Loved, unconditionally
‘We’re willing to overlook the appalling way you’ve treated this family, Camilla, if you’re willing to be sensible.’
Millie waited for the familiar shame and guilt to swell up inside her. Years of dealing with her parents had made it almost a conditioned response. But after a minute she realised that she just felt … annoyed. Not even angry. Not upset – just a little bit pissed off. She glanced over at her soon-to-be mother-in-law and sister-in-law’s red faces, and realised that, whilst she might not be furious, the rest of the room was spitting mad.
Millie sighed. She needed a moment so she turned away from her mother and towards the full-length mirror on the wardrobe in front of her. El had been in seventh heaven since the moment Millie told her she was getting married and that she would need dresses. Lots of dresses. The number of bridesmaids she had settled on was ridiculous, even for a Greek wedding. But in the end she had to have Kira, Libby, Rosie, El herself, Pav’s sisters, Tara and Claire.
The old Millie would have worried that it wasn’t normal to have that many bridesmaids, that people would think she was weird, that is wasn’t precisely right. The new Millie was so over the moon to even have women she could ask to walk up the aisle with her that she didn’t give a badger’s arse (one of the many Kira expressions she used now with some regularity) what anyone thought.
Her dress was cream lace over fitted, strapless satin; her hair fell around her shoulders in its natural soft waves (Pav’s request), and she wore just a single flower in it, stolen from the bouquet after Rosie pitched a fit that Millie had to wear a tiara; the flower appeased her somewhat, but the six-year-old was still in grumpy mode. She’d only just stomped out of the room a minute ago, a second before Millie’s parents’ unexpected arrival.
‘And by sensible you mean … ?’
‘I’m going to walk you down the aisle,’ her father put in. ‘Then there’s a photographer who’ll –’
‘No.’
Millie’s hands clenched into fists at her sides so hard she could feel the nails cutting into her palms.
‘No way.’
‘This rift has gone on long enough,’ her mother coaxed. ‘I don’t know what you think we’ve done to deserve this kind of treatment, darling.’
Valerie Morrison was playing to her audience now. Millie could count on one hand the number of times she’d used an endearment with her before.
‘All we’ve ever done was want the best for you. I can’t understand why you would turn your back on us. We didn’t even know you were getting married today. We had to find out from the matron of Mother M.’s nursing home last week, and that was only because Matron assumed we would be transporting your grandmother to the wedding and she wanted to sort out timings. It probably didn’t occur to a sensible woman like that, that the bride had excluded her own parents from the guest list.’
‘You’ve never been my parents,’ Millie said, her voice low with suppressed anger.
‘What a ridiculous thing to say. I –’
‘Before you needed me for the campaign we hadn’t spoken in over two years.’
Valerie narrowed her eyes at Millie and clamped her mouth shut. A tic at her mother’s left eye heralded a probable loss of control.
‘You took a naturally shy, introverted child with a special gift and forced her through the education system so fast she was doing her A-levels at thirteen years old. You belittled her and ignored her until she was an anxiety-ridden adult with social phobia so severe she had trouble even ordering a coffee.’
‘Don’t blame us for your deficiencies, Camilla.’ Her mother’s voice had changed now. Gone was the disingenuous façade of hurt and concern. Anger turned her tone ugly and derisive. ‘You always were a bloody embarrassment. What sort of child can’t even attend a few simple functions without practically collapsing from stress. You’re weak; weak and pathetic and I –’
The slap resounded around the large space and the room fell into shocked silence. Millie hadn’t even seen her mother-in-law-to-be move, but now Talia was standing in front of Valerie, breathing heavily after the exertion of leaving a livid handprint across the other woman’s face.
‘How dare you!’ shouted Valerie, clutching her cheek and shaking with outrage.
‘My God,’ David said, going to take his place near his wife, but in typical cowardly fashion he stood just behind her instead of at her side. ‘What on earth –?’
‘Get. Out.’ Talia said, her voice trembling with rage.
‘Now just hang on a damn minute,’ David blustered, but still took a small step back in the face of Talia’s rage. ‘This is between our daughter and us. I’ll not have some –’
‘She is my daughter now,’ Talia said in the same low, dangerous voice as she reached back and gave Millie’s hand a squeeze. ‘Unless you want your face to match your wife’s I suggest you both get out of this room right now.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ David scoffed. ‘I should call the police, that’s what I should do. This is outrageous.’ The idea of her father calling the police on tiny Talia Martakis almost made Millie smile. Almost.
‘Call them,’ Millie said as she moved forward to stand next to Talia and squeezed her hand back. ‘I think I’ve still got Rachel’s number in my handbag. I wonder what that headline would look like?’
The week after her father’s abysmal press conference where Millie had been a very obvious no-show, Rachel Mulholland had published an article on the Morrisons. Somehow she’d dug up all sorts of sources from Millie’s past: ex-nannies fired for complaining, teachers concerned about the way Millie was being treated, school contemporaries who thought it was unfair for Millie to be with children much older than her.
But even more damning than that was the up-to-date information about Millie’s estrangement from her parents, coupled with the photographs. It seemed that Rachel was skilled in the art of covert photography. To be honest Millie thought that the images she’d published had probably been the deciding factor for the public. There was one in the bathroom at the Savoy. Valerie Morrison was gripping Millie’s arm, her face twisted with fury; Millie’s back was to the camera but you could see her face reflected in the mirror above the sinks. Her expression was so achingly sad and resigned that even Millie had been a little shocked by it. Various other photographs had been taken that night and on the day of the press conference – one of them with Gammy and Pav in between Millie and her parents when those ugly words had been exchanged, all of which Rachel had recorded. As it turned out, the public don’t like parents who neglect their child, or ones who would blackmail them by threatening an elderly relative.
Millie had not been over the moon about the articles. She had been bluffing when she said she had Rachel’s number – she would never have wanted that story out there. The woman had contacted her for comment of course, but Millie chose to say nothing. Yes, her father didn’t deserve to be the leader of his party, but not because he was a crap father: his politics were flawed and he was a lying, manipulative bastard who would do anything to get the power he craved.
Millie had once gone to a lecture about personality disorders. The psychiatrist drew a graph with power on one axis and love/dependence on the other. Average people were plotted in the middle of the graph with some power being important to them (like earning money and their career) but also family and love being of equal importance. Millie knew straightaway where to plot her parents: up the top of the power axis with very little love, right along with the serial killers. The difference with her parents was that they didn’t achieve power by killing people; they achieved it through more conventional means and needed a conventional family in order to do that. Having Millie was never about love; it was about being more credible. And having a gifted child was never about helping Millie achieve her dreams; it was about using her to gain more power.
Millie was a firm believer that there were CEOs, high-profile politicians and world leaders who were not like her parents and serial killers. Not everybody in power was a psychopath. So, yes, she was pleased that the press had exposed her dad, as now someone better could step into his shoes. But there was no way Millie would ever do anything to garner more press attention. For a few weeks things had been uncomfortable. Had she not had the support she did, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to bear it. But judging from her parents’ pale faces and horror-filled expressions, they did not realise this at all. It only went to show how little they knew her.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ whispered her mother, but her voice had lost its edge as it broke with uncertainty.
Millie did something that she had never done before, something she’d seen Kira and Libby do frequently in an argument: she put her hands on her hips.
‘Try me.’
Valerie Morrison’s eyes dropped to her daughter’s attitude-filled stance and surprise crossed her face before she carefully blanked her expression. ‘Fine,’ she said, retreating with her husband and sweeping the room with a contemptuous look as they moved to the door. ‘Have your pathetic little wedding and live your pathetic small life without us. I hope you and your new, ridiculous, mentally unstable family will be very happy.’ The door slammed after them both and Millie smiled.
‘We will,’ she whispered as she turned back to the people that mattered to her.
*****
Nine years later …
‘How old was Gammy when she died, Mummy?’
Millie’s breath caught in her throat as she saw her little man standing in the doorway in a smart shirt and dark trousers. Unlike her other two children, whose outfits had already undergone two changes since breakfast in an attempt to keep them clean for the funeral, Leon’s was still immaculate. She smiled and walked over to him, then crouched down so she was at his eye level.
‘She was ninety-eight, darling,’ she told him, smoothing his dark curls away from his face.
He frowned and stared over her shoulder for a moment. ‘Does that mean that I’ve got ninety more years alive?’
‘Well … uh … I’m not sure how –’
‘Because that doesn’t seem like a very long time at all.’ He was speaking more quickly now, his words tumbling out in his anxiety. Trust Lee to worry about his own mortality before most of his friends had even learnt their times tables.
‘Lee, my darling,’ Millie said, shaking her head and pulling him in for a hug. His arms came up around her neck and he buried his face in her hair. It was down, just as her husband liked it, and it was covered in all manner of stuff transferred from little hands that morning: a few cornflakes, chocolate, some glitter. Appearance would always be important to Millie, but she had learnt to let go of the obsessive perfectionism over the years. When Leon drew back his expression was calmer; he needed that affection to anchor him when his little brain went into overdrive. His brother and sister might be more pushy and outgoing about … well, everything really, but it was Leon who really thrived on regular hugs even though he was the least likely to ask for them.
‘But … but I can count to ninety,’ he whispered, looking down at his shoes, which were shiny from the polish he’d insisted on applying that morning. ‘What if I don’t want to die then?’
‘I’m not going to lie to you, Lean Bean. Everyone dies at some point. But it doesn’t have to be a sad thing. Look at what we’re doing today. Gammy didn’t want us to stand around being sad, so we’re going to play bingo and eat sausage rolls before we scatter her ashes. She had a good life and she was ready to go. She wants us to be happy too.’
‘I miss her.’
Millie blinked as her eyes started to sting; she kissed Leon on the nose. ‘I miss her too, baby,’ she whispered back. ‘But we couldn’t keep her forever. She’s got other stuff to do, up in heaven.’
Leon looked off into the middle distance again; she could almost hear his mind whirring away. ‘About heaven and God, Mummy …’
Millie laughed and pulled him in for another hug. ‘Let’s leave the theological debate for another day, shall we?’ she said as she swung him from side to side. Two sets of thundering footsteps gave her a short warning before the two compact bodies collided with her and Leon from either side. Millie drew back enough to get a look at them all and started laughing again. Costas’s face was streaked with mud and Tallie’s dress was covered in a mixture of paint and glitter, whilst one of her bunches sat up on the side of her head and the other hung down rather forlornly, with the ribbon only just holding on to the silky mass.
Tallie moved into the centre of the enforced group hug and rugby-tackled Leon, the low centre of gravity of her little body taking his longer and leaner one down to the floor. Once there she sat on his chest and tickled him. Costas broke away from his mother to join in and soon the three of them were rolling around the floor of the kitchen together. Death and theology discussions thankfully put on hold, as Leon’s laughter, mixed with his siblings’, filled the kitchen.
‘What was that about?’ Pav’s low murmur sounded in Millie’s ear as his strong arm came around her middle to pull her back into his body.
‘Just the usual Leon worries,’ Millie said, turning in his arms to look up into his handsome face. ‘You know: death, mortality, God, the meaning of life. Standard stuff.’
Pav frowned. ‘He’s taken Gammy’s passing hard.’
‘He’ll be okay,’ Millie said, sliding her hands up into the slighty-too-long dark hair at his collar and kissing the underside of his stubbled jaw. She would leave the nagging on both counts to Talia – who, over the years, Millie had discovered was far better at it than her.
‘Yeah,’ Pav muttered, looking over at the children, a frown still marring his forehead.
Millie reached up and put a hand to his cheek, moving his face back to look at her before she smiled. ‘He will be okay, you know,’ she told him. ‘He just needs a little more time to process things.’
‘Inherited his mum’s big brain,’ he said as a grin emerged from his frown and he tapped the side of Millie’s head. ‘Too much going on up there.’
Leon had always been different. He’d already done GCSE-level maths (tricky for the school as his parents refused to let him have any classes with older children), and Pav had caught him reading the Guardian the other day – he’d had to put a stop to it as Lee was getting himself worked up about the potential economic ramifications of the UK’s exit from Europe on the farming industry. The poor child had fallen asleep that night murmuring to himself about EU subsidies.
Millie rolled her eyes and slapped Pav’s arm. ‘He’ll have a higher IQ than me.’
‘Hmm,’ was Pav’s noncommittal response as the frown returned.
‘Do you know how I know he’ll be fine?’ Millie asked, pulling Pav’s face to hers. ‘Because he’s loved, unconditionally. Because he has you and his brother and sister shining their light on him and never letting him slip into the dark. Because he has a huge Greek family as well as the adopted aunties and uncles that fuss over him. Because his life is filled with laughter and happiness.’
Pav’s face softened as he looked down at Millie, reading the meaning behind her words. She was talking about Leon, but he knew she meant herself as well. He knew how much all of those things meant to his wife. She made that clear every day.
They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Pav closed his mouth over hers and her senses were swamped with everything Pavlos: firm lips, rough stubble, clean, woodsy scent, broad chest, until …
‘Gah! Kira.’ Millie wiped the side of her face that was now wet, and turned to a grinning Kira who was brandishing a water-gun and rolling her eyes.
‘Sorry,’ she chirped, not sounding sorry at all, and Millie got another face full of water, this time from a giggling Leon; the other two were concentrating on their father. ‘But there are children present. I was saving you two from corrupting young minds. Married people should not be allowed to suck each other’s faces.’
‘But Auntie Kira,’ Tallie piped up, aiming her water-pistol at Kira and soaking her dress. ‘You’re married and you kiss Uncle B. all the time.’
‘I kissed that man once on my wedding day as any proper wife should.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Costas shouted. ‘You’re even more gross than Mummy and Daddy.’
Kira gave her Super-Soaker a couple of pump actions and aimed it at Costas, who gave a yelp and turned tail to run. The others followed suit and soon the four of them were tearing through the house into the garden. The carefully selected outfits getting soaked.
But Leon’s laughter made it worth another outfit change.
Yes, he would be fine.
They all would.
More than fine.
They would be happy.
*****
David Morrison slipped into the back of the massive hall and stood in the shadows. She’d already started her talk and had everyone’s attention. As she would. The rest of the presentations were just filler: she was the main event. Every person in that room was on the edge of their seat to hear what she had to say, her quiet voice amplified through the microphone explaining how she had revolutionized her area of medicine. An idea so simple it should have been glaringly obvious to anyone, but it took a mind like Camilla’s to really see it.
Within the medical profession, even outside of it, Millie was known across the world. People listened when she spoke. His shy, watchful, anxious daughter was a world leader in her profession.
He always knew she was beyond intelligent but dismissed her as weak. In David’s world you had to push yourself forward to get things done, to get to the top of the heap. Her low-key approach of simply solving the problems with her brilliant mind and sending the results out for the world to make of them what they would was totally alien to David’s personality. He peered over to see if he was in the front row: her urologist husband. He was a success too: some new surgical technique they used for prostates or whatever. Not in Millie’s league, but the bastard seemed happy with that. Happy for her to have the limelight. David shook his head; he couldn’t comprehend it. But then again, maybe if he had ever tried to be happy for his wife, or encouraged her ambition instead of clinging to his own, maybe she wouldn’t have turned into such a raving bitch. Maybe he would have spoken to his daughter once in the last ten years, met his grandchildren. Whereas now, after everything, he was just a washed-up old man. Failed political career behind him … Not even his harpy of a wife at home to complain to.
He gave Camilla one last long look before he turned to leave and saw the Greek get up from his seat as the applause rang out through the hall. Pavlos Martakis was smiling as he stood, sparking off a standing ovation. His proud, smug face beaming over at Camilla as she rolled her eyes and gave a low wave to the crowd.
David tried to muster some pride in the fact his genes had helped create her. But he knew, in the end, none of her success was down to him. It was in spite of him.
Had he been a better man he would have stayed, he would have tried to reach out to her, to apologize. But David was not a better man and she was better off without him. She was better off living her life, enjoying her success, being with the family she’d chosen for herself.
The one that made her happy.
Thank you so much for reading Limits. If you have a moment, please leave a review: they are so unbelievably important and really appreciated.
Libby and Jamie Story Beg, Borrow or Steal is available now.
Read on for an excerpt from Book one of the Broken Heart Series by Susie Tate: Broken Heart Syndrome.