Whatever the reason, she’d go as far as to say that the experience had tarnished every encounter she’d had with a man from that day on. What an idiot she’d been to believe in love, like it was some kind of fairy tale. And how stupid of her to imagine that anyone might fall head over heels in love with her!
Men, it seemed, always left in the end. Her dad. Ben. Steve. Even Richie her brother had moved halfway round the world to live with Jordan, his Kiwi boyfriend – now husband – and he might as well have died for all the grieving she and her mum had done following his departure. They stalked him on Facebook like a pair of jealous exes, pouncing on every new detail as it appeared: sighing over the pictures of Richie and Jordan’s elegant house, their Labradoodle Daisy, their social lives, Jordan’s large, beautiful family . . . Lara was glad for them, truly, but their happiness came at the cost of her own bereft feelings and those of her mum, Frances, whose living room now resembled a shrine to her son. What was it about these men, that they kept on going elsewhere?
‘This morning, you told me you tried to get in touch with him again,’ Eliza said now, ‘once you were sure I was his daughter. So what happened? Didn’t he want to know me?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Lara replied. Having photocopied the relevant pages of the library’s phone books, she had methodically called every McManus listed, eventually ringing a Cambridge number, marked ‘G McManus’, which was answered by a young woman.
‘Hi,’ Lara had said with the usual jolt of trepidation that these calls evoked. ‘I’m looking for Ben McManus. Is he there?’
She had asked the question so many times by now, to be met with countless replies of ‘wrong number’, that she was surprised when the woman answered, ‘No, thank God. You’ve just missed him.’
It took her a moment to recover from the shock. Could she have found him at last? She had to make sure, she realised. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Okay. And this Ben – he’s around thirty now, right? Went to uni in Glasgow?’
‘Yeah, but like I said, he’s not here, all right? He doesn’t even live here,’ came the impatient response. ‘Yes, in a MINUTE!’ she yelled in the next second, over the sound of a muffled shout. ‘I’ve got to go. Bye.’
‘Wait!’ Lara cried, reeling. He was back in Cambridge then, she thought, her heart pounding. He existed. ‘Could I leave a message for him, please?’
‘No, you bloody can’t,’ the retort had been. ‘I’m not his answering service. I’m not even speaking to him right now!’
Before Lara could say another word, the woman hung up on her. Which was odd. So he was alive but still pissing off other women. Perhaps she shouldn’t be all that surprised, she told herself wryly. Had she just spoken to Ben’s wife? Girlfriend? One of the sisters he’d told her about? What, exactly, was going on?
Eliza made an annoyed clicking sound with her tongue on hearing this. ‘Rude,’ she said. ‘So what did you do?’
‘Well, I tried again,’ Lara replied. ‘About a week later, I rang back one evening to see if I could find out anything else.’
It had been different that time. A young woman had answered once more – the same one? Lara couldn’t tell – but she’d been more agreeable at least. ‘He’s not here,’ she’d replied. ‘Is that you, Kirsten?’
‘No,’ Lara had said, wondering who Kirsten might be. The angry woman she’d spoken to previously? How many women were in Ben McManus’s life, anyway? ‘It’s . . . it’s Lara,’ she’d said. ‘Would you be able to give him a message for me, please? It’s really important. Would you ask him to call Lara Spencer as soon as possible? I’ll give you my number.’
‘Sure,’ the woman said. ‘Hang on a second while I find a pen . . . Okay, go for it.’
‘Let me guess,’ Eliza put in. ‘He never called you back.’
‘He never called me back,’ Lara confirmed. ‘And – do you know what? By this point, I was sick of him being so crap and unreliable. I didn’t want that for you. I never want anyone to treat you that way!’ Her voice rose with passion. ‘There’s only so many times you can keep trying with a person. You deserved better. We both did.’
Silence fell in the car and Lara couldn’t tell what Eliza was thinking. Did she blame her for giving up too easily? Had she given up too easily? There was more she could have done, sure – she could have written a letter to the address in the phone book, she could have phoned more times until she eventually got through to him, she could have gone to the house and knocked on the door, even. But she hadn’t, in the end, done any of those things. She had closed the chapter on Ben McManus and moved on. And frankly, after the way he’d behaved, he didn’t deserve any more chances.
‘Let’s stop here for a cup of tea,’ she suggested now, seeing a sign for a service station and flicking on her indicator. She was getting a headache from frowning, she realised, and could do with some fresh air. Maybe a swift pep talk to herself in the loos, too. Now that she’d relinquished the truth to Eliza – most of it, anyway – she felt vulnerable, as if her armour had slipped, revealing a wound that had never quite healed over.
She reversed into a space, watched the entire time by a German shepherd with a cocked head in the neighbouring Volkswagen, and tried to imagine what it would be like to meet Ben again. He’d probably done loads of exciting things in his life, she predicted. If he ran a map shop now, it was almost certainly because he’d been all over the world, clocking up thrilling life experiences across every continent. She just hoped his expression wouldn’t be too mortifyingly blank when they eventually came face to face once more. Lara who? When? It would make it even more cringey if he’d forgotten her, so that she’d then have to mumble, Okay, never mind, we did sleep together in New York though, and by the way, this is our eighteen-year-old daughter. Still, it would be an ice-breaker at least, she supposed.
Outside the car, the air was cool and breezy, the rain now reduced to drizzle, soft and wet on her face. It was the exact sort of dampening weather that completely wrecked your hair, Lara thought, pulling up her hood. Call her vain, but she didn’t want to see Ben again for the first time in years, and for her hair to be one gigantic frizzball.
Eliza was already walking away. ‘Won’t be long,’ she yelled over her shoulder.
Lara bought herself a coffee and paced around the muddy stretch of grass where dogs could be exercised. The sky was marbled with clouds that felt low and oppressive, as if it might go on raining for ever. What am I doing? she thought for the hundredth time, then jumped as a rotund, sandy-coloured Labrador lolloped over and bumped against her jeaned leg with its quivering wet nose.
‘Sorry,’ yelled its owner, a tall man with designer stubble. He was holding hands with a woman in a red coat, while two little girls skipped and twirled nearby. A proper family, dog and all, Lara thought enviously, as she always did when confronted with the perfect nuclear set-up. Some people not only managed it but made it look easy. It was one of her biggest regrets, that she’d failed to give Eliza this cosy sort of upbringing herself. ‘He’s too friendly for his own good,’ the man was saying, like anyone could think that was a fault. ‘Albert, come here. Here!’