‘Do you think he’d leave you alone if you let him see his daughter?’
That question hit like a brick. ‘No!’ I stood up suddenly and my mug wobbled and splashed tea onto the plywood floor. ‘Don’t youdaresuggest such a thing!’ I could feel my face heating up and my eyes burning. It was a feeling like fear but detached from it, so it freewheeled through my body looking for an anchor point. ‘He willneverhave access to Tilly again!’
Ross had stayed sitting on the table, seemingly unmoved by my wild outburst. ‘I’m just asking,’ he said mildly. ‘I presume he’s her father, named on her birth certificate and all that? Does he pay maintenance for her?’
‘He… I…’ I stammered and looked around me for help. None was forthcoming, only the skeletal outlines of the trees pressing in around the shed and, visible from the streaked window, the slow circling of the rooks. Ross had cocked his head as though curiously awaiting my answer. ‘He… yes, he puts money into my bank account every month.’ Then, to forestall the remark that I just knew was springing to his lips, ‘But that doesn’t matter. Heoughtto, she’s his child, not a pay-per-view channel!’
Ross was still standing with his head angled. It briefly crossed my mind that he bore more than a slight resemblance to one of those birds of Isobel’s. Dark eyes that focused tightly on my face, and asking a question with his whole body.
‘I never met my father,’ he said, still conversationally. ‘All I know is his name.’
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. The backwash of anger was still sluicing around in my head, so all I could manage was an interrogatory grunt.
Ross’s mouth twisted as his teeth came over his lip again. He looked as though he was trying to decide what to say next. ‘It’s… hard,’ he finally said. ‘The not knowing.’
‘Don’t you try to tell me…’
‘I’m not trying to tell you anything,’ he replied, still mildly. ‘I’m just offering a point of view that you might not have considered. Yes,youhate your ex and live in fear of him, but your daughter will have a different relationship with him. A different view of life. Is it altogether fair to cut her off from what she ought to know because of your trauma?’
I was speechless. My mouth wanted to accuse him of being got at, of being a victim of David’s brand of sensible psychosis, while my brain wanted to shriek that was impossible and the two men had never met. Then the memories of that nursery with the carefully draped cot, the rocking horse and the cupboard full of clothes slid in, alongside the guilt.
‘Only, my life might have been very different if I’d known who my dad was, if I’d had a relationship with him, you see,’ Ross went on. His voice was so level I could have used it to put up shelves. ‘My mum… well, she had a few problems. I got used to picking up the pieces much too young, and it turned me into someone who now has to stop myself riding to the rescue of every downtrodden or slighted person that I meet. Because that’s what I grew up doing.’ I got a flash of the smile then. ‘They charged me £150 an hour,’ he said. ‘And that was my take-home message.’
‘Are you saying that my daughter might turn out like you? If I don’t let her have contact with David?’ The horrified note in my voice echoed the sickened feeling in the rest of me.Tilly. And David. No. Just… no.
‘I think she’ll probably be shorter, with better legs,’ Ross said. ‘But essentially, yes. Unless you think he’ll harm her?’
There it was again, that odd swirling feeling where I couldn’tquitepin my thoughts down. ‘He… won’t hurt her,’ I said, the words seeming to come from somewhere very far distant. ‘It was only me that was in danger.’
Did he have a point? Did he? Was I keeping Tilly from her father not because I feared for her but becauseIcouldn’t bear to see him?
I had another flash of the carefully painted walls, the bed… My hands felt the edge of the table behind me and gripped. ‘You did well for yourself,’ I said faintly. ‘If you grew up like that.’
It was all I could think of to do, to throw the focus back onto Ross. To distract him from thinking about me, David and Tilly.
He smiled again, a little less brightly now. A smile that was a little introspective around the edges. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. But a childhood like mine teaches you to be self-reliant and independent, which turn out to be excellent attributes for an architect.’
‘Presumably your mum had her own reasons for keeping you from your father then?’
Up in the darkening sky I could see the birds gathering, wheeling and diving, all tattered corners and swooping shadows like clouds full of ghosts.
Ross shrugged. ‘I actually think she can’t remember anything about him. Other than his name, of course, which she might even have made up just to keep me quiet.’
‘Why can’t you ask her now?’
Another shrug, this time rather smaller and more inward. ‘She’s in a care facility. Not the type you can visit, sadly.’ Then he seemed to shake himself. ‘Well, this all got very introspective, didn’t it? What are you going to do about the message?’
‘Message?’ I’d forgotten about my phone, but now my fingers found the edges of it in my pocket. ‘Oh. I’ll ignore it. He’s just reminding me he’s out there, that’s all.’
I was trying not to think about that message because if the words came into my brain my stomach felt sick, and the memory of that shape on the country lane made my head hurt.
‘I want to see my daughter.’
I’d lied just a little to Ross, because David’s messages weren’t usually so overt. Usually they were more in the nature of the sort of thing you’d write to an estranged aunt –‘I hope you’re well’or‘let me know you are all right’. This demanding tone was new and, while it had been easy to ignore his trite words of pretend concern, it was harder to ignore an outright order. Assuming bravado was easier than trying to explain the complex mixture of fear and duty and that terror of losing my daughter that had made me run in the first place.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, my voice sounding weak.
Ross sipped at his tea. ‘What time do you have to pick Tilly up?’
