‘Thank you.’
He reaches for my foot, touching it with his fingertips. I have a small birthmark on the inside of my left ankle. He has an almost identical birthmark in the same place. It’s another link between us.
‘In my experience, Phil, the police won’t stop digging on this. They’re seeking justice for one of their own.’
‘I am one of their own,’ I say defensively.
‘Yes, but you’re also my daughter.’
‘An accident of birth.’
‘No accident. Loved and wanted.’
Janet answers the door as though expecting someone else. Her smile fades and her small, birdlike body begins to fluff up, trying to appear more intimidating.
‘Where is Henry?’
‘He doesn’t want to see you.’
‘Let him tell me that.’
Janet tries to block the doorway, but I skip past her and enter the house, glancing into the sitting room, which she calls a parlour. I call up the stairs. ‘Henry? It’s me.’
Ignoring her protests, I carry on into the kitchen. Surely he can’t be hiding from me. I’m about to search the house when I spot a bottom-heavy hammock in the garden, suspended between two trees. Henry’s bare feet are draped over the sides and a straw hat is resting over his face.
I’m halfway across the lawn when his mother yells a warning and Henry raises the hat. There is no elegant way of getting out of a hammock and he stumbles as he finds his balance.
‘I’ll call your father,’ says Janet, sounding flustered.
‘I can handle this, Mum. You go back inside.’
She is hovering protectively. ‘I think I should stay.’
‘How about a cup of tea?’
This adds insult to injury, the idea that she has to make me a beverage. She bustles away and Henry walks me to a different section of the garden where a wrought-iron bench is sitting beneath a willow tree. He looks at me with unconcealed sadness, but not contempt. I guess that’s something.
‘I tried to call you,’ I say.
‘I’ve had my phone turned off.’
‘Why?’
‘Reporters keep calling me. Either that or my friends want to commiserate.’
‘About what?’
‘The photographs.’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘You were naked in bed with her.’
‘I was drugged.’
‘Your eyes were open.’
‘I was drugged.’
There is nothing tender about his questions. He wants to know if I loved her, if I slept with her, if I purposely set out to humiliate him. I deny everything, but he sighs and shakes his head.
‘I’m a pretty normal bloke, Phil. I fight fires. I play rugby. I watch cricket. I love my little boy. But I don’t think my tender heart can recover from this.’
‘None of it is—’
‘I could cope with being second best in your life because Archie will always be first in mine, but what you’ve done – those photographs … I’m a laughing stock. There’s a meme going around which says, “It’s not cheating if your fiancé watches”。’
I want to scream at his selfishness and stupid male pride. I’m the one who was drugged, arrested and charged with murder. Instead, I whisper, ‘What about the wedding?’
‘There won’t be one. The venue cancelled this morning. They saw the news reports and didn’t want the bad publicity.’
I’m speechless.
‘The manager claimed she was misled,’ says Henry. ‘Tempe told her that you were Kate Middleton’s cousin and that the Duchess of Cambridge was expected at the wedding.’
I half laugh, thinking it must be a joke, but now I understand how Tempe managed to secure a venue that is usually booked out years in advance. She lied. She probably lied to all of them – the florist, the photographer, the cake maker.
‘You’re not going to defend her?’ he asks.
‘Of course not.’
‘I warned you.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t expect …’
‘I used to think she was obsessed with you, but maybe it was the other way around,’ he says. ‘You invited this cuckoo into our nest.’
‘I made a mistake. I’m sorry.’ My voice catches. ‘Do you still want to get married?’
Henry won’t look at me. ‘I think you should leave.’
His mother appears from the house, walking across the spongy turf, balancing two mugs on a tin tray. Reverend Bill is three paces behind her, hands in his pockets, acting like it’s a pleasant stroll around the garden.
‘Philomena. Nice to see you,’ he says, sounding genuine.
‘Hello, Reverend Bill.’
‘She was just leaving,’ says Henry.
‘But Janet made tea.’
‘I have to go,’ I say, adding hollowly. ‘Next time.’
Henry doesn’t stand or try to follow me. I feel like a child being banished to my bedroom for bad behaviour and told to contemplate what I’ve done. Growing up, my punishments were like that. I would have preferred to go hungry, or be grounded, or surrender privileges, but my mother knew that coldness and silence were the greatest penance – the withholding of affection.
Moving in a daze, I retrace my steps through the house to the entrance hall. Reverend Bill turns the latch to open the door. He leans closer. I expect him to kiss me on the cheek, but he whispers in my ear.
‘You have to forgive Henry. His allegiances are torn.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Roxanne has threatened to fight for sole custody of Archie if Henry marries you.’
‘But that’s—’
‘She doesn’t want Archie exposed to … to …’ He doesn’t finish.
‘Me?’ I ask.
‘Or your family,’ he replies.
60
My mother’s voice is muffled behind the heavy painted door.
‘Philomena?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes.’
The key turns. The lock slides back. A security chain is unhooked. The door opens a crack and she peers at me anxiously. Brown curls. Brown eyes. Satisfied, she opens it wider and wraps me in her arms, her lips pressed against my cheek and her perfume filling my nostrils.
‘Why have you deadlocked the door?’
‘I thought maybe you were Tempe. She’s been calling. Texting. Last night she came at midnight.’
‘What did she want?’
‘You, of course. She thinks I’m hiding you.’
Pulling me into the parlour, she takes a moment to examine me, as though looking at a piece of second-hand furniture that needs restoration. Normally, she complains about my hair, or my skin, or that I dress ‘like a boy’。 This from someone who looks like a 1950s housewife in frocks and housecoats.
‘There’s something wrong with that woman,’ she says. ‘She was bashing on the door, calling your name. When I threatened to call the police, she laughed and said the police had only just let her go. She called them the Gestapo and said they wouldn’t mess with her again.’
‘What did she mean?’ I ask.
‘I have no idea. Did she get you into trouble? I told you not to trust her.’