The Liar’s Daughter. Claire Allan

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СКАЧАТЬ I love you very much. And your daddy loves you, too. You’re not to doubt that, ever. Okay?’

      There was a strange buzzing sound in my ear. I could feel something build up inside of me, a burst of adrenaline that made me want to fight or run. I dug my fingernails as hard as I could into the palm of my hand to try to ground myself. I’d seen enough corny movies to guess where this was going.

      ‘Daddy has moved out,’ she said, the shake in her voice belying her true feelings. ‘It was a mutual decision and it’s just that we don’t make each other happy any more.’

      ‘Where has he gone?’ I asked. I needed to know where I could see him. When I could see him.

      My mother’s face coloured. She sagged momentarily before straightening her back again. ‘He’s gone to live with a friend,’ she said.

      Of course it wasn’t long before I found out that friend was another woman, and that woman had a daughter.

      My father had left us to go and be with another family. A family he’d known for less than a year. A family with a daughter for him to love.

      My teenage heart hurt so much that I cried until I threw up.

       Chapter Six

       Ciara

      Now

      It’s two days since Heidi called and I’m now standing, with Stella, outside the front door of my father’s house. It’s less than ten minutes’ walk away from our riverside apartment, but it might as well have been another country for all these years.

      I have avoided the shops I know he frequents. Stayed away from the library where he used to work, and where he still liked to spend his mornings drinking strong tea from polystyrene cups and reading over the day’s papers.

      He holds court there, talks to everyone who comes in. Shares his stories of old Derry and snippets of local history. It’s laughable for the man who barely looked at a book when he lived at home with my mother and me. Once he left, he transformed himself. Discarded his working-class persona entirely, lost himself in books. Went back to college. The few old friends he still deigned to spend time with gave him the nickname ‘The Professor’ because he was considered so learned. He enjoyed feeling superior to them. He enjoyed revelling in their new-found respect for him.

      Learned and respected. It galls me to this day.

      I feel Stella give my gloved hand a little reassuring squeeze.

      I see lights on through the stained-glass panelling of the front door. It might be the middle of the day but it’s dull and dark, and January has us firmly in its grip. The darkness is as oppressive as this house looming over us. Semi-detached. With a big back garden. There was a wooden swing set there when I first visited all those years ago – a sure sign of wealth, along with a phone in the hall that didn’t have a lock on it to stop anyone from running up a big bill.

      I’d felt intimidated then, but that was nothing compared to how I feel now.

      ‘I’m not sure I can go in,’ I say to Stella.

      ‘You know you don’t have to, but you’ve come this far. And look, if it feels all wrong, you never have to come back again. Focus on that.’

      I squeeze her hand. There’s no way I could be here without her by my side. ‘Okay, then,’ I say. ‘Here goes nothing.’ I reach up and rattle the brass knocker, and it’s not long before I hear footsteps clacking along the tiled floor and see the shadow of a person approach.

      I’ve not seen Heidi in as long as I’ve not seen my father. She was only a teenager the last time our paths had crossed, in her second year at university. She’d come home for the Christmas break – wherein my father had made a disastrous attempt to have us all round for drinks. I shudder at the memory.

      Looking at Heidi now, she looks as if more than ten years have passed. Her face is pale. Tired-looking. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her hair, which clearly could benefit from a wash, is pulled back in a tight ponytail, which does her no favours. Her roots need touching up, I notice. There’s a lot of grey there for a woman still in her twenties.

      She pulls an oversized grey cardigan around her small frame, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she does. Her body language screams that she is deeply uncomfortable with this situation.

      She blinks at me as if it is taking her some time to put a name to a face. I know I look different now – but not that different. And she had been aware that I was coming.

      ‘Heidi?’ It is Stella who breaks the silence – coming to my rescue as she always does. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’m Stella, Ciara’s partner.’

      I watch for any sort of reaction on Heidi’s face at the realisation that I’m gay. It has never been something I’ve advertised. It’s no one’s business but my own, and Stella’s, of course.

      Heidi barely blinks. She looks from Stella to me and then takes a step backwards to allow us in. ‘Please, come in, both of you,’ she says, her voice quiet. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Stella,’ she says. ‘And it’s good to see you again, Ciara.’

      I smile at her because it is what is expected. We both know that what she has said is a lie. It’s not nice to see each other at all. I think we could have quite happily existed without ever seeing other again and been perfectly happy.

      I hear the cry of a baby, look to Heidi.

      ‘That’s Lily,’ she says. ‘My baby. She’s due a feed. If you’ll excuse me. Joe’s sleeping just now, but I’m sure he would be okay with you waking him.’

      ‘Maybe we’ll just wait a bit,’ I say.

      She nods, looks anxiously towards the living room door where the cry is becoming more persistent. ‘Well, you know where the tea and coffee are, why not make yourselves a cup?’ she says, and with that she scurries, mouse-like, into the living room, closing the door behind her.

      I lead Stella to the kitchen.

      ‘So that’s Heidi,’ Stella says as she sits down and I switch the kettle on to boil.

      ‘It is indeed. Although she is much more mouse-like than before. And she was pretty mouse-like then.’

      ‘It must be hard for her, with a new baby to look after and Joe to be minding,’ Stella says as she looks around the room, taking in the slightly dated décor. I bristle. I do not want to be any part of a ‘poor Heidi’ narrative. I saw and heard enough of it over the years to be done with it for good. I’m not so much of a bitch that I don’t accept she had it rough to lose her mother at a young age, but she has led a life of privilege, and him – my father – he chose her over me. Not just once. But time and time again.

      I don’t answer Stella. I just make the tea, rattle around the cupboards for sugar. This house is familiar and yet it isn’t. It’s quieter. Darker. Colder. I think briefly of the angry teenager I had once been. I can almost hear echoes of her stomping up the stairs or slamming the front door. My heart aches for her a little. I wish things had been different.

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