The Men in her Life

they turned to walk back to the Marina .
    ‘Where?’ Holly demanded to know, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’
    ‘ Finsbury Park . I didn’t think you’d be the slightest bit interested,’ he protested.
    ‘Well, that just shows...’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Oh, something or other, I don’t bloody know...’ » come on,’ she began to run towards the blur of flashing lights at the end of the promenade, ‘I want to go on the dodgems.’
    Later that night they lay in their separate berths chatting in the dark. The funfair had been a shot of adrenalin, sobering them up. Holly had insisted on going on every ride and she was the most aggressive dodgem-car driver Simon had ever had the misfortune to sit next to.
    ‘Thank you for a lovely day,’ Holly said, between creaks as she tried to turn over. ‘God, these beds are narrow...’
    ‘They’re called berths...’
    ‘That doesn’t make them any wider.’
    ‘It was a pity about the rain,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Well, it was different...’
    ‘Hmm. Let’s hope it clears up tomorrow.’
    A long loud yawn filled the space between them.
    ‘I like Brighton ,’ Holly said suddenly, as if she had just woken up again.
    Simon sighed.
    ‘So do I,’ he replied softly.
    ‘Did I ever tell you that Brighton is where I discovered that Jack was my dad...’ Holly asked casually, as if she was just remembering a trivial detail that had slipped her mind.
    ‘No,’ he replied, abandoning his effort to encourage sleep. ‘No, I never knew that.’
    ‘It wasn’t exactly in Brighton , but afterwards,’ Holly remembered. ‘We came down here for a celebration, just after I got my O levels. Me and Mo and Jack. Once every couple of months he would turn up in some flash car and I’d watch him from the balcony, standing by the driver’s door, waiting for us. I don’t think he wanted to leave the car for a second down there, and I couldn’t blame him... I suppose he must have phoned beforehand, but Mo never told me, although I began to notice that whenever he came she would’ve insisted I wash my hair the night before...’ Holly’s voice trailed away, then picked up again, ‘... so we came to Brighton for the day and Jack had bought me a camera as a present, because my results were so good. He sometimes did that. Bought me something. Not every time, but when he did, it was always really expensive. We went on all the rides. Me and Jack. Mo wouldn’t. She took some pictures of us, and when we got them back from Boots, there was this one of me and him on the Whip and we were both laughing, and you know how you see yourself differently in photos... I looked at it and then I looked at Mo, and she tried to skip onto the next photo, and I just said, Jack’s my dad, isn’t he?’ She fell silent, lost in thought.
    ‘Were you upset?’ Simon asked nervously, as if striving to find something neutral to say in the midst of such a powerful revelation.
    ‘I was bloody furious. With both of them. It was like I’d lived my life up till then believing that people told me the truth and they hadn’t... I was crosser with Mo than Jack. Took us a long time to get over it... I mean, I know she thought it was for the best in the beginning, in case he went off again and left us. I can see that she was frightened of me being disappointed...’
    ‘And I expect she was frightened of losing you...’ Simon added.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Holly sat up abruptly.
    ‘Well, perhaps she thought that if you knew, you might want to be with him because he could give you more than she could...’
    ‘But...’ Holly began to protest then stopped, ‘I’ve never thought of that,’ she admitted, ‘isn’t that weird? I’ve never even thought of it from her point of view. You are clever.’
    Lying back down she smiled, pleased with Simon’s observation. He wasn’t normally very good at this sort of conversation. In the darkness she stretched out her left hand, found his right hand, and gave it a quick squeeze before turning over and drifting into sleep.

    ‘What do you think?’ Joss asked when Clare returned from working in Vivienne’s shop on Saturday evening. The products of Tom and Joss’s afternoon were pegged out like washing on a piece of string Joss had strung across the kitchen.
    ‘Late Matisse,’ Clare replied, wondering why Tom’s paintings always looked so much better when Joss was in charge, suspecting that Joss directed the paintbrush rather more than she did.
    ‘Perhaps