The Good Daughter Read Online Free Page A

rooms, everything clean and managed. The garden is neat and free of weeds, the winding paths topped up with white pebbles, the birdbath scrubbed, pristine – no algae in the water, no slime or the presence of anything remotely organic.
    A farm has very little to do with nature, Zach has decided. It’s unnatural in fact, and his father runs a particularly tight ship. Zach likes to think of the farm as homogenised instead of harmonised. It seems to him his father is the only organic and animate thing on it – everything else is fake.
    He arrives back to hear his father’s raised voice in the kitchen.
    ‘What do you think you’re doing! You’re on the phone to her? What is that? Explain to me the sense in that! And you wonder why I didn’t tell you – well, it was exactly for this reason. You’re a self-fulfilling prophecy, Joanne, an absolute fucking nut!’
    His mother says something Zach misses. His father’s voice lifts another octave. ‘Well, it wouldn’t take much, would it!’
    A cupboard door slams and there is the clink of cutlery being tossed in a drawer.
    His mother rallies. ‘You’re the one shouting. You’re the one following me around.’
    ‘You’re on the phone to her the minute I walk out the door!’
    ‘She’s my friend. I was asking her why she didn’t tell me. We weren’t talking about you, we weren’t talking about him, we were just … I was just …’
    ‘You don’t know what you were doing – you’ve got yourself confused with one of your daytime soaps. Do you need me to write it on the fridge for you? Don’t ring her, don’t talk to her, don’t talk to him. Should I make it into a little mantra for you to chant while you do the housework?’
    ‘Stop it. Stop talking to me like this. You can’t expect me not to talk to her.’
    ‘That’s exactly what I expect.’
    ‘We live in the same town, we have the same friends – I have to clear the air.’
    ‘Clear the air?’ His father’s voice is breathless with disbelief. ‘How do you think you’re going to clear the air ? What are you going to say to make it comfortable next time you sit around sipping herbal tea? She understands better than you. She hasn’t ever told you because she knows it’s a pointless exercise. You falling around in tears, trying to patch things up, clear the air , only makes it worse.’
    ‘Why do you talk like you know her?’
    ‘I do know her.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘No-one expects you to understand.’
    ‘Does she speak civilly to you?’
    ‘Why wouldn’t she?’
    ‘I thought …’
    ‘Don’t think too hard, Joanne, the tablets don’t allow for that.’
    ‘Do you like her?’
    There’s a pause. His father’s voice grows faint, as though he’s turned away or bent to retrieve something.
    ‘Did you like her at the time?’ his mother asks.
    His father laughs. ‘Don’t psychoanalyse me.’
    ‘It’s just another Kincaid infamy for you, isn’t it?’
    ‘What the fuck is that meant to mean?’
    ‘Exactly that.’
    Zach hears his father moving around the kitchen, a chair being pushed aside and the rattle of keys. ‘I’m taking your car keys. I’m not having you driving in and making a scene.’
    ‘You can’t take my car keys.’
    It sounds like he tosses the keys in the air and catches them again. His tone when he speaks is insolent. ‘Rephrase that and you’ll see that’s exactly what I can do. Actually, spend the rest of the day going through all the things that you think are yours, and replace mine with his , and you’ll see there’s not a lot around here you can lay claim to.’
    ‘Give me back my keys!’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Give them to me.’
    The table shudders over the slate tiles. A pen or pencil drops onto the floor.
    His father says, ‘You know I always thought it would be heartening to see you with a bit of spirit, but it turns out you’re screwed up in that department too – you don’t know, do you? You act, every time, the exact opposite of how