Forty-Eight
KARLA
THE LAST CHAPTER
I should be following him. I should be there when he arrives. Instead, I stand frozen to the spot, dry-eyed with shock. I tried to prepare myself for this, but I prayed he wouldn’t actually do it. Prayedsohard. Hatred settles like ice inside me. Not for the man who’s leaving me, but for the man who’s responsible for his leaving. The man who should pay for the unbearable pain he’s caused me, caused my family. The guilt and the shame. Listening to my husband reversing his car swiftly from the drive, keen to be gone into what he imagines will be the safe embrace of his Jezebel, and with my arms wrapped tightly about myself, the knife still in my hand, I make my decision. I can’t follow him. I have something more pressing to do. Jason will find out what a terrible mistake he’s made. He can’t fail to.
I’m about to turn from the door when a newspaper rattles noisily through the letterbox. I glance at it and then stop. A laugh of bewilderment escapes me as my gaze alights on a photograph of myself and Jason. My mouth running dry, I crouch to retrieve the paper from the floor and register the headline emblazoned across it –daughter of outed uk businessman in dodgy relationship. My heart freezes.
Scanning the photograph, my mind skittering feverishly from thought to thought, I try to work out how they’d managed to get hold of it. It’s one taken in Paris, grabbed from Instagram possibly? Below it, there’s a photograph of my father, his arm draped about a young woman, his hand brushing her breast. Noting his smile – a smile of triumph, almost – and the licentious look in his eyes, I emit another slightly hysterical laugh and brace myself to read on.
‘Robert Fenton, the latest multimillionaire businessman accused of implementing non-disclosure agreements, used by some employers to gag employees from reporting allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, appears to have passed some of his dubious traits on to his son.’
My blood runs cold. Dimly, I am aware of the telephone ringing as, my hands trembling, my knuckles white, I clutch the paper tight.
‘In an exclusive interview, Jason Connolly’s birth mother, Julie Ferguson, a former employee of Fenton’s Bespoke Plumbing, reveals that the private adoption of her son was organised by none other than his father, Robert Fenton…’
I stop breathing. My emotions reeling, I glance up at the ceiling, trying desperately to assimilate. It’s still there when I look back at it, the same ridiculous, ludicrous…fucking lie! My mind races as I try to digest this. Nausea curdles my stomach. Icy fingers of realisation tug at my heart, at my mind, dragging me back to that long-ago day when my father tried to make me ‘see sense’.
I hear him, his voice oozing paternal concern: ‘I understand you want to be with him, princess. I know love isn’t choosy. I won’t try to influence your decision, sweetheart, I wouldn’t dream of it, but you can postpone motherhood for a while, surely? You’re young. You have plenty of time to have children…’
He’d been standing over me, his eyes full of sympathy. And something else, something I couldn’t read at the time: panic. I see it now, the cogs of his despicable mind going round as he looked away, groping for a way to save his own skin, his company, which meant more to him – means more to him – than his own children. He’d decided to sacrifice me. He’d decided to sacrifice his grandchild. He’d tried to make me abort my baby.
All theseyears? I quash the scream rising inside me. The lies he’s told. The lie I’ve been living. The indescribable hurt…Jason!Heknew. My heart lurches painfully. How long has he known? Surely he hasn’t always?No!That’s inconceivable. My thoughts come rapidly now, a mad rush in my head. Butwhen…?
But I know. I know exactly when. Robert engineered it. Promising him financial backing, he set Jason up, and then cold-heartedly delivered the news that would destroy him, destroy us. Meanwhile, thanks to the insidious seeds of doubt he planted, he ensured that I would be in Jason’s office, checking his internet activity. Closing my eyes, I see Jason’s face, his incredulity, his bitter disappointment. I might as well have driven this knife through his heart.
He walked away from me. Chose not to tell me. He chose to leave me. My father chose not to tell me, making a conscious decision instead to crush all that was dear to me. To allow me to live withthis. My children to live with it.
Swallowing back the bile climbing my throat, my thoughts swing to my mother. Where is she? Is this why she’s suddenly unavailable, uncontactable? Hiding away, too ashamed to face me?
Theyallknew. Fury explodes inside me. They… all… fucking… well…knew!
I snatch up my car keys and fly through the door, ignoring shouts from reporters as I scramble into my car. Careering it off the drive, not caring if I reverse over any of them, I thump so hard against the kerb that I bite the side of my tongue. The pain is sharp. I relish it, the salty, sour taste of blood in my mouth, hold on to it. It detracts from the unbearable pain in my chest. Does Jason know, now, that I know? Has he seen this morning’s shitty, trashy headlines yet? What will he do? Will he care? The questions keep coming as I drive, the knife – a Japanese stainless-steel chef knife, eight inches in length – comfortingly on the passenger seat by my side.
He won’t care. He never cared, another part of me, my sister, answers.
‘He did, once. I know he did,’ I say confidently. Hedid. No one can take that away from me.
But not any more. You tested him.He failed you. He left you.
‘He still loves me,’ I fume. ‘I just need to open his eyes.’
But he’s our brother.Forbidden fruit.
Wrenching the handbrake on as I arrive at my destination, I don’t acknowledge her last comment. I pick up my knife and climb out of the car. I haven’t processed this yet. The enormity of it. The impossibility of it. Of us. But it doesn’t have to be impossible. It wasn’t before. If we’d never known… I flail out for something to hold on to. But I am floundering, drowning in a dark sea of hopelessness.
The gate adjoining the park is locked. Locating the same footholds I used as a child, it doesn’t take me long to scale it. Finding the back door open, I swipe the tears from my face and step quietly in to slip through the utility and across the kitchen. I pause as I step into the hall and listen. I have no idea where in the house my father is. His study, possibly. I want to surprise him. I’m absolutely sure he will be surprised, once he realises the scared little girl he intimidated into silence isn’t scared any more.
Treading carefully, I walk towards the study, press my ear to the door – and then pause. NowI’msurprised. The wanderer returns. The hard knot of anger tightens inside me. My mother, it seems, is home. Come to clean up now the shit has hit the fan? I smile ironically. She never could stand a mess.
I swap the knife into my other hand and wipe my sticky, wet palm on my jeans. Then I swap the knife back and reach for the door handle. I’m about to push the door open when my mother’s voice, filled with venom, freezes me to the spot.
‘I knew about your arrangement with Julie, you bloody fool,’ she sneers. ‘About Jason. Did you honestly not wonder why she kept coming back to you for more money? BecauseItold her to.’
‘You… blackmailed me?’ Robert’s voice is shocked.
‘Ha!I’d say it was you who was doing the blackmailing, wouldn’t you? Buying people’s silence, paying people off. Threatening them. What did you tell Sarah’s mother when she was forced to leave the child you undoubtedly refused to acknowledge on your doorstep?’
