‘Yes,’ Pav repeated. ‘I’m coming too.’
‘Right, well …’ There was a brief pause as Valerie looked between them again. ‘We’ll wait in the car whilst you fix your make-up and change your shoes, Camilla. We need to leave in ten minutes.’
*****
‘You understand what’s expected of you?’ Valerie asked as Millie stared out of the window of the Mercedes. She was sitting in the back with her parents; Pav was in the front with her parents’ driver of the last fifteen years, Michael.
‘Yes,’ Millie said.
‘I don’t want a repeat of last time,’ her father put in. ‘You’ve got to actually speak, Camilla. None of this mumbling like a mental deficient.’
‘And you can’t hide in the loos like you did at your graduation party,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll never understand you. We put on a huge dinner for you to celebrate, and you barely spoke a word and cowered away for most of the night.’
Her parents were trying to keep their voices down so that they couldn’t be overheard from the front, but if Pav’s back stiffening was anything to go by, that was not working. Normally Millie wouldn’t have responded. She’d learned long ago that fighting back against the relentless criticism didn’t get her anywhere. It was in general better to just shut herself off from it. But whilst it was okay for just her to hear all her faults listed, knowing Pav was listening too was humiliating.
‘I didn’t want a party,’ she said, her voice brittle and tightly controlled. ‘You knew that.’
There was a pause as her mother took a shocked breath. ‘How dare you, you ungrateful brat,’ she whisper-hissed, grabbing Millie’s elbow in a death grip. ‘Lots of normal young people would have killed for a big party in their honour.’
Millie snorted; actuallysnorted. It was the most disrespectful she thought she had ever been to her parents.
‘It was not a party for me. It was a party for you … to show off to your friends. No, that’s not right … to your acquaintances. You wanted to use me to show off the fact that your clever daughter graduated medical school before she was even twenty-one. Just like you’re using me tonight. It was nothing to do withme. None of my friends were even there.’
Valerie turned her cold glare on Millie and a shiver went up her spine at the hatred in her mother’s eyes. ‘You didn’thaveany friends to invite, Camilla.’ Millie swallowed hard. She hadn’t allowed this woman to see her cry since she was five years old, and she was not about to start now.
‘Get your fucking hand off her, now.’
Millie started as Pav’s angry voice filled the Mercedes. He was turned fully round in his seat, his eyes locked onto Valerie’s grip on Millie’s elbow.
‘How dare you sp –’
‘I don’t know what the bloody hell is going on here,’ Pav cut her off, his voice now low and dangerous. ‘But I do know that if you don’t remove your hand from your daughter’s elbow right fucking now I’m going to do it for you.’
‘Well …’ Valerie huffed, but she did release Millie’s arm. ‘I don’t think that –’
‘Millie may not have had friends back then,’ Pav told her. ‘But you’d do well to remember she does have them now.’
‘Now, now, old boy,’ said David, his fake smile having little effect on Pav’s furious expression. ‘You know what families are like. Things can get a bit heated and all that. No need to go off the deep end.’
‘I know whatmyfamily is like,sir,’ Pav replied through gritted teeth. ‘And I can assure you it’s a world away from this.’
The car pulled up to the entrance of the Savoy just as Pav finished his speech. Millie was in a state of shock and sat frozen in place as Michael (who had been studiously avoiding the drama unfolding in the enclosed space, just as he had pretended to ignore so many ugly exchanges in the past, other than giving Millie small encouraging smiles or taking snatched opportunities to squeeze her hand) pushed open his door and stepped out. Instead of moving to the back passenger door where her father was sitting, Michael moved to Pav’s door and yanked it open. As Pav emerged, Michael gave him a slap on the back and shook his hand.
‘Well … I … what a ridiculous, vulgar display,’ Valerie muttered as she was forced, likely for the first time in a long time, to open her own door. Millie’s stomach clenched as she followed her mother out of the car.
A nanny had tried to intervene when Millie was nine during a particularly spiteful tirade from her mother. She was replaced the next day. A teacher at school had even gone as far as reporting her concerns of emotional abuse to social services after an ugly parents’ evening. That had resulted in a couple of visits to their house from a harassed-looking, overworked social worker, during which her mother put up a good front.
The fact that Millie lived in a huge house in Hampstead (the social worker had joked during her visit that she was more used to visiting drug dens in far less salubrious parts of north London) also contributed to the case being dropped. The teacher had left the school shortly after. So Millie had been conditioned to think that any help from outside was pointless. Indeed, it often resulted in a person Millie had cared about being removed from her life. Her parents were a force to be reckoned with, and they had power. Millie had never been in a situation before where they didn’t have the upper hand. And if she lost Pav …
‘You okay?’ his low voice sounded close to her ear as he slipped his hand into hers and pulled her away from the car to stand next to him on the pavement. His tone was gentle but his words were still tight with anger.
She nodded. ‘Look, maybe it’s better if you don’t come in … I mean …’ She trailed off and Pav turned her towards him, taking her other hand.
‘Maybe we should both go home,’ he said, and she rested her forehead against his chest, just for a moment.
‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered. ‘I have to go with them tonight. It’s … it’s complicated, but Ihaveto. What they say to me … it doesn’t affect me, not anymore.’
‘Maybe not,’ he said, his tone laced with doubt. ‘But I am not leaving you here by yourself. I don’t care how complicated it is.’
