Love Is a Secret (41 page)

‘How will you advertise it?’

Her son’s deep voice jolted her back to the present. ‘Through the paper, I think. And maybe some flyers at the library and a few shops.’

Adam rolled his eyes. ‘That crystal place? It’s just the sort of nut house where lonely people might look.’

That wasn’t fair!

‘All right, all right, Mum. I take that back.’ He looked around the neat, compact kitchen with its grey ‘marble’ topped counter from Homebase and row of crystals hanging from a silver bracket from the ceiling. ‘But I still find all this stuff a bit odd.’

‘This stuff’ had been another thing that had got her through. Karen’s hand automatically slid into her pocket to close around her lucky blue pebble which she’d got the day after she’d moved into here and a young man had knocked on the door. He was selling things for charity, he said. A charity for the homeless. And because she was so grateful to have a place of her own again, she had bought not just the duster which was at the top of his bag but the pebble which was dangling with others from his knapsack.

‘Good choice.’ He had nodded approvingly. ‘It will look after you.’

Since then, she’d carried that pebble everywhere. And she’d got by, hadn’t she? So had Adam. He’d met Hayley – too young in her opinion but there you were – and they had Josh. No talk of marriage but then again, the young didn’t nowadays. Hayley wasn’t from the same background but it would have sounded snobby to have said so out loud. Anyway, Hayley might work in a supermarket but she was a good, kind girl and a great mum.

‘Aren’t I lucky?’ she often told herself. A home. A job and a son who lived round the corner in his girlfriend’s parents’ house while they lived in their second home in Spain. And although she’d been lonely at times (who wasn’t?), she’d grown used to her own company. Of course, she’d had a few boyfriends but they never lasted long. She’d made sure of that. What was the point of staying with someone if they weren’t right? Far better to be true to yourself with a plate of Marmite toast and glass of Chablis in front of a DVD instead of making small talk with someone who was boring or unattractive or both!

‘Well,’ said Adam, getting up to clear his plate. ‘If that’s what you want to do, Mum, it’s up to you. By the way, there’s something I ought to tell you.’ He gave her an odd look. ‘Dad wrote to me the other day. He said . . .’

‘No.’ Karen was shocked by the force behind her voice. ‘Please don’t say any more, Adam. If your father is back in contact with you, that’s great. But I don’t want to know anything about him. OK?’

Adam held out his hands as though surrendering. His expression – a mixture of confusion and love – reminded her so much of Paul at that age before it had all gone wrong. ‘OK, Mum. Keep calm. If that’s the way you want it, that’s fine. Now when do you plan on starting this group of yours?’

4

ED

Was it really true that bald men were more attractive? Ed eyed himself in the full-length mirror at the bottom of his bed. He’d never have thought so himself. Just look at him! His head actually shone when the light was on it in the wrong direction and yet, provided he looked the right way into the mirror, the rest of his face (strong nose; bluey grey eyes; fair eyebrows; wide generous mouth) wasn’t too bad. Previous girlfriends had dubbed him as a ‘dead ringer’ for Hugh, Vince and Boris in no particular order – without the hair of course. He just seemed, Nancy agreed, to have ‘one of those faces’.

Not that he was vain! But frankly, he did wonder at times if his lack of hair was responsible for the mess he had so far made of his love life. After all, thought Ed, watching his reflection plunge his hands deep into the pocket of his dark brown box-shaped Armani jacket which he wore, as usual, over his trademark dark denim jeans and clean white trainers, was it totally unreasonable to want a wife and children at his age?

Most of his thirty-something friends had succeeded by now. And frankly, every time he went to lunch with one of them, he felt quite sick with jealousy at the stench of nappies or regurgitated food which his godchildren (of whom he had plenty) obligingly threw up in his direction as though to say ‘Get a move on if you want one like us’.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried. Take Tatty. When he’d first met her, he’d been certain that she’d been The One. It had taken all his willpower not to march her out of the restaurant on their first date and take her straight to the jewellers before a quick look at Mothercare. In the event, he had held out for three dates only to find that although she accepted the engagement ring, she turned down the Mothercare tour.

‘I’m not ready for babies yet,’ she had declared in that guttural accent of hers which kept mistaking ‘e’ for ‘i’ and  ‘x’ for ‘z’ or vice versa, although sometimes he suspected it was just for effect.

What was wrong with girls nowadays? Nancy had laughed when he’d asked her that and said something about not rushing into things too fast as he had done before. She had, Ed had told himself, a point. He’d give Tatty a couple of months to change her mind and then . . . well, frankly, he’d just have to move on.

Which was where he was right now. Rehearsing his goodbye speech in front of the mirror; a trick that Dad had taught him years ago to make sure he projected the right facial expressions. Sympathetic. Caring. But realistic.

‘Listen Tatty, darling. I don’t know how you feel but personally, I don’t think I’m good enough for you.’

His reflection shook his head. Too much of a cliché. Maybe it was the mirror that was putting him off hitting the exact right note for his ‘goodbye’ speech to Tatty. Perhaps he ought to address the water bed instead. No. Too many memories. The wall then, with that sensual Indian picture above the Jacuzzi.

‘Tatty. I’m sorry. You’re always saying how important it is to tell the truth. So I’m going to be frank with you! It’s not because I can read your ribs like Braille. It’s not the sex – which is amazing. Or that it’s like kissing a nicotine-flavoured G and T without the ice and lemon. It’s because you don’t want babies and – I’m really sorry to say this – you’re not the woman I’ve been looking for.’

What kind of woman, Nancy often asked him, was the kind of woman he was looking for? ‘We’re not perfect, you know,’ she would say, tilting her perfect profile towards him. ‘And frankly, Ed, if you’re going to continue looking for someone who ticks all the right boxes, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.’

Was she right, wondered Ed as he tried dialling Tatty’s number again, listening to the long distance tones and hoping that the voicemail wouldn’t kick in. It wasn’t what his father had always told him. Ever since he’d started dating, his father had been quite clear. ‘If it’s not right, son, move on. Life’s too short for compromise. But never leave on a sour note. Tell them it’s you and not them. Explain they’ll be better off without you. And if they need it, look after them financially. Above all, be fair.’

Dad – talk about a perfectionist! – had certainly left him enough to do that. Not that Ed believed in flaunting his wealth. But there were times when he wondered if Tatty had been keener on his Porsche than his baby-rearing potential.

‘Tatty?’

At last! She was picking up.

‘Hello! Hello? Are you there? I can hear YOU!’ Fit of giggles. ‘Just joking. Sorry – I’m not around but you know what to do! Byeeeeee!’

She’d changed her voicemail message to the type that sounded – infuriatingly –  as though she was there in person instead of on yet another shoot in the Caribbean!

‘Tatty? It’s me. Ed. Your fiancé. Remember?’

Too sarcastic. Too late to take it back.

‘We haven’t spoken for ages. Are you all right? I need to speak. I’ve got something I need to tell you.’

Sod it. He might just as well go into work. Get some water cooler advice. It usually worked.

Ed had discovered the water cooler on his second day of work nearly five years ago, after having worked for another developer ever since leaving uni. Only then, did his father grudgingly recognise he’d earned his stripes – but he’d still be the new boy. Not the boss’s son.

‘No favours here,’ his father had told him sternly. ‘You’ve got to work your way up. No one knows we’re related – got it?’

It worked because Ed had never been allowed in the office before. And because his dad had always made it a rule not to talk about his family at work, no one knew he had a son. In fact, it was a frequent topic of conversation by the water cooler and the snack machine at break time.

‘Watch out for Old Bill,’ one woman said to him. ‘He’s a tough nut. Fair. But tough. And whatever you do, don’t ask him about family. His wife died years ago and he’s had a few since.’

He’d felt awful then. A real traitor. Especially when the girls took him into their confidence and told him about their boyfriend problems. That’s how he’d learned that one of the best ways to hook a woman was to listen and then gently suggest that they’d been treated unfairly by their men. Yes, really! Sure – he would love to go out for a drink after work provided the boyfriend didn’t mind. She was going to dump him, was she? Well, he wouldn’t like to interfere but he was pretty sure she was doing the right thing.

But then Dad got ill. ‘Nothing serious,’ he told Ed and Nancy. ‘I’ll be here for a while yet.’

Even if his dad had lived, Ed would never have trusted him again. It had all been a lie. The prognosis had been a death toll from the beginning. And apart from having to handle the shock and Nancy’s grief, he also had to cope with the whole business thing and telling the staff that actually he, Ed, who had worked his way up to land manager was actually the boss’s son. And now he was in charge.

‘We knew you were his son anyway!’ one of the girls had chortled.

They did?

‘You look just like him!’

Really?

‘’Sides, he told one or two of us that you were his son. We just weren’t allowed to let on we knew. He said it would be easier all round.’

Smart, he had to admit.

‘Are we going to keep our jobs?’

Definitely.

And somehow, Ed had managed to keep everyone’s confidence and be the boss of his father’s medium-sized property firm which had just about survived the recession. Just as important (well almost) was the fact that the water cooler sessions survived. Of course, he couldn’t carry on going out with the girls: none of them had been serious anyway and besides, he’d always ended it on a good note. But he did enjoy the chit chat and listening to their latest problems. It helped him work out how women thought.

Now, as he helped himself to a tumbler of water, he was tempted to tell one of the girls – especially that gorgeous auburn-haired temp – about his problems with Tatiana.

‘Hello?’

For a moment there, he almost hadn’t recognised his new mobile tone (just downloaded as a trial from
Men
magazine).

‘Ed?’

Shit. This was Tatiana’s real voice. Something bad must have happened if she’d returned his call that fast.

His mouth suddenly felt dry. He’d never felt comfortable just relying on condoms. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m back, Ed. Can you meet me at the flat?’

‘What’s up, Tatty?’

‘Tell you when you’re here.’

The funny thing about ending a relationship – and he’d done it enough times! – was that the other person usually sensed it and came up with something that made you feel a real heel for adding to their problems. It might be redundancy. Or ‘flu. Or a lost cat. Something anyway that meant you had to feel sorry for them for a time (which of course he did – genuinely). But it also meant you had to put off the telling them for a while if you were a decent person which Ed tried to be. He really did.

So clearly, thought Ed, as he ran up the white stone steps through the autumn leaves (must sweep them up!) before punching his ID code into the security entry box,  he couldn’t dump Tatiana. Not just yet. He’d have to soothe her over the emergency,  whatever it was. After the initial panic, he’d worked out it couldn’t have been the condom because she’d had a period just before going away. Clever stuff, periods, provided they stuck to their timetables. So it was probably a broken nail. Or a few split ends.

‘Ed!’

She was sitting with her back to him, completely stark naked on one of his new silver chrome chairs from the Design Gallery, with thick black hair trailing over a bare shoulder. Wow. The bits below his waist began to question the ‘
I don’t think this is working’
bit in his head.

No. something was wrong. She was wearing something after all. A kind of beige body suit over, he could see now, a pair of gold, shimmery jogger things. ‘You’ve grown your hair,’ he said, stunned.

Tatiana ran her fingers through her long black hair which had been a green bob when she’d left, with pink streaks.

‘Extensions, Ed.’ She was staring at him now with those amazing green eyes which had bewitched him at the beginning. Bloody hell! He must have been mad to have thought of letting her go! Her skin was so smooth and white that he wanted to run his fingers over it. Wanted to . . .

‘Ed.’

Why was she speaking without a fake accent?

‘There’s something I need to tell you, Ed. Can you sit down? Please. Just for a second.’

So he did.