Chapter 47
MINNIE
SURREY, ENGLAND
Mum doesn’t greet me when she opens the door. To be fair, she couldn’t get to me if she wanted to. I’m besieged by floofs whacking each other with their excited tails and trying to out-bark one another. Mum silently takes one of my oversized cases and leaves it at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Kitchen,’ she throws over her shoulder.
The dogs and I follow after her, my feet so reluctant it’s like my shoes are filled with water.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous to step foot in my own kitchen, not even when I got a B for A Level art.
We haven’t spoken in three weeks – the longest we’ve ever gone.
Quitting my job was probably a good thing in this instance otherwise who knows how long we’d have avoided each other. The thought makes my heart hurt.
Mum’s a stubborn mule when she wants to be, so I’m not expecting miracles. That icy welcome reaffirms that she didn’t spend every minute of our time apart stewing over how mean she was. At least she let me in, I suppose.
Yes, I lied and I regret it, and I’m really sorry I hurt her, but I’m not going to apologise for anything else.
I meant what I said about her, Dad, Jack, the lot.
We need to come to some sort of truce. It felt so possible on the flight from Monaco.
But now? With her deadpan expression and Bananarama top that reads ‘SHUT UP, KIM’? God knows.
On the table are a bottle of limoncello and two shot glasses. Is she expecting company? It’s barely noon. I’m not judging but… I’m also judging.
‘Sit.’ She motions to the chair opposite hers.
‘Do we only use one-word sentences now?’ I ask, stripping out of my coat and scarf.
She waits until I’m seated before speaking again.
‘I’ve only ever tried to protect you. I’m not saying I’ve always done it perfectly, but I’ve never acted with purposefully selfish intentions.
I’m not apologising for that, but I admit I could’ve gone about it a different way and consulted you more.
’ She fills up her shot glass and knocks it back.
Woah. So she has been stewing. That’s the closest to an apology I’ve ever heard from her.
I fill my glass up and hold it while I say, ‘I should’ve told you about Dad.
And Jack. It wasn’t deliberate. Actually that’s not true.
I was afraid of your reaction. I know lying’s worse, and I won’t keep anything like that from you again.
’ It was the right answer because she gives a resolute little nod, and I shot the limoncello.
The liquid burns all the way down my oesophagus and I suppress a gag.
It’s Mum’s turn. ‘If you want to be with a racing driver, you know the downsides well enough. I should’ve had more faith in you. You’re a grown woman, for Pete’s sake. Jack’s not your dad, and you’re not me. You’ll never wear the rose-tinted glasses I wore.’
I take the bottle from her and top my glass up.
‘I quit my job.’ That doesn’t drag much surprise out of her – my grandparents must’ve shared the news.
‘It hasn’t been great since the beginning.
They wanted a Legally Blonde foil for Brian with no opinions or input.
I was little more than a diversity tick box. ’
Thinking about last weekend churns my stomach. I’ve flip-flopped about it over the last few days but, overall, it had to be done. That doesn’t make me feel less like an unemployed failure again, but we move.
Mum looks eager to ask more but that goes against the rules. I didn’t make up this game.
She fills her third shot. ‘The night he left me, he said, “I’m going to do the right thing and be that boy’s dad”.
Those words went round and round in my head.
I could’ve stabbed him.’ She traces patterns on the worn wooden tabletop.
‘Instead, a week later, do you remember we had that bonfire at Nanny and Grandad’s?
I said it was for American Independence Day, and that we had to watch it from inside the house because Nanny has allergies.
’ I nod cautiously. ‘We burned all his things.’ A terrifying glint flickers in her eyes that makes me glad I’m her child so she’d never do anything like that to me (I don’t think).
‘His clothes, his presents, his documents. I think his passport was in there too.’
‘You lied to me! I thought we were celebrating other cultures.’
She tuts. ‘Like America counts as a culture.’
As she drinks up, I slowly start to giggle. ‘You’re evil.’
She wipes her the sides of her mouth. ‘I felt evil. I thought it’d be cathartic, but it wasn’t. The garden had a weird smell for ages, and I learned silver doesn’t burn because his stupid Silverstone and Monaco trophies came out good as new. They’re not so sturdy against a hammer, though.’
‘I know he hurt you.’ I lay my hand on hers. ‘You have every right to hate him.’
‘I hate myself too, if it’s any consolation.
He wanted to be in your life and send money and have you over for the summer holidays, but I forbade him.
Fatherhood isn’t a menu where you can pick the bits you want.
You’re in or out. Looking back… it was immature of me, and it wasn’t what was best for you, and I’m sorry. ’
I give her a tired smile. She’s acting like this is news. ‘You did what you thought was best at the time, but I appreciate your apology.’
She flicks her hair over her shoulder. ‘You’d better because I only hand them out once a decade.’
We both laugh. She’s so bloody obstinate.
‘You have every right to reconnect with him,’ she goes on. ‘And I think… I should try hating him a little less. I’m not a victim. And I read an article in Cosmo about how grudges give you frown lines.’
‘The only person you’re hurting is you,’ I remind her, parroting what she always says to me.
‘Touché. I still do things to spite him, you know.’
I glare at her. ‘You think?’
‘What?’
I nod to her top. ‘Dad hated Bananarama.’
Her hand flies to her chest. ‘I adore this shirt!’
‘And he hates dogs, and the countryside, and thinks everyone south of Chertsey is a bean counter.’
‘Alright, alright, I get it.’
‘You’ve made a couple of big admissions – have another drink,’ I urge. ‘Why are we shotting limoncello anyway? You’re supposed to sip it.’
Mum cringes after her fourth shot. ‘Would you rather be shotting vodka? Minnie, it’s just past noon.
We’re not heathens.’ She places her glass face down on the table, expression introspective.
‘You’re calling him “Dad”, not “my dad” like you usually do,’ she says quietly. ‘I take it coffee went well?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Obviously, I’m a nosy cow.’
‘It did,’ I concede. ‘But his teeth are still too white.’
‘I knew it. I bet they glow in the dark.’
I burst out laughing. Her commitment to hating him less is off to a poor start.
‘Now tell me about your job,’ Mum pivots. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t going well?’
‘I couldn’t admit it to myself. I wanted it to work so badly, and for a while, I thought things were changing. But I was kidding myself.’
‘I told you it was a bad idea from the start, but you didn’t listen. Brian O’Connell was always a cunt. He felt up Kurt’s mum at a gala dinner once.’
I slam my hand on the table, making Noodle look up from shredding her toy pheasant. ‘What?’
‘She threw her red wine over him,’ Mum recollects.
‘Too right!’
‘Hardly, what a waste of good wine.’ She bends down to pet Maggie who just walked into the table leg. ‘I still can’t believe you resigned. You never quit anything – except maybe boys.’ Let’s not open that stinking can of worms. ‘Such a people-pleasing millennial.’
I don’t think that’s a compliment but I’ll take it anyway. ‘It’s ok to be a bit selfish sometimes. It doesn’t make me Dad.’
‘Urgh, don’t compare yourself to that brute – sorry, old habits.
’ She puts her hands up. ‘Doing what you want doesn’t make you selfish, and quitting isn’t failing.
When I cut in that bob and hated it so much I got extensions, I wasn’t failing.
I decided it didn’t work for me. It’s ok to say bye, kindly, if something doesn’t work for you. ’
This isn’t a eureka moment – she’s always preached independence – but sometimes you need to learn the hard way and come to your own conclusions.
‘You looked horrible with a bob,’ I confess.
‘I know. I didn’t look nearly as chic as Irina Shayk.’ She gets up and collects the empty shot glasses. ‘Let’s have a coffee before I put on the Spice Girls and start dancing like a prat.’
I put the limoncello bottle back on the shelf to the sound of the coffee machine whirring to life.
‘I meant what I said about Jack,’ Mum says, leaning against the counter, trying for nonchalant. ‘I never want to stand in your way. He’s head over heels, you know. I can see it on his face every time you interview him.’
I smile sadly to myself. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re not anything, and we probably never will be.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s a commitment-phobe.’
She frowns and gets oat milk out the fridge. ‘It’s not terminal.’
‘You know what I mean. He’s pretty rigid about it. His best friend died—’
‘I know who Luca Zanetti was, Mins.’
‘Oh, well, he was devastated by Luca’s death, and I also think it has something to do with him not having a great home life. I mean, I get it, but—’
‘But you’ve been seeing each other since May,’ she finishes. Not where I was going but whatever.
‘It’s casual, though,’ I add, hoping I come across more certain than I feel.
She pours milk in my coffee. ‘Is he sleeping with other people?’
‘No.’
‘And you know that for a fact?’
‘I think so. We stay together every race weekend, and we FaceTime most evenings we’re apart.’
She slides me a withering look. ‘Minnie.’
‘But I’m probably going to find work here, so it’s not like I’ll be travelling with him all the time. It’ll probably just… fizzle out.’ That sounds significantly more cavalier than the knife dragging around my stomach.
Mum eyes me carefully in that specific mum way.
‘I don’t get the youth anymore, I’m too damn old, but I do get you.
You usually can’t stomach more than two dates.
You get icked out by everything. You haven’t spent more than six weeks with one man in your whole twenty-five years.
The fact that you’ve managed to keep this arrangement going since May speaks volumes.
I’m not the only one who thinks this is special, chick.
You’re not affiliated with F1 anymore, so I say go for it.
But what do I know?’ She passes me a mug and turns to get the biscuits.