Henri left the next day. ‘It is not the slap,’ he said, maddeningly calm. ‘A Frenchman can take a slap, Lord knows. It is how your face looked when you did it.’ He took her arm with a gentleness that told her it was over more brutally than any fight ever could have. ‘You fight your hatred for yourself, anyone can see, and you do your best, taking it out on people who you think will be strong enough to handle it. I understand this. I am the same. It is hard but it is bearable if your love for me is bigger than your hate. But it has tipped somewhere along the way, and there is no recovery from that, I do not think. For either of us.’
The pain of this made her anger blaze anew, and she’d swept him away in a torrent of vengeful promises that he’d never see his son, that if he didn’t disappear, she’d tell a judge he slapped her – and what English judge wasn’t prepared to believe that about a Frenchman? – so he’d better leave the country altogether or she’d have him arrested.
He finally believed her. And left.
Yet when their son was born, she named him after Henri’s beloved late uncle, like they’d once discussed. She’d immediately shortened it to JP, but still. Even now, she spoke French to him as much as English to make sure he stayed fluent and could talk freely to his father.
Henri had been the love of her life, and she’d never be able to forgive him for it. Or herself, it seemed.
In the meantime, he called, and the sound of his voice made her sad enough to turn up the telly while he spoke, haltingly, to JP, who answered everything into the receiver with a very cautious, ‘Oui?’
‘Look,’ Amanda said, shoving her fork back into the salad container and swallowing the tears. ‘I’m sorry for what I said about the Animals In War thing. I’m sorry for swearing. I’m sorry for f**king everything, all right? There’s no need to dole out more punishment.’
Mei’s eyes seemed to genuinely fill with surprised concern, but Rachel stormed in first. ‘It’s not the Memorial?’ she said. ‘It’s more like your overall vehemence?’
Amanda, who’d expected – foolishly, it now seemed – to be greeted with fast assurances that she had nothing to apologise for, got irritated all over again. ‘My grandpa Joe lost a leg in Vietnam,’ she said. ‘And then got spat on by peaceniks when he came back in his wheelchair. So forgive me if I think a monument to a carrier pigeon is in bad taste.’
‘Whoa,’ Mei whispered. ‘Your grandfather fought in Vietnam?’
‘That can’t possibly be true,’ Rachel said, her voice growing harder.
Amanda froze. It wasn’t actually true. Grandpa Joe had never been drafted and had died on a worksite when a digger accidentally severed an artery in his thigh. She could just feel the bad karma piling up for pretending otherwise even for a moment. But needs must.
‘Did he kill any Vietnamese?’ Mei asked, suddenly serious in the way she always was when anyone within hearing distance might have been disrespecting any Asian of any kind.
Rachel tutted scornfully. ‘British soldiers didn’t actually fight in Vietnam? Australians bloody well did, though. My father–’
‘My grandfather was American,’ Amanda said, because that part was true.
Mei looked at Rachel. ‘Was he?’
‘On your mum’s side?’ Rachel said, looking perplexed, in a way that was perplexing to Amanda.
‘No, my dad,’ she said. ‘My dad’s American.’
‘No, he isn’t,’ Rachel laughed. ‘Your dad’s British? I’ve met him? Like more than once? You’re such a little liar, Amanda. It isn’t clever? And it isn’t funny?’
‘Excuse me,’ Amanda said. ‘I think I know the nationality of my own father.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Rachel said, taking a sip of her coffee.
‘Maybe you’re thinking of your stepfather,’ Mei said, obviously worried they were being too unkind.
‘My stepfather is also American,’ Amanda frowned. ‘My mother clearly has a type.’ This wasn’t true either. Hank was American, yes, but he was big, strapping and black. He couldn’t have been more different from George if George had been a woman. ‘My mother is British, but my father is definitely American.’
Rachel just raised her eyebrows and carried on looking at Mr Three O’Clock.
‘Ask his new girlfriend, if you don’t believe me,’ Amanda said, but quietly, because she’d given up.
‘New girlfriend?’ Rachel asked, surprisingly sharply.
‘He’s dating?’ Mei said, mouth open. ‘At his age?’
‘He’s forty-eight,’ Amanda said. ‘Hardly even out of range for either of you.’
‘Eew?’ Rachel said. ‘Don’t be gross?’ She flicked another olive out of her pasta. ‘So what’s she like then? Your new stepmother-to-be?’
Amanda wondered that herself. George had been even more unfocused this week than usual. He’d first called her with a story she couldn’t quite follow about a bird landing in his back garden and then flying away, a story she’d eventually convinced him must have been a dream, before suddenly announcing this morning that he’d been seeing a new woman who’d wandered into his shop. He’d sounded so open and vulnerable that the worry about what would inevitably happen – this was George, after all – made her a little bit sick.
‘Hardly a new stepmum,’ Amanda said. ‘It’s only been a few dates, and I haven’t even met her. All I know is she’s called Kumiko and–’
‘Kumiko?’ Rachel said. ‘What kind of name is that?’
‘Japanese,’ Mei said, eyes laser-like. ‘Very common name.’
‘I’m not sure about that, but from what he says, she seems really nice.’
‘If she puts up with your allegedly American father, she must be?’ Rachel said, draining the last of her wine.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Amanda asked, but only got to ‘What’s that–’ when the football thumped her in the back of the head so hard she practically went face down into the picnic basket.
‘Sorry,’ said Mr Three O’Clock, leaning in dynamically to retrieve the ball.
‘What the f**k?’ Amanda said, hand on the back of her head, but she stopped when she saw Rachel laughing in her most attractive way, boobs pushed up like an offering.