Page 84 of The Happiest Ever After
Cilla dropped a disbelieving laugh. ‘How is she any of your business?’
‘You’re right, she isn’t, but I’ve really come to care about her. You are so lucky, Cilla. She’s a gorgeous girl – bright, ambitious—’
Cilla cut her off. ‘I know what she is because she’s my daughter.Mydaughter. Do you have a daughter?’
‘No, but—’
‘Then why are you about to tell me how to treat mine, because I can smell that’s what you’re itching to do and I’m not—’
‘My daughter died, Cilla.’ Sabrina’s turn to do the cutting off.
Cilla’s mouth snapped shut and when she opened it again to speak, her voice had dropped considerably in volume.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, her tone still stiff, still not conceding anything.
‘I imagined my daughter would turn out just like Flick.Confident and ready to take on the world.’ Sabrina smiled, thinking of her beautiful dark-haired Linnet working her way around Australia. She had felt so real, sovital, but she was just a figment of a desperately sad imagination that couldn’t let her go. ‘My own mother put everything before me – men, booze, money – and eventually it killed any affection I had for her because there’s no automatic right to love, Cilla, just because you’re related to someone. I know my memory is a little skew-whiff at the moment but when I think of my mother, there is no doubt in my mind that her place is taken by the aunt who was going to adopt me, and I feel nothing for the woman who gave birth to me other than resentment and disappointment and sadness. I’m here as a cautionary tale, Cilla. You are losing Flick; eventually the love she has for you will erode past the point of no return. I would give anything to have a relationship with a daughter. I’m beyond jealous of what you have and I can’t stand by and see you throwing it away.’
‘I love my daughter,’ said Cilla through clenched teeth.
‘Then show her. Respect her as the grown woman she is, be there for her, tell her you’re proud of her, tell her you love her because all she gets from you are petty criticisms and put-downs and she sees how much more important men and money are in your life than she is and, trust me, I can tell you how deeply that wounds. You’ve caused a lot of damage, Cilla, and you are going to end up miserable and alone if you don’t put this right. This might well be your last chance to save your relationship with your daughter; don’t throw it away.’
‘Well thank you for the lecture,’ said Cilla after a few seconds of silence. But it was bravado because Sabrina knew that she’d listened and that’s all she wanted, to hope that Cillacould see what she had to lose. She could do no more. She turned, opened the door and left.
Sabrina called in at a café on the way home so that Marielle and Teddy had time alone without her arrival interrupting anything. He’d gone by the time she reached the flat. She knocked on the adjoining door softly to check up on Marielle, who invited her through. She looked stronger than Sabrina had expected to find her.
‘How did he take it?’ asked Sabrina, putting on the kettle.
‘I don’t think he knew what to think. He was upset for me, he was angry at his father, I had to make him promise not to storm over to Cilla’s house because I know my boy and though he has a lot more control over himself than his father obviously had, he has a very pronounced sense of right and wrong. And he’s worried about how Flick will take it because she’ll have to know.’ Marielle pressed on her temples with her fingertips. ‘What a mess. Halfway through telling him, Sabrina, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Did he even need to know? I could have saved him the pain just by keeping it to myself. We should have done a paternity test first. Bev’s daughter works in a lab and she says if we do one, she’ll fast-track the results…’
Marielle was getting herself properly wound up. Sabrina abandoned any tea-making to sit with her.
‘None of this is your fault, Marielle. Yes, you did the right thing. You shouldn’t have to carry all this alone.’
‘Cilla’s husband was pale and fair and slight. I could never understand how two people like them could have produced Flick. She was the tallest girl in her class, the darkest-skinned. Cilla used to say she was a throwback but it crossed my mind more than once about her and Sal, because he didlike a pretty blonde, and I felt guilty that it had, can you believe.’ She laughed and a few tears escaped from her eyes at the same time.
There was a knock at the front door and they heard someone come in straight after.
‘I bet that’s Teddy,’ said Marielle. ‘He went off to clear his head. I knew he’d be back.’
But it wasn’t. The lounge door opened and in walked Cilla.
Chapter 45
‘Anything you have to say to me, you can say it in front of Sabrina,’ said Marielle, when Cilla had asked if she could have a word in private. ‘But I’m not sure I want to hear it.’ Cilla didn’t protest, though Marielle wouldn’t have stood for it if she had.
‘I didn’t want to come empty-handed but it’s Sunday and there was no place still open to buy flowers,’ said Cilla.
‘Cilla, if you’d brought me flowers, I would have rammed them where the sun doesn’t shine,’ replied Marielle coldly. ‘Now what do you want?’
‘You don’t know how sorry I am for what I told you,’ said Cilla.
‘I won’t ask you to swear that on the Bible.’
On cue, Cilla reached into her handbag and took out a small Bible which she put on the dining room table.
‘Anything you wish me to swear to, I will.’ She took a breath in as if to strengthen herself. ‘You might be glad to know that you were right. About Hugo.’
She told them that when she’d been putting everything back in the drawer that Flick had turned out, she noticed thather cheque book had a couple of stubs in it without cheques attached. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it – who used cheques much these days? – but she certainly wouldn’t have torn cheques from the back before using the next one in line.
