“Sounds like you were, without the Owen. How’s Joseph?” She sounded tired.
“Good. He was here tonight. He did her ladyship’s homework with her and they carried on with this bloody Star Wars jigsaw for about an hour before she went to bed.”
“And?”
“We made out like teenagers and had a shag in the bathroom. Do you need any more details?”
Olivia laughed. “I live vicariously through you. Seriously, I’m so desperate to get home. You know I’m quitting, right?”
“You’ve said this every three months for the last four years, so no.”
“Bitch. This time I’m done. I have the capital, I’m going to set up my own business.”
“What in?”
“I don’t know yet. Something that helps people and has nothing to do with money.”
“Okay.” I’d heard this before.
“I mean it this time.”
“Okay.”
“For fuck’s sake, George, be a bit more supportive!”
“I will be when you have more of a plan. Until then, what do I have to support?”
“Your sister!”
I felt my temper snap. “Liv, we’ve been through this. You’ve been talking about quitting for years. Do it and I’ll help out in any way I can, but until then I don’t know what to say.”
There was silence. A long, drawn-out silence. I hated rowing with Olivia. She, my mum and Rose were the main people in my life. And now Seph, and I did wonder – had wondered – whether Liv resented a little that Seph was involved. I didn’t need her as much when he was around, practically anyway, and I felt that. I knew she did too.
“I don’t know, George. I just don’t know.”
“Then sit back and take a longer ride.” It was our mother’s favourite saying: if you don’t know, just wait. Don’t rush things because the dust will settle, and it’ll be easier to see.
“I know. Maybe you should do the same. Is he really over his ex? Cassie? What was her name?”
Cassie. It bothered me. Bothered me that she was still around. Bothered me that I’d seen her months ago and that she worked in our circles. It was inevitable that she would appear at some point, given that she specialised in the same area of law. It bothered me that she could have a hold on the man I knew I was in love with, even if I hadn’t said the words, just as Rose’s father was in love with his fiancée.
I felt myself tense.
“I think he is, Liv. I think he is.”
Court hearings werewhat we lived and died for. Whatever anyone said about mediation or settling out of court was shadowed about how they felt about being in front of a judge. With the whole anxiety and nerves about what they would say and what would be determined by the evidence presented. I was in chambers, about to see the barrister representing the case I was currently working on when I saw her. Cassie.
She'd already appeared in various dreams, some sort of Greek mythological figure who both fascinated me and worried me enough at the same time that I was about to lose any form of control of the thing I was most desperate to hold.
Seph.
Six months was a long time, but it was also too short. I knew that this was more than just a fling because otherwise, I would never have brought my daughter into it, but I was still wary, hurt, unsure of what the outcome would be and if somebody else would leave me waiting, alone, and I had to be prepared for that.
When I saw Cassie, it felt as though a dart had been thrown straight into my chest, a poisoned one, one which had the power to possibly knock me straight out, but I was a little bit more resilient than that. After all I did manage to deal with being pregnant by a guy who was married, and he wanted nothing to do with his child. But still, everything inside felt like some form of blender had gotten hold of it, stirring it up so that nothing was recognisable anymore.
It was like she was expecting to see me, almost as if it was planned down to being at the same chambers at the same time, the same appointment to see the same barrister at the same case. This couldn't be what was actually happening, of course, It was just my paranoia. She was here for a different reason, but the timing probably couldn't have been better, for her anyway.
Cassie was my polar opposite she was blonde, slim, boobs that were completely proportionate to the rest of her, and a tiny waist with long, long legs that made her look like someone that should be in a gossip magazine as opposed to any form of day-to-day work that required an awful lot of brain power.
