The Men in her Life

skirt that looked shorter on her than the other women because of her long, slightly knock-kneed legs. If she had been wearing lipstick, she had bitten it off. Drawn to her by an invisible thread, Clare traced the line of the woman’s gaze.
    ‘Did you send the bluebells?’ she asked her softly.
    ‘How did you know?’ the woman asked defensively.
    ‘I just saw you looking.’ Clare stepped back, nervously. ‘They were his favourite flowers. Did you know?’
    Holly shot Clare an angry glance, but saw from the way that she shrank away that she had only been trying to make her feel comfortable.
    ‘Yes. I knew,’ she said.
    ‘Are you coming back to the house?’ Clare asked her.
    Who was this gentle person in the baggy dress, Holly wondered, a half-memory ringing like a distant alarm in her head.
    ‘I’m not invited,’ Holly told her, standing up straight. She wished the woman would just go away so that she could have a few minutes alone with her father before leaving.
    ‘Well, I’m inviting you,’ Clare said, pointing towards the taxis. In the distance she thought she saw Philipp3 shake her head as she got into the limousine.
    ‘OK then,’ Holly said, picking up the handbag by her feet. What did it matter now, she asked herself. She smiled at her companion and saw her do a double take.
    ‘Oh, I know!’ Clare said, delighted to have recognized her, ‘you’re the one on the television! On election night. You were at the South Bank. I didn’t... you’ve cut your hair. Oh...’ she looked towards the cars, ‘oh well perhaps...’
    ‘What?’ asked Holly, defensively, seeing the invitation disappear as rapidly as it had materialized.
    ‘Well, I mean, your... your relationship with Jack... not that I care, it’s just my mother...’ Clare stumbled, embarrassed.
    The funeral cortege pulled away.
    ‘Relationship? I’m his daughter.’ Fortified by hearing herself saying the words out loud, Holly retaliated, ‘Who are you anyway?’
    ‘I’m Clare. I was his daughter...’ Thinking how odd that sounded, as if she were dead, not he, she added, ‘I am his daughter.’
    Somewhere in the back of her mind, Holly saw herself in Hackney public library looking Jack up in Who’s Who. Married Philippa Harper-Smythe 1960, l d. She had known what the annotation meant, and even though she had desperately wanted it to, she had known that it had not referred to her.
    The two women stared at each other.
    Although she had no reason to believe her, Clare somehow knew that Holly was telling the truth. She looked like a finer version of Jack. The eyes were not hooded as his had been, but they were the same pale azure. Like milled steel, Joss used to say.
    ‘But how old are you?’ she asked.
    ‘Thirty-five,’ Holly said.
    ‘No!’
    ‘It’s not that old.’
    ‘No. No, it’s just that I am too...’
    ‘Really? You look much younger.’
    ‘So do you.’
    The two women smiled at each other, each knowing she was being truthful and hoping that the other one was too. Even in the midst of the most momentous revelation of your life, Holly thought, it’s nice to know you could pass for twenty-eight.
    ‘But how?... I never knew...’ Clare said, grappling with the logic of it. Of course it was physically possible, but how could he have done it? He never seemed to have enough love for her. How could he have had enough for two? Or perhaps the reason was standing in front of her. He had loved this daughter who looked so much like him. Oddly, her first feeling was relief. At last there was an explanation for the way he had written her off.
    ‘Nor did I,’ Holly said. Then, feeling bad about lying at a funeral, she qualified that to ‘Or maybe I did...’ They stood side by side in silence, watching the last of the funeral cars pull away, with Holly wishing that she could just rewind the last ten minutes and erase it from her life, and Clare trying to think of a way to continue their conversation.
    ‘Look, do come back to the house, if you’d like,’ Clare said eventually, ‘I’ve no idea whether Philippa...’
    ‘No. I don’t think she does.’
    ‘I’d like to get...’
    ‘...very drunk.’ Holly finished the sentence for her. ‘Well, I was going to say, get to know you... I’m Clare,’ she held out her hand. It felt as risky as asking someone to be your best friend on the first day of school.
    ‘Holly.’ She looked at Clare for several long seconds, before shaking her hand. ‘OK then, why