‘Thanks, I think.’
‘My turn.’ Maddie took her hand. ‘Have they given you a big pay off?’
‘Yes, but I don’t care about the money. I’ve already got more than enough.’
‘Lucky you.’
Maddie’s murmured comment brought Sofia up short. Since Tony’s death, Maddie had hinted that she wasn’t exactly flush.He’d been nowhere near retirement age, and they still had a mortgage on the house.
‘Sorry, that was thoughtless of me.’
Maddie poured the dregs of the bottle into her glass.
‘No, it was nasty of me. I didn’t mean to say it out loud. I know your work has always been such a big part of your life, of your identity.’
Sofia frowned.
‘You’re making me sound like some sort of self-obsessed crazy career woman with no time for anything or anyone else.’
‘Not at all.’ Maddie smiled. ‘You always had time for fun.’
‘Don’t say had. It sounds like everything’s over.’
Sofia leant on Maddie’s shoulder.
‘Maybe it is.’
‘Right, you need to stop that sort of talk right away. Think of the thousands of women you’ve helped over the years. Women who otherwise might not have got a fair deal in their divorce settlements. There must be so many clients out there who are grateful to you.’
‘Suppose so.’
Sofia sat back up in her seat and let the tears fall again.
‘The person I most wanted to help was my mum. Seeing her go through all that crap with my dad and wishing there was someone who’d stand up to him on her behalf. Someone who could take that smug smile off his face for good. Him and his fancy personal lawyer, who also happened to be his bloody mistress, all ready and waiting to shaft us.’
A picture of the two of them together at some big legal awards do brought the bile rushing into her throat. Her father in a dinner jacket with one arm round his precious Cherie, the other arm holding up his prize for best something or other– destroyer of families if she’d had a vote.
Maddie put her finger to her lips.
‘It’s OK, love, you don’t need to go there. He’s not with us anymore. He can’t hurt either of you now.’
‘But she’s still around, isn’t she? Still in the house in Mayfair, with her stupid yappy dogs and her remodelled face.’
Sofia knew she’d suddenly inhabited the wounded teenager she’d been back then, but she didn’t care.
Maddie nodded several times.
‘Yeah, she sure is. Not sure it’s the dogs’ fault, but that’s right, let it all out.’
Sofia couldn’t stop more sobs. Her only focus was the freeze frame of her mother’s stricken face when she’d arrived back at the family home one Christmas to find her father gone for good and the divorce papers on the hall table.
‘I was in my second year at uni when he broke the news to her. He waited until I was far away, hundreds of miles away in Scotland, the coward. I was too young and naïve then to fight them.’
Sofia let out a bitter laugh.
‘Ironically, I’d chosen to study law to follow in Daddy’s footsteps and make the man proud. Later on, I fell in love with the law for its own sake, but to think that he was the inspiration makes me want to vomit.’
Charlotte ruffled her hair.
