Part 40 (1/2)

Luke shook his head. 'I'll move out. I mean, I already have. You two should carry on living there.'

'Thank you. But you can't afford to keep us there. You don't have a job. You need to cut back on your spending.'

'I can't just abandon you and Clara,' said Luke.

'We can move somewhere much smaller. Less grand. We'll be just fine.'

Luke's throat caught. Poppy had lost so much weight the past few days. It bothered him that someone so much younger than him could be coming to such mature conclusions about their lives.

He reached out and traced the soft curve of her jawline. 'Are you sure about this, Poppy? Maybe we should give it another try. For Clara's sake at least.'

She shook her head. 'It wouldn't work. Really. We should end it now before Clara's old enough to understand.'

Luke knew she was right. In some ways he was relieved to be released. But still, he felt a desperate sadness at the way he'd messed up so many lives.

'You're a pretty amazing woman, you know. You've brought Clara up pretty much all by yourself and she's turned out so well.'

'I don't know about that. Being a mum is so hard. You never think you've got it right. Any good work is almost certainly down to Brigita, not me.'

'It's down to you. You've done brilliantly.'

Her eyes shone with tears. 'Why didn't you tell me that before?'

'I've only really understood it now.' Luke looked choked, as Clara stirred, then opened her eyes.

'Hi, darling,' they both cooed.

'Mummy,' she said indignantly, 'Daddy. I want chocolate.'

On the third day, Charlie came to visit. Poppy was still reeling from Louise's revelation, though naturally not as much as Louise herself, who, after pointing the finger at the man who had ruined her life, had staggered straight from her granddaughter's hospital bed to the pub across the road, where she had ordered Gary to buy her the largest gin and tonic available, followed by another and then another.

'I'm so spooked,' Poppy told him, as they sat on a hard chair in the canteen, clutching polystyrene cups of tea. The nurses had sworn they'd page her if Clara woke up.

'You're not half as spooked as I was. There was I constantly thinking ”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I'm so old, this bright young girl about town's young enough to be my daughter” and all the time you were were my daughter. And I had a granddaughter as well.' my daughter. And I had a granddaughter as well.'

The memory of the time she'd tried to kiss him hovered over them both like a vulture, but neither referred to it and they never, ever would.

'But you guessed,' Poppy said.

'I was starting to. Something you said about your mum in the South of France in the eighties got me thinking.'

'And then that time you dropped me off, you had a good snoop. Brigita told me.'

'Did she? Oh, sorry. It was wrong of me, but I just had to know. Of course you didn't have any photos of your mum, but then I did a little googling and worked it all out.'

'Were you going to tell me?'

'Of course. When I went to Regent's Park I was hoping to make a date with you then to take you out somewhere quiet and break it to you. I was b.l.o.o.d.y nervous. Terrified you'd reject me. But then fate got in the way.'

'Didn't you ever think of looking for me before?' Poppy asked. 'When I was a child?' A bit of her couldn't help being angry. She'd always wanted to know where her father was, why he hadn't bothered to hunt her down.

Charlie spread out his hands. 'Of course I did. I thought about it all the time. But remember: after I left your mother I was drying out for six months. Completely out of touch with the outside world. When I came out a letter from Louise was waiting saying she'd had the baby, but she wanted nothing more to do with me. I didn't even know if you were a boy or a girl. Of course I wrote to her a few times but I didn't get any reply, so in the end I gave up. Decided to make a new life for myself.' He shrugged self-deprecatingly. 'Not that I got far on that front, as you can see.'

'You have your photo in the paper every day.'

Charlie smiled. 'I thought you'd know by now that having your picture in the paper doesn't mean a thing. The reality is I'm a forty-five-year-old man, living in a one-bedroom flat in Crouch End with a silly job and a series of girlfriends who always dump me when they realize how rubbish my prospects are.' He looked at her ruefully. 'At least I have a kind of family now.'

Poppy hugged him. 'You do. And I couldn't be happier. We're going to see a lot, lot more of you, Clara and I.'

'And what are you you going to do?' Charlie asked. going to do?' Charlie asked.

Now it was Poppy's turn to shrug. 'I don't know. Carry on with the column I guess. What else can I do? Especially now I'm a single mother.'

'What do you mean you're a single mother? You're still married to Luke. You've just had a bit of a blip.'

'I'm a single mother,' Poppy said.

Charlie reached for his daughter's hand. 'Why don't you give it another try? More than anyone, I should know that you have to work at things.'

Resolutely, Poppy shook her head. 'If Hannah doesn't want Luke, that's up to her. But I can't hold on to him. I'll never really be able to make him happy.'

'I'm not sure anyone can do that.'

'I'm not going to drink any more. You were right. It was getting just a tiny bit out of hand.'

'It's in the genes. I hate to say it, but I don't think you should be touching the booze at all.'

'Really?'

Charlie shook his head. 'Mineral water from now on.'

'Tonic water's better. Put a slice of lemon in it and you can almost fool yourself about the gin.'

Charlie squeezed her hand again and they sat in silence, neither quite able to believe they had found the other.

Thea was in the office, trying to find a nun who would come in to have a go at the Prime Minister about his stance on abortion, when her landline rang.

'Is that Thea?' said a soft, fresh female voice.

'Speaking. Is that Sister Mary?'

There was a laugh that sounded as if it had been permeated with fabric conditioner. 'I wouldn't be surprised if that's how I end up. But no, it's Poppy. Poppy Norton.'

'Oh! How are you? How's Clara?' She must have found out about Luke and was calling to berate her.

'She's doing really well. We can take her home tomorrow. We had a lucky escape. I just wanted to thank you for coming to find me that night. If you hadn't I don't know...'