by Adele Parks
‘But I don’t understand. Why did the police think you were driving?’ asked Leon, sceptically.
‘You know that weird clarity that sometimes takes over when you’ve been drinking? That certainty and focus?’ Leon shrugged, he wasn’t a big drinker. ‘I’d had it before, sometimes it was bullshit. Sometimes I was focused on something trivial like getting a kebab and I would travel ten miles in a cab to find one, but that night the focus was for the good. I just knew. Instinctively, instantly knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘That Daisy could never have lived with that. Killing her daughter. I realised she didn’t have to. I could save her from that. I wanted to save her. I had to. I decided to take the blame. So I dragged her into the passenger seat and as I did so, she started to come around.’
‘She can’t remember any of this? Because she hit her head? Because she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt?’
‘Correct. I always thought there was a chance she’d remember what really happened at some point, but it appears she hasn’t.’
‘You are shitting me. You are making this up.’
‘No, no I’m not,’ replied Simon calmly.
‘Wow. Wow.’ Leon’s mouth was wide open. He shook his head, trying to clear it. ‘You did three years in here, for your Mrs?’
‘We were lucky Millie pulled through. I suppose if I’d known for definite that she would I might have made a different call. But I don’t think so. As I say, it wasn’t something I thought about, it was a reaction. An impulse. I realise that as things turned out, since Millie recovered, it is unlikely Daisy would have got a custodial sentence as she hadn’t been drinking, at least not enough to put her over the limit.’ Simon sighed. ‘But if Millie had died, Daisy couldn’t have lived with herself. I’d have lost her anyway. At the time, when it happened, I thought it was our only chance. Me coming in here, instead of her.’
‘You were drunk when you made the decision. You could have changed your mind at a later date, when you sobered up. Before it went to trial. Why didn’t you?’
‘Millie was in hospital for ages. By the time I knew she was safe it was too late to change my story. No one would have believed me if I had.’
Simon wouldn’t say it, couldn’t say it, even though he’d confessed so much to Leon, it was a step too far. But the truth was, his noble instinct had remained intact. He had never thought of changing his story. Daisy was a respected teacher, she brought out the best in kids doing their SATs, set them on to a path to do who knows what possible greatness. He was an unemployed interior designer, a drunk, who brought nothing but disgrace. Daisy visited his mother, talked to the doctors and care workers to ensure she got the best attention. He stole gin from her bedside cabinet. Daisy was Millie’s mother. He didn’t know what the hell he was. It had not been a difficult decision. Not really. Daisy did not belong behind bars.
Leon let out a low whistle. ‘You must really love your woman,’ he observed.
‘I do,’ Simon replied simply.
That two-word combination, so potent, so important, shimmied around the cell; an echo that temporarily countered the stale despair. He did. He loved her. He’d done the only thing he could. Even though she had betrayed him. Even though he was a drunk. Despite everything. He’d found a way to be the better man.
Simon felt strangely light. He’d held that story close for three years. Every time he had spoken at meetings, he’d eased some pain, and grief, and guilt but he’d never been able to release that narrative. The only one that would heal him. The only one that would set him free, allow him to transcend the walls, slip through the bars, float above the barbed wire. He hadn’t planned to tell anyone ever. He’d only told Leon because he’d suddenly felt a need to be respected again, even momentarily, even by a con.
‘But she wants a divorce,’ muttered Leon, now understanding Simon’s despair.
‘Yeah, she does. And I want a drink.’
42
Chapter 42, Daisy
I run from the prison gate. Other visitors seem in a hurry too, the prison spits us out of its big mouth, like vomit. It’s not a good summer’s day; after a hot spell, storms are threatening. It’s spotting with rain already, thick, heavy drops. I shiver, pull my jacket around me, but I can’t get warm. I spot Daryll across the road, stood outside his car, waiting for me. I see him before he sees me. I watch as his eyes sift through the crowds. I briefly consider turning around and going in the opposite direction. But it’s a stupid thought. I move towards his car. Suddenly, the threat of rain is a reality. The heavens open. The rain falls down my face. I’m glad. He can’t see my tears.
He notices me and grins, holds his arms wide, waiting for me to fold into them. What a picture that would make, what a touching scene. I see one or two other women sling a smile in our direction. He is every inch the supportive, attentive boyfriend. I don’t fall into his arms but dash around to the passenger side of the car and say, ‘Let me in, I’m getting soaked.’
‘How did it go?’ he asks. I nod. It’s not really an answer, just an acknowledgement that I’ve heard his question. I can’t afford to ignore him. He unlocks the car. When we get in, he cranks up the heater. ‘That rain came from nowhere,’ he comments, pleasantly.
‘Yes,’ I mutter, hoping that he’s not going to make me talk about the visit. That would be best. It’s possible he assumes I’ve followed instructions and therefore there is nothing to discuss. I never know with Daryll, what he’ll do or say next. What he thinks of as normal. Daryll checks his mirror, indicates and then carefully manoeuvres out into the traffic. He makes a point of being a conspicuously safe driver. I should appreciate that.
‘How was he?’
My heart sinks. So, we are going to talk about Simon. I’m not sure I can find the words to describe what we’ve just been through. I don’t know what I was expecting; seeing Simon after all these years was never going to be easy. I should have known there would be strangeness, silences, strain. And yes, there were all of those things in abundance. I had not expected to feel any sympathy. I had not anticipated the strength of the pull of his familiarity. There were mannerisms, the way his nostrils flare, the way his ears move when he raises his eyebrows, gestures that I hadn’t realised I remembered but are tattooed on my brain. I slide my eyes towards Daryll. I’ve known him since being an undergraduate at university, but he is a stranger to me. We’ve eaten meals together, I’ve watched him clean his teeth and put his feet on my coffee table as he stretches out in front of the TV. He has slept in my bed, but he is still a stranger.
‘So, how was he?’ Daryll pursues his point with a little more bite.
‘Thin, pale,’ I mutter.
Daryll glances in the mirror. It’s almost a non-gesture, almost imperceptible, but I guess he was checking his tan. Reassuring himself that he is bronzed, healthy, large. A contrast. ‘You asked for a divorce?’
‘Yes.’
Daryll nods, satisfied.
‘He seemed shocked,’ I murmur.
‘Really? Well, he shouldn’t be.’
‘Sad,’ I add quietly, as I turn my head and look out of the window. I’m met with a depressing street scene. Rain in the summer time ruins things. People are rushing, holding newspapers over their heads that have long since turned soggy and ineffectual, they slide about in their flipflops, unprepared and irritated because of that. Still, they are outside and free to dash across the road, into the corner shop. They can pick up a magazine, a carton of milk, a Diet Coke whenever they want. Getting wet in a downpour is a coveted privilege that the prisoners I’ve just encountered must dream about.
I wonder what Simon dreams about. I daren’t think that it’s me, or Millie.
I wonder if he also has nightmares about the night it happened. About everything that went before. How is he, right at this moment? What an extraordinarily basic thing for him to confess, that the let-down after someone has visited almost wipes out the pleasure of the visit.
Not that he can have gained mu
ch pleasure from my visit. Suddenly, I feel ashamed about the way I blurted out my request for a divorce. I hadn’t planned to bring it up so sharply. Although I can’t imagine a good way of asking for a divorce. I think of the tips of his fingers. They were still. I think of his hands, clasped together, elbows on the table, leaning as close to me as was allowed. His stillness surprised me. He used to constantly fidget. Incessantly drum his fingers. It drove me mad. I guess that was the drink. And now he is still.
‘Well, he only has himself to blame,’ says Daryll confidently. We are pulled up at a red light. He puts his hand on my knee and squeezes, too tightly. He has huge hands, paws. Like a bear. I am not a small woman, but he makes me feel fragile. Breakable. ‘Did you tell him about us?’ I shake my head. Daryll sighs, disappointed in me.
‘I didn’t want to hurt him,’ I confess. ‘I can’t imagine how he will feel when he learns Millie isn’t his biological daughter.’ How will I ever tell him this? I don’t want to. I’ve never wanted to but Daryll is insistent that I do. That I tell everyone. I’ve said I will but that I need time. I suggested we have a dinner party and announce it properly. I said it was the right thing to do after all the sneaking around, after all the lies and secrets. He liked that idea but he immediately pointed out that my place is too small to host a dinner party. Actually, I’ve thrown a number of successful kitchen suppers for my friends and sister, but I knew that cosy approach wouldn’t meet Daryll’s approval. I suggested we waited until he has the keys to his new home. He corrected me. ‘Our new home, Daisy.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Which gives me four weeks.
The lights change and Daryll carefully slips into gear, pulls forward a metre or two. The cars are crawling along. The whole world has ground to a halt because of the rain.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking about Simon and I imagine he already has an idea that Millie isn’t his,’ comments Daryll.
‘You do?’ I’m shocked at the suggestion. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I just think back to that night, the one of the collision.’ Daryll, unlike everyone else, does not speak about ‘the accident’. I should be grateful for that. ‘He was so weirdly on edge at Connie’s party. Aggressive. Angry. Wouldn’t you say? Not at all normal. Didn’t you notice?’
I can’t honestly remember. His moods were turbulent that summer, and before, if I’m brutally honest. ‘I’d long since lost sight of what was normal with Simon,’ I admit with a sigh.
‘He was knocking back the booze.’
‘Yes, but it was a party.’ I don’t know why I’m defending Simon on this particular point, to Daryll of all people. I should shut up.
‘I thought he had that bitter air about him, a man stung. A man aware he’d been played for a fool.’
I shoot Daryll a look. I can’t stop myself. ‘He hadn’t been played.’
‘Yes, he had, Daisy,’ Daryll affirms smoothly. I flush scarlet but don’t know how to respond. Daryll has always had a way of closing things down. Wiping out nuance. ‘I’ve often wondered if he didn’t do it on purpose.’
‘What? What do you mean?’ I demand, shocked.
‘Just what I say. If he had worked out she wasn’t his, he’d have been furious, humiliated. I’m not suggesting that he’d have tried to kill her if he was stone cold sober, but he wasn’t stone cold sober, was he? Something subconscious was going on. Maybe he wanted her gone.’
Daryll shrugs and leaves the horrifying suggestion hanging in the air. No. No. That’s impossible. Simon wouldn’t have deliberately hurt Millie. Never. I can’t believe that. I won’t. Simon made some careless mistakes, true. The time in the bathroom when he left her unattended and she slipped, and the occasions he forgot to pick her up from a class or a playdate, and I’d get a call from a harassed teacher or a concerned parent, were examples of neglect, true. The result of his drinking, yes. But the thought of him inflicting deliberate hurt is ludicrous.
Yet, something clicks into place in my brain. On that journey home, I remember Simon asked me if I was having an affair with Luke. To be precise, he asked if I was fucking Luke. Suddenly I feel buried in dread and panic. He had worked it out. He knew Millie wasn’t his. Daryll is right about that much. But that is all. I do not believe, not for a moment, that Simon might have wanted rid of her.
I turn away from Daryll and notice a father and daughter running along the street, hand in hand. The little girl’s toes had come out of one of her sandals, but she continues to run with the sandal flopping around her ankle, held only by the strap. After a step or two, the father notices and stops. He kneels down in the rain and takes off her sandal, puts it back on again, tightening the strap just the correct amount, so she can run securely. His shirt turns dark as the rain splatters onto his back. Drenching him.
I think of Millie sat on the stairs in our old home and Simon bent over, carefully mastering how to correctly tie her ballet slippers. Tender, precise, wishing to do a good job.
Then I think of the fact she’ll never dance again.
I think of Simon arranging her food on her plate into a picture, usually a face. Chicken arranged to look like hair, carrot sticks making eyebrows, tomatoes arranged to look like lips and peas grouped in piles for eyes. She used to giggle at his masterpieces and then gobble down food that, if I presented in the regular way, she would reject.
But I think of the months she spent in hospital, with no appetite at all.
I see him blowing bubbles in the back garden, I see him crawling on all fours whilst she rode on his back yelling, ‘Giddy up horsedaddy.’ I see him talking to her teachers at school about her reading books, her friendship groups, her mislaid pencil case. I see him holding baby Millie and saying, ‘She’s the most beautiful girl in the world, Daisy.’ I’d tried to smile but it was only minutes after the birth. I was confused, in pain, exhausted. Mostly I was afraid. He saw the concern in my face and tried to reassure me. ‘I’m going to do everything I can to look after our little girl. To protect her. I’m going to bring up a Daddy’s girl, I promise you,’ he’d laughed. I’d never been a Daddy’s girl. I always thought girls that were had such confidence, such an advantage. I remember him singing ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’, as he held her close to his chest and jiggled her up and down, dancing around the room. I can see him do it.
He would never hurt her.
I slyly try to wipe away the tears that are now falling pretty fast. Daryll tuts, irritated to notice I’m upset. He wants me to move on. Not look back.
‘You did the right thing asking for a divorce,’ he says firmly. Daryll smiles at me. Reaches over and squeezes my leg again. ‘And, now that’s done, I think it’s time we talked to Millie and set things straight there.’
Panic shoots through my body. ‘It’s too soon,’ I mutter. Poor Millie. She’s been through such a lot for one so young. How on earth is she supposed to cope with the news that her daddy is not her daddy? That I am divorcing that man, and this man – this stranger – is going to be her daddy from now. That he has been all along.
‘No. Daisy, it’s long past due,’ replies Daryll sharply.
‘Please don’t make me. Not yet. Please,’ I beg. I shouldn’t beg him. I know it never works.
43
Chapter 43, Daisy
I am so relieved when Daryll drops me off outside Connie’s house and says he’s not coming in.
‘There’s somewhere I need to be,’ he says, mysteriously. He likes to make a mystery out of his life. He tells me little about what he does or who he sees when he’s not with me. I never ask. I don’t care. Should I? It’s clear he thinks I should when he adds, ‘Aren’t you curious about who I’m with when we’re not together? Aren’t you jealous?’ He strokes my cheek, but I move my head away.
‘Someone might see.’
‘We don’t have to creep around anymore, Daisy,’ he says with a laugh.
‘We don’t want to ruin the surprise of the announcement,’ I mumble as
I scramble for the door handle and clamber out of the car.
‘I might come over later. If you play your cards right. Late, when Millie’s in bed.’
I don’t reply but rush up Connie’s path. Her door swings open with the sort of efficiency that suggests she has been watching from the window. ‘Was that Daryll?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I reply, looking over her shoulder, desperate to rest my eyes on Millie.
‘You should have invited him in.’ I know Connie is curious about my new relationship and desperate to get me to open up about it a bit more. She’s probably wondering why I haven’t indulged her by swapping any gossipy details. I don’t know where to start. Anything I say will lead to my lie, so it’s best not to say anything at all. Right now, all I need is Millie. I need a fix of her. I need to be fixed by her.
Connie clocks me scouring the house and understands. ‘Millie and Sophie are upstairs with Fran and Auriol. They are all playing with Eric.’
Millie adores her kitten and wouldn’t hear of leaving him alone all day. We had to drag the poor thing halfway across London in a travel box.
‘They’re good kids.’
‘They are. Do you want a cup of tea?’ I really want to dash upstairs and just check on Millie. Just see her sat with her friends. Safe. Content. But I can’t, it would look peculiar. Neurotic. It would embarrass her. Instead I say yes to the offer of tea and yell a cheery, ‘Hello girls’ up the stairs. I identify Millie’s happy ‘Hi Mum’, in amongst the plethora of greetings. That’s enough.
I follow Connie through to the kitchen where I find Lucy, sat on a bar stool, leafing through some specialist architect magazine belonging to Luke. My heart sinks a little when I see her, as it always does. I’ve accepted that she’s likely to always be part of my life, as long as Connie is. It doesn’t mean I have to like the fact. I’m grateful to Connie for looking after Millie this afternoon, Rose couldn’t do it – she and Craig are on holiday – but I know the price she will be hoping to extract is a low down.