its tiny roads. “How do I get out of here?”
“Where are you going to go?” he says gently. “Why don’t we talk this through? Let’s ask Roger and Sofia. Olive, there could be a million reasons why they never told you. The most likely version was to protect you.”
“To protect themselves,” I say bitterly.
“Olive,” he says, reaching out to try to hold me again, and I let him, falling limply into him.
“I need to go home,” I say quietly. “I need to speak to her.”
“Well, we can’t get you out of here right now,” he says. “We’d need to arrange a boat, or a bus or something.”
“Boat,” I say, frowning. “I need to get a flight. I want to go. I want to gonow.”
“I’ll come with you,” says Leo.
I nod, not looking at him, and he slips out the bedroom door. I suddenly feel very, very alone and unsure of myself.
I sit on the edge of the bed and my eyes fall on the urn, and I begin to cry.
