‘I imagine so.’
‘I look forward to it,’ she said, realising with some surprise that it was true. She wanted to know more about this man and, weirdly, not just because he was the father of her child.
‘Why didn’t you want your parents there today?’
With a jolt she refocused and, as usual whenever she thought of her parents, a tight knot of anger and resentment and God only knew what else formed in her stomach. ‘There wouldn’t have been any point,’ she said, hearing the faint note of bitterness in her voice and inwardly cringing. ‘They wouldn’t have come even if we had been on speaking terms. Marriage and civil partnerships are far too conventional for their way of life.’
‘You mentioned they live in a commune.’
‘That’s right. They do.’
‘Where?’
‘I have no idea. They travel around. They always have.’
‘Even when you were young?’
‘Even then.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Great in some ways, awful in others,’ she said with a casual shrug designed to hide the strange combination of pain and happiness that accompanied memories of her childhood. ‘When I was very young, not having to go to school was fantastic. I had no set bedtimes and I could eat what I liked, although, since we only really had lentils and vegetables, I guess that wasn’t such a luxury. The first time I had a grilled tuna steak I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It’s still my favourite thing to eat. Anyway, there were no boundaries and zero discipline. In hindsight, I must have been totally feral. We all were, really.’
‘All?’
‘Wherever we lived and however many families we lived with, there were always lots of children.’
‘It sounds idyllic.’
‘I know,’ she said, considering it from the point of view of growing up with only one parent and no siblings. ‘But it wasn’t.’ Not for her, and definitely not for Carla. ‘Not for a teenager, at least.’
‘Why not?’
She frowned for a moment. ‘I think subconsciously I really needed those boundaries to prove that I mattered. That my parents did actually care about me. And because I didn’t have any, I went looking for them.’
‘How?’
‘I became a classic attention-seeking teen. I used to dress up and hang out in bars and order drinks while underage and flirt with all sorts of inappropriate people, desperate for someone to come and haul me home and ground me after some stern words.’
‘And did they?’
‘Nope,’ she said with a sigh of the deep disappointment that annoyingly she still couldn’t seem to shake even now, a decade later. ‘Never. Once I got caught shoplifting and was delivered home by the owner of the shop with a warning and the only thing my parents were cross about was that the face cream I’d nicked wasn’t organic. Eventually I figured that the only person who was going to look out for me was me and so I decided to take control of my own life. I managed to blag my way into a sixth-form college and then got into university. As if that wasn’t conventional enough, I became a lawyer, at which point my parents pretty much disowned me. We haven’t been properly in touch much since.’
‘Do you miss them??
??
She stared at him, for a moment completely taken aback. What an odd question. She’d never thought about it like that. She’d always been too stuck in a rut of simmering resentment and disappointment to allow herself to grieve for the loss of what could have been.
‘I think I miss the idea of them,’ she said after a few moments of consideration. ‘I envy families. I never really had a proper one. The commune was no substitute. I was angry with my parents for a long time. Maybe I still am a bit. They let me down in every way possible. They failed at everything. No child deserves to feel unloved and unwanted. They should have been responsible. They should have been better. It’s kind of in the job description.’
A job description that was hers now, she thought, making a silent promise to be the best parent she could for Josh. She might not have got off to a good start on the motherhood front but she would now do everything in her power to prevent her son ever feeling the way she had. Josh would never have to question whether he mattered. Whether he was truly loved. He’d never feel he had to find support elsewhere. He would never have to seek the attention he craved by hitting bars and clubs and engaging in unsuitable flirting.
‘Do they know you’ve been ill?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see the point of telling them. They wouldn’t have been any help. They’d have just boiled up some hemp and sung a song or something. They’ve had the luxury of never being properly ill. At least, as far as I’m aware.’
‘Have you told them about Josh?’