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Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Copyright © Claire Allan 2020
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover photograph © Rekha Garton / Arcangel Images
Claire Allan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008378356
Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008321956
Version: 2019-12-13
Dedication
To my children,
who make me want to be the best person
I can be every single day.
I love you both so much.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: Now
Chapter One: Heidi
Chapter Two: Heidi
Chapter Three: Heidi
Chapter Four: Ciara
Chapter Five: Ciara
Chapter Six: Ciara
Chapter Seven: Joe
Chapter Eight: Heidi
Chapter Nine: Heidi
Chapter Ten: Ciara
Chapter Eleven: Heidi
Chapter Twelve: Heidi
Chapter Thirteen: Heidi
Chapter Fourteen: Joe
Chapter Fifteen: Ciara
Chapter Sixteen: Heidi
Chapter Seventeen: Heidi
Chapter Eighteen: Joe
Chapter Nineteen: Heidi
Chapter Twenty: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-One: Ciara
Chapter Twenty-Two: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Three: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Four: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Five: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Six: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Heidi
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ciara
Chapter Thirty: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-One: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-Two: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-Three: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-Four: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-Five: Ciara
Chapter Thirty-Six: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Ciara
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Heidi
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Heidi
Chapter Forty: Heidi
Chapter Forty-One: Heidi
Chapter Forty-Two: Heidi
Chapter Forty-Three: Ciara
Chapter Forty-Four: Heidi
Chapter Forty-Five: Heidi
Chapter Forty-Six: Heidi
Chapter Forty-Seven: Ciara
Chapter Forty-Eight: Heidi
Chapter Forty-Nine: Heidi
Chapter Fifty: Heidi
Chapter Fifty-One: Heidi
Chapter Fifty-Two: Ciara
Chapter Fifty-Three: Ciara
Chapter Fifty-Four: Ciara
Chapter Fifty-Five: Ciara
Chapter Fifty-Six: Ciara
Chapter Fifty-Seven: Heidi
Chapter Fifty-Eight: Ciara
Chapter Fifty-Nine: Heidi
Chapter Sixty: Heidi
Chapter Sixty-One: Ciara
Chapter Sixty-Two: Heidi
Chapter Sixty-Three: Ciara
Chapter Sixty-Four: Heidi
Chapter Sixty-Five: Alex
Chapter Sixty-Six: Ciara
Chapter Sixty-Seven: Heidi
Chapter Sixty-Eight: Ciara
Chapter Sixty-Nine: Ciara
Chapter Seventy: Heidi
Chapter Seventy-One: Ciara
Chapter Seventy-Two: Heidi
Chapter Seventy-Three: Heidi
Epilogue: Kathleen
Keep Reading …
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Claire Allan
About the Publisher
Prologue
Now
Joe
They’ve told me I’m dying. A doctor in a white coat, and a blue shirt with a stripy navy tie that had a coffee stain on it, had perched on the end of my bed and adopted a very serious expression on his face.
A nurse – who I had heard give out to her colleagues about the lack of resources on the ward and how she was getting ‘sick, sore and tired of working her arse off’ for too much responsibility and not enough money – had pulled the clinical blue curtain around my bed to afford me some privacy.
Her sombre expression mirrored that of the doctor, although it was clear it was a front. It was almost the end of her shift. This was a life-changing moment for me – the moment I heard I was condemned to die despite all the chemotherapy and surgery that they had been able to offer. For Katrina the nurse, with her short brown hair and ice-blue eyes, it was just the end of another shift. And she was tired. She had to do this final grim task before she clocked out and went home. She’d get a cup of tea, or coffee, or maybe a glass of wine (she seemed the type). She’d kick off her shoes and watch something mindless on the TV. She might even laugh if it was funny.
I doubted she’d think about me and the fact that I was dying. That no more could be done for me. I was already in the past tense for Katrina.
I was feeling sorry for myself, but that was allowed, wasn’t it?
I wasn’t that old. This shouldn’t have been happening yet.
I didn’t deserve this.
I wanted to scream that I didn’t deserve this.
But it was like there was a tiny voice, or a chorus of voices, whispering in her ear that this is exactly what I did deserve. In fact, I deserved much, much worse.
Chapter One
Heidi
Now
The back seat of my car is full to bursting. Lily is bundled up in her car seat, asleep and blissfully ignorant of the strained atmosphere between her fellow passengers. A weekend bag, filled with pyjamas and underpants to be laundered, a toilet bag containing a razor, toothbrush, soap and shaving foam sits beside her.
A plastic ‘Patient’s Property’ bag sits in the footwell. It’s loaded with boxes of medication, dressings, instructions that I will have to will my postpartum brain into reading and understanding once we are back at Joe’s house.
I won’t call it home. It ceased to be my home the moment my mother died – also from cancer. Unlike Joe McKee, the man who has played the role of my father for the past twenty-one years, she didn’t deserve it.
‘Did you lift my slippers?’ Joe asks as I help him ease his seat belt on. He is still sore – still tender from the operation to try to remove the tumour found in his lung. Except that they found it had company, all through his body. ‘Riddled with it,’ he said, sadly, when he told me.
‘Yes, I lifted your slippers. They’re in your bag, along with your pyjamas and dressing gown.’
‘There was a book in the locker. Did you …’
‘Yes, I lifted it as well. And packed it. Along with your prayer book and your reading glasses.’
He nods. ‘I wonder how many more books I’ll read,’ he says, to himself as much as anything.
‘You know what the doctor said,’ I tell him. ‘Take it one day at a time.’
‘Those days are still numbered, though, aren’t they? I doubt I’ll see the spring.’
He looks out onto the bleak, grey car park of Altnagelvin hospital, on the very outskirts of Derry, Belfast in one direction and the city centre in the other. The sky is almost as dark as the tarmac below us. Heavy and angry-looking. It seems apt.
Joe has always liked spring. More so as he grew older and found comfort in God. ‘A time of renewal,’ he would say as the evenings stretched and the temperatures crept up.
I know as well as he does, there’ll be no renewal for him this year.
‘You never know,’ I say, even though we do know. Odds are he’ll be gone before the seasons change.
He shakes his head slowly, looks ahead. ‘Some things you feel, Heidi.’
I switch on the engine, nudge the car into first gear.
‘It’s not a lot of time, is it?’ he asks. ‘To do all the things I need to do or to make things right.’
Joe McKee could have a whole other lifetime to live and it wouldn’t be long enough for him to make things right. There’s a time in a person’s life, if they are truly, truly wicked, when they move beyond the point of redemption.
I stay quiet. If he’s looking for some sort of absolution, he’s looking in the wrong place.
Ten minutes of a silent drive home later, we pull up outside his house. The house my mother owned, which in turn will belong to me when he is gone. This is where the first almost ten years of my life were blissfully happy. My mother created a loving, warm and magical childhood for me.
Then she died.
Even all these years later, there are times when that realisation hits me like a punch to the gut.
The world has never seemed fair or right since.
‘Will we get you inside?’ I ask Joe.
He nods. ‘I’m tired.’
He looks pale, his eyes red, dark circles around them. The effort of the short journey has worn him out. He looks wretched. It’s almost, but not quite, enough to make me feel sorry for him.
‘Sure, we’ll get you in and to bed then,’ I say. ‘Just let me take Lily in first. I don’t want to leave her here in the car on her own.’
He nods. ‘Of course not.’
I open the door, carry Lily, who is thankfully still sleeping, through to the living room in her car seat and allow myself a few seconds to take some deep breaths. I’m shaking, I realise, but it’s not from the cold. I count my breaths in and out until the shaking lessens. I tuck Lily’s blanket around her, stroke her cheek. Note how she is filling out, changing. Only five months old and already I can see shades of the little girl she will become.
I do not like being here with Joe. Even in his frail condition, I still feel scared to be close to him.
I’ve tried to have as little as possible to do with him, especially after I moved away to university at eighteen. But somehow, and much to my shame and self-hatred, I still find myself unable to cut him from my life entirely.
It will be nigh on impossible now, not without appearing to be cold and uncaring. Not without telling people all the things that happened. The things I’ve tried so hard to bury.
The thought of how much he will rely on me over the coming months make me feel sick to my stomach.
‘It must be nice in a way,’ the nurse at the hospital had said, ‘to care for him now. After all he did for you after your mother died. There aren’t many men who would take on the responsibility of someone else’s child like that.’
Joe had told her he had only done what any decent person would do.
But Joe McKee doesn’t have a decent bone in his cancer-riddled body.
The sweat is lashing off me by the time I have helped Joe upstairs and into bed. I do not like the feel of him leaning his weight on me as I help him up the stairs. I do not like helping him slip off his shoes and socks and lift his feet into bed. He is complaining of the cold, even though the heating is on full and the extra oil-filled radiator in his room is pumping out a dusty, dry heat.
I pull an extra blanket from the airing cupboard and put it over him, offer to make a cup of tea. ‘It might bring you round a bit,’ I say. I feel I’m speaking the words from a script of what a good daughter should say to an ailing parent.
‘It might, aye,’ he replies. ‘That would be nice, Heidi.’
He makes a move as if he is going to pat my hand and I pull it away quickly. The gesture makes him flinch, but I won’t have any physical contact with him that isn’t strictly necessary.
I catch him looking at me, his face sorrowful. I wonder if he’ll say it, now. The words he’s never said in all these years. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Maybe …’ he starts. ‘When I’ve had a rest, maybe you could call Ciara for me? She should know how ill I am. Or maybe you’ve spoken to her already?’
Ciara. Joe’s daughter. His real daughter. The one tied to him by biology. The one he left behind when he moved in with Mum and me all those years ago. She has never forgiven him. Or me, for that matter. We don’t speak. I can’t remember the last time I saw her face-to-face.
‘I’ve not spoken to her yet,’ I tell him. I understand why he thinks it would be easier for her to hear from me first, so I know I’ll have to do it. Regardless of the state of her relationship with her father, she has a right to know he is dying. ‘But I will. When you wake up. You look exhausted.’
‘That’s what dying will do to you,’ he says with a sad smile.
I don’t return it, I just nod and leave the room, head for the kitchen, where I disseminate his various medicines into boxes and baskets for easy access while waiting for his tea to brew.
I’ve long since given up any idea of religion, but while I’m waiting for the kettle to hiss and rattle, I wish there was a godlike figure I could pray to for the strength to get through the next few weeks without wanting to throw myself off a bridge or put a pillow over his face.
Chapter Two
Heidi
Then
I first met Joe when I was seven years old. He was already sitting at the table in Fiorentinis Ice Cream Parlour on the Strand Road, looking around him at the old photos and pictures on the wall, when my mother and I arrived.
‘I’ve someone I’d like you to meet,’ my mother had said.
I remember that she looked happy. That her eyes seemed to sparkle. She’d put on make-up and I could smell she was wearing her favourite perfume – the kind she saved for special occasions. She’d even let me have a little spritz on my wrists. I remember that I was happy for her. Her excitement was contagious and yes, I was a little nervous, too. But that was okay, my mother had told me. It’s okay to feel nervous about meeting new people.
I liked the cocooned world my mother and I shared. Just the two of us, with Granny and Grandad popping in occasionally to check on us. To fuss. To ask if we had everything we needed. My mother’s response was always the same. ‘Sure we have each other and that’s all that we need,’ she’d smile.
My grandmother’s eyes would tighten so that I could see the fine lines of wrinkles spread out across her face. ‘You know I worry,’ she would say.
‘There’s no need to,’ my mother would reply.
And there wasn’t. We were happy. We had what we needed. A small house with a garden big enough to play in. Food in the cupboards. And if I needed new shoes or a new school coat, or sometimes just because Mum thought we deserved a treat, she would reach into the tin tea caddy on the top shelf of the corner cupboard in the kitchen, lift out some money and treat us.
Occasionally, the topic of my father would come up. Usually around Father’s Day, or after we’d watched some schmaltzy family movie. My mother would tell me, as gently as she could, that my father had moved away before I’d been born. ‘He wasn’t ready to be a daddy just yet,’ she’d say, and sometimes there would be a sadness in her eyes about it. ‘But that was everything to do with him and nothing to do with you,’ she’d tell me.
I suppose I knew she was lonely sometimes. She would read romance novels and sigh, and I knew most of my friends had both their parents living together. I suppose it was understandable my mother might want to find a partner too, even if she said that we had all we needed to be happy between the pair of us.
But if I was nervous that day in Fiorentinis, it was nothing compared to how nervous this man, Joe, appeared to be. He was fidgeting in his seat and, as he stood up to say hello, he almost knocked over his teacup.
I was as shy then as I am now. I stayed close to my mother, my hand gripped in hers, my cheek pressed against the soft fabric of her coat.
‘Heidi, this is Joe,’ she said. ‘He’s a friend of mine.’
The man smiled, extended his hand towards mine. Dark hairs crawled from the cuff of his jacket. They looked like spiders. I cuddled in closer to my mother.
‘Heidi, say hello,’ she said, an urgency in her voice.
He withdrew his hand and sat down. ‘She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to. Isn’t that right, Heidi? I’m a little nervous, too.’ His smile was kind.
The tightness in my chest eased as he lifted his teacup and sipped from it. I dared to take a step away from the safety of my mother’s long, green woollen coat.
‘I know it’s cold and rainy outside, but maybe you’d like an ice cream anyway? Since we’re here?’ he asked.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Heidi?’ My mother’s voice was more relaxed again, too.
I nodded.
‘How about we get them to make you the biggest ice cream they’ve got?’ he asked and my eyes widened at the thought. There was little that seven-year-old me loved more than ice cream.
‘With jelly?’ I asked, because jelly came a close second.
‘Lots of jelly,’ Joe said with a wink, and I smiled at him and then at my mother.
The smile on my face was mirrored on her own. Then I noticed how she looked at him. How her smile was different when she was smiling in his direction. It was how those men and women smiled at each other on the front covers of her romance novels. She was falling in love. I knew it at once.
It was only when he came back from ordering and reached out to hand me the giant ice cream he was carrying that I noticed the glint of a gold ring on his finger.
I may have been only seven, but I knew what that meant. And I also knew he wasn’t married to my mother. He was grinning at me. Telling me he asked for extra sprinkles. I could sense Mum beaming at him from beside me. I knew she wanted me to smile, so I did. I remembered my manners just like I’d always been taught, and I thanked him and ate the ice cream. I pretended it didn’t suddenly taste a little sour.
Chapter Three
Heidi
Now
I wonder what the official protocol is when it comes to saying no to a dying man. Is it an out and out no-go area, or is it okay in some circumstances?
I chew the nail of my left thumb while I try to build up the nerve to call Ciara.
Alex, my husband, tells me getting her involved might be a good thing. She may be able to lessen any burden on me. Which sounds great, but still I’m not so sure. I’m not sure I have enough emotional energy to deal with a second toxic relationship just now.
I sigh as I realise that despite my misgivings, I have to do this. I just have to suck it up.
Alex is at least sitting close to me as I call Ciara’s number. I draw a little strength from him. My hands are shaking, my tummy tight. Even the sound of her voice makes me nervous.
I take a deep breath. Remind myself that she is an adult now. As am I. I’m a wife and mother, for goodness sake. I should be able to speak to another grown woman without losing my nerve.
But the truth is Ciara has always intimidated me. At times she has utterly terrified me, if I’m being honest. She was the loud to my quiet. The tall to my short. The confident to my terrified. The angry to my sad. She was always bigger and badder and more able to dominate a room than I ever had been or ever could be. She’s the kind of person who can shred your self-confidence to ribbons with just one look.
I hear a soft voice say hello in a calming Scottish lilt. ‘Hello, Ciara’s phone.’
I’m momentarily thrown. ‘Hello,’ I stutter, ‘I’m … I’m Heidi Lewis. It’s about Ciara’s father, Joe …’
I hear an intake of breath. An awkward ‘uhm’, which tells me what I suspected. This phone call will not be welcomed.
‘Is she there? I need to speak to her about him.’
‘One moment please, I’ll check,’ the voice answers, efficiently as if she is speaking to a business associate.
Perhaps Ciara is still at work. Maybe this isn’t the best time to call. I think about hanging up. It would be easier and I’d have a good excuse to do so.
I’m just about to take my phone away from my ear and end the call, when I hear the calming Scottish lilt replaced by a brusque Derry hello.
‘Ciara?’ I say, to be sure.
‘Yes. It’s me. Heidi, what can I do for you?’
She sounds as pissed off now as she did as a truculent teenager. I revert to type and feel inadequate. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. I feel unable to form coherent sentences.
‘Erm, are you still at work? Because maybe, you know, this would be a call better taken later, a conversation … you know … to have when you’re free to talk.’
I sound like an imbecile.
It annoys her.
‘I’m at home,’ she says, her voice terse. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s your father,’ I begin. I wait for an interruption that doesn’t come. ‘He asked me to call you. Look, Ciara, maybe this really is a conversation better had face to face.’ I realise I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want to have to be the one to say those words to her.
‘I’d rather you just spat it out,’ Ciara says. ‘What is it? Does he need money? Has he met someone else?’
I take a deep breath.
The easiest way to do something you really don’t want to is to do it quickly, like tearing off a plaster. That’s what my mother would say, so I say the next sentence quickly. Probably too quickly. The words rattle off my tongue.
‘It’s nothing like that. Ciara, he’s not well. He’s just been in hospital for surgery and well, the news isn’t good. It isn’t good at all, I’m afraid. And he has asked me to call you to let you know he’d like to see you if you’d be willing.’
There’s a pause. ‘Are you telling me he’s dying?’ Ciara asks, as forthright as she always was.
I nod before saying, ‘Yes, Ciara. It’s cancer. He’s been given maybe three to six months, at best.’
The phone line goes quiet. I wonder if she has hung up, take the phone from my ear to see if the call is still connected.
‘Good,’ she says eventually, although I hear a trace of emotion in her voice that wasn’t there before. ‘Good. He’s dying. Good enough for him.’
‘Ciara …’
I start to talk but the line goes dead. She has hung up. I sit staring at my phone, my face blazing, wondering how I tell Joe what has just happened.