Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [14]
Nicholas snorted. He supposed Simon had thought of it as some sort of way to get laid on holiday without any hard work or responsibilities. ‘I hope you added your own punctuation.’
‘Of course I did. I told him if he didn’t want me now, he could consider me off limits for ever. Except I didn’t mean it. He knew that as well as I did.’
Natalie was crying quietly now, and she put her head on his shoulder. He reached up with his other hand and stroked her hair. His poor baby.
She’d always been the vulnerable one. Susannah – she was as tough as old boots. Beautiful, talented, confident. The only worries she’d ever given him and Anna were practical ones: where was she? How much bigger could her debts at drama college get? And Bridget was straightforwardly happy, even as a kid. You could put baby Bridget down on a two-foot-square mat in the living room and she’d never crawl off it. She would sit, playing contentedly with whatever was to hand, and never bother about what might be out of her reach. She didn’t ever get dirty, and she had rarely cried. As a grown woman, she was the same. She’d found Karl, and they were gently, impressively happy together. No crawling off the mat.
Natalie was always the one who had worried him most. When she was about ten, he’d been working in London. She’d come up with Anna and the other girls one day in the summer holidays to meet him at his office and have lunch together, then go to Madame Tussaud’s or somewhere. They’d passed a homeless guy, sitting in a thin sleeping-bag at the entrance to the tube, a scrawny dog lying in his lap. She’d talked of nothing else all day. How did he feed the dog? Why wasn’t there somewhere they could go to sleep? How did they stay clean? Her big eyes had been wide with concern, and he remembered wanting to pick her up and hold her to him, protect her from all of the world. He had that feeling again now, as they sat on the park bench and she cried on his shoulder.
And it didn’t get easier to protect her, it just got more difficult. And she hadn’t told him, until now.
‘Why didn’t you tell us, when you were home for Christmas?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Ashamed, I suppose.’
‘Why would you be ashamed?’ Nicholas had sounded angrier than he’d meant to.
‘I feel like a failure, Dad. No one wants me.’
Nicholas’s chest hurt. ‘That’s not true, my love.’
‘I know what you’re going to say, Dad, because you’ve said it before. It’s his loss, he’s the fool, I’m beautiful and lovely, and some lucky guy out there is waiting to make me happy. I’ve heard it before. I believed it before. I just don’t believe it any more.’
‘Because of Simon.’
‘Yes. I really loved him, Dad. I really love him. Six years. For six years I did nothing but love him.’
‘And do you really think it’s over?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. But it’s spoilt, isn’t it? Even if he changes his mind.’ She got a pack of tissues out of her pocket, and blew her nose noisily. ‘And I didn’t want to ruin everyone else’s Christmas with my bad news. I knew Mum was already upset because Suze wasn’t at home for long, and Bridge and Karl are so happy, and—’
‘I wish you’d told us.’
‘I do too. I’m sorry, Daddy.’
‘Sssh.’ Daddy? How long was it since anyone had called him that? ‘That’s all done with now. You’ve told me. I’m glad.’
‘Will you tell Mum?’
‘Of course I will, if that’s what you want.’
Natalie nodded. It was exhausting, talking and thinking about it. And she couldn’t second-guess how her mum would take it.
‘Does Bridget know?’
She shook her head. ‘Just Rose. And Tom.’
‘And that’s why you were at the pub with him.’
‘Yep. My knight in shining armour – he rescued me. He stopped me staying in the flat on my own, drinking a bottle of vodka and drowning in a pool of my own vomit.’ She laughed, a small sad laugh.
‘Don’t even joke about things like that,’ Nicholas said. ‘Thank