said countless times in those last few weeks.
Nathan took a deep breath. ‘Millie, the reason Mummy is working in London is because she can make so much more money there. One day she’ll come back home and in the meantime we all stay in Edinburgh and carry on like before.’
Millie bit her lip and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. ‘I know, but what if Mummy doesn’t want to ever come back here? Then she’ll take us all to London and leave you here all alone.’
That puzzled him. What had Laura been saying. ‘Why do you think that?’
The tears started to pour down Millie’s face and he shuffled his chair around beside her and held her. Between snuffles and snorts she said, ‘Mummy’s got a boyfriend.’
That rendered him speechless.
It took a few minutes to calm his daughter down and gather his own thoughts. He got Millie some water and sat beside her. ‘So how do you know Mummy’s got a boyfriend?’ he asked sceptically. Laura had only been in London for two months and he found it hard to believe she’d been able to break their wedding vows, for what they were worth, so quickly or indiscreetly – and, more to the point, to reduce their eldest daughter to such a state.
Millie smiled weakly at her dad. ‘There were two pairs of men’s boxer shorts in the washing basket in her flat.’
He tried to think of an innocent explanation for that, and, although he couldn’t immediately come up with one, he decided to give Laura the benefit of the doubt. ‘That doesn’t mean anything, Millie. She might just have bought them for me as a present and decided to wash them before giving them to me.’
Millie stared at him, bestowing a look of pity upon her father for being so stupid. ‘Dad, I checked her phone as well one morning and she had loads of dirty texts from a guy called Simon Kedward – some were way beyond stuff you see online, and others were all lovey-dovey yucky stuff. There were some pictures of them together as well. They’d all been taken in London last week. He’s got blond hair and in one of the pictures he’s got his hands over Mum’s boobs. So, I know he’s not just a “friend” like she said.’
Nathan reeled from her confession and the shock that she’d confronted her mum. ‘What did Mummy say when she knew you’d been looking at her phone?’
Millie narrowed her eyes and wrinkled up her nose and stared at him as if he’d gone way beyond stupid this time. ‘I didn’t tell her I’d looked at her phone.’
Maybe Nathan was stupid. ‘So how … why did she say he’s just a friend if … I don’t understand, Millie.’
Millie smiled and shook her head at his bafflement. ‘Because he came and gave us all a lift to the airport in his car.’
Laura hadn’t mentioned anything about a Simon or the fact that she’d technically been unfaithful.
‘What does this Simon guy do for a living?’
‘I don’t know but he makes “oodles of cash”.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He said so.’
‘He’s got a bit of money, then.’
Millie smiled and wiped her eyes. ‘Yeah, oodles of it.’
‘Mm, this Oodles guy – that’s what I’m going to call him – do you think that’s why Mum likes him?’
‘Dad, you’re asking me about grown-up relationships – not exactly my specialist subject.’
‘What is your specialist subject?’
Millie bit her lip, thinking. ‘Mm, probably Little Mix or The Voice.’
He hugged Millie and she squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Don’t mention any of this to your mum until I can speak to her, okay? As for you moving to London, I think the fact she’s got a boyfriend probably makes it less likely as having you lot around doesn’t exactly give her a lot of freedom.’
‘His last text to Mum said: I can’t wait to meet your girls, perhaps one day we could all be a family, wouldn’t that be something? So, I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Dad.’
Millie picked up her iPad and left the room. Nathan frowned. She seemed to have left in a lighter mood. He couldn’t be sure if she’d been genuinely reassured by his words or by the fact that she’d unburdened her secret. Maybe a combination of both.
He got a large glass from the cupboard and poured himself some wine. He needed to think. He had about half an hour before everyone needed to be in their pyjamas and ready for bed. He’d been genuinely shocked by Millie’s revelation, but it at least explained the newly dyed hair, clothes and perfume, plus Laura had changed in another way that he couldn’t initially put his finger on; she seemed to walk taller, with more of a spring in her step … Then it dawned on him: she was happy.
That depressed him, but the fact some other man wanted to form a family with his wife and kids disturbed him the most. Millie might have picked it up wrong, of course – it seemed unlikely that another man would be so ready to take on another woman’s children quite so quickly. He couldn’t imagine doing that, but then he didn’t know anything about what had gone on. Perhaps Laura had laid down an ultimatum: love me, love my girls. He wouldn’t put it past her.
Nathan knew somewhere deep down that one day Laura would meet someone else. In fact he reckoned it had been part of her plan in moving to London. It was always easier to jump if someone was waiting to catch you. He just hadn’t expected her to jump so soon.
Going home always brought about mixed emotions. I loved my parents and I enjoyed spending time with them partly because they were more bonkers than me and, in a perverse way, that made me feel better. However, this was inevitably tempered with some apprehension of discovering what new shenanigans they might be involved in.
Arriving to see them on the Saturday morning, I parked outside the semi-detached stone villa that had been my home growing up and remained so in many ways. My room still contained my old bed and the wardrobe still held a selection of my clothes that I hadn’t felt the need to take with me. The chest of drawers in the corner was full of old black scarves and jumpers. Officially the room had been designated as a ‘guest’ room but the last guest to sleep in it had been me, four months ago, on Christmas Day. My parents didn’t do ‘guests’ well. The bedroom door still had my name on it, ‘Kat’ shaped from the silhouette of a bat with blood dripping from its wing tips. I still liked that and might take it with me one day.
I used my key to open the door and found my mum standing on a pair of steps just inside cleaning the coving with a bottle of Dettox and kitchen roll.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Oh, Kat, I didn’t know you were coming over today. You usually phone.’
‘Thought I’d surprise you.’
My mum didn’t like surprises. I once booked a weekend away to London for her and my dad for
