He goes to speak but only achieves a stunned rush of air. I’ve shocked him, as I knew I would, but I wish he’d at least say something . . . anything. He doesn’t, but I do.
‘She abandoned me. She dumped me on my grandparents in favour of a life of sex, alcohol and expensive gifts.’
He’s watching me closely. I’m desperate to know what he’s thinking. I know it can’t be good. ‘Tell me what happened to her.’
‘I’ve told you.’
He tweaks his glass again and returns his gaze to me. ‘All you’ve told me is that she accepted money in return for . . . entertainment.’
‘And that’s all there is to know.’
‘So where is she now?’
‘Dead, probably,’ I spit nastily. ‘I really don’t care.’
‘Dead?’ he gasps, showing more emotion. I’m pulling reactions from him left, right and centre now.
‘Probably,’ I shrug. ‘She chased a rainbow. Every man who had her fell for her, but no one was ever adequate, not even me.’
His face softens, sympathy washing over his features. ‘What makes you think she’s dead?’
I take a deep breath of confidence, ready to explain something that I’ve avoided explaining to anyone ever. ‘She fell into the wrong man’s hands too many times and I have a bank account loaded with years of earnings that hasn’t been touched since she’s been gone. I was only six, but I remember my grandparents constantly arguing over her.’ My mind is instantly bombarded by images of my granddad’s anguish and my nan crying. ‘She would disappear for days regularly, but then she didn’t come back. My granddad called the police after three days. They investigated, questioned her current beau and the many men before him, but with her history they closed the case. I was a little girl, I didn’t understand, but when I was seventeen I found her journal. It told me everything – in vivid detail.’
‘I . . .’ He clearly doesn’t know what to say, so I go on. I feel a sense of relief offloading it all, even if it means he’ll walk away from me.
‘I don’t want to be anything like my mother. I don’t want to drink and have sex with no feelings. It’s nothing, except degrading and meaningless.’ I realise what I’ve said the second it falls from my lips, but I’ve given Miller no reason to believe there are no feelings from my side. ‘She chose that lifestyle over her family.’ I surprise myself by keeping my voice steady and strong, even if hearing it aloud for the first time ever causes me physical pain.
Miller’s cheeks puff, letting out a rush of air, and he takes his empty glass and frowns at it.
‘Shocked?’ I ask, thinking I could do with one of those shorts.
He looks at me like I’m daft, then stands and paces back to the drinks cabinet, pouring more whisky into his tumbler, this time halfway as opposed to the usual two fingers. And then he surprises me by pouring another glass before resuming his position opposite me. He hands me the fresh glass. ‘Have a drink.’
I’m a little stunned at the glass being waved under my nose. ‘I told you—’
‘Olivia, you can have a drink without getting mindlessly drunk.’
Cautiously reaching forward, I take the glass. ‘Thank you.’
‘Welcome,’ he practically grunts before knocking back his drink. ‘Your father?’
I have to stop myself from spilling a sardonic laugh and shrug my answer instead, making him exhale over the rim of his glass.
‘You don’t know?’
I shake my head.
‘I hate your mother.’
‘What?’ I ask, shocked, considering I may have just misheard him.
‘I hate her,’ he repeats, venom dripping from his voice.
‘So do I.’
‘Good. Then we both hate your mother. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.’
Not knowing quite what to say, I sit quietly, watching him drift in and out of thought, taking breaths as if intending to say something, but thinking better of it. There’s nothing that he can say. It’s ugly, and no reassuring words will pretty it up. That’s my history. I can’t change who my mother was, what she did, and I can’t change how I’ve allowed it to impact on my life.
He eventually speaks, but it’s not a question I expected. ‘So I’m your only sober lover?’
I nod and rest back on the couch, putting space between us but finding it impossible to look away from him.
‘And did you enjoy it?’
This is a stupid question. ‘It scares me.’
‘I scare you?’
‘How you make me feel scares me. I don’t know myself around you,’ I whisper, slowly showing him all my cards.