Skeletons (22 page)

‘Asleep on the job?’

Jen jumped, tried to look as if she was working. Sean was standing looking at her, a wry smile on his face. She tried to return it, but she was having trouble behaving like a normal, functioning human being. She had spent the night awake but
pretending to be asleep. Terrified her world was going to come to an end and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She felt wired from lack of sleep and sheer panic. She tried not to let it show on her face. Tried to seem professional.

‘I was concentrating.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘OK, I was napping. It’s been a long day.’

She hadn’t expected to see him today, had thought that as she was on a late shift he would have gone out before she arrived, and probably wouldn’t be back until after she left. She attempted to match his tone, to fall back into jokey
friend mode. Tried to look as if everything was normal.

‘What are you doing, skiving off?’

He laughed. ‘I’m completely ready for the big opening tomorrow, so I thought I’d call it a day. What time do you get off?’

Was he asking her out again?

‘In about half an hour. But I have to rush home. I’ve
got … something on.’ Why had she said that? Now she had made it look like she really did think he’d propositioned
her when, in actual fact, all he’d said was, ‘What time do you get off?’

‘Sounds like fun. Well, I’ll probably see you tomorrow.’

‘Good luck with the opening.’

‘Oh,’ he said, reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘Here are your passes. Just in case anyone wants to come down.’

He disappeared into the lift before she could say thank you. She hoped she hadn’t offended him. The truth was that a drink would have been nice. Sean was good company. Easy to talk to. Attractive. Definitely attractive. Which was exactly
why saying no had been the right thing to do.

Just as she was going to get her coat, her phone buzzed. Jason. She took it out to the back room.

She was still reeling from the evening before. From the narrow escape and the additional layers of complication that were now stacked on top of the web of lies she had built. Cass wasn’t to be trusted. Unless she had conveniently fallen
under a train on the way home, Jen was going to have to come up with a plan, a way to manage the situation. That had clearly been the message Cass had been trying to send her.

‘Hi. You OK?’ Jen asked.

‘Yes. You?’

‘Knackered, but … fine, yes.’

‘Listen, I just wanted to warn you Mum and Dad are popping over in a bit. They want to talk about the holiday, make the final arrangements. They’re not expecting to be fed.’

Oh God. She couldn’t face it. She just couldn’t.

‘Oh. Shit, Jase, I’m sorry. I was just about to ring you. Neil’s gone home sick and they asked if I’d stay. Just till nine. I thought we could do with the overtime.’

She could always go and sit in Caffè Nero with a book for a few hours.

‘That’s convenient,’ Jason said.

Jen knew she was rumbled. She couldn’t admit to it, though, she had to stick to her guns.

‘I’m not making it up, Jason. Jesus. There must be something going round –’

‘It’s just that you didn’t mention it till I said my parents were coming over, that’s all.’

‘Fine,’ Jen said huffily. ‘I’ll say I can’t do it, then.’

‘No, no, you go ahead,’ he said.

She knew he was angry with her. ‘Well, you’d clearly rather I didn’t.’

‘You know what, Jen? You do whatever you want. I’ll see you later.’ He put the phone down without even saying goodbye.

Jen rubbed her fingers into her temples. Even though she knew there was no way for Jason to understand what was going through her head at the moment, even though she was keeping a huge secret from him, even though she was, indeed, making up the
fact that she had been asked to do overtime, his attitude still annoyed her. How dare he think she was lying?

She picked up the phone before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, checked that Neil was occupied with a guest, dialled the number without even thinking through what she was going to say.

He answered after the second ring.

She spoke before she had a chance to think. ‘Oh, hi. It turns out I don’t need to rush home after all, so … if you fancy a drink …’

‘Sorry, who is this?’

Oh God. Jen felt herself blush. How many people had he invited for a drink in the past ten minutes? ‘It’s Jennifer. Jen. From reception.’

‘I know! I was kidding,’ Sean said.

Jen could hear a smile in his voice. She, on the other hand, felt like an idiot.

‘Same place, or do you know anywhere better?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Same place is fine. I could meet you in there in about five minutes, if that’s OK.’

She wondered what she had got herself into. Shit, what was the worst that could happen? She’d spend an hour or so in the company of a charming, entertaining and supremely uncomplicated man with no obvious baggage – or at least, if he did
have, it couldn’t impact on her – she’d have one vodka and tonic, and then she could still hide out in Caffè Nero nursing a coffee for the rest of the evening. It would be an hour’s respite from indulging her worrying, if nothing else.

She told Neil she was leaving, put her coat on over her uniform and headed for the pub.

For some reason, she suddenly felt hopelessly self-conscious. All the easy chatter she’d indulged in the last time they went for a drink seemed to have deserted her. She scoured the hidden recesses of her brain for an anecdote – anything
that she could talk about and make herself seem even vaguely interesting – but they were empty. What if that’s it? she thought briefly. What if I’ve used up every entertaining thing I will ever have to say, and all I’m left with is the weather and
Britain’s Got
Talent
? Luckily, Sean was on good form, happy to fill in the gaps while they stood at the bar sipping their drinks, waiting for a table to come free – Jen had insisted on buying, this time – and eager to talk about the Vintage Fair.

‘It’s like a small village,’ he said when they eventually sat down.

‘Do the antiques people look down on the vintage people?’

‘I think they do! There’s antiques on one side and us vintage people on the other. It’s like apartheid.’

Jen laughed and felt herself relax a little.

Sean swigged back the last of his beer. ‘How’s things with you?’

‘Fine,’ she said defensively.

‘OK. That’s good.’

Jen sighed. ‘All right, well … not fine, actually.’

‘Let me get us another drink and then you can either tell me, or not. Up to you.’

She knew she should say, ‘No, thank you, I should leave and get home to my husband,’ but sitting in the pub chatting definitely beat trying to while away the next two hours in a coffee shop. Or going back to the house to face Charles
and Amelia, for that matter. She did manage to ask him for a Diet Coke, though. She didn’t think Jason would appreciate her coming in from work slurring.

‘So,’ Sean said, putting her drink down in front of her. ‘I’m all ears, if you want to offload on someone. But don’t feel you have to. I wouldn’t want you to think I was being nosy.’

‘I … I don’t even know where to start, really.’

She suddenly felt like it would be such a relief to unburden herself. To share the whole sorry story with somebody who knew none of the players, who had no preconceived ideas of how badly any of them had behaved, no expectations to be shattered.
She didn’t even need him to comment, she certainly wasn’t expecting him to give her any advice. It would just be cathartic to get the entire weight of it off her chest.

‘At the beginning?’

‘I haven’t … no one else knows any of this …’

Sean looked at her. ‘I’m not about to turn something you tell me in confidence into a bit of gossip. That’s not my style.’

Jen inhaled deeply. ‘OK, well … I know people always say “it’s a long story”, but this really is.’

‘That’s all right. I haven’t got anything else to do.’

So she told him about Cass being Charles’s daughter, not his mistress, and the way her relationship with Jason had started to fracture since she’d found out the truth about her
father-in-law. She told him about her dad. About Poppy and Jessie and Amelia, and the perfect family she had surrounded herself with. About Cass and the implied threat that she could blow the whole thing apart, if she wanted to. How she felt as if she was walking on quicksand, sinking deeper
with every step.

She stopped every now and again to check he hadn’t fallen asleep – or if he was in the throes of terminal boredom – but he always encouraged her to go on. Of course, he had no idea that her father-in-law was the great Charles Masterson,
social commentator and proponent-of-bringing-moral-values-back-into-society extraordinaire, and she made sure not to mention his name. She might wish a lot of things on Charles, these days, but even she didn’t want to be responsible for letting that particular cat out of its bag.

When she got to the end, to Cass turning up on her doorstep out of the blue, Sean sat back and exhaled a long breath.

‘She sounds a bit unhinged, if you want my opinion.’

‘Honestly, I don’t think I can take any more. I have no idea what to do, it’s all such a mess.’

‘Can I ask you something? What were you hoping to achieve? I mean … listen, I have no idea what I’m talking about, really, but she’s not going to go away, this Cass. She’s always going to be his
daughter.’

‘I know. I mean, I don’t know. I suppose I was hoping
she’d decide she didn’t need to get to know them, after all … that I could persuade her –’

‘And then the family could just carry on as normal? Is that even possible, do you think?’

‘Not now, probably …’ She paused. ‘I honestly don’t know if Jason and I will survive it.’

‘If it’s a choice of Cass telling him, or you breaking it to him gently, then I know what I’d recommend. He’s not going to blame you. You’ve been put in an impossible situation.’

‘I know. It’s just the idea that once I do, that’ll be it, there will be no taking it back. Even if he can forgive me for keeping it a secret all this time, he’ll go straight to his father and accuse him. He’ll tell
Poppy and Jessie, how could he not? Amelia will … Oh God, I can’t even think what it’ll do to Amelia. The minute I utter those words, I’ll have destroyed the family. My family.’

‘It’s your father-in-law who’s doing that. You’ll just be the messenger.’

‘Yes, and we know what happens to them.’

‘What’s the alternative? A slow lingering demise, because you can’t act normally around them? Maybe sudden death is better?’

‘I keep hoping there’s some other solution, that’s all. And I keep thinking that every day I don’t tell him is another day I don’t have to deal with the fallout.’

‘Do you really think there could be?’

‘Not really. Not any more. It’s just … we have this stupid weekend away booked. Once we’ve got through that … Amelia’s been looking forward to it for months. And then it’s Christmas. My girls will
be home for the holidays.’

‘There’s never going to be a perfect time.’

‘I know that. It’s … not yet, OK. Not now.’

‘I don’t even know where to start. You poor thing. It must have been a nightmare.’

It was the fact that someone was being sympathetic. That for the first time, someone – anyone – had acknowledged how difficult her position must be, how impossible the situation she was in. She couldn’t help it. She felt her eyes well up
again, blinked furiously to try to stop the tears coming. She felt so stupid. The last thing she needed was to start crying in the pub, but she didn’t know how to make it stop.

Sean looked at her, horrified. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Jen sniffed. ‘This is ridiculous. You must think I’m the one who’s unhinged.’

‘Are you kidding? If what’s been happening to you had happened to me, I’d be a basket case.’

‘I think I probably am.’ She dug around in her bag and found a tissue, dabbed at her eyes, attempted to stem the tide.

‘Actually, you do a pretty good impression of being a well-rounded, balanced person. Well, most of the time, anyway.’

‘I feel exhausted, just trying to remember what secret I’m keeping from who. It’s like I can’t have a normal relationship with any of my family any more. I’m just avoiding everyone.’

‘I don’t think it’s healthy, if you really want my opinion. It’s too much for one person to have to deal with.’

‘I feel a lot better, just for having said it all out loud.’

Sean smiled. ‘This is you feeling better? Jesus, I’d hate to be around if things get bad.’

Jen laughed, which must have looked fairly demented, she imagined, given that she still had tears and no doubt mascara and God knows what else running down her face.

‘The thing is, I keep telling myself everything’ll be OK, somehow. That if I ignore it all, it might just go away and things will go back to how they used to be. But I know I’m kidding myself, really.’

‘Maybe you should just bite the bullet and tell Jason. I know you were trying to protect him but if, in doing so, you’re pushing him away too, then that can’t be a good thing, can it?’

‘I don’t think he’d take kindly to me having met his sister.’

‘He’d get over it. And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him to see what his father’s really like.’

‘It’s not just that, though. I’ve realized lately that it’s more fundamental. We’ve lost something. Or maybe it was never there in the first place. I don’t know who we are as a couple any more. We’ve only
ever really been together as parents. I don’t know if, without that, we have anything to hold us together. I’ve got no idea what we have in common outside family. I used to be so pleased with myself about how close Jason and I were. I thought we had it pretty perfect. Now I
realize we were just deluded.’

‘You’ve been together a long time …’

‘What if I just made myself love him because I fell in love with his family?’

‘Come on … really?’

Jen nodded. ‘I don’t know … I’ve started wondering that lately.’

‘You can’t be carrying all these secrets around with you. You’ll make yourself ill.’

He put a hand on her arm as he said this. She knew she should move it away, but she couldn’t make herself. She looked up at him and saw that he was looking directly at her. She felt her stomach flip.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said, only partly meaning in relation to her problems.

‘I can’t help you there,’ he said, pulling his hand back.

She could feel a burning sensation on her arm where it had been. She wondered briefly what it would be like to lose herself for a few hours with this man. Just once to have something that was uncomplicated and spontaneous. To be made to feel like
she was wanted again, that she counted. But that wasn’t her. She had always had very strict rules for herself, and she wasn’t about to break them.

‘Maybe you need to put yourself first,’ he was saying. ‘Stop worrying about how everyone else feels.’

She had no idea what possessed her. Even years ago, when she’d been single, she had rarely been the one to make the first move. And now here she was, a mother of two, happily married – at least, until recently – and monogamous for more than
twenty years, leaning over to kiss a man she barely knew in the middle of a pub.

She didn’t even think about the other people around them. Whether any of her co-workers from the hotel might have stopped in for an after-work pint. She didn’t
think about Jason or the
girls. And, for a brief minute, she forgot all about Charles and Amelia, Cass, her dad, her sisters-in-law, her mum. Everything.

Sean hesitated for a moment, but then she felt him relax and respond.

She was vaguely aware of a voice saying, ‘Get a room,’ but she blocked it out. Personally, she hated to see overly physical public displays of affection, but now was not the time to worry about upsetting the locals. She could feel
Sean’s hand on the side of her face, holding her there, as if he was afraid she might disappear if he didn’t.

It was so long since she had kissed anyone other than Jason. Lifetimes ago, she knew that. Before marriage, before children. In fact, she couldn’t even remember when she had last kissed Jason like this. When they had leaned into one another
as if their lives depended on it, rather than pecked politely at each other’s cheeks like a pair of friendly parrots. She had forgotten how powerful a kiss could be. She’d forgotten she could feel like this.

After what seemed like an eternity, they moved apart.

Sean was looking at her intently, bluey-grey eyes fixed on hers. ‘I wasn’t expecting that,’ he said, and the way he said it, the hoarse catch in his voice that hadn’t been there before, made Jen feel light-headed.

‘I still have a couple of hours. We could go back to your room …’ There. She’d said it. It had sounded like it was coming from someone else, it was so unlike anything she would ever say, had ever said. Now it was out there.
She couldn’t take it back.

‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ he said, but she was already up and putting on her jacket.

Outside, she could hardly look at him. She felt as if she was in a trance. She knew what she was about to do was wrong, but she was powerless to stop it. Sean reached out for her hand, and then, before she knew what was happening, they were
standing in a doorway and he was kissing her again, this time with even more urgency. Somehow, she managed to ignore the fact that they were in the street, that she had a husband at home, that she wasn’t the kind of person who would ever do something like this.

After what seemed like hours, they surfaced for air. Sean cradled her face in his hand.

‘God, you’re gorgeous,’ he said, and she felt her legs buckle.

She smiled up at him. ‘Let’s go,’ she said before she could change her mind. ‘We might have to walk through reception separately, though.’

In the couple of minutes she’d had to think, she had already worked out that she could tell whoever was on duty that she had forgotten something earlier, and then go through to the back room and up the service stairs to meet Sean on the
third floor. She would probably need oxygen to revive her once she got there, and she wasn’t sure how erotic Sean would find an asthmatic wheeze. She hadn’t worked out how she would leave later, either, what excuse she would give for having been lost in the hotel for however long
she was there. That she’d fainted, maybe. Passed clean out in the back room and lain under a table undetected for an hour or so. She couldn’t think about it too much or she’d bottle out.