The Mysterious Miss Mayhew (30 page)

‘Uh-huh, huhhhhh,’ he said and then, ‘Ohhhh!’

‘Excellent,’ Fran replied. ‘On we go then.’

CHAPTER 42

Wednesday 11 June

Well, what a lot I’ve learned. And if I can stop grinning for long enough, I will try to mould it into ten points.

1) It is possible to star in a Greek tragedy, a romance and a sex scene in the space of one day.

2) A man can get hold of the wrong end of the stick so badly that he has to go and sit up a tree.

3) You can be more hurt by someone’s opinion of your sponge cake than the fact that he thinks you’re the kind of woman who would seduce your half-sister’s son. This is probably because I knew his verdict on the cake was correct, while the one regarding my morals was not.

4) I am frighteningly good at manipulation, although I am going to forgive myself and call it acting.

5) The first kiss from a pair of lips that you’ve been looking at for a long time feels like pain relief.

6) Tom has the most wonderful shoulders. The kind you look at and see protection and strength and quite a few other things that I am not going to write down, but will think about over and over again. He also does kissing very well – no, snogging is a better description, although still not quite there.

7) There is not one part of Tom’s body that I don’t like. I’m sure in time as I show him that, he will stop sucking in his stomach.

8) Tom is quite, quite bad. He had no scruples about questioning poor Monty and he confirmed my theory about his Thursday evenings. I find that extra edge to Tom very exciting. I look forward to exploring it with him.

9) Telling someone your life story when you are both naked seems to draw the poison out of it. Tom is a good listener, although he does interrupt at crucial points with inappropriate behaviour.

10) It is possible to understand the similarities between your mother’s life and your own and still go right ahead and plunge in. Being a methodical person
though, afterwards you write a list of similarities and fret somewhat.

A. Falling for an older man.

B. Falling for an older man who still has a wife.

C. Falling for an older man who has offspring.

The only one of these I am concerned about is B., and perhaps as Tom comes to trust me, I will find out why that wife is still a wife. Until then there is nothing I can do to prevent the echoes of my mother’s life running through my own. Except ensure we always have plenty of condoms in stock. And possibly go on the pill.

CHAPTER 43

Tom left the florist’s with a huge bunch of flowers wrapped in purple tissue paper.

‘For being a tit,’ he said to Liz when he handed them to her.

‘An aggressive tit,’ she corrected him. ‘And don’t think that this measly bunch gives you the right to do it again.’ Her tone was brusque, but when she thought he wasn’t looking, she bent her head and sniffed the lilies.

‘You feeling better, or do I need to start fashioning these flowers into a wreath?’ She was eyeing him suspiciously. ‘You certainly look better.’

‘I am. So … you want to give me about quarter of an hour to get sorted, and then come through?’

Liz’s expression showed that she hoped there was a big crisis in the offing. Whereas he was sure his expression said: I am absolutely ecstatic.

He could have run through the office punching the air and someone seemed to have taken away the creaky floorboards and put down soft rubber.

He saw copies of the July edition of the magazine on various desks as he passed. Victoria’s copy, he noted, was open at her pages. Had it been like that since its arrival yesterday?

‘Is this something new?’ She was nodding towards Liz. ‘Will all of us who do a good job get a bouquet?’

Nicely done: compliment to Liz while giving herself one too. Tom remembered what Fran had said about her and tried not to let it affect his smile and his cheery ‘Who knows?’

In the minutes before Liz joined him, he took a magazine from the pile left on his desk and ripped off the plastic. He flicked through it with an objective eye – until he got to Fran’s pages where he lingered and stopped being objective at all. Pride came along first, then regret that this would be the only time her work was featured … and then he was seeing Fran’s hair around her naked shoulders … Well, seeing Fran’s naked everything, and feeling her mouth on his neck and hearing the way she spoke to him when they had made love as if his happiness was essential to hers.

There were other lovely images in the Fran Scrapbook too.

The moment he had kissed her goodbye yesterday afternoon, he had wanted to see her again. Which was why, just
after he’d picked up Hattie from school, he was indicating right and heading down the track that led to the bungalow.

He’d acted on impulse, but as he parked he knew there were a lot of reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this. Would it seem weird pitching up with Hattie? Subtext: now we’ve had sex, it’s time we bonded as a family unit?

He knew that Fran and he should have set some ground rules about how to behave when Hattie was around. No way did he want Hattie to be party to innuendos and whispered conversations.

Another thought hit him as they walked up the path – what if Fran tried some kind of charm offensive on Hattie, just to show how well the three of them might get along?

‘Do you know what?’ he said to Hattie ‘I think I remember Fran telling me she wouldn’t be in today. Let’s come back another time.’

‘But there she is, with a teapot.’

Fran recovered well from the surprise of their appearance. ‘Oh! Hello,’ she said. ‘Long time no see.’

Hattie was frowning. ‘Not really. You saw us the other day in our garden. Are you giving the plants a drink?’

‘We were just passing,’ Tom said, trying not to grin.

‘I’m actually giving the plants some tea leaves.’ Fran took the lid off the teapot and tipped it so that Hattie could look inside. ‘It’s very good for them, evidently.’

‘We have bags,’ Hattie said. ‘Can I do it?’

‘Can you do it … what?’ Fran looked pointedly at Hattie.

Hattie considered. ‘Can I do it,
please
?’

‘Of course, that plant over there, if you could. And try not to get anything on your school uniform; tea stains horribly. In fact, I often stain paper with it – I could show you later if you have time.’ Hattie went off to the plant and Fran watched her, seemingly ignoring him.

So much for being over-demonstrative.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I just wanted to see you again. I should have checked first.’

‘Not at all. It’s always lovely to have you drop in,’ she said loudly, which he realised was for Hattie’s benefit. She lowered her voice for, ‘I can only get through this, Tom, if you don’t look at any part of me below the neck or touch me at all, not even my hand. And if I’m being too ingratiating with Hattie, just give me a sign …’

‘What kind of sign?’

‘I don’t know, scratch your ear or something. Right, Hattie, how is it going?’ She was striding away from him. ‘Ah, on your shoes, well, I think that will come off.’

No ear scratching had been needed. While he really wanted to take Fran into the bedroom and ravage her, he’d had to settle for watching Hattie and her get on with the fish they’d started before he’d stabbed himself. He
wondered if he should do it again – Fran and he could end up in the bathroom once more, with his trousers off.

All he got from Fran was a peck on the cheek when they left, but it was a remarkably satisfying peck.

He pushed the magazine out of the way and concentrated on writing the letter he’d roughed out in his head on the drive to work. Just as it chugged out of the printer, in came Liz, notebook in one hand and geared up for a good bit of drama. Well, he wasn’t going to disappoint her there.

She’d shut the door behind her, but he went and made sure it was fully engaged with the frame. Liz liked that –the equivalent of a drum roll.

‘OK,’ he said, handing her the letter. ‘I’ve written out an explanation about Fran, for the staff.’

Liz scanned it. ‘Nicely put … good and bland. Glad to see you didn’t mention banning her from the building.’ She handed the letter back. ‘Big shame though. We’ve had some great feedback about her pages already on the website. So what happened?’ She nodded at the letter. ‘Realised you couldn’t win this battle with the Mawsons?’

‘Yes. This problem isn’t going to go away and … there may well be another one …’

Liz shifted forward in her seat; she probably didn’t even know she’d done it.

‘Thing is, Liz, I have to tell you something that must
not
be repeated to anyone. No exceptions. I know I don’t really have to labour the point. If you haven’t got a safe pair of hands, I don’t know who has.’

He told her, as simply as he could, about Fran being Charlie’s daughter, although he didn’t tell her Monty’s part in the story coming out. He watched Liz’s new facial display.

‘Charlie’s daughter?’ she said eventually. ‘Late-life romance or something?’

He filled her in on how it had happened when Charlie was meant to be having treatment for his drink problem.

Liz snorted. ‘I always thought he was a terrible advertisement for that clinic. If that was him
after
rehab … Well, that explains Mrs Mawson’s extreme reaction to Fran.’ Liz darted a glance at him. ‘This is all legit is it, Tom? I mean, there’s no possibility of a scam—’

‘No. I’ve seen photos, letters. Stuff that links Fran’s mother to Charlie and Fran’s mother to Fran.’

He had. Another memory from yesterday in the Fran Scrapbook. A knock on the door after Hattie was in bed, and there she was, file in hand. She said she was trying to make up for keeping everything hidden before, but there was a look in her eye that made him waste very little time on the file and a lot on her. They had started off on the
sofa, but Tom found that although his desire was driving him forward, the thought that Hattie might discover them was putting the brakes on. They’d ended up making love very quietly, but very thoroughly, on top of his duvet out on the lawn. The back door was locked to halt Hattie’s progress and a garden chair wedged against the side gate, just in case any of his family decided to ‘pop’ by.

‘We’re sneaking around like teenagers,’ Fran had whispered afterwards as they watched the bats swooping over the garden. ‘Mind you, that doesn’t take much remembering on my part, whereas for you, it’s like doing historical research.’

He’d given her a gentle pinch on the arm, but resisted asking her if she really minded about the age difference. The evidence suggested she didn’t and besides, what was the point of pulling down all those black clouds on the horizon – the age difference, Mrs Mawson finding out about them, how to play this with Hattie …?

‘And the Jamie thing was just …’ Liz asked.