‘Yes,’ I say, looking at her, into her clear green eyes so like her own mother’s, so like mine. ‘Some other time.’

‘Which way are you . . . ?’ She points towards the main concourse.

‘I’m—’ I point behind me, towards the Hammersmith & City line.

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Yes, wel , I’m getting the District . . .’ We are stil pointing in different directions. ‘Wel , I’d better run,’ Mum says. She kisses me on the cheek. ‘Bye, sweetheart,’ she says, and she is dashing off down the platform, and I watch her go, and turn and climb the stairs to the Tube, the same stairs I ran down two months ago to catch this very same train, the one that would take me back to Summercove for Granny’s funeral.

I sit on the Tube as it rattles gently east, away from the station, away from Mum, towards the centre of London and another day. I don’t know when I’m going to see her again; she has made the parameters very clear, and after everything that’s happened, that she’s been through, I know it’s fine. I see Louisa hurrying off . . . Mum, hurrying off . . . I see myself saying goodbye to Arvind, packing up my marriage. And just as I think I’m alone, pretty much alone, apart from Jay, but without the rest of my family, a thought strikes me.

I cannot believe I haven’t seen it before.

I stand up abruptly in the crowded Tube. The doors are opening at King’s Cross. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? Why didn’t I see it? I run through the crowds, the same faceless sea of people hurrying from one place to another, back in to work, vanishing in the distance, like Mum, hurrying towards the exit. I speed up my pace.

Half an hour later, I am standing outside a door of a house in a pretty Georgian terrace. I knock firmly.

A girl answers. ‘Hi?’ she says, looking at me. She is mid-twenties, with long, curly, dark brown hair, a touch of red in it. She is holding a half-finished cereal bowl and a spoon.

‘Hi,’ I say, slightly out of breath, as I have run al the way from the Tube. ‘Hi. I’m Natasha. Is your – is your dad there?’

She looks me curiously up and down. And then she nods, and smiles. ‘Um – OK. Sure. Dad! ’ she bel ows with unexpected ferocity. ‘ Someone called Natasha here to see you! ’

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘S’OK,’ she says. She smiles. ‘Yeah – so maybe see you later,’ and she drifts off with the cereal bowl, back down the long corridor.

Guy appears in the hal way. He looks bleary-eyed, grey-faced. He peers, as if to make sure it is me. ‘Natasha?’ he says, shaking his head.

‘When did you get back? What are you doing here?’ It’s not said unkindly.

‘I wanted to ask you something,’ I say. I look steadily at him.

He meets my gaze. And swal ows. ‘OK. Fire away.’

‘Guy,’ I say. ‘Um—’

He stares, and his eyes are kind. ‘Go on, Natasha,’ he says. ‘Ask me.’

I take a deep breath.

‘Are – are you my dad?’

He gives a little jump, and it’s as if some tension within him has been released. He sighs.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, I am.’ And he smiles, slowly. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘I’ve been more than useless. But you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here.’

I put my hand against the front door to steady myself. ‘Why don’t you come in?’ he says. ‘Come on.’

‘Oh,’ I say, thinking of the girl inside, of how tired I am, how I want my breakfast, my bed. ‘Oh . . . wel . . .’

‘Come on,’ he says again. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for a while, you know. You’re here now. Welcome.’

And he puts his arm round me and pul s me gently inside, and he shuts the door behind us and the rest of the world.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Guy’s basement kitchen is a mess. He ushers me downstairs and sits me at the big wooden kitchen table, which is covered in newspapers and empty coffee mugs. He pushes some papers helplessly out of the way and gestures towards the cooker.

‘Do you want some breakfast . . . ?’

I was starving, but now I have no appetite at al . ‘No, thanks. Can I have a coffee?’ I say.

‘Sure, sure.’ He rubs his hands together, as if pleased it’s going wel . He fil s up the kettle cautiously, and I stare at him.

This man is my father. This is my dad. Dad. Daddy. Father. Pa. I’ve never said that to anyone before. I used to practise it at night in my room at Bryant Court, especial y during the height of my Railway Children obsession. My daddy’s away, I’d told myself. He’l come back soon. Mum’s just protecting me, like Bobbie’s mum is. Night after night, but he never came, and then I grew out of pretending. I watch Guy as he shuffles round the kitchen, trying to slot everything into place.

He’s Cecily’s lover. He’s the Bowler Hat’s brother, for God’s sake – oh God, I think to myself. That means the Bowler Hat is my uncle and Octavia and Julius are my actual first cousins, not half distant relatives it didn’t matter that I didn’t like so much. And – he’s my dad. Not much of one so far, I have to say.

The room is spinning; my head hurts. I get up. ‘I’m sorry, I think I have to go,’ I say. ‘I don’t know if I can do this right now.’

Guy turns, his face ful of alarm. ‘No!’ he says loudly. ‘You can’t go.’ He hears himself and then says, ‘Sorry. I mean, please, please don’t go.’

‘I didn’t have any idea . . .’ I say. I shake my head, stil standing there. To my surprise tears are flowing down my cheeks. I dash them away, crossly. ‘Sorry. It’s just a shock—’ I sink back into my chair.

‘I thought she’d have told you,’ Guy says. ‘That’s why I asked you yesterday, to come and see me. She promised she’d tel you. She real y didn’t?’ I shake my head, stifling a sob. He grits his teeth. ‘God, that woman – I’m sorry, I know she’s your mother, but real y.’

There’s a pause while I col ect myself. ‘Don’t be mean about Mum,’ I say. ‘Where were you, when she was bringing me up with no money, completely on her own?’

‘I didn’t know!’ Guy shouts suddenly, and he looks about ten years younger, not this tired, washed-out old man I don’t recognise from Cecily’s diary.

‘You didn’t know?’

‘Of course not, Natasha!’ He looks appal ed. ‘What do you think I am? I had no idea until she turned up completely out of the blue, two weeks ago, the day after I’d seen you at the shop. Out of the blue! First this diary arrives in the post, and then she arrives, no warning, nothing. At first I thought she’d brought another bloody diary for me to read, but it was this!’ He’s practical y shouting. ‘She tel s me this, and then she runs off to God knows where, and I’m left – I didn’t know what to do! Do you understand? Next time she comes I’m not letting her in, I tel you.’

His tone is so outraged, I almost want to laugh, but he’s serious. He lowers his voice a little. ‘Natasha, don’t you think if I’d have known before, I’d have . . .’ He swal ows. ‘I know I was awful when you came round last week, and I’m sorry . . .’ He bangs the teaspoon he’s holding impotently against his baggy cords, like a child with a rattle. ‘I’d only just found out I was your father, and Miranda’s nowhere to be seen, I don’t know if she’s told you or not . . . And it was the anniversary of Hannah’s death . . . it’s always a bad day for me. Then you appear and – I’m so sorry.’ He looks so sad. ‘I just – I wasn’t ready to talk to you properly. To be the person you needed.’

‘Look, Guy,’ I say. ‘I don’t need a dad, I’ve got by al these years without one. It’s fine.’

The kettle screeches away on the hob and he turns it off. I look round the sunny kitchen again with photos on the wal s, poetry magnets on the fridge, cream ceramic jars marked Sugar, Flour, Tea, Coffee. In the corner, a cat stretches out in a basket. Radio 4 is on in the background. It’s messy, but lived-in. Cosy. Upstairs, someone is moving about. When I was younger this was something like the sort of family set-up I dreamed of having.

‘Do you believe that I didn’t know?’ Guy says. He comes over and slaps his hands onto the back of one of the chairs. ‘Does it make sense?’

I blink; it stil sounds so strange. ‘You didn’t have any idea? I mean – you knew you’d slept with her, Guy, didn’t you? Are you trying to say she drugged you?’

He smiles. ‘Yep. I suppose this is when it gets a bit complicated. We’d been . . . wel , over the years, after Cecily’s death . . . you could say we sort of saw a lot of each other.’

‘You were fuck buddies,’ I say. His eyes open wide. ‘What on earth did you just say?’

‘Fuck buddies,’ I say cal ously. ‘Bootie cal ers. Friends with benefits.’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’ Guy moves back to the kettle, pours water into the cafetière and brings it over with two mugs, sitting down heavily in front of me. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ He stares into nothing. ‘You have to remember, Natasha. She had a bad time growing up, but in the seventies your mother was . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘She was absolutely devastating.’

‘The seventies were terrible for a lot of people, you know,’ Guy says, when we’re sitting more comfortably, I’ve stopped crying, and he’s calmed down. ‘No electricity. Strikes. Mass unemployment. Platform shoes and spotty punks everywhere. But you know, it was your mother’s decade in lots of way.’ He smiles.

‘How do you mean?’ I am fascinated, and I’m just enjoying looking at him, staring at his face, his hands holding the coffee mug. I tuck one leg under me.

‘Oh, you know.’ He smiles. ‘You know. Her own brand of cod-mystical – er – you know, headscarf-wearing hippyness – it al flourished then. I just think she became more comfortable in her own skin.’

I smile, because he’s total y right, and it’s so strange that he knows this. Knows her as wel as he does. I prop my elbows up on the table, my chin in my hands, listening intently.

‘I don’t know what she’d been doing for the rest of the sixties,’ Guy says.

‘She did some fashion courses,’ I say. ‘I know that. She used to try and make dresses years later when I was little, from those Clothkits sets.

They were always awful.’ The burgundy and brown early eighties pinafore where one panel was back to front and the pockets were on the inside, for example. I shake my head, caught between tears and a smile as I think about her in the flat with her sewing machine.

Guy nods. ‘I seem to remember there was an upholstery course somewhere, she was always making cushions. And I know she went travel ing, but I met her again when she was working at this boutique, I think in South Ken.’

I remember her talking about the South Kensington shop. It original y sold awful kaftans and tie-dye prints, which in a few years gave way to Laura Ashley-style rip-off long, flowery dresses. She took it over and rechristened it Miranda. Of course she did. I have a photo of her standing outside the shop in skinny jeans and boots, a bil owing embroidered cheesecloth blouse with huge sleeves, and a Liberty headscarf tied round her hair. She has her hand on her hip, her eyes are made up with black kohl and she is almost scowling. She looks like a sexy pirate. Something completely wild in her eyes. He’s right, she looks devastating. I tel Guy this, and he nods.

‘She was. We met at a party, in about 1973? I hadn’t – I hadn’t seen her for years. I’d been living in the States.’

‘Doing what?’ I say. I’m so curious, I want to know everything. I look at him again. He’s my dad.

He smiles. ‘Oh, not very much, I’m afraid. Writing in a rather desultory way for a paper, living in San Francisco. I was trying to be a journalist.’

‘Wow. Was it fun?’

Guy shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘I wasn’t very good. And I went away for the wrong reasons. I couldn’t wait to finish at Oxford and . . . I left England immediately after I came down, to forget about Cecily. About what happened that summer.’ He stops, takes a gulp of his coffee. He is breathing fast. He purses his lips and says sadly, ‘I wasn’t even there when Frank married Louisa.’

‘Real y? You missed your brother’s wedding?’

‘It wasn’t such a big deal then,’ he says. ‘Weddings weren’t such a production, you know. Glass of champagne and some salmon mousse in a marquee then home by six.’

He looks away. I don’t believe him. I wrap my fingers round my mug, so that my thumbs are interlocked.

‘Anyway, I was there til ‘73, and then I came back . . . I’d been back a week, it was summer. Terribly hot. I wasn’t sure why I was back, what I was doing . . . I was rather a lost soul. And then I met your mother at this completely crazy house party in Maida Vale one evening. We . . . um.’ He trails off. ‘We had a brief fling. And then I went off again.’