I hesitate. “Oh, nothing. I don’t know. I’m just feeling a bit jumpy, being here on my own, I guess.”
I perch on the arm of a chair, tracing scratches in the wooden tabletop with my thumb.
“Do you want me to come over?” he asks. I try to analyze his tone of voice. Not keen. Maybe reluctant, or maybe just wary. I swallow.
“No, it’s fine. I’m going to ask Edwin and Danny to come down for the weekend. I’ll let you go. I’m fine. Everything’s fine, really.”
He starts to say something, but I hang up, my heart thudding.I’m fine. I’m fine.We’re sopoliteto each other these days, so distant. I wish I’d never called him.
I know I need to talk to Edwin, although I’m determined not to tell him yet about the lipstick warning or the burned grass. I want him to come and meet Kiara with me—both him and Danny. I want to present a united front to Alex’s daughter, in case she springs something on us we’re not prepared for.
I stand under the hot water in my little en suite shower room until the temperature starts to fall, and then I pull on clean clothes. I can’t put it off any longer. I call Edwin’s mobile.
“Hey, how’re you doing?” he says.
“I’m okay. Can you talk?”
“I’m just on my way to meet Danny and Brooke,” he says, and I can hear the rhythm of his breathing as he walks. “Thought we’d have a drink out, it’s such a nice evening.”
I’m not sure why I feel so unsettled by Danny’s new girlfriend. He’s never been one for serious relationships, but this one seems different somehow. Brooke gives the impression she’s someone who gets what she wants.
“Edwin, listen. I need to tell you something.”
“Oh God, Seraphine. You haven’t been to see Laura again?”
“No, of course not,” I say, and there’s a pause. I hear a heavier exhale as if he’s just sat down.
“Okay. Talk,” he says. “I’m listening.”
I push the image of the lipstick writing from my mind, and try to decide where to start.
“You still there?” he asks.
“I went to see Alex. Alex Kaimal.”
“You what?” he says, his voice a sudden boom so that I have to tilt the phone away from my ear.
I lean back on my bed as I wait for him to digest this.
“Bloody hell, Seph. What did he say?” he asks.
“He said I was impossible.”
“What?”
I sigh. “He knew Mum and Dad, but he didn’t know who I was. He said I couldn’t possibly be their daughter.”
“Seraphine...”
“Edwin. He had a girl with him. His daughter. She’s called Kiara.”
“Seraphine, you can’t just approach strange men. It’s harassment.”
“It was fine. The thing is—Kiara, his daughter, she wants to meet up with us. I’ve asked her down here for lunch on Saturday.”
Edwin groans, the tail end of it sounding more like a growl. “Alex’s daughter? Seriously? Why?”
“She just—she’d like to meet us. And—” I think about Kiara’s message; she lost her mother when she was a baby too. “You know, she might be able to tell us something. Will you and Danny come down and be with me when she arrives? I don’t want to do it by myself.”
