Seven Days of Us

by Francesca Hornak

  “That, and also . . . Well—it’s complicated.” Andrew stopped. He’d prefer not to go into sordid details, but the quarantine excuse sounded flimsy, face-to-face.

  “The night I—” He stopped again. How did one explain to someone that they were the product of a meaningless fuck, and that their father was a cheating bastard?

  “That night your birth mother and I, er, met, Emma and I were already an item. A couple, as it were. So . . . Not my finest hour.”

  “But, wait, I thought you and Emma met the summer of ’81? I found this whole article about it. You were reporting on the Royal Wedding, and she was a guest, right?”

  “That was what we told people, at the time. But we had in fact been ‘courting,’ so to speak, in secret. For well over a year. I’d broken a scandal about Emma’s uncle—in the press, I mean—and I knew her family would recognize my byline and disapprove of me. So we kept schtum to begin with, and then, when that became unsustainable, I was introduced on the pretext that we’d just met at the Royal Wedding. Idiotic, in retrospect. I doubt they bought it for a moment. We were young, in our defense. And we were both at the wedding—that was true.”

  Stop gibbering, he instructed his brain. He was making himself sound worse and worse. Why had he gone into so much detail? All Jesse needed to know was that Andrew had been unfaithful to Emma, with Leila. Which was bad enough. What a start.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would never have just shown up. Does Emma know?”

  “Ah, no. No, she doesn’t.”

  Jesse pushed his hair back, and Andrew saw himself in the gesture—and his own, square hairline. Proof at last that he had contributed to this Adonis.

  “I see why you came. I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me sooner,” he said. “I had every intention of writing to you.” Out loud, it sounded hopelessly gauche.

  “That’s OK. I get it,” said Jesse. For a moment, Andrew thought he might rise for a manly, back-slapping embrace. But he just took another sip of tea.

  “So where did you and Emma meet?” said Jesse.

  “Me and Emma?” The question threw him. What did it matter to Jesse? “She was catering a media bash I had to go to. She dabbled in the canapé business back then. Eyes meeting over a tray of vol-au-vent, sort of thing.”

  “Awesome!” said Jesse, as if it was a huge relief to respond positively again. Andrew fought the impulse to point out that vol-au-vents hardly inspired awe, in the true sense of the word.

  “How is Emma, by the way?” asked Jesse, after a moment.

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, how’s she doing? Did she decide about treatment?”

  “Treatment?”

  “Chemo. For, like, the cancer. She told me when we met.” His face took on the appalled look it had in the hall. “Oh, wait, shit. You don’t know?”

  Phoebe

  THE OAK STAIRS, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:34 A.M.

  • • •

  It felt like they’d been sitting on the top step for ages. Phoebe’s buttocks were numb, and she needed to pee. She wasn’t sure what they were waiting for, and she suspected Olivia wasn’t either. But there seemed to be a tacit agreement to stay together.

  “Oh my god, Mummy told me about him,” Phoebe had said once their parents and the man were in the kitchen. “This random guy she started chatting to in the airport. She said he was gay. D’you think he’s, like, Daddy’s boyfriend?” She shuddered, thinking of the day Andrew had taken ages to get the Christmas tree. Perhaps he’d been calling his boy toy. She’d known something was up.

  “Phoebs! There’s probably a totally reasonable explanation.”

  “But why would Mummy say she ‘knew everything’? Should we go and see if she’s OK?”

  “No! Leave her.”

  Phoebe feared Olivia was about to quiz her about Emma’s diagnosis again. She wished she hadn’t told her sister last night. The more people that knew, the more real it felt. But instead Olivia said, “They will understand that he can’t leave the house now, whoever he is. Won’t they?”

  Phoebe realized how rarely her sister asked her opinion on anything.

  “Guess so,” she said. “They let George stay after he’d been here about five seconds.”

  “True.”

  “Why are you so stressed about the rules? I thought it was just, like, a precaution to be safe. That’s what you said, before you went.”

  “I’m not stressed. It’s just, with Sean and everything.”

  Phoebe looked at her sister’s profile. Her jaw was clenched.

  “Sean?”

  “Sean Coughlan,” said Olivia slowly, looking round at Phoebe as if she was stupid. “My colleague with Haag. Don’t you ever read the news?”

  “Oh, right. Him. Sorry, I just, I think of the news and real life as, separate, I guess.”

  “Exactly. Not your problem.”

  “That’s not fair. It’s ’cause when I read about it, it’s so sad, and there’s nothing I can do, so . . .” She knew Olivia would think this was feeble. “I just don’t work in news, so I’m not thinking about it all the time.” She could feel the fight from last night resurfacing. She didn’t want to argue. Whatever was going on downstairs, she felt instinctively that they needed to stick together.

  “It’s not whether you ‘work in news’ or not, it’s . . . Sorry, I’m just—” Olivia took a deep huffy breath, like she couldn’t get enough air in. “It’s like this constant, relentless anxiety,” she said. She was still staring straight ahead, not looking at Phoebe.

  “But wasn’t Sean Coughlan going into schools, and that’s why he caught it? Plus, Mummy said this morning he was getting better,” said Phoebe.

  “Yes. He was. And he is. But still.”

  She stopped, as if her own voice was choking her, and at once Phoebe realized.

  “You didn’t hook up with him, did you?” she asked. She’d seen the doctor in the papers and he was pretty hot. By her sister’s standards.

  Olivia said nothing, but pursed her lips as a single tear leaked over her cheekbone. So that was why she’d been such a bitch all week.

  Phoebe shuffled up to hug her, and they sat in a stiff side-on embrace for a moment. It occurred to her that Olivia was a massive hypocrite. She’d been preaching about Phoebe skipping quarantine—when she’d been busy shagging a Haag-infected colleague. It was nice to have the moral high ground, for once.

  “I’m sure you’ll be totally fine,” she said, trying to sound confident.

  “It’s not only me. I’m worried about Mum now. Just in case,” said Olivia.

  “Mummy’s OK. She’s tough. Anyway, you’re not going to get Haag!” Phoebe knew her certainty didn’t ring true. “So was it serious with Sean? Can I see pictures?”

  Olivia nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I’ve got loads on my iPad. Show you later.” It crossed Phoebe’s mind that the smear could be contaminated with Haag, and she moved minutely. Sometimes she even shocked herself with how nastily her mind worked. Olivia was right—she was selfish.

  “When did you get together?” she said.

  “Just five weeks ago. But it feels like we’ve known each other way longer.”

  Phoebe thought how often she felt like she was meeting George for the first time. She’d always told herself it was romantic.

  “He’s a really, really amazing person,” said Olivia, looking round. “He was in charge of pediatrics. What he did with the ward—it was incredible. He got all the paperwork reorganized, all the protocol. He saved so many children’s lives.” Her voice went thin again.

  “Oh Wiv. He sounds amazing. I’m sure he’ll be OK.” She’d never seen her sister like this. Whenever she talked about her ex, Dull Ben, as Phoebe and Andrew privately called him, she sounded like she was talking about a dry relation.

  “Yeah. I know,” said
Olivia. “He’ll want to go back out there, even after this. That’s the kind of person he is.” A wood pigeon outside cooed its forlorn chorus.

  “Don’t tell Mum or Andrew, or George, will you?” added Olivia. “Or anyone? I could get in serious trouble. There was a No-Touch rule out there.”

  “’Course not,” said Phoebe. In the past, any glimpse into Olivia’s personal life had been relayed to Emma immediately. Her mother was usually pathetically grateful. This time, though, Phoebe decided to honor Olivia’s secret.

  “What about you? Excited about getting married?” said Olivia. She always did this—changed the subject when she’d been talking about herself. It had put Phoebe off asking her stuff years ago.

  “Of course,” said Phoebe.

  “Are you going to move out of Gloucester Terrace before?”

  “Maybe. It’s quite convenient being at home, with all the wedmin. Since Mummy and Daddy are paying.”

  “Wedmin?”

  “Wedding admin.”

  “Ha. Oh right.” Phoebe knew what she was thinking: how can you marry someone you’ve never lived with?

  “Anyway,” said Phoebe, “I think it’s kind of nice, to move in together after you’re married. It’s more special, like the olden days.”

  “What, like dying in childbirth and getting an allowance from your husband?”

  “Exactly! I’d love an allowance. No more shitty TV work.”

  “D’you get on with his family?” said Olivia. It had taken her six years to ask this, Phoebe thought.

  “Yeah. They’re OK. They’re quite—” She stopped. She knew Olivia wouldn’t get the shorthands she used with friends. “They’re just quite different to us, I suppose.”

  “In a good way?”

  “Not good or bad. Just different.”

  “But he’s British, your age, university educated, they have a second home in Norfolk, and he grew up in London. So not massively different?”

  “South London.”

  Olivia laughed. “You’re ridiculous,” she said, but for once it sounded affectionate.

  “It is different,” said Phoebe. “It’s a huge difference.”

  “Where is he anyway?”

  “Still asleep. He never gets up before eleven.” She prayed the man downstairs wasn’t her father’s gay lover. She needed to know what was going on, so she could spin an acceptable story for George—or at least something funny. Why did her family have to be so weird?

  Emma

  THE KITCHEN, WEYFIELD HALL, 11:02 A.M.

  • • •

  Emma leaned her forehead on the worktop. Her mind felt like the old cake mixer beside her, churning and churning, until her thoughts spun together in a gooey clump. Andrew and Jesse had been in the smoking room for over an hour. Emma had been hovering in the kitchen, unable to sit still. She had no idea where Olivia and Phoebe were. She hoped they’d stay away until she’d had a chance to speak to Andrew. Thinking of her daughters, she reminded herself that she was the parent. She’d had a shock, but she mustn’t be hysterical. She pressed her cheek to the cool marble, and tried to get a grip on the facts. Andrew had another child—a son who looked much the same age as Olivia. What if he’d known about this other baby, this other firstborn, all along? Her chest and throat tightened, as she remembered how he hadn’t seemed to share her elation at Olivia’s birth. Perhaps this, at last, was the reason. He had already fathered another child, and he knew it. Then again, she thought, jerking up, Jesse might be younger than Olivia. Which would be worse still, in a sense. Had Jesse’s mother been a one-off or a long-running affair? Had there been a string of other women while Emma was stuck at home with two small children? This was why she despised secrets. When they emerged, as they always did, they opened up a whole labyrinth of other unknowns. She gave a little sob of fury. How had everything spun upside down in the space of an hour? Her fingers slipped into her shirt and under her arm, fondling the bump under the skin like a worry bead.

  She still couldn’t believe that she’d met Jesse at Heathrow and had that long chat. It would be funny, if it weren’t such a lurid mess. Seeing his luggage by the table, Emma had a thought—his passport would reveal his birthdate. It was wrong, but excusable, to rummage. Unzipping the smaller bag, she found the passport in a pocket, with a bill from the Harbour Hotel. The identity page read “Jesse Iskandar Robinson, DOB Dec. 26, 1980.” He was older than Olivia. But if Jesse was born in December 1980, he must have been conceived during that year. She and Andrew had first kissed on January 4, 1980—the date etched in her memory. Which meant he’d either met this woman soon after Emma or had been involved with her already—while telling Emma he was unattached. Bastard. Bastard. She studied the passport photo again. Jesse looked like a film star. His mother must have been a knockout. So, on top of everything else, Andrew had gone and fathered a child more beautiful than either of their daughters without her. Stop it, Emma! she scolded herself. Don’t you even entertain that thought.

  She replaced the passport, palms sweating, and registered that it had been Jesse’s birthday yesterday. Poor thing. What a wretched day he must have had, alone in the Harbour Hotel. She thought back to what he’d told her at Heathrow. Hadn’t he said he wasn’t sure if his birth father knew he had a son? She definitely remembered him saying that his father hadn’t replied to his e-mails. Why on earth hadn’t Andrew replied? And why hadn’t he shown Emma these e-mails? They were married—she had a right to know. No wonder he’d seemed so distracted and taken no interest in Olivia’s homecoming.

  She heard the smoking room door open and stepped away from Jesse’s bags, marshaling her face into a smile. None of this is Jesse’s fault, she said to herself again. He deserves to know his father—every child deserves a father. Andrew, of all people, should appreciate that. Besides, hadn’t she been worrying about Jesse all this time? It was hardly fair to shun the boy now, just because his birth father happened to be her husband. The least they could do was give him a proper Weyfield welcome.

  Andrew

  THE KITCHEN, WEYFIELD HALL, 11:17 A.M.

  • • •

  Emma was still in the kitchen when Andrew came to find her. He’d left Jesse gazing round the smoking room. The news of Emma’s diagnosis, the fact that she’d kept it from him, had been like a punch in the face. How many shocks could a man take in a morning? he wondered, thinking it would make a neat first line to something. Emma was leaning against the AGA with a brittle smile.

  “I’ve looked at his passport,” she said. “In case you were going to try and cover that up, too.”

  “Emma,” he said, without much idea what he’d say next.

  “Who was she?”

  Close up, he saw that her eyes were glassy. He realized he hadn’t seen her cry for ages, not since her cousin’s funeral last year. The cousin had died of cancer. Why hadn’t she told him she was ill?

  “Emma, listen,” he said, again.

  “Actually, you can explain yourself later,” she said. “Where is he anyway? Where did you leave him?”

  “In my study.”

  “The smoking room?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now what? Did you tell him that he’ll have to stay, now that he’s here?”

  “Well, we touched on it, but we had other—”

  “Andrew! You need to explain properly. I’ll go.”

  Back in the smoking room, Jesse was standing up, looking at a hunting print.

  “You have a beautiful home,” he said to Emma, as they walked in.

  “Thank you, Jesse,” she said, smiling warmly. The way she could switch her anger off, for good manners, was formidable. It was a product of her breeding.

  “Now, this boring quarantine business,” she began.

  “I remember!” said Jesse. “The banner you made for Olivia—we talked about it.”

  “You’
re too sweet,” she said. “That’s it, you see—now you’re in the house, you really shouldn’t leave until we’re all clear. It’s just until the thirtieth. So you’re stuck with us, I’m afraid.” She laughed, a little wildly. “We’ve been calling it Haag arrest!”

  “But, uh, my flight leaves this afternoon.”

  “You’ll have to book another one,” said Emma. “We’ll pay, of course. It’s the least we can do. You don’t have anything pressing to get home for, do you?”

  “I guess not,” said Jesse. “But are you guys sure? I don’t want to impose. I feel bad, you probably need some space . . .” He tailed off.

  “Not at all! It’s our pleasure,” said Emma. “I’d been wondering how you were getting on. What an absolutely incredible coincidence. We’d have insisted you stay anyway; you’re family.”

  She was taking the Pollyanna act a bit far now, thought Andrew.

  “It’s very low risk,” she carried on. “But we just need to be doubly cautious, because one of Olivia’s poor colleagues went down with it on Christmas Eve. He’s on the mend, but he’s not out of the woods yet.”

  “Sean Coughlan?” said Jesse, his eyes widening.

  “That’s right, the Irish boy. But he was going into schools and taking all sorts of risks, whereas Olivia’s been terribly careful. Anyhow, I think the Rose Room is ready. Why don’t we go up and you can unpack?”

  It wasn’t the time to correct Emma’s theories on Sean Coughlan. As far as Andrew could make out the man had been unlucky, not reckless, but presumably Emma felt safer thinking this way.

  They followed her up the back stairs, Andrew carrying the luggage, Jesse caressing the banister as if it were solid gold. He probably thought he’d landed in a stately home, thought Andrew, rather than a drafty, slightly decrepit manor house. Up in the Rose Room, Jesse turned, beaming. “This is so nice! Thank you,” he said. The Rose Room was Andrew’s least favorite in the house. It was too chintzy, and dominated by a mahogany wardrobe the Hartleys called Monster. Opposite the bed was a portrait of Granny Gwendoline, who used to glare at Andrew over torturous afternoon teas.