old boyfriend of yours that was just a fling. How about that weird intense bloke who used to cycle over to our flat with organic wine in his backpack and a tin of chickpeas? That didn’t last longer than a couple of dates.’
‘Shut up. Shut up. This is not about who I slept with or whether it meant anything to me. This is about you sleeping with my best friend and you both deciding never to tell me. The two people I trusted the most.’ If I hadn’t been so angry, I might have got my own back, teasing him about the girlfriend who used to handwash her underwear when she stayed overnight and drape it around our bathroom, culminating in her catching Ginny dancing around the kitchen with a leopard-print thong on her head. But with the lens of hindsight shining fiercely on the two relationships I thought I knew inside out, I no longer had faith in anything I once took at face value.
And round and round we went, with Patrick claiming that because it pre-dated us getting together, it fell under the get-out clause of past history that didn’t need to be discussed.
‘So you wouldn’t mind if you found out I’d slept with Cory then?’
Patrick hesitated a moment before saying, ‘No, I’d be fine with it.’ However, I could tell from the way his jaw tightened that he wouldn’t like it either. He marched over to the sink and started rummaging in the cupboard for a cloth. ‘Did you sleep with him?’
I stared at him. ‘See, feels a bit different when the boot’s on the other foot.’
‘Are you going to answer the question?’
‘Why should I since none of it means anything? What does it matter to you? What was it you said? “It’s nearly twenty years ago.”’
And so it carried on, although the closest I’d got to sleeping with Cory was collapsing into each other on the sofa after too much red wine.
Patrick and I wrestled the house back into some kind of order against a soundtrack of Patrick pleading his case and me hissing accusations, as jealousy and hurt clouded my judgement. In the end, I snapped. Having to keep my voice to little more than a whisper so Victor didn’t overhear was adding to my fury. ‘Look, I don’t think we’re in a position to play families reunited right now. Let’s concentrate on sorting Phoebe out – if you’re still interested in your daughter now you’ve got a much easier son – and we’ll work out how to break the happy news to Victor that you’re actually his dad at a later date.’
We both fell silent when we heard Victor coming downstairs for breakfast.
As he walked in, Patrick made a pathetic attempt at disguising the misery vacuum-packing his adoptive family by being all hearty. ‘Bit of a party last night then?’
Victor grimaced. ‘Yep. Sorry. I probably should have rung one of you.’
Patrick spoke gently. ‘It’s not your fault, Victor. You were in quite a difficult position. Given how things have been lately, we were probably a bit optimistic in going out.’
I couldn’t bear to watch the interaction between them. Couldn’t stand to see how Patrick was looking at Victor, his eyes sweeping over him, as if he was seeing him in a completely new light. I almost sensed Patrick shifting perspective, the irresistible, primeval pull towards protecting your own.
I knew that what would be right for us as a family – me, Patrick and Phoebe – would alter direction now. His loyalties would be stretched and corralled down a different path from mine. I could look at our situation rationally, intellectually, with empathy, but I’d have to get past the fact that my feelings for Victor would always have a slight shadow over them, bound up forever in an odd sense of betrayal. If Patrick eventually experienced the same ferocious love for Victor as we did for Phoebe, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to join him or would endlessly lag behind on the journey.
I reminded myself that Victor was the innocent one in all of this. That whatever complex feelings his presence stirred up, none of this was his fault. In a bunker of dread lay the knowledge that he had a right to know who his father was. And Phoebe, to know that she had a brother. That left just me, with my nose pressed against the window, wondering where I fitted into the puzzle.