Something to Tell You

by Lucy Diamond

  He nodded. ‘I wish my ex was dead,’ was all he muttered, though. Which was pretty much the most unsympathetic and mean-spirited reaction she’d ever experienced in all the years since Rich’s death. And to think she’d just been worrying about him feeling uncomfortable!

  Her phone was ringing again – Robyn once more, she saw. Alison might not get out much, but even she knew that taking a call while you were on a dinner date was bad manners. However, it wasn’t as if the man opposite her had exactly displayed exemplary dating etiquette himself so far. He probably wouldn’t even notice if she answered her phone. Besides, Robyn wouldn’t call twice like this if it wasn’t important. Maybe even an emergency. The one time her daughter came to her with a problem, rather than the Mortimers, and Alison was ignoring her!

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘It’s my daughter. I just need to . . . Hello, love,’ she said, accepting the call. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Oh, there you are! Is everything all right with your landline? I’ve been calling it and calling it and it just rang out. I was starting to get worried. Where are you?’ Robyn sounded highly strung, her voice squeaky, the words tumbling out in a rush.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m . . . I’m out,’ Alison said, turning slightly away from Alastair, in the hope of being discreet. ‘Are you all right? You sound a bit fraught.’

  ‘I’m . . . Oh God, Mum. You’ll never believe it. John’s been acting really weird for ages, and last night I plucked up the courage to ask him about it and . . .’ Alison pressed the phone to her ear as Robyn started gulping, her speech being taken over by sobs.

  ‘Darling, slow down. Take a breath and tell me again,’ she urged, feeling alarmed. Robyn had always been the most self-possessed child, not one given to histrionics and melodrama, and that was how she’d stayed as an adult, too. Alison couldn’t even remember the last time she’d heard her daughter cry.

  ‘He’s . . . he’s left me. Gone off with some student to . . .’ A hiccup. ‘To Edinburgh. He says he’s in love! I just feel so humiliated, Mum. So let down. I kept thinking he was joking, but he’s actually gone. And she’s twenty-two!’

  Alison could hardly take this in. ‘Oh my goodness!’ she cried, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘I can’t believe it. What a shock for you.’ Her head spun and she glanced over at Alastair, feeling bad, but knowing that she couldn’t possibly refuse Robyn in her hour of need. ‘Listen, I’m coming over, all right? So sit tight and I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ She hung up, about to apologize and explain, but Alastair had clearly been listening, because his face was like thunder.

  ‘What?’ he cried indignantly. ‘You’re going? I’ve just bought you a drink – three quid, that cost me!’

  Alison was not a rude person, but this was an emergency. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she told him, getting to her feet, ‘but my daughter’s . . . Well, something awful has happened and she needs me. So—’

  ‘Well, that’s just fucking great,’ snarled Alastair and there was something about the way his demeanour had changed, so completely, into sheer fury that took her aback. No, more than that. It made her want to leave very fast, run possibly and jump in her car.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, edging away, noticing anxiously how his hands had curled into fists. She rummaged in her purse and slapped a few coins on the table. ‘But it was nice to meet you anyway.’ Er, no, on balance, it really wasn’t. ‘And good luck with the house situation. Bye!’

  And then she was weaving her way out of there, casting a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed – luckily not; it would have been a bit cumbersome for him, with all those bags, she imagined. Nonetheless, she found herself breaking into a jog as she left the pub, arriving red-faced and out of breath at her car minutes later. She’d never been so relieved to hurl herself in there, lock the door and start the engine. The road to romance did not start here, after all.

  Bloody hell! Another deadbeat! A totally charmless loser to boot this time, who was probably already ringing up Silver and Single to complain about her bailing out, demanding that she be taken off the books for wasting his time. Well, and so be it, Alison thought, as she put her foot down and set off towards her heartbroken, weeping daughter. She would cancel her account there anyway, after the two dreadful dates she’d had through the website. From now on, she was done with romance, absolutely done with it. It was far better to stay on her own than waste an evening on any more chumps.

  Besides, by the sound of things, Robyn was done with romance too, done with that cheating husband of hers and needed her mother right now. So it was just as well Alison wouldn’t be indulging in any more gallivanting around with these idiot men. Because Robyn came first – and she always would.

  As luck would have it, Jeanie was already down in the hotel reception when Harry made his entrance that evening. After a few quiet days, lying low about the place, she was waiting at the desk in order to let Bernardo, the manager, know that she planned to leave Madeira on the Sunday flight. It was finally time to go home, she had decided, and face the music. Pop the bubble and return to real life, tail between her legs. If Bernardo ever got off the phone, that was. He put a hand up to indicate he had noticed her standing there, and made an apologetic just-a-moment sort of a face, but didn’t seem in any hurry to wind up the call.

  Jeanie leaned against the cool marble counter, listening to Bernardo’s acquiescent, polite voice, hearing the sound of the lift bell ding-dinging as it reached the ground floor and the tinkling of the ornate fountain that splashed behind her. Her mind drifted to thoughts of dinner later on – perhaps she would brave it down to the restaurant tonight, rather than hiding away in her room again; exchange a brisk please-don’t-talk-to-me smile with Luis, to show that she was over the experience and not looking to repeat it, and then tuck into a pleasant meal, gazing out at the sunset, knowing that the countdown to her departure had begun.

  All of this was going through her head as she stood and waited; and afterwards she couldn’t have told you what prompted her to turn round at that precise moment – some sixth sense perhaps, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end – but turn she did, just in time to see Harry, her Harry, striding through the main doors.

  Her breath caught in her throat and she blinked twice, quite overcome at the sight of him there in the hotel. For a moment, she thought she must be imagining things – that he was some kind of mirage, with his wheely suitcase and that rather battered Panama hat he liked to wear in warmer countries, the one she’d always teased him about. But no, it was really him – as tall and straight-backed as ever, glancing around for a single moment, before orienting himself and striding towards the reception desk. Towards her.

  ‘Harry!’ she cried joyfully, making a beeline for him, her shoes clacking as she crossed the floor. ‘Oh, Harry!’

  He saw her and his face changed from trepidation to relief, all the way into a smile. ‘Hello there, stranger!’ he cried as she rushed up to him, and then his arms were around her, tight and strong, and there was the most enormous lump in her throat. ‘Jeanie,’ he said, sounding every bit as emotional as she felt. It was the longest time they’d been apart in fifty years and she was only just realizing now how much she had missed him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, her voice catching. Would she ever be able to tell him how sorry she was? She pressed her face into his cotton shirt, breathing in the familiar smell of his cologne, and felt unbearably happy and sad and wrung-out all at once. What a strange few weeks it had been. What an abrupt turn her life had taken, the day of the party, and then afterwards, in the airport – a turn away from him, a striking-out on her own into the sunshine and into all kinds of trouble. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, disentangling herself and stepping back. The whole scene in the airport where she’d forbidden him to come with her seemed like a strange, vivid dream now. She felt a different person from the woman who had shouted at him and marched off without a backward
glance. ‘I overreacted, I didn’t know how to handle the news.’

  ‘And I let you down,’ he said, taking her hands. ‘I let you down and I wasn’t a good husband. You had every right to be angry with me. I hope, in time, you can forgive me.’

  She couldn’t stop looking at his face. His dear, kind face. There was a flicker-reel of images running through her head: all the good times they’d shared, all the happy moments. He hadn’t been a good husband back when he’d had his fling, but then she hadn’t been a good wife lately, either. How could she not forgive him, now that she knew how easy it was to be tempted? Would he ever forgive her, if he knew what she’d been up to moreover? ‘We’ll get through this,’ she said staunchly, her heart pounding. ‘We can work it all out together.’ They had both made mistakes, she thought, as she flung herself into his arms again, but she knew now, as plainly as she knew her own name, that this was where she belonged, with Harry.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We will.’

  Jeanie led him towards the reception desk, where Bernardo had at last finished his phone call and was gazing expectantly at her. ‘Bernardo, this is my husband, Harry,’ she said; her two worlds colliding. ‘Is it all right if he stays with me until . . .’ She glanced back at Harry. ‘Maybe Sunday?’ she asked, feeling almost coy in making the suggestion. ‘I was thinking maybe we could go home on Sunday.’

  Harry nodded and squeezed her hand again. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘We’ll go home on Sunday.’

  Bernardo’s face was wreathed in smiles. ‘But of course!’ he cried, delightedly. ‘It would be our pleasure to have you both staying with us. Perhaps I could book you a table for dinner tonight as well?’

  Jeanie felt her own smile waver for just a single moment as she considered the possibility of Luis seeing them both later on, maybe even giving her a meaningful look across the restaurant, a telltale raised eyebrow or, worse, a disparaging smirk. Well, if he did, she’d just have to deal with the consequences, she thought; accept it as the price she had to pay. She had made her own bed, as her mother used to say, and she would lie in it. With Harry, not Luis.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she replied. ‘A table for two would be lovely.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was midday on Friday, and Frankie and Craig were walking down the street towards Fergus’s playgroup. Now the princely age of four, he would be starting at the local infant school come September, and this was the final day of term for the playgroup and therefore the last ever session that Fergus and his cohort would attend. To mark the occasion, all the parents had been invited to share a special celebration lunch with their offspring – their ‘graduation’, the staff were calling it, tongue-in-cheek. The children were apparently making their own graduation hats out of colourful paper that morning, which they would all be wearing as the parents arrived. Frankie was already feeling tearful at the prospect. She was going to miss, terribly, these easy-going playgroup mornings, where Fergus made things and played and sang songs with his friends, where he’d had so much fun. Next stop: school, where he’d be squeezed into a uniform like all the other boys and girls, where he’d have to sit still and pay attention, where the playing would be measured into educational boxes that the teachers needed to tick off.

  She found herself sniffling as they rounded the corner and walked the last few steps towards the church hall where the playgroup was based. ‘I feel so emotional!’ she cried with a little laugh, putting a hand to her heart. ‘I can’t believe this chapter in his life is about to end. I’m not sure I’m ready for it yet.’ She’d grown so fond of the staff there – substitute mothers, all of them – and the other mums of the children as well; she was going to have to readjust to the new world of infant school almost as much as Fergus would.

  Before Craig could answer, though, his phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket. ‘Oh – I’d better take this,’ he said, glancing at the screen. ‘It’s Lloyd.’

  The name meant nothing to Frankie for a moment, too caught up in her sentimental feelings. Lloyd? Ah, their solicitor, she realized and wrinkled her nose, the mood puncturing at once. She had been twitchy and apprehensive ever since they’d gone to meet him, when Craig had effectively commanded that the dogs of war be unleashed on Julia. What would Julia’s answering salvo be?

  ‘Hi, yes, fine thank you,’ Craig said, as they reached the railings that surrounded the little yard at the front of the hall. There was a painted hopscotch on the paving slabs, a small raised bed in which had been planted sunflowers and runner beans, and a colourful shed that housed all sorts of trikes and scooters. ‘You’re kidding me,’ he said suddenly, stopping dead on the pavement. A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘Well, that’s just ridiculous. What the hell?’

  Uh-oh. Frankie felt her spirits sink as she hesitated there beside him. This didn’t sound good. Whatever shot Julia had fired, it had certainly hit its intended target.

  ‘Hi, Frankie!’ came a voice behind her and she turned to see Pippa and Aisling, two of the mums she knew, walking up the road towards them, both looking a bit pink-eyed with wobbly smiles. ‘Big day. Hope you’ve remembered your tissues!’ said Pippa, pretending to dab at her eyes.

  ‘I’ve got a whole packet,’ Frankie confessed, patting her shoulder bag, just as Craig said tersely, ‘I don’t care how she feels, frankly. I couldn’t care less. Yeah, well, she can sue me then. Bring it on.’

  Pippa and Alice turned, startled, at the sound of Craig’s angry voice, then glanced back to Frankie. They looked embarrassed and also slightly uncertain, unused to seeing Craig as anything other than his usual charming, friendly self.

  ‘Drama at work,’ Frankie said with a little laugh, the lie coming from nowhere. Her face burned with the awkwardness of the moment, and she found herself wishing the two of them would move on quickly, before Craig said anything else. He, meanwhile, seemed oblivious, still scowling into the middle distance.

  ‘We’ll see you in there,’ said Aisling tactfully, as she and Pippa scuttled off.

  ‘Right. Well, can you email me the correspondence, please, so that I can read it?’ Craig said. His hand curled around an iron spike at the top of the railings, gripping it as if he would like to wrench it from the ground and stab it into Julia’s heart. His eye fell on Frankie, waiting patiently there, and then he blinked as if he’d forgotten about her and Fergus and the playgroup graduation. ‘Listen, I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you back later. Thanks. Yeah, okay.’ He hung up. ‘That fucking bitch, you’ll never guess.’

  ‘Can it wait?’ Frankie pleaded, seeing Marie, the playgroup leader, appearing at the doorway of the hall with a bright smile and a beckoning wave.

  ‘We’re about to start!’ she called.

  ‘Just coming!’ Frankie called back. She took Craig’s arm and steered him towards the steps up to the hall. ‘Let’s just enjoy Fergus’s last—’

  ‘She wants me to stop writing the column,’ Craig said, thunder-faced, not seeming to hear.

  ‘Day at play . . . What?’

  ‘She says it could damage Fergus in future years. Says it’s wrong to have him in the public eye, that it’s intrusive and unfair, that he could be teased or bullied for it at school . . .’

  ‘No!’

  ‘She says – and so does her solicitor – that it’s an example of my bad parenting, my lack of respect for his privacy. I mean, for fuck’s sake!’ They had entered the building now and he punched the wall angrily. Marie, a few steps ahead of them in the corridor, wheeled round in alarm.

  ‘Sorry,’ Frankie said hastily. ‘Sorry, Marie. We’ve just had some bad news.’ Her head was spinning with Julia’s bloodying counter-attack, the seriousness of the hit. By dangling a sword over Craig’s ‘Dad About the House’ column, she was not only threatening to derail his career at its peak, but was also putting their finances in jeopardy, seeing as it was the biggest source of income for them both. As for claiming to question Craig’s parenting, in the name of Fergus’s welfare . . . that was particularly mean.
A real blow to the heart.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Marie was plump and kindly, a grandmother of seven, with vibrant hennaed hair and paint-spattered jeans. ‘Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need to leave?’

  ‘No, we’re fine,’ Frankie replied firmly, trying to smile and look normal. She was not about to let Julia spoil Fergus’s last day here. ‘We don’t want to miss this. Do we, Craig?’

  ‘No,’ he agreed after a moment, his jaw still clenched, his whole body seeming to bristle with tension. There was no doubt about it, Julia was really upping the stakes. You don’t want to talk about this like reasonable adults? You want to rubbish me in a court? Fine, Frankie imagined the other woman thinking. I can give as good as I get, you know. Just watch me.

  Trying to shake these thoughts away, Frankie took Craig’s hand and they followed Marie through the double doors into the main hall. The children were sitting cross-legged in a big circle on the floor, all wearing their colourful hats with beaming smiles, and there was a buzz of excitement in the air. Frankie felt a surge of emotion as she spotted Fergus wearing a bright-orange hat and waving at them, looking so proud and happy. Her throat tightened as she looked around the room at the gaudy paintings up on the wall, the Wendy house standing empty for once, the boxes of toys and musical instruments now put away for the summer. It was almost over, his time of belonging here, being part of this place. It was coming to an end, just like the happy, carefree family existence she’d enjoyed with him and Craig until now. Everything was changing beyond her control.

  They sat down with the other parents on the rows of little chairs that ran along the side of the wall, and Frankie gave Fergus a tiny secret wave with the tips of her fingers, twinkling her eyes at him. ‘Should get a thousand words’ copy out of this,’ Craig had said earlier, only half-joking, as they’d left the flat. It was his catchphrase, one shared with every other journalist; always looking for the story. Fergus’s first tooth? A column. First steps? A column. First words, and funny habits, and comic misunderstandings – all captured lovingly in print, there on a digital file somewhere for evermore.