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“Had it bad, then?” I said.
He didn’t answer, just stared beyond me. “Six months we were seeing each other, and then I cooled it off. Olivia was at breaking point, and I felt so bad for the boys, Carl. The guilt crippled me. I talked myself into giving it another go, one last shot. Stupid. It was stupid.” He laughed a sad laugh. “I wanted to be with another woman, and still I convinced myself to stay.”
“Understandable,” I said. “For the boys.”
His eyes met mine, and they were so blue, just like Katie’s. “We had sex. Just once. Just to try and get the spark back.”
I held up a hand. “You don’t need to tell me the details, David, not if you don’t want to.”
He waved my words aside. “Once, Carl, it was just once, and I knew then. I knew my heart wasn’t in it, would never be in it. I loved Olivia, she’d given me two beautiful boys and made a home for them, she’d been there when I was a nobody and was still right there when I wasn’t. She’s a good woman, Carl, she’s still a good woman, but I was in love with Debbie.”
“And then?” I prompted.
“I told Debbie I was leaving Olivia. She was so happy, Carl. So fucking happy. I can still picture her face.” He rubbed his forehead. “We talked about how things would be. We made plans, so many fucking plans. All I needed to do was tell Olivia it was over. I psyched myself up to it over a couple of weeks. We were busy, they went quickly. Two weeks, three weeks, a month. Debbie was getting edgy, I could see it in her eyes, so one day I just bit the bullet. I drove home and waited until the boys were in bed and told Liv we needed to talk.” His eyes were so pained when they looked at mine. “She agreed, said we very much needed to talk.” I knew before he said it, but I didn’t stop his flow. “She was pregnant, Carl. Fucking pregnant.”
I nodded. “Verity.”
“Our little princess.” He finished his scotch. “Olivia knew about Debbie. I hadn’t been all that quiet about it. She wanted her gone.”
“What did you do?”
“I broke Debbie’s heart.” He sighed. “Gave her a good severance package, told her I was sorry, told her I didn’t have a choice.” He looked me in the eye. “I didn’t know she was pregnant, too. Fucking hell, Carl, what were the fucking odds? Five days apart, Verity and Katie. Five fucking days.”
“That’s… virile.” I smiled.
“That’s a fucking nightmare,” he said. “Debbie left, wanted nothing to do with me once I’d chosen Olivia over her. I found out she was pregnant through a friend of hers, girl in the office called Maggie. I went round to her parents’ house and confronted her, but she said it was already done.”
“Done?”
“Abortion, she said. She was nineteen years old, she said, no partner, she said, no prospects, she said. She was angry, and hurt, and hostile. Leave and never come back, she said.”
“So that’s what you did?”
“That’s what I did. Felt easier that way, for both of us.” He leaned towards me. “I swear I didn’t know about Katie, Carl, not until the girl was just shy of ten. I was coming back from a meeting in Hereford, supplier up on the Three Elms Trading Estate, took the road through Much Arlock, and there she was, my Debbie, walking up the street as I stopped at the lights. She had a girl with her, in her school uniform. My window was open all the way down, and I heard Katie’s voice.Mum, she said, and I knew, I just fucking knew.”
“Shit,” I said. “That’s a head fuck.”
“Never felt so fucked up in my life,” he said. “Shocked, and angry, and disgusted at myself. And then sad, so fucking sad.”
“What did you do?”
“I looked up Debbie’s new address, went round there when Katie was at school. She looked like she’d seen a fucking ghost, and so did I. She denied it at first, said Katie wasn’t mine, but I demanded to see her birth certificate. I was a blank fucking space, Carl, a nobody, but dates don’t lie. Debbie cried then, cried and begged me to stay away, said they didn’t need me, neither of them, said they’d been coping just fine.”
“Shit.”
“She was a care worker, still is. My bright little Debbie wiping up old people’s shit to support my daughter while I lived the life of fucking Riley a few miles away.”
“What did you do?”
He shook his head. “Acted impulsively. Went straight home and told Olivia, told her I had another daughter and she’d be coming to stay with us. Insisted we tell the kids, insisted we invite Katie into our home. I forced my wishes on Debbie, threatened legal action, DNA testing, allthat. I thought it would be easy. I was angry, Carl.”
And I knew the story from here. “I remember.”
“I didn’t tell anyone much about the backstory, I was too ashamed and Olivia was fucking mortified. I kept quiet but insisted that Katie was my daughter now, told Debbie that the past didn’t matter, that what counted was what we did from there.” He groaned. “I thought I could make it all right, thought if I pushed hard enough people would accept it, learn to love it. I met Katie for the very first time as she climbed into my car for her first day at ours. I was such a fucking prick, Carl, handled it all wrong. The girl didn’t get a chance to find her feet, I just wanted her to meet her brothers and sister, wanted her to see what a nice house we had, how much fun she could have. But she hated it, and Verity hated her. The whole thing was a fucking disaster.”
“Must have been hard on the kids, all of them.”
He nodded. “I thought they’d adapt, slowly, learn to get on. I thought we’d be alright.”
