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Page 49 of The Next Chapter

‘When did you know?’ I ask her.

‘That you were my baby?’ Lola answers. Both our faces are wet.

I nod.

‘I suspected… But I knew for sure when you sang tonight. Maybe something like mother’s intuition, though I don’t know if I’ve earned the right to call it that.’

‘I felt it too,’ I admit, thinking of that unfathomable thing I’d sensed. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

It’s quiet between us then and I wonder if, like me, Lola is thinking about how completely random it all is. That she had me. That she picked my parents. That she was too late. But what she’s said, it means that she wanted me. After all that, she did want me.

‘I’m sorry about Jimmy,’ I tell her.

Lola shrugs. ‘I doubt I was the first girl to fall for him, I certainly wasn’t his last. He died of a heart attack.’

She lets the words hang, neither of us acknowledging the fact that it means I’ll never meet my birth father.

‘Is that why you’re writing your memoirs? To save the hotel?’ I ask.

Another nod. ‘For a long time, it’s been the only thing that linked me to you. I can’t lose it.’

It’s quiet again as my mind whirls. I’m building up to saying the thing that I’ve wanted to say this whole, entire time.

‘You never replied to my letters.’

Lola’s forehead creases.

‘What letters?’ she asks.

I roll my eyes, because after everything she’s told me, I didn’t think she’d deny them.

‘The letters I wrote to you every year.’

She’s still looking at me blankly.

‘Every birthday, I’d write to you. I was obsessed with you.

All the clippings and videos. Mum and Dad passed the letters onto the adoption agency to give to you and every year I was so sure that this would be the year that you’d write back.

Every year that you didn’t, it felt like another rejection.

Like you were making it clear over and over that you never wanted me. ’

I stand up, needing… I don’t know what I need.

‘I swear I never got them. Did your dad tell you I called once?’

My head is spinning. ‘Yeah, Dad said you called when I was eighteen. How did you even get our number?’

Lola is still sitting down, looking at the floor.

She nods. ‘I remembered about your mum. Her piano lessons. I found an advert for them and called the number on there. I spoke to your dad. Your mum had just died, and I think he wanted to give me a piece of his mind.’

I go to interrupt, and she holds her hands up. ‘Not that I blame him.’

‘Well, he had just lost the love of his life.’

Lola shakes her head. ‘I don’t think that’s quite true, Lily.

Your dad obviously loved your mum, very much.

I remember that about them. But that’s what he said about you.

That you were the love of his life, and he wasn’t about to lose you.

He said you hated me and that you never wanted to hear from me.

It was… hard to hear that you didn’t want to know me, even though I understood it.

I felt like I should respect your wishes. That I owed you that at least.’

I’m only half listening. Instead, I’ve zeroed in on the fact that Dad was worried I’d leave him when Lola called.

‘I never would have left him,’ I say, partly to myself.

‘They were good people.’

‘I know that.’

‘But I never got your letters, Lily. I swear it.’

‘But… but you must have done. I wrote them. Mum and Dad said that you were getting them.’

Lola just looks at me. I know what she’s thinking.

She’s thinking that Mum and Dad lied, that they never gave her the letters.

But that can’t be true. They’d never have done that to me.

Would they?

And suddenly I am furious with myself. God, how could I even think about doubting them like this?

My wonderful parents who took me home and raised me when my birth mother – the woman standing in front of me – didn’t.

I feel such awful, all-consuming guilt. Especially when they aren’t here to defend themselves either. What a shit daughter I am.

I can’t do this anymore. I need to get away.

I leave the office, ignoring Lola calling for me.

I storm through the hotel to the outside.

I call the only person in my life who has never let me down or left me.

‘If you’re calling me at ten o’clock on a Saturday night to FaceTime your cat, we are going to be having serious words.’

‘I’m leaving. I’ll get a taxi. I’m coming back.’

‘What, now?’ says Seb.

‘Yes, now.’

‘You’ll need to remortgage the house to pay for a taxi home.’

I hear him moving around. I stand in the gardens and look up at the stars.

‘I can’t stay. Lola told me the rest of her story.’

‘I worked that bit out.’

‘She came and stayed here, while she was pregnant, I mean. With me. She came back here because she felt close to me. That’s why she’s willing to sell her memoirs to save the place.’

‘Shit, no way. And what about Ashton?’

‘He isn’t my dad. It was Jimmy Nickle. Their manager.’

‘What? But he was old when Lola was in the band.’

‘Yeah, he manipulated her. What great stock I come from! Oh, and Lola said Mum and Dad never passed on my letters, which can’t be true. Why the fuck don’t they have Uber up here?’

‘I’m already in the car, babes. Get off the island and I’ll come and meet you.’

‘I’ll find a hotel and message you. Thank you,’ I finish.

The call ends and the urge to keep moving is back. I need to pack. I need to get back to the cottage and… Noah.

He’s waiting for me on the couch when I come into the cottage, a beer in hand. There’s music playing through his phone. Lola’s song. My song.

He smiles when he sees me. ‘I can’t stop listening to this, you guys sounded great. Hey, what’s wrong?’

My ability to stamp down my emotions has clearly gone haywire. I don’t even need to look at myself to know that every bit of hurt I’m feeling is written all over my face.

‘It’s Lola,’ I tell him, making no move to go to the couch and sit next to him. What would be the point?

‘What about Lola?’ He frowns. ‘Is she all right? Is everything okay? You’re freaking me out, Lily.’

‘She’s fine, don’t worry. Well, except for the fact that… well, Lola, see, she’s my… Lola’s my mum.’

Lola isn’t my mum.

‘She’s my birth mum,’ I clarify.

Noah is staring at me like I’ve lost my marbles and honestly, it feels like I have.

‘I don’t understand?’ he ventures.

‘It’s pretty straightforward when you think about it.

’ I laugh a hollow laugh. ‘Lola had a baby when she was twenty and that baby is me. She gave me up for adoption ten seconds after she had me by all accounts, so even though she’s technically my mum, she’s not really my mum.

My actual mum is dead. And my dad, for that matter.

Also dead. My birth dad sounds like a bit of a sex pest and guess what? He’s dead too!’

Now my fake laugh is tinged with mania.

Noah has stood up, now looking distinctly alarmed at the way I’m just throwing dead parents at him.

‘And you’ve just found all this out now?’ he asks, talking as if any sudden movements might set me off.

‘No. I knew before I came here. That’s why I came here.

But Lola has just told me the whole story.

I know you’re super big on honesty, but I’ve been lying since the beginning.

I imagine it’s going to cost me a fair amount of sleep over the next few decades.

If I live that long. Dying seems to be a hazard of being connected to me. ’

Under his glorious, golden tan, I think Noah’s paled somewhat.

I’m on a roll, though.

‘And while I’m at it, Seb isn’t my brother.

He’s my best friend. So, it’s not as weird that I talk to him about our sex life.

I think it’s important to look for the silver linings in these sorts of occasions, don’t you?

Anyway, he’s coming to meet me. I’ve called a taxi and it’ll be here in—’ I check my phone ‘—two hours, so if you don’t mind, I’ll get packing and then be out of your hair. ’

Noah laughs like he thinks that I might be joking.

‘What, you’re serious? You’re leaving?’

‘What else am I going to do? Stay and play happy families with Lola?’

‘I don’t know, Lily, you’ve just come and said all of this… stuff. I don’t know what to think.’

I take pity on him at that.

‘I get that. And I’m so sorry I lied to you. I couldn’t risk you telling Lola, see. Lying to you is absolutely going to haunt me, so rest assured I’ll suffer. But we both knew this was going to end.’

Even as I say them, the words hurt. I don’t want this to end, but it has to. Even without all the reasons we aren’t suited, Noah comes with Lola. Lola, who is making me question everything I thought I knew about Mum and Dad. No. Nope. I can’t do that.

‘But I thought we were going to try?’ he asks. ‘I thought you felt the same?’

‘What difference does it make how we feel? In two weeks you’re going to Italy and in an hour and fifty-five minutes I’m going to be anywhere but here.’

I remember my list. All the reasons we wouldn’t work out.

He loves to travel and most days, I have to psych myself up to leave the house.

He’s leaving in six weeks.

I’m leaving in six weeks.

I’ve told him more than once that I love adventure when the reality is that I get excited when my favourite toothpaste is on special offer.

I’m lying to him about Lola.

Suddenly, so much of the list seems stupid now. Daft in a way that it didn’t before. But it’s the last one, the Lola one. I might not be lying to Noah about Lola anymore, but there’s no denying that Lola comes with Noah. I can’t have one and not the other.

And here’s the thing. I want to forgive Lola.

I want to be the sort of person who does that.

Having her and Noah in my life would make me feel good, I think that it would.

But knowing this and doing it are two different things entirely.

I just can’t. Or I don’t think that I can.

We don’t owe anyone our forgiveness, surely.

‘So, you’ve already made up your mind.’ Noah runs his hands through his hair, pushing it back off his head. He stands up, and then looks around as if he’s not sure what to do next.

‘I can’t be forced into having Lola in my life. It’s okay for me not to want that.’

‘I never said it wasn’t okay!’

‘Oh.’

My phone buzzes in my hand. I look down.

My taxi is on its way. Just a mere hour and fifty minutes to go.

‘Yeah. I’m really sorry, Noah. This was never going to be more than a summer thing for me.’ Even as I say the words, I know I’m lying.

I start moving towards the bedroom.

‘I’m sorry too, Lily.’

He slips out of the doors, and I think at some point, I’m really going to feel this. But now, I’m acting on autopilot.

I’m in the bedroom throwing things into my case with absolute gay abandon.

Nothing gets folded. I empty the bag for life I’ve been using for dirty clothes on top of the clean stuff.

I have the suitcase version of complete mayhem.

I have to put my full weight on the top of the case, just to get it to shut.

I leave the bound business plans on the bed, thinking how ridiculous this whole thing was.

I make a sad little mountain of my belongings in the main room of the cottage and then sit on the couch staring into the darkness playing the whole evening over and over in my head.

Wondering how it can be the same night as the karaoke party.

Thinking back over everything Lola had said about Jimmy, about me. Essentially, I’ve given my brain enough over-analysing fodder to keep it occupied for a couple of millennia.

Plus, should old age ever deign to strip me of some of the more heartbreaking of tonight’s memories, I have an actual recorded copy of my birth mum talking about giving me up in the form of a song. A song, incidentally, that was my real mum’s favourite. That’s what you call winning at life.

Finally, I get a notification that my taxi is here, so I gather up my stuff (carrying my phone charger in my teeth, I might add) and trudge down the side of the hotel.

If Noah hears me going, he doesn’t come out, and maybe this is better than some sad, sorry goodbye. A clean break.

I don’t look back at the cottage.

It’s only when all of my things are in the car and I’m closing the boot that I realize the light is on in Lola’s office at the front of the hotel.

This time I do turn around.

Lola’s there, watching as I leave.

I buckle myself in.

‘Please,’ I tell a very startled looking driver. ‘Please get me off this island.’