The Truth About You (24 page)

Please don’t worry, son, I’ll be back as soon as I can. If I don’t make it before you go to Italy have a lovely time, take care of Mum and Tierney, and remember how much I love you. PS call any time you want to while you’re away, don’t worry about how much it’s costing.

Lainey’s insides were so tight with anger and despair it was hard to speak. So he wasn’t coming back before they left, or not by the sound of it, and he’d told Zav by
text.

As soon as Zav had gone, she snatched up her phone. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she cried when she finally got hold of him. ‘I’ve seen your text to Zav. He’s a child. He needs you . . .’

‘Lainey, I’m doing my best here,’ he shouted over her. ‘It’s not easy this end either, and frankly, you’re in a better position to cope right now than Kirsten is.’

‘Is that so? Well, frankly, I shouldn’t have to be coping without you and nor should the children. Have you spoken to Tierney yet?’

‘I’ve tried, but she doesn’t want to listen. Just exactly what did you tell them?’

‘What the hell do you think I told them? Isn’t the fact that you have a daughter by another woman enough to shatter their world? They trusted you, Tom, as did I. We believed in you in a way you clearly never deserved. Actually, do you know what, I don’t want to have this conversation any more,’ and before he could object she ended the call and turned off her phone.

A moment later the landline rang, but the machine was on and she left it on as she poured herself a large glass of wine and carried it outside. There was nothing to be gained from speaking to him now; they clearly couldn’t communicate civilly and hearing his frustration, knowing Kirsten might be listening, was too much for her to take.

‘I’m going to focus on Italy now,’ she told Stacy when she arrived. ‘We leave on Saturday . . .’ Her voice faltered, and Stacy putting an arm around her shoulders made it even harder to hold on. ‘I wish Tierney would come home,’ she said. ‘She’s not handling this very well, and we really need to talk.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘At Maudie’s. I spoke to Cass earlier, Maudie’s mother, to ask her to call if Tierney didn’t seem herself. To be honest, I wanted to be sure Tierney was actually there. The last thing we need is her running off to London or somewhere to try and punish her father. And me. For some reason she seems to be angry with me too.’

‘Mm, she probably can’t deal with seeing you hurt,’ Stacy commented, refilling their glasses. ‘It’s making her feel helpless, and probably guilty too, in the way kids do when their parents are having problems.’

Lainey nodded agreement. ‘Do you think,’ she began, dangerously close to the edge again, ‘that this really is the end for me and Tom?’
Please say no, please, please, please say no even if you don’t mean it.

‘What’s difficult,’ Stacy replied, ‘is not knowing what he actually
wants
to happen when Kirsten gets through this –
if
she gets through, and we still don’t know how serious it is. I take it you haven’t asked him that question.’

Lainey shook her head. ‘There hasn’t been much of a chance, and to be honest, I really don’t want to hear the details of what’s been going on all these years. Much less do I want to see him break down over another woman. I know it’s cowardly, and I’ll have to go through it at some point, but for the moment I just can’t bring myself to.’

Understanding that, Stacy said, ‘This trip to Italy couldn’t have come at a better time. The last thing you need is to be sitting around here, waiting to find out what’s happening over there.’

Not denying it, Lainey said, ‘You know, it keeps reminding me of when you and Derek first broke up. He’d never come right out and admit it was over between you. He just kept stringing you along, letting you think you could work things out . . .’ She was so tense all of a sudden that her whole body seemed to ache with it, and as a terrible sense of dread came over her she could barely move, or think past it. What had been so particularly bad for Stacy was how cruel Derek had been in the end. Was Tom going to reach that point too? Would there come a time when he really didn’t care about her feelings at all?

‘Tom isn’t Derek,’ Stacy said softly. ‘He has way more qualities and though this is going to be hard to hear, one of them is that he’s trying to be there for Kirsten and Julia at the same time as trying to keep things together with you.’

Lainey smiled weakly. ‘It’s not going to work though, is it, because whatever happens now, we can never go back. Kirsten and Julia will always be there and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who he really wants to be with.’

‘Don’t listen to Maudie,’ Skye was saying into the phone, ‘she’s just a sad little virgin who doesn’t know the first thing about blokes.’ Tierney turned away from Maudie, afraid she could hear. ‘You’re mad about him really,’ Skye ranted on, ‘it’s just all this stuff with your rents that’s messing with your head. I’m telling you, it screwed me up big time when mine broke up, but then I realised, well someone told me, actually, that I had to stop going on like they were my responsibility. And you have to do the same. They’re grown-ups, they can figure stuff out for themselves, and if they can’t, it’s not your fault. You’ve got your own life to lead, just like I have mine, and look at me now. I’ve got all the freedom I could wish for, and it’s really helped me to grow up.’

Tierney couldn’t deny that, since Skye was the most mature person for her age that she knew. She wanted to be like that too, totally cool about stuff, never letting anything get to her, but she wasn’t making a very good job of it right now.

‘I’ll be there tomorrow,’ Skye reminded her. ‘We can have a chat then, but meantime, definitely go to see Mr Grey.’ This was what she’d started calling Guy. ‘It’s what he wants, and you know it’s what you want really.’

If it was, then how come the whole thing had started creeping her out?

After ringing off, she turned back to Maudie.

‘You’re going to go, aren’t you?’ Maudie challenged, her blue eyes glittering harshly behind their black-rimmed frames.

‘I don’t know,’ Tierney mumbled. ‘I’ve said I would . . .’

‘So what? You’re mad getting into this if it’s not what you want. He’s just a perv, really. OK, a dead-fit perv, but he’s getting off on some seriously weird stuff.’

Though Tierney couldn’t deny it, she wasn’t really thinking about him any more. Her mind was on Julia and what she might be like. Whoever she was, Tierney already hated her for taking their dad away. She had no right to, even if her mother was sick. He belonged at home with her, Zav and Max – and with Mum, who was totally destroyed . . .

Tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn’t bear to think of her mother hurting, it was the worst thing in the world, but she didn’t want to talk to her either, and she especially didn’t want to talk to her dad, who kept texting and calling.

‘Please call me back, Tierney,’ he’d urged her earlier. ‘I promise I’d come there if I could, but things are difficult here. Julia’s not as strong as you, she needs . . .’ She’d deleted the message at that point, because what the hell did she care about Julia?

All she cared about, in fact, was what she was going to do tonight. ‘I promised him I’d be outside the Hope and Anchor by eight,’ she told Maudie.

‘So text to say you can’t be there now,’ Maudie retorted. ‘Make up an excuse like you have to go somewhere with your mum, or you’re not very well.’

Tierney’s eyes fell to her phone. The truth was, the only person she really wanted to see was her dad, though she’d never tell him that, and anyway it couldn’t happen while he was with Julia, so she might as well go and see Guy. Except she didn’t really want to see him, even though she’d told him on the phone that she did, and now he’d driven all this way. He’d even booked them into a hotel for the night, and Maudie was going to be her alibi.

Opening up her messages, she pressed in a text.
Really, really sorry, but crisis at home so can’t make it.
Bracing herself, she hit send.

A minute or so later she received a reply.
I don’t believe it. Am already here and mad to see you. Can’t you work something out?

Tierney’s eyes went anxiously to Maudie’s. ‘What shall I say?’

Maudie thought. ‘Just ignore it,’ she decided. ‘It’s not like he’s going to go charging up to the house to get you, is it?’

True, he wouldn’t do that, but all the same . . . ‘He’ll be so pissed off.’

‘And? He’ll get over it.’

Tierney started as her phone rang. Seeing it was her dad she immediately clicked on. ‘I don’t want to speak to you,’ she growled. ‘I hate you for what you’ve done . . .’

‘Tierney, we need to talk . . .’

‘About
Julia
, great, like I’m dying to hear all about her. You’re a hypocrite and a liar and if you think . . .’

‘Will you please listen . . .’

‘No! I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, especially not about her.’

‘You’ve never even met her . . .’

‘And I’m not going to either. She’s nothing to do with me, and nor are you now, so go away and leave me alone.’ As she ended the call she broke into tearing sobs. ‘I hate him,’ she seethed. ‘What he’s done, the lies he’s told, it just makes a mockery of everything.’

Looking on dolefully, Maudie said, ‘I don’t think it means he doesn’t care about you, though.’

Reaching for her phone as it bleeped with another text, she saw it was from Guy and passed it to Maudie.

Can you meet me in the morning?

‘If it weren’t for my mum,’ Tierney said, ‘I’d run away with him now, but I can’t leave her to cope with this on her own. It wouldn’t be fair, she hasn’t done anything wrong, and I’ve been really mean to her . . .’ She started to cry again as she thought of how short she’d been with her mother earlier, when she must be going through hell.

Still holding Tierney’s mobile, Maudie checked it as it rang. ‘It’s her,’ she announced. ‘Do you want to answer it?’

Sniffing as she nodded, Tierney sat up and held out her hand. ‘Hey,’ she said as she clicked on.

‘Are you all right?’ her mother asked.

‘No. Dad just rang. He wants to talk, but I told him I’m not interested in anything he has to say.’

Her mother sighed. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing we’re going away,’ she said. ‘A bit of distance, a change of environment, might do us all some good.’

A spark of hope leapt in Tierney’s chest. ‘So is he coming?’

There was a pause before Lainey replied, ‘No, he’s not coming.’

Tierney’s heart sank. ‘Mum, you’re crying,’ she wailed. ‘Please don’t cry. We don’t need him there. It’ll be all right.’

‘I’m not crying,’ Lainey assured her.

Knowing she was, Tierney said, ‘Do you want me to come home?’

‘It’s OK, you stay and have a chat with Maudie. I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight,’ Tierney whispered back, knowing that all she wanted in the world right now was her mother’s arms around her.

After ringing off she swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed her hands through her hair.

‘What are you going to do about you know who?’ Maudie asked worriedly. ‘He’s still waiting for an answer.’

Picking up her phone, Tierney began pressing in a text.

Everything going mental here. Sorry. Will get in touch again when back from Italy.
‘There,’ she said, passing it over for Maudie to read, ‘satisfied?’ and telling herself everything was going to feel ten times better once Skye arrived around lunchtime tomorrow, she went into the bathroom to turn on the shower.

The following morning Lainey was upstairs packing Zav’s suitcase. Though he was supposed to be helping, she’d agreed to let him go with Max to collect Tierney and on to the station for Skye. He seemed to be seeing Max as a Tom substitute, and the way Max seemed happy to be there for him was very much to Max’s credit. She knew how much it would please Tom, if he could see it, though his feelings would surely come heavily loaded with guilt for causing so much insecurity and heartache in his younger son that he needed Max’s support.

As far as she knew, there had been no more contact between Tom and Max since Max had stormed off the other day. She was sure, though, that Tom would have tried to talk to him, much as he had with Tierney and Zav, but it was pointless attempting this by phone. They needed to see him, to have him show them he still cared and that no matter what, he would always be their dad.

More than anything right now she wanted to hear his car pull up outside, to know he was back, even if it was only to see them before they left in the morning. Better still would be to hear him say he’d changed his mind and was coming after all, except, given what was hanging over them now, would that really be a good idea?

Reaching for her mobile as it rang, she saw it was him and clicked on.

‘You rang earlier?’ he said, without a hello.

She had, but hadn’t got through, and since she hadn’t really known what she wanted to say she’d rung off without leaving a message. ‘It was nothing,’ she told him. ‘Or actually, I suppose I was wondering how things were over there.’

‘Really?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘And you care?’

Stung, she said, ‘Please don’t take that attitude with me. I’m trying . . .’

‘All right, all right, I’m sorry,’ he cut in sharply. ‘It’s been a long night and actually, if you must know, things aren’t all that great.’

Not entirely sure how she felt about that, given Kirsten’s condition, she said, ‘So is she . . .? Is this a primary?’

‘No, it’s a secondary, but I don’t want to get into discussing it now. I need to get back there, and anyway this reception’s not good enough. Can you hear me OK?’

‘Yes, I can hear you perfectly. So I’m guessing we’re not going to see you before we go.’

Sighing, he said, ‘I promise you, if I could make it happen, I would, but I’m afraid I can’t. I’ll try ringing the children again . . . Actually, I finally managed to speak to Max last night, but he ended up telling me to go fuck myself, so I can’t say it went well.’