my friends were black and everyone looks at me and, guess what, they think I’m black. I mean, I’m not thinking I’m suddenly going to meet my white dad and start seeing myself as white, but I suppose I’d just like to know where I came from.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe I’d just like to know who my dad is full stop.’
‘I understand that.’ I breathed in and out as evenly as I could. My mind was racing as I tried not to lie. ‘Your mum didn’t speak much about your dad to me.’
‘Cory said that when I was ready, he might be able to point me in the right direction.’
‘When did he say that to you?’ I swallowed, wondering if Cory had known long before he told us and dropped a big fat hint in Victor’s direction.
‘He mentioned it when we all went out for a curry for my birthday. That he…’ Victor frowned, trying to remember. ‘That he wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have some papers from Mum that might give me a clue where to start.’
I remembered the whispering between them at the table. I’d dismissed my unease, thinking that Cory might have grown up sufficiently to be giving Victor some sound advice on his university choices. But no, he could never resist being the one in the know. Cory and his big bloody mouth. Totally adept at keeping his own secrets, a girlfriend in just about every country he did business in, and rarely getting caught out. Typical that the one flaming secret we needed to manage, if not keep forever, turned him into a five-year-old levering the lid up a crack without any concept of the trouble that would force its way out.
‘Let me talk to Patrick and we’ll take it from there.’
Victor turned to go.
‘Are you okay with us, though? I know it’s not easy for you. You must miss your mum.’ I ignored the surge of bitterness, pushing back the unfairness of it all.
Victor said, ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ as though he’d exhausted his opening-up quota for the day and was ready to scuttle off and lose himself in mindless scrolling on Instagram. I, on the other hand, couldn’t afford to be mindless. I needed to think with scientific clarity.
I debated calling Faye and pouring it all out, making her laugh about the utter absurdity of it all. I could hear her now – ‘You could be on Oprah!’ But since the car accident, she took longer to reply to my texts and, unless it was paranoia, the mobile she always had glued to her hand seemed to go to voicemail far more often than it used to. In any event, I couldn’t say anything before Patrick and I had reached an agreement on what approach to take.
Every time I considered the options, I wanted to shut myself into a big box to escape the test of whether I was generous-spirited enough not to project my hurt onto Victor.
These huge existential questions should have obliterated the petty considerations that had held me back in life, made me put up with other people’s crap, stopped me standing up for myself. Incredible that I still cared what people thought about me given that my life was sitting on the side of the toilet just waiting for a flush, but I did. And though I fought against it, tried to chase it away, hated myself for giving it headspace, the concern that crept in at 4 a.m. alongside how we were going to survive as a family was always ‘What will people say when they know Victor is Patrick’s son?’
Chapter Twenty
As soon as Patrick got home from his trip, I told him what Victor had said, whispering to him in the sitting room as he flopped into an armchair with a beer, looking worn out and grey.
‘I’ll tell Cory not to say anything until we’ve come up with a plan,’ he said.
I couldn’t sit. I was fidgeting around the room, picking up the little felt donkey we’d brought back from Spain, the blue glass vase from Sicily, the trinkets that I’d mistaken for evidence of a family life. Now I was flabbergasted that I’d found the early years with Phoebe so draining. Note to younger self: teaching a toddler to swim can be a little boring, helping a reluctant seven-year-old learn to read is a bit repetitive, playing table tennis with a nine-year-old inevitably ends in a tantrum if you don’t let them win, but