The Truth Club (68 page)

She’s talking to me as if I’m single
,
I think.
She’s talking to me
as if I was never married at all. But she must know I married Diarmuid. Everyone in this room does. Marie rounded them all up and got them to come to the wedding. They have given me w
edding presents. They have showered me with confetti.

‘Dear Marie – she puts on a great spread, doesn’t she?’ Cedric
says. I try not to stare at him as I recall what Marie said about him and Annabel’s mother. ‘How are you, Sally? Are you still involved in windsurfing?’ The man must have a great memory. My crazy windsurfing days were years ago. I only managed to stand up on the surfboard for about five minutes.

‘I’ve always rather liked the look of windsurfing,’ Cedric continues. ‘It must be wonderfully refreshing.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ I agree. He hasn’t mentioned Diarmuid,
either. In fact, I don’t think anyone is going to. I thought they’d
be pestering me with questions, but they seem to have edited the
subject out of their conversations. I’m grateful, but I shouldn’t be
that surprised: they have done that with so many other subjects already.

I feel Fabrice watching me again, as she straightens the mohair
rug so that it covers Aggie’s knees. Maybe she’s jealous of my friendship with Nathaniel. I would love to march up to her and ask her about him, but of course I don’t.

I take a large gulp of red wine. I’m glad that Dad has decided
to intercept April – and I’m so relieved that he and Mum finally
believed me. Of course, now people are asking where April is, and
where my father has gone; Mum is making vague comments
about her being collected from somewhere at the last minute. ‘It
will be so lovely to see her again,’ someone says. ‘She must be lovely and brown. I’ve always wanted to visit San Francisco.’

I wonder how Mum will explain April’s non-appearance
,
I
think, cramming crisps into my mouth. Marie is serving some sort
of main course later. Whatever one may say about her parties, there is no shortage of food.

‘Sally, could you help me to bring in the plates?’ Marie says. Then she looks around and cries, ‘April. Oh, darling April!’

I nearly drop my glass. What on earth is April doing here? She s
hould be with Dad. Did she get out of the taxi and sprint past him? Where is he?

‘April, darling!’ Mum rushes towards her, arms outstretched. She is managing to hide any reservations very convincingly.

‘Hi, April!’ I hug her too. It is, after all, expected in the
circumstances. April is looking very tanned and slim, though her
expensive trouser suit is a little crumpled after all those hours on
the plane. Other members of the family move forward to greet her
and kiss her cheeks, and Uncle Bob hands her a large glass
of wine.

‘You must be tired after your journey, dear,’ Mum says. ‘But you’ve arrived at just the right time. Marie is serving lunch.’

‘Why on earth was Dad waiting at the entrance to the estate?’
April leans over to whisper in my ear. ‘He wouldn’t let us get by.
It was ridiculous.’

‘How… how did you get past him?’ I whisper back.

‘There’s another entrance, a smaller one. A kind of dirt track.’ April’s eyes are glinting. ‘He was trying to stop me coming here,
wasn’t he? I can’t believe it!’

She grabs a spoon and taps her wine glass imperiously.
‘Excuse me!’

It takes a while for people to quieten. I try to grab April’s hand
and lead her from the room, but she pushes me away. Mum is
cowering in a corner, Dad has just arrived back and looks
haggard with worry, and Aggie is watching the whole thing very
closely.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ April says, when the room is almost silent, ‘but there’s something I’d like to share with you.’

I can’t just let her blurt it out. I grab a wine glass myself and tap it furiously. Maybe I can give Mum and Dad a chance to bustle April away.

I almost run into the middle of the room. ‘Yes, and I have
something I’d like to share with you, too!’ I say, almost shouting.
‘My marriage to Diarmuid is over.’

No one looks in the least surprised.

‘I left him because… because he was getting too fond of some
mice.’

I see a number of raised eyebrows.

‘I let them loose in the tool shed, only he lured them back with
cheddar cheese.’

There is a sprinkling of murmur.

‘Shut up, Sally!’ April roars suddenly. ‘Everybody knows about
your ridiculous marriage, but they don’t know that –’

‘An honoured visitor is now going to sing us some songs from
the shows,’ a tremulous voice interrupts. It’s Aggie.

People glance at her kindly, but their gaze returns to April. Her
face is flushed and there is an urgent, slightly crazy look about her.

‘Of course, not everyone likes songs from the shows,’ Aggie
continues; she is now standing, with Fabrice’s help. ‘But I thought
a little music before lunch might… might help the party atmos
phere.’ She looks pointedly at April. ‘And, anyway, I thought that
even those who don’t like musicals might enjoy them this time.
Because this time they are being sung by…’ Aggie’s voice breaks.
‘By my dear sister DeeDee.’

Every jaw in the room drops in amazement.

There is uproar. People are pushing their way towards Fabrice
– DeeDee – staring at her, wanting to clasp her hands. April is
forgotten in the melee; I see Dad taking her hand and leading her
carefully from the room.

I just stand motionless for at least a minute. It can’t be true. How has that creature Fabrice managed to persuade dear Aggie
that she is her long-lost sister? Is this what she’s been up to during
all those visits? Fabrice bears absolutely no resemblance to the lovely woman I met in London. It’s outrageous. It’s dastardly. It’s… I stare at her more closely.

Dear God, it’s true.

DeeDee has taken off her wig, and I can see her face properly.
The heavy make-up has been applied very expertly, but I can
discern her features underneath it. DeeDee has come back to us –
and she has arrived just in time.

‘Did you always plan to attend this party?’ I say, when things have calmed down a little and she has removed most of her camouflage. Even the lurid pink dress has been briskly pushed into a shopping bag; she is now wearing a rose-pink cashmere jumper and neat brown trousers.

‘No.’ She smiles at me. ‘I was very doubtful about it, actually.’

‘
I’m so glad you came.’ I say. ‘In fact, if you hadn’t–’

‘
April might have told everyone about her father.’

‘You knew that!’ I gasp.

‘Yes. Nathaniel told me and I told Aggie. But Aggie knew about Al already; your father mentioned it to her shortly after you all returned from California.’

Poor April. I suddenly long to hold her, comfort her. But Dad
has probably taken her off to that lunch.

‘So… so did Aggie always suspect you were DeeDee?’ I say slowly.

‘No, not at first,’ DeeDee says. ‘She saw me as a rather dotty
but entertaining new friend.’ I smile. ‘When I first visited her, it
was mainly out of curiosity. And I wanted to see if I could pull it
off; Aggie never believed I could be an actress. I didn’t really feel that kindly towards her, you know. Only then we got chatting and
laughing, and Aggie kept saying how interesting I was, and I began to enjoy entertaining her with tall stories. And she talked about me – DeeDee, not Fabrice – and she seemed to genuinely miss me… I had only planned to visit her once, but for a while I
even stayed in a guest-house in Dublin so I could see more of her.

‘And after a while I sometimes forgot to be Fabrice. We fell
into our old ways, the types of conversations we had before.’ She looks down at her hands. ‘Anyway, after a while I think I wanted
her to know. I dropped some hints. And then, after your visit, I came over to see her again and decided to broach the subject of
Joseph. I said… I said I’d heard from someone that DeeDee had
lied to her about Joseph. I needed to see if she was still bitter about it. I knew she would never accept the truth, but I hoped that time had lessened her resentment.’

‘What happened?’ I’m almost falling off my chair with
curiosity.

‘She burst into tears, and I started to apologise. I said I
shouldn’t have mentioned something so obviously hurtful; I was,
after all, just someone she had got to know quite recently.’

‘What did Aggie say?’

‘She said she longed with all her heart to see DeeDee again, so
she could beg her to forgive her. She said she knew DeeDee hadn’t
lied – it was her own husband who had deceived her.’

‘Oh, DeeDee, you must have been so relieved!’

‘Yes. I told her who I was then, of course. I took off the wig and told her about the layers of make-up, and we just sat there
hugging each other for at least ten minutes. “I always knew there
was something special about Fabrice,” Aggie kept saying. “Something
familiar
.”’

‘How did she know you had told the truth about Joseph?’

‘Shortly before he died, he told her he had raped me.’ DeeDee’s voice is almost a whisper. ‘He couldn’t live with the guilt of it any
longer. At first Aggie thought she shouldn’t look for me because I
wouldn’t want anything to do with her. She was sure I would never forgive her.’

‘What made her change her mind?’

‘Her heart,’ DeeDee says softly. ‘She listened to her heart.
She… she says the angels helped her.’

‘She thought they were floating sheep at first.’ I smile.

‘Yes, she told me.’ DeeDee chuckles. ‘I don’t know if I believe
in these angels of hers, but I still feel grateful to them.’

Suddenly I feel grateful to them too. It seems to me that we accept many extraordinary things as normal – birth, life, death, the sun and the moon and the stars, love. So why shouldn’t we leave room in our hearts for the possibility that there are tender, wise beings out there who want to help and guide us, if we ask for their assistance?

‘Did I really stand up and tell everyone I left Diarmuid because
of some mice?’ I say.

‘Yes, you did, dear.’ DeeDee smiles and brushes a stray strand
of hair from my face. ‘I’m sure you oversimplified matters, but it
was very valiant of you.’

‘But it was no match for your bit of theatre. You put on an amazing show as Fabrice. You’re an excellent actress, DeeDee Aldridge.’ I kiss her cheek very tenderly.