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about him, though nothing he could point his finger at, that made his skin crawl. The rare occasions they touched, be it an awkward handshake or an accidental brush of arm or thigh, everything inside him would coil into a tight ball.
    Charlotte and their dad’s relationship was the exact opposite. She always seemed to be hugging him, snuggling up on the sofa with him, or laughing at some joke only the two of them shared. For years it had eaten Mark up inside to see the two of them together. He’d agonised endlessly during therapy sessions over why things were so different between him and his dad. He used to think it was because there was something wrong with himself, that he was abnormal in some way. On the advice of his therapist, he’d tried to talk about his feelings with his parents. But the words had stuck in his throat like fishhooks when faced with his dad. And the most he’d ever got out of his mum was a dismissive, ‘There’s nothing wrong with either you or your father. You’re just very different, that’s all.’
    Mark agreed with the second part of what she’d said. He and his dad were very different. Thank Christ. But as for the first part, well, that was another matter. The older he got, the less he saw himself as the ‘abnormal’ one. A view that had taken deeper root after he moved out of the house. Every time he returned home he noticed more and more how his dad struggled to meet his eye, and a suspicion started to grow in him that he was hiding something. Some secret. Recently, he’d even begun to wonder whether his dad really was his dad. He’d sat in front of a mirror with a photo of his dad, inspecting every angle and line of both their faces. And the more he scrutinised, the more differences he discovered. His dad had hazel-brown eyes, a hooked nose, thin lips and a sharp jaw. His mum had deep blue eyes, a blunt nose, small but full lips and a round fleshy jaw. Charlotte was a mixture of these features, whereas with his blue-grey eyes, button nose and dimpled chin, Mark’s only easily discernible resemblance was to his mum.
    Mark suddenly found himself wondering whether this was the reason his dad had called him. Maybe he’d decided it was time to reveal that he wasn’t his real father. Mark hoped so. He hoped that somewhere out there, there was a man he could love in the way that sons are supposed to love their fathers. The thought brought a stab of guilt. Stephen might not have provided him with love, but he’d provided him with a beautiful house to grow up in, an expensive education and every other material thing he could want, including the flat he lived in and the car he was driving. What had this fantasy father figure provided him with? Nothing, that’s what. Unless he was ignorant of his child’s existence – which Mark couldn’t believe his mum would have allowed to happen – he’d chosen not to be a part of his life. Stephen might be distant and cold, and there might be something about him that wasn’t quite right, but whatever he was, he was there. That had to count for something. Didn’t it? Of course it did, and yet at some deep, almost subconscious level he couldn’t help but hope that there was a grain of truth in his suspicions.
    Mark slammed a door on his thoughts, telling himself they were as absurd as they were destructive. In truth, he knew the most likely reason for his dad’s phone call was the business. Sure, he might be a bit of a daydreamer. And, sure, he might have been insulated from the everyday worries that affected other people. But he wasn’t completely detached from reality. He read the newspapers. He knew there was a recession on and that it had hit the manufacturing sector hard. Added to which, Charlotte had phoned him a few days ago to moan about their dad working late every night. At the time he’d been more irritated by her whining than concerned about the reasons behind it.
    Mark passed the city limits and wound his way through a valley of