I’ve known about this for weeks and have been putting off telling her.
“Yeah,” I say lightly, “yeah. It’ll be great.”
“When?” she says petulantly.
“Wednesday, probably. Just finalizing.”
“She only wants to see you for your money.”
I sigh again. She’s obsessed with the money thing. Thinks everything is about the money, constantly.
“She’s just a money-grabbing little bitch. You know she is.”
This is based on me giving my daughter £500 about a year ago to help toward her puppy’s vet bill. Blaise offered to pay me back, but I wouldn’t let her. The only reason Jessamine knows about it is because she goes through all my paperwork and emails. I let her because it makes for an easy life, and if there’s one thing you must have worked out about me by now it’s that I like an easy life.
I give her a tight smile and then tell her I’m going down to make coffee for her mum.
“Well,” she shouts after me, “aren’t you going to say anything? I’m right, aren’t I? You know I’m right! Your choice to see her, but don’t come crying to me when she gives you some sob story about dying dogs and you end up giving her half your money!”
I slow as I approach the door, swallow down my fury, and quietly close the door behind me.
She sits across the kitchen table from me later that day, staring at me with icy eyes. I have made spaghetti with a slow-cooked cherry tomato and basil sauce. There are curls of hand-shaved parmesan on top of it. It’s one of my specialties. Daisy in particular loves it. I am drinking a cold lager, my third of the day. I will have two more in front of the TV and then I will stop drinking. Not least because if I drink any later than 9 p.m. I’ll be up half the night peeing. Jessamine is usually on her first rum and Coke by now, but I see that she has already emptied the bottle and is making her way swiftly through the second bottle of wine. I have a bad feeling.
“What have you done to your hair?” she snaps at Daisy.
Daisy shrugs. “I just cut some side bangs. It’s no big deal.”
Jessamine shudders lightly. “It looks terrible. You should have asked Grandma to book you a proper hair appointment.”
Daisy narrows her eyes at her mother and then looks at me as if to say: “What the fuck?”
“Well,” I say, “as a professional hairdresser I can truthfully say you’ve done a lovely job. Really suits you.”
Daisy has blossomed in the last couple of months. She turned twelve last October but looks older. She cut all her girlish hair off last year into a bob that skims her jawline, and she wears edgy makeup and wants to get herself pierced. She’s cool. Striking. We get on really well, and she is, as it’s probably clear, the only reason I’m still here.
She tells us about her day at school, about some girls who are giving her a hard time. Jessamine slops another serving of wine into her glass and says, “You make yourself stand out too much. That’s the problem.”
I throw her an admonishing look. “Jess,” I say, “that’s a terrible thing to say to a young girl.”
I turn to Daisy. “You can never stand out too much, OK? Remember that. All your life, just remember that.”
A darkness descends over the table. It feels like winter. I hear Annie clearing her throat. I hear Jessamine’s fork clank against her plate. Then I hear the sounds of the feet of Jessamine’s chair grinding against the tiled floor and the swoop of both of her arms, hands turned outward, heaving her plate of pasta across the table and straight toward me.
It tips into my lap, warm and red. The dish drops to the floor and smashes into two pieces. Annie makes a shrill, panicked noise; Daisy yells out. I don’t say a word or make a sound, I simply grab my paper napkin and scoop up the spaghetti from my lap and from the floor, get to my feet, put the napkin in the trash, put the two halves of the broken plate in the trash, and quietly leave the room.
She’s after me in seconds. I feel her fist around my ponytail, yanking my head back. I grab hold of my hair and try to pull myself away from her, but she yanks back harder. “What is it with you and her?” she hisses in my ear. Her breath is sour and hot. “Are you a pedo? Is that what it is? Do you fancy her?”
“Jesus Christ,” I snarl, freeing my hair from her grip and turning to face her. “Jesus! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”The horrible mimicry again. “You know what I’m talking about.” Her words are slurred, her eyes are wild. “You. And her. Daisy. You can’t get e-fucking-nough of her. Always complimenting her, telling her how great she is…”
“Well, I’m sorry, Jessamine, but someone has to. Left to you and your mother…”
The minute the words are out I know what I’ve done.
“Left to me and my mother…what?” Her voice is ripe with madness and fury.
“Nothing. Just that she needs a bit of building up. That’s all.”
