Christ, I’m rambling again. All of this is to try and sum up how conflicted I was about the whole thing. He was charming and interested in me and I’ll admit I was a bit swept up in that. But I never felt totally comfortable in his company and was relieved when negotiations were wrapping up. The way I saw it, he’d pony up for eighteen years of my upkeep, and I’d be able to look after my family. Done and done. I’d never have blackmailed him or anything sordid. If he’d rejected my request I’d have walked away. I’m pretty proud and I wouldn’t have begged for it. I hoped that he’d be a gentleman about it all, and to an extent, he was. But there had to be something in it for Simon. You don’t get to be that rich without a constant quid pro quo, I guess. I’d thought my silence was the leverage, but I was completely wrong.
After he’d done the bank transfer （from his accountant to mine, complete with an NDA so tight it’d make your eyes water）， he shook my hand and ordered a round of drinks. That night we spent nearly six hours together, in a private room at one of Soho’s finest restaurants where the steak he ordered for me cost ￡68 and the waiters didn’t make eye contact. It was like a date, and every time he ordered another bottle I blinked at the absurdity of it all. I kept trying to leave but Simon would brush my attempts away with irritation. ‘We’re getting to know each other, son of mine! What could be more important?’ Then he’d plunge into another story about his clever business strategy, or explain how he fucked over a rival by being more ruthless. I got home and rolled into bed at 3 a.m., knowing that I’d have to be up again in three hours. I woke up at 6 a.m., my head screaming in pain and my hands shaking. I picked up my phone and saw he’d already texted me. Football this weekend. See you for breakfast before. Even though my mind was cloaked in fog, I understood then that there would be no clean break here. Simon had paid up and now he wanted me in the fold. Was it because he liked me and was glad to have found this long-lost son? Could have been. More likely though, he just wanted to control the situation, control me. If he had to endure being put in a vulnerable position, he was going to extract something, anything from it. Even if I didn’t want to play ball. Especially if I didn’t.
I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d had to go on like this for years, playing the version of a son he wanted. Within just a few weeks of handing over the money, it was already pretty unbearable, Grace. The fascination with me wore off pretty quickly, and Simon started to treat me like he treated everyone else. That meant I was expected to jump to it when called. He’d call when I was at the office, and if I didn’t pick up, he’d just call again. One day I put my phone on flight mode for eight hours just so I could avoid the blinking light out of the corner of my eye. When I turned it off, I had three text messages from him, one which called me a ‘lazy cunt’。 The message was wrapped up in his usual banter, but it was obvious that he meant it.
I continued to go home as much as possible. My mother was doing a little better, though still gardening obsessively. I didn’t tell Lottie that I was spending so much time with Simon, of course. I didn’t tell her anything. The school fees were paid and the mortgage settled. Lottie didn’t ask how I’d managed it all. It made me feel angry for a minute, she’d always had everything handled for her and never stopped to consider what it took. But it was ungenerous of me. Mum couldn’t be expected to know what I’d done to secure our family. She wasn’t strong enough. She might never be strong enough.
Simon only mentioned my mother once in my presence. After our first meeting I had wondered whether he really remembered her. It was clear she wasn’t exactly the only woman to have received the full Artemis treatment. It would have been understandable if she was just a vague blur in his mind. But he glanced down at my phone one day, as it lit up with a text alert and noticed my screen saver.
‘That your mum?’ he asked, his eyes focused on a photo of Lottie hugging my sisters on the lawn outside our home. I nodded, but tensed up slightly, not wanting him to see my family or pollute our space. ‘Christ, time isn’t kind to women,’ he said. ‘You shack up with a firecracker at 25 and you wake up at 50 with your nan.’ A white-hot rage swept up my body, heat flooding my face. I tipped over the small bar stool with rather too much drama, and stormed out. Simon sent me a case of wine later that night, my housemate Ben bringing it up to my room and asking who was buying me ￡5,000 worth of plonk. At least it was good wine and not the filth he served up under his own label. Anyway, wine or no wine, it was too late. I’d decided that I was done with this late-in-life dad. I was going to write him a letter explaining that I was grateful for his help but emphasising that I had spent twenty-three years with a wonderful father and wasn’t looking for a replacement. I felt rather an astonishing amount of relief as I typed it out that night. His world was overwhelming and I wanted to go back to mine.