After the Lie: A gripping novel about love, loss and family secrets (18 page)

Back outside, the McAllisters were waiting. Eleanor kept butting in with questions when I was trying to update Sean. That girl really needed someone to sit her down and explain that what you have to say is not more important than what the person speaking has to say. Where did that confidence come from?

Katya kept hugging me and telling me that it would be ‘absolutely no problem’ to put us up. I wanted to book myself into a hotel but I had no energy left for that particular fight. The McAllisters tactfully walked on ahead of us, saying they’d wait for us downstairs, while I dithered about, wanting to remind the nurse to call us if there was a problem. Mark steered me gently down the corridor, but although my feet were moving forward, my whole body was braking, aching with every step that I moved away from Jamie.

While we waited for the lift, Mark said, ‘Sean’s a really good bloke. God knows what would have happened to Jamie if he hadn’t been there. Really nice of them to put us up, isn’t it? Glad we’re not having to trawl round some grotty B&Bs. I’m knackered.’

‘Me too.’

For once I didn’t end any comment on the McAllisters with a jibe.

I
had
my nose pressed on the ward door as soon as visiting time began at two o’clock. Sharing living space with Sean and needing to be thankful to him on many levels made me feel a total traitor to my parents. As ‘sleeping with the enemy’ as it got. For the first time in many years, I had a fleeting thought about going to confession. It didn’t last long.

Jamie was sitting up and looked completely different from the groggy teenager of the previous day. He immediately asked for his phone and when Eleanor was coming to see him. It was embarrassing how my self-flagellating ‘I will forever be patient and listen properly to children without one eye on my emails’ stance had morphed into an irritation that all Jamie was interested in was the flaming McAllister girl. Any useful information such as what the consultant had said to him, how long it would be before he could play rugby again, even whether he could get the wound wet, provoked a furrowed brow. Clearly the ability to get onto Facebook and plot against me with Eleanor far outweighed any health considerations.

The consultant came to discharge him. My surge of joy that we wouldn’t have to spend any more time at the McAllisters’ competed with my fear that Jamie wasn’t ready to leave yet. While I bombarded the doctor with questions, Jamie was doing ‘that’ face, the one he did when I asked if his friends had girlfriends, what he looked at on YouTube and how to record on Sky. That, far more than anything the consultant told me, convinced me that he was on the mend.

Once we got back home, Jamie milked his ‘near-death experience’ for all it was worth. I even relented and let him have his computer in the bedroom for a couple of hours a day, which led to much trotting in and out to see what he was up to. I supplied a never-ending conveyor belt of Innocent smoothies, tomato and mozzarella rolls and god help me, the Dunkin’ Donuts that Izzy insisted on buying. I kept sitting on his bed, often failing to resist the temptation to hold his hand. From the way he waited a requisite nanosecond before wriggling free, mine was not the hand he wanted to be holding.

Two days after we got home, Eleanor turned up on the doorstep, in a dress so short that I was pretty sure that the unwelcome knowledge of what sort of underwear she wore would soon be mine.

‘I was just wondering if I could see Jamie for a few moments. I brought him this,’ she said, waving the latest Lee Child book.

I hesitated. Jamie was upstairs in his bedroom. Bed, teenage girls, McAllisters of any description. Ugh. Plus he wasn’t wearing a top because his stitches kept catching on it.

‘Um. He’s upstairs.’ I was thinking out loud rather than giving permission but she walked past me with an intimidating sense of entitlement and headed up. She turned left at the top of the stairs towards Jamie’s bedroom in the manner of someone who was all too familiar with the layout of the house. It was amazing that a fifteen-year-old girl could make me feel inadequate in my own home. I marched into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of lemonade and two glasses and tiptoed upstairs, although in my mind, I was stomping. I hesitated outside the door. No voices. Presumably they weren’t poring over Maths homework together. I wondered whether to knock, then decided there should be absolutely no reason why I should need to. With my elbow, I poked the door open and burst in. Then I wished I’d knocked, as Eleanor pulled her face off Jamie’s and he yanked the covers over his hips to disguise gruesome things a mother should never need to see.

‘Mum!’

Eleanor was looking at me with amused, hooded eyes, a sarcastic half-smile so like Sean’s lifting the corner of her mouth. Not so much as a delicate rose blush on her cheeks. I still felt embarrassed if my mother walked in on me when Mark was giving me a hug.

‘Sorry, I was just bringing you a drink.’ I was determined not to run away, even though the forces of teenage hormones were practically repelling me out of the door. I put down the tray on Jamie’s chest of drawers. ‘I’m just going to open the windows. It’s a bit stuffy in here.’ Jamie showered regularly, but his room always smelt vaguely of onions.

There was a lot of eye-talking going on behind me as I rustled about, finding a key to the windows. Jamie turned up the music, the noise of some rapperish racket filling the room. The days of singing along to Adele on the school run seemed as long ago as Nintendos and Warhammer battles.

I shouted above the bass beat. ‘So, did you enjoy the rest of your time in Suffolk, Eleanor?’

‘No. I hated it. I wanted to come home. I was worried about Jamie.’ That slightly posh, breathy confidence again. She was clearly making an effort to leave the ‘duh’ off the end of her sentence.

I registered a note of surprise that Eleanor had actually replied to my question. There was something powerful about her, some funny ability to make me feel inferior, as though she was doing me a favour by responding in a civilised manner.

I forced myself to face her, to look at her directly. ‘Jamie can’t have visitors for too long at the moment because he still needs to rest.’

‘I’m all right, Mum,’ Jamie said, just stopping short of leaping out of bed to push me out of the door. Eleanor didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken, simply gazed at me blankly as though I’d suggested they had a game of Ludo or played a few LPs. She was holding Jamie’s hand, far too near his crotch for my liking.

I had to gather all my reserves not to slink away. ‘Let’s say twenty minutes. I’ll shout up.’

Eleanor didn’t quite roll her eyes, though her sockets must have been aching with the effort of looking straight through me.

I marched out, feeling her stare burning into my back. No doubt she was wondering how I lived with a backside that size. If your own mum was a size 8, I supposed a size 14 looked like a grizzly bear on the move. I felt ridiculously close to pointing out that at her age, I also had boobs that sat pertly without the aid of a bra. Boobs her father had rather liked.

I shut the door before my thoughts could convert themselves into words. I’d barely taken my hand off the handle before Eleanor’s laugh rang out.

J
amie keeling
over in the care of the McAllisters cemented Katya into our lives. I don’t know whether it was because she felt so relieved that he hadn’t actually died on her watch but she’d definitely developed a sense of ownership, jokingly asking, ‘How’s my future son-in-law feeling today?’

I surprised myself by not pushing her away. With her invitations to coffee, art galleries or lunch, she was a welcome distraction from the guilt-ridden navel-gazing that threatened to unhinge me. She was so irreverent, so honest about her shortcomings – and everyone else’s – that I often caught myself laughing days later at her observations about people we knew. She had an energy and sense of fun that counterbalanced my introspection. Not for Katya the weighing up of who said what and what was meant by it. Unless it involved Sean, when she would dissect every word with the zeal of someone searching for a diamond earring in the contents of a hoover bag.

‘Do you worry when Mark goes out for business meetings with other women?’ she asked.

‘Mark works in other women’s houses all the time. I’d drive myself mad if I worried.’

She stirred her skinny latte. ‘I don’t know how to be that person.’

‘But he’s never given you any reason not to trust him, has he?’

‘No. But he’s so tactile and flirtatious with everyone. I mean, we have a great sex life – he’s highly sexed – but how do you know if you’re providing enough variety?’

I nearly blew my cappuccino froth across the cafe. I certainly didn’t want to know that Sean and Katya thought hanging from the doorframe while dressed as a giraffe was normal. I couldn’t look at her.

Katya clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my god. I’ve embarrassed you. So sorry! I’ve always thought you were such a woman of the world. You always seem to know what to say and do. I thought you’d be really open about that sort of thing.’

I blushed even more. ‘Not really. I blame my mother. She was always praying to St Bridget.’

‘St Bridget?’

‘Yep. Patron saint of fallen women.’

One of the things I loved about Katya was her ability to laugh about things I’d never realised were funny before.

‘That’s hilarious. Do you know many fallen women, then?’

Luckily she said it in a way that didn’t require me to say, ‘You’re looking at one.’

I wished I’d never got onto the subject when she asked, ‘Do you think Jamie and Eleanor get up to anything? I don’t mean sex obviously, but you know, fumbling about?’

The temptation to kick the table over and run hollering into the street was almost too tempting. I wasn’t going to fill her in on the upstairs shenanigans when Eleanor had come round. I didn’t know whether Eleanor did it as an act of defiance or whether she didn’t realise I was standing at the bottom of the stairs but she was blithely adjusting her bra strap as she left. I was quite certain Katya would find that a lot less perturbing than I did.

I mumbled, ‘Don’t think so,’ then scratched around for a change of topic. ‘So will you come and help me get everything ready for the hog roast fundraiser this Saturday?’

‘Only because you’ve asked so nicely. I might not feel so shy if I’m there from the beginning. Everyone knows Sean because of the photography and I feel like they’re all disappointed when they meet me. Not glamorous or beautiful enough.’

I wondered whether she was winding me up. Whenever I saw her, she was always chatting to someone as though she’d been the fulcrum around which Eastington House’s parental population pivoted all her life.

W
hen Saturday rolled around
, I thanked the Lord that Katya was coming to help out. Despite organising hundreds of events a year, this felt so much more personal, as though I was giving the entire school an opportunity to judge me.

Mark watched as I got dressed. ‘You’re talking to yourself.’

I snapped back. ‘That’s just how I process thoughts. You know that.’

‘It wasn’t a criticism. I love the way you’re so intense about everything. You looked like you were having such a serious discussion. I’d love to be in your brain sometimes.’

That phrase reminded me so much of Tomaso. Every time I was tempted to phone him, guilt stopped me even scrolling down to find his name. I couldn’t forgive myself for having sex, laughing as we kept time with the church bells of Orsanmichele while my son, the boy I’d longed for, held close and promised to keep safe, was depending on Sean bloody McAllister to save his life.

I’d texted Tomaso a brief explanation of what had happened with Jamie, thanked him for looking after my mother and had ignored his texts and emails ever since.

Mark put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Relax. You’ll do a brilliant job.’

I reached for his hand. ‘Thank you. How do I look?’

‘As though you are about to conquer the world.’

I had to smile at that.

W
e walked into the marquee
, my wedding planner eye screeching over the many things that weren’t quite to my liking. I set to work, moving flowers out of the eyeline of the stage, straightening cutlery, readjusting the swagging around the edges. Sean came up to me, camera round his neck, while I was checking in with the caterers.

‘Hi there. Looks amazing. Let me take a photo of you in front of the hog roast.’

‘No.’

‘Come on, don’t be such a spoilsport.’

The chef was obediently shuffling over to make room for me.

‘No.’

Sean closed his eyes. ‘Just come over here a moment.’ His voice was gentle.

I don’t know why I felt obliged to obey – my mother and her ‘You will
not
make a scene’, I suppose. I followed him to the corner of the stage.

He bowed his head, talking quietly into my ear. ‘Sal. Please. Let’s just move on. I thought we’d got through all that, after what happened with Jamie. I hoped you’d gone some way to forgiving me.’

I looked up into his eyes, which were trying to draw me into his web. It was no wonder I’d stripped off first and worried about the consequences later. I gathered my feelings and arranged them around the hard knot of hate I’d sculpted over the last thirty years.

‘Do
not
call me Sally. Thanks to you, that person is dead. I am incredibly grateful for what you did with Jamie. But forgive you, no. There’s no way you are taking a picture of me. I imagine you know why.’

Sean let out a deep breath. ‘
Lydia
. I’m sorry. I do understand why you feel like that. Really I do. But it wasn’t me who put the photo in your dad’s textbook.’

‘I know that but if you hadn’t been showing off, no one would have known the Polaroids even existed, let alone stolen one from your bag.’

We didn’t get any further entrenched in our stalemate because Katya appeared, putting her hand on Sean’s arm, her eyes flickering between us. ‘Everything okay?’

Sean nodded. ‘Yes, we were just discussing photography for the evening.’

I forced a smile. ‘Katya, could you give me a hand with moving that table nearer to the side of the stage for the raffle?’

I walked off, with a tense Katya in my wake. She made me so grateful to have a husband who reserved his charm mainly for me. No wonder Katya was so thin. She must burn up a whole cake’s worth of calories on the furnace of her jealousy at every social event.

‘Were you really talking about photography?’

I added another lie onto the bonfire of all the others and watched as her shoulders came down from around her ears. ‘Yes, we were.’ I paused. ‘I’m not that sort of person, Katya. Sean loves you. He’s not interested in other women.’ I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice.

I was relieved when people started to filter in and the event gathered momentum, with a queue at the raffle, shouts of laughter and the odd curse from the roulette table. There was a hubbub of voices and appreciative murmurs as the wine worked up appetites and people headed to the hog roast.

The evening flashed past as I instructed the caterers, oversaw the bar staff and averted a coffee machine crisis.

Then it was time for the speeches before the dancing. I’d refused to make one, so Melanie had volunteered. Given how thin she was, she probably needed the spotlight to keep her warm. I did admire her, even if I didn’t like her. Her talent for shaming people into buying raffle tickets and coughing up vast sums on the silent auction for wine tasting evenings, villa holidays in the South of France and helicopter rides was immense. Especially when, as far as I could see, the chief motivator behind the new rugby clubhouse was to build somewhere with a balcony where the parents could get quietly sozzled and eat bacon butties while watching their offspring get flattened.

With a final ‘Dig deep and support Eastington House!’ Melanie snapped her fingers at the DJ and said, ‘Music, maestro’. Within minutes, the school’s great and good crowded onto the floor.

Katya beckoned to me to dance. ‘I love Wham. Come on.’

I shook my head. ‘Sorry. You’ll have to find someone else. I’m not a dancer. Ask Mark. He loves dancing.’

At that moment, Mark waltzed up to me. ‘I suppose I’m dancing on my own again, am I?’

I nudged him towards Katya. ‘Go and dance with Katya. She needs a partner.’

Her face was all ‘Don’t you mind?’ Which I didn’t, not at all. I felt bad for Mark that he never had anyone to dance with. Besides, I was too busy wrestling my guilt back into its box about the last time I danced at the Surrey Business Stars Awards and how one dance had led to a jig of an entirely different kind.

With Katya and Mark grooving to
Club Tropicana
, I slipped away to sit in the shadows for a minute. I’d just settled myself onto a bench by the stream that ran through the garden, when, as if by night-vision radar, Sean appeared. Internally, I put my head in my hands and screamed.

‘Hi. Sorry, we were interrupted. Katya really likes you but I think you tap into her jealous streak because you’re so self-contained. She sees that men are really intrigued by you.’

‘Sean. Men are not intrigued by me. Men don’t notice me.’

‘They do.’ He scuffed his shoe on the grass. ‘I do.’

I shrank back against the wooden arm of the bench. If Katya came out now and saw us tucked away, there’d be big trouble. I’d worked so hard to bury the whole Sean thing, I wasn’t intending to exhume as much as a fingernail. I didn’t want to ask him what he meant. I’d got through life quite well without needing to get to the bottom of many things. Forensics weren’t my thing.

But despite my telepathic barbed wire, Sean was going to have his say. ‘I want you to know that back then, I wasn’t just fooling around with you. Over the years, I’ve convinced myself that what happened wasn’t a big deal. But seeing you again, seeing what I did, I can’t carry on sticking my head in the sand. I know we were young, but for what it’s worth, I did love you. I was a stupid, arrogant show-off and I couldn’t resist being the big man.’

I’d convinced myself that Sean had just taken what he wanted from me, then thrown me to the wolves. I didn’t have the energy for creaking back the boulder of history and reconfiguring my views. After all this time, how was it possible to define our feelings? My concept of love was as blurred as a foggy November morning. I already had the nebulous shape of Tomaso drifting across my vision of Mark. I didn’t need anyone else floating up from an era of Kylie and Jason, waving a shrivelled-up carcass of teenage romance and lame excuses for arseholian behaviour.

‘Too late, Sean.’

‘I was sixteen, for god’s sake. The same age as Jamie. I didn’t know which way was up. You’ve still gone on to have a good life. Izzy’s great and Jamie, well, I’d have been absolutely made up to have a son like him. Or even another daughter.’

For a second, curiosity got the better of me. ‘It’s not too late, is it?’

The raw flash of pain over Sean’s face shocked me. ‘Katya refuses to go through another pregnancy. She was obsessed with how fat she was, thought I’d go and have an affair with someone thinner. It got to the stage where I couldn’t even go to the pub for a couple of hours without coming home to a screaming match. I don’t think we could survive, to be honest.’

I could have felt sorry for him. I nearly did. But a little part of me felt vindicated that he hadn’t been tiptoeing through the roses, carefree as a kite while I’d been hacking a new life out of concrete.

As though my mother had thrown her voice from her sitting room sofa, I said, ‘We all have our cross to bear.’ Then I asked the question I had no business to know the answer to. ‘Do you love her?’

‘I did. Still do, I think. I hope. I’m finding it hard to live within a radius of five metres before she starts suspecting I’m up to no good. And she’s like a dog with a bone about my past at the moment.’ He ran his hands through his hair.

Not the devil-may-care lad I remembered at all.

None of us were.

The night air was damp on my back. I shivered. ‘I need to go back in.’

‘Wait. Tell me that I didn’t ruin your life.’ He put his hand on my arm.

I shook him off. ‘No.’

‘No, I didn’t ruin it, or no, you won’t tell me?’

I ignored the question and hurried away from him, across the grass, feeling the damp seep into my shoes.

I made it to the marquee just as the music slowed and couples took to the floor. Katya almost leapt away from Mark when she saw me. ‘Here, you dance with Mark. Have you seen Sean?’

I wanted to escape Katya and her laser antennae. ‘No, sorry,’ I said, shocking Mark by pressing myself into him and putting my arms round his neck.

He laughed. ‘Mrs Rushford. Am I really having the pleasure of this dance?’

The warmth of his body filtered through my dress. I leaned into him, kissing his neck.

He pulled away slightly. ‘Hey you, has someone cloned my wife? Shall we get a room?’ He smiled at me, his face surprised but pleased. Even this late in the evening, I could still smell little traces of Issey Miyake on him. The smell of familiarity, of someone on my side.

I wondered if he could smell the deceit on me.

I didn’t have too long to ponder that because my attention, everyone’s attention, was drawn to the shouting in the corner of the marquee. The music played on but I could see Katya gesticulating, shouting.