Dev had drunk too much water, and it roiled in his stomach as he walked briskly up the cliff path to Roscarrock House. God, he was going to feel a right tit for getting so worked up if it turned out she wasn’t there after all.
Maybe he should just drop a note round by hand? Maybe she hadn’t answered the letters he’d sent, but it’d be different if she knew he was right here in Porthkennack? He could leave a note, and then it’d be up to her to get in touch . . .
No, ’cos that’d be even worse, waiting and hoping. Sod it. He’d come this far. He could bloody well take the final step.
She would want to see him, right? Despite what Kyle said. She was his mum. And, yeah, maybe she’d had some issues back when he was born, but that’d been twenty-four years ago. She’d been a kid herself. She was all grown-up now, and she’d got her life sorted.
She’d be glad to see him. She’d probably spent half her life wondering how he’d turned out. What had happened to him after she’d given him up for adoption. She’d cared enough to name him, hadn’t she? Even if she couldn’t keep him herself. She’d cared.
The skies had clouded over while he’d been inside with Kyle, and the grey stone of Roscarrock House looked even grander and more forbidding than the last time he’d seen it. Dev squared his shoulders, walked up to the front door, and knocked.
It felt like hours before the door was opened by a bloke around forty or so, with dark hair and cold eyes. He was shorter than Dev, and looked him up and down like he wouldn’t trust Dev as far as he could throw him. And like if he had his way, that’d be straight off the edge of the cliff.
Shit. That was the nerves speaking, wasn’t it? Like thinking everyone in the Sea Bell wanted him to piss off?
“Yes?” the bloke said.
“I, um. I’m here to see Beaten Roscarrock? I’m, um, I’m Dev Thompson?” He hadn’t meant it to come out sounding like a question.
The bloke stilled. “You’d better come in.”
He led Dev through a hallway filled with heavy old mirrors and posy side tables with spindly little legs, and into a living room that didn’t look like anyone lived in it ever. It was all clean and tidy like a spread in Hello, with no magazines scattered around, no saggy spots on the sofa, and absolutely nothing that hadn’t been invented a hundred years ago.
Well, maybe the electric lights. Dev was a bit hazy on when all that had happened.
He didn’t sit down. It would probably have invalidated the guarantee on the furniture if anyone actually used it.
There was the muffled sound of a conversation coming from the hall. Dev couldn’t make out the words or even the tone. He wiped his hands on his jeans while he waited, then didn’t know what to do with them afterwards. Put them in his pockets? He didn’t want to come off like some kind of yob. Fold his arms? That was supposed to look defensive, wasn’t it? Put his hands behind his back? He wasn’t a bloody squaddie.
Shit. Dev found he was wiping his palms again and stopped as a woman walked into the room.
Christ. This had to be his mum.
She was shorter than him. Dev wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything different, but . . . yeah. She seemed tiny, almost fragile, and way younger than forty. That photo on the website couldn’t have been more than a year old, if that.
She was wearing a business suit with a skirt, and her hair and makeup were perfect. Like, woman-on-TV perfect. Someone reading the news, maybe, or an MP getting interviewed. Someone important.
She buttoned up her jacket and gave him a cool smile. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Dev. Devan. Your son,” he added desperately as her face hadn’t changed.
It stayed frozen for a minute longer. “I haven’t got a son.”
Dev felt as though the bloke who’d let him in had thrown him off the cliff and into the sea. “But . . . you’re Beaten Roscarrock, right? That’s the name on my birth certificate . . .”
“I did give birth to you.” She said it like some Tory politician admitting he’d made an election promise. “That doesn’t make you my son.”
Dev could only stare at her.
“I gave you up,” she said impatiently. “I carried you for nine months, yes, I gave birth to you, and I arranged for you to be adopted by a decent couple. They are your parents.”
“They died, din’t they? When I was four.” Dev’s tongue felt thick and clumsy. He took a deep breath. Didn’t want to mangle his words now. She had to understand. “And no one wants to adopt older kids, ’specially not mixed-race ones what no one even knows what race they’re mixed with.”
“What about relatives? Surely they’d—”
“I ain’t bloody got any, ’ave I? ’Cept you. Mum and Dad’s folks didn’t want me—not blood, see? Not even the right bloody colour.”
“That’s unfortunate, but you’re a grown man now. I’m not sure what you think I can give you, but you have to see—”
This wasn’t happening. This was not fucking happening. Dev’s chest was so tight it felt like a couple of ribs were about to give way. “Christ, if that’s how you feel, why did you even keep me long enough to give birth? Why didn’t you just take a morning-after pill and flush me down the bloody bog?”
“I really don’t think that’s relevant after all this time.”
“Not relevant? This is my life we’re talking about!”
She pressed her lips together, and when she spoke again she wasn’t looking at Dev. “I was a very young girl when you were born. Fifteen when I fell pregnant. The decisions I made then . . . I very much doubt I’d make the same decision today.” She turned back to him then, and her expression was cold. Worse than that. Empty. “I regret that you’ve come all this way for nothing, but I don’t think either of us would benefit from trying to make something out of what was merely an accident of birth.”
Dev found he’d taken a step back from her. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. “That’s it? I’m your fucking kid, and that’s all you got to say to me?” His voice came out funny, all thick and too loud.
“Please don’t raise your voice at me in my own house, and don’t swear. I really don’t know what it is you want from me. You’re not a child anymore, and you must be aware all legal obligation on my part ceased twenty-four years ago. If it’s money—”
“Money— Do you even— Christ.” Dev backed away, his heart, his fucking soul, all twisted up in knots inside him. “I don’t want your money,” he choked out, and then he couldn’t stand it any longer.
He turned and, half-blinded, ran for the door.
Dev wasn’t even sure how he got out of the house and back onto the cliff path. He wanted to punch something. Fucking destroy something.
How could she stand there and say all that stuff?
He meant nothing to her. Nothing. And she was his mother. Dev stumbled down the path. He couldn’t see straight. That was it? That was what he’d planned all fucking year for, ever since he’d found out her name?
Dev came to a dead stop outside Kyle’s house. Christ. He was supposed to tell Kyle how it went? Fuck that. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t walk in and admit what a shit-storm it’d all turned out to be. Just like Kyle had warned him, with his Are you sure that’s wise and all that other crap about taking it easy and not getting his hopes up.
He couldn’t make his feet walk any farther either, though. Frustrated, his fists clenching so hard his hands ached, Dev screwed his eyes shut as if that could blank out the whole, shitting world.
“Dev?”
Dev opened his eyes.
Kyle was standing in his front doorway. He took a step forward, then another. “What happened?”
Dev laughed then. “Like you don’t fucking know? It was just like you said. Happy now? She don’t want nothing to do with me.”
Kyle had reached him now and put a hand on his arm. “Dev, I’m so sorry—”
Dev shook it off and swung round, fists clenched. “Just leave me alone, all right? Go take a fucking nap.”