‘My mother had planned for me to apply for professional training when I was sixteen—but I think I told you in Venice that my heart wasn’t in it. It was the first time I had said no, first time I’d let her down and she didn’t hide her disappointment in me. But I felt free for the first time. I started to go out, to gigs to see local bands, to make my own clothes and find my own look. The more I started to work out who I wanted to be, the harder she tried to hold on. We had such terrible, horrible rows, said nasty, vicious things.’
They had both been guilty, she knew that. But Sophie had still been a child in many ways and her mother had left her in no doubt that she wasn’t good enough, not any more. That Sophie’s own style, her own wishes, her own hobbies were wrong and behind her bravado her fledgling self-confidence had begun to crumble.
‘That was a long time ago. How are things now?’
‘Fragile,’ she admitted. ‘Uncomfortable. That’s why I rarely go back to Manchester.’ She found a smile. ‘See, we do have some things in common.’ But their solutions to their family problems had been drastically different. Marco had taken control of his life, made a huge success out of his passions, his business. Sophie? She had run from one controlling situation to another.
She took another sip of the comforting tea and tried to order her thoughts. She hadn’t spoken about Harry since the day she had finally come to her senses and walked out of the door. If she told Marco, it would be like probing a wound to see if it had really healed or still bubbled with infection.
‘Like I said, I was a bit of a loner and really naïve. Ripe to be exploited. I met Harry at one of his gigs. He was the singer—all brash confidence and raw sexuality. I had never seen or spoken to anybody like him before and I was besotted before we even spoke. When he singled me out I thought I was the luckiest girl alive. It was every teen cliché come true. My parents hated him, of course. He was older than me for a start, arrogant, entitled. Looking back, he was just really rude, but I thought he was authentic and being true to himself. The more they tried to stop me seeing him, the more attractive he got.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seventeen, a really young seventeen. I thought I was Juliet, of course, brimful of forbidden love.’ Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘There is nothing more guaranteed to drive your hormonal teenaged daughter into the arms of a complete sod than to try to stop her seeing him. If they’d relaxed and made him welcome, or at least pretended to, maybe I’d have seen the truth a lot sooner.’
Maybe.
‘Things were tense for a year. Home was like a battlefield, every sentence an ambush. My parents couldn’t cope. Their sweet, biddable daughter had been replaced by a foul-mouthed hellion. I drank, stayed out all night, ditched school—and of course Harry encouraged me all the way. It shouldn’t be an excuse, but, remember, I needed approval to feel loved and Harry’s approval was intoxicating. I lived for it—and he knew it. Eventually my dad put his foot down in a “not in my house, young lady, you live in these walls you obey my rules” kind of way and I said “fine”. Packed my bags and walked out the day I turned eighteen.’
He echoed her thoughts. ‘We’re both runaways, then. You’re right, we do have something in common.’
‘Only, you moved to a new city and started a successful business. I moved into a squat three miles away and became a cook, cleaner, cheerleader and paid heavily for the privilege. Harry had me exactly where he wanted me. My original plan had been to go to college and study art and textiles while living with him, but he persuaded me I’d be wasting my time. That I wasn’t that talented, that original.’ To her horror she could feel the tears gathering in her eyes and swiped her sleeve angrily against them. ‘He said I’d be of more use getting a job so we could get a flat—obviously he was too busy being a musician to dirty his hands with real work. So instead of college I worked in a greasy spoon café. I was there for six years. I paid for our flat and our food. I cleaned our flat. I cooked our food. I soon learned not to ask Harry to do anything, not to expect anything from him. Including fidelity.’
She swiped her eyes again. ‘I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking it too. Why did I put up with it? Why did I let him treat me that way? I think it every day. He made me feel like I was completely worthless, that I couldn’t do anything, be anyone without him. That I was lucky to have him. And I believed him. The worst part is that every now and then he’d do something sweet, remind me why I fell in love with him in the first place. I lived for those moments, craved them, would lie there every night he didn’t come home and relive every one of them.’