Second Chance Under the Mistletoe, page 8
‘I’ve already got them. Ballet for the evening of the day after we go to Hamptom Court, musical the next one after that.’
‘How—?’
‘I took the chance you’d like to go and procured two tickets for each show. If you’d said no, I would have gone by myself and given your tickets to someone lining up at the box office for standby.’
‘I can’t say I’m not gobsmacked. Thank you. I’ll look forward to that.’
‘Wait. Logistics. Instead of going back and forth to Guildford, why don’t you stay here?’
She froze. ‘Here? With you?’
‘I’m not suggesting we share a bedroom.’
She didn’t meet his eyes. ‘Of course not. I… I didn’t think you meant that.’
‘You would have your own bedroom and your own bathroom. You could bring Freddie too, if you’d like.’
Expressions he wasn’t sure he could identify flitted across her face, except for one that was very clear—panic. Almost immediately, Jon realised he’d jumped the gun. He was at risk of completely stalling the growing friendship. And, deep in his gut, he questioned his motives for wanting her here with him.
‘I… I don’t think so, Jon. I still don’t know you well enough for that. I would feel uncomfortable staying here with you. Even if it would be…just as your guest, I mean a platonic guest.’
‘Totally understand,’ he said.
‘I’m more than used to travelling back and forward from Guildford to London, so it’s no hardship for me. Honestly it isn’t.’
‘Sorry I mentioned it,’ he said.
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Now I really need to be going.’
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I have another suggestion for you to consider—and reject out of hand if you think it’s a terrible idea.’
She smiled at that. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Rather than us going in separate cars to Hampton Court, why don’t I pick you up at your place? Then drop you back there after our ice-skating expedition?’
She paused, then shrugged. ‘Makes sense. Why not? It’s likely to be crowded there and parking could be difficult. I’ll text you my address. Call me on approach and I’ll be outside on the footpath waiting for you.’
‘Sure,’ he said.
Didn’t she realise he knew her address? He had faithfully sent Clem birthday and Christmas cards there over all those years when he had had little contact with his daughter other than occasional phone calls. Perhaps Natalie was so nervous about spending a night in the same house as him she had forgotten that. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. ‘I’ll see you then.’
Now that he and Natalie had broken the ice and started the process it would probably be a good idea to talk to Clem. After all, he wasn’t in this alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next day, Jon sat opposite Clem in his daughter’s favourite café in The City, the main financial district of London and one of the oldest parts of an ancient city. The area was home to the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange. He was there to have lunch with her. Jon’s bank had its headquarters here, as did many others, including Artullo’s, the Italian bank where Clem worked as a project manager.
There were, of course, Christmas decorations everywhere there too, but he scarcely noticed them. He only had eyes for his daughter—thankful for any opportunity she granted him to spend time with her. He was very conscious of not crowding her—he suspected their reunion meant a lot more to him than it did to her. She’d grown up with a father she’d loved in Hugo, Jon had only brief, rare times with his daughter up until the age of thirteen, and none after that. But every moment spent with her now was precious to him.
Clem looked slick and professional in a business suit, the jacket of which was cut looser to accommodate her growing bump, although she also seemed a little tired and he hoped she wasn’t overdoing things. ‘This isn’t the poshest of cafés but the coffee is good and so is the food,’ she said.
‘Looks fine to me,’ Jon said. Compared to the food on some of the mining sites he’d worked on, anything served here would seem like a feast in comparison, he suspected.
‘I can recommend the pies,’ Clem said.
Jon looked at the menu. ‘Steak pie. Done.’
‘Good choice,’ said Clem.
‘What can I order for you?’ He realised how little he knew of Clem’s everyday life, what she ate for lunch even. ‘Does your pregnancy affect your food choice?’ he asked.
‘Does it?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You should see the list of foods I have to be careful of, meat and fish not properly cooked, shellfish, some eggs, some soft cheeses, processed meats and so on.’ Jon remembered Natalie being as careful when she’d been pregnant with Clem. ‘But I don’t take any risks. I want my baby to have the best possible start in life. I’ll stick with a toasted Cheddar cheese sandwich, please, with the broccoli soup.’
While they were waiting for their lunch to be brought to the table, Clem looked over to her father. ‘So, how did it go with Mum? You’ve seen her twice now, she told me.’
‘She’s amenable to Christmas lunch,’ Jon said. ‘You don’t have any worries there.’
He decided not to mention that there had been a chance her mother might have escaped to Sri Lanka to avoid the confrontation with him. It made him realise how deeply Natalie’s anger with him for the past had run, could even still be festering. And how it could lead to pain for Clem. He could not let that happen.
‘That’s a relief, I knew she had mixed feelings about it. But how was it for you, seeing her again after all this time? Did you recognise her?’
‘Straight away. She hasn’t changed much at all.’
‘What was she like when she was young?’
‘You know she was only eighteen when we met? And I was nineteen?’
‘Yes, I do know that. Mainly through warnings to me about not getting serious with any boy until I was older, that it could only end in tears.’
‘She said that?’
He was surprised at the shaft of pain that stabbed him at Clem’s words. Back then, he had thought he was more than old enough to commit to a lifetime with Natalie. And she’d used to say how lucky she was to have met the love of her life so early. But that was before everything had gone so wrong—so wrong that he had lost this wonderful daughter of his to a man who’d been greedy enough to steal his happiness with Natalie for himself. Looking back, he could see that Hugo had always been waiting on the sidelines ready to pounce and scavenge the ruins of their marriage, even on Jon and Natalie’s wedding day.
‘Yes, she said that. Along with constant warnings about the careful use of contraception.’
‘Really?’ he said, not sure he wanted to think about contraception and his daughter—even though she was a grown woman of twenty-four now and very obviously pregnant.
How ignorant he was of everyday dealings that went with a teenage daughter. He suspected he would have been super protective. Again, anger flared at Natalie—and the pompous Hugo—for depriving him of all those years with Clem. Still, he had to hide that anger when he was with Clem. More than anything, he didn’t want to scare her out of his life again. He would have to stay on the right side of Natalie to ensure that, having missed out on Clem’s young life, he was there as a loving father and grandfather for the rest of it. His second chance with his daughter couldn’t be jeopardised by remnant anger at Natalie’s betrayal of him.
It still smarted that she had so readily believed he had been unfaithful and then had rushed so precipitously into getting engaged to Hugo—the last man on earth Jon would have imagined would be his successor. No. He had to bite down on any instinct for recrimination and keep things harmonious for the sake of an ongoing relationship with his daughter.
‘I hope your mother also told you that although her pregnancy wasn’t planned, it was welcomed. You were very much wanted, very much loved.’ And yet he’d let her go.
Clem nodded. ‘Mum has always been very clear about that.’
His daughter smiled and Jon could see a trace of his mother in that smile, of his father in the green eyes that had been passed to him and then to Clem—although the overarching impression was of how like her mother Clem was.
Clem was family—his family as much as Natalie’s—and her baby would be his family too. He would do anything he needed to protect his new relationship with his daughter. If that meant him being civil to Natalie, if that meant never bringing up their troubled past, but rather strolling along on a surface-level, apparently amicable relationship, then so be it. But a nagging inner voice kept pointing out how easy it had been to get along with her yesterday, how very much he had enjoyed her company. How it might be only too easy to be enchanted by her again. He could not let that happen.
‘You still haven’t told me about what Mum was like when she was young,’ said Clem.
Jon thought for a moment. Decided to be honest—what was the point of being otherwise? ‘She was absolutely gorgeous—heads turned when she walked by. Tall, slim with her glorious hair all the way to her waist, those beautiful blue eyes. I was the envy of the other guys at uni. She was fun, spontaneous, warm, as well as being smart and talented. No wonder I…’ He couldn’t say it. Didn’t even want to think it. Couldn’t be that honest.
‘No wonder you…?’ prompted Clem.
He thought for a moment, decided after all to continue with the honesty. Clem deserved no less. ‘No wonder I… I fell head over heels in love with her practically the moment I saw her.’
Clem’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Insta love? She never told me that.’
‘It’s true. And…and thankfully she felt the same about me, though I still really don’t know what she saw in me to make her fall so hard.’
‘Oh, come on, Dad,’ scoffed Clem. ‘Look in the mirror. You’re still incredibly handsome even for an old…er, older…guy. You’re the one turning heads today—women’s heads, I mean.’
‘Really?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Clem emphatically. ‘When we were walking to this café.’
He hadn’t noticed. Never did notice. Was always surprised when women made the first move. Beautiful women. Smart women. But not one woman had ever attracted him the way Natalie had.
While he was in the mood for being honest, he had to admit to himself that he had never really loved another woman—even the woman he had married some ten years after the split from Natalie. He had been sexually attracted to women, yes. Been friends with them, yes. He had intensely admired other women. But he had never loved them. Not truly loved them the way he had loved his first wife.
He supposed that was another reason he should be angry with Natalie—she had ruined him for any woman who had come after her. But, the truth was, he should direct that anger at himself for being so foolish as to cut himself off from love for so long. Maybe spending more time with Natalie would help lay old ghosts to rest and he could finally move on. Despite what Clem said, he wasn’t that old. He could even start another family if he wanted to.
‘Does this hurt? Talking about you and Mum, I mean.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s like looking back on people I used to know but have long since forgotten,’ he said. So much for his decision to be honest. Looking back to those exhilarating early times hurt like hell.
Clem looked at her watch. ‘Okay, so please tell me more about Mum when she was young, while we still have time. They’re strict on lunch hours at the bank.’
Jon cleared his throat. ‘Did you know we used to perform together when we were at uni, me on guitar, both of us singing?’
Clem’s eyes widened. ‘She never said. Wow. I wanted to learn guitar, but I was steered towards piano.’
‘Piano is good too. Your mum had an amazing singing voice.’
‘She used to sing to me when I was a little kid but never much after that.’
‘That really is a shame. What about you? Did you inherit her singing voice?’
‘We had choir at school, and I wasn’t asked to mime the words like some of the others did, so I guess I sang okay. But it wasn’t really an interest for me. Besides, Hugo…well, he didn’t encourage that kind of thing, or drama or dance. He really didn’t like what he used to call “showing off”.’
‘Seriously, he called performance arts “showing off”?’ Jon hadn’t thought his opinion of Hugo could sink any lower but it had.
She shrugged. ‘That was Hugo, he had his ways, but I loved him.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, do you mind me talking about him when you’re my actual father?’
‘No. You weren’t very old when my marriage to your mother broke up. Besides, from all I hear, Hugo was an amazing father to you when I couldn’t be.’ It was hard for him to admit that, but he had no choice but to grudgingly acknowledge it as truth. No matter what the circumstances had been, Hugo had brought up Jon’s child. And whose fault had that been?
Their lunch then arrived at the table, and he and Clem settled into eating their meal and making appreciative comments about the food. Jon watched Clem carefully as she ate. She still had more than six weeks to go until the baby was born. But even at this relatively late stage of her pregnancy, Natalie had more often than not thrown up her meals. Pregnancy and the aftermath of Clem’s birth had been so difficult for Natalie, no wonder she hadn’t had another child. But Clem seemed to have a healthy appetite with no onerous side effects pending.
Since his reunion with Clem, Jon had been forced to look into the past. And that had been uncomfortable. The fact he had insisted on staying in Australia, instead of returning home to the UK, had played a large part in his sporadic contact with Clem—especially when Natalie had insisted that Clem would never be allowed to travel to Australia to visit her father. He hadn’t had to stay in Australia. He had chosen to. That also had dashed any hope of reconciliation with Natalie. The last-minute trip to try and stop her getting engaged to Hugo had been too little, too late. He’d been inexperienced in life and too proud and too stupid to seek independent advice.
He had gone back to his life in Australia, and his career in the mining industry, a career notoriously incompatible with family life, knowing that it would put paid to any chance of shared custody of Clem. Had he talked himself into believing it would be better for Clem for him to pretty much stay out of her life? Because him living in Australia, still at the very beginning of his career, tied to onerous contracts and barely able to afford the annual visit back home to see his child, had made it impossible to nurture much of an ongoing relationship.
The second visitation he’d had with Clem when she was still young had resulted in his small daughter screaming at being left alone with a strange man. She had called out for Hugo. Jon remembered feeling gutted. He suspected Natalie, when she’d heard about it, would have been pleased. She’d have been happy to have him right out of their lives.
Clem glanced at her watch again. ‘Before we go…’ She lowered her voice. ‘Mum has never talked about why you split up. She always just says it was because you were too young.’
‘That’s true.’
‘But there must have been more to it than that.’
Jon didn’t know what to say. He was extremely wary of treading on Natalie’s toes when it came to her daughter and what she had chosen to tell her. ‘It was very difficult.’
‘My grandmother says it was because you were a terrible person. But now, getting to know you properly, I don’t believe that for one moment.’
Jon stifled a curse. ‘Your grandmother would say that.’
‘You sound like you don’t think much of her.’ She paused. ‘But don’t worry, I don’t think much of her either. We rarely see them. All my grandmother seems to do is criticise me, criticise Mum, and my grandfather just shuts up and lets her. I even overheard Mum saying to Hugo once that it was a blessing her parents had moved to Spain.’
‘It’s true, I don’t have time for your grandparents. I gladly divorced them. But it’s really up to your mum to talk to you about…about that time and why our marriage ended. What I will say is that it had a lot to do with family interference. We were young, naïve, broke and totally clueless about becoming parents, just that we were overjoyed to have you. But the people we should have been able to trust to care for us, and steer us in the right direction, let us down. As I said, it was a difficult time.’
‘Okay. I get that,’ Clem said. ‘But…but I’m glad we’re in contact again. And not just because I’m finding out more about my baby’s genetic inheritance.’
Jon reached out and took her hand. ‘Me too,’ he said, his voice suddenly husky.
Clem kept his hand there. ‘Tell me, having seen Mum again would…would you want a second chance with her?’
Jon wasn’t sure whether his daughter would think that would be a good thing or a bad thing. He decided, again, to tell the truth. ‘No. That would never happen. There was too much pain and anger, and words said that can never be unsaid. I doubt that your mother would say anything different.’
‘I had to ask,’ said Clem simply.
The waiter came and cleared their plates. Jon paid for the meal. Clem got up to go. ‘Just one thing before you go back to work,’ Jon said. ‘I need a Christmas present for your mum. I believe we’ll exchange gifts on Christmas Day and I don’t want to arrive empty-handed.’
Clem sighed. ‘She’s so difficult to buy for. She has everything she wants. Let me think. Not jewellery, she has plenty of that which she rarely wears, and I don’t understand why as I love jewellery. She’s very particular about perfume and stuff like that. And her painting equipment is a mystery known only to her. But I have an idea. She adopted Freddie, her dog from a local pet rescue. I reckon she would love a donation to them in her name for Christmas.’
‘Great idea,’ Jon said approvingly. ‘And very easy for me.’ A very generous donation should make Natalie look good.
‘I’ll text you the details of the shelter.’ Clem got up, a little ponderously considering the size of her bump. ‘I’ve gotta go.’
