So Now You're Back

So, Super Dad doesn’t do every single thing right.

‘I told him I had my first drink when I was fifteen at Guide camp and that him still thinking of me as his little girl was a bit pervy, but he would not give in—even after he told me his news and we had tons more to celebrate.’

‘What news?’ The contraband enquiry slipped out—probably as a result of the fruity frothy wine and the golden glow of contentment bestowed by her daughter’s easy smile.

‘Dad’s writing his memoirs,’ Lizzie replied, the enthusiasm in her voice as effervescent as the champagne. ‘He’s already been offered a big advance from some publisher in New York.’

‘What?’ Halle’s flute hit the hardwood surface of the banquette table, her bubble of contentment collapsing like a profiterole tower left out in the sun.

‘They might even make a film of it. And I’ll finally get to go to some decent parties, instead of those boring book launches your publisher arranges.’ Lizzie’s tone took on a jokey whine. ‘Seriously, Mum, why have a party in the kitchen section of John Lewis for fuck sake when you could have it in a West End nightclub?’

‘Don’t swear,’ Halle replied automatically as the taste of pink champagne soured on her tongue. ‘What do you mean he’s writing his memoirs? What memoirs?’

Luke Best didn’t have any memoirs worth publishing. OK, he was an award-winning journalist. She’d give him that. But he wrote about other people’s lives, not his own. Nobody gave a toss about the messenger. They only gave a toss about celebrities. Celebrities like her. Or they would have, if she hadn’t worked overtime with the help of her management team and her publicist to keep her private life strictly private and airbrush any mention of Luke Best from her past.

‘You know, his life story, that sort of thing,’ Lizzie said, the eager excitement making it obvious she was completely oblivious to Halle’s collapsing croquembouche. ‘And I’m a big part of his life as his only child, so it totally stands to reason I’ll be a big part of—’

‘But he can’t do that …’ Halle interrupted, panic and horror combining into a perfect storm in the pit of her stomach—and threatening to rip open the ulcer she’d gotten under control years ago. ‘That’s a breach of our privacy.’

Did he plan to porn out the most painful part of her life—a life he’d once ripped to shreds with careless abandon—to a bloody New York publisher? Was he mad? Surely this couldn’t just be Luke’s trademark don’t-give-a-shit attitude. What he was planning to do wasn’t just thoughtless, or reckless, it was unconscionable, bordering on vindictive. And it would have repercussions, not just for her but for Lizzie and even Aldo—whom Luke had never met but whose childhood he was going to happily destroy for a bloody publishing deal?

All the hurt and anger she’d kept so carefully leashed for so many years, that she had been sure until about ten seconds ago she’d totally let go of, rushed up her torso like a tsunami and threatened to gag her.

‘Mum, chill.’ Lizzie lowered her glass and stared at her mum, whose face had gone pinker than the rosé tint of the bubbles in her glass. ‘What are you getting so upset about? This isn’t about you.’

She and her mum had had some major slanging matches in the past few years. But she’d never seen her mum this shaken. Ever.

‘It is about me. Of course it’s about me! What else has he got to sell except intimate details of our life together?’ The protest surprised Lizzie with its vehemence.

Lizzie had grown to hate her mum’s yummy-mummy image, the one she cultivated on her TV show—the TV show that had come to mean so much more in her mum’s life than Lizzie or Aldo—because she knew how fake that image was. But she would happily have the serene, relaxed and witty woman who had become a national treasure to millions back right now than the woman visibly trembling in front of her.

‘Mum, are you OK? You look weird.’

‘Shit.’ The expletive burst out of her mum’s mouth, disturbing Lizzie even more.

Mum had always been uptight about swearing. Not like her dad, who swore a lot. But her dad always swore in an offhand, colourful way that made Lizzie laugh—especially when he added, ‘Pretend you didn’t hear that. Don’t repeat it, and for fuck sake don’t tell your mother.’

‘What’s the problem with Dad writing a memoir?’ she forced herself to ask, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

Because she had a hideous feeling it would involve her mum finally saying something about her dad. Something she wasn’t as sure as she’d once been that she wanted to hear.

As a child she’d tried to force her mum to talk about him. And vice versa when she was visiting her dad in Paris. But both of them had always maintained this freaky conspiracy of silence all through her childhood, refusing to be drawn on the subject of their past, how they’d met, married, why they’d ended up apart.

She had friends at school whose parents had divorced and spent their whole time bitching about each other to their kids, so she had eventually stopped asking her own parents to talk about each other—because she’d rather hear nothing than a load of bad stuff. But that hadn’t stopped her being ecstatic when her dad had mentioned the book he was writing. Not because they might make a film of it. She wasn’t a total loser, she knew that was never going to happen, and if by some miracle it did, they’d get someone else to play her part—someone cool and beautiful and talented, like Scarlett Johansson. Not someone who was stupid and too skinny and had no tits, like her.

No, she’d been excited because she’d wanted desperately to read her dad’s book. Not only was he a great writer—she’d read pretty much every article he’d ever written, so she knew that for a fact—but because he’d finally be writing about the one thing she’d always wanted to read. What had happened between him and her mum. In that fluid, focused way that could ‘unveil the beating heart of the human condition’. Well, that’s what Time magazine had said on his profile, when he’d done a story for them about the murder of a socialite in Palm Beach.

Instead of answering the question, her mum locked the whisky-coloured gaze that Lizzie’s brother, Aldo, had inherited onto her face, and a concerned frown formed on her brow. The concerned frown that Lizzie knew meant she was about to be lied to. Again.

‘It’s OK, don’t worry, everything will be fine. I just need to call Jamie and get the legal team on this.’

‘Why?’

Her mum placed a trembling hand on the table, then lifted her champagne glass and drained the lot, another sure sign she was freaking out, big time.

‘Listen, Lizzie, you don’t have to worry about any of this.’ Her fingers still shook on the glass. ‘It’s between me and your dad, but it’s really not that big a deal.’

Yeah, right. Not a big deal, even though you’re swearing and sweating and knocking back champagne like an escapee from Alcoholics Anonymous.

‘You’re going to stop Dad writing his book. That’s it, isn’t it?’ she said, leading with her frustration so as not to give away how deflated she felt.

Why was her mum such a neurotic control freak? And why did she always have to ruin every single good thing that ever happened in Lizzie’s life? Like when she’d first hooked up with Liam, and her mum had worried he was going to turn her into a drug addict because she could smell weed on him the one time she’d met him. Or when Lizzie had finally lost her puppy fat at sixteen—because she’d grown four inches in a year—and her mum had forced them all to go to family therapy because she’d panicked that Lizzie was becoming an anorexic and was on the verge of starving herself to death.

Perhaps if her mum spent more time actually being the Domestic Diva, instead of pretending to be her on TV, she wouldn’t freak out all the time about nothing.

‘Excuse me, you’re Halle Best, aren’t you?’ An ancient guy of at least fifty hovered next to their table, interrupting Lizzie’s thoughts.

No shit, Sherlock.

Lizzie glared at the old git, but, as was always the case with her mum’s fans, he didn’t even see her sitting there.

‘My wife and I love your show.’

‘Thank you, that’s very generous of you,’ her mum replied, all the signs of her previous distress disappearing fast, until all that was left was the serene, polished and totally fake expression she always pasted on when she was doing her Domestic Diva act.

‘Do you mind? I hate to be a nuisance, but …’ He presented a napkin to her mum, then pulled a pen out of his pocket—obviously not hating being a nuisance enough to not be a total bloody nuisance. ‘Could I get your autograph?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Her mum sent Lizzie a tentative smile—as if to say sorry for the interruption—before taking the pen and signing the napkin. But Lizzie already knew that apologetic smile was as fake as the rest of her mum’s act. Her mum was probably rejoicing at being rescued by this jerk.

No way would she get a straight answer out of her now.

Chapter 2 (#ulink_65498115-1c79-54d4-a073-f5290df429eb)

‘You are a bastard. Salaud. Imbécile.’

Luke Best ducked the jar of cornichon pickles that came flying towards his head and flinched as it shattered against the apartment wall. ‘Bloody hell, Chantelle. Calm the fuck down. Why are you so angry?’

‘I love you and you lie to me,’ she cried.

‘No, you don’t, and no, I didn’t. I told you this wasn’t serious from the start. It’s not my fault you didn’t listen.’

‘I hate you now.’

‘I get that,’ he said as he edged towards the hallway. ‘Which is all the more reason for us not to see each other again. We haven’t got together in months. You must have seen this coming?’

‘You see this coming, connard?’ Chantelle grabbed an onyx ashtray with an Asterix figurine on it and let it fly.

He ducked again, but the heavy object spun in mid-air, hurtling towards him like an Exocet missile, and smacked into his brow.