Page 120 of So, I Met This Guy . . .

Finally. The truth was out there. The two women looked at each other.

‘What the fuck, Maggie?’ Flick finally spoke, her face incredulous. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I know, I’m sorry; I don’t know why I kept it a secret. I just wanted to see him again by myself, to look him in the eye, to try to get some answers . . .’

She broke off and shook her head, trying to collect her thoughts.

‘I was worried he wouldn’t speak to a journalist, that your being there would frighten him off. I thought maybe I could persuade him to talk to you, that I could bribe him or threaten him or . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking . . . The irony is when I finally found him, I realized I didn’t want to find him. I didn’t want to see him again. I hate what he did to me, but I was scared—’

‘Scared of what?’

‘What he was going to say, how I was going to feel. Scared I wasn’t going to be strong enough, that he was going to suck me right back in again. That I still loved him.’

She’d finally said it. Finally admitted her worst fear.

Flick listened, trying to absorb this new information.

‘I can’t believe you’re telling me all this now.’

‘After I got my phone stolen there didn’t seem any point telling you at all. I didn’t have his number any more. I fucked it all up.’

‘You didn’t fuck anything up; you’ve been amazing, through all of this—’

‘Yes, I did and I’m so sorry. I know how important it is to you that we find him, I know that this story could be your big break – and you deserve that, you really do. You’re going to be a brilliant journalist, Flick, I just know it. You’re the cleverest, funniest person I know, but I can’t do this any more.’

‘There’s something else. It’s got nothing to do with my job.’

‘It’s over.’

‘Please, Maggie, I haven’t told you the truth either. That’s not the only reason I came looking for Theo Stratin . . .’

Something in Flick’s voice made Maggie stop and turn.

And there, in the dappled morning sunlight, barefoot and more vulnerable and confused than she’d ever allowed herself to be in her life, Flick finally said aloud the words she’d been keeping inside, for the very first time.

‘He’s my dad.’

Valencia

Day Ten

Four more days to go

Flick

I found out six months ago.

It was just after Mum’s funeral. Colin, my stepdad, asked if I wanted to keep any of her clothes and I was cleaning out her wardrobe, going through her all her clothes and shoes. Mum was a hoarder. She kept everything. Every birthday card, every childhood drawing of mine, all my old toys . . . there were boxes and boxes of stuff up in the attic and we’d already gone through a lot of it together. Looking at old photos. Ones of Mum when she’s a little girl, all knock-knees and gap-toothed smile. Me when I’m a baby. The three of us pulling silly faces on family days out.

Mum and Colin got married when I was eight years old. I’ve never met my real dad. Never known who he was or where he lived or even if he was still alive. My earliest memory is it just being the two of us, me and Mum. Double Trouble, that’s what she used to call us. We were so close, almost like sisters. It was only when I got older I realized something was missing. When I’d go round to friends’ houses and meet both their parents, or see Father’s Day cards in the shops and feel sad I didn’t have one to buy a card for. Or when I was picked on in the playground for not having a dad.

I never told Mum about the bullying. Never let her see the tears or the bruises from when I used to fight back. She was a single mum, working three jobs to support us, she had enough on her plate. I used to push the feelings down inside and retreat into my imagination. I remember she had some argument with her sister, my Auntie Pam, one year when we went camping. A vague recollection of them whispering in the corner of the caravan while I played make-believe with my dolls, her looking over at me and saying I should know the truth.

‘Know the truth about what?’ I remember demanding, curiously, only to be fobbed off with some excuse.

Adults do that a lot when you’re a kid. Telling you to go play, pretending like nothing’s going on, but kids always know there’s something going on and I knew it was about my dad. But Mum would never talk about him. Whenever I’d asked questions she’d always told me he wasn’t ready to be a daddy, but she’d wanted to be my mummy more than anything in the world and that she loved me so much, enough for both of them.

So instead I used to make up fantasies about him. He was Prince Charming on a horse and he was going to come and rescue us, like in the fairytales. Or a spy on a secret mission to save the world and one day, when he was done saving the world from disaster, he was going to turn up at school like all the other dads and I’d jump into his arms and he’d swing me around and around and around until I was dizzy.