I glance towards where my nan hovers uncertainly in the doorway between the lounge and the hall. I note the kaleidoscope of emotion in her eyes. Fear and uncertainty. Most of all confusion. I don’t want her to be confused.
My nan casts a disdainful glance at my dad as she comes to me and wraps a frail arm around me. ‘Come on, sweetheart, come and sit in front of the fire with me. Everything’s going to be fine, I promise you,’ she says soothingly.
Is it?I don’t believe her. How can things be fine when everything seems to be turning to shit? I wish things could go back to how they were, just me and my dad, there for each other. Now, everyone wants a slice of him. Kara, who got pregnant so fast it was a wonder he had time to catch his breath. And now bloody Immy, who’s supposed to be myfriend, is trying to get off with him.
Nothing had happened. I can see by my dad’s bewildered expression that he’s telling the truth, but surely he isn’t that naïve he can’t see she absolutely does fancy him? That allowing her upstairs with no one else here was sending out all the wrong signals? ‘You need to stop encouraging her, Dad,’ I warn him.
TWENTY-THREE
KARA
I question Imogen as I drive her home, but she’s not very forthcoming. Still considerably shocked and upset, she mumbles something about Evie and her having had a falling-out, confirming what Evie had told me.
‘About?’ I ask her, wanting to hear her side of the story.
‘Just a boy.’ Imogen shrugs and blows her nose noisily on the tissue I’d given her. ‘Evie thinks I was flirting with him, but I wasn’t. I came round to your house to try and explain and make up with her.’
‘And you decided to collect your things while you were there?’
She nods and dabs at her eyes. She looks more like a child than the sexually aware sixteen-year-old I’d imagined her to be, and I hate myself for being so judgemental of her. I pray that Jack hadn’t encouraged anything untoward between them. Or, God forbid, done worse. Then hate myself for thinking that too. His bewilderment had been real. His shock tangible. Surely I can’t be completely wrong in my judgement of him?
‘Jack said it would be okay,’ she says, glancing nervously at me. ‘It was raining and I was soaking wet, that’s why I wantedmy jacket. He said to use a towel from the bathroom and that he would drive me home.’
I note she’s using his Christian name rather than the more formal ‘Mr Conley’ she would normally address him as. ‘I see.’ I fix my gaze on the windscreen. I don’t see. Not at all. What had Jack beenthinking? Imogen definitely has a crush on him. It’s obvious. I’d dismissed it, tried to tell myself her coquettish smiles were nothing more than normal teenage behaviour. But surely he could see that she liked him? Evie clearly could. Why had she reacted so violently, though? I could understand her jealousy to a degree, but she’d scared me.
‘Sorry about the perfume,’ Imogen mumbles as we pull up at her address. ‘It’s such a beautiful house I couldn’t resist having a nose around. I shouldn’t have gone into your room, though. Sorry.’
Assuring her it’s all right, hoping that she’s okay and, probably wrongly, that she won’t relay what’s happened to her parents, I watch until she’s through her front door, then head back home.
Once I arrive, I sit in the car for a while, tension grinding my stomach as I wonder what I’m going to say to Jack, what he’s going to say to me. My heart is thudding. I’m sure my tiny baby’s heart is pounding too.
Climbing out, I head for the front door, take a breath to brace myself, then go on in.
Jack meets me in the hall, looking apprehensive. ‘Is she okay?’ he asks. ‘Did she get home safely?’
‘I waited until she was through her front door,’ I assure him. ‘She seems to be all right, considering. Shaken, but intact. How’s Evie?’
‘Okay,’ he says, his eyes cautious as he scans mine. ‘Emotional.’
‘Clearly. Where is she?’ I glance past him for signs of her.
‘Checking out the annexe with Lina.’ He nods that way. ‘She’s making a list of anything that might be needed for her to move in. She was going to let Lina have her room for tonight, but I suggested she settle her into the spare room, since it’s on the ground floor.’
That was thoughtful of him, considering.
‘I said we would help move her into the annexe over the weekend.’
I nod. Then, ‘We need to talk,’ I say, and head past him to the lounge.
Noting the half-filled brandy glass on the drinks tray, I assume he’s had another, which riles me immensely. My father drank when he was stressed. He would drink to ease his stress after a bad day at work. He drank to drown his sorrows when his rugby team lost, when he was disappointed with life. He would drink when the inevitable arguments between him and my mother followed. He would drink because he couldn’t cope with his emotions. Is that what Jack is doing here? When my mother left, my father simply never stopped drinking. Eventually, for the sake of my own health while pregnant with Kai, and though it almost broke me, I walked away too. I won’t live that life over again. Not ever.
‘What’s going on, Jack?’ I turn to face him as he follows me in. ‘WhywasImogen upstairs in our bedroom?’
‘I said,’ Jack answers with an uncertain frown. ‘She was cold and wet. She said she needed to collect some stuff. A jacket or something, so I?—’
‘Why did Evie react so violently to finding her up there?’ I cut across him, feeling agitated and impatient. I can’t help it. My own emotions feel raw. Exposed.
He draws in a tight breath. ‘I knew this would happen,’ he mutters. ‘Lina’s trying to poison Evie against me. You must see what’s she’s doing?’
