The shock made Angie feel woozy and she put one hand out to grab at the doorframe as the other tightened its grip around Romany.
How was she supposed to feel? She searched for the appropriate response to his unexpected arrival, letting her heart rather than her intellect guide her. Shock at his sudden appearance slipped quickly into delight at seeing him after so long, before she remembered how abandoned she had felt, and then anger finally prevailed. She concentrated on making sure that her face reflected the last of these emotions and stared at him impassively. He chewed on his lower lip and kicked at an invisible mark on the paving stone with his foot. At least he had the good grace to look ashamed.
He looked different. Like her, he had cropped his hair short and his face was clean shaven. Angie had never seen him with anything less than a five-day shadow of bristles and it didn’t sit right. He almost looked ordinary, like any man you might pass on the street rather than the eco-warrior that she had first met. But then again, she supposed, she now looked pretty much like any woman. Perhaps they were growing up.
And then he smiled, a restrained, slightly sheepish expression, and she finally saw him in this stranger: her Jax. She could sense her resolve to punish him melting away, but she was determined to try, at least for a while. He deserved to be given a hard time, given his lack of communication. She redoubled her efforts to look cross.
‘Hi,’ he said, his voice tentative, almost questioning, as if he were unsure what kind of reception he was about to get.
Everything inside Angie was crying out to welcome him, but she kept it all in check.
‘Hi,’ she replied coolly.
‘Sorry to just show up like this. I hope it’s okay. I would have rung, but . . .’ His sentence careered to a halt under the weight of the lie it contained, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. She let him plough on unchecked.
‘And you look great, Ange,’ he continued. ‘Really good. I love the hair. It suits you short.’
She shrugged. His new look suited him too, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him so.
‘And this must be Romany,’ he said. Angie was grateful that he had used her name and not ‘my daughter’。 Somehow that felt easier to deal with.
She nodded.
Romany eyed him curiously with her wide eyes, no longer the pure blue they had been at birth but not yet settled into a specific colour of their own. He put out his hand to touch her and Angie had to fight the impulse to pull her child away. His hand looked so huge next to Romany’s face that it was almost like a threat, even though Angie knew that Jax would never hurt either of them, not physically at least. He ran the side of a finger delicately down her cheek as if he could hardly believe that she was real flesh and blood.
Angie pressed her lips tight together. It felt important that he spoke first even though she had no end of things that she wanted to say to him, not least to ask what on earth he was doing descending on them unannounced and so late in the day.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, simply. ‘I let you down and I am really sorry. I know it’s not good enough, but it’s the truth. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do or think. So, I did the easiest thing and did nothing. But it was really crappy of me. I can see that now.’
Angie met his eyes with hers and stared into them, without letting any hint of understanding escape. He was going to have to beg if he wanted to be back in her life. Just turning up out of the blue when it suited him might have worked when there were just the two of them to consider, but it wouldn’t wash now. They both deserved more than that.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked. ‘Please.’
Angie was tempted to send him away just to make a point, but if she did he might disappear and never come back and she couldn’t risk that, no matter what he had done.
‘Okay,’ she said.
She turned and led him up the stairs. She could feel Romany become still in her arms as she watched him over Angie’s shoulder. The two of them would be at eye level with one another, Angie thought, father and daughter sizing each other up for the very first time. She resisted turning round to see what they made of one another.
Once in the flat, she and Romany sat on the sofa. but she didn’t invite him to join her and so he was left standing awkwardly, looking down on the pair of them.
‘So, how have you been?’ he asked. ‘You look great,’ he repeated.
‘It’s been hard,’ Angie replied simply. ‘But we’re getting there now.’