The Stranger In My Home: I thought she was my daughter. I was wrong.

by Parks, Adele

  I get the feeling he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. She struck me as streetwise and, although that isn’t always a straightforward compliment – and not something that is ever said of Katherine – I do think being streetwise is useful.

  ‘I can’t imagine Olivia doing anything stupid.’

  ‘Really?’ He looks tragically hopeful. I feel guilty because I let the platitude slip out without giving it much thought, simply to comfort him in the moment, but now I see he really wants my opinion. ‘I am a bit concerned. I mean, this whole situation, it’s pretty hellish, isn’t it?’

  I stagger with relief. My knees actually quiver. I want to grab hold of him, hang on to him, weep and say, Yes, yes, it is. His openness floors me; Jeff’s rigid insistence that everything is fine seems even more ridiculous and alienating. Something shifts, just a fraction. We’re on the same side.

  ‘What does he look like? The secret boyfriend.’ I doubt he’s going to say ‘smart, respectable, reliable’, and I feel frustrated, disappointed. That’s what I’d want for Katherine; I find I want it for Olivia, too. Perhaps even more so. I have a feeling she needs it.

  ‘Skinny. Unprepossessing. He needs a haircut, a shave and perhaps even a shower.’ Tom does his/Katherine’s shrug but I’m not fooled; I feel his discontent. ‘I’m afraid I don’t get it.’

  ‘I suppose that’s the point of him, at least as far as Olivia is concerned.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  We both glance about. The place is packed with young, excitable, noisy, tattooed types. It seems everyone has a tattoo nowadays, not just sailors and troublemakers. Everywhere I look teenagers are eating fast food as though they are ravenous, barely bothering to swallow before they kiss each other with equal hunger. Their trousers are falling down, their hoods pulled up. They don’t fasten their enormous trainers but instead stuff their laces into their shoes. They seem outlandish to me. I can neither recognise nor remember that lusty wanting of everything – of food, of each other, of life. For me, it’s all once removed now. I want things for Katherine. Not the hoodies, tattoos or public displays of affection but other things. A big life. A successful life. And now, a long life. That more than anything. I guess Tom must be thinking something along the same lines when he says, ‘Youth – we may as well leave it to the young.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t any choice; it’s theirs. It was ours but trying to recapture it is nothing other than tragic.’

  ‘Yes, pathetic.’ There’s a glint in his eye and I respond knowing that I need to lighten the mood.

  ‘I’m thinking of the mothers who dress like their daughters,’ I offer with a smile.

  ‘The fathers who sleep with their PAs.’

  ‘Botox.’

  ‘Comb-overs.’

  ‘Collagen.’ We are both suppressing giggles now.

  ‘If I’m being frank, I was never especially good at being young,’ confesses Tom.

  ‘You weren’t?’ I’m surprised. I can’t imagine him ever being anything other than comfortable in his own skin, happy with every stage of his life. Except this latest one. Since he lost his wife.

  ‘I don’t tend to value what others do, and peer pressure is such a vast part of being young.’ It’s a worthy explanation. I’m glad he didn’t tell me that he failed at being young because he stayed at home and studied every minute of the day, or that he had no friends, or too many spots. Yet something about the explanation chills me. He’s a little too self-reliant and sure of himself. I wonder if that’s going to be a problem for me. Yes, I think it might be. I try to push the thought away. Cling to that recent bonhomie. I must not get into the habit of thinking of him as the enemy. ‘Still, I would have it all again if I could,’ he says with a big grin.

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘No? I always assume that everyone longs to be young again.’

  I’d never want it back again. I couldn’t endure it a second time. ‘It would have to be very different,’ I murmur. Impossibly different. He looks interested but doesn’t push. For a nanosecond I almost want him to. But that’s crazy. I’m so confused around Tom. We’ve barely known each other a month and yet I feel a deep and profound intimacy with him, probably because of his physical similarity to Katherine. He looks about, obviously deciding to change the subject.

  ‘Where’s Jeff?’

  I want to say he’s parking the car. I want to pretend that we are united in this scouting expedition, but I can’t, not to Tom. Strangely, I think he’s the only person who understands how hard this is, so I sigh and confess. ‘He’s still at the dinner party. They think I’m in the loo.’

  ‘How long have you been away?’

  I glance at my phone. ‘Thirty minutes.’

  ‘I guess by now they’ve discovered you’re not fixing your make-up.’ He grins, a rueful, complicit gesture. It’s a really stupid thought but I can’t help it: I wonder, does my make-up need fixing? Is that what he’s saying? The more ludicrous thought is the one that follows: I should have checked it; there was always a chance I’d bump into him.

  On cue, my phone starts to ring. I see it’s Jeff and pick up. ‘For fuck’s sake, Alison. Where are you?’ he says.

  ‘I’m at the ice rink.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The ice rink.’ Tom turns away and pretends not to be listening, but he can’t fail to catch Jeff’s angry tones bouncing from the phone.

  ‘Bloody hell, Alison, have you lost your mind?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you with Katherine?’

  ‘She doesn’t know I’m here. I just needed to check on her.’

  ‘No. No, you didn’t. Go home now. I’ve already told the Fords that you were ill and you had to leave in a hurry. I very much doubt they believed it.’

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you still there? With them?’

  ‘Well, yes. Where else could I be?’

  Where, indeed? Here? I bite that back, but can’t help sniping, ‘I won’t be able to pick you up if you’ve said I’m ill. You’ll have to get a cab home.’

  ‘Don’t blame me. I had to come up with something. It was excruciating. I thought you were the one who wanted to keep this thing under wraps. How are we going to do that if you start acting so oddly? How could you just up and leave a dinner party without a word of explanation?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I don’t know anything. I wish he wouldn’t shout at me. ‘Are you going to leave now?’

  ‘No, not now, don’t be ridiculous. It will look even worse if I leave early, too.’ I’m not sure it would. Surely there’s nothing more natural than a man rushing home to see his sick wife. ‘I’ll stay until coffee.’

  ‘OK.’ The chill of the rink is setting into my bones, despite Tom’s coat around my shoulders. I put my phone in my bag and rub my hands up and down the length of my arms. ‘I had better go,’ I say to Tom. He doesn’t make any reference to the call or to even the fact that I haven’t hung up yet and Jeff’s disgruntled tones can still be heard coming from my bag.

  ‘You could stay if you like.’

  I glance towards Katherine and Amy. I want to stay, eat popcorn, see if Callum’s team holds its advantage. I don’t want to be in on my own all night, but I shake my head. ‘Can I ask a favour of you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Could you not mention to Katherine that I was here?’ He nods and I am grateful. I don’t want to feel gratitude towards him, but I do. In a strange way, that I haven’t been able to acknowledge, I have from the moment he told me he is Katherine’s father. How could I not? He brought her into existence.

  ‘Do you want me to walk you back to your car?’

  ‘No, you had better get back to the kids. Don’t be—’

  ‘Too late. No, I won’t.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ I shrug out of his coat and hand it back to him. He puts it back on.

  ‘Oh, nice. You’ve warmed it up for me.’
<
br />   When I get back to the car I check my phone. Jeff has hung up; I wonder how long it took him to notice I wasn’t listening. I wonder if he noticed at all.

  14

  ‘It suits you.’

  ‘No, Mum, it doesn’t. I look—’ Katherine waves her arms around in despair. ‘Flat.’ She looks lithe, elegant and refined but I know better than to say so. ‘How have you managed to find the only thing in the entire shop that’s not fashionable?’ she moans. True, I did suggest she try on this particular dress. It’s lovely. It comes just below the knee and it’s made of good-quality cotton. Katherine glowers at me, her face like a work of art: cool, distant, frustrated. I long for the infant I could have swept into my arms, tickled until raucous giggles made her foam at the mouth, until she gripped on to me and smothered me with small, fierce kisses. This child is certainly no longer an infant, although she’s not as almost-woman as she imagines. She poses, as they all do at her age, like a fawn, slightly knock-kneed, hands on hips, just. Her hair falls in a loose, silky rope over one shoulder, her cheeks are flushed. But her mouth is set, weary, almost resentful. My intention was to impress her, to have a bit of a bonding session, but it’s not happening. She’s here with me but I sense that I’m boring her or, worse, that she isn’t really even aware of me. Her mind is elsewhere.

  We’re taking advantage of the fact that Katherine doesn’t have any training today, so we’ve come shopping. I suggested it. She’s always growing and, while she really doesn’t mind wearing last year’s skirts and dresses (the truth of the matter is that she actively likes doing so, as they ride up her thighs), I’m less keen. I suggested we could get our nails done, too, and then have lunch. Jeff muttered something about it being dishonest to try to buy one’s way into someone’s affections, but I ignored him. I’m not buying anyone. I’m simply treating my daughter and, if that happens to be the day after she’s been to an ice-hockey match with her birth family, then so what?

  I didn’t invite Jeff. We’ve hardly spoken since last night. He’s nursing a hangover; I’m nursing a grudge. The Fords must have served coffee at an ungodly hour because he didn’t return until after 1 a.m. I was still awake when I heard the taxi pull up outside our house but I stayed in bed, faking sleep. He slept in the spare room, as he sometimes does if I have an early start or he has a late night. I was annoyed with him for not getting home in time to greet Katherine. I thought he’d want to hear the low-down. He has a rather wonderful and enviably easy way of chatting with her that tends to elicit more information than I can ever gather. Without him, I know I often sound too probing and demanding. I heard Tom’s car pull on to our drive at nine forty-five, but he didn’t come in. I was relieved and yet strangely disappointed. I pinned myself into a chair and watched her say her goodbyes through the blinds, rather than dashing to the door. When she walked in I exercised extreme restraint. I glanced up from the book I was pretending to read, beamed and asked, ‘Nice night?’

  ‘Yeah, great.’ She looked cautious. Different to how she’d looked at the rink. I guessed she didn’t want to hurt my feelings and so was suppressing the jubilance I’d witnessed earlier. ‘Callum’s team won. Four–two. He scored.’

  ‘How marvellous!’ I probably sounded shrill, a bit too enthusiastic. I coughed and tried to pull it in but she didn’t give me the chance.

  ‘I’m really tired. I’m going straight up.’ She yawned, conveniently on cue. I was not convinced. For all her many talents, acting isn’t one of them.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like a hot chocolate?’

  ‘We had one at the rink.’

  We.

  Her foot was already on the first stair tread. That’s when I suggested the shopping expedition. I laid out the delights like tempting sweeties: Superdry, Jack Wills, Hollister.

  So here we are. Normally, she loves visiting this store; it’s full of devastatingly good-looking male assistants who are prepared to flirt with even the mothers for a sale. The decor confuses us mothers but delights the gangs of teens that endlessly trail in and around. It’s a strange mix of LA surf culture yet it’s almost completely pitch black. I’m forever setting off the alarm as I take a garment to the door to establish whether it’s purple or navy.

  ‘Try something else on, then,’ I suggest. I know I’m not going to get my own way with the blue cotton dress. Even if she does agree to it, it will languish in her wardrobe, getting perhaps just one outing, when she visits Jeff’s family. Patient smile fixed purposefully in place, I return to my post by the one (occupied) chair that’s been made available for waiting mothers and friends, and she turns back into the changing room. As I wait for her to re-emerge I glance around at all the other mother-and-daughter pairs who are shopping. The mums are cautious, tactful or bossy, the daughters giddy, sulky or frustrated; a veritable cornucopia of emotions skitters around the curtained changing rooms. Mostly, there’s love. Mothers shop with their daughters because they love them. Daughters shop with their mothers for the same reason. We don’t all remember as much all the time, but it’s true. I think of Olivia. Who is she shopping with now? Suddenly, Katherine is in front of me again. She’s wearing spray-on-tight jeans and a crop top. An Olivia outfit. Have I conjured her up by thinking of her? ‘Oh, don’t you think—’ I stop myself because she shoots me a look which communicates that nothing other than confirmation that she looks sensational will be acceptable. I nod and head to the till, in the hope that the unopposed purchase will loosen things up between us.

  At lunch I suggest the sharing plate; I always think they help fuel conversation. I point out the beetroot-cured salmon gravadlax and the Moroccan-spiced hummus with flatbread. She says she wants the bowl of miso rice that comes with pak choi, broccoli, red peppers and sugar-snap peas. I say I’ll have the same but pad out mine with grilled chicken breast. ‘Can’t I tempt you with one, too, or maybe some prawns?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head. We busy ourselves with ordering and only when we have our meals in front of us do I say, ‘So, you haven’t said much about last night.’

  ‘It’s a really interesting game. I went in not knowing anything about ice hockey, but it’s a blast.’

  ‘Yes, no doubt.’

  ‘You’d have liked it, Mum.’ She glances at me, questioningly, and for a fraction of a second I wonder whether she knows I was there, but then her face cracks into a warm, open beam (just the second of the day; the first was when I paid for the spray-on trousers) and I know Tom has kept his promise.

  ‘I’m sure I would have.’ Dabbing my mouth with a paper napkin, I say it almost off-hand, almost as though I hardly care. ‘How were the Trubys?’

  ‘Great.’ She shovels a huge forkful of rice into her mouth and chews intensely, which means she can’t say anything more, as her mouth is full; so polite. I wait a moment before I try again.

  ‘Was it comfortable?’

  ‘Yeah, great.’ It seems she’s torn. She doesn’t want to talk about the fab night she had with them because she’s afraid of hurting me. It crosses my mind that neither does she want to lie and tell me she’s had a terrible time because it will be betraying them. I feel sorry for her. She shouldn’t be in this position. I have to help her through this.

  ‘They seem a lovely family.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As I’d expect. I mean, they are related to you – how could they be anything other than wonderful?’ She grins; she’s used to me throwing compliments at her. She swallows them quickly, barely tasting them. I don’t make a secret of the fact that I adore her, am amazed by her.

  ‘Callum introduced me to all the members of his team.’

  I freeze. ‘Did he? How exactly?’

  ‘“How?”’

  ‘How did he introduce you?’

  ‘Erm, as Katherine Mitchell. That’s my name, after all.’ She’s irritated again. I remind myself that these mercurial moods are not entirely new and are not exclusive to Katherine. Most teenagers alternately love and loathe their parents at least ten times an hour.


  ‘Did he say …?’ I trail off. She blushes. I know every one of her blushes; I know when she’s mortified, elated, angry, delighted. This one is a mix between impatient and self-conscious. Still, she gives me what I want.

  ‘He never mentioned that I’m his sister.’

  ‘Well, that was sensible of him, because you’re not, and in this age of social media a comment like that could spread like wildfire and be terribly misinterpreted. Very confusing.’

  ‘But I am.’

  ‘Well, technically.’ She gives me a cold look that asks Which other way is there? Of course there’s another way. Callum was not brought up in the same house; they have not shared Christmases and birthdays; they have not squabbled at home on wet afternoons or on crowded beaches on bank holidays. If Callum is her brother, then Tom is her dad. What does that make Jeff? What does that make me?

  ‘He said I was his cousin.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He had to. Everyone said we looked alike. Amy, too. I thought it was a good answer.’

  ‘I suppose.’ It wasn’t a disastrous answer. I have been thinking that I’d go along the same lines myself, if I had to. If anyone called me on it. I feel a slight rush of gratitude, enough to give me the generosity to add, ‘He certainly seems a very bright boy. Very together.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s cool. Amy is so sweet, too.’

  ‘She seems it.’

  ‘You’ll never guess who was there?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dolly Bridge and her gang. It was hilarious. She was totally acting like we were best friends because she wanted to hook up with the players and saw I was an in. Callum totally saw through her.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yup. He was all, like, “Yeah, maybe we could all grab a pizza one day. Talk to Katherine, she’s got my deets.”’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Got his deets? His details?’

  ‘It was a joke, Mum. No one says “deets”. He was winding up Dolly.’

  ‘Oh.’