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James was silent as the childhood pain flashed back with such intensity it felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
‘But on Monday?’
‘You can imagine,’ he said bitterly. ‘He told everyone that Mum and Dad were “chavs”, and gleefully tore apart everything about them and our home. I remember being so shocked at the vitriol and scorn. It was the first experience I’d ever had of how the upper classes could be, and I couldn’t believe someone I thought was my friend could be so mean.’
Estelle nodded, her expression telling him that she knew exactly what he was talking about.
‘So, what did you do?’
He huffed. ‘I became meaner. I cornered him in the toilet, punched him as hard as a seven-year-old could, and told him my dad was an East End gangster. I told the little shit if he ever breathed a word to anyone again about my family, then my dad would burn his house down with his whole family in it. At the end of the day, I told my folks I needed to go to a new school, and was never inviting anyone home again.’
‘I’m sorry. That sounds a lot like our experiences growing up. Me, Connor, and Henry in particular.’
The uncomfortable feeling in James’s stomach intensified as he remembered how much of a casual bully he’d been to Henry when they were at Eton. He’d been trying to protect the persona he’d created so fiercely, it never crossed his mind that Henry was living with similar pain.
‘I presume other kids gave you shit as well?’ he asked.
‘Yup. Every day.’ Estelle paused as Leia cleared the table, then she continued. ‘Dad wouldn’t let me or Connor go to another school, but at least we had each other, as well as Finn and Jack. But it was still brutal.’
She took a crayon, fiddling with it as she continued. ‘Your origin story started when you were seven and so did mine.’
His whole body was wired as he listened, as if readying to leave the restaurant to hunt down and slay whichever monster had harmed her in the past.
‘Mom, Dad and Mammy were even more outrageous when we were younger than they are now, and Dad in particular used to love pissing people off. But it wasn’t so much locals, as the kind of folks who enjoy being offended and read the Daily Mail. You know, so they know who to blame the rise in house prices on. Anyway, the newspaper organised this letter-writing campaign against my folks, and my dad decided it would be a fantastic idea to dress up, take us all into the centre of Foxbrooke one Saturday afternoon and burn them all.’
Fucking hell. James could only imagine the spectacle that had been. He waited for her to continue.
‘A reporter had infiltrated one of the sex parties a couple of weeks before this and reported that not only were there tons of drugs, but that we were also in the house at the time.’
What the—
Estelle held up her hands. ‘We were in a separate wing with Mammy and never heard or saw anything. I didn’t even know what the word “sex” was until after everything kicked off.’
‘What happened?’
The crayon in Estelle’s fingers snapped. She stared at it, as if surprised it had broken.
She put the pieces to one side. ‘The police were called and took all us kids into emergency care for a week.’
‘Jesus.’
She nodded. ‘It was terrifying. Willow was a baby at the time and was screaming like she was being murdered. Leo wet himself, Henry froze, and Connor and I copied our parents and kicked off like rabid dogs. After that, everything changed.’
Leia arrived with their mains. The smell was incredible, and also comforting, as if an Italian nonna had made it, not a strapping bloke with a Star Wars obsession. James was silent as they ate, picturing Estelle at seven being taken from her parents. He’d always thought Henry and his siblings had led the most privileged of lives, but he now knew just how wrong he’d been. James’s coping strategy had been to be brash and aggressively alpha, but Henry had gone the other way. Memories of how he’d treated him filtered into James’s stomach like bile.
‘We can’t choose our parents,’ Estelle said, ‘but we can learn to deal with, or modify our reaction to them. And the most important thing of all is that they love us. They might drive us up the wall, but their hearts are in the right place.’
Even if their brains aren’t… James finished his mouthful and steeled himself. One of the reasons he’d never had a long-term girlfriend before was that the thought of introducing them to his parents had brought on the same anxiety that had riddled his childhood. But Estelle had met his family and hadn’t ever passed judgement. Now he needed to take out his last locked box, show her what was inside, and hope she still gave him, and his dad, the time of day.
‘I want to tell you why I stole Henry’s client and the deal he’d been working on.’
Her knife and fork clattered to the plate. ‘You don’t deny it?’
‘I’ve never denied it. I’ve just never told anyone why.’
‘Go on then. Why did you do it?’ Her features were hard, but he could see the vulnerability behind them. Estelle loved her twin and was loyal to him, so liking James, even being with him now, must have felt like a betrayal.
‘I was with my parents one weekend and it was late on Saturday night,’ he began. ‘Mum had gone to bed and Dad and I were drunk and having a macho pissing contest about how successful we were.’ He shook his head. ‘Looking back, I think both of us felt insecure compared to the other, so kept upping the ante until we must have sounded like a couple of absolute twats.’
