His Secret Family (ARC)

by Ali Mercer

  Pity… and guilt.

  That whole childhood, all those years of scraped knees and friendship problems and crazes and times-tables, all the things she’d loved – snowdays, Easter eggs, ice pops stored in the freezer compartment for summer, sparklers on Bonfire Night. He’d missed it all.

  I had been so sure that Mark had meant what he said when he told me he’d got back together with Paula, and I shouldn’t contact him again. I had believed that he didn’t want to know. That there was no point telling him about the baby, and it was down to me to decide what to do next.

  But how could anyone ever be sure how anyone would react to anything? I hadn’t persisted. I hadn’t given him the chance. I’d fallen into Sean’s arms because he was there and it was easy… and it had been comforting, and flattering. And also, if I was really honest, because all the pregnancy hormones had driven me wild with lust, and I’d always secretly thought Sean was quite attractive and all of a sudden I’d found him irresistible. Besides, I hadn’t been able to come up with any particularly convincing reasons why I should resist him. What did I have to lose? Or so I thought at the time.

  After all, I’d already lost Mark, not that he’d ever really been mine in the first place. But I’d been left with vivid memories of our short time together – painfully vivid. Being with someone else seemed like the best way to force them to fade.

  One day, when Sean and I had the house to ourselves, we made love and then took a bath together: the kind of thing young lovers do. He soaped me tenderly and dried me, and we got dressed and went to the pub – lemonade for me, a pint for him – and he said, in a sudden rush as if it had only just occurred to him, ‘I think we ought to get married.’

  And I was thrilled. Thrilled – but stunned.

  ‘But, Sean—’

  ‘You don’t have to answer now. But I do mean it, and I have thought about it. I love you, and I want to take care of you. You and the baby.’ He swigged a mouthful of beer, set his glass down. ‘Just think about it, OK? No rush. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here. I won’t change my mind.’ He knocked back some more beer. He was clearly nervous. ‘I’m not saying we should lie to anyone. But, you know… if we get married you can just let people think what they’re going to think. It might make things easier for you.’

  He was right. People did assume that he was the father of my baby, and we didn’t bother explaining that he wasn’t. And I could see that this made things easier for Sean, too.

  Then, when I was beginning to show, our landlord started asking awkward questions and Sean found somewhere for us to move into together.

  Our new home was a converted loft in a house that belonged to a regular at the pub Sean worked in. It was always either too hot or too cold, and given that it was up three flights of stairs, it was hopelessly impractical for a couple with a baby on the way. But I didn’t care about any of that at the time. I was over the moon about it.

  I’d been avoiding my mother, for obvious reasons, and she clearly suspected something was up, and had been sounding more and more worried when we spoke on the phone. But then I invited her to visit and introduced her to Sean and she seemed thoroughly relieved. As soon as he’d gone off for his shift at the pub, she said what a nice lad he was. And then I told her he was looking for another job, something that would pay more, and broke the news about the baby and she hugged me and cried and said she’d been wondering how long I was going to leave it before saying anything.

  Turned out she’d had her suspicions for a while, though she hadn’t been sure. She often had an uncanny way of knowing things she had no way of knowing… though, as I was to find out, that didn’t mean she was always right. There was a lot she didn’t see. And some of it, like Sean’s drinking, was pretty obvious; even on that occasion, he’d got through a couple of cans before leaving for work. But she liked him, and that was all the approval I needed.

  We put his name down on Ava’s birth certificate – ‘After all, it might as well be true,’ Sean had said – and a few months later we tied the knot.

  What a disaster that had turned out to be.

  Well, not completely a disaster, because I had Ellie. But not easy, either.

  I looked out of the window and listened to Ava’s steady breathing and the occasional riffling sound of Ellie turning pages.

  What had happened was as close as Mark and I would get to turning back the clock. And this time, we would get it right.

  We had to.

  For years, the girls had been all I had. I’d lost my parents. I’d lost my sister, though she was still alive. And Sean was Sean, lost from the start, though I hadn’t realised it.

  Now I had Mark and a new baby on the way. But I couldn’t allow the price of that to be a more distant relationship with Ellie and Ava. There was absolutely no way in the world I was ever going to lose anybody who was close to me again.

  * * *

  My falling-out with Amanda had started with her accusing Sean of being drunk at Mum’s wake, which he was, of course. I defended him anyway, and then she asked him to leave, which he did, and told me I was a bad mother for letting him carry on seeing the kids, and I told her to stay out of it and called her a snob and other things were said that shouldn’t have been. Afterwards neither of us had made the effort to apologise, and the row had hardened into an estrangement and become fixed. An end point. Perhaps it had always been inevitable that without Mum to hold us together, we were bound to fall out. I just never would have imagined that it could happen so quickly, or so completely.

  But even when I didn’t see Amanda any more, even though we didn’t call or send Christmas cards, I still thought about her.

  Sometimes the people we haven’t spoken to for years are the ones who made us who we are. More than anyone else, Amanda was the person who turned me into a hairdresser. And if I hadn’t become a hairdresser, I never would have met Mark.

  When she was a girl Amanda’s hair was long, blonde and curly, just like Ava’s. I always wanted to play with it, and she would never let me. She was much older than me, and she was always the kind of person who knows her own mind.

  One of the quickest ways to annoy her was to shorten her name. She wanted to be serious, and she didn’t see nicknames as affectionate. She saw them as evidence of disrespect. When she was my age, people had called her Mandy, but then she had insisted that everyone ought to use her full name. And everyone did, which tells you something about her strength of will and stubbornness.

  Eventually Mum got me a Girl’s World as an outlet for my hair obsession, and I loved it, but Amanda disapproved. She was fiercely serious, not at all into pop music or make-up or fashion or any of the things that I was interested in, and that I was supposedly too young for.

  My dad died of a heart attack when I was seven and Amanda was fourteen. A few weeks later, before the funeral, I overheard Mum on the phone, talking to one of her friends. She was singing Amanda’s praises. What a help she’d been, in the last few weeks. What a tower of strength. So grown up, so reliable, mature beyond her years. She really didn’t know what she would have done without her.

  She didn’t mention me.

  I hadn’t really cried about Dad – it would have been like crying about a crater that had suddenly opened up in the house, or a black hole. You can’t cry about something you can’t understand, that you can’t feel: and you can’t feel or understand a void. His sudden and complete and overwhelming absence was too big and shocking for tears.

  But I cried about the fact that my sister was so very helpful, and I was nothing at all.

  When Mum came upstairs and comforted me and asked me if I was crying about Dad, I told her the truth. She was surprised, but she wasn’t angry. She told me that it wasn’t a good idea to listen into other people’s conversations, that what you picked up was only ever part of the story. And then she held me tight, and told me that I did help her, all the time, and especially now that Dad had gone.

  ‘You’re my reason for getting up in the
morning,’ she told me. ‘I know Amanda will get herself up and out of the house and off to school on time, but if I didn’t tell you to get out of bed you never would, would you? You see, it’s good for people to be needed. It keeps us going.’

  And then, the morning before the funeral, she arranged for a hairdresser to come to the house and plait my hair with ribbons, and pin it up in a circle around my head.

  I felt like I was wearing a crown. Somehow, it made it possible – necessary – to get through it. To be dignified. To manage. And pretty much every single adult who spoke to me at the funeral (often through tears, and sometimes it was hard to make out what they were saying) told me how much they liked my hair.

  That was when I discovered what I wanted to be when I grew up.

  Before then, I’d loved doing hair, but I’d assumed that when it came down to it, it was unlikely that I’d get a job that was so much fun, any more than people in real life were ballerinas or fairies or any of the other interesting things that they were in books. But afterwards, I was determined. I didn’t want to do anything else.

  * * *

  Both Amanda and I wanted to leave small-town life behind. Almost inevitably, she did it first and better. By the time I met Mark she’d already bought a flat in a nice bit of London and been promoted to manage a team at the bank where she worked, as Mum was fond of telling just about everyone. Plus she was going out with a tax consultant who owned a horse and a house in Fulham. Mum was fond of telling everybody that, too.

  By way of contrast, I was renting a room in a shared house in Chessington, on the outskirts. I wasn’t seeing anybody. And after six months at the salon, I was already desperate to leave. There was a clear pecking order, and the only member of staff who was lower down than me was Sarah the Saturday girl, who did the sweeping up and shampooing and wasn’t allowed to go near the scissors.

  I was counting down the minutes to five o’clock and the end of the working day when Mark walked in.

  All I had to do was finish off Mrs Brinsdown’s blow-dry, which I’d timed perfectly. It was Saturday night and I was going out, and I had my new pink top on and so what if Anita, the manager, had commented snootily that it was a bit lower-cut than she usually liked to see in her salon? In a couple of years’ time Anita would probably still be here, and I’d be a hairdresser to the stars, being flown around the world by private jet so I could attend to VIPs.

  Then there he was, the best-looking man I’d ever seen in the flesh, standing by the desk with the till at the front of the salon.

  He was everything just about right: nice height, nice eyes, good build. Good hair. Decent clothes, not obviously try-hard or flashy or fashion.

  Chances were he had a girlfriend, probably a devastatingly attractive one. He was the kind of man Mum would have loved, and Amanda would have had to work hard not to be jealous of, and who I would never in a million years have a chance of bringing home.

  Anita had nipped out to the kitchen to fix her client another cup of complimentary coffee – in other words, to have a fag break. It was down to me to talk to him.

  I put down the hairdryer on the shelf in front of the mirror, excused myself to Mrs Brinsdown and approached him.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry to turn up so late, but I’ve tried everywhere, and they’ve all said no. I just need a trim – you don’t need to bother washing it or anything, I did that this morning. I know you’re probably about to close, but what with one thing and another I just haven’t managed to get this sorted.’ He tugged at the lock of hair that was falling across his forehead into his eyes; it was a good two inches long. ‘I’ve got a family funeral to go to tomorrow,’ he added.

  That did it. There was no way I could turn him away now. I, of all people, understood how comforting a trip to the hairdresser could be at a difficult time.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I told him. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Mark. Mark Walsh.’

  ‘All right then, Mark, take a seat. I’m Jenny, and I’ll be your stylist today. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

  He settled down in one of the cane chairs by the bay window and watched me as I picked up the hand mirror and showed Mrs Brinsdown the back of her new hairdo.

  ‘Hm. I can’t help wondering if it isn’t a little bit long,’ she said doubtfully as I put the mirror away. ‘I do like my hair to last.’

  ‘I think it looks great,’ Mark said.

  Mrs Brinsdown couldn’t help but look pleased.

  ‘Hm. Well. Perhaps you’re right.’

  Anita came back in and opened up one of her client’s foils to check the colour. I went over to her and said, ‘Anita, we’ve had a walk-in. All he wants is a dry trim. I can do it before I go.’

  Anita looked at me, took in the new arrival, then looked at me again, even more suspiciously than usual.

  ‘I don’t pay overtime, you know,’ she said.

  ‘I know. It won’t take me long.’

  Anita pursed her lips. ‘Well, don’t rush it. If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well, and I don’t need any complaints.’

  ‘I won’t complain,’ Mark said. ‘You’d be doing me the most enormous favour.’

  He could even make Anita blush. And smile.

  ‘Well, if you’re happy with what we do for you today, I hope you’ll come back,’ Anita said. ‘And do spread the word.’

  ‘I’m sure I will,’ Mark said.

  Anita went off to the basins with her client and I ushered Mrs Brinsdown to the till. When she’d gone I took Mark’s coat and hung it carefully in the cupboard. It had a slim, old-looking paperback sticking out of one of the pockets: Madame Bovary. He was reading a French novel: how sophisticated was that? He settled into the chair Mrs Brinsdown had just vacated, and I stood behind him and sprayed his hair with water and detangler and ran a comb through it.

  It really was good hair – thick, fair, slightly wavy, a bit like Amanda’s but not so curly. I leaned forwards and spoke to his reflection in the mirror. ‘OK, Mark, so what can I do for you today? Just a bit off the length, is it?’

  ‘Yes, that’ll do nicely.’

  ‘Would you like to grab a magazine? Or I could get your book?’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine. It’s nice to have an excuse to sit round thinking of nothing in particular.’

  I started combing and snipping. Anita and her client came back from the basins and Anita set about cutting too. They were soon absorbed in a boring conversation about north-facing conservatories.

  ‘It’s really very decent of you to make the time to do this,’ Mark said. ‘I hope I’m not going to make you late.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said.

  I thought of my friend Karen, who was probably already in the Green Man across the road from the salon, getting hot under the collar. She hated to be kept waiting, and she’d hinted that she had big news to tell me. Either she was engaged, or she had a promotion. I couldn’t see how she would have saved enough for a house just yet, and there was no way she’d be getting started on having babies.

  Oh well, she’d already met Sean, my housemate, who worked there behind the bar. If it was quiet, maybe he’d get chatting to her and take her mind off things.

  I worked my way back towards Mark’s crown. At first I’d been dazzled by his good looks, but now I could see he was pale and tired out. Not surprisingly, given that he’d recently had a bereavement. I wondered who it was who’d gone. But it wouldn’t have done to ask.

  He smiled at our reflections, and my heart skipped a beat. Suddenly my knees felt weak. Genuinely weak. I’d never experienced that before.

  One trick of the trade I’d never had any trouble with was making conversation and using the scissors at the same time. But making conversation with a client who made me weak at the knees? Perhaps not such a good idea. Not if I wanted to send him on his way to that funeral looking his best.

  I worked round his ears with th
e scissors – nice, neat ears, and clean, too.

  ‘Have you got far to go tomorrow?’ I asked.

  It seemed like a fail-safe question. Asking about places and journeys was usually all right. Like, Did you come far to get here? The Queen used that one, apparently, and if it was good enough for the Queen, it was good enough for me.

  Mark’s expression in the mirror didn’t change, but his posture stiffened a little. Well, there was nothing comfortable about going to a funeral.

  ‘Not too far,’ he said. ‘A place you probably won’t have heard of. The cemetery’s in a village south of Kettlebridge, in Oxfordshire. It’s near where I grew up.’

  ‘Sounds like a nice part of the world.’

  ‘Mm. It is. Beautiful countryside. Wouldn’t mind going back some day.’

  ‘I’m a small-town girl myself but I always wanted to live in London. This is as close as I’ve got.’

  ‘I’d say you’d done pretty well. If that was your dream, you’ve come a lot closer to making it than most people.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘So near… and yet so far.’

  I ran the trimmer round his hairline and brushed the little bits of hair away.

  ‘There you are,’ I said. ‘You’re done.’

  I retrieved his coat for him and he shrugged it on. Madame Bovary was still safely lodged in his coat pocket. I said, ‘You’re a keen reader, then?’

  He gave me a rather melancholy smile and tapped the paperback as if it was a shared secret.

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘is research.’

  ‘Research into what?’

  ‘Oh, why women do the things they do,’ he said. ‘Cheat. Have affairs. Betray their spouses. You know the kind of thing.’

  Something about the bitterness with which he said this made me anxious. It was my job, after all, to make sure he left feeling better than when he’d arrived. And he’d been so lovely, and it was obvious that he was going through a bad time, what with this funeral coming up and some woman having done the dirty on him, by the sound of it. Though why you would mess around when you had a man who looked like that was beyond me.