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No. Don’t worry. I’ll see you later. I try to make it sound authentic. I’ll watch TV and nap until you get here.
I’m still sitting at the breakfast bar in a panic induced haze when a reply comes from Janie saying no problem and to rest up. I don’t know how long I’m sitting here, dumbfounded, before I decide to take some action of my own.
I grab my laptop and look Ant’s mum’s number up online, and a name shows up. Callie-Ann Bradstone, with an address in Liverpool. I search for more about Callie-Ann Bradstone but don’t find a thing. I put the address into virtual street checker and see the flat she’s registered as living in. It’s a cheap, nasty block with loads of trash bins outside. None of it makes any sense. I dig in deeper, but don’t get anywhere. Time blurs as I look for more but find nothing. I’m still feeling sick and still searching for Callie-Ann Bradstone information online when I hear the Audi pull up outside.
Shit. I should’ve known Ant would leave his meeting to be with me, regardless of whether or not I assured him I’d be fine.
The prickles hit hard again, the emotions in me churning up and ready to blow when he steps into the kitchen with his keys in his hand.
“Baby, I thought you’d be napping on the sofa in front of the TV. I’d have called if I’d have known you were up and about.” He walks closer, looking so concerned that it makes me want to dry retch. “What’s up, baby?”
I say it outright, looking him straight in the eye.
“Your mum called.”
I’m waiting for some kind of recoil, or shock, or exclamation of what the fuck, but there is nothing. Not even a waver in his stare.
“Really? If she calls again, you can tell her to fuck off and quit trying.”
He walks straight over to the fridge and gets a mineral water for both of us, and I can’t believe I’m having to point out the obvious.
“You told me she was dead.”
“She is,” he says. “Dead to me.”
His tone is so calm but so cold. He presents me with my water and takes a swig of his.
“You said she died of heart problems… when you were twelve…”
“She did have heart problems. She had heart problems from the day I was born. Her heart never worked, since she didn’t give a shit about me from day one.”
“She sounded quite like she gave a shit about you on the phone this morning.” I can hear myself getting choked up and it sounds all the more dramatic, given the calmness in him. “She was sobbing. Begging me to pass on her number. She sounded absolutely desperate, Ant.”
He sneers. “Yeah, sure she did. Boo fucking hoo for her. I’ll get the number changed this afternoon, don’t worry.”
I can’t believe he’s so composed. I look at his face, and he’s as coldly rational as ever, without even a hint of emotion in his eyes.
“You told me she was dead,” I say again. “Why did you lie to me?”
He reacts to that word. His stare is sharp this time when it lands on mine.
“I didn’t lie, Cass. She is dead to me.”
“She isn’t dead though, is she? She’s alive and sobbing for you. She was desperate for me to tell you she called, and I was standing there like an idiot, not knowing what the hell I should say.”
“Nothing,” he tells me. “You should say nothing.”
“It would’ve been a lot easier to say nothing if I’d have had any idea whatsoever that she’d call. How was I supposed to react, hey?” My words get more agitated. “Oh, hi. Sorry, he’s not in right now, bit of a surprise you’re calling, since he said you were fucking DEAD!”
“SHE IS DEAD!”
He slams his glass on the counter with enough force that I flinch. He leans across to me, and his words are spikier than the prickles on my neck, low and cold and scathing.
“That bitch didn’t give a shit for me from the very second I was born. I was a mistake, and she made sure I knew it. She was a loser who treated me like I was nothing, right from the fucking start. My father would have been some useless cunt who unloaded his cum in her cheap pussy and fucked off without even knowing her name. But you know what? Despite the fact I was a mistake and she treated me like one, I loved her anyway. I did what I was told, begged her to spend some time with me, hoped that by being a good boy she might see that I wasn’t such a useless piece of crap, but it didn’t matter. She thought I was a piece of crap anyway.”
I stare at him in horror as he continues.
