“She had more loser boyfriends than I could keep track of, and every time one of them came around I was banished to my shitty little excuse for a bedroom. She’d lock the fucking door as she fucked them, and reward me every weekend with one of those pitiful finger puppets, like that would make it all ok. She’d deliver me microwave meals to my bedroom, and I’d ask her permission to use the bathroom, trying to hold my piss in until she let me out of there once she’d taken her fill of dick. And you know how many of those losers fucking her gave a shit about me? Who even asked my name? Who even acknowledged me as they came into our back alley flat and fucked her in the room next to mine?”
I shake my head, not wanting to know the answer, tears springing up in my eyes way more obviously than they are springing up in his.
“One of them, Cass. One of them. One single guy out of so many I lost fucking count. And you know what happened to him?”
I shake my head again.
“She fucked off away from him, and upped and moved away from London with a loser of a guy from Liverpool. You know what she asked me before she went?”
“No,” I manage to say. “What did she ask you?”
“She asked me if I wanted to go into a care home, or go and live with my fucking grandad. She didn’t even give me the chance to go with her. You tell me that’s not heart problems, and you tell me that’s not fucking bereavement. She’s fucking dead to me.”
I feel absolutely sick.
He takes another swig of mineral water, and I swear for a second he’s fighting tears himself.
“I’m sorry, Ant,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He smirks a cold smirk, pushing his emotions away. “Yeah, and like I said before when you started digging. Here comes the pity.”
“It’s not pity… it’s caring…”
“I don’t give a fuck. I don’t want pity or caring when it comes to this shit. I don’t ever want to think about her, or hear her name, let alone hear her fucking voice. I keep those finger puppets upstairs to remind me of the pathetic excuse for joy I used to feel when I was little, and how far I’ve come since then, when ten pence pieces of crap felt like my world. Believe me, my idea of value then and my idea of value now are two very, very different things.”
I think back to putting those puppets on my fingers, and hate myself all over again for my insensitivity.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t want sorry. I want you to forget you heard her voice and accept she’s dead to me, just like I do. Even her own father wrote her off as nothing. It took me a fair while before I convinced him I was worth more than she was. Eventually, I managed it, but when I first turned up he expected me to be a shitty piece of cheap flesh, just like my mother was.”
His words are vile to hear, and so is the glimpse of hurt I get when he sucks in a breath.
I wait until he speaks again, giving him time.
“She can sound desperate all she likes now, but she sure didn’t give a toss when it mattered, Cass. I wasn’t worth shit to her then, but I would be now. I’d be worth a whole fucking lot to her now that I’m worth a whole fucking lot, period.”
The woman on the phone didn’t sound like she was after Ant’s money, but what would I know? I only spoke to her for a few seconds.
He sucks in another breath to compose himself.
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Cass. I should have told you she lived in Liverpool, but at that point I was still only daring to hope you’d never be in a position where you’d ever find out. When you’ve spent your childhood with virtually everyone around you despising every move you make, it’s hard to believe you’ll ever meet someone who will love you for real. I didn’t think a woman like you would fall in love with a man like me. I daren’t have hoped we’d be in this position. Not deep down. No matter how brave a face I put on it, I was always expecting you to bail and leave, just like she did.”
“I’d never do that. I love you too much.”
“You mean that?” he asks, and the tears in my eyes spring up again. “I swear it. I love you way too much to ever hurt you like that.”
He nods and swallows, and his coldness breaks a bit. I feel it. I use the opportunity and rush around the breakfast bar, throwing myself into his arms, and I hold him as tight as I can hold him, picturing him as that little boy, alone in his bedroom, asking his mum’s permission to use the toilet, waiting there all on his own while she entertained her boyfriends instead of him.