Chapter Seventeen
When Daisy and I got back to the hotel, the family were all sitting in the hotel bar, chortling about something so loudly that other guests, who mostly looked like they were after a quiet, pre-dinner drink, were looking over with varying degrees of irritation.
It was like the Leveson-Gowers didn’t care what anyone else thought.
I realised that that was what really annoyed me about them.
They had this overinflated sense of themselves, as though the oh-so-fabulous life they were living was one we should all aspire to.
They probably thought we were all seething with envy, which I certainly wasn’t, because I’d always believed that people who constantly judged other people were probably doing it to make themselves feel better.
I looked at Daisy as we went across to join them at their table.
‘You OK?’ I whispered.
She nodded. It was still obvious she’d been crying, but Daisy reckoned it was likely her mum would be too self-absorbed to ask.
Except that Sophia was staring at the two of us walking in together and I couldn’t quite work out what the look on her face meant, but she didn’t exactly seem pleased.
What had I done now? Which major faux pas had I unsuspectingly committed?
‘Daisy? Come over here, please,’ said Sophia, patting the empty chair next to hers.
Daisy gave me a help me look and I smiled encouragingly at her, wishing I knew how to make things easier for her. I stood there awkwardly for a moment or two, wondering whether anyone would notice if I just skulked up to my room, but then Nick waved me over.
‘I’ll make space for you here, Maddie. Come on.’
Dutifully, I went to sit next to him.
‘We were just reminiscing about our last family ski trip to Verbier,’ said Rosamund. ‘Nick went off on a black run and didn’t come back for hours. I was on the phone to search and rescue when he waltzed back through the door of the chalet looking worse for wear.’
‘You’d had a fall?’ I asked innocently.
‘No, I’d been indulging in rather too much apres-ski!’ Nick chortled.
Everyone found this hilarious.
‘Do you ski, Maddie?’ asked Peter.
‘Afraid not.’
I tuned in to Daisy and Sophia’s conversation, which didn’t seem to be going well.
‘I insist that you tell me what the matter is,’ Sophia was saying. ‘Right now. We don’t keep secrets from each other, Daisy.’
‘I don’t want to think about it anymore,’ replied Daisy, sulkily. ‘Anyway, I’ve already talked it through with Maddie and now I feel much better.’
‘You’ve talked it through with … Maddie?!’ said Sophia, clearly not believing what she was hearing.
I winced. She threw me one of her ‘if looks could kill’ sideways glances and I swiped a menu off the table and pretended to read it.
‘Why on earth would you talk to her about your issues?’ she whispered, clearly not realising that we could all hear every word. ‘I’m your mother. I’m the one you should be coming to.’
‘I can talk to who I like,’ said Daisy, defiantly. ‘And, honestly, you’d be the last person I’d come to.’
‘Wait until I tell your father about this!’ snapped Sophia.
‘Tell me what?’ said Nick.
Sophia looked as though she might be about to explode.
‘Your daughter has been talking to other people about her problems.’ She glanced at me, then turned her attention back to Nick, one eyebrow raised.
‘Which other people?’ asked Nick.
‘Maddie,’ said Daisy, throwing Sophia under the bus.
In that moment, I thought I might just have found an ally in this wretched family.
Nick looked confused. ‘And you’re angry because …?’
‘Because,’ spat Sophia, ‘because Daisy should—’
‘Maddie will be part of our family when she marries Dad,’ said Daisy. ‘And she’s nice to talk to and you’re not, so that’s what I’m going to carry on doing and you can’t stop me.’
Part of me was enjoying seeing the look on Sophia’s face and part of me wished the ground would open up and swallow me.
As if sensing this terrible combo of emotions, Nick patted my knee ineffectively.
‘Calm down, Sophia. And show Maddie some respect, please. We should be happy that Daisy has someone to open up to. It’s not good to bottle things up, especially at that age.’
Sophia looked at him with disgust.
‘Thanks,’ I said to him quietly.
‘Well,’ said Rosamund, clapping her hands together like a class teacher. ‘Sophia, dear, why don’t you pop and get freshened up for dinner?’
‘I am ready for dinner,’ said Sophia in a strangely robotic voice, possibly because her jaw was so tightly clenched she couldn’t form words properly.
Rosamund bristled. She wasn’t used to people losing control, or at least, not in public.
‘In that case, Nick, why don’t you take Maddie upstairs to cool off?’
The waiter chose that moment to deliver my Chianti Classico. My first mouthful transported me right back to Maurizio’s vineyard and it was Aidan I saw when I imagined being there, listening as intently as I was, golden brown from a few days in the sun, shirtsleeves rolled up.
‘I don’t need to cool off, Rosamund,’ I said. ‘I’m perfectly fine here.’
Nick, I noticed, was squirming. Things were probably getting much too emotional for his liking.
‘I think it would be best, Madeleine,’ insisted Rosamund, determined to exert her authority.
‘What are you dismissing Maddie for, Granny? She’s done nothing wrong,’ piped up Daisy.
I loved her in that moment.
‘Enough!’ said Nick in a rare burst of anger. He always said that losing your temper should be avoided at all costs. ‘Maddie, let’s go upstairs. We need to get ready for dinner, anyway.’
‘Fine,’ I said, standing up.
The sooner I got away from this lot, the better.
As we walked to the lifts, Nick was seething, I could tell.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked as he jabbed the Call Lift button so hard I thought he might be about to break it.
‘Talk about what?’
‘You seem angry.’
That was an understatement, but I thought I’d better be subtle about it given the mood he was in.
‘I’m frustrated, Maddie. There’s a difference.’
The lift still was not coming.
‘Frustrated about Sophia?’ I prompted.
Nick groaned. ‘No. Not just Sophia.’
The lift doors finally opened and we stepped inside.
‘Come on, then,’ I said, as the doors closed behind us. ‘What’s frustrating you so much?’
Nick couldn’t seem to look at me.
‘This wasn’t how I thought it would be, that’s all,’ he said quietly. ‘You meeting my family. I didn’t think it would be so …’
‘Difficult?’ I suggested. ‘Explosive?’
He nodded tersely.
‘They’re not as awful as you seem to think, Maddie,’ he said. ‘And what you need to remember is that these are the people I love most in the world.’
‘Of course I know that.’
‘Then why can’t you try a bit harder?’
I watched his facial expression carefully.
‘Are you annoyed that we keep clashing? Over almost everything?’ I asked.
I wanted him to be honest with me. Brutally, if necessary.
He sighed. ‘I feel like …’
‘Go on.’
‘Like you’re all bringing out the worst in each other.’
I became aware of my chest rising and falling.
Of feeling like I wanted to fight my corner and tell him a few home truths, but I thought I’d probably say things I’d regret and so I closed my eyes for a second or two, trying to stay calm.
It felt like a kick in the teeth, because I’d been kidding myself that I was the most important person in his life, but it didn’t seem that way anymore.
I felt this panic, suddenly, engulfing me out of nowhere.
My whole life mapped out in front of me, a life where I had to stifle my true self, where I felt less-than, just as I had when I was growing up.
Was this my destiny, then, to replace my disinterested parents with somebody else’s utterly disinterested parents?
‘So what you’re saying is, I need to get on better with them otherwise maybe it’s not going to work between us?’ I asked, making sure I hadn’t got it wrong; skewed it in my mind.
Nick didn’t say anything at first.
We reached our floor and the lift doors opened with a ping. Nick got out first, leaving me to follow a few steps behind.
‘Is that what you’re saying or not?’ I called after him.
I supposed he could say I was goading him, but who wouldn’t, at a moment like this? I needed to know exactly what he was thinking, I deserved to know that.
As he fumbled with the key swipe on our door, he spoke very quietly. ‘No, Maddie. I love you. And that is not what I’m saying.’
So why didn’t I believe him?