“Conclusions?”
“But would you listen? No, you wouldn’t. What did you do instead? You put the phone down on me, while I was still speaking I might add, to go shouting your mouth off at two defenceless women.” She sighed. “I’ve seen you when you’re not happy, the pair of them must have wondered what the hell was going on.”
Thanks to his hangover, Nate didn’t have the energy to stick up for himself. He simply let her words wash over him as he pushed away his plate. He couldn’t eat any more.
His aunt pushed it back. “You still need to finish your coffee too.”
“I’ve had enough.”
“Haven’t we all.”
Nate pulled a face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it’s high time you grew up, young man. It’s time you stopped living in that bubble of yours and realised you’re not the only one who’s hurting here.”
“What are you talking about now?” he asked, wondering where all this was coming from, let alone where it was going.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You weren’t the only one to suffer because of your mum. Watching her go from one bad relationship to another, popping pills every second of the day, and washing most of them down with any drop of alcohol she could get her hands on, throwing her career away, neglecting her responsibilities. And, yes, by that I do mean you. Then to do what she did, to kill herself.”
Nate flinched at the memory, doing his best not to picture her lifeless body strewn across the bed. He could still hear the frantic 999 call, how he struggled to breathe as he begged the operator to send help. He could feel his desperation as he tried to force air back into her lungs and the tiredness in his arms as he pushed on her chest. But it was no good, he was too late. She was gone. As for the note, if you could call it that, it simply contained two words.I’m sorry. As if that’s all he and his aunt deserved.
Thinking back, he should never have hidden it. But in his young, naïve mind, she’d been crucified enough. No way could he let the papers drag her through the mud for taking her own life as well and to this day, the only two people that knew what she’d done were him and Julia. It was their secret, one he often wished they hadn’t kept. Telling the world might have stopped all the conspiracy theorists out there insisting his mother was Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe.
“Of course that left the rest of us feeling guilty for not doing more,” Julia carried on. “When deep down we all know we did everything that we could.” She finally paused, as if recognising the need to calm down. “She was my sister, Nate. Everything that happened pains me as much as it does you.”
He didn’t know what to say. He’d never heard his aunt talk like that before.
“There comes a point,” she said. “When we just have to get on with things. Stop blaming ourselves for the choices your mother made. And we certainly can’t blame everyone else for the choiceswemake.”
Nate considered the last couple of days. “I didn’tchoosefor any of this to happen.”
“No. But you did choose to be judge and jury.”
Now what was the woman going on about? “Meaning?”
“Meaning if you’d bothered to find out the facts before flying off the handle, you’d have saved yourself a whole lot of heartache these last twenty-four hours.”
Nate scoffed at his aunt’s gullibility. “Please don’t tell me they’ve fooled you too.”
“All those two are guilty of is trying to start a new life here in France. Brenda asked you for help for the sake of her daughter, nothing more, nothing less. She was never going to blab about your whereabouts. Five minutes in her company and any fool could see that.”
Nate shook his head. Yep, they’d got to her.
“As for Flick, she’s the best thing to happen to you in years. And what do you go and do? You blow it. All because you’re too arrogant to see that you’re not the only victim in this world. She didn’t want her picture plastered all over that paper any more than you did.”
“That’s what they told you, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m sorry, Aunt Julia, but you’re the fool here, not me.”
His aunt sighed, her eyes showing a mix of frustration and disappointment. “I got a call from Bruce this morning.”
“And what did he have to say? I bet he’s loving all this crap. Jumping on the bandwagon to promote his documentary.”
“He was in a bit of a panic actually, worrying that you might think he’s responsible for those photos.”
“In case I pull out and ruin his viewing figures?” Nate knew he sounded sarcastic, but he couldn’t help himself. “He’s another leech trying to make money out of Mum’s demise. Then again, what’s new there?”
