“Can’t be helped, I’m sure.”
Okay, maybe that was enough. “Mum, stop being such a condescending—stop being so condescending. Harry, you’ve got nothing to apologise for, you’re right. They are being rude. They’re not just being rude, they’re being . . . ” This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to be having in front of her daughter. “Can you take Amelie to the van, please.”
At the sound of her name, Amelie flicked back into life like one of those fish you get in a certain sort of pub. “I don’t want to go in the van, I want to finish my marbles.”
“Let the girl finish her marbles, Rosaline.” St. John Palmer had the same commanding tone he’d been using whenever Rosaline disagreed with him for as long as she could remember. “They’re educational.”
This . . . this was a deep-breaths situation. “Amelie. Thank Grandma and Granddad for a lovely time. You can finish your marbles when you come back. But for now, I need you to go to the van with Harry.”
“Are you really sending our granddaughter to go and sit in a van with a stranger you met on a reality television program?” Cordelia couldn’t have sounded more aghast if she’d taken lessons.
“No. I’m sending my daughter to go and sit in the van with my friend because she shouldn’t have to be here for this.”
“What shouldn’t I be here for?” asked Amelie. “Why do you always think I can’t understand things? I can understand lots of things. I can understand what makes the marbles go fast and the fish with the big eyes that live under the sea and where the energy comes from in the hydrothermal vents even though there isn’t any sunlight so they can’t do photo . . . photo . . .”
“Photosynthesis.” St. John’s voice shifted from scolding to avuncular so quickly that he almost sounded like he was operating outdated text-to-voice software.
“Amelie. I’ve asked you twice now. Say goodbye to Grandma and Granddad and go to the van with Harry.”
For all that Rosaline spent half her life feeling like the twelfth-worst parent in the world, she very seldom had to tell her daughter to do anything more than three times. Amelie stood up, recited a slightly rote but passably adorable round of thank-you-for-having-mes and went to stand by Harry.
“C’mon, Prime Minister, we can play I Spy while we wait.”
The dozen or so seconds that it took for them to get out of earshot were longer by far than the hours Rosaline had spent on the show waiting for the judges to tell her why her baking sucked this week.
“Well?” St. John had actually folded his arms. “What was this thing you wanted to say to us that was so momentous you had to send your daughter away?”
The look in his eyes was defiant enough that for a very, very long moment Rosaline seriously considered retreating into “You know what, forget it.” But she’d been doing that for more than eight years and where had it got her? “You . . . ” There was no good way to start this and no not-objectively-terrible way to continue it. “You honestly don’t see what you’re like, do you?”
Her father blinked. “What I’m like?”
“Rosaline”—Cordelia was shifting to her understanding persona, all I-statements and a voice that went up about an eighth of an octave—“I recognise that you’ve had some disappointments recently, but lashing out at your father—”
“Oh fuck me, Mum, I mean both of you. Don’t you—I mean, do you even—I come here to pick up my child and you second-guess my decisions, insult my friend, make constant digs at my entire fucking life, and you do it all in front of Amelie.”
Had that worked? It seemed to shut them up for a moment at least.
But only a moment. And Cordelia rallied first. “Well, I’m sorry if your . . . friend felt insulted. But you have to see how confusing this is for your father and me. And for Amelie. Your lifestyle hasn’t exactly been stable recently.”
“Maybe n—” She’d been about to concede the point but no. That was how this always worked. “Um, actually I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit. Like actual, utter bullshit.”
“Language, Rosaline.” Now that Amelie had left the building, playful St. John had done the same.
“Oh, fuck language. Language is for saying things and what I’m saying now is that what you just said”—she turned to Cordelia, who was looking thoroughly taken aback—“can only be described as bullshit. My life has been unbelievably stable for a fucking decade. I’ve had three jobs, none of which have got in the way of looking after Amelie. I’ve dated four or five people, most of whom I have made damned sure she didn’t meet.”
She should probably have stopped there. But she found she couldn’t. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to, and maybe that was more important. “I’ve kept you pair of—you pair of snobbish gaslighting fucks in her life because she apparently loves you, probably because she doesn’t actually know you; and yes, I’ve also kept Lauren in her life because Lauren has actually been there for me this whole time.”
The mention of that woman drew winces from both Palmers, but Rosaline kept going. “Even while I’ve been on the show I’ve picked my daughter up from school every day I wasn’t filming and I’ve not missed one single ballet recital or school fete or parent-teacher evening, which, let’s be really fucking clear, is far more than I can say for either of you. So no, my life hasn’t”—she threw the world’s most vicious set of air quotes—“been unstable recently. It’s just that it hasn’t looked the way you’ve been telling me it has to look since I was fucking six.”
“We know we weren’t perfect parents.” Cordelia was speaking slowly now, almost guardedly. “But we thought that with a child of your own you’d understand how difficult it can be.”
That was . . . that wasn’t even not the point. It was inventing its own point that was easier to deal with. “I know it’s difficult. Of course I know it’s fucking difficult.”
“Then why are you having a go at your mother for missing your parent-teacher meetings?” There was an almost protective note in St. John’s voice that Rosaline hadn’t expected.
“Fuck me, is that the only thing you’re going to respond to? I’ve spent my entire life with the spectre of your expectations following me around like Banquo’s ghost and you think I’m narked that you missed my year-nine play.”
St. John gave her a sour look. “And did you pick up ‘narked’ from the man with the van or the ex-girlfriend?”
“You mean from Harry or from Lauren? They both have names. And I don’t know. Both? Neither? Why does it matter? Why does every tiny detail of every part of my life matter?”
At this Cordelia looked almost heartbroken. “You’re our daughter, darling, of course you matter.”
“That’s not . . . ” This was beginning to feel a lot like making Turkish delight. Hot, stressful, taking forever, and producing nothing anybody actually wanted. “Why is it so important to you that I live in the right sort of house, that I have the right sort of job, that I go out with the right sort of man and before you say anything, you clearly do find it easier if I’m going out with a man.”