‘What a pleasant surprise?’ she says brightly. Considering that I call her twice a day, it can hardly be that surprising, but I let it go.
She fumbles with her TV remote, muting the volume. For some inexplicable reason she loves reality TV shows where people get voted out of the jungle, or off islands, or out of the house.
‘You’re at home,’ I say.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I thought you might be out on a hot date.’
‘Very funny.’
My mother didn’t remarry after divorcing my father, which could be down to her Catholicism, or her bloody-mindedness.
Five minutes later, I return to Tempe.
‘I’ve found you somewhere to stay. My mother has a spare room. She’ll know your entire family history by tomorrow morning, but the room is lovely.’
Tempe’s eyes are glistening.
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘Come on.’
9
It’s after ten o’clock when I get back to the house. Henry is working tonight and won’t be home until morning. As I’m crossing the road to the house, I notice a pewter-coloured Jaguar XJ parked beneath a streetlight. The man behind the wheel has a hat tilted over his eyes and a newspaper is folded on the dashboard, showing a half-finished crossword.
As I reach the pavement, the rear door opens and a woman emerges, one long leg at a time, each foot clad in an expensive designer shoe. My stepmother Constance is wearing a lightweight coat with an upturned collar, and oversized sunglasses, channelling her Jackie Kennedy vibe, although she looks more bug-eyed than beautiful.
‘Philomena,’ she says awkwardly. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
I keep walking.
‘You haven’t answered my calls. I thought maybe I had the wrong number.’
‘With my voice on the recorded message?’
‘It’s been so long,’ she explains. ‘I also sent you a letter and texts.’
‘I must have ignored them.’
‘Can we talk? Please?’
I am normally not rude to people. I barely know Constance. After the divorce I spent half my holidays living with my father, but he didn’t marry Constance until I had left home and gone to university. She is twenty years younger than Daddy, and only twelve years older than me.
A neighbouring door squeaks. Mrs Ainsley pops her head out, eavesdropping again.
‘I thought I heard the doorbell,’ she says.
‘No. It’s only me.’
Blaine is barking and trying to push past her legs.
She doesn’t close the door immediately. I wait. The silence grows uncomfortable. Constance is about to say something, but I hold a finger to my lips, ushering her inside.
‘It’s about your father’s birthday,’ she whispers.
I take her to the kitchen where she keeps up a constant stream of talk about the party, while I separate laundry and put a load into the machine. Powder. Softener. She follows me into the bedroom.
‘It won’t matter who else comes, the only person Edward will look for is you. You’re the only one he wants to see.’
‘Why doesn’t he ask me?’
‘You’ve blocked his number.’
It’s true.
‘He’s turning sixty. And he’s not been well.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His health.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He won’t tell me.’
I frown at her, wondering if she’s lying, but I don’t think Constance has the artifice to deceive anyone. I study her more closely and notice that her make-up is not quite as perfect as usual and that gravity is working to undermine her face. She still looks like a spoiled top-heavy socialite, but less polished and assured.
‘Please say you’ll come,’ she says.
‘I think I’m working that day.’
‘But you’ll consider it?’
I sigh and roll my eyes. ‘Fine. OK. I’ll think about it.’
After she’s gone, I heat up leftovers and sit in the garden, listening to crickets and canned TV laughter and a distant emergency siren （ambulance not fire）。 I don’t want to think about my father. I have no desire to see him again and my career is more important than his birthday.
I often use words like hate when I refer to him, which isn’t entirely fair because I loved him once. I remember the good times – the holidays in Cornwall, charades at Christmas, impromptu concerts in the garden, collecting mushrooms after rain, standing on his shoes while he danced, and seeing his face in the audience at every graduation, school play, recital and concert. Not many fathers were there every time.
Perhaps if there was an unseen scale that was balancing good against bad, it would tip in my father’s favour, but some memories are heavier than others. One in particular haunts me – an Easter gathering of the McCarthy clan. My uncles and aunts and twelve first cousins descended on the house, with children sleeping top-to-tail, filling trundle beds and inflatable mattresses. Mealtimes were a production line of sandwiches, and jugs of cordial. Something happened that weekend that changed the mood from joyful to sombre in the space of a few hours. The name Stella Luff was mentioned. Stella had worked as a bookkeeper for my father since before I was born and would bring me small presents each time she visited the house, annoying my mother and enchanting me.
That night, after the children had gone to bed, my father raged through the house, bellowing at Clifton and Daragh. I crept onto the landing and peered through the spindles, watching as he upended a table and toppled the same antique sideboard that Jamie Pike would crash into when he put his hand down my pants. I witnessed his rage at first hand, hardly daring to breathe, and felt as though the world was disintegrating around me in pops, groans and sharp cracks. My tongue wet my upper lip. My bladder tightened. Who was this man?
On Easter Tuesday, a local newspaper reported the mugging of a woman outside her home in Blackheath. Attackers had left her lying in a gutter with a ruptured spleen, a fractured jaw and six broken bones in her face. There was a photograph, but I didn’t recognise Stella at first because her face was so swollen. I didn’t see her again. She didn’t bring me presents or turn up to family gatherings. I don’t know how much she stole, but I hope it was worth it.
10
Saturday night in London. The South Bank is crowded with diners, clubbers, drinkers and theatre patrons. I am back on patrol and my current partner, PC Chris Dawson, has informed me he doesn’t like working with female officers.
‘Call me old-fashioned, but there are certain aspects of this job that I don’t think women should have to do,’ he says, ‘such as grappling on the ground with pissheads. I wouldn’t want my girlfriend doing that.’
I don’t respond.
‘I’m not saying women coppers don’t have their uses. They’re good at dealing with rape victims and grieving families, know wha’ I mean? But in my experience most of them are too eager, or are sticklers for the rules. Either that or they’re crazy. I hope you’re not a psycho.’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t been tested,’ I reply curtly.
He gives me a sidelong glance. ‘No offence.’
Your face offends me, I want to say. And your crooked teeth and your flat nose and your narrow mind and the incy-wincy penis that I’m sure you have. But I say nothing.