His pudgy face creased in a frown, then he glanced down at his phone before looking uncertainly back at her. ‘Mrs Robinson?’ he said. You could almost hear the cogs grinding in his brain with painful slowness. Is she even old enough? he’d be thinking. What am I missing here?
Eliza folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot. Come on, Steve, make the connection, she thought. You can do it.
‘You asked me to quote for . . .’ he said, followed by another swift check of his phone, renewed doubt in his eyes. Apparently basic logic was still beyond his means. ‘A kitchen redecoration?’
Eliza snorted sarcastically, louder than was necessary, in an attempt to cover up precisely how crushed his blankness had left her. Despite everything. When she should have known better. Because he clearly didn’t remember her at all, unless his gormlessness was merely an act of cruelty. Her insides felt newly hollowed out; she was an avocado with the flesh scooped clean away. ‘Yeah, I did, didn’t I?’ she replied, deadpan. Still nothing.
He hesitated, then gestured at the house. ‘Er . . . Shall we go in, then?’
‘No,’ she said impatiently, and then her muddled feelings gave way to facetiousness because it seemed to be all she had left. ‘Let’s not. Because I don’t live there and we probably shouldn’t go breaking and entering. Not on a Thursday, anyway.’ Her own home was twenty miles away in Scarborough; her journey had involved two buses and a walk up from the bus station, plus a lie to her mum that morning about a migraine, so that she could have time off school. And now here she was, standing in front of a smart semi-detached house just outside Whitby, her heart thumping while Steve Pickering gazed at her in confusion. She was starting to wish she hadn’t bothered.
Dejection took hold and she sighed. Even after so many years, she’d hoped there might be at least a flicker of recognition. Blood calling to blood. ‘I’m not Mrs Robinson,’ she said through clenched teeth, because clearly she would have to spell this out to him. ‘I’m Eliza. Eliza Spencer. Your daughter.’
A flash of pure astonishment crossed his face, then he blinked several times before he looked at her with a new, unreadable expression. Fondness or regret? Horror? Eliza wondered, hardly able to breathe as they stood staring at one another for an intense, heart-pounding moment.
‘Eliza, hey?’ he said eventually. ‘Wow. Look at you. You must be – what, seventeen now?’ He shook his head. ‘Wow,’ he said again, as if that was all he could come up with.
She rolled her eyes, fists curled so tightly that on the bus ride home, she’d find crescent-moon imprints gouged in her palms from her fingernails. For crying out loud. Was that it? He was hopeless. An abomination of a man. Could he make it any more obvious that he didn’t care? ‘Eighteen,’ she replied crisply. ‘An adult. And I arranged this because I want some answers. I need some answers, all right? Dad,’ she added, for good measure.
Was it her imagination or did the name make him cringe momentarily? His wide shoulders slumped and he stared down at the pavement for a long few seconds. The wind blew in Eliza’s face, cold and spiteful, and she felt her eyes begin to water. Great. Now it would look as if she was crying, she thought, furiously wiping them with her jacket sleeve. At last he lifted his head and spoke. ‘Listen, we should probably talk about this inside,’ he said gruffly, with another miserable glance over at the house.
‘I don’t live there!’ Eliza repeated, throwing up her hands in annoyance. God, was he completely thick, as well? How many times did she have to tell him? Although he had a point, she conceded grudgingly in the next second. Nobody wanted to air their dirty laundry in public. ‘We could sit in your van though,’ she suggested after a beat of silence. ‘If you’re that embarrassed about talking to me out here.’
He hesitated, running a hand through his hair. It needed a cut, she noticed, feeling more and more contempt for him with every minute. He was pathetic! Mum was right, they were definitely better off without him. It was rubbish being related to someone like Steve Pickering, now that she had seen for herself exactly how weak and shabby he was.
‘Look, Eliza,’ he said, then stopped again. He seemed to be having some kind of internal wrestling match about what to do. ‘I’m not sure there’s much point us having this conversation,’ he went on eventually, his voice so gentle it seemed impossible that he could be saying these horrific words aloud.
Fury burst up in Eliza, consuming her entirely. ‘Well, what a fucking surprise,’ she snapped, glaring at him with such hatred she almost believed she could scorch him with it, given long enough. Blow up his van too, while she was at it. Set the privet hedge alight with crackling flames. ‘And there was me hoping we could both be adults about this. Start again. Attempt some kind of connection, like two human beings, but—’
‘Eliza, stop,’ he said, then rubbed his face, seeming exasperated. Possibly even sad, on a closer look. She could hear the bristles rasping on his chin now that the breeze had dropped. ‘She hasn’t told you, has she? She’s never actually told you.’
That brought Eliza up short. ‘Told me what?’
‘That . . .’ His shoulders sank again. He could barely look at her, glancing instead over at his badly painted van. ‘On second thoughts, yes, let’s sit in the van. Have a proper chat, rather than—’
‘Just tell me,’ she broke in, unable to bear stringing this out any longer. ‘Please. Whatever it is.’
‘Okay,’ he said heavily. ‘Well . . . bottom line is, I’m not your dad. That’s why we broke up, me and her. All right? I’m sorry, love,’ he added, his brown eyes moist all of a sudden. ‘I was devastated. Because . . . you know.’ His voice had become gruff. ‘Because I really liked being your dad. But . . .’
She blinked because his words were hitting her belatedly. I’m not your dad. All right? No, she was not all right. Each word was like a sledgehammer, battering the breath from her lungs. ‘You’re not . . .’ she croaked before breaking off. ‘Well, who is, then? Who is my dad?’
There was an air of apology, even mournfulness, about his shrug. ‘I’m not sure, Eliza. Sorry,’ he said again. ‘You’ll have to ask your mum. I’ve got no idea.’
She scowled at him with new ferocity because what he was saying couldn’t possibly be true. It simply couldn’t. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘God! Even now you still can’t be honest. You can’t admit that you’ve been a total shit to me and to her.’ She wheeled around on the spot, partly to avoid letting him see the hot tears that had suddenly swelled in her eyes. ‘Well, sod off, then. We don’t care. We don’t need you anyway!’
Marching away, something seemed to crack inside her. The hopeful buoyancy that had propelled her this far crumbled abruptly to rubble, leaving a paralysing disquiet in its place. It couldn’t be true, could it, what he’d said? Because who even was she, if not the daughter of Steve Pickering? What did this mean?