She suggested that they meet at a coffee shop in town. Neutral ground seemed best, so that either of them could get up and leave if the meeting didn’t work out the way they hoped. Although what exactly she was hoping for Romany had no idea. She had always said that she wasn’t interested in her father, that her mum could easily play the role of two parents for her.
But her mum wasn’t there any more. The goalposts had shifted and Daniel was all the actual family she had. And on the surface at least, he seemed like quite a nice bloke. He wasn’t a dick or anything, so that was a good start. Romany owed it to herself to at least get the story out of him, find out what it was that had split her parents up. There was no need to make any decisions about what might happen next. She could just take things slowly.
She ordered a gingerbread latte which arrived in a glass with a huge dollop of cream on the top. Daniel had a black americano. For a while neither of them spoke. He stirred a packet of sugar into his coffee and she stirred the cream into hers.
‘So,’ he said when they couldn’t reasonably stir things any longer, ‘who goes first?’
Romany decided that she did. This was about her, after all. She didn’t want to appear weak and she definitely didn’t want to cry, so she adopted a defensive tone and chose her words accordingly.
‘Why did you abandon Mum?’ she asked, using everything she had to look him straight in the eyes as she spoke.
Daniel looked hurt, and then breathed out heavily before replying. ‘Harsh but fair, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Well, it wasn’t what you’d call a conventional relationship in the first place. I was living down in Newbury and Angie came back to York after the protests because that’s where her friends were. I’d come up every few months, whenever I could get a bit of cash together. It was great. It worked for us. Things never had a chance to get stale or boring.’
Romany imagined he was talking about their sex life, which she absolutely didn’t want to think about.
‘And then?’ she asked.
‘Well, then she got pregnant. It was a shock, Romany. I won’t lie. Not that I’m blaming her in any way, but she stopped taking her pill without telling me. I wasn’t ready for that. I mean, we weren’t young – I was thirty-one, I think. Ange was a few years older. I think she thought it was now or never for her. But we’d never talked about the future or discussed having kids. So, I just wasn’t expecting it. I mean, you,’ he clarified awkwardly.
He picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, placed it back down. Romany watched him carefully, looking for anything that might be a clue as to how he really felt, but saw nothing.
‘Angie’d had time to get her head round having a baby, but I got presented with it as a done deal. She was pregnant. She was having the baby. She made it obvious that there wasn’t much room for what I thought and – and I’m not that proud of this – I was happy with that. I wasn’t ready to be a father. The commitment scared the shit out of me. So, when your mum gave me the green light to take a back seat, I took her at her word and stayed away.’
He was being honest, at least. Romany could tell that. She could imagine her mum behaving like he’d said. When she made a decision there wasn’t much that could be done to change her mind. And she had been fiercely independent, never looking for help from anyone. Ever. If Daniel was saying that her mum had pushed him away, then that could be what actually happened. Still, her mum hadn’t been cold or unfeeling. He could have challenged her, if he’d wanted to.
‘Did you see me at all?’ she asked. This felt like an important question, but she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know the answer. If he had made no effort, then what did that say about him?
‘Once,’ he said. ‘When you were tiny. I turned up at the flat unannounced. I should have warned her, but I didn’t. She was good about it. She didn’t kick me out or anything. She let me hold you. You were so perfect. So tiny. I barely dared hold you in case I squashed you or something. And she was so amazing with you. I couldn’t believe that she just seemed to know exactly what you needed. She was a natural mum.’
‘Well, she didn’t really have much choice, did she? She was all I had in the world. She had to learn fast,’ replied Romany angrily.
‘Of course,’ said Daniel, raising a placatory hand. ‘I’m just saying that it looked like there was a bond between you from the very start. It was obvious that she adored you.’