Page 75 of If I Never Met You

Laurie raised and dropped her shoulders. ‘I see him every year or so, he has a fancy loft he rents out in Manchester and a place in Ibiza. It’s not a relationship as such, though. It’s like he has a recurring cameo in my life. Austin Watkinson, if you’ve heard of him?’

Jamie’s mouth opened slightly and he said: ‘Haaaang on, not Austin Watkinson? Producer – DJ guy? Madchester, etc?’

‘Yep, him. Dancing around in the background of the Happy Mondays “Kinky Afro” video, hanging out with Tony Wilson. That’s my pops.’ Laurie made the scathing intonation clear.

Jamie’s mouth was now fully open. ‘That’s crazy! Austin Watkinson isyour dad…Why doesn’t anyone at work know this? Or do they, and they dislike me enough not to tell me the interesting stuff?’

‘No, they don’t know. Bharat knows, and obviously Dan knew, but I said not to mention. It’s not a dread secret or anything, but I have so little to do with him, it’s pretty irrelevant. It’s not a conversation I want to have.’

‘You’re so insanely cool,’ Jamie said, and she could see he meant it, that he’d blurted it and was now going pink at having gushed. ‘Not that … not because of your dad, but because you don’t show off. You are all substance, not image.’

‘Hah, I am definitely not image.’

He blushed harder. ‘I didn’t … you know what I mean.’

Laurie’s heart swelled.Silly girl, because the good-looking younger man called you cool?!Then:no, I’m allowed this. Ever since Dan left me, I’ve seen myself as a frumpy millstone. Adjusting my self-image, it’s welcome.

Laurie rescued him by adding: ‘It’s an extra mind blower because of the ethnicity.’ She pointed at her face. ‘As much as you logically know there was a white parent involved, it’s somehow still unexpected, right?’

Jamie smiled and nodded.

‘How did your mum cope, after your dad dropped her in it?’

She was impressed Jamie asked a thoughtful, considerate question, rather than carrying on asking her about her notorious dad’s pills and raves.

‘Up and down. She’s a singer and that didn’t pay the bills, so she had admin temp work and things.’

‘Your dad didn’t help?’

‘Only when he was flush. Every once in a while he’d dump a thousand or even two into my mum’s current account and that night we’d have a chippy tea and I got a can of Fanta. But you never knew when the next instalment might arrive. You couldn’t rely on it. Or him.’

‘Jesus. I mean. If you don’t support your kid, you’ve failed at the most basic test of adulthood haven’t you?’

‘Yep. Mum had a lot of boyfriends, and when one of those was around they tended to help out. She’s a hippy free spirit type. Free love, no rules …’

‘She must be so proud of how well you’ve done in life, though?’

‘Um … not … as such. The problem for my mum is I’m the kid who trashed her relationship and ruined her womb. I think she’s …’

One of the large men awoke with a snort and it provided humorous punctuation to a speech where Laurie’s voice was growing thick.

‘I think she’s struggled not to blame me. If you want me to be honest. I was the reason he left.’

Laurie hadn’t meant for things to turn profound, and Jamie was staring at her with a look so full of concern it was almost too heavy to receive.

‘Laurie,’ he said, quietly. Not a question, or an opening to saying anything else. A full sentence in itself.

‘He used to promise to come to see me as a kid and take me on a trip back to Manchester, I’d get ready, bag packed – I remembered I had this rucksack with a rabbit on it – and wait and wait. He’d call … oh he’d forgotten. Was next week OK, sweetheart? As if kids work on that sort of timetable or delayed gratification.’

‘As if anyone does,’ Jamie said.

‘Yes. Still. Not as big a crime as his albums of incredibly lucrative “chillout anthems”,’ Laurie said, and Jamie laughed. She could see he was vaguely bedazzled. That his view of her had shifted.

While Laurie was pleased, it felt cheap, as these were things that had happened to her, not things she’d chosen to do. Someone who’d behaved as badly as her dad didn’t deserve this aura, bestowing his civilian daughter with a frisson of rascally excitement. It was one of the things that had frustratedher most about Dan, that despite his being on her side in most things, all her dad had to do was crack a joke and Dan would be badgering her to let bygones be bygones.

‘You’re going to find my family soooo conventional, after this …’ Jamie said.

‘Fine by me.’

---