the pale cloth wouldn’t be stained by the grass.
I slipped my jacket off, but I couldn’t offer it to her – it was too expensive to sit on. I folded it and dropped it on the ground, then sat down beside her with my legs bent up and my arms resting on my knees.
She twisted sideways, her legs bending so she could face me. One of her hands settled on the grass to balance her.
I smiled at her. ‘What do you have to say? That you’re really sorry you ran out on me at school. Don’t worry, I received the message, even though it was silent I got used to you not being here. And you were allowed to make choices that didn’t include me.’
‘It wasn’t a choice.’ She looked down, her gaze falling as if she found it hard to look at me. She hadn’t used to find it hard when we were at school. Her free hand picked a daisy out of the grass and then she spun it between her fingers, looking past me at the river. The sound of the water played on the air around us.
She was still being cowardly because whatever she’d come out here to say to me wasn’t erupting from her lips. ‘Did something happen, then?’ Maybe she’d left school to avoid me? Perhaps she was holding some blame against me because life hadn’t gone in the direction she’d wanted and she’d pinned it all down to not staying at school? But she’d just said she was happy. And I hadn’t done anything bad to her.
She took a breath and looked at me again, as if she’d spent the last couple of minutes trying to slot words into place. ‘My daughter is really beautiful. She’s made my life what it is. I love her – like you cannot imagine. She says funny things all the time and every new thing she does and learns… It’s beautiful… I have a picture on my phone.’ The daisy fell from her fingers and she turned to her bag.
That was nice for her, but I didn’t want to look at her photo.
When she found her phone she tapped in the code to unlock it and I saw her hand shake as she brought up her pictures. Then she held it out to me. ‘She’s seven years old, Jack.’
I looked at the image of a little girl, not really looking.
‘She’s yours,’ Victoria said.
The words hit me. Shit. ‘What?’ She’d punched me in the stomach and followed it with a slap around the face. ‘What?’ I rocked back, as though she’d really hit me.
‘I fell pregnant when we were here.’
‘We used a condom every time.’
‘Most times – not every time, when we were just messing around, and they aren’t one hundred per cent safe. You managed to get me pregnant, anyway. I did not sleep with anyone else, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
I looked back at the phone and took it from her. My free hand shook. Like hers had done. My fingers brushed back my hair.
No. This was insane.
The words, you’re fucking with me, spun around though my head in a sharp growl. But why would she?
The girl had black hair like mine and blue eyes like mine, and her face shape was mine. I stared at it. ‘Why are you telling me now? If she’s seven, why tell me now?’ I was looking at a picture of a child that was meant to be mine.
‘Because you should know. You should have known then, but my parents are old-fashioned, they didn’t want anyone told. I pretended it wasn’t happening, because I didn’t know what to do. They found out about Daisy when I had her a month early on the floor in my room. Mum found us there and they rushed us both to hospital. I was lucky I didn’t kill Daisy.
‘Afterwards Mum and Dad told everyone the child was a maid’s and they were going to adopt her and look after her. It took three years for me to stand up to them and tell them I was going to let people know Daisy was mine.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’ I stared at the image on her phone. My child. I had a child. Those words kept spinning through my brain. ‘What do I say?’
‘I met David after that, and he’s a great dad. He didn’t want me to tell you. That’s why he isn’t here. But when I got the letter from the school, it was like it was telling me I had to come here and let you know. You should know her, and she should know you.’
I stared at the picture. My daughter. I’d never choose to have a child. Never. My life was too fucked up. But I had a child. I’d had a child for all the years I’d been acting like a selfish bastard with Sharon. This little human being was made up of part of me. ‘You should have told me.’ I was a father. Me.
‘I should have. I know. I’m sorry. But at the point I felt capable of speaking to you about it, she was already four and I didn’t know how to begin.’
When she’d been five I’d married Sharon. Would I have made the same decision to lead a hedonistic life if I’d known about this child? Shit. I’d come here feeling introspective and nostalgic—questioning my life. This spun everything on its head. It was like someone had put my life in a box, picked it up and shaken it.
A child. I looked at Victoria, a frown probably making a line down the middle of my forehead. ‘Am I allowed to see her, then?’
‘Yes. David’s agreed.’
‘I doubt I need David’s agreement.’
‘Don’t be like that, please. If we’re doing this, if you want to see her and get to know her, then you have to do it sensitively. She’s a child. It will be a massive thing for her. You’ll need to take it slowly.’
‘This is a massive thing for me. I just discovered I have a seven-year-old daughter.’ When I’m not fit to be a father.
‘You’ll have to see her in my company, at least to begin with. I can’t let her visit someone who’s a stranger. You’d scare her.’
Scare her, my own child. But I had a legal right to her. I looked back at the picture. ‘Does she know about me?’
‘Yes, since she was four I’ve shown her your pictures from school, and said you’re her daddy.’
I looked at Victoria again. ‘So I’m not a complete stranger to her, but she is to me.’ I shut my eyes as a wave of pain washed through my soul. ‘You should’ve answered my messages that summer and told me. I would have helped you.’
‘Jack you liked me but you didn’t love me. You’d have felt guilty and made choices that changed your life, we’d have been stuck—’
‘It changed your life. If the two of us made her, shouldn’t the two of us have had equal impact? I would have loved her. I’m capable of love…’
Did I even know that? God, I hadn’t experienced it. I loved my parents and they were probably the only people, and look at what I’d done to them; we’d only spoken on birthdays and at Christmas since I’d been with Sharon.
I stared at the picture. My child. The emotion in me was like flowing ripples on a pond racing outward after someone had dropped a stone in the middle. Her eyes were so like mine. There was no point in denying it. I’d made a child. Me. God! I wasn’t going to mess her up. I had to do this. I had to be that man. As Victoria had said, there was no choice. I would love this child. I would shift heaven and earth. I would turn my fucking life around to be good enough for her. I had flesh and blood in this world.
How different would my life have been if Victoria had told me she was pregnant when I’d been seventeen?
There was no knowing.
Jealousy threw another fist into my stomach and clasped around my throat. I was jealous of Victoria, of her normal life, of her happiness – of the fact she’d brought up my daughter and seen her start to walk and learn to talk. ‘Tell me about her.’
I asked her everything. When did Daisy ride her first bike? What was the first word she’d said? What did she like to do? Was she a fast runner, like I’d been? Did she