‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘the Mum squish – it’s a new type of hug.’
She giggles.
‘’K.’
‘I’ll be up in fifteen minutes to turn out the light, OK?’
‘’K,’ she says again, giving me a little wave. But she doesn’t pick up her book again as I leave the room and she lies there in the bed, propped up by her pillows, surrounded by the threadbare teddies she still loves and hasn’t got rid of over the years. She’s not thinking about her book, she’s thinking about Elisa: I can almost see the thought bubble over her head.
I turn and go downstairs thinking, could I get away with killing Dan and do what the French do and say, ‘it was a crime of passion, m’Lud’ when I got to court? Would it have been such a big deal for him to warn me what was coming?
Finally I shut the kitchen door where he’s sitting down finishing the last of his dinner, having been interrupted several times by Teddy wheedling for ‘One more leetle story’, and having to be tucked back into bed again.
‘So, what happened?’ I say.
Happy Mummy has gone, to be replaced by Very Angry Freya.
‘Elisa sent me a WhatsApp.’
‘A WhatsApp,’ I said incredulously. ‘Is that the only form of communication these days? Do people not phone or do sensible things like leave a message for you along the lines of: ‘I’m in Ireland and I would like to see the child I gave birth to, the child I never set eyes on anymore. Do you think we could arrange this? Or should I just randomly WhatsApp this kid and confuse the hell out of her?’
‘Freya, we’re not going to get anywhere if you’re going to be like that,’ he says. ‘This is difficult, you know that.’
‘Difficult?’ I shriek, and then somehow, I think of my mother.
‘You’re not just a second wife, you’re enmeshed with his former wife’s family because of Lexi. Yes, she is now your child, darling,’ she said when Dan and I got engaged. ‘But it is not as simple as if you had given birth to her yourself. Bitterness and jealousy will not help your forthcoming marriage or little Lexi,’ she said. I paid attention.
My own mother, who repurposes her clothes from things she finds in charity shops and who is now caring for one disabled and two challenging elderly people, and still has a smile for everyone, is such a font of wisdom and kindness.
I breathe. In. Out. Slowly.
I know Dan’s right, I know we have to deal with this like adults. But when it comes to my children, I stop being an adult and turn into something feral.
‘Will I open a bottle of wine?’ he says hopefully, clearly seeing mydemonic-ness disappearing as I breathe.
‘You know I don’t like to drink during the week,’ I say sanctimoniously.
I can’t help it.
A snort escapes him.
‘Well, I don’t,’ I say.
‘I think I need one,’ says Dan, hastily getting up, opening the fridge and pulling out a beer.
He’s not a big beer drinker, to be honest. That was another one of the things I liked about him. So many of the guys I used to meet at parties in my twenties appeared to feel that they were missing out if they weren’t almost comatose with drink halfway through the night. And a really good night for these fabulous menfolk would be had by a load of them coming together, filling themselves full of beer, having a big feed of burgers and chips before letting themselves loose to chat up women. As I said:classy. Not.
Dan was never that guy.
He sits down with his beer and looks at me.
‘What was I supposed to say?’ he demands finally, and he’s using that calm, measured voice he uses on radio interviews when a fellow guest is annoying him. ‘ElisaisLexi’s birth mother ...’
I wince.
He puts a hand on my arm but I ignore it.
‘And Mrs Markham—’
