He answered on the first ring. ‘Hey, I was wondering where you’d got to. I’ve made soup for lunch.’
For a second the black cloud looming over her cleared and it felt like she was standing in a beam of sunshine as warmth spread through her. ‘I’m sorry but I’m going to be a bit late, there’s something I need to take care of.’
‘That sounds serious.’
‘I’m going to talk to Mum. Dad came into work earlier and he looked so ill I swear I thought he was going to pass out. He told me he’s okay but he’s not, Harry. He’s barely hanging on by a thread. I know I said this wasn’t my problem any more but I can’t just walk away.’ She sighed. ‘I wish I could, but I can’t, I’m sorry.’
Harry was silent for a long moment, then simply asked, ‘What do you need me to do?’
His acceptance made her heart surge with joy for a second. She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve a man as good as him, but she would be forever grateful. She took a deep breath. ‘Just be there for me when I get home.’
‘I’ll be here, Kitty. Go do your thing.’
Kat could hear the thump-thump of the heavy baseline before she’d reached her parents’ front door. She raised the key she’d taken automatically out of her pocket and hesitated. Itwasn’t her home any more so she supposed she should knock, but doubted her mum would be able to hear anything over the music. The blast of it hit like a blow and Kat hurried inside and shut the door before the neighbours complained. She walked to the bottom of the stairs and called up. ‘Mum?’
The infernal music stopped and Kat expected her mum to emerge from her room. A few seconds later she heard laughter and realised the music hadn’t stopped because of her arrival. She walked up a few steps then paused but the murmur of her mother’s voice carried on unabated. Obviously the fitness part of the Watts Up session had finished and she’d moved on to the social aspect. Kat jogged up the rest of the stairs to find her mum’s bedroom door wide open. She had her back to Kat, her forearms resting on the handlebars of her stationary bike, all her attention on theTVscreen attached to the machine. Jen unleashed a high-pitched giggle that grated through Kat like nails on a chalkboard and a surge of anger forced her over the threshold. ‘Hi, Mum.’
If a tiny part of her had held on to the hope her mum really was only interested in keeping fit, it evaporated in that instant, burned away by the wide-eyed guilty expression on her mother’s face as she spun on her seat to face her. ‘Kat! What on earth are you doing here?’
Kat shrugged as she faked a smile. ‘I thought I’d take you up on that offer to try your Watts Up bike.’ She turned to face the screen, her smile turning all teeth like a shark sensing blood at the discomfited look on the face of the middle-aged man staring back her. ‘Hi, you must be Warren.’
He raised an awkward hand. ‘Hi.’
Her mum climbed off the bike, her face a picture of outrage. ‘I asked what you’re doing here, young lady! You can’t just barge your way in and embarrass me like this!’
‘You’re already enough of an embarrassment carrying on like this, Mum, I doubt there’s much I can say that’s going to make it any worse.’ Turning her back on her mother’s gaping mouth, Kat leaned forward to tap a number at the top of the screen. ‘This is your registration ID, isn’t it, Warren?’ When he nodded, Kat whipped out her phone and took a snapshot of the screen. She turned her handset to show him the picture. ‘Not one for your Instagram grid but good enough for what I need it for. I’m sure the Watts Up team would be very interested to know you’re having a private little chat with one of your clients. That’s a big no-no, isn’t it?’ The company had very strict rules about instructors and clients communicating outside of scheduled classes, the social aspect being purely reserved for friendships between users.
Warren turned a very funny colour underneath his fake tan. ‘We, uh, I, uh, I was just giving your mother a few tips.’
‘Oh, I bet you were.’ Kat stared straight down the camera at him. ‘You’ve got exactly five seconds to take your fake tan, your fake teeth and that frankly terrible hair transplant and disappear back to whatever hole you crawled out of. If you ever make contact with my mother again, I’ll make a formal complaint. Are we clear on that?’
The screen went blank and Kat turned to her mum and shrugged. ‘Oh dear, he didn’t even wait to say goodbye. Guess he cares more about his job than he does about you.’
Her mum glared at her for a long moment before her face crumpled and her chest heaved up and down with the effort of the sobs coming out of her. She even managed to squeeze out a tear or two. Kat perched on the edge of the bed and folded her arms. ‘Give it a rest, Mum. That nonsense might work on Dad but I’m not interested in your histrionics.’
Her mum sniffed and sobbed a few more times but when she realised Kat wasn’t going to give way on it, she drew in ashuddering breath. ‘I don’t know how you can be so cruel to me. You don’t understand what it’s like being stuck here in the dead end of nowhere with no friends. It’s your father’s fault for forcing me to move here.’
Kat unfolded her arms and placed them behind her, leaning back as though she was completely relaxed and not churning inside like a washing machine. She pictured her father’s terrible pallor earlier and knew she had to hold firm and try and lance the poison destroying him once and for all. ‘Dad only moved us because you told him how much you used to love it here. He was foolish enough to believe you could be happy if he just found the right place, but I don’t think you’re capable of being happy anywhere. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to shag everyone’s husband you’d have a few more friends.’
‘How dare you?’ Jen took a step forward, her hand raised.
Kat jumped up and locked her fingers around her mother’s wrist. ‘You’ve never hit me in my life and this would be a very bad time to start.’
Jen tensed as though she might yank her arm away and then all the strength seemed to drain out of her and she slumped on to the end of the bed. The tears this time seemed genuine and though Kat had thought herself immune to anything her mother could throw at her, there was a tiny kernel inside that ached at the sound. She released her hold and crouched beside the bed. ‘Mum, stop a minute and listen to me. Please.’
Her mum shook her head, keeping her hands over her face the way a little girl might when she didn’t want to be told off. ‘Go away.’
‘Not until I’ve said what I came here to say.’
Jen gave a few sniffs then dropped her hands from her face. Her gaze was more defiant than regretful. ‘You’ve already ruined my life, what else can you possibly have to say to me?’
The truth Kat heard in those words hurt more than any slap ever could, and she squeezed her eyes tight for a second to ward off the sudden prick of tears. She would not cry. She. Would. Not. ‘This has to stop, Jen.’
She could see the shock register as the woman opposite her understood what she had done. She’d severed what was left of the ragged bond between them. Jen Bailey had given birth to her, but that was it. Kat would never again give her the title she no longer deserved. Kat gestured to the machine behind her. ‘All of it, right now. I don’t care what happened to you when you were younger.’ She hesitated. No, that wasn’t strictly true. Something terrible must’ve happened to Jen to make her behave this way. She placed a hand on Jen’s leg, offering her comfort because she was who she was. ‘I’m sorry for whatever it was, but you can’t keep using it as a weapon.’
She couldn’t hurt Kat any more, but her dad was another matter. ‘Have you seen the state of Dad? He looked so bad when he walked into the coffee shop I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He’s working himself to the bone trying to hold things together and he’s still hell-bent on this second franchise idea even though he knows I want nothing to do with it. And you’re here fawning over some stranger who couldn’t turn his camera off quick enough when he realised he’d been caught out.’
‘You don’t understand how hard it is for me,’ Jen said, lower lip quivering.
